Midterm Philosophy 2010

  AUGUST 26 - (CHAPTERS 1 - 7) 

Please do not mail responses to this STUDY GUIDE. Record them in your journal, and use it to help you prepare for the Midterm Exam. It is important that you try to answer these questions in your journal. They represent the main topics you will encounter during this course. Some of them are more difficult than others. Try to be comprehensive in your answer. When you try to answer the questions, don't use shortcuts. Try to use explanatory power.

You may mail/deliver your papers (if assigned) to the Distance Learning & Educational Technologies office -- Building Three, Room 3506 -- on the Wolfson Campus, before 1 p.m. on the due dates. Students who attend the Midterm and Final Review Seminars will have the opportunity to revise the focus paper after getting peer and instructor feedback. Late papers returned -- unread/ungraded.

Chapter 1

1- What was philosophy and what was a philosopher, for the ancient Greeks?

2- What makes a question a philosophical question today?

3- List three common characteristics of a philosophical question.

4- Describe some of the issues involved in the nature of change. What makes this a philosophical issue?

5- Give an example of how belief conflict generates philosophical thought.

6- Describe the traditional branches of philosophy.

7- List three benefits of philosophy.

8- What are two common myths about philosophy, and why are they myths?

9- Describe an argument and state the two basic ways an argument can go wrong.

 

SPECIAL PROJECT: 

The project is designed to get you started thinking like a philosopher. See if you can generate some philosophical issues. You may think of one but I am offering one as a sample. Your significant other left you saying "I don't know if I love you anymore." You have two children, several pets, and both of you are in the early stages of your careers.

 

Chapter 2

1- Define metaphysics and epistemology. What is the connection between these two branches of philosophy?

2- What do the metaphysics of Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander have in common? How do they differ?

3- Give the two versions of Pythagoras's metaphysical views. Why is Pythagoras important for later metaphysicians like Plato?

4- Compare and contrast the metaphysics of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Why are they so important to later metaphysicians such as the particle theorists?

5- Compare and contrast the philosophies of Anaxagoras and Empedocles. How does atomism differ from the particle theories of Anaxagoras and Empedocles?

 

Chapter 3

1- What are Platonic forms? Include as many features as you can think of.

2- Explain the dialectic method. What was it intended to do, and how does it differ from the method of the Sophists?

3- Why did Plato think Forms exist in a separate realm from material objects?

4- What is Plato's basic argument against Protagoras?

5- Why does Plato reject the view that knowledge equals sense perception?

6- Why does Plato insist that true knowledge requires awareness and understanding of the Forms?

 

Chapter 4

1- What is the difference between actuality and possibility? (Think of what you think you'1l do tomorrow vs. what actually will happen and see the differences)

 2- How does Aristotle explain change?

3- How does Aristotle distinguish universals from particulars?

 

SPECIAL PROJECT: 

If a battle happened yesterday, then the proposition that a sea battle would take place on that day was true even a thousand years before it happened. But if it were true a thousand years before it happened that a sea battle would be fought yesterday, then it would seem to follow that it was unavoidable. The truth of the proposition necessitates that the battle will occur, which certainly does conflict with our ordinary belief that it could have been avoided had humans freely decide not to fight it. Can you guess what the solution is? Do some research and try to find out. What's your solution, if any?

Chapter 5

1- How did Plotinus' Neoplatonism differ from Platonism?

2- How did St. Augustine differ from Platonists and Neoplatonists?

3- Distinguish total skepticism from moderate skepticism, and academic skepticism from Pyrrhonic skepticism.

4- What is Sextus Empiricus' basic argument for Pyrrhonic skepticism in the Ten tropes?

5- What three reasons did Augustine give for rejecting total skepticism?

6- What is time for St. Augustine, and what's the relationship between God and time?

7- Explain how Aquinas differs from Aristotle in his metaphysics.

8- What is "soul," for Aquinas, and how does it relate to body?

SPECIAL PROJECT: 

God is all-knowing, right? So, doesn't this mean that he knows everything, including every detail about future events? People are free to choose, right? So, doesn't this mean that they don't have to do what they do, that is, they could normally do something else? If God knows what I'm going to do before I do it, then it seems I must do it regardless any of any deliberating I may do. But, am I free then? Am I responsible? Comment on this point.

 

Chapter 6

1- Explain the basic tenets of dualism, and distinguish it from alternative views.

2- Explain Descartes' method of doubt. His two skeptical conjectures, and how he uses them to perform an "epistemological detour" to the goal of metaphysical truth?

3- Why does Descartes mean by "substance," and why does he think there are two kinds? What are they, and how does he distinguish between them?

4- Why does the interaction between mind and body create problems for dualism?

5- How does Thomas Hobbes view reality and our perception of this reality?

6- What two problems about seeing a green lawn, for example, face a materialist theory like that of Hobbes?

7- Why did Anne Conway think everything is both physical and mental?

8- What is the ultimate substance for Spinoza, and how do the mind and matter relate to this substance?

9- Describe Locke's theory of representative realism.

10- Why did Berkeley reject representative realism, and what metaphysical conclusions did he draw from his rejection?

 

Chapter 7

1- How would Hume and Kant both agree and disagree concerning the role sense experience plays in the attempt to attain knowledge?

2- What is Hume's argument for skepticism concerning the self as an inner, unchanging, immaterial substance?

3- What did Kant mean when he claim that the mind's own organizing principles define the preconditions of all possible experiences?

4- Why does Kant think we can have metaphysical knowledge concerning the nature of reality as it exists independent of our experiences?

5- Describe Hegel's notion of reality as a system of conceptual triads.

6- How did Soren Kierkegaard disagree with Hegel?

7- What did Schopenhauer mean when he said that the essence of reality is will?

8- Why was Shopenhauer a pessimist about life?

9- How did Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of will differ from Schopenhauer's?

10- What did J. S. Mill mean when he said that an object is "a permanent possibility of sensation?"

SPECIAL PROJECT: 

Do you belief in a self. And if the answer is yes, could you try to explain what that self is other than your name or history? Is it a substance, as Descartes pointed out? Or do you agree with Hume that there is not really a self any more than my own --always changing--experiences?