2025 Predicted Paper 2 Flashcards
(18 cards)
define ‘hard behaviourism’
Hard behaviourism claims that ‘all propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss
of meaning to propositions that exclusively use the language of physics to talk about bodily
states’
as a 5 marker:
The Kalam Argument
- The Kalam argument is a cosmological argument. These argue for the existence of God starting from the observation that everything depends on something else for existence. The cosmological arguments apply this to the universe and argue from this observation that the universe also had a cause, which is God.
- The arguments are a posterori
- The Kalam argument is:
P1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause
P2) The universe began to exist
P3) Therefore, the universe has a cause
Theologian william lane craig has developed his own version with an additional conclusion :
C2) Moreover, his cause of the universe must be a personal cause, as a scientific explanation cannot provide a causal or mechanical account of a first cause. This personal cause is God
5 marker
Aquinas’ 2nd way
P1) every event has a cause and nothing can be the efficient cause of itself
P2) if this order of efficient causes went on infinitely then there would be no initial cause.
P3) if the previous point were true then there would be no subsequent efficient causes and this is evidently false.
C)there must be a source of all efficient causes, a first efficient cause that we call God.
5 marker
Mitchell on religious language
- Mitchell agrees with Flew that in order for a statement or belief to be meaningful it must be possible for some observation to count against it (i.e. it must be falsifiable in order to be meaningful).
- But, Mitchell argues, just because there are some observations that count against a certain belief, that doesn’t automatically mean we have to reject that belief.
- Mitchell gives the following example to illustrate this:
You are in a war, your country has been occupied by an enemy
You meet a stranger who claims to be leader of the resistance
You trust this man
But the stranger acts ambiguously, sometimes doing things that appear to support the enemy rather than your own side
Yet you continue to believe the stranger is on your side despite this and trust that he has good reasons for these ambiguous actions - In this analogy, the stranger represents God and his ambiguous actions represent the problem of evil. Mitchell is arguing that we can accept that the existence of evil counts as evidence against the statement “God exists” (and so it is falsifiable) without having to withdraw from belief in this statement.
Explain the possibility of the infinite series obejction (who applies to)
Applies to Kalam argument and Aquinas’ 1st and 2nd ways (and Descartes)
‘There cannot be an infinite regress’ is not an analytic truth and can be denied without contradiction, so it can be questioned.
relates to objection that there cannot be infinite amount of time past (Kalam) Al Ghazali shows that infinity is not a coherent concept
Explain the impossibility of a necessary being critique (Hume and Russel)
(applies to arguments from contingency)
The arguments from contingency conclude that some being exists necessarily. This objection targets this conclusion. (not the arguments itself, but if the conclusion is wrong then there must be something wrong with the arguments)
Hume and Russel both argue the idea of a necessary being is problematic
Hume: P1) Nothing that is distinctly conciveable implies a contradiction
P2) Whatever we concieve as existent we can also concieve as non-existsent
C) Therefore, there is no being whose non-existsence implies a contradiction.
Russell agrees, if a being exists necessarily, denying its existsence would have to be contradictory, But it isn’t
3 marks
What is the difference between cognitive and non-cognitive language in relation to religious claims?
The cognitive approach to religious language is that religious statements such as ‘God exists’ aim to literally describe the world in a way that is true or false. The non-cognitive appraoch howver, says religious labguage does not aim to describe the world, instead philosophers like RM Hare have suggested that religious lanuage is an expression on attutide towards the world.
what is the eliminative materialist claim?
the some or all of common sense (folk psychological) mental states do not exist and our common sense understanding is radically mistaken.
In what works of Kant does he argue existence is not a real predicate
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
explain the conflict between ourfree will and his omniscience
As an omniscient being, God knows everything.
If God knows everything, then He must know what I’m going to do before I do it – for example, drink tea
If God already knows that I’m going to drink the tea before I do it, then it must be true that I drink the tea
If it’s true that I drink the tea, then it can’t be false that I drink the tea.
In other words, I don’t have a choice. And if I don’t have a choice to either drink or not drink the tea, then I don’t have free will.
So, either:
God is omniscient but we don’t have free will
We have free will but God is not omniscient
3
intentionality
the property of mental states whereby they are ‘directed’ towards an ‘object; that is they are ‘about’ something e.g the belief that paris is the capital of frane is about paris.
3
qualia
intrinsic and non-intentional phenomenal properties that are introspectively accessible
knowledge mary applied to functionalism
- in the original argument it is argued that all the physical facts would be enough for mary to know what it is like to see red when she is let out of the room.
- the argumnet can be adaoted to say that all the phyiscal and functional facts would not be enough to know what it is like to see red either. (functionalism misses something
- so phenomenal properties are not just functional properties
Aquinas’ 1st way (MOTION)
P1) there are things in motion or in some state of change
P2) motion is the reduction of something potential to something actual (eg something cold to something Hot)
P3) a thing can only be moved from a state of potentiality to actuality by a thing already in that state of actuality (eg. a cold object being heated by something that is already hot)
P4) a thing cant be in a state of actuality and potentiality at the same time, such as an item cannot be Hot and potentially hot at the same time.
P5) therefore nothing can move or change itself - it must be moved or changed by something else.
P6) if everything is moved or changed by something else then there would be an infinite regress of movers
P7) reductio ad absurdum, if 6 is true then there would be no prime mover and therefore no subsequent movers.
P8) there must be an unmoved prime mover whom we call God.
AQUINAS third way (CONTINGENCY)
P1) Everything that exists contingently did not exist at some point
P2) If everything exists contingently, then at some point, nothing existed
P3) If nothing existed, then nothing could begin to exist
P4) But since things did begin to exist there was never nothing in existsence
C1) Therefore there must be something that does not exist contingently but exists necessarily
C2) This necessary being is God
what is the difference between qualitative and numerical identity
numerical identity: when two things share all the same qualities (and qualitivativly identical) and are one and the same thing.
qualitive idenitity : when two things share the same properties or qualities but are not the same object, eg two iphones of the same model, colours and specs are qualitivly indetical but aren’t the same thing. or twins
phenomenal properties
properties of an experience that give it its distinctive experiential quality and which are apprehended in phenomenal consciousness.
Explain the critique that what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world.
This view expresses scepticism about the relevance of metaphysical possibility to understanding actual reality.
They argue that what is metaphysically possible (which concerns what could exist or happen into other possible worlds) is too disconnected from the actual world to provide meaningful insights into how things are or must be in our own world.
people believe this because of a 1. lack of empirical evidence, 2. metaphysical possibility vs actual necessity 3. Quinean scepticism (talk of possible worlds and metaphysical possibility might reflect how language works but doesn’t track the physical or empirical nature of the world itself.)
