PHIL 126 Final Review

Question 1

What are the stages of Descartes’ doubt in the First Meditation?

Answer 1

1. Illusion doubt – questions the reliability of senses. 2. Dream doubt – no clear marks distinguish dreaming from waking. 3. Deceiver doubt – God could be a deceiver, doubting logic and reality.

Question 2

Why does Descartes claim to be certain of ‘I think; I am a thinking thing; I seem to see a rose’?

Answer 2

The mind is transparent to itself; the act of doubting is still thinking. Even in dreams, we perceive representations, so we only need to doubt actual reality.

Question 3

What does Descartes mean by the claim that the reality of the cause must be at least as great as the reality of the effect?

Answer 3

Formal reality is the reality something has by existing. Objective reality is the reality of the representation. The causal adequacy principle states that there must be as much formal reality in the cause as there is objective reality in the effect.

Question 4

How does Descartes prove that all his clear and distinct ideas are true?

Answer 4

He proves God’s existence through the causal adequacy principle and that God is not a deceiver because deception is incompatible with perfection.

Question 5

How does Descartes prove that a physical world exists?

Answer 5

There are two substances: thought and extension. Sensations are against my will, indicating a cause outside my mind.

Question 6

What does Descartes’ claim that the mind and body are really distinct mean?

Answer 6

There are two substances: thought (mind) and extension (body). I can conceive of a thinking thing existing apart from an extended thing.

Question 7

How does Descartes respond to the dream argument of the First Meditation?

Answer 7

Dreams are marked by disorder and confusion, while truth is known by clarity and order.

Question 8

What is Descartes’ view on the interaction between mind and body?

Answer 8

The mind interacts with the body in a mechanistic way, but this does not explain how mental motion becomes physical motion.

Question 9

What is Malebranche’s definition of ‘cause’?

Answer 9

Causation is a conceptual connection; the effect must necessarily follow from the cause.

Question 10

How does Malebranche account for the regularity between mental and physical changes?

Answer 10

God is the only causal power responsible for the mind-body relationship.

Question 11

Why, for Malebranche, is God the only genuine cause?

Answer 11

Only God can create a necessary connection between cause and effect.

Question 12

What do Spinoza’s terms ‘substance’, ‘attribute’, and ‘mode’ mean?

Answer 12

Substance: something that does not depend on anything else to exist. Attribute: essential qualities of a substance. Mode: particular things dependent on substances.

Question 13

Why does Spinoza think that there is only one substance?

Answer 13

Two things are the same if they share all attributes; since no two substances can be distinguished, there is only one substance.

Question 14

What is the difference between determinism and necessitarianism?

Answer 14

Determinism states every event has a necessitating cause; necessitarianism asserts that there is only one possible way the world could unfold.

Question 15

How does Spinoza criticize Descartes’ views on the mind-body problem?

Answer 15

Spinoza proposes a unified metaphysics where thought and extension are parallel attributes, not separate entities.

Question 16

What does Spinoza think is the relationship between causing and conceiving?

Answer 16

Causation involves conceptual connection; something must be self-caused, which is the one true substance.

Question 17

For Conway, how do the natures of God, Christ, and creatures differ?

Answer 17

God is immutable, Christ is a conduit, and creatures are mutable.

Question 18

Are creatures modifications of God for Conway?

Answer 18

Yes, all creatures are modes of the manifestation of the one substance, which is God.

Question 19

How does Conway object to the Cartesian notion of matter?

Answer 19

Conway believes Cartesian matter is soulless and passive, implying objects are non-thinking and inert.

Question 20

How would Conway criticize Spinoza’s distinction between thought and extension?

Answer 20

Conway argues that thought cannot be separated from extension; all matter has minds.

Question 21

What is Leibniz’s cosmological argument for the existence of God?

Answer 21

Contingent things cannot explain the universe; according to the principle of sufficient reason, there must be an ultimate reason, which is God.

Question 22

On what grounds did God choose this world over all the other possible worlds?

Answer 22

God chose the best combination of events that are not self-contradictory, as He cannot choose less than ideal.

Question 23

What is the predicate in subject principle?

Answer 23

The predicate is contained in the subject, suggesting that actions may be predetermined.

Question 24

What is the doctrine of pre-established harmony?

Answer 24

Each monad unfolds its internal state in a coordinated way, as set up by God.

Question 25

Why does Leibniz think that finite substances do not causally interact?

Answer 25

Monads do not interact because they are not extended; they are mirrors of one another.

Question 26

What is the nature of monads, according to Leibniz?

Answer 26

Monads are simple, indivisible, non-extended, and possess perception and appetite.

Question 27

To what uses does Du Châtelet put the Principle of Sufficient Reason?

Answer 27

She uses it to prove the existence of God, show every event has a cause, and that nature is uniform.

Question 28

What is the Principle of Continuity?

Answer 28

There is physical and explanatory continuity to all phenomena; matter is continuous.

Question 29

Why does Locke think that shape and size are real features of objects?

Answer 29

Shape and size are primary qualities, while color and taste are secondary properties and mind-dependent.

Question 30

What is Locke’s account of perception?

Answer 30

We perceive things in our minds, not directly perceiving external objects.

Question 31

What are primary qualities according to Locke?

Answer 31

Shape and size are primary qualities, mind-independent, and real properties of matter.

Question 32

What are secondary properties according to Locke?

Answer 32

Color and taste are secondary properties and mind-dependent. ## Footnote Example: A corpuscle (atom parallel) still has size and shape, but not color or taste (there are no yellow or smelly molecules).

Question 33

What is Locke's account of perception?

Answer 33

Locke says that we perceive things in our minds; we are not directly perceiving external objects (representative theory of perception).

Question 34

What is Berkeley's critique of Locke's perception theory?

Answer 34

Berkeley argues that if what we perceive are just our own ideas, then how do we know that there are physical objects?

Question 35

How does Berkeley avoid skepticism about the existence of the physical world?

Answer 35

Berkeley collapses the idea that perception is different from reality through idealism, believing that physical objects are just ideas that God put in our heads.

Question 36

What is the relation between the mind and body according to Berkeley?

Answer 36

The mind consists of spirits that actively interpret the world, while the body is a collection of ideas that the mind passively perceives.

Question 37

Do physical things causally interact according to Berkeley?

Answer 37

No, God accounts for all sensory experiences that we have; they are not real.

Question 38

How does Berkeley argue for the existence of God?

Answer 38

Since we perceive orderly, sensory ideas that we do not cause ourselves, there must be an all-powerful spirit (God) that causes them.

Question 39

How does Berkeley preserve the commonsense claim that different people can perceive the same object?

Answer 39

Berkeley claims that there is regularity amongst ideas, and that similarity is enough for two things to be the same.

Question 40

What problems arise from Berkeley's claim about perception?

Answer 40

This makes all things mind-dependent; we can only see inside our own heads.

Question 41

How does Berkeley's idealism differ from Leibniz's?

Answer 41

Berkeley believes that to exist is to be perceived, while Leibniz believes that monads exist unperceived.

Question 42

How does Berkeley's idealism differ from Kant's?

Answer 42

Kant believes that our experience is shaped by the mind, but that there is something beyond it that we can’t exactly know.

Question 43

Why are we unable to conceive of something that is unconceived according to Berkeley?

Answer 43

Berkeley believes that we can’t conceive of a contradiction; material substance is not conceived.

Question 44

What is Hume's copy principle?

Answer 44

Every idea (thought) must come from an impression (vivid sensory experience).

Question 45

Is the missing shade of blue a counterexample to Hume's copy principle?

Answer 45

Yes, someone can conceive of it by reviving their experience to fill in the gaps, making it an idea without an impression.

Question 46

What are the various ways in which ideas are associated according to Hume?

Answer 46

The mind associates ideas through resemblance, contiguity (relation in space and time), and cause and effect.

Question 47

What is the difference between relations of ideas and matters of fact?

Answer 47

Relations of ideas are a priori, definitional, and uninformative, while matters of fact are a posteriori, known through experiment, and contingent.

Question 48

Why does Hume think we can have no reason to believe in any unobserved matter of fact?

Answer 48

There is a gap between the observed and unobserved; any unobserved matter of fact relies on causal reasoning, which is not rationally justified.

Question 49

Why can we have no reason to believe the Uniformity Principle?

Answer 49

To know the unobserved future, we would have to assume the uniformity principle, which has no justification.

Question 50

How is Hume's skeptical gap similar to Descartes' skeptical gap?

Answer 50

Both present a gap between our perception and the outside world, challenging the reliability of knowledge.

Question 51

What is Hume's skeptical solution to his doubts about the unobserved?

Answer 51

We habitually assume the uniformity principle; without it, experience would be useless.

Question 52

What is the source of our idea of necessary connection according to Hume?

Answer 52

Necessary connection is our own compulsion to see connections (an internal impression).

Question 53

How does Hume define 'cause'?

Answer 53

A cause is an object followed by another, where all similar objects are followed by similar objects.

Question 54

Can physical objects ever be causally related according to Hume's definition of cause?

Answer 54

No, physical objects aren’t causally related, but they are through our experience of constant conjunction.

Question 55

What is the difference between analytic and synthetic claims according to Kant?

Answer 55

Analytic claims have the predicate contained in the subject, while synthetic claims do not.

Question 56

Why does Kant think the possibility of metaphysics requires synthetic a priori claims?

Answer 56

Metaphysics makes universal, necessary claims that are not based on experience.

Question 57

Why does Kant think reason cannot determine whether God exists?

Answer 57

We can only experience things in space and time, while God exists outside of spatio-temporal reality.

Question 58

What does Kant mean by saying that space and time are forms of sensibility?

Answer 58

Space and time are preconditions for our experience of the world, not features of things in themselves.

Question 59

What is Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy?

Answer 59

It is not objects that shape our knowledge but our knowledge that shapes how objects appear to us.

Question 60

What is the relation between things in themselves and physical objects according to Kant?

Answer 60

Physical objects are mind-dependent (phenomena) and perceived through space and time; they are not part of space and time (noumena).