Phil 115 Key Concepts

Front 1

valid

Back 1

an argument is BLANK if and only if it is absolutely impossible that simultaneously (a) all its premises are true, and (b) its conclusion is false

Front 2

invalid

Back 2

an argument is BLANK if it's possible that (1) all the premises are true and (2) the conclusion is false

Front 3

sound

Back 3

an argument is BLANK if and only if (1) it is valid and (2) all the premises are true

Front 4

unsound

Back 4

an argument is BLANK if it is invalid, or has a false premise, or both

Front 5

Plato - Forms

Back 5

ex. Just, Beautiful, Red, Equal (sticks)
1. a principle of knowledge in the sense that knowledge requires thinking of the BLANK (learning is recollection)
2. the BLANK are the true causes of things, ex. if something is beautiful, it is so because it participates (presence of, sharing in) in the Beautiful (BLANK)

Front 6

Plato - Philosophy as a Preparation for Death

Back 6

1. True knowledge can be attained only through death.
a. Knowledge is attained through the soul while the body is an obstacle.
b. If knowledge is attained through the soul while the body is an obstacle, then knowledge can be attained best when the soul is separate from the body.
c. Thus knowledge can be attained best when the soul is separate from the body.
d. Death is the separation of the soul from the body.
e. Thus knowledge can be attained best in death.
2. If true knowledge can be attained only through death, then philosophers (i.e., those who seek true knowledge and wisdom) will desire death.
3. Thus, philosophers (i.e., those who seek true knowledge and wisdom) will desire death.

Front 7

Plato - Argument from Opposites

Back 7

1. If the living come back from the dead, then our souls must exist after death.
2. The living come from the dead.
a. All things come to be from their opposites, and between all pairs of opposites there are two processes of becoming.
b. The opposite of living is being dead, and vice versa, so being alive must come from being dead just as death comes from life.
c. The process from life to death is dying; hence there must be an opposite process of coming to life again, which is the process whereby the living come from the dead.
3. Therefore, our souls exist after death.

Front 8

Plato - Argument from Recollection

Back 8

1. If learning is recollection, then the soul pre-exists birth.
2. Learning is recollection.
a. Recollection is to perceive one thing and think of some other, different thing.
b. When we learn (i.e., acquire knowledge that things fall under a particular concept), we perceive one thing (i.e., material things with certain qualities) and think of another (i.e., a form).
c. Therefore, when we learn, we recollect; learning is recollection.
3. Therefore, the soul pre-exists birth.

Front 9

Plato - Theory that Learning is Recollection

Back 9

1. Recollection is to perceive one thing and think of some other, different thing.
2. When we learn (i.e., acquire knowledge that things fall under a particular concept), we perceive one thing (i.e., material things with certain qualities) and think of another (i.e., a form).
3. Therefore, when we learn, we recollect; learning is recollection.

Front 10

Plato - Argument from Similarity

Back 10

1. Either (A) the soul is likely to be indissoluble, or (B) it is not.
a. indissoluble things are likely to be noncomposite, unchanging, and invisible.
b. Dissoluble things are likely to be composite, changing, and visible.
2. Not (B), The soul is likely to be dissoluble.
a. If the soul is invisible, it is more like indissoluble things.
b. The soul is invisible.
c. The soul is more like indissoluble things.
a. If the soul becomes wiser by contact with unchanging realities, then it is more like those realities.
b. The soul does become wiser by contact with unchanging realities.
c. Therefore the soul is more like those realities.
3. Therefore (A) the soul is likely to be indissoluble.

Front 11

Plato - Simmias and Cebes' objections

Back 11

BLANK - Perhaps the soul is like a harmony, then it is not immortal but rather depends on the state of the body.
BLANK - Perhaps the soul is like a weaver, then no one knows which death and dissolution of the body brings about the destruction of the soul, since not one of us can be aware of this.

Front 12

Aristotle - Matter

Back 12

that which underlies change in the acquisition or loss of a form; a subject with a privation

Front 13

Aristotle - Form

Back 13

a positive attribute gained or lost by matter in the process of change; an attribute that has replaced the privation

Front 14

Aristotle - Potentiality

Back 14

rooted in real facts and actual features of entities that manifest them (matter, or that which is the statue in potentiality)

Front 15

Aristotle - Actuality

Back 15

(Form, or that which makes what exists in potentiality exist in actuality)

Front 16

Aristotle - Substance

Back 16

(matter-form composites) are not onotologically parasitic on any other being

Front 17

Aristotle - Accidents

Back 17

(qualities, quantities, relations) never exist on their own, but rather are always parasitic on substances

Front 18

Aristotle - Accidental Form

Back 18

(alter a quality, quantity, or relation of the substance in which the inhere) transform a substance that is potentially F into one that is actually F

Front 19

Aristotle - Substantial Form

Back 19

(transform the substance into a different sort of thing altogether) the form that a thing simply cannot lose unless it becomes some other thing entirely

Front 20

Aristotle - The Four Causes

Back 20

1. Material Cause - That from which an entity comes to be (Bronze)
2. Formal Cause - The shape or structure of an entity (MLK shape)
3. Efficient Cause - The agent imposing the shape or structure (Sculptor)
4. Final Cause - That for the sake of which (To honor MLK, Jr.)

Front 21

Aristotle - Argument for Final Causes in Nature

Back 21

1. Natural things come to be as they do either as a result of luck/chance or for the sake of something.
2. If natural things come to be as they do as a result of luck or chance, they would not occur always or usually.
3. Natural things come to be as they do either always or usually.
4. Thus natural things do not come to be as they do as a result of luck or chance.
5. Thus natural events come to be as they do for the sake of something.

Front 22

Aristotle - Soul as the Form/Actuality of a Body (Hylomorphism)

Back 22

The soul is the first actuality of a body that is potentially alive.(The soul makes a living body alive)

Front 23

Aristotle - Perception

Back 23

the reception of a perceptible form, by a sense organ that has the potentiality to receive that type of form

Front 24

Aquinas - Argument that the Soul is the Actuality of a Body

Back 24

1. The soul is the first principle of life.
2. If the soul is the first principle of life, then it is not a body but rather the actuality of a body.
a. By reductio: If a body were the first principle of life as the result of its simply being a body, every body would be living or a principle of life.
3. The soul is not a body but rather the actuality of a body.

Front 25

Aquinas - Argument that the Soul is Something Subsistent

Back 25

1. The human soul is “the principle of intellectual operation.”
2. The intellect can cognize all forms of material things, which means that “ it must have none of those things in its own nature.”
a. In particular, the intellectual principle cannot contain the nature of any body nor operate through any bodily organ, or else it would be unable to cognize all bodies. So it must be nonbodily.
3. Since the intellect is nonbodily, it has an operation that the body does not share in.
4. Only subsistent things operate on their own.
5. Therefore the soul (intellect, mind) is something subsistent.

Front 26

Aquinas - Hylomorphism

Back 26

The intellective principle is the form of the body (the intellect is united to the body as its substantial form)

Front 27

Aquinas - Abstraction

Back 27

To consider one quality or set of qualities belonging to a material thing without thinking of all the others.

Front 28

Aquinas - Phantasm

Back 28

material likeness of a particular thing

Front 29

Aquinas - Intelligible Species

Back 29

general concept formed from sensory information

Front 30

Aquinas - The Proper Object of the Human Intellect

Back 30

a quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter

Front 31

Aquinas - Happiness

Back 31

The human will is oriented towards just one ultimate good/end: happiness. The will is the "intellective appetite". Free will requires the use of reason.

Front 32

Anselm - Will for Happiness

Back 32

If we had only a will for happiness, we would have to will happiness more and more, to the point of willing to be like God. Our will would be neither just nor unjust. It becomes possible to will happiness in a just or unjust manner; it becomes possible to deserve happiness (or not).

Front 33

Anselm - Will for Justice

Back 33

If we had only a will for justice, we would always have to will what is fitting, so our will would be neither just nor unjust. Will for justice governs and curtails will for happiness, so that it wills what is fitting.

Front 34

Descartes - Stages of Doubting in Meditation One

Back 34

1. Can we trust the we know through the senses? Occasional deception of the senses leads Descartes to doubt sense experience of "very small and distant" things.
2. Can we still trust immediate sense experience? Possibility of dreaming leads Descartes to doubt all sense experience.
3. Can’t we still trust the basic components and structures of experience? The possibility that an omnipotent God might deceive him leads Descartes to doubt all experience and its structures.

Front 35

Descartes - The Cogito

Back 35

If (p) I think I am something (even if I am being deceived), then (q) there is something I know for certain – i.e., that I exist. (p) I do necessarily think that I am something! Therefore (q) there is something I know for certain - i.e., that I exist. (I think therefore I am.)

Front 36

Descartes - The "I" as a "Thinking Thing"

Back 36

Thinking alone cannot be separated from me; “I am therefore precisely nothing but a thinking thing”. (mind)

Front 37

Descartes - Argument for God's Existence Meditation 3

Back 37

1. Either (A) I am the cause of the idea of God, or (B) something else exists that is the cause of this idea (i.e., something that has all the reality formally or eminently that corresponds to the objective reality in the idea).
2. Not (A).
a. In order for me to be the cause of an idea, then I (the cause) must have at least as much reality as the effect (the idea), and the formal reality (my idea, train of thought) must at least equal the objective reality (what the idea represents) of the effect.
b. But regarding the idea of God, though I am potentially infinite, I am a finite being and do not have as much reality as the idea of God, because God is infinite. As a result, I cannot possibly in any way or from any other ideas in my mind possess the formal reality to cause an idea of an infinite being, because I am limited from being finite. Also the formal reality of the cause, which is either some other idea or property of mine, does not at least equal the objective reality of the effect, my idea of God, b

Front 38

Descartes - Argument for God's Existence Meditation 5

Back 38

It is clearly and distinctly perceived that God's existence cannot be separated from his essence.

Front 39

Descartes - Formal Reality

Back 39

the reality of the things as it is in itself

Front 40

Descartes - Objective Reality

Back 40

the reality that the thing represents

Front 41

Descartes - Clear and Distinct Truths

Back 41

Everything I clearly and distinctly (C&D) perceive is true will not change.

Front 42

Descartes - Clear and Distinct Perception

Back 42

Because God is not a deceiver, I can trust that everything I clearly and distinctly (C&D) perceive is true.

Front 43

Descartes - Understanding (Intellection)

Back 43

knowing the properties of a thing (e.g. knowing that a triangle has three sides); mind turns towards its own ideas

Front 44

Descartes - Imagination

Back 44

involves a "new effort on the part of the mind" in which I also envisage a thing (e.g. "seeing" the triangle with my "mind's eye"); mind intuits “in” the body something that conforms to an idea understood in the mind or perceived by the sense

Front 45

Descartes - Argument for the Real Distintion between Mind and Body

Back 45

1. If I clearly and distinctly perceive my mind without my body, then the body is really distinct from the mind.
2. I do clearly and distinctly perceive my mind without my body.
a. From Meditations 2: I know immediately that “I” exist, and that my essence consists entirely in my being a thinking thing.
b. On the other hand, I have a distinct idea of a body joined to me, which is merely “an extended thing and not a thinking thing”.
3. Therefore “it is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it.”

Front 46

Hume - Impressions

Back 46

lively, forceful sensory perceptions (the perceptions we have when we hear, see, feel, love, hate, desire, or will)

Front 47

Hume - Ideas

Back 47

less forcible, less lively (may mimic or copy perceptions of the senses)

Front 48

Hume - Arguments that All Ideas Ultimately Derive from Impressions

Back 48

1. Every idea can be resolved into simpler ideas, which are themselves copies of some feeling or sentiment
2. Those who lack the capacity to have certain sensations, or who have never encountered certain objects, always lack the corresponding ideas.

Front 49

Hume - Relations of Ideas

Back 49

discoverable by the mere operation of thought, do not depend on what actually is or exists, and are intuitively or demonstratively certain

Front 50

Hume - Matters of Fact

Back 50

depend on the things that exist; the contrary of every matter of fact is possible

Front 51

Hume - Experience

Back 51

Without experience, the assignation of any effect to a cause would be arbitrary because “the effect is totally different from the cause." Experience gives direct and certain information only about past events, but never about future ones. Hence experience can never provide the grounds for an inference that similar effects will follow from similar causes in the future.

Front 52

Hume - Experience and Custom as the Source of Our Knowledge regarding Matters of Fact

Back 52

All inferences concerning matters of fact must be able to be traced back to previous impressions and experiences of constant conjunction.

Front 53

Hume - Custom

Back 53

the ultimate principle of all our conclusions from experience

Front 54

Hume - Argument Against Miracles

Back 54

1. If we have uniform experience against any particular miraculous event, then we have proof that it did not occur.
a. Because uniform experience always amounts to a proof more certain than human testimony
2. We do have uniform experience against any particular miraculous event.
a. Because a miracle, by definition, is a violation of the laws of nature.
3. Thus we have proof that any particular miracle did not occur.

Front 55

Searle - Syntax

Back 55

rules governing the formal structure of a language (or other system of symbols)

Front 56

Searle - Semantics

Back 56

theory of meaning or content; rules governing the relationship between symbols and what they symbolize

Front 57

Searle - Argument that Computers Cannot Think (Chinese Room Thought Experiment)

Back 57

1. Mere symbol manipulation is not enough to teach anyone Chinese.
a. This premise is established by the “thought experiment.”
2. If mere symbol manipulation is not enough to teach anyone Chinese, then it is not enough to give a computer an understanding of Chinese.
3. Mere symbol manipulation is not enough to give a computer an understanding of Chinese.
4. If [3], then computers can never really understand Chinese.
a. Because computers only ever shuffle symbols.
5. Therefore computers cannot ever understand Chinese.

Front 58

Searle - Determinism (Adv. and Disadv.)

Back 58

The thesis that the past plus the laws of nature entail any future state of the world.
Advantages: Consistent with our scientific beliefs ("'bottom up' picture of the world)
Disadvantages: Demands that we give up our conviction of freedom (which is impossible)

Front 59

Searle - Libertarianism (Adv. and Disadv.)

Back 59

The thesis that we have free will and determinism is false.
Advantages: Accounts for our experience of acting, which essentially involves freedom.
Disadvantages: Unscientific (persons can make molecules swerve from their paths)

Front 60

Searle - Compatibilism (Adv. and Disadv.)

Back 60

The thesis that we have free will and determinism is true.
Advantages: Accounts for free will
Disadvantages: Asserts that we could not have chose otherwise

Front 61

Freddoso - Dualism

Back 61

treats body and soul as two separate substances; identifies the human self with just the immaterial soul

Front 62

Freddoso - Hylomorphism

Back 62

the unity of the soul and the body whereas the soul is the form of the body

Front 63

Freddosso - Physicalism/Materialism

Back 63

the human person is only material and has no immaterial soul

Front 64

Freddoso - Hylomorphism (Catholic Doctrine)

Back 64

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to
consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body: i.e., it is
because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter
becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man,
are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a
single nature.

Front 65

Van Inwagen - Determinism

Back 65

we are only free to do what we in fact do (i.e., we are not able to act otherwise)

Front 66

Van Inwagen - Indeterminism

Back 66

which future becomes actual is a matter of chance (i.e., we do not choose the future)

Front 67

Van Inwagen - Metaphysical Freedom

Back 67

what we "can"/"cannot" do, "are able to do", "had no choice" to do, "not within my power" to do, ect. (not moral impossibility but actual possibility)

Front 68

Van Inwagen - Argument that Free Will is Incompatible with Determinism

Back 68

1. We are only free to do what we in fact do. (I.e., we are not able to act otherwise than we do.)
2. If we are free, then we are able to act otherwise than we do.
3. Thus, we are not free

Front 69

Van Inwagen - Argument that Free Will is Incompatible with Indeterminism

Back 69

1. Which future becomes actual is a matter of chance, (i.e., we do not choose the future).
2. If we are free, then we choose which future becomes actual.
3. Thus, we are not free

Front 70

Van Inwagen - Argument that Metaphysical Freedom is Mysterious

Back 70

1. The world must be either (a) deterministic or (b) indeterministic.
2. If (a), we are not free.
3. If (b), we are not free.
4. Therefore _______???________.
4. Therefore we are not free!
Despite these arguments, everyone believes in freedom!

Front 71

Beauvior - The Myth of Woman

Back 71

an ideal or set of ideals that describe who or what “Woman” is, “a transcendent Idea” or definition of woman, which ignores “the behavior of real flesh-and-blood women”, and an image of woman as “absolute Other”, vs. women’s “true alterity”

Front 72

Beauvior - The Feminine "Mystery"

Back 72

the idea that woman essentially is “an emerging presence that fails to appear”; this myth is inconsistent with men’s lived, concrete reality

Front 73

Allen - Fractional Gender Complementarity

Back 73

men and women have equal dignity and have significant differentiation (complementary as parts: 1/2 + 1/2 = 1)

Front 74

Allen - Integral Gender Complementarity

Back 74

men and women have equal dignity and have significant differentiation (complementary as wholes: 1 + 1 = 3)

Front 75

Allen - John Paul II's Account of Gender Complementarity

Back 75

Man and women equal as persons; man and woman as two different ways of being persons in the world; Masculinity uniquely male and femininity uniquely female, but masculinity/femininity ≠ male/female; Polarity theory an effect of original sin; - Call for a “new feminism” in Evangelium Vitae