Philosophy Intro Final

Front 1

four divisions of philosophy

Back 1

metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, logic

Front 2

harm of an unexamined life

Back 2

lack of knowledge - ignorance of one's own self and of the most important values in life (the good).

Front 3

what harms the soul

Back 3

exclusive pursuit of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure instead of the good of the soul.

Front 4

define Socratic Method

Back 4

question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodically scrutinized to uncover the truth.

Front 5

define modus tollens

Back 5

the rule of logic stating that if a conditional statement is accepted, and the consequent does not hold, then the negation of the antecendent can be inferred.

Front 6

Socrates motto

Back 6

"Know thyself."

Front 7

define metaphysics

Back 7

the study of reality in the broadest sense, an inquiry into the elemental nature of the universe and the things in it.

Front 8

define epistemology

Back 8

the philosophical study of knowledge

Front 9

attributes of an unhealthy soul

Back 9

pursuit of social status, wealth, power, and pleasure.

Front 10

define slippery slope argument

Back 10

arguing erroneously that a particular action should not be taken because it will lead inevitably to other actions resulting in some dire outcome.

Front 11

define straw man fallacy

Back 11

misrepresentation of a person's views so they can be more easily attacked or dismissed.

Front 12

define begging the question

Back 12

trying to prove a conclusion by using that very same conclusion as support. it's arguing in a circle.

Front 13

define logic

Back 13

the study of correct reasoning

Front 14

how to have a good soul

Back 14

attained only thought an uncompromising search for what's true and real, through the wisdom to see what is most vital in life. comes through self-examination and critical questioning of facile assumptions and unsupported beliefs.

Front 15

Thales' universe

Back 15

thought the ultimate stuff in the world was water in many forms

Front 16

Anaximander's aperiron

Back 16

a formless, imperishable substance (translated to the boundless or indefinite). it is the beginning of all that now exists, but it has no beginning itself.

Front 17

Heraclitus' logos

Back 17

the principle, formula, or law of the world order. to understand logos is to understand reality, to grasp the divine, eternal pattern underlying all of nature and all of humankind. Everything flows.

Front 18

Permenides' reality

Back 18

"what is not" cannot possible exist. you cannot sensibly think or talk about "what is not". to think or talk of "what is not" is to think or talk of nothing and that's not possible.

Front 19

Democritus' atomism

Back 19

the theory that reality consists of an infinite number of minute, indivisible bits called atoms moving rapidly in an infinite void or empty space.

Front 20

Protagoras' motto

Back 20

"man is that measure of all things, of existing things that they exist, and of non-existing things that they do not exist"

Front 21

Plato on Protagoras

Back 21

Plato rejected subjective reaslism, accusing Protagoras of unwillingly refuting himself.

Front 22

Purpose of Socratic Method

Back 22

to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. "False answers are eliminated, opinions are improved, and perhaps the truth is a little closer than before."

Front 23

Socrates' teachings in written form

Back 23

(1) someone poses a question about the meaning of a concept; (2) Socrates' companion gives an answer; (3) Socrates raises questions about the answer, proving that the answer is inadequate; (4) to avoid the problems inherent in this answer, the companion offers a second answer; (5) steps (3) & (4).

Front 24

Socrates' lifestyle

Back 24

he didn't teach for money and he spent most of his time lecturing his students throughout the market place.

Front 25

virtue and knowledge

Back 25

knowledge refers to both knowing what virtue is and knowing how to apply that understanding to life. this knowledge is self-knowledge and is comparable to the know-how possessed by expert craftsmen.

Front 26

Plato's school

Back 26

Academy

Front 27

Plato's style of writing

Back 27

dialogue

Front 28

real and objective truth

Back 28

Objective: true regardless of what we think.

Real: do not come from sense experience.

Front 29

Plato's Forms

Back 29

in one sense the Forms (also called Ideas) are perfect conceptual models for every existing thing, residing only in the eternal world penetrated by reason alone.

Front 30

Plato on the soul

Back 30

believes that the body and soul are two different things. he reasons that internal conflict in the soul cannot happen unless the soul consists of more than one part.

Front 31

allegory of the cave

Back 31

characters: chained slaves that are forced to watch false shadows and believe that it is the real world. it isn't until they escape and leave the cave that they realize that it was all an act.

meaning: humans are forced to believe that certain things are the truth but until they escape and are willing to leave the cave and think for themselves, they'll be forever tricked by the shadows on the wall.

Front 32

Plato's parts of the soul

Back 32

(1) appetite (the "avaricious" part), which desires satisfaction of the bodily cravings for food, drink, sex, sleep, and other useful or pleasurable things; (2) spirit (the "competitive" part), which wants to preserve a sense of self and serve ambition (and is thus motivated to maximize honor, self-esteem, recognition, success, and winning); and (3) reason (the philosophical or intellectual part), which should pursue truth (both practical and theoretical), regulate the other two parts, and rule the soul as a whole.

Front 33

Aristotle's school

Back 33

Lyceum

Front 34

Aristotle's substance

Back 34

comes about with both form and matter

Front 35

virtue and vice's relationship

Back 35

a virtue is the midpoint (the "golden mean") between the extremes of excess and deficit, and the extremes are the vices.

Front 36

define virtue

Back 36

a disposition to behave in line with a standard of excellence.

Front 37

Aristotle's logical system

Back 37

deductive argument

Front 38

what is being

Back 38

substance

Front 39

Aristotle on matter

Back 39

all material substances are matter (and form)

Front 40

Aristotle's 4 causes

Back 40

material, formal, efficient, final

Front 41

medieval mindset

Back 41

virtual takeover of philosophy by Christianity in the first millennium CE and the weakening of Christianity's grip during the Renaissance in the second millennium.

Front 42

Augustine's writings

Back 42

Confessions, City of God, On the Trinity, On Free Will

Front 43

define neo-Platonism

Back 43

the philosophical view consisting of a blend of Plato's metaphysics and other non-materialist or religious ideas

Front 44

Augustine's philosophical foundation

Back 44

truth

Front 45

Aquinas' philosophical foundation

Back 45

5 ways

Front 46

Augustine on evil

Back 46

evil is the deprivation of good

Front 47

Augustine's hierarchy of being

Back 47

God, the supremely good, is the most fully real. everything else is much less real, with their reality extending from nothingness up to a higher level of reality below God, the supreme reality.

Front 48

Aquinas' writings

Back 48

5 Arguments... Existence of God, Summa Theologica

Front 49

define cosmological argument

Back 49

arguments that reason from the existence of the universe, or cosmos, to the conclusion that God exists.

Front 50

define ontological argument

Back 50

arguments that reason from the concept of God to the existence of God.

Front 51

Anselm's argument

Back 51

(1) existence makes something greater and (2) existence can be a defining property.

Front 52

Descartes on sensations

Back 52

you can't fully rely on your senses to give you the truth.

Front 53

Descartes on dreams

Back 53

you can't fully trust dreams either because most can't tell immediately when they are dreaming.

Front 54

Descartes' evil demon

Back 54

the deceiver. is making us believe that those things that aren't true are, in fact, true.

Front 55

why not trust senses

Back 55

example: when you see wax, you know that it is wax because of how it looks and feels. if you were to put the wax into fire, the only thing that let you know that it's still wax it because you have the knowledge of it. if you were to rely on your senses, they would deceive you because you're seeing and feeling something completely different.

Front 56

what does Descartes know after doubting?

Back 56

knowledge requires certainty. he holds that for beliefs to count as knowledge, we must be certain of them - they must be so well supported as to be beyond all possible doubt.

Front 57

what does thinking show?

Back 57

knowledge

Front 58

define a priori knowledge

Back 58

knowledge gained independently of or prior to sense experience.

Front 59

Hobbes: what causes war

Back 59

"state of nature"; injustice.

Front 60

Hobbes' state of nature

Back 60

"war of every man against every man." in the state of nature, there is no code, culture, or comfort. there is no justice. there is only "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Front 61

man's rights in Hobbes' state of nature

Back 61

man can do whatever he so pleases since there is no law and no justice.

Front 62

Hobbes' definition of injustice

Back 62

not performing your valid covenants

Front 63

Locke on knowledge

Back 63

we gain our knowledge through experience, it's not already pre-programmed into our minds.

Front 64

Hume's 2 types of propositions

Back 64

"relations of ideas" and "matters of facts"

Front 65

Hume on usefulness of experience

Back 65

we can gain very little knowledge through experience

Front 66

Locke's primary qualities

Back 66

weight (physical)

Front 67

Locke's secondary qualities

Back 67

see, hear, touching, etc.

Front 68

Locke on innate ideas

Back 68

does not believe that we are born with certain knowledge - believes that we have to get experience in order to learn certain things.

Front 69

Hobbes' writings

Back 69

Levianthan, Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Sociey, On the Body, On Man

Front 70

Kant on knowledge and experience

Back 70

knowledge comes entirely from experience

Front 71

Kant on synthetic priori

Back 71

insists that this knowledge is possible. we can indeed know things about the world, and we can know them independently or prior to experience.

Front 72

Kant on the mind

Back 72

the mind shapes raw experience by organizing it in accordance with certain fundamental concepts, such as time, space, and causality. All our experience is sifted and sorted through the mind's "conceptual processor," without which we could make no sense of the bewildering flow of sights, sounds, smells, and other perceptions.

Front 73

Kant and moral acts

Back 73

right actions do not depend on their consequences, the productions of happiness, people's motives, or their desires and feelings. right actions are those that are right in themselves because they are consistent with universal moral rules derived from reason, and the actions have moral worth only if we do them out of a sense of duty, simply because they are our duty. our motives are irrelevant.

Front 74

Kant on lying

Back 74

it's morally wrong

Front 75

Kant's noumena and phenomena

Back 75

phenomena: the world only as conceptualized sense data

noumena: what the world is in itself outside our experience. a reality forever beyond our ken.

Front 76

utilitarian right actions

Back 76

an act is right if in a particular situation it produces a greater balance of well-being over suffering than any alternative acts; determining rightness is a matter of weighing the effects of each possible act.

Front 77

utilitarianism and hedonism

Back 77

classic utilitarianism is hedonistic in that the utility to be maximized is pleasure, broadly termed happiness, and only intrinsic good. a right action produces more net happiness (amount of happiness minus unhappiness) than any alternative action, everyone considered.

Front 78

Mill on quality of pleasure

Back 78

the lower and inferior ones indulges in by the glutton and his ilk and the higher and more satisfying ones found in such experiences as the search for knowledge and the appreciation of art and music.

"it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied."

Front 79

Kierkegaard view of the individual

Back 79

says that society is crushing the individual, diluting their personal identity, and replacing them with people who have "forgotten what it means to exist," to live as authentic, passionate human beings.

Front 80

the opposite of the individual

Back 80

the crowd

Front 81

Nietzsche on God

Back 81

"God is dead."

Front 82

Sartre's motto

Back 82

"man is nothing else but what he makes of himself."