early modern philosophy test 1

what were the three factors that spread skepticism?

rise of ancient skepticism, scientific developments, and religious controversy

the skeptics believed what was too weak to comprehend the workings of the world?

human reason

what were the two schools that influenced skepticism in the ancient world?

academic skepticism

prrhonian skepticism

what was the academic skepticism’s source of skeptical thought?

academy of plato

what did academic skepticism want to show?

dogmatic claims to philosophical truth or enlightenment are ill-founded

using the example of “this classroom floor will break”, explain what an academic skeptic might think about how true that statement is

ex. answer: it’s more plausible that the floor will not break, but we will never know the genuine truth because it is beyond human grasp

what was pyrrho’s motivation for creating prrhonian skepticism?

saw it as a means to attain ataraxia, or freedom from disturbance (means to happiness)

the pyrrhonian’s say “no more this, than that.” what does this mean?

no more confidence should be placed in one claim than its negation

in other words, we can only say “it seems so to me” instead of “it really is so”

ex. it’s wrong to kiss in public but people think differently

what are the modes of argument according to the pyrrhonians?

dissent, progress ad infinitum, relation, assumption, and circularity

what is the purpose of the modes of argument?

weakens our confidence in any claim to knowledge

what is dissent? (mode of argument)

uncertainty caused by differing opinions

what is progress ad infinitum? (mode of argument)

proof relies on proof and so on to infinity

what is relation? (mode of argument)

things change depending on one’s relative perspective

what is assumption? (mode of argument)

truth that is asserted based on an unsupported assumption

what is circularity? (mode of argument)

truth asserted involves a circularity of proofs

what is montaigne’s “apology of raymond sebond” about?

undermines the human senses and asserts that religion requires faith alone, not reason

while the protestant reformation wasn’t a skeptical doctrine, what relevant questions did they also raise?

how will humans know that religious beliefs and practices are in accord with God’s will? what if it’s satan who makes me feel divine inspiration, not God?

the success of heliocentrism led to what?

distrusting of the immediate testimony of the senses because the view of the world was geocentric

what did the corpuscularian doctrine of primary and secondary qualities say about the senses?

our senses are deceptive when it comes to physical bodies

what was the puzzle of parallax?

parallax, or the seemingly movement of stars, would be detectable if copernicanism is correct. but, parallax was not detected. however, copernicus refuted this claim saying that “fixed stars” are probably farther away than we think

why is francis bacon’s “new organon” named as such?

aristotle’s writings were commonly called “organon”, and since bacon’s document undermines aristotle’s writings, the “new organon” is named as such

what are the two was in which traditional logic is flawed?

1. a valid syllogism can yield nothing new from the conclusion that wasn’t already said in the premise
2. self-evident first principles are insufficient to ground real knowledge on

what did francis bacon think was an improvement to aristotelian thinking?

true inductions rooted in experiment and observation

syllogisms are useful when it comes to __ but not in the discovery of new truths

known truths

explain why the astronomical first principle “heavenly bodies move with uniform circular motion” is flawed according to bacon.

accepted w/o critical examination and has epicycles to somewhat line up with this observation

why wasn’t bacon the only one criticizing logic?

scholastic teaching became outdated, and formal disputes often ended in incomprehensible arguments over outdated terminology

what is the difference between deduction and induction?

deduction: general → particular

induction: particular → general

bacon thought aristotelian scholasticism gave too much attention to __ and not __

deduction; induction

what is a problem with induction?

examining prior cases doesn’t mean the conclusion is true

why was bacon especially concerned with scholastic’s focus on deduction?

moves too quickly from limited-sense experience to general axioms (principles)

what are the four classes of idols?

idols of the:


1. tribe
2. cave
3. marketplace
4. theater

what is the idol of the tribe?

people’s cognitive ability is limited

what is the idol of the cave?

prejudice rooted from experience

what is the idol of the marketplace?

confusion arising from misuse of language

what is the idol of the theater?

nonsensical propaganda by scholastics

who wrote corpuscularianism? what is its purpose?

galileo galilei; to present mechanism theories against scholastic ones

what is the fundamental idea behind corpuscularianism?

sensible qualities, such as color, taste, heat, etc., can be explained as a consequence of tiny particles, or corpuscles

how does corpuscularianism play into the idea that the world is made of atoms?

motions and impacts that generate qualities take place at a level below what is observable

what are primary qualities?

inseparable from the body of an object

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ex. size, shape, location, motion, mass

what are secondary qualities?

resides in the observer, not the body (all in your head)

\
ex. color, taste, smell

what did jesuit orazio grassi defend?

aristotelian natural philosophy: the four elements and their qualities

what was the purpose of galileo’s assayer?

to argue against grassi’s view

what did galileo say about primary qualities?

they are objective: inseperable from the body and intrinsic

\
ex. mass, shape, location

what did galileo say about secondary qualities?

they are subjective: separate from the body and extrinsic

who argued that motion is the cause of heat?

galileo: it was stupid to think heat was a quality of an object, as there’s no intrinsic quality that makes water hot or cold if you dip you hand into either a boiling pot or ice bucket

what does galileo say about the aristotelian view of elements?

they’re wrong because earth is perceived by the senses

\
ex. earth is perceived by touch, water by taste, fire by smell, air by sound

where does heat come from according to galileo?

tiny “corpuscles” that have rapid motion

what is the main question of skepticism?

can anything we know to be true *really* be justified?

to defeat skepticism, what two goals should be accomplished?

1. find out as much truth as we can
2. avoid the possibility of error

what’s an easy way to avoid error?

refusing to accept anything, so nothing can be false

descartes’ discourse on method was a prefatory work to which three other essays?

geometry, meteors, and dioptrics

what was descartes’ geometry about?

establishes analytical geometry

what was descartes’ dioptrics about?

establishes the sine law of refraction

what was descartes’ meteors about?

first adequate explanation of the rainbow

descartes asserts “seeing how different learned men may defend different opinions on the same subject, without there ever being more than one which is true, i deemed anything that was no more than plausible to be tantamont to false.” what does this mean?

people have differing opinions on what is true, which is similar to the problem of the criterion: if you have a criteria to figure out what is false, you have to show that that criteria is right, and then you have to show that that criteria is right, and so on ad infinitum

why must descartes employ skeptical doubt?

establish a body of knowledge that is immune to doubt; doubting to find certainty

what are the four parts to the cartesian method of skeptical doubt?

1. if there’s any doubt at all, throw it out
2. break down the problem into constituent parts
3. conduct thoughts in a specific order, simplest to complex
4. ensure nothing is left out

descartes backs up the cartesian method by bringing up the example of what?

his journey of developing analytical geometry; starts from the basics and goes to most complex: proportions → ratios → lines

how what does descartes say about humans and machines?

no means to differentiate machines from animals but we can differentiate humans and machines because they are capable of language

what is the language test?

the utilization of language shows the cognitive and rational capacities of humans that cannot be explained mechanically

why couldn’t descartes publish his treatise *le monde?*

in fear that he’ll be condemned like galileo

what does the wax example establish?

material bodies are extensions of space and can be fully grasped with intellect, not just the senses

describe the wax example.

we have a piece of wax that has sensible qualities: smell, touch, taste, etc. now, crush, burn, melt, destroy, etc. our mind knows that this is the same piece of wax. how? the conclusion is we go beyond the senses, or what is show to us, and use our intellect to conclude that it’s still the same piece of wax

the discourse and meditations appeared in which languages?

french and latin respectively

what were the “meditations” dedicated to?

wise and good doctors of theology

what were the two points descartes wanted to show doctors of theology in “meditations”?

1. god exists
2. mind or soul is not something that dies with the body

what was the “hidden purpose” of the “meditations”?

he hoped for readers to gradually get used to his mechanistic principles and recognize the truth in them before they notice that they destroy the principles of aristotle

why is the structure of “meditations” like therapy?

follows a consecutive order: things placed in doubt can be recovered after the foundation of knowledge is there, but there can be know establishment of knowledge if doubt isn’t gone through

what challenge does the first meditation introduce?

the challenge of finding a criterion of distinguishing what we *really* know vs what we believe, which may be false

when is the “method of doubt” introduced in “meditations”?

1st meditation

explain how to think about cartesian doubt.

1. make a list of “things i thought i knew”
2. eliminate anything that makes it possible to have doubt
3. create a list of “things i genuinely know with certainty” out of the filtered list

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ex. 1. “honey is sweet”


2. how do we know honey is sweet?

how is foundational epistemology structured?

inspired by the deductive structure of geometry, where unchallengable first principles support obscure inferences

explain what happens in doubt stage 1: deceptiveness of the senses.

naturally, we take our senses to gather information about the world. however, they deceive us often. therefore, we must deny that the senses can be sources of knowledge

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that’s not to say we throw away everything, as the example “i am sitting here next to fire” holds true even though we know about it because of our senses

explain what happens in doubt stage 2: the dreaming argument.

there are no definitive signs by which to distinguish being away from being asleep. no sensory experience is reliable, even if the thought is “i have hands”

can anything survive the dreaming argument? why or why not?

yes, math, logic, and general notions like space, time, motion, and body remain sources of truth

explain the “evil demon” argument.

descartes cannot rule out the idea that there is a powerful and malicious demon who takes great pleasure in deceiving us

\
ex. tamagochi being hacked to be depressed all the time; there is no way for it to know that it was altered, only that it is depressed

which meditation establishes the famous line, “i am, i exist”?

2nd meditation

what is “I”?

a thing that thinks, with the thing being something that “doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses and that also imagines and senses”

what is the one truth that is certain, even if a demon is deceiving us?

he cannot be deceived about his own existence, so the certain truth is that he exists

in the 2nd meditation, how does the method of doubt show that descartes will be able to exist even though he has no body?

one can attribute sensations and imagination to the body, and we can be deceived about our sensations. however, the one thing that cannot be separated from his self/soul is thought

explain the “looking out the window and observing men crossing the square” example in relation to the ideas presented in the 2nd meditation

descartes looks out the window and sees men with their skin concealed crossing the square. instinctively, he sees men in the same way he sees the wax. although he cannot see the bodies, his judgement is what establishes them as men

what was aristotelian-scholasticism?

at the time of aristotelian-scholasticism, there was no distinction between…

philosophy and science

what is hylomorphism?

something has matter but form gives it its distinction

what are the four causes of hylomorphism?

matter, form, efficient, and final

what is the problem with “heavy things have heaviness”?

it’s a circular definition

what is a substance?

form + matter; exists on its own

\
ex. statue, tree, apple

what is a quality?

an attribute to a substance; cannot exist on its own

\
ex. color

why are substances realer than qualities?

substances can exist on their own while qualities cannot; that’s not to say that qualities are not real, but they are less so

what model of the universe did scholastics believe in?

geocentrism

what were the four elements of scholasticism?

water, earth, fire, and air

in what order, from bottom to top, are the elements?

water, earth fire, and air

according to scholasticism, why might wood float on water?

the elements are arranged so that water is the closest to the planet and air is the farthest. wood would be described as something that comes from the earth, and since earth rests on water, wood floats on water.

what are the four fundamental qualities of elements?

hot, cold, wet and dry

what is ontology?

theory about what exists; what the world is ultimately made of

what is material?

one of the four scholastic causes; matter which makes it up

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ex. bronze, marble, wood

what is formal?

one of the four scholastic causes; the form or shape

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ex. statue of zeus and not poseidon

what is efficient?

one of the four scholastic causes; what activity made it to be what it is?

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ex. the act of chiseling a bronze block

what is final?

one of the four scholastic causes; what the purpose of the substance is

\
ex. statue created to honor

what did the scholastic god attribute a rock to do?

carry things downward