Philosophy Final Exam

Philosophy of Religion

The philosophical examination of the themes and concepts involved in religious traditions, including the nature of religion itself, al…Philosophy of Religion

The Phaedo

Plato's dialogue set on the last day of Socrates' life, in which Socrates argues for the immortality of the soul through four main arguments.

Philosophy as practice for death

Socrates' claim that the goal of philosophy is to train the soul to rely on reason rather than the body, preparing it for death, the final separation of soul from body, when the soul can encounter the Forms purely.

The Theory of Forms

Plato's doctrine that beyond the physical world exists a realm of perfect, eternal, non-material realities that are the true objects of knowledge. Particular things in our world imperfectly participate in these Forms.

Psyche

Greek for soul. For Plato, the immortal, rational, non-bodily principle that animates a living person. Distinct from the body and capable of surviving death.

The Cyclical Argument

Plato's first argument for the soul's immortality. All things come to be from their opposites. Since alive and dead are opposites, coming-to-life must balance dying. Therefore everything that dies must come back to life.

Equivocation

A logical fallacy in which a term is used with two different meanings within the same argument. The Cyclical Argument is accused of this regarding the word opposites, since large and small are gradable comparatives while alive and dead are contraries.

Anamnesis

Greek for recollection. Plato's theory that learning is not gaining new knowledge but re-membering knowledge the soul already possessed before birth from its encounter with the Forms.

The Argument from Recollection

Plato's second argument for immortality. We recognize the deficiency of equal things in the world, which triggers recollection of the Form of Equality itself. Since this knowledge cannot come from the senses, the soul must have existed before birth.

Realism about universals

The view that abstract concepts like Equality, Beauty, and Justice correspond to real entities existing independently of minds and language. Required for the Argument from Recollection to work.

Nominalism about universals

The view that abstract concepts are merely names or mental abstractions useful for organizing experience, not real entities. If true, the Argument from Recollection collapses.

The Affinity Argument

Plato's third argument for immortality. The soul resembles the invisible, eternal, non-composite realm of Forms, while the body resembles the visible, changing, composite material world. Therefore the soul is most likely to make its way to the realm of Forms upon death.

Harmonia

The musical attunement or harmony of a lyre. Simmias proposed analogy for the soul. Like harmony, the soul is immaterial and akin to the divine, yet Simmias argues it may depend entirely on the physical body and perish with it.

Simmias' Objection

The soul may be like the attunement of a lyre, immaterial and akin to the Forms, yet entirely dependent on the physical instrument and ceasing when the body dies. Attacks the Affinity Argument by showing analogy-based arguments can cut both ways.

Cebes' Objection

The soul may outlast many bodies as a weaver outlasts many cloaks, but still eventually wear out and perish. Longevity is not the same as immortality. This objection drives the Final Argument.

The Final Argument

Plato's fourth argument for immortality. The soul essentially participates in the Form of Life. Since nothing can simultaneously participate in opposite Forms, the soul cannot admit of Death. Therefore the soul is deathless.

Athanatos

Greek for deathless or immortal. Literally not-death-able. The conclusion of the Final Argument. The soul cannot participate in the Form of Death.

Misology

The hatred of reason and argument, which can arise when one's cherished arguments are refuted. Socrates warns against it as an intellectual vice. The proper response to a refuted argument is to find a better one, not to abandon reason.

Contraries vs. Contradictories

Contradictories mean one must be true with no middle ground, such as alive and not-alive. Contraries cannot both be true but neither need be true, such as alive and dead since a rock is neither. This distinction underlies the equivocation critique of the Cyclical Argument.

Possible being (Aquinas)

A being that has a cause or parent for its existence and can perish in the ordinary sense. Examples include people, animals, and plants. Such beings exist on loan and have no intrinsic hold on existence.

Necessary being (Aquinas)

A being that cannot fail to exist. Two sub-types: necessary beings that derive their necessity from another, and the being whose necessity is entirely from itself owing nothing outside itself, which is God.

Analogical language (Aquinas)

When we apply terms like exists or good to God, we do so analogically, not in the exact same sense as creatures, nor in a completely different sense, but pointing in the same direction while acknowledging God's reality exceeds our concepts.

Quantifier shift fallacy

The logical error of moving from each thing is possibly nothing to possibly all things are nothing simultaneously. A key objection to Aquinas' Third Way.

The Logical Problem of Evil

The argument associated with J.L. Mackie that the four propositions, God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is perfectly good, and evil exists, form a logically inconsistent set. Not merely that theism is unlikely but that it is positively irrational.

Moral evil

Suffering and harm caused by the free choices of moral agents such as murder, cruelty, and war. The Free Will Defense addresses this type of evil.

Natural evil

Suffering caused by natural processes such as earthquakes, disease, and predation. Not caused by human free choices. The Free Will Defense does not straightforwardly cover this type.

Omnipotence

God's attribute of being all-powerful. Classical theism holds God can do anything logically possible but cannot bring about a logical contradiction such as a free creature causally determined to always choose good.

Omniscience

God's attribute of being all-knowing, including knowledge of all evil and how to prevent it.

Classical Theism

The tradition held by Christian, Jewish, and Islamic thinkers that God is omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, eternal, immutable, and the creator of all things. The Logical Problem of Evil targets this conception specifically.

Atheologian

A person who constructs a positive argument that God does not exist, as opposed to merely lacking belief. Mackie is an atheologian in the context of the Logical Problem of Evil.

Plantinga's Free Will Defense

The argument that it is logically possible that God has a morally sufficient reason for permitting moral evil, namely the great good of libertarian free will, which by its nature cannot be combined with a guarantee of always choosing good.

Libertarian free will

The view that a person is genuinely free only if they are both free to perform and free to refrain from an action, not causally determined either way. Required for Plantinga's Free Will Defense.

Morally sufficient reason

A reason that would morally justify God's permitting evil. For a defense rather than a theodicy, the theist only needs to show it is logically possible that God has one, not that any specific reason is true.

Transworld depravity

Plantinga's concept that a person suffers from transworld depravity if in every possible world in which they exist with libertarian free will, they would freely choose to do at least some moral wrong. If true of all possible free persons, a world with free creatures and no evil is impossible for God to actualize.

Theodicy vs. Defense

A theodicy gives the actual reason God permits evil, a full justification. A defense only shows it is logically possible for God to have a morally sufficient reason. Defenses carry a lower burden of proof and are harder to refute.

Evidential Problem of Evil

The argument that the quantity and distribution of actual suffering in the world makes God's existence improbable, not logically impossible. Most contemporary discussion has shifted to this form after Plantinga's defeat of the logical version.

Ethics

The branch of philosophy concerned with how life should be lived. Involves reflection on the foundations of morality, the goodness or badness of actions, and the relationship between living morally and living well.

Eudaimonia

Greek for flourishing or living well, often inadequately translated as happiness. The ultimate goal of human life for both Plato and Aristotle. Not merely pleasure but the full actualization of human nature.

Eudaimonism

The ethical view that morality and genuine flourishing are ultimately the same thing. Being virtuous just is what it means to live well. Plato's and Aristotle's shared answer to the why-be-moral question.

The Why-Be-Moral Question

The question of how doing what ethics demands could help us live well, given that moral demands often conflict with personal interest. Answered five ways: immoralism, forget living well, compromise, moralistic response, and eudaimonistic response.

Immoralism

The position that conventional moral demands should be abandoned in favor of self-interest, power, or personal excellence. Associated with Thrasymachus and Nietzsche in qualified form.

Egoism

The view that people are or should be motivated purely by self-interest. The egoist position in the Republic holds that we are only just because we lack the power to be unjust with impunity.

The Ring of Gyges

Plato's thought experiment featuring a ring that grants invisibility and immunity from consequences. Glaucon's argument is that if anyone had such a ring, both just and unjust people would behave identically, proving justice has no intrinsic value.

Tripartite Soul

Plato's theory that the soul has three distinct parts. Reason is the calculating truth-seeking part. Spirit or Thumos is the honor-loving passionate part. Appetite is the desiring part seeking pleasure and satisfaction.

Thumos

The middle part of Plato's tripartite soul. Spirited and honor-loving, it naturally allies with reason against appetite. Associated with righteous indignation, love of victory, and courage.

Justice (Plato)

The proper internal ordering of the soul in which reason rules, spirit supports reason, and appetite obeys. Mirrors the just city in which each class performs its proper function.

Intrinsic good

Something valuable for its own sake regardless of its consequences, such as joy or beauty. Glaucon's challenge is to show justice is an intrinsic good.

Instrumental good

Something valuable only for what it produces, not in itself, such as medicine or paying taxes. Most people wrongly place justice in this category according to Glaucon.

Glaucon's three-part challenge

First, justice originated as a social contract among the weak. Second, the Ring of Gyges shows people are only just from necessity. Third, the perfectly unjust man with a reputation for justice flourishes more than the perfectly just man with a reputation for injustice.

Nietzsche's immoralism

Nietzsche rejects conventional moral evaluation of good and evil as a system rooted in slave morality, while retaining ethical evaluation of good and bad based on life-enhancement. He still asks how life should be lived but answers differently.

Life-enhancement (Nietzsche)

Nietzsche's supreme criterion for evaluating values. Whether a concept, practice, or value enables human flourishing and excellence, the perfection of one's type, matters more than whether it is true.

Will to Power

Nietzsche's proposed fundamental drive of life, the drive to discharge, expand, and overcome. In its highest form it is self-overcoming rather than domination of others.

Master morality

Nietzsche's term for the value system of the noble aristocratic type. The primary term is good, applied to oneself first as strong, powerful, and life-affirming. Bad is a secondary afterthought for what is low or common. Values are created from strength.

Slave morality

Nietzsche's term for the value system arising from ressentiment among the powerless. The primary term is evil, applied to the masters. Good is then defined as the negation of evil, encompassing meekness, humility, and suffering. Values are defined reactively.

Ressentiment

The French term Nietzsche uses for the smoldering impotent resentment of those who cannot express their will to power directly and who transform their weakness into a moral framework that condemns the powerful as evil. The psychological engine of slave morality.

Life-denial (Nietzsche)

Nietzsche's critique of Platonism and Christianity. They denigrate the body, the senses, and natural drives in favor of abstract otherworldly ideals, thereby suppressing what is powerful and excellent in human beings.

Akrasia

Greek for lack of mastery over oneself. Weakness of will, acting against one's own better judgment. Distinguished from vice which acts from a corrupt principle and continence which acts rightly despite struggle.

Incontinence

The Latin equivalent of akrasia used by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Acting contrary to one's deliberate choice and reasoning under the influence of passion.

Enkrateia

Greek for continence, the opposite of akrasia. The continent person has bad or strong desires, knows what is right, struggles, and wins. Morally praiseworthy but less than full virtue because the struggle remains.

Plato's intellectualism on akrasia

Plato's view that akrasia strictly speaking does not exist. We always do what we believe to be best. Cases that look like weakness of will are really cases of cognitive error in which the person confused pleasure with the good.

Aristotle's account of akrasia

Akrasia is real but knowledge is involved in a complex way. The incontinent person does not have their full active knowledge engaged at the moment of action. Passion renders it dormant, like a drunk person reciting verse they do not truly understand.

Having vs. using knowledge

A key distinction in Aristotle's account of akrasia. One can possess knowledge that is not presently active, or be actively using it in the present moment. Under passion, moral knowledge is had but not used.

The Practical Syllogism

Aristotle's model of deliberate action. A universal moral premise called the major plus a particular perceptual judgment about a present object called the minor equals an action as the conclusion. In akrasia the appetitive minor premise of the bad syllogism overrides the moral minor premise of the good syllogism.

Impetuosity

One of Aristotle's two types of akrasia. The person acts without deliberating at all as passion rushes in before reason can speak. There is no inner struggle at the time and regret comes after.

Weakness (Astheneia)

The second of Aristotle's two types of akrasia. The person deliberates, forms a resolution, and then fails to follow through, overridden by passion at the point of action. There is an inner struggle and they are defeated in it. Aristotle considers this worse than impetuosity.

Vice vs. incontinence (Aristotle)

The vicious person pursues bad ends by deliberate choice because their principle of action is corrupt. The incontinent person pursues bad ends against their deliberate choice because their principle is intact but the execution fails. Incontinence is curable while vice is harder to cure.

Brutality (Aristotle)

A character type beyond ordinary vice associated with sub-human or diseased appetites. Placed at the bottom of Aristotle's spectrum of character types opposite heroic virtue. Less dangerous than vice but more horrible because reason is absent entirely.

Profligacy

Deliberately choosing excess pleasures as good in itself, pursuing them on principle rather than being overcome by passion. The profligate person has no remorse and is incurable, making them worse than the incontinent person.

Aristotle's spectrum of characters

From worst to best: Brutish, Vicious or Profligate, Incontinent, Continent, Temperate or Virtuous, Heroic. Each represents a different relationship between rational judgment and action.

Political Philosophy

The application of ethical concepts to the social sphere, dealing with forms of government and social existence and providing a standard by which to analyze and judge existing institutions. Normative rather than primarily descriptive.

Normative vs. descriptive

Descriptive claims describe how things are as in political science. Normative claims evaluate how things ought to be as in political philosophy. Political philosophy is normative and asks what the best form of government would be.

Individualism

The methodological and substantive view that the individual person is the core unit of society. Political analysis and proposals are built from the perspective of individual rights, freedoms, and interests.

Collectivism

The methodological and substantive view that the community or collective is the primary unit of society. Political analysis begins with what is good for the whole rather than the parts.

State of nature (Rousseau)

The hypothetical condition of human beings before organized society. For Rousseau a condition of natural simplicity, innocence, and freedom that was corrupted by the development of society, private property, and dependence on others.

The Social Contract (Rousseau)

The foundational agreement by which individuals come together, submit their particular wills to the general will, and form a legitimate political community. Each person surrenders natural freedom and gains civil freedom in return.

General will

Rousseau's concept of the will of the people considered as a unified whole, always directed toward the common good. Distinct from the will of all. Laws are legitimate only when they express the general will and apply universally to all citizens.

Will of all

The mere aggregate of individual preferences, the sum of what each person wants for themselves including self-interested desires. Can be factional, contradictory, and opposed to the common good. Distinct from the general will.

Democratic conception of the general will

The interpretation that the general will is simply what citizens decide together in their sovereign assembly. Problem: voters may lack the knowledge or virtue to vote in the true common interest.

Transcendent conception of the general will

The interpretation that the general will is an abstract objective common interest existing independently of what any citizen actually wants. Problem: how do we access or verify this abstract will and who gets to identify it.

Natural freedom (Rousseau)

The unlimited freedom of the state of nature, doing whatever one has the power and will to do unconstrained by others. Surrendered in the social contract.

Civil freedom (Rousseau)

The bounded freedom guaranteed within the state by the general will. Less in scope than natural freedom but protected and secure. What citizens gain from the social contract.

Moral freedom (Rousseau)

The highest form of freedom for Rousseau, the freedom that comes from obeying a law one has genuinely given oneself. True self-governance achieved through legitimate participation in the general will.

The Legislator (Rousseau)

The rare extraordinary figure in Rousseau's theory whose role is to inspire collective identity in new citizens and persuade them by non-rational means to legislate in their own best interests. Problematic because it seems to undermine the self-governance the theory is supposed to guarantee.

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains

Rousseau's famous opening of The Social Contract. Not merely a complaint but the statement of his central philosophical problem: can subjection to political authority ever be made legitimate.

Timocracy

The first stage of political degeneration from aristocracy in Plato's Republic. Rule by those who love honor and military prestige. The soul type is spirited and honor-driven. Associated with Sparta.

Oligarchy

The second stage of political degeneration. Rule by the wealthy with property qualifications for office and the poor excluded from power. The soul type is the money-loving person governed by necessary appetites.

Democracy (Plato's critique)

The third stage of degeneration. Rule of freedom in which all desires are treated as equally valid. Plato's four critiques are: excessive freedom bleeds into all relationships, governance by the incompetent and untrained, produces demagogues, and cannot sustain itself and slides into tyranny.

Tyranny (Plato)

The worst and final stage of political degeneration. Rule by one person enslaved to lawless appetites. Arises from the power vacuum created by democratic excess. The most free regime becomes the most enslaved.

Demagogue

A political leader who gains power by appealing to popular passions, fears, and resentments rather than wisdom or reason. Plato's drones, the class from which tyrants typically emerge. They champion the people but ultimately serve only themselves.

The five regimes (Plato)

In descending order of quality: Aristocracy, rule of reason and the best; Timocracy, honor; Oligarchy, wealth; Democracy, freedom and unnecessary appetite; Tyranny, lawless appetite. Each corresponds to a soul type.

Liberalism

The political tradition seeking the best form of government that permits individuals to pursue life as they see fit within a neutral framework. Holds a positive view of human nature and believes society should be structured by reason. Divided into classical and modern wings.

Classical Liberalism

The wing of liberalism emphasizing minimal government intervention, maximum individual freedom, a limited state, and toleration. Associated with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Modern Social Democratic Liberalism

The wing of liberalism accepting state intervention to ensure fairness, correct market failures, and make formal freedoms substantively real for all citizens. More oriented toward community and equality of outcome.

Conservatism

The political tradition skeptical of widespread reform and revolution. Values tradition and tested institutions, holds a pessimistic view of human nature, distrusts reason as a guide to social reform, and regards private property as essential to protecting against tyranny.

Socialism

The political tradition valuing centralized state power particularly over the economy. Opposes free markets and private competition and advocates collective or state ownership. Distribution principle: from each according to ability, to each according to need.

Anarchism

The political tradition holding that the state as such should be abolished along with all unjustified hierarchies. Can be individualist with no external authority over the individual or collectivist with voluntary stateless communities.