Philosophy Exam Review

What does philosophy mean?

Philo = love; Sophia = wisdom. Philosophy is the love of wisdom.

What is etymology?

The origin of words; philosophy comes from philo + sophia.

What is metaphysics?

Meta = beyond; physics = nature. Study of the ultimate nature of reality.

What is ontology?

Ontos = being. Study of being, what exists: minds, bodies, atoms, quarks.

What is cosmology?

Kosmos = ordered universe. Study of the principles and laws underlying the universe.

What is epistemology?

Episteme = to know. Study of the source, nature, and limits of knowledge.

What is axiology?

Axia = value. Study of value, including ethics and aesthetics.

What is a gadfly?

A fly that stings horses; Socrates unsettles Athens to awaken moral consciousness.

What is Socrates as a midwife?

Helps others give birth to new ideas and well-reasoned beliefs through questioning.

What are the three old charges against Socrates?

Studies sky and earth; makes worse argument stronger; teaches these things to others.

Why are the old charges more dangerous?

Long-standing rumors; jurors have a predisposition to find Socrates guilty.

What are the two new charges?

Corrupting the youth and impiety: disrespecting Athens' gods, introducing new divine things.

Why is Socrates not a Sophist? Give two reasons.

Does not accept money; does not claim to possess or teach the expertise Sophists sell.

Why is Socrates considered the wisest?

Epistemic humility: “I do not think I know what I do not know.”

Explain Socrates' horse analogy against Meletus.

a. Only a few exports in cases of specialized care are the few important- not the majority

b. Cultivating human virtue and raising the youth is a case of specialized care

c. Only a few experts can improve the youth and not the untrained majority

Explain Socrates' no-one-wants-harm argument.

Corrupt youth may harm him; nobody wants harm, so he would not corrupt them intentionally.

What are Socrates' two possibilities for death?

Dreamless sleep without perception OR relocation of the soul to continue philosophy.

Give three ways killing Socrates harms Athens.

City stays asleep; loses moral gadfly; younger philosophers will question Athens even more.

Why does Socrates refuse to stop philosophizing?

He must obey the god, pursue wisdom and truth, and examine himself and others.

What does personifying the Laws mean?

Socrates imagines the Laws speaking as people and questioning his plan to escape.

Give two reasons the Laws say Socrates shouldn't escape.

They raised and educated him; by remaining in Athens, he agreed to obey its laws.

What is the social contract argument in Crito?

Socrates voluntarily remained in Athens and accepted an agreement with its Laws.

Give three parallels between King and Socrates.

Both challenge authority, question accepted beliefs, and create productive tension.

What are King's two types of laws?

Just laws and unjust laws.

Give two features of a just law in King's view.

Uplifts human dignity; majority applies the same rule to itself and the minority.

Give two features of an unjust law.

Degrades human dignity; majority imposes it on minority but not on itself.

What is the skeptics' argument?

Knowledge requires certainty; certainty cannot be obtained; therefore we know nothing.

What is Descartes' response to the skeptics?

Knowledge requires certainty; certainty can be obtained; therefore we know something.

What is Descartes' first indubitable truth?

“I am, I exist” is necessarily true whenever I think or conceive it.

Why can't Descartes doubt his own existence?

Even if deceived, he must exist to be deceived. Doubting confirms existence.

What does Descartes finally say he is?

Res cogitans: a thinking thing, mind, intellect, understanding, or reason.

Name three acts of a thinking thing.

Doubting, understanding, and affirming. Also denying, willing, imagining, sensing.

What happens in Descartes' wax example?

Wax changes sensory qualities when heated, but remains the same wax.

What is the essence of wax?

Extended, flexible, and mutable; understood through intellect alone.

Define fictitious ideas and give an example.

Made by the mind: mermaid, siren, or hippogriff.

Define adventitious ideas and give an example.

Appear to come from outside us: seeing a cup or feeling heat.

Define innate ideas and give an example.

Ideas arising from our nature: thought, truth, or the idea of God.

What is CAP?

Causal Adequacy Principle: at least as much reality in the cause as in the effect.

Explain Descartes' trademark argument.

Finite, imperfect I cannot cause idea of infinite, perfect God; only God can. God exists.

How does Descartes commit error?

Will exceeds or precedes intellect; we judge what we don't clearly and distinctly understand.