Phil 270 Midterm - Kant

What is ontology according to Wolff?

The most fundamental branch of philosophy that defines and demonstrates the basic concepts and principles common to every other scientific discipline, and provides principles for all other parts of philosophy.

What is the first principle of ontology, according to Wolff?

The principle of non-contradiction (PNC).

How does Wolff define possibility?

What does not involve a contradiction is possible.

Why does Wolff analyze Descartes' cogito argument?

To discover the criteria needed for being certain about anything.

What makes the cogito argument absolutely certain, according to Wolff?

It is inferred from premises which are themselves absolutely certain, and the inference pattern is deductively valid.

How does Wolff demonstrate the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)?

By assuming that this principle is either true or not-true and showing that assuming something can exist without a sufficient reason leads to a contradiction.

How does Wolff define sufficient reason?

That by means of which something else can be understood.

What is Wolff's view on composite beings?

They are made up of other beings that are simple and which cannot be observed through the senses.

Why does Wolff believe in simple beings?

Because a composite being cannot consist of an endless network of relations without any relata that are so related.

How does Wolff explain our representation of bodies as continuous and extended?

Bodies are composed of simple substances that are discrete and un-extended, and the mind represents them as continuous and extended due to confused sensory cognition.

What is the difference between the sensible and intelligible worlds for Wolff?

The sensible world is the actual world as represented by our senses (bodies), while the intelligible world is the actual world as represented through the understanding (simple substances).

According to Wolff, how can something naturally go out of existence?

Through decomposition, which consists of the dissolution of the parts that make something up.

According to Wolff, why is the soul naturally immortal?

The soul is not a composite being since it is not extended, and therefore cannot go out of existence naturally through decomposition.

What is Wolff's argument for the existence of God based on?

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). Everything that exists must have a sufficient reason why it exists.

According to Wolff, what are the characteristics of a necessary being?

Eternal, not identical to the world, omniscient, and omnipotent.

What is Kant's central goal in the Inaugural Dissertation?

To secure a method for metaphysics.

What is general metaphysics?

The science of being qua being.

What are the two ways a concept of a substantial compound can be formed?

Analysis and synthesis.

What concepts are generated when the mind attempts to make the concept of a substantial compound distinct?

Simple and world.

According to Kant, what must exist if composite substances exist?

Simple substances.

According to Kant, what is required for the parts of a composite to constitute a genuine whole?

The composite must be a whole which is not itself a part of anything else, that is to say, a world.

How does Kant describe composite substances perceived through the senses?

As a 'comparative totality'.

What problem arises if simple substances exist in space?

If they are extended, they are not genuine simples, and if they are not extended, they must be mathematical points.

What does Kant propose to do in the Dissertation regarding the conflict between sense and intellect?

Split the horns of the dilemma.

How does Kant say the laws that govern human sensory cognition impose limits?

They only impose limits on what a being constituted like ourselves can imagine or sense.

What is the method of metaphysics which Kant proposes in ID?

Essentially rationalistic.

What does Kant maintain about the human intellect in the Dissertation?

It is a source of cognition which can provide us with knowledge of things as they are in themselves.

What is Kant's most basic, generic term for any kind of mental state which has intentional content?

Representation.

What are the two kinds of cognition?

Intuition and concept.

How does Kant characterize intuitions and concepts in terms of singularity and generality?

Intuitions as singular and concepts as general.

What are judgments and inferences?

A judgment is a representation in which two concepts are combined in thought; an inference is a representation in which a series of judgments are combined together.

According to Kant, what is the logical use of the understanding primarily responsible for?

Making our cognitions distinct.

How does the mind form a general concept, according to Kant?

By first discerning the various features that belong to each of these objects.

How are concepts that are more general formed, according to Kant?

By leaving out the marks contained in a less general concept.

What does Kant stress in his account of the logical use of the understanding?

That the acts of reflection, comparison, and abstraction are always grounded in what is originally given by sense.

How does Kant characterize the most general concepts of all?

As those which belong to ontology.

What is Kant's first major disagreement with Wolff?

They are not themselves generated through acts of reflection, comparison, and abstraction.

What does Kant call the concepts that are given through something other than the logical use of understanding?

'The real use of the understanding'.

What examples does Kant give of the fundamental concepts of ontology?

Possibility, existence, necessity, substance, cause etc.

What does Kant claim about the concepts of ontology?

They are devoid of sensory content.

What is Kant's objection to the Wolffian account?

The concepts of ontology cannot be acquired through the operations characteristic of the logical use of the understanding.

What does Kant say is the criterion for the distinction between sense and intellect based on?

The different origins of the mind’s representations.

How are the faculties of sense and intellect defined?

In terms of receptivity and spontaneity.

What is Kant’s definition of sensibility?

Sensibility is a receptive faculty.

What is Kant’s definition of intelligence (rationality)?

The faculty of a subject in virtue of which it has the power to represent things which cannot by their own quality come before the senses.

What does Descartes say is required for a belief to count as knowledge?

The reasons must guarantee the truth of the proposition.

What does Descartes mean by the "natural light of reason?"

A non-doxastic source of evidence, which provides us with epistemic warrant for a given belief.

According to Descartes, how are non-basic beliefs justified?

They must be inferred from basic beliefs by means of deductively valid inferences.

According to Christian Wolff, what was the most influential philosopher in Germany in the first half of the 18th Century?

Christian Wolff.

According to Wolff, what are the operations which are characteristic of the intellect?

Acts of reflection, comparison and abstraction.

According to Wolff, what is a nominal definition of a concept?

Corresponds to the complete concept of a thing.

According to Wolff, what is a real definition?

A demonstration that the concept defined is possible.

What is Kant proposing to demonstrate with the argument from incongruent counterparts?

The reality of absolute space by showing that it is a necessary precondition for other cognitions.

According to Leibniz, what is a situation, or situs?

A set of relations that a multitude of coexistent bodies have to one another at a given time.