PHIL 309 Exam 2

What is God according to Conway?

The exemplar of freedom in that he is determined by nothing but his own perfect nature, that is, he is determined to act in accordance with his wisdom and good- ness.

What is the Middle Spirit/Christ/Logos according to Conway?

A "mediating entity," which bridges the immutable God and mutable creation; this partially mutable expression of God's idea is how he solves the Cartesian problem of interaction and actualizes creation.

What is a created substance according to Conway?

A single, unified thing that consists of both body and spirit, differing only in degree rather than in kind.

What is Vitalism according to Conway?

The idea that every creature is capable of “every kind of feeling, perception, or knowledge, even love, all power and virtue, joy and fruition

What is transmutation according to Conway

The migration or revolution of the soul through different forms of existence, driven by a moral law inscribed into the nature of all creatures by God. 

What is Leibniz’s Complete Concept Theory of Substance?

The idea that the individual nature or essence of a substance, as that essence is known by God prior to the choice to create a world.

What is Leibniz’s Corporeal Theory of Substance?

The idea that substances are much like Aristotle’s “hylomorphic” substances: living bodies, which are composites of form and extended matter.

What is Leibniz’s Monadic Theory of Substance?

The idea that the only substances are simple, soul-like entitites, endowed with intrinsic properties of perception and appetition.

What is a Monad according to Leibniz?

Unextended, soul-like substances

What is Preestablished Harmony according to Leibniz?

A rejection of Descartes' account of soul-body interaction, arguing that causally self-sufficient substances operate in this operation, where each monad's changes unfold from its own complete concept without genuine interaction.

What is Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles? 

For any two things, a and b, if a and b are non-identical, there is some property F, such that Fa and not-Fb. If a and b are Leibnizian substances, they satisfy this principle in virtue of a property intrinsic to their natures

What is Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason?

“We can find no true or existent fact, no true assertion, without there being a sufficient reason why it is thus and not otherwise, although most of the time these reasons cannot be known to us”

Predicate-in-Subject Principle

For any true affirmative proposition of subject-predicate form, universal or particular, necessary or contingent, the concept of the predicate is contained in the concept of the subject

What is Entelechy according to Leibniz?

A self-directed force that actualizes a monad's potential into reality, making it a unique, non-material, and active entity

What is Leibnizian Optimisim?

A solution to the problem of evil by arguing that God, being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, created the optimal world despite the presence of suffering and evil. In this view, evil is a necessary part of a greater good that could not exist without it, or the world is simply the best possible arrangement of events. 

What is Empiricism according to Locke?

The philosophical theory that all knowledge comes from sensory experience. He argued that the mind is born a Tabula Rasa and is filled with ideas through sensation and reflection.

What is Tabula Rasa according to Locke?

A blank slate; not innate

What is an idea according to Locke?

An object of thinking

What is Locke’s Representationalism?

The theory that we perceive the external world through mental "ideas" that act as representations of reality, distinguished by primary qualities and secondary qualities.

What is sensation according to Locke?

one of the five senses; some combination of the five senses

What is reflection according to Locke?

Ideas of volitions; ideas of our mental states

How are Simple Ideas conjured?

From sensation and reflection.

How are Complex ideas conjured?

From combination, comparison, and abstraction

What does combination consist of?

Substance, that which underlies qualities, and modes, that which is dependent

What is comparison?

Relations of ideas

What is abstraction?

General ideas

What is Substance according to Locke?

A thing that is capable of existing on its own, independently; combines the idea of existence/being, and the idea of supporting qualities/accidents/modes

What are Primary Qualities according to Locke?

The qualities that are really in the objects and which are correctly represented by our ideas of them (also called “real”, “original”)

What are some Primary Qualities according to Locke?

Solidity, extension, shape, motion or rest, size, texture, position, existence, duration, number

What are Secondary Qualities according to Locke?

the qualities that are not really in objects, but which arise because of the relation between mind and object (also called “powers” or “sensible qualities”)

What are some Secondary Qualities?

Colors, sounds, smells, tastes, light, heat

What is knowledge according to Locke?

Perception of the agreement or disagreement between two ideas

What is Intuitive Knowledge according to Locke?

Perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention of any other

What is Demonstrative Knowledge according to Locke?

Perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas mediately, through reasoning and proofs. Each individual step is intuitive.

What is Sensitive “Knowledge” according to Locke?

Perception of the particular existence of finite beings, “going beyond bare probability and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty.” “But faith or opinion, but not knowledge.”