PHIL101 Final

According to Schopenhauer, why will we never be satisfied?

desires and wants are fundamental to what you are as a human being; you can never stop wanting things

According to Schopenhauer, what is will?

Will is the inner essence of the world. We are nothing but will

What are Buddhism’s four noble truths?

1. Life is suffering

2. Suffering arises from craving

3. To eliminate suffering, eliminate craving

4. The Eightfold Path leads the way out of suffering

Compare pain and pleasure in Schopenhauer’’s terms

Pain is addition/positive, pleasure is negative and takes away from pain

According to Schopenhauer, what is boredom?

 proof that existence itself is not enough for us

Define atheistic existentialism

the view that because there is no god, and no resulting moral laws, individuals are free to determine their own human nature through choices for which they stand accountable

What’s the Dionysian drive? (Nietz)

 our darkest desires (intoxication, ecstasy, obliteration, darkness, instinct, primal, natural, universal oneness)

What’s our Apollonian drive? (Nietz)

what holds us back (dreams/images, stability, form, rationality, boundaries, beauty, order, categories)

What is nihilism? (Nietz)

there are no absolutes or truths (good and evil, right and wrong, value, meaning). instead, things just are

What is the pre-modern worldview? (Nietz)

everything and everyone has a function/purpose/; human beings are rational

What is the modern worldview? (Nietz)

Everything just is; what you are is what you make of yourself

What is the main theme of Borges and I?

Separation of private (I) and public (Borges) self

Camus says humans are ____ beings and seek _____

rational; reasons and meaning

define Camus’ Inner Harmony

 living coherently in an incoherent world

-your actions must be harmonious with your beliefs and values

According to Camus, is life meaningless? Is it worthless?

it is meaningless but not worthless

what is the absurd?

feeling of being alienated

What two things make up the absurd?

our rational cry for meaning and the non-rational silence of the world

According to Camus, what are the two “knows” of the world?

We live and we die

What are the signs of absurdity? (7)

-the absent mind / nothingness

-weariness of life / waking up

-ambivalence toward time / aging 

-the inhumanity of nature

-strangers of others (we don’t fully know anyone)

-strangeness of self

-the reality of death / our own mortality

What is the analogy of Sisyphus?

 the human condition is like rolling a rock up a hill

According to Camus, what are the three options for responding to the human condition? which option does Camus think is rational

resignation/suicide, hope (philosophical suicide), revolt; Camus lands on revolt

Camus said: what counts is the ___ living, not the ____ living

most, best

Trocchia’s Philosophy definition

philosophy presents and responds to a need for conceptual clarity in our lives

Knowledge “of”

aware of surroundings, likes, dislikes, knowledge of senses

Knowledge “about”

how things are (made up, related to other things, purpose)

Abstracted/Logical form

the structure, the way things are put or arranged together

Unity

what things have in common

Abstraction

separating out form from content

-finding an object, then separating

Interpretation

finding form in different content

-finding things in the world that have this form

If Socrates writes conversations, what do presocratics write?

poems, sayings, explanations

What does metaphysics ask?

What is real?

What is Paramenides’ main argument?

change is just an illusion, not fundamentally real

What is Heraclitus’ main argument?

things are always changing everywhere

According to Heraclitus, what is the best symbol for reality and why?

Fire because it never stands still

Why was Socrates put to death?

Blasphemy and corruption

Rather than metaphysics, Socrates was interested in what? (2)

Ethics and politics

What is the Socratic problem?

we don’t know who Socrates truly was because he didn’t write much himself

What is the literal definition of philosophy?

the love of wisdom

What is the Paradox of Inquiry?

you can’t find anything if you don’t know what you’re looking for

What is Socratic wisdom?

awareness of one’s own lack of knowledge

Who said “know thyself”?

Oracle

Formal explanation

the what

Efficient explanation

 the producer/manufacturer or physical cause

Final Explanation

the reason something exists

Material Explanation

What physically composes something

Who created the 4 explanations?

Aristotle

What is philosophical courage?

philosophy involves questioning the most basic beliefs that each of us accepts, and may lead you in directions that society does not support

Who was Suzanne Langer?

one of the first people to study analytic philosophy

What is the main question asked in Meno by Plato?

What is virtue?

What is Socrates’ bee analogy?

all bees share a common feature that makes them bees. this is similar to people, who all have virtue that makes them human.

Where do Socrates and Plato say knowledge comes from?

recalling and understanding old knowledge and experiences

Can virtue be taught? (according to Socrates) Why or why not?

no, because virtuous people don’t always have virtuous children

For what reasons is Eros (i.e., Love) not himself in possession of beauty and goodness? (Symposium)

Eros loves beauty, and one can not love what they already possess. Next, good things are beautiful. So, if Eros lacks beauty, he also lacks goodness.

Why can't Eros be a god? What is his role or relationship to gods and humans? (Symposium)

According to Agathon and Socrates, Eros can’t be a god because is not beautiful or happy. He is not happy because he does not possess beauty and goodness, as all gods do. He is an intermediate between mortal and god/immortal; he is “a great divinity.”

For what reasons is Eros claimed to be a philosopher? What is a philosopher? (Symposium)

He is a lover of wisdom, and therefore not wise nor ignorant, but rather an intermediate between the two. 

What, in addition to goodness and beauty, does Diotima tell Socrates that we desire? How do we try to achieve this? (Symposium)

We desire immortality and try to do this through bloodline/children and the attempt to preserve what we know (by studying)

 In what ways is one’s soul undergoing change, as Diotima explains it?

A soul is always taking on new knowledge, dropping old knowledge, and changing beliefs. 

 What, according to Diotima, motivates the pursuit for fame?

The desire of immortality

What does Diotima mean by the soul being pregnant?

the idea of coming together with someone else at a platonic level and generating ideas to create “intellectual offspring”

Why, according to Diotima, does being united with another’s soul form a “greater communion” than being united with them physically? 

Ideas are more “immortal” than a child ever could be

How does Plato’s symposium define love?

 the desire to fulfill what is missing within you

What, according to Velasquez, is the goal of philosophy? How does he define it?

Philosophy begins with wondering, and the goal is to answer our own questions and make our own decisions about life, its many wonders, and our personal beliefs. He defines philosophy as “the love (and pursuit) of wisdom.”

What might the shadows in Plato's Allegory of the Cave symbolize in our own lives?

The things we have known and believed since birth, whether they are actually true or not.

In what way(s), according to Velasquez, is philosophy hard work?

Philosophy is hard work because one must question their basic beliefs, which may come with criticism and judgment from others. It is also hard because one must think very critically and thoroughly about things that they may be reluctant to question or learn about.

What, as Velasquez understands it, does philosophy have to do with freedom?

Philosophy helps us “break free” of prejudice that we may hold, which then helps us become free from the minds and ideas of others.

Who was Perictione and how did she understand what philosophy is?

Perictione was a philosopher who may have lived around the same time as Plato. She understood philosophy as a search for the purpose of the universe and nature as a whole. 

Who defined groupthink?

Janis

What are the 3 stages of the cave?

Imprisonment, free thought, return

According to Langer, a scientific question is a demand for what?

facts

What analogy does Socrates use to illustrate that while he might perplex others with his question, he himself is just as perplexed

Stingray analogy

How does Langer define “concept”?

the name given to an abstracted form

Empedocles’ metaphysics

everything in this world is some combination of the four elements

According to Empedocles, what are the two major forces in the world?

Love and strife

what did Thales believe about the world?

everything is made of water because it can change forms

Epistemology definition

the study of knowledge

Rationalism definition

the primary way we can know anything is through reasoning

Empiricism definition

sensory observation/perception is the primary mode by which we can know things

Transcendental idealism

Kant’s attempt to combine rationalism and empiricism

a priori knowledge

knowledge independent of sensory experiences

Anselm’s Ontological Argument

1. God is understood as that which nothing greater can be thought.

2. It is greater to exist than not to exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

Who is Anselm and what does he believe about God?

Rationalist, God is real

Contingent existence

parts of something can exist, just not put together yet (ex. Computers during Plato’s time)

Descartes’ method of doubt

Senses are unreliable, “I think therefore I am”

Aposteriori knowledge

empiricism is really the only knowledge we can have; we only know things about the world after experiencing them

Did John Locke argue for innate ideas or a “blank slate” mind?

Blank slate mind

According to Locke, how do primary and secondary qualities differ?

primary qualities are measurable and objective/reliable, secondary qualities are subjective/unreliable

Who is Berkeley and what is his idea?

Empiricist, metaphysical idealism

What’s the main point of metaphysical idealism?

To be is to be perceived

Who is Hume and what does he believe about God

empiricist, we can’t prove there’s a God because we don’t sense him

What does Hume argue about causality?

There are no causes, only conjuctions

Kant’s critiques- space

space is a form of all appearances of the external senses

Kant’s critiques- time

One comes into existence with a sense of before and after, time is a direct condition of internal appearances of our mind and an indirect condition of external experiences

Kant’s critiques- causality

not just an expectation or conjunctions; it is an irreversible structure/filter through which we experience certain events

Noumenon

 inaccessible; a thing in itself that exists independent of our sensory perception of it

Phenomenon

mind-structured sense experience; an appearance/mental image that you have of something

Kant’s two types of a priori knowledge

1. Analytic: true by definition, does not add new content

-ex. All bachelors are unmarried, every effect has a cause

2. Synthetic: derived from reason, “arises out of faculties of knowledge”

-adds new content

-ex. Laws of science (every event has a cause), mathematical axioms

What type of philosopher was Aristotle?

Empiricist

What were Aristotle’s two main areas of study?

Political science and ethics

According to Aristotle, everything we do is for the chief good of _____

happiness