Philosophy Vocab Quiz

philosophy

love of wisdom

systematic understanding of THE WORLD and OUR place in it

• Descartes: Approaches philosophy as an epistemological search for absolute certainty, starting from radical doubt to build a secure foundation for all sciences.

• Spinoza: Treats philosophy as a geometric and rational demonstration of the structure of reality and human liberation from bondage.

• Leibniz: Views philosophy as a harmonious synthesis of truths about the cosmos, reconciling mechanism with teleology.

evidence

reasoning and rational arguments

2 things you need for an argument

1) conclusion

2) premise

conclusion

thing you want believe or proved

premise

reason in favor of the conclusion

• Authors: Central to how Descartes builds his proofs (e.g., the premise that he has an idea of a perfect God leads to the conclusion that God exists).

6 branches of philsophy

1) metaphysics (whats reality)

2) epistemology (how can I know)

3) logic (standards for reasoning correctly)

4) ethics (how should you live)

5) political theory (what are legislative forms of government)

6) aesthetics (whats beautiful)

metaphysics

branch of philosophy

after the discovery of physics

whats reality

• Descartes: Investigates the metaphysics of mind, body, and God.

• Spinoza: Focuses on substance monism (God or Nature as the sole substance).

• Leibniz: Proposes a metaphysics of individual substances (monads) governed by pre-established harmony.

epistemology

branch of philosophy

concern knowledge

how can i know

• Authors: All three are rationalists who argue that true knowledge comes from a priori reasoning, innate ideas, and intellect rather than mere sensory experience.

logic

branch of philosophy

Standards for reasoning correctly

ethics

branch of philosophy

right actions, consequences, character

how should you live

• Authors:

  • Spinoza: Spends the majority of his Ethics detailing how human emotions bind us and how intellectual love of God leads to freedom and virtue.

  • Descartes & Leibniz: Also touch on ethics, though their primary focus in these texts is metaphysical and epistemological.

political theory

branch of philosophy

studies the concepts, values, and theoretical justifications behind politics, the state, and social order

what are legislative forms of government

aesthetics

branch of philosophy

nature of art

whats beautiful

skepticism

knowledge claims are impossible

• Authors:

  • Descartes: Uses radical skepticism (the dream hypothesis, the evil demon hypothesis) in Meditation I as a tool to tear down false beliefs and find an indubitable foundation.

  • Spinoza & Leibniz: Generally bypass radical methodological skepticism, preferring to construct rational systems directly from definitions and axioms.

radical doubt

if any belief has even the slightest doubt we will withhold our assent

innate

inborn

• Authors:

  • Descartes: Argues that ideas like perfection, infinity, and God are stamped onto the mind innately.

  • Leibniz: Agrees heavily with innate ideas, famously adding "except for the intellect itself" to Locke's empiricist maxim.

adventious

external

fabricated

made up

objective reality

representational reality

real as an object of the mind

ex. Spiderman in movie

formal reality

actual reality existent reality

ex. spider man costume walking in new york

substance

That which is in itself and is conceived through itself

(i.e., that the conception of which does not require the conception of another thing from which it has to be formed)

Authors:

• Descartes: Defines substance loosely, recognizing God as ultimate substance and mind/body as created substances.

• Spinoza: Strictly defines substance so that only one can exist (God or Nature).

• Leibniz: Multiplies substances, arguing the universe is made of an infinite number of individual created substances (monads).

rationalism

there are innate ideas that accessible by reason alone

Corpuscularianism

all corporeal substances are divisible particles

attribute

that which the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence.

Authors: Spinoza argues that substance possesses infinitely many attributes, of which humans can only perceive two: Thought and Extension.

Mode

a way (modus) in which an attribute of a substance is expressed

Authors: Spinoza states that all finite things—including individual people, thoughts, and physical objects—are modes of God/Nature.

affection

a particular form, or state, taken on, or expressed, by a thing

the cogito argument

•  The cogito argument

  • Meaning: The argument that the act of doubting one's own existence proves the reality of one's own thinking mind (Cogito, ergo sum — "I think, therefore I am").

  • Authors: Descartes establishes this in Meditation II as the first indubitable truth that survives all radical doubt.

thinking thing

• Meaning: A substance whose essence is thought; a mind or consciousness.

• Authors: Descartes concludes that even if his body and senses are illusions, he is fundamentally a res cogitans—a thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, and wills.

extended thing

• Meaning: A substance whose essence is extension in space (having length, breadth, and depth); physical matter.

• Authors: Descartes contrasts this with the thinking thing, establishing the famous Cartesian mind-body dualism.

clear and distinct perceptions

• Meaning: Perceptions that are so self-evident, present, and transparent to the attentive mind that they cannot possibly be doubted.

• Authors: Descartes uses this as his primary criterion for truth once God's existence and benevolence are established.

intellect and will

• Meaning: The faculty of understanding/perceiving ideas versus the faculty of choosing, assenting, or judging.

• Authors: Descartes (in Meditation IV) explains that errors occur when our unlimited will goes beyond the limits of our finite intellect, choosing to affirm things we do not clearly and distinctly understand.

the casual argument for the existence of god (the trademark argument)

• Meaning: The argument that an effect must have at least as much formal reality as its cause has objective reality; since we have an idea of an infinite, perfect God, and we are finite, only an actual infinite God could have caused that idea (leaving His "trademark").

• Authors: Descartes deploys this in Meditation III to prove God exists.

the ontological argument for the existence of god

• Meaning: The a priori argument that God, defined as a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, must exist because existing in reality is greater than existing merely as an idea.

• Authors: Descartes presents this in Meditation V; Leibniz also analyzes and refines the ontological argument to show that God's possibility entails His actual existence.

Can God be a deceiver? Suppose God is not a deceiver, why do we make mistakes?

Meaning: The problem of error reconciled with a good God.

• Authors: Descartes concludes that God cannot be a deceiver because deception implies a defect or malice. We make mistakes not because God built us to err, but because we misuse our free will by making judgments on matters we don't clearly understand.

mind-body problem

• Meaning: The philosophical puzzle of how a non-physical mind (res cogitans) can interact with and influence a physical body (res extensa).

• Authors:

  • Descartes: Struggles with this, famously suggesting the pineal gland as the site of interaction.

  • Spinoza: Solves it by rejecting dualism entirely; mind and body are the same underlying substance expressed through two different attributes (Thought and Extension).

  • Leibniz: Solves it via pre-established harmony; mind and body do not actually interact; they are synchronized like two perfect clocks running in parallel.

essence

• Meaning: What makes something what it is; the internal nature or defining characteristics of an entity.

• Authors: For Spinoza, the actual essence of a thing is its striving to persist in its being (conatus).

principle of sufficient reasoning

• Meaning: The philosophical principle that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground for why it is and why it is the way it is.

• Authors: Central to Leibniz, who uses it to argue that nothing happens without a reason why it should be so rather than otherwise. Spinoza has a similar deterministic bedrock where everything follows necessarily from divine nature.

naturalism

• Meaning: The philosophical belief that everything arises from natural properties and causes, and supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded.

• Authors: Spinoza is a prime example of a radical naturalist, viewing God and nature as identical (Deus sive Natura).

god or nature according to spinoza

• Meaning: The doctrine that there is only one infinite substance, and God and the physical universe are one and the same (Deus sive Natura).

• Authors: Spinoza rejects a traditional anthropomorphic God who creates the world with free will, replacing it with an impersonal, necessary, eternal system.

What is Spinoza's argument for substance monism? (What does substance monism mean for the existence of ordinary mid-sized objects, like furniture? What does substance monism mean for us?)

• Meaning: Monism is the view that reality is made of only one fundamental kind of thing/substance.

• Authors: Spinoza argues that two substances cannot share the same attribute; since attributes are infinite, there can only be one substance possessing all attributes. Ordinary objects and humans are not independent substances, but rather modes (temporary modifications) of that single divine substance.

parallelism

• Meaning: The doctrine that mental and physical events correspond to one another without causal interaction.

• Authors: Spinoza asserts psycho-physical parallelism: the order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things, because Thought and Extension are attributes of the exact same substance.

3 levels of knowledge

• Meaning: Spinoza's epistemological hierarchy.

• Authors: Spinoza outlines: (1) Imagination/Opinion (vague sensory experience), (2) Reason (adequate ideas of common properties and logical deductions), and (3) Intuitive Knowledge (scientia intuitiva), which grasps things through the essence of God.

adequate ideas

• Meaning: True ideas that, considered in themselves without relation to an external object, have all the intrinsic properties of true knowledge.

• Authors: Spinoza argues that achieving adequate ideas of our emotions and place in nature brings psychological freedom and peace.

Emotions and passions (especially the basic emotions of desire, joy, and sadness)

• Meaning: Affects of the body by which its power of acting is increased or diminished, alongside the ideas of these affects.

• Authors: Spinoza famously categorizes the primary passions in Part III of the Ethics into Desire (Cupiditas), Joy (Laetitia - transitioning to a greater perfection), and Sadness (Tristitia - transitioning to a lesser perfection).

conatus

• Meaning: The innate drive or striving of a thing to persist in its own existence.

• Authors: Spinoza states that everything strives to persevere in its being, which constitutes its actual essence.

virtue

• Meaning: Human power or capability defined by acting in accordance with the laws of one's own nature (guided by reason).

• Authors: Spinoza equates virtue with power and acting from understanding; to act virtuously is to act out of the guidance of reason and preservation of oneself.

moral realism

• Meaning: The meta-ethical view that moral judgments describe objective moral truths independent of human opinion.

• Authors: Spinoza adopts a form of naturalistic moral realism where "good" and "bad" relate directly to what enhances or diminishes human power and understanding.

Model of human nature

• Meaning: An ideal archetype of human life that people use as a standard for themselves.

• Authors: Spinoza discusses human models to show how people construct ideals of freedom and virtue, though nature itself operates by fixed necessary laws rather than teleological ideals.

freedom and slavery

• Meaning: Autonomy driven by reason versus bondage to passive emotions and external forces.

• Authors: Spinoza argues that true human freedom comes from understanding the necessary causal structure of nature and transforming passive emotions into active, adequate understandings, whereas ignorance of causes leaves us enslaved to our passions.

occasionalism

• Meaning: The occasionalist doctrine that created substances cannot truly cause changes in each other; God intervenes to cause the corresponding event on every occasion (e.g., God moves your body when your mind wills it).

• Authors: Formulated by followers of Descartes (like Malebranche) to solve mind-body interaction. Leibniz rejects occasionalism as requiring a "perpetual miracle," proposing pre-established harmony instead.

god according to leibniz

• Meaning: A supreme, rational, perfect being who acts as the ultimate architect and chooser of the universe.

• Authors: Leibniz views God as choosing to create the best of all possible worlds based on wisdom, goodness, and the principle of sufficient reason.

indivial created substance

• Meaning: A complete, independent unit of reality that contains within its concept everything that will ever happen to it.

• Authors: Leibniz argues in the Discourse on Metaphysics that individual substances (monads) are self-contained and mirror the entire universe.

complete concept

• Meaning: The notion of an individual substance that includes all of its predicates, past, present, and future, such that God can deduce everything true about it from that concept alone.

• Authors: Leibniz introduces this to show that contingency and individual identity are fully accounted for in God's mind prior to creation.

mirror of god

• Meaning: The idea that every individual substance reflects the entire universe from its own unique perspective.

• Authors: Leibniz uses this metaphor to describe how each monad mirrors the whole cosmos, acting like a living mirror of God's universe.

Identity of indiscernibles

• Meaning: The metaphysical principle stating that if two entities share all the same properties (attributes/predicates), they are identical (there cannot be two distinct things that are qualitatively identical in every respect).

• Authors: Leibniz champions this principle, arguing that nature never makes two identical things (e.g., no two identical leaves).

predication

• Meaning: The linguistic or logical statement attributing a property to a subject.

• Authors: Leibniz analyzes predication through his concept containment theory: true predication always involves the predicate being contained within the subject's complete concept.

necessary vs contingent

• Meaning: Necessary truths are true in all possible worlds (whose negation is logically impossible); contingent truths are true in this world but could have been otherwise (whose negation is logically possible).

• Authors: Leibniz makes a famous distinction between absolute necessities (logic/math) and contingent truths (facts about the world, which depend on God's choice of the best world).

freedom and divine foreknowledge

• Meaning: How human free will can coexist with God's prior knowledge of everything we will do.

• Authors: Leibniz argues that God foresees our free choices because our complete concepts contain those free choices; God chooses to actualize a world where we freely choose a certain path.

mill argument

• Meaning: The thought experiment imagining enlarging the brain or a thinking machine to the size of a mill so you could walk inside it, arguing you would only find mechanical parts bumping into each other, never thoughts or perceptions.

• Authors: Leibniz uses this argument to prove that perception and consciousness cannot be explained by mechanical, physical interactions alone, necessitating non-spatial monads.

pre-established harmony

• Meaning: The theory that substances do not causally interact with each other; instead, God programmed all substances at creation to run in exact synchronization and harmony, like synchronized clocks.

• Authors: Leibniz uses this to solve the mind-body problem and interaction among monads without needing direct physical causation or continuous divine intervention.

best of all possible worlds

• Meaning: The optimistic metaphysical view that the actual world created by God is the optimal balance of maximum variety and simplest laws, resulting in the greatest possible amount of perfection and goodness.

• Authors: Leibniz defends this argument, stating that an all-wise and all-good God must have chosen the best universe to actualize.

Monad (including a hierarchy of monads, perception, and appetite)

• Meaning: Simple, unextended, immaterial substances that make up the fundamental building blocks of the universe, possessing internal perception and striving (appetite).

• Authors: Leibniz details the monadology, organizing them in a hierarchy ranging from bare monads (dormant perception in matter), to animal souls (sentient memory), to rational minds/spirits (capable of reflection and knowing God).

idealism

• Meaning: The metaphysical view that reality is fundamentally mental, spiritual, or immaterial in nature.

• Authors: Leibniz's monadology is often categorized as a form of idealism because physical space and matter are ultimately phenomenal appearances generated by the perceptions of underlying immaterial monads.