UPDATE: Group reports will not be included on the exam.
Feb 28-DR 13
Feb 28-DR 13
1. In the Hellenistic period Western philosophy came to be seen as what? What did the Hellenistic philosophies all praise, and what did they all see as the key to wisdom?
2. Of what later philosophy was Epicureanism the main ancestor?
3. What central problem of philosophy was Epicurus apparently the first to state?
4. From what did the Stoics take their name?
5. What was the one thing the Stoics thought the Epicureans were right about?
6. How does Gottlieb say the Stoics were inconsistent?
Mar 2, LH 3, DR 13 (p.336-357)
1. What was the main
teaching of skepticism? ("Scepticism" in Br. spelling)
2. How did Pyrrho say you could become free from all worry? Does Warburton think this would work for most of us?
3. How does modern skepticism differ from its ancient predecessor?
4. Why does Gottlieb think Pyrrho must not have been as radically skeptical as legend has it?
5. What did David Hume say about too much skepticism?
6. What did "throwing in the sponge" mean, in Sextus Emiricus's story?
2. How did Pyrrho say you could become free from all worry? Does Warburton think this would work for most of us?
3. How does modern skepticism differ from its ancient predecessor?
4. Why does Gottlieb think Pyrrho must not have been as radically skeptical as legend has it?
5. What did David Hume say about too much skepticism?
6. What did "throwing in the sponge" mean, in Sextus Emiricus's story?
March
14
DR 358-390
1. What happened in AD 529, and why is it a convenient milestone for philosophy?
2. What did medieval Christians "know" that Aristotle said wasn't so?
3. What's the one question almost everyone has heard about medieval philosophy? What's the obvious answer?
4. What was "the strangest document in the history of philosophy" and how did it catch the spirit of its time?
5. What was Plotinus's philosophy called, and what was its goal?
6. What did Proclus see as the job of philosophy?
1. What happened in AD 529, and why is it a convenient milestone for philosophy?
2. What did medieval Christians "know" that Aristotle said wasn't so?
3. What's the one question almost everyone has heard about medieval philosophy? What's the obvious answer?
4. What was "the strangest document in the history of philosophy" and how did it catch the spirit of its time?
5. What was Plotinus's philosophy called, and what was its goal?
6. What did Proclus see as the job of philosophy?
March 21
DR 14 (390-425); LH 6-8.
1. What religion did Augustine espouse before his conversion to Christianity, and how did it account for evil?
2. To what did Augustine return, that most of the first philosophers had rejected?
3. What form does Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy take, what does it never explicitly mention, and how does it account for the compatibility of real choice with the existence of an omniscient deity?
4. How did Anselm define God, and what is his famous "proof" called?
5. Who was Heloise's boyfriend, what was his greatest misfortune, and how did he go beyond established traditions?
6. Who wrote Guide for the Perplexed? What did he try to do in it?
7. Who had a "razor," and what was it for?
8. Who declared that there are other worlds, and was burned at the stake?
(LH)
9. What did Augustine famously pray for?
10. Whose First Cause Argument, echoing Aristotle, said a never-ending series of causes and effects would lead to an unacceptable what?
1. What religion did Augustine espouse before his conversion to Christianity, and how did it account for evil?
2. To what did Augustine return, that most of the first philosophers had rejected?
3. What form does Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy take, what does it never explicitly mention, and how does it account for the compatibility of real choice with the existence of an omniscient deity?
4. How did Anselm define God, and what is his famous "proof" called?
5. Who was Heloise's boyfriend, what was his greatest misfortune, and how did he go beyond established traditions?
6. Who wrote Guide for the Perplexed? What did he try to do in it?
7. Who had a "razor," and what was it for?
8. Who declared that there are other worlds, and was burned at the stake?
(LH)
9. What did Augustine famously pray for?
10. Whose First Cause Argument, echoing Aristotle, said a never-ending series of causes and effects would lead to an unacceptable what?
March 23
DR 15, LH 9-10
1. What effect did the new
Renaissance humanist movement have on philosophy?
2. What did Vespucci mean when he said New Worlders were more Epicurean than
Stoic?
3. What "prophet of modern science" nonetheless wanted to "build
on astrology, alchemy, and magic"? Why?
4. What 15th century "remarkable development" gave rise to mass
literacy?
5. What did Luther refuse to accept? What was the essence of Protestantism?
6. Whose cousin first mentioned "scientific method" and said it could
support only "limited claims about the appearances"?
7. Who "revamped Epicurus' picture of the universe" to make it more
Bible-friendly? How?
8. With what metaphor did Descartes propose to support the new scientific
worldview of Galileo?
LH
9. What did Machiavelli say a leader needs to
have?
130. Life outside society would be what, according to Hobbes?
Mar
28
LH 11-12
1. What state of mind,
belief, or knowledge was Descartes' Method of Doubt supposed to establish? OR,
What did Descartes seek that Pyrrho spurned?
2. Did Descartes claim to know (at the outset of his "meditations") that he was not dreaming?
3. What strange and mythic specter did Gilbert Ryle compare to Descartes' dualism of mind and body? ("The ____ in the ______.")
4. Pascal's best-known book is _____.
5. Pascal's argument for
believing in God is called ________.
6. Pascal thought if
you gamble on God and lose, "you lose ______."
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets.
7. (T/F) By limiting his "wager" to a choice between either Christian theism or atheism, says Nigel Warburton, Pascal excludes too many other possible bets.
BONUS QUESTIONS (See
"recommended")
·
Sarah Bakewell says Montaigne's first answer to the question
"How to live?" is: "Don't worry about _____."
·
What was Montaigne's "near death experience," and what
did it teach him?
·
Montaigne said "my mind will not budge unless _____."
·
What pragmatic American philosopher was Descartes' "most
practical critic"?
·
(T/F) A.C. Grayling thinks that, because Descartes was so wrong
about consciousness and the mind-body problem, he cannot be considered a
historically-important philosopher.
·
What skeptical slogan did Montaigne inscribe on the ceiling of
his study?
Apr 4
1. Spinoza's view, that God and nature (or the universe) are the same thing, is called _______.
2. If god is _____, there cannot be anything that is not god; if _____, god is indifferent to human beings.
3. Spinoza was a determinist, holding that _____ is an illusion.
4. According to John Locke, all our knowledge comes from _____; hence, the mind of a newborn is a ______.
5. Locke said _____
continuity establishes personal identity (bodily, psychological); Thomas Reid
said identity relies on ______ memories, not total recall.
6. Who kicked a stone
to try and refute Berkeley's idealism?
7. Bishop George Berkeley
was a metaphysical idealist because he believed all that exist are____; he was
an immaterialist because he denied that ______ exists; he was an _______
because he said all knowledge comes from direct personal experience.
8. Esse est percipi means
what?
9. What was Pope's way of saying that this is the best of all possible worlds? What German philosopher agreed, with his Principle of Sufficient Reason? What French writer disagreed, writing an acerbic philosophical novel?
10. What cataclysmic event did Voltaire use to make his case against Leibniz's optimism?
11. To what "faith" did Pangloss cling?
12. What does "cultivate our garden" mean?
13. Whose friends told him not to publish what during his lifetime?
14. What was Hume's view of miracles? What view did he share with Epicurus?
15. Who said we're born free but find ourselves "in chains"? How did he say we could break them? (By embracing what?)
16. What's the difference between the Will of All and the General Will?
9. What was Pope's way of saying that this is the best of all possible worlds? What German philosopher agreed, with his Principle of Sufficient Reason? What French writer disagreed, writing an acerbic philosophical novel?
10. What cataclysmic event did Voltaire use to make his case against Leibniz's optimism?
11. To what "faith" did Pangloss cling?
12. What does "cultivate our garden" mean?
13. Whose friends told him not to publish what during his lifetime?
14. What was Hume's view of miracles? What view did he share with Epicurus?
15. Who said we're born free but find ourselves "in chains"? How did he say we could break them? (By embracing what?)
16. What's the difference between the Will of All and the General Will?
BONUS:
Who said “the sources of art in human experience will be learned by him who
sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd"?
April 6 Quiz
LH 19-23
1. Kant said we can
know the ____ but not the ____ world.
2. How does synthetic
knowledge differ from analytic knowledge?
3. What was Kant's
great insight?
4. What, according to
Kant, is irrelevant to morality?
5. Kant said you
should never ___, because ___. Kant called the principle that supports this
view the ____ _____.
6. Who formulated the
Greatest Happiness principle? What did he call his method? Where can you find
him today?
7. Who created a
thought experiment that seems to refute Bentham's view of how pleasure relates
to human motivation?
8. What did Hegel mean
when he spoke of the "owl of Minerva"? What did he think had been
reached in his lifetime?
9. What Kantian view
did Hegel reject?
10. What is Geist?
When did Hegel say it achieved self-knowledge?
11. What "blind
driving force" did Schopenhauer allege to pervade absolutely everything (including
us)?
12. What did
Schopenhauer say could help us escape the cycle of striving and desire?
Apr 11
LH 24-27
1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure?
1. How did Mill disagree with Bentham about pleasure?
2.
What view did Mill defend in On Liberty?
3. What's the benefit to society of open
discussion, according to Mill, and what's wrong with being dogmatic?
4. Who did Bishop Wilberforce debate at Oxford
in 1860?
5. The single best idea anyone ever had was
what, according to whom?
6. What scientific developments since Darwin's
time establish evolution by natural selection as more than just a theory or
hypothesis?
7. Who was the Danish Socrates, and what was
most of his writing about?
8. Why is faith irrational, according to Nigel
Warburton?
9. What is "the subjective point of
view"?
10. Why was Karl Marx angry? How did he think
the whole of human history could be explained?
11. What was Marx's "vision"?
12. What did Marx call religion?
April 13 LH 28-30
1. What's the point of James's squirrel story?
2. Who said truth is what we would end up with
if we could run all the experiments and investigations we'd like to? (And
what's a word his name rhymes with?)
3. What did Bertrand Russell say about James's
theory of truth?
4. What 20th century philosopher carried on the
pragmatist tradition? What did he say about the way words work?
5. What did Nietzsche mean by "God is
dead"? (And what's a word his name rhymes with?)
6. Where did Nietzsche think Christian values
come from?
7. What is an Ubermensch, and why does Nigel find it "a
bit worrying"?
8. How did Nietzsche differ from Kant but
anticipate Freud?
9. What were the three great revolutions in
thought, according to Freud?
10. The "talking cure" gave birth to
what?
11. Why did Freud think people believe in God?
12. What was Karl Popper's criticism of Freudian
psychoanalysis?
Apr 18
1. Reading
whose autobiography led young Bertrand Russell to reject God? OR, What did he
see as the logical problem with the First Cause Argument?
I for a long time accepted
the argument of the First Cause, until one day at the age of eighteen I read
_____'s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught
me that the question 'Who made me?' cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests
the further question `Who made god?'" That very simple sentence showed me,
as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything
must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without
a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any
validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's
view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a
tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian
said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no
better than that. Why I Am Not a Christian
2. The idea of a barber who shaves all who don't shave themselves is a
2. The idea of a barber who shaves all who don't shave themselves is a
_________ _________, a
seeming contradiction that is both true and false. Another example of the same
thing would be a statement like _______________.
3. A.J. Ayer's _Principle, stated in his 1936 book Language, Truth and Logic, was part of the movement known as .
4. Humans don't have an , said Jean Paul Sartre, and are in "bad faith" like the
who thinks of himself as completely defined by
his work.
5. What was Sartre's frustrating advice to the student who didn't know whether to join the Resistance?
5. What was Sartre's frustrating advice to the student who didn't know whether to join the Resistance?
6. When Simone de Beauvoir said women are not born that way, she meant that they tend to accept what?
7. Which Greek myth did Albert Camus use to illustrate human absurdity, as he saw it?
BONUS:
-Who had a Near Death Experience his youthful philosophy would have declared "nonsense"?
- Name the faux English matrons who crossed the channel to ask Sartre about his views on freedom?
Apr 20
1 1. What was the main message of
Wittgenstein's Tractatus?
2. What did the later
Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations) mean by "language
games," what did he think was the way to solve philosophical problems, and
what kind of language did he think we can't have?
3 3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt
learn about him at his trial?
4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?
5 5. When does science progress, according to Karl
Popper, and when does it prove things?
6. What's the difference between induction and deduction?
7. An unfalsifiable statement is not ____.
==
8. What's a paradigm
shift?
9. What is a thought
experiment?
10. In Thomson's
violinist thought experiment, the violinist is analogous to what?
From the final chapters of Little History (no separate quiz on the last day, but if there were these would be the questions):
1. What did John Rawls call the thought experiment he believed would yield fair and just principles, and what was its primary device?
2. Under what circumstances would Rawls' theory permit huge inequalities of wealth between people?
3. What was the Imitation Game, and who devised a thought experiment to oppose it?
4. What, according to Searle, is involved in truly understanding something?
5. How do some philosophers think we might use computers to achieve immortality?
6. What does Peter Singer say we should sacrifice, to help strangers?
7.Why did Singer first become famous?
8. How does Singer represent the best tradition in philosophy?
==
UPDATE: Group reports will not be included on the exam.
1. What does the Greek term "Rhapsode" mean?
2. What does the philosopher Immanuel Kant mainly study?
3. How many members are in the group Led Zeppelin?
4. Name one of Zeppelin's songs.
#8- Bullshit and Philosophy
1. What does Cohen argue bullshit is characterized by?
2. What is the third element of bullshit?
3. When does bullshit succeed?
4. Where does bullshit mainly lie according to Frankfurt?
5. What does semantics concern?
6. What does pragmatic mean?
7. What Philosopher is noted as specializing in semantics?
8.What was logical positivism?
9. Are logical positivism and contemporary anti-bullshit programs related?
10. Who is the main proponent of the first and second strategy of bullshit respectively?
11. What is the mechanism of bullshit mean?
2. Theo said "God made us free....and by giving us free will, God gave us the ability...." To act how?
3. What does Theo say God can't do?
4. If God exists, there is no unnecessary evil caused by natural disasters. There is unnecessary evil caused by natural disasters. Therefore, what does Eva conclude?
#8- 19841. Where does Winston Smith live?
can someone post the answers for these? I cannot find some of them in the readings.
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/document/d/16VBGxqQ92hQjk9VbEidVJW9h8Y1FKtrjVfI38KqaVHU/edit
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