PHIL Being Final

Explain the difference between analytic and synthetic judgments.

"*Analytical judgments* express nothing in the predicate but what has been already actually thought in the concept of the subject, though not so clearly and with the same consciousness" All bachelors are unmarried men i. All men are male ii. All dogs are animals iii. All students are taking classes "On the other hand, *synthetic judgment*, "All bodies have weight," contains in its predicate something not actually thought in the universal concept of body; it amplifies my knowledge by adding something to my concept, and must therefore be called synthetic' That table is red

How does Heidegger understand anxiety in relation to human existence?

"In the clear night of the nothing of anxiety the original openness of beings as such arises: that they are beings--and not nothing" (103). The nothing is the condition for the possibility of the disclosure of beings. Anxiety= "At bottom therefore it is not as though "you" or "I" feel ill at ease; rather, it is this way for some "one". In the altogether unsettling experience of this hovering where there is nothing to hold onto, pure Dasein is all that is still there." Anxiety is not fear. Fear always has an object. "Anxiety robs us of speech. Because beings as a whole slip away, so that just the nothing crowds round, in the face of anxiety all utterance of the "is" falls silent. That in the malaise of anxiety we often try to shatter the vacant stillness with compulsive talk only proves the presences of the nothing. The anxiety reveals the nothing man himself immediately demonstrates when anxiety has dissolved. Anxiety is an existential experience of the possibility of one's own impossibility (death) and the nothingness that underlies all things.

What does Heidegger mean by "the end of philosophy" in his essay "The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking"?

"The end of philosophy is the place, that place in which the whole of philosophy's history is gathered in its uttermost possibility. End as completion means this gathering" (433). The "end" of philosophy is the "place" of the gathering of its "uttermost possibilities" the furthest reach of its way of thinking (433). The essay is "an attempt at a reflection that persists in questioning," and that the questioning marks the path for answers that lead to a "transformation of thinking" (431).

How does Rorty understand the self?

*Self without essence* He rejects the idea of an essential self since conformity to a universal essence compromises human individuality. Being human is an individual act of self-creation. . i. The Rortian self is non-teleological, indeterminate, autonomous, and commonly situated a. *Self-Creation* . Nietzsche believes self-knowledge is self-creation. 1. "The process of coming to know oneself, confronting one's contingency, tracking one's causes home, is identical with the process of inventing a new language--that is, of thinking up some new metaphors." i. If truth is contextually relative, so is the truth of who we are. b. *The Indeterminate Self* . Rorty sees Freud as a necessary corrective for Nietzsche's pessimism about human beings. Human beings are never so programmed by their past that they cannot re-describe themselves in new language. i. The post-metaphysical self is indeterminate, it is not determined by its nature or past. c. *The Communal Self* . The language we use to describe ourselves, to poeticize our lives, is drawn from the community in which we are situated. ***Self-creation is always a communally situated activity. We are not separate, atomized selves, but embedded in communities with other selves.

What two philosophical traditions does Rorty draw from in order to develop his post-metaphysical philosophy, and what do each of these traditions emphasize?

1. Historicism i. Hegel, Marx, Mill, Dewey, Habermas, Rawls ii. It emphasizes the contextual contingency of knowledge. 2. Individualism . Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Baudelaire, Proust, Heidegger i. Emphasizes the role of the individual in the creation of knowledge.

What are the two analytical operations of the intellect, and what kind of knowledge do they produce?

Abstraction--knowledge of universals Separation--knowledge of being as such distinct from form.

What does Heidegger mean by the German term Dasein?

Dasein is not a subject experiencing objects. It is no-thing, an openness or clearing for the disclosure of beings. Dasein= Being-there, existence

What is the relationship of essence to the intellect, according to St. Thomas?

Essence is a concept of the mind applied to individual instances of a universal type. "...as it [essence] has being in this or that intellect it is a particular apprehended likeness" (III.7).

What are the forms of sensibility, according to Kant, and how are they related to human understanding?

Forms of sensibility: space (outer sense) and time (inner sense)

Why does Kant say that we cannot know things-in-themselves?

From his critical idealism, Kant says that we can know things in themselves, but we can know them only insofar as we can perceive them. So, we can only know the appearance of a thing, not the thing itself

What is Kant's argument for the existence of God, and why does he argue that belief in God is justifiable?

God is an unavoidable idea of all rational beings because all humans seek ultimate being of reality; God is not an object of our experience; we can make room for faith by drawing back reason; you can't prove or disprove God's existence, but you can still have faith argument: it is rationally and morally necessary to attain the highest good (happiness commensurate with morality) it must be possible for us to attain whatever we are obliged to obtain attaining the highest good is only possible if natural order and causality are part of an overarching moral order and causality Conclusion: moral order and causality are only possible if we postulate a God as their source

What does Hannah Arendt identify as the dangers in Heidegger's "residence of thinking"?

Heidegger did not teach his students to think about ideas, he taught them to think. Heidegger never thinks 'about' something; he thinks something. In this entirely non contemplative activity, he probes the depths, but not in order to discover a decisive and definite foundation in this dimension.. nor even to bring such a dimension to light, but rather, while remaining in the depths, to mark out paths and to set up 'pathmarks'" (152). Heidegger's thinking is goalless. the dangers of residence in thinking as listed in the presi: 1. it functions as an escape from reality to which Heidegger had an obligation. 2. it left the thinker stalled in uncritical wonder making him vulnerable to destructive ideas. 3. it alienated the thinker from the particulars of the world and rendered him incapable of communicating with others. 4. renders the thinker incapable of making judgements

What is the central axiom that governs St. Thomas's metaphysics, and what does it indicate?

His metaphysical axiom is that existence is ontologically prior to essence It must first exist before it can be can exist as something Unreceived act is unlimited. Act is not limited except by the distinct potency that receives it. The being of intellectual substances is limited, but their essence is unlimited.

*KANT* NOW How did the British Empiricist David Hume awaken Kant from a "dogmatic slumber"?

How did the British Empiricist David Hume awaken Kant from a "dogmatic slumber"? a. Hume basically said that just because something appears to be the cause of something doesn't mean that it actually is b. Hume famously argued that when we see a billiard ball moving towards a second, stationary billiard ball, make contact, and the second ball begins to move, we have no empirical evidence that the first ball caused the second ball to move; rather, we infer causation. i. Hume argued that there is no empirical basis for the notion of causality because causality was a "matter of fact" (something that cannot be demonstrated to be true or false because the contrary of every fact is always possible) and relied upon the principle of the uniformity of nature (the natural tendency of the mind to assume the constant conjunction of cause and effect).

What error did St. Thomas discover in Aristotle's metaphysics, and what key distinction did he appropriate from Avicenna to correct this error?

Prob in Aristotle: If being means existence, then only concrete individuals (this) are, and forms (what) are not. But if being means essence (what), then only forms are and concrete individuals are not. The key distinction that Aquinas appropriated is the distinction between existence and essence.

4. What is St. Thomas's argument for the distinction between essence and existence?

Pure essence separate from existence is a fiction Existence is the act of being. Existence is prior to essence.

How does Kant seek to bridge the metaphysical gap between rationalism and empiricism?

In order to overcome this gap, Kant is seeking to discover the universal and necessary conditions that make synthetic a priori principles possible. In doing so, he is seeking to establish metaphysics on scientific foundations (i.e., according general laws and principles that are universal and necessary).

What are the two basic components that make knowledge possible for Kant?

Kant claims that there are two primary components that make knowledge possible: intuitions (die Anschauung) and concepts (der Begriff). Both can be either pure or empirical."Thoughts [concepts] without content [intuitions] are empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind. Hence it is just as necessary that we make our concepts sensible (i.e., that we add the object to them in intuition) as it is necessary that we make our intuitions understandable (i.e., that we bring them under concepts)" (Critique of Pure Reason, Ak. 51).

How is metaphysics as a science possible, according to Kant?

Kant demonstrates that metaphysics in general is possible as a science by way of a critique of pure reason: articulating the universal and necessary a priori principles that make appearances and experience possible. Kant places the transcendental subject ('I think') at the center of his metaphysical project. This means that the experiences that we have before we experience the world (a priori) are what allow us to experience the outside world Kant reestablishes metaphysics on scientific grounds by discovering the mainsprings of human understanding, the fundamental laws governing human cognition. Once this has been done, traditional metaphysics becomes obsolete.

What is thinking for Heidegger, and what role does it play at "the end of philosophy"?

Metaphysical thinking represents it in its presence and thus exhibits it as grounded by its ground" (432). Metaphysics thinks beings as a whole--the world, man, God--with respect to Being, with respect to the belonging together of beings in Being" (432). Thinking awakens a readiness in man for a possibility whose contour remains obscure, whose coming remains uncertain. Thinking is not: opining representing reasoning conceiving productive knowledge productive knowledge To think is to be grateful for the gift of being. Thinking is the human response to the call of Being (letting the nature of things show themselves). the end of philosopher is the furthest reach of its way of thinking

What is the nothing, and how does Heidegger distinguish it from negation?

Nothing=no-thing (nonentity) Nothing is radical indeterminacy Nothing is not a being, but the fundamental condition for the possibility of the disclosure of beings. The nothing is like dark matter, it cannot be detected, but its effect on matter is clear. The nothing cannot be an object of the intellect, but its existential effect is significant. Heidegger is seeking what is more primordial than the objects of logic and science-- the nothing. "Interrogating the nothing--asking what and how it, the nothing is--turns what is interrogated into its opposite. The nothing is more original than the "not" and "negation." Something is more original or primordial if it provides an explanation of everything else.

What is the difference between the ontic and the ontological, according to Heidegger?

Ontic: ordinary facts like size, shape, color, conditions, and actions. Ontological: the fundamental structure of Dasein that makes the ontic facts of everyday experience possible. The ontic facts of the world are disclosed to Dasein because of its unique ontological structure: Dasein understands its Being and cares about things, things that matter to Dasein. Dasein for president. Dasein 2016.

What is reason, according to Kant, and how does it function?

Reason naturally:infinitely extends the concepts of understanding (Ak. 328). seeks the unconditioned conditions for human experience (c.f. first principles) (Ak. 332-333). seeks an explanation for the totality of reality, an explanation that is impossible to objectively verify (Ak. 342)."Empirically outside me is that which is intuited in space; and space, together with all the appearances which it contains, belongs to the representations whose connection, according to laws of experience, proves their objective truth, just as the connection of the appearances of the internal sense proves the actuality of my soul (as an object of the internal sense)" (§49, Ak. 336).The "I" in Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" is not a concept, but only the formal condition for all experience, bare awareness of perceiving (transcendental unity of apperception) (§46, Ak. 334). "Now if I ask about the magnitude of the world, as to space and time, it is equally impossible, with regard to all my concepts, to declare it infinite or to declare it finite" (§52c, Ak. 342). Reason "... totally breaks with experience and from mere concepts of what constitutes the absolute completeness of a thing in general (hence by means of the idea of a most perfect primal being) proceeds to determine the possibility and therefore the actuality of all other things. And so the mere presupposition of a being which, although not in the series of experiences is thought for the purposes of experience and for the sake of conceiving its connection, order, and unity, i.e., the idea, is more easily distinguished from the concept of the understanding here than in former cases" (§55, Ak. 348).

What is a synthetic a priori judgment? Give an example.

Synthetic judgment: when the predicate is not self-evident within the subject (If I say 'plate' you would have no idea that the plate I'm thinking of is blue, unless I told you so) A Priori: a type of judgment you come to before experience: relating to or denoting reasoning or knowledge that proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience. "In order that as a science metaphysics may be entitled to claim, not mere fallacious plausibility, but insight and conviction, a critique of reason must itself exhibit the whole stock of a priori concepts, their division according to their various sources (sensibility, understanding, and reason), together with a complete table of them, the analysis of all these concepts, with all their consequences and especially the possibility of synthetic cognition a priori by means of the deduction of these concepts, the principles and bounds of their use, all in a complete system" (Ak. 365). For example, mathematics is possible only by pure intuition (i.e. a priori) But we can only understand mathematics as it appears to us: we know mathematics only insofar as we understand it But we can know no mathematics only by space and time (synthetic judgment): e.g., we don't know what two is unless we see two of something

How does Heidegger understand the concept of world, and how does it relate to Dasein's encounter with entities?

The essence of Dasein is disclosedness (To open up, unlock, make accessible). Human existence is essentially determined by being-in-the-world. Being-in-the-world is temporally structured in the modes of projection (future), thrownness (past) and fallenness (present). Human beings "world"-- they conduct themselves towards a referential totality, a whole. Our moods constitute the way things matter to us, and our most fundamental moods is anxiety. Anxiety reveals the nothing that Dasein itself is.

What is Dasein's essence, and how is it uniquely related to being?

The essence of Dasein is disclosedness--to open up, unlock Dasein questions the meaning of being; man's essence is open to being and constantly questioning being

5. How does Rorty understand the relationship between the self and the community?

The language we use to describe ourselves, to poeticize our lives, is drawn from the community in which we are situated. a. Self-creation is always a communally situated activity. We are not separate, atomized selves, but embedded in communities with other selves.

How is the nothing related to human freedom?

The nothing is the primordial definition. Open to disclosedness. That background with which we project all of our hope. Nothing is the ultimate condition for freedom.

What role do moods play in our understanding of the Being of beings, and what is our most fundamental mood?

Things are disclosed through our affective capacities ( our moods and emotions). Our moods constitute the way things matter to us, and our most fundamental mood is anxiety. Anxiety reveals the nothing that Dasein itself is.

What does Heidegger mean by transcendence?

Transcendence is the unity of Dasein and world (being-in-the-world). It is how Dasein is always and already 'beyond' beings in the sense that things show themselves against the background of a world that we project as horizontal field. Wonder is the beginning of philosophy, but the nothing is the beginning of wonder. "Being held out into the nothing--as Dasein is--on the ground of concealed anxiety is its surpassing of beings as a whole. It is transcendence" (106).

How does St. Thomas employ Aristotle's distinction between potency and act in the relationship between essence and existence?

We have act through potency. We have being through essence.

2. How did Avicenna attempt to resolve the problem of existence, what problem did this raise for St. Thomas, and how did he resolve it?

a. Avicenna says that that essence is prior to existence, and God knows all potential essences and confers existence on them. b. If essence is prior to existence, then what things are precedes their existence, and their essence is predetermined. Consequences:God's creative action is constrained by essences. Human existence is constrained essence.

4. St. Thomas says that being can be understood in two ways. What are they?

a. First sense: It is divided by the ten categories. A being in the first sense must correspond to an existing entity, either a substance or accident. i. Substance: Jorge Mario Bergoglio ii. Quality: Humble iii. Quantity: 78 years old iv. Relation: Bishop of Rome v. Position: Sitting in Peter's seat vi. State: alive and dressed in a white habit vii. Activity: Guides the Church viii. Passivity: guided by the Holy Spirit ix. Time: 21st century x. Place: Rome b. Second sense: It signifies the truth of propositions. i. Ex. Blindness is in the eye 1. Predicate= Blindness 2. Subject= Eye 3. Blindness is the absence of sight (privation). 4. Blindness is, in the sense that it can be truly predicated of the eye that is incapable of sight.

How does St. Thomas describe the relationship of essence and existence in God, angels, and human beings?

a. God: Essence is existence, uniquely one, & Possesses a complete unity of all perfections b. Angels: Essence distinct from existence, & Composed of being and form c. Humans: Essence distinct from existence & Composed of matter and form ---> Angels and Humans are contingent on God

Richard Rorty describes himself as a "liberal ironist." What does he mean by this term?

a. Liberal are the people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do. b. Ironists are people who face up to the contingency of his or her own most central beliefs and desires. c. "Liberal ironists are people who include among these ungroundable desires their own hope that suffering will be diminished, that the humiliation of human beings by other human beings may cease."

3. What are the first two concepts that occur in the intellect, according to St. Thomas?

being and essence

What mistake does science make in its investigation of being, according to Heidegger?

it fails to ask the question of being because it fails to pay attention to the nothing that lies beyond the entities.

Discuss Rorty's theory of truth, its connection to language, and the epistemological consequences of this view.

language is contingent on contextual theory of truth: truth about the world is contingent on the conversational use of language and language is contingent on various contexts such economics, morality, history, politics vocabularies (linguistic frameworks within which words have meaning) provide linguistic paradigms for knowledge consequences: vocabularies are contextually relative, and truth is product of vocabularies so truth is relative. Truth isn't made or discovered, it emerges contextually situated in language games.

What are the transcendental ideas?

necessary concepts of objects that can't be given in experience, in terms of theology, psychology, and cosmology attempts by reason to provide unconditioned explanations of the total reality in terms of psychology(in the subject), cosmology (in the world) and theology (in the absolute) they regulate knowledge, they do not constitute knowledge. they result in unavoidable illusion they are a horizon to serve to instruct us positively, at least to make us moral and destroy the bad parts of us (God as guarantor of moral order)

Explain the difference between judgments of perception and judgments of experience.

perception: ball thrown is getting larger and larger as it approaches me (subjective validity) require no pure concepts of understanding, but only the logical connection of perception in a thinking subject. particular and contingent experience: ball thrown from the pitcher is the same size as it approaches me (objective validity) requires sensuous intuition and special concepts originally generated in the understanding which make the judgement of experience objectively valid universal and necessary

List the categories of the understanding, and explain how they function with the imagination and intuitions to make knowledge possible.

quantity, quality, relation, modality-these are the conceptual determination of objects apprehended in the manifold of intuition. so it goes: imagination→ schema→ categories

3. How are simple and composite substances distinguished, and how is essence found in each of them, according to St. Thomas?

simple substances- essence is present in them more truly and perfectly simple substance is the cause of composite substance composite substances- essence signifies the composite of matter and form

What is the ontological distinction, according to Heidegger?

the way being exists in relation to other things in the world; the distinction between being and entities.

How does Kant distinguish his "critical idealism" from traditional idealism?

traditional idealism says that there exists nothing outside the rational being. Knowledge through sense experience is illusory, knowledge through pure understanding is truth. Kant gives his critical idealism in saying that the objects of our senses do in fact exist, but that we cannot know anything concerning their nature Critical idealism seeks to critically examine the limits of reason in order to discover what we can know and how we know it. Knowledge is only possible because of understanding AND sensibility. Knowledge of appearances of real things in the world is possible, but not things in themselves.