Intro to Philosophy
What was René Descartes' overall philosophical project?
to build knowledge on a foundation he could be absolutely certain of
Kant's epistemology that describes truths about the world that are both necessary and universal is known as his theory of _______.
transcendental idealism
Hinduism considers ultimate reality to be _______.
unknowable
Which of the following is a moral question?
Is the death penalty a just punishment?
Ethical subjectivism is the view that _______.
each person determines what is morally right
Berkeley's epistemology of subjective idealism is represented by which Latin phrase?
esse est percipi
Ancient Greek stories of the gods served most importantly to _______.
establish core values
W.T. Stace argued against hard determinism by claiming that _______.
even hard determinists behave as though they believe in free will
Determinism is the thesis that _______.
every event is determined by events that cause it
Socrates thought that no one knowingly does evil because _______.
evil is the result of ignorance AND everyone is naturally drawn towards the good
Descartes supposes the existence of an "evil genius" in order to _______.
extend radical doubt to all aspects of experience.
"Independent reality" means _______.
external reality that exists regardless of what we think about it
Unsound arguments can be persuasive because they often appeal to our emotions and prejudices and/or support conclusions that we want to believe are accurate. These types of arguments are known as_______.
fallacies
The role of premises in an argument is to _______.
give reasons for a conclusion
Leibniz believed that the human mind _______.
has innate tendencies to form universal ideas
Ludwig Feuerbach thought that we "create" God because we _______.
have an idealized sense of self that we project
Socrates thought of himself as an intellectual "midwife" because _______.
he helped people give birth to their own understanding.
Aristotle disagreed with Plato mainly because _______.
he thought that Plato's philosophy would devalue the world of experience.
George Berkeley denied the existence of matter because _______.
he thought that the only things in the universe that existed were minds and ideas experienced by these minds
Socrates was an archetypal thinker in that he _______.
helped others achieve wisdom and improve their souls
The key assumption of Saint Anselm's ontological argument for God's existence is that_______.
if God exists, he exists necessarily
St. Augustine's views on the self _______.
incorporated the Platonist view of the self as a separate immaterial thing
To Anaximander, the ultimate "stuff" of the universe is apeiron, a Greek word meaning _______
indefinite or unlimited
Libertarians believe that _______.
people are able to make genuinely free choices by exercising their free wills.
Socrates thought that "there is no teaching, only remembering" because _______.
people can arrive at truths without being directly told them because they already "know" them: they just need to "remember" them with the right guidance.
Locke believed that rationalism is false because _______.
people disagree about a great many things
A deductive argument's purpose is to _______.
prove that a conclusion is true
Plato had a concept of a three-part self constituted by the elements of _______.
reason, appetite, and spirit
Aristotle considered Thales' view that water is the fundamental principle of the world to be _______.
revolutionary (although incorrect) because for the first time, people were seeking to understand the world on its own terms.
The sophists were basically _______.
rhetoricians
According to Aristotle's Four Causes, the efficient cause is _______.
the "triggering" action that sets the thing in motion.
A 2007 experiment at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience showed brain activity signaling a choice being made up to seven seconds before the subject experienced knowledge of making a choice. The researcher believed this indicated that free will is an illusion. Critics disagreed because ________.
the brain may simply have been "ramping up" to make a decision
Forms were the cornerstone of Plato's metaphysics and epistemology. He used this word to mean ________.
the ideal archetypes or essences of all existing things
Socrates explained the concept moving from away from particular bodies (shadows) and toward a universal idea of beauty (the sun) by using Diotima's idea of ________.
the ladder of love
Hume's ideas about the self were based on _______.
the nature of conscious experience
Kant thought that Hume was wrong to say that _______.
the self is just conscious experience
To value living an "examined life" assumes that _______.
the truth lies within each of us
The pre-Socratic philosophers were mainly interested in _______.
the ultimate nature of reality
For philosophers and theologians in the________ tradition, free will is the most important thing in understanding why evil exists.
theodicy
Compatibilism says that _______.
there is free will even though determinism is true
Aquinas' argument from gradations of perfection concludes that _______.
there must be a most perfect being
Judaism is based primarily on _______.
monotheism
Pascal's "wager" is based mainly on the supposition that _______.
one cannot lose anything of value by wagering on God's existence
The ancient Greek idea of eudaemonia (happiness) is based on achieving _______.
one's full potential
According to Socrates, in order to live a life of purpose and value, we must begin to examine _______.
our self
The term ethics comes from the concept of _______.
moral purpose or character within a social context
According to Buddhist philosophy, each self is composed of _______.
physical form, sensation, conceptualization, dispositions to act, and consciousness
Keiji Nishitani thought that the main function of religion is to _______.
provide meaning to life
Descartes' key point that we can achieve genuine knowledge through our rational intuition into the nature of beliefs is based in his _______.
rationalism
Unlike the hard determinists, Jean-Paul Sartre assumed that human freedom is _______.
real and total
Empiricism is the position that _______.
reality can be perceived through the senses
Rationalism is the philosophy that _______.
reason is the unique path to knowledge.
According to Locke, qualities of objects that produce sensations in people are considered to be _______.
secondary qualities
Gilbert Ryle's concept of the mind was based on his idea that it is a mistake to_______.
separate the physical and the mental
The authors of Women's Ways of Knowing added an earlier stage to Perry's four stages of cognitive development. This stage is called _______.
silence
Indeterminism accepts the possibility that _______.
some human actions may be random and so free
As the term is used in philosophy, which of the following represents the view that humans are able to make authentically free choices, i.e., that even though we make one choice, we could have made a different one?
Libertarianism
From Aristotle's point of view, something that can have the potential to exist, under the right circumstances, can become ________.
actualized into a reality
Locke was an empiricist in that he thought that _______.
all knowledge originates in sense experience
The term dialectical means _______.
analyzing ideas in relation to their opposites
Although Descartes believed that everything in the world may be called into question, including the existence of his body and the external world, he believed that the simple affirmation ________ must be true each time it is said or thought.
"I exist"
Descartes' famous first principle, cogito, ergo sum, means _______.
"I think, therefore I am"
Sartre's "first principle of existentialism" is the idea that _______.
"Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself."
The word "philosophy" comes from two Greek roots that mean ________.
"love" and "wisdom"
The significance of the polis in ancient Greek philosophy was as a place _______.
-of learning from one another -for justice to be established -where people could share ideas (all of the above)
Bertrand Russell said that the nature of reality is difficult to arrive at because_______.
we can only perceive something using our senses
David Hume used the word "impressions" to mean _______.
what we directly experience through the senses or emotions
Epistemology is basically the study of _______.
what we know and why we know it
Which of the following best explains the approach of phenomenology?
All knowledge of ourselves and our world is based on exploring the phenomena of lived experience, the lebenswelt
Which philosopher's skepticism led him to conclude that there is no sound reason to believe in the principles of cause and effect?
David Hume
Based on her study of interactions in mixed-sex professional meetings, Carol Edelsky determined that women "came into their own" in which type of situation?
Collaborative floor
In Women's Ways of Knowing, the authors reported that the women they were interviewing sometimes said, "You're asking the wrong question!" They interpreted this to mean that these women were in which of Perry's stages of cognitive development?
Constructed Knowledge
Which question best characterizes the subject matter of metaphysics?
Does life have meaning?
Which of the following historical events is NOT an example of the contentious and volatile relationship that sometimes exists between philosophy and religion?
Einstein's statement that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research
What J.L. Mackie called "the problem of evil" argues against God's existence states _______.
God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists
What was Kant's relation to the rationalists and empiricists?
He wanted to synthesize the two theories together into a new, more compelling theory
Which pre-Socratic philosopher believed that "All is change"?
Heraclitus
Which view maintains that there are some events, including certain human actions, that are not necessarily determined by previous events?
Indeterminism
Which feminist philosopher used the analogy of the birdcage to explain the necessity of a macroscopic view of oppression?
Marilyn Frye
What did William James believe provided the best evidence for free will?
People live their lives with the assumption of personal freedom and responsibility/
What does Socrates say to defend himself against the charges of Meletus?
Socrates demonstrates that the charges have no basis in fact
On what basis did Clarence Darrow and Baron D'Holbach argue against freedom of the will?
The will is subject to natural forces just like everything else.
Which of the following correctly characterizes Freud's beliefs about the self?
There are two selves, one conscious and one unconscious.
Buddhism is focused on the goal of _______.
being free of one's desires
Daoism is focused on the goal of _______.
coming into harmony with reality
Philosophy provides the _______ required to craft a life inspiring in its challenges and rich in its fulfillment.
conceptual tools
Feuerbach's overall project was to _______.
create a secular basis for religion
Philosophy can, most of all, help a person to think more _______.
critically.
The term value refers to something with _______.
intrinsic worth
Scottish philosopher David Hume argued that the will is free only when it _______.
is not constrained by external compulsion
Socrates came closest to capturing the essence of philosophy when he said, "The unexamined life _______."
is not worth living
Socrates thought that the soul is immortal because it _______.
is unchangeable
Moritz Schlick argued that the will is only free when it _______.
is unimpeded by external or internal constraints
In "The Ethics of Belief," W.K. Clifford argues that _______.
it is always wrong to believe anything under insufficient evidence
During his "doubting project," Descartes believes that the existence of physical objects cannot be certain because _______.
it is possible to be deceived about them.
What does it mean to say that a religion may not be theistic?
it may not posit any gods
The Socratic method is mainly a method of _______.
learning, teaching, questioning (all of the above)
Locke thought that identity of a self through time could be established on the basis of _______.
memory
Functionalism is the view that _______.
mental states have physically-definable functions
Which branch of philosophy is defined as the study of the ultimate characteristics of reality or existence?
metaphysics
