Philosophy Exam 1

How Meletus contradicts himself in his charges about Socrates's belief in gods

According to Meletus, Socrates doesn't acknowledge any gods. Daimons are gods, so mellitus is lying and caught contradicting himself saying he doesn't believe in gods, believes in daimons. The same person cannot believe in daemonic activity without also believing in gods.

Socrates's interpretation of the oracle of Delphi's statement that no one is wiser than Socrates

He could not commit the error that the politicians, poets or the craftsmen made. He could not falsely assume himself to be as wise he was not. He would remain modest, be himself, and not be wise or ignorant. Thus, Socrates proved that vanity did not imply wisdom even if so many people chose to make the mistake.

What counter penalty Socrates proposes, and why he would not propose a traditional kind penalty for himself

He proposes that he gets free dinning in the Prytaneum where victorious Olympic athletes feast in celebration. He requests this because it isn't a punishment at all and Socrates knows he did no wrong.

Socrates's final request, regarding his sons

He says, punish my three sons if they ever love things like money and pleasure more than virtue.

What Socrates's daimonion (divine voice, diving sign) was

Socrates claimed to have a daimonion (literally, a "divine something") that frequently warned him—in the form of a "voice"—against mistakes but never told him what to do.

In what sense Socrates considered himself to be a gadfly

Socrates is biting Athens (who is sleeping), and his bite is painful, people are trying to avoid it. He thinks it's worth it. He thinks a little bit of discomfort is worth it.

Why Socrates would not corrupt the youth of Athens intentionally

Yes, Socrates argues that a bad neighbor will cause you harm while a good neighbor will be good to you. Therefore, why would anyone intentionally corrupt the youth and be surrounded by bad neighbors.

Inference-

a conclusion reached based on evidence and reasoning.

Inductive Argument-

a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence for the truth of the conclusion. While the conclusion of a deductive argument is certain, the truth of the conclusion of an inductive argument may be probable, based upon the evidence given.

Premise-

a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion.

• According to Hume how the mind is: o like a theater

a) The mind is like a theatre where several perceptions successively make their appearance, they appear, disappear, and reappear. There is neither simplicity at one time, nor identity at different times. Which means our perceptions are always changing there are no constants.

• Why, according to Aquinas, why a human being's soul is not a human being.

o "If we identify the human soul with Aristotelian substantial form, it is natural to identify the human body with prime matter. But body and soul are not at all the same pair of items as matter and form. This is a point on which Aquinas himself insists: the human soul is related to the human body not as form to matter, but as form to subject (S 1-2,50,1). A human being is not something that has a body; it is a body, a living body of a particular kind. The dead body of a human being is not a human body any longer -- or indeed any other kind of body, but rather, as it decomposes, an amalgam of many bodies. Human bodies, like any other material objects, are composed of matter and form; and it is the form of the human body, not the form of the matter of the human body, that is the human soul"[1]

• Why (as explained in class) Ryle says that mental states include dispositions to behave, and not just actual behavior

o 'He made lunch because he was hungry' should not be understood along the lines of 'the glass broke because a stone hit it', but along the lines of 'the glass broke when the stone hit it because it was brittle.' Hunger and brittleness are both dispositions; a stone hitting glass is an event. So, when we explain an action by referring to a non-physical cause, we are situating the action in relation to a number of hypothetical statements

• How Socrates would be harming the laws if he escaped

o 1. If I escape from jail, then the laws of Athens and thus the city of Athens will be destroyed. o 2. To destroy the laws of Athens and the city of Athens harms the citizens of Athens. o 3. To harm others is to harm my soul because to harm others is unjust, and doing unjust actions harms my soul. o 4. It is better to die than to live with a ruined soul.

• The two principles of morality that Socrates presents

o 1. One should never intentionally do something that is wrong 2. Never harm someone even if harmed. Socrates also gets Crito to agree that evil is an injury. Since evil is an injury then this principle would also entail not to do an injury even if injured oneself, so one should not injure even if injured

• According to Ryle, what mental state are

o According to Ryle, the Cartesian mind has the following features: o a. non-material: the mind does not exist in space nor is it subject to physical laws. o b. private: it is not possible to have access to the mental states of other minds. o c. transparent and immediately accessible: if you are in a certain mental state, you are in a position to know it. We have unmediated access to the contents of our mind unlike our access to things in the external world, which is mediated by the senses. o d. internal (but not really internal). o e. temporal but non-spatial.

• According to Descartes, what the "I" (the self) essentially is

o After establishing the fact of his existence, Decartes goes on to ask himself what he is. He eventually comes to describe himself as a thinking thing. But what is a thinking thing? The easiest way to understand Decartes' thoughts here is to look at his ideas regarding substance, the essence of a substance, and the modes of a substance. A substance is defined as something that is capable of existing independently of all things besides the sustaining power of God (which Decartes believes is necessary for anything to exist). Let's look at the mind in terms of these. Clearly, the mind can be viewed as a substance, since we can see it existing independently (let's not worry about chemicals in the brain for the nonce). What is its essence, though? Well, according to Decartes, the essence of mind is thought, which he describes in terms of doubting, affirming, judging, etc. This makes sense - a mind can be seen as something that is defined by thought. The modes of the mind, then, are the various ways of thinking I just mentioned (doubting, affirming, and so on and so forth).

• What Churchland's "eliminative materialism" seeks to eliminate

o All we can be intuitively certain of is the existence of the phenomena we want to explain. But appealing to beliefs and desires is not appealing to that phenomena, but to a explanation of them. They are theoretical terms that we should reject if folk psychology turns out to be false.

• Aristotle's theory of matter and form

o Aristotle's use of 'matter' and 'form,' in real individual beings, matter never exists without a determinate form. Even a lump of coal or a floating blob of liquid Hydrogen has qualities which make it a determinate 'something.' Pure matter, prime matter is really nothing in itself, but only 'becomes' something as it enters into a union, limiting some or another form. Matter is more a hypothesis in Aristotle's metaphysics, used to account for the fact of the multiplicity of things of the same type.

• Meletus's two formal charges against Socrates

o Charge of corrupting the youth Socrates accusers claim that the entire city of Athens improves the youth and that Socrates is the only corrupter. Socrates compares this statement to a horse and his trainer. Really there is only one person who does the horse any good that person being the trainer. The rest of the people involved with the horse don't particularly care about the horse's well-being. Socrates also claims that no one in their right mind would intentionally corrupt the youth because then they would be surrounded by evil people. o Charge of not believing in state gods, but in other divinities If he believes in spiritual things, then he must believe in the gods (you can't have spiritual things without god)

Socrates's refutation of the first two charges of the old accusers

o Charge of making money from teaching He does not collect a fee for his work, nor does he insist on one o Charge of doing philosophy of nature He contains only human wisdom

• Why Descartes feels certain that he exists

o First, he decides he can be certain that he exists, because if he doubts, there must be a thinking mind to do the doubting. He does not yet accept that he is a thinking mind inside a body. After all, the demon could have convinced him that his body and the physical world exist.

• How Aristotle's doctrine about forms differs from Plato's

o For Plato, Forms are abstract objects, existing completely outside space and time. Thus they are knowable only through the mind, not through sense experience. Moreover, because they are changeless, the Forms possess a higher degree of reality than do things in the world, which are changeable and always coming into or going out of existence. The task of philosophy, for Plato, is to discover through reason ("dialectic") the nature of the Forms, the only true reality, and their interrelations, culminating in an understanding of the most fundamental Form, the Good or the One. o Aristotle rejected Plato's theory of Forms but not the notion of form itself. For Aristotle, forms do not exist independently of things—every form is the form of something. A "substantial" form is a kind that is attributed to a thing, without which that thing would be of a different kind or would cease to exist altogether. "Black Beauty is a horse" attributes a substantial form, horse, to a certain thing, the animal Black Beauty, and without that form Black Beauty would not exist. Unlike substantial forms, "accidental" forms may be lost or gained by a thing without changing its essential nature. "Black Beauty is black" attributes an accidental form, blackness, to a certain animal, who could change color (someone might paint him) without ceasing to be himself.

• According to Hume, the two kinds of perceptions, and how they differ

o He distinguishes two kinds of perceptions: impressions and ideas (T 1.1.1.1; SBN 1-2; T Abs 5; SBN 647; and E 2.1-3; SBN 17-18). He equates having impressions with "feeling," or first-hand experience. So, our impressions include all of the sensations, passions and emotions that we experience when we engage in sensory perception, feel painful or pleasurable sensations in our bodies, or feel passions like love and hatred. He equates having ideas with thinking: in his view, thinking about an object, or thinking that a certain state of affairs obtains, involves forming an idea that represents this object or state of affairs. The only difference that Hume sees between impressions and ideas is their degree of force and liveliness, or force and vivacity. Impressions are more forceful and lively than ideas: for example, actually feeling a pain is more forceful and lively than merely thinking about a pain. (Scholars disagree about how to interpret Hume's talk of force and vivacity. According to some, a perception's force and vivacity is matter of how it feels to have that perception—that is, a matter of its phenomenology. According to others, a perception's force and vivacity is a matter of how it behaves in our minds—that is, a matter of its functional role.)

• According to Hume, why the idea of the self is not a genuine idea but a bogus idea

o Hume also claims that we never directly apprehend the self. Unlike Descartes, he concludes from this that there is no substantial self. In a famous passage, Hume uses introspective awareness to show that the self is a non-substantial "bundle" of perceptions. o For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and can never observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. (Hume 1739-40/1978:

• What the "mind-body" problem is

o Mind-body as a "problem" is generally traced to René Descartes, who asked how the immaterial mind (or soul) could influence the material body. Would not the interaction between the two have to partake somehow of the character of both? Descartes famously identified the tiny pineal gland as the point of contact between mind and body.

• Why Crito thinks his reputation will suffer if Socrates does not escape

o People will think he cared more about money than the fate of his friend

• Why Ryle rejects the doctrine of mind/body dualism

o Ryle rejects Descartes' theory of the relation between mind and body, on the grounds that it approaches the investigation of mental processes as if they could be isolated from physical processes.[4] In order to demonstrate how this theory may be misleading, he explains that knowing how to perform an act skillfully may not only be a matter of being able to reason practically but may also be a matter of being able to put practical reasoning into action.

• Why, according to Plato (explained in class), there must be Forms such as Treeness or Triangleness

o Since truth is objective, our knowledge of true propositions must be about real things. According to Plato, these real things are Forms. Their nature is such that the only mode by which we can know them is rationality. Forms are the eternal and immutable blueprints or models for everything that is. Consequently, they are more real than their particulars.o Since truth is objective, our knowledge of true propositions must be about real things. According to Plato, these real things are Forms. Their nature is such that the only mode by which we can know them is rationality. Forms are the eternal and immutable blueprints or models for everything that is. Consequently, they are more real than their particulars.

• Why, according to Aquinas, the human soul, unlike animal souls, is immortal

o So the difference between the human intellectual soul and the souls of other animals is that while both are immaterial in the first sense, the sense of not being material principles, the intellectual soul is an immaterial subsistent in the second sense while the souls of other animals are not immaterial subsistent. And it is the second sense of 'immaterial' that gives us a key for understanding what Thomas means by a "material form," particularly a material substantial form. A material form is a form that is not an immaterial subsistent; it exists either as an accident in a corporeal subject or as a substantial form in a corporeal subject and does not subsist. So the substantial forms of bodies, particularly the souls of living bodies, are in general material forms with the exception of the intellectual soul. The souls of other animals are immaterial in the first sense and material regarding the second sense, while the human soul is both immaterial in the first sense and immaterial in the second sense.

• In what sense Socrates and Plato's view of the self is dualistic

o Socrates & Plato: the self = the soul; every being possessed an immortal soul that survived the physical body

• According to Socrates, what happens to the soul when we follow the opinion of the many rather than the opinion of the wise

o Socrates refers to the part of us which is harmed by unjust actions and benefited by just actions. (This "part of us," left ambiguous here, is referred to as the soul in later works of Plato's.) Socrates suggests that this part of us is far more valuable than the body, and that life would hardly be worth living if it were damaged. In this case, it is of even greater importance not to take anyone and everyone's advice, but to listen only to experts who know best how to handle such matters. Crito, then, is wrong to worry about public opinion regarding matters of justice: he should ignore it altogether, paying heed only to those who are wise about justice.

• Socrates's correction of Crito's prediction about when the ship from Delos will arrive

o Socrates replies that he doubts that the expedition will arrive today. Last night while he slept, he dreamt he saw a beautiful woman in white robes who, quoting the Iliad, said "To the pleasant land of Phthia on the third day thou shalt come" (44b). While Crito expresses puzzlement at this dream, the meaning, to Socrates, is quite clear: he will not die for another three days. Because he is to be executed the day after the expedition returns, the boat cannot possibly return until at least tomorrow.

• What Socrates could have done if he did not like the laws of Athens

o The Laws are willing to allow discontents to leave Athens without forfeit, and are willing to be persuaded to change, but if one does not leave and does not persuade the Laws to change, then one must abide by them

• The three parts of the soul, according to Plato, and what corresponds to each part in his analogy of the chariot driver, a noble horse, and a wild horse

o The appetites, which includes all our myriad desires for various pleasures, comforts, physical satisfactions, and bodily ease. There are so many of these appetites that Plato does not bother to enumerate them, but he does note that they can often be in conflict even with each other. This element of the soul is represented by the ugly black horse on the left. o The spirited, or hot-blooded, part, i.e., the part that gets angry when it perceives (for example) an injustice being done. This is the part of us that loves to face and overcome great challenges, the part that can steel itself to adversity, and that loves victory, winning, challenge, and honor. (Note that Plato's use of the term "spirited" here is not the same as "spiritual." He means "spirited" in the same sense that we speak of a high-spirited horse, for example, one with lots of energy and power.) This element of the soul is represented by the noble white horse on the right. o The mind (nous), our conscious awareness, is represented by the charioteer who is guiding (or who at least should be guiding) the horses and chariot. This is the part of us that thinks, analyzes, looks ahead, rationally weighs options, and tries to gauge what is best and truest overall.

• How Socrates had made an agreement to follow the laws of Athens

o The laws, according to Socrates maintains that Socrates would be going against his agreement with the state if he escapes. Socrates has received many advantages from the state. He names his education and also protection of the state. The suggestion here is that Socrates by remaining in the state has implicitly consented to follow the laws. Socrates received a trial for his offenses and now he must take his punishment.

• Why (as explained in class) why Descartes's pineal gland doctrine (see the handout "Descartes's Pineal Gland Hypothesis") seems not to solve the mind-body problem

o The pineal gland is just another organ, with no effect on the mind.

• What, according to Locke, makes us the same person (the same self) over time

o This assumption is supported by Locke's assertion that, "as far as [a] consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now as it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done" (Locke). More explicitly stated, if one can remember some experience, Locke's says that one in fact had that experience. It is by this reasoning that Locke arrives at the most controversial portion of his theory which suggests that the converse of the previous argument is true: if one cannot remember some experience, then one did not have that experience.

Valid Deductive Argument-

one where its logical form makes it impossible for the argument's premises to all be true when the conclusion is false and vice versa. Thus, if all the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. The premises guarantee that the conclusion is true.

Deductive Argument-

the presentation of statements that are assumed or known to be true as premises for a conclusion that necessarily follows from those statements.