Philosophy Practice Questions
Compatibilism
The belief that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that it is possible to believe both without being logically inconsistent.
Identity
our sense of self
Personal Identity
your sense of yourself as a unique individual
Qualia
"raw feeling of consciousness", the actual sensation of pain, emotion - Not the item itself, but the emotions you feel attached to the item
Extension
'extension' Descartes just means having length, breadth, and depth. More colloquially we might say that to be extended is just to take up space or to have volume. Whereas by 'thinking substance' Descartes just means 'mind'. -- minds and bodies are distinct kinds of "substance". Bodies, he held, are spatially extended substances, incapable of feeling or thought; minds, in contrast, are unextended, thinking, feeling substances.
Functional state
(Mental State) state that correspomds to thinking and feelings (beliefs, emotions, intentions, desires, perceptions)
"Soulware" objection
- Requires an immaterial mind - "Soulware" your mind would physically be tired and worn out from swapping your "soul" every 5 mins
Parfit's Skepticism about Personal Identity
- We're fine with most things not having an identity in the strictest way possible - We can say everything we want to say bout people w/o believing that they are identical to themselves over time
Responsibility
Being responsible for one's actions
Locke's Memorial Theory of identity
Chain of memories defines a continuous "person"
Cartesian Dualism
Descartes's view that all of reality could ultimately be reduced to a separation of mind and matter.
Physicalism/Materialism
Everything in the universe is physical (matter)
LaPlace's Demon
First published articulation stating that According to determinism, if someone knows the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe, their past and future values for any given time are entailed; they can be calculated from the laws of classical mechanics.
The chain of memory
If person "C" remembers person "B" who remembers person "A" then "C" as "B" and "A" are essentially the same person
Hard determinism
Implies that free will is not possible as our behaviour is always caused by internal or external events beyond our control.
"Forensic" notion of personhood
Locke links his moral and legal account of personhood to his account of personal identity in terms of sameness of consciousness
"Body switching" objection
People can conceivably switch bodies
Epiphenomenalism
Physical events cause both physical and mental. Mental events are caused by physical events, and cause nothing.
Functionalism (from David Armstrong)
Things are wht they are becasue of its function, not bc of what its made of
The Bodily Theory of Identity
You are a particular organism of homo sapiens sapiens - You start around the time of birth and die around the time of your bodily death.
The Soul Theory of Identity
You are particular immaterial psyche (he human soul, mind, or spirit.)
Fission/Fusion
a fission-fusion society is one in which the size and composition of the social group change as time passes and animals move throughout the environment; animals merge into a group (fusion)—e.g. sleeping in one place—or split (fission)—e.g. foraging in small groups during the day.
Consciousness
a person's subjective experience of the world and the mind
Arbitrariness
a property of language describing the fact that there is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning
Causation
the belief that events occur in predictable ways and that one event leads to another - A cause and effect relationship in which one variable controls the changes in another variable.
Incompatibilism
the claim that determinism is incompatible with the sort of freedom required to be morally responsible for our behavior
Determinism
the philosophy that holds that every event, action, and decision results from something independent of the human will
Dualism
the presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact
