Term
| What is the easiest and most plausible approach to the Platonic Forms? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| What are the 2 beliefs central to Plato's thinking? |
|
Definition
Platonic Forms
Recollection |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| How we gain knowledge; Plato believed that we remember or recollect what we already knew about the forms from before birth. All learning is remembering. |
|
|
Term
|
Definition
| Ideas that are not merely metal entities and they are not physical either. |
|
|
Term
| What subject was of great interest to both Plato and the Pythagoreans? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Plato concluded that words refer to nonphysical entities that he called? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Why did Plato regard the body as a hindrance in the quest for truth and knowledge? |
|
Definition
| Because true knowledge is about the forms and the physical senses cannot tell us anything about them |
|
|
Term
| When did we learn about the Forms? |
|
Definition
| Plato believed that each human soul existed before birth and that in it's premortal existence it had immediate access to the forms. |
|
|
Term
| What 3 Pythagorean doctrine's have we encountered in the Phaedo? |
|
Definition
1. The soul is a kind of atonement or harmony.
2. Health is a proper balance in the pairs of opposites that make up the body.
3. The study of philosophy is a kind of purification of the soul. |
|
|
Term
| In Phaedo, Socrates believed that experiencing pleasure and pain would lead to what? |
|
Definition
| By experiencing pleasure or pain leads one to conclude that the source of the sensation is real and true. This would result in the soul being connected to the physical world. |
|
|
Term
| What were the two questions that, according to Descartes, should be resolved by philosophy rather than by theology? |
|
Definition
| the immortality of the soul and God’s existence |
|
|
Term
| How, according to Descartes, do his arguments on First Philosophy compare with geometrical demonstrations? |
|
Definition
| They are more certain and self-evident than those of geometry. |
|
|
Term
| Descartes wants to reject everything not entirely certain and indubitable. But he cannot examine each single belief, so he simplifies his task in two ways. What are these two ways? |
|
Definition
| to methodically doubt everything which is doubtable and accept only those ideas which seem clear and distinct |
|
|
Term
| Does it follow from the fact that I am sometimes wrong in making judgments about what I see that I always could be wrong in such judgments? How about that I could be wrong in all judgments? |
|
Definition
| No. How could one know one is wrong sometimes unless one is sometimes correct and thus can compare the correct with the mistaken? |
|
|
Term
| Are there conclusive indications by which I can tell whether I am awake or asleep? If not, why are we so seldom wrong in deciding? |
|
Definition
| There are no conclusive indications but we are seldom wrong because there are reliable indications such as the fact that dreams lack essential features of the physical which we perceive when we are awake (such as spatial/temporal characteristics). |
|
|
Term
| What is the one proposition that Descartes finds indubitable and what are the circumstances under which it is indubitable? |
|
Definition
| "I think, therefore I am." This proposition is true whenever I think of it or conceive that I am. |
|
|
Term
| What is the essential feature of body? |
|
Definition
| spatial extension or occupying space |
|
|
Term
| In what ways does Descartes now recognize that the soul is different from the body? |
|
Definition
| The soul is a pure, unextended, thinking substance and the body is extended substance. |
|
|
Term
| What is the one attribute that Descartes find to be inseparable from his nature? What are some of the specific activities that are included under this attribute? |
|
Definition
| thinking / doubting, conceiving, willing, affirming, rejecting, perceiving, etc. |
|
|
Term
| On what grounds does Descartes conclude that I do not know the wax by the imagination? |
|
Definition
| The wax can take upon itself an infinite number of shapes, but the imagination is not an infinite faculty. Thus, the imagination does not know the wax |
|
|
Term
| What are the kinds of thoughts that Descartes recognizes? Which of these can be false? |
|
Definition
| Ideas, volitions, emotions, and judgments. Judgments may be false. |
|
|
Term
| What are the three ways in which ideas enter the mind? |
|
Definition
| innate, external source, made by oneself |
|
|
Term
| Which ideas resemble objects? What is the reason that Descartes gives for believing that ideas resemble objects? |
|
Definition
| 3. ideas from without, because nature teaches one that these ideas resemble objects faithfully and one has direct experience that these ideas are not dependent on one’s will |
|
|
Term
| What is the difference between nature and the light of nature? |
|
Definition
| Nature cannot give certain truth, but the light of nature is what lets one know an idea is true or false. The light of nature is an exalted kind of common sense. |
|
|
Term
| How am I able to make mistakes? |
|
Definition
| because the power God gave to human beings to discriminate between true and false is not infinite |
|
|
Term
| On page 61 of Descartes’ Meditations , there are two clear allusions to Platonic theories. What are they? |
|
Definition
| recollection and the theory of Forms |
|
|
Term
| How, according to Descartes, does the operation of imagination suggest that physical objects exist? |
|
Definition
| Imagining is concerned with objects which the imagination has either thought of by itself or perceived through the senses, but this can only happen if there are physical objects. |
|
|
Term
| According to Descartes, is it conceivable that one could feel pain in some body other than one’s own? |
|
Definition
| Certainly not; minds can only feel through the body of which they are part. |
|
|
Term
| According to Descartes, how is the soul connected with the body? |
|
Definition
| through the pineal gland in the brain |
|
|
Term
| What metaphors does Descartes use to explain the operation of the body? |
|
Definition
|
|
Term
| Descartes says that many experiments prove that the mind receives impressions only from the brain. What kinds of experiments could Descartes have in mind? |
|
Definition
| blocking the stimulus to the brain to see if the mind perceives |
|
|
Term
| How, finally, does Descartes think that we can escape errors in sensory judgments? |
|
Definition
| by combining the faculties of sense, memory, and understanding together to examine the same object |
|
|
Term
| How does Descartes think that we distinguish between dreaming and waking? |
|
Definition
| Memory does not bind and join our dreams with the rest of our experiences as does the waking state. |
|
|
