Introduction to Philosophy
Test #2 Study Sheet
Test: November 2, 2011
Short Answer Section. The following list of terms and concepts is to help you in
preparing for the short answer section of the test. There will be 10 short answer
questions, of which you are to answer 8 (5 points each).
Universal doubt
Cogito
Bee’s wax
Reasons for error
Problem of dualism
Continuity and dreaming
Ideas and impressions
Skepticism
Empiricism
Missing shade of blue
Association of ideas
Reasonings a priori
Custom or habit
Reasonable
analytic/synthetic
synthetic a priori
metaphysics
personal identity (self)
time, object, “I think”
postmodernism
cultural relativism
science and appearance/reality
five ways
ontological argument
Gaunilo’s lost island
watchmaker argument
Hume’s critique (of watchmaker)
religious experience
Textual analysis. Three of the following five passages will be on the test. You are to
explain what two of the passages mean. To do this you should point out the context of the
passage and show how what is said relates to this context and why what is said is
important. Your explanations should be at least 3 times longer than the passage itself.
1. ‘Whence then come my errors? They come from the sole fact that since the will is
much wider in its range and compass than the understanding, I do not restrain it
within the same bounds, but extend it also to things which I do not understand:
and as the will is of itself indifferent to these, it easily falls into error and sin, and
chooses the evil for the good, or the false for the true.’ Descartes, Meditations, p.
66.
2. ‘Suppose a person, though endowed with the strongest faculties of reason and
reflection, to be brought on a sudden into this world; he would, indeed,
immediately observe a continual succession of objects, and one event following
another; but he would not be able to discover any thing farther.’ Hume, p. 121-2.
3. ‘Therefore, we must see whether we may have better success in our metaphysical
task if we begin with the assumption that objects must conform to our knowledge.
In this way we would have knowledge of objects a priori. We should then be
proceeding in the same way as Copernicus in his revolutionary hypothesis.’ Kant,
p. 128.
4. ‘Suppose that a person tried to prove to me by this reasoning that this island
actually exists, and that its existence should no longer be doubted. Either I would
believe that he was joking, or I would not know which I ought to regard as the
greater fool: perhaps myself for supposing that I should allow this proof, perhaps
him for supposing that he had established with any certainty the existence of this
island.’ Gaunilo’s critique Anselm, p. 207.
5. ‘Now it is certain that the liker the effects are which are seen and the liker the
causes which are inferred, the stronger is the argument. Every departure on either
side diminishes the probability and renders the experiment less conclusive.’
Hume, pp. 202-3.