PHRU1000 Final Review
1. Analyze the role of Socrates’ conversation with Meno’s slave in Plato’s epistemology.
2. "If from equals we take away equals the remainders are equal"-how would Plato account for the
necessary truth and the empirical applicability of this claim?
3. How would Aristotle and Aquinas account for the same?
4. How would Descartes account for the same?
5. Present the “Third Man” argument, and discuss its significance
6. Compare Plato’s, Aristotle’s and Augustine’s account of universals.
7. Compare Plato’s and Aquinas’s accounts of the immateriality of the human soul.
8. Compare Aristotle’s and Descartes’ accounts of the nature of the human soul
9. According to Boethius, everything that exists, insofar as it exists, is good. How does Aquinas
reconcile this claim with the existence of evil?
10. Analyze Augustine’s account of moral evil.
11. Analyze Aquinas’ criticism of Anselm’s "ontological" proof.
12. Present and discuss Aquinas’ considerations concerning the demonstrability of God’s existence.
13. Analyze Aquinas’s arguments from efficient causality for the existence of God.
14. Present and discuss Descartes’ “Dreaming” and “Demon” arguments.
15. Present and discuss Descartes’ proof for God’s existence in the Third Meditation. What is the
role of this proof in Descartes’ project?
16. Discuss the objection to Descartes’ argument known as the "Cartesian Circle".
17. Discuss Descartes’ conception of our knowledge of physical reality.
If you carefully work out these topics, you’ll have no problem on the final.