HU2700: Study Questions for Second Exam
I. Define, Explain, Describe, Identify
agnosticism
Anselm, St.
a posteriori
a priori
Aquinas,
St. Thomas
Berkeley, George
atheism
category
Coherence
Conceptual
Relativism
content
Copernican
revolution in
knowledge
Correspondence
Cosmological
Descartes, René
Design
empiricism
epistemology
evil, problem of
faith
Flew, Antony
form
Hume, David
impressions
innate
Instrumentalism
invisible gardener
Kant, Immanuel
Locke, John
Mitchell, Basil
negation
noumena
Ontological
Paley, William
Pragmatic
primary
perceptions
phenomena
rationalism
Realism
reason
secondary
sense-data
skepticism
Stranger
tabula rasa
theism
truth
transcendental
idealism
utterance
II. Discussion
1. Explain why, according to Saint Anselm, it would be possible to conceive of a
being greater than God if God did not exist in reality? Give the relevant parts of
Anselm’s argument. Be specific.
2. Explain why, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, it is not possible for a line of
efficient causes to go back to infinity? Give the relevant parts of his argument. Be
specific.
3. Give William Paley's Design Argument for the existence of God in premiseconclusion form. Is the argument deductive or inductive? Explain.
4. Give the "problem of evil" argument against the existence of God in premiseconclusion form. Explain the “free will defense” of theism against that argument.
How exactly is that defense intended to refute the argument? Be specific.
5. What is the point of Antony Flew’s parable of the invisible gardener? What exactly
is he saying about religious utterances? What does this have to do with religious
(Christian) faith? Be specific.
6. What is the point of Basil Mitchell’s parable of the Stranger? What exactly is he
saying about religious utterances? Where specifically does he disagree with Flew?
What does this have to do with religious (Christian) faith? Be specific.
7. Summarize Descartes’s views about the sources of our knowledge of the world.
What are Descartes’s views about innate ideas? Why is Descartes classified as a
rationalist?
8. Summarize Kant’s views about the sources of our knowledge of the world.
According to Kant, what are the respective roles of reason and sense-experience in
knowledge? Which aspects of our knowledge are a priori? Which aspects are a
posteriori? Explain Kant’s distinction between the content and the form of
knowledge. Illustrate with an example.
9. Why is Hume referred to as "the great skeptic"? What exactly was he skeptical
about? How did Kant attempt to avoid Hume's skepticism? What sorts of
knowledge that Hume denied to be possible did Kant say are possible? What
aspects of Kant's epistemology allowed him to say this?
10. Compare and contrast Hume's and Kant's views on causality. What did each say
about the possibility of our knowing about cause-effect relationships-e.g., that
lightning causes thunder? According to Hume, what is the source of our beliefs in
causality? What does Kant say is the source of those beliefs? Do we really know
that some events cause other events, according to Hume? According to Kant?
Explain.
11. Compare and contrast the epistemological theories of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
In what respects are all three philosophers empiricists? In what ways do they
disagree about our knowledge of the existence of the external world, the continued
existence of ordinary physical objects (material substance), and minds (mental
substance)?