According to Thales, the world consists of various forms of what substance?
Water
According to Democritus, what are the ultimate constituents of the world?
Atoms
How does Parmenides think that one can know about the real world of Being?
Reason
What does Heraclitus theorize?
That the real world is in a perpetual flux (always flowing/continuously moving). "Nothing ever is, everything is becoming". Permanence is an illusion. Reason governs the world/
What two forces does Empedocles speculate are at the center of the universe?
attraction and repulsion (love and hate)
What theory does Anaximander put forth based on the need for species to adapt to their
environment?
Ultimate reality is not equated to one material substance. All matter is Infinite or Boundless. Theory of evolution based on the need for species to adapt to their environment.
What is Plato's theory of the Forms?
Changeless, eternal, and nonmaterial essences or patterns of which the actual visible objects we see are only poor copies
In Plato's allegory of the sun, with what is the sun compared?
The sun is compared to "good". The allegory of the sun illustrates that the supreme form of the "good" is necessary for intelligibility to be possible.
According to Plato, what process might guide someone to a knowledge of the forms?
Education--- however it is unlikely anyone will ever gain a full knowledge of the "forms
What do Aristotle's four causes do?
The four causes are answers to four questions one might ask about a natural object.
Aristotle Four Causes: Cause 1
Material cause - answers the questions about out of what substance an object is made of.
Aristotle Four Causes: Cause 2
Formal cause - answers questions about what an entity is.
Aristotle Four Causes: Cause 3
Efficient cause - answers the question how a thing came to be.
Aristotle Four Causes: Cause 4
Final cause - answers questions about what purpose the thing is made for.
How does Aristotle describe nature?
Within Physics, Aristotle argues that nature is teleological. Everything that exists has a proper functions according to its kind. Nature operates in an orderly manner. The telos of each entity determines all other causes found in nature. The Causes can b
According to Aristotle, what is necessary in a series of movers?
Everything that is in motion is moved by something else, and he offers a number (unconvincing) arguments to the effects. He also argues that there cannot be an infinite series of moved movers. It must start by some cause of motion. This must not be moving
According to Plotinus, what must the Soul must cleanse itself in order to reach the greatest spiritual
heights?
The ascent of the soul to the highest goal demands not religious belief or ritual, but moral
purity and liberation from bodily needs.
According to Augustine, what would make punishment and reward unjust?
Involuntary actions - not having free will.
According to Anselm, what is greater than a being that exists only in the understanding?
God
What kind of evidence does Anselm use for his ontological argument?
(1) God is by definition "a being than which nothing greater can be conceived."
(2) If God, the greatest being that can be conceived, exists only in our minds, then there must
be a being greater than God�that is, a God that exists in reality.
(3) But a be
What does Aquinas have to say about an infinite regress of causes?
There must be a first cause to explain the existence of cause."Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which
everyone gives the name of God.
How does Aquinas believe that the existence of God can be proved?
1. The first argument begins with the fact that there is change and argues that there must be an
Unmoved Mover that originates all change (or motion) but is itself unmoved. "Therefore it
is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this
What skeptical arguments does Descartes use in his Meditations?
In his first argument, he suggests that since it possible that
any experience he is having is really a dream, it is possible to doubt his experiences. However, even
if he is dreaming, he must know some things in order for those dreams to be intelligible.
Does Descartes think that it is possible that God could deceive him?
No because God is wholly good
From what two sources does Locke believe our minds are supplied with ideas?
Sensation (caused by objects and their qualities) and Reflection (an activity of the mind on the ideas it received via sensation)
With what does Locke compare the human mind?
tabula rasa (blank slate)
Does Hume think that causes and effects are discoverable by a priori reasoning?
Discoverable by the mere operation of thought. Cause and effects can be discovered by reason.
There is not a necessary connection between cause and effect.
Why does Hume believe that we should not believe in miracles?
Because a miracle would be a violation of the laws of nature. Hume says that the
reports of the resurrection are not to be believed "because that has never been observed in any age
or country." This implies that Hume assumes another concept of miracle, on
What interrupted Kant from his 'dogmatic slumber'?
by Hume's analysis of causation.
How did Kant distinguish different kinds of propositions?
Analytic and Synthetic Propositions
Of what does Hegel's dialectic consist?
A triadic process: Thesis -> antithesis -> synthesis (Being-nothingness)-> (Becoming) -> (The resolution in "spirit")
Upon what grounds does Kierkegaard thinks that we should try to base our religious faith?
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According to William James, what is the pragmatic method for determining truth?
Truth is dynamic rather than static and is to be defined in terms of beliefs that are useful or
satisfying. (Belief or faith must be an act not just epistemology)
According to Nietzsche, what kind of moral system is Christian morality?
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