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According to your notes, what are the two preliminary questions to ask of any philosophical question?
- 1.What exactly it the question?
- 2.How important is the question?
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How has knowledge traditionally been defined?
Knowledge has traditionally been defined as justified true belief.
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According to Rationalism, what is the primary and best source of knowledge?
Reason (not sense experience) is the primary and best source of knowledge about reality.
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According to Empiricism, what is the only source of genuine knowledge?
The only source of genuine knowledge is sense experience.
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What is the difference between 'a priori' and 'a posteriori' knowledge?
- 'a posteriori' - Knowledge that comes to us from sense experience, through the
- five senses.
- 'a priori' - Knowledge that comes to us independent of sense experience.
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What is G.E. Moore's defense of common sense?
- It is self evident that the external world exists.( I have two hands. )
- “I can know things which I cannot prove.”
- Common sense, should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
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What is the Correspondence Theory of Truth?
A proposition is true if it corresponds to the facts.
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There is more involved in being able to find the truth than being able to reason properly. What were the five suggestions given for helping one find the truth?
- 1.Being aware of our potential emotional biases.
- 2.Being aware of the background beliefs of people we get information from.
- 3.Being aware of the opposing view’s arguments.
- 4.Getting the opposing view directly from those who hold it.
- 5.Being willing to admit that we were wrong.
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What is Metaphysical Materialism?
Matter and the laws of physics make up and govern all that exists.
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What is Occam's Razor?
(Thinks physicalism if true) - The simplest explanation is the best explanation.
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What is Parallelism?
- (Preestablished harmony) Leibniz (1646-1715)
- God established two causal series that coincide: one mental and one physical.
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What is the difference between qualitative identity and numerical identity?
- Qualitative identity - The question we will consider is not, what is it for two different things to be identical
- Numerical identity - The question is what is it to be the same thing over change and time
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What is the 'continuity over time' criterion of numerical identity?
Two things are the same if they are connected by a succession of spatio-temporal events.
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What is the Psychological States Criterion of personal identity?
A person is the same person if they have a continuous set of memories. (John Locke)
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What is the Soul criterion of personal identity?
There is a nonmaterial self that is distinct from ones memories or other particular mental contents. It is this nonmaterial self that has the memories and mental contents.
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What is the Platonic-Cartesian view of immortality?
- There is immortality.
- A person is essentially spiritual (mental).
- The body is not an essential part of a human being.
- At death the soul (mind/consciousness) continues and the body perishes.
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What is the Christian view of immortality?
- There is immortality. The person is mind (soul) and body. They are a unified whole.
- The soul is not separated from “the body” in the afterlife.
- At or some time after death a new glorified body, related to but different from our body, replaces our body.
- The person, mind (soul) and body continues on.
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5 arguments claiming that annihilation is not a bad thing - Give 2 arguments and responses.
- 1. Since when we are dead we don’t experience it, it is not a bad thing.
- response - Things can be bad even if we do not experience them as bad.
- 2. Immortality would be bad, therefore annihilation would not be bad.
- response - One option being bad does not make the other one not bad. Both possibilities could be bad.
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What were the three potential sources of evidence for immortality discussed in class?
- Philosophical Argument
- Near Death Experiences
- Religion
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How is the traditional western notion of God defined?
Personal, Morally perfect, All powerful, All knowing, Transcendent, Creator of the physical universe
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What is the basic form of all Cosmological Arguments?
Something outside the universe is required to explain the existence of the universe.
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