Download Introduction to Philosophy Test #2 Study Sheet Test: June 23, 2010

Introduction to Philosophy
Test #2 Study Sheet
Test: June 23, 2010
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).
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, transcendental ego
Modern vs. Postmodern
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. ‘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. 114.
2. ‘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. 121.
3. ‘The difference between how things seem and how things really are is just as fatal
a gap for them as it can be for us, but they are largely oblivious to it. The
recognition of the difference between appearance and reality is a human
discovery.’ Dennett, p. 15.
4. ‘If a man should try to prove to me by such reasoning that this island truly exists,
and that its existence should no longer be doubted, either I should believe that he
was jesting, or I know not which I ought to regard as the greater fool: myself,
supposing that I should allow this proof; or him, if he should suppose that he had
established with any certainty the existence of this island.’ Anselm, p. 189.
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. 184-5.