Download PART FOUR 4A Plato The Beginning of Everything Review

PART FOUR
4A
Plato The Beginning of Everything
Review Questions
1. What reasons does the speaker provide for the assertion that “Everything that becomes or is
created must of necessity be created by some cause”? Do you agree with this assertion? Explain
your answer.
2. Why does the speaker claim that the world was created and deny that it always existed? Do
you agree with the speaker?
3. Explain the meaning of the following passage in the Plato reading: “But the father and maker
of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would
be impossible.” Do you agree with this?
4. What does the speaker mean when he says, “for we must remember that I who am the speaker,
and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is
probable and enquire no further”?
Thomas Aquinas The Five Ways
Review Questions
1. Explain Aquinas’s first proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?
2. Explain Aquinas’s second proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?
3. Explain Aquinas’s third proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?
4. Explain Aquinas’s fourth proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?
5. Explain Aquinas’s fifth proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?
Gottfried Leibniz Sufficient Reason
Review Questions
1. What, according to Leibniz, “distinguishes us from the mere animals and gives us Reason and
the sciences, raising us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God”? Do you agree with Leibniz?
Explain your answer.
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2. What, according to Leibniz, are acts of reflection? Do you agree with Leibniz? Explain your
answer.
3. What are the “two great principles” that Leibniz claims grounds our reasonings? Do you agree
with Leibniz? Explain your answer.
4. Explain the difference between truths of reasoning and truths of fact. Do you agree with
Leibniz? Explain your answer.
5. According to Leibniz, why must the final reason of things be in a necessary substance? Do
you agree with Leibniz? Explain your answer.
George Berkeley The Author of Nature
Review Questions
1. Explain Berkeley’s argument when he says, “When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not
in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall
present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas
imprinted on them are not creatures of my will.”
2. What support does Berkeley give for his claim that the “ideas of Sense are more strong, lively,
and distinct than those of the imagination”? Do you agree with Berkeley?
3. Explain what Berkeley means by “laws of nature.” Is Berkeley’s use of this term the same as
modern scientists use of it? Explain your answer.
4. What does Berkeley says about the difference between “real things” and “ideas”?
5. What arguments does Berkeley give to support the claim that the ideas of Sense are less
dependent on the spirit, or thinking substance which perceives them, “yet still they are ideas, and
certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can exist otherwise than in a mind perceiving it”?
6. Do you agree with Berkeley when he says, “Hence, it is evident that God is known as certainly
and immediately as any other mind or spirit whatsoever distinct from ourselves”? Explain your
answer.
William Paley The Watchmaker Argument
Review Questions
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1. Explain Paley’s reasoning and conclusions when he compares finding a stone while you are
out walking with your finding a watch while you are out walking. Do you think that Paley’s
arguments are strong or weak? Explain your answer.
2. Paley says that even if “we had never seen a watch made; that we had never known an artist
capable of making one; that we were altogether incapable of executing such a piece of
workmanship ourselves, or of understanding in what manner it was performed,” nevertheless, we
would still conclude that it must have had a maker. Do you agree with Paley? Explain your
answer.
3. Explain Paley’s meaning when he claims “It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in
order to show with what design it was made: still less necessary, where the only question is,
whether it were made with any design at all.”
4. What does Paley mean by the phrase “principle of order”?
5. Explain Paley’s point when he discusses the idea of “laws of metallic nature.”
6. Do you agree with Paley when he concludes that “There cannot be design without a
designer”?
David Hume Against the Watchmaker Argument
Review Questions
1. Explain Philo’s point when he says, “Our ideas reach no further than our experience: We have
no experience of divine attributes and operations. I need not conclude my syllogism: You can
draw the inference yourself.”
2. Explain Cleanthes’s argument by analogy for his conclusion that “we prove at once the
existence of a deity.”
3. Explain Philo’s argument regarding the difference between a house and the universe. Do you
agree with Philo? Do you think that it successfully counters Cleanthes’s analogical argument?
4. What is Philo’s point when he uses the phrase “proof of design”?
5. Explain Philo’s point when he says that we are not justified in transferring from parts to the
whole.
4B
Anselm of Canterbury The Existence of God
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Review Questions
1. Explain Anselm’s meaning when he says, “I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but
I believe in order to understand.”
2. Explain what Anselm means when he says, “For, it is one thing for an object to be in the
understanding, and another to understand that the object exists.”
3. Anselm concludes that “Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists
in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one,
than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible.” Do you agree with
Anselm? Explain your answer.
4. What does Anselm mean when he says “there exists a being, than which nothing greater can
be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality”? What is the difference
between the two italicized terms?
5. Explain Anselm’s distinction when he says that a thing may be conceived in two ways.
René Descartes The Idea of God
Review Questions
1. Descartes says, “I can demonstrate diverse properties of the triangle, all of which are assuredly
true since I clearly conceive them: and they are therefore something; and I have already fully
shown the truth of the principle, that whatever is clearly and distinctly known is true.” Do you
agree with Descartes that the criteria of “clear and distinct” is adequate for his project? Explain
your answer.
2. Explain what Descartes means by “existence” and “essence.” Do you agree with Descartes’s
use of these two concepts in his argument for the existence of God? Explain your answer.
3. Why does Descartes say that “it is not in my power to conceive a God without existence, that
is a being supremely perfect, and yet devoid of an absolute perfection”? Why does Descartes
claim that existence is a perfection?
4. Descartes says, “And although the right conception of this truth has cost me much close
thinking, nevertheless at present I feel not only as assured of it as of what I deem most certain,
but I remark further that the certitude of all other truths is so absolutely dependent on it that
without this knowledge it is impossible ever to know anything perfectly.” What is Descartes’s
point here?
Anne Conway On God
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Review Questions
1. Explain what Conway means when she says, “In God there is neither time nor change, nor
composition, nor division of parts.” Why is it important that God has these attributes?
2. Conway says that in God “there can exist no new knowledge or Will, but his knowledge and
Will are eternal.” What is the difference between “eternal” and “infinite time”?
3. Explain Conway’s meaning when she says, “Likewise, in God there can exist no passion,
which to speak properly comes from his creatures: For every passion is something temporal.”
4. Conway says, “let us suppose the duration of this world to be 600,000 years, or any other
number of years, as great as can be by any reason conceived. Now, I demand whether it could be
that the world was created before this time? If they deny it, they limit the power of God to a
certain number of years; if they affirm it, they allow time to be before all time, which is a
manifest contradiction.” Do you agree with Conway that it would be a contradiction?
5. Conway says, “Yet that indifference of acting, or not acting, can by no means be said to be in
God; because this were an imperfection, and would make God like corruptible creatures.” Why
would it be an imperfection?
David Hume Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
Review Questions
1. What point is Demea making in this passage: “The unity too of the Divine Nature, it is very
difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to deduce merely from contemplating the works of
nature”?
2. Explain the importance of Demea’s general principle that “Whatever exists must have a cause
or reason of its existence.” Do you agree with Demea? Explain your answer.
3. Do you agree with the following assertion of Cleanthes: “Nothing is demonstrable, unless the
contrary implies a contradiction”?
4. According to Cleanthes, “There is no being, therefore, whose non-existence implies a
contradiction. Consequently there is no being, whose existence is demonstrable.” How does this
affect Demea’s argument? Do you agree with Demea or Cleanthes?
5. Cleanthes asserts, “Therefore, the words necessary existence have no meaning.” Do you agree
with Cleanthes? How does it affect Demea’s argument?
Sören Kierkegaard God Cannot Be Proven to Exist
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Review Questions
1. Explain what Kierkegaard means when he says, “For if God does not exist it would of course
be impossible to prove it.”
2. Explain what Kierkegaard means when he says, “But if when I speak of proving God’s
existence I mean that I propose to prove that the Unknown, which exists, is God, then I express
myself unfortunately. For in that case I do not prove anything, least of all an existence, but
merely develop the content of a conception.”
3. Explain what Kierkegaard means when he says, “But between the God and his works there is
an absolute relationship; God is not a name but a concept. Is this perhaps the reason that his
essentia involvit existentiam [essence involves existence]?”
4. Explain what Kierkegaard means when he says, “What then is the Unknown? It is the limit to
which the Reason repeatedly comes.”
5. Why does Kierkegaard argue that although we think our proofs get close to proving God’s
existence, the final step is always a leap of faith? Do you agree with Kierkegaard? Explain your
answer.
Markus Lammenranta Is Descartes’s Reasoning Viciously Circular?
Review Questions
1. What is the Cartesian Circle and why is it important?
2. Explain the importance of “clear and distinct” premises for Descartes.
3. Explain the criticism of Descartes when he says “that without knowledge of non-deceiving
God he does not see how he can ever be certain of anything.”
4. What is Lammenranta’s point when he says of Descartes’s arguments, “These passages entail
that clear and distinct perception is not sufficient for knowledge or certainty. One must know in
addition that God exists and is not a deceiver”?
5. What is Lammenranta’s point when he asserts that “because Descartes’s proof presupposes
that reason is reliable, it is hard to see how he could remove these doubts by it”?
4C
George Hayward Joyce The Problem of Evil
Review Questions
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1. Explain why Joyce asserts that “The existence of evil in the world must at all times be the
greatest of all the problems which the mind encounters when it reflects on God and His relation
to the world.”
2. Why does Joyce believe that “Of man, it is true that the balance is immensely on the side of
happiness”? Do you agree with Joyce? Explain your answer.
3. Joyce asserts that “The earthquake and the volcano serve a moral end which more than
compensates for the physical evil which they cause.” What does Joyce mean by “moral end”? Do
you agree with Joyce?
4. What role does the concept of “pain” play in Joyce’s discussion?
5. Explain Joyce’s meaning when he says, “The existence of moral evil, however, becomes
explicable, when it is admitted that man’s life is a probation.”
J. L. Mackie Evil and Omnipotence
Review Questions
1. Why does Mackie claim that a theologian “can admit that no rational proof of God’s existence
is possible. And he can still retain all that is essential to his position, by holding that God’s
existence is known in some other non-rational way”?
2. Mackie says, “I think, however, that a more telling criticism can be made by way of the
traditional problem of evil. Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support,
but that they are positively irrational.” Do you agree with Mackie?
3. Mackie says, “In its simplest form the problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly
good; and yet evil exists. There seems to be some contradiction between these three propositions,
so that if any two of them were true the third would be false.” Explain why Mackie thinks that “if
any two of them were true the third would be false.”
4. Explain Mackie’s criticism of the following position: “Evil is necessary as a means to good.”
5. Explain Mackie’s criticism of the following position: “Good cannot exist without evil.”
Keith Parsons A Simple Statement of the Problem of Evil
Review Questions
1. Why, according to most theologians and philosophers, can God do anything except make a
contradiction true?
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2. Explain what Parsons means when he claims that “whatever is brought about by nature or
humans is indirectly created by God.”
3. When Parsons considers the concept of God, he lists three things that are required to be true:
1. God is perfectly good; 2. God is all-powerful; and 3. God does not prevent the existence of
natural and moral evil. But according to Parsons, “these three claims seem to form an
inconsistent set.” Explain what Parsons means by this.
4. Parsons says that “the real implication of Epicurus’ argument is that such a God does not
exist.” First, explain Epicurus’ argument. Second, discuss why you agree or disagree with the
conclusion.
5. Do you agree with Parsons when he says, “if any (even one) actual evil is gratuitous, that is, if
a perfectly good, all-powerful creator would not have a morally sufficient reason for permitting
it, then God cannot exist”? Explain your answer.
4D
Blaise Pascal The Wager
Review Questions
1. Explain why Pascal says, “It is incomprehensible that there should be a God, and
incomprehensible that there should not be a God.” What support does Pascal give for this claim?
2. What is Pascal’s point when he says, “But we know neither the existence nor the nature of
God, because he has neither dimension nor limits”?
3. Pascal asserts that “Let us then examine this point, and say, ‘God is, or He is not.’ But to
which side shall we incline? Reason can determine nothing about it.” Why does Pascal claim this
about “Reason”?
4. Explain how Pascal justifies the claim that you must wager that either God exists or He
doesn’t exist. Do you agree with Pascal?
5. What is Pascal’s point when he says, “We know truth, not only by our reason, but also by our
heart”?
Damaris Cudworth Masham A Natural Inscription
Review Questions
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1. Why does Masham claim that “Religion being (as I shall take it at present for granted) the
only sufficient ground or solid support of virtue”?
2. Masham says, “It is indeed only a rational fear of God, and desire to approve ourselves to him,
that will teach us in all things, uniformly to live as becomes our reasonable nature; to enable us
to do which, must be the great business and end of a religion which comes from God.” Do you
agree with Masham? Explain your answer.
3. Masham claims that “Skepticism is the proper disease our age, and has proceeded from
diverse causes; but be the remoter or original ones what they will, it could never have prevailed
as it has done, had not parents very generally contributed thereto, either by negligence of their
children's instruction; or instructing them very ill in respect of religion.” Do you agree with
Masham?
4. Masham says that “Absolute atheism does no doubt the best serve they who live as if there was
no God in the World; but how far so great nonsense as this, has been able to obtain, is not easy to
say.” Do you agree with Masham?
5. Explain Masham’s point when she asserts that “An irrational religion can never rationally be
conceived to come from God.”
Friedrich Nietzsche God Is Dead
Review Questions
1. Explain what Nietzsche means when he says, “In fact, we philosophers and free spirits feel
ourselves irradiated as by a new dawn by the report that the old God is dead; our hearts overflow
with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation.”
2. Should we take Nietzsche’s famous line, “God is dead,” literally? Why or why not? Do you
agree with Nietzsche?
3. Why does Nietzsche claim that most humans think it is impossible to accept that a moral
system can be acceptable without a religious base? Do you agree with Nietzsche?
4. Why does Nietzsche think that we need to get rid of the religious idea of absolute values and
universal moral laws? Do you agree with Nietzsche?
5. Why does the madman go around shouting, “I seek God! I seek God!”?
William. K. Clifford The Ethics of Belief
Review Questions
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1. What point is Clifford making at the beginning of the reading about the ship’s owner?
2. Explain what Clifford means when he says that the question of right or wrong has to do with
the origin of a belief. Do you agree with Clifford?
3. Explain what Clifford means when he asserts that the question is not whether a belief is true or
false, but whether it is entertained on wrong grounds. Do you agree with Clifford?
4. What does Clifford mean by the phrase “it has been judged wrong to believe on insufficient
evidence”?
5. Why does Clifford assert that, “No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the
universal duty of questioning all that we believe.”? Do you agree with Clifford?
William James The Will to Believe
Review Questions
1. Explain in detail what James means by a “live hypothesis.”
2. Explain in detail what James means by a “dead hypothesis.”
3. Explain what James means when he says, “Our belief in truth itself, for instance, that there is a
truth, and that our minds and it are made for each other—what is it but a passionate affirmation
of desire.”
4. Explain what James means by a forced option.
5. Explain what James means by a momentous option.
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