PHIL 201 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS LATEST UPDATE, ALREADY
GRADED A+.
What was the content of ancient philosophy?
- Ancient science was speculative - not to explain how the world worked but to devise principles for how
things had to be
- Aristotelian world-view
o Aristotelian views dominated philosophy, religion, and science
o Aristotle gave a picture of the world which one could know with certainty
o Aristotelian theory of world
Made of four elements
• air and fire's nature was to go up away from the centre
• water and earth wanted to go downwards
Celestial bodies had to move in a circle and therefore were made of something different
- Over time every principle of Aristotelian astronomy was falsified
What is the history of ancient philosophy?
- Western philosophy began with Thades in 6th century BC
o Thought everything was water
o He was the first philosopher because his justification was based on experience and reason rather than
tradition
o People thought philosophy was about how to live and how to know what to do - about ethics and
epistemology
- 5th century emerged the sophists
o In Greek courts, one needed to argue and the sophists instructed people how to argue and win cases
o Not interested in getting at the truth
o Protagoras, every truth is just how it feels to you "Man is the measure of all things"
o Feeling among them of scepticism "You can't really know anything"
o Scepticism is continually recurrent in philosophy
- Socrates 5th/4th century
o He would try to convince people things
- Plato 5th/4th
o Criticised Socrates for trying to find knowledge in the world of the senses
o True knowledge is like mathematics
o Knowledge is what can't be otherwise
o Has to be in the purely intelligible world (imagine souls trapped in the body)
o Was quite different as they focused on things that only can't be otherwise and wanted to know the
nature of things in themselves
What are seven features of Aristotle's philosophy?
o Aristotle thinks it is possible know things in the world of the senses that can't be otherwise - contra
plato
o Distinctions between accidental and essential properties
Example:
,• E.g. Socrates is human - knowledge because it is essential/
• Socrates is musical - not knowledge because it is accidental
Example 2:
• A tastiest pie
• Tastiest is accidental because it arguably could be otherwise
If a more tastier pie came along, that thing would still exist
• Pastry is essential because it must have pastry
If there was no longer pastry, it could not be a pie
If you know what something is, you must know its essential nature
o Change
Essential does not change,
• not the unmusical becomes musical but the essential became x then y, Socrates became unmusical
and then musical
Essential nature underlies change
Accidental doesn't change because it doesn't survive
o Causality
To know an object, we must know why the object is the way it is
Causation = A thing realising its potential (what it wants to be)
Causality of an acorn:
1. Material cause - needs matter such as soil
2. Efficient cause - right place at right time - light, soil, water
3. Formal Cause - structure of the acorn which will develop
4. Final cause - its aim and teleology - oak tree
o Form/matter distinction
String (matter) becoming shorter (form) changes octave
Socrates (matter of the human) exists but his life (form) can depart
Matter remains but the form changes
o View of perceptual knowledge
Mind can assimilate form (like round bronze in a ball) but it doesn't take on the matter
Important because we have knowledge because we have a replica of the world inside of us - it is clear
why we knows something
Account dominated until Descartes
What is the context of Descartes meditations?
- Method of doubt
o Wants to figure out what he can know by systematically doubting all propositions and starting from
the world up
- Scepticism of the external world
o Sceptical of knowledge through senses as he has been deceived before like in a dream
o All social and physical sciences are doubtful yet not initially sceptical of mathematical knowledge
- Mathematical knowledge can be doubtful
o If a deceiving demon or God exists, then all knowledge, including mathematical knowledge, can be
illusions produced by the powerful being
- Scepticism of Probability
, o If you say a belief is highly probable, then one will continue to believe and assert them and eventually
assert things that turn out to be wrong because other things he has believed in with probability were
wrong
- Summary of meditation 1:
o He wasn't able to be sure of his senses after the first meditation
o Wanted to find one point to be certain on
Meditation 2:
- Certainty of his own existence because I think therefore I am
o Needed to exist as a precondition for deception
- Self-identity
o He is a thinking being
o Cannot say he is anything else because he can imagine being deceived
- Can be certain of the seemings
Meditation 3:
- Feels he has to establish the existence of God before the world because he wants to establish there is a
non-deceiving being that causes everything that exists
- Causal argument
o Establishes causal principle - usually the cause is greater than the effect
o Any idea has x much representative reality must be caused by something which has at least X much
intrinsically
o Photo of Eiffel tower is representationally bigger than the flower yet intrinsically smaller
o Centaur idea comes from a mix of real ideas (human and horse)
- Cosmological argument - from phenomena to God - for the existence of God:
o Everything has a cause and effect
o If an idea exists, then it must be caused by and represent something with at least as much reality as
that contained in the idea
o If an idea of God exist, then it is
o Cannot gotten the idea of god from oneself or others but must be from an actual perfect being
Meditation 4:
- Trying to prove the existence of God and reconcile a good, non-deceiving God with Descartes deceived
beliefs.
- Error is a negative
- False beliefs come from a limitation in judgment and imperfection of the individual
- Deception is an indication of lack of perfection
- God is essential to a knowledge of reality
Meditation 5:
- Ontological argument - deals with the nature of reality and has no premises - idea of God to God
o Essence and existence distinction:
Essence of sparrow is not the existence of sparrow
E.g. What a sparrow is and that a sparrow exists
Existence is not a part of the essence of the sparrow is to say you can know a what a sparrow is without
knowing that it is
o Argument:
Existence is a part of God's essence
GRADED A+.
What was the content of ancient philosophy?
- Ancient science was speculative - not to explain how the world worked but to devise principles for how
things had to be
- Aristotelian world-view
o Aristotelian views dominated philosophy, religion, and science
o Aristotle gave a picture of the world which one could know with certainty
o Aristotelian theory of world
Made of four elements
• air and fire's nature was to go up away from the centre
• water and earth wanted to go downwards
Celestial bodies had to move in a circle and therefore were made of something different
- Over time every principle of Aristotelian astronomy was falsified
What is the history of ancient philosophy?
- Western philosophy began with Thades in 6th century BC
o Thought everything was water
o He was the first philosopher because his justification was based on experience and reason rather than
tradition
o People thought philosophy was about how to live and how to know what to do - about ethics and
epistemology
- 5th century emerged the sophists
o In Greek courts, one needed to argue and the sophists instructed people how to argue and win cases
o Not interested in getting at the truth
o Protagoras, every truth is just how it feels to you "Man is the measure of all things"
o Feeling among them of scepticism "You can't really know anything"
o Scepticism is continually recurrent in philosophy
- Socrates 5th/4th century
o He would try to convince people things
- Plato 5th/4th
o Criticised Socrates for trying to find knowledge in the world of the senses
o True knowledge is like mathematics
o Knowledge is what can't be otherwise
o Has to be in the purely intelligible world (imagine souls trapped in the body)
o Was quite different as they focused on things that only can't be otherwise and wanted to know the
nature of things in themselves
What are seven features of Aristotle's philosophy?
o Aristotle thinks it is possible know things in the world of the senses that can't be otherwise - contra
plato
o Distinctions between accidental and essential properties
Example:
,• E.g. Socrates is human - knowledge because it is essential/
• Socrates is musical - not knowledge because it is accidental
Example 2:
• A tastiest pie
• Tastiest is accidental because it arguably could be otherwise
If a more tastier pie came along, that thing would still exist
• Pastry is essential because it must have pastry
If there was no longer pastry, it could not be a pie
If you know what something is, you must know its essential nature
o Change
Essential does not change,
• not the unmusical becomes musical but the essential became x then y, Socrates became unmusical
and then musical
Essential nature underlies change
Accidental doesn't change because it doesn't survive
o Causality
To know an object, we must know why the object is the way it is
Causation = A thing realising its potential (what it wants to be)
Causality of an acorn:
1. Material cause - needs matter such as soil
2. Efficient cause - right place at right time - light, soil, water
3. Formal Cause - structure of the acorn which will develop
4. Final cause - its aim and teleology - oak tree
o Form/matter distinction
String (matter) becoming shorter (form) changes octave
Socrates (matter of the human) exists but his life (form) can depart
Matter remains but the form changes
o View of perceptual knowledge
Mind can assimilate form (like round bronze in a ball) but it doesn't take on the matter
Important because we have knowledge because we have a replica of the world inside of us - it is clear
why we knows something
Account dominated until Descartes
What is the context of Descartes meditations?
- Method of doubt
o Wants to figure out what he can know by systematically doubting all propositions and starting from
the world up
- Scepticism of the external world
o Sceptical of knowledge through senses as he has been deceived before like in a dream
o All social and physical sciences are doubtful yet not initially sceptical of mathematical knowledge
- Mathematical knowledge can be doubtful
o If a deceiving demon or God exists, then all knowledge, including mathematical knowledge, can be
illusions produced by the powerful being
- Scepticism of Probability
, o If you say a belief is highly probable, then one will continue to believe and assert them and eventually
assert things that turn out to be wrong because other things he has believed in with probability were
wrong
- Summary of meditation 1:
o He wasn't able to be sure of his senses after the first meditation
o Wanted to find one point to be certain on
Meditation 2:
- Certainty of his own existence because I think therefore I am
o Needed to exist as a precondition for deception
- Self-identity
o He is a thinking being
o Cannot say he is anything else because he can imagine being deceived
- Can be certain of the seemings
Meditation 3:
- Feels he has to establish the existence of God before the world because he wants to establish there is a
non-deceiving being that causes everything that exists
- Causal argument
o Establishes causal principle - usually the cause is greater than the effect
o Any idea has x much representative reality must be caused by something which has at least X much
intrinsically
o Photo of Eiffel tower is representationally bigger than the flower yet intrinsically smaller
o Centaur idea comes from a mix of real ideas (human and horse)
- Cosmological argument - from phenomena to God - for the existence of God:
o Everything has a cause and effect
o If an idea exists, then it must be caused by and represent something with at least as much reality as
that contained in the idea
o If an idea of God exist, then it is
o Cannot gotten the idea of god from oneself or others but must be from an actual perfect being
Meditation 4:
- Trying to prove the existence of God and reconcile a good, non-deceiving God with Descartes deceived
beliefs.
- Error is a negative
- False beliefs come from a limitation in judgment and imperfection of the individual
- Deception is an indication of lack of perfection
- God is essential to a knowledge of reality
Meditation 5:
- Ontological argument - deals with the nature of reality and has no premises - idea of God to God
o Essence and existence distinction:
Essence of sparrow is not the existence of sparrow
E.g. What a sparrow is and that a sparrow exists
Existence is not a part of the essence of the sparrow is to say you can know a what a sparrow is without
knowing that it is
o Argument:
Existence is a part of God's essence
