N5 ARGUMENTS
True premises guarantee a true conclusion
What is a valid argument?
If P then Q, Q, Therefore P
What is affirming the consequent?
The way that Descartes is going to find certain knowledge
What is the method of doubt?
All of our ideas, or more feeble perceptions, are copies of our impressions, or more lively ones
What is the Copy Principle?
Jeremy Bentham said that pushpin was just as good as this thing
What is poetry?
A moral theory that is based on duty
What is deontology?
The view that reason is the foundation of knowledge
What is rationalism?
A sentence with a truth value
What is a statement?
They are true, plausible and unambiguous, or appeal to an appropriate authority
What are acceptable premises?
What Descartes likes to wear when he is sitting by the fire
What is a winter dressing gown?
A perception that cannot be broken down further into constituent parts
What is a simple idea?
It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than this satisfied
What is a fool?
A principle that informs your action, which can be universalised
What is a maxim?
John Locke's metaphor for the mind
What is a blank sheet of paper?
If A then B, if B then C, C is bad, therefore don't do A.
What is the slippery slope fallacy?
Attacking the person on the grounds that they have a vested interest
What is ad hominem circumstantial?
If he completely mistrusted them, Descartes would be like a madman
What are the senses?
Our immediate emotional responses to experiences
What are inward impressions?
It measures how much the happiness generated by an action is mixed with suffering
What is purity?
It is created by a contradiction in conception
What is a perfect duty?
The philosophical view that knowledge can never be certain
What is scepticism?
Presenting an argument with the premises and conclusion labelled and written as standalone statements
What is standard form?
An attempt to manipulate someone into accepting a claim by making them feel sympathy or guilt
What is a fallacious appeal to emotion?
Even if you are doing this, 2+3 still equals 5
What is dreaming?
Hume's two examples of complex ideas that our imagination could create
What is a virtuous horse, and a golden mountain?
Activities that lead to 'flourishing'
What are higher pleasures?
The principle that rationality is the guiding principle of morality
What is the sovereignty of reason?
Leibniz's metaphor for the mind
What is a block of marble?
Making a claim based on the false assumption that rejecting one option means accepting another
What is the false dilemma fallacy?
A type of argument with an intermediate conclusion
What is a serial argument?
This is necessarily true every time it is conceived by Descartes
"I am, I exist"
By augmenting our ideas of goodness and wisdom
How do we get our idea of God?
A set of principles that, if everyone followed them, would generate the greatest overall happiness.
What is rule utilitarianism?
It states that we must never use someone merely as a means to an end
What is the second formulation of the categorical imperative?
Ideas that we are born with
What are innate ideas?
To deny a claim, with evidence
What is refuting a claim?
A type of argument where premises support the likelihood, rather than certainty, of the conclusion
What is an inductive argument?
The kind of thing that Descartes is
What is a thinking thing?
All of the objects of our enquiry are either relations of ideas or matters of fact
What is Hume's fork?
They have experienced both types of pleasure and would choose higher
Who are competent judges?
It creates an imperfect duty
What is a contradiction in the will?
The philosophical view that knowledge is based on sensory experience
What is empiricism?
If they are a recognised expert, have views in line with their peers, and are free of bias
Who is a legitimate authority?
When the premises are enough to prove the conclusion
What is sufficiency?
God must have put the idea of himself into Descartes' mind, as only he has enough reality
What is the trademark argument?
Hume argued that we can never have knowledge of this a priori
What is cause and effect?
The morally right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number
What is the greatest happiness principle?
Kant would let him in to chop you up
Who is the murderer at the door?
The sceptical argument that knowledge can never be certain, as each justification needs itself to be justified
What is the infinite regress of reason?