Metaphysical Theories
Plato's philosophy of meaning was based on this foundational theory
The theory of forms
Often translated as "flourishing" or "the good life," this Aristotelian concept describes the highest human good, achieved through virtue and rational activity.
Eudaimonia
This Atheist author of Das Kapital famous quipped that religion was "the opiate of the masses"
Karl Marx
The philosopher best associated with Performance Criterion
John Locke
This philosophical position argues that because all events, including human actions, are determined by prior causes, free will is merely an illusion.
Hard Determinism
Aristotle believed that the soul was what tangible part of the human?
The intellect
According to Aristotle, how does one go about achieving the highest good?
Through the practice of the virtues.
This Dutch philosopher, known for his work Ethics, argued for a form of panentheism in which God and Nature are one and the same.
Baruch Spinoza
Noonan's argument that a fetus was a person was based on this theory of personhood, focused on DNA
Genetic Criterion
This view, associated with philosophers like David Hume, argues that free will and determinism are compatible because freedom depends not on the absence of causation, but on the ability to act according to one's desires without external coercion.
Soft Determinism
The belief that the ultimate reality is intellectual or mental, and that nothing physical matters or even truly exists.
Idealism
This ancient philosophical school, founded by a Greek thinker in the 4th century BCE, teaches that the key to happiness is seeking pleasure in the form of tranquility, freedom from fear, and the absence of bodily pain.
Epicurianism
First proposed by St. Anselm, this argument attempts to prove God's existence using reason alone, claiming that God, as the greatest conceivable being, must exist in reality because existence is a necessary attribute of perfection.
The Ontological Argument for God
What theory of personhood is applied when a corporation is a legal person, or a mountain, but an elephant is not.
Social Criterion
Proposed by John Searle, this thought experiment challenges the idea that artificial intelligence can truly understand language by comparing a computer following a program to a person manipulating symbols without comprehension.
Chinese Room Argument
What are the four causes identified in Aristotle's Theory of Causes?
Material
Formal
Efficient
Final
This philosopher would have argeed with Aristotle on virtue, but focused more on one's duties to society and maintaining the proper social role.
Confucius
This argument was used against St. Anselm's reasoned argument for God
The Overload Objection
This ethical criterion, often used in discussions about animal rights, asserts that the capacity for subjective experience and suffering is what grants a being moral consideration and rights.
Sentience Criterion
The belief that all aspects of human experience, including free will, can be explained by reducing them to simpler, more fundamental levels, like brain activity or physical laws.
Reductionism
The greek term meaning that states of mind are nothing more than the mental by-products of phsyical chemicals reacting in the brain
Epiphenominalism
Which nihilist stated that “we can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness"
Arthur Schopenhauer
Name all four of the theories of God explored in our course
Ontological
Cosmological
Design
Pascal's Wager
The concept that a fetus at 10 weeks has less personhood than a 34-week fetus, and a newborn baby has more personhood than a 34-week fetus is an example of which theory?
Gradient Theory of Personhood
This theory of free will argues that individuals themselves - not just prior events - can originate causal chains through their own volition.
Agent Causation