Minds and Bodies
What is the purpose of Descartes' 'hats and coats' example?
To show that the mind is a better knower than the body
Is it accurate to describe Michaels as a body theorist? Why or why not?
She is not a body theorist because she does not think that personal identity consists of continuity of the body alone, however, she does not think that we have grounds to entirely reject body theory.
Nature
What is the Hard Problem?
The challenge of explaining the subjective nature of consciousness.
Descartes: "Thus, simply by knowing that I ____ and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing."
exist
What is the purpose of Smart's morning and evening star example?
To show that we can be ignorant of the identity of two things and that has no bearing on the reality of their identity.
What is Hume's bundle theory?
The self can exist only momentarily as a bundle of perceptions
Name one of Socrates analogies for the life without self-discipline.
The leaky jars
The gully bird
The male prostitute
Itching and scratching
What are qualia?
The subjective 'what-it-is-likeness' of our conscious experiences. e.g. when smelling a rose, what the rose smells like to the sniffer is a quale.
Aristotle: "Thus a master of any art avoids excess and defect, and seeks the ______ and chooses this"
intermediate
Why does Nagel choose a bat as the subject of his thought experiment?
Because bat phenomenology is sufficiently different to human phenomenology to be unimaginable, and yet we still have no difficulty believing that there is something that it is like to be a bat, highlighting the significance of the subjective character of consciousness.
What does Locke's rational parrot example demonstrate?
That we define someone as a 'man' based on their body, not their mind. A rational parrot would still be a parrot.
What does it mean to be 'fittingly fulfilled' in Wolf's terms?
To be fulfilled by positive engagement with something objectively worthy.
What is hedonism and which Unit 4 philosopher is associated with this concept?
Callicles.
Nietzsche: "The noble human being honours the man who... enjoys practising severity and harshness upon _____ and feels reverence for all that is severe and harsh."
himself
What is the Fido-Fido theory of meaning and how does Smart say it leads us to the incorrect conclusion that sensations are something other than brain processses?
The Fido-Fido theory of meaning is that the meaning of words aligns exactly with what they name. This creates a problem because it leads us to think that the language we use to describe sensations must report on sensations, when it reality it reports on brain processes.
Aristotle
What does Aristotle mean when he says that to act virtuously, you have to act 'as the virtuous man does'?
It doesn't count as virtuous behaviour if you do it begrudgingly, or because you expect a reward. The virtuous man acts for the sake of virtue.
What is teleology and which Unit 4 philosopher is associated with this concept?
Teleology is the idea that things are directed toward a goal or have a purpose.
Aristotle.
Nagel: "To deny the reality or logical significance of what we can never describe or understand is the crudest form of ____ ____"
cognitive dissonance
Give two reasons why Descartes says we cannot rely on our senses for certain knowledge.
1. The senses sometimes deceive us (e.g. far away objects appear small when they are in fact large)
2. We cannot distinguish what we see when awake from what we see when asleep and don't know if things are real or if we are dreaming
3. We can't be sure that an evil demon is not deceiving us about reality
What is Hume's fork and how does he use it to argue that there is no self?
Who does Nietzsche describe as 'a modest and thoroughly mediocre species of man'?
English utilitarians
What is epiphenomenalism?
The theory of that the mind arises out of brain activity, but is something separate from brain activity.
Socrates: (after Callicles has said that if people who need nothing are happy then there'd be nothing happier than a stone or a corpse) "But the people you are calling happy have a _____ life as well."
terrifying