Review Sheet for Midterm Exam for Philosophy 32
1. General Themes
rejection of the assumption of the isomorphism of thought and being
the priority of epistemology over metaphysics
the rejection of final causes and the privilege of efficient causation
the development of the mechanical philosophy (matter in motion)
2. Bacon
criticism of Aristotelian science
Four Idols
proper scientific method (induction)
3. Galileo
the "no perceivers" argument against heat as a sensible quality
the "no need" argument against heat as a sensible quality
4. Boyle
the special intelligibility/clarity of mechanisms
1.
Descartes's goals in the Meditations
2.
Descartes's project and method
3.
normal
perceptual error,
the
dreaming argument,
possibility
God deceives,
possibility
something less than God creates me,
conclusion.
4.
Meditation II
Three
absolute certainties: I exist,
the
nature of what exists (former thoughts--a) rational animal and b) mind and
body--present thoughts--a thinking thing),
the
mind is better known than body (since body is known by the intellect's grasp
of body)
three
faculties of knowledge,
the
wax example (we know wax through our intellect, and we know several essential
features of the wax).
5.
Meditation III
attempt
to discover a general rule of truth (i.e. of cl. and d.),
classification
of ideas into types and sources to determine truth,
two
theistic proofs, objections and replies,
innateness
of idea of God,
argument
that God is not a deceiver.
6.
Meditation IV
problem
of evil
nature of error as a privation (not a reality)
rejection
of final causes
source of error (faculty mismatch)
possible
complaints against God and replies,
way of avoiding error,
proof
of clarity and distinctness as criteria of truth.
7.
Meditation V
properties
that describe the nature of material bodies,
innate
ideas, true and immutable natures, and argument for ideas of bodies being
innate,
theistic
proof, objections and replies,
dependence
of all other knowledge on knowledge of God.
8.
Meditation VI
proofs
of external world (from imagination and from sense),
proofs
of distinctness of mind and body,
mind-body
union
the
̉truthÓ of sense ideas,
how
sense ideas can nonetheless err,
resolution
of dream problem.