Cartesian Philosophy | Wait, Who am I? | I'm a Materialist, Part I | Causal Determinism | Epistemology 101 |
---|---|---|---|---|
What is "I think, therefore I am" ("Cogito ergo sum")
This famous quote by Descartes expresses the first certainty he arrives at after employing his method of doubt.
|
What is the memory theory?
John Locke championed this theory of personal identity. Don't forget the answer to this one!
|
What is a physical substance?
Materialism is the view that human beings are merely this type of substance.
|
What are prior events (causes) and natural laws?
According to causal determinism, all events (including human action) are the inevitable consequence of these two things.
|
What is knowledge?
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with questions about this.
|
What is the "Method of Cartesian doubt" (or "methodological skepticism")?
Descartes' method that he used to locate a belief about which he cannot doubt is also known by this label.
|
What is the same-body theory?
"Tattoos! Piercings! Died hair! Voila, I am a different person! Wait... that's absurd" expresses an objection to this theory of personal identity.
|
What is a brain state?
The subjective pleasure I experience whenever I taste a spoonful of almond gelato is simply this - at least, according to the mind-brain identity theorist.
|
What is false?
I choose to eat a burger today. Okay! But tell me - true or false... causal determinism says I could have done otherwise (like eaten a sandwich instead).
|
What is skepticism?
This philosophical view (some call it an "ability") puts into serious question our ability to have knowledge of the external world.
|
What are the dream argument and the evil demon argument?
These are the two arguments Descartes employs to raise doubt about the beliefs from his senses and reason.
|
What are substance theories
The same body theory and the same soul theory belong to this category of theories because they claim that there exists something "beneath" a thing's properties.
|
What are external stimuli (or conditioning)?
I smile, I laugh! But according to behaviorism, my behavior is determined by this - just like for Pavlov's dog. (Don't get mental on me!)
|
What is matter?
From the standpoint of chemistry and physics, there is good reason to think that human actions are causally determined because human beings are simply this - just like stars, planets, and atoms.
|
What is empiricism?
If you think that 1+1=2 can be known only after deriving ideas of '1' and '+' from sense experience, you probably fall into this camp in the debate of how we get knowledge.
|
What is the problem of skepticism (or the problem of bridging the appearance/reality gap)?
When I see a chair, I see the chair as it really is. Or do I? Descartes work gives rise to this "problem" that puzzled many thinkers after him.
|
What is personal identity in the qualitative sense?
If I said that "Phineas Gage post-accident was not the same person pre-accident", I most likely referring to personal identity in this sense (because of course he is the same person literally!)
|
What is a reductive explanation (or objective, physical explanation?
If I describe Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in terms of strings of different length vibrating at different rates at a certain succession, I have given you this type of explanation of a subjective phenomenon.
|
What is predict the future?
Simon-Pierre La Place said that if determinism is true, and a Being had knowledge of scientific laws and locations of all matter, this Being would be able to do this.
|
What is rationalism?
This view suggests that even at birth, we possess certain "innate" ideas, even though these ideas may require sense experience to awaken them.
|
What is God?
Descartes tries to show that we can trust our senses and our reason by proving the existence of this.
|
Who is David Hume?
"“When I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at nay time without perception..." was written by
|
What is libertarianism?
I am a behaviorist! And I most likely reject this theory in the free will debate. (But I still like Ron Paul.)
|
What our causal story (the multiplicity of causes behind our actions)?
Baron D'Holbach and Robert Sapolsky say that the widespread, popular belief that determinism is false is due to our ignorance of what?
|
What is rationalism?
Let's connect the dots, folks! Rene Descartes probably falls into this camp in the debate of how we get knowledge.
|