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Bacon Preface to The great instauration; The new organon, Aphorisms
1-46; selections
from The advancement of learning (Works IV: 13-17, 20-27,
47-57, and 294-98)
1. What did Bacon
mean by comparing the wisdom of the ancients to the boyhood of knowledge?
2. How is it that
the mechanical arts are superior to philosophy?
3. How did Bacon
respond to the charge that the works of the ancients have withstood the test
of time, and that if more could have been done to
improve the sciences it would have been done already?
4. How did Bacon
respond to the charge that the pursuit of knowledge of nature may be impious
and contrary to divine commands?
5. What are the
true ends of knowledge?
6. What was the
chief effect Bacon took the new science he was proposing to promise?
7. What is the
proper method to pursue when inquiring into the nature of things?
8. How does the
type of induction Bacon recommended differ from traditional forms of
induction?
9. What is the
key to rectifying the defects of sense experience, according to Bacon? 10.
What is the "fixed and established
maxim" that we must not forget on pain of being seduced by the insidious
action of ineradicable idols? 11.
What is the most we can do to “effect works?” 12.
What would Bacon say about the principle that
nature always employs the simplest means? 13.
What is being joined or separated in the cases
where mixing or separation (moving things about) brings about an “artificial”
object or occurrence? Boyle “On the
Excellency and Grounds of the Corpuscular or Mechanical Philosophy” (Matthews,
109-118)
1. In what way is
Boyle’s corpuscularianism unlike the atomism of
Epicurus and Lucretius?
2. What is the
cause of all change in the created world, according to Boyle?
3. What are the
two grand principles of the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy?
4. What are the
possible effects of one part of matter on another as Boyle envisioned them?
5. What are the
properties of the parts of matter?
6. How many
different kinds of matter are there, for Boyle?
7. Why did Boyle
consider the fact that the parts of matter may be infinitely varied in motion
and shape to be an advantage?
8. What is wrong
with supposing that mechanical principles apply only to medium sized or large
objects (like clocks or heavenly bodies) but not to the small parts of
things?
9. Why did Boyle
consider that the principles and explanations of the mechanical philosophy
are more satisfying than those of the Aristotelians or other chemists? 10.
What is required for one part of matter to be able
to act upon another? 11.
In what sense may the mechanical philosophy
coexist with the supposition that change in nature is brought about by the agency
of spirits? Galileo, “Il Saggiatore” (The Assayer) (Matthews,
53-61)
1. What is heat
generally believed to be?
2. According to
Galileo there are some properties that it is impossible to conceive a body
not having. What are these properties?
3. What is the
basis for our belief that bodies have such properties as being red or white,
bitter or sweet?
4. How could a
body possibly have shape but no colour?
5. What
significance did Galileo attach to the fact that a body tickles more under
the nose than on the back?
6. What
determines whether our tactile sensations will be pleasant or unpleasant?
7. What is the
cause of variations in taste?
8. What excites
tastes, sounds, and odours?
9. What accounts
for the operation of fire? 10.
Is it right to say that fire is hot, i.e., that
heat exists in fire? 11.
Why did Galileo think that a bellows increases the
heat of a fire? 12.
Did Galileo think that matter is infinitely
divisible (i.e., that you can in principle go on dividing a piece of matter
in halves forever)? Hobbes, Human nature I-III (Gaskin,
21-30)
1. What is sense? Reading Note
on II.4: “visible and intelligible species,” which are “worse than any
paradox.” If you have purchased
Gaskin’s print edition of our Hobbes selections, you will notice asterisks in
the text. These mark Gaskin’s own
explanatory notes, which are collected at the back of the book, and which are
always helpful and worth reading. An
advantage of purchasing the printed books is that they contain this sort of
editorial material, specifically designed to help students master the
reading. Gaskin’s introduction is also
worth reading (like the introductions to all the print editions). In this case, a few extra comments are
called for. The accepted theories of
perception of Hobbes’s day held that we directly perceive external objects
more or less exactly as they are. But
since the objects perceived in vision, smell, and hearing are at some
distance from us, this poses a problem.
How do we manage to perceive the object given that it is not in
contact with our sense organs? The
standard answer was that objects emit something, called a “sensible species”
(or, in more modern English, a “sensible likeness”) that flies through the
air between them and us to affect our sense organs. But while this works well enough for smell,
where we have no problem conceiving the object as a kind of source or
fountain of a characteristic scent that it emitted through the surrounding
air and taken up in smell, it starts to seem clumsy when offered as an
account of sound, and it is nothing less than “worse than any paradox” as
Hobbes observed, when applied to account for vision. As Hobbes observed, we see shaped
colours. Does that mean that objects
must be constantly shedding shaped colours off of their surfaces, like snake
skins, and sending them flying through the air towards our eyes? Wouldn’t the shaped colour carcasses from different
objects get in another’s way? How
could they pass whole and entire into the eye, given that the holes of the
pupils are so small and the objects are often so much larger? Wouldn’t the objects have to be sending
millions and millions of these carcasses off at once in all directions in
order to be simultaneously visible from various different positions over long
periods of time and wouldn’t that mean that they would have to rapidly loose all their stuffing and shrink to nothingness? These are the sort of “paradoxes” that
affect the theory and that Hobbes was alluding to.
2. What is
colour, and where is it to be found?
3. What convinced
Hobbes that colours and images do not exist outside of us?
4. What leads us
to mistakenly believe that light and sound are outside of us?
5. Why do our
sensations remain with us after the bodies causing them have ceased to press
on our organs, and why do they only slowly fade away?
6. If our
sensations stay with us after the bodies causing them have ceased to press on
our organs, why are we not aware of them?
7. What is the
cause of dreams?
8. How did Hobbes
define the notions of obscurity and clarity of conception?
9. How does
remembrance differ from sensing? Hobbes, Human nature IV-VI (Gaskin,
31-43)
1. What is the
chief reason why, in our deliberations we most often trace out chains of
cause and effect, rather than proceed from anything to anything?
2. What leads us
to suppose that certain events will occur in the future or that events that
we have not witnessed have occurred in the past?
3. What is a
sign? Note
Human Nature IV.11: Hobbes’s
point in this passage was that while we might be able to conclude from
experience that, given certain antecedent events, certain consequent events
will very likely occur (e.g., given certain circumstances raised in a court
of law, the judge will pronounce a certain sentence), we cannot conclude that
what so occurs is what ought to occur in the sense of being what is just, or
what must be the case as a consequence of universal or natural laws. In the case of things like assessments of
justice or beauty, we need to consider, not what experience teaches us that
people will tend to say in those circumstance, but what experience teaches us
to be the established conventions for the use of those terms and whether the
normal pronouncements are in fact in sync with those conventions.
4. Did Hobbes
think that we are in control of the course of our thoughts?
5. What is a mark
and what purpose does the creation of marks serve?
6. In what sense
are universal names “indefinite?” Note: “For true and false are things not incident
to beasts because they adhere to propositions and language; nor have they
ratiocination, whereby to multiply one untruth by another.” Hobbes’ pronominal references leapfrog
across this sentence. The first “they”
refers to “true and false.” The second
refers to “beasts.”
7. What remedy is
there for the confusion into which language has fallen by the equivocal and
unthinking use of terms?
8. List the four
things Hobbes identified as being necessary for knowledge. Hobbes, Human Nature VII.1-2, XII, XI (Gaskin,
43-44, 70-73, 64-70)
1. How is pain
defined on Hobbes’ mechanical conception of the workings of the mind?
2. How are
appetite and fear defined?
3. Explain the connection
between will, appetite, fear, and deliberation.
4. When are we
said to be at liberty?
5. Why did Hobbes
say that deliberation takes away liberty?
6. When is an
action said to be voluntary?
7. If terrorists
threaten to kill your loved ones unless you smuggle something for them, and
you do smuggle the goods, is your action voluntary? Explain Hobbes’ reason for answering the
question as he does.
8. If, due to an
innate character flaw, you are quick to anger, are the actions you perform
out of anger voluntary? Explain
Hobbes’ reason for answering this question as he does.
9. If you will to
perform an action, is your willing voluntary? 10.
What can we know about God? 11.
Why do people believe that God exists? 12.
What is the erroneous and what the true conception
of spirits? 13.
What does a miracle prove? 14.
How can we tell whether a revelation, or message,
or inspiration that has been given to someone really came from God? 15.
What is the basis for the belief that the
Christian scripture is the word of God? 16.
How did Hobbes respond to the charge that he had
made faith depend on such natural capacities as our ability to discern
whether other people are noble and worthy of trust, rather than (as
Protestant doctrine would have it) an inspiration, graciously given by God to
the elect, that could bring them to accept the scripture in defiance of all
reason? 17.
What side did Hobbes take in the dispute over
whether the individual or the Church is to be the ultimate authority in the
interpretation of scripture? Descartes, Discourse on method I-II and V (AT VI 1-22
and 55-60)
1. From what does
the diversity of our opinions arise?
2. What are the
sciences of mathematics and philosophy good for?
3. What was the chief
cause of Descartes’ delight with mathematics and his dismay with philosophy?
4. After
abandoning the study of letters, what two sources did Descartes turn to in the search for knowledge?
5. What led him
to subsequently reject one of these two sources as well?
6. What excuse
did he offer for proposing an innovation in scientific method, despite the danger that it might be perceived as
reformist?
7. What are the
disciplines that Descartes thought most likely to be able to contribute to his plan?
8. In what way
does geometry serve as a model for all the things that can fall within human knowledge?
9. Why was it so
important to Descartes that he begin his
investigations with absolutely certain and indubitable truths? (This
is the first of his four rules of method). 10.
Could we distinguish between machines that have
been perfectly made to look and
behave like animals and real animals? 11.
What are the means by which we can distinguish
between machines that look like
human beings and real human beings? Descartes, Meditations I
1. What did
Descartes take to be required if one is to establish anything “firm and
lasting in the sciences,” and why did he think that such drastic measures are
required?
2. What would
justify rejecting an opinion?
3. What was the
foundation on which, up to the time of his meditations, Descartes claimed he
had based most of his beliefs?
4. When have the
senses been thought reliable and when unreliable?
5. Are there any
definite signs to distinguish being awake from being asleep according to
Descartes?
6. If there were
no definite signs to distinguish waking from dreaming, what would that prove?
7. Even if there
were no definite signs to distinguish waking from dreaming, would there still
be certain things our senses tell us about that are not cast into doubt? If not why not, if so what would these
things be?
8. What did
Descartes include in the class of “simple and universal things” from which
everything we imagine is constructed?
9. In what
respect do the sciences of physics, astronomy and medicine all differ from
those of arithmetic and geometry? 10.
Why did Descartes think that even the truths of
arithmetic and geometry are open to suspicion of possibly being false? 11.
Why did Descartes think that it would be even more
likely that I would always be deceived when performing calculations if God
does not exist than if God does exist? 12.
What would be wrong with admitting that the
existence of my own body, of the world around me, and of the truths of
arithmetic and geometry is highly probable? Descartes, Meditations II
1. What is Descartes’s
reason for rejecting the claim that God or some other great being might
instill all his thoughts in him?
2. Why did
Descartes think that each of the following reasons for denying that he exists
is inadequate:
i. I have denied
that I have senses or a body
ii.
I have persuaded myself that nothing at all exists
in the world
iii.
There could be a deceiver who is deceiving me
about this
3. Why did
Descartes reject the traditional view that he is a rational animal?
4. Why did he
reject the “spontaneous and natural” view that he is a body animated by
natural spirits? Note: “What about sensing?” AT VII 27.
By “sensing” Descartes must have meant the operation of having one’s
sense organs affected by external objects and receiving impressions of those
objects as a consequence. There is
another, leaner sense of “sensing” that involves simply experiencing
sensations, like the aches a person who has had a limb amputated experiences
as if they were in the absent limb.
This is what Descartes later (AT VII 29) referred to as sensing “properly speaking,” and what he identified
as simply a mode of thinking. This
“proper” sensing can take place without a body and can occur in dreams.
5. What is there
that Descartes found to be inseparable from himself?
6. Would
Descartes accept that one ceases to think while in a deep sleep?
7. What are the
sorts of things that are involved with thinking and that are in Descartes
insofar as he is a thinking thing?
8. What is there
that cannot be false in sensing and imagining?
9. What is there
that is really essential to a sensible body like a piece of wax after we
remove everything that has to do merely with
the way it manifests itself on special occasions and concentrate just
on those features it must always possess in any circumstance whatsoever? 10. How do these
features of the wax come to be known? 11. How do the
features that Descartes originally perceived the wax to have come to be
known? Descartes, Meditations IIIa (AT VII 34-42)
1. What made Descartes
so sure that nothing we very clearly and distinctly perceives
could be false?
2. Is the
existence of the earth, sky, and stars clearly and distinctly perceived? If not, why not, if so, in what sense?
3. Are the truths
of mathematics clearly and distinctly perceived? If not, why not, if so in what sense?
4. What is the
proper definition of the term, “idea?”
5. What is the
most frequently occurring error in judgment, in Descartes’s opinion?
6. What is an
adventitious idea?
7. Explain
Descartes’s distinction between natural impulse and light of nature.
8. Why is it an
error to suppose that because I have some ideas that come and go
independently of my will, that therefore these ideas must be caused by
external objects?
9. Explain
Descartes’s distinction between formal and objective reality. 10.
Why could an effect not be greater than its cause? 11.
Can an idea of an object be more perfect than the
object itself? Descartes, Meditations IIIb (AT VII 42-52,
cf. Discourse IV, AT VI 33-36)
1. What are the
three main types of ideas from which all other types of ideas may be formed?
2. What would
justify our considering an idea to be false?
3. How did
Descartes define the term “substance?”
4. Why did
Descartes think that even his ideas of the extension of corporeal things
could have been invented by him on his own?
5. What is the
particular feature of the idea of God that Descartes found it impossible to
explain as an effect of his own nature?
6. Why should I
think that my perception of God is prior to my perception of myself?
7. Why could I not
have created myself?
8. Why does
conservation not differ from creation?
9. Why could a
chain of human ancestors stretching back to infinity not have produced me? 10.
Why could a number of partially perfect things not
have worked together to each contribute a small part of what I find in
myself? Descartes, Meditations IV Note: In the second sentence of Meditations IV Descartes made a reference to
directing his thought away from things that can be imagined. It would have been more accurate to
translate him as talking about directing his thought away from things that
can be imaged or pictured, including the things shown to us by our senses.
1. What did
Descartes first propose as an answer to the question of what causes me to be
deceived and led into error?
2. Why is this
explanation for error “not yet satisfactory?”
3. What sorts of
causes are utterly useless in physics?
Why?
4. What must we
be careful to take into account when ascertaining the degree of perfection of
a thing?
5. On what does
error depend?
6. What is the
proper function of the intellect?
7. In what sense
is the intellect imperfect?
8. Why can we not
fault God for creating us with this kind of imperfection in our intellects?
9. In what does
the will solely consist? 10.
What is the lowest grade of freedom of the will
and how does it differ from more perfect grades? 11.
What is the cause of error? 12.
How are errors to be avoided? 13.
God could have made me more cautious,
so that my caution restrain me from ever willing to affirm something I do not
clearly and distinctly understand. But
he didn’t. Can he be faulted for
that? Why or why not? Descartes, Meditations V
1. What qualities
did Descartes believe are clearly and distinctly perceived?
2. How is it that
Descartes could say that my ideas of geometrical shapes are not made by me,
even though I can imagine them on my own, and call them up or make them go
away at will?
3. How did
Descartes respond to the objection that I may have learned of geometrical
shapes from sensory experience of similarly shaped objects, and that the
reason why I seem to “remember” these shapes rather than to have produced
them himself in my own imagination is that I am really just remembering
something I have seen before?
4. Why, according
to Descartes, can existence not be separated from the “essence” (i.e., the
definition) of God?
5. How did
Descartes respond to the objection that I might arbitrarily attach the idea
of existence to the idea of God in my imagination, so that from the fact that
I choose to make this connection, it in no way follows that the connection
must be true and that God must exist?
6. How did
Descartes respond to the objection that just because I cannot imagine God
without attributing existence to him, it does not follow that God must exist?
7. Supposing that
the existence of God is not yet certain, under what circumstances would it be
possible to doubt what one has clearly and distinctly perceived?
8. How is it that
all demonstrations in mathematics might be said to rest on a prior
demonstration of the existence of God? Descartes, Meditations VIa (AT VII 71-80)
1. What sorts of
material things can at least possibly exist?
2. How does
imagination differ from understanding?
3. Why is
imagination not part of my essence?
4. Why is it not
without reason that people think that they sense bodies existing in space
outside of them rather than sense only their own thoughts?
5. What sort of things are taught to us by nature?
6. What allowed
Descartes to claim that the fact that I experience a pain in a certain part
of my body is not enough to prove that that part exists?
7. Why should the
fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing without the other
entail that they are really different from one another?
8. Explain the
nature of the relation that Descartes supposed to hold between himself and
his powers of sensing and imagining.
9. Why would God
be a deceiver if my ideas of extended bodies were not caused by extended
bodies? Descartes, Meditations VIb
1. Why is it that
even though Descartes thought he could demonstrate that corporeal things must
exist, he still did not think that those things exist exactly as we grasp
them by sense? What must be true of
them?
2. What things
did Descartes think are taught to us by nature and what by a habit of making
reckless judgments?
3. What is the
proper purpose for which sensations were given to the mind?
4. Did Descartes
think that all the motions of our bodies are mechanically caused?
5. What is
necessary if the mind is to be affected by the body?
6. Does the brain
feel pain?
7. Why is it in
fact better that our senses should occasionally deceive us about what is good
or bad for us?
8. What needs to
be done in order to be sure that our senses are not deceiving us?
9. In what does
the difference between dreaming and waking experience consist? Descartes,
Principles I.1-23
1. Why
should we think that we are the victims of prejudices or “preconceived
opinions” that have kept us from knowledge of the truth?
2. What
is the “scale” of the doubt that Descartes proposed in Principles I.1? What
things does he propose to call into doubt and what things would he consider
to be above doubt?
3. What
is called into doubt by the fact that our senses sometimes deceive us and by
the fact that there is no certain way of distinguishing being awake from
dreaming?
4. Should
we doubt principles that are revealed to us by reasoning? If so, why?
If not, why not?
5. What
are the limits of human freedom?
6. What
makes my existence certain (beyond all possibility of doubt)?
7. What
am I certain of when I claim to be certain of my own existence? What else, besides myself, am I certain of
insofar as I have this certainty of my own existence?
8. What
is “known by the natural light?”
9. What
determines that there must be some substance in existence? 10.
What makes our knowledge of a substance
“clear” 11.
Why do we find more attributes in our
minds than in anything else? 12.
Where does the power of sense
perception reside? 13.
What makes it of paramount importance
for us to determine what ultimately caused us to exist? 14.
Under what conditions is it possible to
doubt the results of demonstrations? 15.
What is contained in the idea that the
mind finds in itself of God that guarantees that the object of this idea must
necessarily and eternally exist? 16.
Why must we conclude that the supreme being does exist? 17.
In what way are ideas different and in
what way are they all alike? 18.
What is required to give someone the
idea of an intricate object? What
assures us that this must be so? 19.
How can we have an idea of supreme
perfections if we are ourselves imperfect? 20.
Why must the whole world be continually
recreated from one moment to the next? Descartes,
Principles I.24-50
1. What
is the way to acquire the most perfect scientific knowledge?
2. What
things are to be regarded as finite, what things as infinite, and what things
as indefinite?
3. Distinguish
between two different ways in which God could be considered as cause of
things and give Descartes reasons for asserting that we can only have
knowledge of one of these sorts of cause.
4. What
sorts of effects should we consider God to be the cause of, and what sort of
effects should we not consider God to be the cause of?
5. In
what sense is God not the cause of our errors?
6. Under
what conditions would God deserve to be called a deceiver?
7. What
can we be certain of once we have established the existence of God?
8. On
what does error depend?
9. Why
do errors not require the concurrence of God for their production? 10.
Why is God not to be blamed either for
not having given us an infinite intellect or for not having limited our
powers of will? 11.
How is freedom of the will to be
reconciled with divine preordination of all things? 12.
What must we do to avoid error? 13.
How do we know whether or not we have
clearly and distinctly perceived something? 14.
What is meant by clear and distinct
perception? 15.
Identify two ultimate classes of things
and three classes of affections of things. 16.
How is it that eternal truths or common
notions might not be clearly conceived by everyone? Descartes,
Principles I.51-76
1. What
is a substance?
2. In
what sense are bodies and created minds substances?
3. What
is required in order to know a substance?
4. What
is it about thought and extension that makes the one the sole principal
attribute of mind and the other the sole principal attribute of body?
5. What
sort of “things” are duration, order, and number?
6. From
what do universals arise?
7. What
is a universal term?
8. Distinguish
between genus, species, differentia, property, and accident.
9. Distinguish
between real, modal, and conceptual distinction. 10.
When is the distinction between
extension and body conceptual and when is it modal? 11.
What have we taken for certain and
indubitable from early childhood? 12.
Where does the pain of a stubbed toe
exist? 13.
When are pain and colour clearly and
distinctly perceived? 14.
Why are pain and
colour not clearly and distinctly perceived when judged to be real
things existing outside of the mind? 15.
What must our judgments of colour be
like in order to avoid error? 16.
Do infants see objects as coloured? 17.
What initially led us, as children, to
suppose that objects exist outside of us? 18.
What initially led us, as children, to
attribute our sensations to external objects? 19.
On what basis did we originally ascribe
reality to objects? 20.
Identify four main causes of error. Descartes,
Principles II.1-23
1. Why
would God be a deceiver if material things did not exist?
2. What
do pain and other sensations teach us?
3. What
is hardness, as far as our senses are concerned?
4. Why
does the nature of body not depend on weight, hardness, colour, or other such
qualities?
5. Why
do preconceived opinions about rarefaction and empty space confuse the truth
that the nature of body is just extension?
6. What
makes some bodies denser than others?
7. Why
should we think that the extension constituting a body is exactly the same
with that constituting a space?
8. What
are we thinking of when we think of the extension of the place that a body
occupied after it has moved away from that place?
9. What
is the point of Descartes’s example of the man on the ship? 10.
Distinguish between internal and
external place. 11.
Why can there be no such thing as a
vacuum? 12.
Why could even God not remove all body
from a vessel while preventing any other body from taking the place those
contents had occupied? 13.
Why can there be no more matter in a
vessel filled with lead or gold than in one filled with air? 14.
What do Descartes’s claims about space
have to do with his argument against the possibility of atoms? (The title of the article claims that the
argument depends on the position on space, but the article itself only talks
about what follows from the power of God.) 15.
In what sense are all materials (gold,
lead, salt, sulphur, mercury, water, air, etc.) identical in kind? What accounts for all the differences
between what are falsely considered to be different kinds of materials? Descartes,
Principles II.33-40 and 64;
IV.189-199 and 203-4; Discourse VI (AT VI: 63-65)
1. What
relevance does the fact that there can be no vacuum and no rarefaction or
condensation (in the sense of a gain or loss of volume by a material that completely
fills the space it occupies throughout the change) have for the theory of
motion?
2. Why
must matter be indefinitely divisible?
3. What
might the “bodies as wide as the space at E” referred to in article II.35 be?
4. What
might Descartes be referring to when he speaks in article II.36 of changes (sc. in the quantity of motion in the
universe) that we know to take place either by experience or revelation?
5. Why
must the quantity of motion in the universe be preserved?
6. Is
it natural for bodies that have been set in motion to slow down and
stop? What is it that teaches us the
answer to this, sense experience or understanding? Note:
Descartes’s 3rd law of motion. This law was almost immediately criticized
on the ground that it violates the principle that natural phenomena are
continuous in their variations (it instead postulates a sudden and radical
change in the way colliding bodies behave at the point where the resistance
of the impacted body becomes less that that of the
body that hits it, from reflection without any transmission of motion to
transmission of motion to the impacted body).
What may have led Descartes into this mistake was focusing on case of
the reflection of light.
7. What
is the result of movements caused in the brain by the nerves?
8. Propose
a Cartesian remedy for depression (sadness not caused by any obvious
misfortune). Note: “Globules of the second element” Art.
195. Descartes thought there were
three elements, which he called gross matter, intermediate matter, and subtle
matter. Since all materials are made
of the same stuff, the only difference between these elements is the size of
the particles that make them up. The
second element, or intermediate matter, is comprised of the particles of
light. Subtle matter is yet finer, and
gross matter is the stuff that all visible bodies, from the stars and planets
to grains of sand are made of.
9. What
conclusion should be drawn from the fact that people complain of feeling
pains in a limb that has been amputated? 10.
Why should we think that the nerves do
not transmit anything but motion to the brain (e.g., that the visual nerves
do not transmit colour, the olfactory nerves smell, the tactile nerves heat)? 11.
Where does the feeling of titillation
or pain, and the appearance of light and sounds originate? 12.
What makes it unlikely that the colours
we sense are produced by colours actually existing on the surfaces of bodies?
13.
What is the major guide Descartes
relied upon when deciding what hypotheses to formulate about the workings of
the small parts of nature? 14.
Is there a role for experimentation in
Cartesian science, and if so what is it? Cartesian
Science (Principles
of Philosophy II.3-23, 36-40, 64; Discourse
V [AT VI: 40-46]; Principles IV.196-99, 203-4; Discourse VI [AT VI: 63-65])
1. What is
hardness, as far as our senses are concerned?
(This question and the following two are on the reading from Principles II.)
2. Why must the
quantity of motion in the universe be preserved?
3. Is it natural
for bodies that have been set in motion to slow down and stop? What is it that teaches us the answer to
this, sense experience or understanding?
4. Are there any
random or chance occurrences in nature, according to Descartes? (This question and the following two are on
Discourse V.)
5. In giving his
account of the nature of matter in Discourse
V, what features or properties did Descartes explicitly identify as ones he
had no use for and did not need to suppose matter to have?
6. How did
Descartes respond to the objection that it is contrary to the creation story
of the Bible to suppose, as he did, that all God needed to do to make the
solar system, the Earth, the arrangement of water and minerals on the Earth,
the weather, and the life on Earth, was institute certain laws and set an
originally chaotic arrangement of matter in motion?
7. What do the
nerves transmit to the brain? (This question and the following three are on
the reading from Principles IV)
8. Where does the
feeling of titillation or pain, and the appearance of light and sounds
originate?
9. What makes it
unlikely that the colours we sense are produced by colours actually existing
on the surfaces of bodies? 10.
What is the major guide Descartes relied upon when
deciding what hypotheses to formulate about the workings of the small parts
of nature? 11.
Is there a role for experimentation in Cartesian
science, and if so what is it? (This
question is on the selection from Discourse
VI.) (Matthews
137-39, 146-158)
1. Why is
mechanics a more fundamental science than geometry?
2. What is
rational mechanics?
3. What are the
chief things that a rational mechanics of natural powers is concerned with?
4. What is a
natural philosopher supposed to uncover from an investigation of the
phenomena of gravity, levity, elasticity, hydraulic pressure, and other such
motions?
5. What does
“reasoning from mechanical principles” consist in, according to
6. What did
7. What
determines whether a quality is to be considered “universal” or not?
8. What are the
universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever?
9. How do we know
that bodies are extended? 10.
How do we know that even bodies so small we cannot
see them are still extended and hard? 11.
List some of 12.
How did 13.
How did 14.
Did 15.
What are the main active principles? 16.
What properties did 17.
Why did 18.
How did (Matthews
139-146)
1. Under
what notions do common people conceive space and time?
2. Does
it make sense to say that an hour could take more or less time to pass?
3. List
the properties of absolute space.
4. How
is relative space determined?
5. How
can absolute and relative space be the same in figure and magnitude, but
different numerically?
6. How
does absolute motion differ from relative motion?
7. Why
is it absurd that the parts of absolute space should move or change position
relative to one another?
8. Why
do we consider relative places and motions instead of absolute ones?
9. Why
should we not rest content with relative places and motions in philosophical
disquisitions? 10.
How can we distinguish absolute rest
and motion from relative rest and motion? 11.
Why can true and absolute motion not be
determined by motion relative to surrounding bodies taken to be at rest? 12.
What are the causes by which true
motions are distinguished from relative motions? 13.
How can a true motion be preserved when
the relative remains unaltered, and the relative preserved when the true
alters? 14.
What are the effects that distinguish
relative from absolute motion? 15.
What does the ascent of the water up
the sides of the spinning bucket prove? 16.
Why can true circular motion not be
determined by rotation relative to any ambient bodies? 17.
What is wrong with Descartes claim that
the planets are at rest in their vortices even though the vortices are in
motion around the Sun? 18.
Why is it a matter of great difficulty
to tell true motions apart from apparent? Locke,
Essay Epistle and I.i.1-4,6-8;
I.ii.1-9,12,14-16; I.iii.1-6,9,22,24-25; I.iv.1-5,8-9,24-25 (Innate
Ideas) the first five questions of this and
the following chapter overlap
1. What
was the main question that the Essay
concerning human understanding was
written to answer?
2. What
has so far served as the main impediment to the advancement of knowledge?
3. In
what does the “Historical, plain Method” consist?
4. What
are the main consequences of a failure to inquire into the limits of what can
be known by our understanding?
5. What
does the term, “idea,” stand for?
6. What
is the argument from universal consent?
7. What,
in general, is wrong with the argument from universal consent?
8. What
is wrong with supposing that there might be certain truths that we have
always known and that were imprinted on our minds at birth, but that we are
unconscious of?
9. Did
Locke deny that we have innate capacities? 10.
What is wrong with supposing that there
might be certain truths that we have always known and that were imprinted on
our minds at birth, but that we need to employ reason to discover what they
are? 11.
What is wrong with supposing that there
might be certain truths that we have always known and that were imprinted on
our minds at birth, but that they only come into our consciousness when we
attain the age of reason? 12.
What is there about the fact that there
are some truths that we come to know very early in life that actually goes to
prove that these truths are not innately known? 13.
Did Locke believe that there are
absolute truths concerning what is right and wrong, or did he hold that moral
rules are purely conventional? 14.
What reasons did Locke offer for
rejecting the view that criminals still accept the truth of moral principles
even though they do not act in accord with them? 15.
Did Locke deny that we have innate dispositions
and tendencies? 16.
What are the main factors inducing
people to take principles upon trust? 17.
What special reason does a
consideration of the “parts” of principles give us for thinking that there
could be no innate principles? 18.
What are the principal considerations
leading Locke to deny that ideas are innate? Note: Essay I.iv.4-5. In
this passage, Locke made a number of allusions to the ancient Pythagorean
doctrine of reincarnation, according to which our souls could be born again,
perhaps in the bodies of other kinds of animal. His suggestion is that even were the
Pythagorean doctrine generally accepted, there would be some who would
hesitate to maintain that when the soul that previously occupied the body of
Pythagoras is reincarnated in the body of a cock, the cock deserves to be
considered to be “the same” as Pythagoras.
He also notes that anyone who thinks these speculations outlandish
would have to confront similar problems when considering the Christian
doctrine of the resurrection. Would the
resurrected soul still be the same were it placed
in a different body? 19.
What is Locke’s principal reason for
denying that the idea of God is innate? Locke, Essay Epistle and I.i.1-4,6-8;
II.i.1-8,20,23-25; ii, viii.1-6, iii-vi; vii.1-2,7-10 (Sensation) the first five questions of this and the preceding
chapter overlap
1. What was the
main question that the Essay concerning human understanding was
written to answer?
2. What has so
far served as the main impediment to the advancement of knowledge?
3. In what does
the “Historical, plain Method” consist?
4. What are the
main consequences of a failure to inquire into the limits of what can be
known by our understanding?
5. What does the
term, “idea,” stand for?
6. What are the
two sources of ideas?
7. What exactly
is conveyed to our minds by our senses?
8. What are the
“originals” from which our ideas “take their beginnings?”
9. What evidence
did Locke offer for supposing that all ideas originate from either sensation
or reflection? 10.
Do we only ever experience one simple idea at a
time? 11.
What makes simple ideas simple? 12.
Is it possible for us to spontaneously create
ideas on our own? 13.
Do we have ideas of privations? 14.
What did Locke consider to be the likely causes of
our ideas of white and black? 15.
Did Locke think it is even likely that any of our
ideas could be caused by privations? 16.
What is solidity and how does it differ from
hardness? 17.
Why does the mind consider solidity to be a
feature even of bodies that are too small to see? 18.
What does it mean for a body to fill a space? 19.
How does the extension of body differ from that of
space? Locke, Essay II.viii.7-26 (Primary and
Secondary Qualities)
1. Explain the
difference between qualities and ideas.
2. What features
must a quality have if it is to be considered primary?
3. How do the
secondary qualities differ from the primary, if at all?
4. How do the
tertiary qualities differ from the primary and the secondary, if at all?
5. How is it
possible for one body to act on another?
6. Given that
external objects are not only not united to our minds but even sometimes set
at some distance from us, by what means do we come to perceive their original
qualities?
7. When Locke
wrote in II.viii.15 that “the Ideas,
produced in us by these Secondary Qualities, have no resemblance
of them at all,” what were the ideas he was referring to, and what were the
secondary qualities that he had in mind?
8. What produces
the idea of the motion and shape of a piece of manna in us? What produces the ideas of sickness, acute
pains, and gripings in those who have eaten a piece
of manna? What produces our ideas of
the whiteness and sweetness of the manna?
9. What is the
only effect that the pounding of an almond can produce in the almond? What effect does the pounding of an almond
produce in us when we perceive it? 10.
Under what conditions do we have an idea of the
thing as it is in itself? Continue
on to Sec. 20b, “Perception” questions as part of this set. 20b Essay II ix.1-4,8-9; x.1-2;
xi,1,4,6,8,9,15,17 (Perception)
1. Can we have
ideas that go unnoticed by us?
2. What is the
idea immediately imprinted on the mind when we see a black or golden globe?
3. What makes it
“evident” that this is all there is to the immediate idea?
4. What was Molyneux’s question and what was his reason for answering
this question in the negative?
5. What moral did
Locke draw from Molyneux’s negative answer to this
question?
6. Explain
Locke’s distinction between the role played by “perception of sensation” and
“idea of judgment” in visual perception.
What is immediately perceived as a consequence of sensation and what
is judged?
7. What is wrong
with viewing memory as a storehouse for ideas we have had in the past? What is memory if not a storehouse?
8. How is it that
particular ideas can be made to become general? Locke, Essay II. xii; xiii.1-5; xxii.1-5,9;
xxiii.1-11,15-20 (Substance)
1. What is the
difference between a complex idea and an idea of relation?
2. Identify two
different ways in which simple ideas come to be united in complex ones.
3. What is the
difference between a substance and a mode?
4. How do we
arrive at our ideas of mixed modes?
5. What gives
unity to the various simple ideas in a mixed mode and makes them appear as
one, single idea rather than an aggregate of distinct ideas?
6. What
conclusion do we tend to draw from the fact that different simple ideas are
constantly observed to occur together in our experience?
7. What is our
notion of pure substance in general an idea of?
8. What is our
notion of particular substances an idea of?
9. What leads us
to distinguish material substances from spiritual substances? 10.
What is our notion of matter an idea of, and how
does it differ from our notion of spirit? 11.
What makes one person’s idea of a particular kind
of substance more perfect than another’s? 12.
What are the primary ideas we have peculiar to
body? to spirit? Locke, Essay
II.xxi.1-5,7-11,13-15,22-25,29-33,40-48,51-53,56 (Power)
1. Is the idea of
power a simple or a complex idea?
2. What gives us
our clearest idea of a power to begin motion?
3. What is will?
4. What makes an
action voluntary or involuntary?
5. Why can beings that have no will not be said to be free? Why can beings who
have will and who are doing what they will nonetheless be said to be
necessitated?
6. Explain the
difference between the power of will and the power of liberty.
7. What
determines the mind to will what it does?
8. What is
required for a great good to determine the will?
9. What is the
source of what is improperly called free will and of such liberty as we have? 10.
What causes us to be able to suspend action
pending due examination of what is most conducive to our real happiness? 11.
Why is it that we do not all always act in such a
way as to obtain real happiness? Locke, Essay II.xxvii.1-14 (Identity)
1. What is
requisite if we are to be sure that one thing is different from another,
e.g., that someone has a twin?
2. What are the
three kinds of substance?
3. Why is
identity not a problem where God is concerned?
4. Are there any
exceptions to the rule that two different things cannot be in the same place
at the same time?
5. Under what
condition would our ideas of identity and diversity have no foundation and be
of no use?
6. What
determines the identity of particular instances of modes or relations and
distinguishes different instances of the same mode (e.g., different
right-angle isoceles triangles of the same colour
and size) from one another? What sorts
of modes and relations can have no identity?
7. If a mass of
atoms has its parts rearranged, is it still the same mass? If it loses or gains a part, is it still
the same?
8. What makes an
oak tree different from a mere mass of matter?
9. What
distinguishes one plant from another of the same species, e.g., one oak tree
from another? 10.
What determines that the organization of
life-function performing parts that is present at any one instant in any one
collection of matter is identical to one earlier or later organization of
life-functioning parts characteristic of that species of plant rather than
some other, e.g., that the bush in this pot in winter is identical to the one
that was in the garden in summer? 11.
How does the identity of animals and plants differ
from that of machines? 12.
What is wrong with supposing that what makes
people the same from one moment to the next is that they look the same? 13.
What is wrong with saying that what makes someone
the same human being from one moment to the next is that they continue to
possess the same soul? 14.
What was Locke trying to get at at II.xxvii.8 by claiming that a creature with a human
body will always be considered a human being, even if it is so impaired as to
be incapable of thought or sensation, whereas a cat or parrot who could speak and philosophize would still be considered
a cat or parrot? 15.
How do we distinguish our self from the selves of
other thinking beings? 16.
What determines how far my self exists backwards
in time, that is, what determines whether I will consider any past thought or
action to be identical with a thought or action of my self? 17.
Does identity of self presuppose identity of
thinking substance? 18.
What grounds do we have for affirming that the
same person cannot be successively present in different thinking substances? 19.
What grounds do we have for affirming that
different persons could be successively present in the same thinking
substance? Locke,
Essay III.iii.1-4,6-13,15-18 (Abstract
Ideas)
1. What
does the meaning of words depend on? (Note: the answer to this question is
only to be found in the complete edition of the text, not in Winkler’s
abridgment, though it can still be gleaned from passages included here and
there in Winkler. For for electronic copy of the complete text see the
instructions.)
2. What
is the purpose of language?
3. How
do words come to have a general meaning?
(Keep your answer to #1 in mind when dealing with this question.)
4. How
do ideas come to be general?
5. Why
is it particularly important that relations of time and place be removed when
ideas are made general?
6. What
do general words signify, according to Essay III.iii.12? Why do they not signify a number of things?
7. What
is the real essence of an individual substance?
8. What
is the nominal essence of a genus, sort, or kind of substance?
9. Are
there any things whose real essences may be known by us? Continue on to Sec. 24b, “Essence” questions as part of this set. 24b Locke,
Essay
III.vi.1-9,12,14-19,23,25-26,28 (Essence)
1. Locke
observed that what appears like a star to us may look like a sun to the inhabitants of distant planets. Why does
this show that our classifications of things into sorts depends on what complex ideas
we receive from them rather than on
natures or essences in things that make them what they are?
2. How
did Locke distinguish between real and nominal essence?
3. What
is the nominal essence of human being?
the real
essence?
4. What
must be the case before a particular individual can be considered to have an essence?
5. Can
individual particulars, considered just in themselves and apart from reference to any group, have real essences? why or why not?
6. Distinguish
between real essence and real constitution.
7. What
significance did Locke attach to the fact that we cannot explain why lead and iron are malleable, but antinomy and stones not, or why lead and antimony
are fusible, wood and stones
not? (Note that this question is based
on material that only appears in
the complete text of the Essay and
that is not found in Winkler’s
abridgment. For for
electronic copy of the complete text see the
instructions.)
8. What
did Locke mean by saying that there are no “chasms” or “gaps” in the visible corporeal world? (Note that he did not mean to deny that there is empty space or vacua.)
9. What
significance did Locke attach to the fact that different people understand the same kinds of things to have different nominal essences? 10.
If it is up to the understanding to
construct nominal essences, then
why are sheep-headed oxen and other fantastic arrangements of complex ideas not considered to be nominal essences? Locke, Essay IV.i; ii.1-7,14; iii.1-14,17-18,21 (Knowledge)
1. What are the
only objects the mind can immediately contemplate?
2. What is our
knowledge of the coexistence of ideas particularly concerned with?
3. Are we capable
of having knowledge of objects that exist outside of the mind?
4. What
considerations led Locke to maintain that when you merely remember having
demonstrated a conclusion, but do not review the
proof, you still have knowledge of that conclusion rather than mere belief?
5. What are the
intervening ideas responsible for our remembered knowledge of the results of
past demonstrations?
6. On what
fundamental principle does our knowledge of all general propositions in
mathematics depend? Why must we rely
on this principle?
7. Can memory
ever be mistaken?
8. Explain the
difference between intuition and demonstration.
9. Can
demonstration ever be mistaken? 10.
What are we ultimately concerned with when we ask
whether a particular idea in our minds corresponds to some object actually
existing outside of us? 11.
What effects can we intuit or demonstrate motion
to be able to produce? What effects do
we perceive it to produce? 12.
If we were able to determine the primary qualities
of the insensibly small parts of which bodies are composed, would we then be
able to deduce what ideas those bodies are and are not able to bring about in
us? Why or why not? 13.
Upon what, ultimately, must we rely for our
knowledge of what qualities and powers may coexist in any given substance? Locke, Essay IV.iv.1-12;
ix.2-3; x.1-7; xi (Knowledge of
Real Existence)
1. What assures
us that our perceptions of simple ideas are not made up by us but correspond
to powers in bodies?
2. Why can
mathematical principles be regarded as “true and certain” even though they
only describe ideas we have ourselves created in imagination?
3. What is the basis
for our knowledge of general truths?
4. Are there any
constraints on the power of the imagination in constructing ideas of complex
modes?
5. What
conditions must be satisfied in order for our ideas of substances to be
considered real rather than imaginary?
What conditions must be satisfied for them to be considered at least
possibly real rather than fantastic creations that could never even possibly
exist?
6. Is it possible
to prove our own existence, i.e., give a
demonstration of the fact?
7. Did Locke
accept the causal principle (that every effect must have some cause)? If not, why not, and if so, how did he
think we come to know it?
8. What
significance does the power to produce and remove ideas have for Locke’s
arguments to demonstrate the existence of an external world?
9. What
significance do feelings of pleasure and pain have for Locke’s arguments to
demonstrate the existence of an external world? 10.
Can I know that objects continue to exist when I am not perceiving them? 11.
Can I know that other human bodies think and
perform acts of will? Locke, Essay IV.xiv-xv; xvi.1,3-14 (Probability)
1. Why did God
not make us capable of knowing more things?
2. Why is
judgment exercised?
3. Can a
proposition be both certain and probable at one and the same time?
4. How can Locke
say, without contradicting himself, that the testimony of others is one of
the two grounds of probability (IV.xv.4), and that the opinions of others are
no true grounds of probability (IV.xv.6)?
5. Under which,
if any, of the following circumstances could a person be said to have
violated Locke’s ethics of belief?
a. a person
reaches a decision without having fully examined the issue
b. a person
sticks to a decision made earlier merely because they remember having decided
that way earlier, and without bothering to remember the evidence for that
decision
c. a person
sticks to a decision made earlier without bothering to review new evidence
that has since come in
d. a person
sticks to a decision made earlier even after having been confronted with
evidence that undermines that decision
6. Is intolerance
ever justified?
7. Explain the
difference between assurance and confidence.
8. What are the
main causes of diminution in the probability of testimony to a matter of
fact?
9. What are the
two “foundations of credibility?” 10.
What is a “traditional” testament? 11.
What are some of the main reasons leading people
to misrepresent someone else’s testimony? 12.
Is it possible to have any sort of assurance or
confidence about the existence of things that fall outside of anyone’s capacity
to observe, such as the insensibly small, the insensibly remote, or the
hidden mechanisms in causes responsible for giving them the power to bring
about their effects? If so, how so, if
not, why not? 13.
Why can we have assurance in the occurrence of
well-attested miracles, despite the fact that they are contrary to common
experience and the regular course of nature? 14.
Besides being contrary to the ordinary course of
observation, what further feature must an event have before it can be
considered a miracle? 15.
What is faith? 16.
What conditions must be satisfied before we can
have faith in a revelation? Locke, Essay IV.xviii.1-10; xix (Reason,
Faith, and Enthusiasm)
1. Would Locke
consider any merely probable judgment to be known by reason? Would he consider propositions known by
intuition or sensation to be known by reason?
2. Explain
Locke’s distinction between original and traditional revelation.
3. What is
required for us to put faith in a traditional revelation?
4. What is
required for us to put faith in an original revelation?
5. If revelation
tells us something that reason denies, which must we accept according to
Locke and why?
6. If revelation
tells us something that reason tells us nothing about, which must we accept
according to Locke and why?
7. If revelation
comes into conflict with a proposition that our reason judges to be probably
true, which must we accept according to Locke? In virtue of what do we decide which we
must accept?
8. Could someone who
comes to form a belief after an incomplete survey of all the evidence still
be called a lover of the truth?
9. What is the
principal cause of intolerance? 10.
What is enthusiasm? 11.
Why does enthusiasm destroy the authority of
revelation as well as reason? 12.
What is immediate revelation and what
considerations lead people to suppose they have it? 13.
What are the chief causes of enthusiasm, according
to Locke? 14.
What is the main question that must be asked about
an immediate revelation? 15.
Why can immediate revelation not truly be
“seeing?” Note:
“Son of the Morning” (IV.xix.13).
Another name for the planet Venus, also called the morning star, is
“Lucifer.” Venus is the brightest
object in the sky after the Sun. 16.
How can we know that a revelation has in fact come
from God? Bayle Dictionnaire, “Pyrrho B”
1. How does the
position on ethics that Bayle attributed to Pyrrho
differ from Locke’s position on ethics?
2. Why is
scepticism not dangerous to science or to the state?
3. Why is it
dangerous to religion?
4. Why is this
danger only slight?
5. What shields
us against Pyrrhonian arguments?
6. Why would Arcesilaus be more formidable today than in his own time?
7. What were the
ancient sceptics right about, according to the “new
philosophy?’
8. What do the
new philosophers attempt to exempt extension and motion from? Why are they unable to actually do this?
9. Why do I have
no good proof for the existence of bodies? 10.
Why would it prove too much to claim that God
would be a deceiver for giving me ideas of extended things if there are no
extended things in existence? 11.
In what way is a peasant like a Cartesian? 12.
What entitles us to think that the principle of
the transitivity of identity (that is, that if a=b and b=c, then a=c) is
wrong? 13.
Why should I think that even though I am here in 14.
How is it that the mystery of the Eucharist
invalidates all the rules of arithmetic? 15.
What assures me of the fact that I existed
yesterday? Bayle Dictionnaire,
“Zeno F and G”
1. Why
could there be no moment at which a moving arrow moves?
2. Why
is it impossible for a moving object to go from one extremity to the
other? What important distinction
between matter and time is involved in this answer? What absurd consequence would follow if an
object could go from one extremity to the other?
3. Why
could an hour neither begin nor end if time were composed of an infinite
number of parts? Reading note: Bayle’s reference to what will be said
in the following remark concerening the difficulty
of determining the speed of motion is to Note G, the part numbered “VI.”
4. Identify
three things that cannot be reconciled with the idea that a moving body might
simultaneously move with two different speeds relative to different
surrounding bodies.
5. What
are the only three conceivable types of composition of extension?
6. Why
can extension not be composed of mathematical points?
7. Why
can extension not be composed of extended but indivisible atoms?
8. What
is the “sophism” (fallacy or logical error) in the argument that if extension
is not composed of indivisibles (mathematical points or extended but
indivisible atoms) then it must be infinitely divisible? Reading note: Bayle’s reference to professors
needing to invent a jargon for students to use in disputations. It was common practice in the medieval
universities for students to engage in public disputations over such
philosophical topics as infinite divisibility. Women being excluded, male relatives would
attend these disputations and follow the scholar’s progress with the same
sort of devotion modern parents lavish on their offsprings’
efforts in hockey or soccer. Many
medieval philosophical works were written up as a series of “disputed
questions” in which a question would be stated, a number of contrary
responses to the question canvassed, reasons for and against the different
responses surveyed, and a resolution proposed that did as much as possible to
capture what is correct in all the different responses while explaining the
grounds of the errors that led to the divergence of opinion. As the same questions were debated for
centuries and successive authors found it necessary to reference the views of
all their important predecessors the disputations became increasingly
scholarly, complex, and detailed. The
public in attendance at the disputation could make no sense of what was going
on, but they were nonetheless impressed by the show of erudition and the
unintelligible technical jargon.
9. What
makes the hypothesis of infinite divisibility the strongest of the three? 10.
What makes it as clear and evident as
the Sun that extension could not be infinitely divisible? 11.
What is required for an extended
substance to exist? Why can this
requirement not be met if space is infinitely divisible? 12.
Why can extension exist only in the
mind? 13.
What conclusion did Bayle draw from the
fact that a cannon ball, coated with paint and rolled along a table, will
draw a line of paint on the table? 14.
Would Bayle have accepted Locke’s
distinction between type (i) ideas of the primary
qualities of bodies and type (ii) ideas of the sensible qualities that bodies
cause us to feel in virtue of the real constitution of their insensibly small
parts? 15.
Why are geometrical proofs of infinite
divisibility equally effective at disproving infinite divisibility? 16.
Give two reasons why infinite
divisibility forbids the beginning of motion.
Give one why a ball rolling down an inclined table could never roll
off the edge of the table. 17.
Why could one body not move faster than
another? Why could we not suppose that
when one body moves faster than another that the slower one stops in its
motion for longer or shorter intervals? 18.
Given that motion does in fact
undeniably exist, what is the point of giving arguments to prove that it does
not? (Abstract
Ideas)
1. What is the chief cause of those obstacles and
difficulties that have so far prevented us from making any progress in
philosophy?
2. What is our “most abstract idea of extension”
(Introduction 8) an idea of?
3. What is the one sense in which
4. What are the “proper acceptations of abstraction” (i.e. the senses in which this ability has been
understood according to the tradition
5. What are the two arguments against the traditional conception
of abstraction that
6. What was Locke’s reason for claiming that human beings are
able to form abstract ideas?
7. Why did
8. How can an idea be general without being abstract?
9. What is the argument against the traditional conception of
abstraction that 10.
What is the erroneous
supposition about the nature of language that lies at the root of the
supposition that we have abstract ideas? (Immaterialism)
1. What
are the objects of human knowledge?
2. Is
there anything said by
3. What
is required in order for an idea to exist?
4. What
do I really mean when I say that something I am not now in a position to
perceive exists?
5. What
are the limits on my power of abstraction?
6. Why
should the fact that extension in general (i.e., Cartesian intelligible
extension like that the understanding finds in the wax) is inconceivable
unless it is supposed to have some specific shape, size and velocity entail
that extension in general cannot exist outside of the mind?
7. Why
should we suppose that neither sense nor reason informs us of the existence
of solid, extended corpuscles located in space outside of the mind?
8. What
is wrong with supposing that some sort of solid, extended substance existing
in space outside of the mind and acting on our sense organs when we come into
contact with it, might at least provide us with a plausible explanation of
why we get the ideas that we do? Berkeley, Three Dialogues I, pp. 171-187 (Naïve
Realism)
1. What is the
cause of scepticism, according to Philonous? That is, what is the cause of “professing
an entire ignorance of all things” and of “notions as are repugnant” to “the
plain dictates of nature and common sense?”
2. In what sense
might someone who denies that matter exists be considered a sceptic,
according to Hylas?
3. What “things”
is someone who denies the real existence of sensible things denying to exist? Another
way to ask this question is, “what things are immediately perceived by the
senses?”
4. According to Hylas, do sensible things exist only when they are
perceived, or do they exist whether we perceive them or not?
5. What is wrong
with supposing that whatever degree of heat we perceive by sense must exist
in the object that occasions our perception?
6. Is there any
vehement sensation that can be conceived apart from (i.e., in abstraction
from) conceiving pain, or any pain that can be conceived in general apart
from any particular vehement sensation?
7. Why could a
very great degree of heat not have any real being, according to Hylas?
8. What is wrong
with insisting that moderate degrees of heat and cold are not forms of pleasure
and pain, but instead qualities that could exist unperceived in material
substances? (Grant, for the sake of
argument, that moderate degrees of heat and cold are not, in fact, pleasant
or uncomfortable.)
9. Fill in the
blank: Heat is to fire as ____ is to the prick of a pin. What should we conclude from this? 10.
What is wrong with maintaining that there are two
kinds of heat and cold and taste and smell, one perceived by us that is
experienced as being pleasant or unpleasant, and another existing unperceived
as a quality in material substances? 11.
Give two reasons why we should not say that sugar
is sweet. 12.
Why should sound be said to be in the air rather
than in the body that makes the sound? Note: “I thought I had already obviated that distinction
by the answer I gave you when you were applying it in a like case before” (p.182) Philonous is referring to p.180, where he responded
to Hylas’s claim that there are two kinds of heat,
cold, smell, and taste. Cf. answer to
#10 above. 13.
What exactly is sound as it is in the air? What, in contrast, is sound in “the common
acceptation of the word?” Which of
these two sorts of “sound” is heard?
Which could be only seen or felt and why could this sort of sound not
be heard but only be seen or felt? 14.
What is wrong with saying that we see colours “on”
objects, or that corporeal substances have colours “inhering in” them, or
that [immediately] visible objects have colours in them? Try to identify two things. 15.
Why should we conclude that all colours whatsoever
are only “apparent” in the sense in which the colours on the clouds at
sunrise are only “apparent” and not really in the clouds? Try to give two reasons. 16.
What is wrong with saying that colours are in the
air rather than on or in visible objects?
Why should it follow that if colours are in the air they are
“invisible” to the eye? (Hint: the answer here is similar to
#13. Explain what the difference is
between colours as they are in the air and colours as they are immediately
perceived by us and comment on what follows from this.) Berkeley Three Dialogues I, pp. 187-191;
194-207 (Primary
Quality Realism; Representational Realism)
1. Why should the
same reasoning employed concerning our perceptions of intermediate degrees of
heat and cold, sweetness, and other sensible qualities lead us to conclude
that there is no extension or figure in objects?
2. How is time
measured?
3. Why may the
same motion seem faster to one observer and slower to another?
4. If extension
does not exist outside of the mind, why should it follow that motion,
solidity, and gravity cannot exist outside of the mind?
5. Why does the
fact that sensible qualities cannot exist outside of the mind by itself
entail that the primary qualities, especially extension, cannot exist outside
of the mind? Note: “you do not pretend to see that unthinking
substance” (p.195). This
point has come up before, at pp.183-184 where Hylas inadvertently drew a
distinction between colours and coloured objects and Philonous
charged that he could not claim to immediately any anything more than light
and colours, not substances in which those colours inhere.
6. Granting that
there is a distinction to be drawn between sensations considered as “an act
of the mind perceiving” and the “immediately perceived” “object of the
senses,” what is wrong with saying that the red and yellow of a tulip are not
just immediately perceived to be coexistent with (different parts of) the
extension of the shape of a tulip, but have a real existence outside of the
mind in some unthinking substance? Why
does the distinction between sensations and objects do nothing to avoid this
problem?
7. What is wrong
with saying that anything that is involved in a perception that is additional
to the act of the mind in perceiving may exist outside of the mind in an unthinking
substance? Try to identify two things. Note: substratum and substance (pp.197-98). Philonous’s argument here turns on the literal meaning of
the Latin terms. “Substratum” is
literally “lying spread out underneath”; “substance” is literally “standing
under”
8. What is wrong
with reasoning that even though we can’t understand how the qualities we
experience in perception could exist outside of minds, we also can’t conceive
how things like whiteness or sweetness could exist on their own, without inhering in some mind-independent material
substance that supports their existence?
9. What is wrong
with supposing that even though individual sensible qualities might only
exist insofar as they are perceived by minds, multiple qualities might
support one another in existing together outside the mind? Try to identify two things. 10.
What is wrong with maintaining that sensible
objects must exist outside of the mind because in vision we see them existing
at some distance away from us? Try to
identify four things. 11.
What is wrong with maintaining that ideas are
pictures, images, resemblances, or signs of other things that exist outside
of the mind, so that by immediately perceiving the ideas we are also mediately perceiving
the objects they signify? 12.
What is wrong with maintaining that it is at least
possible that our ideas may be pictures, images, or resemblances of other
things that exist outside of the mind, even if we cannot know for a fact that
they are? 13.
What principle must be denied in order to escape
the scepticism that Hylas is driven into at the
close of Dialogues I? (Spiritual
Realism)
1. What are the
objects of human knowledge?
2. Is there
anything said by Berkeley in Principles 1 that Locke would have disagreed
with?
3. What is
required in order for an idea to exist?
4. What do I
really mean when I say that something I am not now in a position to perceive
exists?
5. Why can one
idea not be the cause of another? Note: “as is evident from Sect. 8.” Section 8
corresponds to Dialogues 1 pp.-, where Berkeley argued for the
“likeness principle” that nothing can be like an idea but another idea.
6. How many
different kinds of substance are there?
7. What does our
freedom of will strictly allow us to do, according to
8. What made
9. How did 10.
11.
Did 12.
In what sense do we see God? Hume, Enquiry 4 (Sceptical
doubts about our powers of knowledge)
1. How are
propositions expressing a relation between ideas discovered?
2. In what way is
the “evidence” (or evidentness) of a true matter of
fact, such as that the sun will rise tomorrow, different from that of a
relation of ideas, such as that equals added to equals are equal?
3. What assures
us of the truth of matters of fact?
(Identify three things).
4. Why would
someone who found a watch on a deserted island infer that it had once been
inhabited?
5. What is it,
according to Hume, that leads us to suppose that two
different things are related to one another as cause and effect?
6. Why should we
think that it is not possible, by simply examining and analyzing a cause, to
deduce what its effect will be? Give
two reasons, the second one specific to the case of those causal relations
that “have become familiar to us from our first appearance in the world, bear
a close analogy to the whole course of nature, and supposedly depend on
simple qualities of bodies rather than an unseen microscopic constitution of
parts.”
7. What is wrong
with saying that someone who understands the laws governing such things as elasticity,
gravitation, cohesion, and impact might be able to tell what effects some
causes will have without having to rely on experience?
8. What is wrong
with saying that we learn about the connection between a cause and its effect
by experience?
9. What is the
“negative” thesis Hume proposed to establish in Enquiry IV.ii? 10.
What does past experience directly and certainly
inform us of? What can it not inform
us of? 11.
Did Hume believe that, from the proposition that
an object has always been followed by a certain effect in the past, we may justly infer that similar objects will
continue to be followed by similar effects in the future? 12.
Did Hume believe that we do in fact always draw
the inference described in the previous question? 13.
Did Hume believe that the inference is justified
by intuitive or demonstrative reasoning? 14.
Why can there be no demonstrative argument that
allows us to take the premise that a cause has led to a certain effect in the
past to entail the conclusion that similar causes must lead to similar
effects in the future? 15.
What is wrong with arguing that since a cause has
led to a certain effect in the past, and since the
future generally resembles the past, then the cause will likely continue to
lead to the effect in the future? 16.
What conclusion did Hume draw from the fact that
peasants and children and even animals are able to do causal reasoning? Hume Enquiry
5.1-9, 9 (Naturalism)
1. What is the
one passion that is not frustrated by the sceptical philosophy?
2. Why do we not
need to be afraid that sceptical doubts will render us incapable of making
decisions about how to act in common life?
3. Why would a
rational being, brought suddenly into this world, not at first be able to
reach the idea of cause and effect?
4. What is the consequence
of this being’s observing events of a certain type to always be followed by
events of another type?
5. What is the
principle that induces us to infer the existence of one object from the
appearance of another?
6. What can we
say about what ultimately causes us to develop habits?
7. What makes the
hypothesis that we are determined by custom to infer causes from effects
superior to the hypothesis that we are determined by reason to do so?
8. What two
things are necessary if we are to believe in the existence of an object that
we are not now perceiving?
9. What is it
that ensures that these two things will necessarily and unavoidably produce
the belief? 10.
How did Hume propose to confirm his theory
concerning the foundation of our inferences from experience in Enquiry IX? 11.
What convinced Hume that animals get their
knowledge of the nature of fire, water, earth, stones, heights, depths, etc.
from experience rather than from innate instincts? 12.
What convinced Hume that animals do not get their
knowledge of unperceived objects by reasoning that like effects will always
follow like causes, or that the course of nature will not change? 13.
Why would “nature” (i.e. a wise designer) have
preferred to make causal inference depend on custom rather than reasoning? 14.
If custom is the cause of causal inference, how is
it that we can sometimes draw inferences from just one experiment? 15.
How did Hume distinguish what animals believe by
instinct from what they learn from experience? 16.
Why should we think that there is nothing unique
or special about animal instincts? Hume, Enquiry
2, 3.1-3, 5.10-22 (Belief)
1. What are
impressions?
2. In what sense
is the imagination confined within narrow limits?
3. Why does the
idea of God not falsify Hume’s claim that all of our ideas are composed of
materials originally obtained from impressions?
4. What
significance did Hume attach to the fact that a blind person can form no idea
of colours?
5. How did Hume
propose to eliminate jargon from metaphysics?
6. For each of
the following identify the associative principle that leads the mind from
thinking of the first idea to thinking of the second. a.
the idea of the book leads us to remember its
author b.
The idea of fire leads us to think of the sun c.
the idea of fire leads us to think of melting wax d.
the idea of e.
the idea of the ides of March leads us to think of
Julius Caesar
7. What is the
difference between fiction and belief?
8. Why does
belief have nothing to do with the peculiar nature or order of ideas?
9. Identify the
two factors responsible for getting a lively idea of an absent friend from a
picture. 10.
What significance did Hume attach to Roman
Catholic claims that performing rituals before images and statues enlivens
their faith? 11.
Why do our ideas of home become more
lively as we get closer to it? 12.
Explain the analogy between the effects of
causation and those of resemblance and contiguity on our beliefs. 13.
What accounts for the fact that there is a
pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the succession of
our ideas? 14.
Why is it better that our abilities to infer
causes from effects and effects from causes should be due to “some instinct
or mechanical tendency” rather than to reason? Hume Enquiry 6 (Probability)
1. Does anything
ever happen by chance?
2. Why do we
treat certain events as if they were the products of chance?
3. What is the
“very nature” of chance events?
4. What happens
when the mind is carried more frequently to one sort of event when surveying
the various possible or chance outcomes of a cause, such as throwing a die
with a number of faces that concur in having the same number on them?
5. What accounts
for the “sentiment of belief” that we get when several “views” concur in the
same event, i.e., when several of the chance outcomes of a cause are the
same?
6. How do “philosophers”
account for the failure of causes to produce their usual effects?
7. In cases where
a cause has not always been observed to be followed by the same type of
event, what do we imagine happening after the cause, when we witness it again
in the future? 36b Hume, Enquiry 7 (Necessary
Connection)
1. Which of our
ideas are always clear and determinate?
Which are ambiguous, and why?
2. What is
necessary if we are to discover the precise meaning of obscure terms like
“force,” “power,” “energy,” or “necessary connection?”
3. What do our
senses tell us about the operation of causes from viewing any single instance
of a causal relation between external objects?
4. What
significance did Hume attach to the fact that we cannot tell, upon seeing an
object for the first time, what its effects will be?
5. What
significance did Hume attach to the fact that the qualities of bodies, so far
as our senses can detect them, are all complete in themselves?
6. Why has it
been thought that we acquire the idea of power from internal sensation or
reflection?
7. What do we
really know about the relation between our volitions and the motion of our
bodies?
8. What
significance did Hume attach to the observation that a person with a newly
paralyzed or amputated limb can have the same feeling of will to move the
limb as a healthy person?
9. What does it
mean to know a power? 10.
What significance did Hume attach to the fact that
we are unable to explain how the mind is able to produce ideas upon a command
of the will? Note: “The generality of mankind never find any
difficulty in accounting for the more common and familiar operations of
nature; ...: But suppose, that, in all these cases, they perceive the very
force or energy of the cause, by which it is connected with its effect,” Hume meant to say that instead of finding
any difficulty in accounting for the more common and familiar operations of
nature the average person supposes (wrongly) that they perceive the very
force or energy in the cause that enables it to bring about its effect. 11.
Why do “many philosophers” (e.g., Malebranche and
Berkeley) think it necessary to appeal to the immediate agency of God to
explain the occurrence of familiar events when uneducated people only invoke
this cause to explain the occurrence of extraordinary, miraculous and
supernatural events? 12.
What is wrong with the approach taken by these
philosophers? 13.
What are the possible sources of an impression
corresponding to our idea of power that Hume examined over the course of Enquiry VII.i? What is the one remaining source he still
had to examine? 14.
What is the difference between observing one
single event to follow upon another and observing one species (i.e., one
collection of similar events or events of the same type) of event to follow
upon another? 15.
What is the impression that our idea of power or
necessary connection is a copy of? 16.
What do we really mean when we say that one object
is connected with another? 17.
What is the difference between Hume’s two
definitions of cause? In what way do
they both come up short of what we might like? Hume, Enquiry
8 (Liberty & Necessity)
1. What does our idea of necessity arise from?
2. What is our idea of necessity an
idea of?
3. What were Hume’s reasons for saying that all people
have always concluded that our voluntary actions and operations of mind are
necessitated? (Find two)
4. What is the chief use of history?
5. What is the benefit of a long life employed in a
variety of occupations and company?
6. What is required for us to be able to see through the
tricks of con artists and others who want to deceive us?
7. What accounts for the fact that not all people behave
in precisely the same manner in the same circumstances?
8. Why is the fact that there are some actions that seem
to have no regular connection with any known motives not an objection to the
thesis that human actions are necessitated?
9. What is the foundation of morals? 10. Why is it that even though people all believe the
doctrine of necessity and rely on it in their anticipations of how others
will behave, they are reluctant to acknowledge it in words and instead claim
that nothing determines human actions? 11. What is meant by attributing liberty to voluntary
actions? 12. What makes actions criminal? 13. Why would denying that human actions are necessitated
by motives mean that a person must be as pure and untainted after committing
the most horrid crime, as at the first moment of birth? 14. What opposite interests are the moral sentiments based
on? 15. How did Hume respond to the objection that insofar as
the doctrine of necessity makes God the ultimate cause of all human actions,
it follows that no human actions can be blameworthy, because God does nothing
without a good and valid reason for doing so? Note: “Absolute
decrees” (8.36). The doctrine of
absolute decrees is the doctrine that some have been predestined to be damned
to hell for all eternity, and that there is nothing they can do to escape
this fate. It is a consequence of the
doctrines of original sin and of salvation by grace alone. According to these doctrines we are all
born in a state of infinite corruption and so are all born deserving to go to
hell. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross
was supposed to release an infinite amount of divine grace,
that would reform us and redeem us from that fate, but since the
sacrifice obviously has not made everyone a good person, and since God’s
grace is irresistible, it follows that God has not willed that all get the
grace. The sacrifice must only have
been intended to release grace for some, not all. God’s reasons for
dispensing grace to some and not to others are inscrutable and apparently
arbitrary. Since we are all infinitely
corrupt at birth, it is impossible for any of us to do a truly good deed in
advance of receiving God’s grace, which alone can overcome our corruption and
make us capable of goodness. None of
us can do anything to merit receiving God’s grace prior to receiving it. But though we are all equally undeserving,
God nonetheless gives grace to some and withholds it from others, like a rich
person walking down a street full of beggars and giving a coin to one rather
than another. We are supposed to be
awed that he gave as much as he did, since he didn’t have to give anything at
all and no one deserved anything, rather than offended that he did not
distribute all he could equally. This
is the doctrine of absolute decrees.
It was affirmed by Augustine and those in the more extreme Jansenist
and Calvinist wings of the Catholic and Protestant denominations. Augustine’s opponent, Pelagius, and the the Molinist (Jesuit) and
Arminian wings of the Catholic and Protestant denominations tried to maintain
that works could get one saved, though at risk of making the crucifixion
ridiculous. Moderates in all Christian
denominations nonetheless found absolute decrees hard to accept. 16. How did Hume respond to the objection that insofar as
the doctrine of necessity makes God the ultimate cause of all human actions,
it makes him responsible for their crimes? Hume, Enquiry 10 (Miracles)
1. What
was the purpose of the miracles performed by the Saviour?
2. Why
did Tillotson say that our evidence for the truth
of Christianity is less than our evidence for the truth of our senses?
3. Why,
according to Tillotson, would it be contrary to the
rules of just reasoning to believe in a scriptural doctrine that contradicts
sensory experience?
4. What
is the one condition under which a scriptural doctrine could be accepted even
though it contradicts sensory experience?
5. What
is the difference between a proof and a probability?
6. How
is reasoning from human testimony (i.e. supposing that something is the case
because someone has told us that it is the case) like reasoning from effect
to cause?
7. How
do we proceed when we find from past experience that a certain kind of report
is not entirely reliable?
8. List
some circumstances that might incline us to repose greater trust in human
testimony and some that might lead us to give it less trust. 9. Why is testimony to an unusual event regarded as less credible the more unusual the event is? 10. Why does the testimony of credible witnesses to an unusual event produce a “mutual destruction of belief [in what most likely happened in that case] and authority [i.e. trust in the report of the witnesses]?” 11. Why is it that from the very nature of the fact there is always a direct and full proof against the occurrence of any miracle? 12. What would it take to counterbalance this proof and establish that a miracle has occurred? 13. Why are we more readily tempted to accept stories that are utterly absurd and miraculous, even though we readily reject any fact that is unusual or incredible in an ordinary degree? 14. Why do miracles not happen these days? 15. Why is it the case that, even if we could demonstrate that an almighty God exists, this would not make it any more likely that miracles occur? 16. Whose position on the foundation of religious belief did Hume endorse at the close of Enquiry X, Locke’s or Bayle’s? Hume, Enquiry 12 (Scepticism)
1. What is
antecedent scepticism?
2. Why, according
to Hume, is Cartesian scepticism incurable?
3. What is
consequent scepticism?
4. What are the
“trite topics” employed by the sceptics in all ages, and what is Hume’s
estimate of the value of these topics?
5. What do we
take external objects to be when we follow the blind and powerful instinct of
our nature?
6. What does the
slightest philosophy teach us that external objects are?
7. What could
cause the perceptions of the mind besides external objects?
8. Why can
experience not tell us what causes our perceptions?
9. What did Hume
mean by calling the sensible qualities secondary? 10.
Why must the primary qualities exist only in the
mind? 11.
What is the chief objection against all abstract
reasoning? 12.
What are the popular objections to our knowledge
of matters of fact and why are they weak? 13.
What do the philosophical objections to our
knowledge of matters of fact assert? 14.
What is the most that a Pyrrhonian
can manage to do with his or her arguments? 15.
What are the two main useful results that might
follow when excessive scepticism is in some measure corrected by common sense
and reflection? |
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