Final philosophy prep
This is my usual prep work for my philosophy final, which I traditionally/habitually/constant conjuctively post here, but it might also be my final such post since it's likely I won't be taking another phil anytime in the foreseeable future.
First though, I require more explanation. Which means it's really more for me. As much as I hate doing them, these study sessions are always somewhat enjoyable for me to look back on, which is why they end up here; I can't bear to just toss them aside completely. They're a reminder of time spent in a class I enjoyed, late nights spent drinking coffee, and the commitment I have to doing things the way I think they should be done, even if I don't get to them until the last minute. They're also a record of survival, of the abuse I like to inflict on myself and my ability to withstand it. Everything I write, however rough it might be, is equal parts a prize and a scar; at the same time fond memory and relief. Despite that, most of them are nothing. They have no meaning, beyond maybe an example that I thought was cute. But this one might be a little bit special to me. There's no cuteness, not much for humor, but this could be the last one, and this one was difficult. Not that I really think any of them were easy, they're always a pain to some degree. This one was a battle because I was down to the wire and the gears just weren't turning, I couldn't find the on switch, which is probably the root problem I've had all semester. Nothing works the way it used to; what once flowed with a little coaxing now is muddled up in confusion, apathy, and eustress tolerance. At the beginning of this prep, I was just pushing forward, trying to make something fire. I didn't prepare well for the first one, so of course it was one of the chosen shorts. I did them in order, all night long, in the final hours available to me, with only the minimum sleep I could function on, and somewhere during the night I at least started to tap into what I wanted. I'm not sure when that happened, but this as a whole has kind of come to represent that moment to me, even though it will likely prove insignificant ultimately.
So here we go, preparative essay preps for the final, which consists of two shorts and one long.
Phil12 final preparation
Short Essays
1. How does Descartes explain his philosophical project by analogy to a tree? What role is the Meditations meant to play in this project? [I had only a simple diagram in my notes to work with for this one. Of course it was chosen, but the actual answer I ended up giving turned out much better than this and probably twice as long.]
.Descartes' views his philosophical project as being analogous to a tree in that metaphysics and epistemology are like roots underlying the trunk of physics below the branches of things such as medicine, mechanics, and morals. As this tree progresses up from roots to branches, it becomes more practical and less speculative or interested in knowledge purely for its own sake. The branches are practical in that they bear fruit, much like medicine, mechanics, and morals "bear fruit" in our daily lives, providing us with health, nourishment. The bulk of the tree is in the trunk, physics seeks to explain the workings of the physical world.
2. What is the difference between res cogitans and res extensa? Why is Descartes initially willing to assert only that he is the former and not the latter? [This was the other short, my response was much the same but perhaps more poorly worded.]
.The terms res cogitans and res extensa refer to two substances that compose Descartes' dualistic theory of existence./The difference and separation between res cogitans and res extensa is the issue at the heart of Descartes' metaphysics. Res cogitans means thinking thing-in other words, a mind. Res extensa means extended thing; something that takes up space and has dimensions, a material object. He is initially willing only to assert that he exists as res cogitans because, after undermining the existence of everything he possibly can, he is left with nothing of certainty except for his cogito: I think, therefore I am. As he sees it in the beginning, all things that exist res extensa, even his own body, could easily be illusions, nothing more than a dream or a strange hoax being played upon him. However, the one thing that Descartes cannot doubt is his own existence as a thinking mind, res cognitans. The very fact that he can ponder the question of his existence demonstrates that there exists something to be doing the pondering. When he says "I think, therefore I am," the existence of the "I" simply cannot be denied, to do so creates a performative contradiction.
3. Explain Descartes' ontological proof for the existence of God. (2nd) [This one might be a little rushed, but there really isn't a whole lot more, it's ridiculous.]
.Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God ontologically by demonstrating that the very definition of God necessitates his existence (because that's basically what an ontological proof is). God, by definition, is perfect. A part of that perfection is in the area of existing; something that does not exist is imperfect when it comes to existing, as it exists to a lesser degree than other things. Also, apparently, it is a part of "God's essence" that he exists and it is in the definition of God that God has always existed, and something that has to have always existed must exist. By Descartes' view, it is simply a contradiction to think that God does not exist. With this in mind, God's existence becomes clear and distinct to Descartes, his existence and perfection indubitable. Since God is perfect, God cannot be a deceiver. If God is not a deceiver, any idea that is clear and distinct is "guaranteed" to be true, and this once again affirms that God exists. Yes, this is circular as all hell. How can an ontological argument work at all?
4. Explain the counterexample to his theory of the origin of ideas that Hume considers. Why does Hume not consider this counterexample to be a serious threat to his theory?
.Hume's theory of the origin of ideas is that everything of which we are aware is either an impression or an idea. An impression is a "lively and vivid" perception, such as emotion, sensation, passion, and will. An idea is less vivid perception made up of representations of impressions, such as memories. Both are perceptions and not different kinds of things, the distinction is simply one of degrees; one is vivid, the other is not. When we imagine something, we are capable of coming up with complex ideas, but these ideas are formed from combinations of simple impressions. We cannot imagine anything that we have no impression of and that is not composed of impressions. As a counterexample to this, Hume points out that if someone were shown every shade of blue except for one that he had never seen before, all lined up in order from deepest to lightest, it would be obvious to him that there is a shade missing and he would be able to fill in the gap with his imagination, even though he has never experienced the impression of that shade before. Hume acknowledges that this example has the potential to be a legitimate threat to his theory since, to him, every shade of blue is just as different as each color is from the next. However, he disregards this counterexample simply because it is "so singular" that it alone should not be allowed to alter the theory.
5. Explain Hume's (re)definition of 'cause'. What does this definition imply about the 'location' of causation?
.Hume's redefines cause by saying that it is merely the result of "constant conjunction." By this he means that we learn from experience that a certain "cause" is always accompanied by a certain "effect" and we feel that this pairing is necessary out of habit which we can not stop. Cause is just a thing that is followed by another thing, the experience of which "always conveys our thought to that other thing," meaning that the experience of the two seemingly conjoined things leads to us habitually thinking of them as a cause and effect. This definition of causation implies that it lies not between the two things that we regard as a cause and its effect, but instead within our own mind, within our perception of how the world works.
6. What is a category mistake? What particular category mistake does Ryle take to underlie Cartesian dualism?
.A category mistake is, as it sounds, the mistake of placing something in the wrong category/class/group. Basically, it is the result of using language improperly. In Ryle's opinion, Descartes makes a category mistake with his dualism because he insists on explaining the fact that humans are capable of rational thought by dividing them into essentially two states of existence, a material existence to account for the physical body and a separate immaterial existence to account for the thinking mind. In doing this, he is turning the human mind into its own unique sort of thing or substance, when it should instead be viewed simply as part of human existence fully unified with the body. He sees the thinking of the "mind" as simply a behavior or ability of human beings, the same as walking, growing, and speaking.
Long Essays
1. Why is the existence of error problematic for Descartes? How does Descartes account for the existence of error? Does his account solve the problem? Why or why not?
. The existence of error is problematic for Descartes because it seems to contradict with the idea of the world being created by a perfect God. If everything was created by God and God is perfect, it seems that everything he creates should also be perfect. However, Descartes realizes that he and his God-given senses and cognitive abilities are capable of error and, thus, imperfect. This is a very serious problem. Not only does it throw doubt on what Descartes has accepted as a trait of God, it also casts doubt on his own proof of God's existence because he relies on his idea that perfection is essential to God to prove that God must exist, because to not exist would be an imperfection in a being that is perfect by definition.
Descartes accounts for the existence of error by concluding that his errors and flaws come not from an imperfection that has been put into him but instead more like a degree of perfection that was not put into him. After all, if he were created completely perfect, he would be as perfect as God. Instead, Descartes views perfection as a scale between perfection at one end and nothingness at the other, rather than perfection-a thing-on one end and imperfection-an opposing thing-on the other. Descartes concludes that he is capable of errors because he exists in a middle ground between nothingness and the perfection of his creator and, therefore, must "participate in nothingness" as well as in a limited degree of somethingness/perfection. This then applies to all things, all flaws and errors come not from imperfections but from whatever lack of perfection the thing has.
I don't think this explanation accounts for the existence of error. Descartes is trying to explain away the inconsistency between his concept of God and what he plainly sees in the world and in himself. To do this, he does not truly give an explanation of why the essentially perfect God would create anything that is not also perfect but instead changes the perspective on the problem by twisting his wording. By simply redefining shortcomings as a partial lack of perfection rather than a flaw or error within creation, he is able to say that everything is actually flawless but partly nothingness instead of fully perfect. Since it doesn't create a conflict for him to say that God can create a degree of nothingness within something, Descartes manages to sidestep the issue and let God off the hook.
2. Explain Hume's argument that causal inferences are justified neither by direct experience nor by indirect experience (i.e., induction). Is this argument sound? Why or why not? (not a priori part, the other 2) [This one was chosen, I think my response ended up a little shorter and simpler.]
. According to Hume, neither direct nor indirect experiences justify causal inferences. Direct experiences cannot justify causal inferences because it fails the test of "Hume's Razor," there is no possible way for us to directly experience causality. Whenever we see one object seemingly act on another to create what we perceive as a cause and effect, there is never anything that we can point to as being causality. For example, when we see a wrecking ball swing into a building and the building crumbles, seemingly as a result, we can not, no matter how closely we examine the impact, observe the causal force being transferred from ball to wall. Instead, we see what we recognize as a wrecking ball swinging towards what we recognize as a wall, we draw on our past experience with similar situations to predict what will happen next, and we feel we know the wall will be destroyed because experiencing that result in the past has put us in the habit of expecting it.
Indirect experiences cannot justify causal inferences because they rely on observing supposed cause and effect events in the past, habitually accepting the constant conjunction of what we experienced, and then predicting that the future will continue on in just the same way as the past. For example, we may have seen a wrecking ball knock down a building countless times before, but Hume would say there is nothing inconsistent in the suggestion that the next time the ball might shatter like a cheap piñata and the wall remain unfazed.
I think this argument is sound. Whether causality exists in the world or is just a product of our imagination, his argument need only show that causal inferences cannot be justified by experience. In the case of direct experience, it is true that we cannot truly observe causality itself leaping between objects and causing the constant conjunction that we perceive, so he is correct that we are not able to meet his standard of pointing out the impression of causality. In the case of indirect experience, Hume simply asks how it is possible to know what the future will be like based on the past. Though it seems almost certain that we can predict future occurrences by our experiences with similar situations in the past and the consistent results we observed, Hume is correct that we cannot absolutely know that laws of the universe will not radically shift in the future, or that the constant conjunction we've seen up to this point wasn't merely a tremendous coincidence.
First though, I require more explanation. Which means it's really more for me. As much as I hate doing them, these study sessions are always somewhat enjoyable for me to look back on, which is why they end up here; I can't bear to just toss them aside completely. They're a reminder of time spent in a class I enjoyed, late nights spent drinking coffee, and the commitment I have to doing things the way I think they should be done, even if I don't get to them until the last minute. They're also a record of survival, of the abuse I like to inflict on myself and my ability to withstand it. Everything I write, however rough it might be, is equal parts a prize and a scar; at the same time fond memory and relief. Despite that, most of them are nothing. They have no meaning, beyond maybe an example that I thought was cute. But this one might be a little bit special to me. There's no cuteness, not much for humor, but this could be the last one, and this one was difficult. Not that I really think any of them were easy, they're always a pain to some degree. This one was a battle because I was down to the wire and the gears just weren't turning, I couldn't find the on switch, which is probably the root problem I've had all semester. Nothing works the way it used to; what once flowed with a little coaxing now is muddled up in confusion, apathy, and eustress tolerance. At the beginning of this prep, I was just pushing forward, trying to make something fire. I didn't prepare well for the first one, so of course it was one of the chosen shorts. I did them in order, all night long, in the final hours available to me, with only the minimum sleep I could function on, and somewhere during the night I at least started to tap into what I wanted. I'm not sure when that happened, but this as a whole has kind of come to represent that moment to me, even though it will likely prove insignificant ultimately.
So here we go, preparative essay preps for the final, which consists of two shorts and one long.
Phil12 final preparation
Short Essays
1. How does Descartes explain his philosophical project by analogy to a tree? What role is the Meditations meant to play in this project? [I had only a simple diagram in my notes to work with for this one. Of course it was chosen, but the actual answer I ended up giving turned out much better than this and probably twice as long.]
.Descartes' views his philosophical project as being analogous to a tree in that metaphysics and epistemology are like roots underlying the trunk of physics below the branches of things such as medicine, mechanics, and morals. As this tree progresses up from roots to branches, it becomes more practical and less speculative or interested in knowledge purely for its own sake. The branches are practical in that they bear fruit, much like medicine, mechanics, and morals "bear fruit" in our daily lives, providing us with health, nourishment. The bulk of the tree is in the trunk, physics seeks to explain the workings of the physical world.
2. What is the difference between res cogitans and res extensa? Why is Descartes initially willing to assert only that he is the former and not the latter? [This was the other short, my response was much the same but perhaps more poorly worded.]
.The terms res cogitans and res extensa refer to two substances that compose Descartes' dualistic theory of existence./The difference and separation between res cogitans and res extensa is the issue at the heart of Descartes' metaphysics. Res cogitans means thinking thing-in other words, a mind. Res extensa means extended thing; something that takes up space and has dimensions, a material object. He is initially willing only to assert that he exists as res cogitans because, after undermining the existence of everything he possibly can, he is left with nothing of certainty except for his cogito: I think, therefore I am. As he sees it in the beginning, all things that exist res extensa, even his own body, could easily be illusions, nothing more than a dream or a strange hoax being played upon him. However, the one thing that Descartes cannot doubt is his own existence as a thinking mind, res cognitans. The very fact that he can ponder the question of his existence demonstrates that there exists something to be doing the pondering. When he says "I think, therefore I am," the existence of the "I" simply cannot be denied, to do so creates a performative contradiction.
3. Explain Descartes' ontological proof for the existence of God. (2nd) [This one might be a little rushed, but there really isn't a whole lot more, it's ridiculous.]
.Descartes attempts to prove the existence of God ontologically by demonstrating that the very definition of God necessitates his existence (because that's basically what an ontological proof is). God, by definition, is perfect. A part of that perfection is in the area of existing; something that does not exist is imperfect when it comes to existing, as it exists to a lesser degree than other things. Also, apparently, it is a part of "God's essence" that he exists and it is in the definition of God that God has always existed, and something that has to have always existed must exist. By Descartes' view, it is simply a contradiction to think that God does not exist. With this in mind, God's existence becomes clear and distinct to Descartes, his existence and perfection indubitable. Since God is perfect, God cannot be a deceiver. If God is not a deceiver, any idea that is clear and distinct is "guaranteed" to be true, and this once again affirms that God exists. Yes, this is circular as all hell. How can an ontological argument work at all?
4. Explain the counterexample to his theory of the origin of ideas that Hume considers. Why does Hume not consider this counterexample to be a serious threat to his theory?
.Hume's theory of the origin of ideas is that everything of which we are aware is either an impression or an idea. An impression is a "lively and vivid" perception, such as emotion, sensation, passion, and will. An idea is less vivid perception made up of representations of impressions, such as memories. Both are perceptions and not different kinds of things, the distinction is simply one of degrees; one is vivid, the other is not. When we imagine something, we are capable of coming up with complex ideas, but these ideas are formed from combinations of simple impressions. We cannot imagine anything that we have no impression of and that is not composed of impressions. As a counterexample to this, Hume points out that if someone were shown every shade of blue except for one that he had never seen before, all lined up in order from deepest to lightest, it would be obvious to him that there is a shade missing and he would be able to fill in the gap with his imagination, even though he has never experienced the impression of that shade before. Hume acknowledges that this example has the potential to be a legitimate threat to his theory since, to him, every shade of blue is just as different as each color is from the next. However, he disregards this counterexample simply because it is "so singular" that it alone should not be allowed to alter the theory.
5. Explain Hume's (re)definition of 'cause'. What does this definition imply about the 'location' of causation?
.Hume's redefines cause by saying that it is merely the result of "constant conjunction." By this he means that we learn from experience that a certain "cause" is always accompanied by a certain "effect" and we feel that this pairing is necessary out of habit which we can not stop. Cause is just a thing that is followed by another thing, the experience of which "always conveys our thought to that other thing," meaning that the experience of the two seemingly conjoined things leads to us habitually thinking of them as a cause and effect. This definition of causation implies that it lies not between the two things that we regard as a cause and its effect, but instead within our own mind, within our perception of how the world works.
6. What is a category mistake? What particular category mistake does Ryle take to underlie Cartesian dualism?
.A category mistake is, as it sounds, the mistake of placing something in the wrong category/class/group. Basically, it is the result of using language improperly. In Ryle's opinion, Descartes makes a category mistake with his dualism because he insists on explaining the fact that humans are capable of rational thought by dividing them into essentially two states of existence, a material existence to account for the physical body and a separate immaterial existence to account for the thinking mind. In doing this, he is turning the human mind into its own unique sort of thing or substance, when it should instead be viewed simply as part of human existence fully unified with the body. He sees the thinking of the "mind" as simply a behavior or ability of human beings, the same as walking, growing, and speaking.
Long Essays
1. Why is the existence of error problematic for Descartes? How does Descartes account for the existence of error? Does his account solve the problem? Why or why not?
. The existence of error is problematic for Descartes because it seems to contradict with the idea of the world being created by a perfect God. If everything was created by God and God is perfect, it seems that everything he creates should also be perfect. However, Descartes realizes that he and his God-given senses and cognitive abilities are capable of error and, thus, imperfect. This is a very serious problem. Not only does it throw doubt on what Descartes has accepted as a trait of God, it also casts doubt on his own proof of God's existence because he relies on his idea that perfection is essential to God to prove that God must exist, because to not exist would be an imperfection in a being that is perfect by definition.
Descartes accounts for the existence of error by concluding that his errors and flaws come not from an imperfection that has been put into him but instead more like a degree of perfection that was not put into him. After all, if he were created completely perfect, he would be as perfect as God. Instead, Descartes views perfection as a scale between perfection at one end and nothingness at the other, rather than perfection-a thing-on one end and imperfection-an opposing thing-on the other. Descartes concludes that he is capable of errors because he exists in a middle ground between nothingness and the perfection of his creator and, therefore, must "participate in nothingness" as well as in a limited degree of somethingness/perfection. This then applies to all things, all flaws and errors come not from imperfections but from whatever lack of perfection the thing has.
I don't think this explanation accounts for the existence of error. Descartes is trying to explain away the inconsistency between his concept of God and what he plainly sees in the world and in himself. To do this, he does not truly give an explanation of why the essentially perfect God would create anything that is not also perfect but instead changes the perspective on the problem by twisting his wording. By simply redefining shortcomings as a partial lack of perfection rather than a flaw or error within creation, he is able to say that everything is actually flawless but partly nothingness instead of fully perfect. Since it doesn't create a conflict for him to say that God can create a degree of nothingness within something, Descartes manages to sidestep the issue and let God off the hook.
2. Explain Hume's argument that causal inferences are justified neither by direct experience nor by indirect experience (i.e., induction). Is this argument sound? Why or why not? (not a priori part, the other 2) [This one was chosen, I think my response ended up a little shorter and simpler.]
. According to Hume, neither direct nor indirect experiences justify causal inferences. Direct experiences cannot justify causal inferences because it fails the test of "Hume's Razor," there is no possible way for us to directly experience causality. Whenever we see one object seemingly act on another to create what we perceive as a cause and effect, there is never anything that we can point to as being causality. For example, when we see a wrecking ball swing into a building and the building crumbles, seemingly as a result, we can not, no matter how closely we examine the impact, observe the causal force being transferred from ball to wall. Instead, we see what we recognize as a wrecking ball swinging towards what we recognize as a wall, we draw on our past experience with similar situations to predict what will happen next, and we feel we know the wall will be destroyed because experiencing that result in the past has put us in the habit of expecting it.
Indirect experiences cannot justify causal inferences because they rely on observing supposed cause and effect events in the past, habitually accepting the constant conjunction of what we experienced, and then predicting that the future will continue on in just the same way as the past. For example, we may have seen a wrecking ball knock down a building countless times before, but Hume would say there is nothing inconsistent in the suggestion that the next time the ball might shatter like a cheap piñata and the wall remain unfazed.
I think this argument is sound. Whether causality exists in the world or is just a product of our imagination, his argument need only show that causal inferences cannot be justified by experience. In the case of direct experience, it is true that we cannot truly observe causality itself leaping between objects and causing the constant conjunction that we perceive, so he is correct that we are not able to meet his standard of pointing out the impression of causality. In the case of indirect experience, Hume simply asks how it is possible to know what the future will be like based on the past. Though it seems almost certain that we can predict future occurrences by our experiences with similar situations in the past and the consistent results we observed, Hume is correct that we cannot absolutely know that laws of the universe will not radically shift in the future, or that the constant conjunction we've seen up to this point wasn't merely a tremendous coincidence.