Deck 5: Philosophers of the Hellenistic and Christian Eras

Question 1

What is asserted by the principle of noncontradiction?

A) People who don't contradict themselves are rational.
B) A proposition and its contradiction cannot both be false at the same time.
C) A proposition and its contradiction can't both be true.
D) If two propositions don't contradict each other then both of them are true.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

For Aquinas, "what" a thing is (its essence) is not the same as "that" it is (its existence).

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Augustine thought that God was within time, which is an objective feature of the world.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

Which of the following views did Aquinas accept?

A) A physical thing is composed of matter and form.
B) All reality is material.
C) Forms exist independently of matter.
D) Nothing changes.

Question 5

Hypatia set forth the Ten Tropes, a collection of ten arguments by the ancient skeptics against the possibility of knowledge.

Question 6

Sextus Empiricus believed that occasionally we perceive things as they really are.

Question 7

Those who think that universal terms like "man" denote something that exists outside the mind subscribe to _____.

A) conceptualism
B) realism
C) druidism
D) abstractionism

Question 8

What did Hypatia think about the study of mathematics and astronomy?

A) The study was useful in finding practical solutions to practical problems on earth.
B) The study was an amusing diversion and, like philosophy, just idle speculation.
C) The study was a way of proving the truth of Christianity.
D) The study was a way of checking metaphysical and epistemological features of Plato's, Aristotle's, and Plotinus's philosophies against the physical universe.

Question 9

St. Augustine used the principle of noncontradiction to refute Academic skepticism.

Question 10

Which of the following ancient traditions did Plotinus represent?

A) Stoicism
B) Epicureanism
C) Skepticism
D) Neoplatonism

Question 11

What did Aquinas maintain concerning the soul?

A) It is the passive potentiality of the body.
B) It is finite and destructible.
C) It cannot exist without the body.
D) It is a direct creation of God.

Question 12

St. Augustine regarded Plotinus and Plato as having prepared him for Christianity by exposing him to important Christian principles before he encountered them in scripture.

Question 13

Plotinus believed in a personal God as the source of all reality and truth.

Question 14

Those who think that they can account for universal terms without invoking universals either as real things out there in the world or as concepts in the mind subscribe to _____.

A) nominalism
B) conceptualism
C) abstractionism
D) determinism

Question 15

Regarding universals, conceptualism is the thought that universal terms refer to something that really exists outside of the mind.

Question 16

The Academics and the Pyrrhonists are modified skeptics.

Question 17

Which of the following views of Aristotle did Aquinas disagree with?

A) Physical things are always a blend of matter plus form.
B) The essence of a thing is the same as its existence.
C) One and the same form (universal) can be in more than one physical thing (particular).
D) Change is explained in terms of four causes: the formal, the material, the efficient, and the final.

Question 18

Thomistic cosmology (theory of the universe as an ordered whole) is based on a geocentric view of the universe, and this is also true of Aquinas's psychology.