Deck 1: Reality

Question 1

Confucius, a Chinese thinker in the sixth century BCE, believed that each individual has an impact on the well-being of society by fulfilling his or her role in relation to other people.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

For Leibniz, space and time are substances.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Western philosophy is said to begin with Thales.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Plato postulated the pre-existence of the soul to account for our knowledge of Forms.

Question 5

Descartes thought that human existence could be reduced through science to the functioning of a mere machine.

Question 6

Spinoza believed that there were many substances.

Question 7

Aristotle referred to metaphysics as "first philosophy", of which he was interested in investigating the nature of "Being as Being" or ultimate reality.

Question 8

Aristotle also adhered to Plato's theory of the Forms.

Question 9

Monism is the attempt to reduce all the things in the world to things of one kind.

Question 10

The god of Zoroastrianism is Ahura Mazda.

Question 11

Teleology explains something by looking for its purpose, goal, or end.

Question 12

Causal explanations seek to understand how something came about rather than why it came about.

Question 13

Descartes declared that the principle attribute of the mind was extension.

Question 14

The main point of Spinoza's proof is that if there were more than one substance, then those substances could not interact.

Question 15

The Principle of Sufficient Reason states that any human action is immoral unless there is sufficient reason for a person to do that particular act.

Question 16

According to Descartes, there is only one substance, which is mind.

Question 17

Spinoza argued that God, substance, and the cause-of-itself were all identical.

Question 18

The Upanishads of ancient Indian Verdic literature features the earliest articulation of a single ultimate reality.

Question 19

Laozi was a religious mystic who rejected Daoism and founded Confucianism.

Question 20

Metaphysics is the division of ontology that asks questions about how the universe came to be, how a substances can exist, how things are composed, and how different substances interact.

Question 21

Pythagoras believed that the universe is made of _________.

A) water
B) numbers
C) fire
D) apeiron

Question 22

How do Leibniz's monads come into being?

A) through friction
B) birth
C) from a previous cause
D) God creates them

Question 23

__________ are central to Plato's metaphysics.

A) Attributes
B) Forms
C) Substances
D) Accidents

Question 24

Leibniz was a __________.

A) pantheist
B) monist
C) pluralist
D) Buddhist

Question 25

Pantheism is the idea that __________.

A) God is in everything
B) God is in nothing
C) the universe is finite
D) the universe is infinite

Question 26

"The realm of the visible should be compared to the prison dwelling, and the fire inside it to the power of the sun. If you interpret the upward journey and the contemplation of things above as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, you will grasp what I surmise … . Whether it is true or not God only knows, but this is how I see it, namely that in the intelligible world the Form of the Good is the last to be seen, and with difficulty … ."
The passage concludes Plato's __________.

A) first definition of justice, as in paying what is due
B) famous allegory of the cave
C) dialogue Crito
D) argument for social contract theory
E) attack on Thrasymachus's argument in Book 1

Question 27

In his allegory of the cave, Plato advanced the notion that ___________.

A) the world as we see it is false and illusory; it is therefore an "intelligible realm"
B) the world as we see it is all there is: the intelligible realm
C) there are two realms: one of change and becoming, the other of being and eternal truth
D) there is one realm, consisting of being and eternal truth
E) philosophers are lovers of "sights and sounds"

Question 28

For Plato what aspects of the "intelligible realm" is controlled by the Form of the Good?

A) mathematics
B) the constellations
C) truth and intelligence
D) art and creativity
E) emotions

Question 29

Who, in Plato's allegory of the cave, were the people sitting in the cave?

A) Slaves
B) The Bronze caste
C) The Silver caste
D) All of us
E) Only philosophers

Question 30

The early Socratic dialogues tended to conclude __________.

A) aporetically, that is, without a solution to the problem posed
B) skeptically, that is, with a robust definition of the original concept addressed
C) ethically, with moral improvement for the characters involved
D) dogmatically, with a series of fundamental truths
E) tragically, with the death of most or all of the lead characters involved

Question 31

__________ claimed, "You cannot step into the same river, for other waters are continually flowing on."

A) Confucius
B) Plato
C) Parmenides
D) Aristotle
E) Heraclitus

Question 32

Plato believed that truth must be __________.

A) universal and eternal
B) based on particular facts and perspectives
C) an unrealistic pursuit
D) shown in rigorous logical proofs

Question 33

Socrates was __________ teacher, who in turn taught __________.

A) Aristotle's, Plato
B) Plato's, Aristotle
C) Plato's, Thrasymachus
D) Callicles's, Plato
E) Crito's, Plato

Question 34

The concept of __________ allowed Plato to explain what it was that one came to understand when one learned that two or more things were of the same kind.

A) Form
B) definition
C) substance
D) causal interdependence

Question 35

Which of the multiple options would Aristotle categories as something of "Substance"?

A) hair
B) Seinfeld
C) a lion
D) a table

Question 36

What does a philosopher mean when he or she claims not to understand something?

A) He or she believes the account is nonsense.
B) He or she is not satisfied with the account given.
C) He or she is declaring the account too riddled with error to be able to pass judgment on it.
D) He or she is just teasing.

Question 37

For Aristotle, the primary use of the word be tells us __________.

A) what qualities something possesses
B) what type of thing something is, that is, how to categorize it
C) what the real purpose of something is
D) what we mean when we say that something "is"

Question 38

Socrates was human. What type of property is "being human"?

A) Essential
B) Accidental
C) Quantitative
D) Aristotelian

Question 39

Socrates had a wart on his nose. What type of property is "having a wart on your nose"?

A) Essential
B) Accidental
C) Quantitative
D) Aristotelian

Question 40

Which Aristotilian causes is described as the person or event that actually makes something happen by doing something?

A) the formal cause
B) the material cause
C) the final cause
D) the efficient cause

Question 41

Inherent in philosophical systems of the Middle Ages was the confidence that the world was ultimately __________.

A) benevolent
B) absurd
C) intelligible
D) unintelligible

Question 42

Modern metaphysics, as exemplified by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, includes a notion that was not considered in ancient metaphysics. This notion is __________.

A) emotions
B) free will
C) intentionality
D) mind

Question 43

How many substances did Descartes divide the domain of nature into?

A) One
B) An infinite number
C) Two
D) None

Question 44

What is Spinoza's theory of how the universe came to be?

A) God caused existence
B) the big bang
C) the universe has always existed
D) existence is not real

Question 45

The thesis that every event in the universe necessarily occurs as the result of its cause
Is called __________.

A) causation
B) determinism
C) compatibilism
D) metaphysics

Question 46

Spinoza believed that there was no such thing as __________.

A) determinism
B) mind
C) free will
D) causation

Question 47

According to Leibniz, the world was composed of aggregates of basic, immaterial, indivisible substances called __________.

A) monads
B) atoms
C) subatomic particles
D) self-caused points

Question 48

For Bertrand Russell, "size" is __________.

A) absolute
B) relative to a point of reference
C) subjective to the viewer
D) an unintelligible concept

Question 49

What guarantees that all of the views from all of the perspectives are in agreement in Leibniz's theory?

A) Pre-established harmony
B) Newton's laws of Physics
C) they are not in agreement
D) action-at-a-distance

Question 50

According to Leibniz, __________ is experience and present in every monad, ________ on the other hand is a very special kind of experience and found in only certain kinds of monads.

A) reality, space
B) perception, consciousness
C) time, space
D) thought, emotion

Question 51

How does Plato's theory of the forms drastically distinguish him from the pre-Socratics? Furthermore, explain Aristotle's response to Plato's theory of Forms.

Question 52

Explain the problem of having substances that interact with each other. Provide a detailed account of the ways that Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza solved (or failed to solve) this problem. Further, could any of these solutions have helped Plato solve the problem of participation? Are there any similarities between participation and substance interaction? Why or why not?

Question 53

The immortal recurring soul has played a key role in many philosophical theories of reality. How have philosophers used it in the past (eastern and western) to make sense of our ability to obtain knowledge? What are some weaknesses to this kind of metaphysical argument?

Question 54

Write a dialogue between Descartes and Aristotle on the Question of substance and our knowledge of substance.

Question 55

Explain the argument in the abstracted portion of Meno. Then offer three criticisms of the argument.

Question 56

What is the "appearance/reality" distinction? How has science increased the discrepancy between the way the world seems and the way it really must be? Discuss how philosophers through the ages have tackled this issue.

Question 57

What are the similarities between the western philosophy of the monist Parmenides and his theory of "the one" with the eastern monism philosophy of the Upanishads and Laozi's "Dao De Jing"?

Question 58

How do Buddhists explain the causal interdependence of all things, if all things are insubstantial? How can insubstantial things, that is, nothing, interact or relate to anything?

Question 59

After reading both sides of the metaphysical arguments between Plato and Aristotle about "how to know what is real", who appears to reflect contemporary scientific views and who reflects religious views?

Question 60

Leibniz and Spinoza are both heavily influenced by Aristotle and have committed their philosophical approach to metaphysics on the notion of substance. But, the two drastically disagree about the structure of these substances as Leibniz is a pluralist and Spinoza a monist. Compare and contrast the unique views of each philosopher. Who appears to you to have the stronger argument?

Question 61

__________ and __________ had a famous disagreement concerning the nature of space and time.

Question 62

In The Symposium, Plato states that __________ always is, and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes.

Question 63

__________ was a radical determinist, but he assured us that we can, with heroic effort, understand the nature of this determinism and accept it gracefully.

Question 64

Leibniz's __________ can be created or destroyed but not by any "natural" means.

Question 65

One implication of __________ is that it serves as a principle of divine ethics.

Question 66

At the center of Descartes's metaphysics is Aristotle's conception of __________.

Question 67

Among the most important teachings of __________ are the Four Noble Truths.

Question 68

Leibniz's __________, based on the Principle of Sufficient Reason asserts that no two monads can have all the same properties.

Question 69

According to Descartes, __________ and __________ are distinct substances.

Question 70

Thales suggested that the source of everything was, __________.