Deck 3: Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind

Question 1

According to Descartes, the properties of physical objects include:

A) intention.
B) extension.
C) rational order.
D) purpose.
E) None of the above

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Hobbes and Hume agree that:

A) freedom of the will is impossible.
B) we are always morally responsible for our actions.
C) human actions are determined.
D) causal judgments are invalid.
E) None of the above

Answer 2

C

Question 3

If the consciousness objection is sound:

A) Hobbes was correct.
B) idealism is false.
C) dualism is false.
D) materialism is false.
E) all of our actions are causally determined.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

Which of the following is not a form of the mind-body problem?

A) How do minds and bodies causally interact?
B) What is the special relationship between my mind and my body?
C) How can minds know anything about bodies?
D) Do I exist as a thinking thing?
E) All of the above are forms of the mind-body problem.

Question 5

Who argued that our everyday human activity presupposed that our actions were causally determined?

A) Kant
B) Hume
C) Hobbes
D) Leibniz
E) The Greek atomists

Question 6

A philosopher who believes in the existence of physical matter:

A) might be an idealist.
B) must be a materialist.
C) might be either a dualist or a materialist.
D) must be a dualist.
E) can't be a dualist.

Question 7

According to the consciousness objection:

A) a sufficiently complex machine might be conscious.
B) consciousness is incompatible with voluntary action.
C) none of us are truly conscious.
D) people are conscious if and only if machines are.
E) no mere machine can be self-aware.

Question 8

The view the author calls the "everything-is-a-body" theory is:

A) determinism.
B) universalism.
C) psycho-physical dualism.
D) materialism.
E) skepticism.

Question 9

Which of the following were materialists?

A) Descartes
B) Hobbes
C) The Greek atomists
D) Kant
E) Both B and C

Question 10

It's central to Kant's resolution of the determinism/free will debate that:

A) physics is an incomplete science.
B) causation is a scientific concept, not an ethical one.
D) physics tells us only about the world as it appears to us, not about how it is in independent reality.
D) we are causally determined in the realm of independent reality.
E) we are free from the standpoint of the realm of
Appearance.

Question 11

According to Hobbes, if I'm robbed at gunpoint:

A) I act freely when I give up my wallet.
B) my fear of death prevents my acting freely.
C) my duty to preserve my life makes my actions necessary, not free.
D) my actions are physically determined, and thus not free.
E) the robber's actions are physically determined, and thus he is not morally responsible for them.

Question 12

The point of the example with the very large and very small dominoes is to:

A) prove that invisible things exist.
B) challenge the consciousness objection.
C) show that our perception that we act freely doesn't prove that we in fact do so.
D) prove that we act freely.
E) None of the above

Question 13

According to Hobbes, when I say someone has acted freely I'm:

A) necessarily mistaken.
B) saying that his action wasn't physically caused.
C) saying that no outside force prevented him from doing what he decided to do.
D) Both B and C
E) None of the above

Question 14

In Thomas Hobbes terminology, an "endeavor" is:

A) conscious attempt to do or make something.
B) tiny, invisible bodily motion toward or away from something.
C) long term project to accomplish something.
D) deliberate attempt to oppose one's own will.
E) None of the above

Question 15

The mind-body problem poses a difficulty chiefly for

A) materialists.
B) idealists.
C) dualists.
D) Both A and C
E) Both B and C

Question 16

Hobbes denies that:

A) we are free to choose our actions.
B) our actions are causally determined.
C) humans are just complicated machines.
D) sense organs can affect brain activity.
E) None of the above

Question 17

According to Hobbes, when I'm deliberating about whether to reach out and grasp an object:

A) I physically move back and forth, toward and away from the object.
B) I consider the matter in my mind, and move only after I've made a decision.
C) I'm considering performing a "vital" action.
D) the evidence of my senses cannot influence the process.
E) None of the above

Question 18

Kant says those who believe there is a real conflict between free will and determination:

A) are contradicting themselves.
B) mistakenly believe in the absolute reality of appearances.
C) mistakenly believe in a cause-effect relation.
D) mistakenly believe in laws of nature.
E) All of the above

Question 19

Metaphysics, in modern philosophy, refers to:

A) things that are beyond physics.
B) the study of the principles of physical motion.
C) the study of the most fundamental principles of the nature of things.
D) the study of phenomena which are beyond nature.
E) the study of the unknowable.

Question 20

In Leviathan, Hobbes claimed:

A) none of our motions are voluntary.
B) all of our motions are voluntary.
C) our "vital" motions are involuntary, but our "animal" motions are voluntary.
D) our "animal" motions are involuntary, but our "vital" motions are voluntary.
E) voluntary motions can be performed without an act of will.

Question 21

Why doesn't the Order of Cosmic Engineers allow Digital People to be voting members of its ruling body?

A) Because the anonymity of the Digital People makes them hard to trust
B) Because one real person could vote twice by creating two avatars
C) Because Digital People are run by computers not human beings
D) Because Digital People have united to promote a dangerous political agenda
E) Because the Order of Cosmic Engineers is biased in favor of real people.

Question 22

"Does the soul exist?" is a theological, not a metaphysical, question.

Question 23

To say that the experience of seeing a green apple should itself be green is what Smart calls:

A) an irreducible law.
B) the phenomenological fallacy.
C) billiard-ball physics.
D) the mind-body problem.
E) the cosmological fallacy.

Question 24

Which of the following is not a question of metaphysics?

A) Does the past exist?
B) Does God exist?
C) Must knowledge be certain?
D) Could there exist a universe without time?
E) What is the relationship between the mind and the body?

Question 25

Descartes' motivations in developing the official dualist viewpoint did not include a desire to:

A) found a new theory of the universe.
B) extend mathematics to the realm of the physical.
C) find a place in the material world for immaterial mind.
D) confirm Scholastic doctrine.
E) demonstrate the possibility of immortality.

Question 26

Hobbes argues that human beings must be something more than just complicated machines.

Question 27

One of Norman Malcolm's objections to Smart's materialism is that:

A) there's no such thing as a "brain state."
B) materialism seems to deny the existence of God.
C) there are no psycho-physical laws.
D) Smart's definition of matter is too inclusive.
E) brain phenomena have spatial locations, but emotions don't.

Question 28

Which of the following are not substances, according to traditional metaphysical usage?

A) A horse
B) A man
C) A smile
D) A soul
E) An essence

Question 29

The key problem for a materialist is how to explain the human mind and will in terms of physics.

Question 30

Someone who believes that "bodies" are actually collections of ideas is a:

A) materialist.
B) psycho-physical dualist.
C) Cartesian dualist.
D) idealist.
E) nihilist.

Question 31

Philosophers don't argue so much about whether particular things exist, but about what sorts of things exist.

Question 32

Hobbes, as a materialist, disagreed with the theories of the Greek atomists.

Question 33

According to Descartes, bodies are:

A) complex.
B) extended.
C) composite.
D) unconscious.
E) All of the above

Question 34

What is a Digital Person?

A) A computer technician who specializes in virtual world graphics
B) Anyone who has an avatar in Second Life
C) Someone who conducts business anonymously through an avatar
D) A computer program that simulates human behavior
E) A member of a political organization seeking to ban the Internet

Question 35

How many registered "residents" are there in Second Life?

A) Several hundred
B) Approximately seven-hundred thousand
C) Nearly one million
D) More than eight million
E) More than fifty million

Question 36

What philosophers call "metaphysics" is the same area of study that Aristotle called "first philosophy."

Question 37

Which of the following is a materialist?

A) Kant
B) Leibniz
C) Berkeley
D) Descartes
E) None of the above

Question 38

Our word "metaphysics" is derived from a Greek term meaning "the books which come after the physics."

Question 39

Which of the following would J. J.

A) Lightning
B) Gravitational fields
C) Neutrons
D) Light
E) Smart considers all of the above to be matter.

Question 40

Which philosophical theory explicitly rejects Cartesian interactionism?

A) Materialism
B) Idealism
C) Epiphenomenalism
D) Occasionalism
E) Neutral Monism

Question 41

Kant tries to resolve the conflict between free will and determinism by appealing to the difference between appearance and reality.

Question 42

According to Descartes, every object in the physical universe has an immaterial spirit.

Question 43

Kant says physical causation does not take place within the realm of appearance.

Question 44

Modern neurophysiological explanations of voluntary actions are not materialistic.

Question 45

If our actions are causally determined, we're never morally responsible for our actions.

Question 46

"Autonomous" comes from a Greek expression meaning "beyond the law."

Question 47

Both appetites and aversions are kinds of endeavors, according to Hobbes.

Question 48

According to Kant, if the things we perceive are things-in-themselves, freedom is impossible.

Question 49

Science, according to Kant, gives us knowledge of independent reality.

Question 50

Hobbes divided all human motions into two sorts--vital motions and animal motions.

Question 51

Hume believes that human actions have the same causal regularity that the movement of the planets does.

Question 52

According to Smart, all psychological laws and properties are reducible to physical laws and properties.

Question 53

Materialism is the only one-substance theory considered in this chapter.

Question 54

Hobbes has no reply to the consciousness objection.

Question 55

According to Hobbes, I can act "freely" even if my actions are causally determined.

Question 56

Smart's central claim is that states of consciousness are identical with states of the brain.

Question 57

The problem of other minds is an epistemological problem.

Question 58

According to the traditional theory of substance, minds can only interact with other minds.

Question 59

Hobbes believed there was no contradiction between saying i) that I did something freely, and ii) that I couldn't have chosen to do anything else.

Question 60

According to the consciousness objection, we are not merely material beings.

Question 61

All claims of identity reduce to claims of identity of meaning or sense.

Question 62

According to Descartes, the fundamental property of mental substance is immortality.

Question 63

According to our author, the mental is inextricably tied to the physical.

Question 64

Avatars can contract virtually fatal diseases and virtually die. .

Question 65

Materialism and idealism are both kinds of monism.

Question 66

The university is an example of what Ryle calls a "category mistake."

Question 67

Sue Hoogestraat does not mind that her real life husband has a virtual wife in Second Life. .

Question 68

According to our author, Descartes' dream of a unified theory has not been achieved.

Question 69

Descartes attempted to articulate the teleological purposiveness of material nature.

Question 70

Descartes believed that mind and body were separate substances, and not just conceptual distinct.

Question 71

The identity of the evening and the morning star is only contingent identity.

Question 72

Ric Hoogestraat justifies his time spent in Second Life by comparing it to his wife's time spent watching television. .

Question 73

Contemporary philosophers rarely refer to the mind as a substance.

Question 74

Gilbert Ryle derived his dualistic view from Descartes.