Philosophy 1001 Exam 2 Study Guide Exam Components Section 1 approximately 18 Objective Questions T F MC Fill in the blank Section 2 3 Short Answer Questions Section 3 1 Essay Question Short Answers Aristotle on the three proposed definitions of happiness how he arrives at his definition of happiness and the criteria for determining the correct definition of happiness The first is that happiness is pleasure which is achieved by living a life of gratifica tion This is seen as the view of the many vulgar The second is that happiness is honor which is achieved through a life of politics This is seen as the view of the cultivated The third is that happiness is rational reflection which is achieved by a life of study Aristotle has three criteria for determining happiness First it must be ultimate which means that it was chosen for its own sake Second it must be self sufficient which means that by itself it makes life worth living Third it must be complete meaning that it lacks nothing Since happiness is doing well and it consists in the humans defining activity which is reasoning then the best possible performance of the activity of reason is study rational reflection Therefore happiness doing well consists in the activity of rationally reflecting Aristotle on the three kinds of friendship the three criteria for determining complete true friendship the nature of complete true friendship and the role of complete true friendship in happiness Aristotle discusses three types of friendship meaning that people friend love other for these three reasons The first is friendships of virtue character The second is friendships of pleasure meaning that one doesn t friend love the other for him her self but for the pleasure the other brings us The third is friendships of utility meaning that one doesn t friend love the other for him herself but for what the other does for us Aristotle has three criteria for complete friendships The first is that its object is lov able virtuous pleasant useful The second is that involves wishing good for the other person herself goodwill The third is that this wishing must be recognized and reciprocated The complete kind of friendship is of character because these friends are good in themselves virtuous and good for each other utility as well as pleasurable to each other pleasure In relationship to happiness complete friendship is the most important external good because we need true friends so we can rationally reflect Augustine and Plato on the possibility and impossibility of knowingly do ing bad Plato argues that doing a bad thing harms us and to knowingly do a bad thing is to knowingly do what harms us This harm makes us unhappy but nobody wants to be unhappy Therefore no one ever knowingly does bad things This means that if we do a bad thing its because we mistakenly think its good and if we know what the good thing is we will do it Augustine s view uses an example He says that he didn t steal because he de sired some perceived good He stole because he desired what he thought was bad because he desired the crime itself thus the bad itself He argues that he did it because he desired to do bad to break the moral law with others who shared his desire Augustine states that we can knowingly do bad because we have free will Thus we can do evil we can sin and we can know the good and choose to do otherwise Descartes modernist goal the three attempts stages of his methodological doubt and its conclusion Descartes modernist goal is to find certain foundation for all disciplines including philosophy which means to find the certain propositions on which to base all dis ciplines and their propositions The first attempt is that the senses are misleading This allows us to doubt all propositions that involve any sense perceptions of small and distant things But it doesn t allow us to doubt all sense perceptions and therefore it doesn t allow us to doubt all propositions that involve sense perceptions The second attempt is the dream attempt This allows us to doubt all sense per ceptions and therefore it allows us to doubt all propositions that involve sense perceptions However it doesn t allow us to doubt mathematical and geometrical propositions The third attempt is the evil genius This works if an all knowing all powerful all present being were also evil and wanted to thoroughly deceive me then it could create me in such a way that even my certain mathematical and geometrical propositions could be false Thus if it is possible that there is an evil genius behind my existence and experience then all my propositions are doubtful Cartesian substance dualism including the essential characteristics of ma terial and immaterial mental substances Cartesian dualism is substance dualism and substances are things that require nothing but themselves in order to exist Substances are individual particular things and independently existing not de pendent properties Thus substance dualism says that everything that exists is composed of either one or both of these two kinds of substances material substances and immaterial men tal substances Material substances are always spatially extended always spatially located always divisible and always public Mental substance is characterized by always thinking not spatially extended not spatially located not divisible and al ways private pineal gland cism of it Descartes s substance dualism applies to human beings in that the body is mate rial substance the mind is immaterial substance and they interact through the Churchland s articulation of the argument from irreducibility and his criti Churchland first explains the argument from irreducibility before criticizing it It be gins by saying that the mind is capable of mathematical reasoning language and experience These capacities are too complicated to be performed by a material entity Since the mind clearly has these capacities the mind can t be a material en tity therefore the mind is not equal to or reducible to a material entity it is irreduc ible thus dualism is correct Churchland first criticizes the argument by saying that mathematical reasoning and linguistic abilities have been programmed into material physical things like Watson Even if these have not yet attained the sophistication of human reason and lan guage they lend support to the view that merely material entities can mathemati cally reason and use language It is thus possible that reasoning and language abilities can be performed
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