- •Philosophy for International Business: examination issues / questions
- •1) Define the difference between philosophy and common sense
- •2) Define the difference between philosophy and humanities/science
- •3) Define the difference between philosophy and ideology
- •4) What are the three general branches of philosophy/what are the basic philosophical questions?
- •5) Explain the meaning and significance of “the arché question”
- •6)The being and becoming dilemma in early Greek philosophy
- •7)Explain Zeno’s paradoxes
- •8)Is total flux chaotic? Explain the nature of change in the system of Heraclitus
- •9)Define dialectic
- •10)Virtue in Greek philosophy. Explain the meaning of knowledge in Socrate’s ethics
- •11) Explain “Eutyfro dilemma”
- •13)Plato’s theory of ideas: the conception of participation
- •14)Plato’s theory of ideas: the allegory of the cave
- •15)Plato’s theory of ideas: the ideal state
- •16)Aristotle: syllogisms
- •19)Aristotle: the theory of virtue (Golden Mean)
- •20)Aristotle: what does it mean to be a political animal?
- •21)The existence of God: ontological argument as formulated by St. Anselm
- •23)The existence of God: Pascal’s wager
- •25)Descartes: the Cartesian method – its main assumptions and functions
- •26)Descartes: cogito and the mind/body problem
- •27)The theory of substance: monism and monistic theories
- •28)The theory of substance: pluralism and pluralistic theories
- •30)Locke’s tabula rasa and the critique of nativism.
- •31)Locke: primary and secondary qualities
- •34)Hume: the critique of necessary connection between cause and effect
- •35)Kant: a prori /a posteriori and analytic / synthetic judgments
- •36)Kant: forms of sensible intuition and categories and “the second Copernican revolution”
- •37)Kant: is metaphysics a science?
- •38)Kant ethics: categorical imperative
35)Kant: a prori /a posteriori and analytic / synthetic judgments
A prori knowledge is prior to and independent of observation and experiment, a posteriori knowledge comes only after direct experience. Which means that a priori knowledge is general and universal and a posteriori knowledge is accidental and refers to details.
Parallel to the a priori/a posteriori distinction is that bewteen analytic and synthetic judgements – the difference, in effect, bewteen statements whose truth depends purely on the meaning of their terms (i.e: “All bachelors are unmarried”, Oak is a tree, Every dog has four legs, A parrot is an animal, Socrates is a human being– these are all examples of analityc judgements, for their predicate is already present in their subject).
Synthetic judgements require outside evidence to determine their truth or falsity (i.e. All bachelors live alone, Socrates drinks a lot of wine, This parrot doesn’t speak Russian).
Kant claimed, which was quite obvious, that all analityc judgements are a priori because they do not depend on experience; however, since they tell us nothing new they are of no practical use. But, on the other hand, necessary truths cannot be proved by obeservation or experience which only tells us how things are, never how they must be. Necessary truths are known, if at all, a priori, in other words by pure reasoning. We can understand how there can be truths which are anlityc and a priori. But can there be synthetic a priori truths?
This, he said is the fundamental question of philosophy. For it is only by a priori reasoning, that philosophy could reach beyond confines of human thought, so as to prove that the world is real. In others words, we have to decide which part of our knowledge can be called “science” and which is just a speculation, in other words what can we know for sure?
36)Kant: forms of sensible intuition and categories and “the second Copernican revolution”
Our expreience is not a passive absorption of sensations but the result of our own metal process; the phenomenal world does not reaveal itself to us but is reavealed by us.
Kant, very modestly, called this fundamental reversal of perspective “the second Copernican revolution”.
37)Kant: is metaphysics a science?
Kant claimed, many metaphysical questions – such as the existence of God and the soul or the extent of free will fall beyond the possibility of human knowledge.
Nevertheless, reason seeks a state of rest from the regression of conditioned, empirical judgments in some unconditioned ground that can complete the series. Reason's structure pushes us to accept certain ideas of reason that allow completion of its striving for unity.
We must assume the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, Kant says, not as objects of knowledge, but as practical necessities for the employment of reason in the realm where we can have knowledge. These ideas are the proper objects of faith. In other words, according to Kant metaphysics cannot be a science, therefore it is not objectively possible