- •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
28)The theory of substance: pluralism and pluralistic theories
The many-substance-view is reffered to as pluralism. The best known though highly improbable and and eccentric example of pluralism is the system of monadology created by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. According to Leibniz the only existing things are so called monads – ultimate elements of the universe
Monads are centers of force; each monad possesses its own degree and kind of force;
God is a monad (the highest one) and every human soul is a monad too but they do not interact – as Leibniz used to say they are windowless, their activities are coordinated according to a divine preestablished harmony (harmonia prestabilita) like perfectly synchronized clocks ticking in unison.
Monads are centers of force; substance is force, while space, matter, and motion are merely phenomenal.
29)What is the ultimate source of our knowledge? Nativism vs. empiricism.
“What is the ultimate source of our knowledge?”
those who claim that some notions are innate are reffered to as nativists.
those who claim that there are no innate ideas nad that experience is the only and ultimate source of our knowledge are widely known as empiricists
(the word empiricis from Greek empeiria – experience)
Descartes anwers that it must have been imprinted in our minds by God which means that we are born with such ideas as God or sooul.
The view stating that we are born with some notions is not a new idea in philosophy. Plato held that the role experience, was far smaller than common sense might suggest. According to Plato, a child begins life with knowledge already present within him — there is no such thing as learning new things, “what we call learning is really just recollection” (Phaedo 72e).
This view, known as nativism was shared by Descartes as well as a huge numeber of his followers or those who were inspired by his philosophy such as Malebranche, Spinoza or Leibniz.
But at the same time there was already a number of philosophers who opposed Descartes stating that there are no (and there cannot be) innate ideas.
So the second great philosophical question of that time (apart from body/mind problem) can be put as follows: Are there or are there not innate ideas in other words “what is the ultimate source of our knowledge?”.
those who claim that some notios (not necessarily all of them, but let us say the most important ones as far as methaphisycs is concerned) are innate are reffered to as nativists.
Those who oppose that, that is those who claim that there are no innate ideas nad that experience is the only and ultimate source of our knowledge are widely known as empiricists
(the word empiricis from Greek empeiria – experience)
30)Locke’s tabula rasa and the critique of nativism.
Locke identified experience as the source of knowledge. The mind, he said, is at birth a tabula rasa or “blank slate”, on which the world of experience gradually imprints itself in a series of descrete sensations.
Locke: if so called innate ideas are already imprinted in our minds at the moment of birth how can we explain the lack of certain ideas in the minds of children, idiots or so called savage people?
Nativists argued that the general laws of logic are commonly shared by all the humans because our minds simply have them. Locke replied that Indians cannot understand neither the idea of one God, nor the idea of identity. What’s more, we cannot have an innate sense that God should be worshipped, when we cannot even agree on a conception of God or whether God exists at all. One of Locke's fundamental arguments against innate ideas is the very fact that there is no truth to which all people attest.