Vere Chappell courses.umass.edu/chappell/modphil06.html Spring 2006
WEEKLY TOPICS
(All topics are for weekly exercises required of all students. Those in bold type are also
for two-page papers required of Junior Year Writing students.)
01. Feb 02 In the first Meditation, Descartes cites the fact that he is “a man who sleeps at night, and regularly has all the same
experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake” (p. 13). What conclusion does Descartes draw from this fact?
02. Feb 09 In the third Meditation, Descartes claims that “the mere fact that I exist and have within me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, provides a very clear proof that God indeed exists”. (A) How is this proof supposed to go? (Describe it informally and in general terms: do not list all its particular steps.) (B) What in your opinion is the chief difficulty the proof presents, and what makes this a difficulty?
03. Feb 16 The Cartesian Circle. In the fourth Objections, Arnauld expresses the worry that Descartes is “reasoning in a circle when he says that we are sure that what we clearly and distinctly perceive is true only because God exists ... but we can be sure that God exists only because we clearly and distinctly perceive this” (p. 106). (A) Is Arnauld’s worry justified? (B) Why or why not? 04. Feb 23 State Descartes's principal argument for the distinctness of the human mind from the human body. (A) Is the argument, as you have stated it, valid? (B) Is it sound? (C) Defend whatever position you take.
05. Mar 02 Explain Leibniz's theory of truth, and the distinction he draws between truths that are necessary and those that are contin-
gent. Be sure to answer (among others) the following questions: (A) What does the truth of a true proposition consist in? (B) Give two or
three examples of necessary and of contingent truths. (C) What is the principle on which all necessary truths depend? (D) What is the principle
on which all contingent truths depend? (E) How are truths of these two kinds discovered and proved?
06. Mar 09 Leibniz on individual substance: (A) What is an individual substance for Leibniz? That is, what has to be true of
x in order for x to be an individual substance? (B) State and explain two of the most important metaphysical truths about individ-
ual substances that Leibniz puts forward.
07. Mar 16 (A) Why is human freedom a problem for Leibniz? That is, what features of his metaphysical system threaten to make freedom impossible? And why does Leibniz wish to maintain that human beings are free with respect to at least some of their actions? (B) How does Leibniz attempt to resolve the problem of human freedom?
00. Mar 23 No Topic.
08. Mar 30 (A) What is an idea for Locke? Give an example of one. (B) What is a quality? Give an example. (C) How do ideas and qualities differ from one another? (D) In what way or ways are they alike? (E) What is a primary quality? Give an example of one. (F) What is a secondary quality? Give an example. (G) How do these two kinds of qualites differ from one another? (H) In what way or ways are they alike? (Be sure to answer all of these questions. Primary text: Essay II.viii; also see I.i and II.i.)
09. Apr 06 Locke’s account of persons. (A) What is a person for Locke? (B) If x is a person existing at time t1, and y
is a person existing at a later time t2, what has to be true in order for x and y to be the same person? (C) Let b be you at the
moment of your birth and let n be you now. Are b and n the same person according to Locke's account of personal identity?
(D) Why or why not?
10. Apr 13 (A) How does Locke define Knowledge? (B) How does he distinguish Knowledge from Opinion? (C) What
different ways of knowing are there for Locke (he calls them “Degrees of Knowledge”)? (D) What different sorts of things can we know
the existence of, according to Locke, and in what way do we know the existence of each of these sorts of things?
11. Apr 20 Hume claims that all the "perceptions of the human mind" divide exclusively into "impressions" and "ideas". (A) What are impressions and ideas, and how does Hume distinguish them (give examples)? Having distinguished impressions and ideas, Hume makes the further claim that "all our ideas ... are copies of our impressions ...". (B) What does he mean by this further claim; (C) how does he profess to prove it; and (C) what use does he make (or propose to make) of it?
12. Apr 27 In Enquiry Sect. 4, Hume raises "sceptical doubts" about the understanding. What exactly do these doubts amount to
in the case of "reasonings concerning matters of fact"? Be sure to (A) explain what Hume takes such reasonings to be (give an example, for
one thing), and (B) outline the argument or arguments by which he seeks to justify these doubts. (Note: what Hume calls reasonings concerning
matters of fact, philosophers today call inductive reasonings or inductive inferences.)
13. May 04 Hume on Fredom and Necessity. Hume would have said that Adam's action of eating the apple in the
Garden of Eden is both necessary and free, in the proper senses of these two words. (A) What are these senses (that is, what does
it mean to say that the action is necessary and that it is free in these senses, respectively)? Hume also says that there is another,
improper sense of ‘free’ that philosophers have used in discussing freedom. In this sense, Hume claims, no action is free, and it
would be a contradiction to say of any action that it is both necessary and free in this sense. (B) What is this improper sense of
‘free’? (C) Do you agree with Hume that nothing could, without contradiction, be said to be both necessary and free in this
improper sense?
14. May 11 No Topic.