Phil 202 Modern Mid-Term: Topics for Study

Hobbes

· Sensation and imagination, what are they, metaphysically, and what role do they play, epistemically

· Nature of reasoning and the role of words in reasoning

· “Desire” or volition, what it is. What is “deliberation”?

· Hobbes’s account(s) of good and evil, both in state of nature and in society.

· The conditions in the state of nature that justify establishing the commonwealth.

· The basic structure of the commonwealth

· The right of nature

· The first two laws of nature, what they are and how they are justified.

Descartes

• Arguments for skepticism (know what each argument is, what it shows and what it doesn’t, and how Descartes eventually responds to that argument later in the Meditations)
• Proof of D’s own existence
• The nature of the self and how D proves that this is his nature
• D’s proofs of God’s existence(from Meds 3 and 5); you need to know at least one of these well
• The problem of error in Descartes (Med 4) and how D solves this problem
• D’s account of human and divine freedom
• D’s proof of the reality and nature of the external world
• D’s view of the relationship between mind and body (distinct substances but substantially united)
• Elizabeth’s objections to D’s account; and D’s response to Elizabeth
• The three or four maxims of Descartes’s provisional morality
• The “truths useful to know” that Descartes explains as his ethics in his letter to Elizabeth
• The tree analogy for his philosophy as a whole

Spinoza

• You should be able to explain the meaning and significance of any of Spinoza’s definitions, axioms, or propositions, if the language of the definition, axiom, or proposition is provided to you.
• You should be able to give, at least in outline, the arguments for Book I, P11, P14, and P28.
• You should be able to explain Spinoza’s account of the nature of God, including the definition of God, God’s monism, and at least some properties of God
• You should be able to explain Spinoza’s account of the nature of particular things and how these relate to God
• You should be able to explain the (double) necessity of particular things (dependence upon both God and prior things)
• You should be able to explain the three sorts of knowledge
• You should be able to offer a Spinozist account of the relationship between mind and body
• You should be able to explain why Spinoza thinks that those who follow after virtue will desire for others the same goods they desire for themselves (IV, 37).
• You should be able to explain what blessedness is (V, 42) and how it relates to knowledge of the third kind.

You also need to be familiar with the core claims and arguments of the readings assigned in conjunction with class presentations up through the last day of Spinoza (e.g. Montaigne, Cavendish, Conway, and Pascal).