Exam II Review Sheet
for
Knowledge
and Reality
Philosophy 120
Format: The exam
will consist of two parts: short answer
and long answer. There will be 6-8 short answer questions of which you
pick
4-5. Answers should be anywhere from one to five sentences. There will
be
3 long answer questions, of which you pick 2. Answers should be about 2
blue-book
pages, front and back. The exam is scheduled for Friday, November 13 at
our regular
class time, our regular class place. There will be a brief
review in class on Wednesday, and on the discussion forum, if you
choose to use it.
Some Terms
Deductive Arguments
Valid/Invalid
Sound
Inductive
Arguments
Strong/Weak
Cogent
Possible Worlds
A Priori
A Posteriori
Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnibenevolence
Paradox of Omnipotence
The Paradox of Omniscence (with Free Will)
Fallacy of Composition
The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)
Brute Facts
Argument by Analogy
Anselm's Definition of God
Reductio Ad Absurdum
Existence in the Mind
Existence in Reality
Quantitative vs. Qualitative Identity
Moral vs. Natural Evil
The Free Will Thesis
Causal Determinism
Incompatibilism
Hard Determinism
Libertarianism
Compatibilism
Principles, Arguments, and
Objections
The Cosmological Argument--Aquinas' Second Way or The Argument from
Causation
Aquinas' argument for premise 3 (of The Second Way)
The Problem with Aquinas' argument for premise 3 (of The Second Way)
"Infinity is weird" objection
"Infinity if Weird? BFD!" response
"God, No God, Magic Worlds" Argument Against PSR
The Teleological Argument
The Fallacy of Composition (and which argument(s) it applies to)
Hume's Objections to the Teleological Argument
The Ontological Argument
Guanilo's Perfect Island Objection
Kant's Objection: Existence is not a Predicate
Inconceivability Objection (against GCB)
Pascal's Wager
'Beliefs are Not Voluntary' Objection
'Beliefs in God Cannot be the Result of a Wager' Objection
The Anti-God Objection
Unfalsifiable Theories and How this Applies to Pascal's Wager (e.g.,
The
Dragon in My Garage, and the Gardner Parable., etc.)
The Problem of Evil
Attempted Solutions to the Problem of Evil (on hand-out and in the
Mackie
article), and why they fail (according to Mackie).
Free Will and the Problem of Evil: Defense and Objections
The Free Will Problem
Page Last Updated: Nov. 2, 2009