Things to Know for the Final
Exam
Format: The
exam will consist of two parts: short answer and long answer. There
will be 20 short answer questions of which you pick 15. Answers should
be anywhere from one to five sentences. There will be 6-8 long answer
questions, of which you pick 3-4. Answers should be about 2-4 blue book
pages. The exam is scheduled for Tuesday
APRIL 20 at 4:00pm, our regular class place. You may bring in 1
page of notes,
back and front.
Some
Terms and Principles
Deductive Arguments
Valid/Invalid
Soundness
Inductive Arguments
Strong/Weak
Cogent
A Priori
A Posteriori
Contingent
Necessary
Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
Possible Worlds
Quantitative vs. Qualitative
Identity
Puzzles of Objects: 7 Commonsense Truisms (and why we think they are
true)
Leibniz's Law
Indiscernibility of
Identicals
Identity of Indiscernibles
Wiggins's S and S*
Mereology
Mereological Sums
Mereological Simples
Gunk
Sortals (and "qua" talk)
Persistence Conditions (Modal Properties)
Law of Substitutivity of CoReferential Terms
A Posteriori Necessity
Rigid Designators
Modal Realism
The Soul View (Perry's Dialogues)
Argument by Analogy
Mind-Body Dualism
Material Monism
Identity Theory
Intensional Fallacy
5 Principles (that generate the Mind-Body Problem)
Epicurean View
Epicurean Position
Makropolus
Position
Deprivational Account
The Pleasure Machine
Puzzles, Arguments, and
Objections
The
Debtor's Paradox
The Ship of Theseus
Tib and Tibbles
Goliath and Lumpl
Max Black's Balls: A Challenge for the Identity of Indiscernibles
Responses to Max Black's Example
Tree and Cellulose Example
Paradox of the Heap
Wiggins's S*, and how it relates to the puzzles
Coincident Entities (as a solution to the puzzles)
Contingent Identity
Gibbard's Theory of Names, and his solution to the puzzles
Eliminitivism about objects (Unger and van Inwagen)
Unger's Arguments for Why He Does Not Exist
Van Inwagen's Arguments for why Tables and Chairs Do Not Exist
Heller's Solution to the Puzzles (i.e., four-dimensionalism)
Miller's Arguments for the Soul View
Weirob's Objections to Miller's Arguments
Arguments for Dualism: Descartes' epistemic argument, the afterimages
problem, the Leggo example, ineffability of qualia, intentionality
worries, failures of "solutions" to Puzzles of objects, recognition of
other immaterial stuff, apparent non-location of mental phenomena,
Kafka-esque thought experiments, arguments from free will, ghosts and
zombies.
Arguments for Material Monism (Identity Theory): inadequacy of Dualism,
success of neuroscience, Occam's Razor considerations, evolution of a
single human being, evolution of all conscious (human) beings,
Anti-spooky (i.e, Scooby Doo) Principle considerations.
Objections to Dualism: Problem of Interaction, Occam's Razor
considerations, Anti-Spooky (i.e., Scooby Doo) Principle
considerations, success of neuroscience.
Objections to Material Monism (Identity Theory): Locational properties
worry, Semantic properties worry, Aesthetic properties worry, Modal
properties worry, ineffability of qualia, Jackson's Mary Argument,
Multiple-realizability argument.
2 Arguments for the Epicurean Position (via Bernard Williams)
1 More Argument for the Epicurean view (via Rosenbaum)
3 Objections to the Deprivational Account (Nagel talks about these, as
well as Rosenbaum, Williams, and Brueckner and Fischer)
The Parfit Example
Betrayal Case (Buekner and Fischer)
Grandma Case (Bruekner and Fischer)
Pleasure Case (Bruekner and Fischer)
Symmetric Timeline Case (Bruekner and Fischer, p. 228, last example)
Page
Last Updated: April 21,
2008