Exam 3: Reality and Being

What, according to Plato, is the true lover of knowledge always striving after?

Hobbes believed that

A. J. Ayer believed that there were only two kinds of meaningful statements:

The philosophical view that a real world exists independently of our language, our thoughts, our perceptions, and our beliefs is called

Objective idealism accounts for the of our experiences.

is the view that matter is the ultimate constituent of reality.

What philosopher, in his book Man a Machine, argued that humans are nothing more than complex machines?

If everything is comprised of matter, and if all matter is governed by causal laws, it is possible that humans are free in the sense required for moral responsibility? Explain your answer.

Imagine that you are placed into a machine that stimulates your brain, making you think that your life is going wonderfully well, while all the time you are simply attached to an "Experience Machine" in a basement. Given that you could not tell that your life was illusory, would you choose to enter this machine, or not? Would it make a difference to you in answering this question if you learned that Berkeley's idealism was correct? Why, or why not?

In what way might our language be said to create our world? Drawing on your answer to this question, what practical implications do you think it could have, if any, for social change? If you believe that your answer has no such implications, explain why.

The attribution of human thoughts and emotions onto the nonhuman universe is the fallacy of

Who believed that the flow of time as we experience it cannot be real?

Charles S. Pierce was concerned with the psychological effects of ideas.

Dewey believed that philosophy arose out of people's struggles to deal with social and political problems.

The statement, "All bachelors are unmarried." is a(n)

Which view is the heir of pragmatism and idealism?

Vasubandhu claimed that we directly perceive the objects in the world around us.

St. Augustine found it difficult to believe that spirits were real.

Newton believed that all material bodies in the universe were governed by universal laws of nature.

For what philosopher(s) does reality contain every possible kind of being, from the "lowest" kind of inert matter to the "highest" kind of spirit?