Exam 4: The Nature of Reality

Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead both developed a process philosophy that synthesized science and a mechanistic metaphysics.

By suggesting that what is most real is neither the world discovered by science nor the world believed in by religion but our social world,Hegel questioned the assumption that

Write a fictional argumentative dialogue between two characters who disagree about what the basic nature of reality is. The two characters can defend any metaphysical viewpoint,including ones developed in Chapter Four. However,any option ought to be defended or criticized with arguments. Aside from the option you are arguing for and against,your dialogue should address five other philosophers,and/or frameworks discussed in the chapter. You can use these as a resource for arguments,or simply as a means of clarifying your viewpoint. The dialogue can end with agreement,with agreeing to disagree,or with arriving at a new viewpoint,synthesizing their starting standpoints.

Descartes and the physicist Sir Isaac Newton,embraced a teleological view of the world as Gaia.

Plato's belief in the priority of an immaterial and eternal world,became the central thesis of Saint Augustine's philosophy; while Aristotle's view of a living,growing,goal-directed universe played an important role in the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Aristotle agreed with Plato in holding that forms or substances exist in a separate world,independent of particular things in the world.

Professional scientists universally claim it may be possible to completely explain reality in scientific terms.

Heraclitus appears to believe that underlying all change was an eternal principle,logos,which did not change.

Describe the metaphysical views of Descartes,Spinoza and Leibniz. Focus especially on the nature and quantity of substance,and the issue of how substances interact. What common threads do you find in their perspectives? How do they disagree with one another? Which viewpoint seems strongest to you,and why?

Why is it impossible to draw a true triangle,and how does this lend support to Plato's theory of forms?

Approaches to the question "What is real?" seem to start from two very different places,

Hegel's idealism does not envision two worlds,but a single cosmos,an all-embracing Spirit,in constant internal conflict.

When Bill says that idealism must be wrong because he can touch the table and feel it directly,an idealist could respond by saying

Plato's "myth of the cave" illustrates the point that

According to Descartes,Leibniz and Berkeley,all we ever directly experience are our ideas.

Plato's metaphysics combines,but also reinterprets,the perspectives of

Briefly contrast Descartes' and Spinoza's view on substance,especially on the nature,number and interaction between substances.

What three things does Leibniz believe are true of monads?

Describe the metaphysical viewpoint of idealism. Focus on Berkeley,Kant,Schopenhauer and Hegel,and spell out the key elements of each of their idealistic viewpoints. Is there a central thread that runs through all idealistic metaphysics? Focus on two metaphysical frameworks that it sharply diverges from. What frameworks prior to idealism prepared the way for it? What advantages and disadvantages does idealism have?

Cosmology,unlike ontology,is the study of