This page is meant to summarize the notions, theories, and arguments discussed in our course. To prepare for the final exam, be sure you know what each of the following mean, and what bearing they have on the issues we considered.
General
These are some general philosophy concepts that were introduced at the start of term, and then used later in the class or readings.
- deductively “valid” argument, “sound” argument, persuasive argument
- conclusion, premises, assumptions
- notion of a “question-begging” argument (as philosophers use this label)
- sufficient condition, necessary condition
- equivocating
- dilemma
- reductio
- antecedent and consequent of a conditional
- difference between converse and contrapositive of a conditional
- biconditional, “if and only if” (“iff”)
- ethics, epistemology, metaphysics/ontology
- questions about the causes/mechanisms that bring X about, versus questions about what X consists in (its nature)
- a practical test or evidence to believe X is present (the epistemology of X), versus an “unpacking definition” or analysis of what we already understood by X (the metaphysics or nature of X), versus a stipulative definition of X
- contrast between what’s part of the definition of some notion (for example, “substance”), and substantive, possibly contentious claims about that notion
- What is a counter-example? What is a thought-experiment? Why are science fiction examples relevant to philosophy?
Other Minds (regarding both animals and machines)
- what is a “mental state”? what is the difference or relation between a mental state and a mind?
- propositional/intentional/representational states or attitudes
- phenomenal/qualitative feelings, sensations
- ways in which our access to our own mental states is claimed to be “special” or “privileged”
- proving something with certainty, versus having reasonable grounds for believing it
- something’s being necessary for having mentality, versus its sufficing for/guaranteeing the presence of mentality, versus its making it reasonable to attribute mentality
- evidence for mentality from physical makeup/structure, versus from non-verbal behavior (such as learning/solving problems), versus from use of language
- Turing Test: how does it work? what is passing it supposed to show?
- passing the Turing Test reliably, versus there being a trick question that will expose the candidate
- What is fundamental to being a system running some program/algorithm?
- why the same program can be implemented on various kinds of hardware
- why the same input/output pattern may be produced by different programs
- the difference between a chatbot whose program is simply a giant lookup table, versus programs that are more complex and resemble the rules our own brains use
- behaviorist versus other “pro-machine” views on the Turing Test
- reasons to challenge/doubt these claims: (a) computers can’t make mistakes unless they’re given mistaken input; (b) whatever computers do had to have been selected in advance by people who programmed them; (c) wherever their programs came from, computers can’t do anything really random or surprising, everything had to be already specified in advance by that program
- arguments about whether machines are less likely to have free will than humans
- Searle’s Chinese Room: how it works, what it’s supposed to show
- programs as abstract recipes that can sit on a shelf unused or repeated many times, versus particular ongoing processes of those recipes being performed, versus the hardware as its performing it
Mind/Body
- abstract versus concrete
- events/states/processes, properties/relations, facts and propositions, concrete individuals/substances
- substances versus “derivative or dependent” objects (like smiles, wits, waves, hikes, dances)
- debate between (substance) dualists about the mind/body relation and materialist/physicalists (who are one kind of substance monists)
- substance dualism versus property dualism
- mind versus soul, which can a materialist believe in?
- being a materialist but denying that “your mind” is any substance
- Leibniz’s Law (also called “the indiscernibility of identicals”)
- Does Leibniz’s Law say that if A and B have all the same properties, they are one and the same thing?
- intrinsic versus extrinsic/relational properties
- qualitative identity (being copies or duplicates of each other, at least at a given moment), versus numerical identity (being one and the same thing)
- the “divisibility” argument for dualism
- “I know that reporter is alive right now. I don’t know whether Superman is still alive. Hence that reporter is not Superman.”
- “I have no doubts about my own existence. I do have doubts about whether my body really exists. Hence I am not my body.”
- the “continuity of nature” argument for materialism
- What does Huxley mean by saying animals are “conscious automata”?
- epiphenomenalism
- interactionism
- van Inwagen’s “remote control” argument
- the complaint that dualist interactionists have no good story about how causal influences “jump the gap” between the soul and the physical world (Princess Elisabeth)
- Kim’s “Pairing Problem” for dualist interactionists
- What does the slogan “physical events are causally closed” mean?
- relations between causal determinism and the notion of “overcausing” (sometimes called “causal overdetermination”)
- why is it unattractive/uncomfortable/implausible to say there’s overcausing everytime something mental causes a physical effect?
- Ockham’s Razor
Free Will
- relations between questions of free will and questions of moral accountability, blame, resentment, credit, gratitude
- utilitarian/consequentialist versus retributivist accounts of what justifies us in punishing people
- going through the psychological process of “making” a choice, versus having several choices really open to you
- your actions/choices/decisions, versus things that “merely happen” to you
- difference between your arm’s moving and you raising your arm on purpose/intentionally
- using probability to describe your evidence/information, versus using probability to describe how some parts of the world (such as the past) objectively settle how the rest of the world has to be
- determinism versus indeterminism; what is it for the laws of nature to be “deterministic”?
- compatibilism versus incompatibilism
- skeptical views about free will, “hard” versus “soft” determinism
- libertarianism
- “If we have no control over certain things (such as the past), then we have no control over their necessary consequences either.” (Consequence/Before-You-Were Born Argument)
- not having the ability to do something, versus not having the opportunity or motivation to do it
- “The fact that you won’t do E does not imply that you can’t do E!”
- different kinds of alleged “moral luck,” the Control Principle
- the Principle of Alternative Possibilities
- counterfactual claims
- Frankfurt-style cases (counterfactual interveners)
- “Claims about what people can do can be understood in different ways”
- “Freedom is opposed to constraint, not to causal necessity!”
- compatibilist’s analysis of “could have done otherwise”
- If all our actions are uncaused, does that show that we’re in control of them? Does it show we’re morally accountable for them?
- libertarian’s problems with “luck”, Dilemma of Determinism
- libertarian views which say that our actions are uncaused, versus agent-causation theories
The final is on Wednesday April 30, from 4–7 pm, in our normal classroom. Many of you should be able to finish in about 2 hours, but I’ll allow you to take up to 3 hours.
Generally, the issues explored towards the end of the course will be emphasized more; and you’ll need to have done all the assigned reading.
You should bring writing implements. I’ll supply paper.
The exam will be open-notes, but you cannot use any devices (laptops, phones). If you need to leave the room before finishing, please leave your phone on your desk.
The exam will have two kinds of questions.
There will be 9 questions asking for brief (1–5 sentence) answers. For these questions there are right and wrong answers. These shouldn’t take you more than 3–4 min/each. (So around 25-40 minutes for all of them.)
There will be 3 questions asking for a longer (200-350 word) response. Each question will have several choices (“subprompts”) where you select and answer only one of them.
These questions will ask you to argue for something controversial; and you’ll be evaluated on how effectively (persuasively and clearly) you do that. You should think about what you’ll say before starting to write, and budget your time smartly. Trying to write down whatever you remember somehow connected to the topic won’t give you a good quality answer, and won’t leave you enough time to adequately respond to other questions.
For reference, here is some sample text that contains around the middle of the “250-300 word” range:
We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom — symbolizing an end as well as a beginning — signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago.
The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe — the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans — born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage — and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge — and more.