Exam 4: Plato the Beginning of Everything

Anselm concludes that "Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible."

Berkeley says, "That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connection between our ideas, but only by the observation of the settled ..."

Pascal says, "But we know neither the existence nor the nature of God, because he has neither dimension nor limits."

Joyce asserts that "The earthquake and the volcano serve a moral end which more than compensates for the physical evil which they cause." What does Joyce mean by "moral end"? Do you agree with Joyce?

According to Mackie, it is sometimes suggested that "Evil is due to human free will." Mackie criticizes this position when he says that this "solution of the problem of evil, then, can be maintained only in the form that God has made men so free that he ..."

Clifford says, "In the two supposed cases which have been considered, it has been judged wrong to believe on immoral grounds, or to nourish belief by suppressing doubts and avoiding investigation."

What is the difference between "existence" and "essence"? How do these concepts function in Descartes's argument?

What is Philo's argument regarding the difference between a house and the universe?

Joyce claims that "Man by reason of his _______________ transcends the limitations of time."

According to Cleanthes, the world and every part of it is nothing but one great machine. "The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy; By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a ..."

The speaker in the reading concludes by saying, "for we must remember that I who am the speaker, and you who are the judges, are only mortal men, and we ought to accept the tale which is probable and enquire no further."

Joyce asserts that "Of man, it is true that the balance is immensely on the side of happiness. The pessimist who declares that, in view of the suffering of life, existence is an evil, misrepresents the facts."

Masham asserts that "An ______________ can never rationally be conceived to come from God."

Explain Aquinas's third proof for the existence of God. Do you agree with Aquinas?

According to the reading, "As being is to becoming, so is truth to beauty."

In one of his proofs for the existence of God, Aquinas says, "Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But more and less are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways." This proof relies on the idea that there is a _________ that is found in things.

Explain Mackie's criticism of the following position: "Good cannot exist without evil."

Clifford asserts that "the question is not whether their belief was true or false, but whether they entertained it on wrong grounds."

Lammenranta says, "the real question is not whether Descartes's reasoning is circular, but whether it is ________________; whether there is anything wrong with it."

Philo says, "But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual philosophy has been preserved in so wide a step as you have taken, when you compared to the universe, houses, ships, furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes?"