Exam 4: Plato the Beginning of Everything

Masham says that _______________ "does no doubt the best serve they who live as if there was no God in the World; but how far so great nonsense as this, has been able to obtain, is not easy to say."

Nietzsche says, "In fact, we philosophers and ___________ feel ourselves irradiated as by a new dawn by the report that the old God is dead; our hearts overflow with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation."

Leibniz claims that there are two kinds of truths; the second, truths of reasoning, are contingent and their opposite is possible.

Do you agree with Masham when she claims that "Religion being (as I shall take it at present for granted) the only sufficient ground or solid support of virtue"?

Explain the meaning of the following passage in the Plato reading: "But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible."

Describe the importance of story about the ship's owner.

According to Mackie, it is sometimes suggested that "The universe is better with some evil in it than it could be if there were no evil." Mackie criticizes this position when he argues that "we should be well on the way to an infinite regress, where the solution of a problem of evil, stated in terms of evil-n, indicated the existence of an evil-(n + 1), and a farther problem to be solved."

For Parsons, "a ___________________ obtains in a situation where permitting an evil is necessary to prevent a greater evil, or else necessary to achieve a good great enough to make evil worthwhile."

Pascal says, "It is understandable that there should be a God, and unbelievable that there should not be a God."

Philo says, "From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree?" Philo's point is that ...

Conway says, "Yet that indifference of acting, or not acting, can by no means be said to be in God; because this were an __________, and would make God like corruptible creatures; for this indifference of Will is the foundation of all change and corruptibility in creatures; so that there would be no evil in creatures if they were not changeable."

According to Mackie, it is sometimes suggested that "Evil is due to human free will." Mackie criticizes this position: "God was not, then, faced with a choice between making innocent automata and making beings who, in acting freely, would sometimes go wrong: there was open to him the obviously better possibility of making beings who would act freely but always go right. Clearly, his failure to avail himself of this possibility is inconsistent with his being both eternal and timeless."

Paley argues that if you find a watch while you are out walking, upon inspecting it you would probably conclude that ...

Parsons says, " Since Epicurus' conclusion has the logical form of a disjunction-either God is not all-powerful or he is not perfectly good-apparently believers must choose which disjunct they wish to discard." Furthermore, "the real implication of Epicurus' argument is that such a God does not control free will."

How does Philo use the idea "proof of design" to help his argument?

Joyce says, "The existence of __________ constitutes a far greater difficulty than does ___________."

Explain the following statement of Anselm: "I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand."

Lammenranta asserts that "Descartes says that clear and distinct perception can provide knowledge only if it is perfectly reliable. Thus, he cannot know the premises of his argument for the truth of clear and distinct perceptions unless clear and distinct perceptions are valid, because these premises are themselves based on clear and distinct perception."

Clifford asserts that, "No simplicity of mind, no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of ..."

Parsons considers the concept of God in which three things are required to be true: 1. God is perfectly good; 2. God is all-powerful; and 3. God does not prevent the existence of natural and moral evil. But according to Parsons, "these three claims seem to form a derivative concept of God."