Philosophy: Introduction and Major Thinkers (University)

What is Kant's categorical imperative?

Answer: Act only on maxims you could will to be universal laws; treat humanity always as an end, never merely as a means.

What is the social contract?

Answer: The idea that political authority derives from an agreement among individuals.

Moral relativism vs moral realism?

Answer: Relativism: moral truths depend on culture or individuals. Realism: objective moral facts exist.

What is the trolley problem designed to test?

Answer: Intuitions about whether it is permissible to harm one to save many, contrasting consequentialist and deontological reasoning.

What is virtue ethics?

Answer: Morality centers on character and virtues rather than rules or consequences.

What is utilitarianism?

Answer: The right action maximizes overall happiness or well-being (Bentham, Mill).

What is Popper's falsifiability criterion?

Answer: A theory is scientific only if it could in principle be refuted by evidence.

What is Occam's razor?

Answer: Among competing explanations, prefer the one with the fewest assumptions.

What is a straw man fallacy?

Answer: Misrepresenting an opponent's position to make it easier to attack.

What is modus ponens and modus tollens?

Answer: Modus ponens: if P then Q; P; therefore Q. Modus tollens: if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P.

What makes an argument valid vs sound?

Answer: Valid: if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Sound: valid with true premises.

What is the absurd in Camus?

Answer: The conflict between our search for meaning and the universe's silence; we should live defiantly anyway.

What did Nietzsche mean by 'God is dead'?

Answer: Traditional religious foundations of value have collapsed, so humans must create their own values.

What is existentialism?

Answer: Existence precedes essence: humans define themselves through free choices and bear responsibility for them.

What is Mill's harm principle?

Answer: Power may be exercised over individuals against their will only to prevent harm to others.

What is Rawls's veil of ignorance?

Answer: A thought experiment: choose principles of justice without knowing your place in society, ensuring fairness.

What are the main branches of philosophy?

Answer: Metaphysics (reality), epistemology (knowledge), ethics (morality), logic (reasoning), aesthetics (beauty and art).

What is the problem of personal identity?

Answer: What makes a person the same over time: the body, psychological continuity (Locke's memory theory), or something else.

What is determinism and how does it bear on free will?

Answer: The view that every event is caused by prior events; hard determinists deny free will, compatibilists say freedom is acting on one's own desires, libertarians affirm uncaused choice.

What is the mind-body problem?

Answer: How mental states relate to physical states of the brain.

What did Kant mean by a priori and a posteriori, analytic and synthetic?

Answer: A priori: known independent of experience; a posteriori: from experience. Analytic: true by meaning; synthetic: adds information.

What is the justified true belief definition of knowledge, and what challenged it?

Answer: Knowledge is belief that is true and justified; Gettier cases show justified true beliefs that are not knowledge.

What is Hume's problem of induction?

Answer: We cannot rationally justify expecting the future to resemble the past; induction rests on habit, not reason.

What is Descartes's cogito?

Answer: 'I think, therefore I am': the one thing that cannot be doubted is that I, as a thinking thing, exist.

Rationalism vs empiricism?

Answer: Rationalists hold that reason is the primary source of knowledge (Descartes, Leibniz); empiricists hold that experience is (Locke, Hume).

What did the Stoics teach?

Answer: Live according to nature and reason; focus on what is in your control; virtue is the only true good.

What are Aristotle's four causes?

Answer: Material (what it's made of), formal (its form), efficient (what made it), final (its purpose).

What is Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia?

Answer: Flourishing or living well, achieved through virtuous activity in accordance with reason.

What is Plato's theory of Forms?

Answer: Abstract, perfect Forms (like Beauty itself) exist beyond the physical world; physical things are imperfect copies.

What is the Socratic method?

Answer: Questioning to expose contradictions and refine definitions, leading toward clearer understanding.