DSPW = our book, Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, edited by Cottingham, Stoothoff and Murdoch.

First Meditation

1. What is the point to Descartes’s whole project? Why is Descartes interested in calling groups of his beliefs into doubt?

2. When does Descartes aim to “hold back assent” from whole classes of beliefs?

3. Descartes notes that the senses deceive him some of the time. Why is this not a sufficient reason to doubt all beliefs acquired from the senses.

4. Why does Descartes doubt all beliefs acquired from the senses?

5. What are the “simple and universal things” that escape the dreaming doubts? Explain why they escape dreaming doubts.

6. What is the difference between beliefs acquired by the senses and mathematical beliefs, like your belief that 2+3=5. Was this mathematical belief acquired by the senses? Does the justification for this belief derive from the senses?

7. How does Descartes come to doubt even his mathematical beliefs?

8. Why, at this stage, does the thought that a supremely good God would not allow him to err about 2+3=5 not ease his doubts about his mathematical beliefs?

9. Does Descartes think he has no reason to believe what he previously believed? Does he think he has no reason to believe that he has hands, or that the sky is blue?

Second Meditation

10. What is the first thing Descartes discovers that is immune from doubt?

11. What characteristics does Descartes attribute to this thing whose existence he cannot doubt? Which characteristic (attribute) does Descartes think is essential, or necessarily true?

12. Explain the following passage (Second Meditation ¶2, DSPW 82, AT VII 27–28), paying special attention to the marked lines:

    (a) And yet may it not perhaps be the case that these very things which I am supposing to be nothing, because they are unknown to me, are in reality identical with the ‘I’ of which I am aware? I do not know, and for the moment I shall not argue the point, since I can make judgements only about things which are known to me. I know that I exist; the question is, what is this ‘I’ that I know? If the ‘I’ is understood strictly as we have been taking it, then (b) it is quite certain that knowledge of it does not depend on things of whose existence I am as yet unaware; so (c) it cannot depend on any of the things which I invent in my imagination.

    What is Descartes claiming in this passage? Is there any tension between (a), (b), and (c)? Are (b) and (c) making equivalent claims? (Take some X; is there a difference between what knowledge of X depends on and what X itself depends on?) What sorts of things is Descartes claiming that knowledge of himself cannot depend on? What sorts of things is he claiming that this ‘I’ cannot depend on? Are either of these claims plausible?

13. Descartes asserts that you cannot doubt that you seem to be reading a web page (or a piece of paper). Can this be true even if there is no Internet (or no paper)? What is it that you know when you know that you seem to be reading a web page (piece of paper) if it is not knowledge of web pages or papers?

14. What is the point of Descartes’s extended speculations about the wax? Does he think he has established the existence of the wax?

15. When we look at a material object like a piece of wax, we think we learn all sorts of stuff about via the senses. Why does Descartes think this is a mistake? Why does Descartes think it is also a mistake to think we know about things through the

16. What does Descartes think is essential to the wax?

17. How does Descartes come to this conclusion about what is essential to the wax?

18. Why does Descartes say that he knows bodies by the intellect (by “purely mental scrutiny”), rather than by the senses? Explain the comparison he makes to the men walking across the square in hats and coats.

Third Meditation

19. At the end of the first paragraph, what does Descartes mean when he says “in so far as they are simply modes of thinking”?

20. What characteristic of his apprehension of the cogito argument does Decartes single out in the second paragraph? What is the general rule that he sets about proving?

21. Though he admits in his current state it is doubtful that there is a sky, there is something about his apprehension of the sky that is not doubtful. What is it?

22. What is the difference between his doubts about material objects and his doubts about mathematical truths?

23. Decartes discusses resemblance at some length. Take the principle of resemblance from the third paragraph:

24. “…there were things outside me which were the sources of my ideas and which resembled them in all respects.”

25. Explain Descartes’s argument in the eigth paragraph for why he previously accepted this principle. (Compare this to what Descartes eventually says about the existence of material objects in the Sixth Meditation.)

26. Why does he go on to dismiss this argument as not “strong enough”? What changes between the Second and Sixth Meditation that allows his to accept a similar argument there?

27. What is the difference between the perhaps untrustworthy “natural impulses” and the extremely trustworthy “natural light”? What is it to see something “by the natural light”? How does this connect to the general rule he wants to prove?

28. What are formal reality and objective reality?

29. Descartes says in paragraph 13: “In so far as the ideas are <considered> simply <as> modes of thought, there is no reconizable inequality among them…” Is he talking about formal or objective reality? How does he go on to order his ideas?

30. How does Descartes claim to know the causal principle (paragraph 14): “there must be at least as much <reality> in the efficient and total cause as in the effect of that cause.” Is this a priori or a posteriori?

31. Is there any interpretation of the causal principle (say in the terms of high school physics) where is has some plausibility? On this interpretation, is the principle known a priori or a posteriori?

32. Is there any corresponding interpretation of the principle that the idea of X cannot be caused by anything with less reality than X?

33. Explain how Descartes uses these causal principle to argue for the existence of God.

34. How does this Trademark Argument differ from the Ontological Argument that Descartes offers in the Fifth Meditation? Does every objection to the latter also apply to the former?

35. What objections does Descartes consider to this argument? How does he reply to these objections?

36. What is a circular argument? Why does it seem like Descartes’s argument is circular? (See also the paper topic on this issue.)

Fourth Meditation

37. Why does Descartes think he has not yet vindicated his general rule?

38. What is the traditional problem of evil? How is it analogous to the problem Descartes now faces?

39. In two words, what is Descartes’s answer to the problem of error?

40. Describe the faculties Descartes enumerates in giving his answer. Which one is perfect? What does it mean for it to be perfect? Why must it be perfect?

41. How do these two faculties combine to produce errors? How is it that such errors are avoidable?

42. We do not have a perfect understanding. Descartes offers two explanations, one paragraph six and one in paragraph seven (reiterated in paragraph 15), why we shouldn’t automatically assume that God would create us with a perfect understanding. What are they?

43. What does Descartes think freedom consists in (paragraph 8)? Whenever I clearly and distinctly perceive something, I automatically believe it to be true. But I still believe freely in these cases. How can this be?

44. I glance at my book, and I automatically believe that the book is powder blue. In what sense is whether I believe or not under my control? (Think about what it is to control something indirectly.)

Fifth Meditation

45. Descartes thinks some of his ideas are special; they are of true and immutable natures. What sorts of ideas does he have in mind? He thinks he knows some substantive things about these true and immutable natures. How does he know them? Does he know them a priori or a posteriori?

46. In the fifth and sixth paragraphs, Descartes offers two criteria for when an idea is an idea of a true and immutable nature (they are echoed in the tenth and eleventh paragraphs, with regard to his idea of God). What are they? Hint: one of is best understood in terms of the analytic/synthetic distinction, which you should also explain.

47. Explain Descartes’s ontological argument for the existence of God. Is this argument a priori or a posteriori?

48. What’s incoherent, according to Descartes, about not thinking of God as existing?

49. Explain the comparison between God & existence, a triangle & angles = 2 right angles, and mountain & valley.

50. Explain Gaunilo’s objection to the ontological argument. How is this objection different from one that shows Descartes’s argument is unsound, or invalid, or that it involves some incoherence?

51. One reply that Descartes offers to a Gaunilo-style objection is an appeal to the unity of certain ideas, ones that are not “invented and put together by the intellect” (First Replies, DSPW 137–38, AT VII 117). This may be construed as a third criterion for ideas of true and immutable natures. Explain the criterion Descartes is describing in his reply (using the examples of the winged horse, etc.). Does this criterion work for the sorts of ideas which he said at the outset of the Meditation were of true and immutable natures?

52. What worry is Descartes addressing when he distinguishes between (a) right now attending to and understanding clearly and distinctly the proof that the 3 angles of a triangle = 2 right angles; and (b) recalling later that I once understood the proof clearly and distinctly? Does this distinction offer Descartes a way of answering the circularity charge? (See also the Descartes’s replies to the circularity charge, DSPW 139-42, Second Replies AT VII 140-141 and Fourth Replies AT VII 246.)

53. What still remains in doubt at the end of the Fifth Meditation?

Sixth Meditation

54. What is the difference between imagining and conceiving, as illustrated by the chiliagon example?

55. What is it about ideas of sensations that makes us accept the principle of resemblance (above, Second Meditation)? See especially paragraph six.

56. In paragraph ten, why does Descartes think that ideas of sensation must have come from outside of him? Are these the same or different reasons for accepting the principle of resemblance?

57. Why does Descartes think they must come from material objects? Why was this answer not available to him in the Second Meditation?

58. What does Descartes when he says he is not “merely present in [his] body as a sailor is present in a ship…” (paragraph thirteen)?

59. In what ways does Descartes stop short of endorsing the principle of resemblance? What are the senses reliable guides to, and what are they not reliable guides to? In paragraph fifteen, Descartes reviews some of his previous “ill-considered judgments”:

    1. space is empty where I don’t sense anything;
    2. bodies are hot (white, bitter) in a way exactly resembling our idea(s) of heat (whiteness, bitterness);
    3. distant bodies like stars and towers have the shapes which they appear to have;

    4. a dropsical person’s thirst indicates that they need water (see paragraphs 18–23);

60. Discuss each case. Are each of them literally true, according to Descartes? If not, why does this not show God to be a deceiver. For the second case, bear in mind the distinction between primary and secondary qualities as it is discussed in Locke.

61. Distinguish between epistemic possibility and metaphysical possibility. What is the argument in parargraph nine that there is a “real distinction” between his mind and his body? (See also the paper topic on this argument.)

62. How does Descartes ultimately resolve the worries about dreaming? Why is this still a worry (when, say, the prospect of a demon deceiver is not)?

II.iv.15 = Book II, chapter iv, section 15

Book I

1. How does Locke describe his overall project? What is his method? How does his project and his method compare with Descartes’s?

2. What stance does Locke take (at the outset) about the relation between the mind’s ideas and the soul? the body?

3. Sketch what Locke means by ’idea’. How does this compare to what Descartes has in mind?

4. Locke reviews a number of criteria for innateness. Describe the three you take to be most plausible. What are Locke’s criticisms of these three criteria? Are these criticisms decisive?

5. Recall that Descartes thinks some ideas are innate — do you think Descartes would accept any of Locke’s criteria?

6. Is Descartes committed to Locke’s “contradiction”? Is it really a contradiction?

   “it seeming to me near a contradiction to say that there are truths imprinted on the soul which it perceives or understands not: imprinting…being nothing else but the making of certain truths to be perceived” (I.ii.5)

7. If there are no innate ideas, how according to Locke do we come to have our ideas?

8. What is a practical principle? If a principle were innate: would everyone have to assent to such a principle? Would everyone have to follow it?

9. In chapter iv, Locke considers a few of the ideas his opponents are most likely to insist are innate. How does he argue that the idea of identity is not innate? How does he argue that the idea of God is not innate?

10. Does Locke deny that we have innate abilities?

11. Suppose everyone forms an idea or thought on the basis of very sparse experiential input. How is this counter to the spirit of Locke’s arguments against innate ideas? Discuss in connection with (a) our knowledge of grammar, which we learn as young children, in the absence of good feedback about mistakes, with lots of the examples ungrammatical or garbled, etc.; (b) our knowledge that the world is three dimensional; (c) our knowledge that nature is ordered, that the future will resemble the past.

Book II

12. What are “the fountains of knowledge from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring?” Give examples of each (II.i.1–6)?

13. Are young children aware of their own minds? Do they regard themselves as thinking, reasoning, believing, doubting, … creatures? If not, how does Locke contend with this fact (II.i.7–8)?

14. Why is Locke concerned to address the view of whether the soul always thinks (II.i.9ff)? What’s the view he’s concerned to refute? How does he refute it? (Whose view is this?)

15. What is a simple idea? Describe the simple ideas you are having right now in reading this web page/paper.

16. Suppose Grumpy cannot feel any pleasure or pain. What would Locke predict that Grumpy would do?

17. What is the difference, according to Locke, between ideas and qualities?

18. Describe Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities, giving examples of each.

19. Why did we feel it necessary in class to introduce talk of primary and second properties? What, precisely, is our idea of a round supposed to resemble?

20. Locke claims that qualities fall into three categories — describe each.

21. Is there any sense, for Locke, in which secondary qualities are not in objects? Explain.

22. Explain Locke’s distinction between solidity and hardness. Why does he feel it necessary to make such a distinction. Is hardness a primary or secondary quality? Is solidity a primary or secondary quality? Why is it problematic for Locke to say that solidity is a primary quality?

23. How would our ideas of the sorts of properties that modern physics posits (spin, charge, EM field intensity) fit into Locke’s scheme? Would they be ideas of primary qualities? ideas of secondary qualities? Neither? Explain.

24. The Molyneaux problem. Stevie is born blind. His sight is restored. The first things in his field of view are a cube and a sphere. What is Locke’s answer to the following question: can Stevie distinguish the cube from the sphere just by sight?

25. What does Locke think memory is?

26. What is Locke’s account of abstract ideas? Why does a picture theory of ideas pose difficulties for giving an account of abstraction?

27. What are complex ideas, according to Locke?

28. What are the difficulties in giving an account of, e.g., our complex idea of beauty? Why is it a problem for Locke’s view if we canot give a definition for beauty?

29. Does Locke think we see the sustance directly or merely the properties?

30. Why does Locke think we have only a confused idea of substance?

31. Explain the difference between numerical identity and exact similarity? When we take about “the same person” which do we mean?

32. What is Leibniz Law? Why doesn’t Leibniz Law rule out change of any kind?

33. Locke discusses three kinds of substance. What are they, and what does the identity of each consist in?

34. In Locke’s view, what is involved in the identity of: Bodies? Oak trees? Animals? Human beings?

35. What in Locke’s view does personal identity consist in?

36. Why doesn’t personal identity require identity of substance?

37. Let’s suppose that I encounter two different souls on two different occasions. Would Locke agree or disagree with the following claim: it is possible that I encountered the same person on these two occasions? Explain.

38. Let’s suppose that I encounter one and the same soul on two different occasions. Would Locke agree or disagree with the following claim: it is possible that I encountered two different people? Explain.

39. What’s the point of the Nestor-Thersites example? What’s the point of the prune cobbler case?

40. Is forgetting a problem for Locke’s view? What is the transitive closure, or ancestral, amendment to Locke’s view?

41. Explain:

    “God will not, by a fatal error of theirs, transfer from one to another that consciousness which draws reward or punishment with it.”

42. Why does Locke say: “In this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of reward and punishment”?

Book IV

43. What, fundamentally, is knowledge for Locke?

44. What are the four kinds of agreement or disagreement between ideas? Give examples of each.

45. What is our idea of gold, according to Locke? What is it that we know about gold?

46. What’s the difference between a real essence and a nominal essence? Which does Locke believe in?

47. Describe the difference between intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive knowledge.

48. How does Locke answer the challenge of dreaming skepticism? What does he mean in IV.ii.14 when he talks about caring only about pleasure and pain?

49. How much does Locke think we know about secondary qualities (IV.iii.11-14)? In what ways is our knowledge limited?

1. What does Berkeley mean by “sensible object”?

2. Explain the following distinctions as they apply to our sense and what we know on the basis of them: immediate versus mediate; direct versus indirect; inferential versus non-inferential.

3. What are the sensible qualities (give examples)? Are they immediately or mediately perceived?

4. What does Berkeley think is mediately/indirectly perceived?

5. What does Berkeley think objects are? What does Berkeley think that matter is? How does Berkeley propose to resolve any skeptical worries that might arise for Descartes or Locke?

6. What is the identity argument (the one involving great heat and pain)? What is it supposed to show?

7. What is the variability argument (the one involving the bucket of water)? What is it supposed to show?

8. In what way is Berkeley trying to use Locke’s arguments for the primary/secondary quality distinction against him? Explain one of the arguments Berkeley marshalls against the “real existence” of primary qualities.

9. What is the problem of the criterion argument (p. 73 --- see editor’s notes for that label)?

10. At this stage, if there is matter, what does Philonous say that it must be like?

11. What is the master argument, the one concerning conceivability (p. 72), upon which Philonous is prepared to rest everything? What is this argument supposed to show?

12. What is the crucial amiguity in the master argument? (Pete Graham discussed this in lecture in some detail.)

13. What would it be to paint a picture of something that is painted? What would it be to conceive of something that is conceived?

14. Explain Berkeley’s thoughts on the connection between resemblance and representation. How does he attempt to use this to argue that we cannot conceive of material objects? How might you criticize this argument?

Second Dialogue

15. Why does Philonous reject the idea that he is a skeptic?

16. How does the existence of sensible objects provide a proof for God’s existence? If sound, does this argument demonstrate the existence of a Christian God? Why or why not?

17. Hylas attempts at the end of the dialogue a last ditch effort to save matter by construing matter as: an intermediate cause, an occasion, or an instrument. What similar argument does (or could) Philonous give against all three proposals?

Third Dialogue

18. What are some of the factors which make one explanation better than another? Discuss.

19. In the Third Dialogue, Hylas presents the following objection: “Since, according to you, men judge of the reality of things by their senses, how can a man be mistaken in thinking the moon a plain lucid surface, about a foot in diameter; or a square tower, seen at a distance, round; or an oar, with one end in the water, crooked?” (120). Briefly describe Berkeley’s response.

20. In response to certain objections, Berkeley claims that his position is no worse off than that of the materialist. Give an example of such an objection and explain (a) what his solution is, and (b) how he is no worse of than the materialist.

21. What is the argument upon which Philonous (and hence Berkeley) is willing to stake everything? Describe the argument briefly and discuss whether it is sound.

22. What does Philonous say about whether we can have ideas of minds or God? How does he try to get around this problem?

23. Given that he denies the existence of matter, how does Berkeley attempt to give a common-sense account of ’object’?

24. How does Philonous avoid committing himself to the proposition that God feels pain?

25. Describe a few of the reasons why Berkeley’s common-sense account of objects turns out not to be so common-sensical.

26. What, for Berkeley, is an action-experience connection?

27. On Berkeley’s view, is it possible for two people to see the same object? Why or why not?

28. Does Berkeley think that there are laws of nature? What are they like?
    

Citations give section and paragraph number (paragraph numbers run through the parts of a section; e.g., [§IV, ¶15] is in Part II of §IV).

1. Explain Hume’s use of the following terms: ‘perceptions of the mind’, ‘thought’, ‘ideas’, ‘impressions’, ‘reflection’, ‘sensation’. Give examples of each. Compare his use of ‘idea’ to Locke’s.

2. What are the two “species of philosophy,” and which one is Hume going to try to put to rest (§I, esp. ¶12)?

3. In what way does Hume see his project related to Newton’s?

4. Why does Hume say that “the most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation” (§II, ¶1)?

5. What are Hume’s two arguments for the rule that “all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively ones” (§II, ¶5)

6. Are there any exceptions to the rule?

7. Why does Hume say: “When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea, we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived” (§II, ¶9)?

8. What are Hume’s three principles of connection among ideas (§III)? In what way are these three principles trivial?

9. Explain Hume’s distinction between relations of ideas and matters of fact (§IV). Give examples of each. What is the relation between this distinction and the distinction between a priori and a posteriori.

10. The Problem of Induction. Explain Hume’s answer the question: what is the basis for extending our beliefs beyond the testimony of our senses and memory?

    1. Are such beliefs relations of ideas or matters of fact? How can we tell?
    2. Explain what Hume means when he writes: “All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation of Cause and Effect” (§IV, ¶4). Why does he say this? Is it true? Is it essential for his argument concerning induction?
    3. What is Hume’s argument that, in a single event, we know what effect will result only on the basis of experience (§IV, ¶9ff)? What other considerations does he for the conclusion that the relation between cause and effect is not a relation of ideas?
    4. Explain what Hume means by: “I say then, that, even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience are not founded on any reasoning, or any process of the understanding” (§IV, ¶15). How does Hume argue for this claim? How is his argument here related to the argument about the single event?
       1. What assumption is required to learn anything on the basis of experience?
       2. Why is this assumption not a relation of ideas?
       3. Why is any attempt to justify this assumption on the basis of experience circular?

    5. Why don’t the laws of nature - e.g., the law of universal gravitation - provide a counter-example to Hume’s thesis about induction?

11. Distinguish the problem of induction from Hume’s “skeptical solution” to it.

12. What is the importance for Hume of the assumption that the future will resemble the past, or the unobserved the observed? What is the significance of custom or habit in this regard?

13. What is the connection between causation and necessary connection?

14. Why does Hume feel compelled to look for an impression of necessary connection?

15. How does Hume argue that we have no outer impression of necessary connection? Is this similar to any point he made in laying out the problem of induction?

16. Explain the following considerations Hume uses to argue that we have no inner impression of necessary connection:
• selective control over body parts (¶¶12–13) and ideas (¶18);
• unknown intermediaries (¶14);

• lack of awareness of power (¶¶19–20).

17. What is ‘constant conjunction’, and in what way does our idea of necessary connection depend on it?

18. Describe the three “equivalent” definitions of causation. Are these definitions coextensive??

19. Explain the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties, giving examples of each. How does this relate to Hume’s analysis of causation? Are his definitions intrinsic or extrinsic?
    

20. The problem of induction is not the same as the problem of necessary connection. Let me emphasize: there are two puzzles here, one concerning our beliefs about the unobserved, and one concerning our idea of causation! Distinguish between these two problems.

21. What parts of his argument that we have no idea of necessary connection does Hume use in his argument for induction (see questions 10b 15)?

22. Suppose Hume is wrong, and our idea of necessary connection is derived from some inner or outer impression. Would that invalidate his reasoning about induction? Why or why not?

23. What would Hume say concerning the causal principles that Descartes asserts in the Third Meditation for his proof of the existence of God?

24. What is determinism?

25. Explain the thought behind incompatibilism: why might we think that determinism is a threat to free will?

26. What is the connection between free will and responsibility?

27. Why does Hume think that human actions are determined? Explain the following considerations that Hume draws on:
    1. required for belief-desire explanations to be useful (¶9)
    2. similarity of human actions to interactions in nature, including hidden causes (¶13, ¶15);
    3. dependence on others (¶17);

    4. feeling of looseness does not entail not determined (¶21, footnote 18).

28. Hume uses his analysis of causation in making his case that human actions are determined (¶21). Is this required to make his case? Suppose Hume is wrong about causation: do the points in previous question still apply? Is necessity on Hume’s definition too weak to conflict with liberty?

29. What does Hume think is the alternative to human actions being determined (see, e.g., ¶23: “We cannot surely mean…”, end of ¶25)? Why would it be no consolation as far as freedom is concerned for human actions to be undetermined?

30. Should we (21st century folks who know a thing or two about science) think that the world is determined? Does this matter as far as the free will debate goes (consider Hume’s point from the previous question)?

31. What is Hume’s compatibilist definition of free will (¶23)? Explain using your own examples. How is freedom in Hume’s sense opposed to coercion and constraint?

32. What are the two objections Hume derives (¶33) from the following:

    … if voluntary actions be subjected to the same laws of necessity with the operations of matter, there is a continued chain of necessary causes … reaching from the original cause off all to every single volition of every human creature. No contingency anywhere in the universe; no indifference; no liberty. … Human actions … either have no moral turpitude at all … or if they have any turpitude, they most involve our Creator in the same guilt … (¶32).

33. First objection: why does Hume think that, even if determinism is true — even if God “first bestowed motion on the immense machine” — we will still hold people responsible for their actions (¶35)?

34. Second objection: what does Hume say in response to the second objection (¶36)? What might Hume want say in response to the second objection that, given his audience, he could not state explicitly?

35. Is Hume arguing that miracles are, in principle, impossible, or that it is never reasonable to believe that a miracle occurred? Explain the difference.

36. What is the difference between demonstration, proof, and probability?

37. How does Hume think we go about establishing that people are reliable sources of information?

38. Why does our evidence for laws of nature constitute a proof against any putative miracle (§X, ¶12–13)?

39. Take some putatively miraculous event e: Bobst Library turning into a chocolate Taj Mahal. If we did somehow get enough evidence to believe that e occurred, would it still count as a miracle by Hume’s criteria?

40. What is the difference between antecedent and consequent skepticism?

41. In what way does action “refute” sketicism?

42. What does Hume suggest we commit to the flames (§XII, ¶34)? Why does he say this?
    

Citations give section and page number from the Hatfield edition.

1. You should be able to explain all of the following concepts and distinctions:

• analytic vs. synthetic
• a priori vs. a posteriori
• necessary vs. contingent
• “contrary a contradiction” test
• subjective validity vs. objective validity
• perception vs. experience
• intuition vs. understanding vs. reason
• appearance vs. thing in itself
• phenomenal vs. noumenal
• forms of intuition vs. categories (pure concepts of understanding) vs. ideas of reason

• antinomy: thesis, antithesis, mathematical, dynamical.

2. Why does Kant think there is a methodological problem in metaphysics?

3. In terms of his distinctions between analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori, how would Kant classify Hume’s relations of ideas and matters of fact?

4. To which distinction does the “contrary a contradiction” test apply?

5. What is a synthetic a priori truth for Kant? Give examples from mathematics and natural science.

6. What is a transcendental argument?

7. What is the faculty of intuition? What is distinctive of intuition?

8. What are the “forms of intuition”?

9. Why does Kant think the existence of truths of geometry and mathematics show that intuition must have the forms it does?

10. Why does Kant think the fact that we make judgments show that there must be “categories of the understanding”? What sorts of categories are these?
    1. How does the fact that we think a thing may remain the same even though our perceptions of it change show that we must have the category of substance? (How can this be seen as a response to Berkeley’s official position on objects?)

    2. How does the fact that we distinguish subjective sequences of appearances from objective sequences of appearances show that we must have the categories of causal law?

11. Given the answers to the questions 9 and 10, what is Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori truths of mathematics? Of natural science?

12. What is the purpose of pure reason? How does pure reason lead us astray?

13. Why does Kant think that there are things in themselves? (§32, p. 68; §57, pp. 108, 110)

14. How does Kant’s view of the world differ from Berkeley’s?

15. Explain Kant’s first antinomy. Why is this called a mathematical antinomy? What is the false premise upon which the arguments for both thesis and antithesis depend?

16. Explain with respect to Kant's third antinomy, what a dynamical antinomy is. Explain the following passage (§53, 97):

    … if the subject of freedom were represented, like other objects, as mere appearance, contradiction could not again be avoided. … But if natural necessity is referred only to appearances and freedom only to things in themselves, then no contradiction arises if both kinds of causality are assumed or conceded equal, as difficult or impossible as it may be to make conceivable causality of the latter kind.

17. Compare Kant's treatment of freedom and determinism to Hume's discussion of liberty and necessity.