Exam Study Guide

The Apr 25 exam will be drawn from the odd-numbered questions (1, 3, 5, ...), and here's an audio review narrowing the guide further. Best way to prepare, again, is to review the textual passages addressing these questions.; and don't wait 'til the last minute to do so.

LHP

1. What was the main message of Wittgenstein's Tractatus?

2. What did the later Wittgenstein (of Philosophical Investigations) mean by "language games," what did he think was the way to solve philosophical problems, and what kind of language did he think we can't have?

3. Who was Adolf Eichmann, and what did Arendt learn about him at his trial?

4. What was Arendt's descriptive phrase for what she saw as Eichmann's ordinariness?

5. Both Popper and Kuhn changed the way people understood science. What did Popper say about the method for checking a hypothesis and what name did Kuhn give to major breaks in the history of science? 

6. What is the Law of Double Effect? Many people who disagree with its principle--and with Thomson's violinist thought experiment--think that whatever our intentions we shouldn't play who?

WGU

1. Being grown-up is widely considered to be what? Do you agree?

2. Is Leibniz's optimism more likely to appeal to a small child? Why? 3

3. What was Kant's definition of Enlightenment? 5

4. What do Susan Neiman's children say she can't understand? Do you agree? 9

5. Why is judgement important? Is this a surprising thing to hear from a Kantian? 11

6. Being a grown-up comes to what? 12

7. What did Paul Goodman say about growing up? Are his observations are still relevant? 19

8. Why (in Neiman's opinion) should you not think this is the best time of your life, if you're a young college student? 20

9. What did Samoan children have that ours lack? 27 Can we fix that?

10. What is philosophy's greatest task? 31

LHP

1. What did John Rawls call the thought experiment he believed would yield fair and just principles, and what was its primary device?

2. Under what circumstances would Rawls' theory permit huge inequalities of wealth between people?

3. What was the Imitation Game, and who devised a thought experiment to oppose it?

4. What, according to Searle, is involved in truly understanding something?

5. How do some philosophers think we might use computers to achieve immortality?

6. What does Peter Singer say we should sacrifice, to help stranger

7. Why did Singer first become famous?

8. How does Singer represent the best tradition in philosophy?

WGU

1. After Plato, the next philosopher to turn his attention to the details of child-rearing was who?

2. What's the first step of human reason, according to Kant?

3. If we have hope for moral progress, what do we want for the next generation?

4. What was Orwell's nightmare?

5. What "perfidious reversal leaves us permanently confused"?

6. What are you committed to, if you're committed to Enlightenment?

7. What is freedom, according to Rousseau and Kant?

8. What's the key to whether or not we grow up?

WGU -p.122. FL 31-32

1. "The miracle that saves the world," said Hannah Arendt, is ____.

2. For Kant the most important fact about us is what?

3. What is "the metaphysical wound at the heart of the universe"? 

4. How did David Hume dispel "this philosophical melancholy and delirium"? 

5. What did Kant say we must take seriously, in order to grow up?

6. What must reason find intolerable about the world?

WGU -p.165. 

1. Kant's definition of maturity is what?

2. Education, travel, and work share what common purpose, ideally?

3. You're not grown-up if you've not rejected what? 

4. Why should languages and music be learned as early as possible?

5. What is the message of Rousseau's Emile?

6. What does it mean to love a book?

7. The internet, says Nick Carr, is a machine geared for what?

8. If you don't travel you're likely to suppose what?

9. What did Rousseau say about those who do not walk?

10. What is travel's greatest gift?

WGU -p.192

1. What hallmark of modernity reversed Plato's and Aristotle's judgment?

2. What gives life meaning, for Kant?

3. In a truly human society, according to Marx, how would our capacities to work develop?

4.  Most jobs involve what, according to Paul Goodman? 

5. People were certain, as late as 2008, that what?

6. What alternatives to consumerism have small groups begun to develop?

WGU -p.234

1. What mixed messages keep us in states of immaturity?

2. The older you get, the more you know what?

3. What does the U-bend tell us about aging?

4. Growing up means realizing what?

5. Philosophy is an attempt to wrestle with what three questions, according to Kant?

6. The young have only vague and erroneous notions of what, according to de Beauvoir?

7. Shakespeare's As You Like It is a gloss on what modern message?

8. Philosophers seek answers to children's questions such as what?

SSHM Prologue

1. Young William James's problem, as he felt "pulled in too many directions" and worried that we might be nothing but cogs in a machine, was ____.

2. What is distinctive about "our age" that makes James particularly relevant?

3. What happened on Feb. 6, 2014 that prompted Kaag to write this book?

 SSHM ch1; LH Intro-1 1. Calvinism set out, for Henry James Sr., what impossible task?

2. Kaag thinks the Civil War gave WJ his first intimation that what?

3. WJ's entire life had been premised on what expectation?

4. What did WJ say (in 1906, to H.G. Wells) about "SUCCESS"?

5. What Stoic hope did young WJ share with his friend Tom Ward?

6. What thought seeded "the dilemma of determinism" for WJ?

7. As WJ explicated determinism in 1884, the future has no what?

8. WJ found what in Huxley's evolutionary materialism alarming?

9. Determinism has antipathy to the idea of what?

10. To the "sick soul," what seems blind and shallow?

==

LH

1. What reminder does Kieran Setiya say he needed when he was younger? What kind of philosophy did his teachers say he needed? (pref) What has he experienced since age 27?

2. What is moral philosophy about?

3. Does Setiya think "everything happens for a reason"? What were Job's friends wrong about?

4. What did Nietzsche say about happiness and the English?

5. Who is Susan Gubar?

6. To whom should disability matter?

7. What's the difference between disease and illness?

8. What does Setiya think Aristotle gets wrong?

9. Who are Setiya's heroes? 

10. What does Setiya say about Marx's vision of communist society?

11. What was Harriet Johnson's reply to Peter Singer?

12. What did Setiya appreciate about his fifth urologist?

13. What, contrary to Descartes, does pain teach us about our bodies?

K ch2; LH ch2

2. What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

3. Renouvier said an individual's will could break what?

4. What must one frequently do, according to James, to establish reciprocity in a relationship?

5. "Looking on the bright side," though often not objectively warranted, is nonetheless what?

==

LH

1. What sort of childhood did Kieran Setiya have? Can you relate?
2. What was KS's response to the pandemic? What was yours?
3. What did Aristotle and Hume say about friendship?
4. What is the impact of social isolation on health?
5. What does KS say about Descartes, Hegel, Sartre, and Wittgenstein?
6. KS is unsure about which view of Aristotle's?
7. What "dual propensity" did Kant say belongs to human nature?
8. What is KS's picture of friendship?
9. What is the path to strong relationships?

K ch2; LH ch2

1. "Anhedonia" is what?

2. What was Renouvier's definition of free will?

3. Renouvier said an individual's will could break what?

4. What must one frequently do, according to James, to establish reciprocity in a relationship?

5. "Looking on the bright side," though often not objectively warranted, is nonetheless what?

==

LH

1. What sort of childhood did Kieran Setiya have? Can you relate?
2. What was KS's response to the pandemic? What was yours?
3. What did Aristotle and Hume say about friendship?
4. What is the impact of social isolation on health?
5. What does KS say about Descartes, Hegel, Sartre, and Wittgenstein?
6. KS is unsure about which view of Aristotle's?
7. What "dual propensity" did Kant say belongs to human nature?
8. What is KS's picture of friendship?
9. What is the path to strong relationships?

SSHM ch3. LH ch3 

1. James wrote Principles of Psychology to answer what question?

2. What did Aristotle say about habit?

3. What realization would make young people give more heed to their conduct?

4. James complained in 1884 that what devoured his time?

5. James thought everybody should do what each day?

LH

1. What are three kinds of grief? Have you experienced any of them?
2. What's the closest KS has come to grief?
3. What "five neat steps" of grief does KS say there is no evidence for?
4. What stoic attitude did Epictetus say would prevent you from being grievously upset at the death of a loved one? What does KS say about that?
5. What does KS say should be our goal with respect to grief?
6. The fact that someone is not alive, says Julian Barnes, does not mean what?
7. What does KS call Epicurus's attitude towards death?
8. If we did not grieve, we would not ____.
9. How do the Dahomey of Western Africa celebrate the life of the deceased? 
10. What do conventions of mourning give us?

1. Tragedies that befell him in his 40s led to James's quest for ___.

2. What experience led James to "the taste of the intolerable mysteriousness" of existence?

3. What did James think is sacrificed when we study the mind in objective analytic terms?

4. What did Thoreau say at the end of Walden?

5. His experiments with nitrous oxide gave James what warning?

6. What did James say about his house in Chocorua?

LH

1. What artist was described by a critic as having failed to learn from his failures?
2. Who were the Levellers and Diggers?
3. The chaos of contingency in life is a reminder that what?
4. What did the Strawsons (father and son) disagree about?
5. What does KS regret about his academic career?
6. What are telic and atelic activities? What happens when we focus too much on the former?
7. What was Aristotle's insight?
8. How does KS's interpretation of Groundhog Day differ from Buddhist interpretations?
9. What 'ism plays a critical role in the origins of failure?
10. What liberates Phil Connors?

 SSHM ch5-6; LH ch5

1. What "vectors of meaning" saved James's life?

2. Embracing the pragmatic theory of truth is a commitment to what?

3. As a professional academic philosopher, Kaag has trouble remembering what?

4. James's hallway (corridor) metaphor, treating pragmatism primarily as a method in philosophy, reminds Kaag of what?

5. What's the difference between truth and facts, for WJ?

6. Embracing free will is the first step in what?

==

K ch6; WJ "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"; "A Pluralistic Mystic"

1. The greatest use of life is what, according to WJ?

2. What did WJ write to Benjamin Blood about education?

3. What was WJ's final entreaty in "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings"?

4. What does WJ say is the difference between resignation and hope?

5. What would we lose, if we were without feeling?

6. When does a life become "genuinely significant"?

LH 

1. Why did Glaucon say we pretend to care about justice? Does KS agree? Do you?
2. What does KS say about Maya? Do you think living well and being happy are the same?
3. What was Simone Weil's self-sacrifice? Is her life and death illustrative of what it truly means to care about injustice?
4. For Weil, reading is a metaphor for what?
5. What do Weil and Iris Murdoch say we need (and not need) in order to appreciate and care about human suffering and injustice?
6. What was Plato's ambition, and what 20th century American philospher shared it?
7. What does ideology distort?
8. What is KS's advice to those who feel overwhelmed by the injustice of the world?
9. What was Marx's eleventh thesis?
10. Why does KS call Theodor Adorno a cautionary tale?
11. What is "the tyranny of the ameliorative"?