One Breath

1. To what does the question of “Human Nature” refer in philosophy?
What a human being is and will profoundly affect how you see yourself and how you see others and how you live.
Psychologists such as Freud claimed humans are cruel, aggressive, and selfish.

2. According to Thomas Hobbes, what is the primary motivation of human beings?
Human motivation is very self-centered
Seeking satisfaction of their own mechanical desires.

3. Moritz Schlick argues for the view that humans are so constituted such that they are able only to act out of self-interest. This view of human motivation is referred to as what?
Physchological egoism- staes that human beinbs are made so that they can act only out of self interest

4. Why are our views about human nature important, according to Velasquez? In other words, what is the influence that our views of human nature have on our lives? because it shapes the every day world around us from relations ships with other people

5. Someone who believes that humans are basically unselfish would be more like what?
That person would instinctively relate to other people with trust and openness. Pg. 49

6. To what does the notion of a “self” refer, within the philosophical world?
The self can think, reason and perceive. You exist in a physical body and that is conscious and rational.

7. What does it mean to say that “the self is an independent individual”?
The belief in life after death assumes that the self is conscious, has purpose and distinct from its material body

8. The traditional Western view of human nature, according to Velasquez, has five properties. They are what? all humans have a rational spiritual self that is distinct from its body has a purpose endures over time exists as a separate individual
9. Two of the most influential versions of the Traditional Western view of the self are what? * Rationalistic * Judeo Christian religious

10. For Plato, the “three defining parts of human nature” are what?
Reason – because of reason we know how we ought to live it should rule appetites and aggressions
Appetite
Aggression

11. Which of the three elements of human nature does Plato belief ought to rule over the others?
He believes that reason is the humans highest power. 12. Which of the philosophers from the chapter believed that “the truth about human nature requires knowledge of another world of reality”?
Aristotle

13. What are the Forms, for Plato?
His forms are eternal and perfect ideals that exist in an unchanging, perfect heaven. Pg. 54
14. Which philosopher form the chapter believed that “the truth about human nature requires only knowledge of our world”? Aristotle ?

15. What is the significant implication of the Traditional Rationalistic view of Human Nature, according to Velasquez?
Implies the human primarily as a thinker capable of reasoning.

16. What are the two distinguishing characteristics of the Judeo-Christian view of the human being?
Humans are made in the image of GOD
They are divine beings because they contain something of the ability to love and know that characterizes the creator

17. How is the Judeo-Christian view of human nature different from the Greek rationalist view, when it comes to the purpose of living? (p. 57)

Judeo – we live to love God and to serve God
Greek – only those who can exercise their reason can realize the purpose of living *
18. What explanation does Velasquez give for the appeal of the rationalistic and Judeo-Christian views of human nature? (p. 59)
The conflict between what our reason wants and what our desires push us toward . Reason will set us off from all other creatures making us like God and capable of choosing between good and evil, between a course that will bring us closer to or take us farther from our creator.

19. What are some familiar ideas about ourselves that are affirmed by the Traditional Rationalistic versions of Human Nature, according to the textbook? (pp. 59-60)
The idea that it is possible for us to survive bodily death or that the self might leave its body, the idea that we humans are special and different from other animals, the idea that it is reason that makes us different and that reason should rule over our passions, the idea that human beings have a purpose and that this purpose may be related to the spiritual dimension of the universe.

20. What are the types of properties we generally take to be characteristic of physical bodies?
We know our body has weight and mass and is spread out in space. It has a definite color size shape. It can be seen touched measured, in shore a material or physical entity with the properties that are characteristics of all physical bodies.

21. What types of properties do we generally take to be characteristic of the mind?
Study learn experience read daydreaming source of our creativity and deepest feeling feels desires and emotions believe or doubt.
22. What is the most characteristic feature of the mind, according to Velasquez?
Its consciousness.

23. To what do we refer when we speak about “consciousness”? when you are sleeping or sleepwalking or anesthetized or knocked out.
Consciousness is subjective. The mind and its properties then seem to be completely different from a physical body and its properties.

24. Velasquez speaks about the Dualistic view of human nature as what seems to most of us to be the “common sense view of mind and body.” What is the distinctive feature about this view of human nature?
That humans are made of up dual substances.
The mind and body are two entities each made of a different kind of stuff.

25. To what are we referring when we speak of “the problem of mind-body interaction”? What does this problem have to do with substance dualism?
The problem is that the mind, and immaterial entity, can move the body, a physical entity. If the mind is immaterial, it is not part of the physical world.
Because dualism states the mind can be immaterial which disprove the principle of the conservation of matter and energy.
We have an immaterial mind that somehow interacts with a material body. The mind and body obviously interact so there must be some point of contact between them .

26. According to Descartes, the essential nature of the mind is what?
The essential nature of the mind is its ability to think. Pg.76

27. What does “essence” mean? (p. 76) the defining characteristic that makes something what it is

28. What is “substance dualism”? states that our mind is made up of 2 substances.
Material body and immaterial mind.

29. What would be the principle violated if we claim that the mind somehow reaches into the physical world?
Because dualism states the mind can be immaterial which disprove the principle of the conservation of matter and energy.

30. What did Descartes propose as an answer to the mind-body interaction problem?
THE MIND AND BODY interact wthrough the pineal gland, a tiny gland near the brain. So sensitive that the immaterial mind could move it .

31. What was the predominant criticism of Descartes’ theory about the pineal gland?
No matter how small the gland was it was physical non the less making it impossible for the pineal gland to effect a physical entity .

32. What was Liebniz’s answer to the mind-body interaction problem?
The mind and body run in parallel like 2 sychronized clocks. They seem connected but truly operate independently.

33. What was Malebranche’s answer to the mind-body interaction problem?
He believed that the immaterial mind could not interact with a material body and the mind.
He argued that God stepped in to synchronize the mind and body.

34. What are the primary features of the materialist view of human nature?
The materialistic view of human nature states that our bodies operate like a machine and processes such as thought and life are really nothing ore than physical and chemical process.

35. What should be true if materialism is correct?
The mind must be a material body

36. Thomas Hobbes’ materialism was influenced by what, according to Velasquez?
The science of his day influenced his philosophy

37. One type of materialist theory of the mind is “Identity Theory”. What is this view and what is its ultimate claim about our knowledge of mental states?
Claims that sates of consciousness are identical with states of the brain which is a physical or material organ.
When we have a mental experience such as a thought, it is just our brain working.

38. What problem does Velasquez associate with the identity theory of the mind?
The idea that there is a difference of mental staes and brain states.
Because the brain state and a conscious stae has no précis location no color and no shape.

39. Another materialist theory of the mind is the behaviorist view. What is distinctive about the behaviorist approach to human nature? the study of human behavior.
We should restrict ourselves to what is observable the outward physical behavior of human beings.

40. For a behaviorist, the mind is what?
The mind is nothing more than bodily behavior and disoposition to bodily behavior

41. What would be examples, according to Hilary Putnam, that shows behaviorism is wrong?
We can have an idea in the mind that wont necessarily be observable .
Superactor feeling pain and no pain.
42. The functionalist view of human nature holds what?
Does not try to reduce all mental activities to external behavior but which research in computer has inspired.
We should explain mental activities and mental states in terms of perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs.

43. Opponents of functionalism argue that functionalism leaves what phenomena out of consideration?
Inner consciousness that we are all aware of
44. The computer view of human nature holds what?
Humans are sophisticated computers.
We have inputs (sense observations) in return we have outputs (our behaviors)

45. What is the Turing Test and what was it devised to determine?
A hypothetical computer program that enables you to speak another language.
A computer program is not conscious.

46. John Searle is an opponent of the computer theory of human nature. What does he say differentiates a computer from a human mind?
There is something that humans have in their minds that a computer following a grogram does not have. Consciousness.

47. What is Searle’s position on human nature? Is he a dualist? What exactly does he believe?
He believes that science will someday succeed in explaining how th brain produces consciousness. Someday science will explain consciousness.
He is a materialistic view that believes humans are purely physical creature in whom physical, chemical and biological processes take place.

48. Velasquez includes a section on “The New Dualism”, which is also referred to as “property dualism”. What is “property dualism” and how does it differ from “substance dualism”?
There are 2 different kinds of properties in the universe rather than 2 different substances. The belief that consciousness is a nonmaterial property of the world.

49. David Chalmers is someone who espouses property dualism. How does he explain consciousness?
Argues by stating theat we can conceive of zombies who are physically like us and act like us but have no socsciousness. So mental properties such as consciousness are no physical properites. (property dualism)
Means that mental states are special kinds of feature that are different from physical features.

50. To what does “the problem of personal identity” refer?

51. What are the various views that purport a solution to the problem of personal identity?

52. What problems are there with the view that bodily continuity explains personal identity?

53. Who believed that the enduring self was the soul?
Decartes, this view was the traditional western view.

54. What problems are there with the view that something we refer to as “the soul” constitutes that to which we refer when we speak of “the enduring self”? how are we supposed to know that a persons mind continues to be the same over time?
It is not your soul or mind that makes you the same person that you were yesterday.

55. Who believed that memory is what constitutes that to which we refer when we speak of “the enduring self”?
John Locke

56. What problem or problems are there with the view that memory is what constitutes the enduring self? What was Thomas Reid’s view of this?
Sometimes people loose their memory does that make them a different person.
You cannot remember everything.
He finds a contradiction in lockes view. tom at 10 is no the same person as tom at age 30.

57. How would a Theravada Buddhist explain the self? Does the self, understood as “a permanently abiding individual entity” exist for a Theravada Buddhist?
Nothing in the universe not even the self remains the same from one moment to the next.
All things are composite and transient the key idea behind the wheel of life. The self, like everything else, is in a state of constant flux and disintegration. It too is nothing more than a fleeting momentary composite of constantly changing elements. Our form, matter our sensations our perceptions our psychic depositions and our conscious thoughts.
58. Which Western philosopher, as a result of his commitment to empiricism, also believed that the idea of a self as “a permanently abiding individual entity” was a fiction, and so illusory?
David Hume?

59. To what do we refer when we refer to “the atomistic view of the self”? Who believed that the self is fundamentally atomistic rather than relational?
This view states that the self is like an atom, self contained and independent of other atoms. The self is an autonomous individual with its own unique inner qualities.
Decartes

60. To what do we refer when we refer to “the relational view of the self”? Who believed that the self is fundamentally relational rather than atomistic?
States that we are who we are because of the human interactions and social encounters we face on a day dto day basis. You are constituted by your relations to others.
Charles Taylor, Hegel
61. What follows if we believe that the “real self” is something that is created from our relationships with others and with culture? * The ppl I love and care for , the ppl that are important to me, the ppl whose opinion I trust to go along with the ideas and beliefs of y culture all make me who I am. It is them we must turn to find ourselves