PHIL 300 Week 7 Quiz

PHIL 300 Week 7 Quiz  | Los Rios Community College District Office

Quiz #3 (Descartes)

Question 1

What conclusion does Descartes draw from the fact that he might be dreaming?  

·         that he might also be insane since he can't tell dreams from reality 

·         that God is a deceiver for making him think he was awake when he was really asleep and dreaming  

·         that subjects like physics, astronomy, and medicine which study composite things are certain and indubitable  

·         that subjects like arithmetic and geometry which study the simplest and most general things contain something certain and indubitable

Question 2

What project does Descartes begin to undertake in the Meditations?  

·         the careful observation of his surroundings  

·         the reconstruction of his life based on his memories  

·         the establishment of a scientific method based on experimentation  

·         the general demolition of his opinions

Question 3

In the First Meditation, Descartes observes: "Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from or through ____________."  

·         the senses  

·         pure thought  

·         my religion  

·         my intuition

Question 4

What conclusion does Descartes draw from the supposition that there is an omnipotent God?  

·         that the Bible contains the truth about the world

·         that God isn't powerful enough to be deceiving him about all his beliefs

·         that God could be deceiving him about all his beliefs 

·         that God doesn't really exist

Question 5

Before he introduces the malicious demon hypothesis, Descartes' dream argument has shown that:  

·         the mind is a thinking thing  

·         I can doubt all of the information of my senses  

·         I think, therefore I am  

·         I can doubt mathematical truths and extension

Question 6

With what faculty is the essence of the wax perceived?  

·         judgment  

·         imagination  

·         sense perception  

·         willing

Question 7

What is the nature of the "I"?  

·         a thing that thinks  

·         a thing that breathes  

·         a fictional entity  

·         a thing that moves

Question 8

Descartes uses the wax argument to prove that:  

·         identity may change over time  

·         we know mental things with greater clarity and distinctness than material things  

·         objects are vague

·         we know bodily things with greater clarity and distinctness than mental things

Question 9

Descartes describes an experiment with wax, in which the wax changes in a variety of ways when it gets heated.  According to Descartes, does the same wax remain after this change?  

·         Yes, but we could not know that the same wax remains 

·         Yes  

·         No  

·         No, but we have reason to believe that the same wax remains

Question 10

Why does Descartes exclude the body from the "I" that exists?  

·         Because Descartes has proven that material things, like bodies, are not real  

·         Because the "I" turns out to be all of reality 

·         Because Descartes has proven that he is essentially his immaterial soul  

·         Because while he cannot doubt that he is something, he can doubt that he has a body