Study Questions for Chapter 2
Special Edition Introduction to Philosophy (Spring 2008)

based on M. Velasquez, Philosophy: A Text with Readings

Last revised: January 10, 2008

It's not part of my plan to discuss in class the questions in the small font. But you may raise them if you wish.

2.1 Why Study Human Nature?

1. Why, according to the author, is a person's answer to the question regarding human nature a highly significant one? (74; actually, the whole section addresses this issue)

2. What view of human nature is contained in the Freud excerpt on pp. 44-45?

3. What is psychological egoism? (See pp. 45-46). How do ideas about human nature influence ideas about how society should be organized, say, along capitalist or social democratic ("socialist") lines? (46-47)

2.2 What Is Human Nature?

4. What four basic propositions (statements) sum up what the author calls "the traditional [rationalist] view" (TRV) of human nature? (49)

Section 2.2 is devoted to versions of the TRV that stress the first proposition.

5. What three elements or parts does Plato ("Socrates" is his mouthpiece here) claim to find in the human soul (or "inner self")? (50) Please use the technical term beginning with "s" for the middle element.

6. Can these parts conflict? What evidence is there that they do or do not conflict? (50)

7. What is the ideal relationship between these parts? (51)

8. What, according to Plato, must the rational part of the soul apprehend if the soul is to become wise? (51-52)

9. In what ways did Aristotle agree with Plato about the importance of reason? In what way did Aristotle disagree with Plato regarding knowledge of human nature? How do they agree regarding the purpose of human nature? (52)

10. How does Plato's Socrates use the theory of the Forms or Ideals to explain the nature of the human soul? (52-53)

For more on Plato's thought, see pp. 111-117.

11. How does Thomas Aquinas' Christian view modify the "traditional rationalist view" of Aristotle? (88)

12. What do we learn from the passage from Plato's Phaedo on pp. 67-68 about the Platonic "rationalist's" view of the body and the soul? (Note the political metaphor introduced into the discussion.)

Section 2.2 B below contains questions related to the Darwinist challenge to the aspect of the TRV described in section 2.2.

2.3 How Do Mind and Body Relate?

13. In what way is it obvious we have bodies? (72)

14. In what way is it obvious we have minds? (72-73)

15. What sort of awareness is consciousness, according to Velasquez? What does it mean to say that it is "subjective"? (73)

16. Why does it seem not to be physical? What view of human nature seems obvious to most of us according to Velasquez? (73)

17. How does Descartes "prove" the existence of a mind distinct from body? (73-74)

18. What is the essence of mind for Descartes? (74)

19. What is the essence of body, according to Descartes? (74) Is Descartes a dualist? Explain. (74)

20. What problem arises for the dualist view of Descartes? (74)

21. How does he try to resolve this problem? (74) Why was his solution ridiculed? (75)

22. How does Descartes' disciple Nicholas Malebranche try to resolve the problem? (76)

Section 2.3 B below contains questions related to the materialist challenge to dualism.

2.4 Is There An Enduring Self?

23. What assumption about our selves do we typically make? Why is this important for friendship and for ethical practices such as promise-keeping? (87)

24. What other things would be impossible if we were not the same persons from one moment to the next? (88)

25. What questions about personal identity do some accidents and Alzheimer's disease raise? (88)

26. Is there any plausibility in Lisa's claim that she and John are not the same as the two persons who married 20 years ago? Explain. (88-89)

27. What is the point of the comparison of the human body to a ship that is rebuilt plank by plank while it is sailing on the ocean? (90)

28. Consider the idea that bodily continuity proves personal identity over time. Is this idea plausible in all cases? Explain. (90)

29. If bodily continuity is needed for personal identity, what does this imply for personal immortality? (122)

30. Consider the fictional story about Manny and Maryann. What does this "thought experiment" show us about the equation of personal identity with bodily continuity? (90-91)

31. What is the chief answer of the traditional Western view regarding the problem of the enduring self? (91)

32. What is John Locke's solution to the problem of personal identity? (92-93)

33. What are the examples (together with their plausible interpretations) that seem to support this solution? (93)

34, What problems does it seem to leave unresolved? (See "There are other problems" beginning at the bottom of p. 93.)

Section 2.4 B below contains questions related to Buddhist and Humean challenge to TRV positions on the enduring self.

2.5 Are We Independent and Self-sufficient Individuals?

35. What view do Walt Whitman and René Descartes seem to share? (98-100) In what way is Immanuel Kant a radical individualist? (100-101)

Challenges to Aspects of the Traditional View

2.2 B Darwinism and the Essentialism of the Traditional View

35. Explain Darwin's notions of "variations" and "struggle for existence." How do these help explain the emergence of new living types. (58-59)

36. What was "a disturbing new thought" to many people of Darwin's time? (59-60) What was especially "disturbing" about the extension of this thought to human beings? (60)

37. What clash does there seem to be between Darwin's view and the "traditional rationalist view" of human nature? How does Darwin's view seem to conflict with the Judaeo-Christian view? (60-61)

38. How does Stephen J. Gould modify traditional Darwinian theory? Why? (61)

39. What is George Mavrodes' "theistic" understanding of evolution? (62)

40. How does Gould respond to the idea that the evolutionary process has been working for vast periods of time in order to produce human beings? (62) Notice how Gould's view is verbally more radical than Darwin's--after all, Darwin allows himself to use words like "improvement" and "progress" (59) which suggest that evolutionary change has a long-term direction.

41. What argument did Descartes give (two centuries before Darwin) for the uniqueness of human beings? How do Darwinists respond to arguments of this type? (64)

2.3 B Materialist Challenges to TRV Dualism

42. What is Hobbes' position on the mind-body problem? (76-77)

43. What is materialism? (76) What is "reductionism"? (77) Is reductionism widespread today, over 300 years after Descartes? (77)

44. What does the identity theory maintain? What claim do identity theorists make about the future of scientific discovery? (78-79)

45. What two objections does Norman Malcolm raise about identity theory? (79-80)

46. Recently, scientists discovered that when people are feeling especially loving (e.g., mothers nursing infants) their brains are excreting unusually high amounts of a certain hormone. How is this relevant to the position of identity theory?

47. What is the key idea of behaviorism as a materialist position on the mind-body problem? (80) What is the mind, according to the behaviorist? (80)

48. How does Hilary Putnam criticize behaviorism? (80) Explain the joke at the top of p. 81.

49. According to functionalism, how should humans be understood? What is a belief according to functionalism? Of what "inputs" and "outputs" are functionalists speaking? For what are [words for?] mental states and activities shorthand terms? (81)

50. How is functionalism an advance over earlier forms of behaviorism? (81-82) What does functionalism leave out? (82)

51. What does eliminative materialism maintain? What do materialists of this type mean by "folk psychology"? (85)

2.4 B Challenges to the TRV Notion of the Enduring Self

51. How is the Theravada Buddhist view of the self radically different from the Western notion of the enduring self? What is the source of all pain and suffering on this view? What is the "self" according to this view? (94-96)

52. According to David Hume, do we really have any idea of the self? Explain. (96)

53. How is Hume's view like the Theravada Buddhist's? (96) In what way does Hume's view of the idea of the self differ from that of the Buddhist? (97)

Note that Hume treats the problem of the self as chiefly an epistemological problem, while for Buddhism it is especially an ethical problem.

2.5 B Challenges to the Individualism of the TRV

54. How does Charles Taylor criticize traditional individualism? (101)

55. What did Aristotle declare about humans in the passage cited on p. 101? What is the key idea in Hegel's discussion of the self and identity? (102-104)

56. According to Taylor, can we be free individuals just by making up our minds to be so, regardless of society and culture? Explain. (104-106)

57. What somewhat odd conclusion does William James draw? What leads him to it? (106)

Feminist and Other Criticisms of the TRV

58. In what morally questionable way has the "traditional rationalist view" been used? (53)

59. How does Aristotle give the traditional rationalist view a "sexist bias"? How does this issue show up in the Christian philosophy of Augustine? (69-70)

60. How, according to feminist critics of traditional (rationalist and Judaeo-Christian) views, do these traditionally influential philosophies rationalize the subjugation of women? (70)

61. Some "feminine" thinkers, rather than arguing that women are just as good as men in the traditional highly valued "male" qualities and activities, have argued that we should place more or equal value on so-called "female" qualities and activities. What advantages and disadvantages does this approach have? (See discussion by Lloyd and Velasquez's comments on 71.)