Western Metaphysics and Epistemology: From the Pre-Socratics to the Gettier Problem

Practice questions (15)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

1. Which Pre-Socratic philosopher held that reality is one, uncreated, indivisible and changeless, so that the world of change is mere opinion?

   1. Parmenides, who argued that Being is and non-being is not
   2. Heraclitus, for whom everything flows and permanence is an illusion
   3. Democritus, who reduced all things to atoms moving in the void
   4. Anaximenes, who derived all things from air by condensation
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   Answer: A — Parmenides, who argued that Being is and non-being is not

   Parmenides of Elea is the philosopher of unchanging Being: change and plurality belong to the way of opinion, not truth. Heraclitus holds the opposite (flux and becoming), which is the tempting swap. Democritus and Anaximenes offer material principles that fully allow change.

2. In Aristotle's metaphysics, a concrete substance is best described as which of the following?

   1. A pure Form existing apart from the sensible world and imitated by particulars
   2. A bundle of fleeting perceptions with no underlying unity
   3. A synthesis of matter (hyle) and form (morphe) in a single individual
   4. A mode of the one divine substance expressed under an attribute
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   Answer: C — A synthesis of matter (hyle) and form (morphe) in a single individual

   Aristotle's hylomorphism makes every concrete substance a compound of matter and form. The separate Form belongs to Plato, whom Aristotle criticises; the bundle view is Hume's; the mode-of-one-substance view is Spinoza's.

3. On St Augustine's standard account, the metaphysical status of evil is best captured by which claim?

   1. Evil is a positive substance in its own right, created as the counterpart and opposite of good
   2. Evil is an illusion produced by the senses, which disappears once the mind attains true knowledge
   3. Evil is a necessary attribute of eternal matter, which God neither created nor was able to remove
   4. Evil is a privation of good, a lack or corruption in a good thing, arising from misused free will
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   Answer: D — Evil is a privation of good, a lack or corruption in a good thing, arising from misused free will

   Augustine's privatio boni makes evil a lack of due good rather than a thing in its own right, so God creates only good and moral evil flows from the misuse of the (good) gift of free will. Treating evil as a created positive substance or a mere sensory illusion both contradict his view.

4. A philosopher argues for God purely from the concept of "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", holding that such a being must exist in reality and not merely in the understanding. This is which argument?

   1. Anselm's ontological argument, which is a priori
   2. Aquinas's argument from motion, which is a posteriori
   3. Aquinas's argument from the governance of the world
   4. Augustine's argument from the privation of good
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   Answer: A — Anselm's ontological argument, which is a priori

   Reasoning from the concept of God alone, independently of observation, is Anselm's a priori ontological argument. Aquinas's Five Ways, including motion and governance, all argue a posteriori from features of the world, and Augustine's privation claim concerns evil, not a proof of God from a concept.

5. Two thinkers both deny real causal interaction between mind and body, but one says there is a single substance whose attributes of thought and extension run in step, while the other says many windowless simple substances were synchronised in advance by God. These two views belong, respectively, to whom?

   1. Leibniz (one substance, parallelism) and Spinoza (monads, pre-established harmony)
   2. Spinoza (one substance, parallelism) and Leibniz (monads, pre-established harmony)
   3. Descartes (interaction) and Malebranche (occasionalism)
   4. Malebranche (one substance) and Descartes (monads)
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   Answer: B — Spinoza (one substance, parallelism) and Leibniz (monads, pre-established harmony)

   The single substance with parallel attributes of thought and extension is Spinoza's; the plurality of windowless monads coordinated in advance is Leibniz's pre-established harmony. Descartes affirms interaction (not denial), and Malebranche's occasionalism has God act afresh on each occasion rather than synchronise monads beforehand.

6. In Kant's theoretical philosophy, what exactly does the transcendental deduction of the categories set out to establish?

   1. That things-in-themselves (noumena), lying wholly beyond experience, can nonetheless be known directly once the categories are applied to them
   2. That space and time are properties of things independent of the mind
   3. That the pure concepts of the understanding necessarily apply to all objects of possible experience
   4. That all knowledge is recollection of Forms seen before birth
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   Answer: C — That the pure concepts of the understanding necessarily apply to all objects of possible experience

   The transcendental deduction justifies the objective validity of the categories: they must apply to every object of possible experience because they are conditions of a unified consciousness. Kant explicitly denies that noumena are knowable, treats space and time as forms of our sensibility rather than mind-independent properties, and the recollection doctrine is Plato's.

7. In Plato's epistemology, the cognitive state directed at the changing world of the senses, as opposed to knowledge of the Forms, is called what?

   1. Episteme, the secure knowledge of unchanging reality
   2. Sophia, the highest philosophical wisdom
   3. Doxa, mere opinion about the sensible world
   4. Phronesis, the practical wisdom that guides action
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   Answer: C — Doxa, mere opinion about the sensible world

   Doxa is opinion, directed at the shifting sensible world; episteme and sophia are reserved for the Forms. Phronesis is Aristotle's term for practical wisdom and does not name Plato's lower cognitive state.

8. Descartes' first indubitable truth, reached at the end of his method of doubt, rests on which consideration?

   1. That the senses, though sometimes mistaken, are reliable about ordinary objects
   2. That even the act of doubting is itself a case of thinking, so the doubter must exist
   3. That a perfectly good and non-deceiving God would never allow any of our clear and distinct ideas to turn out to be false
   4. That mathematical truths cannot be doubted under any hypothesis
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   Answer: B — That even the act of doubting is itself a case of thinking, so the doubter must exist

   The cogito works because doubting is a mode of thinking, so one cannot doubt that one is thinking, and therefore that one exists. The appeal to a non-deceiving God and the restoration of clear and distinct ideas come later and depend on the cogito, and Descartes in fact doubts even mathematics under the evil-demon hypothesis before reaching it.

9. Berkeley's thesis esse est percipi ("to be is to be perceived") is most directly supported by which further Berkeleian claim?

   1. That we possess clear innate ideas of an independent material substance entirely prior to any sense experience
   2. That space and time are a priori forms imposed by the mind
   3. That every event is joined to its cause by an observable necessary connection
   4. That we cannot form genuinely abstract ideas, including the idea of unperceived matter
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   Answer: D — That we cannot form genuinely abstract ideas, including the idea of unperceived matter

   Berkeley argues that since we cannot abstract the idea of matter existing unperceived, the notion of mind-independent material substance is empty, which supports esse est percipi. Innate ideas of matter are exactly what empiricists deny, the observable necessary connection is what Hume denies, and a priori forms of space and time are Kant's.

10. Kant describes his central move as a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. What is the core of this move?

    1. Objects must conform to the a priori forms the mind brings to experience, which is how synthetic a priori knowledge becomes possible
    2. Knowledge must conform to objects as they are in themselves, which we grasp through pure reason
    3. All ideas are faint copies of prior impressions, so metaphysics is impossible
    4. That the whole of reality is nothing but the dialectical self-development of absolute Spirit as it progressively unfolds throughout the course of human history
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    Answer: A — Objects must conform to the a priori forms the mind brings to experience, which is how synthetic a priori knowledge becomes possible

    The Copernican revolution reverses the direction of fit: objects conform to the mind's forms of intuition and categories, which is precisely what allows synthetic a priori judgments. The option on which knowledge conforms to things-in-themselves states the pre-Kantian view he overturns; the impressions-and-ideas claim is Hume's; the dialectic of Spirit is Hegel's.

11. A person believes "the successful candidate has ten coins in their pocket". They infer it from strong evidence that Jones will get the job and that Jones has ten coins; in fact the believer themselves gets the job and happens, unknown to them, to have ten coins. The belief is true and justified yet intuitively not knowledge. This kind of case shows what?

    1. That justified true belief is, after all, entirely sufficient for genuine knowledge in every ordinary and in every unusual case
    2. That knowledge requires only truth, with justification being dispensable
    3. That no empirical belief can ever be justified, as the sceptic holds
    4. That justified true belief can fall short of knowledge when its truth depends on luck, as Gettier argued
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    Answer: D — That justified true belief can fall short of knowledge when its truth depends on luck, as Gettier argued

    This is a Gettier case: the belief is true and justified, but true only by luck because it was inferred through a false intermediate claim about Jones, so justified true belief is shown to be insufficient for knowledge. The case does not vindicate JTB, does not drop justification, and does not establish global scepticism.

12. Hume analyses our idea of causation. On his view, what do we actually observe when we say one event causes another?

    1. A necessary connection binding cause to effect, which reason can demonstrate independently of experience
    2. Only the constant conjunction of the two kinds of event, with necessity supplied by the mind's habit
    3. An innate rational principle, known without experience, guaranteeing that every event has a cause
    4. A real power in the objects themselves, directly perceived by the senses whenever one event follows another
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    Answer: B — Only the constant conjunction of the two kinds of event, with necessity supplied by the mind's habit

    Hume finds no impression of a necessary connection; we observe only that events of one type are regularly followed by events of another (constant conjunction), and the mind, by habit, adds the feeling of necessity. The other options assert exactly the rationally demonstrable or directly perceived necessity that Hume denies.

13. Which of the following correctly pair a Pre-Socratic thinker with the first principle (archē) attributed to them?

    1. Thales — water
    2. Anaximenes — air
    3. Heraclitus — the boundless (apeiron)
    4. Pythagoras — number
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    Answer: A — Thales — water; B — Anaximenes — air; D — Pythagoras — number

    Thales named water, Anaximenes air and Pythagoras number as the fundamental principle. The apeiron (the boundless) is Anaximander's, not Heraclitus's, whose principle is fire and the Logos of flux, so that pairing is the false one.

14. Which of the following are genuinely empiricist theses held by Locke, Berkeley or Hume?

    1. The mind has no innate ideas; all its materials come from experience (Locke)
    2. There are no genuinely abstract general ideas separable from particulars (Berkeley)
    3. Every simple idea is ultimately derived from a corresponding impression (Hume)
    4. Synthetic a priori judgments are the foundation of all natural science
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    Answer: A — The mind has no innate ideas; all its materials come from experience (Locke); B — There are no genuinely abstract general ideas separable from particulars (Berkeley); C — Every simple idea is ultimately derived from a corresponding impression (Hume)

    The rejection of innate ideas (Locke), the denial of abstract ideas (Berkeley) and the impression-to-idea principle (Hume) are all core empiricist claims. The thesis that synthetic a priori judgments found natural science is Kant's, who introduces it precisely against this empiricist tradition.

15. Which of the following statements about Plato and Aristotle on Being are correct?

    1. For Plato, the truly real is the eternal Form (Idea), which the sensible particular only imitates
    2. Aristotle locates Being primarily in substance as a compound of matter and form, rejecting a separate realm of Forms
    3. Aristotle explains a thing through four causes: material, formal, efficient and final
    4. Plato holds that the individual sensible thing is the primary substance and the Form is merely a name
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    Answer: A — For Plato, the truly real is the eternal Form (Idea), which the sensible particular only imitates; B — Aristotle locates Being primarily in substance as a compound of matter and form, rejecting a separate realm of Forms; C — Aristotle explains a thing through four causes: material, formal, efficient and final

    Plato makes the Form the truly real; Aristotle makes substance (matter plus form) primary and uses the four causes. The option making the individual sensible thing the primary substance inverts Plato into a nominalist who privileges the particular, which is closer to a critic of Plato than to Plato himself.