【NUPT-NYIT】Philosophy_review_for_final_exam_spring_2012【Answers】.docVIP

Exam 2 / Final Exam Review Sheet Terms: Plenum: The most obvious example of this is Descartes’ vortex theory, which attempts to explain the motion of the earth around the sun in terms of a whirlpool-like mechanism that locks the earth in its orbit as a result of the universal presence of tiny, invisible particles throughout all space—the plenum. Newton’s view, by contrast, is that forces are an inexplicable ontological part of nature that are capable of being precisely characterized mathematically. That is to say, Newton merely accepted that their existence is a fact about nature and that the role of the scientist is simply to describe them quantitatively. Ontology: Empiricism: Empiricism = def. The general philosophical view that experience has primacy in human knowledge and justified belief (--sometimes thought of as the basis from which all claims of knowledge are to be derived). Rationalism: Descartes Eliminativism: Eliminativism about a concept F is the view that the meaning of F is irrelevant to any correct explanation of a given physical phenomenon and hence ought to be eliminated from scientific discourse. An example of this is the concept of demonic possession, which was once thought necessary to explain symptoms associated with the physical illness of epilepsy. With the development of brain science, scientists gradually eliminated any talk of demons and demonic possession and replaced the concept of demonic possession with the concept of epileptic seizure. Other examples in the history of science are the eliminations of the concepts of caloric and phlogiston. For more information about these, you can read about them online. Reductionism: reductionism about a concept F is (roughly) the view that the meaning of F is best explained only in terms of some other concept G that is about (only) physical events occurring in accordance with physical laws. An example of reductionism in contemporary science is the current view of heat, which is explained in terms of