Senior Philosophy : EXAM 2 Study Guide - Essay Example

The two realities should be understood differently since they belong to two different categories. Quiz 2. Answer. According to John Searle, there are four features of mental phenomenal that makes it very hard to fit into the ‘’ scientific’’ conception of the world. The features are: Consciousness, the intentionality, the subjectivity of mental states, and mental causation (Barbet, A.H, online). Consciousness refers to the fact that we are always mentally conscious of ourselves. Intentionality refers to the fact that our consciousness is always directed towards something.

Subjectivity of our mental states means that we are the only ones who are aware and conscious o what is happening in our minds. Mental causation refers to the fact that our minds are able to bring forth ideas, but the mode of mental causation is different from the mode of causation by physical realities. Quiz 3. St. Thomas Aquinas’ Five ways of proving God’s existence are as follows (The Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, online). The first Argument is the argument from causality. In this argument, St.

Thomas argues that everything that has a cause must be caused, but the chain of causality cannot go to infinity, hence, God is the cause of everything. The second argument is the argument from motion where St. Thomas argues that everything that moves must have been put into motion by something else, but the chain of things putting others into motion cannot go on to infinity. Hence, God is the immovable mover. The third argument is the argument from necessity, where St. Thomas argues that since all material things are contingent, there must be a necessary being that is the reason for their existence.

The forth argument is the argument from different degrees of perfection. In this argument, Thomas argues that since we experience things with varying degrees of perfection in the physical world, there must be a standard perfection that possesses perfection in totality. And this is God. The fifth argument is the argument from order, where St. Thomas argues that things in the universe are arranged in an orderly manner, and he concludes that there must have been a rational being that arranged these things in an orderly manner.

He concludes that this being is God. 4. Mackie argues that, as an omnipotent God, God could have made human beings in such a way that the human beings always choose the good, but why did God not do that? In analysing this question, Mackie says that God’s intention in creating human beings was to create free beings who were able to freely decide either to follow him or not ?(The Problem of Evil and Theodicies, online). As such, although God could, actually, have created beings able to choose good only, he decided to create human beings with free will.

I find Mackie’s position on this issue tenable, although it does not conclusively answer the question of why God allows human beings to sin, and yet He has the power of preventing them from sinning. Quiz 5. William Paley thinks that the watch is significantly different from the stone because the watch has so many intricate parts that work in a perfect fashion to keep time (Paley’s Teleological Argument, online). A look at the intricate parts of the watch and how it functions shows that the watch must have been