Test Your Knowledge

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Storm
How well do you know your philosophy? If you answer correctly, you get to ask the next question. Questions can encompass a wide range of subjects:
Quotes
To whom is the following quote attributed: "The unexamined life is not worth living"?
Philosophies
Who developed the concept of the "Categorical imperative"?
Excerpts
What can you tell me about the following excerpt: "And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. Behold! Human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets."?
Terms
Explain "Seinsvergessenheit".
Etc.An easy classic to start with. Who spoke the following words: "Cogito, ergo sum"?

Fire
Descartes.

Fire
Who said: "The king is the authority and parliament is the most high and absolute power of the realm"

Sorry for the double post feel free to edit

Storm
Sir Thomas Smith.

Explain Plato' s doctrine of "anamnesis".

Mindship
Originally posted by Storm
Explain Plato' s doctrine of "anamnesis".

Without giving too much away (well, maybe it is too much), I'd like to convey a related story a rabbi told me when I was a kid:

While in the womb, you know everything you need to know. Then, just before you're born, an angel comes down and touches you under your nose, erasing all this knowledge.

The "Cupid's Bow" is the mark left by the angel's touch.

(Had I the presence of mind at the time, I would've asked, "Damn! Why would God do that?!?"wink

Next Test Question (for those who wish to move on):
"What is a category error?"

Eclipso
Category Error is a semantic or ontological error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.


Next Question: Explain Thomas Hobbes' thoery of human nature as self-interested co-operation.

Eclipso
Next Question: Explain Thomas Hobbes' theory of human nature as self-interested co-operation.

Eclipso
Originally posted by Eclipso
Next Question: Explain Thomas Hobbes' theory of human nature as self-interested co-operation.

Why hasn't someone gotten this yet?

Symmetric Chaos
I'll guess that it involves how people tend to only act on the behalf of others when they themselves have something to gain from such an action (but that really just defines the name).

Strangelove
Originally posted by Eclipso
Next Question: Explain Thomas Hobbes' theory of human nature as self-interested co-operation. I'm not exactly sure what the question means, but Hobbes believed that human nature was inherently corrupt and that in a state of nature, we would all be creatures of impulse without any redeeming qualities.

Next Question: Which Christian theologian and philosopher wrote of "The Wager?"

Seraphim XIII
Pascal's Wager?

dirkdirden
If memorizing quotes, excerpts, and terms are the way you define knowledge then I am unknowledgeable.

Shakyamunison
Originally posted by Mindship
...While in the womb, you know everything you need to know. Then, just before you're born, an angel comes down and touches you under your nose, erasing all this knowledge.

I've been told if you can get back to that place, you can regain that knowledge. Or at least that is what I tell my wife. laughing

m. sade
Originally posted by Strangelove
I'm not exactly sure what the question means, but Hobbes believed that human nature was inherently corrupt and that in a state of nature, we would all be creatures of impulse without any redeeming qualities.


Did Hobbes believe that we weren't in a state of nature, and therefore had redeeming qualities?

Strangelove
Originally posted by m. sade
Did Hobbes believe that we weren't in a state of nature, and therefore had redeeming qualities? No. He had a very dim view of human nature

Eclipso
He believed that humans were only capable of working together when it served there indivdual needs.

Bardock42
Originally posted by Strangelove
No. He had a very dim view of human nature

Not that far off as far as I can see.

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