Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
gender outlooks between: (a) human culture within the Matrix, (b) human culture within Zion, (c) machine culture within the Matrix. What accounts for these differences?
What are the main differences between the "Ideal of Blindness" and the "Ideal of Difference?"
On Baker's analysis, what do personal pronouns suggest about the significance of gender?
What effects does the current construction of female beauty have on womens attitudes toward their bodies? How does this translate into their actions?
According to Susan Bordo what is the ideal of feminine appearance taken to its extreme conclusion?
What is "repressive satisfaction?" What are the consequences for women who do not live up to society's gender norms?
FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM Chapter 5: The Problem of Choice How did researchers at SUNY Medical Center control the will of a Rat?
What is determinism?
What is the difference between hard determinism, soft determinism, and libertarianism?
What does each maintain about determinism, free will, and moral responsibility?
Which characters from the Matrix best illustrate each of the views above?
Explain the hypothetical example entitled "Red or Blue." How does this illustrate the compatibilist view of freedom?
Chapter 6: How to Really Bake Your Noodle: Time, Fate, and the Problem of Foreknowledge Name three parallels between the Oracle of Delphi and the Oracle of the Matrix. What pronouncement of the Oracle helped to shape the direction of Socrates life? Do you agree with the argument on pg. 72 that concludes that it is impossible for Neo to refuse the candy at 2:13 pm?
What is fatalism (i.e., partial fatalism)? How does it differ from determinism? Explain the difference between tensed and tenseless theories of time.
How does Einstein encourage us to think of time in a way that is akin to how we regard space?
If the tenseless theory of time is true, how should we answer the Oracles question: If I hadnt said anything about the vase, would you still have broken it? Explain Nietzsches doctrine of eternal recurrence. What is the psychological point behind it? Lectures on Free Will and Determinism What is the difference between compatibilism and incompatibilism?
What is fatalism?
What makes (or would make) the story of Oedipus Rex an example of fatalism rather than determinism?
What was the point of the "Sphex (African Digger Wasp) example?
How is the existentialist view of freedom more radical than mainstream libertarianism? Clarence Darrow: The Crime of Compulsion What crime did Leopold and Loeb commit?
Why did Darrow think that Leopold and Loeb were not responsible for their crime?
What causal factors does Darrow point to in order to explain the crime?
Does Darrow believe that any child raised in that environment would inevitably become a criminal? Why/why not?
Chapter 12: Facing the Absurd: Existentialism for Humans and Programs What does Sartre think about the thesis of determinism?
What is "facticity?"
In what ways is your life restricted by facticity? In what ways does Sartre think that you are free?
What was the point behind his "paper cutter" example? How is it related to his atheism?
Is Smith free?
How do "Zion's War" "Persephone's Kiss" and "Trinity's Love" illustrate authenticity?
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologica What are the general themes of each of Aquinas' five arguments for God?
The "Second Way" (1st cause argument) is also called the "cosmological" argument. Why?
Why does Aquinas say that it is not possible to proceed to infinity in efficient causes?
If the universe is indeed flat, which big bang theory seems more plausible?
What three attributes of God create the "problem" with respect to evil?
Why are things like disease, tornadoes, etc. considered in the problem of evil, when these things aren't really "evil" in the literal sense?
What are the basic ideas involved in each of the "solutions" to the problem of evil that we looked at?
Why did Leibniz say that this is the "best of all possible worlds?"
Why did Russell say that this is the "worst of all possible worlds?
Why do you suppose that Rowe uses the example of a fawn rather than a human being?