Term
| What is the tragic triad? |
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Definition
- pain
- guilt
- death
- in logotherapy, results from experiencing tragedy |
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Term
| What are the three ways to discover (will to) meaning for Frankl? |
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Definition
- by creating a work or doing a deed
- by experiencing something or encountering someone
- by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering |
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Term
| What is ‘tragic optimism?' |
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Definition
| - optimism in spite of the tragic triad |
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Term
| What is the ‘existential vacuum?' |
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Definition
| - feeling an absolute meaninglessness and emptiness in life |
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Term
| Use the story of Oedipus Rex to explain the theory of Freud’s will to pleasure. |
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Definition
- Oedipus murdered his father in order to marry his mother. He did not realize that his wife was his mother and blinded himself when he found out.
- Freud's will to pleasure states that during early stages of a person's psychosexual development, he/she is in love with their mother/father and is jealous of the other parent and even wishes murder upon them. These feelings are repressed later in life. |
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Term
| Explain the "Delusion of Reprieve" |
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Definition
- the idea that a prisoner has that he might be saved at the last moment before his condemnation
- Frankl talks about this in the beginning of Part I when the guards are playing the "finger game" during which they decide if prisoners will go to the right (work) or the left (gas chambers) |
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Term
| Explain what a is "Moslem" and their significance. |
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Definition
- a prisoner who has given up, lost their will to live, will kneel down on the ground like a Moslem praying
- these people do not wish for help from the other prisoners, they kneel until they are shot |
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Term
| What is the significance of Frankl's manuscript? |
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Definition
- his life's work
- the last piece of property that he owned taken by the guards
- he began rewriting in on bits of paper
- recreating it gave him something to live for and look forward to after liberation |
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Term
| What is Ivan’s Modus Ponens argument? |
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Definition
- If A, then B
- If there's a God who permits suffering of innocent children for a higher good/purpose/harmony, then I will not accept him. |
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Term
| What is Ivan’s Argument from Evil? |
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Definition
- evil as undeserved suffering
- God SHOULD be omniscience/potence/benevolent
- taking away one results in weak atheism
- *There is so much evil in the world that it cancels the traditional idea of God |
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Term
| Describe 2 incidents of child suffering from Ivan’s ‘scrapbook’ of horrible events. |
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Definition
- A little girl is beaten by her parents until she is one bruise. Then her parents put her outside in the cold and smear excrement on her face. The child does not fight back because she is still too young to fully understand what is happening to her so she just prays to a God who never answers.
- A general lives with many dogs and dog boys who care for them. A serf boy is playing with a stone and accidentally hurts the general's favorite dog. The general notices and finds out that the boy did it. He has him locked up for the day. Later that day he has the boy's mother bring him back up from the chamber, has him strip down, and sets his dogs on him, who tear him to shreds in front of his mother. |
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Term
| Summarize the parable of the “Grand Inquisitor.” What does the GI’s kiss represent? |
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Definition
- the GI is burning heretics during the Spanish Inquisition in Seville
- Jesus comes and performs miracles
- GI sees Him performing miracles and imprisons him, threatens to burn him and all who support him
- GI talks about how he'll rule over the people and make all their decisions for them, they will be thankful for not having the burden of free choice
- Jesus says nothing but kisses the GI before leaving
- Aliosha: the kiss represents God's love despite human evil
- Ivan: a sort of punishment for GI, he can't win against Jesus, a scandal to common sense |
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Term
| Explain the GI’s interpretation of the 3 temptations of Christ. |
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Definition
1)To Command Stones to Become Bread: GI asks Christ to change stones into bread in order to feed His people. By feeding them, He would solidify their loyalty, but, at the same time, revoke their freedom to choose to follow Him of their own accord and for no temporal reward.
2)To Throw Himself Down from the Temple: GI challenges Christ to cast himself down in order to allow the angels to carry Him up and keep Him from harm. Christ resists this temptation as well. In His rejection of the temptation, Christ prevents a faith based on miracle.
3)To Worship the Devil: GI offers Christ all the kingdoms of the world for Him to rule. Christ, of course, rejects the offer and thereby prevents a rule of faith by authority. |
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Term
| Explain Father Zossima’s story of his encounter with “the stranger.” How does this compare with the GI’s treatment of Christ? |
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Definition
- Father Zossima gives an account of how a mysterious stranger came to visit him, became friends with him, and ultimately confessed his deepest, darkest secret–that several years before he had murdered a woman whom he loved very much but who did not love him. He had never been suspected in this murder. Under the guidance of Father Zossima, this stranger finally gains the courage to confess his secret to those who are closest to him. Within a few days after his confession, he dies. All of the people in the stranger’s village blame Father Zossima, saying that following his advice caused him so much trouble that it pushed him to his death. But what they do not understand is that their friend had been troubled by the burden of his secret for several years, and at the time of his death he finally had a clear conscience.
- GI talked an talked, Jesus listened. Jesus did one thing in the end that changed the GI forever. |
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Term
| Explain three ideas from Zossima’s philosophy of human nature as he outlines them at the end of “The Russian Monk” chapter. |
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Definition
- Hell is the suffering of being unable to love
- People view hellfire as a material object which they have spiritual agony over
- Fearful people hand themselves over to Satan in their pride and curse God |
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Term
| What does King mean when he says “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”? |
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Definition
- whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly
- allowing injustice in one place is allowing injustice everywhere
- spreads by example |
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Term
| According to Dr. King, how should we be like Socrates? |
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Definition
- Socrates challenged people to create tension in their minds so that they could rise above myths and half truths.
- tension must be created in society to help people rise above racism and prejudice |
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Term
| Explain the four steps of a “nonviolent campaign” of direct action. |
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Definition
1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive
2) negotiation
3) self-purification
4) direct action |
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Term
| According to King there are two kinds of law. What are they and when is it okay to break the law? |
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Definition
- just: man made code that squares with the moral law or law of God
- unjust: code that is out of harmony with the moral law
- it is okay to break an unjust law when one is doing it openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty |
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Term
| How will “human progress” come about according to Dr. King? |
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Definition
| - when men decide to become coworkers with God to transform society |
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Term
| What kind of “extremist” was Jesus Christ? |
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Definition
- extremist for love
- love thy enemies |
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Term
| Who does Dr. King wish his fellow clergymen had “commended” and why? |
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Definition
| - the black demonstrators for their courage, discipline, and willingness to suffer for their cause |
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Term
| How does Augustine understand the concept of "grace" as it relates to human beings? |
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Definition
| Augustine defines grace as the freedom of God to act without any external necessity or restraint, to act beyond human understanding or control, and the freedom of God to act / intervene in creation, to shape the destinies of all creatures including humans. Grace as God’s redeeming love is freely given by God to humans who utterly depend on it for personal salvation. |
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Term
| How does Augustine understand the concept of "original sin" as it relates to human beings? |
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Definition
| Original sin is humanity’s collective disease, innate and inherited from Adam and Eve. This means that human nature is absolutely corrupt and thus powerless to improve itself or save itself from temptation and ruination. Even babies are blameworthy and guilty of immorality according to Augustine. Sin necessitates God’s intervening grace to reorient or convert humans from the city of man to the city of God. |
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Term
| Explain the significance of the "pear tree" episode for Augustine. |
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Definition
| He was committing crime for the sake of it. He realized the wrongness of his selfish ungodly desires. |
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Term
| How does Augustine define "evil"? |
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Definition
- it has no existence except as privation of good
- ontological desire |
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Term
| Explain the episode where Augustine "heard a voice." Why is this a turning point for him? |
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Definition
- it was a child coming from a nearby house telling him to pick up the Bible and read it.
- the first chapter he read told him to give all he had to the poor and devote himself to God
- the second passage was about taking pleasure in Jesus instead of bodily pleasures
- he was converted |
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Term
| What is the first premise of Aquinas' proof of God's existence? |
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Definition
| Some motion exists. Moving things are observed and experienced as actually existing in the world |
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Term
| What's a "PEC" and how does it generate a causal chain? |
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Definition
| A “PEC” is a prior efficient cause. “Prior” means coming before in chronological sequence, “efficient” means the most proximate or direct, and “cause” means that it brings about some effect. In this context, Aquinas argues that everything in motion is caused to move by a PEC other than itself already in motion. For example, a pen in motion is caused to move by a finger, which is the PEC for the pen. But since the finger is in motion is too must have a PEC, namely the arm. As the arm is in motion it must also have a PEC, the brain, which has a PEC, one’s progenitors, who themselves have progenitors, and so on backwards in time. This backwards causal linkage is called a causal chain. |
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Term
| Why is self-motion impossible? |
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Definition
- That which is not in motion, i.e., a thing at rest, has the potential (P) or capacity to be moved or set in motion.
- That which causes a resting thing to be set in motion must itself be actually (A or not-P) moving.
- D) Self-motion is impossible because that means a thing would have to be both in a state of (P) and (not-P or A) at the same time. For the pencil to move itself means that it would have to be both in a state of actually moving as cause AND in a state of rest (P) as that which is moved AT THE SAME TIME |
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Term
| Explain Aquinas' disjunctive syllogism as he deals with the causal chain. |
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Definition
| There must be a first mover or first cause that is not itself moved or caused. This is necessary in order to avoid an infinite regress of caused causes that would never ultimately or definitively explain the motion that certainly exists here before us. The entire series of caused causes is left unexplained without affirming something outside the series, a first cause, that can justify and account for the motion experienced all around us and within us. This first cause or unmoved mover would have to be of a different order of being or existence than the causes within the great chain of causes stretching through time and at play before us. |
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Term
| What kind of God has Aquinas proved? |
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Definition
| an uncaused cause that began all life and motion |
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Term
| Why does Descartes try to doubt whatever can be doubted? |
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Definition
| When we sleep, we see things that are false but believe them to be true because of their presence and realness in our minds. Descartes believes that we should doubt everything because we can never truly know what is real and what isn't because our mind perceives everything we see as real and doesn't consciously distinguish being awake from being asleep. |
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Term
| What are the stages of Descarte's method of doubt? |
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Definition
| - senses - dreams - imperfection |
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Term
| What is Descarte's great discovery of absolute certainty? |
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Definition
| Descartes’ great discovery of absolute certainty comes in Meditation II and consists of what he terms the “cogito” or “I think” / “I doubt.” In the very act of doubting everything that can be doubted he cannot doubt that he is the one doing the doubting. Since doubting is a form of conscious thought, the act proves that whatever he is must be mental or “cognitive” in nature. Thus, he can say without a doubt that he exists as a “thinking thing” despite the onslaught of an evil demon. |
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Term
| What is the Cogito? What are the three categories of thoughts that the Cogito has? |
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Definition
- "I think"
- existence
- imagination
- |
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Term
| How does Descartes prove that God exists in Meditation III? |
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Definition
what has more reality (more perfect) cannot come from something that has less reality (less perfect)
- God is omni (supreme)
- Omni created "I" |
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Term
| According to Descartes, what must we do to avoid all error and evil? |
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Definition
| withhold judgment on any occasion where the truth of the matter is not clear |
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Term
| List and describe the two main faculties of human nature? |
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Definition
- suspending judgment when you lack knowledge
- capacity to judge is limitless
- capacity to know one's self is very limited |
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Term
| Explain Descartes' Argument from Doubt that attempts to prove that mind and body are two separate and distinct entities. |
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Definition
- cogito is the starting point, so we cannot doubt that the mind exists
- we can doubt our senses, therefore allowing us to doubt our body's existence |
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Term
| Explain Descartes' Argument from Divisibility that attempts to prove that mind and body are two separate and distinct entities. |
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Definition
| Descartes’ argument from Divisibility consists of two premises and a conclusion. The first premise states that the mind is an indivisible thing. In other words, the mind is ultimately unified and one, hence the “I” think (cogito) and not “we” think (cogitamus). The second premise states that all material objects are spatially extended and anything spatially extended is divisible. Thus, the body (in so far as it’s a materially extended thing) is divisible. Therefore, the mind and body are two distinct and different things as one is indivisible and the other indivisible. |
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Term
| What does Gandhi's concept of 'satyagraha' mean? How should a follower of satyagraha act? |
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Definition
| - holding firmly to the truth, soul force - the follower of ahisma (nonviolence) has to have a glimpse of themselves that transcends the body - never run from danger, alone or with company |
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Term
| List and explain King's 3 hows and 3 whys of loving one's enemies. |
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Definition
- Hows:
- analyzing self, might find a reason for anger
- discover the element of good in the person
- don't defeat your enemy when the opportunity presents itself
- Whys:
- hate for hate only intensifies hate's existence in the world
- hate distorts the personality of the hater
- love has within it a redemptive power (salvation) |
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