Exam II Review Sheet

Format: The exam will consist of two parts: short answer and long answer. There will be 6-8 short answer questions of which you pick 4-5. Answers should be anywhere from one to five sentences. There will be 3 long answer questions, of which you pick 2. Answers should be about 2 blue-book pages, front and back. The exam is scheduled for Thursday, April 22 at our regular class time, our regular class place. There will be a brief review in class on Tuesday, April 20, and on the discussion forum, if you choose to use it.

Some Terms

Deductive Arguments
Valid/Invalid
Sound
Inductive Arguments
Strong/Weak
Cogent
Possible Worlds
A Priori
A Posteriori
Omnipotence, Omniscience, Omnibenevolence
Paradox of Omnipotence
The Paradox of Omniscence (with Free Will)
Fallacy of Composition
The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)
Brute Facts
Argument by Analogy
Anselm's Definition of God
Reductio Ad Absurdum
Existence in the Mind
Existence in Reality
Quantitative vs. Qualitative Identity
Moral vs. Natural Evil
The Free Will Thesis
Causal Determinism
Incompatibilism
Hard Determinism
Libertarianism
Compatibilism


Principles, Arguments, and Objections

The Cosmological Argument--Aquinas' Second Way or The Argument from Causation
Aquinas' argument for premise 3 (of The Second Way)
The Problem with Aquinas' argument for premise 3 (of The Second Way)
"Infinity is weird" objection
"Infinity if Weird? BFD!" response
"God, No God, Magic Worlds" Argument Against PSR
The Teleological Argument
The Fallacy of Composition (and which argument(s) it applies to)
Hume's Objections to the Teleological Argument
The Ontological Argument
Guanilo's Perfect Island Objection
Kant's Objection: Existence is not a Predicate
Inconceivability Objection (against GCB)
Pascal's Wager
'Beliefs are Not Voluntary' Objection
'Beliefs in God Cannot be the Result of a Wager' Objection
The Anti-God Objection
Unfalsifiable Theories and How this Applies to Pascal's Wager (e.g., The Dragon in My Garage, and the Gardner Parable., etc.)
The Problem of Evil
Attempted Solutions to the Problem of Evil (on hand-out and in the Mackie article), and why they fail (according to Mackie).
Free Will and the Problem of Evil: Defense and Objections
The Free Will Problem

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