The list below is designed to guide your studying for the first test. It includes single concepts, distinctions, and lists of related or contrasting concepts (separated by slashes) from the philosophers we have read. To be well prepared, you should
• understand each concept (or group of concepts)
• connect it with a philosopher, and
• be familiar with that philosopher’s basic discussion of it.
I’ve tried to word the list using forms of expression you’ve seen in the reading (and follow the order in which the ideas appear in each philosopher) but if it isn’t clear what I have in mind in an item on the list or where it appears in what you’ve read, don’t hesitate to ask.
The actual questions on the test may take a number of forms. You may be asked to provide a definition of a concept or to explain a distinction. You may be asked to identify the philosopher with which a distinctive idea is associated (or the philosopher who wrote a passage concerning the idea). You may asked to write a short essay explaining a philosopher’s views concerning one of these ideas or to compare the views of two or more philosophers regarding these ideas. In short, while the list does not indicate the format of the test, it does indicate the material on which you will be tested.
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Aristotle (1/16) • making, form, and matter • excellence and the mean Plato (1/19) • real bed / particular bed / appearance of a bed • user / maker / imitator Plato (1/21) • senses, reason, and measurement • poetry and the passions Aristotle (1/23) • pleasure in imitation • poetry vs. history • catharsis of fear and pity Walton (1/26, 28) • make-believe and fictional truth • fearing fictions Walton (1/30) • transparency of photographs Plato (2/2) • inspiration and love of beauty as divine madness • progression from lower to higher forms of beauty Plotinus (2/4) • beauty as symmetry vs. beauty as unification or "communion in Ideal-Form" Plotinus (2/6) • beauty in art / beauty in art objects / beauty in nature • non-discursive wisdom and pictorial vs. verbal representation |
Ficino (2/9) • beauty as light • beauty as the external appearance of goodness • touch, taste, and smell vs. reason, sight, and hearing Shaftesbury (2/11) • love of beauty vs. desire to possess • natural sense of beauty Hume (2/13) • sentiment of beauty • standard of taste Kant (2/16) • beautiful / pleasant / good • disinterested satisfaction • purposiveness without purpose Kant (2/18) • subjective universality and necessity • common sense (= sensus communis) Kant (2/20) • dispute vs. quarrel • determinate vs. indeterminate concept Gallie (2/23, 25) • meta-criticism without concepts • 5 kinds of aesthetic theory Gallie (2/27) • essentially contested concepts |