Quiz Reviews

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Reviews of the weekly quizzes…

Below are the basic elements in a good answer. Full credit requires that your answers are explained in your own clear, down-to-earth language. If the language in the lectures or readings is helpful, you can use some of it, but you will lose points if you borrow from sources outside the class. I want to see how you understand and interact with these ideas, not software or the internet.

Use these reviews to make corrections/clarifications to your reading questions answers. This will help with your exams.

• This topic was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This topic was modified 1 year ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.
• This topic was modified 1 year ago by jsalbato@cnm.edu.

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review Quiz #1
1. The tasks for each week are listed at the top of our webpage: (1) Do the reading while (2) answering the Reading Questions, then (3) use the lectures to get further clarity for your answers, then (4) take the Friday Quiz.
2. The absolute deadline for quizzes and exams is Saturday at noon.
3. The best prep for the Friday quizzes is the Reading Questions, because most of the quiz comes straight from those questions. (Note: But please be sure to read the questions carefully, because there are some subtle differences from the reading questions that I want you to think about. You can paste some of your reading questions answers straight over, but this won’t work for all of the quiz questions.)
4. The Friday quizzes cannot be made up, but there are many extra points built into the class to make up for missing a quiz or two. (The extra points are included in every quiz; these are not extra credit assignments.)
5. Grades are based on earning points. For example, a “B” is earned when you get 80 points. (Note: It is not a percentage; that’s much harder.)
6. If your quizzes or final exam include content that is not your own work, such as content from a search, AI, or a website, that question will receive a zero and be counted as plagiarism. Please don’t do this, because plagiarism is cheating and has to be reported to the Dean of Students.
7. Philosophy is the study of the presuppositions in all fields of thought. (Note: Philosophy is the home of genuine critical thinking, carefully checking the support for all of our ideas, even the ones that we assume and seem obvious.)

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review Quiz #2
1. My belief is only true if it agrees with reality. (“Evidence” or “proof” are not accurate answers, because, sadly, we might have mistaken evidence, like those who see the sunset as evidence that the sun revolved around the earth. It is reality that makes a claim true, not the evidence.)
2. The idea of “personal truth” or some belief being “true to me” is saying no more than “I believe this” or “This is my perspective”. And, of course, your believing something has no bearing on whether it agrees with reality. People believe false things and are deceived by their limited perspective constantly.
3. We should judge others’ values when they are irrational and when they could harm others. This can be done fairly by judging others’ values based on their own consistency, that is, we can judge someone’s values as being irrational if they are inconsistent with reality or the author’s own values.
4. Jeff immediately grows a beard (I am so ashamed of my immaturity), and you mock him and threaten to kill him when he tried to encourage you to escape the cave.
5. The Cave story mocks the “seeing is believing” mindset, because it shows the cave-dwellers (most people) staring at illusions and taking them for reality. If all you see is deception, then your beliefs will be delusions. And, in Plato’s view, the whole physical world of sight is deceptive.
6. Normal science studies things in the physical world. In the cave story, these would be the shadows, and thus science, to Plato, is just playing the “shadow game” of naming and predicting the shadows.
7. Our everyday, physical world is untrustworthy for three reasons (pick two): 1. The world is always changing, 2. Our perspectives are always changing, and 3. The theories we use to interpret the world are always changing. (But, note, that doesn’t mean that objective truth doesn’t exist, it just isn’t unchanging. Unchanging truth is found in the realm of ideals, like math and philosophy.)

[jsalbato@cnm.edu]

Review Quiz #3
1. Dasein is the human being. Dasein is special, because it is a being whose Being is an issues for it. In other words, Dasein is unique in that it is thrown into the world without knowing what it “is” while also being concerned about when it will no longer “be” (death).
2. The pen in use is Ready-to-hand, which means that it must fade into the background of the task it is being used for. In order to pay attention to the in-order-to tasks (the writing), we must take the pen for granted.
3. If my pen stopped working, it may become Present-at-hand, which means that it becomes a problem that I must study objectively to repair it or reevaluate the project it is being used for.
4. If math or my job is directly related to my life goals (I want to be a mathematician or stay in this career) , then to concentrate on my current task I have to let those goals fade into the background of my thoughts. This can be bad, because I might lose sight of those goals. For most people, however, math class and their job are not connected to their goals and those goals do not appear at all (they are no-thing) except when daydreaming. This is really bad because you are likely to continue at these irrelevant tasks and never reach anything you seek.
5. Present-at-hand is how broken or missing tools appear. They must be studied objectively to repair them back to the ready-to-hand. Very rarely these present-at-hand experiences can lead to seeing what the tool and projects are for and allow you to evaluate the value of the project.
6. If death became truly present-at-hand this would mean we are studying death objectively and realizing that all of our projects are ending (breaking), and this, if Jeff’s hopes are realized, would allow us to study all of the projects behind our everyday tasks and evaluate them to assess their worth. “Since I am dying (we all are, by the way), do I really care about these projects? Wait, I am not even working toward any of the goals that matter. Damn it! Please help me Jeff.” (Or, you know, something like that.)
7. The They says, “Sure, death will happen to you, but not soon, so don’t think about it. You have plenty of time to take control of your life someday. For now, just keep working at the Krusty Krab to buy another companion cube.” (Note: Krusty Krab = your job/school; companion cube = your phone)

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