What capacity lets a subject take itself as the object of its own thought?
Self-consciousness.
Which work presents Descartes’s search for an absolutely certain first truth?
Méditations métaphysiques.
What does Descartes conclude from the act of doubting?
The doubter thinks and exists.
Which work contains Descartes’s Cogito argument?
Méditations métaphysiques.
According to David Hume, what does consciousness of one’s condition in the universe include?
Awareness of human finitude and mortality.
According to Pascal, what two aspects of humanity does consciousness reveal?
Human greatness and human weakness.
Which thinker presents consciousness as revealing human greatness and weakness?
Pascal.
What does Hume claim about the self’s empirical foundation?
The self is a metaphysical fiction without empirical foundation.
What does Hume find through introspection?
Perceptions and impressions, which are weakened images of perceptions.
Which work is cited for Hume’s account of personal identity?
*A Treatise of Human Nature*.
How does Kant characterize consciousness?
As a power, not a thing.
What does Kant say consciousness makes possible?
Thinking of oneself as one person.
Which philosopher is cited for Kant’s account of consciousness?
Kant.
According to Leibniz, what does apperception make the mind aware of?
Only part of its thoughts and their contents.
What does Leibniz call perceptions of which the mind is not fully aware?
Small perceptions.
What kind of difference might separate consciousness from the unconscious in principle?
A difference in nature that makes some thoughts inaccessible to consciousness.
What variable difference might distinguish consciousness from the unconscious?
A difference of degree based on perception.
Which thinker uses dreams, slips, and failed acts to question consciousness’s explanatory power?
Freud.
What hypothesis does Freud develop from dreams, slips, and failed acts?
Consciousness cannot explain everything.
What does consciousness open people to?
New realities.
How does self-consciousness differ from immediate awareness of external things?
It takes the subject itself as the object of thought.
What does the course say consciousness means etymologically?
“Being informed.”
Which Latin word does the course connect with knowledge?
Scientia.
What two arguments does Descartes use to doubt sensory truths?
The senses sometimes deceive, and dreams can resemble waking reality.
Which work presents Descartes’s evil-genius hypothesis?
Méditations métaphysiques.
What does the evil genius hypothesis challenge in Descartes’s methodical doubt?
The certainty of reason, including logic and mathematics.
What kind of reality is consciousness for Descartes?
A metaphysical reality capable of thinking itself.
According to Pascal, what is diversion?
Activities that keep people from thinking about death and give them an illusion of happiness.
Which thinker defines diversion as a distraction from thoughts of death?
Pascal.
What illusion does diversion give people, according to Pascal?
An illusion of happiness.
Which activities does Pascal identify as forms of diversion?
Politics, work, alcohol, gambling, and lust.
Which traditions does Kant’s account of personal identity synthesize?
Descartes’s idealism or rationalism and Hume’s empiricism.
Which philosopher is associated with the empiricism in Kant’s synthesis?
Hume.
What do dreams, slips of the tongue, and failed acts suggest?
Something in us acts without our awareness.
Which thinker frames the course’s questions about consciousness and self-knowledge?
Husserl.
What does the course question about self-knowledge as consciousness’s purpose?
Whether self-knowledge is truly consciousness’s purpose.
’s Husserl framing, what does consciousness direct itself toward?
Whether consciousness is directed only toward the self.
Answer 13 questions on Consciousness and the Unconscious.
1. What makes an act of thought an instance of self-consciousness?
2. A person sees a tree and then judges that a dishonest act is wrong; which distinction best describes these two forms of awareness?
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