Kerala +2 Philosophy cheat sheet

Philosophy (philo + sophia) literally means 'love of wisdom'; it begins with wonder (thaumazein) and the recognition of ignorance (Socratic 'I know that I know nothing').

Branches: Metaphysics (being/reality), Epistemology (knowledge), Logic (reasoning), Ethics (conduct), Aesthetics (beauty), Political philosophy (power/justice).

Normative vs descriptive: normative philosophy prescribes how things ought to be; descriptive disciplines (e.g., psychology) report how things are.

Method of doubt (Descartes): suspend assent to anything that can be doubted to find indubitable foundations (cogito ergo sum).

Dialectic (Socrates/Plato): truth pursued through question-and-answer refutation (elenchus), exposing contradictions in beliefs.

Phenomenological method (Husserl): 'bracketing' (epoché) natural assumptions to describe experience as it presents itself.

Analytic method: clarify concepts and analyze language; synthetic method: build systems from self-evident axioms (Spinoza's geometric method).

Philosophy differs from science by dealing with conceptual/normative questions not resolvable by empirical experiment alone; differs from religion by relying on reason rather than revelation.

Validity concerns form: an argument is valid iff it is impossible for all premises true and conclusion false. Soundness = validity + all true premises.

Deductive arguments aim at certainty (conclusion follows necessarily); inductive arguments aim at probability (conclusion follows with likelihood).

Modus ponens: P→Q; P; therefore Q (valid). Modus tollens: P→Q; ¬Q; therefore ¬P (valid).

Affirming the consequent (P→Q; Q; therefore P) and denying the antecedent (P→Q; ¬P; therefore ¬Q) are formal fallacies.

Categorical syllogism: three terms (major, minor, middle); middle term must be distributed at least once; no valid syllogism has two negative premises.

Fallacies: ad hominem (attack person), ad populum (appeal to popularity), straw man (misrepresent opponent), false dilemma (omit alternatives), post hoc (assume causation from sequence).

Hypothetico-deductive method: formulate hypothesis → deduce observable consequences → test → confirm or falsify (Popper: falsifiability demarcates science).

Kuhn's paradigm shifts: normal science → anomalies → crisis → revolution → new paradigm; incommensurability between paradigms.

Mill's methods of induction: agreement, difference, concomitant variation, residues; Bacon's eliminative induction precedes them.

Standard analysis: knowledge = justified true belief (JTB); Gettier cases show JTB is insufficient when justification is accidentally true.

Truth theories: correspondence (truth as fit with fact), coherence (truth as consistency within a system), pragmatic (truth as what works), deflationary (truth as assertion).

Justification: foundationalism (basic beliefs ground others), coherentism (beliefs support each other in a web), reliabilism (beliefs produced by reliable processes).

Rationalism (Descartes, Plato): reason is the primary source of knowledge; empiricism (Locke, Hume): all knowledge derives from experience.

A priori knowledge is independent of experience (e.g., 2+2=4); a posteriori knowledge depends on experience.

Skepticism: global (no knowledge possible) vs local (doubt about a domain, e.g., other minds); Hume's problem of induction: past regularity does not logically guarantee the future.

Internalism: justification must be accessible to the knower; externalism: justification may depend on facts beyond the knower's awareness.

Sources of knowledge: perception, reason, memory, testimony, introspection; each raises its own reliability questions.

Ontology studies being qua being; metaphysics asks what ultimately exists and what categories describe it.

Monism (one substance), dualism (two: mind/body, Plato's forms/sensible), pluralism (many); materialism, idealism, and neutral monism are classic positions.

Substance vs attribute vs mode (Spinoza): substance is self-caused (causa sui); attributes are what reason grasps of it; modes are its modifications.

Aristotle's four causes: material (what it is made of), formal (its essence/structure), efficient (source of change), final (its purpose/telos).

Causality: Hume reduces cause to constant conjunction and custom; Kant treats causality as a category of the understanding; modern accounts include regularity, counterfactual, and interventionist theories.

Necessity vs contingency: necessary truths hold in all possible worlds; contingent truths could have been otherwise.

Universals: realism (universals exist independently), conceptualism (they exist only in minds), nominalism (only particulars exist).

Identity and change: Heraclitus (flux), Parmenides (being unchanging), process philosophy (becoming as fundamental).

Free will vs determinism: compatibilism reconciles freedom with causal determinism; libertarianism denies determinism; hard determinism denies freedom.

Dualism (Descartes): mind and body are distinct substances; interaction problem: how does immaterial mind cause bodily change?

Physicalism/materialism: mental states are physical states; identity theory equates mental types with brain types; token physicalism equates each mental event with some physical event.

Functionalism: mental states are defined by causal roles, not by underlying material (multiple realizability).

Behaviorism (Ryle): mental talk is dispositional talk about behavior; 'ghost in the machine' is the target of Ryle's critique.

Consciousness: phenomenal (what-it-is-like, qualia) vs access consciousness; the 'hard problem' (Chalmers) is explaining subjective experience.

Intentionality: mental states are about objects (Brentano); Searle's Chinese Room argues syntax is not sufficient for semantics.

Personal identity: body criterion, memory/psychological continuity (Locke, Parfit), and narrative self; teletransportation and fission cases test intuitions.

Self: Hume's bundle theory (no persisting self, only perceptions), Kant's transcendental unity of apperception, and the embodied self (Merleau-Ponty).

Chinese Room, Mary's Room (Jackson), and philosophical zombies are standard thought experiments in the mind-body debate.

Metaethics asks what moral language means and whether moral facts exist (realism vs anti-realism, cognitivism vs non-cognitivism).

Normative ethics: consequentialism (rightness depends on outcomes), deontology (duty/rules), virtue ethics (character and flourishing).

Utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill): greatest happiness principle; act vs rule utilitarianism; Mill distinguishes higher and lower pleasures.

Kant's categorical imperative: universalizability formula (act only on maxims you could will as universal law) and humanity formula (treat persons as ends, never merely as means).

Aristotle's virtue ethics: eudaimonia (flourishing) via habituation of virtues; virtue as the mean between vices (doctrine of the mean).

Moral relativism: descriptive (people differ), metaethical (no universal truth), normative (tolerate differences); objections: inconsistency and inability to criticize atrocity.

Ethical egoism (self-interest as the standard) vs altruism; psychological egoism is a descriptive claim, ethical egoism a normative one.

Applied ethics: bioethics (autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice - Beauchamp & Childress), environmental ethics, and animal ethics (Singer's sentientism).

Free will and moral responsibility: 'ought implies can' (Kant) links obligation to ability.

Social contract theories: Hobbes (security from state of nature), Locke (natural rights, consent, right of revolution), Rousseau (general will, popular sovereignty).

State of nature: Hobbes - 'war of all against all'; Locke - governed by natural law but insecure; Rousseau - noble savage corrupted by society.

Justice: Plato (harmony of parts), Rawls (justice as fairness, veil of ignorance, two principles), Nozick (entitlement, minimal state), communitarianism (MacIntyre, Sandel).

Rawls's difference principle: inequalities are justified only if they benefit the least advantaged.

Liberty: negative liberty (freedom from interference, Berlin) vs positive liberty (freedom to realize one's potential); Mill's harm principle limits coercion to preventing harm to others.

Equality: formal equality (same treatment) vs substantive equality (equal outcomes/opportunity); affirmative action debates turn on this distinction.

Marx: historical materialism, alienation, class struggle, and the withering away of the state; critique of liberal rights as bourgeois.

Nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and multiculturalism debate the scope of obligation beyond the state.

Civil disobedience (Thoreau, Rawls): public, nonviolent, conscientious breach of law to protest injustice, accepting legal consequences.

Classification: āstika (orthodox, accept Veda authority: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā, Vedānta) vs nāstika (heterodox: Cārvāka, Jainism, Buddhism).

Nyāya: pramāṇas (sources of knowledge) - pratyakṣa (perception), anumāna (inference), śabda (testimony), upamāna (comparison); inference has five steps (pratijñā, hetu, udāharaṇa, upanaya, nigamana).

Vaiśeṣika: atomistic ontology of seven padārthas (substance, quality, action, generality, particularity, inherence, non-existence).

Sāṃkhya: dualism of puruṣa (consciousness) and prakṛti (matter); three guṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas); evolution of tattvas.

Yoga (Patañjali): eight limbs (aṣṭāṅga) leading to kaivalya; citta-vṛtti-nirodha defines yoga.

Mīmāṃsā (Jaimini): ritual exegesis; dharma from Vedic injunction; Kumārila and Prabhākara schools; atheistic leaning on Vedic authority.

Vedānta: Advaita (Śaṅkara) - non-dualism, māyā, brahman alone real; Viśiṣṭādvaita (Rāmānuja) - qualified non-dualism; Dvaita (Madhva) - dualism.

Buddhism: Four Noble Truths, anātman (no-self), pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination), anitya (impermanence); schools: Theravāda, Mahāyāna (Mādhyamika, Yogācāra).

Jainism: anekāntavāda (many-sidedness), syādvāda (seven-fold predication), ahiṃsā, and the theory of karmic matter.

Cārvāka: materialism, perception as the only pramāṇa, denial of afterlife and karmic rebirth.

Arguments for God: ontological (Anselm, Descartes - greatest conceivable being must exist), cosmological (Aquinas, Kalam), teleological (Paley, design), moral (Kant).

Ontological objection: existence is not a predicate (Kant); Gaunilo's perfect island parody.

Problem of evil: logical problem (Mackie - omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence inconsistent with evil) vs evidential problem (Rowe); responses: free will defense (Plantinga), soul-making theodicy (Hick).

Arguments against God: problem of evil, hiddenness (Schellenberg), and incoherence of divine attributes.

Faith and reason: fideism (Tertullian, Kierkegaard), rational theology (Aquinas), and evidentialism (Clifford: 'it is wrong to believe on insufficient evidence').

Religious language: analogical (Aquinas), univocal, equivocal; verificationist critique (Ayer) and falsification challenge (Flew).

Applied philosophy: bioethics (abortion, euthanasia, informed consent), environmental ethics (anthropocentrism vs biocentrism/ecocentrism, deep ecology), and technology ethics (AI, privacy).

Just war theory (Augustine, Aquinas): jus ad bellum (just cause, proportionality, last resort) and jus in bello (discrimination, proportionality).

Human rights: natural rights tradition (Locke) vs legal positivism; universalism vs cultural relativism in applied ethics.