History of Philosophy Quiz Study Guide
While not all of the following will be on the quiz Thursday in class, all of following are things you should know in order to ace it:
(1) The names of the four major schools and two major movements in the Hellenistic period, and some of their basic characteristics.
(2) The name of at least one Neoplatonist philosopher in the Roman Imperial period.
(3) The difference between the New Academy and the Old Academy.
(4) The four Aristotelian causes.
(5) All of the information on the medieval philosophy handout I gave you in class.
(6) The names of some of the Major Cartesians. *
(7) The names of some of the early modern empiricists. *
(8) The names of some of the Scottish Common Sense philosophers. *
(9) Descartes’s four rules of method.
(10) Hume’s account of testimony. *
(11) You should also be able to summarize, in your own words, the basic arguments of the Gorgias, the Consolation, and the Discourse (each in about six or seven sentences).
Items listed with a star (*) will be discussed in class, at least briefly, tomorrow (Tuesday). You will not be responsible for knowing any dates. The primary purpose of this quiz is to show that you have begun to develop an introductory acquaintance with some of the major people and movements in the history of philosophy. Except for (11), where you should be careful to be as precise as possible, you are primarily responsible for knowing the gist of what we have gone over in the history units of this course, and for not mixing up the major names.
