Introduction to Philosophy s1

Introduction to Philosophy

Study Guide

Crito to Marx & Engels

1. Plato’s Crito

1. Crito says that “the many” can do the “greatest evil” to someone. But Socrates says they cannot. What is it that they cannot do to a man?

2. What kind of life does Socrates say should be valued?

3. What (according to Socrates) should we never do, even if we are injured?

4. What three reasons do “the laws” give for saying that Socrates would be wrong to disobey them?

5. What should Socrates think of before thinking of life and children?

6. What is the best government, according to Thoreau?

7. What is more important than respect for the law?

8. What is a man’s duty when his government is committing “enormous wrongs”?

9. If law demands that you become an agent of injustice to another, then what does Thoreau say you should do?

10. When will there be a “really free and enlightened State”? What has to happen for this to come about?

11. How do we know that “all men are created equal” and endowed with “certain unalienable rights”?

12. What three rights are listed in the Declaration as “unalienable”?

13. What do governments get their just powers from?

14. What effects should a good government produce for the people?

15. What are the two characteristics of a human being in the state of nature?

16. In the state of nature, who has the right to punish crime? What are the two reasons for capital punishment?

17. What is the basis for property? That is, how does someone in the state of nature get property?

18. What is civil society? How do people come into civil society?

19. What is the one thing necessary for a human being to become subject to the laws of any civil society?

20. What is the “chief and great end” (purpose) of uniting into commonwealths (or civil society)?

21. What three governmental functions, lacking in the state of nature, are provided by a commonwealth?

22. What is the only purpose for which people are warranted (justified) in interfering with a person’s liberty of action?

23. What principle is the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions? How do we know what is the right thing to do?

24. Describe “the only freedom which deserves the name.”

25. Give the four reasons why even on human being should be given freedom of speech, even if everyone else agrees with him.

26. What does it take to make a person more valuable to himself and to others?

27. What is the key to the history of society? What are the two classes of modern industrial society?

28. What is it that the Bourgeoisie has used to break down all traditional relationships and traditions?

29. Why is globalization (i.e. sales to foreign markets) necessary to a capitalistic society?

30. What is the only really revolutionary class?

31. What one thing sums up the theory of the Communists?