课程名称︰形上学 课程性质︰系必修 课程教师︰邓敦民 开课学院：文学院 开课系所︰哲学系 考试日期（年月日）︰2015/4/21 考试时限（分钟）：180 试题 : Answer THREE questions in a separate answer sheet. (每题35分)(其实就是每周作业选一题来当考题) 1. Suppose that Brown's brain was split and transplanted into two bodies, such that both regained consciousness and can remember Brown's experiences. It appears that there are four possibilities about which one is Brown (i) Brown didn't survive; (ii) Brown survived as one of them; (iii) Brown survived as the other; and (iv) Brown survived as both), but any choice amongst the four seems arbitrary. According to the Simple View, such arbitrariness shows that personal identity is a primitive fact that we cannot determine by any criterion. But according to Parfit, such arbitrariness shows that personal identity is an unimportant matter that we needn’t even determine. Which view do you think is correct? Give your own reason supporting your answer. 2. The Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP) is the thesis that a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. Famously, Harry Frankfurt offers the following counterexample to (PAP). Suppose Jones is deliberating about whether to kill Smith. However, unbeknownst to Jones, a neurosurgeon Black has implanted a device in Jones's brain, such that if Jones is just about to decide not to kill Smith, the device will sense a certain 'prior sign' in Jones’s brain (say, some neurological pattern) and thus trigger an intervention that will ensure Jones to decide to kill Smith. Suppose after some reflection Jones decides to kill Smith and does kill him (and so Black’s device remains inactivated). Frankfurt thinks in such a case, Jones is responsible for his action, although he could not have done otherwise. Do you agree with Frankfurt? Provide your own argument supporting your answer. 3. Some philosophers think that mental events are just brain events, and mental properties are just physical properties. Do you agree with them? Provide your own argument supporting your answer. 4. Consider the following argument. ‘Some contingent beings exist. But every contingent being depends for its existence and explanation on something else, which, if contingent, should also depend on something else, and so on ad infinitum. So if there is no necessary being on which the existence of contingent beings depends, we will get an infinite regress of dependence, in which case the existence of these contingent beings remains ultimately unexplainable. Therefore, there must be some necessary being, which we call "God".’ Do you find this argument convincing? If so, defend it against possible objections. (You may want to modify or reformulate the argument to fit your defence.) If not, offer your own objection to the argument. 5. According to Endurantism, objects persist through change by being wholly present at different times. For example, suppose a candle changes its shape. On this view, it is one and the same candle which was bent and now is straight. But there is no contradiction because in predicating bentness and straightness of the same candle we have to relativize it to different times. However, Lewis argues that by so relativizing, this account treats shapes as relations rather than intrinsic properties, and thus is incredible. Do you find Lewis’s objection convincing? If so, elaborate his objection against endurantism. If not, provide your response on behalf of endurantism. 6. Could Socrates have been a poached egg? Give your own argument supporting your answer. 7. What is it for a possible world to be the actual world? According to the indexical theory, all worlds are equally real and no world is special: every world is actual at itself and at no other world. According to the actualist, one world is special: it alone is real and all the others are non-real. Which view do you think is correct? Provide your own argument showing that the opponent theory is wrong. --

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