1. Does Locke’s account of ideas lead to scepticism?
2. Compare Locke’s accounts of substance and of real essence.
3. ‘Ideas and truths are innate in us – as inclinations, dispositions,
tendencies, or natural potentialities, and not as actual thinkings’
(LEIBNIZ). Discuss.
4. ‘Monads need to have some qualities, otherwise they would not even be
existences’ (LEIBNIZ). Describe and evaluate Leibniz’s argument for
the existence and nature of monads.
5. Is Leibniz’s distinction between necessary and contingent truths
satisfactory?
6. Is there anything that you can both see and touch?
7. Can invoking abstract ideas solve any philosophical problems? Answer
with reference to Berkeley.
8. Did Hume give good reasons for rejecting Berkeley’s theory of efficient
causation?
9. Discuss Berkeley’s view that we have ‘notions’ of other minds.
10. In his discussion of personal identity, how does Hume use his maxim
that all ideas are copied from former impressions?
11. ‘An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy
alone presents to us: And this different feeling I endeavour to explain by
calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or
steadiness’ (HUME). Discuss.
12. In what sense or senses was Hume a ‘careless sceptic’? Discuss with
regard to the existence of external objects.