1. Is Hume’s view on the origin of the idea of space consistent with his
empiricism?
2. In what sense, if any, is Hume a sceptic with regard to the existence of
external bodies?
3. Compare Descartes’s and Hume’s views about the identity of the self.
4. ‘I see plainly that there are never any sure signs by means of which being
awake can be distinguished from being asleep.’ Explain and evaluate the
significance of this in the first of Descartes’s Meditations.
5. ‘This proposition I am, I exist, is necessarily true whenever it is put forward
by me or conceived in my mind’. Explain the meaning and point of this
claim in the context of Descartes’s Meditations.
6. Do we have any innate ideas? Answer with reference to two of the
following: (a) Descartes (b) Locke (c) Leibniz.
7. What is a ‘monad’? What reasons, if any, do we have for thinking that
monads exist? Explain and evaluate Leibniz’s answer to these questions.
8. ‘All our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple
impressions’. What does Hume mean by this claim, and what work does he
put it to?
9. Does Berkeley manage to prove that what philosophers call ‘matter’ is a
fiction?
10. Do you find Berkeley’s account of the perception of distance convincing?
11. To what extent do we have capacities of abstraction?
12. Should Berkeley have been a sceptic?