I’m currently studying Philosophy as part of my curriculum of Psychology, exam is tomorrow. I don’t feel too confident about this one. You also have to write an essay, which is what I feel somewhat more confident about; but the multiple choice exam I don’t. I can’t get any higher than an average of 76% on the test exams. On the last day, I decided to meticulously comb through the questions to see where I’m failing to get it over 80. Conclusion?
There’s about 4 questions I will never _ever_ get right in both sets. They are things like: “What does Descartes think you can learn about math?”
The correct answer is “res extensa” (existing) instead of “res cogitans” (thinking). If you look that up in the book, there isn’t any reference to the word math near these things so I choose res cogitans. The only reference to math there is: “objects have width height bla bla”. Yes, that’s part of geometry and so it can be called math – but I will not get the question right because there is no ‘hook’ for me to get it in there. The word math is not there. That’s the requirement of the speed I’m learning at. The ‘hook’ has to be there on the same page. If it isn’t I’ll fall back on ‘common sense’ or the general framework, but this question can’t be answered with common sense alone or knowing that Descartes was a rationalist and knowing what that means. Everything in the previous sentence is useless to you trying to answer the question.
A different question of the same type is going to hang me on the exam.
