2 Flashcards
Greek thought represented a shift from-
Primitive animism toward looking to nature/environment for the causes of conscious experience and movement
Conscious experience and movement were due to spirits which all living things possessed and death was the loss of the spirit.
Pre-Greek Animism
Sought natural/environmental causes for behavior and the mind
Forerunners of physical science
The Ionian federation in Miletus
Expert astronomical prediction and calculation (predicting a solar eclipse)
The world was made up of fire, water, air, and earth
Thales (600 BC)
World was made up of different tiny particles called atoms
Living things had mobile atoms giving them movement
Non-living things had immobile atoms (link to active and passive mind later)
Democritus (400 BC)
All sensations entered the body as particles through pores in sensory receptors and traveled to be ha sensorium.
Empedocles (540 BC) (Biomedical perspective)
Life and activity were directed toward seeking equilibrium for the body.
Alcmaeon (500 BC) biomedical perspective
based on alcmaeon’s theme of homeostasis he argued that spiritual and physical health required a balance in the four body humors (humoral therapy).
Blood, yellow bile, black hole and phlegm
The brain is the seat of the psyche
Wrote 87 treatises physical and mental illness
Hippocrates the physician (400 BC)
Truth and order of the universe was to be found in pure abstract mathematics
Since mathematical truths transcend physical life, they are the pure and universal truths, not susceptible to distortion by the senses. (Mysticism)
The Pythagoreans (mathematical perspective)
Deduced many theorems of geometry
What we know by way of our senses is distorted
What we learn from mathematics is a function of pure reason and intuition and therefore truth
Humans and animals have feelings and souls but only humans have reason
More geometry followed with Hippocrates the mathematician (first scrolls on geometry) and Euclid (more axioms of geometry and mathematics)
Pythagoras (540 BC)
Traveling scholars (mobile university) Advocated a practical eclectic approach to knowledge Most were serious scholars and philosophers, but some were avaricious according to Plato
The Sophists
danger in generalizing beyond that which was directly observable in the physical world
Trust only your senses which were physical reality
We should study the physical/biological world as an end in itself, not as a means to discovering truth
Advocates skepticism to assertions beyond the observable
Protagoras
Nothing exists beyond what we perceive
Study how things work (pragmatism)
The bases for natural science were
Observation
Skepticism
Operationism
Georgias: On Nature (circa 400 BC)
Human capacity for reason, language and self reflection placed humans on a higher plane than all other creatures
The world was originally chaos (fire earth air and water) brought into order by a world mind called nous
Nous as a part of all life is a force that oversees the world
Individual differences were biological but humans are all connected by the common spirit of nous (may the force be with you)
Anaxagoras (440 BC). HUMANIST
Attacked the sophists arguing that there was more to life than the physical reality
Without transcendent principles, morals would be lost and progress would cease
Knowledge is universal, thus a “reasonable” person can learn truth and make moral judgements
Focused on people and their place in nature ethics and politics
His political positions on who was fit to make moral judgements stepped on the wrong toes in Athens and he was given the option of suicide which he took
Socrates
Studied with the Pythagoreans picking up their mystical influence (prior incarnations) and love of pure mathematics
Clear dualism between mind and body
Clearly rejected the sophists by arguing that the body uses imperfect sensation to inform the mind which MUST use rational processes to seek truth
Mathematics was a tool of such importance for logical thinking and applied astronomy that he has inscribed over his academy “let no one without geometry enter here”
Sensory data leads to precepts which are distorted but the basis for discovering truth through reason
Precepts lead to ideas which are stable generalizations, based on but not dependent on precepts (roots of British empiricism)
Plato (380 BC) student of Socrates
The soul (mind) is in the head and is spiritual and rational comprising of ideas and motivating forces, but the body is irrational
Mind soul has two functions
Intellective higher functions of intuitive knowledge (nativism)
And lower functions opinions beliefs conjectures derived from body’s interaction with environment (empiricism)
Plato
Science is ideas which are rationally derived but not sensory bound
The soul exists in prior incarnations and brings with it that innate knowledge
The good life was one based on a balance of reason (mind) and pleasure (body)
Reconciles sensory knowledge with rational knowledge
Distrust of the body leads to distrust of government and politics
Plato
Tutor to Alexander the Great
Opened a school in Athens, influential and powerful
Prolific writer but much of work lost at Alexandria
Aristotle platos student for 20 years
Tremendous influence on roman thought and science
Primarily and empiricist but used nativistic concepts from Plato as well
Extended platos mind body dualism with an emphasis on rational processes to know the soul (scholastism later).
Aristotle
Logical processes of inquiry using deductive (general proposition– truth) and inductive logic (many specifics to general truth)
Testing general propositions via syllogisms white reflects light, snow is white, therefore snow reflects light
Aristotle
Fullest expression of metaphysics. Organization and classification of scientific knowledge and relationships
Much of Aristotle thinking was in what could be called “psychology”
Dualism: the senses (body) inform the soul (mind) but the mind interprets and corrects the information
Aristotle
The soul controlled vegetative and sensory processes (all animals ) and the rational and intellective powers of humans
A complete understanding of truth must be based but not sole on an understanding of the body
Aristotle
Ideas result from simple associations, strengthened by repetition of patterns in short term memory. Simple learning and memory)
Ideas may be recalled from long term memory influenced by similarity frequency contrast and continuity (memory cognitive psych and British empiricism)
Emphasizes the logical categorization of things as a method to organize knowledge categories important in social cognition and stereotyping
Aristotle
After Julius Caesar, it became the Roman Empire which lasted another 500 in west and 1500 in east
Social order by law, and the spread of common language and culture. Romans were applied rather than theoretical scientists- builders and administrators
Scholars and scones existed in most major cities
Roman republic from 500 BC to Caesar 44 BC with a constitution and rule invested in a senate
A long quiescent period where applied science and dissemination of Greek and Roman knowledge flourished
Pax Romana
An extension of Zenos notion of active and passive matter, represented an important Roman religion and philosophy
Humans were passive matter, acted upon by the fates (universal natural determinism) which in turn were a function of natural laws and whims of the Gods
A rational person learns to have the best possible life by cooperating with the causality of the universe. Thus the soul is neither active or responsible
Stoic philosophy
There was no active (immortal) soul. Rather the mind functioned to react to stimuli (perceive)
Since there was no afterlife, the goal of life was enjoyment of pleasures of the senses, rather than preparation for an afterlife
While hedonistic, questioned moderation since pleasure is relative!
Epicurean philosophy named after Epicurus 300 BC was an extension of Greek philosophy
The body is the agent and prison of the soul mind
The soul is responsible for the highest intellectual and reason using sensory information to create ideas (Plato) which transcends reality
Life is a process where the soul strives to dominate the body rejecting the material world and finding truth in nature and God
Neoplatonism developed by Plotinus as a revision of Plato
As Christianity evolved, it incorporated the stoic and Neoplatonic philosophies which were consistent with church dogma, and rejected the hedonism or epicurean philosophy
Rejection of hedonism has a profound impact on the church view of women and sexuality
Dualism (Aristotle) with the mind souls as the essence of God incorporated into the physical body, giving existence
Christianity
Disintegration of the western empire and civil rule opened the door for papal supremacy replacing government rule that had controlled intellectual development
Church dogma replaced scientific dogma
This is extremely important because church dogma had a strangle hold on science- data had to be consistent with church dogma
Christianity
Blamed the barbarian conquests on the pagan religions
Completed the christianizatikn of Neoplatonic and stoic philosophy by
Affirming the platonic relationship between mind and body (Interrelated essence and existence)
Relegated sensory information to a primitive level and emphasized the metaphysical (transcendental) nature of knowledge and consciousness (faith and Devine inspiration)
St Augustine
Mohammed’s followers conquered a bunch of crap and encountered Greek science and philosophy
Algebra and arithmatex
Teaching hospitals in Damascus
Anesthesia surfer and pharmacology
Libraries
Archeticural and cultural achievements
Islamic contributions
Church power and rule provided the only unity
Increased reliance on dogma and ritual for authority
University of Bologna 1088 studied civil and church law In Italy
University of paris philosophy and theology 6000 students 1175
After an 800 year decline in intellectual life where ignorance and illiteracy prevailed and regression into feudal states
Education and a reduction in illiteracy
Re emergence of local cultures and Romance languages
Crusades failed weakening papal authority
Crusaders brought back Islamic knowledge and old Greek works which fueled scholastism
Factors that begin to erode the church’s power and dogma
