Ancient Greek influences Flashcards
Who was Plato?
- A rationalist therefore he believed that that reason could be used in order to understand things.
- Taught by Socrates therefore he saw the value in Socratic questioning.
Cave analogy
- We are all prisoners in a cave being shown shadows that are only imitations of the real thing.
- If one prisoner were to leave and adjust to the real world and come back to the others to tell them about it, they would not believe him.
Issues with the cave analogy
- There is no evidence of another realm of existence.
- Having a group of being ‘who know’ and a group of people who are ignorant is too simplistic; Plato can be seen as an elitist.
- Our sense must be used in order to survive.
Form of the Good
- Represented as the sun as it illuminates all the other forms (such as the world of appearances that we are in).
- Contains the ‘perfect’ version of everything.
- Is immutable and absolute.
- Plato believes that we have an innate sense of knowing these forms as our souls have seen them before.
Issues with the Form of the Good
- It is vague seeing as we now have more scientific and empirical evidence.
- Plato may be suggesting that new inventions exist before they existed and that extinct things still exist.
Who was Aristotle?
- Was an empiricist therefore believed that we could use evidence and the world around us to learn about things.
The theory of four causes
- Material cause: what is it made of?
- Formal cause: what are its characteristics/ form?
- Efficient cause: how did it come about?
- Final cause - what is its purpose/telos?
Assessing the four causes
- There is an element of common sense seeing as most objects conform.
- The focus on purpose helps to assess whether something is good or not.
- However, Aristotle’s claim is subjective as an objects purpose may change with each point of view.
The Prime Mover
- Aristotle noted how everything moves from potentiality to actuality therefore concluding that there must be something immutable that results in this change.
- The Prime Mover is eternal, perfect and impassive - it cannot be aware of the world as it attracts good/perfect towards its direction.
e.g. a cat is drawn to the milk.
Advantages of the prime mover - more logical than God
- It is more difficult to believe in a God therefore belief in an impassive mover seems more logical.
- After all, we can clearly see that everything moves and changes.
- The Prime Mover removes the problem of evil as it is impassive so can’t cause evil.
Disadvantages of the Prime Mover
- Humans may just be giving things purpose as part if human nature and construct.
- Aristotle makes a fallacy of composition as he assumes that the whole world must have a final cause.
- Science can contradict his argument - Big Bang Theory.
Plato’s understanding of reality is successful
Empirical knowledge can be flawed - Heraclitus, prisoners believe shadows are real, logical reasoning based on philosophical reasoning rather than senses.
Theory of forms explains why we recognize essential elements of something - collective understanding of beauty.
He encourages us to question things in order to learn - Heraclitus, soccratic questioning.
Plato’s understanding of reality is unsuccessful
How do we know that there is not an ideal form of an ideal form… infinite regression - Prime mover is more logical as empirical evidence is used.
Too abstract and weak distinction between people who know and people who are ignorant - ‘I thin therefore I am’
Aristotle’s third man argument
What does Heraclitus prove?
‘a man never steps in a river twice’
The world is constantly changing around us meaning we may not always be able to rely on empirical evidence.
What is Aristotle’s third man argument?
Reduces Plato down to absurdity, if we have a collection of large things and their form ‘largeness’ then we should consider the collection of things large as well as their form ‘largeness’ itself large.
We would need to refer to an infinite amount of forms to simply make one judgment.
