Ancient Greek Philosophy Flashcards
What is a priori?
Knowledge gained irrespective of experience, gained through reasoning.
What is a posteriori?
Knowledge which is known through experience.
What are forms?
Plato meant the idea of something. You have some idea of what a dog is, you recognise lots of different types of dog. Ideal, perfect, transcendent.
What is matter?
The physical substance of this world.
What is an archetype?
An initial model or idea from which later ideas and models of the same thing are all derived.
What is the world of forms?
This is where forms exist. The ‘real’ world.
What is the realm of appearances?
This is the world of the senses.
What is an absolutist?
The idea objective truths exist - they don’t change in any circumstance.
What is a dualist?
The belief of two distinct principles. Plato believes in two opposite worlds - forms and Shadows.
What is transcendence?
The idea something is beyond the material world. Above the range of normal, physical, human experiences. Forms transcend.
What is a contingent?
Something which depends on something else to exist. The particulars in the realm of appearances are contingent on the Form which they participate.
What is the Republic?
Written by Plato, discusses the Allegory of the Cave.
What is empiricism?
The theory that all knowledge comes from sense.
What is an allegory?
A story or poem used to discuss symbolism.
What does the sun represent in the Allegory of the Cave?
The Form of the Good - enlightenment.
What is the Form of the Good?
The highest form in existence. All sources stem from it.
What is the Allegory of the Cave?
Famous analogy written by Plato in the Republic which he uses to explain some parts of his theory of the Forms.
What is participating?
The forms present in the objects of the material world. The forms participate in the objects in the World of Shadows.
What is the soul?
Plato believed in an immortal soul that existed before we were born and has knowledge of the Forms. Our soul gives us access to the Forms.
