ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES Flashcards
In Plato’s Analogy of the Cave, what do the prisoners represent?
Entrapment in the physical world, stopping them from seeing the forms.
In Plato’s Analogy of the Cave, what does the escapee represent?
Finding enlightenment by being dragged into the sunlight. Philosopher.
In Plato’s analogy of the Cave, what do the statues being carried represent?
Only imitations of the true reality of the forms.
In Plato’s analogy of the Cave, what do the following represent?
- Fire
- Shadows
- The Sun
Fire = a poor imitation of the sun.
Shadows = distorted ideas
The Sun = the form of the good.
What does Plato want us to understand from the cave analogy?
The ignorance of humanity when people do not engage in philosophy.
The potential for true knowledge.
Give two strengths of Plato’s analogy of the cave.
1) It fits with religious teachings regarding the soul being eternal.
2) It is true that the physical world is ever changing and subject to flaws.
Give two weaknesses of Plato’s analogy of the cave.
1) It makes no sense to believe in a spiritual world you cannot see (Kant).
2) Dawkins, it is not based on testable, observable evidence.
What is a form?
The essence of what something is; its true representation or ideal standard.
What did Plato believe the real world was?
Outside the material one we live in, the one the prisoner escaped to.
Why did Aristotle reject Plato’s ideas about the Realm of Forms?
Cannot be observed empirically.
What was Aristotle interested in instead of the Realm of Forms?
Why a piece of matter exists in the way that it does.
What are Aristotle’s four types of cause? What do they each mean? (MEFF)
- Material Cause = what something’s made from.
- Formal Cause = characteristics of the item.
- Efficient Cause = the means by which it comes into existence.
- Final Cause = its ultimate goal (telos).
What did Aristotle observe when formulating the Prime Mover?
The world was in a constant state of flux, so there must be an explanation for all changes in the universe.
An endless chain of causes is impossible so…
it must lead back to a beginning point which itself is unmoved: the Prime Mover.
What was Aristotle’s conclusion?
What causes everything to be or started off the chain of cause and effect must be aspatial and atemporal.
What does the Prime Mover give everything?
Telos.
For Aristotle, who/what is the Prime Mover?
God as has no potentiality but only actuality.
What did Plato notice about the physical world?
Always changing and that nothing ever stays the same.
What was the main problem that Plato sought to answer?
How could people attain true and certain knowledge, if the objects they wanted to know about were never the same from one moment to the next?
What conclusion did Plato draw?
The things we see around us in the physical world are always in a state of process and change, and so cannot be objects of complete knowledge.
What did Plato call realities?
‘Forms’ or ‘Ideas’.
What does the very fact that we realise the world is not perfect demonstrate to Plato?
We have an inner understanding of what ‘ideal justice’ or the ‘Form of Justice’ might be.
What did Plato believe the physical world is full of?
These imperfect imitations.
What can be said about the example of a tree?
The ideal or Form of the tree, unlike the physical tree, never changes.
What does Plato believe that the unchanging nature of Forms makes them?
‘more real’ than the ordinary physical objects we can perceive with our senses.
What was the issue with Plato’s theory of Forms?
At other times he seemed to think that there is a Form for each different thing in the world, which seems ridiculous.
How were different forms related?
The different Forms were related to each other, and arranged in a hierarchy.
What is goodness seen as?
The purest, most abstract of the Forms, the furthest away from the physical world.
How do we recognise the goodness of role models for example?
Because we understand how they correspond to our intuitive knowledge of the Form of the Good.
What was part of Plato’s argument about good and bad?
If someone knows what is good and what is bad, they will choose the good.
What does Plato state about ignorance?
It is only ignorance which cause immorality.
What does Dawkins state about Plato’s thought?
It is nonsense to talk of a transcendent ‘other world’ beyond the physical.
How does Aristotle criticise Plato’s thought?
Plato’s theory of forms is criticised on the grounds that it becomes ridiculous when pushed to its logical extremes.
What is the issue with Plato’s theory of Forms?
Plato is not entirely clear about the relationship between the Forms and the objects of this world.
What did Ayer argue against Plato’s thoughts?
Argued that when we talk of something being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, we are simply expressing our own emotional reaction to it, and not referring to any real knowledge.
How is Aristotle’s criticism of Plato criticised?
His reject of Plato’s belief in another world, perhaps he should have been more willing to accept the possibility of ‘spiritual knowledge’.
How is Aristotle’s belief that the universe must have a ‘telos’ criticised?
They claim that it makes no sense to talk of a ‘purpose’ for the universe.
What is the counterargument to Aristotle’s prime mover?
Perhaps cause and effect is eternal, in a infinite chain, or perhaps it all began as a result of blind chance.
