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Alevel RS OCR - Philosophy > Ancient Philosophical Influences > Flashcards

Ancient Philosophical Influences Flashcards

1
Q

What are the three main philosophers?

A

Socrates
Plato
Artistotle

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2
Q

What was Socrates main message?

A

That people needed to be trained to think philosophically and challenge superficial assumptions if they were to form sound judgements

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3
Q

Who thought that the world was in a state of constant change?

A

Heraclitus

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4
Q

What did he call this?

A

Flux

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5
Q

What did he famously say?

A

That a person never steps in the same river twice as the river changes and so does the person

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6
Q

What does flux mean for knowledge?

A

That if everything is changing how can we have true knowledge

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7
Q

If everything changes what cannot exist?

A

An essence

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8
Q

What is more certain : egg yolks are yellow, or interior angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees?

A

Interior angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees

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9
Q

How does Aristotle respond to Heraclitus?

A

He thinks we can understand the casual mechanism responsible for change and thereby gain true knowledge from expirience

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10
Q

Was Plato a rationalist or empiricist?

A

Rationalist

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11
Q

Was Aristotle a rationalist or empiricist?

A

Empiricist

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12
Q

What is rationalism?

A

The primary source of knowledge is reason and a priori

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13
Q

What is empiricism?

A

Observations from our senses lead to the understanding of the world a posteriori

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14
Q

What is reason?

A

Using logical thought in order to reach conclusions

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15
Q

What is epistemological humility?

A

Awareness that our knowledge is always incomplete

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16
Q

Who believed in epistemological humility?

A

Plato

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17
Q

What did Plato believe true reality should be?

A

Perfect
Eternal
Unchanging

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18
Q

What does Plato call this true reality?

A

World of the forms

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19
Q

What are the two different realms?

A

Particulars
Forms

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20
Q

What is the realm of the forms?

A

The ideal concepts that exist in reality

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21
Q

What are examples of these ideal concepts?

A

Beauty
Justice

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22
Q

Why is the form of beauty indestructible?

A

Because even if you destroyed all beautiful things you can’t destroy beauty

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23
Q

What is in the realm of the particulars?

A

Objects in the empirical world that are imperfect copies of the form

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24
Q

What are particulars?

A

Relative
A ball can be large but only in comparison to another

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25
Q

What did Plato think were two different things?

A

Knowledge and opinion

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26
Q

What are other worlds for knowledge and opinion?

A

Episteme and doxa

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27
Q

What did he believe an opinion was?

A

A mixture of knowledge and ignorance

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28
Q

What are factors of knowledge in the forms?

A

Simple
Permanent
Perfect don’t exist in time or space
Logical

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29
Q

What is an example of the imperfectness of the particulars?

A

We can think of a perfect by definition circular clock but this can never be translated into the real world

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30
Q

Why do we recognise trees?

A

Because they fulfil the form of a tree

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31
Q

What is the one over many argument?

A

That even if we haven’t seen a particular chair before we can still recognise that it’s a chair as we can recognise the ‘one’ over the ‘many’

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32
Q

What is the supreme form?

A

The form of good

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33
Q

Why is the form of good supreme?

A

Because concepts like beauty and justice all share the core of being good

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34
Q

Who did Plato believe made the world?

A

The Demiurge

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35
Q

What does Demiurge mean in Greek?

A

Workman

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36
Q

What is the Demiurge not?

A

Goodness itself

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37
Q

What was the metaphor Plato used to show a philosophers journey from illusion to reality?

A

The analogy of the cave

38
Q

What is the analogy of the cave?

A

Prisoners are changed to a wall and see shadows reflected on the wall
One is released and climbs out of the cave
He sees the light
He returns to free the other prisoners
They don’t believe him and push him away

39
Q

What does the cave represent?

A

The world of senses

40
Q

What do the shadows represent?

A

Illusions - what we see and mistake for reality

41
Q

What do the chains represent?

A

Ignorance

42
Q

What does the difficult climb represent?

A

The process of arriving at the truth

43
Q

What do the moon and stars represent?

A

The forms of beauty and justice

44
Q

What does the sun represent?

A

The form of good

45
Q

For Socrates what was knowledge?

A

Not giving knowledge to those who lack it
(Like putting sight into blind eyes)
But turning the whole body and eye towards the light

46
Q

What is the third man argument?

A

If there’s a group of trees they are all partaking into a form of treeness
Aristotle then says that trees and the form of treeness now share characteristics
This should create a new group form
It can be infinitely regressive

47
Q

How does Plato respond to the third man argument?

A

Forms themselves cannot partake in another form
Forms don’t share characteristics with particulars

48
Q

Who rejects the one over many argument?

A

Wittgenstein

49
Q

Why does Wittgenstein reject the argument?

A

He has a family resemblance theory
There’s no one over many but a series of overlapping characteristics
Like members of families resemble each other but there is no one thing specific to them

50
Q

What is a criticism of the theory of the forms?

A

Does there have to be a perfect form of dirt, hair or as Steven Law argues ‘the form of the bogey’?

51
Q

What is evidence of the theory of the forms and a priori knowledge from Socrates?

A

He proved an uneducated slave boy could be prompted by a series of questions and some shapes drawn in the sand to figure out how to solve a geometry question

52
Q

What is another Criticism of the forms?

A

Dinosaurs are extinct but they could still be in the forms
iPads evolve so has that always been in the forms

53
Q

What is the word for re remembering the forms through a posteriori sense experience?

A

Anamnesis

54
Q

What is Aristotle’s main criticism of the forms?

A

The lack of empirical evidence

55
Q

How does Plato respond to this?

A

That lack of empirical evidence is good as sense experience can’t be trusted

56
Q

Why is Aristotles opinion on this like an early version of Ockham’s razor?

A

We should not believe explanations that are unnecessarily complicated if there’s a simpler theory that works

57
Q

Why isn’t the theory of the forms as applicable in todays world?

A

We can predict the behaviour of this world and manipulate it using science

58
Q

What is a problem with the concepts of fixed justice and beauty?

A

They are subjective and different depending on cultures
Matter of opinion

59
Q

How does Hume add to this?

A

That we can create the idea of perfection in our minds even if we have never experienced it
We just look at the opposite and change it

60
Q

What could be added to Humes point?

A

That the slave boy would’ve seen shapes in his life gaining concepts from understanding

61
Q

What could be an alternative to the forms having given us understanding of perfect concepts?

A

Evolution

62
Q

What does Aristotle draw a distinction between?

A

Potentiality and actuality

63
Q

What is change to Aristotle?

A

The process where an object acquires a new form
The object has the potentiality and change is the actualisation

64
Q

What is an example of this using wood?

A

A piece of wood cannot be potentially on fire and actually on fire

65
Q

How does Aristotle explain how an object can move from potential to actual?

A

The four causes

66
Q

What is a pseudonym for the four causes?

A

My Flower Eats Figs

67
Q

What are the four causes?

A

Material
Formal
Efficient
Final

68
Q

What is the material cause?

A

What a substance is made of

69
Q

What is a formal cause?

A

What it is that makes it that type of thing

70
Q

What is the efficient cause?

A

What made it

71
Q

What is the final cause?

A

The telos - purpose or reason for it

72
Q

What does Aristotle say the final cause of the universe must be?

A

The prime mover

73
Q

What characteristics make up the prime mover?

A

Immutable
Eternal
Perfect
Impassive
Non physical

74
Q

How is the prime mover the telos of the universe?

A

It is an object of desire where people are attracted to it as their final end

75
Q

What does immutable mean?

A

The idea that God does not change

76
Q

What does impassible mean?

A

The idea that God does not experience feelings or emotions

77
Q

Why can the prime mover not be aware of the world?

A

It would produce changes

78
Q

Is the prime mover deistic or theistic?

A

Deistic

79
Q

What is deism?

A

God causes or creates but is separate and unimvolved

80
Q

Is the Christian, Jewish and Islamic God deistic or theistic?

A

Theistic

81
Q

What is theism?

A

God creates and continues to be involved in the world

82
Q

What does the prime mover avoid the problem of?

A

Evil

83
Q

Who disagrees that the final cause of the universe must be the prime mover?

A

Francis Bacon

84
Q

Who was Francis Bacon called?

A

The father of empiricism

85
Q

Why did he disagree with the prime mover?

A

He thought that there was no place in empirical science for tell and that it was a metaphysical issue

86
Q

What has modern science also disproved?

A

That the structure of a seed allows it to grow into a tree not an efficient cause

87
Q

What does McGrath point out?

A

That science is limited and can’t answer all questions like why

88
Q

How does Dawkins respond to McGrath?

A

He says it’s a manipulation of the English language and like asking ‘what is the colour of jealousy?’ Implying jealousy has a colour

89
Q

What is Sartre’s critique of telos?

A

‘Existence proceeds essence’
We were here before we had a telos

90
Q

What type of argument is Sartre’s?

A

A psychological one
We are scared of the freedom that comes with having to create a purpose

91
Q

What is a defence against Sartre’s theory?

A

Genetic fallacy
Just because we feel we need a purpose doesn’t mean there isn’t one for us

92
Q

What type of knowledge is he using?

A

A posteriori

Alevel RS OCR - Philosophy (9 decks)

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