Ancient Philosophical Influences Flashcards
What are the three main philosophers?
Socrates
Plato
Artistotle
What was Socrates main message?
That people needed to be trained to think philosophically and challenge superficial assumptions if they were to form sound judgements
Who thought that the world was in a state of constant change?
Heraclitus
What did he call this?
Flux
What did he famously say?
That a person never steps in the same river twice as the river changes and so does the person
What does flux mean for knowledge?
That if everything is changing how can we have true knowledge
If everything changes what cannot exist?
An essence
What is more certain : egg yolks are yellow, or interior angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees?
Interior angles in a triangle add up to 180 degrees
How does Aristotle respond to Heraclitus?
He thinks we can understand the casual mechanism responsible for change and thereby gain true knowledge from expirience
Was Plato a rationalist or empiricist?
Rationalist
Was Aristotle a rationalist or empiricist?
Empiricist
What is rationalism?
The primary source of knowledge is reason and a priori
What is empiricism?
Observations from our senses lead to the understanding of the world a posteriori
What is reason?
Using logical thought in order to reach conclusions
What is epistemological humility?
Awareness that our knowledge is always incomplete
Who believed in epistemological humility?
Plato
What did Plato believe true reality should be?
Perfect
Eternal
Unchanging
What does Plato call this true reality?
World of the forms
What are the two different realms?
Particulars
Forms
What is the realm of the forms?
The ideal concepts that exist in reality
What are examples of these ideal concepts?
Beauty
Justice
Why is the form of beauty indestructible?
Because even if you destroyed all beautiful things you can’t destroy beauty
What is in the realm of the particulars?
Objects in the empirical world that are imperfect copies of the form
What are particulars?
Relative
A ball can be large but only in comparison to another
What did Plato think were two different things?
Knowledge and opinion
What are other worlds for knowledge and opinion?
Episteme and doxa
What did he believe an opinion was?
A mixture of knowledge and ignorance
What are factors of knowledge in the forms?
Simple
Permanent
Perfect don’t exist in time or space
Logical
What is an example of the imperfectness of the particulars?
We can think of a perfect by definition circular clock but this can never be translated into the real world
Why do we recognise trees?
Because they fulfil the form of a tree
What is the one over many argument?
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’
What is the supreme form?
The form of good
Why is the form of good supreme?
Because concepts like beauty and justice all share the core of being good
Who did Plato believe made the world?
The Demiurge
What does Demiurge mean in Greek?
Workman
What is the Demiurge not?
Goodness itself
What was the metaphor Plato used to show a philosophers journey from illusion to reality?
The analogy of the cave
What is the analogy of the cave?
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
What does the cave represent?
The world of senses
What do the shadows represent?
Illusions - what we see and mistake for reality
What do the chains represent?
Ignorance
What does the difficult climb represent?
The process of arriving at the truth
What do the moon and stars represent?
The forms of beauty and justice
What does the sun represent?
The form of good
For Socrates what was knowledge?
Not giving knowledge to those who lack it
(Like putting sight into blind eyes)
But turning the whole body and eye towards the light
What is the third man argument?
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
How does Plato respond to the third man argument?
Forms themselves cannot partake in another form
Forms don’t share characteristics with particulars
Who rejects the one over many argument?
Wittgenstein
Why does Wittgenstein reject the argument?
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
What is a criticism of the theory of the forms?
Does there have to be a perfect form of dirt, hair or as Steven Law argues ‘the form of the bogey’?
What is evidence of the theory of the forms and a priori knowledge from Socrates?
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
What is another Criticism of the forms?
Dinosaurs are extinct but they could still be in the forms
iPads evolve so has that always been in the forms
What is the word for re remembering the forms through a posteriori sense experience?
Anamnesis
What is Aristotle’s main criticism of the forms?
The lack of empirical evidence
How does Plato respond to this?
That lack of empirical evidence is good as sense experience can’t be trusted
Why is Aristotles opinion on this like an early version of Ockham’s razor?
We should not believe explanations that are unnecessarily complicated if there’s a simpler theory that works
Why isn’t the theory of the forms as applicable in todays world?
We can predict the behaviour of this world and manipulate it using science
What is a problem with the concepts of fixed justice and beauty?
They are subjective and different depending on cultures
Matter of opinion
How does Hume add to this?
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
What could be added to Humes point?
That the slave boy would’ve seen shapes in his life gaining concepts from understanding
What could be an alternative to the forms having given us understanding of perfect concepts?
Evolution
What does Aristotle draw a distinction between?
Potentiality and actuality
What is change to Aristotle?
The process where an object acquires a new form
The object has the potentiality and change is the actualisation
What is an example of this using wood?
A piece of wood cannot be potentially on fire and actually on fire
How does Aristotle explain how an object can move from potential to actual?
The four causes
What is a pseudonym for the four causes?
My Flower Eats Figs
What are the four causes?
Material
Formal
Efficient
Final
What is the material cause?
What a substance is made of
What is a formal cause?
What it is that makes it that type of thing
What is the efficient cause?
What made it
What is the final cause?
The telos - purpose or reason for it
What does Aristotle say the final cause of the universe must be?
The prime mover
What characteristics make up the prime mover?
Immutable
Eternal
Perfect
Impassive
Non physical
How is the prime mover the telos of the universe?
It is an object of desire where people are attracted to it as their final end
What does immutable mean?
The idea that God does not change
What does impassible mean?
The idea that God does not experience feelings or emotions
Why can the prime mover not be aware of the world?
It would produce changes
Is the prime mover deistic or theistic?
Deistic
What is deism?
God causes or creates but is separate and unimvolved
Is the Christian, Jewish and Islamic God deistic or theistic?
Theistic
What is theism?
God creates and continues to be involved in the world
What does the prime mover avoid the problem of?
Evil
Who disagrees that the final cause of the universe must be the prime mover?
Francis Bacon
Who was Francis Bacon called?
The father of empiricism
Why did he disagree with the prime mover?
He thought that there was no place in empirical science for tell and that it was a metaphysical issue
What has modern science also disproved?
That the structure of a seed allows it to grow into a tree not an efficient cause
What does McGrath point out?
That science is limited and can’t answer all questions like why
How does Dawkins respond to McGrath?
He says it’s a manipulation of the English language and like asking ‘what is the colour of jealousy?’ Implying jealousy has a colour
What is Sartre’s critique of telos?
‘Existence proceeds essence’
We were here before we had a telos
What type of argument is Sartre’s?
A psychological one
We are scared of the freedom that comes with having to create a purpose
What is a defence against Sartre’s theory?
Genetic fallacy
Just because we feel we need a purpose doesn’t mean there isn’t one for us
What type of knowledge is he using?
A posteriori
