Ancient philosophical influences Flashcards
Essay introductions
Plato: rationalist philosopher who used priori reasoning to argue that the world we live in is a world of appearances, but the real world is the world of the forms.
Aristotle: empiricist philosopher who used posteriori reasoning to argue that the world we live in is the real world and the physical world around us is the basis of knowledge. He rejected Plato’s theory of the forms.
Platos main argument
1. what are the forms?
They are the perfect concept of something. e.g form of beauty. His evidence was in our world we have many different particulars that we would term “beautiful” but they are all different have have specific Characteristics and clearly Don’t define beauty so there muse exist a form of beauty (perfect and ultimate) that all the particulars in the world correspond to in some extent.
Plato’s main argument
2. The world of particulars
Empirical world (earth) consists of imperfect copies of the forms.
characteristics: imperfect, physical, changing or passing in and out of existence, known through our empirical senses.
Plato’s main argument
3. Our soul ( how it allows us to recognise the forms his evidence of forms)
Reason we recognise forms is because when we are born we have a dim recollection of them. He said there is an inner part of us, most people call the soul, which is immortal and unchanging. Before soul tied to body it was connected to the real world of the forms this is why we can recognise them.
Evidence: a person can instinctively recognise something as beautiful even if we have not been taught it. so he concluded that we have an immortal soul which was once part of the world of the forms.
Plato’s main argument
4. The form of the good
All ideal forms have the presence of good within them so he argues the form of good is the ultimate form.
Uses sun analogy of the cave to represent that the form of the good reveals the other forms to us as it is the highest of all forms.
Plato’s analogy of the cave
Group of prisoners chained to underground cave.
Been there since birth chained by neck and ankles.
Can only see shadows projected on wall by a fire.
They believe these shadows are all that exist and have no concept of outside world.
one day one prisoner was released and were to venture outside of the cave, once his sight adjusted he realised that it was the outside world that was real and the cave was just a shadow world.
If he retuned and shared his knowledge plato argues the other prisoners would not have believed him and might have even threatened to kill him.
Criticisms of plato
1.Biggest critique came from Aristotle. He said the form of the good is to narrow-minded. difficult to only have one definition of good. e.g good singer may not be a good person. (narrow-minded)
- If there are forms of every possible number (as plato claimed) then there are an infinite number of forms.In this way because there are an infinity of possible numbers there is an infinity of possible forms which seems to make so sense as forms are meant to be immortal, eternal and unchanging not ‘possibles’. (illogical)
- No empirical evidence cannot guarantee forms actually exist. Empiricists like Aristotle would argue priori reasoning isn’t enough. You have to uses sense experience(a posteriori) to validate any claims made about reality.
- Wittgenstein- family resemblance theory- developed this s a rejection to plato’s ‘one over many’ argument. In the same way families share similar characteristics that overlap, but there isn’t one single thing that is completely unique and specific to that family, so do objects on this earth. e.g family may have red hair and may resemble each other but there is not one thins that is unique to that family.
- absurd that there mist be a form for everything. Perfect form of bogey (Stephen law)
- If forms are immortal suggests form of dinosaur still exists even though there are no particulars on this earth that would correspond to it.
Support and evidence for Plato’s perspective.
- ‘One over many’ argument: in the material world we recognise particulars may be of the same kind of order even if we are unsure why. e.g a child can recognise a beautiful paining and flower are similar. We have innate ability to recognise the forms that our souls knew before we were born. without the form it is impossible to explain the sameness. we are able to recognise the ‘one’ that is over the ‘many’
- The ideal standard: The forms represent the ‘ultimate’ standard for objects/ideas in this world and gives us something to aspire towards - we can always do/make things better and the ‘form of the good’ is the ‘ideal’ of all ‘ideals’ and therefore encourages us to live better and moral lives (a form of absolutism). Form of good gives us an absolute idea of what goodness really is and it is not a matter of opinion.
Aristotles main argument
1. Four causes
He identified 4 causes that explained why a thing/object exists as it does.
- material cause (matter)
-formal cause (structure)
-efficient cause (how)
-final cause (purpose)
Aristotles main argument
2. prime mover
He recognised that everything around us was in a permanent state of motion (motion= change in greek)
He observed 4 things:
1. the physical world is always in motion
2. the planets seem to be moving eternally
3. change/motion is always caused by something
4. objects in the physical world were in a state of actuality and potentiality
From this he concluded there must be a prime mover. something must exist that causes all motion and change in the world but doesn’t change itself.
prime mover linked back to causes:
He argues the prime mover is the final cause because he stated ‘nothing comes from nothing, there has to be a final cause in a chain of events’
Characteristics of a prime mover:
1. immutable (unchanging)
2. Eternal (no beginning or end)
3. perfect (complete actuality)
4. impassive
The prime mover must be non-physical an immaterial substance because material causes are subject to change. ( cannot change coz immutable)
The prime mover as the final cause:
In similar way milk saucer attracts a cat ( the saucer of milk is impassive and motionless) the prime mover/ God attracts humans/the universe by its nature (God is perfect and fully actualised) Humans/ the universe seek to reach that actuality and the state of perfection so thats why the prime mover is the final cause of the universe.
The universe doesn’t have an efficient cause because it is eternal the prime mover enacts change/ motion through its pull all objects seek to be perfect and therefore gravitate in the direction of the ultimate perfection which is the prime mover.
Criticisms and objections of Aristotles view
- Hypocritical as his relationship between 4 causes and prime mover. As he is an empiricist he argues for posteriori reasoning for the 4 causes but his concept of the prime mover is a transcendent being that is not empirically verified.
- seems to be a contradiction between Aristotle’s version of God as the prime mover and the traditional, religious perspective of God.
- He argues that the universe is eternal which is a characteristic that he argues the universe is eternal which is a characteristic that he also attributes to the prime mover. ( which is transcendent and has to exist outside of time and space).
However the universe if filled with things that are constantly motion therefore it cannot be eternal because otherwise it would be fully ‘actualised’ and wouldn’t be in motion. This then suggests that the universe isn’t eternal and might have a beginning which would suggest it had a creator/efficient cause.
Support and evidence for Aristotles Perspective
- His causation theory is that the four causes are observable in the world around us- empirically verifiable.
- Final cause provides everything around us with a purpose/telos which helps us answer the ultimate question (why are we here?) His theory of reality is a more plausible one than plato because it allows us to state that the world around us is the real world, not a transcendent one we cannot access.
- Allows us to identify what is good in the world because we intuitively know that if objects don’t fulfil the job they were meant to do then they are not being the object they were meant to be. ( e.g if a table can’t hold an object it isn’t a good table)
- His version of God as the prime mover resolves the problem of evil because it is unchanging and transcendent so isn’t aware and cannot interact with the earth, unlike the God of classical theism who is aware and therefore is not powerful/not loving enough to prevent evil from happening.
- The concept of an impassive God makes more sense than an emotive one who loses control and lets his anger out (Adam&eve , Noah’s ark)- makes him seem more immortal and perfect than a God who acts like a human and allows his emotions to drive his actions.
