Ancient Philosophical Influences

Question 1

What does philosophy mean?

Answer 1

Lover of knowledge

Question 2

What philosophers are studied in this unit?

Answer 2

Plato and Aristotle

Question 3

When we’re Plato and Aristotle writing?

Answer 3

In Ancient Greece (about 400 BCE)

Question 4

What is the name of Platos teacher?

Answer 4

Socrates

Question 5

What did Plato rely on in his theories?

Answer 5

Reason. Plato was a Rationalist.

Question 6

What did Aristotle rely on?

Answer 6

Knowledge. Aristotle was an Empiricist.

Question 7

What does A priori mean?

Answer 7

Knowledge which is not dependent on experience, can be known. ‘Prior’ to experience, e.g. triangles have three sides.

Question 8

What does a posteriori mean?

Answer 8

Knowledge which is dependent on sense experience.

Question 9

What is Rationalism?

Answer 9

The view that the primary source of knowledge is reason, in the strictest sense a priori reason.

Question 10

What is Empiricism?

Answer 10

The idea that observations via our senses lead us to an understanding of the world.

Question 11

Is Plato a rationalist or an empiricist?

Answer 11

A rationalist

Question 12

Is Aristotle a rationalist or an empiricist?

Answer 12

An empiricist

Question 13

What do Plato and Aristotle agree on?

Answer 13

The importance of philosophical thought.

Question 14

What did plato believe?

Answer 14

That there was a greater reality beyond the world we experience.

Question 15

What is the analogy of the cave?

Answer 15

A metaphor (This means the story symbolises something else - there is a hidden meaning)

Question 16

What does the story of the cave illustrate?

Answer 16

Platos theory of the mind going from its lowest (uneducated) stages to an enlightened knowledge of the Good.

Question 17

What is Heraclitus’ famous quote?

Answer 17

‘You cannot step into the same river twice’ (500 BCE)

Question 18

What is the study of how we gain knowledge?

Answer 18

Epistemology

Question 19

What is the book plato writes where the analogy of the cave is found?

Answer 19

The Republic

Question 20

What does plato want us to understand about the prisoners in the cave?

Answer 20

That they have no memory of ever having lived in any different way.

Question 21

What does the cave represent?

Answer 21

This physical imperfect world.

Question 22

What is the description of the cave?

Answer 22

There is a fire behind the prisoners, and a wall infront of them. The cave has a long tunnel entrance so there is no daylight in the cave only firelight.

Question 23

What is behind the prisoners and the fire?

Answer 23

People carrying a variety of artificial objects along the track making them move, and sometimes giving then voices, making them seem as though they are talking.

Question 24

What can the people see on the wall?

Answer 24

Shadows. They cannot see the objects being carried behind them, only the shadows of the objects cast by the firelight onto the wall.

Question 25

What is a key detail about the shadows?

Answer 25

They are rubbish shadows. Because they are cast by flickering firelight and are not even the real objects, but are the images of artificial things made out of wood or stone.

Question 26

What is notable about the sounds the prisoners hear?

Answer 26

The sounds are artificial. The sounds that they make are not real, they are only echoes, and they are echoes of people who are only pretending to be the objects that they carry.

Question 27

What do the shadows represent?

Answer 27

The imperfect things in the physical world. Imperfect in relation to their perfect form in the real of the forms.