Ancient Philosophical Influences- Knowledge Flashcards
What does the cave represent ?
The physical world or world of the sense experience
What do the prisoners represent ?
Ordinary people in our world
What do the chains represent ?
The senses that restrict the way we experience things
What do the shadows represent ?
Our everyday sense experiences
What does the escapee represent ?
The philosopher who is able to access knowledge
What does the difficult ascent represent ?
An illustration that the road to philosophical knowledge is hard
What does the outside world represent ?
The real world , the world of the forms
What does the sun represent ?
The highest of all forms , the form of good
What does the return to the cave represent ?
The philosopher once enlightened fells in his duty to free and educate the others
What does the difficulty in adjusting to the darkness represent ?
Once a philosopher knows the truth , it is difficult to experience things as the ordinary person does
What does the persecution given by the other prisoners represent ?
Like Socrates , who was executed byy the leaders in Athens , the philosopher will be ridiculed and threatened
What are some issues with Plato’s analogy of the cave ?
Plato does not offer proof of the existence of another real,
Who said that a river is not the same river twice ?
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Why is a river not the same river twice ?
Nature is constantly changing and moving forwards.Such as wat doesn’t stay permanently in a river , it keeps changing
How are we like a river ?
We are constantly changing and moving forward
Who are the presocratics /
Greek thinkers who developed independent and original schools of thought.
They pre-date Socrates
What did Thales leave out of his theories which would have been controversial at the time ?
He left out god
What is te Socratic method ?
Where you constantly ask questions to break down the ideas
Why did Aristotle teach outside ?
He like to walk and talk and he liked plants
What are the forms ?
Ideal , eternal , single versions of things found on earth
What are particulars ?
Objects in the empirical world which are merely imperfect copies of the form
What is the realm of the forms ?
A place where there i an ideal form for everything that exists
What is the example of an idea of a cake ?
There must be an ideal cake and your baked version of the cake is an imperfect copy
What are some features of the world of the forms (not our world )?
Each form is one
Intelligible (only known through our intellect)
Eternal
Unchanging
Non physical
Perfect
what are the feautures of the world of appearances (our world )?
Particulars are many
Sensible (only known through our senses )
Always coming in and out of existences
Always changing into something else
Material objects
Imperfect
Give some examples of some times of forms ?
Beauty , justics and wisdom
What is the ultimate form ?
The form of the good