Ancient Philosophical Influences (not soul) Flashcards
What Century was Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle from?
- Socrates = 5th
- Plato = 4th
- Aristotle = 3rd
Summarise the story of Platos cave + what the objects represent?
- Allegory for the general public blindly accepting what they are told, and how philosophers trying to educating society are met with hostility
- Prisoners in a cave watch shadows on the wall, which they are told is reality
- One prisoners (philosopher) is released and discovers the truth
- Tries to other prisoners the truth, but is resented and killed by the prisoners (i.e. Socrates)
Summaries Socrates
- Plato’s teacher
- Questioned everything + encouraged students to do same
- Found guilty of ‘corrupting minds of Athens youth’
- Given choice to stop making youth think / question things
–> choose to drink poison instead of stopping, thought this would undermine his work
Plato’s world of appearances vs World of forms
- world of appearances is constantly changing, we rely on out sense to understand what is going on
–> transitory, relative, changing, superficial, imperfect - World of forms - unchanging + eternal
–> Out of time + space, absolute, permanent, based on fact, perfect
Plato - who is Meno
A slave, was given a puzzle and worked it out. Meaning he must of had prior knowledge from different life
Summarise Plato’s myth of Er
- Solider dies then comes back to life
told people what he experienced in other world - souls divided, just went right and upwards, unjust went left downwards
- Souls choose their human bodies
- then drink potion to forget everything they know
What is Anamnesis?
- Souls are eternal an unchanging, is connected to world of the forms
- When soul is re-incarnated knowledge is forgotten in shock of birth
- We recognise Forms because we still have dim recollection of them
- What is perceived as learning is actually recovery of what was forgotten
What is the highest form
- Form of the good
Forms are interrelated, arranged in hierarchy - In cave allegory, sun is form of the good, illuminating other forms
What are the 4 causes
Developed by Aristotle
1. Material Cause
- Material object is made from
2. Formal Cause
- Shape of the thing / how it is arranged
3. Efficient Cause
- What / Who gives it is shape / how it is made
4. Final Cause
- Purpose / Telos of thing
What is Rationalism vs Empiricism + which one is Aristotle + Plato?
Rationalism
- Belief ultimate starting point of knowledge is reason, knowledge is acquired without resorting to experiences
Empiricism
- Sense experience alone gives birth to all our beliefs + knowledge
- Sense is ultimate starting point for knowledge
knowledge derived from experience
- Aristotle is an Empiricist
- Plato is a Rationalist
What are Aristotles 4 causes?
- Material cause –> What object is made from e.g. wood of chair
- Efficient cause –> source of object e.g. carpenter of chair
- Formal cause –> essence of object e.g. design of chair
- Final cause –> end goal / telos of object
Explain Aristotle’s Prime Mover?
- World in constant state of change
- Must be some kind of efficient cause causing the action
–> actualising potential in everything else - Prime mover is being with no potential, as in pure actuality
- PM attracts everything towards itself - but itself remains unaffected
What did Aristotle believe about the world + what did this cause him to think?
- World is in a constant state of change
- Must be an efficient cause (something or someone performing action to cause change)
- This cause is Prime mover, unmoved mover
How does Aristotle describe the Prime Mover
- cause which actualises potential in everything else
- ## Being with no potential, already in pure actuality, no potential to change
Necessary Vs. Contingent
Necessity - has to happen
contingent - dependent on something else, could not happen
A Priori Vs. A Posteriori
A Priori
Knowledge gained through reason
- Rationalism
A Posteriori
Knowledge gained through experience
- Empiricism
List the wider scholars for Plato?
- Pythagoras (5BC)
→ universe made from numbers + harmonious - Heraclitus (5BC)
→ “can’t step in the same river twice” - world ever changing but underlying stability - Aristotle’s 4 objections to FoG (3BC)
→ Good comes in multiples varieties e.g. person v shovel ∴ no single form
→ Becoming eternal doesn’t make something purer e.g. white becoming eternal doesn’t make it more white
→ Forms have no practical use e.g. doctor treating patient doesn’t think in forms
→ Incoherence in general theory of forms e.g. infinite numbers = infinite forms - Kotarbinski 20th Century
→ Plato committed mistake of ‘reification’ (treating something abstract as concrete
Having word for something doesnt mean existence e.g. justice or good ∴ Plato make WoF - Karl Popper 20th Century
→ Plato sought reduce from uncertainty ∴ created WoF
List the Wider Scholars for Aristotle
- Existentialists e.g. Sartre (20th Cent.)
→ No universal purpose, only purpose person has is one they choose - William Temple (20th Cent.)
→ “Impossible to imagine infinite regress, it is not impossible to conceive it”
Can’t imagine infinite regress, doesn’t mean its not possible - David Hume (18th cent.)
→ → Infinite regress - pushes problem further along, e.g. questions over origin of unmoved mover
→ Not based on empiricism - PM not based on empiricism as lacks empirical evidence - Quentin Smith (21st Cent.)
→ subatomic levels, particles come in + out of existence without detectable cause
→ events triggered without a cause - Bertrand Russell (20th Cent.)
→ Universe doesn’t need cause - Aristotle committed error of composition
→ no experience before universe - humans have mothers doesn’t mean human race has mothers
Name 2 Scholars Critiquing Rationalism + Empiricism?
William James
- Pragmatist - believes truth is what works in practise
Michel Foucault
- Rational + empirical based knowledge both depends on historical / cultural context
–> not universal or absolute
What was Kant’s criticism of Plato + Aristotle?
You cannot reason realities such as Plato’s Form of the Good or Aristotles Prime Mover, as they lie beyond the human cognitive grasp
