ancient philosophy, aristotle

Question 1

Empiricist.

Answer 1

Believer that true knowledge is gained from sense experience.

Question 2

Per genus et per differentia.

Answer 2

Through type and difference.

Question 3

Aristotle’s most famous obervation.

Answer 3

Discovering the earth to be spherical after witnessing the eclipse.

Question 4

The Four Causes.

Answer 4

• Material.
• Formal.
• Efficient.
• Final.

Question 5

Material Cause.

Answer 5

Substance.

Question 6

Formal Cause.

Answer 6

Design or immanent shape.

Question 7

Efficient Cause.

Answer 7

Maker.

Question 8

Final Cause.

Answer 8

Purpose.

Question 9

Hume’s ‘cause and effect’.

Answer 9

X causes Y.

Question 10

Aristotle’s version of ‘cause and effect’.

Answer 10

Why X brings about Y, why X and why Y.

Question 11

Text in which Aristotle discusses the Four Causes.

Answer 11

Physics II 3 and V 2

Question 12

Argument in Nicomachean Ethics.

Answer 12

Humans must have a final cause, which is being good at being people.

Question 13

The Prime Mover.

Answer 13

A perfect, trancsendant, eternal being which co-exists with the universe within time, but did not create the universe and only contemplates its own perfection.

Question 14

The Prime Mover and the Universe.

Answer 14

The universe/humanity is in motion towards the Prime Mover due to its inherent nature of perfection which attracts.

Question 15

Scientific Objections.

Answer 15

Cosmological advances suggesting the universe had a start.

Question 16

Philosophical objections.

Answer 16

• Aristotle confuses naming something with explaining it.
• Not all things have an inherent purpose, but have one put onto it.
• There may not be one reason for motion or change.
• Religious disagreement.

Question 17

Exstitentialist objection.

Answer 17

We do not have a purpose. Camus would label Aristotle’s objection to contribute to the aburdism of the world as the search for purpose contradicts with the meaninglessness of the world and results in religion or suicide.

Question 18

Bertrand Russel quote on purpose.

Answer 18

“I should say the universe is just there, and that is all.”

Question 19

Fallacy of Composition.

Answer 19

The error of thinking what is true for the part is true for the whole.