ancient philosophy, aristotle Flashcards
philosophy: ancient philosophy of aristotle.
Empiricist.
Believer that true knowledge is gained from sense experience.
Per genus et per differentia.
Through type and difference.
Aristotle’s most famous obervation.
Discovering the earth to be spherical after witnessing the eclipse.
The Four Causes.
- Material.
- Formal.
- Efficient.
- Final.
Material Cause.
Substance.
Formal Cause.
Design or immanent shape.
Efficient Cause.
Maker.
Final Cause.
Purpose.
Hume’s ‘cause and effect’.
X causes Y.
Aristotle’s version of ‘cause and effect’.
Why X brings about Y, why X and why Y.
Text in which Aristotle discusses the Four Causes.
Physics II 3 and V 2
Argument in Nicomachean Ethics.
Humans must have a final cause, which is being good at being people.
The Prime Mover.
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.
The Prime Mover and the Universe.
The universe/humanity is in motion towards the Prime Mover due to its inherent nature of perfection which attracts.
Scientific Objections.
Cosmological advances suggesting the universe had a start.
Philosophical objections.
- 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.
Exstitentialist objection.
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.
Bertrand Russel quote on purpose.
“I should say the universe is just there, and that is all.”
Fallacy of Composition.
The error of thinking what is true for the part is true for the whole.
