Ancient Philosopical Influences Flashcards
What content must you remember about plato
- Understanding of reality
- The forms
- Analogy of the cave
What content must you remember about Aristotle
- understanding of reality
- the four causes
- prime mover
Is Plato a rationalist or an empiricist
Rationalist
What analogy did Plato have
The cave
Did Plato trust the senses
No
What did the prisoners represent
Ordinary people
What did the cave represent
Our empirical world
What did the chains represent
Our senses - bound by then
What does the escapee represent
Philosopher
What does the sun represent
Highest form of good
What does Plato believe about our reality
- For something to be real it must be unchanging
- the world constantly changes
- truth must be outside our world
- we have innate knowledge as we know true beauty
What’s the most important form
The form of the good
What did Plato believe education was
Matter of remembering and recalling the world of the forms
Was Aristotle a rationalist or empiricist
Empiricist
What are differences between Plato and Aristotle
- how we gain knowledge
- senses
What are the four causes
Material, what the object is made from
Efficient, what created the object
Formal, describes characteristics that makes the object what it is
Final, every object has a purpose
What did Plato believe about goodness
Highest form, absolute standard
What does Aristotle believe about goodness
Goodness is relative. If something does what it’s meant to it is good
What is Aristotle’s prime mover theory
All movement requires there to be a mover. Movement meaning anything that changes.
Arguments for the prime mover
There must be a first ‘mover’ in the reaction of change. This must be God.
Definition of prime mover
Something that moves other things but is in itself, motionless.
Is the prime mover an efficient cause or final cause
Final cause, purpose of the movement
How does the prime mover move things
The way milk draws a cat towards it
Is the prime mover necessary or unnecessary
Necessary, everything depends on it
Evaluation of Aristotle’s views
+ compatible with science
+ testable
+ relativist views are flexible and make sense
— cannot always trust senses
— not everything may be good if it fulfils purpose
— unmoved mover sounds contradicting
What philosophers are within Ancient Philosophical influences
Plato
Aristotle
