Chapter 1: Rationalism and Empicirism in Antiquity Flashcards
Epistemology
The branch of philosophy that focuses on knowledge.
Rationalism
Maintains that true knowledge about reality derives from the proper use of our reasoning capacities (intellect, reason or ratio).
Empiricism
Sensory experience is the ultimate source of knowledge. Senses are reliable indicators of what reality is like.
Metaphysics
The branch of philosophy that asks and tries to answer the pre-eminent (more important or better) philosophical questions.
-> “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
-> “What is the world made of?”
Pre-socratici
In search of the archè, the first principle. The basic of all things.
Thales of Miletos: water.
Anaximander: the apeiron, the undefined.
Anaximenes: fire.
Leucippos: atoms.
Socrates (470-399 B.C.)
- Ethics rather than epistemology: “How to live a good life?”
- Wanted to know the essence of certain concepts, their unique identifying properties, like beauty, justice, courage, etc.
- Intellectual midwifery: Q&A/discussions with fellow Athenians to bring about true identities.
- Socrates claimed that his not knowing was his only certainty.
Heraclites of Ephese (600-540 B.C.) “The Obscure”
- Called change “flux”.
- Nothing is, everything becomes / change is real and being is not.
- You cannot step into the same river twice, as both you and the river have changed.
- Panta rei: everything flows.
Parmenides of Elea (510-440 B.C.) “Our Father Parmenides”
- Everything is, nothing becomes / Being is real and change is not.
- Nothing ever really changes: if something changes, it no longer is. Real existence means to be without change.
- It is their senses that mislead human beings into thinking that things are changing all the time -> how water feels hot to one person and cold to another.
Plato (427-347 B.C.)
- Rationalist.
- Systematic thinker: not just ethics, but also metaphysics and epistemology in writing.
- Perception ≠ knowledge -> a stick in the water looks like its bending, but its not.
Relativity of truth
- Plato
- Having genuine knowledge is impossible, as it is relative to the observer and his own perception and beliefs.
Anamnesis
- Plato
- To learn is to actually be reminded of what one knew in prenatal existence through reason. Plato believed we were born with all knowledge (reincarnation) but lose it at birth due to the (traumatic) process of getting a new body.
Nativism
- Plato
- Human beings possess innate ideas (no observation needed) when they are born, knowledge is already present.
Forms
Plato believed that the world cannot be the ever-changing world of appearances, but a supernatural realm which contains the eternal and perfect Form, and the world we inhabit, which only has Impressions of objects of the perfect Forms (e.g. triangle in the board).
If we reason well, we will remember the Forms from before birth (e.g. Meno’s slave example).
Allegory of the Cave
- Plato
- Human beings contenting themselves with observations of the world as it appears to them by sensory experience, are in a similar position as prisons. They mistake appearance for reality.
Doxa
Belief / opinion.
