Classical Greece/philo

Question 1

Huge debate between 2 school of thinking in Athens in times of Socrates. What was it?

Answer 1

Relativism vs Absolutism

Question 2

What philosophers for relativism?

Answer 2

Parmenides of Elea & Sophists (Gorgias/Protagoras)

Question 3

Relativism def

Answer 3

Worldviews as relative interpretations

Question 4

Parmenides of Elea

Answer 4

• We don’t have access to absolute truth - it exists but it’s higher
• Mortal view = way of seeming = relative truth
• Immortal view = way of truth = absolute truth

Question 5

The Sophists: Gorgias and Protagoras

Answer 5

• Philosophers who called themselves sophists (sofia = wisdom) - paid services
• Everything is relative - no constant truth (you can provide proof for anything
• Moral principles are transient, not eternal – everything is relative to the time; Same for esthetic/beauty → depend on epoch and place
• Human perceptual apparatus imperfect (prone to illusion/mental illness) resulting in a false orientation

Question 6

Absolute philosophers

Answer 6

Socrates, Plato

Question 7

Story of Socrates

Answer 7

Born and raised in Athens. Mother = midwife.
For Socrates, sophists corrupt minds of young pple -> Offered pacification of reality = immoral
Socrates ended up brought to trial - elites angry at him (”corrupting religious beliefs”).

Question 8

Socrates

Answer 8

Absolute, ontological idealism, nativism, rationalism
- Socrates believed in the TRUTH (+ethics/beauty), which is CONSTANT – no matter who is accessing the truth
- Core essence of reality is not visible - Essence of reality is in their ideal form - Essence of person = soul
- Absolute truth inborn and discoverable through heuresis (nativism) combined with rational contemplation (rationalism)
- Students need a wise teacher who offers heuresis (exploration?) and mental training of logical thinking for proper development of knowledge
- KNOW THYSELF!!!
- Aporia & heuristically guided questioning

Question 9

Socrates’ techniques of rationality

Answer 9

Aporia & heuristically guided questioning.
- Aporia: transient intellectual crisis: feeling confused, perplexed and lost - necessary for any philosopher
-> Resolution: critical re-thinking, revision of old axioms, and search for a new solution

Question 10

Plato’s story

Answer 10

Born to aristocratic Athenian parents. Received best education available at the time.
Socrates’ best student.
After Socrates’ death, travelled and settled in Sicily to study maths and philosophy at the Pythagorean school.
Then back to Athens, found Academy!!
After teaching at academy, accepted to be royal tutor
Aristotle - his student (and, later, colleague)

Question 11

Plato’s philosophy

Answer 11

Monism idealism. Absolute.
- Pple are born w not so good access to potential -> Academy = best proof that SOME pple who have huge potential.
-> Ontology: Essence of reality = “pure forms” or “pure ideas” (Essence of human = soul)
- Sensory impressions = imperfect images
- Rational thinking and intellectual intuition
- Epistemology: The truth to be discovered by heuristic illumination, insightful intuition (nativism) and logic reasoning (rationalism)
- 3 types of soul (rational, courageous, appetitive)
- Personality types

Question 12

Plato’s concepts of essence adopted from Pythagoreans and Parmenides of Elea

Answer 12

Plato strongly influenced by Pythagorean teachings on the essence of reality and logical reasoning as a vital tool for attaining knowledge.
- Epistemology: The truth to be discovered by heuristic illumination, insightful intuition (nativism) and logic reasoning (rationalism)
- Ontology: The essence of things - really exists as pure forms/ideas (idealism) - The eternal pure forms (pure ideas) are immaterial

Question 13

Plato’s 3 types of soul

Answer 13

• Rational soul: Head. Immortal, akin to reasoning and intellectual apprehension of pure ideas and noble virtues. -> Supervise, control the lower souls, impose ethics/rationality
  => Supervise fulfillment of bodily needs IN ACCORDANCE with moral norms
• Courageous soul: Chest. Mortal, less noble. Oriented towards ambition, pride, social referencing…
• Appetitive soul: Stomach. Mortal, dies with the body. Prompts urges aimed at the fulfillment of bodily needs

Question 14

For Plato, ethics are based on ____

Answer 14

Ethics based on rational judgment - not fear.
-> Plato known for his preference for rational ethics (we are not good bc of fear of punishment, but bc we have inherent rules of decency)
Intellectual & moral virtues: wisdom, harmony, goodness & beauty

Question 15

Plato’s personality types

Answer 15

For Plato, predominance of certain souls = source of individual differences
-> Predominance of the rational soul = thinkers, teachers, leaders
-> Predominance of the courageous soul = political activism, military
-> Predominance of the appetitive soul = laborers, servants
“The Republic”- Utopian society of 3 types of personality, who harmoniously contribute acc. to their predispositions.

Question 16

Plato’s view of politics

Answer 16

Meritocracy: Plato didn’t like autocrats & democrats. Both styles of governments are bad, bc these 2 mean dominant of autocrat or crying majority.
-> Best government = pple who merit, who are wise, decent and who are not interested in money/corruption

Question 17

Aristotle story

Answer 17

A Greek from Macedonian city of Stagira.
His father = a court physician to the king Amyntas III, grandfather of Alexander
- Studied/teaching in the Academy (Plato’s best student)
- Plato died. Aristotle moved to Lesbos
- Back on the Macedonian court as a tutor of the future Alexander T.G.
- Phillip of Macedonia conquers Athens
- Alexander proclaimed king of M. & Greece (propagated greek culture)
- Aristotle opens the LYCEUM near the temple to Apollo Lykeios
- After he died, Aristotle didn’t feel very safe in Athens (anti macedonian attitudes)- animosity against him. Came back home and died.

Question 18

What’s the link between empirical Zeitgeist and “Plato’s academy vs Aristotle’s lyceum”?

Answer 18

The highly abstract teaching offered in Plato’s Academy was incompatible with the Zeitgeist of conquest and its need for the empirical knowledge + techniques applicable to military action.
-> In this context, Aristotle’s Lyceum seemed to suit the times better → added some natural, physical domains (geometry, botany…). Such domains required new epistemology: empiricism

Question 19

Aristotle’s philosophy

Answer 19

• Ontological dualism (hylomorphism): Both matter and form exist
  -> The essence of a thing is in its form and in its belonging to the abstract class (category) universals
  => Points at 2 aspects of an object: its material substance and its meaningful form (e.g. marble vs statue)
• Epistemological empiricism & rationalism: From sensory observations & experience to generalization, classification and abstract essence
• Sensation & Common sense
• Theory of motivation

Question 20

Hylomorphism

Answer 20

Aristotle. Both matter and form exist. Together = meaningful obj
Everything in the world has potential to be meaningful.
-> Matter + form = a meaningful thing
-> Body + soul = a human
Status of: Potential being vs. Actual being
- Entelechy & Scala Naturae: All things are striving to become: from pure potentiality (matter) to pure actuality (God)

Question 21

Entelechy ἐντελέχεια-entelékheia

Answer 21

Everything in the universe undergoes the Entelechia – a process of striving to become something,
-> Transforming from the status of the Potential Being (unformed, meaningless piece of material) into an Actual Being (meaningful object in its completion, fruition, actualization).
(Hylomorphism, Aristotle)

Question 22

Scala Naturae

Answer 22

Scala Naturae: Natural scale or ladder/stairway of being
-> Unformed matter->meaningful objects-> plants->animals->humans->divinity
Humans are the closest to the divine actuality (From vegetative soul, animal soul, and human soul to divine soul)

Question 23

Essence and Souls, Aristotle

Answer 23

The essence determines object’s or organism’s meaningful definition and characteristics. The essence of anything meaningful is contained in the form, not the matter.
- The form is the essence of sculptured marble
- The vegetative soul is the essence of a plant
- The sensitive soul is the essence of an animal
- The rational soul is the essence of a human being
=> Soul/psyche = essence of organism: it animates and defines it

Question 24

Aristotle’s forms of soul

Answer 24

Aristotle extrapolates the notion of psyche into all living organisms: plants, animals, and humans. PSYCHE = 3 elements (most interesting = highest one)
-> Rational (Active mind): Proactive plans & decisions, Gives meaning and direction to our conduct and moral choices, Guides and supervise the passive mind… Major tools = rational thinking, reasoning and judgment. IMMORTAL IN HUMANS
-> Sensitive(Passive): Reactive orientation & response, Just responding to stimuli without any understanding. In humans & animals; mortal - dies with body.
-> Vegetative(Nutritive and Procreative): Life maintaining, reproduction. Lowest part. In humans, animals & plants; mortal - dies with body.

Question 25

Aristotle’s Rational (Active mind)

Answer 25

Only in humans, immortal.
Proactive plans & decisions, Gives meaning and direction to our conduct and moral choices, Guides and supervise the passive mind… Major tools = rational thinking, reasoning and judgment.

Question 26

Aristotle Sensitive(Passive mind) soul

Answer 26

In humans and animals, dies with body.
- Reactive orientation & response
- Just responding to stimuli without any understanding

Question 27

Aristotle’s Vegetative(Nutritive and Procreative) soul

Answer 27

In humans, animals and plants, dies with body. Life maintaining, reproduction, Lowest part

Question 28

Aristotle’s book Peri Psyches represents which one of his concept?

Answer 28

Represents the author’s concept of the 3 types of soul.

Question 29

Aristotle’s theory of perception/cog psychology

Answer 29

SENSATION = An effect of the motion of a medium.
Five senses with specific sensitivity to the motion of different medium: light (for vision), air (for smell)… e.g. the motion of the air triggers smell.
=> The presence of an object might be detected simultaneously by more than one sensory organ
COMMON SENSE = integrates multisensory inputs into the perception of a single meaningul object, ENABLES PERCEPTION
Then common sense uses Memory and Recognition.

Question 30

Aristotle’s common sense uses 2 mechanisms, what are they?

Answer 30

Memory and Recognition.
- Memory as a storage of images from the past experiences
- Recognition - act of associating, recognizing and actively recollecting

Question 31

Perceptual experiences are linked to each other, and Aristotle described the following ways of association: (4)

Answer 31

Similarity
Contrast
Contiguity
Frequency

Question 32

Aristotle’s view on dreams

Answer 32

Images produced by object perception can be validated by various senses and are more worthy than images created in dreams.
-> Didn’t believe in symbolic of dreams

Question 33

Aristotle’s theory of Motivation (4)

Answer 33

Appetites = Simplest forms of intentions (exist in plants, animals, humans - aka survive)
Urges and needs (animals, humans)
Intentions and desires (humans only)
Catharsis: purification,cleansing, ventilating

Question 34

Aristotle’s ethics

Answer 34

Aristotle explains that purpose of life is Eudaimonia ( =good spirits and happiness based on achieved virtues,”arête”)
Virtues: wisdom, courage, temperance, justice…
=> Transformation from pleasure-seeking to virtue-seeking conduct, based on rational intentions and choices
-> Rational supervision over appetites, urges, needs and passions

Question 35

Aristotle’s Eudaimonia def

Answer 35

Highest human good, the only human good that is desirable for its own sake

Question 36

Aristotle’s view on politics

Answer 36

• Spartan (Aristotle) discipline, duty, responsibility, and social harmony
• Strong leadership of enlightened and ethically decent public servants (meritocracy preferred over democracy)