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Religious studies Y12 > Ethics plato and aristotle > Flashcards

Ethics plato and aristotle Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the highest and most powerful human capacity according to plato?

A

Reason

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2
Q

What is meant by rationalism?

A

Any system that stresses reason as the means of determining truth. Mind is given authority over the senses and reason alone can be used to establish truth.

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3
Q

What did Plato believe about the nature of forms?

A

Plato believed in the unchanging nature of the forms, which exist beyond the ordinary, physical world

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4
Q

How do we perceive objects, according to Plato?

A

We perceive objects through our senses, but their reality is defined by the forms they represent

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5
Q

How did Plato think we know the forms?

A

He believed our souls must have existed in the realm of the forms before our birth, allowing us to know them intuitively

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6
Q

What is the highest form of the hiercharchy?

A

Form of the good

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7
Q

What does Plato call the Demimurge?

A
  • The Demimurge is Platos definition of God
  • Plato makes the claims about the nature of God
  • believed that the world was created by a God called the Demimurge, ( craftsman ) who made the word by fashioning it out of material that was already there
  • In platos work, he describes how the Demimurge is good and desires the best for humanity
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8
Q

What is the difference between the Realm of Appearances and the Realm of the Forms?

A

Realm of appearances
- currently
- always changing

Realm of the forms
- highest good
H.f. Beauty/ justice
L.f. Desires

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9
Q

Key components: the cave

A
  • cave with 3 prisoners in it
  • tied to some rocks
  • arms and legs are bound - head is tied so they cannot look at anything but the stone wall infront of them
  • have been there since birth - never been outside
  • behind prisoners is a fire, between is a raised walkway
  • people outside the cave walks along this walkway carrying things on their heads
    e.g animals, plants, wood, stone
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10
Q

Key components: the shadows

A

If you had never seen the real objects ever before, you would believe that the shadows of objects were “real”

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11
Q

Key components: the game

A
  • Plato suggests that the prisoners would begin a “game” of guessing which shadow would appear next
  • if one of the prisoners were to correctly guess, the other would praise him as clever and say that he were a master of nature
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12
Q

Key components: the escape

A
  • one of the prisoners then escapes - leaves
  • shocked at the world, does not believe it can be real
  • realises his former view of reality was wrong
  • begins to understand his new world
  • sees the sun as the source of life
  • goes on an intellectual journey where he discovers beauty and meaning
  • he sees that his former life, the guessing game they played is useless
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13
Q

Key components: the return

A
  • prisoner returns to the cave, informs the prisoners
  • blinded by the outside world, freed prisoner now finds the darkness of the cave a struggle
  • others dont believe him, threaten to kill him if he tries to set them free
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14
Q

What are 2 strengths of the cave analogy by Plato?

A
  • plato gives a good argument for why there are imperfections in the world around us
  • platos belief that true reality, which is far more valuable, lies beyond our experiences or senses seems to be challenged by the success of science
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15
Q

what are 2 weaknesses of the cave analogy by Plato?

A
  • Dawkins is one modern thinker who argues it is meaningless to speak of unobservable transcendent realities
  • we base our understanding of the world on what we sense, there is no proof of another world
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16
Q

What is Aristotle?

A

An Empiricist - using observation
- believed we can gain knowledge through observation of the real world
- sense experience is the primary source of information
- uses more of a scientific approach

17
Q

What is Aristotles view on reality?

A
  • Aristotle recognised that the world was in a constant state of change
  • everything in the world is constantly moving and changing
  • everything is moving from actuality to potentiality
18
Q

What is the first cause?

A

The material cause
- what something is made of

19
Q

What is the second cause?

A

The formal cause
- this is the structure or form of the finished thing

20
Q

What is the third cause?

A

The efficient cause
- this is the activity that makes something happen

21
Q

What is fourth cause?

A

The final cause
- this is the last and most important cause
- the purpose of something or end (telos)

22
Q

What did Aristotle believe was God?

A

The unmoved mover

23
Q

What was Aristotles final cause?

A

God (the unmoved mover)

24
Q

What were qualities of the unmoved mover?

A
  • A God that only thinks of himself
  • Aristotle believed that God was perfect and everlasting
  • but he did not believe that God was the creator
  • he thought that it was unlikely that the universe had a beginning
  • aristotles God is ultimately indifferent to the universe
  • aristotles God is seen as a measure of perfection
  • no divine plan for humanity
  • only thinks about himself and his own perfection
25
Q

What are 2 strengths of the 4 causes?

A
  • conform strongly to the way we navigate reality, most objects can be broken down and understood in this way, and we could investigate it using the 4 causes.
  • focus on purpose gives a clear and common-sense way of assessing goodness, conforms to how we assess objects. e.g. if i were to give you a pen that failed to wright it would be uncontroversial to say that it was a bad pen.
26
Q

what are 2 criticisms of the 4 causes?

A
  • purpose is subjective. The purpose of an object can change depending on the POV, the definition of purpose and what is purpose differs from person to person
  • our senses are unreliable and can be fooled. Supporters of rationalism would argue he was too quick to abandon Plato’s theory of the forms
27
Q

what are 2 strengths of the prime mover? (Aristotle’s idea of God)

A
  • the prime mover seems to be more of a logical explanation than a theistic God (an Abrahamic God), it explains evil and why some prayers are not answered.
  • it avoids many of the other issues with a personal creator God, e.g. the problem of evil.
28
Q

what are 2 criticism’s of the prime mover?

A
  • Aristotle supported the empirical approach but has posited a being you cannot see and who is not subject to the four causes
  • difficult to explain how a perfect being can lack knowledge of the world
29
Q

Give 2 reasons why Plato’s ideas of the theory of the forms makes sense

A
  • we observe everything in the world is always changing/ it decays or dies, so it makes sense if there is a world where things are eternal/perfect.
  • world of forms is the real world, like the world outside the cave, much better than life inside of the cave
30
Q

Give 2 reasons why Plato’s ideas of the theory of the forms makes no sense

A
  • change is better than immutability. it is an important part of our world. without change we would not progress/mature.
  • using reason is difficult, how do we know who is right if we disagree? it is better to rely on our senses as it provides verifiable evidence
31
Q

what is the design argument?

A

An argument for the existence of God that states God designed the universe, because everything is so intricately made in its detail and to achieve a specific purpose that it could not have happened by chance

32
Q

what are 2 strengths of the design argument?

A
  • Theists, people who believe in God, suggest that the universe and life was created for a purpose by God, the universe didn’t come about by accident or a random chance. They believe that nature is so intricate and complex that God must have designed it. e.g. a tree was designed to put oxygen into the atmosphere
  • William Paley, an eighteenth century philosopher argued that if a person was waking in a field and came across a watch, even if they had never seen the watch before, its intricate workings would show that it had been put together deliberately for a specific purpose. someone mustve made and designed it. just like the watch, according to Paley, there is evidence of design in the natural world.
33
Q

what are 2 weaknesses of the design argument?

A
  • if God designed the world, then why is there so much suffering in the world? surely an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God would have created a universe in which there was no suffering due to natural evils such as earthquakes
  • the anthropic principle makes little sense as there are many things in the world which do not support human life, such as natural disasters and disease. the universe is so vast it cannot be all for humans. we cannot breathe in space, so how was that made for us? most of the ocean we have not even yet discovered , and that is on earth, so how can that be made for human life?

Religious studies Y12 (2 decks)

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