Greeks & Romans Flashcards
1
Q
What is the Greek motto?
A
- “Know thyself”
2
Q
What were some of the major characteristics of the Bronze Age?
A
- 3000-1200 ‘before the common era’; BCE
- Were warriors and had a warrior mentality
- An age of royal rule by semi-divine kings
- Conception of virtue
- Living ‘the good life’ which may have entailed battlefield glory and fighting well
3
Q
T/F: Homer was more like a poet than a philosopher
A
- TRUE
- His works still influenced later philosophers
4
Q
What was Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ about?
A
- An epic poem contained in 24 books
- Tells the story of the Greek Warrior Achilles and the Trojan War
- For Greeks, it captured their history, and added to their Greek identity
- It tied together a lot of different history
5
Q
What are the three major soul-like entities discussed in Ancient Greece?
A
- Phrenes - responsible for action (i.e., behaviour)
- Thumos - responsible for emotion
- Noos - responsible for perception, visual recognition (i.e., cognition)
6
Q
Who was Pythagoras?
A
- A philosopher and mathematician who coined the term philosopher
- Much of his life is lost to history, but the myth of Pythagoras was influential
- Described by many as having ‘god-like’ powers (thought of as the incarnation of Apollo)
- Had many followers
7
Q
Did Pythagoras form a cult?
A
- Yes, a semi-secret society in Italy
8
Q
What did Pythagoreans believe?
A
- Mathematics underlies all nature and can cleanse the mind
- They had to attune themselves to the harmony of the universe
- Vows of secrecy
*Most likely belonged to the semi-secret society in Italy
9
Q
What did Pythagoras believe the power of math was?
A
- Thought that mathematics underlies all human phenomenon
- Balance in mathematics = harmony
- He termed this a union of opposites
- Pythagorean theorem is an example of how harmony can be demonstrated through geometry
10
Q
What were Pythagoras’ thoughts on opposites?
A
- Suggested that natural opposites existed in nature
- Unity can only be described through tendencies that contradict
- Made the Table of Opposites
11
Q
What’s the most important pair in the table of opposites?
A
- Limited vs. Unlimited
12
Q
How could you explain the pair limited vs. unlimited?
A
- As people, everything we experience has a limit, even if it appears unlimited
- Mowing a large lawn may feel unlimited, however, each blade of grass has its own geometric properties
- Combined, there is a precise mathematical structure that is limited
13
Q
In Pythagoras’ dualistic universe, what were the components of the physical world?
A
- Known through the senses however the senses can’t provide ‘true’ knowledge
- Contempt for physical pleasure, corrupts thinking
- Outlawed excess and eating of the flesh (i.e., veganism)
- Strict puritanical living
14
Q
In Pythagoras’ dualistic universe, what were the components of the abstract world?
A
- More permanent and knowable
- Focuses on our ability to reason than just relying on our senses
- Believed to be an immortal world (i.e., the soul and not the body)
- Pre-cursor to mind-body dualism
15
Q
Who was Alcmaeon?
A
- A philosopher and physician
- Was likely also a Pythagorean
- Thought health results from a good balance
- Want to restore equilibrium to the patient (bring harmony)
- Also among the first to use dissection (identified how the eyeball is connected to the brain)
16
Q
What were Alcmaeon’s contributions to psychology?
A
- Prior to him, the ‘mind’ was believed to be seated in the heart
- Thought sensory info reached the brain via ‘air channels’
- Perception, cognition, and memory
- Early contributor to epistemology (the study of how knowledge is acquired)
17
Q
Who was Hippocrates?
A
- “The Father of Medicine”
- Son of a physician, born in what is now Turkey
- Divorced medicine from superstition
- Was a keen observer
- Developed the process of: observe - diagnosis - prognosis
18
Q
How do we know what we know of Hippocrates?
A
- Provided by the Hippocratics
- Reported that he believed in the natural healing abilities of the body (the physician should minimize interfering, cures could include fresh air, rest, baths, exercise, diet)
- Ties into today’s behavioural medicine
19
Q
What were Hippocrates four humours?
A
- Sanguine (blood)
- Choleric (yellow bile)
- Melancholic (black bile)
- Phlegmatic (phlegm)
*Also triggered by season
20
Q
Who was Galen?
A
- Roman, not a Greek
- Alive 500 years after Hippocrates
- Added temperament to the four humoral theory
- An early version of a personality theory
21
Q
Who were the Sophists?
A
- A group of teachers of rhetoric (art of persuasion) and logic (characterizing valid arguments)
22
Q
What were the major pillars of the Sophists?
A
- There is no one truth, rather anything can be true if you are convinced (everyone has their own individual truths)
- Focused on what humans can know and how they come to know
23
Q
Who was Socrates?
A
- Did not write anything himself, but detailed accounts provided by Plato
- Philosophy his life work, wasn’t usually paid
- Would discuss issues with anyone
- Comfortable being poor, bare foot, shaggy
- Highly disciplined and chaste
24
Q
What was Socrates approach to education?
A
- Thought himself to be the “midwife of thought”, helping others find their own ideas (i.e., critical thinking)
- Would lead students to find their own answers
- Knowledge is acquired by reasoning from within, not from experience
25
Q
How did Socrates die?
A
- At 70 years old, was accused of ‘corrupting the youth of Athens’
- Found guilty and sentenced to death
- Imprisoned for a month
- Could have escaped, chose not to
- Chose death over leaving Athens
- Consumed a drink with toxic hemlock
26
Q
What was Socrates influence on psychology?
A
- Views on knowledge were influential to Plato, Kant, and others
- Ideas on innate traits influenced genetics, personality, and linguistics
- Belief in ‘past lives’ informed mind-body dualism
27
Q
Who was Plato?
A
- Born to aristocrats in Athens
- The most well-known student of Socrates (studied with him for 8 years
- Had two careers: A socratic philosopher and developed his own academy of philosophy
28
Q
What work did Plato publish?
A
- Published over 30 dialogues
- ‘The Republic’ is the most famous
- It features Socrates talking to Athenians on topics such as the meaning of justice, immortality of the soul, and theory of forms
29
Q
What’s the Theory of Forms?
A
- Based on Pythagorean ideas
- Like Socrates, Plato believed we inherently hold knowledge
- Plato argued that everything in our world represents a pure ‘form’ (abstract idea)
- The form is enduring, but the representative object is not
- Therefore, the form is eternal and pure (the object will rot away)
30
Q
What’s Plato’s reminiscence theory?
A
- It was a theory of knowledge
- Assumed that the soul was immortal, and so is knowledge
- Sensory information contaminates perception
- All knowledge obtained through introspection
(we remember knowledge which already exists - Consistent with nativist viewpoints
31
Q
What’s the tripartite soul?
A
- Plato’s idea
1. Appetite (physical; hunger, thirst, sex)
2. Feeling (emotions; fear, love, anger)
3. Reason (immortal; rational pursuits and introspection; goal of life is to be free from temptation)
32
Q
What was Plato’s influence on psychology?
A
- Furthered the discussion on mind-body dualism
- Proposed early theories on human motivation
- The tripartite soul is likely the first nod to personality psychology
- His ideas were also the root for cognitive psychology
33
Q
Who was Aristotle?
A
- Born in 384 in Northern Greece
- Son of a physician, was taught medicine and biology
- Joined Plato’s Academy at the age of 17
34
Q
Who was Plato’s most accomplished student?
A
- Aristotle
- Studied with him for 20 years
- After Plato’s death, spent 13 years abroad as an advisor and academy head
35
Q
Who acted as a tutor to a teenaged Alexander the Great?
A
- Aristotle
36
Q
What was the Lyceum?
A
- At age 49, Aristotle returned to Athens with the hope of becoming the president of Plato’s academy, but was turned away
- So he formed the Lyceum
- It was similar to today’s universities
- Aristotle lectured twice a day
- Had the idea of the “peripatec school” where he would discuss ideas with students while on walks
37
Q
What did Aristotle disagree with Plato on?
A
- Disagreed with the theory of forms, arguing that matter and form exist together
- More open to sensory information (sensation and knowledge are intertwined)
- More emphasis on observation less on mathematics
- More interested in understanding underlying causes
38
Q
What’s Teleology?
A
- Aristotle’s idea that every object in nature serves a purpose
- There are four main causes:
1. Material cause - what the object is made out of
2. Formal cause - the essence of a pattern of the object
3. Efficient cause - the energy that creates its pattern
4. Final cause - the purpose of the object
39
Q
What were Aristotle’s thoughts regarding sensory information?
A
- Sensory information needed to acquire knowledge
- Each sense provides an individual clue
- The combination of senses provides key information
40
Q
What was Aristotle’s definition of common sense?
A
- The mental process which consolidates each piece of sensory information and interprets it
41
Q
What was Aristotle’s passive vs. active reason?
A
- Passive: Using your synthesized experiences to navigate the world
- Active: Abstract thinking, the highest form of cognition, we form a concept of an object in our mind
42
Q
What did Aristotle think was our purpose in life?
A
- Rational thinking
- Also believed that compared to other species, we can control our appetitive impulses (rationally)
43
Q
What was Aristotle’s idea of the Golden Mean?
A
- Believed that moderation is the key to living your best life
- Should aim for the ‘mean’ or ‘mid-point’ (seen somewhat in the 4 humours)
- There is a spectrum from complete abstinence, to moderation, to indulging
44
Q
What were some important writings that Aristotle had on memory?
A
- Wrote a short treatise called On Memory
- Was the first to suggest that memories come from associations and that memories are chains of associations
- Remembering is an act of spontaneous recollection
- Recall is an intentional search for remembered information (why it’s harder than simply remembering)
45
Q
What were Aristotle’s three Laws of Association?
A
- Association by Similarity - we remember the object by thinking of something else that is like it
- Association by contrast - we remember the object by thinking of its opposite (day vs. night)
- Association by Contiguity - we remember an object that is paired with another object (PB and jelly)
46
Q
Who developed Mnemonics and why?
A
- Aristotle emphasized the use of imagination in recall
- Designed mnemonics, which are techniques designed to help us remember lists of information
47
Q
What’s the Method of Loci?
A
- Developed by Aristotle
- A method by creating associations between what needs to be remembered and your physical environment
- End up associating certain objects with the facts in your head
48
Q
What’s Aristotle’s impact on psychology?
A
- Invented logic
- Introduced the notion of empiricism, later adopted in the scientific method
- First systematic investigator of biology
- Introduced metaphysics, the structure of reality
- Also had theories of motivation, memory, personality, and different types of intelligences
