Key Philosophers and their Ideals Flashcards
How does the cave link to the theory of forms
The prisoners are those who haven’t been tutored in that way
What happens in the allegory
There are many puppets
There is a fire
The prisoners can only see shadows
The prisoners mistake appearance for their actual reality
What happens when one is released
he goes into the light, the truth, which at first is very hard to bear
Later though he becomes use to it and sees things how they really are
He tells the others
The aim of the republic
what is necessary to achieve reflective understanding
our ability to think and speak depends on the forms
we name the forms but until we achieve true enlightenment we cannot understand things for how they are
What does Descartes’ demons do (1st meditation)
they make them believe that what he perceives as real is not, nothing is authentic
He feels he has a headache, but does he have a head?
What does Descartes need to do
he needs to prove that his existence is not an illusion
What happens in the second meditation
Descartes concludes that there can be no doubt that he exists, at least in some sort of form. He writes ‘cogito ergo sum’ if he deceives me; and let him deceive me as much as he likes, he can never cause me to be nothing, so long as I think I am something’
What does this mean
It means that the very fact that he thinks means that he exists
Just as one must exist to be deceived, one must exist to doubt that very existence.
Moral absolutism
Moral absolutism is an ethical view that all actions are intrinsically right or wrong. Stealing, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done for the well-being of others, and even if it does in the end promote such a good.
Moral skepticism
Moral skepticism is a class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal claim that moral knowledge is impossible
Consequentialism
The morality of an action is based on its consequences
Hume live dates
1711 - 1776
What is Hume’s sweeping argument
He gives a sweeping argument that we are never justified in believing testimony that a miracle has occurred, because the evidence for uniform laws of nature will always be stronger. If correct, this claim would undermine the veracity of any sacred text, such as the Bible, which testifies to miracles and relies on them as its guarantor of truth.
Descartes before the meditation
he wants to build a new philosophy that is objectively correct but he doubts everything
What is hume
Hume is one of the first philosophers to systematically explore religion as a natural phenomenon, suggesting how religious belief can arise from natural, rather that supernatural means.
Hume’s critics of the design argument
Hume develops what are now standard objections to the analogical design argument by insisting that the analogy is drawn only from limited experience, making it impossible to conclude that a cosmic designer is infinite, morally just, or a single being. Nor can we use such depictions to inform other aspects of the world, such as whether there is a dessert-based afterlife. He also defends what is now called “the Problem of Evil,” namely, that the concept of an all powerful, all knowing, and all good God is inconsistent with the existence of suffering
Rule utility
called himself a rule utilitarian as he believed that actions should conform to rules to give the greatest good, unlike Bentham.
What was bentham
Bentham was a total utilitarian, the greatest pleasure for the greatest amount in all situations always
Singer (just in case)
Preference utilitarianism (also known as preferentialism) is a form of utilitarianism in contemporary philosophy. It is distinct from original utilitarianism in that it values actions that fulfil the greatest amount of personal interests, as opposed to actions that generate the greatest amount of pleasure
