Lecture 2: Plato & Pythagoreans Flashcards
Periods of Ancient Greece? What marks their start and end?
Pre Classical Antiquity (1300 - 800 BC)
->literate “Linear A” (which we don’t know)
->warrior elite in “PALATIAL CENTERS”
->cuneiforms
->everyone mysteriously loses power, collapses
->BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE
->LOSS OF LINEAR B
Greek Dark Ages (1100 - 800), they literally go dark.
Archaic Greece (800 - 499 BC)
- > Land crisis: e.g. Sparta enslaving neighbours -> farm
- > Greek ruled by “Draco”, “Draconian Measures”
- > kept people fed but wrecked lower class
- > ~600 a tyrant set up, but Sparta ousted and installed their own puppet
- > BIRTH OF DEMOCRACY with revolution
- > defends Spartan invasion on inspiration alone
Classical Greece (5, 4th C BC)
- > birth of Greek Philosophy
- > Aristotle
- > focus on teaching, writing
- > but most records are lost, generally no or contradictory knowledge
The Milesian School: What/Who?
In Miletus
- > many exports, trading of goods AND ideas
- > influenced by Hindu thought (no evidence copied)
- > idea to WRITE THINGS
Thales is the first time we can attribute an idea to a person
Three material monists:
1) Thales: Father of science, how things appear vs are
2) Anaximander: First to write, has physical model
3) Anaximenes
Anaximander: All is _____ ? Explain.
ALL IS ONE
- > everything comes from conflict
- > we come from opposition
- > when things die, they recombine
- > all made of substance “Oneness”
- > all come from and return to “Apeiron”
- > “infinite” or “limitless”
- > perturbing it creates things
- > many worlds
Why is this good? It reflects mythology! How all Titans rose from the cosmos.
Anaximander and Cosmology?
FIRST MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF WORLD
- > elegantly modeled cosmos obeying rules
- > good ordered mathematical explanations
- > first to join math and science
- Earth is cylinder floating in centre of the infinite
- > unsupported, remains fixed because “indifference”
- > really radical at time, Earth floats free, doesn’t need to rest on something
- Flat top is where we all live
- Geocentric model
- > everything measured in Re (9, 18, 27 R’s)
- Earth surrounded by hollow rings filled with fire
- Sun, Moon, and stars are transparent rings/hoops/vents through which we can see the fire
- > phases of moon, and solar/lunar eclipses are vents closing up
Anaximenes: All is ____? Model of world?
All is air. (Air is the middle ground).
- > can thicken clouds -> rain -> mud
- > can rarified to fire
Earth is leaf on a gust of air
->at some point Earth let out a gust, forming stars
What is a monist, and which did we study?
(Material) monists believe all the world is made of a single material.
The Milesian School:
- > Thales (water)
- > Anaximander (oneness, Aperion)
- > Anaximenes. (air)
Material monists who weren’t Milesian:
- > Heraclitus of Ephesus (fire)
- > Parmenides of Elea (everything just is)
What is a Pluralist, and which did we study?
Believes world is made of multiple elements together. We saw some Pre Socratic pluralists:
- > Empedocles (the 4)
- > Democritus (atoms and void)
Heraclitus: All is ____? Explain beliefs.
All is fire
- > everything flowing, changing
- > “can’t step in same river twice”
- > Reality is change
- > but change isn’t just random
LOGOS (“the law”)
- > “nature loves to hide”
- > unseen principles, to understand use THE SENSES
- > but eyes are useless to barbarians
- > so EYES+EARS+REASON
Parmenides of Elea beliefs?
CHANGE IS AN IMPOSSIBLE ILLUSION
->senses unreliable, only use reason
Being/non being question
- > how does being come from non-being?
- > can’t get something from nothing
So Existence is eternal
- > can’t come from nothing so everything always was
- > true change impossible, everything always existed
Empedocles’ Beliefs
Four elements, resolves BEING VS NONBEING
->the 4 are permanent, eternally exist
->their combination/deconstruction shows us change
“Love and Strife” “Affinity and repulsion”
->forces the 4 to join and separate
->but strife stronger, one day all will separate
->END OF THE WORLD, everything dissolves to 4
Democritus’ Beliefs
Atomism
->atoms (beings) and void (non-beings)
But his atoms were different:
- > atoms indivisible and all alike
- > volumeless
- > no rules of recombination
But problematic:
- > Aristotle: speed-medium, so if void teleportation?
- > Aristotle: infinite volumeless atoms = volume?
- > AMORALITY - everything is just the exact same atoms, there are no gods, mythology, natural forces
As Athens became a central power, what FOUR THEMES permeated?
- Naturalistic explanation of formation of Earth
- Methodology - Logic & Reason, or Senses? All?
- Change, Permanence? How exist, being/nonbeing?
- Appearance vs Reality
What do we know of Socrates? What were his defining traits? To what end?
Certain: Intimidating intellect and incredibly ugly.
Mythological story:
- > was amazing soldier impervious to cold
- > someone asks Oracle for smartest man
- > has humility, tries to prove Oracle wrong
- > talks to all philosophers, but shows holes in logic
- > WISEST FOR ASSUMING HE KNEW NOTHING
Two tenants:
1) You know nothing, only guessing.
2) Conviction in ideas, stand by your ideas
Formed a posse who would go around criticising everyone who walked past. THUG MOB.
Arrested for:
1) Corrupting youth
2) Disrespecting gods
Admitted to it, death by poison
- > Refused an apology deal
- > Refused to escape via bribed guards
A “NATURAL PHILOSOPHER”
- > usually deals with ordered, harmonious society
- > gives Philosophical Answers
- > understand origin of life = understand how to live
- > Understanding forms, studying nature tell us what a good society is
- > knowing imperfections = knowing the fix
- > wasn’t Christian but influenced them
What do we know of Plato? Values?
Called the "best student of Socrates" ->all the conviction, none of the humility JUSTICE ->what is the ideal society? Wrote in dialogue
Plato’s explanation of the world?
THEORY OF THE FORMS
Perfect examples exist of everything
- > non-physical, eternal, and perfect
- > we only see bad copies
- > “Form of X” is very real, not an idea
REALM OF THE FORMS
- > where all forms exist
- > we once came from there -> RECOLLECTION
- > through REASON and RECOLLECTION, understand the nature of the form
- >e.g. we can all see perfect circle
EDUCATION IS COAXING OUT KNOWLEDGE YOU ALREADY HAD
**Explains how things can humans can all be different but the same ***
