Midterm Study Flashcards
What is Philosophy
Love of wisdom
Pursue truth, understanding, and meaning
Analyse ideas
Attempt to find answers to the big questions
5 reasons to study philosophy
- Pursue truth and knowledge
- Develop critical thinking
- Establish a rich conceptual tool kit
- understand the influence of philosophy on Christian theology
- critically engage with non-Christian thought
Metaphysics
Study of reality (nature, structure, content)
- What is the structure of reality?
(Identify Discipline) What is there?
Metaphysics
(Identify Discipline) What is real?
Metaphysics
(Identify Discipline) What kind of things are there?
Metaphysics
(Identify Discipline) What is the structure of reality?
Metaphysics
(Identify Discipline) What am I? What was I?
Metaphysics
Epistemology
Study of knowledge (Nature, structure, sources)
(Identify Discipline) What is right?
Ethics
(Identify Discipline) What is reason and what is reasonable?
Epistemology
Epistemology
Study of knowledge (nature, structure, and sources)
Ethics
Study of morality (Nature, origins, and dictates)
(Identify Discipline) How do we determine what is good and right?
Ethics
(Identify Discipline) Are there moral duties, goals, or virtues? Are they objective or subjective?
Ethics
Subdivisions of Philosophy
Ontology (Study of being)
Theology (Study of God)
Anthropology (Study of humanity)
Aesthetics (Study of beauty)
What is a worldview?
A conceptual framework made up of fundamental presuppositions about the world that inform both a person’s internal and external world. For those who consciously reflect on their worldview it can be a system.
Metaphysics of a Christian Worldview
God:
- perfect being
- personal absolute
-Trinity
Creation:
- ex nihlo
- creator/creature distinction
- transcendence & immanence
- Lord = control/authority/presence
Man
- Image of God (both ontological and functional)
- Finite, fallen, but not forsaken
Epistemology of a Christian Worldview
Revelation
- General and Special
Reason
- derivative, limited, fallible, fallen, redeemable
Faith is reasonable but submissive to revelation
Philosophy undergirded by theology
Characteristics of non-Christian worldview
Personal absolute
One and the Many
Transcendence and Immanence
Rationalism and Irrationalism
Faith and Reason
Milesian Philosophers
Thales (624-546 BC)
Anaximander (610-546 BC)
Anaximenes (585-525 BC)
Milesian Big Idea
Everything in the world is reducible to one kind of stuff
Thales
All is water
Anaximander
All is an indefinite substance
Anaximenes
All is air
Pythagoras Big Idea
Everything in the world is reducible to numbers
Pythagoras (525-500 BC)
Numbers (Seen especially in music and medicine)
Immortality and transmigration of souls
form (limit) applied to matter (unlimited)
Influence on plato
Heraclitus (535-475 BC)
Fire
Focus on the problem of change
same river other and other waters
Changes happen in regular patterns
Stability (patterns) come from logos
Heraclitus Big Idea
Change is fundamental to reality
Eleatics
Xenophanes and Parmenides
Parmenides Big Idea
Change and division are illusions; everything is ultimately one
Pluralists
Empedocles & Anaxagoras
Empedocles
(490-430 BC)
First attempt at synthesizing
Objects are composed of a plurality of elements (earth, fire, air, water). Objects are changeless. Particles are not.
Attraction (Love) and repulsion (hate) are fundamental forces
Anaxagoras
(500-428 BC)
First to distinguish mind and matter
Concept of mind explains order of matter
Mind is mechanical; not creative, purposeful, or personal
Anaxagoras Big Idea
Mind is prior to matter and explains its order
Atomists
Leucippus and Democritus
Reality consists of atoms
Infinite in number
Eternal
Original materialists (reductionistic, mechanistic, deterministic; no purpose or design)
Atomist Big Idea
Everything is reducible to the interaction of material particles
The Sophists (Concepts)
Makes a business of “doing” wisdom
shifting focus from metaphysics to epistemology w/ negative conclusions
- skeptics about knowledge
- relativists about truth
Rhetoric
The Sophists (People)
Protagoras (490-420 BC) - First relativist
- What appears to be true for a person is actually true for that individual
Gorgias (487-376 BC)
- Even more skepticism than Protagoras
- There is nothing
- If there is anything, it can’t be known
- If anything can be known, it can’t be communicated
Thrasymachus (459-400 BC)
- plato’s republic
- might is right
- self interest over justice
Sophists’ Big Idea
There is no objective truth or knowledge, so the goal of philosophical argument is persuasion in the interest of power.
Socrates (470-339 BC)
No writings extant
Confirmed as philosopher by oracle of Delphi (wisest man alive because he confessed his own ignorance)
Charged with treason
- denying the gods
- corrupting the young
Socrates Epistemology
Epistemology - Socratic method or dialectic
- emphasis on definitions and questions
Socrates Metaphysics
Metaphysics - teleological understanding of nature
- humans are rational and ought to be rational
Socrates Ethics
Ethics - knowledge and virtue are interchangeable
- Moral failure is always a result of ignorance and this is involuntary
- No one knowingly does what is morally wrong
Socrates Anthropology
Anthropology - soul survives the death of the body
Socrates Big Idea
We should pursue truth and clarity through rational inquiry and dialogue
Plato (427-347 BC)
Real name = Aristocles
Founded academy in 387
36 total writings
Plato early writings
- early writings = faithful records of socrates (Apology, Crito, Euthyphro)
Plato Middle Writings
- Middle writings = socrates as mouthpiece (Phaedo, Meno, Republic)
Plato Later Writings
Later writings = Socrates gone; more reflective (even religious)
Plato Metaphysics
Dualism - 2 distinct worlds
- Lower world = Sense Experience
- Upper world = Intellect (Forms)
Forms are eternal/unchangeable
Higher forms (Beauty/Justice)
Lower Forms (geometrical/physical)
Plato Anthropology
soul/body dualism
- Soul pre-exists, survives death, is reincarnated
3 parts of soul:
1. Rational
2. Spirited
3. Appetitive
Plato Epistemology
Critical of sophist skepticism
Rationalist (anti-empiricist)
Dualism
- Opinion = sense-experience
- Knowledge = Intellect
Metaphor of divided line
- Knowledge = dialectic (higher forms) & understanding (lower forms)
- Opinion = belief (sense of physical objects) & Imagining (mere images)
Allegory of cage
Recollection
Plato’s ethics
Critical of sophist relativism
Euthyphro’s Dilemma
- x is good because God desires x – morality is arbitrary
- God desires x because x is good – God is not ultimate standard
Virtue Ethics
Cardinal Cirtues - wisdom, courage, temperance, justice
Correspond to parts of soul -
- Wisdom = Rational
- Courage = Spirited
- Temperance = Passionate
- Justice = Whole Soul
Plato’s Cosmogony
Likely Story (Timaeus)
Matter
Forms
Receptacle
Demiurge (finite craftsman)
Cosmos result of imptersonal necessity and reason
Plato’s Big Idea
Objects of sense experience are not ultimate reality; they are merely imperfect copies of the perfect, paradigmatic, abstract, transcendent forms
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Studied under Plato for 20 years
Comissioned by Philip 2 for Alexander the great
Founded Lyceum in 334
Most writings compiled by students based on lectures
Artistotle’s Metaphysics
Rejection of Plato’s dualism (Aristotle Demythologizes plato)
- Forms exist with matter - no uninstantiated forms
Substances = form/matter composite; substances have essential and accidental properties
Four causes -
- Material
- Formal
- Efficient
- Final
10 Categories
Change = move from potentiality to actuality
Prime Mover (final cause, unmoved mover, pure activity, pure actuality, pure transcendence)
Humans are substances (Form/matter composites)
Soul is form of material body
Aristotle’s Epistemology
Knowledge through reason and sense experience
Prime matter unknowable because it has no intrinsic qualities
Form is knowable via intellectual abstraction
Passive Int - receives data from senses
Active Int - abstracts forms from particulars that have been sensed
Correspondence theory of truth - A statement is true if what it says is in fact the case
Logic - development of syllogisms
Aristotle’s Ethics
Teleological orientation - morality pursues ends
Intrinsic vs instrumental ends
Ultimate end is Happiness - “the good life”
cultivating virtue (golden mean) between 2 vices; mean may vary but not always
virtue gained through imitation
Moral virtues - good character
Intellectual virtues - truth (superior to moral)
Aristotle’s Categories
Some Quick Questions Reveal People’s True Personalities, Showing Amazing Passion
Substance
Quantity
Quality
Relation
Place
Time
Posture
State
Action
Passion
Syllogism
two premises and a middle term
major premise
minor premise
conclusion
all brits are cultured
some professors are brits
some professors are cultured
subject-predicate statements
all S are P
some S are P
some S are not P
no S are P
Aristotle’s Big Idea
All natural objects (including humans) are form-matter composites whose essential natures determine their ends
Epicurean Metaphysics
Atomism w/ a twist
Atoms have weight and are continually falling but will occasionally swerve
Swerves account for human free choice
Early expression of libertarian free will
Epicurean Epistemology
Empiricist - only through senses
Against skepticism
- skepticism ends in passivism
- skepticism is self-refuting
- skepticism needs knowledge
Epicurean Ethics
Hedonism
Long term pleasures over short term
Quiet life of contemplation
individual focus over communal
Epicurean Big Idea
Ethical goodness is a matter of qualitative individual human pleasure
Stoicism
Founded by Zeno of Cyprus (344-262)
Cicero
Seneca
Marcus Aurelius
Stoic Metaphysics
Pantheistic physicalism - all is God and all is material
World is governed according to natural law by rational soul (logos) - god/logos is fire or reason
god is partly in every soul as life force - controls all in impersonal fatalism
no freedom of will
Stoic Epistemology
empiricism
Stoic Ethics
dignified resignation to fate without passivism
align ourselves with natural law. Learn to play our fate given role well
Freedom is not freedom of choice but freedom from emotional disturbance
Stoicism Big Idea
Everything is determined by fate, so learn to go along with the flow
Skepticism
Arcesilaus (316 - 241 becomes head of academy)
Skeptic Epistemology
rejection of dogmatics and objective truth
good arguments on all sides so suspend judgement
Senses are deceptive
Skeptic Ethics
rejection of dogmatism and moral knowledge
Absolute moral knowledge = impossible. Best we can hope for is probability
Skeptics Big Idea
No one knows anything for sure, so just do what works
Neoplatonism
Founded by plotinus (205-270 AD)
First greek religious philosophy
Writings collected by student - Porphyry (Enneads)
Bridge between classic philosophy and Augustine
Neoplatonic (Plotinus) Metaphysics
Hierarchical panentheism (all in God)
One God is pure undifferentiated unity
god is utterly transcendence, simple, immutable, immaterial, unknowable
Apophatic theology - only what God is not
Being is a downward emanation from the one - leads to chain o being
- the one
- the mind
3 the soul - matter
Evil is absence of goodness/being (privation)
Matter is furthest from the One and closest to evil
Neoplatonic (Plotinus) Anthropology and Soteriology
Human souls are divine but separate from the One
body pulls the soul down/away from the rationality of the mind and away from the One
“salvation” involves freeing the soul from bondage to body/sensual pleasures
- leads to importance of intellectual disciplines
- unity with one through mystical experience
Neoplatonic (Plotinus’) Big Idea
All reality is a necessary overflow of being from the One but the greater the distance from the One the less the goodness
Apostles Epistemology
divine revelation over reason
Apostles Metaphysics
Trinitarian Monotheism
Apostles Providence
divine personal control
Not chaos
Not fate
Apostles History
linear/finite, not circular or eternal
Apostles Eschatology
tension between already/not yet
Apostles Anthropology
unity of body/soul
immortality through ressurection
Apostles Evil
sin as willful rebellion against God
- not finitude
- not ignorance
Apostles Salvation
restored fellowship with God through union with Christ
- not merely epistemological
- not metaphysical unification
- not humanly accomplished
Apostles Ethics
Supernatural, personal, revealed
- holiness revealed through divine grace
- Epistemology is an elements of ethics rather than the reverse
Apostles Philosophy
Philosophy/education is not the solution to man’s problem
Salvation is ‘easier’ for the foolish than the wise
Philosophers are just as fallen as the rest of us
Apologists
four opponents
- Jews (religous)
- Romans (political)
- Greeks (intellectual)
- Christian Heretics (theological)
Justin Martyr
110-165
Stoicism, Platonism, Aristotelianism before Christianity
1st apology (to emperor), dialogue w/ trypho
Christianity as true philosophy
Harmony of Christianity and best of greeks - plato plagiarized Moses
Early advocate of libertarian freedom and ‘mere’ foreknowledge against stoicism
Justin Martyr’s Big Idea
Philosophy is good and Christianity is the best philosophy
Irenaeus
120-202
opposed 2nd c gnosticism (against heresies) + early witness to 4 canonical gospels
problem of evil - soul making theodicy
- image but not likeness of God
- epistemic distance from God
- evil provides environment for soul making; natural evil is byproduct of environment and moral evil byproduct of human freedom
Irenaeus Big Idea
Evil is a necessary condition for human moral development
Tertullian
160-225
Opposed Marcion, Gnostics, and Docetists
Apology, Against Praxeas,
Against speculative philosophy - what does athens have to Jerusalem
Revelational authority - rule of faith
philosophical reasoning is okay if consonant with revelation - nature of God/soul can be known through reason
Criticism of plato influence by stoicism; soul is corporeal/not eternal
Tertullian Big Idea
Greek philosophy is no match for Scripture and apostolic tradition
Clement
150-215
Philosophy is an ally of Christian philosophy
Phil = God’s cov w/ Greeks
Law = God’s cov w/ Jews
Philosophy useful for Christianity. Can’t produce faith but can support it
A type of faith proceeds philosophy but not a full blown Christian faith
Critical of Sophists. Likes plato/aristotle
Strong influence of neoplatonism
Clement Big Idea
Greek Philosophy is Christianity’s ally
Origen
185 - 254
First influential christian synthesizer: Christianity + Neoplatonism
Against Celsus, First Principles, Commentaries
Epistemology
- scripture as revelation - need for allegorical method of interp
- ethical superiority of Christianity supported by allegory
- apophatic theology + analogy. Some terms more fitting than others
Metaphysics
- God perfect unity
- Logos eternal emanation (bridge between uncreated and created)
- trinity (attempted to maintain unity but made distinction between father and son - resulted in ontological subordination)
Anthropology
- souls are pre-existent
- fall happened pre creation
Soteriology
- process of theosis
- christ’s redemption = exemplary
- universalist leanings
Origen’s Big Idea
Neoplatonism can help us understand and defend Christian Doctrines
Nicene Fathers
Athanasius (292-373)
- unity and simplicity of god
- creator/creature distinction
Cappadocian fathers
- Basil of C
- Gregory of Nazianzuz
- Gregory of Nyssa
- deity of HS
- Influenced by neoplatonism probably mediated by origen.
Augustine
354-430
Against Manicheanism
- rejection of dualism and fatalism
Against Donatism
- distinction between visible and invisible church
Against Arianism
- exposition of Trinity
Against Pelagianism
- liberty of spontaneity but not of indifference
Four States of Man (Free Will)
able to sin and not to sin
not able to not sin
able not to sin
not able to sin
Augustine’s Metaphysics
Evil is result of fall - privation
God is eternal, infinite, & independent - created matter, space, and time
Forms exist in the mind of God
Creator/Creature distinction
Substance dualism - humanity is both body and soul
Augustine’s Epistemology
Even if I’m mistaken, I must exist, Since I know I exist, skepticism is false
Faith is roughly trust in testimony of authority and necessary precondition for understanding - I believe in order to understand
Epistemology correlated to metaphysics
- God = Intellection
- Soul = Cogitation (judgements about objects based on forms)
- Body = Sensation (awareness of physical objects)
Knowledge of forms known through divine illumination
Augustine’s Ethics
grounded in the character of God
God is summum bonum
Centered on doctrine of Love
- fastening affection on an object
- all physical objects are legitimate objects of love
- satisfaction comes through loving the right things for the right reasons
- Salvation reorders loves
Augustine’s Phil of History
Linear
has a meaningful providential direction
City of God and City of Man
Augustine’s Big Idea
God is the absolute sovereign Creator and we are utterly dependent on God for existence, knowledge, goodness, and salvation
Boethius
Trained in classic greek philosophy
translated/commented on Aristotle
Consolation of Philosophy (while in prison) - allegorical conversation with Lady Philosophy - to love wisdom is to love the thought and cause of all things, ultimately to love God
Influential treatment of eternity - complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of eternal life. everlasting life in one simultaneous present
Tried to solve freedom/foreknowledge problem by saying God’s knowledge was strictly temporal
theology and philosophy are harmonious but independent
Influence of neoplatonism
Pseudo-Denys
~ 500
systematic relation of Christianity and neo-platonism
Emanation combined with doctrine of creation - God is somewhat distinct
Chain of being
Being and goodness one in God - evil privation
two ways to know God
- positive (humans by derivation)
- Negative (denying human attributes)
Jon Scotus Eriugena
810-877
Tanslated and commented on Denys
Refuted Augustinian views of Gottschalk
Neoplatonist metaphysics and epistemology
Fourfold Division of reality
- nature that creates and is not created (God)
- nature that is created and creates (divine ideas)
- nature that is created and does not create (creatures)
- nature that neither creates nor is created (God as goal of creation)
pantheistic
phil and theology are one and same
Anselm
1033 - 1109
philosophy in service of theology
I believe in order to understand / faith seeking understanding
Why the God man - satisfaction theory (God’s honor impugned)
Arguments for God
- Monologion - perfect being at summit of chain
- Proslogion - Ontological argument for God’s existence (simpler than monologion)
Ontological argument
God is (by definition) a being that which none greater can be conceived
The fool says that God exists merely in the mind and not in reality
But a greater being can be conceived: one that exists in the mind and in reality
Therefore, the fool has fallen into a contradiction - atheism is contradictory
God exists
Anselm’s Big Idea
Philosophical reasoning can help Christians better understand their faith
Peter Abelard
1079 - 1142
French
Conceptualism
Louise and Abelard - castrated
Moves towards theological rationalism; understanding must proceed faith
Rationalism orientation - sic et non
Medieval Views on Universals
Realism - Universals have real, objective, independent existence (William of Champeaux + Plato/Aristotle)
Nominalism - universals have no real existence, they’re merely names/words we apply (Roscellinus)
Conceptualism - universals exist but only as concepts in the human mind (Abelard as via media)
Avicenna
980 - 1037
Synthesizer of Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism in support of Islam
creation is eternal and necessary
necessary being as termination of the causal chain
Metaphysical distinction:
- essence = what-ness of something
- existence = that - ness of something
Averroes
1126 - 1198
Ibn Rushd
Aristotle is greatest of all philosophers - attempt to reconcile with Islam
Theology and Philosophy are two separate roads to truth
3 groups:
- masses
- theologians - reason to support religion
- Philosophers - reason alone
theology = revelation (sort of a crutch)
philosophy = reason (superior)
Aquinas fights with latin appropriators
Moses Maimonides
1135 - 1204
Reconcile OT with Greek Philosophy
learned aristotle through translations from arabians
model for Aquinas on relating philosophy and reason
Theology and Philosophy are two harmonious realms of knowledge - distinct forms of knowledge
Apparent contradictions between phil and theology caused by overly literalistic readings
3 precursors to Aquinas’ 5 ways
Natative theology - can say that God is but not what he is
Thomas Aquinas
1225 - 1274
University of Naples
Disputed Latin Averroists while at Uni Paris
Canonized 1323 - dr of church 1568
Related philosophy and theology through a nature/grace schema - nature is what man can accomplish without supernatural aid
grace requires supernatural aid
Natural capacities take us a certain distance - need grace to finish (Harmonius)
Reason supports revelation but revelation trumps reason in any apparent conflict (only apparent)
Five Ways
Motion - every motion requires a mover
efficient causes - every effect requires a prior cause
contingency - every contingent being requires on another
degrees of perfection - every judgement requires a standard
design - means-end arrangements in nature point to a designer
(It is unreasonable to posit an infinite regress of explanation)
Aquinas’ Metaphysics
Thomism = Christian Theism w/ an Aristotelian Framework
Natural theology put to use in arg for God’s existence
Nature of God:
- perfect being
- pure actuality
- source of being; creatures have but God is
- simple and necessary being
- not an individual but basis for individuation
- omnipotent
- omniscient
- sovereign cause (primary and secondary causes)
- Trinity `
Aquinas’ Anthropology
Modified Aristotelianism
form/matter composites (hylomorphic dualism)
Humans essentially corporeal (so augustine)
Aquinas’ Sacramentology
application of aristotelian catg
Aquinas’ Epistemology
Empiricist orientation
- Knowledge from sense exp
- Active Intellect abstracts from sense
- no innate ideas so no a prior knowledge of Gd
Know that God is but not what he is - God is not one of a kind - i.e. cannot be defined in terms of genus or species
Way of Negation
Way of Analogy
Univocity and Equivocity are unacceptable - analogy better
Close connection between metaphysics and epistemology
Aquinas’ Ethics
Modified Aristotelianism - virtue ethics
perfect happiness - found in God
Cardinal virtues
- prudence
- temperance
- justice
- fortitude
Theological Virtues
- Faith
- Hope
- Charity
Synderesis - faculty which infallibly grasps general principles of morality (Murder is wrong)
Conscientia - infering concrete applications from general moral principles (abortion is murder and therefore wrong)
Eternal - divine decrees; foundation for all other laws
natural - concerned w/ natural ends known by reason
positive - human made
divine (revelation - supernatural ends)
Aquinas’ Big Idea
Aristotelian philosophy confirms that Christian theology is reasonable
John Duns Scotus
1265 - 1308
Subtle Doctor
Voluntarism - emphasis on will
- God’s commands are good because he wills them
Univocity of being and language
Realist re universals
Paticulars individuated by individual natures rather than matter (Contra Aquinas)
Tendency to separate theology and philosophy
William of Ockham
1280 - 1349
Nominalism about universals (precisely a conceptualist)
Only particulars exist
Motivated by Voluntarism
Ockham’s Razor - Do not multiply entities beyond necessity (rule of parsimony)
Theology and philosophy are separate spheres - leads to two kinds of truth
Rejection of natural theology; doctrines are solely based on faith not reason
sets the stage for modernism: autonomy of philosophy and science
