Module 1 Flashcards
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Pre-Socratic philosophers in Ionia and Italy attempt to explain the nature
of the ____?
c.600–450 BCE, Cosmos
_____ states that we can only understand the universe through reasoning.
Early 5th century BCE, Parmenides
______ and the _____ apply rhetoric to philosophical questions.
c.450 BCE. Protagoras and the Sophists
_____ portrays the character of Socrates in the ____ and numerous
other dialogues
Plato, Apology
Often referred to as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and yet he wrote nothing, established no school, and held no particular theories of his own.
Socrates
What he did do, however, was persistently ask the questions that interested him, and in doing so evolved a new way of thinking, or a new way of examining what we think called the ____?
- This was a simple method of questioning that brought to light the often false assumptions on which particular claims to knowledge are based.
Socratic or Dialectical Method
The Socratic Method is also called the _____ method because it proceeds
as a dialogue between opposing
views.
Dialectical
Socrates’ ideas are recorded in written works called _____? which includes:
Dialogues:
- The Apology
- Phaedo
- The Symposium
Socrates lived in _____ in the
second half of the _____. He has believed to have studied ________?
Athens, 5th Century BCE, Natural Philosophy
Socrates’ central concern, then, was the _______, and it was his ruthless questioning of people’s most cherished beliefs (largely about themselves) that
earned him his enemies—but he remained committed to his task
until the very end.
Examination of Life
Socrates believed that living the “Good Life” is achieving ___________ and the “______” can be determined rigorous examination.
Peace of mind, Right Thing
Virtue or _____ in Greek. Socrates ______ the notion of it because he insisted that they weren’t relatives, but absolutes applicable to all people in the world.
Arete
Socrates was put to death in ______,
ultimately for questioning the basis of
______. Here he accepts the
bowl of hemlock that will kill him, and
gestures defiantly at the heavens
399 BCE, Athenian Morality
“Know thyself” in Delphi
Gnothi Seauton
The use of fallacious arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
Sophistry
The Socratic Method was the starting point of the ______ which ______ used. It became the foundation of all _________.
Scientific Method, Francis Bacon, Empirical Sciences
The ______ philosophers propose theories to explain the nature and
substance of the cosmos.
6th Century BCE, Milesian
_____ argues that everything is constantly in a state of flux or change.
500 BCE, Heraclitus
______ says that truth is relative.
450 BCE, Protagoras
______ teaches that we can find truth by observing the world around us.
335 BCE, Aristotle
_______founds the Neo-Platonist school, a religious take on Plato’s ideas.
250 CE, Plotinus
_________ integrates Plato’s theories into
Christian doctrine.
386, St. Augustine of Hippo
In the ______, Plato set out his vision of the ideal city-state and explored aspects of virtue.
The Republic
Plato concluded that the “_______” in nature is the same as the “_______” in
morals and society.
Unchanging
In the _____, Plato describes Socrates posing questions about the virtues, or moral concepts, in order to establish clear and precise definitions of them. Socrates had famously said that “_______”.
The Republic, Virtue is Knowledge
_______, in which knowledge of the world is limited to mere shadows of reality and truth, is used by Plato to explain his idea of a world of perfect Forms, or Ideas.
The Allegory of the Cave
Reasoning brings Plato to only one conclusion—that there must be a ______, or _____, which is totally separate from the material world.
World of Ideas or Forms
Plato even goes on to state that this realm of Ideas is “____”, and that the world around us is merely _____ upon it.
Reality, Modelled
According to Plato’s _____, every horse that we encounter in the world around us is a lesser version of an “_____”, or perfect, horse that exists in a world of _____ or _____ —a realm that humans can only access through their ability to ______.
Theory of Forms, Ideal, Ideas or Forms, Reason
Plato believes that everything that our _____ perceive in the material world is like the images on the cave wall, merely shadows of reality.
Senses
This belief is the basis of his _______, which is that for every earthly thing that we have the power to perceive with our
senses, there is a corresponding “____” (or “____”)—an eternal and perfect reality of that thing—in the _____.
Theory of Forms, Idea or Form, World of Ideas
According to Plato, because what we
perceive via our senses is based on an experience of imperfect or incomplete “_______” of reality, we can have no real knowledge of those things.
Shadows
The material world may be subject to change, but Plato’s world of Ideas is _____ and _____.
Eternal and Immutable
The same is true of the concept of _____, which Plato considers to be the ultimate Idea—and the goal of all philosophical enquiry.
Goodness
Plato believes that human beings are divided into two parts: the body and the soul. Our bodies possess the _____, through which we are able to perceive the material world, while the soul possesses the _____ with which we can perceive the realm of Ideas.
Senses, Reason
______, Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 CE, was not just a powerful ruler, he was a noted scholar and thinker—a realization of Plato’s idea that philosophers should lead society.
Marcus Aurelius
By proposing that the use of reason, rather than observation, is the only way to acquire knowledge, Plato also laid the foundations of _______.
17th Century Rationalism
Plato’s influence can still be felt today—
the broad range of subjects he wrote about led the 20th-century British logician _______ to say that subsequent Western philosophy “consists of a set of footnotes to Plato.”
Alfred North Whitehead
He was born into a noble family in Athens in around 427 BCE and named _____, but acquired the nickname “Plato”
(meaning “_____”).
Aristocles, Broad
When Socrates was condemned to death, Plato is said to have become disillusioned with Athens, and left the city. He travelled widely, spending some
time in ______ and_____, before returning to Athens around ______.
Southern Italy, Sicily, 385 BCE
Here he founded a school known as the _____ (from which the word “academic”
comes), remaining its head until
his death in _____.
The Academy, 347 BCE
At the very beginning of the Classical period, the people of the city-state of Athens overthrew their tyrannical leader and instituted a form of ____. Under this system, government officials were chosen by _____ from among the citizens, and decisions were taken by a ______ assembly.
Democracy, Lottery, Democratic Assembly
It should be noted, however, that the “citizens” were a _____ of the population; they were free men aged over ____ whose parents were _____.
Minority, 30, Athenians
The Athenian Democratic Process excluded _____, ____, _____, ____, and____.
Women, Slaves, Children, Younger Men, Foreigners or First-Generation Settlers
Plato had little sympathy for ______. But neither did he find much to commend in any other existing form of government, all of which he believed led the state into “____”.
Democracy, Evils
The concept of _____, the “good life” which for ancient Greeks was a vital aim. It is living according to fundamental virtues such as wisdom, piety, and above all, justice.
Eudaimonia
The desire to ____, for what Plato saw as the wrong reasons, leads to conflict among citizens.
Rule
In contrast, Plato argued, there is a class of people who understand the meaning of the good life: _____.
Philosophers
Plato used the metaphor of the ship
of state to explain why ______should be ______. Though he does not seek power, the navigator is the only one who can steer a proper course— much as the _____ is the only one with the knowledge to rule justly.
Philosophers, Kings
Emperor _____ is said to have stood
by and done nothing to help while a fire
raged in the city of Rome. Plato’s ideal
of a philosopher king has been blamed
by some for the rise of such tyrants.
Nero
Aristotle’s writings are translated
into _____.
9th Century CE, Arabic
Translations of Aristotle’s works appear
in _____.
13th Century, Latin
______ establishes a school of British empiricism.
1690, John Locke
Zoologist ______ lays the foundations of ______ in Systema Naturae, based on Aristotle’s system of biological classification.
1735, Carl Linnaeus, Modern Taxonomy
This argument refuted the Theory of Forms and runs as follows: if there
exists in a realm of Forms a perfect Form of Man on which earthly men are modelled, this Form, to have any conceivable content, would have to be based on a Form of the Form of Man—and this too would have to be based on a higher Form on which the Forms of the Forms are based, and so on ad infinitum.
The Third Man Argument
Perhaps because his father had been a _____, Aristotle’s scientific interests lay in what we now call the __________, whereas Plato’s background had been firmly based in ______.
Physician, Biological Sciences, Mathematics
Aristotle’s studies confirmed what he already believed—that we are not born
with an ________ to recognize
Forms, as Plato maintained.
Innate Ability
In Aristotle’s way, we learn from our experience of the world what the shared
characteristics are that make things what they are—and the only way of experiencing the world is through our ______.
Senses
Aristotle believes that things in the material world are not _____ copies of some ideal Form of themselves, but that the essential form of a thing is actually ______ in each instance of that
thing.
Imperfect, Inherent
In Aristotle’s words, the only way we can come to know the eternal, immutable idea of _____, is by ______ how it is manifested in the world around us.
Justice, Observing
Questioning both their nature and the means by which we come to know them, also known as the Theory of Knowledge.
Epistemology
Philosophers were then divided into two separate camps:
- Those who believed in a _____, or innate, knowledge.
- Those who claim that all knowledge comes from experience.
- Rationalists, Priori
- Empiricists
For Biological Classification, Aristotle devised a ______ system where he separated _____ from ______ first, then dividing ______ and ______.
Hierarchical, Living from Non Living, Plants and Animals
Another fact that became obvious to Aristotle as he classified the natural world is that the “_____” of a creature is not just a matter of its _______, such as its skin, fur, feather, or scales, but also a matter of what it does, and how it ______—which, for Aristotle, has ethical implications.
Forms, Physical Characteristics, Behaves
According to Aristotle, the world is fully explained by four causes:
- What a thing is made of
- The arrangement or shape of a thing
- How a thing is brought into being
- The function or purpose of a thing
- Material Cause
- Formal Cause
- Efficient Cause
- Final Cause
Aristotle’s ___________ is the first detailed examination of the natural world. It proceeds from general observations about the characteristics shared by all animals, and then subdivides into ever more precise categories.
Classification of Living Things
The Final Cause; this function is the purpose, or _____, of the eye— _____ is a Greek word that gives us “______”, or
the study of purpose in nature.
Telos, Teleology
A person can be considered “____” if he uses the characteristics he was born with, and can only be happy by using all
his capabilities in the pursuit of _____—the highest form of which, for Aristotle, is ______.
Good, Virtue, Wisdom
According to Aristotle, we understand the nature of the “______” by seeing
it in the people around us.
Good Life
“_______” is the undeniable conclusion
to the most famous ______ in history. Aristotle’s _______—a simple deduction from two premises to a conclusion—was the first formal system of _____.
Socrates is Mortal, Syllogism, Logic
The “______”, as this form of reasoning is known, is the first formal system of logic ever devised, and it remained the basic model for logic up until the 19th century
Syllogism
Aristotle realized that the power of reason was something that did not rely on the senses, and that it must therefore be an _______—part of what it is to be human.
Innate Characteristic
Aristotle saw that the innate power of ____ is what distinguishes us from all other living creatures, and placed us at
the top of the hierarchy.
Reason
Aristotle’s Pupil who died before him
Alexander the Great
The _____ period of Greek history which saw a decline in Athens’ influence. The _________ was becoming the dominant power in the Mediterranean.
Hellenistic Period, Roman Empire
Aristotle’s school which he founded
Lyceum
In the 13th century, ______ braved
a ban on Aristotle’s work and integrated it into Christian philosophy, in the same way that St. Augustine had adopted Plato, and Plato and Aristotle came to
lock horns again.
Thomas Aquinas
Aristotle’s classification of living things
dominated Western thinking throughout the Middle Ages, becoming the Christian _______ (the “_______”), or the _________.
Scala Naturae, Ladder of Nature, Great Chain of Being
Born in _______, _________, in the northeast region of modern Greece, Aristotle was the son of a physician to the royal family of ______, and was educated as a member of the _______.
Stagira, Chalcidice, Macedon, Aristocracy
Aristotle left Athens for ______, and spent several years studying the wildlife of the area.
Ionia
After setting up his school, ____, his pupil, ______, died in _____, anti-Macedonian feeling flared up in Athens, and Aristotle fled to _____, on the island of ______, where he died the following year.
Lyceum, Alexander the Great, 323 BCE, Chalcis, Euboea
