Paper 1- philosophy of religion- key thinkers

Question 1

1. which philosophers are under Ancient philosophical influences?

Answer 1

Plato and Aristotle.

Question 2

Who is Plato?

Answer 2

Plato- Rationalist- this is the idea that reason is the ultimate source of knowledge; knowledge can be obtained through reason, not necessarily through direct sensory experience)

Question 3

Plato is also a dualist, what does this mean?

Answer 3

The body and soul are different things;- the soul ‘ remembers’ something of the world of forms.

Question 4

What did Plato suggest about the world of forms?

Answer 4

He said that the world of forms existed separately to this one- an ‘intelligible realm’ separate to this ‘ sensible realm’

Question 5

Plato- form of good?

Answer 5

source of all knowledge (represented by the sun in the cave analogy).

Question 6

Plato- argued A priori perspective, what does this mean?

Answer 6

Arguments which draw conclusions through the use of reason.

Question 7

Who was Aristotle?

Answer 7

• Empiricist- the idea that all knowledge comes from the sense.
• Materialist- The idea that everything is made from matter and when matter is rearranged, the thing it made ceases to exist.)

Question 8

What does Aristotle believe about the Soul?

Answer 8

A things soul and its form- the same thing .

Everything has a soul- human souls are more complex, because of the way matter has been arranged into a human form.

Question 9

Aristotle talked about the four causes, what were these causes?

Answer 9

1. Material- what is the thing made from?- e.g bronze/ silver, oxygen/ hydrogen.
2. Formal- what does it look like? eg. statue, pen, a human.- NOT THE SAME AS PLATOS FORMS.
3. Efficient- How the material come to be in that form? eg. a sculptor, a factory worker.
4. Final- What is the point in the thing being made into that form? eg. to write, to transport people, to inspire people.

Question 10

Aristotle discussed the Prime mover, what does he mean by this concept?

Answer 10

Prime mover- the ultimate cause of all things.
Aristotle might call God
Distinct from the idea of God in the western religion.

Question 11

2. which philosophers are under the soul, mind and body?

Answer 11

Plato 
Aristotle 
Aquinas
Descartes
Ryle
Dawkins

Question 12

What does Plato believe about the soul, mind and body?

Answer 12

Plato is a dualist- body and soul are separate.

• He thought that things came into existence through their opposites- e.g if you’re educated, you were once not educated.
• To be living, you must once have been dead- and you can die and live again.

Question 13

What did Plato also say about the theory of things coming into existence through their opposites?

Answer 13

• people can recollect, or at least understand, ideas which they have not been taught.
• use reason to work out mathematical problems as children- sense of things like justice and love.

Question 14

What did Plato say about your sense of self?

Answer 14

It is constant even through everything else within and around you changes;- soul is completely unhanging as it was from the world of forms.

Question 15

What did Aristotle believe about the soul, mind and body?

Answer 15

• Dualist to an extent- Body and soul had separate labels BUT NOT that they existed in separate realms.
• One would not continue to exist after the death of the body

Question 16

What type of souls did he believe, humans, plants and animals to have?

Answer 16

• Plants- nutritive soul
• Animals- sensitive soul- they can sense things
• Humans- rational soul.

Question 17

What did Aristotle say about matter and form?

Answer 17

• Matter has potentiality( it could become something)
• Form has actuality (it has become something)
• plants, animals and humans- compound of matter and form.

Question 18

Compound matter and form is what Aristotle was most concerned with what?

Answer 18

Studying.

Question 19

For Aristotle the soul is the form of what?

Answer 19

The body.

Question 20

Aristotle can be thought as what?

Answer 20

monist or materialist- he thinks that when the material (matter) of something rearranges or breaks down the thing, including its soul, ceases to exist.- does not exist.

Question 21

What did Aquinas say about the soul, mind and body?

Answer 21

• Body, material- soul, immaterial; the body is corruptible and the soul is incorruptible.

Question 22

Aquinas said Human souls can do what?

Answer 22

Human souls- exist without the body.

Animal souls- can not.

Question 23

Aquinas said the souls without the body is not what?

Answer 23

complete substance so it needs God to reunite it with its body after death.

Question 24

who is Descartes? what did he believe about the soul, mind and body?

Answer 24

• substance dualist- mind and body are different, separate substances.
  ‘ the mind is wholly different from the body’

Question 25

Descartes said our sense can be what?

Answer 25

• They can be misleading
• only thing we can be sure about is thinking
• if thinking- is a tautology- we must be existing hence ‘ cogito ergo sum’- ‘ I think therefore I am’.

Question 26

What did Descartes say we cannot have certainty of?

Answer 26

• Not have certainty of the physical body ( for example- we could be stimulated brain in at, being kept alive and presented with the illusion of a body and sensory experiences)
• our bodies probably do exist.
• souls probably joined to the whole body.

Question 27

What did Ryle believe about the soul, mind and body?

Answer 27

Were not separate entities as in body- mind dualism but that they are intrinsically linked.

Question 28

What as Ryle part of?

Answer 28

Part of a movement in the early C20th who wanted to be very clear about philosophical language- important to him- to critically evaluate what Descartes claimed.

Question 29

What did Ryle say bout Descartes theory of substance dualism?

Answer 29

• It was a category error- Descartes confused things- from two different categories- trying to compare the mind and body in any way.

Question 30

Ryle said that mental things are not what?

Answer 30

• mental events- not separate part of a human being, as Descartes suggested.- I.e Descartes suggested mental events- different category to physical events.
  Ryle says that this is a mistake- mental and physical things- the same thing.

Question 31

What example does Ryle give to suggest mental and physical events are the same thing?

Answer 31

• If you decide to eat a sandwich, it is not ‘ your mind making your body eat a sandwich’ - is your body deciding to eat a sandwich, and your mind is just one part of that decision.- in the same category as your stomach, mouth ect.

Question 32

Who is Dawkins and what is his belief about the Soul, mind and body?

Answer 32

He is a materialist- human being only made up of physical attributes.
- no such thing as mind, or soul which is separate to the body.

Question 33

What did Dawkins say about the soul?

Answer 33

• A separate, immortal soul- does not exist.
• The word ‘soul’ - used in a less literal sense to describe personal, non- supernatural experiences. (e.g ‘ that walk in nature was really good for my soul’ )

-not necessary mean you though you had a separate soul, but that you had a invigorating experience that made you feel good.

Question 34

Dawkins argued that all human behaviour was what?

Answer 34

was, at its root, motivated by the ‘ selfish gene’- ( not a gene which makes us selfish- but that the gene, in itself, is selfish, and wants to perpetuate itself).

Question 35

What has it been argued that Dawkins did not do?

Answer 35

Did not look enough into technical definitions of the word ‘ soul’ before he criticised it,