Philosophical language and thought Flashcards
What did Heraclitus propose as the reason why knowledge can never actually be gained?
- Everything changes and nothing ever stays the same. You cannot step twice into the same river
- Therefore, everything is always in flux, as you gain knowledge it has already changed
What two ancient philosophers posed solution to this epistemological dillemma?
Plato- attempts to provide refuge from the uncertainties of change
Aristotle - seeks to explain why and how this something goes from potentiality to actuality
What are Plato’s key ideas?
-understanding of reality: we cannot trust our senses and must rely on reason
- the forms, the nature and hierarchy of the forms
- the analogy of the caves and how it relates to the theory of the forms
What are Aristotle’s key ideas?
- understanding of reality: teleology (purpose)
- the four causes (material, formal, efficient and final)
- the prime mover and its nature and connections with the final cause
What is the realm of the forms?
An alternative world where everything is unchanging, permenant and eternal
What is the form of the Good?
- includes truth and beauty
- equivalent to the sun in our world in the realm of the forms - part of the hierarchy of forms
What is the realm of appearances?
-copies of forms called particulars that are transient and impermenant
- knowledge, opinion and memory are all memory being restored
- only philosophers can see through appearances, therefore only they are fit to rule
What is the analogy of the cave?
-prisoners (us) chained to a wall only being able to see shadows (particulars in our world) in front of them for their whole lives (we live in ignorance)
- one (the philopsher) breaks free and sees the sun (the form of the good) and is enlightened
- when they return the others do not believe them
What are Aristotle’s rejections of Plato’s theory of the Forms?
- holds no practical value e.g. there is no such thing as perfect health
- some things have no form e.g. a number cannot have oneness or twoness
- how can there be a single form of the good as good cannot be singularly defined
What are other objections of Plato’s theory of the forms?
Karl Popper - Plato tries to find certainity in a world of change but wanting something to be certain does not make it true
The assumption that there exists a perfect counterpart to everything in the ‘realm of the forms’
Empiricists- there is no empirical evidence or a priori knowledge of this
What is Aristotle’s concept of the prime mover?
If everything in the universe has a purpose, the universe must also have a final cause (telos)
That final cause is the prime mover, the attractor that is indifferent to the world, bringing about motion by drawning everything to humself
Can be referred to the unmoved mover
Weaknesses of both Aristotle and Plato
Both assume one thing to explain why things occur the way they do
Just because it fits the gap doesn’t mean it is the correct solution
What do each of Aristotle’s 4 causes mean?
- Material cause - what the thing is made from e.g. wood
- Formal cause - what form or shape does it take e.g. drawings
- Efficient cause - what external factor brings from potential to actual e.g. builder/maker
- Final cause - purpose for which something exists teleological theory e.g. to be a table
What are some objections to Aristotle’s theory?
- The efficient cause tells us something has happened, not what
- A thing might be seen as having purpose but not actually have any in itself e.g flour for cake
- fallacy of composition - does everything actually have a purpose e.g. appendix, nipples in males?
What does evolution suggest about the universe?
Random and not with purpose
Existentialism - the universe just exists, you give it meaning
What is the fallacy of composition
What is true of the part is not neccessarily true of the whole
-Error in reasoning to believe that just because each body part has a purpoise, the human has a purpose
-The universe does not neccessarily have a purpose even if everything in it does
Objections of Aristotle’s prime mover
- one cause for all change?
- Bigbang theory arguably explains change just as well as attraction, and has science to back it
- Clashes with religious view of God, the cause of change is not indifferent but desires good for the universe.
What was Aristotle’s understanding of reality?
As an empiricist belived that all knowledge is based on sense experience
Through examining the world around us - Per genus et per differentia - by type and by difference
We are not remembering things, we are taught knowledge. It is not innate as Plato thought
