Prehistory & the Classical Antiquity

Question 1

What three important characteristics of knowledge in preliterate cultures did Lindberg observe?

Answer 1

• Their skills are not based on how things work, but rather on practical rules of thumb of what to do when
• The fluidity of knowledge; history of the tribe is limited to two generations, function of oral tradition is generally the transmission of practical skills
• the existence of a collection of myths and stories about the beginning of the universe, life and natural phenomena, in which human traits are projected onto objects and events (e.g. in the form of gods)

Question 2

What is the belief that objects and nature are inhabited by spirits with human-like characteristics, which cause events to happen known as?

Answer 2

Animism

Question 3

Why did Lindberg argue that scientific thinking cannot occur without written records?

Answer 3

Inconsistencies, patterns and contradictions only became apparent in the myths of primitives when they were written down. Generally these stories were taken case by case at face value orally

Question 4

What four written languages appeared independently?

Answer 4

Written language appeared separately in at least four cultures: in China (around 6,000 BCE)1, Egypt (around 3,200 BCE), Sumer (also around 3,200 BCE) and America (Olmec and Mayan, 300 BCE).

Question 5

What preceded these four written languages?

Answer 5

These four written languages were preceded by proto-writing, the use of symbols to represent entities without linguistic information linking them.

Question 6

What were writing systems a combination of at an early stage? (2)

Answer 6

From an early stage, writing systems were a combination of pictograms (pictures that resemble the persons, animals and objects they represent) and phonograms (signs to represent sounds of the spoken language).

Question 7

What were the phonograms gradually replaced by?

Answer 7

. The phonograms were gradually replaced by simpler signs symbolising meaningful sounds in the language (phonemes) or syllables. Which led to alphabetic writing systems

Question 8

What does it mean to say that the Chinese writing system had become logographic?

Answer 8

The writing system that has remained closest to the pictograms is Chinese, where the correspondence between the physical signs and the word meanings they represented rapidly decreased, so that the writing system became logographic rather than pictographic (words are represented by written signs – characters – that no longer resemble the meanings they stand for).

Question 9

What is meant by the scholastic method?

Answer 9

study method in which students unquestioningly memorise and recite texts that are thought to convey unchanging truths

Question 10

What is meant by subitising?

Answer 10

quite early in their evolution humans could make distinctions up to three, which were represented by one, two and three markings. Newborn babies and all kinds of animals can distinguish between one, two and three entities, a phenomenon that is known as subitising.

Question 11

What does the fact that all Indo-European languages share the same roots for the numbers one to ten further suggest?

Answer 11

that their names already existed before the original language began to split into its many branches around 2,000 BCE.

Question 12

What does the naming of teen numbers show about the development of numbers? How is this also reflected in french?

Answer 12

It is clear that some of these numbers were given their names before the base 10 of the number system was fully grasped. Due to the groupings of the tallies, at some point it was realised that large numbers were best represented as multiples of smaller numbers, so-called base numbers. The most frequently chosen base number was 10. French number names betray the fact that at some time a base 20 was used (97 = quatre-vingt dix-sept [four-twenty ten-seven]).

Question 13

What is meant by a place coding system?

Answer 13

system in which the meaning of a sign not only depends on its form but also on its position in a string; is used for instance in Arabic numerals (hundreds, tens, units)

Question 14

What civilisations contributed to what in the fertile crescent?

Answer 14

● Ancient Mesopotamia: mathematics (algebra, astronomy, calendar)
● Ancient Egypt: geometrical knowledge, calendar, hieroglyphs.

Question 15

What conditions may have allowed for scientific development in the ‘fertile crescent?

Answer 15

political stability, urbanisation, patronage and the availability of a writing system that was easy enough to be learned by enough people so that a critical mass could be reached.

Question 16

Define philosophy

Answer 16

critical reflection on the universe and human functioning; started in Ancient Greece

Question 17

According to Plato, how did people gain access to “true ideas”

Answer 17

Plato further considered the soul and the body as two distinct and radically different kinds of entity, and he saw the soul as the entity defining the person. The soul was immortal, made of the leftovers of the cosmos-soul. It travelled between the stars and the human body it temporarily inhabited. Because human souls were part of the cosmos-soul, they had knowledge of the perfect realm. Therefore, humans could get access to the true ideas (e.g. about goodness, beauty, equality, change) by focusing on the innate knowledge brought by the immortal soul.

Question 18

What three parts did Plato claim the soul was comprised of? How did this relate to biology according to this wise wizard of truth?

Answer 18

Reason, sensations and emotions and appetite and lower passions

Reason guided them to a virtuous life in search of abstract, non-worldly perfection, which was the ideal fulfilment of human nature. Sensations and emotions were mortal and situated in the heart. To avoid it polluting the divine soul, a neck separated the two. Finally, the lower part of the soul dealt with appetite and the lower passions, such as lust, greed and desire. It was localised in the liver

Question 19

What method of knowledge did Plato utilise?

Answer 19

rationalism (truth is based on thinking, not on information from the senses; humans have innate knowledge that can be recovered through deductive reasoning).

Question 20

How did aristotle divide knowledge?

Answer 20

productive, practical and theoretical

Productive knowledge was concerned with making things, such as farming, engineering, art or rhetoric. Practical knowledge referred to how men ought to act in various circumstances, both in private and public life (e.g. ethical and political knowledge). Finally, the goal of theoretical knowledge was neither production nor action, but truth.

Question 21

How did Aristotle further divide theoretical knowledge?

Answer 21

into three classes: mathematics, natural science (including biology, psychology, meteorology, chemistry, physics) and theology (including astronomy, the substances divine in the heavens and – arguably – logic 2 ).

Question 22

How did theoretical knowledge differ from the other two knowledges in what it consisted of?

Answer 22

According to Aristotle, theoretical knowledge consisted of a series of axioms from which the remaining knowledge was derived by means of logic

The axioms were self-evident truths about nature, which were acquired through observation and intuition, and of which the final cause could be discerned. Final causes referred to the purpose of things within the universe.

Question 23

Who is seen as the father of research and logical reasoning?

Answer 23

Aristotle

Question 24

What is a syllogism?

Answer 24

argument consisting
of three propositions:
the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion.

Question 25

What was Aristotle’s stance on observation

Answer 25

He relied upon it for much of his studies such as zoology, astronomy, meteorology etc however he was equally clear that observation alone was not enough for true knowledge. Theoretical knowledge for Aristotle first consisted of knowledge derived from axioms by means of logic. Observation helped to formulate the axioms, but was not enough

Question 26

How did Aristotle divide living things?

Answer 26

In terms of the soul; . It consisted of three kinds. The lowest, the vegetative soul, was present in all living things, including plants. It enabled organisms to nourish themselves and to reproduce. Animals and humans further had animal souls (or sensitive souls), which provided them with locomotion, sensation, memory and imagination. Finally, humans also had rational souls, enabling them to reason consciously and to lead virtuous lives.

Question 27

What two other empires in the same region later contributed to science and progress?

Answer 27

The byzantium empire (formed from the east roman empire and had strong greek presence) and the arab empire

Question 28

What two factors in the west of the Roman empire lead to a blow in scientific progress?

Answer 28

Due to the growth of the Roman empire, it became increasingly less necessary to learn greek as latin was now the dominant language, leading to a language barrier between the two

the Catholic Church became the patron of learning through the creation and support of schools. As in the Byzantine Empire, however, science was not at the forefront of the education (to put it mildly.) As a result, scientific knowledge not only stalled but fell back from the level it had reached at the height of the Roman Empire.

Question 29

Why was the middle ages sometimes referred to as the dark ages?

Answer 29

name given in the Renaissance to the Middle Ages, to refer to the
lack of independent and scientific thinking in that age

Question 30

What advantageges did the discovery of agriculture bring?

Answer 30

• people can stay in one place, and thus establish settlements
• Produce more food than is needed to feed everyone, soi not everyone has to constantly arrange food

Question 31

What four main categories of questions did the greeks ask?

Answer 31

What’s the world like (ontology)
How do we know what’s true (epistemology)
What makes some things beautiful and others ugly? (aethstetics)
What makes some things good and some things bad (ethics)

Question 32

What is the difference between rationalism and empiricism?

Answer 32

Rationalism: knowledge comes from reason, ratiom
Empiricism: knowledge comes from sensory experience

Question 33

What was Plato’s central thesis regarding rationalism and empiricism?

Answer 33

Knowledge comes (at least in part) from the ratio (intelligence). Knowledge is only partly based on observation, real knowledge (what is beautiful) does not come from observation. Knowledge from reasoning is superior to knowledge from experience.

Question 34

What is meant by nativism?

Answer 34

There is innate knowledge (an associated claim from Plato)

Question 35

How did Plato argue that real knowledge cannot come from observation?

Answer 35

We only see imperfect forms (e.g drawn circles) yet we can see perfect forms in our life

Question 36

What steps lead to the revival of learning in the west? (2)

Answer 36

• First, there were efforts by Charles the Great around 800 to improve the education in his Carolingian Empire, in particular in the capital, Aachen.
• Second, as a result of better agricultural techniques there was a population explosion between 1000 and 1200.

Question 37

How did the population explosion contribute to the revival of learning? (4)

Answer 37

• resulted in renewed urbanisation and foundation of larger cathedral schools with broader educational aims
• These schools in turn increased the appetite for knowledge in the intellectually able, which created a market for independent teachers, called masters.
• To improve their living conditions, the teachers organised themselves in guilds, which they called ‘universities’.
• Students who finished the master’s programme at the universities had the right to teach everywhere (ius ubique docendi), which led to increased mobility of the masters and a harmonisation of the curricula.

Question 38

What else happened around the same time regarding other cultures which added to the revival of learning

Answer 38

At the same time, scholars became aware of the much richer cultures on the outskirts of Western Europe and the translation of Arabic and Greek texts into Latin reached a high point.

Question 39

What problems did the translating of Aristotle’s work cause

Answer 39

For many scientifically-minded scholars, his views and methodology were more inspiring than those of Plato and the Christian theology that had been built on it. (Aristotle claimed the world had no beginning or end, insinuated the sould couldn’t live without the body) This caused problems where his work that contradicted the teachings of the church were not to be taught in universities such as University of Paris.

Question 40

What was the importance of the protestant reformation in regards to the revival of learning?

Answer 40

It was important for the development

of science, because it emphasised the need for education, critical thinking, hard work and worldly success

Question 41

What invention around 1300-1450 allowed for a a rapid and massive availability of information to everyone who was interested?

Answer 41

Book writing, First (by 1300), letters were carved in a woodblock and printed on cloth, which allowed mass production of a small number of pages. Later (around 1450) movable printing was invented by Johannes Gutenberg, a technique in which individual metal letters were placed in a matrix and could be recycled for other texts. An often overlooked factor in this process was the production of paper, something the Europeans learned from the Arabs, who in turn had probably been inspired by the initial Chinese invention

Question 42

Name four ways in which book printing changed the lives of people interested in knowledge

Answer 42

• knowledge became more within reach
• because books were so rare, there was a constant danger of loss or destruction. Scholars had almost a full-time job preserving and copying the existing knowledge, so that it could be transferred to the next generation.
• manually copied books contained many transcription errors, particularly when they involved scientific materials
• for the first time scholars could work on the same copy of a book. This made it much easier to correspond and collaborate with each other.

Question 43

How did colonisation lead to technological advances? (2)

Answer 43

• it turned into a race between the different nations to conquer as much as possible of the newly discovered territories, increasing the demand for technical and scientific inventions that could be of use.
• also brought the European countries in contact with other cultures and inventions.

Question 44

How did colonisation show that Aristotle was not infallible?

Answer 44

According to Aristotle, the Earth was divided into five different climate zones. The two extreme zones, the northern and the southern pole, were too cold and icy for life. The middle zone around the equator was uninhabitable as well, because it was boiling hot there. Only in the two zones between the poles and the equator was the climate temperate enough to sustain life. Aristotle was proven wrong when the Portuguese started to occupy parts of Africa, and in 1473 crossed the equator by sea in their search for a trade route to Asia

Question 45

Name and explain five biases in history writing

Answer 45

• Too much emphasis on persons (history of science is presented by a succession of geniuses) It has been shown over and over again that discoveries have been prepared over a long time (and often have happened independently at several places) and that the time was simply right for them to come to the foreground.
• The Matthew effect - the tendency to give more credit to well-known scientists than they deserve (over their less well-known colleagues); increases the perceived impact of these scientists
• Hindsight bias- we have a tendency to assume that these individual scholars knew more than they actually did and their arguments were much more convincing than they were.
• Ethnocentrism- authors have a tendency to attach excessive weight to the contribution of their own group and the group of their readers.
• History reviews are summaries of summaries- these biases can therefore be multiplied and exaggerated as they are repeated

Question 46

What is meant by the term zeitgeist?

Answer 46

word used in the history
of science to indicate that the time was right for a certain discovery; the discovery did not originate from a single genius,
but from a much wider development leading to the discovery

Question 47

What did Plato believe happened us after we die?

Answer 47

Reincarnation- soul sees all the ‘perfect forms’ and is born again on this earth hence why we can remember all those perfect forms

Question 48

Explain Plato’s cave

Answer 48

In the cave there are the normal people who sit down by the wall and look at the shadows while behind us there’s a fire and a small pathway. Occasionally people walk there carrying a small object like a stick. The people see the shadows and shapes of the objects through the fire and they recognise the shapes as being objects but they don’t see the real objects. This is a metaphor for how we don’t see the real ideal objects on earth. Sometimes a person will unshackle themselves (a large philosopher) and will make the difficult road out of the cave. The enlightened philosopher can then come back and tell people of the shapes etc outside

Question 49

How is nativism still relevant today?

Answer 49

Research suggests that young children can reason causally and that babies are surprised when natural laws are violated, according to many people language ability is innate. These findings however, are attributed to the evolution of the brain.

Question 50

What was Aristotle’s stance on Plato’s two worlds?

Answer 50

He rejected it, he claimed there was only one world; the one we can observe.
Everything around us consisted of form and matter
Matter only has pontentiality, no actuality
The forms are not only something in our heads but are the essence of being

Question 51

Explain the peripatetic principle

Answer 51

Aristotle walked around wile teaching in his lyceum: peripateo in Greek
He claimed that nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses
This was later known as the tabula rasa theory (blank slate)

Question 52

What definition did Aristotle giev for truth?

Answer 52

“to say what is that it is not, or of what is not that it, is false, while to say of what is that is, and of what is not that is not, is true.”

Question 53

What is the correspondence theory of truth?

Answer 53

True statements “correspond” with states of affairs in reality

Question 54

What was the main theory of stoicism?

Answer 54

It is best to minimize your feelings

Question 55

What was the main theory of epicureanism?

Answer 55

Happiness is the ultimate pursuit, which you achieve by living you life as balanced as possible

Question 56

What was the main theory of skepticism?

Answer 56

Refrain from judgement

Question 57

In what period did these three schools of thought occur?

Answer 57

Hellenistic period