Quiz 1, Mythos, Pre-Socratics, and the Fixation of Belief Flashcards
Under what conditions can you certainly know something?
What equates to what?
When something is unchanging
Knowledge = Certainty = Reality
How was mythos transmitted before 700 BCE?
oral tradition
What did writing out Homeric narritive do for the tradition of story?
Opened space for it to be criticized, and increased its transmissibility
How is the world of Homer’s gods? Why is it that way?
Capricious becuase of all the opportunity for divine intervention and the unpredictability of divine personalities
What are mythological accounts meant to due?
They are intended for entertainment and instruction, not scientific accounts of causation/causality
What did the creation of divine personalities go for people? How does it relate to human life?
This made it so that the ancient Greeks could feel some sense of control over the uncontrollable (ex. storms) by giving offerings
by making gods with personalities, it posits that they have a natural regularity that tells of intelligence AND freedom for random natural events
What did the advent of the first philosophers do?
changed how we think, introduced a new mode of thought, moved towards naturalistic explainations which do not consider the gods
What is the idea of kosmos/cosmology?
Kosmos means ordered world
Cosmology will refer to philosophers own version of ordered worlds depending on their views
Why are some presocratic thinkings hard to make scholarship on?
Because much of their thinking is testimonia from others who may have disacreed with their ideas (Aristotle)
What are the three points of significance in the transition from myth to presocratic philosophy?
- A new question is being asked about the origins of things by way of simple underlying reality –> search for order behind change
- No interference of gods anymore
- The need to defend one’s thinking (why do you think that?)
What are the three questions that show up with presocratic thinkers?
- question of what the fundamental underlying reality is made of
- question of change where it asks if the fundamental ingredients of the universe are changeable – how can the world be both fundamentally stable and genuinely changeable?
- question of knowledge which asks what we can trust to navigate the world because our sense are not reliable (Parmenides)
What does genuine knowledge equate to? What did the concern for that lead to?
Rational knowledge
led to careful consideration about the rules of reasoning, argumentation, and theory assessment
What did the Greeks rely on to make their judgements on ultiamte reality?
Reason because they could not actual experience thier theories, figured sense only reveals secondary characteristics like color or temperature
What did philosophy begin as?
A search for causes
What did Milesians think about the fundamental underlying reality?
They were materialists and monists, thought that it was matter consisting of one kind/form
What was Thales’ cosmology? Why? Other ideas of his?
the basic stuff is water; everything is made up of and or is the original source
spent a lot of time in the Nile region which may have contributed to this
Earth is at rest on water; earthquakes
Soul produces motion, anything moving has a soul
What was Anaximander’s cosmology? Why? Who is he contradicting? Other notes?
The basic stuff is boundless and indescribable, the apeiron (indefinite)
because reality has to be one thing, making it water, which can be wet, implies the state of dry –> implies plurality
defies his teacher Thales
change is ordered
the arkhe then gives rise to opposites, and from there natural necessity occurs
What was Anaximenes cosmology? Why? Who is he defying? What does he emphasize?
the basic stuff is air
because it is indefinite enough to give rise to things, but not so much that it is indescribable
going against Anaximander’s boundless idea because how can you go so quickly from indescribable to describable?
Processes, or a mechanism of transformation, namely how condensation (cold) and rarefaction (hot) can create the basic four elements
What are the questions surrounding the application of mathematics to the natural world?
Is the world fundamentally mathematical? meaning it is the ultimate reality
Are mathematics only applicable to superficial/quantifiable aspects of reality? meaning it is not ultimate reality, but a descriptor of its fundamentals
What groups did the Pythagoreans split into? What did each focus on?
Mathematikoi; astronomy, philosophy, music
Akousmatikoi; religious/how to live
Put simple, what is Pythagoreous’ original insight? What are we unsure about when it comes to his thoughts?
Number is the key to understanding the universe, took a numerical stance rather than a materialistic one
whether or not he thought everything is a derivative of number, or if number was simply a fundamental property (not a precondition)
What was Heraclitus’ cosmology? What did he represent it with? How did he think of it in terms of other people?
the basic stuff is logos, which states that there is one single fundamental law of nature that which all other change happens around –> what is unchangable describes the changable
- logos in an explanation, an objective truth, and unchanging
represented by fire because he sought to understand the world through the identity of opposites which fire represents (always changing, yet always the same)
He thought people were too self obsessed to grasp the idea
Whose influence was seen in Paramenides writings? Does this affect his reasoning?
Homer, yes in the way that it shows him still putting reason ahead of gods just telling him things
What was Parmenides main shining idea? What’s the therefore that follows?
“whatever is, is, and cannot ever not be”
therefore, nothing comes from nothing and something cannot become nothing
What is Parmenides what-is?
something whole, compelte, and unchaging, therefore something which can be known
What does Parmenides view of what-is do to preexisting theories of the ultimate reality?
It rejects the ideas of the ultimate being able to change form and deal in unity/opposits because they presuppose the idea of what-is-not
Tell me Parmenides whole argument about the senses
hint: there are 8 steps
- what is not, is not
- therefore nothing does not exist
- therefore empty space does not exists, and space cannot exist separate to anything
- therefore there is no plurality
- therefore everything is one, and the real and knowable universe is only an undivided block
- therefore there is no motion
- it is our senses that give us the misinformation of plurality and motion
- therefore our sense are not reliable guides to the truth
Tell me about Zeno’s Paradox of the Stadium
It asks you to mark half of a stadium, and then half of a half, and so on. You find that there are infinite halves to make. If you want to traverse the stadium though, how do you get through that infinite number of points in a finite period?
What are the two central ideas of Atomism?
Atomos; aspects of nature which are indivisible, not to be reasoned to
- atoms are eternal, immutable, infinite, and differ only in size and shape
- they are changeless, and so satisfy the base of ultimate reality
Void; the nothing, the space that separates atoms and allows them to move
- explicit challenge to Parmenides
In Atomism, what is coming-to-be? What is it an ancient form of? What does it posit about souls?
coming-to-be is simply the rearrangement of atoms alongside each other in relation to their place in the void
materialism
says there is no immortal soul, rather soul atoms maybe that come together for a period of time, but eventually dispurse until they come back together
What are some questions to ask ourselves about fixation of beliefs?
how did we aquire them
why do we endorse the ones we do and not others
why do we hold onto values which we are uncertain about their trueness
are some methods more reliable than others
Why do we fix certain beliefs according to Peirce? Does this have any other effects?
natural selection, as if we believed certain things we would survive longer
connected also to belief in unpracticle subjects, like moral superiority, beauty, sexual partner selection – leads to beliefs which are not necessarily true
What are the three notions under which we consider the difference and relationship between doubt and belief according to Peirce?
- there is a felt difference between asking a question vs pronouncing a judgement – confidence
- belief shapes desire and action, doubt fosters anxiety and irritation
- we will always be trying to free ourselves from a state of doubt because we want to pass from unease and disatisfaction to calm satisfaction, so we begin to cling tenaciously to beliefs
Sum up the difference of what belief and doubt inspire
belief spurs habits of action
doubt spurs inquiry
What is inquiry?
The struggle to obtain a state of belief from the irritation of doubt
settlement of opinion
What are the three consequences of this particular conception of inquiry?
- inquiry is only stimulated by real and living doubt, simply asking a question is not inquiry
- you must start with self evident propositions which are free of doubt
- when doubt ceases, so does mental action on the subject
Tell me about the Method of Tenacity. What is admirable? What are it’s negative aspects?
When a person holds onto a belief wholeheartedly and does not entertain anything which detracts from it
the needed self assertion, the peace of mind
weak against social impulse in the sense that it is unstable. when someone shares an idea that is just as good but different from one that a person already holds, doubt will creep in
Tell me about the Method of Authority. What is admirable? What are it’s negative aspects?
An organization’s introduced belief that becomes normal in a violent/non violent way – think churches and politicians
historically, this has had the most majestic results – pyramids, may be the best for people as a whole
unstable because everyone cannot be made to believe in central ideas bechause they are able to think for themselves – when they see other states which think differently, they will begin to doubt their beliefs
Tell me about the A Priory Method. What is admirable?
reasoning your way towards a conclusion in the absence of experience
divorced from emotion which makes it more objective
relies on things being agreeable to reason
not different from method of authority, just a transfer of authority
Give me an example of the A Priori Method
i. god is the most perfect being
ii. being real is more perfect than being an idea or thought
iii. god must necessarily exist
