Quiz 1, Mythos, Pre-Socratics, and the Fixation of Belief

Question 1

Under what conditions can you certainly know something?
What equates to what?

Answer 1

When something is unchanging
Knowledge = Certainty = Reality

Question 2

How was mythos transmitted before 700 BCE?

Answer 2

oral tradition

Question 3

What did writing out Homeric narritive do for the tradition of story?

Answer 3

Opened space for it to be criticized, and increased its transmissibility

Question 4

How is the world of Homer’s gods? Why is it that way?

Answer 4

Capricious becuase of all the opportunity for divine intervention and the unpredictability of divine personalities

Question 5

What are mythological accounts meant to due?

Answer 5

They are intended for entertainment and instruction, not scientific accounts of causation/causality

Question 6

What did the creation of divine personalities go for people? How does it relate to human life?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

What did the advent of the first philosophers do?

Answer 7

changed how we think, introduced a new mode of thought, moved towards naturalistic explainations which do not consider the gods

Question 8

What is the idea of kosmos/cosmology?

Answer 8

Kosmos means ordered world
Cosmology will refer to philosophers own version of ordered worlds depending on their views

Question 9

Why are some presocratic thinkings hard to make scholarship on?

Answer 9

Because much of their thinking is testimonia from others who may have disacreed with their ideas (Aristotle)

Question 10

What are the three points of significance in the transition from myth to presocratic philosophy?

Answer 10

1. A new question is being asked about the origins of things by way of simple underlying reality –> search for order behind change
2. No interference of gods anymore
3. The need to defend one’s thinking (why do you think that?)

Question 11

What are the three questions that show up with presocratic thinkers?

Answer 11

1. question of what the fundamental underlying reality is made of
2. 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?
3. question of knowledge which asks what we can trust to navigate the world because our sense are not reliable (Parmenides)

Question 12

What does genuine knowledge equate to? What did the concern for that lead to?

Answer 12

Rational knowledge
led to careful consideration about the rules of reasoning, argumentation, and theory assessment

Question 13

What did the Greeks rely on to make their judgements on ultiamte reality?

Answer 13

Reason because they could not actual experience thier theories, figured sense only reveals secondary characteristics like color or temperature

Question 14

What did philosophy begin as?

Answer 14

A search for causes

Question 15

What did Milesians think about the fundamental underlying reality?

Answer 15

They were materialists and monists, thought that it was matter consisting of one kind/form

Question 16

What was Thales’ cosmology? Why? Other ideas of his?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What was Anaximander’s cosmology? Why? Who is he contradicting? Other notes?

Answer 17

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

Question 18

What was Anaximenes cosmology? Why? Who is he defying? What does he emphasize?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

What are the questions surrounding the application of mathematics to the natural world?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

What groups did the Pythagoreans split into? What did each focus on?

Answer 20

Mathematikoi; astronomy, philosophy, music
Akousmatikoi; religious/how to live

Question 21

Put simple, what is Pythagoreous’ original insight? What are we unsure about when it comes to his thoughts?

Answer 21

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)

Question 22

What was Heraclitus’ cosmology? What did he represent it with? How did he think of it in terms of other people?

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Whose influence was seen in Paramenides writings? Does this affect his reasoning?

Answer 23

Homer, yes in the way that it shows him still putting reason ahead of gods just telling him things

Question 24

What was Parmenides main shining idea? What’s the therefore that follows?

Answer 24

“whatever is, is, and cannot ever not be”
therefore, nothing comes from nothing and something cannot become nothing

Question 25

What is Parmenides what-is?

Answer 25

something whole, compelte, and unchaging, therefore something which can be known

Question 26

What does Parmenides view of what-is do to preexisting theories of the ultimate reality?

Answer 26

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

Question 27

Tell me Parmenides whole argument about the senses

hint: there are 8 steps

Answer 27

1. what is not, is not
2. therefore nothing does not exist
3. therefore empty space does not exists, and space cannot exist separate to anything
4. therefore there is no plurality
5. therefore everything is one, and the real and knowable universe is only an undivided block
6. therefore there is no motion
7. it is our senses that give us the misinformation of plurality and motion
8. therefore our sense are not reliable guides to the truth

Question 28

Tell me about Zeno’s Paradox of the Stadium

Answer 28

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?

Question 29

What are the two central ideas of Atomism?

Answer 29

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

Question 30

In Atomism, what is coming-to-be? What is it an ancient form of? What does it posit about souls?

Answer 30

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

Question 31

What are some questions to ask ourselves about fixation of beliefs?

Answer 31

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

Question 32

Why do we fix certain beliefs according to Peirce? Does this have any other effects?

Answer 32

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

Question 33

What are the three notions under which we consider the difference and relationship between doubt and belief according to Peirce?

Answer 33

1. there is a felt difference between asking a question vs pronouncing a judgement – confidence
2. belief shapes desire and action, doubt fosters anxiety and irritation
3. 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

Question 34

Sum up the difference of what belief and doubt inspire

Answer 34

belief spurs habits of action
doubt spurs inquiry

Question 35

What is inquiry?

Answer 35

The struggle to obtain a state of belief from the irritation of doubt
settlement of opinion

Question 36

What are the three consequences of this particular conception of inquiry?

Answer 36

1. inquiry is only stimulated by real and living doubt, simply asking a question is not inquiry
2. you must start with self evident propositions which are free of doubt
3. when doubt ceases, so does mental action on the subject

Question 37

Tell me about the Method of Tenacity. What is admirable? What are it’s negative aspects?

Answer 37

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

Question 38

Tell me about the Method of Authority. What is admirable? What are it’s negative aspects?

Answer 38

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

Question 39

Tell me about the A Priory Method. What is admirable?

Answer 39

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

Question 40

Give me an example of the A Priori Method

Answer 40

i. god is the most perfect being
ii. being real is more perfect than being an idea or thought
iii. god must necessarily exist