Socrates/Plato Flashcards
Socrates
- 470 to 399BC
- founder of philosophy
- drank poison for corrupting the youth of Athens
shadows represented
empiricism
imagination
escaped prisoners rerpesented
philosophers
prisoners represented
society
real objects represented
rational knowledge
thought
reality in the cave
- shadows
2. statues/fire
reality outside the cave
- real objects
4. the sun
anamnesis
you are born possessing all knowledge
metaphysics
the nature of things/reality
epistemology
the nature of knowledge
puppets represented
belief
sun represented
understanding
realm of the forms
- ideals of all that exists
- real and unchanging
- immortal soul
- highest realm
realm of the particulars
- all physical things
- unreal and changing
- body
- physical
empiricism
knowledge through experience
rationalism
knowledge though reason
necessary truth
true by definition
factual/contingent truth
particular to a situation and requires testing
analytic statement
breaks down a term
synthetic statment
adds something to a term
tautology
circular statement
“the kindling of a flame”
- Socrates
- knowledge is innate, so education is bringing this knowledge back
the form of the good
- most important realm
- goodness is the purest and furthest thing from the physical world
- we can recognise it, but not fully experience it
anamnesis
you are born possessing all knowledge
the divided line
the stages that the prisoner passes through is split into the intelligible realm (outside) and the visible realm (in the cave)
4 parts to the divided line
- imagination (shadows)
- belief (statues)
- thought (outside objects)
- understanding (the sun)
John Locke
we were born as a blank slate or ‘tabula rasa’ without any knowledge
Chomsky
children are born with innate knowledge of language as their knowledge goes beyond what they have learnt through listening
the slave boy
- a slave boy is asked to solve a geometry problem which he does with guided help from socrates
- socrates argues the boy must have gained this knowledge already, as he knew it, he just needed help recollecting it
- he did not learn it in this life so it must have been innate
