Relativity of Truth

The sophists

Professional teachers of rhetoric and logic, truth is relative - no single truth exists

Sophists

Protogoras
Gorgias
Xenophanes

Protogoras
(summary of position)

Truth depends on the perceiver
Perception varies from person to person because each perceiver has _____different experiences.
Truth is partially determined by culture
To understand why a person believes as a person does, one must understand the person.
Agnostic towards the Greek gods
Philosophy of relativity of truth is still present today in post modernism.

Gorgias

Gorgias took a more extreme position than Protogoras - all things are equally false
There is not objective basis of truth - nihilism - one can only be aware of one's own experiences and mental states solipsism.
He came to three conclusions:
Nothing exists
If i did exist, it could not be comprehended
if existence exists, it is inapprehensible to humans
if it could be comprehended, it could not be
If existence is apprehensible, it certainly cannot be communicated or in interpreted to one's neighbors
Spoken words had power but they were essentially deceitful.

Sophists
(xenophanes)

Attacked veracity of religion before the Sophists
Xenophanes stated that religion is a human invention. His evidence was:
Olympian gods act suspiciously like humans
Gods of different peoples look like the people themselves
Humans create religion - moral codes come from man
He was not an atheist; he postulated a god that was unlike any other described during that time.

Socrates

Socrates agreed with sophists that personal experience is important, but disagreed that no truth exists beyond personal opinion.
Employed method of inductive definition
Examine instances of a concept
Ask the question - what is it that all instances have in common?
Find the essence of the instances of the concept.
Seek to find general concepts by examining isolated instances.
The essence was a universally accepted definiton of a concept.
Understanding essence constituted knowledge and goal of life was to gain knowledge.
Socrates was sentenced to death at the age of 70 years for corrupting the youth of Athens

Plato
Theory of forms

Everything in the empirical world is an inferior manifestation of the pure form, which exists in the abstract.
Experience through our senses comes from interaction of the pure form and matter of the world
Result is an experience less than perfect.
True knowledge can be attained only through reason; rational thought regarding the forms.
The analogy of the divided line
Description of Plato's view of acquisition of true knowledge.
The analogy divides the world and our states of mind into points along a divided line.
People attempting to gain knowledge through sensory experience are ____doomed to ignorance or, at best, opinion.
Impacting is lowest form of understanding
Direct experience with objects is lightly better, but still just beliefs or opinions.
Contemplation of mathematical relationships is better than the other two.
Highest form of thinking involves embracing the forms.
True knowledge and intelligence comes only from understanding the abstract ___forms

Allegory of the cave : demonstrates how difficult it is to deliver humans from ignorance.

The reminiscence theory of knowledge
How do we know the forms if they cannot be known through sensory experiences?

Prior to coming into the body, the soul dwelt in pure, complete knowledge.
All knowledge is innate and can be attained only through introspection - thus, all true knowledge comes only from reminiscence, from remembering the experiences the soul had prior to entering the body.
Therefore, Plato was a rationalist - stressed mental operations to gain knowledge already in the soul.

The nature of the soul
The sould is comprised of three parts (tripartite)
Rational component

Immortal, existed with forms.

Courageous (emotional or spirited) component

Mortal emotions such as fear, rage, and love

Appetite component

Mortal needs such as hunger, thirst, and sexual behavior that must be satisfied.

To obtain knowledge, one must suppress bodily needs and concentrate on rational pursuits.

Job of rational component is to postpone and inhibit immediate gratification when in the best long-term benefit of the person.

In Republic, Plato described a utopian society with three types of people performing specific functions;

Appetitive individuals - workers and slaves.
Courageous individuals - soldiers.
rational individuals - philosopher-kings.

Plato felt that all was predetermined

A complete nativist, people are destined to be slave, soldier, or philosopher-king.

Sleep and dreams

While awake some individuals are better able to rationally control there appetites than are others during sleep, however, it's another matter.
Does not specifically mention dreams, but this is a precursor to some of what will come much later (i.e. Freud)

Plato's legacy

Because of his disdain for empirical observation and sensory experience as means of gaining knowledge, he actually inhibited progress in science.
Dualism in humans

Aristotle
Aristotle and Plato contrasted
Plato

Essences (truths) in the forms that exist independent of nature, known only by using introspection (rationalism)

Aristotle

Essences could be known only by studying nature through individual observation of phenomena (empiricism).

Aristotle embraced both rationalism and empiricism.
Mind must be employed to gain knowledge (rationalism), object of the rational thought was information from sensory experience (empiricism)

Aristotle's Lyceum

Categorized and catalogued a large number of observations made of physical and biological phenomena.
Contrasting views of Plato and Aristotle set stage for epistemological arguments throughout history.

Aristotle's causation, teleology, and entelechy

Aristotle's believed that to understand any object or phenomenon, one must know four aspects of it
Everything in nature follows from these causes:

1. Material cause

Matter of which it is made

2. Formal cause

Form or pattern of the object - what is it?

3. Efficient cause

Force that transforms the matter - who made it?

4. Final cause

Purpose - why it exists.

Everything has a purpose

Teleology, meaning that everything has a function (entelechy) built into it.
Entelechy keeps an object moving and developing in its prescribed direction to full potential
Scala naturae is the idea that nature is arranged in a hierarchy ranging from neutral matter to the unmoved mover, which is the cause of everything in nature
The closer to the unmoved mover is something is, the more perfect it is.

Hierarchy of souls: a soul is what gives life

Vegetative (nutritive) soul
Provides growth, assimilation of food, and reproduction
Possessed by plants

Sensitive soul
Functions of vegetative soul plus the ability to sense and respond to the ___environment, experience pleasure and pain, and use memory.
Possessed by animals

Rational soul
Functions of vegetative and sensitive souls plus ability of thinking and rational __thought.
Possessed by humans.

Sensation

From the five senses
Perception was explained by motion of objects that stimulate a particular sensory system.
We can trust our senses to yield an accurate representation of the real world environment.

Common sense, passive and active reason.

Sensory information is only first step in gaining knowledge - necessary but not sufficient element to obtaining knowledge.
Information from multiple sensory systems must be combined for effective interactions with the environment
Common sense
Coordinates and synthesizes informatoin from all of the senses for more ____meaningful and effective experience.

Passive reason
Used synthesized experience to function in everyday life

Active reason
Uses synthesized experience to abstract principles and essences
Highest form of thinking

Active reason provides humans with there entelechy
Purpose is to engage in active reason
Source of greatest pleasure

Memory and recall

Remembering
Spontaneous recollection of a previous experience

Recall
An actual mental search for a previous experience

Practice of recall affected by laws of association

Law of contiguity
Associate things that occurred close in time and in time and/or in same ___situation

Law of similarity
Similar things are associated

Law of contrast
Opposite things are associated

Law of frequency
More often events occur together - stronger the association

Associationism

Belief that one or more laws of association can be used to explain the origins of ideas, memory, or how complex ideas are formed from simple ones.

Memory and recall (continued)

Laws of association are basis for most theories of learning and association.

Imagination and dreaming

Imagination is lingering effects of sensory experience.

Dreaming is images from past experiences which are stimulated by events inside and outside the body.

Motivation and emotion

Happiness is doing what is natural
Fulfills one's purpose
Purpose for humans is to think rationally
Humans, being biological organisms, are motivated by appetites.
However, humans can use rational powers to inhibit appetites.
Conflicts arise between immediate satisfaction and biological drives and more remote rational goals.
Like most Greeks, Aristotle held self-control and moderation as a high ideal.
The best life was one lived in accordance to the golden mean.

Emotions and selective perception

Emotions function to amplify any eisting tendency (behavior).
Emotions also influence a person's perception to be more selective.

The Importance of Early Greek Philosophy

In Popper's view, science began when humans began to question the prevailing stories about themselves and the world.
The Greek cosmologists broke loose from the accepted traditions and speculated; they also engaged in critical discussion.
After Aristotle's death, philosophers either relied on teachings of pas authorities, particularly Aristotle, or turned attention from descriptions of the universe to models of human conduct.
The critical, questioning tradition of the Greeks was not present until revived in the Renaissance.

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THe world precivilized humans and early Greek religion, the first philosophers