Sophie's World

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Class Notes:

-Aristotle has a great influence in history because he tutored Alexander the Great

- Logic, was first nailed down the rules and how it works and science

- thinking about the way you think(metacognition)

- What are the best ways to organize our thoughts to get the best solutions

- organize the thoughts

- Science is statements about the how and why of things - Aristotle

- For science to work (his goal) he has to create a system of logic and of precise language

-logic is the study of symbols and words are the symbols that point to everything else

- how can we use the symbols is an organized way

- A system for analyzing thoughts as we come to reliable conclusions

- generalizations is all white female americans like pumpkin spice lattes so kayla likes them

- generalizations you take something broad and make it specific

- sets up the idea of the categories

- when you think of something you cannot just think of a plain thing you think of all the details

- there are all kinds of information that are attached to every thought

- Characteristics> if we take these away and there would not be an actual thing

- He wanted to filter out the necessary and the accents

- He sorted out organizational levels in nature, ( genies, species, and what not)

- as working out the true nature of things he is trying to look at them how they and how they work

- Aristotle creates a Syllogism (three statements, the first two leading to a conclusion of the last one)

- create a bank of reliable principles using Syllogism, he called them archeas

- Physics= physical world

- moved into metaphysics (beyond the physical)_ everything has a cause there is nothing that there is not some cause for because there was a cause for that.

- Everything has a purpose. There must be causes and purposes in the metaphysical(wisdom) as well

- Ethics_ What causes the good life?

-Politics_ what causes a good state?

- there is a parallel between the physical and metaphysical life

- Behind everything there is order.

- what is Man's purpose what is the end of Man

- Ultimately man happy

- use of reason to find the abided contentment= the good life

- if you want to fulfill your end you have to understand everything that leads up to that.

- Instrumental ends= intermerial goal.... intrinsic end= the one final end of achieving the good life, abided contentment

- for us to have the good life, through reason we will justify, wisdom courage and temperament and all the balance of all the virtues.

-Virtues are the reasonable balance between two extremes or the golden mean.

Aristotle's Categories

- 8 categories-- Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Date (time), Action, Passivity (passive action), Possession

- all these things are incidental, they are not key characteristics.

Difference between Plato and Aristotle

- Plato is with the theory of ideas, and Aristotle is more concrete and logic

- Aristotle tries to understand the universe through the science and such

- Plato believed that things that changed were not real, Aristotle believed that the senses were real and reliable

Aristotle- used senses

- writings like encyclopedia

-scientific terminology

-study of science

-refuted Platos theory of ideas

No Innate ideas

-The theory of ideas turned upside down.

-the "idea" or "form" makes up the horses characteristics= what we call species

- What is common to all horses

-the real and the form are inseparable as the body and the soul.

-We perceive with our senses

-things in human soul are were purely reflections of natural objects

-Nothing exists in consciousness that has not first been experienced by the senses.

-thoughts and ideas comes from what we have seen or heard, But we also have an innate power of REASON

- annate faculty of organizing all sensory impressions into categories and classes

- reason is mans most distinguishing characteristic

The form of a thing is its specific characteristics

- substance= what things are made of, form= its characteristics

- concerned with changes in NATURE

- every change in nature is a transformation of substances from potential to the actual

-the form of a thing then says something about its potentiality as well as limitation

- also true for inanimate objects

The final Cause

- there were different types of cause in nature

- Why? what was the purpose

- "material cause" the actual thing (the cloud)

- "efficient cause" what happens (moisture cools)

- "formal cause" is the form ( nature of water is to fall to the earth)

- "final cause" It rained BECAUSE the plants and animals needed water to grow.

-PURPOSE

Logic

-when we discern things we classify them in various groups and categories

- Everything in nature belongs to different categories and subcategories

- We classify everything

-meticulous organizer set out to clarify our concepts

- demonstrated a number of laws that governed conclusions and proofs that were valid.

- correlation between substance and form

Nature's Scale

- natural world divided into two categories

- non loving things, no potentiality for change,can only change through external influence

- Living things have the potentiality for change.

-Living things two categories

- plants

- Creatures

-animals

- Humans

- When divides the natural phenomena into various categories, criterion is the object's characteristics, or more specifically what it can do, or what it does.

- all living things have the ability to absorb nourishment to grow and propagate.

- all living CREATURES have the ability to perceive the world around them and move about

-top of the scale is man, lives the whole life of nature

- Man has the ability to think rationally

- God started all the movement in the natural world

- God is at the top of natures scale (first mover or god)

- itself at rest, but the formal cause of the movement of all natural things

Ethics

-Man's form has a soul. rational part, plant-like part and animal part

-Achieving the good life, man can only achieve happiness by using all his abilities and capabilities

- Three forms of happiness, first=happiness is a life of pleasure and enjoyment, second= life as a free and responsible citizen, third= a life as a thinker and philosopher.

- All three must be fulfilled at the same time for man to find happiness and fulfillment

- rejected all forms of imbalance

- Golden mean= must be neither cowardly or rash, but courageous. neither miserly nor extravagant but liberal

Politics

- the undesirability of cultivating extremes is also expressed in the view of society.

- man by nature is a political animal, without a society around us we are not real people

-three good forms of constitution, first= monarchy>kingship, second= aristocracy> larger or smaller set of rulers, third= polity> democracy

Views on Women

-women are incomplete in some way

-unfinished man

- child inherits only male characteristics

- man= form, woman= substance

Hellenism

- 300 years

- Greek

- refers to the period of time and the Greek- dominated culture that prevailed in the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Syria, and Egypt

religion philosophy and science

- Hellenism characterized by the fact that the borders between the various countries were erased.

- All the cultures used to worship the national God, but now the different cultures all came together and share religious, philosophical, and scientific ideas.

- syncretism= fusion of the creeds, new religions formations arose to that could draw on the gods and the beliefs of many of the old nations.

-new religious formations stated that mankind could attain salvation from death.

- philosophy was moving in the direction of salvation and serenity

- the boundaries between philosophy and religion were gradually erased.

- Hellenistic science was influenced by a blend of the knowledge of different cultures.

The Cynics

-what a whole lot of things I do not need

- founded by antisthenes

- True happiness is not found in external advantages such as material luxury, political power or good health., true happiness lies in not being dependent on such random and fleeting things.

- Happiness is within everyones reach, once attained never lost

- Diogenes had everything he desired

- People did not need to be concerned with their own health, suffering and death should not concern them

- cynical or cynicism have come to mean a snaring disbelief in human sincerity, and they imply insensitively to other people's suffering.

- barrel philosophers

The stoics

- founder zeno

- roman culture

- everyone was part of the same common sense or "logo"

- there exists a universal rightness, natural law

- denied any conflict between spirit and matter

- monism, one nature

- encouraged greek culture and philosophy in Rome

- humanism= cicero, view that has the individual as its central focus

- all natural process such as sickness and death follow unbreakable law of nature

- nothing happens accidentally , everything happens through necessity

- all external events are unimportant

The Epicureans

- the aim of life was to attain the highest possible sensory enjoyment. the highest good is pleasure the greatest evil is pain

- way of life to avoid pain in all forms

-Epicureans founded school, followers called Epicureans, developed the pleasure ethic combined with atom theory

- garden philosophers

- pleasurable results in an action must always be weighed against its possible side effects

- pleasurable results n the short term must be weighed against the possibility of a greater lore lasting or more intense pleasure in the long term

- Pleasure does not always mean sensual pleasure

- good life= overcome the fear of death

- as long as we are here death does not exist and when it does come we no longer exist, soul atom theory

- The gods are not to be feared, death is not to be worried about, good is easy to attain, the fearful is easy to endure

- little or no interest in politics and the community

- live in the moment , now a days epicurean is negative for someone who lives only for pleasure

Neoplasms

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