Flashcards
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Cards in this deck (18)
- 1Ancient Greek PhilosophyContent:
- Plato
- World of the FORMS
- Aristotle
- The Four Causes
- Influences
Evaluation of Rationalism vs Empiricism - 2DoxaOpinion
- 3Episteme(true) knowledge
- 4Plato's Analogy of the cavePrisoners trapped in a cave, behind is a fire and in front of the fire, there is the puppets and the puppeteers, casting shadows in front of the prisoners. The shadows, they believe is the reality. A prisoner manages to escape (this is known as the philosopher) and goes outside and was blinded by the light of the Sun – when they adjust they realized that there is a whole other world. When they go back to tell the others, they wanted to kill him.
- 5World of appearancesThe shadows – the prisoners are told to believe what they see in front of then – the shadows – they are distortions of the ‘ideal forms’.
in the same way, the world we live in, we can recognize a form of something - such as different types of cats all have the form of catness - 6World of the FORMSRevealed by the Form of Good – which could be referred to as reason, because the escaped prisoner used reason to be able to gain episteme.
- 7DualismPlato argued that the soul and body are separate things – the body is weak, and the soul is immortal. He argued that at some point the soul has visited the World of the FORMS and that was people were able to ‘recollect’ the different FORMS of (e.g.) a Dog, because they have seen the Ideal FORM of a Dog in the World of the FORMS
- 8Influences of ParmenidesWorld is unchanging
everything is fixed
inspired Plato's world of the FORMs - and the idea of the unchanging nature of the FORMS
- 9Influences of Heraclitus“you can’t step in the same river twice”
This idea that was influencing Plato because it was this idea that the world was in a state of flux and this lead to Plato’s argument that we cannot gain episteme in a world that is constantly changing - 10Influences of Pythagoras theorumMathematics does not exist in the temporal world
they exist abstractly and are not changing, yet we are able to recognise them
- 11Aristotle's challenge: Third man fallacy1. every FORM is a member of a class and so needs a FORM
The form of a man is a man itself, surely there must be a FORM for the FORM of a man
it demonstrates ad infinitum which means we cannot learn anything at all about the world - 12FORM OF EVERYTHING2. If there is a FORM for everything then there must be a FORM for negations or poor versions of things.
ie FORM of diseases, cancer. FORM of perishable things such as FORM of dinosaurs and the iPad - 13Aristotle - potentiality, and actuality Telos - purposeThis idea that something has the potential to become something else –
Actuality -> potentiality -> actuality
Something achieves its state of actuality when it fulfils its potentiality. For Humans he says it is eudaimonia!!
Wax stamp example
- 14The Four Causes “nothing can come from nothing”Material, efficient, formal and final cause. E.g. Chair, material cause is wood, efficient cause is the chairmaker which causes wood to become a chair. Formal cause is the characteristics of a chair, i.e. it has four legs, comfortable etc. Final cause is to fulfil its potentiality, for humans to sit on it.
- 15Prime Mover “there is a substance which is eternal and unmovable and separate from sensible things”The being that caused all contingent beings into existence – it is not like the classical theistic God, because it does not interact with the universe.
He is eternal, perfect and also impassive. It is a deistic view (meaning he created the universe but does not interact with it)
The analogy of the cat and the saucer of milk – the cat is attracted to the milk, but the milk is unmoved – like the prime mover is the final cause of all things - 16Challenges - Aristotle's poor obserationHe stated that women are deformed and have fewer teeth than men
Also, people who aren't smart were born to be slaves. - 17Cannot rely on sensesWe cannot rely on our senses because it can be deceiving.
ie the sun, from the earth it is no bigger than your thumb, but if we measured it, it is much larger. - 18Democritus and non-divisibleif a rock was continuously cut into to, a piece that can no longer be divided, called these a-toms because they were eternal.
But later it was known that atoms could be divided into proton, neutron, and electrons.
shows changing opinions!!!