Ancient Philosophy

Ancient Philosophy

Plato (427-347 BCE)
1. Concerned with what is eternal and immutable
2. Discovered by logic
3. Plato and the Theory of Forms
  1. Plato noticed that the physical world is always changing and that nothing ever stays the same
    1. How could people attain true and certain knowledge, if the objects they wanted to know about were never the same from one moment to the next?
  2. World of Forms
    1. World of senses:
      1. This world changes and is an empirical (measurable) shadow world of a better other world
    2. World of ideas/concepts:
      1. Can have knowledge through logic.
    3. Hierarchy of the Forms
      1. Good is the highest Form. Then follows beauty, truth and justice.
        In our world we just have shadows of these higher Forms
        The Particulars participate in the Forms.
        Only ONE Form of everything and thats the Form of the good. The Form of the good is the ultimate Form
        A priori knowledge. When we understand something as "good" we are recollecting "goodness"
4. Allegory of the cave
  1. Plato was a pupil of Socrates and questioned what we knew to be truely real and challenge people's basic assumptios to make them realise how little they knew. As a result he developed his Theory of Knowledge.
    1. Theory of Knowledge
      1. True knowledge can only be gained by our minds because our senses decieve us
  2. A group of prisoners are chained together facing the back wall of a cave
    1. They can see shadows (there is a fire in the cave) being cast on the wall and they percieve these to be the extent of their reality
      1. One day one of the prisoners escape from the cave
        It takes him a long time to climb out of the cave. Once he gets out, it takes a long time for his eyes to adjust to the sun
        Once his eyes are adjusted, he realises that the outside world is better than inside the cave and returns to tell the others
        But the others dont believe him so they all stay in the cave
  3. Prisoners = humans, Fire = our sun, Cave = our world, Escapee = philosopher, Ascent = journey to the Forms is hard, Shadows = this material world, Breaking free = discovering the world of the Forms, Hard to see the light = just how amazing the Forms are, Sun = Form of good, Seeing everything sharp = our souls going back to the Forms
  4. When he gives us the Cave anology, Plato wants us to understand:
    1. The relation between the physical, material world and the higher world of the Forms
    2. The ways in which material, physical can blind people to what is really important
    3. The ignorance of humanity when people do not engage in philosophy
    4. The potential for true knowledge that philosophy brings
    5. The injustice of the death of Socrates
    6. That there is another world that we cannot see from the position that we are in, yet which we can reach and which will give us enlightment
    7. The intial difficulties of grappling with philosophy
    8. The hostility that people often feel when faced with philosophical ideas that challenge previosuly-help beliefs
5. Strengths and Weaknesses:
  1. Strengths
    1. It explains why everything comes to an end but the universe still exists
    2. Suggestions that objective does exist
    3. Soul? basis for beliefs
  2. Weaknesses
    1. No empirical evidence
    2. Is goodness objective?
    3. Silly format, is there a Form of a cat or cancer?
    4. How can another world link to this world?
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
1. Aristotle was a pupil of Plato
  1. Aristotle didn't accept Plato's view that there is another world, more real than this one, which can be the objective of true knowledge
  2. Aristotle rejected the idea that there was a "World of Forms", seperate from this world
    1. For Aristotle, observation of the natural world was crucial
2. Aristotles 4 causes:
  1. 1. Material
    1. This explains what something is made from
  2. 2. Formal
    1. This is how Aristotle termed the form, or shape that something has. Allows it to be identified
  3. 3. Efficient
    1. This is name Aristotle gave to the activity that makes something happen
  4. 4. Final
    1. The most important cause, the final cause of soemthing is its purpose, its reason for existing at all
  5. Strengths and Weaknesses:
    1. Strengths
      1. Rely on reflections of the natural world
      2. Applies to things that already exist
      3. No evidence that it isn't true
    2. Weaknesses
      1. Rely on experience
3. Pime Mover
  1. State of motion
    1. Cause and effect
      1. All things are in a permanent state of motion
    2. Objects in the physical world are always in a state of actuality and potentiality
      1. Planets seem to be moving eternally
      2. Change in motion is always caused
  2. God and the 5 implications
    1. 1. He believed the God (understood as the PM) does not depend on anything else for existence. God has no potential, which means he has no capacity for change, then he must exist independently or "necessairly"
    2. 2. He must also be eternal, because of his lack of potential
    3. 3. God must be perfectly good, because badness is related to some kind of lacking, an absence of something that ought to be there - and if God is pure actualit, the he must contain everything that oght to be there, so he must be perfect
    4. 4. God must be immaterial, and beyond time and space. If God is immaterial, the God can't perform any physical activity.
    5. 5. The PM is the final cause of everything that exists in the universe. The PM is transcendent, while at the same time, being the ultimate telos for everything
  3. Purpose
    1. Non-physical thing = prime mover moves thing by thought so can't think of anything else because it it involves good but the PM is 100% good
    2. All things point to the PM and the PM is drawn to the universe like a cat is drawn to milk.
4. Strenghts and Weaknesses:
  1. Strengths
    1. Compatiable with science
    2. Allows open-mindness and multiple possibilites
    3. Very influential
  2. Weaknesses
    1. Too focused on observation and experience
    2. Some things have no "final cause"
    3. Brute fact
    4. Unmoved mover

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