Ancient philosophical influences Flashcards
Plato’s understanding of reality
~Reality is made up of the world of phenomena and the world of Forms
~The physical world is known through empiricism and the world of Forms is known through reason
~The physical world is always changing but the world of Forms is immutable
The Forms
~They are ideals that we can use to help us to understand the world e.g If we know the form of Justice then we can recognise examples of just when we see them
~The Forms are superior to physical phenomena because they are immutable
~The Forms are known through reason
~We know about the forms innately and so we must have encountered them before we were born. So we must have immortal souls that are capable of living without being in our physical bodies
The Form of the Good
Plato believed that the Form of the Good was the highest of all forms and that it illuminates them
The Analogy of the Cave
~Plato compares the physical world with a dark shadowy cave and the World of Forms with a sun filled ‘real world’
~He asks us to imagine prisoners facing the cave wall with a fire behind them
~The fire casts shadows of the Forms that walk the mouth of the cave
~A prisoner escapes and is enlightened by the Form of the Good
Analogy of the Cave- Representations
~Prisoners who don’t question that the shadows on the cave wall aren’t real are ‘imprisoned’ by their own ignorance
~The sun is the Form of the Good
~The cave is the physical world
~The shadows were imitations of the Forms
Cons of Plato
~There is no evidence to support the world of the Forms
~The theory of Forms is unclear, we don’t know if each species of plant has its own form or if there is a Form of Plant in general
~ Plato is not clear about how phenomena ‘participate’ in their forms
Pros of Plato
~Plato’s recognition that our senses can sometimes be mislead us could be seen as valuable
~Encourages people to look beyond surface appearances in order to gain understanding
Dualism
The belief that reality can be divided into two different parts such as good and evil
Aristotle’s understanding of reality
~We learn about reality through observation of the physical world
~If anything other than this physical world exists we have no way of knowing about it
~Reality can be explained in 4 different ways- ‘the four causes’
Four Causes
~The material cause (this explains what something is made from)
~The formal cause (what shape something takes or what its identifying features are)
~The efficient cause (the activity that makes something happen, actualises potential)
~The final cause (something’s purpose)
Prime mover
~Aristotle believed there must be an unmoved mover to account for the fact that everything in the physical world is changing
~He didn’t think that an endless chain of cause and effect was possible
~ Because the PM exists necessarily it must also be eternal
~It is transcendent and is the final cause of the universe (telos)
~It must be perfectly good because it is unchangeable and can’t be corrupted
Cons of Aristotle
~His writing often lacks clarity partly because we only have fragments of it
~He depends too heavily on sense experience
~Perhaps the universe came around by chance rather than a PM
~He does not arrive at a certain conclusion for the explanation of the universe
Pros of Aristotle
~Laid the groundwork for later philosophers with his ideas about cause and effect
~Gave confidence to the idea of scientific investigation through observation
~He uses a combination of reason and empiricism in order to learn about the world around him
