Chapter 1 Flashcards
(14 cards)
Rationalism
True knowledge about reality (world) derives from our reason and ratio. Our capacity to use reasoning, generating ideas and concept gives us knowledge which sensory capacites cannot give us.
Empiricism
not teason but sense experiance is the ultimate source of knowledge; senses are reliable indicators of what reality is like
KNOWLEDGE
justified true belief
Plato (430-347 BCE)
- rationalist
- the real world cannot be an ever-changing world of appears, but a Supernatural realm which contains perfect Forms and Ideas of almost everything
- we are born possessing all knowledge, but we’ve lost it at birth and we are able to remember it all using our reason correctly
- there is no such thing as new knowledge- reincarnation theory
- Concept of a Triangle
- Cave Allegory
- theory about reincarnation - immortal soul belongs to the World of Forms
- Meno’s slave
Concept of Triangle
In Plato’s view, being is perfect - it has to be unchangeable. What is a triangle? we all know what a triangle is even though we have never actually seen one. A triangle drawn on a blackboard, being far from perfect, will not be a real triangle but a mere reflection of a perfect triangle. As triangles in chalk or ink are perfect representations of the real essence of a triangle, knowledge about triangles refers not to such natural objects as found on drawing boards, but to so-called universals in a supernatural realm.
Metaphysics
branch in philosophy that thinks about being to the extent that they are; asks and tries to answer the pre-eminent philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Cave Allegory
Prisoners are trapped in a cave. Behind the prisoners is a fire. People are passing, holding different shapes and they can see their shadows on the wall of the cave. They mistake shadows as real objects - it becomes their reality. One prisoner is set free and sees the real world. He comes back to tell it about his fellow prisoners but they don’t believe him.
Conclusion: Humans who content themselves with observations of the world as it appears to them via sensory experience are in a similar position as these prisoners: They mistake appearance for reality. We must break free from our chains restricting us and go into the universal Forms which holds ultimate realities that ground universal truth.
Plato about reincarnation
The immortal soul belongs to the World of Forms, where it has seen everything, but we forget about it all when our souls are born into our bodies. Forms are accessible through reason. If we
reason well: we will remember our past lives and forms.
Meno’s slave
- explanation how lost knowledge (possessed in a previous existence in the World of Forms) can be recollected
- dialogue between Socrates, Meno, and Meno’s slave
- slave is poorly educated, knows little about geometry
- Socrates draws a square 2x2 and asks the slave how long the sides of another square need to be to have a double surface of the first one
- Socrates draws the answer on the send and leads the slave but Socrates says the slave figured this out by himself
- he didn’t cause he only agrees with Socrates
- Meno is then convinced that the slave remembered it all just by using intellect therefore believes in Plato’s theory
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
- empiricist (sensory experience)
- the mind is like tabula rasa - a blank slate, before it receives impression from reality
- syllogism - deductive argument
- in scientific deduction we move from an unrestrictedly true law to a particular case
- induction- an advance from the observation of particular phenomena to universal law
- Four Causes
Aristotle’s Four Causes (statue example)
1) The Formal cause - shape of a statute
2) The Material cause - that the statue is made of marble
3) The Efficient cause - the primary source of change/absence - the sculptor
4) The Final cause - the goal for the sake something is done (purpose)
Syllogism
All human beings are mortal
Socrates is a human being
Hence, Socrates is mortal
Induction
an advance from the observation of particular phenomena to universal law; universal principles are obtained from facts derived from sensory observation; althoug the observations by themselves can only establish that all humans observed who have thus far died are mortal, it is our intelect that produces the insight that humans are necessarily mortal
Peripatetic Axiom
“Nothing is in the intellect which was not first found in the senses” - there is no such thing as inborn knowledge - all knowledge stems from sense experience
+ Tabula Rasa - mind is like a blank slate, before it receives impressions from reality
