Plato + Aristotle Flashcards
(19 cards)
What are the two ways of gaining knowledge, who uses which one and how do they work?
- Empiricism (ARISTOTLE) = using your SENSES to gain knowledge (like a scientist using observstion on a hypothesis).
- Rationalism (PLATO) = not using your senses as they can be wrong. Instead use your REASON to gain knowledge.
What was Heraclitus’ famous quote and how does it link to Plato?
“Can you step in the same river twice?”
Plato agreed that you can’t, because the world is constantly changing. Therefore due to the logic of oppositites there must be a world that doesn’t change. WORLD OF FORMS.
What is the World of Forms?
Everything is in its most perfect from. Particulars are imperfect copies of the forms in our world.
What is stopping us from believing in another world? (Of forms)
Our ignorance - or our EIKASIA.
We instead believe our senses/ illusions (which Plato believes we should NEVER rely on).
Explain the analogy of the cave:
3 prisoners in a cave, They have been there all their lives. There is fire, a walkway, shadows etc.
The prisoners believe that the shadows are real… that is their reality.
The escaped prisoner gains true knowledge/ EPISTEME
What does episteme mean?
Painful gain of knowledge.
How do we ever experience the world of forms?
You go to the world of forms when you die. You come back through reincarnation or metempsychosis. Therefore we all have knowledge of the forms.
What do each of the things in Plato’s allegory represent?
Shadows = reality on earth (which is transcient)
Chains = ignorance + fear etc. holding us back.
Lone prisoner = new ideas are painful (this us US)
Outdoor world = world of forms.
Sun = the forms of the good. Provides light/ truth.
Prisoners’ game = priests, stockbrokers, politicians. All guessing because LIFE = LIKE A GAME.
Cave = our reality.
Where is all of Plato’s allegory of the cave found?
Found in his book ‘The Republic’.
What did Aristotle study?
Teleology - the study of telos. Telos means end/ final purpose.
He believed EVERYTHING has a purpose that it must achieve - you must go through certain actions in order to obtain final purpose/ telos.
What are Aristotle’s 4 causes?
MATERIAL = what x is made of.
FORMAL = what is to be x - what makes it work as it does.
EFFICIENT = what/ who produces x.
FINAL = what x is used for.
He said everything has a telos (purpose). Everything has a potential.
Explain Aristotle’s potential and actual idea:
Everything has a potential. In the right circumstances + environment it can change into something else.
When the change is achieved, that becomes a new actual state - a pure actuality. And that actuality can have new potential to be something else.
What does Aristotle say that backs up his idea of the prime mover?
“Nothing comes from nothing.”
We are in something, and this something cannot come from nothing.
Explain the idea of the prime mover:
The prime mover is the FIRST FINAL CAUSE.
Pure actuality and telos. The prime mover is a sustainer. We are attracted (like CATS TO MILK) to it.
This is not a Christian concept of God. This is just a being whose main focus is to draw us into sustained cause + effect.
What is the analogy of the divided line? (Plato)
Shows us that the forms are more real than physical objects by a ratio of 2:1 (an idea influenced by PYTHAGORAS).
What idea diminishes Plato’s argument?
Reductio ad absurdum (where your argument begins to reach absurdity) - which many scholars believed Plato’s theory reached.
How does Locke support Aristotle?
Like Aristotle he is an empiricist.
He agreed with Aristotle and argued that we gain knowledge from experience. We understand the concept of something (e.g. a dog), not because we recollect the Form of a dog, but from comparing it to other things we have experienced.
What did Ayer say/ believe?
He believed that Plato’s theory of knowledge is unconvincing because the Forms cannot be VERIFIED (verification principle). He denied the existence of any “reality transcending the limits of all possible sense experience” and argued that any statement that cannot be directly or indirectly verified (like it can through experience) is meaningless.
What is Socrates experiment?
The Slave Boy Experiment - since he had no prior experience, he used his REASON to gain knowledge (born with prior knowledge when his soul was in the realm of the forms).
