UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Flashcards
(142 cards)
- Thinkers for centuries have searched for the explanations and reasons for everything that exist around him.
Philosophy
2 Idea of Permanence
Pro Permanence
Pro Changeability
According to Parmenides, Everything in existence is permanent and unchangeable. Something exist because it is permanent
Pro Permanence
Everything flows”, “ you can never step on the same river twice”
-Heraclitus
“You cannot step on the same river even once”
-Cratulus
Pro Changeability
- One of the big three (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
Mentor of Plato
Stone mason with a sharp mind
Great debater
Angered Sophist who brought him to trial where he was finally sentenced to death.
Sophist- people skilled in discussion and debate.
Socrates
- This method involves the search for the correct/ proper definition of a thing.
The Socratic Method
- He did not lecture, instead ask questions and engage people in a discussion.
The Socratic/ Dialectic Method
- Using this method the questioner should:
- be skilled at detecting misconceptions
- revealing misconceptions by asking the right questions.
The goal is to bring the person closer to final understanding.
The Socratic Method
- He believed that his mission in life was to seek the highest knowledge and convince others who are willing to seek this knowledge with him.
Socrates’s View of Human nature
- Socratic Method allowed him to question people’s beliefs and ideas, exposing their misconceptions and get them to touch their souls.
Socrates View of Human Nature
- Aristocles (428-348 BCE)
- Born in Athens to one of Greece’s aristocratic families.
- Nicknamed ____ because of his physical built which means wide or broad.
- Left Athens for 12 years after the death of Socrates.
- Established “The Academy”
- Both Socrates and ____ believed that Philosophy is more than analyses but rather a way of life.
- Plato wrote more than 20 Dialogues with Socrates as protagonist in most of them.
Plato
- refers to what are real.
- not encountered with the senses
- can only be grasped intellectually
Theory of Forms
- Forms are ageless and therefore are eternal.
- Forms are unchanging and therefore permanent.
- Forms are unmoving and indivisible.
Characteristics of Forms
2 types of Plato’s Dualism
The Realm of Shadows
The Realm of Forms
is composed of changing, “sensible” things which are lesser entities and therefore imperfect and flawed.
The Realm of Shadows
is composed of eternal things which are permanent and perfect. It is the source of reality and true knowledge.
The Realm of Forms
- ______ made use of Socratic Method
- He believed that knowledge lies within a person’s soul.
- Considered human beings as microcosms of the universal macrocosms
- Humans have immortal rational soul, which ________ believed is created in the image of the divine.
Plato’s View of Human Nature
3 Components of Soul
The Reason
The Spirited
The Appetites
is rational and is the motivation for goodness and truth.
The Reason
in non-rational and is the will or the drive toward action. This part of the soul is initially neutral but can be influenced/ pull in two directions.
The Spirited
are irrational and lean towards the desire for pleasures of the body.
The Appetites
what people see in the cave are only shadows which they believe are real things and represents knowledge.
Allegory of the Cave
- Only forms are real.
Once the people get out of the cave and into the light, what they will see are the Forms which is the real knowledge is. - In knowing the truth, the person must become the truth. – Theory of Being
- To know is to be.
- The more a person knows, the more he is, and the better he is.
- Each individual has in his immortal soul a perfect set of Forms that he can recall which constitutes true knowledge.
- To recall/ remember the Form = to know the truth and become just and wise.
PLATO’S THEORY OF LOVE AND BECOMING
- Plato and other Greek philosophers see man as basically good and becomes evil through ignorance of what is good.
St. Augustine, Descartes & Locke