Ancient Greek philosophy midterm 1

What did Thales claim, and how does Aristotle classify it?

Water as the arche; Aristotle reads it as a material cause, and the explanation is natural rather than mythological.

Why does Anaximander reject a specific element as the arche?

Because every element changes into tothers, so none underlines all change, and an infinite element would have destroyed other elements in a finite time

What does Anaximander's only direct quotation emphasize?

That change between opposites is lawlike and orderly, not capricious

How is the logos described for Heraclitus?

A single law, common to all, that steers the cosmos but that most people fail to grasp

Which example illustrates synchronic flux, and what does it show?

Sea water being drinkable to fish and deadly to men, which shows that how things are, depends on the point of comparison.

Why is Heraclitus not a skeptic on Shields' reading?

Because he thinks that the sense, properly interpreted, can help us find regulations, and the logos can be grasped with effort.

What is Parmenides' relational theory of thinking (RT)?

That every instance of thinking involves a thinker standing in relation to something thought. So failing to think something isnt the same as thinking nothing

What does the bridge principle (BP) say?

It is possible to think of any x if and only if x exists. Whatever exists can be thought of, and if it can be thought of, then it exists. Since nothing doesnt exist, it can’t be thought of.

What is the core of Parmenides' argument against change?

Generation requires thinking nothing, which is impossible, and alteration is generation in disguise, so it is inconceivable as well.

Which is a weak point in Parmenides' argument, according to Shields?

That what looks like generation may really be alteration (wood becomes a table), so generation need not require thinking nothing.

What is the role of Zeno's paradoxes?

They argue that motion is impossible, supporting Parmenides, and raise real questions about infinite divisibility and series.

Why does Aristotle say contraries alone cannot be the principles of change?

Because contraries aren't substances and a non-substance can't be prior to a substance, so a subject must underlie them.

What are Aristotle's three principles of natural change?

Subject (matter), form, and privation.

How does Aristotle answer the Eleatic dilemma (from what is, or from what is not)?

By arguing that 'from what is not' means from the privation, only coincidentally, while a subject persists, so nothing comes from absolute nothing.

How does Aristotle distinguish matter from privation?

Matter is only coincidentally not-being and nearly substance; privation is not-being in its own right and not substance.

What is a nature for Aristotle, and why doesn't a bed, qua bed, have one?

A nature is an internal principle of motion and rest belonging to a thing in its own right; a bed qua bed has none, though its wood does coincidentally.

What is the point of the snub nose in Aristotle's Physics?

Natural things involve matter, like the snub nose, so natural science must study both form and matter.

Which matching of the four causes is correct?

Bronze = material; blueprint = formal; sculptor = efficient; statue for viewing = final.

How does Socrates answer Meno's paradox that we can't search for what we know or don't know?

By recollection: the soul has learned everything before, as the slave boy shows when questioned.

How does the Meno resolve the tension between 'virtue is knowledge' and 'there are no teachers of virtue'?

By proposing that virtue comes through true belief, as a gift from the gods, without being knowledge or teachable.

How does the Meno distinguish knowledge from true belief?

True belief is unstable like Daedalus' statues until tied down by an account of the reason why; then it is knowledge.

How does the Phaedo's imperfection argument reach the conclusion that the soul pre-exists?

From noticing that sensible equals are imperfect, which requires a paradigm we knew before birth, since we forget at birth and can't remember and forget at once.

What is the open question about the Phaedo's final argument?

Whether 'never admits death' guarantees 'imperishable', or whether the soul might be destroyed instead of retreating intact.

What is the self-refutation objection to Protagoras in the Theaetetus (standard account)?

That if all beliefs are true for the believer, then the belief that Protagoras is wrong is true for those who hold it, so his doctrine is false by its own standard.

What is Socrates' main argument that knowledge isn't perception (Theaetetus, standard account)?

We grasp being, sameness, and difference through the soul itself, not through any organ of perception, so knowledge is not perception.

What is the difference between 'safe' and 'sensible' explanations in the Phaedo?

A safe explanation appeals to participation in a Form; a sensible one is subject to the compresence of opposites.

What does eudaimonia mean in Republic I, and how does Plato relate virtue to it?

Flourishing, a good human life; virtue is constitutive of it, not just a means.

What is Socrates' reply to Thrasymachus' claim that justice is the advantage of the ruler?

Crafts aim at the good of their object; Thrasymachus conflates a practitioner's motive for practicing a craft with what the craft is designed to do.

What is the function argument at the end of Republic I?

The soul's function is to rule, deliberate, and live; a just soul performs it well and so lives well and is happy, while an unjust soul lives badly.

How are Cephalus' and Polemarchus' definitions of justice refuted?

Each is refuted by cases where the action is both just and not just (compresence of opposites), like returning a weapon to an insane friend.