Unit 1/2 Western Thought and Worldview

loving God with our minds, building Christian worldview, refutation

elements in a philosophy according to Christ

understanding, judgement, reasoning

3 acts of mind

judgement

what are you saying is true/false

reasoning

why should someone else agree, can you handle objections

philosophy

the love of wisdom

philosophers

clarify, define, provide, and critique arguments and engage in dialogue

Socrates

"the unexamined life is not worth living"

Russel

"the man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from the convictions which have grown up in his mine without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason"

Christians

"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ"

logic

the science of good and bad reasoning

understanding

define your terms, be clear and precise

argument

set of statements including one or more premises and one main conclusion

premise

statement of evidence

conclusion

thesis argued for

deductive

argument with strict proof

inductive

argument with a generalization of extrapolation based on evidence

abductive

argument that is the best current explanation

valid

a good deductive argument is this which means the conclusion follows the premises

sound

valid + true premises

counterexample

possible situation in which the premises all hold but the conclusion fails

invalid

inductive arguments are always valid/invalid

enumeration, diversity, good methodology

a strong inductive argument meets 3 criteria

competitive and unstable

abductive inferences are

syllogism

logical argument consisting of two premises and a conclusion

fallacy

something wrong with the reasoning, unsound belief

metaphysics

study of being or reality - what lies beyond the immediate physical world revealed by our sense

epistemology

study of knowledge and justification

axiology

study of value, ethical and aesthetic

cosmological metaphysics

questions about the origin and purpose of the universe

theistic metaphysics

questions about God

anthropological metaphysics

questions about the nature of human beings

ontological metaphysics

the most basic questions about metaphysics - what does it mean to exist

epistemology

what is knowledge? what is truth? How do we justify our beliefs?

ethics

the study of morality

aesthetics

the study of beauty and art

metaethics

an attempt to understand the nature of ethics including the metaphysical justification or ethical claims and their epistemological justification

normative ethics

studies various ethical theories that attempt to explain why some acts are right and others are wrong

ethical issues

the examination of what is the proper moral course in various problems and situations

Xenophanes

"from the beginning all have learnt in accordance with Homer"

Homer

values moderation, honor, justice

the basic question

the one and the many

Thales

the one as water

Anaximander

the one as the boundless

Xenophanes

there is only one god, the gods are myths

Pythagoras

number is the essence of all things

Heraclitus

"all things come into being through opposition and all are in flux"

Heraclitus

opposition, flux, the logos (speaking, message, discourse, rationale, arguments) sense are a bad witness

Parmenides

only the one exists, change is impossible

Zeno

the paradoxes of motion and common sense

Democritus

atomism, the one and the many reconciled, ambiguity is key

Sophists

rhetoric, relativism, skepticism, persuasion is more important than truth

mythology

before philosophy

Sophists

the rise and decline of Athens

Socrates

not a Sophist because he believed truth is more important than winning, doesn't overwhelm listeners, socratic method is not withy washy or dogmatic

Socrates

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing"

Socrates

emphasizes what we don't know, yet we should seek truth and wisdom, care for our soul

Euthyphro

Socrates before trial

Euthyphro

piety

Euthyphro dilemma

is something good by itself or with the gods - God being good won't create anything not good

Euthyphro dilemma

A) it is good because gods command it

B) the gods command it because it is good

Apology

Socrates on trial

Apology

Socrates answers the charges of corrupting the youth (he can't be the only one) and no believing in the gods (believes in divinity so must believe in divine power, just a different god)

Crito

Socrates in prison

Crito

Crito argues Socrates should escape because he is abandoning sons and making him look bad, Socrates believes in fulfilling duty/courts agreement

Socrates

one must never do wrong, even if wronged

Phaedo

the death of Socrates

Socrates

worse than death is doing wrong that harms the soul

Plato

agenda: refute the sophists and show we can have knowledge and we do have knowledge

Plato

moves beyond Socrates' emphasis on what we don't know to establish what we do know

opinion

can be changed, true or false, not backed up by reason, result of persuasion

knowledge

endures, always true, backed up by reasons, result of instruction

rationalist

we can know knowledge through reason, not the sense

form

key word for Plato

flux

Plato believes the world is in constant ___ only the eternal forms can be known

good

the higher form is the form of ___

senses

according to Plato this cannot give us knowledge

reason

according to Plato this gives us knowledge of the forms

love

according to Plato, the motive is ___

soul

reason, spirit, appetite

state

guardians, militia, workers

harmony

state and soul should be in ___

soul, state

doing what we want destroys the ___ and the ___

infinite regress

problems for the theory of forms

Plato

believes the man with the best life is the one who is just but believed to be unjust

third man argument

Heraclitus and Socrates are men, this is explained by the form of men, the form of man is a man now we have threee men which leads to infinity

Aristotle

the forms are supposed to explain, but only lead to a need for further explanations

forward

while Plato points up to the eternal world, Aristotle points ___ into the world

Aristotle

empiricist, more this worldly and practical

Aristotle

agrees that Forms exist but says they are not in a separate world but in particulars

Aristotle

rejects Plato's theory of separate Forms because it leads to an infinite regress and is redundant

Aristotles epistemology

empiricist (can trust sense if careful) use syllogisms to demonstrate claims (requires self evident premises, a problem)

metaphysics

looks at the foundation of reality, what is real? what exists?

substances

what is more real, separate forms or the substances that contain forms

essence

Socrates is essentially human, he could not exist without being human

accident

Socrates is bearded, he could exist without a beard

actual

acorn is a seed

potential

acorn could be an oak tree

material, efficient, formal, final

four causes

material

what is it made of?

efficient

who makes it?