shortened 408 exam

Plato + Theory of Forms

• 2 realms – ideal + material

  • Ideal – forms exists + are perfect

  • Forms are the ideal out of which the inferior material representations are made

Plato + Human Body

• Dualist approach and made a distinction between the soul + body

• Soul has the ability to know the truth + understand the forms as they are through reason – associated with the mind

• Body is physical + can only learn through sensory information

  • Senses are part of the material body → inherently corrupt

  • Information obtained through the senses is not knowledge + cannot be regarded with certainty

• Soul is unchanging + immortal

  • Home is in the realm of the ideal

• Body is material + of the earth

  • Mortal and its home is the realm of the material

Plato + Analogy of the Divided Line

• Material body → Corrupt senses → Person is ignorant

• Embrace the forms

Plato + Allegory of the Cave

• Used to explain the 2 realms + importance of knowledge of the forms

• Plato regarded the prisoners as analogous to people in the material world

  • Shadows viewed by the prisoners – inferior material representations of the truth (forms)

  • Prisoner who escaped is someone who recovered the knowledge of the forms

  • When dismissed → someone not in touch with the reality (material world)

Reminiscence Theory of Knowledge

• Plato took from the Pythagoreans the idea of the soul is immortal + seat of reason

• Soul resides in the realm of the forms b/w incarnations → knowledge of the forms

• Soul joined with the material body → sensory information corrupted knowledge

• To recover → use introspection, reminiscence, reason

Plato’s Tripartite Division of the Soul

• Considered the psyche to be the fundamental substance of a person

• It is the person – their thoughts + behaviors

• Considered psyche to be non-material, eternal occupant of the person

• Immortal + not reborn in subsequent incarnations

• 1st part of the soul is the logos – located in head + associated with reason

• 2nd thymos – located in chest + associated with emotions, especially anger

• 3rd eros – located in stomach + associated with desires

Legacy of Plato

• Modified the Pythagorean notion of mind-body dualism

• Legacy – distrust of information acquired thru the senses

• Developed the idea of innate knowledge in the mind

  • ‘Pure’ + could only be recovered through introspection + application of reason

  • Recovered + applied ‘pure knowledge’ → live virtuously

Aristotle’s Philosophy exemplifies ‘Teleology’ Explanation of Purpose

• Understand 4 causes (e.g. table)

  • Material cause – matter form from which the table is made – wood

  • Formal cause – form/pattern of the item – design

  • Efficient cause – force or action that transforms the material into the form – actions of the woodworker/carpentry

  • Final cause – purpose for which the item exists – platform for dining

Unmoved Mover

• Pure actuality + cause of everything in nature

• Unmoved mover gives everything in nature its purpose + moves it toward perfection within its classification

  • Later equate w/ God but not Aristotle’s intent

Aristotle’s Scala Naturae (Ladder of Life)

• Believed in an order to nature according to a hierarchy

• Each step is a classification

• Top of the ladder is the unmoved mover + bottom is inanimate matter

  • Humans closest to unmoved mover → occupy highest classification

• Could be movement toward purpose within a category

• No movement between categories

Aristotle’s View of the Soul

• Hierarchy of souls

• Type of soul possessed determines the purpose of the living thing

• A bottom is the vegetative soul – allow for reproduction + growth

  • Possessed by plants

• Next soul up is sensitive soul – allow for mobility, sensation, learning

  • Possessed by animals

• Highest is rational soul – allow for thought + reflection

  • Possessed only by humans

Sensation + Reason

• Aristotle believed that perception was explained thru the motion of objects which stimulated receptors in the sense organ

  • Sensory information alone did not lead to truth – the sensory information needed to be processed

  • This is where common sense and reason come in

• Common sense – mechanism which coordinated information from the senses

  • Assumed common sense was situated in the heart

  • Synthesized information was passed on passive reason

• Passive reason – utilizes the synthesized sensory experience + allows one to function in everyday life

• Active reason – highest form of reasoning + involves understanding the essences/forms

Aristotle’s Laws of Association

• Basis of learning theory into the present

• Law of Contiguity – When we think of something, we tend to think of things we experienced along with it

• Law of Similarity – When we think of something we tend to think of things similar

• Law of Contrast – When we think of something, we tend to think of things that are opposite to it

• Law of Frequent – The more often experiences occur together, the stronger will be their association

Aristotle + ‘Golden Mean’

• Happiness comes from doing what is natural as it fulfills one’s purpose

• Rooted in the desires of the body

• One should aim for moderation in everything

Difference b/w Plato + Aristotle

• Both interested in truths that go beyond the appearance of things

  • Different approaches

• Plato – Theory of Forms → Socrates view of essences

  • Forms existed independently of nature + innate knowledge thereof could be obtained thru introspection + reason

  • senses inherently corrupt + could not be trusted

• Aristotle – knowledge of forms → obtained by studying nature + using reason

  • One could trust sensory information to extent

  • Knowledge of purpose > forms

Epicurus of Samos

• Believed one should avoid all pain by watching pleasure

  • Intense pleasure → intense pain – aim for moderation

  • Pain was the result of unfulfilled desire

  • One should desire what can be fulfilled

• Influenced by the materialistic views of Democritus

• Saw it as his mission to dispel superstition

• Cosmos + everything in it is made up of atoms

  • Capable of change → world changes with them

    • Clouds are strings of atoms that can turn to ice

    • Thunder is the sound of the breaking of ice

• Denied teleology – no purpose to the universe – it exists by accident – no purpose in human affairs

  • People live and die, no afterlife

• Did not believe in a soul – atoms are what give people life

Epicurus + the Feast

• The Garden – meeting place / refuge from the outside

• Quasi religion – dogmatic + debate was not encouraged

• Hegemon – leader

• Everyone equal + accepted, sex discouraged but not forbidden

  • One should engage in sexual relations if they are certain they will not vomit afterward

• Intelligent people should not marry nor raise children

  • Intent of life → friendship > sex

  • Highest form of social pleasure

Legacy of Epicurus of Samos

• Believed no one should withdraw from public life

  • No moral order, no public life, no immortality

• No purpose in life + the avoidance of public service did not appeal to the ethos of an empire

Paul of Tarsus (teachings of Jesus) + Plato’s writings

• Knowledge could come by reining in the body + not trusting the senses

• Battle b/w soul (which contains the spirit of God) + body (contains desires of the flesh) one is going to win out

• Radical view that faith must support or supersede reason for only in faith can one find personal salvation

• Glorified celibacy + only sanctioned sexual relations with marriage

• Accepted common Roman view of the intellectual + social inferiority of women

  • Both genders spiritual equivalence (radical view)

Humanism will dominate intellectual + artistic discourse

• Interest in humanity + life in present

• Stressed potential in individualism, personal faith + intense interest in classical past, female education, table manners(Renaissance)

• Represented a move against Aristotle + authority accorded his writings by the church

Nicolaus Copernicus + Heliocentric View

• De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium – heliocentric universe

• 2 findings

  • All spheres surround the sun (in middle) → center of universe near sun

  • What appears to us as motions of the sun is not from its motion but from the motion of the earth – we’re the one revolving around the sun

    • Earth has more than 1 motion

Copernicus → Johannes Kepler

• Orbits of the planet were elliptical, not perfect circles

Thomas Aquinas

• Summa Theologiae – appealed to society embracing rudimentary scientific methodology, commercialism, bit of individualism

Scholasticism (Thomas)

• Form of reasoning that places a strong emphasis on dialectical argumentation to extend knowledge by inference + resolve contradictions

• Notion that truth is not only a belief but also the culmination of a chain of reason

  • “Does God exist?” → Reasons for non-existence of god

  • Fallacies

• Cause key element

  • Everything happens for a purpose

  • Ultimate cause is something outside of this world → God does exist

Reconciliation of Faith + Reason

• Aquinas reconciled faith + reason

  • Church prized faith → Aquinas argued that all paths can lead to truth + God can be known thru scripture, logic, reason, inner experience, examination of nature → All will lead to God if true

  • Contradictions are evidence of unsound reasoning or misplaced faith

• Unintended consequence was separation of faith + reason

• Each could be studied separately + processes of mind could be studied in the absence of God

Francis Bacon

• Renaissance who challenged Aristotle

• Inductive (BOTTOM UP) – observation, past experience, ideas from authority → general conclusion

• Deductive (TOP-DOWN) – general principle → application, hypothetical cause, logical extension

Francis Bacon’s Source of Bias

• Believed it was essential to approach understanding with an unbiased mind

  • Dismissed idea of a hypothesis

• Idols of the Cave – personal biases from a person’s intellectual endowment, experiences, education, feelings

• Idols of the Tribe – biases due to human nature

• Idols of the Marketplace – biases from being overly influenced by meaning of words

• Idols of the Theater – biases from blind allegiance to any viewpoint

Legacy of Francis Bacon

• Believed in practical application of scientific knowledge

  • Cannot be regarded as scientific =/= dismissed idea of hypothesis

Isaac Newton

• Deism – belief in a creator god who established the universe, gave humans natural rights, stepped away exerting no influence on the creation

• Developed principles of science

  • Integral + differential calculus

  • Light spectrum

  • Universal law of gravitation

• Break science from theology + Aristotle

Rene Descartes

• Bringing mathematics, science, truth together thru power of reason

• Developed analytical geometry and union of geometry + algebra

• Works produced by one was superior to the works produced by groups

• Ergo – solitude would lead to greater truth

Descartes + Philosophy

• Radical new interpretation of philosophy – sought truth → knowledge which could not be doubted

  • Never accept anything as true unless it can be recognized as such

  • Avoid precipitation + prejudgement

  • Divide any problem into many parts → break it down

  • Be thorough

• Only thing he could be certain of was his own act of thinking (‘I think, therefore I am’)

• Mind is unlimited, free, lacking in substance / body is extended, limited, has substance

  • Different characteristics + follow different laws

• 2 kinds of thoughts

  • Innate + rooted in ideas which come from God + do not rely on experience

    • Experienced with such clarity that the holder knows they are true

    • Include sense of self + understanding of time, space, motion, unity, infinity, perfection, geometry axioms, existence of God

  • Past experience

    • Needle (memories being shaped) piercing fabric (brain) → resultant hole (memory)

• Humans experience passions – wonder, love, hate, desire, etc.

  • Arise from body, passively experienced by mind, lead to bodily actions

Body as a Machine

• Functions automatically → people do not will digestion

• Nerves were hollow tubes with ‘animal spirits’ derived from the blood

• Heart heats + pressurizes the animal spirits + sends the spirits to the muscles where there are sensations + movements

• Pressure on a sense organ applied opens a pore in the brain + sensation is experienced

• Animals do not have mind of people

  • Human is created in the image of God → complex

• Human mind override mechanical

• Mind + body interacted in pineal gland – logical site to come together

Legacy of Descartes

• Moved authoritative guarantor of truth from God to humanity

• Traditional concept of ‘truth’ → external authority

• ‘Certainty’ → relies on judgement of individual

• Human is now emancipated being equipped with autonomous reason

• Reliance on God + Christianity revelation not required for truth

  • Each person is now shaper of their own reality

Thomas Hobbes (Empiricist)

• Rejected dualism + notion of innate knowledge

• All ideas come from experience – mind is nothing more than the sum total of a person’s thinking activities

• Physical monist/monism – all events in the mind were rooted in physical influences on the senses

  • Motion of material objects activated the senses

Hobbesian Philosophy

• Deterministic view – denied the existence of free will

  • People have appetites (seek to maintain pleasurable experiences) + aversions (avoid painful experiences)

  • Person experiences conflict → trouble

    • Although person will behave in accordance with the dominant experience, conflict will create illusion of free will

• Human nature aggressive + selfish

• Absence of government allow ‘state of nature’ where everything goes

  • To prevent internal division → king, strong central authority

• Social contract – people gave up something to obtain security

• Leviathan – argued that centralized power in an absolute monarch was essential to human society

• Did not believe in divine right rather idea that people need to be ruled

David Hume (Empiricist)

• 1st to put psychology as an independent discipline rather than solely philosophy

• Skeptic + doubted God’s existence

• Intent in writing Treatise was to do for moral philosophy (social sciences) what Newton had done for natural philosophy (physical sciences) → Wanted to create a science of human nature

Hume + Associationism

• Argued that all complex ideas are composed of simple ideas (cannot be divided) + impressions (copies of external objects)

  • Ideas are merely fainter images of impressions

• 3 principles of connections among ideas (roots in Aristotle’s Laws of Association)

  • Resemblance, contiguity in time or place, cause or effect

• Focused on causality – our intuitive belief that certain events have been directly caused by certain previous events

  • Cause is the sequential event between the antecedent + consequence

  • See something follow something → make connection between the 2 = assumption

• All we can know is that regular sequence of events have occurred in the past → leads us to believe it will happen in the future

  • Ball hits ball → ball moves so it will happen again = assumes existence of causality

• Denied innate knowledge – no absolute, only probabilistic chance

• Did not deny causality but rather denied the reasoning behind it

• Due to the frequency of occurrence, people form a ‘habit’ of tying the 2 events together

  • This habit is a principle in allowing us to draw inferences from our experiences

Legacy of Hume

• Move to analyzing human nature in absence of God

• Rejected notion that Christians possessed a more comprehensive understanding of human nature

• Thought mixture of ancient skepticism + scientific methodology → superior understanding

• Humans stand on their own works without concern for the hereafter

• Pyrrho – impossible to know truth, explanations of the world were little more than opinion

Man a Machine

• View that there is nothing in the universe other than matter + motion

• Sensations + thoughts are only the movement of particles in brain

• Natural History of the Soul – explained universe in terms of materialism + denied special status accorded humanity be Christianity

• Man a Machine – human mind + body worked like a machine due to mental thoughts depending on bodily actions

• Argued that organization of matter at a high + complex level → human thought

• Did not believe in existence of God + humans were other than animals (machines)

  • Humans special = larger brain size, neural complexity, education

  • Internal organization provided best use of complex matter

• Proper training an ape → human, proven wrong

French Positivism

• Auguste Comte (Empiricist + Course of Positive Philosophy) defined positivism

• Believed that we can only be certain of what is publicly observable

• Scientific laws can be derived from observations

  • Ideally then scientific laws can be applied to betterman of humanity

• Positivism tied to scientism

• Come saw as foundation for utopian society

Law of 3 Stages

• Comte believed societies pass thru 3 stages by which they identify natural events

• 1st stage theological – explanations are based on superstition + mysticism

• 2nd stage metaphysical – explanations are based on unseen essences, principles, causes, laws

• 3rd stage scientific – description is emphasized over explanation + prediction and control of natural phenomena becomes important