Untitled Flashcard Set

✔ Academy: A school of higher learning founded by Plato in Athens; considered the first institution of its kind in the Western world.

✔ Concept: An abstract idea or mental representation of something. For Plato, concepts or "forms" represent the only true and unchanging reality.

✔ Deductive Reasoning: A logical process where a conclusion is based on the agreement of multiple premises that are generally assumed to be true. Developed and formalized by Aristotle.

✔ Doing Philosophy: The practice of asking deep questions, reflecting on experiences, evaluating arguments, and critically examining ideas to gain understanding.

✔ Perceptual and Cognitive Faculties: Mental and sensory abilities (such as sight, thought, reasoning) used by individuals to interpret and understand the world. Aristotle believed these are dependable.

1. Socrates – The Questioner (469–399 BCE)

Socrates (c. 469-399 B.C.E.) lived in Athens, Greece. He is one of the great philosophers in the history of Philosophy. Socrates took a different approach. Instead of studying the universe and the world of nature, he believed we should look at human nature and the human person. Socrates asked questions like; What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of life? How should we regulate our behavior? What values should govern our lives? How can we become a human being of excellence morally? On Socrates believed that individuals should regulate their lives based on rational reflection. He  subjected human beliefs, values and behavior to the scrutiny of human reason. True education for him meant values that are shaped through the critical use of reason.

2. Plato – The Visionary (429–347 BCE)

Plato (c. 429-347 B.C.E.) was a wealthy man whose life was transformed when he encountered Socrates. He was the most important disciple of his master Socrates. Socrates did not write down his philosophy. We know of his life and philosophy only through Plato. Plato's philosophy set the agenda for philosophy for the next 2000 years in the west. Alfred North Whitehead said, "All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato." For Plato, philosophy was a passionate way of life. It was the soul's search for salvation from the torments of life. Even today an Oriental's reason for studying philosophy is different from a Westerner's. A Westerner, studies philosophy to know what the philosophers taught, while an Indian, for example, studies philosophy to know how to liberate onesef from the illusions of life.

3. Aristotle – The Systematizer (384–322 BCE)

Aristotle (c. 384-322 B.C.E.) was another important and influential Greek thinker and philosopher. He had a variety of interests and he was the leading expert in almost every area of knowledge during his time. Aristotle is important because he tried to bring together and synthesize Greek thought— from the pre-Socratics, to Socrates, to Plato. Unlike Socrates and Plato who were Athenians, Aristotle was a Macedonian born in the town of Stagira. He was the tutor of Alexander the Great when the prince was 13 years old. When Aristotle was 17, he enrolled in Plato's Academy, the educational institution founded by Plato. He was involved with the Academy for 20 years. He then undertook a 12-year period of travel. When he was 50 years old, he returned to Athens. Here he set up a school, The Lyceum, to rival Plato's Academy. When Alexander died in 323 B.C.E., some Athenians staged an anti-Macedonian Revolt since Alexander had been Macedonian. Aristotle fled saying that he would not allow Athens to sin twice against philosophy. Like the natural philosophers, Aristotle desired to understand the physical universe. Like Socrates and Plato, he believed in the importance of reason in shaping one's philosophy.

Objective – commonly means not influenced by an individual’s personal viewpoint— unbiased (or at least attempting to be unbiased).

Subjective – used to describe something that exists in the mind of a person or that pertains to viewpoints of an individual person.

Argumentatum – an argument, demonstration or appeal to reason.

Hominem – attacking an opponent’s character or motives rather than answering the argument or claim. Appealing to one’s prejudices, emotion or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason.

Petitio – logical fallacy in which a premise is assumed to be true without warrant or in which what is to be proved is implicitly taken for granted.

Populum – concludes that proposition must be true because many or most people believe it, often concisely encapsulated.

Misericordiam – based on strong appeal to the emotion.
Ignorantiam – by use of unanswerable challenge to disprove rather than by serious attempt

FALLACIES

Fallacy is a defect in an argument other than it’s having false premises. To detect fallacies, it is required to examine the argument’s content. Here are some of the usually committed errors in reasoning and thus, coming up with false conclusion and worse, distorting the truth:

A. Appeal to pity (Argumentatum ad misericordiam) is a specific kind of appeal to emotion in which someone tries to win support for an argument or idea by exploiting his or her opponent’s feelings of pity or guilt.

B. Appeal to ignorance (Argumentatum ad ignorantiam) whatever has not been proved false must be true and vice versa.

C. Equivocation is a logical chain of reasoning of a term or a word several times, but giving the particular word a different meaning each time.

D. Composition infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true some part of the whole.

E. Division one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts.

F. Against the person (Argumentatum ad hominem) attempts to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise. However, in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives are legitimate if relevant to the issue.

G. Appeal to force (Argumentatum ad baculum) is an argument where force, coercion or the threat of force is given as a justification for a conclusion.

H. Appeal to the people (Argumentatum ad populum) is an argument that appeals or exploits people’s vanities, desire for esteem and anchoring on popularity.

I. False Cause (post hoc) since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one. This fallacy is also referred to as coincidental correlation or correlation not causation.

J. Hasty generalization one commits errors if one reaches an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence. The fallacy is commonly based on a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a survey of a small group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole population.

K. Begging the question (petitio principii) is the type of fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.