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PHIL1301.01 Spiker Rainey Fall 2014 Chapter 1-3
Landri Smith
81
Philosophy
Undergraduate 2
09/10/2014

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Term
Where did the story of Western Philosophy begin?
Definition
A series of Greek Islands and colonies during the 6th century BCE.
Term
What is philosophy?
Definition
The love of wisdom
Term
Where was the birthplace of Greek Philosophy?
Definition
Seaport of Miletus, located across the Aegean Sea from Athens and on the western shores of Ionia in Asia Minor.
Term
What are the first greek philosophers called?
Definition
Milesians or Ionians.
Term
Where was Homer from?
Definition
Miletus.
Term
How did Homer describe the Gods in his Poetry?
Definition
They lived on Mt. Olympus where they pursued lives similar to humans. They intruded into human affairs and would punish humans for lack of moderation and their pride/insubordination (which the Greeks called Hubris.) The gods were stronger than humans and demanded obedience. He mentions Fate, which even the gods were subject to be subordinate to.
Term
What did Hesious say about the Gods?
Definition
He made the gods moral beings and portrayed them as being under Zeus' order but they made decisions to better the people unlike Homer. He said their was an impersonal force controlling the structure of the universe and regulations it's process of changes.
Term
Who were the 3 great Milesian Authors?
Definition
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes.
Term
How did the Milesians thoughts differ from those of Homer and Hesiod?
Definition
The Milesians asked questions like "What are things really like?" and "How can we explain the process of changes in things?" which acted on more of an independent thought. Milesians questions lead to a more scientific way of thinking, which differed from Homer and Hesiod's poetry of traditional mythology with human like gods.
Term
Did Thales leave anything in writing?
Definition
No. The only thing we know about Thales is what was left by writers that came later.
Term
Who predicted the eclipse of the sun?
Definition
Thales.
Term
Who was the first philosopher of western civilization?
Definition
Thales.
Term
What questions did Thales ask? What did he believe was the answer to these questions?
Definition
What is everything made of, or what kind of "stuff" goes into the composition of things? He believed there was a similarity between all things, water.
Term
What did Anaximander believe made up all things?
Definition
He believed that everything wasn't made up of one single thing. He believed in an indefinite/boundless realm, where we find specific things in our world like rocks and puddle of water. The origins of these things are found in the indeterminate boundless. Where things are specific but their source is indeterminate and where the original "stuff" that makes up everything is infinite.
Term
How did Anaximander's questions show advancement in knowledge?
Definition
It deals with known facts from which hypothesis can be formulated instead of explaining it off with mythical terms.
Term
Where did Anaximander say that humans came from?
Definition
The sea. He said that over the course of time living things came out of the sea to dry land. He also says that other creatures are self supporting and since humans need prolonged nursing that we never would've survived if this had been our original form.
Term
What is the only sentence of Anaximander's writing that survived?
Definition
"From what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for they suffer punishment and make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of time."
Term
What did Anaximenes designate as the primary substance for all things?
Definition
Air.
Term
Where was Pythagoras born?
Definition
A small island named Samos.
Term
What did the Pythagoreans devote themselves to?
Definition
Math. They were the 1st to advance this study.
Term
What did the Pythagoreans say all things consisted of?
Definition
numbers.
Term
Why was Pythagoras interested in math?
Definition
Religious reasons. He says studying math is the best purifier of the soul.
Term
What made Pythagoras' ideas popular?
Definition
People wanted a deeply spiritual religion that could purify the soul and make it immortal.
Term
Why did the Pythagoreans turn to math and science?
Definition
They were concerned w/ the mystical problems of purification and immortality. They believed that science and math to be the best purge of the soul. They thought they saw a type of life that was purer than any kind in math and science.
Term
How did the Pythagoreans feel about music?
Definition
They felt like It was highly therapeutic for certain nervous disorders. They believed that there was a relation between the harmonies of music and the harmony of a person's interior life.
Term
What was the the Pythagoreans moth important philosophical notion?
Definition
The concept of form. (meaning limit) They believed that music and medicine was the best way to exemplify their notion because both needs limits and harmony.
Term
What problem did Heraclitis focus on?
Definition
Change. He says that you cannot step into the same river twice. (BC the river is moving/changing so the water is not the same.)
Term
what did Heraclitis describe as the "something" that changes?
Definition
Fire.
Term
What where all things to Heraclitus?
Definition
Fire/God.
Term
Did Heraclitus believe that things could be lost?
Definition
No. He believed that things simply changed forms and were never lost.
Term
Who was a young comtemporary of Heraclitus?
Definition
Parmenides.
Term
Where did Parmenides live?
Definition
He lived most of his life in Elea, a colony in southwest Italy.
Term
What did Parmenides belive about the universe?
Definition
That it consisted of one thing that never changes, has no parts, and can never be destroyed. he called it the One. (He said even though things appear to change, it is only an illusion.)
Term
Who was Parmenides chief pupil that he visited athens with where they conversed with a young socrates?
Definition
Zeno.
Term
What did Zeno believe that our senses did?
Definition
They gave us a no clue about reality and only about the appearance of it. (Our senses don't give us reliable knowledge but only opinion.)
Term
What two principles does the common sense view of the world rest on?
Definition
1. Changes occur throughout time
2 a diversity of objects are spread throughout space
Term
What are Zeno's four paradoxes?
Definition
1. The Racecourse. - a runner crosses a series of units of distance from the beginning to the end of a race course but Zeno asks how can one cross an infinite number of points in a finite amount of time? which leads to his conclusion that motion does not exist.
2. Achilles and the tortoise.- Achilles gives a tortoise a headstart in a race but can never really beat the tortoise because he must always reach the point that the tortoise has already passed. this again proved that it was impossible to see the pathogrians theory of motion in a coherent way.
3. the arrow - Does an arrow move when the archer shoots it at the target? The arrow must always occupy a particular position in space equal to its length to be at rest, then the arrow must always be at rest. Hence, the space occupied by the arrow is infinite meaning that everything must be infinite, making everything an illusion.
4. the relativity of motion - Motion has no clear definition and it's a relative concept.
Term
Did Zeno's efforts stop the commonsense view of the world from persisting?
Definition
No.
Term
How did Empedocles die?
Definition
He was hoping to be remembered as a godlike figure so he leaped into the crater of Mount Etna hoping that no one would ever find his body and every one would thingk that he had gone up to heaven.
Term
Which argument of Motion did Empedocles believe?
Definition
He didn't take a side, he simply merged both theories together to make his own.
Term
What did Empedolce name the two nature sources?
Definition
Love and Hate.
Term
What was Anaxagoras' major philosophical contribution?
Definition
The concept of the mind, which he distinguished from matter.
Term
According to Anaxagoras, what was the best understanding of the nature of reality?
Definition
Mind and matter.
Term
Who were the 3 most outstanding Sophists to emerge in Athens?
Definition
Protagoras, Gorgias, and Thrasymachus.
Term
What were the Sophists especially competent in?
Definition
Grammar, writing, and public discourse.
Term
Who was the oldest and most influential sophist?
Definition
Protagoras.
Term
What Sophist took such a radical view regarding truth that he eventually gave up philosophy and starting practicing and teaching rhetoric instead?
Definition
Gorgias.
Term
What notions did Gorgias propound?
Definition
1. nothing exists
2. that if anything does exist, it is incomprehensible
3. Even if it is comprehended it cannot be communicated
Term
What Sophist asserted that injustice is to be preferred to the life of justice? He also said that "Injustice pays." and "Might is Right."
Definition
Thrasymachus. He believed that justice was pursued by simpletons and lead to weakness.
Term
Was Socrates a Sophist?
Definition
No, he was actually one of their biggest critics.
Term
What was Socrates committed to the pursuit of?
Definition
Truth.
Term
What did Socrates link?
Definition
Knowing and doing. To know the good was to do the good. He said that "Knowledge is a virtue."
Term
What did Socrates write?
Definition
Nothing.
Term
What was the name of Socrates young contemporaries that wrote about him?
Definition
Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato.
Term
How did Aristophanes depict Socrates in his play, "The Clouds?"
Definition
He makes him a strutting waterfall, rolling his eyes and making fun of his "pupils," and "thinking shop."
Term
What did Socrates name the mysterious voice that gave him messages and warnings?
Definition
His Damion.
Term
What of Plato's became one of the most influential strands in western thought?
Definition
His comprehensive treatment of knowledge.
Term
Where was Plato born?
Definition
Athens.
Term
Who founded The Academy at Athens?
Definition
Plato. He administered it for 20 years
Term
What was the Academy at Athens?
Definition
it was the first university to emerge in the history of Western Europe. The aim was to pursue scientific knowledge through original research. It had a major scientific emphasis and Plato but mathematics at the center of his curriculum.
Term
What major Philosopher attended The Academy at Athens and took notes of Plato's lectures?
Definition
Aristotle
Term
The three levels of reality are:
Definition
1. The form of Humanness
2. The embodiment of this Form in Socrates
3. The image of Socrates as represented on canvas
Term
What is the most superficial form of mental activity at the lowest level on the line?
Definition
Imagining. (Ex. a shadow can be mistake for something real; but it is real, a real shadow.) what makes this the lowest form is that we do not know that it is a shadow or an image that it has confronted.
Term
What is Plato's definition of imagining?
Definition
Imagining is simply the sense experience wherein we take these appearances as a true reality. (Ex. a shadow can be mistake for something real; but it is real, a real shadow.)
Term
What is the next stage after imagining?
Definition
Belief. Many wonder why Plato uses Believing instead of Knowing but many things seeing constitutes only believing bc visible objects depend on their context for many of their characteristics. Plato says that belief is still in the stage of opinion.
Term
What comes after belief?
Definition
Thinking. The transition from beleving to thinking moves from the visual world to the intellectual world and from the realm of opinion to the realm of knowledge.
Term
What was Plato's most significant philosophical contribution?
Definition
Plato's Theory of the Forms.
Term
What was Plato's theory of the forms?
Definition
Forms are changeless, eternal, and nonmaterial essences or patterns of which the actual visible objects we see are poor copies. Forms are eternal patterns of which the objects we see are only copies. (Ex. a beautiful person is only a copy of beauty. We can say that a person is beautiful bc we are familiar with the Form of Beauty.)
Term
Where do forms exist?
Definition
Forms have an independent existence; they persist even though particular things perish. forms have no dimensions.
Term
What is the relation of Forms to things?
Definition
A form can be related to a thing in three ways (that all basically say the same thing): 1. the form is the cause of the existing thing. 2. a thing can be said to participate in a form. 3. a thing can imitate/copy a form.
Plato says that even though the form is seperate from the thing, that still every actual thing in some way owes its existence to form.
Term
What is the relation of forms to each other?
Definition
Forms are related to each other as genus and species. forms tend to interlock even while retaining their own unity.
Term
How do we know the forms?
Definition
1. Recollection - before our souls were united with our bodies, our souls were acquanted with the forms.
2. Dialectic - the power of abstracting the essence of things and discovering the relations of all divisions of knowledge to each other.
3. Desire or Love (eros) - leads people step by step from the beautiful object to the beautiful thought, and then to the very essence of beauty itself.
Term
How and where does Plato describe the soul?
Definition
The Republic. He describes the soul as having three parts; the reason, the spirit, and appetite. He found that there are three different kinds of activity going on in a person. awareness of the goal, drive toward a goal or a value, and the desire for the things of the body (appetite)
Term
What does Plato describe in Phaedrus?
Definition
Our reason could suggest a goal for behavior only to be overcome by sensual appetite and the power can be pulled in either direction by these sensual desires.
He illustrates this condition by portraying the charioteer driving two horses. One horse is good and is guided by word and admonition only while the other horse is bad and is the mate of insolence and pride. Although the charioteer has a clear vision of where to go and the good horse is on course, the other horse causes trouble to the other horse and the charioteer.
Term
Does Plato believe that the soul has a prior existence before it enters our body?
Definition
Yes.
Term
Where does the rational part of the soul come from?
Definition
It is created by the divine craftsman (The Demiurge)
Term
Where does the irrational part of the soul come from?
Definition
It is created by the celestial gods, who also form the body.
Term
What is evil?
Definition
Evil is a characteristic of the soul wherein the soul is capable of forgetfulness.
Term
What is morality to Plato?
Definition
The recovery of our lost inner harmony.
Term
What must you overcome in order to become moral?
Definition
We may do wrong acts that we assume will have some benefit, which causes false knowledge which must be overcome to become moral.
Term
What did Plato view as the good life?
Definition
inner harmony, well-being, and happiness.
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