notes - philosophy, test #1

7/27/2019 Notes - Philosophy, Test #1

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1

Philosophy:

Philosophy = philos + sophos = “love of wisdom”

Philosophy comes in 3 Categories:

- Ontology: the study of being

1 Everything is fixed and unchanging

2 Everything is in flux

- Epistemology: the study of knowing

1 Rationalism (mind)

2 Empiricism (senses)

- Axiology: the study of doing (ethics)

1 Normalism (morals are fixed)

2 Moralism (morals depend on sense)

The Pre-Socratics:

- Pre-Socratics are the philosophers from before Socrates (died in 399 BC)

1 Active in the 7th – 6

thCentury BC

Corporeal

Monists

Corporeal

Pluralists

Incorporeal

Monists

*Incorporeal

Pluralists

*This category is not really represented by the Pre-Socratics – it is simply hypothetical

Philosophers who

believed that everything

can be reduced to one

material substance

Philosophers who


can be reduced to one

immaterial substance

Philosophers who


can be reduced to

multiple material

substances

Philosophers who


can be reduced tomultiple immaterial

substances



2

The Ionian Philosophers VS the Italian Philosophers:

Ionians came from Ionia, Greece (Modern Turkey, nearby Asia Minor)

- Philosophy of Ionia differed from Philosophy of Italy

- Four words to describe the Ionians

1 Naturalism: no supernatural causes

2 Materialism: only material substances exist

3 Monism: only one fundamental substance

4 Hylozoism: water has the power of movement

Ionian Philosophers: Corporeal Monists, Empiricists, Democracy

Italian Philosophers: Incorporeal Pluralists, Rationalists, Oligarchy

Four Ionian Philosophers:

1). Thales

- Ultimate Reality: water (due to characteristics like movement, life physical forms, etc.)

- Predicted a solar eclipse and stopped a battle in 585 BC.

- Atheist

- 6th

Century BC

2). Anaxamander

- Ultimate Reality: The Boundless (a quasi-spiritual energy substance)

- Incredible cartographer, made maps and innovated the sundial.

- Proposed the first theory of evolution

- 6th

Century BC

3). Anaximenes

- Ultimate Reality: air (compression, movement, breathability, etc.)

- 6th

Century BC



3

4). Heraclitus

- Ultimate Reality: fire

- Known as the “Weeping Philosopher of Ephesus”

- Believed in constant change – no constants. Freaked out by the idea of time.

1 “You never step into the same river twice”

- Believed in change on a rational principle called the “logos”

- 6th

Century BC

Four Italian Philosophers:

1). Pythagoras

- Ultimate Reality: mathematics

- Created a math cult that forbid members from releasing the secrets of irrational

numbers

- Student of Thales but disagreed with his ideas

- Thought the Earth was round

- Created the Pythagorean Theorem (a2

+ b2

= c2

)

- Three Ideas Plato claimed from Pythagoras:

1 Body-Soul Dualism

2 Reincarnation

3 Immortality of the Soul

- 6th

Century BC

2). Xenophanes

- Ultimate Reality: god

- Opposed the Greek gods, thinking they were no better off than the average Greek

1 Anthropomorphisms of the Greeks – “We create the gods in our own images”

- Claimed a worldwide flood from sea creature fossils on land

- 6th

Century BC

3). Parminedes



4

- Ultimate Reality: being

- Believed that everything we sense is an illusion

- “Greatest Philosopher” said Plato

- Most influential sentence: “Whatever is, is”

- 5th

Century BC

4). Zeno

- Ultimate Reality: being (same sense as Parminedes)

- Creator of Zeno’s Paradoxes

1 Runner: For a runner to run 100 meters, he must first run 50 meters. To run 50,

he must run 25. To run 25, he must run 12.5. Theoretically, he never finishes.

2 Achilles and the Tortoise: To outrace a tortoise, Achilles must keep running to

where the tortoise has been but is unable to get ahead because the tortoise

keeps moving.

3 The Arrow: A flying arrow at the smallest increment of time is not actually

moving, so logically the arrow is not moving at all.

- 5th

Century BC

Three Greek Philosophers:

1). Empedocles

- Ultimate Realities: earth, air, fire, and water

1 Elements mix due to love, separate due to hate

- Promoted Egalitarianism yet tried to establish himself as a god – threw himself into Mt.

Etna so no one could find his mortal body.

- First to discover that light travels at a constant rate

- “Inventor of Rhetoric” although Aristotle innovated the art.

- 5th

Century BC

2). Anaxagoras

- Ultimate Reality: Seed Theory



5

1 Everything is in everything in an infinite progression

- Rationalist

- Believed in “the Nous” – the force behind everything

- 5th

Century BC

3). Democritus

- Ultimate Reality: ancient atomic theory

- Atheist – no belief in gods/spirits

- Hedonist – no purpose in living

- 5th

Century BC

Sophism:

460 – 400 BC: Around the time of Socrates

- Skeptical: belief that no one has the answers.

1 Impasse of Philosophies – no one could find the right one

2 The Peloponnesian War

- Practical: since no one found higher answers, they settled for bare minimum answers

1 Does it work?

2 Democracy – can we use public opinion to make our own causes work?

- Rhetorical: Demagogues used rhetoric to manipulate

1 Schools of Rhetoric

2 Rise of the Demagogues

1). Protagoras

- Famous for “homo mensura” – “man is the measure” – Humanism

- Plato’s critique of humanism came in 3 forms

1 Self-Refuting: If man is the measure, then which man is the measure?

2 Self-Defeating: A skeptical person has to be skeptical about skepticism or

themselves

3 Self-Deceiving: Skepticism does not contribute in any way to society



6

- 5th

Century BC

Cynicism: a branch of sophism basically criticizing everything

1). Diogenes

- Wandered around the Athenian Agora (Marketplace) with a lantern/torch in broad

daylight looking for an “honest man”

- Disregarded the social norm – lived in a sideways tipped bathtub with the dogs

- Trusted no one – arrogant, dismissive, critical

- 4th

Century BC

Socrates:

- Most of what we know is from Plato

- Charged with “corrupting the youth” and “disbelief in the gods”

- Three Socratic Beliefs:

1 Significance of Words

2 Soul in priority over the Body

3 Nature of True Virtue

- Anti-Sophist

- Note: This is where your reading of the Apology and the Phaedo will come in. Make sure

you know the basic ideas and Socrates’ main points.

notes - philosophy, test #1

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