Ancient Philosophy Final Exam Review Sheet

Introduction to Greek Thought

 small influences on Greek thought - Egyptian math and Babylonian astronomy
 myth - form of thought embodying truth in poetic language
 legacy of Greeks - “uncontested original thinkers and scientists of Europe”; the
Greeks went beyond myth to rational, literal, “scientific” philosophy
Major Challenge:
 to find
order, unity, stability (the limited)
 in the universe which often appears to be
irrational, many, and changing (the unlimited)

The Milesian School

 Ionia is the Cradle of Greek philosophy
 cosmology = study of the world order
 cosmogeny = study of the birth of the universe
 seeking unity / permanence in the changing cosmos (the One and the Many)
 conceive of matter as eternal and not separate from spirit; hence, they propose
various types of matter as the primary substance

 Thales - water is the primary substance

 first to ask what one primary substance (Urstoff) the world was composed of

 Anaximander - the indefinite (apeiron) is the primary substance

 through eternal motion, elements separate off from the indefinite

 Anaximenes - air is the primary substance

The Pythagoreans
 a religious and philosophical society
 units (numbers), understood spatially, are the primary reality of which all
things are composed
 as musical harmony depends on numbers, so does the universe’s harmony
 table of opposites—they preferred the Limited side

Limited Unlimited (Void)

odd, one, even, many,
good, square, evil, oblong,
etc. etc.

Heraclitus
 everything in the universe is in change (strife / becoming)
  there is some permanence – the eternal struggle of opposites in which no side
every completely wins
 the Word (logos) is the principle of unity; it draws things together and then
lets them out; hence, fire, which flares up and down, is the primary substance

Parmenides and his followers

 Parmenides - all reality is eternal, unchanging limited unity and being (One)
 Three Paths to Truth
1. being - “it is” *Accepted*
2. becoming - “it is not yet,” *Rejected,* resolves into non-being
3. nothing - “it is not” *Rejected*
 denies time, motion, and the senses as illusions—the “way of seeming”
 Parmenides is the seminal Pre-Socratic; after him, others react to his thought

 Melissus - the unchanging One must be spiritual and unlimited

 Zeno - created paradoxes to show the absurdity of motion

 e.g. The Racetrack – if it can be subdivided into units, it can be divided
infinitely. But how can a runner cross an infinite number of points?
 e.g. An arrow in motion occupies a position in space at any given moment.
But to occupy a position in space is to be a rest.

The Pluralists
 reconcile Parmenides’ unchanging One with the reality of change and motion

 Empedocles - the universe is composed of four elements (“many Ones”) which

continually mix and remix, in a cycle, guided by two forces
Elements: Forces:
1. earth 1. Love - brings particles together
2. water 2. Strife - separates particles
3. air (strife may relate to the void / unlimited)
4. fire

 Anaxagoras - the universe is composed of permanent seeds (“many Ones”)

 each seed contains a portion of everything, and can become anything
 the Mind (Nous) brings out different of these hidden (latent) possibilities at
different times, thus accounting for the change we observe

 Atomists (Democritus and Leucippus) - reality is composed of small,

indestructible atoms (“many Ones”) which arrange and re-arrange themselves,
separated by a void
 do not consider God or a universal order; a reduction of reality to randomnes
The Sophists
 traveling teachers and practical philosophers who earned a living teaching
rhetoric (speech and clever argumentation) to men who wanted to get ahead
 focus on man (humanism), not on cosmology
 ethics - man’s end or goal is achieving pleasure (hedonism) and power
  (virtue in general - efficiency at a task, particularly the task of being human)
 man’s “virtue” (arete) are those things which lead to pleasure, namely
cleverness, relativism, skill in arguing, etc. (Contrast with Socrates below.)

 Protagoras - “Man is the measure of all things.”

 truth is found on the level of sensation – what you sense is true for you
 civil law is merely custom; it is not rooted in God or nature (relativism)

 Gorgias - clever skepticism; claimed the following:

1. Nothing exists
2. If anything exists, we can’t know it
3. If we can know anything, we can’t communicate it

Socrates
 Delphic Oracle: Socrates is the wisest man because he sees his own ignorance
 becomes a “gadfly” seeking to reform Athens by teaching wisdom
 “The unexamined life is not worth living;” we must face our ignorance
 accused of corrupting youth and denying the gods
 submits to the death penalty rather than abandon his call to teach

 opposes the relativism of the Sophists

 human nature is constant, so ethics must be objective (based on natural law)
 man’s virtue (arete) is to exercise his highest possession, reason

 dialectic method - a position is proposed which generates an opposing

position; through question and answer, a definition is sometimes arrived at
 induction used to move from particular examples (e.g. many just acts) to a
universal definition which applies to all
 however, definitions are still opinion

 knowledge is (1) recollection of forms as known before birth, (2) intuition of

being, of the forms, (3) a divine gift
 “virtue is knowledge” - if we know what is right and best for us, we will do it
 genuine knowledge of justice transforms a person; he will act justly
 this combines action (virtue) with contemplation (knowledge)

 since the soul engages in the spiritual act of thinking, it is transcends matter
 thus, the soul is personally immortal (not subject to physical death)
Plato’s Metaphysics
 created a unified system covering all areas of human thought

Doctrine of the Forms:

 recognized change in the material world of particulars
 preserved stability in the immaterial world of universal Forms
 Forms = principles of permanence, eternity, reality, unity, perfection,etc.
 the soul journeys from appearance to reality
 the Cave Allegory is symbolic, the Divided Line tells what it represents

Allegory of the Cave Divided Line

* The Sun * * The Good *

4. objects outside the cave 4. the immaterial forms [reason]
3. shadows, reflections outside the cave 3. mathematical images [understanding]
2. objects on the roadway and fire 2. material objects in the world [belief]
1. shadows on the cave’s wall 1. images, shadows in the world [conjecture]

 for Plato, level 4 is “the real”, knowledge

 levels 2 and 3 are hypotheses, definitions, “jumping off points” to the real
 levels 1 and 2 are sense appearances, or opinions

 doctrine of participation - material things share in the likeness of the forms

 all the forms are united in the form of the Good (a principle of unity)

 eros - the human love or spiritual desire which causes man to want to know
the forms and the good

Plato’s Cosmology
Cosmology (the Timaeus):
 world comes from
1. archetypes - forms
2. Demiurge - divine mind
3. receptacle (matter) - formless and shapeless
 the Demiurge takes the formless receptacle and shapes it into a world of
particulars using the forms as the archetypes
 a “necessity” or inertia in the receptacle resists the forms (explanation of the
disorder found in the world)

Plato’s Ethics
 souls have fallen from union with forms and must recover a lost harmony
 justice / the good life = harmony, order, each part perfecting its own role

 the just state is based in and parallels just individual souls

Three Parts of the Soul Three Classes of the State Virtue
1. the rational part 1. the guardians (philosopher kings) prudence
2. the spirited part - like the will 2. the auxiliaries (military) courage
3. the passionate part 3. the workers temperance

 in each case (soul and state), part 1 must govern and part 3 must obey
 part 2 must align with part 1
 Horse and Chariot Image: rational part is the charioteer, guiding a cooperative
horse (spirited) and a resisting horse (passionate) which must be whipped

 Plato’s Politics - man is social, and the state is a natural entity

 cycle of governments:
aristocracy (rule by best qualified for common good)  timocracy (rule by famous) 
plutocracy (rule by wealthy)  democracy (mob rule by all)  tyranny (one despot)

 Plato’s Aesthetics
 there is an objective foundation of beauty—participation in Form of Beauty
 paintings, poems are less real - they are copies, another step away from Forms

Aristotle’s Epistemology

 Three products of the human intellect:

 Concepts (corresponding to simple apprehension)
 Judgments
 Arguments and reasoning

 Arguments
 Reasoning – third act of the intellect
 Fallacy – an error in reasoning

 Deductive
 Valid
 Invalid
 Formal fallacies
 informal fallacies
 relevance
 ambiguity
 Inductive
 Probability (less or more probable)

Moderate Realism
 All men by nature desire to know
 Distinguish two-level cognition
 Sense knowledge (particular, material)
 Intellectual Knowledge (universal, necessary, immaterial)

Sensation
 Operation – Chemical – physical
  Faculty: Organs – bodily organs
 Sensible; species sensible – common with brute animals
 External senses
 Sight
 Hearing
 Taste
 Touch
 Smell
 Internal senses
 Common Sense
 Imagination
 Sense Memory
 Estimative faculty

Intellection
 Operation – Immaterial
 Faculty: Spiritual
 Intelligible; species intelligible

Aristotle’s Logic
 inventor of formal logic as a tool (does not reduce philosophy to mere logic)
 intuition remains the most fundamental source of knowledge
 for deductive logic (moving from the universal to the particular), Aristotle
devised the syllogism (two premises yield a conclusion)
 demonstration - true premises and valid syllogism give a true conclusion

 ten categories (listed below) used to relate subject and predicate:

 predicables: genus (general group, e.g. animal), species (specific kind, e.g.
human), specific difference (property that sets apart the species, e.g. reason)

 The Great Laws of Being and Thought (also called the archai - first things)
1. Principle of Identity (A is A.)
2. Principle of Non-Contradiction (A thing cannot both be and not be.)
3. Principle of Excluded Middle. (A thing is either this or that.)

Aristotle’s Metaphysics
 metaphysics defined as study of being qua (as) being
 Aristotle combines change and stability in his metaphysics
 act - an actual perfection present in a thing at this time (being/stability)
 potency-the capacity of a thing to acquire new perfections (becoming/change)

 substance - the individual thing itself

 accident - particular perfections which adhere to a substance
 10 categories
 Substance
 Accidents (9 in total)
 Quantity
}
}
  Quality Being in a secondary sense
 Relation

 Place
 Time
 Action
} Being which inheres in another

}
 Passivity
 Posture
 Habit
} Does not exist on its own


 }
form - the specific nature of a thing which perfects matter; an ACT
matter - something that receives form; a POTENCY
 change is movement from potency to act
 substantial change involves three principles (1) matter, which stays the same,
(2) form, which changes, and (3) a privation or lack which is fulfilled
 change also involves four causes: formal, material, efficient, final
 Examples of four causes:
 Formal – Paint
 Material – Paintbrush
 Efficient – Painter
 Final – The final painting

 Aristotle bases metaphysics on the Unmoved Mover (pure act of thinking)

 the Unmoved Mover is the final cause; it attracts all things to itself
 in pure act of thinking, the Unmoved Mover contemplates itself, not the world
 Aristotle’s proof for the Unmoved Mover based on motion:
Motion involves movement from potency to act.
Finite movers cannot cause motion; they need to receive act from another.
Hence, an Unmoved Mover (pure act) is the ultimate cause of motion.

Comparison of Plato’s and Aristotle’s metaphysics:

Plato’s metaphysics Aristotle’s metaphysics
One form for an entire species One form for each individual
Forms located in Ideal World Forms located inside individuals
Explains Being (unchanging Forms) Explains Being (form / act) as well as
Becoming (potency)

Aristotle’s Philosophy of Man

 man is one substance composed of body and soul
 Aristotle seems to deny personal immortality (although this is debated)

Hierarchy of Souls:
1. vegetative soul (reproduction, nutrition, growth) – plants
2. sensitive soul (above three + sensitivity/consciousness) – animals
3. rational soul (above four + rationality) – humans
Aristotle’s Ethics
 the end (telos) of human life (the good for man) is living in accord with
reason, because this fulfills man’s rational nature
 virtue = the good use of reason

Two Types of Ends

1. intrinsic end - something done for its own sake
2. extrinsic end - something done for the sake of another end

 reason and virtue will lead to happiness, the intrinsic end all men desire
 pleasure, fame, and wealth should not be seen as ends in themselves, because
they do not lead to happiness

 moral virtue is the mean between two extremes

Defect (a vice) Virtue Excess (a vice)
cowardice courage rashness
insensibility temperance profligacy

 intellectual virtue includes

 Science – demonstrating truth
 Understanding – Grasping self-evident truths } Speculative

 Prudence – Doing
 Art – Making
}
 Wisdom – Highest objects (Understanding and science)
Practical
}
}
 Aristotle’s Politics - agrees with Plato that the state is a natural entity
 Good governments rule for common good; bad ones for their own interests

Good Governments Bad Governments

Rule by one… monarchy tyranny
Rule by a few… aristocracy (best qualified) oligarchy (rich)
Rule by many… polity (middle-class) democracy (mob)

 Aristotle’s Aesthetics - beauty is found in the thing itself (not Ideal world)
 tragic drama involves catharsis, a purification of the soul

Romano-Hellenistic Period
 rise of individualism as communal city-states are replaced by empires
 practical philosophy emerges to show people how to personally live a good life
and find tranquillity
 focus on ethics; less interest in metaphysics and cosmology
 materialism (matter alone exists; nothing spiritual) emerges
 loss of focus on the spiritual dimension leads to the dying of philosophy
  Stoics (early - Zeno, Cleanthes; late - Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius)
 reduce all reality to matter (a cosmic fire), but still identify an active “spiritual”
force in the material world, called Nature or Reason
 ethics - man should control his soul by reason and keep it tranquil
 man should assent to the will of fate / Nature, which determines all things
 man should not be disturbed by external things, such as loss of wealth or
death of a loved one, because they cannot harm the soul
 thus, the passions and emotions should be suppressed

 Epicureans (Epicurus)
 strong materialists - the world is composed of atoms constantly re-arranging
 ethics - seek pleasure, avoid pain (hedonism); pleasure the end (goal) of life
 sensible pleasure creates restlessness; intellectual pleasure is better

 Skeptics (Pyrrho)
 “I know nothing” - reach tranquillity by suspending all judgments

Plotinus
 a Neo-Platonist (revived Plato’s thought); brought back a spiritual focus

Metaphysics - Four Hypostases (individual principles)

 emanation - each of the hypostases emanates (flows from) the one above
1. The One (the Good) - subsists within itself
2. Nous - the exemplars / forms are located here
3. World-Soul - Nature, encompasses all human souls
4. matter - good, but farthest from the One; hence, matter is on the verge of non-
being and is the cause of evil because it resists order

 cosmogeny - Nous overflows from the One; it is actualized by contemplating

the One, then turns around (conversio) and forms the World-Soul
 the World-Soul contemplates Nous; contemplation gives way to production
and it expresses itself as matter, which it shapes to fit the exemplars in Nous

 the human soul is fallen into matter and must ascend to the One in four steps
1. rise above the senses and practice virtue
2. contemplate Nous to gain knowledge of philosophy and science
3. attain contemplative union with Nous
4. attain mystical union with the One

Early Christian Philosophy

 Church Fathers use philosophy (1) as apologetics - to defend the faith, and
(2) to penetrate dogmas and grow in understanding
 Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria - Greek philosophy is an limited but real
expression of the One Truth and should be used by Christians