PHILOSOPHY

 NOTE sorry about the weird formatting, I orignally made this as a word document 

Here's a link to the google doc version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nHrfTbFiATTtCXT1uI4yQmoPJNpj-QLJHIOc2F9OsTg

A link to a detailed flash card version: https://quizlet.com/gb/407761457/ocr-philosophy-flash-cards/

good luck!

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES

PLATO

·       427 BCE- 347 BCE

·       Pupil of Socrates influenced some of his work

·       Ancient Greek philosopher

UNDERSTANDING OF RELAITY

·       Rationalism= the theory that reason rather than experience is the foundation of certainty in knowledge

·       A priori= knowing things before we experience them

·       Epistemology: theory of knowledge

·       All people have innate knowledge 

o   E.g. Meno’s slave boy

·       Everyone should practice philosophical thought

TWO WORLD THEORY

·       Our world is a secondary and inferior world to a perfect world of forms

·       The soul came from/can access the world of forms

o   Perfect world knowledge forgotten

o   Rational thought can recover it

o   E.g. we can recognise various styles of boat because the perfect form exists, and our souls remember it

·       Perfect forms cast a shadow into our lives 

·       Hierarchy of forms:

o   Good -> love + beauty -> objects

o   Good is the ultimate because our innate knowledge of hierarchy lets us always recognise it

DIVIDED LINE

·       Division between the forms and objects

·       2:1 ratio

·       Through rational thought, our minds can progress up from the lower levels

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

·       Illustrates differences between the two worlds

o   Prisoners = ordinary people

o   Chains = our sense that makes us accept all we see and hear

o   Fire= a copy of the Form of Good, lets us see shadows

·       The prisoners are stuck seeing the imperfect forms

·       Philosophers can break the chains and escape to the world of forms

o   Will be blinded by the sun but eventually will be able to see as rational knowledge develops

o   The sun = the highest form/ good

·       Knowledge is justified true belief

o   E.g. The Gether Problem

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

ü  Helps to understand imperfections in the world 

ü  Encourages us to thick rather than accept things at face value

ü  Brain Davies: without forms we cannot discuss, argue etc about general world features like justice or beauty, because we wouldn’t have any recognition of the forms or essence 

û  Impossible to prove

û  Doesn’t help understand our world

û  Not everyone will see the form of Good the same, subjective not universal

û  Stephen Law: The world “requires the existence of deeply unpleasant things. The ‘Platonic Heaven of Forms’ doesn’t sound heavenly”

û  Mel Thompson: the cave “fails to illustrate the attractiveness of the physical world”

û  Some things lack forms, e.g. numbers

ARISTOTLE

·       384-322 BCE, student of Plato + influential…