Ancient Philosophy
Terms
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- Who were the sophists?
- Intinerant teachers and rhetoriticians.
- What was the sophistic method called?
- Eristic
- What was the sophistic method?
- A rhetorical method, designed to win arguments by trapping the opponent in a contradiction, used to persuade, rather than an activity that sought after the truth.
- Name the sophists
- Protagoras and Gorgias.
- Plato’s Apology
- Plato presents Socrates’ defence of charges made against him.
- To seek the truth rather than to win the argument in a pragmatic/rhetorical sense.
- elenchus
- How did Socrates differ from the Sophists (7 reasons)
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Attempted to prove the validity of certain views
Tries to build rather than simply demolish – not a simply negative method
Employs the failure of one thesis to develop a better thesis
Contradictions are generated, and a resolution sought
A constant working over of ideas in pursuit of the most robust ideas
Replaces practical learning and rhetoric with the pursuit of knowledge and the contemplation of the nature of truth, justice, beauty, etc
Aims to come up with better definitions, but also ultimately ethical improvement - How does Socrates deal with Definitions? (8 reasons)
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He is not asking about the meaning or application of words, but the nature or essence of the thing we are talking about when we use those terms.
These are questions the answers to which we can get right and wrong – i.e. definitions can be true or false
he opposes the relativism (including the moral relativism) of the Sophists
Socratic definitions are not matters of opinion or popular sentiment – what people think justice is does not tell us what justice is/does not make it justice
Knowing what a thing is forms a pre-requisite for any further knowledge about it – e.g. without knowing what knowledge is, we cannot know whether we have it, whether it can be taught, etc.
Understanding the concept requires that we know the definition/esense of something
Definitions of the nature of a thing are distinct from citations of examples of that thing (e.g. we do not define by enumerating)
Nevertheless, definitions must apply to all instance so of a thing – extensional equivalence – [x defines y iff all y’s have x and all things x are y]
They should give necessary and sufficient conditions
And they should explain what it is that makes a thing a thing of that nature [x defines y iff y is y because it has x] - Metaphysics
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The study of the basic nature of reality
From Aristotle’s Metaphysics - subsequent to earlier Physics – hence “meta” or “beyond” physics. - Epistemology (3)
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The theory of knowledge and belief
What is knowledge?
What can we know?
How can we know it? - Ethics
- The study of the good way to live.
- Naturalism
- The belief that the world can be accounted for and explained in natural terms rather than by appeal to external supernatural agents, events or properties.
- Monism
- The belief that underneath the appearance of difference and change, there was ultimately some one matter.
- Materialism
- There is matter, substance, or “stuff†of which everything is made or originated in.
- What were the five problems of the pre-Socratics?
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Is the world a multiplicity of things, as it appears, or is it ultimately a unity?
Can appearances be explained in terms of multiplicity or unity?
Can things change and yet retain their identity?
Is change apparent and persistence real, or vice versa?
How do we explain the appearance of change if persistence is real, and vice versa - Where is Miletus?
- In modern-day Turkey
- What type of philosophy did the Milesians espouse?
- Naturalism
- arche
- principle or origin
- Thales arche
- water
- Anaximander's arche
- apeiron
- Anaimenes arche
- air
- How much of Pythagoras writings do we have?