Sophie’s World
Chapter 4
The Natural Philosophers
“Is there a basic substance that
everything else is made of?”
• Arche
– Greek word with primary senses “beginning,”
“origin,” or “source of action”
– Early philosophers were interested in determining
source, origin or root of things that exist.
“Three Philosophers from Miletus”
• Miletus-Greek colony in Asia Minor (present
day Turkey)
• Thales
– Water
– “All things are full of Gods”
• Anaximander
– The boundless
• Anaximenes
– Air
Problem of Change
• Parmenides
– No coming into existence or ceasing to exist
– Rationalism-theory that reason rather than
experience is the foundation of certainty in
knowledge
• Heraclitus
– Flux
– Unity of Opposites
– Logos
Four Basic Elements
• Empedocles
– Earth, Air, Fire, Water
– Each individually unchangeable
• Anaxagoras
– Infinite elements-everything contains a portion of
everything else
– “For how can hair come to be from not hair or flesh
from not flesh?”
– Seeds
– Nous
– Moved to and later exiled from Athens
• Thesis-idea, assertible position
• Antithesis-equally assertible and apparently
contradictory proposition
• Synthesis-mutual contradiction being
reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third
proposition
Democritus & Fate
Sophie’s World
Chapters 5&6
Democritus
• Maintained the impossibility of dividing
things ad infinitum
• Must be some building block
– He called them Atoms
• Indivisible/indestructible
• Could be combined in unlimited ways
Democritus
• Materialist-believer in that the theory that
physical matter is all there is
• Atheist
• Sensory perception was a result of our body
interacting with atoms
Fate
• Fatalism-the belief that all events are
predetermined and therefore inevitable
• Oracle-a priest or priestess acting as a
medium through whom advice or prophecy
was sought from the gods in classical antiquity
Wolff, pages 1-9
What is Philosophy?
• What is Philosophy?
– Philo- Sophia-
• What do Philosophers do?
Socrates
•
•
•
•
Born in 469, BC
Spent entire life in and around Athens
Veteran of the Army
Interested in human nature: most important and
puzzling subject was the human condition itself
• Public squares and meeting places of Athens
• Did not write down anything
– Most of what we know of Socrates comes from his
pupil, Plato
4 Basic Principles of Socratic Theory
• The unexamined life is not worth living.
• Objective principles of right and wrong—
genuinely happy and genuinely good
• The truth lies within each of us
• Cannot be taught fundamental principles of
right action and clear thinking
• Dialogue: a process of question and answer
between two people
• Irony: speaker communicates to the “real”
audience a meaning opposite from that
conveyed to the “superficial” audience
Socratic Method
• Probing questions
• Prodding, pushing, and provoking into
realizing lack of rational understanding of their
own principles of though and action
• Aim to set the person on the path to
philosophical wisdom
• Used by Socrates to deflate big egos
First martyr of philosophy
• Meletus
– Religious fanatic
– Trumped up religious accusations against Socrates:
corrupting youth and impiety
• Conviction could carry death sentence
– Chose not to flee
– Defended himself using Socratic method
• Narrowly found guilty
– Could have proposed banishment
– Accepted death penalty: one month following trial, he
spent an evening in philosophical discussion with his
friends and then imbibed the executioners poison hemlock
Socrates and Athens
Sophie’s World
Chapters 7 & 8
Sophists
•
•
•
•
•
Wise and informed person
Teachers
Rejected traditional mythology
Skepticism
Protagoras
– “Man is the measure of all things.”
– On existence of Gods: “The question is complex and
life is short.”
– Agnostic?
• Natural vs. socially induced
Socrates
• Plato and the Dialogues
• How is Socrates “teaching” method similar to the
job of a midwife?
• How is the life of Socrates similar to the life of
Jesus of Nazareth?
• What is the difference between a sophist and a
philosopher?
– “One thing only I know, and that is that I know
nothing.”
• Virtue: “He who knows what good is will do
good.”
Athens
• Acropolis: citadel
– “the city on the hill”
• War with Persia and Xerxes
– Acropolis of wood burned down
– After defeat of Persians, Acropolis rebuilt
– Golden Age of Athens
• Parthenon
Plato
Sophie’s World
Chapter 9
Background
• 428-347 BC
– 29 years old when Socrates died
• Apology-Plato’s account of the trial of Socrates
• Believed that all of his principal works have
survived
• Plato’s Academy
– Named for Academus
– Philosophy, Mathematics, Gymnastics
World of Ideas
• Concerned with relationship with what
“flows” and what is eternal
– Some similarities and differences with Empedocles
and Democritus
• “molds” “forms”—ideas
Knowledge vs. Opinion
• Everything that our senses can perceive is
fleeting
– Can only have opinions on things in constant state
of change
– World of senses
• Can only have true knowledge of things that
can be understood with reason (like
mathematics)
The Soul
• We have a body bound to the senses—subject
to the same fate as everything else in the
world
• Plato believe we also have a immortal soul
that existed before it inhabited our bodies
– Can “survey” the land of ideas
– “forgets” when wakes up in human body
• Soul yearns to return to world of ideas
• Allegory of the Cave
The Ideal “State”
• Body has three parts
– Head —> Reason—> Wisdom
– Chest —> Will —> Courage
– Abdomen —> Appetite —> Temperance
• The State
– Rulers
– Auxiliaries
– Laborers
• Plato on women
Aristotle
Sophie’s World
Chapter 11
Background
•
•
•
•
384-322 BC
Son of a physician
Student at Plato’s Academy for about 20 years
Last of the great Greek philosophers—
Europe’s first great biologist?
– Fascinated with natural processes
Plato vs. Aristotle
Reason vs. Perception
• Plato: “flow” animals existing in world of senses
are imperfect copies of molds from world of ideas
• Aristotle believed the opposite
– Idea were concepts humans developed after seeing a
certain number of a specific animal
– Idea is made up of the animal’s characteristics
– Made up of what is common to all horses, chickens,
etc.
• Plato-reason; Aristotle-perception
Form, Substance, and Cause
• Substance-what something is made of
• Form-what something does
• Substance —> Form
– Potential —> Actual
• Cause
– Material Cause-aspect of the change or movement which
is determined by the material (substance)
– Formal Cause-change or movement caused by the
arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing
or moving (form)
– Efficient Cause-interaction with some agent of change
– Final Cause—Purpose-the end toward which it directs
Logic
• Categorization
– Think 20 Questions
• Logic
– Aristotle demonstrated a number of laws
governing conclusions or proofs
• Nature’s scale
Ethics and Politics
• Three forms of happiness
– Life of pleasure and enjoyment
– Life as free and responsible citizen
– Life as thinker and philosopher
• The Golden Mean
• Man is a “political animal”
– Monarchy
– Aristocracy
– Polity
• Views on women
Natural Philosophers
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
The Natural Philosophers
1. Who believed that the most dominant element of nature
was water?
2. What philosopher advanced the idea of the “boundless”
3. Who suggested that the most dominant element of nature
was air?
4. Which philosopher believed that nothing in nature changed?
5. Who said that everything in nature constantly changed?
6. Who believed that all matter is made up of four basic
elements
7. Who held that the most basic component of nature is seeds?
8. Who claimed that the most basic component of nature is
atoms?
The Natural Philosophers
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Parmenides
Heraclitus
Empedocles
Anaxagoras
Democritus
Socrates
1. Socrates spent his entire life in and around what city?
2. Who is the source for most of our knowledge of Socrates?
3. According to Socrates, what type of life is not worth
living?
4. According to Socrates, is right and wrong relative, or
objective?
5. What group of people did Socrates disagree with on that
6. What is a process of question and answer between two
people?
7. The Socratic Method made heavy use of what type of
“double meaning” speech?
8. How was Socrates executed?
Socrates
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Athens
Plato
The unexamined life
Objective
Sophists
Dialogue
Irony
Poison/Hemlock
Plato
1. What was the name of Plato’s work that outlined the
persecution and trial of Socrates?
2. What were the three subjects taught at Plato’s Academy?
3. According to Plato, we can only have true knowledge of
things we understand using what?
4. According to Plato, humans have an immortal
____________.
5. The Allegory of the ____________ serves can be used to
describe Plato’s sense of humans can achieve knowledge
and enlightenment.
6. According to Plato, the body has how many parts?
7. Name each of those parts.
Plato
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Apology
Philosophy, Mathematics, Gymnastics
Reason
Soul
Cave
Three
Head, Chest, Abdomen
Aristotle
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Where was Aristotle a student for about 20 years?
What was Aristotle particularly interested in?
If Plato was an advocate of using reason, Aristotle was an
advocate of using what to help someone learn about nature?
According to Aristotle, ____________ is what something is made
of and __________ is what something does.
Aristotle believed that there were how many causes governing
change in the natural world?
Aristotle used ____________ to draw conclusions and develop
proofs.
According to Aristotle what is the defining difference that allowed
him to categorize living and non-living things?
Aristotle advocated _______________________ to establish
balance in a person’s life.
Aristotle
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Plato’s Academy
Natural Processes
Perception, the senses
Substance / Form
Four
Logic
Ability to absorb nourishment, potential for
change
8. “The Golden Mean”