Permanence and Change:
Plato & Aristotle
Question: How can you make fifty identical cookies?
Group A:
Read “Sophie’s World” pp. 81 – 92 and answer these questions.
1. What are the “forms?” Where do they exist?
“Forms” are the eternal and unchanging “ideas” or “molds” (like a cookiecutter) that give shape to the changing physical substances in the world of
the senses and define the nature of individual things; they exist in another
“higher” reality, the world of ideas.” Because we too existed in this ideal
world before we were born, we knew these ideal forms in our previous life;
what we call “learning” during our time on earth (according to Plato and
Socrates) is really just “remembering” what we already know. All natural
phenomena are merely shadows of the eternal forms or ideas (Allegory of
the Cave; Truman).
2. Why does Plato say we need forms? Why isn’t Democritus’
“atomic” theory enough?
Plato realized that the way natural phenomena are so alike (i.e. there isn’t
just one horse, but many horses that share the same essential
characteristics) implies there must be some organizing principle or
“idea” behind them; Democritus’ purely mechanical/deterministic
metaphysics can’t account for these similarities.
3. What kind of dualism does Plato embrace? In other words, what
are the key elements in Plato’s idea of the soul?
Plato argues that we are beings of body (impermanent & changing; matter
& senses; mortality) and soul (immaterial & unchanging; reason & ideas;
immortal).
4. What was Plato’s view of women?
Women have the same powers of reasoning as man, and with the same
freedom and training could govern just as effectively.
Permanence and Change:
Plato & Aristotle
Question: How can you make fifty identical cookies?
Group B:
Read “Sophie’s World” pp. 105 – 117 and answer these
questions.
1. How did Aristotle think Plato had turned everything “upside
down?” Why is this important for epistemology?
Aristotle argued that there is nothing in the mind (on which to exercise our
reason) that has not first been experienced by the senses (“tabula rasa”);
to think as Plato did was needlessly “doubling the number of things.” In
other words, he was an empiricist where Plato was a rationalist; he
thought Plato had put the “idea chicken” before both the chicken and the
egg.
2. What is the difference between matter (or substance) and form for
Aristotle?
The “form” of something is just the specific set of characteristics we
perceive that define each thing as “this particular kind of thing;” the
matter/substance is what the things are made of.
3. What does Aristotle understand by “Final Cause?”
By final cause Aristotle means that all things in nature have a purpose and
are working towards an end. For example, when it rains, the material
cause of the rain is the moisture in the clouds; the
efficient/instrumental cause is the cooling that moisture undergoes; the
formal cause of rain is that the nature of water is to be affected by gravity
(making it fall to earth), and the final cause is that life on earth needs
water in order to grow. Today, we still speak of the first three causes, but
not the fourth.
4. What was Aristotle’s view of women?
Women are “unfinished men;” they are merely passive/receptive,
providing the mindless matter that makes new humans, whereas men
provide the rational form.