Chapter 1 Quiz: What is Philosophy?

Thales of Miletus: Big Ideas? Greatest contribution?

- "founder of philosophy BIG IDEAS - The cause and element of all things is water - All things are filled with gods Greatest contribution = his method

Xenophanes: Big Ideas?

- Directly attacks the idea of the gods, at least gods of Hesiod and Homer - The gods portrayed by Hesiod and Homer are unworthy of admiration. It is shameful to portray the gods as though they had all the same vices as humans. - Each culture makes gods similar to themselves, which is evidence that the Greeks made them up - Homer had invented these stories - Xenophanes believes in God, but only one - The arche (origin) is the one, true God - The gods have not revealed all things from the beginning to mortals, but by seeking, men find out in time, what is better. - he doesn't think God reveals truth to us, we must find the truths ourselves (but we will never know the truth for sure)

Logos

- Heraclitus's central idea; the principle, formula, or law of the world order - Logos "steers all things" in cosmos, for it is a divine thought operating according to its own logic - Logos even derives moral guidance for humankind

What is philosophy and what is it about?

- Is a discipline and a process - About fundamental ideas and beliefs, those upon which other ideas build (Ex. Believing in God —> forms our morals) - Not only for studying, but living and guiding our lives to what is real and true

Anaximander: Big Ideas?

- Student of Thales - The arche of the cosmos is the apeiron - Arche- beginning; fundamental thing of the universe - Apeiron- the infinite; the boundless; chaotic mixture that contains all things and generates opposite pairs that create everything that exists (hot and cold; wet and dry) - All things that exist "make reparation to one another for their injustice to the ordinance of time" - One basic law of universe is that nature naturally balances itself out - Cosmos sends this balance out, NOT the gods - philosophy doesn't require the idea of gods, but is not directly attacking the idea of gods

4 Main Domains: Logic

- Study of correct reasoning

4 Main Domains: Epistemology

- Study of knowledge

4 Main Domains: Metaphysics

- Study of reality - Must take scientific findings into account, but focuses on questions that science alone cannot answer

4 Main Domains: Axiology

- The study of value, both aesthetic and moral value - Ethics = study of moral value

Philosophical method

The systematic use of critical reasoning to try to find answers to fundamental questions about reality, morality, and knowledge.

Heraclitus: Big Ideas?

- Wrote epigrams — short sayings that contain deep thought (sly riddles) - Big influence on Plato and Stoics - Everything is in flux — always changing - All things come into being through opposition - Cosmos depends on balance and opposition (Cannot have peace without war) - Cosmos has a logos - The logos of our world is a system of ever-changing, constantly opposing forces balancing each other out. That's the divine logic that the universe is built on, the repeated pattern that is seen in all things. - Our personal ethical choices should reflect the reality of the divine logos. We should pattern our own lives according to this divine pattern of the universe. - Combines metaphysics with ethics - Moderation is the greatest virtue because we want to live a life that adheres to logos (give and take) - Believed all there were one

Zeno

- backed up Parmenides - Created over 40 paradoxes to prove that motion is an illusion, and therefor Parmenides must be correct - If motion is impossible, the idea we perceive motion has to be an illusion, therefore Parmenides is right, we cannot trust our senses at all and reality is just one big thing Big ideas - Nothing moves; all motion is impossible - Tasks have infinite steps and can never be completed

Parmenides: Big Ideas? Opinion on argument? Claim to fame?

- considered most influential of all the pre-socratic philosophers - an extreme rationalist (first of his kind) - Reality is an illusion - Nothing moves or changes, nothing is born and nothing dies - There are no separate things; there is only one thing and that thing is eternal and unchanging - Paradox- contrary to appearances - "Para"- contrary to - "Doxa"- appearances - Our senses give us faulty information about the nature of reality - To know truth, we must rely on our mind and powers of reasoning → "the mind's eye" - Even movement among existing things is an illusion - Empty space is non-being, so stuff cannot move to it - Argument: Something exists or does not; "it is" or "it is not" - Not being (it is not) is an unintelligible/illegal concept - Parmenides is NOT claiming it is impossible to think of something that does you can not see (religion for example) - Claim to fame = systematic employment of deductive argument

Democritus

- makes counter argument to Parmenides idea - Atomism- everything is made from tiny, indivisible atoms - Parmenides is right that there isn't nothing, but there is "the no-thing"- the void in which there are no atoms. The no-thing makes separateness possible. - Democritus slightly qualified Parmenides''s no-space principle and showed how both motion and pluralism were possible - Posited the void (space that does not contain objects or things, but is not the same as nothing); —> void is a kind of "what is" - World need not be solid; can be broken up by the void so there is room for movement and room to accommodate many