PHL01: CO1

Pre-socratics

In the beginning, the difference between a philosopher and a proto-scientist was one of subject matter; later it became one of method. A general understanding of the development of Pre-Socratic philosophy is helpful for placing subsequent philosophical issues and disagreements in context

Areas of Philosophy

Metaphysics, Epistemology, Axiology, Ethics, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy, Social Philosophy, and Logic

Proto-scientists

Some of the Pre-Socratic philosophers that initiated the transformation of mythology into rational inquiry about nature and the cosmos

480 BC

The Persians launched a second invasion but they were defeated again, this time at sea. In the aftermath, Athens, who played a leading role in defeating the Persians, set up a league of cities, the Delian League, to clear the Aegean of Persian power.

Pre-socratic

The earliest Western philosophers that appeared prior to *Socrates* the first major figure in the Western philosophical tradition

Shaman

a wise person among Native Americans and the nomadic tribes of Asia

Prophets

a wise person in the *Bible*

490 BC

against all odds, the Greeks were victorious at Marathon

Social And Political Philosophy

are concerned with the nature and origins of the state (government), sovereignty, the exercise of power, the effects of social institutions on individuals, ethnicity, gender, social status, and the strengths and weaknesses of different types of societies.

philos

love

Elderly

represents wise person in some *cultures*

492 BC

the Persians invaded the northern part of the Greek peninsula

Ontology

the study of being and what it means to "Exist."

432 BC

Sparta convinced the Greek states aggrieved with Athens to go to war against her. The war would devastate Athens, which would eventually be reduced to complete subjection. The long and terrible war, with its many atrocities, a marked the end of the so-called "Golden Age," the time of Themistocles, the statesman Pericles, and others whose leadership seemed to propel the Athenians to greatness. Plato writes about Socrates after his execution and in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. His motives are not always completely clear, but it is natural to understand parts of some of the dialogues as an indictment of the ways that led to Athens' demise, and as an exploration of a possible solution in the new way of thinking about human beings and their good that Socrates had begun to work out.

Bodhisattva, Yogi, or Guru

a wise person in *Asia*

Witch Doctor

a wise person in some parts of *Africa*

Peloponnesian War

is the dominant political and social event in the background of the Platonic dialogues

550 BC

the Persian Empire had expanded westward. Greek cities in Ionia on the eastern shore of the Aegean, including Miletus, came under Persian rule. Ideas moved with refugees in advance of the Persians, north along the coast, to the southern part of mainland Greece (the Peloponnese), and to Sicily and southern Italy. This transmission of ideas continued during the Persian Wars.

Aesthetics

the study of perceptions, feelings, judgments, and ideas associated with the appreciation of beauty, art, and objects in general

Logic

the study of the rules of correct reasoning

Knowledge

• Philosophers generally agree that it is some form of true belief • Questions then arise as to how to distinguish true belief from mistaken belief; and, as you might expect, different philosophers give different answers involving the roles of reason, perception, experience, intuition, and social agreement in this process. Some philosophers go so far as to deny the possibility of it entirely

Nicollo Machiavelli

• Machiavelli contributed to many important discourses in Western thought—political theory most notably, but also history and historiography, Italian literature, the principles of warfare, and diplomacy. But Machiavelli never seems to have considered himself a philosopher—indeed, he often overtly rejected philosophical inquiry as beside the point—nor do his credentials suggest that he fits comfortably into standard models of academic philosophy. • Relatively little is known for certain about Machiavelli's early life in comparison with many important figures of the Italian Renaissance (the following section draws on Capponi 2010; Vivanti 2013; Celenza 2015) He was born 3 May 1469 in Florence and at a young age became a pupil of a renowned Latin teacher, Paolo da Ronciglione. It is speculated that he attended the University of Florence, and even a cursory glance at his corpus reveals that he received an excellent humanist education. It is only with his entrance into public view, with his appointment in 1498 as the Second Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, however, that we begin to acquire a full and accurate picture of his life. For the next fourteen years, Machiavelli engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity on behalf of Florence, traveling to the major centers of Italy as well as to the royal court of France and to the imperial curia of Maximilian. A large body of extant letters, dispatches, and occasional writings testify to his political assignments as well as to his acute talent for the analysis of personalities and institutions. • For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and power are essentially coequal: whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good. Thus, in direct opposition to a moralistic theory of politics, Machiavelli says that the only real concern of the political ruler is the acquisition and maintenance of power (although he talks less about power per se than about "maintaining the state".)

Atomism

• is the materialistic view that the universe consists entirely of empty space and ultimately simple entities that combine to form objects • The most thorough expression of early atomism occurs in the Roman poet Lucretius's (c. 98-55 B.C.E.) great poem, De Rerum Natura. Lucretius's poem helped popularize the ideas of both Democritus and the hedonist Epicurus.

Mere Belief

• refers to a conviction that something is true for which the only evidence is the conviction itself. • validates itself—or tries to

Philosophy

• the love of wisdom • in the archetypal sense is an activity as well as a fixed body of knowledge • consists of the systematic, comprehensive study of certain questions that center on meaning, interpretation, evaluation, and logical or rational consistency.

Socrates

• was the first major Western philosopher. He wrote no philosophy, and what we know of him comes chiefly from his pupils Plato and Xenophon. Socrates challenged the Sophist doctrines of relativism, moral realism, and might makes right. Socrates' teaching and life were so fully integrated that the force of his whole person galvanized others. Individuals of this sort are known as paradigmatic or archetypal individuals, rare human beings whose very nature represents something elemental about the human condition. • claimed to have devoted his life to serving his country but was executed as a traitor. He attracted faithful and adoring admirers and was idolized by many young followers, yet the second charge at his trial was "corrupting the youth of Athens." Although he wrote no philosophy himself, he taught and inspired one of the two most influential philosophers in Western history, who in turn taught the other one: Plato and Aristotle. • perfected a style of philosophical inquiry known as the *Socratic method or dialectic* • For Socrates, human excellence (virtue) is a special kind of knowledge (techne) that combines technical understanding with the skill and character to apply that knowledge. According to Socrates, knowledge (wisdom) always produces behavioral results, because behavior is always guided by beliefs. This view is sometimes called intellectualism, the idea that no one knowingly does wrong. According to Socrates, there is no such thing as weakness of will: "To know the good is to do the good."

Practical knowledge

consists of skills needed to do things like play the piano, use a band saw, remove a tumor, or bake a cake

Pythagoras

• was an influential philosopher, as well as being a mathematician • was born on the island of Samos maybe around 570 BC • he not only made important contributions to music and astronomy, metaphysics, natural philosophy, politics and theology, but he was also the first person to bring the concepts of reincarnation and heaven and hell to the Western world • Pythagoras believed that these doctrines were a personal revelation to himself from God • was a mathematician, and this influenced his philosophizing to a significant extent. • believed that mathematics offered a glimpse of a perfect reality, a realm of the gods that our own world imperfectly reflected. • believed that human souls were trapped within imperfect bodies in an imperfect world. • numbers were the key to understanding all creation. He demonstrated this by showing how twanging different lengths of string made different sounds, and the same veneration of 'numbers' appears many times in the late works of Plato and Aristotle.

PROVING GOD'S EXISTENCE IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE

To look at most philosophy histories, it seems that after the golden age of the Greeks, the flame of philosophical thought, so to speak, was extinguished for 1,000 years, as the barbarian hordes swept around Europe. But that, of course, isn't quite right. Philosophy continued, but under new management - the religious orders of the *Christian Church*. And these new philosophers, being religious folk, had priorities that were slightly different. They wanted to prove that God really did exist, and to show how to get to heaven.

Manichaeism

a radical sect that tempted Augustine's zeal in fighting heresy is partly explained by the fact that as a young man offered its followers convenient explanations for doctrinal problems, like Jesus's human body being only an illusion, as if God was merely wearing a human body like a cloak. But it was their explanation for the problem of evil, a life-long preoccupation of Augustine's, that most appealed to him

Sage

a wise person in the *ancient world*

"Know thyself"

among other things, that a life devoid of philosophical speculation is hardly a human life, because only philosophical reflection can help us discover what is real and important from the standpoint of the psyche, the uniquely human soul-mind. Acknowledgment of ignorance, Socrates taught, is a fundamental charateristic of the examined life.

Christian Religion

arose after the death of Jesus Christ, through the efforts of the early apostles and disciples, especially Paul. Christianity originally consisted of scattered groups of believers who anticipated the Second Coming of Christ, which would signal the end of the world. Thinking that they would soon be in heaven, early Christians saw no need to develop political interests. Similarly, they were uninterested in science and philosophy and remained indifferent to much of what went on around them. Their chief concern was salvation through faith. Expecting that the risen Christ would return at any moment, they were understandably impatient with the affairs of this world. Thus, the first Christians devoted themselves to converting non-Christians and to preparing their own souls for judgment. In a major contrast with the classical view of life, they saw no time or need to fashion philosophical, social, or moral theories.

Male

depiction of a wise person in the West

The City of God

details the fall of Rome in terms of a full-fledged philosophy of history, the first philosophy of history ever. By arguing that the fall of Rome was part of the Christian—not pagan—God's plan, the City of God signals the end of the ancient worldview.

Metaphysics

encompasses the study of what is sometimes termed "ultimate reality." As such, metaphysics raises questions about reality that go beyond sense experience, beyond ordinary science. Metaphysical questions involve free will, the mind-body relationship, supernatural existence, personal immortality, and the nature of being.

Theology

from the Greek Theos (God) and Logos (study of), means "talking about God" or "the study or science of God." The Middle Ages saw philosophers turn from the study of man and nature to otherworldly inquiries and the study of God.

Epistemology

from the Greek for "knowledge," is the branch of philosophy that asks questions about knowledge, its nature and origins, and whether it is even possible. Epistemological questions involve standards of evidence, truth, belief, sources of knowledge, gradations of knowledge, memory, and perception. Epistemological issues cut across all other branches of philosophy.

Ethics

from the Greek word ethos, encompasses the study of moral problems, practical reasoning, right and wrong, good and bad, virtues and vices, character, moral duty, and related issues involving the nature, origins, and scope of moral values. Today, it is not uncommon for ethicists to specialize in medical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, academic ethics, issues of ethnicity and gender, and the nature of the good life. Ethical issues include benevolence, truth- telling, relativism, and universality.

Theoretical knowledge

involves the accurate compilation and assessment of factual and systematic information and relationships

Philosophical Archetype

is a philosopher who expresses an original or influential point of view in a way that significantly affects subsequent philosophers and non-philosophers

Rationalism

is an epistemological position in which reason is said to be the primary source of all knowledge, superior to sense evidence. Rationalists argue that only reason can distinguish reality from illusion and give meaning to experience. In general, rationalists believe that abstract reasoning can produce undeniable, certain truths about nature, existence, and the whole of reality. Many of these ultimate truths can be discovered without observation, experiment, or even experience. These are called a *priori ideas* or, sometimes, *innate ideas*. Thus, to the rationalists, reason—not empirical observation—is the ultimate test of truth.

Augustine's Confessions

is considered by some scholars to be the first true autobiography, a claim challenged by other scholars. Whether autobiography or something else, the Confessions, like the Meditations of the pagan emperor Marcus Aurelius, engages readers from divergent backgrounds. Like Marcus, Augustine takes the measure of his own soul in remarkably direct language and thereby speaks to almost anyone who has ever struggled to reconcile the longings of the heart with the demands of the mind, appetite with order, and resolve with repeated failures to live up to that resolve

Naturalism

is the belief that reality consists of the natural world and that the universe is ordered. Everything follows consistent and discoverable laws of nature and can be described in terms of fundamental laws.

Willed Ignorance

is the name of this closed- minded attitude, and it is as opposite from the love of wisdom as any attitude I can think of.

Contemporary Philosophy

refers to the current era of philosophy, generally dealing with philosophers from the late nineteenth century through to the twenty-first. The nineteenth century also began to see a division in the approach to philosophy being taken in different areas of western philosophy. In the United Kingdom and North America, a focus on logic, language and the natural sciences was becoming predominant in philosophy, and this tradition was labeled analytic philosophy. Those who did not find themselves in this analytic trend were mostly based in Europe, and the idea of continental philosophy was born. The names are already considered obsolete, in some senses, but many philosophers still observe a difference between the logical and scientific approach of analytic philosophy and the existentialism, phenomenology and other approaches of continental philosophy. The division is a largely artificial one, as the terms were first used by universities in attempts to form courses out of related works in philosophy.

Axiology

the study of values

Rational Discourse

the use of reason to order, clarify, and identify reality and truth according to agreed- upon standards of verification

sophia

wisdom

Atoms

• "ones" • comes from the Greek Atomos, meaning "indivisible," "having no parts," or "uncuttable." • minute material particles, the ultimate material constituents of all things • have properties such as size, shape, position, arrangement (combination), and motion, but they do not possess sensible qualities like color, taste, temperature, or smell • combinations (compounds and composites) of atoms can grow large enough for us to perceive.

Enter René Descartes

• 1596-1650 • was born into an old and respected family in the French province of Touraine. His mother died of tuberculosis a year after his birth, and Descartes believed he inherited a frail constitution from her. His father was a famous lawyer, whose career kept him away from home for months at a time. • Could the evil genius so arrange things that nothing is as I think it is? In the physical realm, he could. He could trick me into thinking that I have a body when I don't, that things have shapes, colors, and so on that they really don't. Descartes says that—as difficult as it is to imagine—he might even be able to deceive me regarding certain innate, a priori, ideas so that maybe 7 + 5 does not really equal 12 or triangles don't have three sides. If I can be tricked into thinking things exist that do not exist, and if I can be fooled into thinking things do not exist when they really do, then maybe I am being deceived about my own existence. Is there anything the evil genius cannot trick me about? Maybe I don't really exist?

Bertrand Arthur William Russell

• 1872-1970 • was a British philosopher, logician, essayist and social critic best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his championing of *logicism* (the view that mathematics is in some important sense reducible to logic), his refining of Gottlob Frege's *predicate calculus* (which still forms the basis of most contemporary systems of logic), his defense of *neutral monism* (the view that the world consists of just one type of substance which is neither exclusively mental nor exclusively physical), and his *theories of definite descriptions*, *logical atomism* and *logical types*. • Russell's philosophical method has at its core the making and testing of hypotheses through the weighing of evidence. Hence Russell's comment that he wished to emphasize the "scientific method" in philosophy. His method also requires the rigorous analysis of problematic propositions using the machinery of first-order logic. It was Russell's belief that by using the new logic of his day, philosophers would be able to exhibit the underlying "logical form" of natural-language statements. A statement's logical form, in turn, would help resolve various problems of reference associated with the ambiguity and vagueness of natural language. • Statements can be true, false or non-sensical

Democritus of Abedra

• 460-370 B.C.E. • Democritus further developed Leuccipus' ideas • Building on Parmenides' fundamental division between being and not-being, Democritus reasoned that not-being cannot even exist since it "is not." Further, he argued, the absence of not-being is not the same thing as the absence of empty space. Space is empty when it does not contain "things" or "bodies." Space can be empty of bodies without being empty of being. • Democritus further reasoned that it is possible to separate "ones" from each other by empty space, which is devoid of any bodies. The Void is Democritus's term for no-things (no-bodies), or empty space. No-thing is not the same as nothing—a crucial distinction that Parmenides failed to make. Empty space is something, an empty something, but something, nonetheless.

Lyceum

• Aristotle's founded school named after Apollo Lyceus • was built near some of the most elegant buildings in Athens, surrounded by shady groves of trees and covered walkways. Socrates used to visit the same groves, remarking on what a wonderful spot they made for reflection. • students tended to be from the middle class, whereas the students at Plato's Academy were more aristocratic. The two schools were bitter rivals for a short while, but as each concentrated on its own interests, this rivalry died down. The Academy stressed mathematics and "pure" understanding, while Aristotle's students collected anthropological studies of barbarian cultures, chronologies of various wars and games, the organs and living habits of animals, the nature and locations of plants, and so on.

Peripatetic philosophers

• Aristotle's students because he often discussed philosophy while strolling with them along tree-covered walkways called the *Peripatos* • Aristotle's curriculum included technical lectures for limited audiences and popular lectures of more general interest. Aristotle collected hundreds of maps, charts, and documents, forming the first important library in the West. For instance, he collected and studied 153 political constitutions

TRYING TO DO WITHOUT GOD

• At some point, people decided it might be better to leave God out of their philosophies, because it was so hard to prove the existence of God. This shift is much praised these days as the Enlightenment - but precious little about the movement was enlightened really. Rather, it was a practical response to the very impressive new inventions of the Age of Science; things like the first mechanical clocks on church steeples, telescopes capable of showing the mountains on the moon and, of course, guns. All these made scientific and mathematical thinking much more prestigious than poring over dusty old religious texts for clues as to fundamental reality. Several philosophers, starting with Descartes, attempted to produce arguments for believing in the universe, that required, logically, that God also existed. • BY THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, developments in modern science, combined with a decline in the authority of a single (Roman Catholic) church, signaled the end of the medieval era and the beginning of what we now refer to as the modern worldview. In philosophy, the result of these changes was a shift away from metaphysics toward epistemology. As remarkable as it may seem, René Descartes was the first philosopher to study the process of thinking itself. In so doing, he began what philosophers refer to as the epistemological turn, a major transformation in the character of philosophy that would ultimately require a century and a half to complete, culminating with Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Ludwig Wittgenstein

• Early on in his philosophical career Wittgenstein put forward a picture theory of meaning'. (1:1 ratio) • "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must not speak" • Later, he re-examined the questions of meaning and came to a different conclusion • Argued that it is unrealistic to suppose that all words are ultimately based on pictures and pointed out that language is used in a variety of different ways. • He coined the phrase 'Don't ask for the meaning, ask for the use'. • Witt likened language to a game that we play. - At the heart of his concept of 'language games' is the idea that words only have meaning because of their context and therefore we have to be careful to know which 'game' we are playing - e.g. if a coach tried to get a netball player to' pick and roll' their opponent for the match they would loose the game because it wouldn't make sense as it is a basketball term. • Witt then applied his idea to philosophy and concluded that philosophical problems about language are created by not understanding that words can be used in different language games. - e.g. an outsider cannot claim that the language used in a 'particular game' is meaningless just because it does not make sense to them

Philosophy and the Search for Truth

• Even with its cultural limits and biases, philosophy is perhaps the most open of all subjects. Its primary goals are clarity of expression and thought, and its chief components are reason, insight, contemplation, and experience. No question or point of view is off-limits • The best philosophers—no matter what their personal beliefs—defer to the most compelling arguments regardless of their origins. Such important philosophers as Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Stuart Mill, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Martin Heidegger, to name but a few, radically questioned and revised their own thinking over the course of their lives, reacting to what they saw as more compelling evidence. • There has always been a powerful philosophical tradition that challenges the status quo and confronts social institutions. In recent times, this tradition has found effective and powerful expression among philosophers concerned with the environment, animal rights, family structure, racism, and sexism

Aristotle

• Plato's most illustrious pupil and tutor of Alexander the Great. In contrast to Plato's rationalistic approach, Aristotle brings to full maturity a second major approach to the study of the good life: collecting facts and using information to make this a better world. Aristotle was a philosophical naturalist. • form can be abstracted from matter but cannot exist independently of matter; this kind of form is sometimes referred to as essence. Matter is the common material stuff found in a variety of things; it has no distinct characteristics until some form is imparted to it or until the form inherent in a thing becomes actualized. Individual things are *"Formed Matter."* • identified what he called an *"Inner Urge"* in every living thing, a drive to become its unique self. He called this inner urge *Entelechy*, meaning "having its end within itself." Things do not just happen—they develop according to natural design. Nature is ordered and guided "internally." The technical name for this kind of thinking is *Teleological*, from the Greek root *telos*, meaning end, purpose, or goal. • the good is "that at which all things aim." The good at which all things aim is their own entelechy. *Eudaimonia*, which is often translated as "happiness," means being alive rather than just existing. According to Aristotle, happiness requires activity, good habits, and practical wisdom.

Women Philosophers

• Susanne Langer • L. Susan Stebbing • Simone de Beauvoir • Simone Weil • Ayn Rand • Christina Hoff Sommers • Alison Jaggar • Susan Moller Okin • Martha Nussbaum

Wisdom

• a fundamental understanding of reality as it relates to living a good life • reasonable and practical, focusing on the true circumstances and character of each individual is good judgment about complex situations • involves reflection, insight, a capacity to learn from experience, and some plausible conception of the human condition • associated with experience in a way that theoretical and intellectual knowledge has not unlike forms of knowledge that require formal education and specialized intelligence

philosopher

• a lover of wisdom, someone who has a compelling need to pursue wisdom • you don't have to be a philosopher to ask philosophical questions; you just have to be a naturally curious and thoughtful person. • earliest philosophers were considered wise men and women, or sages, because they devoted themselves to asking "big questions": What is the meaning of life? Where did everything come from? What is the nature of reality?

Archetype

• an image that has been shared by the whole human race from the earliest times. In its more traditional sense, an archetype represents our conception of the essence of a certain kind of person • a fundamental, original model of some type: mother, warrior, trickster, cynic, saint, pessimist, optimist, atheist, rationalist, idealist, and so on

Socratic dialectic

• consists of a series of guided questions that continually refine the ideas under scrutiny • Definitions are required for all key terms, and logical inconsistencies are brought to light and resolved. • Socrates used irony to encourage active listening by his pupils and dialectical partners.

Ockham's Razor

• in the senses in which it can be found in Ockham himself, never allows us to deny putative entities; at best it allows us to refrain from positing them in the absence of known compelling reasons for doing so. • *In part, this is because human beings can never be sure they know what is and what is not "beyond necessity"*; the necessities are not always clear to us. But even if we did know them, Ockham would still not allow that his Razor allows us to deny entities that are unnecessary. • For Ockham, *the only truly necessary entity is God; everything else, the whole of creation, is radically contingent through and through*. In short, Ockham does not accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason. • Nevertheless, we do sometimes have sufficient methodological grounds for positively affirming the existence of certain things. Ockham acknowledges three sources for such grounds (three sources of positive knowledge). As he says in Sent. I, dist. 30, q. 1: "For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture."

Relativism

• is the belief that knowledge is determined by specific qualities of the observer. In other words, absolute (universal) knowledge of the truth is impossible—one opinion is as good as another. • Does it ever occur to you that there's no way to settle the kinds of philosophical issues we have been discussing because they are only about beliefs and opinions? Perhaps you believe that "What's right for someone else might not be right for me. It's best to just let others believe whatever they want, and I'll believe whatever I want."

William of Ockham

• is, along with Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, among the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy during the High Middle Ages. • He is probably best known today for his espousal of metaphysical nominalism; indeed, the methodological principle known as "Ockham's Razor" is named after him. • Ockham held important, often influential views not only in metaphysics but also in all other major areas of medieval philosophy—logic, physics or natural philosophy, theory of knowledge, ethics, and political philosophy—as well as in theology. • was a *nominalist*; indeed he is the person whose name is perhaps most famously associated with nominalism. But nominalism means many different things: • A denial of metaphysical universals. Ockham was emphatically a nominalist in this sense. • An emphasis on reducing one's ontology to a bare minimum, on paring down the supply of fundamental ontological categories. Ockham was likewise a nominalist in this sense. • A denial of "abstract" entities. Depending on what one means, Ockham was or was not a nominalist in this sense. He believed in "abstractions" such as whiteness and humanity, for instance, although he did not believe they were universals. (On the contrary, there are at least as many distinct whitenesses as there are white things.) He certainly believed in immaterial entities such as God and angels. He did not believe in mathematical ("quantitative") entities of any kind. • Ockham's "nominalism," in both the first and the second of the above senses, is often viewed as derived from a common source: an underlying concern for ontological parsimony. This is summed up in the famous slogan known as "Ockham's Razor," often expressed as "Don't multiply entities beyond necessity." Although the sentiment is certainly Ockham's, that formulation is nowhere to be found in his texts. Moreover, as usually stated, it is a sentiment that virtually all philosophers, medieval or otherwise, would accept; no one wants a needlessly bloated ontology. The question, of course, is which entities are needed and which are not.

Cogito ergo sum

• meaning I think, therefore I am. In some ways, this Cartesian insight, more than anything else, marks the beginning of the modern worldview. Note the difference between "Descartes thinks, therefore Descartes exists" and "I think, therefore I exist," where the "I" refers to whoever speaks or thinks the sentence. • The cogito must be understood in the first person. In that form, it meets Descartes's conditions for being utterly unshakable. No rational person can doubt his or her own existence as a conscious thinking entity—while being aware of thinking about anything. Even an evil genius could not shake one fundamental idea: "I think, therefore I am." This is known as the cogito. Having found an undoubtable truth, Descartes tried to build a reliable foundation for knowledge on the innate idea of God. He did this by appealing to an argument that attempts to prove the existence of God by showing that the idea "God" cannot be derived from human experience; it can only come from the actual existence of God.

Coherence Theory

• new or unclear ideas are evaluated in terms of rational or logical consistency and in relation to already established truths. The ultimate criteria for basic, originating truths are clarity and distinctness. • Once fundamental truths are established, the rationalist uses a deductive, mathematical/logical method to test and establish other, more complex ideas. True ideas are coherent (rationally consistent) with each other, and the rationalist's aim is to achieve absolute certainty of the sort possible in mathematics. "My method," said Descartes, "contains everything which gives certainty to the rules of arithmetic."

Christian Theology

• presents a completely different picture. Human beings are fallen and corrupt creatures, finite and ignorant • teaches that we are incapable of avoiding sin and the punishment of hell through our own efforts. Only the undeserved grace and sacrifice of a loving God can save us. Obedience to the revealed word of God is also necessary for salvation. Faith is valued more highly than reason because salvation is more important than worldly success in a life that is relatively brief compared with the afterlife—where we will spend eternity in heaven (if we are saved) or hell (if we are not). As a result of its emphasis on the afterlife, Christian theology is sometimes characterized as otherworldly. Whereas the classical mind was predominantly secular, the medieval mind was chiefly theological.

Belief

• refers to the subjective mental acceptance that a claim is true • unlike knowledge—need not be true • Because it are subjective mental states, it is possible to be firmly convinced that a it is correct when it is not • On the other hand, sometimes they are true, but we're unable to offer adequate evidence for them. • 2 types: mere belief and informed belief

480 BC

• the Persians mounted a second invasion of Greece. They were defeated, due in large measure to the Athenian general *Themistocles*, who led the Greek fleet to victory over the Persian navy. The events were dramatic. The Athenians withdrew from Athens, took to their fleet, and allowed Athens itself to be burned. They then trapped the Persian fleet and destroyed it. This crushing defeat was the beginning of the end for the Persian expansion, and Athens played an ever more prominent role in the region. The Persian threat was soon eliminated, but Athens continued to insist on a leading role. • She rebuilt herself and became the rich and beautiful center of Greek civilization. This caused considerable friction between Athens and the other Peloponnesian states, especially *Sparta*

Thales of Miletus

• the first Western philosopher lived in the city of Miletus, part of a Greek colony on the • Asian coast in an area known as Ionia • His parents are thought to have been Phoenician • devoted himself to his speculative studies, devoting only the minimum effort necessary to his financial affairs. • In one of the earliest "absent-minded professor" stories, *Plato* records that Thales fell into a well "when he was looking up to study the stars . . . being so eager to know what was happening in the sky that he could not see what lay at his feet." • Philosophically, Thales is significant for his attempt to find a common source, a single substance underlying all things. For him, this basic "stuff " was *water*. • *Aristotle* says that Thales "observed" that "the nutriment of everything is moist, and that...the seeds of everything have a moist nature;...and that from which everything is generated is always its first principle." • The real force of Thales' insight was not his specific conclusion that all things are water but, rather, his reduction of all things to one substance. The name for such single-substance philosophies is *Monism*, the belief that reality is essentially one— either one reality, one process, one substance, one structure, or one "ground."

Plato

• was a member of the Athenian aristocracy and Socrates' most famous and important pupil. Socrates' trial and death convinced Plato that Athenian democracy was irrational mob rule. He founded his famous Academy to educate wise rulers. • In Plato's metaphysics, the highest level of reality consists of timeless "essences" called Ideas or Forms. Plato divided reality into three levels. The highest level of reality is eternal and changeless being. The other two levels together make up becoming, the level of change. Knowledge is always of essence. Disagreement is only possible on the lower level of becoming • According to Plato, knowledge is unchanging. The Sophists could not discover truth because they were only concerned with the world of ever-changing perceptions and customs. Truth and knowledge are found at the level of being. Plato's theory of Forms was part of his refutation of sophistry. • Plato compared the "absolute Form of the Good" to the sun; the Good makes the existence of everything else possible. The Good cannot be observed with the five senses and can be known only by pure thought or intelligence. It is the source of both the value and the existence of all other Form. • In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato characterized three levels of awareness by referring to three distinct levels of reality: two levels of becoming and one qualitatively unique and ultimate level of being. The lowest level is inhabited by people with little or no imagination. The informed level involves a wider range of basic understanding. On the highest level, the soul has no need for perception or interpretation • Plato rejected democracy as unjust because rule by the majority usurps the rightful role of the guardian class. The result is an excess of liberty and rule by impulse, appetite, and emotion in which all classes suffer. Democracy violates the principle of functional order and rule by reason. According to Plato, the excessive liberty found in democracies contains the seeds of tyranny, a type of government in which all power rests in a single individual, the tyrant, the most imbalanced type of personality.

St. Augustine of Hippo

• was a very odd philosopher, and a very influential one. He is remembered for his very frank account of his own personal habits which included things like having too much sex and stealing pears. How much sex is too much, then? Any. At least if you want to become a saint, which he eventually did become, but only after he died, of course. Augustine died shortly after the Vandals, who were at war with Rome, reached Hippo. He left no will, having no property. He did, however, write his own epitaph: "What maketh the heart of the Christian heavy? The fact that he is a pilgrim, and longs for his own country ." • He was born in North Africa, then part of the Roman Empire and for his first proper job taught philosophy in Rome and Milan. He only became a Christian (like his Mum) when he converted to Christianity in 387. He then returned to North Africa to spearhead the assault on rival religious views, which people considered dangerous heresies. For his sterling work at this he was made bishop of the city of Hippo in 395, and it was here, while the city was surrounded by the Vandals (the German tribe, that is, not just local graffiti artists) that he died • In his writings, Augustine anticipates major philosophical and theological ideas concerning doubt and certainty, the divided self, consciousness, time, and free will and God's foreknowledge of history.