Philosophy Mid-Term Review

Apology

The Apology of Socrates, by Plato, is the Socratic dialogue that presents the speech of legal self-defence, which Socrates presented at his trial for impiety and corruption, in 399 BC.

Switching the burden of truth

- is by committing a logical fallacy known as the argument from ignorance. It occurs when either a proposition is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true.

Thales

-"Father of Western Philosophy". Greek philosopher who taught that the universe had originated from water.

Archimedes

-(287-212 BCE) Greek mathematician and inventor. He wrote works on plane and solid geometry, arithmetic, and mechanics. He is best known for the lever and pulley.

Plato

-(430-347 BCE) Was a disciple of Socrates whose cornerstone of thought was his theory of Forms, in which there was another world of perfection.

Socrates

-(470-399 BCE) An Athenian philosopher who thought that human beings could lead honest lives and that honor was far more important than wealth, fame, or other superficial attributes.

Pythagoras

-(born c. 570 BCE) Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the Pythagorean brotherhood that, although religious in nature, formulated principles that influenced the thought of Plato and Aristotle and contributed to the development of mathematics and Western rational philosophy.

Euclid

-(circa 300 BCE), Greek mathematician. Considered to be the father of modern geomertry.

Trial of Socrates

-399, accusations: corrupting young & not believing in God - Defense: "The unexamined life is not worth living" he was against democracy,

Storge

-A Greek word that describes love among family members.

Straw man

-A fallacy that occurs when a speaker chooses a deliberately poor or oversimplified example in order to ridicule and refute an idea.

Syllogism

-A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion.

Tyranny

-A form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

Aristocracy

-A government in which power is in the hands of a hereditary ruling class or nobility

Monarchy

-A government ruled by a king or queen

Argument

-A group of statements in which one of them (the conclusion) is supported by the others (premises).

Democracy

-A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Hypatia

-AD300 and 400s, a women who taught mathematics and astronomy

Nicomachean Ethics

-Aristotle's systematic treatment of ethics emphasizing that morals can be observed and adopted through the daily activities of human life

Epistemology

-BRANCH OF PHILOSOPHY THAT EXAMINES THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

hedone (

-Eudaimonia: the state of personal well being, having self-worth; exhibiting a zest for life; radiating energy; achieving happiness, "good spirit," or self presence.

Zeno of Cyprus

-Founder of the post-Aristotelian school of stoicism, which emphasized self-control, austerity, and suppression as guides to virtue and happiness.

Epicurus

-Greek philosopher who believed that the world is a random combination of atoms and that pleasure is the highest good (341-270 BC)

Aristotle

-Greek philosopher. A pupil of Plato, the tutor of Alexander the Great, and the author of works on logic, metaphysics, ethics, natural sciences, politics, and poetics, he profoundly influenced Western thought. In his philosophical system, which led him to criticize what he saw as Plato's metaphysical excesses, theory follows empirical observation and logic, based on the syllogism, is the essential method of rational inquiry.

Sophists

-Greek teachers of philosophy, reasoning, and public speaking

Dialogues

-His works are in the form of dialogues, where several characters argue a topic by asking questions of each other. This form allows Plato to raise various points of view and let the reader decide which is valid. Plato expounded a form of dualism, where there is a world of ideal forms separate from the world of perception. The most famous exposition of this is his metaphor of the Cave, where people living in a cave are only able to see flickering shadows projected on the wall of the external reality. This influenced many later thinkers, particularly the Neoplatonists and the Gnostics, and is similar to views held by some schools of Hindu dualistic metaphysics.

Marcus Aurelius

-Last of the "Good Emperors", Wrote "Meditations" personal reflections of his beliefs, End of the Pax Romana. He was a practitioner of Stoicism.

-Conceptual analysis

-Logical and/or semantical analysis of propositions in order to resolve their problematic inferences.

Mythos

-Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in society, such as foundational tales. Myths often consist of sacred narratives about gods. The term mythology may either refer to the study of myths in general, or a body of myths regarding a particular subject.

Ontology

-Ontology is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.

"The Allegory of the Cave"

-Plato's description of individuals who live their lives in accordance with the shadows of reality provided by sensory experience instead of in accordance with the true reality beyond sensory experience.

Philosopher Kings

-Plato's idea that the most desirable form of political rule is not democracy but rule by an elite consisting of wise philosophers.

The Socratic Method

-Question-and-answer dialogue in which propositions are methodically scrutinized to uncover the truth. Example: (1) Someone poses a question about the meaning of a concept (for example, What is justice?) (2) Socrates' companion gives an answer (3) Socrates raises questions about the answer, proving that the answer is inadequate (4) to avoid the problems inherent in this answer, the companion offers a second answer (5) steps (3) and (4) are repeated a number of times, ultimately revealing that the companion does not know what he thought he knew.

Reductio ad Absurdum

-Reductio ad absurdum is a mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable. It is a style of reasoning that has been employed throughout the history of mathematics and philosophy from classical antiquity onwards.

Plotinus

-Roman philosopher (born in Egypt) who was the leading representative of Neoplatonism (205-270)

Neo-Platonism (Philosophy)

-School of philosophy which held that the logos was a created being, not the Supreme Being. Platonic philosophies, in general, viewed the material world as less perfect than the world of ideas. Thus, besides denying Christ's true divinity, many early Platonic heresies greatly deemphasized Christ's humanity, if not openly denying it.

Stoicism (Zeno)

-Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BC. It was heavily influenced by certain teachings of Socrates, while Stoic physics are largely drawn from the teachings of the philosopher Heraclitus.

Phaedrus

-The Phaedrus, written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, about the same time as Plato's Republic and Symposium.

The Republic

-The Republic is a Socratic dialogue, written by Plato around 380 BC, concerning justice, the order and character of the just city-state, and the just man.

Library of Alexandria

-The greatest collection of writings in the ancient world, founded in the third century b.c. at the behest of Alexander the Great; could be considered the first university.

Begging the question

-The situation that results when a writer or speaker constructs an argument on an assumption that the audience does not accept.

Logic

-The study of correct reasoning. Examples: What are the rules for drawing correct inferences? What is the nature and structure of deductive arguments? How can propositional or predicate logic be used to evaluate arguments?

Axiology (ethics)

-The study of value, including both aesthetic value and moral value. Ethics involves inquiries into the nature of moral judgments, virtues, values, obligations, and theories. Examples: What makes an action right (or wrong)? What is good in life? What gives life meaning?

The Forms

-The theory of Forms or theory of Ideas is a viewpoint attributed to Plato, which holds that non-physical (but substantial) forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate reality. When used in this sense, the word form or idea is often capitalized.

Prime Mover

-The unmoved mover or prime mover is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe. As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action.

Zeno

-Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as "immeasurably subtle and profound"

Parmenides

-a pre-socratic Greek philosopher born in Italy. Denied the existence of time, plurality, and motion. NO Change. Founder of Metaphysics.

Heraclitus

-a presocratic Greek philosopher who said that fire is the origin of all things and that permanence is an illusion as all things are in perpetual flux (circa 500 BC)

Aesthetics

-a set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art.

Oligarchy

-a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.

Counterargument

-an argument or set of reasons put forward to oppose an idea or theory developed in another argument.

Polity

-an organized society, such as a nation, state, church, or other organization, having a specific form of government

Thought experiment

-are devices of the imagination used to investigate the nature of things. They are used for diverse reasons in a variety of areas, including economics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and the sciences, especially physics.

Argumentum ad hominem

-attacks on character about the claimant that are not relevant to the argument Example: Since you are a democrat/republican, everything you say is wrong or incorrect because you're inclined to that belief.

Philia

-brotherly love, friendship

Logos

-created by Heraclitus; rationality, law of the world order. To understand the logos is to understand reality, to grasp the divine, eternal pattern underlying all of nature and all of mankind.

Pre-Socratics

-group of Greek philosophers, including Thales, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, who rejected the idea that answers can come through storytelling and felt that truth can only be known through reasoning, logic, and observation.

Agape

-love for the soul

Appeal to emotion

-manipulating an emotional response in place of a valid or compelling argument Example: Power lines cause cancer. I met a little boy with cancer who lived just 20 miles from a power line who looked into my eyes and said, in his weak voice, "Please do whatever you can so that other kids won't have to go through what I am going through." I urge you to vote for this bill to tear down all power lines and replace them with monkeys on treadmills.

Polis

-political community

Eros

-romantic love, erotic

Metaphysics

-the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space.

The Good

-the highest form by Plato

Catharsis

-the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.

Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)

-written by Marcus Aurelius while he was away on conquests; record of private notes to himself on Stoic philosophy