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where did philosophy begin and why
The Miletus in 600 bc and it began there because that is where it was documented.
What were the first philosophers
they were primarily cosmologists (accounts of the ultimate features of the world; the ‘stuff’ the world) having matter as principle. Matter is stuff and they thought matter could be earth air fire water.
why was Parmenides (about 480) considered the major turning point in Presocratic thought?
Before him almost every philosopher was or close to being a material monist and after him most were pluralist. He had multiple principles. He thought of things as being (formes, turth and knowledge) and non being (natural reality, becoming)
material monist
one ultimate principle: matter being the cause of all things and what all things are made from. For example Anaximenes thought everything was air and air was the only real material. or is a Presocratic belief which provides an explanation of the physical world by saying that all of the world's objects are composed of a single element.
Material pluralist
is a doctrine that many substances exist. Not just one but many things make up material. like fire water air and earth.
Philosophy went from cosmologist to
being concerned with human concerns like ethics
though early philosophers did argue what philosopher made argumentation very important to philosophy
Socrates
what is Socrates's method for arguing.
(1) An interlocutor makes a statement or assertion (p) that gives Socrates a target for refutation;
(2) Socrates begins the refution by introducing propositions (q & r) which are not argued for but usually accepted by the interlocutor;
(3) Socrates then gets agreement that (q & r) → ~p (The argument brings about the negation (denial) of the interlocutor’s original statement;
(4) Socrates subsequently assumes that (p) has been negated and ~p shown to be true (the interlocutor may withdraw agreement to q or r, but he hardly ever does.
(5) The interlocutor is shown to be in a state of Aporia (i.e., confusion or perplexity brought about by having recognized he has inconsistent belief sets).
Socrates is famous for asking...
“what is X?” question where X is a moral concept. He is asking interlocutors to give the essence or form and explain it or give an account of it. When they cannot they are forced into perplexity.
Ex) what is justice. He wants the question to be answered with a mind independent definition. Like a primary qualities or non-subjective.
as a result of Socrates philosophy becomes involved with...
logos and causes to be found in logos and demanded by logos. Logos is word, story, argument really it just means anything the philosopher wanted it to mean.
Plato was
a student of Socrates. established a school called the academy. wrote stuff down unlike Socrates. came up with the theory of forms. Was the teacher of Aristotle.
Aristotle treats the pre-Socratics by the
causes they use. Principle is the cause and the causes are based on the elements like earth air fire water.
Why does Aristotle think the presocratics are limited.
They only think there is a material cause and this mentality limits their view to only one cause the material cause or in some cases two causes the material and formal cause.
Aristotle's four causes
Material, formal, efficient, and final
the material cause
-used by the PS.
-"that of which a thing comes to be and which persists"
-the parts of the thing
-the material
-elements of thing that can be divided
-stuff that underlies
-The material cause of an object is equivalent to the nature of the raw material out of which the object is composed
ex) the material cause of the bowl is the clay material it is made out of. or the material cause of the bowl holding water would be the impermeability of the clay.
the formal cause
-"the form or archetype, ie the statment of essence"
-essence=eidos=from of a natural being
-dose no include matter
-about the whole object
-the from will deffer from the material-like a blue print
- a term describing the pattern or form which when present makes matter into a particular type of thing, which we recognize as being of that particular type.
ex) the formal cause of the bowl holding water would be the concavity of the bowl. So the shape not at all the material. so if its a bowl then its concave and that is independent of the mind.
the efficient cause
-The primary source of change or coming to rest.
-that which makes the change
-Defined in terms of arche, it is the cause from which motion or rest first begins.
-must stop according to Aristotle at the most recent thing/arche so you don't go back ad infitum/ to infinity.
ex) the efficient cause of the bowl in the person who makes the bowl. the efficient cause for the bowl holding water is the thing that put water in the bowl be that a person or a rain cloud.
as the element or principle of a thing, which although undemonstrable and intangible in itself, provides the conditions of the possibility of that thing.
Arche think of as the begining of a thing
the final cause
That for the sake of which a thing is done.
-the end serves as the cause for all the means towards it whether these are functions or interments.
-Is a teleological explanation-has an end goal
-can be instrumental and functional
ex)the final cause of the bowl is what it was made for. so the final cause of the bowl holding water could be to provide water to people.
instrumental and functional final causes
instrumental-always for the sake on a further end ex)food for health
functional-can be for the sake on an end or be itself part of the end or the end.
-an end that is a function such has health and happiness, could have compounds that are themselves functions.
aitla
what is responsible for giving rise to something. not what we view as motion.
what is the difference between Aristotle and Plato's views on how we gain knowledge about things.
Aristotle we go from particulars/materials then go to class/forms. so individual to group.
Plato we go from class/forms then go to particulars/materials. so from group to individual.
desiring to know is what?
we desire to know for the ultimate end. For example sight is our favorite sense because it allows us to see many differences and as a result we know more and if knowing is for its own sake then we desire to know for the ultimate end.
Aristotle on cognitive development
Cognitive development goes from sense to memory to experience to art.
Aristotle on empiricism
-Dose not think we are born with knowledge
we gain knowledge this way
-from sense of particular things we develop memories that allows us to retain the particulars.
-experience allows us to collect particulars together and so is good for particular utility.
-go from particular to classes.
-need more then experience need to have knowledge of thing.
Aristotle's example about doctors.
-experience is knowledge of individual and art of universals, and actions, and productions all concerned with the individual.
A doctor dose not cure a man except in a incidental way, he cures the individual with knowledge about the group. If then the doctor has no experience, but knows the universals and does not know the individual he will fail to cure the person because its the individual that has to be cured.
art or science require what according to Aristotle
grasping the causes/Aitia which is not an event
Experience dose not know why or the cause. Think of the manual worker that does not know why he dose X thou he has experience with doing X. The master working knows why he dose X and therefor is an artist.
-Art and science need to be universal.
causes and necessary conditions
the greeks thought of your parent, soul, body as being your cause but these are not events. Today we think of cause and effect. Greeks think of universal kinds
-the inner principle of rest and motion in natural things like human to soul and artist to knowledge. Knowledge is unmoved/rest in motion.
Causes are kinds that are necessary conditions. all four causes are necessary conditions but all together they make up also the sufficient condition
sense and experience lets us know...
THAT something is but not WHY it is.
Necessity and practical arts
Necessity gives rise to invention of practical arts and leisure to the higher sciences that are less practical. Necessity gives rise to particular things not universals. Ex) Math was first developed in Egypt according to Aristotle because that had leisure.
according to Aristotle where doses philosophy begin and what dose it appeal to.
It begins in wonder and appeals to natural things already in the world so they are considered naturalistic.
the first philosophers attempted to do what
Find a naturalistic cause of all things then like fire air earth water etc and then use that to account for all things by working with ideas and concepts that are scientific/observational. they collect data to support there theory.
For the pre-Socratics there is just....
being and becoming. ex) Thales water is just being and all things water turns into is becoming. Water is his substratum of which the particulars are just part of and are accidents.
aperion
indefinite, has no qualities, timeless
substratum
underling varieties and changes encountered in the world id accidents. The thing everything is based on.
Acident
is something we can louse or gain with out ceasing to be the same thing. ex) Sally (substance) is musical(accidental) and can ride a bike (accidental)
Hylozoism
Living Matter. all matter (including the universe as a whole) is in some sense alive
Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus all taught that there is a form of life in all material objects
objects have 2 basic features
Form or Morphe and Matter or Hule
The principle (water earth fire air) cannot..
come in to existence or stop existing only exist.
Thales
-Is considered the first philosopher
-thought everything was water and that the earth rests on water.
-problem with that is what does the water rest on.
-got this from noticing that nutriment is moist, heat is generated from water, and seeds are moist.
-No one is quite sure what he meant by water could be a plastic moldable material or just normal water.
-not sure how water could be the origin of all things and how everything is made of water.
-he was able to predict a eclipse but not sure if he was really a philosopher or just a smart guy that copied the Babylons.
The olive story about Thales
He was poor and people used that to say what he was doing was worthless. He then using his smarts was able to predict when a good olive season would be and rented all the olive presses. When there was a good season he was able to make a lot of money because of the presses. He did this to show that he could make money but that was not the point of philosophy
Thales was..
A monist so every thing was made of the same stuff water and a believed in hylozism so everything is alive. so everything in water or emerges from water can be connected with all things are full of soul and gods by supposing that motion and life is to be accounted for by souls and gods
Anaximander
proposed the Apeiron as the material that makes up everything. that proposes as principle the unlimited that is indefinite in quality, unlimited in extent, and unlimited in time.
-he is the first philosopher we have his own work.
-starts the a precedent for attacking other philosophers.
The aperion
boundless, no qualities, infinite etc. this is unique because the aperion is the principle rather then a thing.
2 major things about Anaximander's Aperion principle
1) no definite qualities as would fire, earth, air or water and that theses qualities would supposes each other. so a boundless supply would not destroy everything. so unlike water as an apeiron that if unlimited would destroy everything Amaximanders aperion would not.

2)The principle must be boundless or endless or infinite since the continued existence of all things depends on the existence of this endless source.
Like the argument for gods existence something that is not part of this world but made this world
arkhe
that from which movement or rest first begins.
The description of the aperion
A force that exists outside of the elements in which every thing is contained. The stuff in the aperion is called cycles but they are indistinguishable unless they are separated out of the apeiron. It has a moralist element that attempts to maintain a cosmic balance over infinity.If it becomes unbalance a price must be paid. ex) if a separated cycle produces a long winter then there will be a short summer.
How do Anaximander differ from Thales
Thales is limited by water and Anaximander's aperion is not limited by an material thing.
In Greek popular cosmology the...
components of the universe are equal. Greek tradition that the universe is filled with symmetry. This helps Anaxximander who's Aperion attempts to equal out all things.
How did Anaximander give an account for the separation characteristic that was in Ionian thought. The separate elements.
In his processing he has the boundless One that consists of opposites so thoroughly mixed they don not appear as single individual things.
For Anaximander the ordered sequence is....
captured in natural cycles. natural cycles is self regulation.
Anaximander's Aperion is what.
Dynamic, Linear process tend of their own nature to some finite end.
Justice in an affair between what
two equals. to get to justice was to get back to equality.
Four questions surrounding Anaximander
1)How does the Aperion govern?
-is there a cause that seprates stuff out
2)what is the purppose fo seperating stuff out
3)Dose the Aperion mearly Just operate in the begining
-NOPE needs to be always
4)Is the aperion its self subject to a cycle
Anaximander is not really what
A material monosist because the aperion is not really a material.
Anaximander's theory of the beginning of the universe and cosmology.
At the origin, after the separation of hot and cold, a ball of flame appeared that surrounded Earth like bark on a tree. This ball broke apart to form the rest of the Universe. It resembled a system of hollow concentric wheels, filled with fire, with the rims pierced by holes like those of a flute. Consequently, the Sun was the fire that one could see through a hole the same size as the Earth on the farthest wheel, and an eclipse corresponded with the occlusion of that hole. Anaximander was the first astronomer to consider the Sun as a huge mass, and consequently, to realize how far from Earth it might be. Read Fragment 12.
Anaximanders theory of how humans formed.
Started with the idea that men cant survive by themselves when born so they were kept in fish until they where full grown. Important because he did not appeal to the divine but rather a scientific theory. Read fragment 19
Anaximander attempted to give an account for _____ and separating out is .....
Everything. the unexplained cause of many phenomena
Anaximander thought the earth was what? Why did he think that and what principles did he use to support that.
At the center of the universe and rests on nothing and stays at rest. he thought this because if the earth was at the center it would have no reason to move any way . Something cannot move in opposite directions at once (PNC).
The earth is at the center and similar in its relation to the extremes.
Therefore, the earth remains at rest.
so no reason for it to go left or right up or down.
the reasons supporting that is the earth is motionless and that object fall to earth so earth is in the center and is motionless. He uses two principles the principle of sufficient reason and the principle on non contradiction. so there is not sufficient reason to think the earth moves and its contradictory for the earth to move in opposite directions.
Principle of Sufficient Reason
It states that nothing is without a reason for its being, and for being as it is
principle of non contradiction
It states that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time
X ^ ~X can never be true.
Anaximenes
-The only real material monist
-Thinks everything is made of air
-Is able to use air to explain everything
-He explains everything through rarefaction and condensation of air
Rarefraction
to make less dense; to expand without the addition of matter or mass
Condensation
to make dense or compact. To convert water from a vaporous state to a liquid state or solid state
For Anaximenes change is what
the relation to matter. weather it is more or less air. A mechanical explication rather then a teleological one.
He can explain all diversity and change in terms of greater and lesser quantity of matter
Air for Anaximenes and Why he choose it
the only true material every thing that is, has been, or is becoming is air. the only true material.
Air is materially basic and internally dynamic or ever changing. The dynamism accounts for rarefaction and condensation
invisible dose not have perceptual effects. And takes on qualities as a result of rarefaction and condensation.
Hot and cold for Anaximenes
Something is hot when it is not condensed or rarefraction. So if air which makes up everything is hot it will less dense. So for example a rock heated would go from dense to less dense water to even less dense air.
Something is cold when it is condensed. So if air is condensed it would eventually come to be water then if condensed more ice and eventually earth.

The major problem with this is that a rock can be hot and still dense and air can be cold and less dense.

Hot and cold are really dust secondary qualities and represent the density of the air. This added with the idea that air is ever changing gives Anaximenes his principle of motion because air is always becoming more and less dense.
Anaximenes view of Earth
It was created by a felting process where air is made dense and less dense eventually leading to the creation of the earth.
The earth rests on the nothing it rides through the air like a leaf on the wind and this is possible because air is infinite
Cause's for Anaximenes
Has a material cause and efficient cause. the material air and the efficient is the density and rarefaction. If the air is dense it is cold and if it is not dense it is hot.
what are the six major things Aristotle gained from the presocratics
1)The search for causes
2)Causes that remain the same and do not come to be themselves from nothing, so being is enduring and independent and that upon which all else depends (Aperion
3)Search for what is prior. Prior both to all beings (as principle) and even to the being of its general kind.
4)search for unity and plurality. frome a substana to material cause (unity) and then accidental features of that material cause (plurality) and how those causes are affected by the material.
5)the combining and separating of the plurality into and out of one should not be all on the same material level. there is need for a cause to introduce real unity.
6)this formal cause can also be the final cause
Xenophanes
-Part of the Italian school of philosophy
-was a wondering poet
-Part of the Eleatics
-advocated reason over sense
-for him god is One
-Think of a Hume like guy
-Not clear what his principle is.
For Xenophanes we god is
One. non-human, non-moving, all-seeing, all hearing, and all thinking. This is part of the Eleatics.
thinks if god in not human like. says if animals have gods the gods would look like animals. IE we make god look like us and that probply is not the case.
For Xenophanes we cant know the truth why
WE LACK EVIDENCE
-we need to distugsh between belief and knowledge.
-WE cant get to knowledge because of lack of evidence.
-truth can be thought of in terms of utility or how useful it is to think something is true.
for a claim to be true what must happen? For Xenophanes
If a claim is to be absolutely secure (relative to the grounds / premises) its content must not go beyond the content of the claim. However, factual statements / warrants go beyond objective facts. This “go beyond” we can refer to is an evidential gap. ex) the blue book looks blue to me has no evidential gap because it is an autobiographical claim. while the statement the blue book is blue does have this gap.
why dose saying the blue book is blue have an evidential gap. Xenophanes
because it entails other presuppositions that cannot be verified. they may be a truth about the statement but there will always be an evidential gap. there can be universals and truths but we can never not add more evidence and at what point dose opinion become truth.
Nominalism and is Xenophanes one
Nominalism states that there are no universal essences, propositions, or classes in reality, only individuals and that the mind can frame no single concept or image corresponding to any universal. IE we think there are classes based on things like language but they really are just bull shiit. for example two chairs could look the same to use but in reality they are not similar we just think they are. Xenophanes is not an nominalist.
What did Xenophanes mean in the quote "by no means did the gods intimate all things to mortals from the beginning but in time inquiring they discover better"
we are historical time bound creatures. We make progress as time progresses. So for him as time goes on and we do science we will constantly get better at finding "knowledge" but he leaves the question about it being real knowledge or utility. When we do science we may find scientific laws or gods commandments. It is not clear what better means in this context.
Xenophanes view on the earth and the sea
He thought that the earth went down with out limit so it did not rest on anything. He also reasoned the earth and the sea change in to one another in cycles. He used the fact that people had found fossils of sea life away from the sea and thought that there was a point that the earth was mud. So for him the earth is constantly being dissolved in to the sea(that's why it is salty). the cycles that make all the earth in to mud kill off all people and the cycle then starts again.
"If god had not fashioned Yellow honey, they would sat that figs were far sweeter."
Xenophanes. He is discussing perspective. senses are mind dependent and are not to be trusted.
Knowledge is relatively based on what? and what is Xenophanes concerned with as a result
Knowledge is based on language and language is not universal. therefor knowledge is not universal. So knowledge in place X is opinion in place Y based on language. As a result of this he is concerned with human understanding and the conditions in which we can understand something.
Logos
word, argument, LOGIC, ACCOUNT
Pythagoreans
2 groups Akousmatikoi-religion, no knowledge, no math's, certain life styles.
Mathematikoi-who we care about because they were interested in maths.
-linked everything to numbers: music, soul, cosmos, justice, your uncle bob.
-Numbers were principles to explain all, and since the numbers are the first principle of mathematical things these are there principle.
-They had no elements just numbers
For Pythagoreans when did numbers start and why
One was not a number for them but the principle of numbers. So one is not a number but two is because of its multipicity
For pythagoreans numbers were what type of notion
ontological notion. in connection with things that are countable. so no fractions, irrational numbers or negative numbers. We see numbers today as just symbols they thought they really exist.
Heraclitus
-Know as the Obscure.
-critized a lot of people.
-thinks he knows what is going on in the world
-Heraclitus seems to have used aphorisms rather than extended discussion
-he reinforces that all is one
-Plato makes him a champion of flux or change
Heraclitus brings to the fore one of the main problems of interpretation in general (sometimes called the hermeneutic circle)
In interpreting we tend to find pieces or parts of an author that we think we understand and then interpret the whole in terms of them. But then from our understanding of the whole we try to interpret the parts. So the circle is in going from parts to whole and whole to parts. This circle is inescapable
Diachronic flux and synchronic flux
change through time and change relative to a context of comparison.
Synchronic flux if stressed by Heraclitus.
Protagras and what was he
a sophist-each thing appears to me so it is to me and as it appears to you so it is for you. Sensperceptoin makes up the world. no objective reality. No one can be wrong.
man is the measure of all things
meaning that there is no truth but that which individuals deem to be the truth.
each individual is the measure of how things are perceived by that individual. Therefore, things are or are not true according to how the individual perceives them. For example, Person X may believe that the weather is cold, whereas Person Y may believe that the weather is hot. According to Protagoras' philosophy, there is no definite temperature because the state of the weather is relative to who is perceiving it. Therefore, to Person X, the weather is cold, whereas to Person Y, the weather is hot. This philosophy implies that there are no absolute truths. The truth, according to Protagoras, is relative, and differs according to each individual
Table turning delima
If Protagras believes what he says, then he has to allow that others are right when he says they are wrong. And if he dose not believe this statment then no one does. Based on that individual realativsm is inconsistent with its self. It claims to be a universal truth about how indiviual each thing is. we make jugments about others. X says Protagres is wrong. Can he defined himself? yes if he can relitivism others jugments, but they do not view jugments in a realitive way. In general we think other people are wrong not wrong just to us.