PHIL1 Reason and Experience

Phil 1 Plato 

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Plato - Context
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher taught by Socrates. He was passionate about politics and leadership and believed only philosophers could be true leaders. He grew up in a respected household but saw the Peloponnese war occur.
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Plato - Theory of Forms
Written in The Republic, The objects that we see around us (Trees, Chairs and Tables) are merely shadows of what actually exists. Each tree is different but they all share a common factor, they all have a treeness about them
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Plato - Supralunar and Sublunar Realms
These two realms are the divide between our world and the world of the forms. What we see around us are reflections of the perfect form of these things. The objects we see around us are within the Sublunar world
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Plato - Allegory of the Cave
With this, Plato explains that we are trapped and the objects we see we take for reality but they are perfect objects passed infront of a fire that shows us imperfect reflections. When a prisoner escapes this illusion, we encounter what is true
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Plato - The Divided Line
Plato uses this diagram to show the ascension from ignorance to Intelligence. We pass between the Doxa (ignorance) to the Gnosis (Intelligence) from Empiricism to Rationalism
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Plato - The Good
Plato explains that this is what we encounter when we die. The Soul is immortal and comes into contact with the Good. This is the source of all knowledge and when we are reborn we live to unlock that information in a process called Anamnesis
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Plato - The Meno
In this, Plato creates a dialogue between Socrates, Meno and Meno's slave boy. In this, socrates asks the slave boy questions to lead him to the conclusion that the area of a big square is twice that of a small square.
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Plato - Problems with The Meno
The uneducated slave boy seems to come to his own conclusions but the questions put forward by Socrates influence the answer of the slave boy and cannot be taken as truth. Not to mention circular reasoning and no empirical verification
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Plato - Plato's Pairs
When we see two of something we recognize a twoness about them. we do not need to see the number two to know that there are two objects there. Therefore, numbers must exist in the world of the forms
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Descartes - Meditations on First Philosophy
In his works, he includes three main ideas; Dreaming, Deception and Illusion. It was written as a diary of 6 days (monastic life), possibly to avoiud religious persecution. His Method of Doubt is the basis of all Descartes arguments
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Descartes - Apples in a Barrel
Descartes wanted to be completely sure of what he knew, so he doubted everything until he came up with solid truths. If one apple is rotten, all must be checked just to make sure. The phrase Cogito Ergo Sum arose from this process of elimination
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Descartes - Method of Doubt
In order to gain true knowledge, you must discard all beliefs which could be doubted until you are left with something certain. Senses are doubted because they can be deceiving and become an unreliable source of knowledge.
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Descartes - Dreaming
When we dream, are we actually awake? Descartes argues that we can imagine things because we can conceive all the elements that would make that thing. e.g. a dragon = fire, tail, teeth, scales etc. But, 2+2=4 is true both in reality and in our minds
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Descartes - Dreaming #2
Descartes concludes that there must be a real world to dream about, dreaming doesn't have the same consistency as real life does. But why leave this to the end of Meditations when it was so easy to refute?
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Descartes - Deception
Descartes argues that God could be deceiving us. If God were Good, he would not deceive us, I am sometimes deceived, Either God is not good or doesn't exist. Could just be an evil demon. Maybe we have the wrong idea of what it is to know something?
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Descartes - Trademark Argument (Casual Reality Principle)
Here Descartes notes that we all have an idea of God, an idea can only be as great as its effect. As imperfect beings, we shouldn't have the idea of a perfect being, so God must have stamped the idea of himself onto us. God becomes an innate idea.
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Descartes - Ontological Argument
A triangle cannot be separated from the properties it obtains. You can't separate a valley from a mountain and you cannot separate the idea of God from the idea of his existence.
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Descartes - He has issues
Why are we deceived if God is supposedly all good and powerful? Descartes argument rests on an assumption and our ideas aren't limited because we can conceive of something greater than us.
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Descartes - even more issues
If something doesn't exist, it doesn't lack perfection or property, rather it has no perfections or properties. If perfection implies existence then a heffalump could exist Therefore, everything must exist (like the forms?) more circular reasoning!
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Descartes - Illusion
Descartes begins by asking weather he exists. He does, but what constitutes as 'I'? Descartes concludes that he is a thinking being because properties like a body can be thought as a separate entity from himself.
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Descartes - Illusion #2
The mind is clearly not nothing, but what can it be if it isn't a body? therefore it must not be corporeal, it must be something different, a purely mental substance.
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Descartes - Illusion has issues of its own
1)A car is made of metal. if a car was not made of metal it'd be made of something else and still be a car. 2) a mind without a body would still be a mind. 3) The mind could merely be a function of the body, not just a mental substance. 4) solipsism.
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Wittgenstein - Beetle in a Box Criticism
The analogy is used to explain the idea of language games. Our ideas and conecpts are often a product of society and influence, therefore, Descartes cannot be the only person to exist. Box = Human body, Beetle = What we think. We share what we know
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Descartes - Wax Candle
The features of a candle are subjective and liable to change. Fire makes the wax melt, but does that change the candle into something completely different? Our logic allows us to understand that the wax hasn't transformed into something else
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Descartes - Wax Candle #2
The senses cannot be the source of all knowledge because we need our minds to interpret the information we are given through our senses.
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Descartes - Hats and Coats
In fog, looking from a window, we see hats an coats moving around almost on our own, but our mind tells us that they cannot do that and there must be people inside the hats and coats. another sensory illusion.
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Hilary Putnam - Brains in a Vat
American Philosopher supports Descartes argument and uses the analogy to make people think about what is real and what isn't. But we aren't a brain in a vat, if we were, we wouldn't be able to think it
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Descartes - Support and refutations
Support; Perspective, we all see things differently and can't rely on eachother, hallucinations, lags in time. Refute: is our understanding completely independent of our senses?
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

Written in The Republic, The objects that we see around us (Trees, Chairs and Tables) are merely shadows of what actually exists. Each tree is different but they all share a common factor, they all have a treeness about them

Back

Plato - Theory of Forms

Card 3

Front

These two realms are the divide between our world and the world of the forms. What we see around us are reflections of the perfect form of these things. The objects we see around us are within the Sublunar world

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

With this, Plato explains that we are trapped and the objects we see we take for reality but they are perfect objects passed infront of a fire that shows us imperfect reflections. When a prisoner escapes this illusion, we encounter what is true

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

Plato uses this diagram to show the ascension from ignorance to Intelligence. We pass between the Doxa (ignorance) to the Gnosis (Intelligence) from Empiricism to Rationalism

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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