Philosophy Scholars

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Ancient Philosophy: Plato
Rationalist. World of Forms = real. World of Appearances = fake. Analogy of the cave. Forms = spiritual, permanent, non material+eternal. Our souls belong at WoF, we were trapped in bodies and born here. We forget the WoF but remember glimpses of it.
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Ancient Philosophy: Plato pt2
If something is true in WoA than its even more true in WoF. This is how we know what concepts like beauty or courage are bc we saw their Forms.
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Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle
Empiricist. His method: "per genus et per differentia - by type and by difference" We are not remembering the WoF, we are being taught things. We learn from the outside world, our knowledge is innate! 4 causes, material,formal,efficient+final.
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Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle pt2
Material: substance that makes it..Wood. Formal: its design..Carpenters drawings. Efficient: its make..Prime Mover. Final: its purpose..A Table. Prime Mover and Form of Good are similar. Neither is personally connected to the earth or created it.
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Ancient Philosophy: Aristotle pt3
The FoG seems to find refuge from uncertainties of change, where as PM seeks to explain them.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Plato.
Emphasized distinction between spiritual soul(psyche)and the material body. The soul desires to get out of inferior body. Soul = good. Body= bad.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Aristotle.
Soul is not simple, immortal substance, no personal survival after death. Matter need a soul to animate it. The soul has three elements: vegetative soul, shared with all living things, including plants.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Aristotle. pt2
Appetitve soul, in which we find passions and appetites, hunger, thirst and sexual desires as well as emotions, happiness, anger and sadness. Intellectual soul: rational and directive - thinks about things, decides actions we may take,includes memory
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Soul, Mind and Body: St Thomas Aquinas.
"soul is defined the first principle of life in living things" "we call living things 'animate' and those with no life 'inanimate' yet nothing bodily can be the first principle of life"
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Soul, Mind and Body: St Thomas Aquinas pt2
"the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body but the act of a body, just as heat, is not a body but the act of a body". He closely follow Aristotle, as he argued that his life needs the body to be animated.
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Soul, Mind and Body: St Thomas Aquinas pt3
It is clear that man is not only a soul, but something composed of a soul and a body"
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Soul, Mind and Body: Rene Descartes - Substance Dualism.
Substance dualist. Sense experience may be misled. "Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore i am". Body and Soul are separate substances. "A body is divisible by nature, but a mind is not"
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Soul, Mind and Body: Rene Descartes pt2.
"If a foot or arm, or another limb were amputated from my body, nothing would be taken from my mind. Descartes suggested that the mind and the body must connect at the pineal gland bc its the seat of imagination and common sense.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Gilbert Ryle - Other views on soul, mind and body question.
"Either there exists minds or there exist bodies. It would be like saying 'either she bought a left handed glove, or a right handed glove but not a pair."
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Soul, Mind and Body: Gilbert Ryle pt2.
It would be error to think of a pair of gloves to be different from a matching left and right.Body and mind are in the same category = a person. His argument is holistic - as he does not deny anything but tries to incorporate everything.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Gilbert Ryle pt3.
His opposition is the separation of the mind and the body.
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Soul, Mind and Body: John Hick.
Strongly opposes the platonic view. For Hick, similar to Aquinas "my soul is not me" We our are bodies, those bodies have spiritual dimension, there is no mind without matter.The mental depends on the body.
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Soul, Mind and Body: G.E.M. Anscombe.
A description of my bodily actions might fully describe how my body is working, but not why my body is working. 'i am pointing at the chess piece because..' but it is still my body pointing, this action would be impossible if i were not a body.
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Soul, Mind and Body: G.E.M. Anscombe pt2.
A disembodied soul would not be able to point. It is my body that points.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Richard Dawkins- Materialism.
He rejects an notion of a disembodied soul put forth by Plato or Aristotle. But acknowledges consciousness as a mystery but hopes science will be able to explain the phenomenon in the future.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Richard Dawkins pt2.
Dawkins makes the interesting distinction between what he calls Soul One and Soul Two. Soul One is the separate substance of much traditional thought. He rejects this notion as primitive superstition.
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Soul, Mind and Body: Richard Dawkins pt3.
Soul Two, is intellectual and spiritual power, higher development of the moral faculties, feeling and imagination. These are rooted in the body and their precise nature is yet to be scientifically explained - making same mistake as Plato.
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Soul, Mind and Body: B.F. Skinner - Behaviourism,
Human thoughts are simply learned behaviours, and what we consider mental events are also learned behaviors. The idea of mental states being separated from the body is a radical misunderstanding.
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Soul, Mind and Body: B.F. Skinner pt2.
Moral thinking+consciousness progression is modified behaviour based on experience
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Soul, Mind and Body: Daniel C. Dennet.
Argues Skinner 'over simplifies' human consciousness. If i said something like "i enjoy this authors books, i enjoy the period he is talking about' to reduce this to a learned behaviour misses the point, my reason for reading the book excludes others
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Soul, Mind and Body: Daniel C. Dennet.
Dennet says that Skinner's approach would mean that human beings have no dignity or or freedom.
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Dualist understanding of the body and consciousness - Rene Descartes.
Descartes set out to demonstrate the clear distinction between mind and body. He adopted a method known as 'hyperbolic doubt' (ec
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Arguments based on observation: Aquinas. -Design Argument.
The existence of God is not self-evident but could be demonstrated with logical thought. Nature seems to have an order and a purpose to it. Nothing inanimate is purposeful, an example of arrow was used that someone would have to be behind it to aimit
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Arguments based on observations: William Payley.
Used the watch analogy to argue that not only is everything designed, but it is designed for a purpose, he concluded this was evidence of intelligent design and God's care.
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Arguments based on observations: Gottfried Leibnitz
Raised the question "why is there something rather than nothing?" he based his cosmological argument on his 'Principle of Sufficient Reason' - 1. if something exists, there must be a reason why that thing exists.
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Arguments based on observations: Gottfried Leibnitz pt2
2. if a statement is true there must be a reason why that statement is true. 3. if something happens, there must be a reason why that thing happens. Whether we know these reasons, there must still be one, known or unknown.
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Arguments based on observations: David Hume - Criticisms.
Sceptic. Wrote his arguments before Payleys watch analogy. 1. Analogy between watch and world is weak. Characteristics of purpose and design might be obvious in a watch, but they are not nearly as obvious in the world.
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Arguments based on observations: David Hume - Criticisms pt2
2. Its not right to draw comparisons between the world and machines when there is little similarities. 3. We do not know for a fact that order comes about because of an intelligent idea.
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Arguments based on observations: David Hume - Criticisms pt3
4. The recognition of order has limitations as we have no other worlds with orders to compare it to. 5. This self sustaining order, may have come about by chance.
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Arguments based on observations: David Hume - Criticisms/Analogy
6. We have a finite and imperfect world; there is no need to assume their is intelligence behind it. Hume uses scales to make his point, one side of the scales are hidden from view which contains a weight.
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Arguments based on observations: David Hume - Criticisms/Analogy pt2
We can see that the end in view is outweighed but we have no means of knowing by how much by - this is the same with the world.
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Arguments based on reason: St Anselm - Ontological argument.
"I believe so that i may understand" - must believe in God to understand him.His argument: 1. God is the greatest thought i can have. 2. But an actual God would be greater than my greatest thought.
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Arguments based on reason: St Anselm - Ontological argument pt2
3. Because my greatest thought exists, there must be something greater, an actual existing God must exist.
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Arguments based on reason: Guanilo's Criticism.
You cannot bring something into existence by defining it a superlative. Uses the example of a perfect island, by calling it perfect doesnt bring it into existence.
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Arguments based on reason: St Anselm's response.
Anselm agreed that Guanilo was right in the case of the island, but the same objections could not be made when the argument is used on god as the island is a contingent being and the argument only works on necessary beings, the only example being God
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Arguments based on reason: Aquinas' criticisms of the ontological argument.
He believed the existence of God could be proved through a posteriori arguments and not through logical reasoning alone. God cannot be the greatest thought, as our minds cannot truly conceive what God is fully.
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Arguments based on reason: Aquinas' criticisms of the ontological argument.
The argument does not work because it assumes we all share the same concept and knowledge of God.
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Arguments based on reason: Rene Descartes version of the ontological argument.
God is perfect in definition. To be perfect, God must contain all of the perfections. Existence is a perfection. Existence is a defining predicate of God. A God that does not exist - would not be a God.
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Arguments based on reason: Immanuel Kant's criticism of Descartes.
Existence is not a predicate, so therefore cannot be a defining predicate. A defining predicate adds something to a concept, for example "my cat is a tabby" "is a tabby" adds something to the concept but saying "x exists" adds nothing to x.
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Religious Experience: Friedrich Schleiemacher.
Presents the power of religious experience. Essence of religion is based in personal experience. Religious experience should be at the heart of every faith, it is 'self-authenticating' it requires no other testing to see if it is genuine.
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Religious Experience: Friedrich Scheliemacher pt2
A individuals religious experience is based on the sense of being wholly dependent.
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Religious Experience: William James.
Qualify what a religious experience is. If the experience is genuine the individual would become more religious as a result. Identified four main qualities. 1. Ineffability: experience is impossible to express in normal language.
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Religious Experience: William James pt2
2. Noetic quality: experience gives individual a understanding of important truths - people who have had a experience often speak about the truth being revealed to them. 3. Transience: experience is over quite soon, though effect could last alifetime
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Religious Experience: William James pt3
4. Passivity: experience is being controlled outside themselves - not looking for the experience it came to them.
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Religious Experience: Rudolf Otto
Qualify what a religious experience is. Individuals should have a sense of personal encounter with natural forces, and this should bring about a feeling of awe and mystery. Indentified 3 main qualities.
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Religious Experience: Rudolf Otto pt2
1. Realisation that God is incomprehensible, can be met and his work can be seen but yet has not been captured or described. 2. God is recognised as ultimate importance 3. God has qualities that are both attractive and dangerous.
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Religious Experience: Rudolf Otto pt3
God cannot be controlled but at the same time the individual feels a sense of privileged -links in with William James' Passivity. Used term 'numinous' to describe the feeling of awe-inspiring holiness.
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

If something is true in WoA than its even more true in WoF. This is how we know what concepts like beauty or courage are bc we saw their Forms.

Back

Ancient Philosophy: Plato pt2

Card 3

Front

Empiricist. His method: "per genus et per differentia - by type and by difference" We are not remembering the WoF, we are being taught things. We learn from the outside world, our knowledge is innate! 4 causes, material,formal,efficient+final.

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Material: substance that makes it..Wood. Formal: its design..Carpenters drawings. Efficient: its make..Prime Mover. Final: its purpose..A Table. Prime Mover and Form of Good are similar. Neither is personally connected to the earth or created it.

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

The FoG seems to find refuge from uncertainties of change, where as PM seeks to explain them.

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
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