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Philosophy paper 1 OCR full course summary document
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provides notes for all topics in Paper 1 (Philosophy) of OCR A Level Religious Studies
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PHILOSOPHY PAPER 1 COMPLETE REVISION-1.1. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL INFLUENCES
Plato’s understanding of Reality
- RATIONAL, REALIST AND DUALIST THINKING
- Epistemology- theory of knowledge and how it is attained
- Deriving from Heraclitus- everything flows, no unchanging essence to anything
- EVERYTHING CHANGES AND NOTHING STAYS THE SAME.
Concerned with the Socratic debates of ONE OR MANY? and epistemological truth, as well as the possibility of
attaining knowledge in an ever-changing world.
Issue 1:
- How can we be said to ‘know’ anything?
Issue 2:
- Essence and change cannot co-exist
As essence implies an unchanging CORE of something
PLATO argues that TRUTH can only come from A PRIORI reasoning à logic, mathematics, etc, e.g. the work of
Pythagoras
Plato is also a REALIST – postulates the existence of both particulars and universals, whereas nominalists argue
that there are only particulars
For Plato, in addition he postulates that knowledge (episteme) and opinion (doxa) are two different faculties
In turn, he argues for EPISTEMOLOGICAL HUMILITY and awareness that our knowledge is incomplete
TRUTH MIXED WITH FALSITY IS OPINION- Plato was a rationalist and NOT an empiricist
The Forms and their nature
- Plato details this in ‘The Republic’ or ‘Plato’s Republic’
- He argues for forms such as beauty, forms are entities which many things instantiate
- E.g. humans may see a ‘beautiful’ flower but not beauty itself
- Forms follow a hierarchy, and are indestructible- even if you have destroyed all beautiful things, you
cannot destroy ‘beauty’ itself
- Particulars, on the other hand, are mixtures of properties – knowledge of particulars is OPINION
The nature of the forms
- Forms do not exist in time and space,
- They are simple, not a mixture
- Perfect
- Logically PRIOR to particulars
The hierarchy of the forms
- There is a hierarchy of the forms, ultimately stemming from the Form of the GOOD
In the Republic, moreover, hierarchies are also used socially- artists are placed at the bottom of the social
hierarchy as they merely replication untruths/ their empirical perception on the world
Plato’s Cave Analogy
- The idea is that the prisoner is set free, and witnesses the World of the Forms, after being imprisoned in a
cave with illusions (shadows) being cast onto the wall-
- He escapes and witnesses ‘truth’
- E.g. the moon and stars representing the forms of justice, beauty, etc
- With the SUN representing the FORM OF THE GOOD.
CRITICISMS OF PLATO’S UNDERSTANDING:
- Lacks depth and a suspiciously little amount of empirical data to back it up
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, - The theory appears counter-intuitive and absurd
- It ignores the precision of scientific theory and our empirical understanding of reality
- As Plato was not able to see the successes of science 1800 years after his death
- One could argue, however, that science is just a really complex version of the shadows in his cave analogy
- Aristotle reduced this idea to absurdity- reductio ad absurdum due to lack of empirical evidence:
- ARISTOTLE- THIRD MAN ARGUMENT à form of a form of a form, etc etc. we would need an infinite amount
of forms to appeal to Plato’s realist ideas.
However,
One could counter-argue these criticisms by saying that:
- Humans already argue in absolutes sometimes, referring to concepts (or forms) such as justice, beauty,
etc. à we automatically go into that kind of dualist thinking
Aristotle’s Understanding of Reality
- Use of teleology (Greek ‘telos’ meaning purpose)
- Telos, purpose, the process of objects moving from potentiality to actualityà to achieve eudamonia/ full
potential
- CHANGE is an ACTUALISATION OF SOMETHING’S POTENTIAL
Aristotle is an empiricist who wrong Nichomachean Ethics
- Emphasis on OBSERVATION
Looking at ‘why’/aition – cause of things, help us understand reality
The Four Causes
- Material, formal, efficient and final causes
1) The Material Cause
Agent must be in actuality, must exist to be a cause of change in an object
Water is used to grow a plant- this is the material cause
There must be MATTER for this to occur
2) The Efficient Cause
The ‘how’ aspect of ità aition
e.g. a painter painting, a sculptor sculpting a sculpture
3) The Formal Cause
Characteristics of the object, e.g. a sculpture is a visual depiction and a chair has 4 legs
4- The Final Cause
The aim of the object, what is it GOOD for?
There is an emphasis on TELOS/ PURPOSE-
The purpose may be latent until something acts UPON IT- but if something acts upon it in a direct manner, telos
has been achieved
The Prime Mover and connections with the Final Cause
- Time is uniform and everlasting, planets move in a cyclical motion,etc
- There is an ultimate which all observable things are DRAWN to-
- Movements of such ‘heavenly spheres’ causes change in the universe
- Each sphere moves in tandem with the other in a causal chain of contingency, until you finally reach the
end which needs to be accounted for
This outermost sphere is known as the Prime Mover
- The Prime Mover causes other things to move without moving itself- everything is DRAWN to it as a FINAL
END
Form of the Good Prime Mover
Means by which everything exists and is known Everything is drawn to its own purpose
- Also seen as an ‘ultimate’, like the Form of the
Good.
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, -
While Aristotle believes that experience is the ultimate source of knowledge, Plato argues that concepts and
knowledge are INDEPENDENT from sense-experiences
Hume would agree with Aristotle on this topic in that ideas do not exist independently, only in empirical relation to
objects
1.2. SOUL, MIND AND BODY
Plato’s view of the soul
‘ The power and capacity of learning exists within the soul already’
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