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Summary OCR Philosophy A*/A Notes on Ancient Philosophical Influences

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AS/ A-Level Philosophy of religion

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OCR

- Clear introduction on the topic with key definitions - Philosopher arguments clearly outlined for and against points - Key Quotes needed for the OCR Exam - Follows all the specification points in-detail - Helped me achieve an A* in my philosophy exam with these notes

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Uploaded on October 3, 2022
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ancient philosophical influences

Ancient Philosophical Influences

Forms: a name Plato gave to ideal concepts

Reason: using logical steps and thought processes in order to reach conclusions

Rationalist: someone who thinks that the primary source of knowledge is reason

Empiricist: someone who thinks that the primary source of knowledge is experience
gained through the five senses.

Prime mover: Aristotle’s concept of the ultimate cause of movement and change in the
universe.

Socratic method: the method of philosophical reasoning which involves critical
questioning.

Transcendent: being beyond this world and outside the realms of ordinary experience

Dualism: the belief that reality can be divided into two distinct parts, such as good or evil,
or physical and non-physical.

Aetion: an explanatory factor, a reason or cause for something

Telos: the end, or purpose, of something.

Theist: someone who believes in a God or gods.

Immutable: The idea that God does not change

Impassive: The idea that God does not experience feelings or emotions

Deism: The idea that God causes or creates the world but is then separate and
uninvolved.

Theism: Idea that God continues to create and continues in the universe.

Introduction of Plato and Aristotle:

Plato:

 The world is constantly changing and cannot, therefore, be the object of true knowledge;
he thought that there must be another realm where things are eternal and unchanging, a
world beyond this one, which he understands to be the realm of the Forms. We could
gain knowledge of this primarily through the use of our reason, known as rationalism.
 Plato is a believer in reincarnation and belongs to the realm of forms. When we are
reborn, the information comes from the world of forms but we retain bits of information.

, Aristotle

 Believed that the physical world around us can give us a great deal of information. He
was fascinated by science and thought that sense experience was the primary way to
gain knowledge. Aristotle is known as an empiricist.
 Aristotle was the founder of many of the sciences we recognise today: physics, biology,
psychology, meteorology, astronomy. He had an insatiable desire to understand the
world as it makes itself available to our five senses, and to see if there were universal
rules which governed natural processes and which we could understand.

Socrates (430-399BC)

 Socrates argues for the Theory of the forms: that the existence of the forms is known
a priori, before and even without experience, because their necessary existence is
contained within our understanding of all other things. When we experience a chair, we
understand what it is and how to use it because we have an idea of a chair which does
not depend on having experienced that or any chair. This explains why we can see a
chair that is different from every other chair we have seen and still understand that it is a
chair and how to use it. We can even make judgments of whether it is a good chair or
not and know how to design and make a different sort of chair.

Plato and the Theory of Forms

 Plato thought we have an understanding nature of the forms from birth, and that we
make judgements about different qualities of things in the physical world by comparing
them with our concepts, and before we were born, we experienced them- and this led
him to the conclusion that people must’ve immortal souls and must’ve lived in the realm
of forms before being born into the material world as physical human beings
 Plato is arguing for epistemological humility (awareness that our knowledge is always
incomplete) but doesn’t say that we can never have true knowledge of anything.
 It is still possible to have true knowledge because if there wasn’t, it wouldn’t even be
possible to have an opinion. This is because an opinion is a mixture of truth and falsity -
you are right in some ways and wrong in others

Plato The form of the Good:

 Form of the Good, which illuminates all of the other forms and gives them their value.
 Part of Plato’s argument, what if someone knows what good is and what is bad, he or
she will choose good. E.g. People steal or tell lies because they are ignorant of the Form
of honesty. If they became more philosophical, and looked for the Form of the good, they
would make better moral decisions. Plato illustrates the Form of the Good illuminates all
the rest of our knowledge in the Analogy of the cave.
 Plato uses the concept that the Demiurge is good and desires best for humanity. When
applies the word “ good” to the Demiurge, he means that he can be judged in
comparison to the Form of the good.

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