Hi Everyone!! This is a summarised mind map for the 'Ancient philosophical Influences' topic which is part of the OCR Philosophy spec. Along with all my mindmaps, it is a compilation of various textbooks, class notes and youtube videos which essentially makes it ready to go and all the content you ...
Plato Realm of forms = a spiritual real → a shadow/image of the true
realm → abstract/perfect unchanging concepts unlike the realm of
Rationalist = someone who believes in facts and logic (he says appearances → e.g. concepts like beauty, justice, goodness There must be a
that sense experience fails to guarantee that that we are world which makes
experiencing is true) There are many breeds of dogs which are different but the dog in us able to
the realm of forms (basic image/concept of a dog to use) allows us understand
Dualist = someone who believes in a body and soul (as 2 to figure out that the other dogs are still dogs by making something using
separate worlds) connections between their features sense even when
there are certain
Innate = within (natural/born with)
Realm of appearances = things in the ordinary world which are differences
constantly changing → what we see using our senses (e.g. see,
Analogy = comparing one thing to another (analogy of the
cave) hear, smell)
The Republic = a book authored by Plato around 375 BC
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL
The Demigure = a subordinate God who fashions and arranges INFLUENCES Criticisms of the Forms
the physical world to make it conform to a rational and eternal
idea Russell - Plato’s ideas of the Forms is taken to the extreme
Forms and falls into ‘a bottomless pit of nonsense
His view on knowledge…
we gain true knowledge through our reason - physical world is Plato suggests that we know what things are because Dawkins and Empiricists - reject Plato’s views saying that it
always in a process of change so can never be objects of we have experienced the true form (“the forms are the has no evidence to back it up unlike the empirical world which
complete true knowledge objects of intelligence but not of sight”). Most things does and somewhat aligns with science
conform to the forms except numbers and evil.
Aristotle Aristotle - rejects, Plato’s theory of the forms but not the idea
of forms - he says the forms do not exist independently of
Hierarchy of the forms = allows us to recognise the
Empiricist = someone who thinks that the primary source things (every form is a form of something else) and they are
other forms below it (order of understanding)
of all knowledge is experience gained through 5 senses not eternal
1) Form of the good (existed eternally beyond our Aristotle - The lack of any form of evidence or first hand
Actuality = the state of existing in reality
world)- highest knowledge a human is capable of account of the world of Forms, according to empiricists leaves
Potentiality = qualities that may be developed and lead 2) Truth, Beauty, Justice - 3 key concepts that we are us to inevitably settle with the things we can experience using
to future success/usefulness able to recognise by their forms our 5 senses to understand the workings of the world and live
3) Concepts and ideals - (e.g/ love) are inferior to truth, content which makes the analogy far - fetched
Transcendent = being beyond this world and outside the beauty,and justice but superior to physical objects
realms of ordinary experience (“nothing can come from 4) Physical living objects - humans, animals, plants etc Karl Popper - claims that Plato’s world of form is a way of
nothing”) 5) Inanimate objects - man made objects coping with the uncertainty of the world without including God
, Analogy of the Cave Aristotle - everything that is actualised has (4 causes)
Material - physical properties or what something is made of
The Sun truth/reality, the form of the good (source of Formal - the structure/design of a being and the plan behind it (the characteristics)
everything) Efficient - the thing or agent which brings something about
Final - the aim for which an object is created (ultimate purpose)
The cave Our world
Prime mover (a concept advanced by Aristotle as the first uncaused cause)
The prisoners The people/society trapped in the world of
Prime mover = the first mover of all the motion in the universe (cannot be moved by any prior action)
appearances
“There must be a mover which moves them without being moved, eternal and a substance actual” -
The chains Things holding you back(lies), we don’t have free will cannot be infinite regress and the mover must be God (necessary existence)
as we think we do
The primary mover (God) is the reason for everything in the world so acts as the ‘final cause’ must
The puppet master The government be the end, our telos desired by God (afterlife)
The prime mover and form of the good link (prime mover embodies concepts of the highest form
Shadows & fires Propaganda/lies/what we think is right and true,
limitations and copies of the forms, limit ability to
experience reality
Criticisms of Aristotle
Russell and Dawkins -perhaps there is no purpose for the universe - it just exists
Escaped prisoners Philosophers who are enlightened
The big bang theory could explain the first cause
World outside The real world (world of forms)
cave What caused the first cause if everything has a cause - why is infinite regress impossible?
Theists object to the way Aristotle presents God as having no interaction with the universe -
some claims to have experienced a God different to Aristotle’s prime mover
In this analogy, the escaped prisoners return to the cave (as
philosophers) to educate the other about the real world and challenge Fallacy of composition = inferring that something is true of the whole thing from the fact that it
their reality but the prisoners do not believe the people who return and is true of some part of the whole only
want to kill them which could represent society’s unwillingness to
question what they are told. Behind every concept or object in the
visible world, there is an unseen reality called the form and these are
the source of all knowledge which Philosophers seek.
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