Transcript PHILOSOPHY - Illinois Community College Board

PHILOSOPHY
Presocratics
Socrates and students
Copyright  Polly Hoover
Beginning of
Philosophy
How was the world created?
 Who am I?
 Am I happy?
 How do I know anything?
 What is the world made of?
 Is there a divinity or divinities?
 What do we mean by knowledge?
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Hesiod, Theogony
Gaia and Uranus create the world
 Organized through hierarchy of gods
 Human experience reflects explanation
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Sexual intercourse as universal
Mythology as philosophy
 ~750 BCE (contemporary of “Homer”)
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Alcman
World created through organization of
material
 Vocabulary
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Metaphor
Narrative
Examples
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Goal, craftsman, bronze material
Presocratics
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Materialists
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What material is the world made of?
Thales – water
Heraclitus – Fire (with logos)
Empedocles – Fire, air, water, earth (with
Strife and Love)
Pythagoras
Influenced Socrates and Plato
 Wrote nothing?
 Immortality of the soul
 Greek modal system in music
 Pythagorean theorem
 Mathematics as ‘substance’ of the world
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Aristotle
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Four ‘causes’ of a thing
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Material – what a thing is made of
Formal – explanation of form, its essence
Efficient – primary source (cause in
modern sense)
Final – purpose (the purpose of walking is
health, the purpose of the acorn is an oak)
Uncaused Causer or Unmoved mover
Plato, Symposium
Banquet for men only
 Philosophical discussion among friends
 Lots of wine and teasing/flirting
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What is love?
What does it mean to be a man?
 How do we know that we’re in love?
 Is it universal (the same for everyone)
or particular (different for everyone)?
 Does it matter whom you love?
 What is the Western Christian view of
love?
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Guests Give Opinions
Phaedrus
 Pausanias: 2 Eros
 Eryximachus:
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Eros in nature
Ridicule of scientific arguments
Aristophanes
Comic poet
 Three sexes
 Folktale and narrative
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Not philosophical argument
Why?
Agathon
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Encomium (praise-poem) of Eros
Socrates interrogates Agathon
Desire for something or nothing?
 Desire for something we don’t have?
 Eros desires beauty.
 Therefore, Eros is not beautiful.
 Good is beautiful.
 Therefore, Eros does not have what is
good.
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Diotima
Role reversal?
 Eros is intermediary between divine and
human
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Alicibiades
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Praise of Socrates
Questions
What were the Presocratic approaches
to explaining the world?
 How did these differ from that of
mythology?
 Does Socrates include sexual desire in
his meaning of love?
 Is love universal or particular, according
to Socrates?
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More Questions?
What does Socrates mean by
happiness?
 What does Plato/Socrates think is real?
 Is this philosophy?
 What are the differences between a
philosophical argument and a
mythological story?
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