Plato and Aristotle

1. Plato and Aristotle MUST – Explain Plato’s Cave allegory and Theory of Forms. SHOULD – Evaluate Plato using Aristotle. COULD – Defend and challenge Aristotle’s Prime Mover theory using arguments against the Cosmological Argument.

2. Plato – Inspirations • Socrates • “True knowledge (episteme) comes from knowing that you know nothing.” • What is “The Good”? • Socrates was executed for his beliefs and understanding if reality. • Pythagoras • Pythagoras believed in immortality, religion, mysticism and the objectivity of mathematics. • Maths existed abstractly. • Parmenides • This world is changing and temporal. • Reality is eternal, unchanging and timeless. • Heraclitus • There is nothing permanent in the physical world – through our senses. • Doxa can give you no true knowledge.

3. Plato – Cave allegory

4. Plato – Symbols • Prisoners – Human beings trapped in the temporal world. • Shadows – The experiences we receive in this spacio temporal world – shadows of the truth. • Puppets – The Forms which cause the shadows that we experience – true knowledge. • Free prisoner – The philosopher who does not at first understanding reality and will eventually be killed for his beliefs. • The Sun – The essential Form of Goodness – source of the Forms and truth

5. Plato – The Sun • Visible World – The Sun • Source of growth and light which gives: • Visibility to the objects of sense and • The power of seeing to the eye • The faculty of sight • Intelligible world of the forms – The Good • Source of reality and truth which gives: • Intelligibility to objects of thought and • The power of knowing to the mind • The faculty of knowledge • Plotonius (3rd C) associated the EFG with God!

6. Plato – Forms Look, different trees!

7. Plato – Forms Ahh … these are all poor imitations – mere shadows – of the true essence of tree. The true essence of trees

8. Plato – Forms • Ephemeral Vs Eternal • We live in an ephemeral (spacio temporal) world • Our world changes and decays. • Copies and Forms • Everything we experience (doxa) is a decaying copy of an ideal form existing outside of time and space. • We encounter MANY copies through experience. • They are all copies of ONE Form we can recognise through reason. • Recognition • We never learn new things when we identify the forms. • We recognise what we already know from a previous existence. • We remember beauty when we see it in the visible world. • The physical world is an illusion … there is no spoon!

10. Plato – Forms • 1. Transcendent • The forms are not located in space and time. • 2. Pure • The forms only exemplify one property, e.g. blackness, circularity • 3. Archetypes • The forms are archetypes, they are perfect examples of the property that they exemplify. • 4. Ultimately Real • The forms are the ultimately real entities, not material objects. • 5. Causes • (1) They provide the explanation of why any thing is the way it is, and • (2) they are the source or origin of the being of all things. • 6. Systematically Interconnected • The forms comprise a dialectic process leading down from the form of the Good moving from more general to more particular, from more objective to more subjective.

11. Plato – Forms • The Forms are perfect • The Forms are unchanging • The Forms exist eternally • The Forms are abstract • The Forms can be encountered when we are in the eternal world between ephemeral lives • The Forms are reflected in the ephemeral world • The Essential Form of the Good illuminates the Forms • The Essential Form of the Good manifests the Forms in the eternal world. • The Essential Form of the Good enables us to recognise the Forms (justice etc) in the ephemeral world • Plato never fully explained what Forms existed, he was focussing on the Forms of ideals like justice and beauty.

12. Plato – Criticisms • Relation – Aristotle questioned the causal relationship between Plato’s Forms and things we encounter. • Dualism – Aristotle rejected dualism (body and soul) which Plato needs for the Forms to exist. • Third Man – Aristotle argued that if man had a Form, that Form has a Form back to infinity. This makes no sense. • Absolute Morality – If there are Forms of justice etc, is there absolute morality? • Plausibility – Is it realistic to assume that we all know all the Forms already? • Memes – Dawkins argued that ideas we have of justice etc are just memes that survive. • Infinite Forms – Plato never fully explains what there are Forms for, deodorant cans? One legged pirates etc?

13. Aristotle – Form and Matter • Form • Aristotle believed that the Form of a thing was not an abstract entity but rather that which is common to all examples of things. • These things are all legged platforms you can sit on, so they are the Form of Chair. • The wax stamp can be defined as: Wax [MATTER] and Coat of Arms [FORM] • Matter and Form • All substances are composed of matter and form: • What the thing is made of: carbon, hydrogen etc. • What the thing is made to be: rock, human, planet etc. • Aristotle would argue that the Form of a human is the soul.

14. Aristotle – Four Causes • Episteme • Aristotle believed that episteme came from experience. • Four Causes • All things have four causes: • Material Cause – Matter: What it is made of. • Formal Cause – Essence: What it made to be. • Efficient Cause – Agent: What caused it to be. • Final Cause – Purpose: What it is meant to accomplish.

15. Aristotle – Good and Bad • Good and Bad • Good and bad are judged by the object’s ability to fulfil its final cause, not by any ‘moral’ association to its intended purpose. • A gun is GOOD if it is successful in firing a bullet irrespective of what it is being fired at. • An oven is GOOD if it is successful in heating up, irrespective of what it is heating up. • Soul • The soul of the thing is its Form • The soul of the stamp is the symbol. • The soul of the human is his character.

16. Aristotle – Prime Mover • Motion • Everything that exists is in a permanent state of ‘movement’ or ‘motion’ – change. • 1. The physical world was in a constant state of motion and change. • 2. The planets seemed to be moving eternally • 3. Objects or motion is always caused by something else. • 4. Objects in the physical world were in a state of actuality and potentiality. • Prime Motion • Everything is in an ‘actual’ state with the ‘potential’ to become another state – An actual cow in a field is potentially a piece of roast beef! • P1. If things come into existence they must be caused to exist by something else. • P2. If something is capable of change that means it is potentially something else. • C. There must be something that is the cause of ongoing motion in the universe Prime Mover • Prime Mover • Aristotle postulated that there was a Prime Mover that was itself ‘unmoved’. • The Prime Mover could not be in a potential state as it would need another mover to act upon it, it would not be the ‘Prime Mover’, but yet another ‘mover’. • The Prime Mover must be an actual state that moves all things.

17. Aristotle – Prime Mover • Characteristics of the Prime Mover • 1. Necessary– it cannot not exist. • 2. Actuality – Unchanging means it cannot be potentially anything. • 3. Good – the lack of goodness means potential to do better. • 4. Final Cause – the ultimate explanation for why things exist. • 5. Origin of all movement, e.g. the action of being moved. • 6. God – [God is] a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for this is God. Aristotle, Metaphysics • Characteristics of God, the Prime Mover • 1. Indivisible – divine simplicity. • 2. Complete reality – the cause of all that is. • 3. Constantly thinking – Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things. Aristotle, Metaphysics. • 4. Transcendent – God does not interact in any way with the world. • 5. Impersonal – God is pure Goodness and Thought, not a person.