1. Revision: Ancient Philosophical Influences

2. How confident are you? What do you need to know? Plato:
Plato’s understanding of reality (reliance on reason rather than the senses)
Plato’s Forms (the nature of the Forms, realm of the Forms and the hierarchy of the Forms)
The Form of the Good.
Plato’s analogy of the cave (how it links to the theory of the Forms) You could also look at the simile of the divided line.
Strengths and weaknesses of Plato’s arguments
Aristotle:
Aristotle’s understanding of reality (use of teleology).
The four causes (material, formal, efficient, final).
The Prime Mover (how this connects to the final cause).
Strengths and weaknesses of Aristotle’s arguments
Comparison:
How Plato’s Forms of the Good and Aristotle’s Prime Mover compare.
Comparison and evaluation of Plato’s rationalism and Aristotle’s empiricism.
How confident are you?

3. Keywords test…
Forms Reason Rationalist Empiricist Prime Mover Socratic Method Analogy Transcendent Dualism Telos Theist

4. What can you remember?

5. Raphael – The School of Athens (1514)
Plato is depicted with his hand pointing upwards, a symbol of his claim that ultimate reality (the Forms) lies beyond what we experience. He is a rationalist. ? ?
Aristotle holds his hand down, because in his philosophy, the only reality is the one that we can see and experience by sight and touch (exactly the reality dismissed by Plato). Aristotle emphasises the value of studying the physical world… his approach is empirical (he is an empiricist) and he therefore rejects Plato’s Theory of the Forms mainly because the relationship between Forms and objects in the material world was never explained.

6. A rationalist – relied on reason.
Plato…
A rationalist – relied on reason.

7. Plato’s Theory of Forms
According to Plato the world we live in is a poor imitation of the real world.
Our world is constantly changing and we rely on our senses to understand what is going on.
You are not the same person you were 3 years/hours/seconds ago, cells are forever changing and ideas flit through our minds.
Plato was therefore sure that the real world is outside the one we live in.
This real world is unchanging and eternal. It is the world of ideas not senses, where there are perfect forms of the things we know on earth.

8. What Forms are in your own words.
The Forms...
By Form Plato meant the idea of what a thing is. There are many types of dog but they all conform or match to some degree the idea of what a dog is. All “dogs” that exist in the material world (realm of appearances) conform to the idea, or the form of a “dog”.
Plato argues that the true Form of dog must exist somewhere; it exists in the world of Forms.
A Form is unchanging because it is a concept, it is not like physical objects that imitate or copy the Form; they die.
The Form is everlasting...
The Forms thus exist in a different reality.
Summarise
What Forms are in your own words.

9. Recognising Forms…
We can recognise Forms because we are born with a dim recollection of them from our prior existence in the world of the Forms.
There is an inner part of us (the soul) that does not change. It is eternal and, before it became tied down by a body, it was connected with the real world of Forms.

10. The world of the Forms is the philosopher’s world.
However…
The world of the Forms is the philosopher’s world.
The ordinary person struggles to see past the illusion of this world because they are ruled by their senses.
Only the person who investigates and questions learns the truth behind the illusion.
Only the philosopher is capable of seeing into the world of the Forms because he can make judgements as he thinks independently of his senses.

11. The Material World (our world)
Here the material objects exist, subject to change and decay. They take their identity from the way that they conform to their corresponding idea in the world of the Forms.
The material world is a shadow of the ‘real’ world of the Forms.
The World of the Forms
Here the patterns for the objects and concepts for the material world exist in a state of unchanging perfection.
It is the job of the philosopher to break free from the shackles of the material world and find the world of the Forms.

12. He also thought that some forms were greater than others; universal qualities like justice, truth and beauty. These ideals all have something in common – the presence of GOOD. Plato believed that GOOD is the most important form. It is the “Form of the Good” or the “Ideal of the Ideal Forms”

13. Plato argued that once you can understand Good, then you can understand all other Forms because they are all aspects of goodness. The Good is like the Sun: it illuminates everything else, and the further away you get, the paler things become. In his analogy of the Sun, Plato says that the Form of the Good makes things knowable, and that it is the source of the other Forms. Therefore, knowledge of the Good is the highest knowledge a human is capable of. An ordinary person struggles to see past the illusion of this material world because they are ruled by their senses. Only the person who questions and investigates can learn the truth behind the illusion. Who is that person? The philosopher, of course!

16. How does the Cave link to the Forms?
THINK (Individually)
PAIR
How does the Cave link to the Forms?
SHARE
What evidence do you have for your view?

17. The tied prisoners are in an illusory world
The tied prisoners are in an illusory world. What they think is reality, the shadows, is not reality at all. Plato says that their situation is no different to ours – in Plato’s thinking people do not see the Forms clearly, only the illusory physical world. In addition, the people in the cave are prisoners; they need to be set free. In this sense the physical world imprisons a person by stopping them seeing the Forms. The statues that people carry are also images of the Forms. These images are themselves only imitations or copies of the true reality of the Forms. The people who carry the statues on their heads are often thought to be people who share the same views as those chained up in the cave. The people who carry the statues shape the prisoners’ views, because all the prisoners see is the shadows of the statues. However, these statues are themselves only images of the Forms and show that the people carrying the statues have no more idea of the Forms than do the people chained up in the cave. In the Republic Plato criticised philosophers and politicians who lead the people but do not actually know the Truth (the Forms). The people carrying the statues are like these politicians and philosophers.

18. An empiricist – relied on senses.
Aristotle…
An empiricist – relied on senses.

19. Potentiality & Actuality
2 Key Terms:
Potentiality & Actuality

20. Potentiality & Actuality
There are two states of being: Potentiality – the possibility of doing something or becoming something. Actuality – when potential is achieved.
Can you give an example of a thing that has POTENTIALITY and how it can become a thing of ACTUALITY?

21. What do these terms mean?
Aristotle was interested in the movement from potentiality to actuality…
He thought that everything single thing that is actualised has four causes of existence:
Material
Efficient
Formal
Final
What do these terms mean?
Can you provide an example to develop your explanation?

22. Out of what has a thing come?
1. The Material Cause
Out of what has a thing come?
The first cause refers to the matter or substance that something is made of – e.g. a book is made of paper. The things out of which an object is created.

23. 2. The Efficient Cause
This cause refers to the cause of an object existing. A table exists because someone chose to make it, similarly a book exists because someone wrote it. However, the Efficient Cause does not necessarily have to be a person. A gust of wind might be the Efficient Cause of a tree falling over. An object might even have more than one efficient cause – for example, a cake’s efficient cause is not only the baker, but the mixing and cooking process too. The thing that causes it to be made/ way in which an object is created.

24. 3. The Formal Cause
This refers to what gives the matter its form or structure. A table is not just random pieces of wood, but wood cut and arranged in a certain way. The expression, idea or plan that led to the creation of an object. Its characteristics.

25. For the sake of what is it?
4. The Final Cause
For the sake of what is it?
The final cause is concerned with the reason why something is the way it is. It is concerned with the function of any thing or object. The Final Cause is teleological – it is to do with the function of an object or the reason an action is done. The aim for which an object is created.

26. Material Efficient Formal Final
Aristotle was interested in the movement from potentiality to actuality…
He thought that everything single thing that is actualised has four causes of existence:
Material
Efficient
Formal
Final

27. Prime Mover?

28. A FINAL CAUSE “Unmoved Mover”
The prime mover is the ultimate explanation of why things exist - a final cause.
It is Necessary, or else there would be nothing.
Movement through attraction.
What is the prime mover like?
Unchanging - pure actuality Simple - not made of parts.
Not physical - thought. Impersonal and transcendent
“Unmoved Mover”

29. Aristotle’s reason for believing in a Prime Mover
1) The universe is made up of pre-existing matter
2) Matter moves from a state of potentiality to actuality
3) Something in a state of potentiality cannot move itself into a state of actuality
4) The four causes are needed to explain the process of ‘matter' moving from potentiality to actuality.
5) The prime mover is required to ensure the ‘movement' of potentiality to actuality.
8) The prime mover does not act but draws the rest of the universe towards it by virtue of the fact that it exists in a state of pure actuality. It is impersonal, immanent and necessary in nature, contemplating only itself.

30. How are the Prime Mover & The Form of the Good similar/ different?
Add to your view – read pages (blue book)

31. Is rationalism or empiricism more convincing?
Add to your view – read pages (blue book)

32. Can you add anything?

33. How confident are you? What do you need to know? Plato:
Plato’s understanding of reality (reliance on reason rather than the senses)
Plato’s Forms (the nature of the Forms, realm of the Forms and the hierarchy of the Forms)
The Form of the Good.
Plato’s analogy of the cave (how it links to the theory of the Forms) You could also look at the simile of the divided line.
Strengths and weaknesses of Plato’s arguments
Aristotle:
Aristotle’s understanding of reality (use of teleology).
The four causes (material, formal, efficient, final).
The Prime Mover (how this connects to the final cause).
Strengths and weaknesses of Aristotle’s arguments
Comparison:
How Plato’s Forms of the Good and Aristotle’s Prime Mover compare.
Comparison and evaluation of Plato’s rationalism and Aristotle’s empiricism.
How confident are you?