Some Terms

• Fascism
• Communisism
• Socialism
• Capitalism
• Modernism
• Postmodernism
• Deontology, Absolutism, Consequentialism - The God Delusion P232
• Zeitgeist

Pre-Socratic

The Ancient Greeks invented philosophy. It was naive to worship the gods because they all behave irrationally and immorally.Ref:1:P7
They theorised with the mind about the ultimate nature of the world.Ref:1:P16
Some of their thoughts were remarkably close to modern scientific ideas.

• The Milesians were the first real philosophers. Thales (624-546BC), Anaximenes (585-528BC), Anaximander (610-546BC)..... They asked the one big question: what reality is made of. Some sort of fundamental "stuff"?
• Pythagoras believed the world was made of numbers but was shocked to discover irrational numbers.
• Heraclitus (c. 500BC) thought that the world was always changing and in a constant state of conflict. Also, knowledge we get from our senses, and foolishly believe in, is inevitably 'observer-related'.
• Parmenides (515-450BC) argued with strict logic that all that actually exists is the immediate present - past and future have no real existence.
• Zeno (490-430BC) invented puzzling paradoxes in logic, such as the famous race between Achilles and a tortoise.
• Empedocles (490-430BC) believed that the world was madeof the 4 elements of earth, air, fire and water, and that there was a constant cycle of destructive and constructive reincarnation. He threw himself into the Mount Etna volcano.
• The Atomists. Anaxagoras (500-428BC), Democritus (460-370BC)..... believed that everything was made of tiny things that were indivisible: atoms.

Socrates and Plato

• Sophists, like Protagoras (490-420BC), introduced Cultural Relativism, asking how you could know if your beliefs were right if other people had different beliefs. It's always easy to believe that your beliefs are "natural" when they are only "cultural".Ref:1:P17
• Socrates (470-399BC) encouraged his students to argue about ideas (Socratic dialogue) to demonstrate uncertainty. His central belief was that true moral wisdom lay in the self, that "virtue is knowledge". He changed philosophy from being about the innermost nature of the physical world, to one about human morality and politics. He was condemned to death for corrupting the young Athenians but poisoned himself with hemlock before execution.Ref:1:P20
• Plato (427-347BC) was a disciple of Socrates but was more of an authoritarian. He founded his Academy, and wrote The Republic, his blueprint for a perfect society. He enshrined the Socratic dialogue by writing his philosophy in this form.Ref:1:P21 He asked questions for which philosophers are still seeking answers.
• Innatism was given respectibility by Plato. It is the belief that we are all born programmed with certain kinds of knowledge, memory of previous existence (anamnesis). Ref:1:P22
• Plato believed in "two worlds", one of real things (eg. a cup) and one of ideal Forms ('cupness'). Anyone can see the cup with eyes, only 'Guardians' can see cupness with their intelligence. He seemed to have had some doubts about his theory in his later works.Ref:1:P23

Aristotle

• Aristotle (384-322BC) came from Macedonia to study in Plato's Academy. He returned to Macedonia after Plato's death and became tutor to thirteen year old Alexander (later 'the Great'). He eventually returned to Athens and founded his own school, the Lyceum.
• Deductive (Syllogistic) Logic was invented by Aristotle, resulting in logical structures (syllogisms) such as Ref:1:P28....
  • All frogs can swim (premise).
  • This is a frog (premise).
  • Therefore it can swim (conclusion).
  If the argument follows some simple rules (eg. not allowing more in the conclusion than in the premises) it will be valid. And if the premises are true, and the argument valid, then the conclusion will be guaranteed.
• Inductive Logic would start by observing particular frogs swimming, and making an informed guess that all frogs can swim. Generalizing from the specific to deduce a conclusion gives science the power of prediction.
• Aristotle did not believe in 'Forms' but thought that everything was made from unique substances, either essential or accidental. He also believed that all living things have souls.
• To Aristotle Ethics (good and bad) was more about self-fulfilment than morality. He believed that people learned how to be sensible and moderate.Ref:1:P33

Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle

The Hellenistic Age (323-27BC) began with the empire of Alexander the Great, when Greek culture spread throughout the Mediterranean.

• The Epicureans (Epicurus 341-270BC) suggested that the individual just needed tranquillity and peace of mind to be happy. Life was something to be enjoyed.Ref:1:P37
• Stoicism was the most influential philosophy in the Roman world. The Stoics held that the way to lead the good life was to have faith only in reason, and to distrust human emotions because, in the end, feelings always make you unhappy.Ref:1:P38
• Sceptics (invented by Pyrrho 360-272BC) believed it unwise to believe in anything. They believed that all knowledge is relative, and so nothing can be proved. But they cheat - they are always dogmatic about their one central doctrine, relativism.Ref:1:P39

Catholic Philosophy

As the Roman Catholic Church grew in power, they came to have a monopoly on philosophical thought, and actively discouraged independent or unorthodox views. Philosophy became theology, preoccupied with religous questions about the nature and existence of God.Ref:1:P41

• St.Augustine (354-430 was one of the "Fathers" of the Church. He wrote his Confessions about his own wicked youth. He believed that evil is caused by us, not God, who gave us free will but does not interfere.
• St.Anselm (1033-1109) stated a famous ontological argument for the existence of God.Ref:1:P44
• Any idea of God has to be of the greatest being that ever existed.
• But the existence of something just in the mind is inferior to an existence in reality.
• So, as God is the greatest conceivable being, He must exist in reality, as well as in the mind.
• Peter Abelard (1079-1144) had an affair with his student Heloise and was castrated because of it. She entered a nunnery and they spent the rest of their lives writing to each other. He was a nominalist, believing that names or ideas of things are different from their reality. Plato thought that names (eg. 'cat') referred to ideal 'Forms'; nominalists thought there were no such entities, only individual particulars. Words could trick philosophers.Ref:1:P45
• St.Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) argued for the existence of God by pointing out that everything has a cause, and so eventually there must be One Bid Cause.
• St.Thomas Aquinas believed in Natural Theology, that the laws of nature are the laws of God.
• Ockham's Razor is the belief that great truths are usually simple, so it is foolish to prefer a complicated answer to a simple one. William of Ockam (1285-1349) was a Nominalist who pointed out that a lot of academic philosophy was waffle.

The Renaissance

• Humanism began with the Renaissance in Italy in the mid 14th century. Philosophers started to think of human achievments and ideas, and less on the existence and nature of God.Ref:1:P48

The Reformation

The Reformation allowed philosophers in Protestant countries to ask more radical questions about science, politics and morality.

• Erasmus the Sceptic (1466-1536) was fiercely critical of the corruption of the Catholic Church. He took one seriously, least of all philosophers. He thought human wisdom was illusory and unattainable.Ref:1:P49
• Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was more of a political theorist than a philosopher. He thought Aristotle wrong to say that the role politics was to produce morally upright citizens. He concluded that it was a necessarily dirty game of treachery and deceit.
• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) explained in his book Leviathan a deeply cynical view of human nature, sometimes called psychological egoism. Humans are instinctively selfish and ruthless, trying to make them moral is a waste of time. He stated that a social contract between individuals and governments was necessary.Ref:1:P51
• Francis Bacon (1561-1626) said that "knowledge is power" and took a philosphical interest in the new scientific methods of empirical observation, experimentation and induction.Ref:1:P53

Origins of Modern Philosophy

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650), mathematician and philosopher who doubted whether his senses were telling him the truth: a straight stick half in water looks bent. There is "no way to prove that all my experiences are not just dreams". An invisible demon might be hypnotizing him into thinking he was awake when he was not.
• Descartes could not guarantee in his mind that his own body was real.But he could be certain that his "thoughts" were real: "I think, therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum). From this breakthrough he went on to prove that humans are strangely dualist beings, spiritual minds inhabiting material bodies.Ref:1:P56

Glossary

• Aesthetics - Art and beauty
• Epistemology - Questions about knowledge
• Ethics - Good and bad
• Metaphysics - Time, space, god, cause and reality
• Political philosophy
• Postmodernism
• Relativism