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Chapter 1

Socrates’ Predecessors

In chapter 1, the task is to inform the readers that philosophy originated in Greece around 6th century
BCE. The main concerns of philosophers during this time were philosophical questions that revolve in
metaphysics. Such question goes like this “What is the ultimate stuff that compasses the world?” The first
philosopher to address this question is Thales. According to Thales, everything relates to each other through
the one, and this is none other than water, the stuff or the foundation of all things. He claimed that the world
is full of gods since water is divine. The soul is divine because it is made of moisture coming from water.
Everything is divine because it is all made of water.

The second philosopher is Anaximander. For him, the ultimate substance is an indefinite or
boundless realm. He says that actual things are specific, its source is indeterminate. Things are finite while
their source is infinite. He also discusses eternal motion wherein the indeterminate boundless separates and
becomes elements of the world. For Human life, he says that all life comes from the sea and people evolved
from some other creature.

Anaximenes thought that air is the primary substance of the world, he believed that change happens
through rarefraction and condensation. The Pythagoreans thought that things consists of numbers

Heraclitus attempted to solve the problem of change. He believed that all things are in a flux and
explains this by saying that you cannot step on the same river twice. His basic element is fire. Like
everything fire is kindling and going out. To him, change is a product of God’s reason or logos. He also
says that harmony is established when opposites are present at the same time as a result of conflict.

To Parmenides, change is illusory. To him, the universe consists of the one, it never changes, has
no parts, and cannot be destroyed. He starts off with the phrase something is or something is not. He says
that we can only speak of things that are, not things are not. Through this he argues that nothing changes.

The pluralist are Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the atomist. They combined the concepts of change
and permanence. For Empedocles, change and permanence occure because of the forces of love and hate.
Love is for unity while hate is for separation. When love is dominant, elements cannot be distinguished
from one another because they are combined. When hate is dominant, they can be distinguished. For
Anaxagoras, Everything is in the original state, the universal mixture. They are in the form of seeds which
have infinite smallness. To the atomist, atoms and the void exists. They make up everything and are very
small. Atoms combine when they have the same size. To them perceiving objects is possible through
constant effusion. All things contain the four elements, our senses contain the four elements therefore,
knowledge is possible.
Chapter 2

The Sophist and Socrates

The Sophist and Socrates shifted the concerns of philosophy to the study of human beings. The three
most influential Sophist where Protagoras, Gorgias, and Thrasymachus. They were travelling teachers.
They asked the Athenians if Hellenic culture was based on rules (nomos) or nature (physis). If their beliefs
where artificial or natural. They were skilled in grammar, writing, and rhetoric.

The first Sophist is Protagoras. He is known for saying “ Man is the measure of all things.” This means
that man is the standard of all judgements he or she makes. Protagoras does not violate the law of non-
contradiction because he is a relativist. For Protagoras, each opinion is neither right or wrong. Contradiction
is not found in reality because reality is relative.

For Gorgias, there is no such thing as reality. There are gaps in the senses, events, and words. To him
we cannot know what reality is.

To Thrasymachus, justice is the interest of the stronger. He is a ethical nihilist who believes that justice
is whatever is given by authorities.

For Socrates, the soul or psyche is not a faculty. It is the capacity of intelligence and character. The
structure of personality. He was concerned with the goodlife. To make the soul as good as possible. For
him, the best way to achieve knowledge was through dialectics. In moral thought knowing is doing.
Chapter 3

Plato

The foundation of Plato’s philosophy regards his theory of knowledge. He says that there are
unchanging, universal truths. He says that education must lead people out of the cave. Education is a matter
of conversion, not a matter of acquiring knowledge. One must turn around from the world of appearance to
the world of reality. His theory of forms is important. Forms are changeless, eternal and non material.
Everything that we see is only poor copier. We know that something is beautiful because we know the form
of beauty and know that it partakes in the form of beauty. Forms have a independent existence and have no
dimension. Before our souls and bodies combined, our souls preexisted in a spiritual realm. Forms have
pre-existence. Also, forms pre-existed in the mind of God.

Forms are related to things. First, forms are the cause and essence of a thing. (2) Things participate
in a form. (3) Things are copies of forms. Forms are related to each other through genus and species. Our
minds know forms through recollection and dialectic.. Plato has a tripartite concept of the soul which are
reason, spirit, and appetite.
Chapter 4

Aristotle

Aristotle’s concern: Becoming


Plato’s concern: Being

METAPHYSICS
-Science of just philosophy
-Concern with knowledge called wisdom
1.Epistemic wisdom: Scholarly
2. Phronetic Wisdom: practical; ethics

Levels of Knowledge
1. senses
-all knowledge begins with the senses/ sense experience
-mind is tabularaza
-tells us the “that” in anything
-although most authoritative type of knowledge comes from the senses that cannot be called wisdom
why? Because it only tells us the “that” one must know “why” – reason on for it to be called knowledge

2. Reason
- wisdom is the cause
-so wisdom begins with senses then goes beyond by thinking of causes (the “when”) experiencing the same
thing
-it ends with wisdom

metaphysics – goes beyond the subject maths or science


wisdom – knowledge of true reality not of particular objects

problems with metaphysics


-various scientists ask: “what is such and such a thing like” why?
-Metaphysics: “what does it mean to be anything whatsoever?” “what does it mean to be?”

Metaphysics
-science of any existent of anything = as a thing
-study of being, its “principle” and “Causes”

product of his logic and biology


logic: “to be” something that could be accurately defined and subject to any discourse.
Biology: “to be” something that is involved in a dynamic process

All existence – is individual / has a determinate nature. As opposed to Plato – abstract


Categories / predicates
-presupposes the existence of a subject.
•all these apply to a subject
•all the categories apply to substance
• “to be” – to be a particular type of substance as a product of a dynamic process

metaphysics
-concerned with being (existing substances)
-and its causes (process by which the substances come into being) not in Humean sense

substances as the primary essence of things


•we know a thing better when we know what it is rather than knowing its color, its size, shape.
•The mind separates a thing from all its qualities a focus on what the thing really is.
There are special characteristics that exist in a particular thing- not central concern of metaphysical inquiry,
then what is its concern? – study of substance (essential nature of a thing, that which is not)
Qualities categories –asserted of a subject but of which everything else is asserted

*A thing is more than a sum of its qualities


A specific thing – combination of qualities and a substratum to which qualities apply

Hylemorphic Doctrine
-Matter and Form
there is no matter without form and form without matter.
As opposed to Plato where it is separate
•all natural things is a unity of matter and form
•substance – combination of matter and form
•space – basic material that demiurge uses to introduce forms in the material world
•Aristotle agrees with Plato that there are universals (without this there an be no specific knowledge / there
will be no way to talk about the members of a class)
•Reality – found in the individual things as opposed to Plato / Plato’s theory of forms does not help us
understand things
•Used the world matter and form to describe thing. (matter is what things are made of)
Process of Change
For Plato – what changes are unreal
For Aristotle – Changes is a basic fact of experience. (movement, growth, generation, decay)

2 types:
1. Natural Change
2. Product of Human effort (ex. Art)

4 causes:
•formal cause – what is it?
•Material cause – what is it made of?
•Efficient cause – by what is it made?
•Final cause – for what purpose?

Ex. Sculptures
FC – It’s a sculpture
MC – Marble / wood
EC – Sculptor
FnC – Decoration

Things produced by nature – have no purpose, but they have ends! Natural things have built in ways of
behaving.

Change -> occurs always in and to something that is already a combination of form and matter, that is on
its way to becoming something new or different.

Hyle / matter -> potentiality itself


Morphe / form -> actuality / form actualizes the potentiality that matter has.

Each thing posses the power to become what its form sets and its end.
-the fundamental principle of change is really the change from potentiality to actuality.
-Anything that has potentiality has the capability of becoming greater.
-The true was the form of which the seed was the matter.

Dynamic power to be striving towards their end.


Outward / toward external objects (man building house)
Inward / achieving ends pertaining to one’s nature.
(when we try to fulfill our nature as human beings by act of thinking for example)

Self contained act -> entelechies (having its purpose with in)

Development -> is internal


Why? Entelechies, because of nature or structure of a thing.
What is the inner urge that compels matter to becoming something greater? – form / actuality.
-not caused by any divine providence
-Priority of actuality over potentiality

Levels of being in nature


-everything is involved in change then everything partakes in potentiality but for anything to be involved
in potentiality, there must be something actual.
-Being that has pure actuality and no potentiality

The Unmoved Mover


-is not the first mover if you say first mover, you are trying to say that motion is achieved at first in time.
Not the creator.
-No creation of time
-Does not think of a purpose
-Does not show anything
-A way for Aristotle for achieving he fact called motion
-Eternal principle of motion

Unmoved mover
–actuality
–final cause and efficient cause
–pure understanding (nous)
–must think the best always it thinks on itself
–a thinking thing throughout all eternity
–Compared it with a beloved who moves the lover just by being the object of love by the power of attraction
not by force

Motion and Change can only occur when something actual without any mixture of potential is logical prior
to anything potential.

World – potentiality

The place of Man


•Physics
-begins with notion of prime matter :comes into the factual when we ask how things come into being
-Prime matter: substratum in things capable of changing, of becoming other substances or things, of
assuming novel forms
-Process of nature: continuous transformation of matter from one form to another
-Single bodies: certain materials out of which nature makes things) (air, fire, earth, water
-Form: cause of change not just the shape

•Biology
-al the bodies are combination of primary elements
-life -> self-nutrition and growth (with its correlative decay)
-matter itself -> no the principle of life / material substance is only potentially alive
-Alive body -> has its life from the source of actuality (form)
-Soul -> source of life (form) / the form of an organized body / definitive formula of a thing’s essence / can
only exist when there is a particular type of body. (body has a life and power of setting itself in movement
and arresting itself)
-Body and soul = not separate / without body, the soul cannot exist

For Plato, body – prison house of the soul. 3 types of souls and different ways a body can be organized
same with Aristotle
1. vegetative
2. sensitive
3. rational

•Psychology
-Plant – growth, reproduction, decay (vegetative)
-Animal – add motion and senses (sensitive)
-Humans – add reason (rational)
Soul forms Entelechies (definitive form of the body – essential nature)

Problems: (interpretations)
-soul perishes with the body
-one type of soul capable of immortality

human mind has in-itself some form of knowledge that is perfect and eternal in some other mind.

De anima
Active intellect “nous does not at one time function and at another not”
Human intellect “only knows intermittently”
Active intellect “independent of particular people and eternal. Posses no potentiality.
Distinctive Activity: unmoved mover
Pure act – an exercise of the mind in complete harmony with the truth about the whole reality
•the whole system of forms, taken as the intelligible structure of all things must therefore constitute the
continuous knowledge of the unmoved mover, the active intellect.
•Whatever we discover when we grow, the active intellect shows that already

What is immortal when we die is what belongs to the active intellect, but as this is no part of us, our own
individual soul perishes with the matter for which it was the form.
Rational soul not dependent on activities of body -> belongs to active intellect -> immortal

•Ethics
what is the good? Like movement, human active have an end. (constitutes the good)
2types:
1. particular
-desired for their usefulness
2. Supreme
-desired for their own sake

3types of end
1. pleasure
2. honor / fame
3. contemplation
-intellectual contemplation, only takes that has all the conditions of man’s supreme good.

Happiness
-best of what is with in the range of human action
-for every action and choice, the supreme good is the last end
-all the other ends are particular goods, except for happiness.
-Particular good: wealth and fame. Supreme good: happiness.

What does it mean to have the virtue called wisdom?


-human good turns out to be the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue.
-If there is more than one virtue, what happiness in accordance with the best and most complete virtue.

One good action does not make you a good man.

True goods – neither eternal or corporal


True goods ( only pertain to the soul)
Eternal (unity )
Corporal (bodily pleasures)

-intelligible goods
-how are they attained? Exercise of moral and speculative virtues.
-They are many ways to live the god life as opposed to objective universal absolute.
-Contemplative life ( source of happiness)
-Happiness
consequence of possessing the true good.
Fruit of activity property to man contemplation (must be exercised in full conformity to the demands of
human nature -> be rational)

Virtues
2 types of human virtue:
1. ethical / moral – control irrational tendencies and impulses proper to the sensitive soul (Freudian ego)
2. dianoetic – corresponds to the rational part of the soul

Good habits
-are virtual
Bad habits
-vices
-they are good or bad if they impair the potencies / potentials
how to acquire?
-freely through repeated exercise of certain actions

nature provides us with the inclinations or potencies that we subsequently have to actualize (we become
just by doing acts, we become temperate by doing temperate acts)

virtues always involve:


1. right proportion
2. mean between 2 extremes (vices) – so we have different means

2 aspects that characterize actions:


1. objective good – act itself
2. diverse circumstances that affect the subject

moral virtue
–immediately related to right reason -> points out the extreme or excess
–just mean that reason applies to our knowledge, emotions, actions, passions, so that these do not tend
toward either extreme or excess or defect
–good habits that are voluntarily acquired through repetition of acts and constituted by right reason

2 headings: depending upon whether they regulate operation directly concerning the subject or relations
with other men.
1. affect us personally
2. affect others

intellectual virtues
2 virtues appropriate to ration part of soul
1. operations of reason when it knows necessary and unchangeable things
2. when it knows contingent and changeable things

prudence – proper to practical reason. Practical qualities of a human being’s understands to deliberate well
in order to act well. Means to attain the end of human action. Virtue end of human action. It is not possible
to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom not practically wise without moral virtue.

Wisdom – proper to theoretical reason. Knows what is superior to man and its constant practiced is called
CONTEMPLATION.
Chapter 5

Classical Philosophy after Aristotle

EPICUREANISM
o Considered philosophy as the medicine of the soul
o Dealt with the questions such as “what is the world made of?”
o He maintained that everything is composed of tiny particles called “atoms”—in empty space
o To him, the chief aim of human is pleasure. He tried to refine the principle of it as the bais of
conduct
o PHYSICS AND ETHICS
-he concluded that everything that exists must be made up of eternal atoms-small, indestructible
bits of hard matter
-no beginning to the atoms, they always existed in space
-“swerve”
-human beings are not part of a created or purposeful order caused or ruled by God, rather the
accidental product of the collision of atoms
o GOD AND DEATH
-he thought that he had liberated people from the fear of God and of death
-they no longer had to fear God because God did not control nature or human destiny and was,
therefore, unable to intrude into people’s lives
-as for death, he said that this need not bother anyone, because only a living person has sensation
either of pain or of pleasure
-after death, there is no more sensation, since the atoms that make up bodies and minds come apart
-thus, there is no longer this particular body or mind but only a number of distinct atoms that return,
as it were, to the primeval inventory of matter to continue the cycle of new formations
-focused on the individual and his/her immediate desires for bodily and mental pleasures instead
of an abstract principles of right conduct or considerations of God’s commands
-he singled out the individual person as the arena of the moral principle
o PLEASE PRINCIPLE
-Epicurus reserved for humans both the power and duty to regulate the traffic of our desires
-he was certain that pleasure was the standard of goodness, but he was equally certain that not every
kind of pleasure had the same value
-“we recognize pleasure as the first good innate in us, and from pleasure we begin every act of
choice and avoidance, and to pleasure we return again”
-to our senses pain is always bad and pleasure is always good
-he emphasized the distinction between various kinds of pleasures
-some desires are both natural and necessary (food)
-some are natural but not necessary (sexual pleasure)
-others are neither natural nor necessary (luxury/popularity)
-the ultimate pleasure human nature seeks is repose—the absence of bodily pain and the gentle
relaxation of the mind
-can be achieved by scaling down desires, overcoming useless fears, and, above all, turning to the
pleasures of the mind, which have the highest degree of performance
o PLEASURE & SOCIAL JUSTICE
-our inevitable connection with other people has a real impact on our happiness
-the development of friendship is a key ingredient to our happiness
-a major task of civil society is to deter those who might inflict pain on individuals
-usefulness of some such social agreement is so apparent that societies will invariably adopt it
THE STOICS
o distinguishing between what we can and cannot control
o Zeno, Cleanthes, Aristo, Cicero, Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius
o “Only the educated are free” –Epictetus
o The founder of stoicism is Zeno of Citium (333-262) in Cyprus. Zeno may have been Phoenician
or part Phoenician. He was a student of the cynics, but was also influenced by Socrates. His
philosophy was similar to that of Antisthenes, but tempered by reason. Basically, he believed in
being virtuous, and that virtue was a matter of submitting to God’s will. As usual for Greeks who
postulated a single god, Zeno did not strongly differentiate God from nature. So another way of
putting it is to live according to nature
o Zeno lectured his students on the value of apatheia, the absence of passion, something not too
different from the Buddhist idea of non-attachment. By passion Zeno meant uncontrolled emotion
or physical desire. Only by taking this attitude, he felt, could we develop wisdom and the ability
to apply it

o “Let no one break your will!” he said. Man conquers the world by conquering himself. Start by
developing an indifference to pain and pleasure, through meditation. Wisdom occurs when reason
controls passions; Evil occurs when passions control us.
o Another aspect of Stoicism is its belief in the development of a universal state, in which all men
were brothers. Stoics believed in certain “natural rights,” a concept which we wouldn’t see again
until the 18th century. They also believed in the right to commit suicide -- an important part of
Roman cultural tradition.
o The best presentation of stoicism is by the Greek slave Epictetus (50-138 ad), who wrote during
the Roman era. There is also a little book, Meditations, by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
(121-180 ad)

SKEPTICISM
o Pyrrho of Elis (365-275) is usually credited with founding the “school” of skepticism. It is believed
that he traveled to India and studied with the “gymnosophists” (naked lovers of wisdom), which
could have been any number of Indian sects. From there, he brought back the idea that nothing can
be known for certain. The senses are easily fooled, and reason follows too easily our desires.
o If we cannot ever know anything for certain, then we may as well suspend our judgment, stop
arguing over what will never be settled, and try to find a little peace and tranquility in life. That
tranquility he called ataraxia. Note that, although we can't know anything for certain, we can know
many things well enough to get by. The sun may or may not rise tomorrow -- but the odds are good
that it will, and what use would it serve to worry about it anyway!
o Likewise, if no system is ultimately supportable, for the sake of peace, simply adopt whatever
system is prevalent in your neck of the woods. Pyrrho lived out his life worshiping the gods of
Elis, although he would certainly never acknowledge that they had any more likelihood of reality
as any other gods, or no gods at all! There are many things a skeptic might accept for convenience,
even though there be no ultimate proof.
o Although at first glance this sounds positive, one of my students, Annie Lam, said this:

Using Pyrrho’s reasoning, slavery would still exist today because Black Americans
should accept their role in life as chattel in order to preserve peace in the community.
Most societies organize themselves into hierarchical systems, thus, those groups of
individuals who are lower on the hierarchy typically experience oppression, and in
some extreme examples may be dehumanized and brutalized. I agree with the idea
that nothing can be known for certain; however, it is for this reason that I believe
arguments and debates should occur as opposed to being discouraged as advocated
by Pyrrho. It is only with the free and respectful exchange of ideas that individuals
can develop their personal values and beliefs in an educated manner. I think if we
sacrifice this exchange in order to acquire ataraxia, we also sacrifice our ability to
develop a genuine self because self-reflection – judgment of self and others -- is not
encouraged.

o Later skeptics became prevalent among the students in Plato’s Academy. One in particular,
Carneades of Cyrene (c.214-129 ), was notorious for arguing one side of an issue one day and the
other the next day. He said "There is absolutely no criterion for truth. For reason, senses, ideas, or
whatever else may exist are all deceptive."

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