fun presentation on Philosophers

1. Socrates and Plato
Genuine Inquiry:
So you tell me about Socrates!

2. The Sophists: the problem of man
• Sophists—(Wisest)
– Travelled around getting paid to be scholarly
– “experts” in Rhetoric and Philosophy
– Sophist were power hungry‐‐‐says Plato
– Early form of university?
– Right vs Wrong learned from society!
Focus changed from NATURAL to Man and Society

3. Socrates
“One thing only I know, that is I know nothing
• Founder of western Philosophy
•Yet never wrote a single line
•NO LECTURING
•Questions and Art of Discourse
•Aided other in coming to conclusions
•Right insight leads to right action
•Served in the •We do wrong because we don’t know
army better!!
•Oracle said he •Doing wrong makes us unhappy‐‐‐why would
was the wisest anyone want to be unhappy!?
man
•Believed in some
mysticism •Believed in COMMON SENSE
•But Who Really Knows??? Plato says so!!!

4. Socrates Cont…
• Ever play dumb? Then your being “SOOO
CRATIC!!!”
– This forced people to use common sense
• Condemned to drink Hemlock
– Majority of 500 person jury convicted him
• False gods and corrupting the YOUTH
– DRINK HEMLOCK M‐TV
• Irony is‐‐‐ Socrates did not believe in death
sentence!

5. Don’t eat your Plato
You’ll spoil dinner
• Pupil of Socrates
• Wrote lots and lots
– Apology, Epistles, 25‐Dialogues
• What is eternal & Immutable
(cant change)
• EVERYTHING “flows”
– All substances dissolve
• Like Playdoh, There is a mold for
everything (IDEAS)

6. UH Oh! I ate the Plato!
Just get out the IDEA PLAYDOH
• Empiricist
– Only rely on reason
– Senses vary reason is same for everyone
• “What you see is what you get”—NOT
• Reason explained the IDEA world
– Circles are 360 degrees (in a perfect world)

7. My Plato Split into 2
Now one piece is dissolving, and the other piece is flying away
• Man is divided
– Soul yearns to join EROS in Idea World
– Body dissolves away
• Allegory of the Cave
– Shadows equal reality for all
– Outside cave is ideal world for one
– Group kills one for trying to change current reality

8. Plato view of Humans
Reason
Will
Appetite
humans = part of Whole

9. Put my Plato is its Place…Perfect
• If everyman knows his spot in the whole
• Then PERFECT STATE ACHIEVED
• RATIONALIST
– Govern with REASON
• All are equal, because reason is equal

10. Aristotle
Science and Philosophy MeeT
• Remember High School Biology Class
– Classes, subclasses, Species, ect…
– Thanks Aristotle for the B‐
• Pupil of Plato
• Father was physician
• Preoccupied with nature •Tutor to Alexander
the Great
• BOOOORRRINNNNGGGG writer •Flew from athens
rather then face
death

11. Aristotle
• Idea now‐‐‐form familiar to all things
• Horse shares features with all other horses
• WE PERCEIVE AGAIN
– Shifted from reason to senses again!
• Nothing exists in mind without experiences
first
• Substance Vs Form
What things are made of Specific Characteristics of
things

12. Aristotle
• Everything has potential to achieve FORM
– Sculptor sees horse in granite, because granite has potential
• Causality
– Why did peter throw the shoe to break the window?
– The purpose holds much information
• Logic
– All living things are mortals
– Hermes is a living thing
– Therefore Hermes is a mortal.

13. Aristotle
• Man is top of food chain
– Therefore experiences all of nature!
• ETHICS
– 3 forms of happiness
– Pleasure, free responsible citizen, thinker
– BALANCE IN LIFE IS KEY
• Politics
– Kingship tyranny
– Aristocracy oligarchy (few people running it)
– Democracy Mob rule

14. Super Brief overview of rest
of the pack
• Hellenism
– Religion and philosophy blended
– Ethics main Focus
• Cynics
– Founded by Antisthenes
• Happiness cannot be lost
• Suffering and death could not stop happiness
• Insensitive to others woes
• Stoics
– Each person is microcosmos of MACROCOSMOS
– Humanism and Fate
• Epicureans
– Good = pleasure evil= pain
– Chocolate now vs cruise later
– Don’t
• Fear god, worry about death, worry about fear
– Live for the moment

15. MORE STUFF
• Neoplatonism
– 2 poles
• God=THE ONE=fire
• Darkness=evil=stone/water
• Everything is GOD
• Mysticism= being one with god
• Indo‐Europeans
– Polytheism
– History goes in circles
• Semites
– Root of all religion
– Linear view of history= end is judgment day!
• Jesus‐‐‐and Paul‐‐‐
– Spread of Christianity.