Plato’s theory of forms is unconvincing discuss Plato was a duellist and thus believed that there are two worlds; the material world and the world of ideas/Forms. The world of ideas or Forms is the true reality and the world of appearances is just reflections of world of Forms. Plato believed that our knowledge of the Forms was a priori which means that our souls knew the Forms before it was inside us, therefore we have knowledge prior to experiencing the objects with our senses. Plato believes everyone is born with an intuitive but imperfect understanding of the Forms. He also believes the philosopher is able, through using his intellect, to achieve true knowledge of the abstract Forms without using his senses.
Plato’s doctrine of recollection is supposed to solve the problem of Meno’s paradox. Meno’s paradox is stating that the learning of definitions is impossible, as you already know subconsciously the answer to the question or definition you are asking. Meno argues that you have to be able to differentiate correct and incorrect definitions and because you are able to do so, it means that you have always known the answer. Meno, however, is able to utilize this way of thinking because he uses the term knowledge as vaguely as possible. Plato's doctrine of recollection states that rather than learning, what is really happening when people think about something, and in the end discover an answer to a problem, is that they are recollecting things that they already knew.
I disagree that Hume's arguments to causation are successful to a full extent due to the fact that Hume's challenges criticise causation from the point of view that empirical evidence is our only source of knowledge, suggesting we cannot know whether the effect due to cause can be discovered because "the effect is different from the cause, and so can never be discovered." Yet why should we apply the limitations of our ability to state that God does not exist? To further evaluate, Hume states we are bound by empirical data and so we will only be able to 'induce' that the regress of cause and effect exists and so this regress falls foul to Hume's Fork. The criticism of Hume's challenge is formulated in the sense that because philosophically and empirically "we will never know the true origins of the universe" it does not mean that "the universe is the "brute fact" as stated by B. Russell. A second challenge of Hume is that we are able to possibly imagine that something can cause itself into existence.
'Only Hard Determinism is justifiable' Discuss. Determinism is the idea that all actions are governed by laws outside of one’s control. Some philosophers believer that one’s ability to make free choices is an illusion whereas, others state that there is something else beyond understanding that may cause one’s actions to be determined. There are a variety of theories which are response to dealing with debate about free will and determinism. Hard determinism is the theory that human behaviour and actions are wholly determined by external factors, and therefore humans do not have genuine free will or ethical accountability.
Explain what Aristotle meant by Final Cause: [25] Aristotle’s Final Cause is his theory that all objects have a fundamental reason or purpose for its existence. He questioned why material was the way it was and looked beyond its physicality to what was its purpose and why it exists in our material world. Unlike his teacher Plato, Aristotle believed in only the material world and opposed Plato’s world of the Forms. To him, the final cause was important as the material efficient and formal causes would be pointless without the end product. This is the final cause.
He is only worried about the attainable future and ideals, while Plato is more focused about the enlightenment of man, and the understanding of knowledge. Machiavelli would indeed react poorly to Plato’s ideas in “The Allegory of the Cave” and would reject his “utopian” vision in favor of his own more “realist” vision. Plato, on the other hand would reject Machiavelli's viewpoints just as
However, since Anselm then brought in a second argument to counter this criticism, Gaunilo couldn’t have succeeded in destroying Anselm’s argument without then faulting that one (of which he didn’t). However, I cannot doubt that Gaunilo’s first constrictive criticism of Anselm’s ontological argument wasn’t a valid point. Not everyone’s perfect island can take a form in the real world as it is highly illogical and extremely impossible. Qualities of this perfect island may be scattered out across the Earth, but will never be a collective whole for this individual. As a fellow Christian monk at the time, it was probably the right thing to do as not every Christian views everything the same.
He argued that they were part of the structure of the mind and that we would have no experience without them. He says that sight, smell, touch etc. are all meaningless to us unless they are brought under these innate concepts. Kant believes in a world beyond our conceptual scheme called the noumenal world which he says we can know nothing about and it is impossible to discuss. People have criticized this view by say that how can Kant know that the Noumenal world exists if there is no evidence of it.
According to The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence by Robert Bryce, it is neither possible nor desirable for the US to become independent of foreign energy. Bryce states, “The inane obsession with the idea of energy independence is preventing the US from having an honest and effective discussion about the energy challenges it now faces.” (203). This comment by Bryce means that Americans have become so ignorant of reality that they have set an unattainable goal. The issue of energy independence needs to be looked at honestly and realistically. Bryce mainly supports this argument by saying, “If the
In this respect, morality and Socratism are the expressions of a vital drive analogous to those which give birth to the figures of Apollo and Dionysus, as they are both connected to the metaphysical inquiry into the nature of things. Still, the Socratic worldview fails in seeing its dependency and connections to these drives, and thus fails to see its connection to life and its irrational kernel . According to Nietzsche, this mindset is the result of a pathology, as it gives too much merit to appearances while it excludes the Will from its view, making the former absolute and arranging them in a rational but insincere way. Socratism is then made of the same substance of the drives which inspire tragedy insofar as it is an expression of life, but, in both a literal and a metaphysical sense, it is the result of a sick form of this substance – it presents a metaphysical view of reality, just like art, but at the same time causes life to retreat within the safe walls of reasonableness, as by contrast art pushes the person to transcend them . In some respect, we can see here one of the seeds of Nietzsche’s later intuitions, and I believe there is no harm in employing them to elucidate this point.