For Aristotle, Plato was a realist and Protagoras was a relativist. Essentially, he regards both theories as equally defective. J.D.G Evans attempts to analyze why Aristotle deems these theories inadequate and what position is left for Aristotle to take if both of the alternatives are defective. Repeatedly, Aristotle begins his accounts by criticizing the “answers of his predecessors” and, while there appears to be legitimate reasons to discredit them, he fails to provide an adequate alternate. The following passage from Eudemian Ethics (1235b 13-18) allows us to better comprehend Aristotle’s impression of philosophy, which in turn leads to a better understanding of how he reviews and resolves the aforementioned problem: We must adopt a line of argument which will both best explain to us the views held about these matters and will resolve the difficulties and contradictions; and we shall achieve this if we show that the conflicting views are held with good reason.
Those that would argue against Dawkins’ ideas may consider themselves dualists; the most famous dualist would be Plato. Following on from his Theory of the World of the Forms, he argued that the soul is, in fact, more important than the body. This is because the body is a part of the physical and empirical world, and will eventually decay; whereas the soul is a separate entity, and is eternal, immortal and unchanging – like those things which belong in the World of the Forms. Plato uses two arguments to suggest why the soul must exist outside of our bodies: firstly, the argument of knowledge: many mathematical problems are true in all circumstances, whether this is in the physical world or the World of the Forms. Therefore, learning is actually only remembering what the soul already knew from the World of the Forms.
Critically assess the claim that the soul is distinct from the body The claim that the soul is distinct from the body is a dualist belief supported by Descartes and Plato, but is refuted by monists like Aristotle and materialists such as Richard Dawkins. I believe that the soul is distinct from the body because the soul is eternal and continues in the after life, whereas the body is temporary and decays. Descartes supports his belief as he argues that the body is spatial meaning that is exists in space, whereas the mind or soul is conscious meaning we have knowledge of it. This is a dualist view as he argues that although the body and the mind/soul are separate, they interact with the brain. A strength of his argument is that it allows for mental continuity between life and the afterlife because the soul as well as the body interacts with the brain.
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.
Aristotle has a monist approach to the soul, unlike Plato he says that the soul cannot exist without the body. The soul is not a body but something that belongs in a body, comparable to the brain; it is necessary and is within all humans and it gives us reason, intellect and an innate sense of justice. This therefore can make his theory more convincing than Plato’s as the soul isn’t ‘immortal’ and dies along with the body, thereby eliminating the theory of reincarnation which is hard for anyone who isn’t Hindu to believe as it is contradictory to their religious views. Aristotle states that all reason is associated with the pure thought of the Prime Mover and the soul is what gives the body its shape and form; he argued that the soul is not a substance but the reason and shape behind the matter. Best described by using the example of a marble statue, as the marble stature is essentially a block of marble but it has a shape and form and like the body the soul, the shape and form cannot be removed from what the statue is, in the same way the body cannot be separated from the soul.
Death, in Socrates’ mind is a separation of the soul from the body. The body is a distraction in that it has needs and desires which must be attained to when alive, such as food, water, and shelter. He believes that the body is incapable of discovering the truth and that action is the purpose of the soul itself. A body and its immortal soul are separate, and only when the soul is separated from the body from death is it able to reason by itself. A philosopher’s ideal state is when his/her soul is relieved of its bodily duties and can gain true knowledge.
225). Any purposeful attempt to connect Socrates’ actual defense to the writings of Plato (the subject of much research) would currently involve a “paradise of inconclusive guesswork” (pg. 224). Instead, Burnyeat believes that proving Socrates’ guilt is NOT contingent upon the defendant’s precise wording. Therefore, he thinks that if the underlying defense constructed by Plato (at a minimum) paralleled the logic of the authentic Socrates, the verdict should be obvious.
The wise Immanuel Kant in his quote said that humans should be treated as an “end in itself.” One might read this and wonder exactly what Kant try’s to portray in these words. One will never Frist r truly get what he was trying to convey in his thesis. It is important to note first that the term ends is in reference to ends and means. This is important because we must understand the context of what Kant t meant by “end in itself.” Ends refer to people or much better a rational person that is capable of judiciously thinking in the progress of their wellbeing. This said the term “means” is in reference to things, “things” such as objects.
A form would allow us as humans to know that there is some sort of universal truth, and that through reason we should be able to come close to finding out what it is and maybe even find out what it is. We can not have knowledge about the god’s, we can however through deep thought and reasoning Socrates tells us get a better understanding for the good life and how to live and this in return should shed more light and clarity on the god/s. “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious”-Euthyphro(p.8) Euthyphro is saying here that he thinks god grounds the moral, but this can not be true according to Socrates . “The same things then are loved by the gods and hated by the gods, then would be both god-loved and god-hated.....and then same things would be both pious and impious, according to this argument.”-Socrates (p.9) When we look at multiple gods it is easy to see how they could not ground the moral for each god may agree and disagree to different piety and impiety which would not allow them to ground the moral because they would all have different views of what was good and bad. With god/s grounding the moral the foundation of the moral becomes arbitrary because it would only be good because god says its so.
Asserting Thrasymachus’ thesis, what follows is that justice is not a ‘form’ as argued by Socrates but rather a inter-subjective concept. It would also follow that justice does not have a fixed, objective definition. Since the interest of two different sovereigns may conflict, so may different conceptions of justice. Thrasymachus argues this point in various ways; stating that ‘injustice, if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice’ (344c) In this context, Thrasymachus’ thesis is descriptive but on this note, it also project a prescriptive meaning. Thrasymachus’ arguments largely rest on observational