HCJ - Seminar 1

I know it's late, but better late than never eh?

I was hoping that the 1st HCJ seminar would clarify some of the things that I found difficult to comprehend whilst reading the very long Book 1 of HWP. It certainly fulfilled this and I came out of the seminar feeling like I knew a little bit more about Philosophy - mainly thanks to Jack's seminar paper.

The Pre-Socratics aren't particularly difficult to understand, there's just a lot of them.  It's Socrates, Plato and Aristotle that I had trouble with and luckily for me, Jack's paper covered these 3 in quite a bit of detail.

Socrates

From what I gathered, he was the most intellectual philosopher. Sadly, he didn't record any of his works or ideas, he was just a tutor (most famously, he was the tutor to Plato).  He was accused of impiety (having no religion) and was condemned to death by drinking a hemlock (very poisonous drink -YUM!) this drink would have gradually killed Socrates by attacking his central nervous system.

The question I asked myself whilst reading this was simply "Why didn't he ESCAPE?", according to Brian, plans were put in place for him to escape by his pupils and he had several chances to avoid death.  Therefore Socrates killed himself and died willingly, or did he die to avoid being a hypocrite and maybe even to avoid doing something that would just make him like his accusers?  Or he may have wanted martyrdom...

Plato - (not my 'mate' Jason)

He thought that knowledge was innate.

As mentioned before, he was Socrates' pupil - apparently he was the best student of Socrates.

He was interested in mathematics and how the world is linked by geometry and geometric principles.

Plato's main idea was his Utopia called 'The Republic'.  He also said that there were 2 worlds, his perfect world and our world.

His other big idea was 'The Cave' - this is about prisoners being chained together in a cave, facing a wall unable to see the outside world and all they can see is their shadows.  However, one prisoner decides to turn around and see what the outside world has to offer, he frees himself from his restraints to discover exactly what's outside.  A few years later he comes back to visit the cave that he called home all those years ago and finds the other prisoners still chained up facing the wall.  He encourages them to come with him and see the outside world and what a great place it is, but they're having none of it.

Take a guess at who the escapee was. A philosopher...durrrr!!!

The simple explanation for us simpletons is this; we, the normal people are the prisoners, we stare at the wall and our own shadows (or forms), these represent every object in our lives.  In that world, an object is imperfect, but in his Utopian world, it is perfect and a table isn't just any old table, it's a perfect table - a better form.

Aristotle

He thought that we gained knowledge from experience.

He was Socrates' most valued philosopher, but unlike Socrates, Aristotle bailed on his death by hemlock.

He taught Alexander the Great.

He focused on metaphysics (this looks at the basics of philosophy and also science), logic, ethics and politics.  However, he didn't touch mathematics - he left Plato to deal with that!

Aristotle and Plato weren't the best of friends, they were arguing continuously about innate knowledge versus knowledge from experience.


After Aristotle

Stoicism states that only Zeus had immortality and the other Gods were not as absolute as Zeus - this Zeus fella must have pretty special.

The Epicureans used thoughts of soul and death in their ethical beliefs, these contrasted with Plato's beliefs about death; Plato stated that death came with rewards however the Epicureans said that mortality was the reward.

After the Hellenic period of philosophy, Plato and Aristotle were revived, their thoughts then went on to influence Christianity.

That just about wraps up last Tuesday's seminar...

TB 2011