Platonic Forms This is a concise introduction to Plato’s use of the concept of “Form,” which many readers initially find to be puzzling, or even an egregious affront to common sense. The following is not intended to defend Plato’s theory as an adequate response to the problems it was designed to address. It is intended only to show that the theory is an intelligible and reasonable response to those problems. Plato assumes, following Parmenides, that what is real may be thought and what is thought may be said. Forms as class concepts. Much can be said in favor of this way of thinking. Of course we find ourselves saying things like ‘This woman is beautiful’ and ‘That statue is beautiful,’ long before we have thought about–if we ever do–what ‘the beautiful itself’ (or ‘beauty’) is. Forms as standards. Our knowledge of Forms. Thinking this way, it makes perfectly good sense to say that ‘Beauty really exists’ and that it will be whatever it is regardless of how you or I may think of it. Reality.
Aristotle Quotes We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions. ARISTOTLE, Nicomachean Ethics As for the story, whether the poet takes it ready made or constructs it for himself, he should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. If you string together a set of speeches expressive of character, and well finished in point and diction and thought, you will not produce the essential tragic effect nearly so well as with a play which, however deficient in these respects, yet has a plot and artistically constructed incidents. Where perception is, there also are pain and pleasure, and where these are, there, of necessity, is desire. Dramatic action, therefore, is not with a view to the representation of character: character comes in as subsidiary to the actions. ARISTOTLE, quoted in Lives of Eminent Philosophers Wit is well-bred insolence.
Theory of Forms Plato's theory of Forms or theory of Ideas[1][2][3] asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.[4] When used in this sense, the word form or idea is often capitalized.[5] Plato speaks of these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) of his dialogues who sometimes suggest that these Forms are the only true objects of study that can provide us with genuine knowledge; thus even apart from the very controversial status of the theory, Plato's own views are much in doubt.[6] Plato spoke of Forms in formulating a possible solution to the problem of universals. Forms[edit] The Greek concept of form precedes the attested language and is represented by a number of words mainly having to do with vision: the sight or appearance of a thing. A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time). Meno Phaedo
Plato Plato (/ˈpleɪtoʊ/; Greek: Πλάτων Plátōn "broad"pronounced [plá.tɔːn] in Classical Attic; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE) was a philosopher, as well as mathematician, in Classical Greece. He is considered an essential figure in the development of philosophy, especially the Western tradition, and he founded the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his teacher Socrates and his most famous student, Aristotle, Plato laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science.[2] Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." Plato's dialogues have been used to teach a range of subjects, including philosophy, logic, ethics, rhetoric, religion and mathematics. Biography Early life Little can be known about Plato's early life and education, due to very few accounts. Birth and family Name Education Plato and Pythagoras Later life
The Imaginary (Sartre) The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination (French: L'Imaginaire) is a 1940 book by Jean-Paul Sartre that propounds his concept of the imagination and discusses what the existence of imagination shows about the nature of human consciousness. The Psychology of the Imagination (alternate title of The Imaginary) There are two important points Sartre stresses in the book. First, while some believe imagining to be like an internal perception, Sartre argues that imagination is nothing like perception. Perception is our study over time of a particular object with our senses. It is necessarily incomplete; one can only see one side of a chair at a time, for example. Secondly, throughout the book Sartre offers arguments against conceiving images as something inside a spatial consciousness. Sartre says that what is required for the imaginary process to occur is an analogon—that is, an equivalent of perception. The Imaginary Google Book search with access to book preview.
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (/kænt/;[1] German: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl kant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is widely considered to be a central figure of modern philosophy. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and that reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to have a major influence in contemporary thought, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.[2] Kant's major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781),[3] aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience. With this project, he hoped to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. Kant argued that our experiences are structured by necessary features of our minds. Kant aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. Biography[edit] Young Kant was a solid, albeit unspectacular, student. Young scholar[edit] Early work[edit]
Outline of Argument from Recollection The Argument from Recollection: Phaedo 72e-77a 1. If a person is reminded of anything, he must first know that thing at one time or another. (73c 1-3) 2. Definition: Recollection is knowledge that comes about in this way: when a person upon seeing one thing not only becomes conscious of it, but also of something else which is a different object of knowledge. (73c 5-10) 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Therefore, 12.
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/ˈniːtʃə/[1] or /ˈniːtʃi/;[2] German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːt͡sʃə]; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet, composer and Latin and Greek scholar. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor[3] and irony. Nietzsche's key ideas include perspectivism, the will to power, the death of God, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist—a scholar of Greek and Roman textual criticism—before turning to philosophy. As his caretaker, his sister assumed the roles of curator and editor of Nietzsche's manuscripts. Life[edit] Youth (1844–69)[edit] Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. While at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that were considered unbecoming. Nietzsche in his younger days
Science - Quantum Physics of Consciousness and Physical Reality by StarStuffs We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the field is extremely intense...There is no place in this new kind of physics for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality." Albert Einstein, with his general theory of relativity, opened the doors of science along with the mystical realities. Einstein theorized that space and time are intertwined and that matter is inseparable from an ever-present quantum energy field and this is the sole reality underlying all appearances. This theory challenged the basic assumptions about the universe and what it contained. Physicists found that the most basic atomic particles in the cosmos comprise the very fabric of the material universe. An electron, for example, can be shown to be both a wave and a particle depending on the observer's perspective. This scientific discovery of Non-Locality, the wave/particle duality, meant that everything is joined or connected together. Superstring Theory:
Aristotle Aristotle's views on physical science profoundly shaped medieval scholarship. Their influence extended into the Renaissance and were not replaced systematically until the Enlightenment and theories such as classical mechanics. Some of Aristotle's zoological observations, such as on the hectocotyl (reproductive) arm of the octopus, were not confirmed or refuted until the 19th century. His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. The sum of his work's influence often ranks him among the world's top personalities of all time with the greatest influence, along with his teacher Plato, and his pupil Alexander the Great.[9][10] Life At about the age of eighteen, Aristotle moved to Athens to continue his education at Plato's Academy. Aristotle then accompanied Xenocrates to the court of his friend Hermias of Atarneus in Asia Minor. Aristotle was appointed as the head of the royal academy of Macedon. Thought Logic History
Quantum nonlocality Quantum nonlocality is the phenomenon by which the measurements made at a microscopic level necessarily refute one or more notions (often referred to as local realism) that are regarded as intuitively true in classical mechanics. Rigorously, quantum nonlocality refers to quantum mechanical predictions of many-system measurement correlations that cannot be simulated by any local hidden variable theory. Many entangled quantum states produce such correlations when measured, as demonstrated by Bell's theorem. Experiments have generally favoured quantum mechanics as a description of nature, over local hidden variable theories.[1][2] Any physical theory that supersedes or replaces quantum theory must make similar experimental predictions and must therefore also be nonlocal in this sense; quantum nonlocality is a property of the universe that is independent of our description of nature. Example[edit] Imagine two experimentalists, Alice and Bob, situated in separate laboratories. and P(b0|A1) = or
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagoreβ[›] (Bengali pronunciation: [rəˈbindrəˈnɑt ˈtɑɡɔr] ( )), also written Rabīndranātha Thākura (Bengali: রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; pronounced: [rəˈbindrəˈnɑtə ˈtɑkʊrə]),[2] (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941),γ[›] sobriquet Gurudev,δ[›] was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta, Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. Early life: 1861–1878 The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, India to parents Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875).ε[›] The Tagore family came into prominence during the Bengal Renaissance that started during the age of Hussein Shah (1493–1519). "Rabi" was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. Germany, 1931.