OCR ↗︎
Philosophy ↗︎
Question preparation ↓

Intro:

Heraclitus was an ancient greek philosopher who cast doubt on the possibility of gaining knowledge. He famously said “a man never steps into the same river twice”.
This is because both the man and the river change. The world is in a state of ‘flux’ (change). So the moment we know something, it has changed. So how do we get knowledge?
Both Plato and Aristotle are trying to answer this challenge.

AO1: Plato’s rationalism: theory of forms & Allegory of cave

Rationalism is the epistemological theory that knowledge is gained a priori, not from experience.
Plato’s cave illustrates his rationalism and theory of forms.
Prisoners represent us, shackled in ignorance inside the cave of appearances.
They think the shadows are reality because that is all they know, just as we assume the experienced world is real.
A prisoner, representing the philosopher, escapes through a priori reason and sees the world of forms.
Forms are abstract objects: perfect, eternal and immutable versions of everyday things.
Particular objects are imperfect representations of the forms they partake in.
For example, a beautiful sunset is not beauty itself, but an imperfect changing instance of Beauty.
Plato accepts Heraclitus’ problem that experience cannot give knowledge, but proposes reason as the solution.

AO2: Plato’s cave as an argument for rationalism

Plato’s cave is a form of the veil of perception, extended by Descartes’ evil demon and Bostrom’s simulation argument.
Empiricism seems to require perceptions to give epistemic access to reality, directly or indirectly.
Yet empiricism cannot justify that experience really relates to reality.
Any evidence that we are not in the cave or a simulation could itself be a shadow or simulation-artifice.
So empiricism leads to scepticism, which Plato thinks justifies rationalism.

Counter

A common reaction is pointing to the lack of evidence for the forms, but this misses Plato’s point.
He argues we should not rely on evidence that could be cave-shadows.
Criticising Plato requires showing he is wrong to discount evidence.
Aristotle attempts this, claiming that studying causal processes behind change gives knowledge.
Forms become unnecessary, because experience can be explained without them.

Evaluation

Aristotle’s approach is partly successful, but needs modern science.
Aristotle’s method relied mainly on observation, which is vulnerable to Plato’s cave critique that we could be observing illusions.
Modern science combines observation with experiment.
This lets us control, transform and predict the world far beyond ancient Greece.
It gives us an active relationship with experience, not passive observation of shadows.
So, modern science escapes Plato’s cave critique and shows Plato is wrong to dismiss evidence.

AO1: The hierarchy of forms & form of the good

Plato presents reality as a hierarchy, each with a level of cognition needed for access.
The highest reality is the Form of the Good, symbolised in the cave by the sun, which the philosopher sees.
The sun illuminates and nourishes the world, just as the Good enables understanding of the other forms which also derive their existence from it.
Anyone who understands the Good becomes morally perfected, making wrongdoing impossible.
Knowing the Good reveals what is truly desirable, so tyrannical, prideful or greedy desires lose their power.
This philosopher should become a ‘philosopher king’.
Below the Good are higher forms like justice, beauty and truth, known through understanding, or Noēsis.
Below these are mathematical forms, known through reasoning, or Dianoia.
Below these are forms of experienced things, such as tableness, accessed by belief.
Finally, images, shadows, reflections and art are the lowest level, accessed by imagination.

AO2: Plato vs Aristotle on the the form of goodness

Plato’s highest good is transcendent and perfects the soul which knows it, freeing reason from appetite and making wrongdoing impossible.
However, this morally perfected rationality seems utopian, since such a person has never existed.
Reason appears influenced by desire.
Aristotle rejects goodness as a separate transcendent Form, his highest reality is the Prime Mover.
As final cause, it grounds the teleological order by which each thing seeks its proper good.
Human goodness becomes eudaimonia: aligning reason and emotion through virtuous habit.
Immorality is practical reason misdirected by bodily drives.

Counter

Hume went further than Aristotle, arguing reason helps justify and obtain what we desire; a “slave of the passions”.
Reason is more like a lawyer than a philosopher.
Nietzsche diagnosed Plato’s Form of the Good as a ‘dangerous error’ caused by desire for power.

Evaluation

However, Haidt shows Hume and Nietzsche go too far, leaving Aristotle’s model as the ideal middle ground.
Reason is like a rider guiding an elephant through training.
Reason cannot directly control emotion, but can gradually align it through habituation.
For example, a student might not emotionally want to revise, but can use breaks and rewards to align desire with reason.
Plato rejected empiricism because senses mislead us, but reason can also be misled by emotion.
This cannot be escaped like Plato hoped, but nor are we enslaved by desire as Hume thought.
Desire can be trained into harmony with reason as understood in Aristotle’s empirical teleology.

AO2: Plato’s argument from recollection

Plato justifies an immaterial soul and world of forms through recollection.
We have ideas of perfect things, such as equal sticks, a perfect circle or perfect justice.
Yet we never experience perfect things in the world of appearances.
So, Plato argues we must have apprehended these ideas in a realm of forms.
Our body could not belong to that perfect realm.
His likeness principle says what knows immaterial forms must be immaterial.
Therefore, we have an immaterial soul which knew the forms before birth.
Knowledge is anamnesis: experience triggers recollection of the forms particulars partake in.

Counter

Hume counters that justice and beauty are subjective, though Plato’s argument could work for geometry.
However, Hume claims we can create perfection ourselves.
Through abstract negation we imagine imperfect circles as ‘not imperfect’, creating perfection.
So, perfect concepts can be explained without a soul or realm of forms.

Evaluation

Plato’s argument fails at two points.
Hume shows perfect concepts could come from a priori reasoning alone, without being innate.
But even if we were born with perfect concepts, it is a leap to think a soul and forms must explain them.
Evolution may have programmed us with geometric awareness for survival.
So, Plato’s explanation is unnecessary.

AO1: Aristotle’s four causes

Aristotle’s empiricism claims we can gain knowledge from experience.
He thinks universals, such as form, are not abstract entities but aspects of observed things: immanent realism.
Material objects are hylomorphic: combinations of matter and form.
Aristotle argues that knowledge requires understanding why something exists.
We can identify causal processes which explain the change we experience.
This lets us understand what we observe and why it exists.
This is Aristotle’s response to Heraclitus: knowledge is possible despite flux.
Aristotle thinks change involves four causes.
The material cause is what something is made of, e.g. the wood of a chair.
The formal cause is its essence or defining feature, e.g. the chair’s shape as something for sitting.
The efficient cause is what brings it into being, e.g. the carpenter.
The final cause is its telos, e.g. being sat on.
This is an early version of the scientific method.
A scientist could explain that if fire is applied to a wooden chair, its material structure produces ashes.
Science similarly looks for patterns and gains general knowledge from them.

AO2: the modern scientific critique of telos

Since Francis Bacon, telos has been rejected as metaphysical and unempirical.
Modern science explains the universe through atoms, energy and forces, not purpose.
There is no space in science for purpose as part of nature.
Sean Carroll argues purpose is not built into the universe’s “architecture”.
Changes Aristotle explained through telos can be explained non-teleologically.
An acorn becoming an oak tree is explained through DNA and environment.
So telos appears obsolete.

Counter

However, Polkinghorne defends the empiricism of telos.
Science investigates the “what”, such as which laws of physics exist, but not why there are laws at all, especially fine-tuned ones.
So, science points to the need for an ultimate explanation of purpose beyond empiricism.
This shifts telos towards Christian theology rather than Aristotelian philosophy.

Evaluation

However, this contemporary version of purpose cannot survive empirical critique.
Max Tegmark argues science may one day explain why the universe exists, reducing the “why” to non-teleological concepts.
Alternatively, Russell may be right that there is no “why”: the universe could be brute fact.
So, final causation is unnecessary and unscientific.
Nature’s laws are mysterious, but Polkinghorne risks God of the gaps by assuming the explanation is teleological.
Until we observe change requiring telos, the Enlightenment rejection of final causation is justified.
Aristotle was right about empirical method, but not final causation.

AO1: Aristotle’s prime mover

To explain the ultimate source of change, Aristotle argued there must be a prime mover.
For Aristotle, motion means all change we experience.
He thought the universe was eternal, but its continual motion still needed explanation.
Observation suggests this: if you roll a ball, it stops.
Yet the stars and planets have not stopped moving.
So, there must be a prime mover sustaining celestial and terrestrial motion.
This source of motion cannot receive motion from anything else.
It must therefore be unmoved, with no potentiality to change: pure actuality.
It cannot be physical, since material beings change and decay.
It is an eternal immaterial mind.
If it thought about changeable things, it would change.
So, it contemplates only itself.
Aristotle thought immaterial beings could not directly push or pull physical beings.
So, the prime mover is not the efficient cause of the universe.
It is the final cause.
It causes motion through attraction to its perfection.
Imperfect things seek their good end and are attracted to pure actuality.
This explains motion: things move from potentiality to actuality through four causes, because of the prime mover as final cause.

AO2: evaluation of the prime mover

Modern science since Newton rejected Aristotelian motion.
Newtonian inertia says a thing continues moving unless met by an opposing force.
A rolling ball stops because energy transfers into friction, not because motion “runs out”.
In space, little friction explains the motion of stars and planets.
So continuous motion needs no prime mover.
Kenny says Newton “wrecks” Aristotle’s argument.

Counter

However, Aquinas refocused Aristotle’s argument on the universe’s efficient cause.
This avoids Newton’s critique.
We still need an ultimate explanation of causation.
Even if cause and effect go back forever, that infinite series still needs explaining.
As Aristotle said, we can ask why it exists.
Aquinas believed this was the Christian God, but the argument only proves a generic “uncaused cause”.
So Aristotle may still imply a special origin of motion.

Evaluation

However, Hume shows this upgraded form of Aristotle’s argument fails.
Hume illustrates with 20 particles.
Explaining each particle explains the collection, so it is absurd to demand explanation for the whole.
An infinite series works similarly:
If all parts have explanations, the whole series does too.
So Aquinas commits the reification fallacy: mistaking an abstract entity for a concrete thing.
A series is nothing beyond its parts, so it needs no separate explanation.
Aristotle’s premise is misapplied: an infinite series may need explanation, but this is found in its parts.
So philosophy and science show Aristotle cannot prove a prime mover.

AO1: Aristotle’s materialist view of the soul

Aristotle thought Plato was wrong that form existed in another realm.
Form is an inseparable part of objects, their essence or formal cause.
This view is called hylomorphism.
The formal cause of living things is the soul, giving them vital characteristics.
Plants have a vegetative soul enabling nutrition.
Animals also have locomotion.
Humans also have rational thought.
So, the soul is the body’s formal cause, giving humans rationality.
Aristotle illustrates this with wax and a stamp.
The soul is like the imprint, while the body is wax.
The imprint is not separate, but gives wax character.
Similarly, the soul is not distinct from the body.

AO2: Critique of formal causation by modern materialism

Modern science rejects formal causation.
A scholastic example is that snow’s whiteness is explained by its form.
But snow’s colour results from material structure interacting with light.
After Bacon, science sidelined metaphysical concepts with no explanatory necessity.
Aristotle says rational thought is the activity of the soul, the body’s form.
Modern science treats mind as brain structures and processes.
As with snow, what is attributed to formal causation can in principle be explained materially and efficiently.

Counter

Contemporary hylomorphists reply that this is unjustified.
Material explanation has not explained consciousness or rational thought.
So, we cannot claim to have eliminated formal causation.

Evaluation

However, something unexplained does not justify a special metaphysical cause.
Science has many cases once thought to require special categories, like life-force or phlogiston, later eliminated materially.
The whiteness of snow also follows this pattern.
This does not disprove formal causation, but undermines its credibility.
Consciousness and thought are mysteries, but the issue is how to approach mystery scientifically.
Dark matter and black holes could require new metaphysical categories, but may not.
The same applies to consciousness.
Unless we have evidence for formal causation’s necessity, it is unnecessary.
We have evidence for material and efficient causation, but none for formal causation.
So, consciousness should be investigated materially.

Question preparation

Revision paragraphs:

AO1: Plato’s rationalism: theory of forms & Allegory of cave
AO2: Plato’s cave as an argument for rationalism
AO1: The hierarchy of forms & form of the good
AO2: Plato vs Aristotle on the the form of goodness
AO2: Plato’s argument from recollection
AO1: Aristotle’s four causes
AO2: the modern scientific critique of telos
AO1: Aristotle’s prime mover
AO2: evaluation of the prime mover
AO1: Aristotle’s materialist view of the soul
AO2: Critique of formal causation by modern materialism

Question types:

Questions on, or critically comparing, any of the following:

Rationalism
World of forms
The cave
The hierarchy of forms
The Form of the Good
Empiricism
Teleology
The Four causes
The Prime mover

We have three evaluation paragraphs for Plato, and 3 for Aristotle. So for easy questions focused straightforwardly on Plato or Aristotle in general, we have three for each.

Questions which focus on one part of Plato or Aristotle can be answered the same way, but you need to bring out the relationship between their parts to make the parts not mentioned by the question relevant to the part that is:

The form of the good depends on and is an outworking of Plato’s rationalism and theory of forms in general, and features in the cave as the sun.

Likewise, Aristotle’s prime mover depends on and is an outworking of his theory of the four causes.

Questions which require critical comparison are best answered with AO2 sections where plato and aristotle are put against each other:

AO2: Plato’s cave as an argument for rationalism
AO2: Plato vs Aristotle on the the form of goodness
You could also include an AO2 on Aristotle – either on telos, of formal causation, or the prime mover – which all show modern science disproves Aristotle’s beliefs (though not his underlying method). Showing that while both Plato and Aristotle’s beliefs about reality are unconvincing, Aristotle is ultimately more convincing in his underlying method, in fact its contemporary developments of that method which have shown his particular beliefs to be unconvincing.

Assess Plato’s hierarchy of the forms [40]

AO1: The hierarchy of forms & form of the good
AO2: Plato vs Aristotle on the the form of goodness
AO2: Plato’s cave as an argument for rationalism
- Linking sentence: Plato justified his hierarchy of the forms on this basis of his rationalist epistemology, which he illustrated with his allegory of the cave.

AO2: Plato’s argument from recollection
- Linking sentence: Plato justified his belief in a hierarchy of forms with his argument from recollection.

Analyse Aristotle’s four causes. [40]

AO1: Aristotle’s four causes
AO2: the modern scientific critique of telos
AO2: evaluation of the prime mover
- Intro sentence: Aristotle argued his theory of the four causes allowed us to infer the existence of a final cause of all the motion in the world.
- Outro sentence: So, the four causes are undermined because they lead to a concept of the prime mover which Newton showed to fail. However, Aristotle’s underling method of gaining knowledge through experience is still valid, in fact that’s the method Newton himself used.
AO1: Aristotle’s materialist view of the soul
AO2: Critique of formal causation by modern materialism

Critically compare Plato’s Form of the good with Aristotle’s prime mover [40]

AO1: The hierarchy of forms & form of the good
AO2: Plato vs Aristotle on the the form of goodness
AO1: Aristotle’s prime mover
AO2: evaluation of the prime mover
AO2: Plato’s cave as an argument for rationalism
- Linking sentence: Plato’s form of the good and Aristotle’s Prime mover are products of divergent theories of how we gain knowledge. Plato thought his grounding was justified by his allegory of the Cave, which is an argument for rationalism and critique of the empirical grounding for Aristotle’s Prime mover.

Weirdly worded questions:

Assess Aristotle’s teleology OR: Assess the role of telos in Aristotle’s understanding of reality [40]

For Aristotle – teleology just means his empiricism – his four causes & the prime mover – since they involve teleological (telos) elements.
This is just asking you to assess Aristotle’s theory and its use of telos – in the four causes (final causation) & regarding the prime mover (as the final cause of the universe).