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Perception, Methodology, and the Pre-socratics
Background
  1. •According to top-down theories of perception, why is it that when you and I are presented with identical stimuli, I might perceive, e.g. an old woman while you perceive, e.g. a young woman?
  2. •What is the bottom-up theory of perception?
  3. •What are the assumptions of plurality and motion?
  4. •Who/when/where were the Presocratics?
  5. •Which Presocratics that we’ve studied accepted the assumption of plurality, which accepted the the assumption of motion, and which accepted neither?
  6. •What is reductionism? How does it make prediction easier?
  7. •Which of the Presocratics that we’ve studied were reductionists?
  8. •What is the tension between perception and reason?
Thales
  1. •When did Thales live?
  2. •What did Thales think everything was made of? How could he think this, given that it seems obvious that everything isn’t made out of that stuff?
  3. •Was Thales a reductionist? Did he accept the assumptions of plurality and motion?
  4. •When did Thales think we should trust reason over perception?
Pythagoras (and the Pythagoreans)
  1. •When did Pythagoras live?
  2. •What is his most famous mathematical result?
  3. •Does abstract reasoning allows you to learn about the world without experiment?
  4. •Is it possible that we might some day find right triangles to which the Pythagorean theorem does not apply?
  5. •Are the Pythagoreans reductionists? If so, what do they think the fundamental kind of “stuff” is?
  6. •Do Pythagoreans think that numbers exist just like people, chairs, and tables exist (though the numbers are abstract and not physical)?
  7. •Do Pythagoreans think we should trust perception or abstract reasoning when trying to understand the world?
  8. •When did the Pythagoreans think we should trust reason over perception?
Heraclitus
  1. •When did Heraclitus live?
  2. •What was Heraclitus’ famous line about perpetual change?
  3. •Did Heraclitus think we could have unchanging knowledge of a world that is always changing? If so, how? If not, why not? (Hint: does Heraclitus think that there is anything that is unchanging?)
  4. •What is the Logos?
Democritus
  1. •When did Democritus live?
  2. •Was Democritus a reductionist?
  3. •Does Democritus think that atoms are divisible? Does he think they come in different shapes and sizes? Does he think they have parts?
  4. •What three properites of atoms does Democritus think explain all motion and plurality?
  5. •What is the Swerve? Why did Democritus postulate it?
  6. •When did Democritus think we should trust reason over perception?
Parmenides
  1. •When did Parmenides live?
  2. •Did Parmenides accept the assumptions of motion and plurality?
  3. •What is the One?
  4. •What is Parmenides argument about change?
  5. •What is Parmenides argument about plurality?
  6. •When did Parmenides think we should trust reason over perception?
Zeno
  1. •Who was Zeno? When did he live? Whose student was he?
  2. •What was Zeno’s argument that motion is impossible? What relatively recent mathematical innovation(s) finally gave us a way of resisting Zeno’s arguments?
Plato and Socrates
Background
  1. •When and where did Plato live?
  2. •Who was whose student of the following three: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?
  3. •Did Socrates write anything? Did Plato?
The Apology
  1. •What were the charges against Socrates?
  2. •Before answering the legal charges, what did Socrates try to explain? Why?
  3. •What did the Oracle of Delphi say about Socrates?
  4. •Socrates showed that one of Meletus’s charges was contradictory--what was the contradiction? How did Meletus respond?
  5. •How does Socrates attempt to prove that he didn’t intentionally corrupt the youth?
  6. •What is the Socratic Paradox? What is a paradox? Why is the Socratic Paradox a paradox? What are its premises and conclusion?
  7. •What is Socrates convicted of? What does he think the appropriate punishment would be?
  8. •Why does Socrates choose death over disobeying the gods?
  9. •What does Socrates mean when he refers to himself as a  “horsefly”?
The Crito
  1. •What four reasons does Crito give Socrates for fleeing from prison?
  2. •What are Socrates responses to each of Crito’s four arguments?
  3. •What argument do “the Laws” give Socrates against fleeing from prison?
  4. •What do the laws mean when tell Socrates that Athenians must “persuade or obey”?
  5. •What is moral relativism? What reasons are there for rejecting moral relativism? Is the claim that “It’s right because God (or the gods) says it’s right” a form of relativism?
Phaedo
  1. •What is the setting of Plato’s “Phaedo”? When is it supposed to occur (in relation to the “Apology” and the “Crito”)?
  2. •What are the two principle topics of the Phaedo?
  3. •What are “the Forms” according to Socrates in the Phaedo?
  4. •What is the relationship between the Forms and physical objects?
  5. •“Where” do the Forms exist? How do we have knowledge of them?
  6. •What are the three arguments Socrates gives for the immortality of the soul?
Republic
  1. •What is the Metaphor of the Cave?
  2. •What are the differences between Socrates’s conception of the soul in the Phaedo and the Republic?
  3. •What is a human essentially (according to Socrates in both the Phaedo and the Republic)?
Meno
  1. •What is the primary topic of the “Meno”?
  2. •What is learning, according to Scorates in the “Meno”?
  3. •What are definitions? How are they related to learning and knowledge (according to Socrates in the “Meno”)? How are they related to the Forms?
  4. •Can we learn the Forms of things by perception? What role does perception play in learning?
  5. •How do we have knowledge of the Forms? How do we know universal truths (like those of geometry)? According this picture, “learning” about these things is really just remembering--how come?