3950G Chapter 1

Presocratic philosophers 

Thales (624-546 BC): Famous for astronomical and meteorological predictions. Believed that water was the most important element in the world.
Concept of Psyche then arouse which was first "breath" but then "soul" and now "mind"

Pythagoras (570-495 BC): Left no writings, but attracted a large following emphasizing the regularities of mathematics.

Heraclitus (535-470 BC): Promoted the idea of the unity of opposites, constant change and that fire was the most abundant element in the world.

Zeno (of Elea) (Not to be confused with Zeno of Citium) (490-430 BC): Pondered infinity, had that Achilles-turtle thought experiment. Known for paradoxes.

Protagoras (490-420 BC): Believed it was fruitless to speculate about big questions and we should rather focus on the purely human experience. "Man is the measure of all things"

Hippocrates (460-370 BC): Like Protagoras believed in everyday human concerns. Was a physician who believed in the humoral theory, that health illness and aspects of personality occur because of the compositions of 4 certain liquids called humors. Founded the Hippocratic Corpus an extensive body of medical writings and correctly attributed epilepsy to physical causes in the brain(On the Sacred Disease). Emphasizes moderation and balance and established a platform for observational-based medical practice

Socrates (470-399 BC)
Born to a stonecutter and gave up the life of a stonemason to be a philosopher.
Did not charge much for his services and had followers in Plato and Xenophon 
Was charged with corrupting the Athenian youth and treason against Athens and had to commit suicide.
Expressed beliefs in reincarnation and Nativism through innate knowledge from reincarnates.

Plato (424-347 BC)
Born to an aristocratic family, was known to be large and strong.
Fled Athens when Socrates was executed and eventually came back and founded The Academy 
Was very influential for his ideas on idealism and ideal forms.
Appearance to him was referred as a person's conscious experience of something. Lying behind each appearance lied an ideal form representing the essence of the thing. The ideal behing every sensory experience is called Idealism. 
Allegory of the Cave
- The reality vs subjective nature.


Argued that the human psyche was composed of the 3 components
1) Appetites
2)Courage
3)Reason
Each person possesses these in different proportions but most people are the appetites.
 Believed we should have philosopher-kings (Reason) but not a monarchy or democracy rather an oligarchy of Philosopher Kings.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Born in Northern Greece, close to Macedonia to a Royal Physician to Alexander the Great's grandfather King Amyntas II. Aristotle likely was a childhood friend of Phillip II. Highly influenced by fathers empirical nature he entered The Academy at 17.
Being a Macedon he was ostracized despite his brilliance in Athens. Eventually, he left Athens and married Pythias in Asia Minor, and was joined by Theophrastus a former student of Plato now a follower of Aristotle who helped him engage in experiments.
Aristotle was then invited back to Macedonia to tutor the young Alexander.
After Alexander became king and conquered most of what he could he helped fund the Lyceum a school for Aristotle.
Helped develop numerous fields such as
Taxonomy: And created his own Hierarchy of Beings
Scale of Being 
Lowest scale are plants who have 2 important abilities to distinguish themselves
To eat and to reproduce this is known as the Vegetative soul 
Then simple animals have the ability of locomotion and functions of a changing environment Sensation. 
Higher animals have capacity for memory then, even more, develope,imagination.
Animals with all these functions are the sensitive soul. 
Humans are the Rational soul as we are capable of reasoning.

Believed that stimuli leave imprints and memories, established the tabla rasa thought and empiricism. 
Argued that the human psyche has an innate set of categories into which memories are organized


- To Aristotle we had to accumulate facts and do something with them
Rather than the origin the mind was the organizer.

Democritus (460-370 BC) 
-Formulated the Atomic Theory: Stating that there is a limit to the divisibility of all material objects and that they are made of tiny atoms (Atoma means uncuttable in Greek) that move randomly. This theory was attacked as it contradicted the common greek assumption of casuality. 

Causality
All events have a purpose.
Aristotle stated that events had to have 4 components
1) Material Cause: The material things something is made of
2) Formal Cause: The Idea or plan behind something.
3) Efficient Cause: The actions that brought the thing into being
4) Final Cause: The purpose for the creation.

Atomic Theory was largely dismissed but eventually Epicurus (341-270 BC) advocated it.

Later Lucretius (99-55 BC) rekindled the atomic theory in his poem De Rerum Natura 

Islamic Pioneers

Al-Kindi (800-871) 
- Was based in Baghdad and became a leader of the House of Wisdom. Became known as the "philosopher of the Arabs"
Synthesized ideas of Aristotle into the Muslim faith.
Developed Indo-Arabic numerals which allowed for precise calculations and developed algebra.
Number theory arose and distinctions between numbers. Had implications on the theory of Mind.

Alhazen (965-1040) 
Wrote the Book on Optics based on visual experiments.
Proved that vision was a result of objects giving an impression on the eyes not eyes probing and sensing objects. Proved this through his camera obscura experiment showing an inverted image on the other side. Also expanded on the influence of binocular vision and depth perception.

Avicenna (980-1037) 
Born in modern Uzbekistan but spending most of his life in Iran
Became incredibly well versed in medicine and cured a local sultan of an unknown illness at age 18.
Memorized Aristotles teachings
Wrote The Canon of Medicine a volume that suggested not only the most effective cures and identifications of illnesses but also that medicine was an evidence-based practice.a
Also wrote The Book of the Cure a book intended to cover a full range of topics from Aristotle. More of a Cure of Ignorance.
Expanding Aristotle's hierarchy of functions, Avicenna Differentiated exterior and interior senses, exterior senses were basic capacities to receive impressions while interior senses were what we did with these external senses.
Soul has a motivating function "appetite"
Floating man thought experiment came to the conclusion that even with no prior sensory recollection and experience we would still be conscious of the self. (Similar to Descartes)


European reawakening

Leonardo Fibonacci (1170-1240)
Developed Fibonacci sequence from contact with Arabs and their numbering system.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Took from Aristotle and developed natural law justifying it for monotheism.