FYSM 1208 Lecture 3: FYSM 1208 - Introduction to Plato
15 Oct 2018
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Of the pre-socratics, we discussed thales and anaximander. They lived in miletus and developed interesting, and sometimes surprisingly accurate, theories about natural events, such as eclipses and earthquakes. They basically worked like scientists, making observations, gathering data, and developing theories. We call them empiricists because they focused on things you can see. They lived in elea, and worked out some very weird ideas about what"s going on in the world. Basically they thought that observation data are misleading/use less because all forms of change (including movement, growing up) are illusory. We call them rationalists because they focused on the mind. Made it his life"s work to explain what socrates was up to. Plato answers both questions with the concept of the forms". The forms" are pretty close to what is meant by ideas" or concepts". The forms" are what philosophy (careful thinking) gets us closer to. Thinking puts us in touch with the real details of ideas/concepts.
