PSYC 305 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Flat Earth, Teleology, Homo Economicus
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
[Author name]
PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 2 – THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
These notes are based on the lectures, they do not reflect my personal beliefs or opinion.
1
The Ancient World
People are always trying to make sense of the world, the following are early attempts to make sense of like
• Animism: Believing that things in nature have a soul, that all things are alive.
• Anthropomorphism: projection of human characteristics onto nature
• Magic: Haig soe sot of itual to ake ou feel like ou hae soe otol he ou dot. Like a ai dae o a
lucky pencil.
• Animate vs inanimate: Spirits resided in everyone and everything. Vital spirits could leave the body and return:
- Dreaming
- Thinking of someone after their death
- Reification (bringing up something in your mind makes it real)
Early Religion (5
th
& 6
th
century BCE)
• People followed gods that seemed more like them. Higher class people associated with gods on Mount Olympus
Olympian gods
• Homeric poems
• Uninterested in humans
• Pursuit of glory through noble deeds
• Personified orderliness,rationality, valued intelligence
• Similar to the beliefs of the Greek nobility.
Dionysus: god of wine, sex
• Working class
• Seeking pleasure
• Body was a punishment
• Soul longing for liberation, eventual ascension with the gods
• Belief in transmigration of the soul, soul seeking to escape earthly existence and enter into a heavenly state
• This is a big part of the Judeo-Christian beliefs. Souls go from this world to the next and the next world depends on this one.
Early Philosophers
Philosophy (love of knowledge + wisdom) : Began with natural explanations (logos) replacing supernatural explanations
(mythos).
Cosmology: The explanation of origin, structure, and processes governing the universe (cosmos).The universe was orderly
and thus, in principle, explainable.
Mythology: a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition
➢ Pre-Socratic - Physis: Nature of everything
➢ Post-Socratic - Influenced by the teachings of Socrates; Stimulating critical thinking
Physis: The one substance or element from which everything is derived
Thales (~625 – 547 BCE): First philosopher
• Geometric principles could be extended to the universe
• Welcomed criticism and critical tradition (telling students to improve his teachings).
• Physis = water since water is the one common denominator to everything. Why? We need it for survival & it has different
forms (solid, liquid, gas). So he thought that everything was made of it. He also believed that the flat earth sat in a pool of
water and thus, a sphere around us containing water. Water is vital.
(January 18 2018)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
[Author name]
PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 2 – THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
These notes are based on the lectures, they do not reflect my personal beliefs or opinion.
2
Heraclitus
• Physis is fire because it transforms, it can change anything
• Nature is in a constant state of change.
• Wold is alas eoig – ee is
• Is anything real if it is always in a state of change?
• Everything exists between opposites
• It is ipossile to step ito the sae ie tie Watefield, , p.4 . Whe steppig i a ie the peso ad the
water is changed and so you can never step in the same river twice.
• Ho a soethig e ko if it is ostatl hagig?
Anaximander
• Physis was a substance that had the capability ofbecoming anything
• Called the oudless o the idefiite.
• He suggests something broader that can become anything
• He believed that the world was surrounded by water.
He also had a strange idea about evolution, he believed that life came from the water and that we came from fish. He
thought of fish because since they are born they are self-suffiiet ad dot need caregivers.
➢ This opened a few interesting questions, around the idea of IS ANYTHING PERMANENT? Are we able to get an accurate
interpretation from our senses? How reliable are the senses?
▪ Senses provide information about a changing world. – Permanence? – Reliability?
▪ Opens up to two (early) schools of thought:
o Rationalism
o Empiricism
▪ Our senses might not be reliable because there are many interpretations.
▪ Maybe the only thing that is real is what is in our mind
▪ The most rational thing is MATH
Early Rationalism – Parmenides (~515 – 460 BCE)
(view that is opposite to Heraclitus)
• All thigs ae ostat; hage is a illusio
• One reality – finite, uniform, motionless, and fixed
• Knowledge comes only through reason (rationalism)
• Sensory experience is not real, not to be trusted. hat I“ aot e i otio
• Reification (Thinking something in your mind makes it real)
Early Rationalism – Zenos of Elea (~495 – 430 BCE)
• )eos paadoes: The assertion that in order for an object to pass from point A to point B it must first
traverse half the distance between those two points, and then half of the remaining distance, and so forth.
Because this process must occur an infinite number of times, Zeno concluded that an object could logically
never reach point B. (MOTION IS AN ILLUSION)
**If e dot udestad )eos paado just ko that the thik oeet is a illusio.
Pythagoras (~580 – 500 BCE) – Influence of Mathematics
• According to Pythagoras, you can explain the whole world with logic and mathematics.
• The perfect triangle is a template that might not exist in nature ut thats ok eause pefetio is ol i the
mathematical world.
• Basis of uiese logos ~ logi is foud i ues ad ueial elatios atio ~ atioalit
• For example the Pythagorean Theorem only applies to a square triangle.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
[Author name]
PSYCHOLOGY 305
CHAPTER 2 – THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS
These notes are based on the lectures, they do not reflect my personal beliefs or opinion.
3
• He explained that the body needs an equilibrium and medical attempts were to restore the equilibrium.
• According to him, the MIND is the most important.
• The Pythagoreans assumed a Dualistic universe: one part abstract, permanent, and intellectually knowable (Rational
like that proposed by Parmenides) the other Empirical, changing and known through the senses.
Mind/Body Dualism:
– Flesh: Body
– Reasoning: Function of the soul that is believed to be immortal
Empirical
• Epeiees of the flesh seses ee ifeioto experiences in the mind
– Sensory experiences interfere with knowledge
Rational
• ‘easo ad atioality were ways to cleanse the soul
They viewed any kind of sensory experience as something that interfered with knowledge (opposite to Heraclitus). They
abstained from many physical pleasures and believed that everything in nature was interrelated like in a world of
mathematics. The abstract world is better in their minds then the physical world.
- This school of thought is very similar to the Dionysiac - Orphic religion, both view body as a prison for the soul etc.
Cosmology- Understanding the universe
Empedocles
• Instead of 1 Physis, he suggests four elements make up the world (and humans) – earth, fire, air, and water.
• Empedocles: Perception
light colours = fire in eye
dark colours = water
smell = air in nostrils
• Four elements are found in the blood
- Objects in the world throw off tiny copies of themselves alled eaatios o eidola
- Enter the blood through pores in the body, the eidola combine with elements like themselves.
- He thinks that perception comes from the
heart.
Two causal powers in the universe: love and strife
He states that if all we had as a power is love then
everything would come together and we would
not be able to proceed. If we only had strife then
everything would be apart. If you have both
opposing forces, you can sustain life.
- Health happens when the four elements
of the body are in equilibrium.
Anaxagoras
• Ifiite ue of eleets o seeds
from which all things were created. (not talking of
atos ut seeds…
• Seeds do not exist in isolation, they never disappear just recombine to be something else.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Vital spirits could leave the body and return: Reification (bringing up something in your mind makes it real) th th. & 6 century bce: people followed gods that seemed more like them. Higher class people associated with gods on mount olympus. Olympian gods: homeric poems, uninterested in humans, pursuit of glory through noble deeds, personified orderliness, rationality, valued intelligence, similar to the beliefs of the greek nobility. Souls go from this world to the next and the next world depends on this one. Philosophy (love of knowledge + wisdom) : began with natural explanations (logos) replacing supernatural explanations (mythos). Cosmology: the explanation of origin, structure, and processes governing the universe (cosmos). The universe was orderly and thus, in principle, explainable. Mythology: a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. Post-socratic - influenced by the teachings of socrates; stimulating critical thinking. Physis: the one substance or element from which everything is derived.
