An archetype is an image that all humans use to represent the essential qualities of

some “type,” the epitome of some kind.

Archetypes have been around throughout history – in myths, legends, and dreams.
Psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) claimed that archetypes are integral to how we
think about things in general.

A philosophical archetype is a philosopher who expresses an original or influential

point of view, significantly affecting subsequent thinkers.
Philosophical archetypes are strict advocates of a particular philosophical
worldview or philosophical method. They challenge the beliefs of other
philosophers.

Philosophical Archetypes versus Stereotypes

Philosophical archetypes are powerful representations of a fundamental response to
universal experiences.
Archetypes exemplify essential ways of coping with universal aspects of life (love,
loss, society, wealth, knowledge, purpose, suffering, death) in uncommonly pure
ways. Stereotypes are simplistic distortions of a type of person
that lack depth.

Are Philosophers Always Men?

The history of Western philosophy contains mostly men, leading to the charge that
it is a study of “dead white males.”
While there were many women in the history of philosophy whose work went
unacknowledged, today many more women are joining the ranks of professional
philosophy.

The Search for Truth

Philosophy is perhaps the most “open” of all subjects, since no question or point of
view is off limits.
The history of philosophy has been described as “the history of heresy,” since it
challenges us to question even our most cherished beliefs.
As the philosopher Baruch Spinoza put it, “I do not know how to teach philosophy
without becoming a disturber of the peace.”

But Isn’t All This Just A Matter of Opinion?

Sometimes it appears that there is no clear cut right or wrong answer to
philosophical questions and issues.
However, if we view philosophical problems as just a matter of opinion, we may
be (wrongly) led to adopt relativism.
Relativism is the belief that knowledge is determined by specific qualities of the
observer.
In other words, absolute (universal) knowledge of the truth
is impossible – one opinion is as good as another.

The Goal of Wisdom

Remember: philosophy is a love of wisdom!
The chief goal of wisdom is a fundamental understanding of reality in relation to
living a good life

By combining these and other branches of philosophy, a person may gain an

understanding of how all knowledge is related.
The attainment of wisdom involves reflection, insight, learning from experience,
and a plausible conception of the human condition.

The Need for Knowledge

One of the most important elements in the attainment of wisdom is knowledge.
Philosophers generally think of knowledge as some form of true belief.
They usually make a distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge.

Types of Knowledge
Theoretical knowledge involves accurate assessment of factual and systematic
information and relationships.
Practical knowledge consists of skills needed to do things like play the piano, build
things, perform surgery, ride a bicycle, or bake a cake.

Belief and Ignorance

In contrast to knowledge, belief refers to the subjective mental acceptance that a
claim is true, though it need not actually be true.
There is a difference between an informed belief and mere belief, which tries to
validate itself.
The only evidence for a mere belief is the act of believing itself.

Willed Ignorance
If we hold onto a false belief regardless of the facts, we become victim to willed
ignorance.
Willed ignorance is indifference to the possibility of one’s error or enlightenment.
This is the opposite of the love of wisdom. Ignorance is not an option.
What makes it philosophy?
 Speculative thinking expresses human curiosity about the world, striving to
understand in natural (rather than super-natural) terms how things really are, what
they are made of, and how they function.
 Practical thinking emphasizes the desire to guide conduct by comprehending the
nature of life and the place of human beings and human behaviour in the greater
scheme of reality.
 Critical thinking (the hallmark of philosophy itself) involves a careful
examination of the foundations upon which thinking of any sort must rely, trying
to achieve an effective method for assessing the reliability of positions adopted on
the significant issues.
METAPHYSICS
the branch of philosophy that addresses what is real
ontology: what is
cosmology: how it came into being
The Pre-Socratics...
Their primary questions were:
What is the world made of?
What does it mean for something to exist?
What happens to things when they change?
What came first?Prior to philosophy all phenomena were explained by myths
Philosophy developed in the Greek colony of Miletus (present day Turkey)
Philosophy was an attempt to explain the world using reason
Sophos
As early Greek civilization became increasingly refined and sophisticated, a new
kind of thinker emerged known as a sophos, from the Greek word for “wise.”
The sophos lived and spoke in ways that were interpreted as showing disregard
for conventional values, and that set them apart from regular folks living “normal”
lives.
One of the earliest popular images of philosophers is the stereotype of an “absent-
minded,” starry-eyed dreamer asking silly questions.
The Family TreeSocrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle.
Before Socrates were a wide group of philosophers known collectively as the pre-
Socratics although they all had VERY different sorts of ideas.
This history starts with Thales of Miletus...
Why did philosophy start in Miletus?
Miletus was a trading center and open to many ideas and influences
 Basic Geometry came from the Egyptians
 Star Lore and Calendar skills came from Asia
 Exposed to many religious myths
Why did philosophy start in Miletus?
Greeks were developing the idea of democracy
Greeks valued imagination and attention to detail in literature
Greeks believed nature was consistent and could be understood through close
examination
Greek poets, Homer and Hesiod, suggested that complex matter had developed
from a primitive state of water, air, fire and earth
Was something in the air?
Between 800 B.C. and 200 B.C. philosophy started
 Confucius and Lao-Tse in China
 Hindu Upanishads and Buddha in India
 Zoroaster in Persia
 Hebrew Prophets in Israel
 Homer and the birth of drama in Greece
The Ionians/MilesiansFundamental to their cosmogony was the belief that the
world came into being, that is, the first reality was a single living stuff.
Naturalists
Tries to explain the world without any reference to a supernatural being
Materialists
 Referred to the Arch (Arche) as divine, but probably meant nothing more than
that it was eternal.
Hylozoists
Living matter (ex: magnet)
Monists
The ultimate explanation for reality is one basic thing
Thales
Born around 640 B.C. in Miletus
Attempted to use logic and observation to answer questions about the nature of
the universe (logos)
Considered the 1st philosopher
Used scientific knowledge borrowed from the Babylonians to predict a solar
eclipse
Converted Egyptian geometry from engineering to math
1st to study magnetism
Thales
Worked as an engineer
Active in politics
Became impoverished due to his study of philosophy,
but used astrology to make a fortune
Thales’ Nature of the Universe
Thales abandoned the myth that everything was made up of earth, air, fire and
water
He believed everything was made of water since water could be observed in 3
state (solid, liquid and gas)
Believed that humans were also made up of water and returned back after death
This meant that nature was supreme and mankind was a mere part of the universe
Anaximander
Born in 610 B.C. in Miletus
Considered the successor to Thales
He disagreed with Thales philosophy, but continued his science
Made the 1st star map, sun dial and model of the universe
Anaximander’s Nature of the Universe
Believed that everything in the Universe came from apeiron (the infinite)
Orginially the infinite was whole, but motion with in it caused it to break into the
four elements
Eventually the elements would fit back together and the inifinite would be whole
again.
Anaximines
Died around 528 B.C.
1st to distinguish between planets and stars
Believed that rainbows were a natural phenomenon not a goddess
Anaximines’ Nature of the Universe
Did not believe in apeiron, because something that was not specific could not
create specific elements
Believed that everything was made of air because air was essential to life
Hard objects were simply more air crammed into smaller spaces (states of matter)
Anaximines’ Nature of the Universe
Believed that the soul was made of extremely thin pure air
The soul held the body together
When humans died their soul disintegrated
The PythagoreansPythagoras ??? (580-500 B.C??)
Monastic brotherhood
Pebbles / Calculus
 By contemplating form, order, proportion & harmony, the soul is purified, thus
mathematics and music
 “things are numbers”
Good vs. Bad
 Form, the male principle, is good
 Matter, the female principle, is evil
Important Beliefs of the PythagoreansMind-body dualism!
Immortality of the Soul
Body is a Prison of the Soul
Transmigration of the Soul
Heraclitus
 The fragments of writing that remain of Heraclitus (510-480 B.C.E.) reveal a
powerful intellect.
 He claimed that all things are constantly changing. But he also claimed that
there is an order to how things change, which he called the Logos.
 A complex Greek word, logos means “thought,” “speech,” and “meaning” (to
name a few). But its most important sense was “the rule according to which all
things are accomplished and the law which is found in all things.”
 For Heraclitus, the Logos is like God, but without the human qualities earlier
philosophers and poets had attributed to “It.”
Parmenides
 In contrast to Heraclitus’ notion that things are always changing, Parmenides (c.
fifth century B.C.E.) felt that change was an illusion. The senses make us trust in
the way things appear, while what is really the case can only be understood
through rational thought.
 This is the distinction between appearance and reality.
 Parmenides claimed that there are not actually many things (though there
appears to be), but only “the One” (existence itself, or “being”).
 Parmenides radically transformed the early philosophers’ interest in cosmology
(the study of the universe as a rationally ordered system) into ontology (the study
of being).