These revision notes for the new OCR Religious Studies A level cover Ancient Philosophy. They cover the early ideas of Plato and Aristotle including in-depth evaluation of each of their ideas. They are detailed and are to an A* standard
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1: Ancient Philosophy
Plato
Rationalism The doctrine that reason alone is a source of knowledge and is independent of sensory
experience
A priori Latin for 'what comes before'. Knowledge gained irrespective of experience - simply
through reasoning
Metaphysics The study of things beyond the physical world, deals with the transcendent such as being,
knowing, identity, time and space
World of An illusionary world or realm of senses that is in flux. A reflection or imitation of the WoF
Appearances
World of the Composed of ideals or forms. A perfect, eternal, spiritual, stable world. It must exist
Forms because otherwise how could we have an idea of perfection? He believed that the souls
are from here and they yearn to go back. When we are born, we forget the realm of the
forms. All knowledge is actually remembering knowledge we used to have of the forms
Allegory of Imagine a cave, in which there are prisoners. The prisoners are tied to some rocks, their
the Cave arms and legs are bound and their head is tied so that they cannot look at anything but
(taken from the stonewall in front of them. These prisoners have been here since birth and have never
Quizlet)
seen outside of the cave. Behind the prisoners is a fire, and between them is a raised
walkway. People outside the cave walk along this walkway carrying things on their head
including; animals, plants, wood, and stone. When people walk along the walkway, they
can see shadows of the objects they are carrying cast on to the wall. They had never
seen the real objects ever before, and they would believe that the shadows of objects
were 'real.' Plato suggests that the prisoners would begin a 'game' of guessing which
shadow would appear next.
If one of the prisoners were to correctly guess, the others would praise him as clever and
say that he was a master of nature. One of the prisoners then escapes from their bindings
and leaves the cave. He is shocked at the world he discovers outside the cave and does
not believe it can be real. As he becomes used to his new surroundings, he realizes that
his former view of reality was wrong. He begins to understand his new world and sees that
the Sun is the source of life and goes on an intellectual journey where he discovers
beauty and meaning. He sees that his former life and the guessing game they played is
useless. The prisoner returns to the cave, to inform the other prisoners of his findings. They
do not believe him and threaten to kill him if he tries to set them free.
Allegory of In Plato's theory, the cave represents people who believe that knowledge comes from
the Cave what we see and hear in the world - empirical evidence. The cave shows that believers
Meaning of empirical knowledge are trapped in a 'cave' of misunderstanding.
(taken from The Shadows represent the perceptions of those who believe empirical evidence ensures
Quizlet)
knowledge. If you believe that what you see should be taken as truth, then you are
merely seeing a shadow of the truth. In Plato's opinion, you are a 'pleb' if you believe this
(their insult for those who are not Philosophers)
The Game represents how people believe that one person can be a 'master' when they
have knowledge of the empirical world. Plato is demonstrating that this master does not
actually know any truth, and suggesting that it is ridiculous to admire someone like this.
The escaped prisoner represents the Philosopher, who seeks knowledge outside of the
cave and outside of the senses.
The Sun represents philosophical truth and knowledge
His intellectual journey represents a philosopher’s journey when finding truth and wisdom.
The other prisoners’ reaction to the escapee returning represents that people are scared
of knowing philosophical truths and do not trust philosophers.
The Form of The highest form. All other forms have the goodness or perfection from participating in
the Good the good. It also gives enlightenment to the rational mind. All knowable things are
illuminated by it.
Plato's The Republic
writings
High Forms Beauty, Truth, and Justice
The Simile of In the divided line, Plato imagines a vertical line, divided into 2 in the ratio 2:1. Each part is
the Divided further divided by the same ratio. Plato assumed that if something is true in this world then
Line it must be even more true in WoF. Plato argued that we couldn't have true knowledge of
anything in the world because it does not exist in reality
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