Question : Aristotle’s distinction between ‘actuality’ and ‘potentiality’.
(2015)
Answer : Aristotle’s metaphysics revolves around the concept of substance, which is a combination of both matter and form. Things have both potentiality that is what it is capable of doing or becoming, if not prevented by something else, and actuality that is the fulfillment or the end of the potentiality. Thus, the matter of a thing is its potentiality, and the form is its actuality.
For example, the seed of a plant in the soil is potentially ....
Question : Explain Plato’s theory of forms. Does it entail a kind of essentialism? Discuss.
(2015)
Answer : Theory of forms is an answer to the fundamental question of metaphysics; what is the ultimate reality of the universe and life? According to this theory, ideas or forms are the ultimate realities of the universe and life. This theory explain the universe with forms or ideas. It is also known as idealism. It holds that ideas are real entities and proves them to be real on the basis of correspondence theory of truth.
According to ....
Question : Distinguish between knowledge and belief according to Plato. How is it based on his metaphysics? Explain.
(2014)
Answer : The starting point for Plato’s philosophy is a distinction that he frequently makes between knowledge and opinion. To the extent that we are all interested in learning new things, we certainly would prefer to know the truth of something, rather than just have an opinion about it. Plato was especially turned off by the relativism of the Sophists, as expressed in Protagoras’s view that “Man is the measure of all things,” and this set him ....
Question : Explain the significance of Aristotle’s doctrine of form and matter in his theory of causation.
(2014)
Answer : Aristotle believes that all material substances are matter and form. If you remember from the four causes, matter is one cause and form is another cause. Substance theory says that substances are the ultimate things in the universe. Aristotle defends his position on material substances in his book Metaphysics.
Matter and form are parts of substances, but they are not parts that you can divide with any technology. Instead matter is formed into a substance by ....
Question : Discuss how by refuting the different concepts of substances Aristotle establishes his own theory of substance.
(2013)
Answer : According to Aristotle-Substance (answers to the question, “What is it?”): that which is not present in a subject but exists per se, i.e., on its own, and not in alio, i.e., not in something else. That which is ousia, being or the really real in the paradigmatic sense. This is the “privileged” sense of ‘being’ and its focal sense — all beings in the other categories are defined by their relation to substance. Each of ....
Question : Explain Plato’s ontological theory of Forms. Is ‘knowledge’ one of the Forms? Give Reasons.
(2013)
Answer : Plato’s ontological theory of forms originated out of several different and partly independent features of the general ideas or notions that constituted the recurrent themes of dialectical disputations. Every discussion of a general issue turns ultimately upon one or more general notions or ideas. Even to debate whether, say, fearlessness is a good quality is to work with the two general notions of fear and goodness. Two disputants may disagree whether fearlessness is a good ....
Question : Discuss Aristotle’s metaphysical theory as a polemic against Plato’s theory of Ideas.
(2012)
Answer : Metaphysics is one of the main branches of philosophy. According to the old classification, metaphysics is of two types– materialist and idealist.
Theory of ideas : Ideas are used in a special sense in philosophy. They are called as mental representatives of the objects. But in Plato’s philo-sophy ideas mean original archetypes of the objects present in space and time.” Ideas are universal whereas wordly objects are particular instances of the universal.
According to Plato, ideas have ....
Question : How does Plato relate the world of ideas of the empirical world? Discuss.
(2011)
Answer : Plato’s theory hold that ideas represents true realities, whereas the material world is apprehended by senses, the Platonic ideas are apprehended by mind/intellectual reason.
Plato gave two theories in which he shows the relation of world of ideas within the empirical world. The two theories are (a) Copy Theory (b) Participation Theory.
According to the Copy Theory, Ideas are original archetypes. All things of the world are copy of the same.
The Participation Theory states that Empirical things ....
Question : How does Aristotle’s notion of causation differ from the modern notion of causation?
(2010)
Answer : The Aristotle notion of causation is very comprehensive. In the tradition of investigation, the search for cause is a search for answers to the question “why?” Moreover Aristotle also emphasizes on “how” a particular cause brings a particular effect. Both in the Physics and in the Metaphysics Aristotle placed himself in direct continuity with this tradition. At the beginning of the Metaphysics Aristotle offers a concise review of the results reached by his predecessors.The modern ....
Question : Plato’s analogy of the cave and its significance in his theory of knowledge.
(2009)
Answer : The Allegory of the Cave, also commonly known as Myth of the Cave, Metaphor of the Cave, The Cave Analogy, Plato’s Cave or the Parable of the Cave, is an allegory used by the Greek philosopher Plato in his work The Republic to illustrate “our nature in its education and want of education”. Plato imagines a group of people who have lived chained in a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The ....
Question : Aristotle’s teleological conception of causation.
(2008)
Answer : Aristotle was not the first person to engage in a causal investigation of the world around us. From the very beginning, and independently of Aristotle, the investigation of the natural world consisted in the search for the relevant causes of a variety of natural explanation, including artistic production and human action. Here Aristotle recognizes four types of things that can be given in answer to a why-question:
The material cause: “that out of which”, e.g., the ....
Question : Discuss the theory of matter according to Aristotle.
(2006)
Answer : Aristotle starts his arguments with the thought that Plato’s theory of forms with its two separate realms failed to explain what it was meant to explain. It does not explain the world and its permanence. By separating the realm of forms so radically from the material realm, Plato made it impossible to explain how the realm of forms made objectivity and permanence possible in the material realm. Aristotle elaborated this general criticism into two more ....
Question : Plato’s recollection theory of knowledge.
(2006)
Answer : According to Plato, the soul is immortal, and in previous lives it learnt about the unchanging, eternal Forms that are the ultimate reality. In this life, we are distracted by our senses and forget about the Forms. Learning about them, then, is a matter of recollecting what he have learned in past lives. All learning, according to Plato, is recollection, and so is the process by which we bring ourselves closer to the Good. Plato’s ....
Question : Distinction between opinion and knowledge.
(2005)
Answer : Plato has made clear distinction between knowledge and opinion. Opinion can’t be wrong, but it can be valid or invalid based on your knowledge of the subject at hand. Opinion is what you think or believe or feel on a subject. Knowledge is the amount of instruction, learning, or experience you have on a subject. Opinion should be based on knowledge.
Otherwise it’s just people wasting valuable air. If an opinion is based upon Here say ....
