Final Exam Study Guide – History of Western Philosophy I

Use also the study guide for the essay exam

Plato

What is the purpose of love, and why, for Plato, is being pregnant in soul better than being pregnant in body?

What distinguishes forms and particulars? What relationship do they have to one another?

What is the highest form and how does it make the other forms possible? How does Plato use the analogy of the sun to illustrate the nature of this highest form?

What are the various stages of the twice-divided line and the cave allegory, and how does this illustrate the different degrees of knowledge and the process of education?

Aristotle

What is the difference between primary substances, secondary substances, and attributes? What does this show about the differences between Plato and Aristotle on what is most real?

What is the difference between natural things and artifacts, and why does Aristotle think that the latter are more real?

Explain the doctrine of the four causes and how three of the causes often coincide in natural things.

How does Aristotle explain the process of change using of concepts of actuality and potentiality?

What is the unmoved mover and how does it sustain change and order?

How does Aristotle argue that teleology provides a better explanation of nature than the mechanism of the atomists?

According to Aristotle, why are there sometimes deformities in reproduction?