Western Philosophy: Ancient and Medieval
Scope
Ancient and medieval Western philosophy runs from the pre-Socratics through Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic schools, Augustine, and Aquinas. The exam tests doctrines of substance, form, causation, virtue, universals, and faith-reason relations.
Core concepts
- Pre-Socratics: Thales seeks a material arche; Heraclitus emphasizes flux and logos; Parmenides being and change; Democritus atomism.
- Plato: Forms are eternal paradigms; knowledge is recollection; the cave illustrates ascent from opinion to reality.
- Aristotle: four causes-material, efficient, formal, final; hylomorphism; virtue as habit; the unmoved mover.
- Medieval: Augustine on interiority, will, and divine illumination; Aquinas harmonizes Aristotle and Christian theology; the universals debate pits realism against nominalism.
Worked example
Question: “Explain a bronze statue through Aristotle’s four causes.” Reasoning: material cause-bronze; efficient cause-the sculptor; formal cause-the shape of the figure; final cause-honoring a god or civic display. Conclusion: a complete explanation names all four; reducing the statue to matter alone misses form and purpose.
Traps
Plato’s Forms are not psychological ideas; Aristotle is not a modern empiricist; medieval philosophy is not merely theology; “final cause” is not always conscious intention. Do not project modern mind-body dualism onto Aristotle.