5. REALISM

6.  At eighteen, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of thirty- sevenPlato's Academy  His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theater, music, rhetoric, linguistics, politics and government – and constitute the first comprehensive system of Western philosophy.physicsbiologyzoologymetaphysicslogicaestheticspoetryrhetoriclinguisticsWestern philosophy  The first genuine scientist in history  Tutored Alexander the Great starting from 343 BC.Alexander the Great  He believed all peoples' concepts and all of their knowledge was ultimately based on perception. perception  The “Father” of Realist Philosophy

7. Aristotle took Plato’s Theory of Forms in a different direction: For Aristotle: Form: That which makes a thing what it is and not something else. Does not exist by itself, only in individual cases. He spoke of “shoeness” and “appleness” and “Justice” but ONLY as they existed in INDIVIDUAL shoes, apples, and men like Atticus Finch Matter: Ties a thing down to a particular way of being in a particular time and place. LIMITS FORM into an individual instance.

8. Matter and Form are not separate and do not exist without one another! Potentiality  -----------------------------------------------------------  Actuality Matter Form

9. A Realist believes that : the basis for understanding reality is in the world of PHYSICAL THINGS and our perceptions and experiences of those THINGS.

10. What is REAL? The physical world, the world of things How do we know what we know? * 5 Senses (see, hear, taste, smell, touch) *Correspondence: Using reason, logic, and the scientific method to make comparisons and deduce an understanding of what a thing is. What is the best way to act? Following the patterns and structures set up in nature Natural Law: There is an order (patterns and regularities) to nature that can be discovered through science

11. Humans’ Role: *OBSERVERS: Using senses and understanding of cause and effect *SPECTATOR of the “WORLD AS MACHINE” *metaphor *spectator: observant and reasoning human *world as machine: the world is controlled by laws that it can be made to reveal through the scientific method