PHIL 384 Exam 1

__________ says that "War is common, justice is strife." This means that without war, peace doesn't mean anything. The conflict of opposites (day and night) can be seen as a war.

Heraclitus

__________ says that "listening to the logos, not me, you'll see that all things are one". So, it's all connected into one big system.

Heraclitus

__________ says that things are always moving, and certain ratios and proportionality's are upheld. Balance upholds from the conflict. The balance that results IS the logos. You need the forces opposing each other to get the harmony.

Heraclitus

__________ says the reality is the world we share together. You have your own private world when you're asleep, but most people act as though they're asleep when they're awake, only seeing things by their "own world".

Heraclitus

__________ uses the word "logos" which means "reasoning". It can also mean "word" but usually in the idea of some kind of statement. It can also mean "story", "give an account", "explanation", or "to speak". Like, something you can produce by speaking. It can be used as a proportion or a ratio.

Heraclitus

__________ is also a way philosophy happened, which meshes with literature to some degree.

Religion

What are Parmenides' two paths of inquiry?

It is and must be. It is not and it cannot be.

Pythagoreans think there is an __________ which must get structured. Also, they refer to the "limit and limitless".

infinite

What are the two possible routes of inquiry in Parmenides' poem?

1) It is and it is not possible for it not to be. 2) It is not and it is [right, or necessary] that it not be.

Philosophy came about in __________.

6th BCE. First philosophers didn't really know what they were doing.

The indefinite is a supercharged being with everything in it directly. Who would agree?

Anaximander

Things don't come to be, __________ says, out of nothing. Things necessarily perish because of their "injustice". Being a thing is sort of a sin and they "perish into the things from which they come to be".

Anaximander

__________ said the opposites were always committing injustice against the other opposite, but Heraclitus says "that's not unjust, that's just being." Heraclitus says it's just, which is different from __________'s view.

Anaximander

__________ says you can't separate the infinite into pieces because it is both. (hot and cold, equally all the colors). So, it squashes out the other one. So, when hot is really actually hot, it's "squashing" out cold. But, what right does hot have to be there when cold doesn't?

Anaximander

__________ would agree that "being" is a kind of self-assertion which means the opposite has to perish, which is what happens when it separates from the apieron.

Anaximander

__________ is sort of trying to split the difference between Thales and Anaximander's views. Anaximander is a little too far out for him.

Anaximenes

Philosophy started on 2 edges (west and east) of __________ society. Pythagoras and Xenophanes moved from east to west, by Italy.

Greek

Akousmatikoi

Interested in religion and the proper way to live. Followers of Pythagoras.

"All good things are an exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods." Who said this?

Heraclitus

"Changing it rests." Who said this?

Heraclitus

"Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to people if they have barbarian souls." Who said this?

Heraclitus

"This cosmos, the same for all, none of gods nor humans made, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-living fire, kindled in measures and extinguished in measures." Who said this?

Heraclitus

"Those who speak with understanding (noos) must rely firmly on what is common to all as a city must rely on [its?] law, and much more firmly. For all human laws are nourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over." This means that the logos is like the law of the city. It's what's common to it. But there are different forces that go into a city, and the law is what results from that. The harmony should be the product of conflicting forces. This view is like Anaximander's, except that there's no apieron or indeterminate in this philosopher's view. Who is it?

Heraclitus

"What is opposed, brings together" means that it's the opposites that create the unity. Who said this?

Heraclitus

Who maintains the view that the "being" of things is always in opposition to something else, and that the logos is the relationship between things?

Heraclitus

__________ says most people don't tune in to the logos even though they're in continuous contact with it.

Heraclitus

Who said this and what does it mean? "They do not understand how, though at variance with itself, it agrees with itself. It is a backwards-turning attainment like that of the bow and lyre."

Heraclitus 61. A bow is an example of something "at war" with itself, because you have to pull it back for it to go forward. The bow in general is held together by opposing forces that make it a bow. "Bios" means life and also bow, which is a tool of death. Contradictory.

Epistemology

How do we know what we know?

__________ enforced a sort of "ideal behavior" and an idea of how we viewed issues and things.

Literature

__________ explain beauty to the mathematikoi. They say that the cosmos is beautiful, so we should expect to find mathematical ratios.

Mathematics

Philosophy started in __________ with the Greeks.

Miletus

Heraclitus says that "even something falls apart if not stirred". What does this mean?

Movement is necessary. The logos is in our soul and that accounts for how we can start to see the harmony that's out there.

"For the same thing is for thinking and for being." "For the same thing both can be thought of and can be." "For thinking and being are the same." These are all ways of saying that if there's going to be "being" there has to be something that "is". This is the same situation for thinking. Who's idea is this?

Parmenides

"If it can't be thought, it doesn't exist" is __________'s main point. He focuses more on this so it's less wild with "mermaids and unicorns exist" etc. Things that we imagine exist, involve non-being when you look at the parts. You can't imagine the thing if you're missing a part.

Parmenides

If something can exist, it can be thought and vice versa. Our minds are such that they can grasp anything that exists. If it can't be thought, it doesn't exist. Which philosopher's idea is this?

Parmenides

The akousmatikoi did not consider the mathematikoi to be __________. The idea that philosophy is a way of life fits into most Ancient Greek philosophy. They're the ones that started that.

Pythagoreans

We can't picture some things in our mind (like a thousand sided figure vs. a million sided figure. What's the difference?) but that doesn't mean we can't fathom it. But we can't fathom a round square. It's not just that we can't picture it. So, this fits into __________'s idea that if it can be thought, it exists. Even if it can only probably exist, but not in physical form necessarily.

Parmenides

Whatever we are inquiring into, it's got to be something that exists. The fact that it is, is an important fact. If something didn't exist, there would be nothing further to look into. Which philosopher's ideas are these?

Parmenides

Who said this? "For in no way may this prevail, that things that are not are; but you, hold your thought back from this route of inquiry and do not let habit, rich in experience, compel you along this route to direct an aimless eye and an echoing ear and tongue, but judge by reasoning (logos) the much-contested examination spoken by me."

Parmenides

Who said this? "Young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers, who reach my house by the horses which bring you, welcome - since it was not an evil destiny that sent you forth to travel this route (for indeed it is far from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. It is right that you learn all things - both the unshaken heart of well-persuasive Truth and the beliefs of mortals, in which there is no true trust. But nevertheless you will learn these too - how it were right that the things that seem to be reliably, being indeed, the whole of things."

Parmenides

Who says this? "But come now, I will tell you - and you, when you have heard the story, bring it safely away - which are the only routes of inquiry that are for thinking: the one, that is and that is not possible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon Truth), the other, that it is not and that it is right that it not be, this indeed I declare to you to be a path entirely unable to be investigated: for neither can you know what is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor can you declare it."

Parmenides

__________ says both thinking are speaking are closely connected. (logos) Thinking and speaking are aspects of being.

Parmenides

__________ uses strict deductive reasoning, in a way that's like philosophy today. This philosopher is unlike Heraclitus. He writes in a poetic style. The first part of his poem is a prelude to the rest of his poem. He gives lots of imagery, some to describe going to Hades, and some about Olympus. "Justice" holds the keys to the gate of night and day.

Parmenides

The Goddess in __________ poem produces a good argument even though she's an important figure.

Parmenides'

The people we're looking at fall into 2 groups. There are "pre-socratic" philosophers (before Socrates) and then there are "classic" philosophers (primarily __________ and Aristotle in this class).

Plato

Modern science is __________ in the way that mathematics is key. The difference is that modern science has more actual knowledge of math, basically.

Pythagorean

If everything comes from water, __________ says, everything returns to water. It's fundamentally water in different forms.

Thales

What order did Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Thales philosophize in?

Thales --> Anaximander --> Anaximenes. Now, let's move on to Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus.

Thales says that the soul is mixed into the universe, and that the soul is the cause of motion. Why?

Things with souls have motion. So, soul is a synonym for life at this point. So, animate = have a soul. Inanimate = no soul.

Which of the two possible routes ( 1 - It is and it is not possible for it not to be. ) ( 2 - It is not and it is [right, or necessary] that it not be. ) does the goddess in Parmenides' poem say we need to take?

The Goddess says we needs to take Route #1 (It is and it is not possible for it not to be) because there's nothing to find out about Route #2 (It is not and it is [right, or necessary] that it not be). "There's nothing to be accomplished. You can't know it or say it because it doesn't exist. There's nothing to talk about." We have to investigate what really is. But what is the "it" we're talking about? Well, that's anything you might want to talk about in the world. Are we talking about something that is, or about something that is not? We are investigating everything. Parmenides says lets focus on the fact that all of these things are beings, which is just the beginning of the path to understand that it exists. When we're investigating reality let's be sure that it exists, and he says that it also HAS to exist. He doesn't explain much about types of being - necessary or not?

Practical philosophy

ethics, political, aesthetics

"I don't know for sure if what I'm saying is true, but I'm giving it my best stab? How could you know for sure?" Which philosopher might say that?

Xenophanes

Which philosopher would say this? - Gods don't have human clothing, and they don't have human voice or form. The gods from different societies all supposedly look like their own people. Everyone makes their gods look like themselves. A lot of our views of gods suffer from having subjective views of the gods. If horse and oxen had hands, they'd make gods that look like themselves.

Xenophanes

Who might hold this viewpoint? "How can we know when what we have is belief/opinion or knowledge? With what the Gods say, they don't give us knowledge. But, by searching, we'll get better at the truth. If something is supposedly knowledge, how can we know that it's actually the truth?"

Xenophanes

__________ isn't clear whether he thinks there's only one god, or more than one. But, God is an entity that thinks and sees and hears as a whole. That's all he is, and does. He understands and perceives, so he's cognizing. God doesn't do bad things, because he understands things. He doesn't need to move or go anywhere. He can move things just by thinking about them.

Xenophanes

__________ left his hometown because Meads took it over. He spent a lot of time in Sicily. He was an aristocrat and poet. Some of his poetry was philosophical, and some wasn't.

Xenophanes

__________ raises criticism of the gods. He criticizes Hesiod and Homer and says "that's not the way Gods behave". If something is a God, it can't do things that we would punish human beings for. He says it's impious to talk about Gods being born, because they should always be existing and never have to come to be.

Xenophanes

In Parmenides' poem, the boy meets a goddess. What are the 2 things we are going to learn in the poem?

about truth (knowledge) and beliefs of mortals. He's kind of drawing on the difference Xenophanes pointed out, but has a different route to get to the "truth".

Anaximenes says __________ goes along with a different relationship between fundamental being. Things differ because you can compress it into a cloud, compress that into rain, and compress that into ice or stone.

air

Anaximenes says it's __________ that's the fundamental being.

air

Thales says that the human soul might be different than other souls, but the soul is whatever it is about a thing that makes itself __________.

alive

Anaximander holds the idea of an __________, which means "without a boundary". So, boundless or infinite. Like, there's a boundary between blue and green, hot and cold, etc. But, Anaximander's "indeterminate" doesn't have these boundaries.

apeiron

__________ is the latin word for beginning, so it means "principle". __________ can turn into individual elements but __________ itself is not one of the elements. Anaximander says the "principle" is not water or air, but it's the principle OF that and of all the others. He says you cannot experience the "indeterminate".

arkhē

We have a lot of fragments from the truth section of Parmenides' poem, but less from the __________ section.

beliefs

Aristotle discussed Thales and Anaximander and Anaximenes (all pre-socratic philosophers) so that's how we know about them. Aristotle came about a few __________ later, though.

centuries

Thales' theory involving water makes life more fundamental, and Anaximenes' theory involving air makes __________ of matter more fundamental.

composition

Anaximenes says that all things in reality are different because of difference in __________. Fire is even less __________ than air, etc.

compression

The mathematikoi said that mathematics were central, and that orderliness is mathematical and studying it is purifying in a way. The connection between music and mathematics was important to them. They liked to use groups of pebbles for number theories. They were interested in the primary musical ratios for __________ sounds. Numbers represented distance on strings. (ex: 1:2 was halfway between and it made an octave).

concordant

Then cosmology section of philosophy is __________, which studies how the world came to be.

cosmogony

Ontology is not a Greek word. Also, the original meaning of "__________" in Greek is "adornment" or "ornament" and it's where we get makeup from (cosmetology).

cosmos

Nothing comes to be. Existence in general doesn't come to be, because if it doesn't exist we can't think of it. So, it can't exist because it can't be thought. Parmenides says that it __________ make sense. These conclusions are "a priori" which means they're based on reasoning alone and not sense perception.

doesn't

Heraclitus: "Fire lives the death of earth and aēr lives the death of fire, water lives the death of aēr, earth that of water."

earth --> fire --> aēr (air) --> water --> back to earth

The first level of ontology was sort of to find the most __________ element. So, what's the fundamental things (atoms now, maybe, etc.) and how's it related to the other things?

essential

Thales wants to talk about the physical world aspect, but less about abstract __________.

gods

Aristotle dies in 321 BCE (end of 4th century). Philosophy after this is called __________. You get three types from this: stoicism, skepticism, and epicureanism.

hellenistic

Anaximander says that penalty for __________ is paid to each other. The thing being harmed is the other opposite. ex: the one getting "squashed", like cold being denied in summer, or taking retribution against hot in the winter. "Paying back time". Expect to find cycles, because that's the mechanism for change.

injustice

Mathematikoi

interested in philosophical, mathematical, musical, and astronomical knowledge while still following a Pythagorean way of life (not really philosophy)

Heraclitus talked about a river. Heraclitus says that your senses tell you valuable information, but you need to __________ what the world is saying to you.

interpret

Parmenides says it's __________ that the conflict of opposites exist.

just

Government and __________ helped to shape philosophy. Did this person do right or wrong?

legislation

People got philosophical ideas about right and wrong from __________ at the start of philosophy. The Greeks, especially did this.

literature

Heraclitus says that we can understand the __________. The principle that explains it can be explained, and we can understand it because it's a part of us. It's like reality understanding itself. It's possible for us to understand it, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.

logos

Heraclitus says there's one fundamental thing. The __________ is fundamental and we're always in contact with it. It's in us and it's intelligible.

logos

"Anax" means __________.

lord

"In purifying our souls, we're making things more mathematically ordered." The __________ started to make proposals about ways of life in a city. They were trying to solve problems and make things more ordered.

mathematikoi

Anaximander says the "indeterminate" has no qualities. So, we'd never be able to __________ or figure it out.

measure

What does Xenophanes mean?

one who appears to be a stranger

Pre-socratic philosophers are concerned with __________. A branch of this is cosmology (the study of the world as a whole).

ontology

Theoretical philosophy

ontology, etc.

Xenophanes focuses on all __________. "You can speak the truth, but you won't know you are." There's a difference between knowing and believing. You might have a belief that's true, but you can't know that. "Let these things be believed as resembling the truth".

opinion

Cosmogony was approached in a "different" way than bible questioning, which helped __________ come to be.

philosophy

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes are __________ philosophers.

pre-socratic

The Greek word "__________" means drinking party. At these parties, they'd talk about politics, things going on in culture, etc. Xenophanes wrote about one.

symposium

Thales' first principle

that everything came from water. He was influenced by Babylonians. They focus on water because of their environment.

Theogony

the coming to be of the gods. Hesiod wrote a story of the origins of the gods (a theogony) by identifying each aspect of the cosmos with the distinct characteristics and personality of a god, who controls that part of the universe. So, features of the world are conceived of as gods. Ex: night time, earth, sky. Cosmogony is theogony.

Followers of Pythagoras

there was a religious aspect. They believed in the afterlife, and that the soul was immortal. For the Pythagoreans, you can be reincarnated and you remember your past life. Pythagoras created a whole way of life for his followers. They had a lot of elements to their life dealing with purification, and it might have been a little cult-like. Most were vegetarians because reincarnation as an animal was seen as possible.

Heraclitus criticizes Hesiod for thinking day and night are separate. He says these things depend on each other to exist, so they're part of the same thing and their realities are necessarily connected. There is a __________, and the world isn't made up of a bunch of individual things.

unity of opposites

Thales overgeneralizes when he sees __________ move. Then he labels the whole thing divine.

water

Thales says that __________ is the source of everything else. Logs float.

water

Thales is to __________ as Anaximenes is to __________.

water, air