Chapter 2

Socrates

(469-399 b.c.e.). Ancient Greek philosopher often called "the father of Western philosophy." Socrates created the conceptual framework and method of inquiry for much of Western thought. His teachings are known to us primarily through the writing of his student, Plato. At the age of 70, he was tried and executed on the highly questionable charge of "corrupting the youth of Athens."

The Oracle at Delphi

According to the revered Oracle at Delphi, no man was wiser than Socrates. What does the use of oracles suggest about the culture of ancient Greece? How does Socrates apply reason within that culture?

Plato (428-347 b.c.e.).

Ancient Greek philosopher of extraordinary significance in the history of ideas. Plato not only preserved Socrates's teachings for future generations but also contributed original ideas on a wide range of issues such as morality, politics, metaphysics, and epistemology.

Homer

In the Western classical tradition, Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.

Sophists

Influential group of traveling educators who would teach rhetoric and oration for a fee. Many Sophists believed truth to be relative.

Socrates Method

Investigation of complete issues through a question-and answer format.

Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (459 b.c.e-400 b.c.e.).

One of several "older sophists" (including Antiphon, Critias, Hippias, Gorgias, and Protagoras) who became famous in Athens during the fifth century b.c.e., distinguishing himself as a teacher of rhetoric and speechwriter.

Agora

Open marketplace in Athens, a place where crowds would gather for political speech and discussion.

Psyche

The true self or "soul," which is immortal and imperishable.

Arete

Virtue and excellence

Sophia

Wisdom

Dialectic

From the Greek word for to argue or converse, a dynamic exchange or method involving contradiction or a technique for establishing an informed conclusion.

Odyssey

A classic Greek poem by the poet Homer, The Odyssey tells the story of the Greek warrior Odysseus who, following the defeat of Troy, embarks on a ten-year journey to return home, an adventure filled with challenge, danger and drama, and ultimate triumph. The mythical tale embodies the ancient Greek value of creating order in the midst of a chaotic universe.

Irony

A form of rhetoric that has at least two conflicting levels of meaning— an obvious one and a hidden one.

Xenophon (430-357 B.C.E.).

Biographer of Socrates and his student as a youth. In addition to four works on Socrates, Xenophon wrote histories and practical treatises on leadership, horsemanship, hunting, and economics. Also a warrior, he fought for the Greeks and then for their enemies, the Spartans.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

Thales proposed that the primal element of the universe was water; Anaximenes suggested it was air; and Heraclitus contended that it was fire because "All is change." Democritus advanced the prescient view that all matter in the universe was composed of indivisible atoms, and Anaxagoras anticipated modern cosmology in proposing that the entire universe is composed of matter in motion, though he also maintained that what he called Mind (nous) was the cause of the ordered universe. Pythagoras was convinced that the fundamental principles of the universe were mathematical relations (a view that foreshadowed the thinking of Albert Einstein a few thousand years later). Parmenides was an accomplished mathematician who believed that there was a necessary, static, unchanging unity running throughout all of what is in flux in the world of experience.

Episteme

The Greek word most often translated as knowledge, while techne is translated as either craft or art.

Karl Theodor Jaspers (1883- 1969)

was a German psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry and philosophy."