Pre-Socratic Philosophers Quiz

Anaxagoras

1st philosopher to settle in Athens taught for 30 years. Was imprisoned for impety ( suggested that the sun was hot stone and the moon was made of earth). Believed all ,alter existed as small indivisible particles. Order was produced out of infinite chaos of minute atoms through the influence and operation of an external intelligence. He set the stage for Democritus.

Protagoras

1st to call himself a sophist. 1st to teach for pay. Nothing is absolutely good or evil, true or false.

Metaphysics

A branch of philosophy that examines the nature or reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value. Ultimately asks the question " What is there?"

Skepticism

A doubting or questioning state of mind. In philosophy, and ancient school that stressed the uncertainty of our beliefs in order to oppose dogmatism.

Sophism

A plausible but false argument, a deceptive but false argument. In pre-Socratic philosophy it is the attempt to make the weaker argument seem the stronger through the use of rhetoric.

Zeno of Elea

All being is one undifferentiated substance. Most noted for his paradoxes. Believed that the senses are illusionary and he sought to discredit them.

Epistemology

Branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presumptions and foundation, its extent and validity. It is an inquiry into what can be known and how we know it. Asks the question, " What is the mark of genuine knowledge and how it differs from mere belief?", " Is there a reliable way to acquire knowledge of the truth to eliminate false beliefs?", " Are there different kinds of knowledge?", " What is truth?", " How far can our knowledge reach?", " Are there things that are just unknowable?".

Xenophanes

Criticized the anthropomorphic qualities of the gods, the gods are unworthy of our respect acting even worse than human beings whom good men regard with disgust. What we know is not certain, always replaceable by truth. 1st to offer an account of divine nature.

Heraclitus

Everything is changing, nothing is permanent. Eternal change is like a river: you can't step in the same river twice. Unity of all opposites: everything in creation is paired with an opposite. His model for the universe created the foundation for physics and metaphysics. The logos by which all things come from, the thought that steers all things, the governing principle of the universe, the principle governing the cosmos.

Pythagoras

Everything is expressible in mathematical terms. Pythagorean theorem. Thought to have invented the word philosophy. Believed that the sun, moon, and stars make a noise as they whirl around producing a cosmic harmony. Believed the soul is a distinct immoral entity "entombed" for a while in the body.

Empedocles

Everything is made up of four elements: Fire, air, earth, water. Everything brought together by two forces: Love and strife. He believed in the transmigration of souls.

Anaximander

He was a pupil of Thales and disagreed with him. If earth is supported by water, water must be supported, and so on. Argument called: infinite regress. Solid object hanging in space, Earth is a drum like cylinder. Believed that the " infinite" or the " boundless" was what all things came from.

Democritus

Known as the "laughing philosopher". Developed atomism ( if you accept the monism of Parmenides then coming into being and passing away cannot exist because there can be no void.) For him, there is no logos, only atoms and the void. Believed everything exists by convention and it depends on us. Believed that our senses cut us off from the real world. Believed there were two kinds of knowledge, legitimate and bastard.

What is philosophy comprised of?

Logic, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, or cosmology

Nous

Mind, intellect

Parmenides

Monist. Universe is a single, unchanging reality. It is a contradiction to say nothing exists. When you think, the content of your thinking is a thought. Every thought has a form: (it is this or it is that). Everything must have always existed (proposed that it was beginningless and uncreated, eternal and imperishable.

Anaximenes

Philosophical monist. Everything is made of air. Earth is flat and floats on air like a boiling pot lid floats on steam. Was the 1st to propose a theory of change.

Thales

Philosophy was monist. Believed all was comprised of one element: water. Believed that the earth was a disk that floated on an infinite ocean. He was the 1st known philosopher and 1st of the Mileasian school of philosophy.

Relativism

The belief that only opinions exist and that one is no better than the other. " Are all views relative to time and place, culture and position?" Most of the history of philosophy is an attempt to at relativism.

Aesthetics

The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts. Asks the question: " Is there such thing as objective beauty?"

Ethics

The branch of philosophy that studies moral theory. Asks the question "How does one live best?", "What is virtue and what is Vice?", " Are there really goods and bads?".

Ontology

The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of being. It studies what exists, " Is there a God?", and " Do universals exist?"

Cosmology

The branch of philosophy that studies the physical universe considered as a totality of phenomena in time and space and where do we, as human beings, fit in the picture.

Logic

The branch of philosophy which sorts out good arguments from bad arguments. Utilizes reason not just rhetoric.

Philosophy

The investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values based on logical reasoning.

Utilitarianism

The morally right action is the action that produces the most good. The greatest for the greatest many.

Early Philosophical Issues

The problem is on the one and the many, the problem of reality and appearance, things appear to change or do they. Could reality be very different from the way it appears to be? The question of human reality. Who are we? How are we related to the rest of what there is?

Rationalism ( school in philosophy)

The theory that the exercise of reason, rather than experience, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides that primary basis for knowledge.

Monism

The view in metaphysics that reality is a unified whole and all existing things can be ascribed to or described by a single concept or system. The doctrine that mind and matter are formed from, or reducible to, the same ultimate substance or principle of being.

Empiricism ( school of philosophy)

The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.

Dualism

The view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter.