Term
| Where did the story of Western Philosophy begin? |
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Definition
| A series of Greek Islands and colonies during the 6th century BCE. |
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| Where was the birthplace of Greek Philosophy? |
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| Seaport of Miletus, located across the Aegean Sea from Athens and on the western shores of Ionia in Asia Minor. |
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Term
| What are the first greek philosophers called? |
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| How did Homer describe the Gods in his Poetry? |
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Definition
| They lived on Mt. Olympus where they pursued lives similar to humans. They intruded into human affairs and would punish humans for lack of moderation and their pride/insubordination (which the Greeks called Hubris.) The gods were stronger than humans and demanded obedience. He mentions Fate, which even the gods were subject to be subordinate to. |
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Term
| What did Hesious say about the Gods? |
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Definition
| He made the gods moral beings and portrayed them as being under Zeus' order but they made decisions to better the people unlike Homer. He said their was an impersonal force controlling the structure of the universe and regulations it's process of changes. |
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Term
| Who were the 3 great Milesian Authors? |
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Definition
| Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. |
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Term
| How did the Milesians thoughts differ from those of Homer and Hesiod? |
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Definition
| The Milesians asked questions like "What are things really like?" and "How can we explain the process of changes in things?" which acted on more of an independent thought. Milesians questions lead to a more scientific way of thinking, which differed from Homer and Hesiod's poetry of traditional mythology with human like gods. |
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| Did Thales leave anything in writing? |
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Definition
| No. The only thing we know about Thales is what was left by writers that came later. |
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Term
| Who predicted the eclipse of the sun? |
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| Who was the first philosopher of western civilization? |
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Definition
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| What questions did Thales ask? What did he believe was the answer to these questions? |
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Definition
| What is everything made of, or what kind of "stuff" goes into the composition of things? He believed there was a similarity between all things, water. |
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Term
| What did Anaximander believe made up all things? |
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Definition
| He believed that everything wasn't made up of one single thing. He believed in an indefinite/boundless realm, where we find specific things in our world like rocks and puddle of water. The origins of these things are found in the indeterminate boundless. Where things are specific but their source is indeterminate and where the original "stuff" that makes up everything is infinite. |
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Term
| How did Anaximander's questions show advancement in knowledge? |
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Definition
| It deals with known facts from which hypothesis can be formulated instead of explaining it off with mythical terms. |
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Term
| Where did Anaximander say that humans came from? |
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Definition
| The sea. He said that over the course of time living things came out of the sea to dry land. He also says that other creatures are self supporting and since humans need prolonged nursing that we never would've survived if this had been our original form. |
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Term
| What is the only sentence of Anaximander's writing that survived? |
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Definition
| "From what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for they suffer punishment and make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of time." |
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| What did Anaximenes designate as the primary substance for all things? |
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Term
| Where was Pythagoras born? |
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Definition
| A small island named Samos. |
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Term
| What did the Pythagoreans devote themselves to? |
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Definition
| Math. They were the 1st to advance this study. |
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| What did the Pythagoreans say all things consisted of? |
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Term
| Why was Pythagoras interested in math? |
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Definition
| Religious reasons. He says studying math is the best purifier of the soul. |
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Term
| What made Pythagoras' ideas popular? |
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Definition
| People wanted a deeply spiritual religion that could purify the soul and make it immortal. |
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Term
| Why did the Pythagoreans turn to math and science? |
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Definition
| They were concerned w/ the mystical problems of purification and immortality. They believed that science and math to be the best purge of the soul. They thought they saw a type of life that was purer than any kind in math and science. |
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Term
| How did the Pythagoreans feel about music? |
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Definition
| They felt like It was highly therapeutic for certain nervous disorders. They believed that there was a relation between the harmonies of music and the harmony of a person's interior life. |
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Term
| What was the the Pythagoreans moth important philosophical notion? |
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Definition
| The concept of form. (meaning limit) They believed that music and medicine was the best way to exemplify their notion because both needs limits and harmony. |
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Term
| What problem did Heraclitis focus on? |
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Definition
| Change. He says that you cannot step into the same river twice. (BC the river is moving/changing so the water is not the same.) |
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Term
| what did Heraclitis describe as the "something" that changes? |
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| What where all things to Heraclitus? |
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| Did Heraclitus believe that things could be lost? |
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Definition
| No. He believed that things simply changed forms and were never lost. |
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Term
| Who was a young comtemporary of Heraclitus? |
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Definition
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Term
| Where did Parmenides live? |
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Definition
| He lived most of his life in Elea, a colony in southwest Italy. |
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Term
| What did Parmenides belive about the universe? |
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Definition
| That it consisted of one thing that never changes, has no parts, and can never be destroyed. he called it the One. (He said even though things appear to change, it is only an illusion.) |
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Term
| Who was Parmenides chief pupil that he visited athens with where they conversed with a young socrates? |
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Definition
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Term
| What did Zeno believe that our senses did? |
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Definition
| They gave us a no clue about reality and only about the appearance of it. (Our senses don't give us reliable knowledge but only opinion.) |
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Term
| What two principles does the common sense view of the world rest on? |
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Definition
1. Changes occur throughout time
2 a diversity of objects are spread throughout space |
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Term
| What are Zeno's four paradoxes? |
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Definition
1. The Racecourse. - a runner crosses a series of units of distance from the beginning to the end of a race course but Zeno asks how can one cross an infinite number of points in a finite amount of time? which leads to his conclusion that motion does not exist.
2. Achilles and the tortoise.- Achilles gives a tortoise a headstart in a race but can never really beat the tortoise because he must always reach the point that the tortoise has already passed. this again proved that it was impossible to see the pathogrians theory of motion in a coherent way.
3. the arrow - Does an arrow move when the archer shoots it at the target? The arrow must always occupy a particular position in space equal to its length to be at rest, then the arrow must always be at rest. Hence, the space occupied by the arrow is infinite meaning that everything must be infinite, making everything an illusion.
4. the relativity of motion - Motion has no clear definition and it's a relative concept. |
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| Did Zeno's efforts stop the commonsense view of the world from persisting? |
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Definition
| He was hoping to be remembered as a godlike figure so he leaped into the crater of Mount Etna hoping that no one would ever find his body and every one would thingk that he had gone up to heaven. |
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Term
| Which argument of Motion did Empedocles believe? |
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Definition
| He didn't take a side, he simply merged both theories together to make his own. |
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Term
| What did Empedolce name the two nature sources? |
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Definition
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Term
| What was Anaxagoras' major philosophical contribution? |
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Definition
| The concept of the mind, which he distinguished from matter. |
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Term
| According to Anaxagoras, what was the best understanding of the nature of reality? |
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Definition
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Term
| Who were the 3 most outstanding Sophists to emerge in Athens? |
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Definition
| Protagoras, Gorgias, and Thrasymachus. |
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Term
| What were the Sophists especially competent in? |
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Definition
| Grammar, writing, and public discourse. |
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Term
| Who was the oldest and most influential sophist? |
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Definition
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| What Sophist took such a radical view regarding truth that he eventually gave up philosophy and starting practicing and teaching rhetoric instead? |
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Definition
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Term
| What notions did Gorgias propound? |
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Definition
1. nothing exists
2. that if anything does exist, it is incomprehensible
3. Even if it is comprehended it cannot be communicated |
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Term
| What Sophist asserted that injustice is to be preferred to the life of justice? He also said that "Injustice pays." and "Might is Right." |
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Definition
| Thrasymachus. He believed that justice was pursued by simpletons and lead to weakness. |
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Term
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Definition
| No, he was actually one of their biggest critics. |
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Term
| What was Socrates committed to the pursuit of? |
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Definition
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Definition
| Knowing and doing. To know the good was to do the good. He said that "Knowledge is a virtue." |
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| What was the name of Socrates young contemporaries that wrote about him? |
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Definition
| Aristophanes, Xenophon, and Plato. |
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Term
| How did Aristophanes depict Socrates in his play, "The Clouds?" |
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Definition
| He makes him a strutting waterfall, rolling his eyes and making fun of his "pupils," and "thinking shop." |
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Term
| What did Socrates name the mysterious voice that gave him messages and warnings? |
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| What of Plato's became one of the most influential strands in western thought? |
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Definition
| His comprehensive treatment of knowledge. |
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| Who founded The Academy at Athens? |
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Definition
| Plato. He administered it for 20 years |
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| What was the Academy at Athens? |
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Definition
| it was the first university to emerge in the history of Western Europe. The aim was to pursue scientific knowledge through original research. It had a major scientific emphasis and Plato but mathematics at the center of his curriculum. |
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Term
| What major Philosopher attended The Academy at Athens and took notes of Plato's lectures? |
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Definition
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Term
| The three levels of reality are: |
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Definition
1. The form of Humanness
2. The embodiment of this Form in Socrates
3. The image of Socrates as represented on canvas |
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Term
| What is the most superficial form of mental activity at the lowest level on the line? |
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Definition
| Imagining. (Ex. a shadow can be mistake for something real; but it is real, a real shadow.) what makes this the lowest form is that we do not know that it is a shadow or an image that it has confronted. |
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Term
| What is Plato's definition of imagining? |
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Definition
| Imagining is simply the sense experience wherein we take these appearances as a true reality. (Ex. a shadow can be mistake for something real; but it is real, a real shadow.) |
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Term
| What is the next stage after imagining? |
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Definition
| Belief. Many wonder why Plato uses Believing instead of Knowing but many things seeing constitutes only believing bc visible objects depend on their context for many of their characteristics. Plato says that belief is still in the stage of opinion. |
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Definition
| Thinking. The transition from beleving to thinking moves from the visual world to the intellectual world and from the realm of opinion to the realm of knowledge. |
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Term
| What was Plato's most significant philosophical contribution? |
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Definition
| Plato's Theory of the Forms. |
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Term
| What was Plato's theory of the forms? |
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Definition
| Forms are changeless, eternal, and nonmaterial essences or patterns of which the actual visible objects we see are poor copies. Forms are eternal patterns of which the objects we see are only copies. (Ex. a beautiful person is only a copy of beauty. We can say that a person is beautiful bc we are familiar with the Form of Beauty.) |
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| Forms have an independent existence; they persist even though particular things perish. forms have no dimensions. |
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| What is the relation of Forms to things? |
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Definition
A form can be related to a thing in three ways (that all basically say the same thing): 1. the form is the cause of the existing thing. 2. a thing can be said to participate in a form. 3. a thing can imitate/copy a form.
Plato says that even though the form is seperate from the thing, that still every actual thing in some way owes its existence to form. |
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Term
| What is the relation of forms to each other? |
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Definition
| Forms are related to each other as genus and species. forms tend to interlock even while retaining their own unity. |
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Term
| How do we know the forms? |
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Definition
1. Recollection - before our souls were united with our bodies, our souls were acquanted with the forms.
2. Dialectic - the power of abstracting the essence of things and discovering the relations of all divisions of knowledge to each other.
3. Desire or Love (eros) - leads people step by step from the beautiful object to the beautiful thought, and then to the very essence of beauty itself. |
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Term
| How and where does Plato describe the soul? |
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Definition
| The Republic. He describes the soul as having three parts; the reason, the spirit, and appetite. He found that there are three different kinds of activity going on in a person. awareness of the goal, drive toward a goal or a value, and the desire for the things of the body (appetite) |
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Term
| What does Plato describe in Phaedrus? |
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Definition
Our reason could suggest a goal for behavior only to be overcome by sensual appetite and the power can be pulled in either direction by these sensual desires.
He illustrates this condition by portraying the charioteer driving two horses. One horse is good and is guided by word and admonition only while the other horse is bad and is the mate of insolence and pride. Although the charioteer has a clear vision of where to go and the good horse is on course, the other horse causes trouble to the other horse and the charioteer. |
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Term
| Does Plato believe that the soul has a prior existence before it enters our body? |
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Definition
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Term
| Where does the rational part of the soul come from? |
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Definition
| It is created by the divine craftsman (The Demiurge) |
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Term
| Where does the irrational part of the soul come from? |
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Definition
| It is created by the celestial gods, who also form the body. |
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Term
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Definition
| Evil is a characteristic of the soul wherein the soul is capable of forgetfulness. |
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Term
| What is morality to Plato? |
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Definition
| The recovery of our lost inner harmony. |
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Term
| What must you overcome in order to become moral? |
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Definition
| We may do wrong acts that we assume will have some benefit, which causes false knowledge which must be overcome to become moral. |
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Term
| What did Plato view as the good life? |
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Definition
| inner harmony, well-being, and happiness. |
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