500 - 400 BCE Flashcards
Heraclitus of Ephesus
c. 500 BCE
Ephesus was then part of the Persian empire.
His nickname is “The Obscure” because he had a paradoxical and cryptic style.
Misanthrope and subject to melancholia.
The unity of opposites.
Impermanence. The world is constantly in flux, changing as it remains the same. “No man steps in the same river twice”.
Contrasted with Parmenides who believed in “being” and the static nature of the universe.
Parmenides of Elea
c. 500 BC
Met younger Socrates when he was 65 visiting Athens.
Only a single poem survives. It has 2 views of reality.
- Aletheia / truth - all reality is one, change is impossible, existence is timeless and uniform
- Doxa / opinion - one’s sensory faculties lead to conceptions which are false and deceitful
Considered the founder of ontology and the Eleatic shool. Influenced Plato and therefore Western philosophy writ large.
His philosophy of time remains relevant today.
Anaxagoras
c. 500 - 428 BCE
Responded to Parmenides’ claims of the impossibility of change he introduced the concept of Nous (cosmic mind) as an ordering force.
Empedocles
c. 494 - 434 BCE
He was one of the last in the tradition to write in verse and more of his work remains than any other pre-socratic philosopher.
Best known for originating the four classical elements (earth, water, air and fire).
He also proposed forces he called love and strife which would mix and seperate the elements respectively.
Challenged animal sacrifice and killing animals for food.
Zeno of Elea
c. 495 - 430 BCE
Member of the Eleatic school founded by Parmenides.
Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic.
Best known for his paradoxes.
Protagoras
c. 490 - 420 BCE
Plato said he was a sophist. And even that he invented the role of professional sophist.
Individual relativity - Protagoras caused controversy by stating that “man is the measure of all things”. Plato disagreed, thinking that this implied that there was no objective truth. But this was perhaps a misunderstanding and Protagoras meant that each person has their own unique lens to view the world through.
His views on individual relativity were at odds with many other opinions which felt that there had to be an objective grounding of reality and its truth.
Socrates
c. 470 - 399 BCE
Founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought.
Although he didn’t publish anything, some details of his life remain mostly through the works of his students such as Plato and Xenophon.
Invented the Socratic method.
A polarising figue in Athens.
Proclaimed his total ignorance. Perhaps this meant that realisation of our ignorance is the first step in philosophising.
Leucippus
c. 500 BCE
First philosopher the develop a theory of atomism.
Believed that there were atoms and the void.
Democritus
c. 460 - 370 BCE
One of the first to come up with an atomic theory of the universe.
Archelaus
c. 500 BCE
Pupil of Anaxagoras and may have been a teacher of Socrates.
Asserted that the principle of motion was the separation of hot from cold. From this he endeavoured to explain the formation of the Earth and the creation of animals and humans.
Melissus of Samos
c. 500 BCE
Third and last member of the ancient school of Eleatic philosopher whose other members included Zeno and Parmenides.
He was the commander of the Samian fleet in the Samian war.
Mostly contributed by coming up systematic arguments supporting Eleatic philosophy.
Believed that reality is ungenerated, indestructible, indivisible, changeless and motionless. In addition he sought to show that reality is wholly unlimited and extended infinitely in all directions. It is unlimited therefore it is one.
