Ch.17 Flashcards
Greek philosophy arose in the ______ century BCE among the _____ who settled on the Asian cost of the Aegean sea, as a thinking about nature.
sixth, Ionians
Early Greek philosophers were traditionally called ______, also known as _______ in modern times.
phusikoi (natural philosophers), presocratics
How may have their thinking originated?
May have originated in rationalizing the mythic cosmogony of the epic poets
Aristotles traces the history of Greek philosophy back to _________.
An enigmatic declaration made by Thales, something like, “all is water”.
What is Arkhe?
Arkhe (principle, source, or origin) of everything was the apeiron (that which is boundless, endless)
When did Aristotle think that things first began to become clear?
In mid-5th century BCE when the Athenian phusikos Anaxagoras declared the arkhe to be divine mind which he firmly set apart from the natural elements of earth, air, water and fire that the divine nous had organized into an ordered whole of kosmos.
What was the more radical declaration of humanism Protagoras made?
First to make his living in Athens as a self-professed sophistes, a professional lecturer who travelled about the Greek world charging tuition for instruction.
The fame of Protagoras was rivalled by who?
By Gorgias, who was a celebrated stylist and master of rhetoric
Favorite topics at Athenian symposia for a sohpistic agonlogon (contest of speeches)
Nomos (law, custom and tradition) and phusis(nature)
Unlike Heraclitus, who claimed that various human nomoi were all a manifestation of “the one divine nomos”, Protagoras argued what?
Nomoi were human conventions necessary to sustain order in the polis
Some sophists believes that religion and morality originated as _______
necessary fictions concocted by early lawmakers to secure the good of the city;
Callicles argued that laws, religions and morality were _______.
doctrinal chains by which the naturally “weak” were able to protect themselves by oppressing the natural strong
When did Protagoras get exiled?
When Athens was suffering hardship in her war with Sparta, the tide of popularity turned
What does Plato’s Apology of Socrates say?
Socrates tried to prove the delphic oracle wrongwhen it cryptically declared him the wisest of men. Ironically, he proved the oracle right, demonstrating the alone knew that he did not know. Socrates concludes with “Only Gods are wise”
What does Socrates seek by way of definition?
To know the good of something, its function or purpose-what answers the question of why
