Dead Guys & Ancient People Flashcards
Egyptians and Math (before presocratics)
- Nile river one of the 1st places to evidence math
- used base 10
- only ancient calendar with 365 days (12 mo. of 30 days + 5 extra days).
- pyramids constructed with the golden ratio (close to Pythagorean theorem).
- understood the calculation of a circle (not sure how).
- wrote on papyrus and developed a language.
Babylonians (before Presocratics)
- used the base of 60
- extensive observations with limited range of celestial phenomena. They could perhaps predict lunar eclipses (not solar).
Milesians
- both Greek & non-Greek
- discovery of nature outside of divine explanations - classes of natural phenomena
- rational criticism and debate; offering theories as definitive solutions
- questioned origins of the world (how does the sun revolve around the earth?)
Greeks
- adopters and inventors
* power of proof - assume the truth and with logic, prove theorems and use those to prove other theorems.
Xenophanes
- believed supreme beings must be more powerful and honorable (morally) than humans to deserve our worship.
- human qualities do not equal divine qualities.
Archilochus
- Presocratic who used first person within his lyric poetry.
- he began a trend of taking ownership of one’s ideas.
Thales
• of Miletus - presocratic
• arche is water
- every living thing needs water to survive & inanimate objects melt into a water like substance.
Anaximenes
- presocratic
- arche is air; solids are just made of condensed air.
- explained natural without the divine - rainbows are just condensed air collecting on clouds.
- geocentric model with air bubble surrounding earth.
Pythagoras
- from Samos Island
- credited with moving math from practical purposes to a field of study.
- interested in mathematical relationships with music - hitting objects & their sounds; ratios for harmonies; glasses with water
- cult developed around him.
- believed that things were MADE of math.
Pythagoreans
- presocratic philosophers
- CAN’T TRUST SENSES
- ascribed ideas to Pythagoras
- believed in immortality & transmigration of souls
- believed 10 was a divine # - 5 planets: mercury, venus, mars, Jupiter & Saturn. Sun & moon. Hestia (central hearth fire). Earth and (because you NEED 10) the counter earth.
Anaxagoras
Anaxa-go-from-seen-to-unseen
- of Clazomenae - Ionian who moved to Athens
- CAN TRUST SENSES
- believed in inferences - visible world could explain and help understand the invisible world.
- believed world was made of homoiomeres - tiny particles of things that gather to make bigger things; i.e. Hair particles to make hair.
- we can trust our senses because like recognizes like.
- exiled for impiety.
Anaximander
• presocratic
• proposed Arche was the ‘boundless’
• sometimes considered the FIRST Greek philosopher because he could rationalize WHY the boundless existed
1. Everything has a beginning
2. Boundless has no beginning, because it is limitless (no space or time limits)
3. Boundless is immortal b/c it cannot be destroyed.
• believed life began in water (with Dogfish).
Hesiod
- hesi-yawned
• believed in the 'yawning gap' • theogony: 1. First was the chasm (chaos) 2. Spontaneous generation created the earth. 3. Intercourse (Eros) takes place 4. Heavens created from earth.
Heraclitus
Hera-trust-this?
- Ionian from Ephesus
- CAN’T TRUST SENSES (?) - mostly just use caution, senses are unreliable.
- believed things are constantly changing ‘everything flows’ (you can never step in the same river twice).
- logos (reason) is trustworthy.
Parmenides
parmeni-be-or-not-to-be
- of Elea (native to Elea)
- started the Eleatic School
- CAN’T TRUST SENSES
- believed change is impossible. There is only ‘being’ and ‘not being’. There can be no void, but not being is nothingness and nothingness is a thing (mind games)
- questioned whether anything could exist at all.
- believed logos (reason) is the only way to pure truth.
