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.
Zeno
zennyo-about-Achilles?
- of Elea (connected to Eleatic School)
- CAN’T TRUST SENSES
- created paradoxes to prove illusion of sensory world.
- story of Achilles & the tortoise - infinite halves and impossible for Achilles to pass the tortoise.
- ‘reductio absurdem’
Democritus
Dextyn’s abs
- of Abdera
- studied and wrote on astronomy, cosmology, medicine, botany, etc.
- focused on the study of Knowledge
- CAN TRUST SENSES
- primitively believed that taste related to shape: sweet = round, tart = sharp.
Leucippus and Democritus
leukeMIA-bombs-cells
- Leucippus of Miletus
- he started the ‘atomic’ theory and D developed it. - one substance forms everything.
- there are only 1. Atoms of different shape, orientation & arrangement 2. Void through which atoms move.
- change = rearrangement of atoms. Invented random “swerve” to account for free will.
- considered the culmination of presocratic philosophy.
- CAN TRUST SENSES!
Main ideas of Presocratics
Quēstion of main ideas
- Find axiom/arche 2. The question of change
- Theseus’ Ship - when does it stop being Theseus’ ship?
- straw/reed in water - can we trust senses.
Hippocrates
- of Cos
- renowned Greek physician whose name became attached to a collection of disparate works of Greek medicine (too many and too contradictory for one man to write).
Thucydides
Lucid-thucyd
- described plague of Athens as personally experienced & also objective observance (detailed account).
- no remedy for the plague.
- he was interested in the social effects of the plague.
The Rationalists - name 2 strengths and 2 weaknesses
Weakness:
• investigated only part of the problem (focused on the arrow but not its relation to time)
• didn’t sufficiently define terms (time & movement?)
Strength:
• began to ask the right questions (can we trust our senses? How far? Change?)
• developed modes of argument (reduction to the absurd).
Empedocles
Empediment-docles = 4 eyes
- loosely connected to Eleatic School
- CAN TRUST SENSES - b/c blood is made of all 4 roots & like recognizes like.
- denies uniqueness of what is - only 4 substances and 4 states: earth, air, fire & water; hot, cold, wet & dry.
- roots arrange through love (attraction) and strife (separation).
- “element” is vague and could mean original substances or simple substances.
Eudoxus - Early Greek Science (Astronomy)
complexus
- suggested a complex network of paths for the sun, moon & planets from simple circular movements of concentric spheres.
- he estimated the length of time it took to revolve around the earth and accounted for variances.
- complex, but inaccurate work. Many just added to the theory instead of scrapping and beginning again.
Polybus
- Public Speech - ‘Nature of Man’
- simplified diseases to 4 humours
- Hippocrates’ son-in-law and a doctor.
Thessalus
- Hippocrates’ son and a doctor.
* credited with forming ‘Dogmatic School of Medicine’ which ended research with Hippocrates’ works.
