The First Greek Philosophers Trivia Quiz

Answer: lover of wisdom

The word philosopher is from two Greek words - "philein", which means "to love", and "sophos", which means "wise". While philosophy existed in other forms in both India and ancient Persia, it was the Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, who is credited with first using the term, and Plato who elaborated on its meaning. So what did the ancient philosophers hope to find? Wisdom? Perfection? Sure! And - the stuff of which all things are made, of course!

Answer: Thales

Aristotle himself believed that Thales of Miletus was the first philosopher in the Greek sense. Like those who came after him, Thales rejected mythology as the explanation of how the earth was formed, and sought to find the one thing from which everything was made.

He believed that water was the primal stuff of which all things in nature were made. Thales even went as far to say that the earth was a flat disk that floated in water. In addition to his theories about the composition of nature, Thales was also a mathematician and astronomer.

Answer: Apeiron

Believed to have been a pupil of Thales, Anaximander is believed to have been the first philosopher to record his theories; very little of his work, however, remains today. It is known that he disagreed with his mentor, dismissing water as primal because it is always wet, never dry. Later scholars wrote that he believed that the basic element in nature was apeiron, a substance that, according to Plutarch, was ageless and never decayed - and that always regenerated. Some texts call apeiron "the Boundless" and describe it as being a mixture of all the other elements. In other words, fire, water, earth, air, and water combined in different ways to create everything. Anaximander's surviving work postulates that when organisms die, they return to apeiron.

Anaximander is also called the Father of Cosmology, as he even created a model of the universe. He believed that the earth floated in the center of the "infinite", unsupported by anything. The sun, stars, and moon were separate entities that were some distance away.

Answer: Anaximenes

Historians believe that Anaximenes was either the student of Anaximander or perhaps a friend. His belief that the basic substance of which all things were made was air, which he called pneuma. He formed this hypothesis by observing the water cycle, believing that air behaved in the same manner during condensation and rarefaction, thus forming all things.

Like the other early philosophers, Anaximenes was interested in a variety of natural phenomena. In his study of cosmology, some sources credit him with being the first to postulate that there was a difference between planets and stars. He did, however, believe that while the earth was flat, the sky formed a dome over it. Anaximenes also formed hypotheses regarding lightening, rainbows, and earthquakes, none of which were related in any way to the goings on of the Greek gods.

Answer: Pythagoras

Many of the teachings of Pythagoras were based on numerology, and Aristotle once said that he "fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things". He worked out a system where the number one represented the origin of everything, while the number two represented that which comprised the make up of all things. The list went on to number ten, which he said was a perfect number; he represented the number with a drawing called a tetractys.

Pythagoras evidently had quite the following, and my guess is that even today people would find his followers to be a bit eccentric. He founded a school that required students to take a vow to him and each other; everything at the school was shared in common. And that theorem attributed to Pythagoras? While there is evidence that the ancient Babylonians used it - remember they were pretty bright in mathematics too - it is believed he may have been the first to introduce it to the Greeks.

Answer: Life exists throughout the universe

From the ancient Greek "pan", meaning "all", and "sperma", meaning "seed", the theory called panspermia postulates that there is life throughout the universe. This life was spread throughout by space dust, planets, meteors, and perhaps even spaceships. The idea was also perpetuated by later scientists, even into the 1800s, although in modern times it is believed to be a theory more about the fact that there might be other lifeforms in the universe rather than how life began.

Although ancient people in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China studied and recorded eclipses, Anaxagoras is credited with being the first to correctly describe what caused an eclipse.

Answer: Ionia

The Myceaneans, who were Indo-Europeans, established themselves in Greece sometime around 2000 BC. These are the early Greeks whose lives and customs are portrayed in stories like the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by Homer. Around 1100 BC, another group of Indo-Europeans, the Dorians, began to conquer Myceanean settlements, and many began people to flee the area. Some went to an area of the eastern Aegean Sea, which included islands and the west coast of modern Turkey, that was called Ionia.

So the people who lived in Ionia largely escaped the Greek Dark Ages (1100 BC-700 BC) that was caused by the Dorian invasions. Instead, they built upon previous knowledge and added to it as they came into contact with ideas of the Phoenicians, ancient Egyptians, Persians, and others. Miletus, the principal city in Ionia, was at one time a Myceanean stronghold. With the influx of new settlers and ideas, the city eventually because an important intellectual center for the early philosophers.

Answer: Flux

Some scholars hypothesize that the reason Heraclitus choose fire as the fundamental element was because its appearance always changes. This is further evidenced by the above comment, "Everything moves", which is to say that nature is always changing. Another way to say this is, "No man ever steps in the same river twice", however, it is uncertain if Heraclitus actually described flux, or change, in this exact way.

Flux, which is also called "becoming", is a topic that many philosophers have explored, but Heraclitus is still regarded as the Founder of the Process Approach, which associates change as the main, fundamental occurrence in nature.

Answer: Democritus

Because there was and is a lot of discussion regarding who was the first atomist, Leucippus, who was the teacher of Democritus, must also be mentioned here. There were apparently a number of philosophers who believed this theory. But it is probably Democritus' description of the particles - that they were indivisible, indestructible, and infinite in size and numbers - that makes his name stand out, along with his belief that these atoms were always in motion and surrounded by empty space. In fact, in some circles he is called the Father of Modern Science.

Democritus is believed to have come from a wealthy family; he, consequently, was able to travel and spread his theories, going as far away as Asia, Egypt, and even Ethiopia. This probably explains why his name became more well known than the others. There is no doubt that his thoughts went on to influence others during the Scientific Revolution and beyond.

Answer: Arche

Derived from the Greek word, "arkhé", meaning beginning or origin, arche was the word that the early Greek philosophers used to describe the first, fundamental element of nature. Anaximander is credited with being the earliest philosopher to use the term; while Aristotle and those who came after him used the name, "the substratum", the definition for the primal element remained basically the same.