Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The only one of the Pre-Socratics to be one of the "Seven Sages". He is considered by many to be the first scientist. Many stories are told about him, but most are probably untrue. It is hard to believe that someone smart enough to corner the olive-pressing business is dumb enough to fall into a well while star-gazing.
2. His poem has a chariot taking him to a goddess at the Gates of Night and Day to explain the nature of being and non-being. For this philosopher, thinking and being are the same - therefore non-being cannot exist, since if it existed, it could be talked about and is therefore being. Since non-being cannot exist, being is undifferentiated - therefore there is no such thing as change.
3. This philosopher founded a school between 530BCE and 500BCE that later became a secret society. Although his school is associated with mathematics, his philosophy included more. For example, he believed that souls were reincarnated and advocated vegetarianism since all living animals are related.
4. The LOGOS forms the basis for this philosopher's ideas. This is one guiding principle and hence everything is related. This philosopher's Kosmos consisted of fire, water, and earth - but surpisingly not air!
5. Possibly one of the most misunderstood of the Pre-Socratics, this philospher came up with four paradoxes to reveal the inherit contradictions in the concept of movement. Aristotle attacked the problems as a physics/mathematics problem (a tradition continued to this day), thereby ignoring the issues raised by the paradoxes.
6. This philosopher felt that the universe was made of "apeiron" that is infinite in extent and in nature. He also felt that Earth was a cylinder and that the stars were closer to the Earth than the moon and sun.
7. This philosopher is considered a Pre-Socratic although he lived until the time of Plato. Along with his teacher Leucippus, he developed the atomic theory with indivisible atoms of different sizes and shapes.
8. One of this philosopher's poems was found in an Egyptian mummy in the 1980's! For him, the basic forces are Love and Strife which causes the combination and separation of the 4 basic elements.
9. Another Milesian philosopher, this one believed that the basic element of the universe was air. It is not clear if this is a response to his teacher whose basic element was left undefined or a response to an earlier philosopher who felt the basic element was water.
10. This philosopher was the first to develop a teleological philosophy about the universe which is used later by Thomas Aquinas to prove the existence of God. In other ways, his philosophy echoes earlier thought. Being cannot come from non-being yet he does accept the void of the atomist. He also believed the universe is made of air.
Source: Author
tralfaz
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agony before going online.
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