Ancient Philosophers PowerPoint

Who are the pre-socratic philosophers?

• Thales of Miletus

• Anaximander

• Anaximenes

• Pythagoras

• Heraclitus

Thales of Miletus

• First asked what the world is made of (water)

• Sought casual relationships

Anaximander

• Nature is regular and predictable

• Concept of Opposites (Injustice assembles in time)

Anaximenes

• Cosmology

• “Air”

• Stages of matter

Pythagoras

• Immortality of the Soul

• Pursuit of Holiness

Heraclitus

• Reality is Change

• Logos

What is “logos”?

Law, reason, wisdom

Who are some of the early meta physicists?

• Parmenides

• Zeno

What did some of the early meta physicists believe?

• “Real” world is permanence

• Mortal beliefs are not Truth

• Extreme “Idealism”

• Zeno’s Paradox

Extreme “Idealism”

Nothing exists if it does not represent the Ideal

Zeno’s Paradox

Motion is an illusion of the senses

Skeptics (cynics)

Sophists who believe that there is no true knowledge

Protagoras

A sophists who believed in cultural relativism

Callicles

A sophist who believed in the Doctrine of the Superior Individual

Doctrine of the Superior Individual

The strong dominate the weak

Thrasymachus

A sophist who believed that justice is defined by the mighty (more important to appear just)

Plato

• Student of Socrates

• Theory of Forms

• Ideal forms are permanent in being

• Justice is immutable/perfect

• Wrote “the Republic” (utopian society)

• Philosopher Kings

Aristotle

• Teleological View

• Naturalistic view of substance, mind, matter, and the soul

• Father of modern day empirical science (matter, causation, motion)

• Aristotelean Logic

Eastern Philosophers

• Predates Greek philosophy

• The Vedas (1500 - 700 BC)

• View of the universe based on “visions” or “seers”

• Ultimate reality based on “That One” (the Brahman)

• The Upanishads

• “What am I?” - the Atman

• Ultimate truth focused on the inner self