History of Ideas Midterm Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering the major thinkers, philosophical schools, concepts, and key distinctions from Pre-Socratic thought through the Renaissance and Reformation.

Thales (Milesian)

The first natural philosopher, who taught that water is the underlying source of everything and that the Earth floats on water.

Apeiron

The 'boundless' or indefinite origin posited by Anaximander as the source to which all things return.

Anaximenes (Milesian)

A Pre-Socratic philosopher who held that air is the fundamental principle of all things.

Heraclitus (Ephesian)

A Pre-Socratic thinker who taught that reality is always in flux, change follows a rational order (logos), and fire symbolizes process.

Parmenides (Eleatic)

An Eleatic philosopher who asserted that genuine being does not come to be or pass away, making change impossible.

Empedocles (pluralist)

A pluralist philosopher who proposed four root elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and argued that complex things arise from their combinations.

Nous

Cosmic ordering 'mind' that, according to the pluralist Anaxagoras, sets the primordial mixture in motion and organizes it.

Archelaus (pluralist)

A pluralist philosopher who focused on air and infinity, teaching that the separation of hot and cold accounts for development.

Pythagoras / Pythagoreans

Thinkers who held that numbers and mathematical relations explain reality and taught the reincarnation of the soul (metempsychosis).

Akousmatikoi vs. Mathematikoi

Two branches of Pythagoreanism: the akousmatikoi emphasized religious rituals, while the mathematikoi emphasized mathematics and scientific study.

Atomism (Leucippus & Democritus)

The materialist view that reality is composed of tiny, indivisible, and indestructible atoms.

Protagoras / Sophists

Thinkers associated with relativism and rhetoric who asserted that 'man is the measure of all things' and maintained relative standpoints on truth and morality.

Monism vs. Pluralism

The distinction between positing one basic underlying principle versus positing more than one basic substance or principle.

Socratic Method / Dialogue

A philosophical approach involving asking successive questions to test definitions and assumptions, expose contradictions, and acknowledge ignorance to achieve clearer thinking.

Theory of Forms

Plato's teaching that the visible, changing world is an imperfect copy of a more real, unchanging realm of transcendent Forms or Ideas.

Prisoners and Chains (Allegory of the Cave)

In Plato's allegory, the element symbolizing people limited by unexamined beliefs and appearances.

Shadows on the Wall (Allegory of the Cave)

In Plato's allegory, the element symbolizing the familiar sensory world where copies are mistaken for reality.

Leaving the Cave (Allegory of the Cave)

In Plato's allegory, the element symbolizing philosophical education and the difficult discovery of truth.

Light / Outside World (Allegory of the Cave)

In Plato's allegory, the element symbolizing the encounter with a fuller reality associated with the Forms.

Three Classes (The Republic)

Plato's ideal state structure consisting of philosopher-rulers who govern through knowledge, warriors who defend, and producers who provide goods and services.

Justice (Plato)

A harmonious ordering of the parts of the soul and of the city, centered on the virtues of wisdom, courage, and temperance.

Potentiality vs. Actuality

Aristotle's metaphysical concepts distinguishing what a thing can become (capacity to become) from the fulfillment of that capacity (realized capacity).

Material Cause

Aristotle's cause that answers 'What is it made from?' (e.g., bronze in a statue).

Efficient Cause

Aristotle's cause that answers 'What brings about the change?' (e.g., the sculptor's activity).

Formal Cause

Aristotle's cause that answers 'What kind of thing is it?' (e.g., the statue's shape or organizing form).

Final Cause

Aristotle's cause that answers 'What is it for?' (e.g., to honour or commemorate someone).

Eudaimonia

Human flourishing or the good life in Aristotelian virtue ethics, achieved through excellent activity and character rather than merely experiencing pleasure.

Golden Mean

Aristotle's ethical doctrine that virtue avoids both excess and deficiency, representing a desirable intermediate response between two extremes.

Catharsis

An emotional cleansing or clarification produced by dramatic tragedy, viewed constructively by Aristotle.

Ataraxia

Mental tranquility prized in Epicureanism, achieved by minimizing suffering and fear and pursuing friendship, freedom, and reflection.

Apatheia

Freedom from destructive passions cultivated in Stoicism (founded by Zeno of Citium), holding that virtue alone is good.

Skepsis

Examination or inquiry in Skepticism, which advises suspending or withholding final truth claims when sufficient grounds for certainty are lacking.

Patristic Era (2nd–8th c.)

The historical period in Christian thought where Church leaders clarified and defended Christian doctrine against heresy.

Scholastic Era (9th–16th c.)

The historical era characterized by systematic philosophical theology drawing heavily on Platonic and Aristotelian ideas.

Evil as Privation

Augustine's doctrine treating evil not as an independent positive substance, but as a privation or absence of good.

Ontological Argument

Anselm's a priori conceptual proof in the Proslogion that reasons to the existence of God from the idea of the greatest conceivable being.

The Five Ways

Thomas Aquinas's proofs for God's existence inferred from observed physical reality, based on motion, efficient cause, contingency, degrees of perfection, and design.

Way of Contingency

Thomas Aquinas's Third Way, which infers that things that might not exist point to a being whose existence is necessary.

Principle of Double Effect

Aquinas's ethical principle stating that a morally legitimate action can foreseeably have both a good effect and an unwanted harmful effect (e.g., self-defence).

Voluntarism (John Duns Scotus)

The Scholastic view that emphasizes the priority of the will, divine will, and human freedom in explanation and action.

Nominalism (William of Ockham)

The philosophical doctrine that universals are merely mental concepts rather than real entities, favoring parsimony and the simplest sufficient explanation.

Learned Ignorance

Nicholas of Cusa's teaching that wisdom includes recognizing the limits of one's knowledge, which challenged Scholastic rigidity.

Desiderius Erasmus

A Christian humanist who criticized Scholastic excess and served as an important intellectual influence on the Reformation.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Author of The Prince, who advanced a political philosophy centered on power, stability, and pragmatic consequences rather than an ideal state.

Cosimo de' Medici

A Florentine patron whose financial and civic support helped sustain Renaissance learning and the Platonic Academy.

Giordano Bruno

A thinker associated with heliocentric thinking that challenged the Earth-centred model of the cosmos.

Michel de Montaigne

A Renaissance skeptic who advocated doubting the reliability of the senses and remaining cautious about claims to certainty.

Council of Trent (1545–1563)

A major reform council of the Catholic Counter-Reformation responding to the challenges raised by the Protestant Reformation.