Major Greek philosophers and their key ideas
20 cards · philosophy
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| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| Thales | Water is the arche c. 624–546 BC; sought natural causes; reputed to predict an eclipse. |
| Anaximander | The apeiron is the origin The boundless generates and governs opposites; early mapmaker and astronomer. |
| Anaximenes | Air is the arche; change by rarefaction/condensation Explained change by air’s density; last of the Milesian monists. |
| Pythagoras | Number is the essence of things Founded a religious–mathematical brotherhood; taught soul transmigration. |
| Xenophanes | Critique of anthropomorphic gods Said oxen would draw ox-like gods; posited a greatest god unlike mortals. |
| Heraclitus | Perpetual flux; Logos orders change Unity of opposites; fire as image of process and transformation. |
| Parmenides | Being is one; change is illusory In his poem, reason reveals ungenerated, undying, unchanging Being. |
| Zeno of Elea | Paradoxes of motion Achilles, arrow, and dichotomy puzzles defend Eleatic monism. |
| Empedocles | Four elements; Love and Strife Cosmic cycles mix and separate the elements under two opposing forces. |
| Anaxagoras | Nous orders a cosmos of mixed 'seeds' Introduced Mind as cosmic cause; offered natural accounts of eclipses. |
| Democritus | Atomism: indivisible atoms in the void Mechanistic explanations of nature; ethical ideal of cheerful serenity. |
| Protagoras | 'Man is the measure' relativism Leading Sophist; truth and value vary with perceiver and city. |
| Socrates | Socratic method of questioning 470–399 BC; executed by Athens; wrote nothing himself; known via students. |
| Plato | Theory of Forms Transcendent universals ground knowledge; founded the Academy. |
| Aristotle | Four causes explain change and being Material, formal, efficient, and final causes structure explanations. |
| Diogenes of Sinope | Cynic asceticism: live according to nature Praised self-sufficiency and shamelessness; legendarily lived in a tub. |
| Pyrrho | Suspend judgment to attain tranquility Epoché avoids dogma; ataraxia follows withholding assent. |
| Epicurus | Pleasure is the highest good Sought ataraxia via simple living; gods are indifferent; no fear of death. |
| Zeno of Citium | Virtue is the only good; live per nature Founded the Stoa; apatheia and indifferents figure in ethics. |
| Chrysippus | Systematized Stoic logic Architect of Stoicism; advanced propositional logic and compatibilism. |