Ancient Greek Philosophy

  1. Who were the Milesian Monists and why were they given this name?
    • They believed in one first principle (in the form of matter) from which all of the universe arises.
    • This one thing persists but changes in its attributes.
    • They are associated with the port of Miletus on the coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). They are:
    • Thales – water is the basic stuff of the cosmos
    • Anaximander – the indefinite is the basic stuff of the cosmos
    • Anaximenes – air is the basic stuff of the cosmos
  2. Thales
    • Late 7th-early 6th C. BCE
    • Water is primary (same view as Babylonians).
    • Did not found a religion.
    • Considered by later Greeks as one of the Seven Sages b/c he began a tradition of inquiring into cosmology, geometry, astronomy.
    • Predicted a solar eclipse in 585.
    • Did not write anything or at least none of it has survived.
    • According to Aristotle, he said that "all things are full of gods." This may be a result of his debt to older animist ideas. Aristotle said he may have said this because he believed that the soul is mixed into the whole universe. Thus, the soul produces motion, because there is soul in the magnet that moves iron.
  3. Anaximander
    • Said to have been a student of Thales.
    • The one principle is not any of the elements of nature.
    • It is the indefinite (a supersensible reality), from which all the things that are come to be and perish arise.
    • This indefinite is divine because it is deathless and indestructible.
    • It is also infinitely extended, living and intelligent.
    • Thus, it steers all things in a lawlike way, exacting retribution for their injustice to one another. He was the first to suggest that natural laws govern the universe.
    • This addresses a problem that Thales doesn't recognize: how opposite natures give rise to one another (ex: how something wet gives rise to something dry).
    • He believed that the earth stays at rest because it is symmetrically placed in the cosmos, so there is no reason for it to move in one direction, rather than another.
    • He also believed that humans were not present at the creation of the earth but evolved from other creatures. In this, he was the first to suggest origin and evolution of the cosmos and living beings according to natural laws.
  4. 4. Anaximenes
    • Air is the one principle.
    • He observed: Moist air, when condensed, becomes clouds, which when condensed further, become rainwater.
    • He speculated: If water were condensed further, it would become earth, which when rarefied, would become fire.
    • The process by which opposite natures give rise to one another: condensation and rarefaction.
    • This process is an impersonal mechanism, unlike Anaximander’s use of divine justice to explain change.
    • Yet, he believed that Air is a God.
  5. 5. Who are the Three Iconoclasts of ancient Greek philosophy?
    • Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
    • Xenophanes
    • Heraclitus
  6. Who are the Eleatic Monists?
    • Parmenides
    • Melissus
    • Zeno
  7. Who are the Pluralists?
    • Empedocles
    • Anaxagoras
    • Who are the Atomists?
    • Leucippus
    • Democritus
  8. Who are the Sophists?
    • Protagoras
    • Gorgias
  9. Identify the quote: "Of the first who first pursued philosophy, the majority believed that the only principles of all things are principles in the form of matter. For that of which all existing things are composed and that out of which they originally come into being and that into which they finally perish, the substance persisting but changing in its attributes, this they state is the element and principle of things that are... for there must be one or more than one nature out of which the rest come, while is preserved."
    • Ideas attributed to the Milesian Monists (in particular, Thales)
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  10. Identify the quote: "All things are full of gods."
    Attributed to Thales
  11. Identify the quote: "However, not all agree about the number and form of such a principle, but _________, the founder of this kind of philosophy, declares it to be water. (This is why he indicated that the earth rests on water.) Maybe he got this idea from seeing that the nourishment of all things is moist, and that the hot itself comes to be from this and lives on this (the principle of all things is that from which they come to be)--getting this idea from this consideration and also because the seeds of all things have a moist nature; and water is the principle of the nature of moist things."
    • Attributed to Thales
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  12. Identify the quote: "Some people claim that it [the earth] rests on water. Indeed, this account, attributed to _________ of ________, is the oldest we have. It rests, allegedly, because it floats, like wood and other such things (for in fact none of these by nature rests on air, but does on water)--as if the same account that applies to the earth didn't also have to apply to the water that supports the earth!"
    • Attributed to Thales
    • In an account by Aristotle in "On the Heavens"
  13. Identify the quote: "Some declare that it [the soul] is mixed in the whole [universe], and perhaps this is why _________ thought all things are full of gods."
    • Attributed to Thales
    • In an account by Aristotle in "On the Soul"
  14. Identify the quote: "From what has been related about him, it seems that _________, too, supposed that the soul was something that produces motion, if indeed he said that the magnet has soul, because it moves iron."
    • Attributed to Thales
    • In an account by Aristotle in "On the Soul"
  15. Identify the quote: "Of those who declared that the first principle is one, moving and indefinite, ________ said that the indefinite was the first principle and element of things that are, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle (i.e., he was the first to call the first principle indefinite). He says that the first principle is neither water nor any other of the things called elements, but some other nature which is indefinite, out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in them. The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for the injustice in accordance with the ordering of time, as he says in rather poetical language."
    • Attributed to Anaximander
    • In an account by Simplicius in "Commentary on Aristotle's Physics"
  16. Identify the quote: "This does not have a first principle, but this seems to be the first principle of the rest, and to contain all things and steer all things, as all declard who do not fashion other causes aside from the infinite... and this is divine. For it is deathless and indestructible, as ________ says and most of the natural philosophers."
    • Attributed to Anaximander
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Physics
  17. Identify the quote: "Some, like ________, declare that the earth is at rest on account of its similarity. For it is no more fitting for what is established at the center and equally related to the extremes to move up rather than down or sideways. And it is impossible for it to make a move simultaneously in opposite directions. Therefore, it is at rest of necessity."
    • Attributed to Anaximander
    • In an account by Aristotle in "On the Heavens"
  18. Identify the quote: "He also declares that in the beginning humans were born from other kinds of animals, since other animals quickly manage on their own, and humans alone require lengthy nursing. For this reason, in the beginning they would not have been preserved if they had been like this."
    • Attributed to Anaximander
    • In an account by a pseudo-Plutarch in "Miscellanies"
  19. Identify the quote: "_________, like Anaximander, declares that the underlying nature is one and boundless, but not indeterminate as Anaximander held, but definite, saying that it is air. It differs in rarity and density according to the substances [it becomes]. Becoming finer it comes to be fire; being condensed it comes to be wind, then cloud, and when still further condensed it becomes water, then earth, then stones, and the rest come to be out of these. He too makes motion eternal and says that change also comes to be through it."
    • Attributed to Anaximenes
    • In an account by Theophrastus, as retold by Simplicius in "Commentary on Aristotle's Physics"
  20. Identify the quote: "Just as our soul, being air, holds us together and controls us, so do breath and air surround the whole cosmos."
    • Attributed to Anaximenes
    • In an account by Aetius
  21. Identify the quote: "________ said that the principle is unlimited [boundless] air, out of which come to be things that are coming to be, things that have come to be, and things that will be, and gods and divine things. The rest come to be out of the products of this. The form of air is the following--when it is most even, it is invisible, but it is revealed by the cold and the hot and the wet, and movement. It is always moving, for all the things that undergo change would not change unless it were moving. For when it becomes condensed and finer, it appears different. For when it is dissolved into what is finer, it comes to be fire, and on the other hand air comes to be winds when it becomes condensed. Cloud results from air through felting, and water when this happens to a greater degree. When condensed still more it becomes earth and when it reaches the absolutely densest stage it becomes stones."
    • Attributed to Anaximenes
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his Refutation
  22. Identify the quote: "_________ determined that air is a god and that it comes to be and is without measure, infinite and always in motion."
    • Attributed to Anaximenes
    • In an account by Cicero in "On the Nature of the Gods"
  23. Identify the quote: "Once _____ passed by as a puppy was being beaten, the story goes, and in pity said these words--'Stop, don't beat him, since it is the soul of a man, a friend of mine, which I recognized when I heard it crying.'"
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in "Lives of the Philosophers"
  24. Identify the quote: "Thus Pherecydes excelled in both manhood and reverence and even in death has a delightful life for his soul, if indeed _______ was truly wise about all things, he who truly knew and had learned thoroughly the opinions of men."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in "Lives of the Philosophers"
  25. Identify the quote: "There was a certain man among them who knew very holy matters, who possessed the greatest wealth of mind, mastering all sorts of wise deeds. For when he reached out with all his mind easily he would survey every one of the things that are, yea, within ten and even twenty generations of humans."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Porphyry in "Life of Pythagoras"
  26. Identify the quote: "Heraclides of Pontus says that _________ said the following about himself. Once he had been born Aethalides and was believed to be the son of Hermes. When Hermes told him to choose whatever he wanted except immortality, he asked to retain both alive and dead the memory of what happened to him. Afterwards he entered into Euphorbus and was wounded by Menelaus. Euphorbus said that once he had been born as Aethalides and received the gift from Hermes, and told of the migration of his soul and what plants and animals it had belonged to and all it had experienced in Hades. When Euphorbus died his soul entered Hermotimus, who, wishing to provide evidence, went to Branchidae, entered the sanctuary of Apollo, and showed the shield Menelaus had dedicated. (He said that when Menelaus was sailing away from Troy he dedicated the shield to Apollo.) The shield had already rotted away and only the ivory facing was preserved. When Hermotimus died, it [the soul] became Pyrrhus the Delian fisherman, and again remembered everything. When Pyrrhus died it became _______ and remembered all that has been said."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in "Lives of the Philosophers"
  27. Identify the quote: "Those called _________ took hold of mathematics and were the first to advance that study, and being brought up in it, they believed that its principles are the principles of all things that are. Since numbers are naturally first among these, and in numbers they thought they observed many likenesses to things that are and that come to be, and since they saw the attributes and ratios of musical scales in numbers, and other things seemed to be made in the likeness of numbers in their entire nature, and numbers seemed to be primary in all nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things that are."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  28. Identify the quote: "The elements of numbers are the even and the odd, and of these the latter is limited and the former unlimited. The One is composed of both of these (for it is both even and odd) and number springs from the One; and numbers, as I have said, constitute the whole universe."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  29. Identify the quote: "The _________ similarly posited two principles, but added something peculiar to themselves, not that the limited and the unlimited are distinct natures like fire or earth or something similar, but that the unlimited itself and the One itself are the substance of what they are predicated of. This is why they call number the substance of all things."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  30. Identify the quote: "They say that the unlimited is the even. For when this is surrounded and limited by the odd it provides things with the quality of unlimitedness. Evidence of this is what happens with numbers. For when gnomons are placed around the one, and apart, in the one case the shape is always different, and in the other it is always one."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Physics
  31. Identify the quote: "The tetractys [The "fourness" of the decad was an equilateral triangle composed of ten pebbles.] is a certain number, which being composed of the four first numbers produces the most perfect number, ten. For one and two and three and four come to be ten. This number is the first tetractys, and is called the source of ever flowing nature since according to them the entire cosmos is organized according to harmonia, and harmonia is a system of three concords--the fourth, the fifth, and the octave--and the proportions of these three concords are found in the aforementioned four numbers."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  32. Identify the quote: "Others of the same cast of mind claim that there are ten principles, which they say are coordinate pairs--limit/unlimited, odd/even, one/plurality, right/left, male/female, at rest/moving, straight/bent, light/darkness, good/evil, square/oblong. This, it seems, is also the view of Alcmaeon of Croton, who either got the account from them or they from him. He says, you see, that most things relating to human beings come in pairs, but the opposites he mentions are not, like the _____ ones, well defined, but arbitrary, whereas the _______ said how many opposites there are and which ones."
    • Attributed to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Metaphysics
  33. Identify the quote: "Nature in the cosmos was fitted together out of unlimiteds and limiters; both the cosmos [harmony] as a whole and everything in it."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in "Lives of the Philosophers"
  34. Identify the quote: "It is necessary that the things that are be all either limiters or unlimiteds, or both limiters and unlimiteds; but they could not always be unlimiteds only. Since, then, it appears that they are neither from limiters only nor from unlimiteds only, it is thus clear that both the cosmos and the things in it were fitted together from both limiters and unlimiteds. For, some of them, from limiters, limit; some, from both limiters and unlimiteds, both limit and do not limit; and others, from unlimiteds, will be clearly unlimited."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  35. Identify the quote: "Concerning nature and harmony it is like this--the being of things which is eternal and nature itself admit of divine and not human knowledge except that it was not possible for any of the things that are and are known by us to come to be, without the existence of the being of the things from which the cosmos was put together, both the limiters and the unlimiteds. And since these principles existed, being neither alike nor of the same kind, it would have been impossible for them to be ordered, if harmony had not come upon them, in whatever way it came to be. Those things that are alike and of the same kind were in no need of harmony, but those that are unlike and not of the same kind, nor of the same speed, it is necessary that these be linked together by harmony, if they are going to be held in an arrangement [kosmos]."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  36. Identify the quote: "The magnitude of the scale [harmonia] is the fourth and the fifth. The fifth is greater than the fourth by a tone. For from the highest [string; the lowest in pitch] to the middle [string] is a fourth; from the middle to the lowest [string; the highest pitch] is a fifth; from the lowest [string] to the third is a fourth; from the third to the highest [string] is a fifth. That which is in the midst of the middle [string] and the third is a tone. The fourth is the ratio 3:4, the fifth is 3:2, and the octave is 2:1. Thus the scale [harmonia] is five tones and two semitones, the fifth is three tones and a semitone, and the fourth is two tones and a semitone."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  37. Identify the quote: "And indeed all things that are known have number. For without this nothing whatever could possibly be thought of or known."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  38. Identify the quote: "Both the ancient theologians and the prophets also testify that the soul has been yoked together with the body as a punishment and is buried in it as in a tomb."
    • Attributed to Philolaus of Croton and the Pythagoreans
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  39. Identify the quote: "Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all deeds which among men are a reproach and a disgrace--thieving, adultery, and deceiving one another."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  40. Identify the quote: "Mortals believe that the gods are born and have human clothing, voice and form."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  41. Identify the quote: "Ethiopians say that their gods are flat-nosed and dark, Thracians that theirs are blue-eyed and red-haired."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  42. Identify the quote: "If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen to look like oxen, and each would make the gods' bodies have the same shape as they themselves had."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  43. Identify the quote: "_________ used to say that those who say that the gods are born are just impious as those who say that they die, since in both ways it follows that there is a time when the gods do not exist."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Rhetoric
  44. Identify the quote: "God is one, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or thought."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  45. Identify the quote: "All of him sees, all of him thinks, all of him hears."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
    • This means that god is not limited by having parts.
  46. Identify the quote: "But without effort he shakes all things by the thought of his mind."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Simplicius in "Commentary on Aristotle's Physics"
    • This means that the thinking principle is mind (nous).
  47. Identify the quote: "He always remains in the same place, moving not at all, nor is it fitting for him to go to different places at different times."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Simplicius in "Commentary on Aristotle's Physics"
  48. Identify the quote: "By no means did the gods reveal all things to mortals from the beginning, but in time, by searching, they discover better."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  49. Identify the quote: "No man has seen nor will anyone know the truth about the gods and all the things I speak of. For even if a person should in fact say what is absolutely the case, nevertheless he himself does not know, but belief is fashioned over all things [or, in the case of all persons]."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  50. Identify the quote: "_________declared that the sea is salty because many mixtures flow together in it. He believes that earth is being mixed into the sea and over time it is being dissolved by the moisture, saying that he has the following kinds of proofs, that sea shells are found in the middle of the earth and in mountains, and the impressions of a fish and seals have been found at Syracus in the quarries, and the impression of a laurel leaf in the depth of the stone in Paros, and on Malta flat shapes of all marine life. He says that these things occurred when all things were covered with mud long ago and the impressions were dried in the mud. All humans are destroyed when the earth is carried down into the sea and becomes mud, and then there is another beginning of coming to be, and this change occurs in all the world orders."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Hippolytus in "Refutation"
  51. Identify the quote: "All things that come into being and grow are earth and water."
    • Attributed to Xenophanes
    • In an account by Philoponus in "Commentary on Aristotle's Physics"
  52. Identify the quote: "This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be [or, happen] in accordance with this logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  53. Identify the quote: "For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  54. Identify the quote: "________ said that Homer deserved to be expelled form the contests and flogged, and Archilochus likewise."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in "Lives of the Philosophers"
  55. Identify the quote: "Eyes and ears are bad witnesses to people if they have barbarian souls."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Sextus Empiricus in "Against the Professors"
  56. Identify the quote: "Human nature has no insight, but divine nature has it."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Origen in "Against Celsus"
  57. Identify the quote: "A man is called infantile by a divinity as a child is by a man."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Origen in "Against Celsus"
  58. Identify the quote: "The wise is one alone; it is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Clement in "Miscellanies"
  59. Identify the quote: "Nature loves to hide."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Themistus in "Orations"
  60. Identify the quote: "The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but gives a sign."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Plutarch in "On the Pythian Oracle"
  61. Identify the quote: "Right thinking is the greatest excellence, and wisdom is to speak the truth and act in accordance with nature, while paying attention to it."
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Stobaeus in "Selections"
  62. Identify the quote: “Listening not to me but to the logos it is wise to agree that all things are one.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in “Refutation”
  63. Identify the quote: “Things taken together are whole and not whole [something which is] being brought together and brought apart, in tune and out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity, and out of a unity all things.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Aristotle in “On the World”
  64. Identify the quote: “They do not understand how, though at variance with itself, it agrees with itself. It is a backwards-turning attunement like that of the bow and lyre.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in “Refutation”
  65. Identify the quote: “Those who speak with understanding must rely firmly on what is common to all as a city must rely on law [or, its law] and much more firmly. For all human laws are nourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as it wishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Stobaeus in “Selections”
  66. Identify the quote: “What is opposed brings together; the finest harmony (harmonia) is composed of things at variance, and everything comes to be in accordance in strife.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics
  67. Identify the quote: “The sea is the purest and most polluted water—to fishes drinkable and bringing safety, to humans undrinkable and destructive.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his Refutation
  68. Identify the quote: “Asses would choose rubbish rather than gold.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Nicomachaen Ethics
  69. Identify the quote: “The wisest of humans will appear as an ape in comparison with a god in respect of wisdom, beauty, and all other things.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Plato in his Hippias Major
  70. Identify the quote: “The most beautiful arrangement is a pile of things poured out at random.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Theophrastus in his Metaphysics
  71. Identify the quote: “The road up and the road down are one and the same.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his Refutation
  72. Identify the quote: “Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Arius Didymus
  73. Identify the quote: “The beginning and the end are common on the circumference of a circle.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Porphyry in “Notes on Homer”
  74. Identify the quote: “The same thing is both living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old; for these things transformed are those, and those transformed back again are these.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by a pseudo-Plutarch in “Consolation to Apollonius”
  75. Identify the quote: “It is death to souls to become water, death to water to become earth, but from earth comes water and from water soul.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Clement in “Miscellanies”
  76. Identify the quote: “The turnings of fire—first, sea; and of sea, half is earth and half fiery waterspout. Earth is poured out as sea, and is measured according to the same ratio [logos] it was before it became earth.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Clement in “Miscellanies”
  77. Identify the quote: “Fire lives the death of earth and air lives the death of fire, water lives the death of air, earth that of water.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Maximum of Tyre
  78. Identify the quote: “The cosmos, the same for all, none of the gods nor of humans has made, but it was always and is and shall be; an ever-living fire being kindled in measures and being extinguished in measures.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Clement in his “Miscellanies”
  79. Identify the quote: “Changing, it rests.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Plotinus in his “Enneads”
  80. Identify the quote: “Even the posset [kykeon—mixed drink of wine, barley, and grated cheese] separates if it is not being stirred.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Theophrastus in “On Vertigo”
  81. Identify the quote: “All things are an exchange for fire and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  82. Identify the quote: “Thunderbolt steers all things.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  83. Identify the quote: “War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as humans; some he makes slaves, others free.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  84. Identify the quote: “It is necessary to know that war is common and justice is strife and that all things happen in accordance with strife and necessity.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Origen in “Against Celsus”
  85. Identify the quote: “For fire will advance and judge and convict all things.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  86. Identify the quote: “Fire is want and satiety.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  87. Identify the quote: “God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger, but changes, the way [fire,] when mingled with perfumes, is named according to the scent of each.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  88. Identify the quote: “To God all things are beautiful and good and just, but humans have supposed some unjust and others just.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Porphyry in “Notes on Homer”
  89. Identify the quote: “Immortal mortals, mortal immortals [or, immortals are mortals, mortals are immortal], living the death of the others and dying their life.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Hippolytus in his “Refutation”
  90. Identify the quote: “They vainly purify themselves with blood when defiled with it, as if a man who had stepped into mud were to wash it off with mud. He would be thought mad if anyone noticed him acting thus.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Aristocritus in his “Theosophia”
  91. Identify the quote: “Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than dung.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Plutarch in “Table Talk”
  92. Identify the quote: “You would not discover the limits of the soul although you travelled every road—it has so deep a logos.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Diogenes Laertius in “Lives of the Philosophers”
  93. Identify the quote: “A person’s character is his fate.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Stobaeus in “Selections”
  94. Identify the quote: “It is difficult to fight against anger, for whatever it wants it buys at the price of soul.”
    • Attributed to Heraclitus
    • In an account by Plutarch in “Coriolanus”
  95. Identify the quote: “The mares which carry me as far as my spirit ever aspired were escorting me, when they brought me and proceeded along the renowned road of the goddess, which brings a knowing mortal to all cities one by one. On this path I was being brought, on it wise mares were bringing me, straining the chariot, and maidens were guiding the way. The axle in the center of the wheel was shrilling forth the bright sound of a musical pipe, ablaze, for it was being driven forward by two rounded wheels at either end, as the daughters of the Sun were hastening to escort [me] after leaving the house of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands. There are the gates of the roads of Night and Day, and a lintel and a stone threshold contain them. High in the sky they are filled by huge doors of which avenging Justice holds the keys that fit them. The maidens beguiled her with soft words and skillfully persuaded her to push back the bar for them quickly from the gates. They made a gaping gap of the doors when they opened them, swinging in turn in their sockets the bronze posts fastened with bolts and rivets. There, straight through them then, the maidens held the chariot and horses on the broad road. And the goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in hers, and addressed me with these words—Young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers, who reach my house by the horses which bring you, welcome—since it was not an evil destiny that sent you forth to travel this road (for indeed it is far from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. There is need for you to learn all things—both the unshaken heart of well-persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true reliance. But nevertheless you will learn these too—that the things that appear must genuinely be, being always, indeed, all things.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In accounts by Sextus Empiricus in “Against the Professors” and by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s On the Heavens”
  96. Identify the quote: “Come now, I will tell you—and bring away my story safely when you have heard it—the only ways of inquiry there are for thinking—the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon Truth), the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be, this I point out to you to be a path completely unlearnable, for neither may you know that which is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor may you declare it.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In accounts by Proclus in “Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus” and by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
  97. Identify the quote: “Thinking and being are the same.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In an account by Clement in “Miscellanies”
  98. Identify the quote: “And it is all common to me from where I am to begin; for to there shall I come back again.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In an account by Proclus in “Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides”
  99. Identify the quote: “That which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be. I bid you consider this. For [I bar] you from this first way of inquiry, but next from the way on which mortals, knowing nothing, two-headed, wander. For helplessness in their breasts guides their wandering mind. But they are carried on equally deaf and blind, amazed, hordes without judgement, for whom both to be and not be are judged the same and not the same, and the path of all is backward-turning.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In an account by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
  100. Identify the quote: “For in no way may this prevail, that things that are not, are. But you, bar your thought from this way of inquiry, and do not let habit born from much experience compel you along this way to direct your sightless eye and sounding ear and tongue, but judge by reason the heavily contested testing spoken by me.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In accounts by Plato in “Sophists” and by Sextus Empiricus in “Against the Professors”
  101. Identify the quote: “There is still left a single story of a way, that it is. On this way there are signs exceedingly many—that being ungenerated it is also imperishable, whole and of a single kind and unshaken and complete. Nor was it ever nor will it be, since it is now, all together one, continuous. For what birth will you seek it? How and from where did it grow? I will not permit you to say or to think [that it grew] from what-is-not; for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What necessity would have stirred it up to grow later rather than earlier, beginning from nothing? Thus it must either fully be or not. Nor will the force of conviction ever permit anything to come to be from what is not beside it. For this reason, Justice has permitted it neither to come to be nor to perish, relaxing her shackles, but holds fast. But the decision about these matters lies in this—it is or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary, to let go the one way as unthinkable, and nameless (for it is not a true way) and that the other it come to be? For if it came into being, it is not, nor if it is every going to be. In this way, coming to be has been extinguished and destruction is unheard of. Nor is it divided, since it all is alike; nor is it any more in any way, which would keep it from holding together, or any less, but it is all full of what-is. Therefore, it is all continuous, for what-is draws near to what-is. But unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without start or finish, since coming to be and destruction were banished far away and true conviction drove them off. Remaining the same in the same and by itself it lies and so stays there fixed; for mighty Necessity holds it in the bonds of a limit, which pens it in all round, since it is right for what-is to be not incomplete; for it is not lacking; if it were, it would lack everything. Thinking and the thought that it is are the same. For not without what-is, in which it is expressed, will you find thinking; for nothing else either is or will be except that which is, since Fate shackled it to be whole and unchanging; wherefore it has been named all things mortals have established, persuaded that they are true—to come to be and to perish, to be and not [to be], and to change place and alter bright color. But since there is a furthest limit, it is complete, on all sides like the bulk of a well-rounded ball, evenly balanced in every way from the middle; for it must be not at all greater or smaller here than there. For neither is there what-is-not—which would stop it from reaching it’s like—nor is what-is in such a way that there could be more of what-is here and less there, since it is all inviolate; for equal to itself on all sides, it meets with its limits uniformly. At this point I stop for you my reliable account and thought concerning Truth; from here on, learn mortal opinions, listening to the deceitful ordering of my words. For they made up their minds to name two forms, of which it is not right to name one—in this they have gone astray—and they distinguished things opposite in body, and established signs apart from one another—for one, the aetherial fire of flame, mild, very light, the same as itself in every direction, but not same as the other; but that other one, in itself is opposite—dark night, a dense and heavy body. I declare to you all the ordering as it appears, so that no mortal opinion may ever overtake you.”
    • Attributed to Parmenides
    • In an account by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
  102. Identify the quote: “For if it should be added to something else that exists, it would not make it any bigger. For if it were of no size and was added, it [the thing it is added to] cannot increase in size. And so it follows immediately that what is added is nothing. But if when it is subtracted, the other thing is no smaller, nor is it increased when it is added, clearly the thing being added or subtracted is nothing.”
    • Attributed to Zeno
    • In an account by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
  103. Identify the quote: “But if it exists, each thing must have some size and thickness, and part of it must be apart from the rest. And the same reasoning holds concerning the part that is in front. For that too will have size and part of it will be in front. Now it is the same thing to say this once and to keep saying it forever. For no such part of it will be last, nor will there be one part [of any such part] not related to another. Therefore, if there are many things, they must be both small and large; so small as not to have size, but so large as to be unlimited.”
    • Attributed to Zeno
    • In an account by Simplicius in “Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
  104. Identify the quote: “______’s arguments about motion which present difficulties for those who try to solve them are four. First is the argument which says that there is not motion because that which is moving must reach the midpoint before the end.”
    • Attributed to Zeno
    • In an account by Aristotle in his Physics
  105. Identify the quote: “If there are many, they must be just as many as they are and neither more nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there are always others between the things that are, and again others between those, and so the things that are unlimited.”
    • Attributed to Zeno
    • In an account by Simplicius in “Commmentary on Aristotle’s Physics”
Author
tiffanyscards
ID
44859
Card Set
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Description
Flashcards for an introductory class on ancient Greek Philosophy. Plato is in a separate card file called "Plato."
Updated