The Pre-Socratics and the Sophists
2.1 Thales and Anaximander
- Understand how Thales contributed to the direction and method of philosophical inquiry and how his approach differed from traditional ways of answering questions about the world.
- Know the reasons why Thales chose water as the fundamental stuff of the world.
- Understand how Anaximander’s theory about the cosmos differed from Thales’s theory.
- Be able to recount Anaximander’s explanation of why the Earth is suspended in space.
2.2 Heraclitus
- Be able to explain Heraclitus’s concept of the logos.
- Understand Heraclitus’s view of the logos as a “harmony of opposites.”
- Explain Heraclitus’s maxim “All are in flux, like a river.”
- Be able to describe Empedocles’s theory of evolution and how it differs from Darwin’s.
- Articulate the main beliefs of the Pythagoreans.
2.3 Parmenides
- Discuss the important conceptual distinctions that Parmenides introduced to philosophy, and define rationalism and empiricism.
- Explain Parmenides’s theory of the One and recount his reasoning behind it.
- State Parmenides’s main contribution to philosophical inquiry.
- Understand Zeno’s paradox of motion and his use of the dialectic form of argument.
2.4 Democritus
- Recount the ways in which Democritus’s theory of the cosmos differs from Parmenides’s theory.
- Define ancient atomism, and explain Democritus’s concepts of atoms and the void.
- List the differences between Democritus’s atoms and those of modern science.
2.5 Protagoras and the Sophists
- Explain who the Sophists were and what role they played in Greek culture.
- Define rhetoric, sophistry, subjective relativism, and cultural relativism.
- Summarize Protagoras’s views and Plato’s refutation of them.
- Evaluate the criticisms that have been aimed at subjective and cultural relativism.
- Articulate and justify your views on relativism.