Essay Exam Study Guide

Essay Questions

1. Discuss the shift away from a supernatural explanation of the universe that takes place with the attempt by the presocratic Greek philosophers to explain the origin and nature of the universe naturalistically, and how this becomes progressively more threatening to the religious worldview, as seen in atomism and the prosecution of Anaxagoras and Socrates.

2. Discuss and evaluate Xenophanes’ critique of anthropomorphic religion and his view of the divine. Do you agree with his criticism and his abstract conception of the divine? Why or why not?

3. Compare and contrast the different concepts of opposition found in Anaximander, Pythagoras, and Parmenides: dynamic, static, and contradictory. How does each of them help the presocratics in their attempt to grasp the nature of the cosmos?

4. Explain Zeno’s Achilles argument against the possibility of motion. How does the argument use an example from sense experience to prove to us that our perceptions of the world are wrong? Defend our common understanding of the world by developing a criticism of Zeno’s argument.

5. How are the various senses of teleology illustrated in Anaximander’s notion of justice and Heraclitus’ notion of logos? How is the shift from teleology to mechanism visible in the atomists?

Topics for the Final Exam

Define and explain the difference between mechanism and teleology. What are the three main senses of teleology? What are the main senses of the Greek word arche?

Thales – How does Thales define the arche and what are some of the reasons he might have had for defining it in this way? What is material monism?

Anaximander – How does Anaximander define the arche and why might he have been critical of Thales’ definition? Explain how Anaximander applies the social concept of justice to nature and the concept of strife between opposites.

Anaximenes – How does Anaximenes define the arche and why might he have been critical of the definitions provided by Thales and Anaximander? Describe the processes Anaximenes introduces to explain the nature of the changes that occur around us in the universe.

Xenophanes – What is anthropomorphism? What is Xenophanes’ criticism of traditional Greek religion? How did Xenophanes describe the nature of the divine?

Pythagoreanism – Describe the two different groups that followed Pythagoras. What is the doctrine of the transmigration of souls? Explain the Pythagoreans’ view of the nature of the universe, using the notion of the harmony of opposites and the example of musical scales.

Heraclitus – What does the Greek word logos mean, and why does Heraclitus use it to describe the nature of the universe? Explain Heraclitus’ concept of the dynamic unity of opposites, especially the relationship of change and identity, and how this pertains to Heraclitus’ comments about the river.

Parmenides – Explain Parmenides’ claim that being is one and unchanging. What are Parmenides’ arguments against non-being, change, and plurality? Discuss Parmenides’ introduction of a new concept of opposition: contradiction.

Zeno – What is a reductio ad absurdum? How does Zeno use conflicting views about the infinite divisibility of matter, space, and time in his arguments? Describe Zeno’s argument against plurality (#5) and the Achilles and arrow arguments against motion.

Pluralism – What aspects of Parmenides’ claims about change and plurality do the pluralists accept, and what aspects do they reject? How do their views cohere with our sense experience and with contemporary scientific views? What are the main similarities and differences between the views of Anaxagoras and Empedocles?

Atomism – What are the characteristics of the atoms and the void that make up the universe, and how does this differ from modern atomic theory? Discuss how atomism characterizes the universe in a deterministic manner, and what consequences this has for concepts such as freedom and teleology. How does atomism influence the views about the universe espoused by the Epicureans and Stoics, and what features of atomism do the Epicureans and Stoics reject?