Tragic monkeys 3: Thinkers
Terms
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- Pre-Socrates
- The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. These philosophers included Xenophanes, Pythagoras, and Thales.
- Lucretius
- (ca. 99 BC- ca. 55 BC) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the epic philosophical poem De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things.q
- Pythagoras
- was an Ionian (Greek) philosopher[1] and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. He is often revered as a great mathematician, mystic and scientist; however some have questioned the scope of his contributions to mathematics or natural philosophy
- Thales
- was a pre-Socratic Milesian[1] philosopher and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition, while some also consider him the "father of science".
- Plato
- Together with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the philosophical foundations of Western culture.[2] Plato was also a mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world. Plato was originally a student of Socrates, and was much influenced by his thinking as by what he saw as his teacher's unjust death.
- Aristotle
- was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology.
- Hippocrates
- was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles, and was considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the "father of medicine" in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the founder of the Hippocratic school of medicine. This intellectual school revolutionized medicine in ancient Greece, establishing it as a discipline distinct from other fields that it had traditionally been associated with (notably theurgy and philosophy), thus making medicine a profession.
- Socrates
- was a Classical Greek philosopher, widely credited with laying the foundations for modern Western philosophy. He is best known for the creation of Socratic irony and the Socratic Method, or elenchus, and also renowned for developing the practice of a philosophical type of pedagogy, in which the teacher asks questions of the student in order to elicit the best answer, and fundamental insight, on the part of the student.
- Diogenes
- Diogenes of Sinope is said to have been a disciple of Antisthenes, who (according to Plato's Phaedo) was present at the death of Socrates. Diogenes, a beggar who made his home in the streets of Athens, made a virtue of extreme poverty. He taught contempt for human achievements and a return to animalism. His was a relentless campaign to debunk social values and institutions.
- Xenophon
- son of Gryllus, of the deme Erchia of Athens, was a soldier, mercenary and an admirer of Socrates. He is known for his writings on the history of his own times, the sayings of Socrates, and the life of Greece.
- Sophists
- In the second half of the 5th century B.C., and especially at Athens, "sophist" came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who employed rhetoric to achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others. Most of these sophists are known today primarily through the writings of their opponents (specifically Plato and Aristotle), which makes it difficult to assemble an unbiased view of their practices and beliefs.