Vocabulary and Review Questions
on Hesiod . . . through DemocritusThis version composed August 29, 2002
Questions? Contact: Dr. Jan Garrett
Vocabulary (partial list)
arche -- beginning, rule, principle, cause Greek Words (with ordinary meanings)
anthropos -- human being
theos -- god, deity
logos -- discourse, explanation, ratio, proportion, . . . [eventually] reason
theogonia -- birth or emergence of the gods
genesis -- coming to be, generation
morphe --shape, form
gune -- woman [cf. English root gyne-]
monos -- sole, alone
polu -- many [cf. English root poly-]
theologos -- one who talks or sings of the gods, e.g. Homer
muthologos -- a story teller, largely overlaps with theologos
kosmos -- order, arrangement, world-order
apeiron -- unlimited, boundless, indefinite, infinite
phusis -- nature
anthropomorphism English Terms
material cause
moving (efficient) cause
natural philosophers
monist (e.g., Parmenides)
pluralists (natural philosophers after Parmenides)1. Briefly summarize the succession myth that forms the heart of the "plot" in Hesiod's theogony. This has to do with three interrelated generations of gods and goddesses, starting with Heaven and Earth and ending with the victory of the Olympians in the titanomachy.
2. Describe at least two distinct methods Hesiod uses repeatedly to create unity in his story of the emergence of the gods and goddesses.
3. How does Hesiod use his story to suggest logical similarities or oppositions or causal relationships between natural or social phenomena?
4. What criticisms does Xenophanes make of the image of the gods found in the poems of Homer and Hesiod? What explanation does he suggest regarding the ways the gods are described by such poets?
5. What do all the early natural philosophers have in common? (At least two basic points)
6. What do the three Milesian natural philosophers have in common regarding the basic causes of things? (Anaximander expresses this point in the most abstract way.)
7. Why is Anaximenes' theory of condensation and rarefaction a significant achievement in scientific explanation?
8. What is there about Heraclitus' style that probably deliberately reflects his view about reality? Explain.
9. What is the key insight that we can have if we listen not to Heraclitus but to the Logos? How is this expressed in the fragments on opposites, in the fragments on war, conflict or tension?
10. What does Heraclitus tell us, directly or indirectly, about the Logos? Is it immortal? Is anything else?
11. In what different ways (at least three) are opposites united with each other, according to examples given in Heraclitus' fragments?
12. (Number the lines of Parmenides fragment 8 on VAP 230-31 for reference.) What does Parmenides say about what *is*:
a. Does it come into being? (line 3)
b. Pass away? (lines 3, 14-15)
c. Is it in the future? (line 20) In the past? (5)
d. Divisible? (23)
e. Thicker here than there? (24)
f. Continuous? (26)
g. Subject to change? (27)
h. Incomplete? (33)
i. Apart from thinking? (35)
j. Whole? (39)13. How are the atoms of Leucippus and Democritus like Parmenides' One? How do they differ from Parmenides' One? (See Leucippus-Democritus handout. Also you may wish to read The Atomism of Democritus.)
14. How are these atoms different from atoms in 20th century physics?
15. What is the void, and why do the atomists need a concept like this? (handout item 16.15, 16.19)
16. How would atomists explain growth, say, of a plant? (16.5)
17. What determines the current motion of atoms? (16.20-23)
18. What is a probable explanation, in atomist terms, for our experiencing different sensations, say, different tastes? (handout item 16.36)
19. Why are some objects of equal size of unequal weight? (16.37)
20. Do atomists think that nature has purposes? (16.30) How does this anticipate modern science, e.g., Darwinian biology?