Separating Ancients from Moderns Quiz

Answer:

Pythagoras was born in the island of Samos in the 6th century BC. He was the man who coined the term "philosopher", claiming that he is merely a friend of wisdom (the literal meaning of the word "philosopher) instead of a wise man ("sophos"). His theorem about the hypotenuse of a triangle is perhaps the most well-known thing about him, but his philosophy was much more, emphasizing values like opposition to tyranny, a never ending quest for knowledge, and unbreakable oaths of solidarity and mutual support among his disciples.

Thales was born in Miletus, one of the oldest Greek cities in Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece. Apart from his theorem, Thales was the one who first concluded that all life began in water, which, thousands of years later, the theory of evolution would prove in modern scientific terminology.

Democritus was born in Abdera, a city in the Greek region of Thrace. Although his city had earlier been regarded as rather provincial, his status as born in Abdera helped improve the reputation of his hometown. Democritus was the first who spoke about the existence of the atom (literally "non-dividable"), a particle of matter which cannot be split. Although the particle we know as the atom has been split, this does not negate the fact that matter cannot be split indefinitely, since, at some point, the energy required for the split will just be too much for us to produce.

Heraclitus was born in Ephesus, one of the most splendid Greek cities in Asia Minor. Known as "the dark philosopher", for the sombre and serious nature of his teachings, he first articulated the maxim "Everything Flows" ("Ta Panta Rhei" in Greek). Moreover, his idea of Logos ("reason, speech, analogy") governing the world can be seen as a precursor to Christianity's identification of Jesus Christ with the Word of God.

Socrates was born in Athens. Hailed today as the Universal Spirit, he left no extant writings, but his teachings, including the Socratic Method of asking questions and examining every idea and concept, have made a profound contribution to the development of the scientific method. Socrates called his method "Maieutics", id est "midwifery", drawing on the occupation of his mother, Phaenarete, who was a midwife.

Plato, also an Athenian, was a student of Socrates and the one who committed his teacher's philosophy to writing, despite his own limited trust in the written word. Plato's dialogues are both masterpieces of philosophy and monuments of writing. Perhaps his greatest work is "Politeia" (usually translated as "The Republic"), where Socrates and his friends, including Plato's older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, are trying to build an ideal city-state where philosopher-kings rule for the benefit of the entire people under their jurisdiction, cultivating virtue and justice above all.

Aristotle was born in Stageira, a city in the Greek Kingdom of Macedon. He studied in Plato's Academy, but later his path diverged from that of his teacher and he founded his own school, the Lyceum. So great became his reputation, that King Philip II of Macedon invited him to tutor his son, Alexander the Great. On the request of Alexander, before he set forward for his armed explorations and feats in Asia, Aristotle prepared an annotated edition of Homer's Epics, the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey".

Zeno was born in Citium, in the island of Cyprus. He founded the Stoic philosophical school in Athens, where he taught for decades. Stoicism, whoch focused on the cultivation of virtue and the inner struggle in the human soul between good and evil, while paying little to no attention to material comfort, became a highly influential philosophical movement in the Hellenistic and Roman eras and also influenced the formation of Christian ethics.

Epicurus was also born in the island of Samos, same as Pythagoras, but centuries before him. He also chose to teach philosophy in Athens. Deviating from most of the other ancient philosophers, he developed the idea of "lathe biosas" ("living in obscurity"), advocating for a withdrawal from political struggles and a lack of interest for social affairs. He also believed that the soul was just atoms that dissolved upon death.

Carneades was born in Cyrene, a Greek colony in what is today Libya. He taught philosophy in Athens and was a member of an embassy of thinkers sent to Rome in the middle of the 2nd century BC. He was one of the earliest skeptic philosophers. It is said that in old age he suddenly lost his sight while reading. Thinking that the darkness around him was due to nightfall, he asked his servant for a lamp. When the servant brought it, Carneades, as usual doubting what had been said to him, requested "Well, then read, so that I can see it!".

The other five figures are famous philosophers from the early modern era, living in Western Europe and not Greece.