Ancient Philosophers

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Ancient Philosophers

• A Study-Guide

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Click on a group of philosophers to learn more!
Pre-Socratics Epicureans
The Great Masters Stoics
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Pre-Socratics

• Thales
• Anaximenes
• Anaximander
• Heraclitus

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Thales

• Believes God is just and expects men to behave
  justly
• World originates from water
• Attributed natural phenomena to gods
• Fire, for example, is moved to hotness by the
  daemon of fire

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Anaximenes

• Air is the source of all existence
• Everything is air, at different degrees of
  density
• Condensations of air produced the sun and stars

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Anaximander

• Believes in the Apeiron, an unlimited primordial
  mass
• This concept is the source of everything that can
  be perceived
• It embraced the opposites of hot and cold, wet
  and dry

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Heraclitus

• Disagreed with the other pre-Socratic
  philosophers
• Claimed that the nature of everything is change
  itself
• Believed in the unity of opposites Good and bad
  are equals

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The Great Masters

• Socrates
• Plato
• Aristotle

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Socrates

• Believed in virtue that men should focus on
  self-development and not personal wealth
• Discusses reincarnation
• Learning is a process of recalling innate
  knowledge

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Plato

• Wrote dialogues featuring Socrates as a central
  character
• It is unknown how much of his writing is
  Socrates point-of-view and how much is his own
• Discusses democracy

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Aristotle

• Student of Plato
• Five elements Fire, water, earth, air, and
  aether (divine substance)
• Focused on finding the mean between two extremes
• True virtue is found in the mean

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Epicureans

• Epicurus
• Philodemus
• Lucretius

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Epicurus

• All good and bad are derived from sensations of
  pleasure and pain
• Death is not to be feared
• When we die, we no longer exist and we feel
  nothing
• Advocated living in seclusion

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Philodemus

• Claims that anger is natural
• The trick is to express or handle ones anger
• Anger and hunger are both inevitable

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Lucretius

• Against superstition and fear of the gods
• Death is the dissipation of a mans material mind
• Value of life is something that only matters
  during life

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Stoics

• Epictetus
• Zeno
• Marcus Aurelius

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Epictetus

• Held that our aim was to be masters of our own
  lives
• Eudaimonia (happiness or flourishing
• Eudaimonia is achieved by living virtuously, in
  accordance with reason

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Zeno

• Emphasized self-control and detachment from
  emotions
• Overcome the outside world and find peace with
  ones self
• Regarded society as unruly and unreasonable

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Marcus Aurelius

• Did not believe in the afterlife
• Even legends will fade into oblivion
• Death is desirable, because it brings an end to
  all desires