Philosophy Past Paper PDF: Greek and Medieval MCQs

S.Y.B.A. Philosophy Paper I: Western Philosophy: Greek and Medieval (RJMAJPHI241) Semester IV MCQs 25 marks Question Bank Unit 1: Pre-Socratic and Socratic philosophy 1. The Greeks inherited their astronomical knowledge from the Babylonians and Egyptians by about 1000 BC. 2. Like their...

S.Y.B.A. Philosophy Paper I: Western Philosophy: Greek and Medieval (RJMAJPHI241) Semester IV MCQs 25 marks Question Bank Unit 1: Pre-Socratic and Socratic philosophy 1. The Greeks inherited their astronomical knowledge from the Babylonians and Egyptians by about 1000 BC. 2. Like their neighbours, the Greeks believed that the world around them was created by the gods and that natural phenomena were acts of the gods. 3. The ancient Greek religion was not as “sacred” as that of their neighbours and hence scientific thought was not necessarily related to religion. 4. By about 700 BC, the Greeks began to move away from their mythical view of the world and started to seek explanations of natural phenomena without the use of gods. This was the beginning of what we now call science. 5. Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, the first three earliest Ionian philosophers, flourished during the 6th century B.C. and became active in Miletus which was an Ionian colony in Asia Minor. 6. It is obvious that philosophy amongst Greek thinkers began as an act of independent thought; and they must have recognised that anything magical, religious or mythical differs from a natural, rational or scientific explanation. 7. The Greek thinkers also inquired into what single material element constitutes the substratum (ultimate stuff) of the world. 8. Thales (624 – 547 BC) has been called the father of Greek philosophy, as well as the first Greek scientist and mathematician. 9. Thales was first of the Milesian (people from Miletus) materialists, along with his followers Anaximander and Anaximenes. 10. Ionians believed that material substance (rather than some spiritual or supernatural substance; thus, the name materialists) made up the Universe. 11. Thales believed that in the beginning there was only water, that the world and all things were composed of water. 12. Thales observed that some rocks contained fossils of ancient seashells and thus concluded that the hills were once part of the sea. 13. Thales probably also saw mist rising from the Anatolian hills to become clouds, and saw rain fall from those clouds over the Aegean Sea - thus land became damp air, which in turn became water. 14. North of Miletus, a meandering river would have been seen to slowly silt up - thus earth rose up out of muddy water. Seeing springs in the nearby hills Thales would have seen earth become water again. 15. Anaximander was on born 610 BCE, Miletus [now in Turkey]—died 546 BCE, was a Greek philosopher who was the first to develop a cosmology, or systematic philosophical view of the world. 1 16. In Anaximander cosmogony, he held that everything originated from the apeiron (the “infinite,” “unlimited,” or “indefinite”), rather than from a particular element, such as water (as Thales had held). 17. Anaximander postulated eternal motion, along with the apeiron, as the originating cause of the world. This (probably rotary) motion caused opposites, such as hot and cold, to be separated from one another as the world came into being. 18. Although Anaximander’s primitive astronomy was soon superseded, his effort to provide a rational explanation of the world had a lasting influence. 19. Anaximenes Of Miletus, (flourished c. 545 BC), Greek philosopher of nature and one of three thinkers of Miletus traditionally considered to be the first philosophers in the Western world. 20. Anaximenes substituted aer (“mist,” “vapour,” “air”) for his predecessors’ choices. 21. Anaximenes’ writings, which survived into the Hellenistic Age, no longer exist except in passages in the works of later authors. 22. According to Anaximenes, because it was eternally alive, aer took on qualities of the divine and became the cause of other gods as well as of all matter. 23. There is evidence that Anaximenes made the common analogy between the divine air that sustains the universe and the human “air,” or soul, that animates people. 24. At the first sight Heraclitus (active – 5th century BCE) and Parmenides (active in the earlier part of 5th century BCE) uphold the opposite principles as it looks like. 25. For Heraclitus, true being is circular and transforms into not-being, life turns into death and the change that occurs is eternal and cyclical, it truly is. 26. For Parmenides, true being is motionless and static, it does not change behind the appearance of change. 27. Actually, Parmenides and Heraclitus asserted the One. 28. Parmenides refuted opposites, accentuated being and claimed: “Being is ungenerated and indestructible, whole, of one kind and unwavering and complete. Nor was it, nor will it be, since now it is, all together, one, continuous”. 29. Heraclitus became known for his philosophy of universal “flux and fire” that, according to him, was the basic material of the world, as well as his controversial theory of coinciding opposites. 30. Heraclitus says: “The things of which there is sight, hearing, experience, I prefer”. 31. Parmenides, being a metaphysical monist, and Heraclitus, rather independent of any ancient theories, a material monist, a scientific cosmologist and a rationalist, have much more in common than it used to be generally recognized. 32. Heraclitus is supposed to inspire Parmenides for developing a contrasting theory, so that they could be seen as representatives advocating constant flux and universal stasis. 33. The term sophists originally meant “wise men” in Ancient Greece. 34. By the fifth century B.C.E., the term Sophists designated a profession in or a group of teachers of rhetoric. 35. Rhetoricians do not necessary hold particular philosophical views and arts of rhetoric in themselves do not have any associated philosophical positions. 2 36. Socrates and Plato challenged Sophist ideas of replacing rhetorical skills to genuine knowledge, moral relativism, epistemological skepticism, and their secularist concept of happiness. 37. The meaning of the word sophist (Greek sophistes meaning "wise-ist," or one who 'does' wisdom, i.e., who makes a business out of wisdom; "wise man") has changed greatly over time. 38. Initially, a sophist was someone who gave sophia to his disciples, that is, wisdom made from knowledge. It was a highly complimentary term, applied to early philosophers such as the Seven Wise Men of Greece. 39. Philosophical perspectives of sophists were critically exposed and analysed by Plato. 40. Protagoras of Abdera (c. 485-415 BCE) is most famous for his claim that "Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not" usually rendered simply as "Man is the Measure of All Things". 41. Gorgias (483—375 B.C.E.) said that ‘if Protagoras is right, then three propositions follow: i. Nothing exists ii. Even if existence exists, it cannot be known iii. Even if it could be known, it cannot be communicated. 42. Sophists traveled and witnessed diverse views of god and customs, and developed relativistic or antagonistic views for religious faith, morality, and values. 43. For Sophists, if there is no objective standard of truth we can appeal to or can determine the validity of claims, arguments become like a game or a battle where winning or losing is at stake and rhetorical skills become a definitive universal tool. 44. In Sophist philosophy, the absence of the objective standard of truth or right and wrong, the perspective of “might is right” emerged. 45. Thrasymachus held a view that power determines and defines good and evil. 46. In Plato’s terms, Sophists stressed the importance of “appearance” over “reality,” “opinion” over “knowledge,” or eradicated their distinction since the world is theoretically limited to appearance in sophist worldview. 47. Sophists often identified happiness with pleasure and promoted secular materialistic social success. 48. For Sophists, happiness can be achieved and joy can be experienced without moral goodness. 49. Kant also argued that moral goodness was the condition for happiness. 50. While sophists defined joy as all forms of pleasure in general, Plato distinguished joy, pleasure, and happiness in two modes: authentic and inauthentic, or genuine and false. Sophists missed this distinction in their analyses of human nature and life. 3