GREAT MINDS EXAM
PREPARATION
Made by: Lara Owobowale
26 OCTOBER 2022
VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT AMSTERDAM
Amsterdam
,Contents
Parmenides and Zeno (done) ................................................................................................................ 3
The historical concept ........................................................................................................................ 3
The structure ...................................................................................................................................... 3
The Key themes .................................................................................................................................. 4
Heraclitus fragments Greek (done) ...................................................................................................... 5
The historical concept ........................................................................................................................ 5
The Key themes .................................................................................................................................. 5
Plato Apology ......................................................................................................................................... 6
The historical concept ........................................................................................................................ 6
The structure ...................................................................................................................................... 6
The Key themes .................................................................................................................................. 6
The questions ..................................................................................................................................... 6
Plato Symposium Sheffield (done) ....................................................................................................... 8
The historical concept ........................................................................................................................ 8
The structure ...................................................................................................................................... 8
The Key themes .................................................................................................................................. 8
The questions ..................................................................................................................................... 9
Bonus Physics I.7-9, VI.9, Parts of Animals I.1 (Aristotle on nature) (done) ................................. 10
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 10
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 10
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 10
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 11
Aristotle EN Ross book I (Aristotle on virtue) (done) ....................................................................... 12
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 12
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 12
The Key theme ................................................................................................................................. 13
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 13
Mencius extracts (done) ...................................................................................................................... 15
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 15
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 15
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 16
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 16
Diogenes Laertius (done) .................................................................................................................... 18
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 18
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 18
1
, The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 18
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 19
General introduction to Medieval Philosophy and Augustine Confessions I (done) ...................... 20
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 20
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 20
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 21
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 21
Ibn Rushd Republic I.21-25, II. 60-64 (done)................................................................................... 23
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 23
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 23
Treatise 1 ...................................................................................................................................... 23
Treatise 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 23
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 24
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 25
Aquinas ST-I-II-1, I-II-109-2 (done) ................................................................................................. 26
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 26
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 26
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 29
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 30
Sophie Bourgault and Rebecca Kingston Introduction to the Book of the City of Ladies and Other
Writings and De Pizan City of Ladies(done)...................................................................................... 31
The historical concept ...................................................................................................................... 31
The structure .................................................................................................................................... 31
The Key themes ................................................................................................................................ 31
The questions ................................................................................................................................... 31
2
, Methodology
The methodology used here are Polarity and Analogy, where Polarity is explanation in terms of
opposites. Whereas Analogy is reasoning on the basis of similarity like “if one thing is as such, all
things are as such”. In Analogy itself are subparts called Induction and Comparison, Induction
means from a particular to the same particular or from a particular to a universal. Comparison
means from a particular to another particular
Parmenides and Zeno (done)
The historical concept
Near 540 BC
He is known from his only known work On Nature which is a poem where he describes the views
of reality. He is one of the earliest philosophers known. He is also known as the founder of
ontology, and he is the big influencer of all western philosophy. He is part of those called
presocratic which means they were focussed on nature and the cosmos and after Socrates and his
successors were focussed on ethics and politics. Also, they discussed cosmology which covers the
origin, the end or goal, elements in nature, and the motion or change. Their life was about finding
the origin and the end and what something existed of and how motion and change worked. A key
feature of the Presocratic is that they had the intuition that there was a single explanation that
could explain both the plurality and the singularity of the whole. Their starting point was to
assume that nothing comes from nothing and from this followed their theories. In this era there
was a school called the Milesian school and it consist of three philosophers called Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes who believer the world was made of a fundamental element
called arche and they all attributed arche to respectively water, apeiron, and air. Some of the
characteristics of this school was Naturalism, Reductionism, and Hylozoism, the definitions of
these respectively are everything can be accounted for by natural phenomena, everything can be
accounted for by one or a few things, and everything is alive. Following from this school came the
Ionian school and the Eleatic school. Parmenides is considered the founder of the Eleatic school in
Elea; Zeno went to this school as well. Zeno was 25 years younger than Parmenides and was
reported to be his lover as well as his philosophical associate. Zeno explores the claims of
Parmenides about what-is, he shows in his arguments that neither plurality nor motion is
compatible with Parmenides requirements for reality. Zeno challenges the unquestionable
evidence of our senses.
The structure
The poem presents a young man (Kouros) who is taken in a chariot to meet a goddess. She tells
him that he will learn all things and that he will have to test and assess all things she teaches him
to be true.
Parmenides of Elea
1. Introduction (B1)
2. Truth (B2-B8.50)
• The three routes of inquiry
o Path of Persuasion=That is, and it is not possible for it not to be
o A path unable to investigate=That it is not and that it is right that it not be
o The path of mortal wandering= for what is to be and not to be, be the
same and not the same
• Parmenides argues that genuine thought and knowledge can only be about what
is and not about what -is-not because if something is truly what-is-not than it is
unsayable or unthinkable.
• Parmenides warns about belief of mortals
o The mortal’s beliefs have distinguished things opposite in body and
established signs apart from one another
o Fire is the same in every direction but not the same as the other because the
other would be the dark night
3
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