Five Quizzes

For each of the five modules (Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic Philosophers), there is a quiz. Each quiz consists of ten multiple-choice questions.

The questions are about basic facts. The quizzes are not timed. You have two attempts.

Each quiz is worth 10 points. They sum to 50% of the grade for the course.

To give you an idea of what to expect, here are some questions about basic facts. These questions are not exhaustive. They are examples to help prepare you for the quizzes.

Presocratics

1. What event marks the beginning of Ancient philosophy? When did it happen?

2. What event marks the end of Ancient philosophy? When did it happen?

3. What are the three main periods in Ancient philosophy?

4. How do Hesiod and the theologists explain things?

5. Who are the Milesian inquirers into nature? What did they do?

6. Parmenides criticized the Milesians. What was his criticism?

7. Who are the Pluralists?

8. Who are the Atomists? How did they defend the inquiry into nature?

9. What event marks the end of the Presocratic Period?

10. What city becomes the center of Ancient philosophy after the Presocratic Period?

Socrates

1. What period of Ancient philosophy is Plato in? What is the name of his school?

2. How did Socrates die? What year did he die? Did Socrates leave any writings?

3. What is the three-part way to divide Plato's dialogues chronlogically? Which of these parts gives us the primary evidence for what Socrates thought and how he spent his time?

4. Is the Apology an early, middle, or late dialogue? What does Socrates say he will not abandon? Socrates talks about virtue and wisdom. How does he think they are related?

5. Is the Euthyphro an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? in the Euthyphro, how does the search for definition unfold? How does the Euthyphro end?

6. Is the Laches an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? In the Laches, what virtue of character is Socrates asking his interlocutors about?

7. Is the Protagoras an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? Who is Protagoras? About whether virtue can be taught, what does Protagoras think? Does Socrates think pleasure can overcome knowledge? What is Socratic Intellectualism?

8. Is the Gorgias an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? Who is Gorgias? When Socrates is the respondent in the dialectic, what does he say rhetoric is? Which life does Socrates think is better, his life in the love of wisdom or the life in rhetoric his interlocutors advocate?

Plato

1. In the middle dialogues, is Socrates primarily a questioner in dialectic as he is in the Euthyphoro and other early dialogues devoted to a search for a definition?

2. Is the Meno an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? Meno argues that the what is it question is unanswerable. In response, what theory does Socrates introduce?

3. We divided the Theory of Recollection into the epistemological thesis and the ontological thesis. Which is about reason? Which is about the soul and its relation to the body?

4. Is the Phaedo an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? Does it show Socrates before his trail, during his trial, or on the day of his execution? Who are his interlocutors?

5. According to the Theory of Forms, some things we know through the senses and others we know through reason. In which category are the forms?

6. Is the Republic an early, middle, or late Platonic dialogue? Is Book I in the style of an early dialogue devoted to the search for a definition?

7. What, in Book II of the Republic, is the challenge Plato's brothers present to Socrates?

8. In Book IV of the Republic, after Socrates and his interlocutors have settled on what justice is in a city, what theory does Socrates introduce?

9. According to the Tripartite Theory of the Soul, what are the three parts of the soul? Is the Tripartite Theory consistent or inconistent with Socratic Intellectulism?

10. In the Republic, which life does Socrates argue is better? Which does he argue is worse?

Aristotle

1. What period of Ancient philosophy is Aristotle in? When does Aristotle enter Plato's Academy? When does he leave? What is the name of Aristotle's school?

2. As we now have it, the Aristotelian corpus has three parts. What are they?

3. What is the first part of the Aristotelian corpus? The works in this part of the corpus are organized systemically. The Categories is first. What is it about? What is On Interpretation about? What is the Prior Analytics about? What is the Posterior Analytics about?

4. In which of the three parts of the corpus is Aristotle's Physics? Aristotle thinks that sensible substances have natures. What does he think these natures are?

5. In Plato's Timaeus, Timaeus explains the cosmos in terms of a divine craftsman who looks to the forms. Aristotle does not accept this picture of the existence of the forms of natural substances. He thinks these forms are separate only in account. What does he mean?

6. In which of the three parts of the corpus is Aristotle's On the Soul? What does Aristotle think a soul is? Does Aristotle think that a soul can exist apart from the body?

7. Does Aristotle think that human beings are born with reason? Or does he think that they naturally develop reason as they change from children to adults?

8. Where is the Metaphysics in Aristotle's corpus? In the Metphysics, Aristotle argues for the existence of the first unmovable mover. How does this mover cause motion?

9. Aristotle uses the first unmovable mover to explain how the for something is in nature. In this, what part of the picture in Plato's Timaeus is Aristotle rejecting?

10. In which of the three parts of the corpus is Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? Aristotle thinks that human beings have a function. What does he think this function is? What does Aristotle think the first best life is? What does he think the second best life is?

Hellenistic Philosophers

1. What is the time frame of the Hellenistic Age? In which of the three periods of Ancient philosophy do the Hellenistic philosophers belong? What do the Hellenistic philosophers have in common that makes it reasonable to treat them as a group?

2. What is the name of Epicurus's school? What are the parts of his four-fold remedy? What do the Epicureans think is true of someone who has taken the four-fold remedy?

3. Is Epicurus aligned with the rationalist tradition of Plato and Aristotle? Or is he more aligned with the empiricist tradition Plato and Aristotle reject?

4. From what do the Stoics take their name? Who is the founder of Stoicism? Which head of the Stoic school is the most influential in the history of the school?

5. In their thinking about the soul, do the Stoics follow Socrates? Or do they follow Plato and Aristotle in conceiving of the soul in the adult as tripartite?

6. How do the Stoics define knowledge? What do they call assent to a cognitive impression?

7. The Stoics think the best life is one in which we know what is good and what is bad. Do they think what is good and and what is bad is what we ordinarily think is good or bad? Do they, for example, think that health is good and that sickness is bad?

8. Who is the first head of what Cicero calls the new Academy? Who in the New Academy first described assent to impressions in terms of their persuasiveness?

9. There was a dispute within the New Academy about how to understand the justification for assent to persuasive impressions. Clitomachus had one view. Who had the other?

10. What event marks the end of the Period of Schools? About when did it happen?