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aether: the light, bright form of matter which formed the sky or heavens, according to many Greek thinkers. Lighter and finer than ordinary air, it "naturally" gravitated towards the heavenly regions.
Akrasia: literally, "lack of strength", "weakness". Normally used for moral weakness, i.e. for cases when a person believes they know what is right, but do not act on that belief.
Anaxagoras: originally from Clazomenae on the Ionian coast of what is now Turkey, north of Ephesus, Anaxagoras moved to Athens in the mid-fifth century, where he became a close friend of the Athenian statesman Pericles, and did most of his philosophical work. In the late 430s he was tried for impiety, and though acquitted, left Athens for Lampsacus, where he died soon after.
Anaximander (610-545 B.C.?): the second of the three so-called "Milesian" philosophers, remembered by later tradition as the earliest Greek philosophers. The evidence describes him as a pupil of Thales, which may be true, but his ideas are much more sophisticated and abstract.
Anaximenes (585-528 B.C.?): the third of the so-called "Milesian" philosophers, remembered by later tradition as the earliest Greek philosophers.
Aporia: "porismos" is "resourcefulness". Aporia is when you have reached the end of your (intellectual) resources, when you are helpless and unable to justify or account for your own beliefs. According to Socrates, this is a necessary stage on the way towards true knowledge.
arche: a term used by Aristotle for the "primary stuff" or "ultimate principle" of reality. He categorised the early philosophers by what they thought the arche was: water, aer, or fire, etc.
arete: the word can mean "skill", "prowess" or "excellence" in a general sense, or it can mean the particular property that fits an item for its own use: i.e. the arete appropriate to a knife would be sharpness. We still say that a person particularly skilled in, say, music, is a "virtuoso" in this sense. When applied to people, then, it can mean their vocational skills in particular, or their "excellence" at the broadest level, encompassing personal and political "virtues". In Protagoras' speech, it means "those skills and attitudes which make a person a good (or even virtuoso) citizen": we might say "social skills", or "citizenship skills", provided we understand there are intellectual, emotional and social aspects to this arete. "Excellence" is the normal translation, though perhaps "quality" in English comes closer. "Quality" has the same ambiguity: it can mean the property of a thing that makes it what it is ("the quality of mercy is not strained") or it can mean "high quality".
Aristotle:
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Augustine: St. Augustine of Hippo, born in the North African town of Thagaste in 354 A.D., grew to become one of the greatest intellects of his age. He studied rhetoric and philosophy, and taught rhetoric in Carthage before leaving Africa for Italy in 383/4. The he achieved the post of teacher of rhetoric in the Imperial court in Milan. He was converted to Christianity in 386, returned to Africa in 388, and became a bishop in 395. His "Confessions", the first known introspective autobiography in Western literature, was written c. 400 A.D. He died in 430 A.D.
Chrysippus of Soli (c. 277 - 204 B.C.): the third great head of the Stoic school of philosophy. He was best known for his development of Stoic logic, and for his theory of pneuma, the ultra-fine material which, in his view, provided the tonos, or 'vital tension', which unites the universe.
Cleanthes of Assos (c. 342 - 232 B.C.): the second great head of the Stoic school of philosophy. Though his work only survives in fragments, his "Hymn to Zeus" has survived complete. See A.A. Long & D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1, p. 326.
Cosmogony: the study of the origin or birth or "begetting" (gonos) of the "cosmos", or ordered universe.
Cosmology: the study of the rational structure (logos) of the "cosmos".
Cosmos (kosmos): the universe, understood as something organised and beautiful. Note the link to the origins of the modern word "cosmetic", to do with decoration or beautification.
Cynic /ism: the loose school of thought, founded by Crates and Diogenes, which favoured an apparently eccentric individualism and encouraged active protest against the artificiality and conventions of urban life. Like Stoics, Cynics advocated living "according to nature", but they defined most of the refinements of Greek life and conventional morality as "unnatural". Cynics gained their name from their "doglike" (kynikos) lack of concern for normal standards of decorum and behaviour. The Cynics were not a School in the same sense as the Academy or the Stoa, but rather a loose tradition of broadly like-minded individuals.
Democritus: born in Abdera, Democritus spent his active years in Athens as a near contemporary of Socrates. With Leucippus, he founded the "Atomist" philosophy which was later taken up and refined by Epicurus.
Dike: justice, in the abstract, or the Goddess of Justice.
Diogenes Laertius: the 3rd century A.D. doxographer (see below) to whom we owe a great deal of our knowledge of the views of particular philosophers.
Doxographer /y: doxography is the collecting and writing down of "opinions", in this case the opinions of philosophers, to make a kind of summary of the development of philosophy.
Eironeia: false modesty. Particularly used of the apparent "Mock-modesty" of Socrates, in his claim that he "knew nothing"; hence "Socratic irony".
Eleatics: thinkers normally considered to be followers of Parmenides of Elea; most notably Zeno.
Elenchus: literally, cross-examination. Normally used for Socrates' particular subtle form of cross-examination, by which he reduces his discussion partners to aporia, helplessness.
Empedocles of Acragas (fl. 450 B.C.): the best-known of the pre-Socratic philosophers. Empedocles was a poet, and his surviving writings display a puzzling mixture of scientific observation, philosophical speculation and mysticism. His cosmological theory argued that the world was made up of four primal "roots", or elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, and that their interaction was dominated by two opposing forces, Love and Strife. Under their alternating influence, the world went through an unending cycle of change, and only during the 'evenly balanced' mid-period of the cycle could a world such as we know exist.
Epicurus / ean: (c. 345 B.C. - 271 B.C.) Epicurus was the founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy. Born an Athenian colonist on the island of Samos, he turned to philosophy early, and developed and refined a highly original version of pre-Socratic atomism. He argued that the world was totally random, that human beings were free, and that the gods, if they existed, took no interest in human affairs. As a result he developed his characteristic ethical views. Based on "state-of-nature" theories, his observations of animals and children led him to the view that all living creatures naturally seek pleasure and recoil from pain. He argued, therefore, that hedone, 'pleasure', was the highest goal, and that people should disregard conventional religious and moral standards and live for their own comfort. Hence the origin of our term 'hedonism'.
Epideictic: one of the three categories of public speaking distinguished by the Greeks. "Forensic" oratory was that type used in the law-courts. "Deliberative" oratory was that type used in public assemblies to decide political issues. "Epideictic" oratory was "Display" oratory: public speaking purely to demonstrate one's skill in the art of speaking. Protagoras' myth of human origins is often given as an example of "Epideictic" oratory: it was a showpiece.
Eristic: the art of arguing with equal force on both sides of a proposition.
Floruit: literally, "he flourished", often abbreviated to "fl.". The term used for the most productive period of a thinker or writer, particularly when we do not know their date of birth or death.
Gorgias of Leontini (c. 480 - 380 B.C.): one of the most famous of the Sophists, best known for his brilliant public speaking. Plato, in the dialogue named the Gorgias, and in the Meno, has him represent the view that rhetoric is the greatest human skill, and virtually the only necessary one. He was best known as both a speaker and a teacher of public speaking, particularly after his visit to Athens in 427 B.C. as an ambassador for his home city (Diodorus Siculus 12:53), but he also wrote on cosmological topics, including a critique of the Eleatic position.
Hecato: a Stoic thinker from the earlier part of the first Century B.C., a student of Panaetius and a contemporary of Posidonius. Hecato is quoted several times, approvingly, by Seneca.
Kosmos: the universe, understood as something organised and beautiful. Note the link to the origins of the modern word "cosmetic", to do with decoration or beautification.
Leucippus: a mid-fifth century Atomist thinker and teacher of Democritus, the best-known Atomist of the "pre-Socratic" period.
Logos: the Greek word for "word", but also for "speech", "discourse", and "reason". In Heracleitus, Stoicism, Philo of Alexandria and the early Christian thinkers it becomes a crucial technical term. In Heracleitus it may be translated as either "account", meaning Heracleitus' own "account of the world", or it may mean, more abstractly, "the rational principle underlying the changes in the Universe", in which human rationality also has some share. In Stoicism the Logos ...
Philosophos: literally, a "lover of wisdom". The term is said to have originated with Pythagoras, who modestly claimed not to be one of the "Wise" (hoi sophoi), but merely a "lover of wisdom".
Posidonius of Apamea: probably the greatest Stoic philosopher of the 1st Century B.C. Posidonius lived for most of his career (c. 135 B.C. - 50 B.C.) on the island of Rhodes, where he studied and taught. Posidonius was an encyclopaedic figure, working across the whole spectrum of philosophical and practical knowledge of his time. Cicero was for a period one of his pupils, and reports much about his views.
to apeiron: literally "the unbounded", or "infinitude", believed by Anaximander to be the arche or primary stuff of reality.
to eon: "that which is", the clumsy term coined by Parmenides for the stuff of ultimate reality in his system.
to hygron: "the moist", or "moisture", the element or quality believed by Thales to be the basis of reality.