Favorite ancient Greek philosopher poll

[Kyriakos]

Just a poll about the presocratics, Plato (Socrates is tied to that option) and Aristotle, and ending with Epicurus, so of Greek philosophy from the 7th to the mid 4th centuries BC. Of course some of the philosophers concurrent with Aristotle are missing (eg Theophrastos, Antiphon of Athens, or other tied to Plato)

Options are (mostly by chronological order) :

1) Thales (city: Miletos)
2) Anaximander (Miletos)
3) Anaximenes (Miletos)
4) Pythagoras (Samos/Croton)
5) Heraklitos (Ephesos)
6) Xenophanes (Kolophon/Elea)
7) Parmenides (Elea)
8) Zeno (Elea)
9) Empedocles (Akragas)
10) Melissos (Samos)
11) Democritos/Leukippos (Abdera)
12) Anaxagoras (Klazomenae/Athens)
13) Protagoras (Abdera/Athens)
14) Socrates/Plato (Athens)
15) Diogenes (Sinope/Athens/Corinth)
16) Aristotle (Stagyra/Athens/Pella)
17) Epicuros (Samos/Athens/Lampsakos)
18) Other or Aliens (Delta Draconis/Other/Othermost)

I thought of writing at least some characteristic concept(s) of each one, but likely it would not say that much in case it was not already known, so this is just a poll made of atoms dancing in an infinitely larger void.

My favorite would be Protagoras (judging from what can be inferred of his work by Diogenes Laertius, and even the hostile Plato/Socrates and Aristotle), and also Heraklitos and (somewhat) Zeno/Parmenides.

 

[Leoreth]

I wish I could also downvote Aristotle.

 

[Kyriakos]

I wish I could also downvote Aristotle.

Well, Aristotle moves things away from the examination of notions. But if he had not done so it is likely we would not have had separate orders like Physics that early. Prior to Aristotle the philosophers used mainly 'dialectic'* (at least since Parmenides/Zeno) and they tended to look down upon matters very tied to the senses and the external world. Aristotle specifically tries to secure those fields from metaphysical thought. A good source for that history is his own books of Physics

(of course the seperate orders then tend to join up again, or even subsets of them do, as in physics of quantum or non-quantum levels; but ultimately we cannot account for a system without artificially dividing it from any unknowns and setting axioms- Aristotle notes that in his books of Metaphysics).

*by contrast Aristotle uses what he terms as 'syllogismos', which is what now 'pure logic' is. Basically if you start from some axiom in logic, you can still arrive at 'proof', but in dialectic you have no starting axiom so you cannot have a proof for an unbounded system anyway.

 

[BvBPL]

Why not a public poll?

 

[Perfection]

 

[Kyriakos]

^That isn't ancient Greek

 

[Perfection]

Why the heck is Protagoras your favorite? What do you like about him?

 

[Kyriakos]

^What's there not to like?

In his treatise 'On truth' he seems to have claimed that all statements on supposedly the same thing are statements on as many different things as the statements themselves are. Also that 'what makes something be something' (in ancient philosophical jargon this is called 'the substance' -of that something) is not set, but an instance of a flow, much like a wave breaking onto a rock formation.

Sure, he ruined Socrates' party about the Archetypes and other cis-Eleatic stuff, but that is a plus.

 

[Borachio]

Diogenes.

And that other guy... what's his name?

 

[Kyriakos]

Diogenes.

And that other guy... what's his name?

I have a feeling that you would like Empedocles.

"Eyes by themselves crawled about in search of foreheads"

He was the one who in some accounts of his death fell into the volcano at mount Aetna. In one account he did so in order to be erased and have others believe he was made a god, but one of his bronze-part sandals was found, showing he just tried to troll them.
Also, supposedly, he practised necromancy.

 

[JollyRoger]

Yoplait

 

[Borachio]

Apemantus! That's it. I knew I'd remember.

 

[Zelig]

Sigmund Freud.

 

[Kyriakos]

Apemantus! That's it. I knew I'd remember.

He is not real

 

[Borachio]

He's real to me. Ape-man-tus.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Diogenes, if only because he didn't bother with the whole philosophy business truly.

And the "shade" story always makes me chuckle.

 

[Kyriakos]

Diogenes, if only because he didn't bother with the whole philosophy business truly.

And the "shade" story always makes me chuckle.

Well, tbf, Diogenes did not tell Alexander (non-ambiguously) to (step aside so as to) not hide the (Sun) light. The phrase at the same time could mean "take me out of the darkness", as if Alexander himself was the Sun

Generally Diogenes of Sinope was a troll.

 

[Domen]

16) Aristotle (Stagyra/Athens/Pella)

So:

Spoiler :

Slavoj Aristotlevski:

Can you see the picture?

 

[Kyriakos]

^That slovenian hipster is far closer to Diogenes or some lesser cynic

 

[Zkribbler]

Hrumph! Socrates is my favorite. I find Plato to just be annoying. Why were these two combined?