GLOSSARY

The Milesians
Miletus was an Ionian city; Ionia was a Greek colony on the Aegean coast of western Asia
Minor. In the sixth century BC, Miletus produces three philosophers: Thales, Anaximander, and
Anaximenes. These philosophers were reputed to have sought the one, unchanging material
principle of all things.

Theogony
The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods,
composed circa 700 B.C. It is written in the Epic dialect of Homeric Greek.

Cosmogony
Cosmogony (or cosmogeny) is any model concerning the coming-into-existence (i.e. origin) of
either the cosmos (i.e. universe), or the so-called reality of sentient beings.

Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos (570 –495 BC) was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and has
been credited as the founder of the movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information
about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is
known about him. He was born on the island of Samos, and travelled, visiting Egypt and Greece,
and maybe India, and in 520 AD returned to Samos. Around 530 BC, he moved to Croton, in
Magna Graecia, and there established some kind of school or guild. He is often revered as a great
mathematician and scientist and is best known for the Pythagorean theorem which bears his
name.

Xenophanes
Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and social and religious
critic. Xenophanes lived a life of travel, having left Ionia at the age of 25 and continuing to travel
throughout the Greek world for another 67 years.

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Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650
BC, around the same time as Homer.

Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including
abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.

Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus,
Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage.

Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia. He was
the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. The single known work of Parmenides is a
poem, On Nature, which has survived only in fragmentary form.

Pluralism
Pluralism is a term used in philosophy, meaning "doctrine of multiplicity", often used in
opposition to monism ("doctrine of unity") and dualism ("doctrine of duality"). The term has
different meanings in metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology.

Atomism
Atomism or social atomism is a sociological theory arising from the scientific notion atomic
theory, coined by the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus and the Roman philosopher
Lucretius.

Derveni papyrus
he Derveni papyrus is an ancient Greek papyrus roll that was found in 1962. It is a philosophical
treatise that is an allegorical commentary on an Orphic poem, a theogony concerning the birth of
the gods, produced in the circle of the philosopher Anaxagoras, it was composed near the end of
the 5th century BC, making it "the most important new piece of evidence about Greek
philosophy and religion to come to light since the Renaissance" .

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Archytas
Archytas (428–347 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosopher, mathematician, astronomer,
statesman, and strategist. He was a scientist of the Pythagorean school and famous for being the
reputed founder of mathematical mechanics, as well as a good friend of Plato.