Features and Importance of the Sophist Education and the Role of Hard Work and Good Luck

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Final Exam
ANSWER ONE OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
1. What is the background of Heraclitus’ obscure style?
2. Heraclitus was called the “obscure”. Answer by quoting some of Heraclitus’ fragments.
3. According to Heraclitus, how do we acquire knowledge? Answer by quoting some of Heraclitus’ fragments
3. What does Heraclitus mean by saying that the logos is the basic law of the universe?
4. What is the difference between the “extreme” and the “moderate” view of change? Which one is closer to Heraclitus’ view?
5.Outline Heraclitus’ account of the soul.
6. Outline the difficulties presented by the example of the ship of Theseus.
7. Parmenides argues that the only way that it can be investigated is the one that “it is”.
8. Outline Parmenides’ argument by carefully presenting and explaining its different steps.
9. What motivates Parmenides to reach the conclusion that change does not exist?
10. Outline the major features of the Sophistic movement.
11. Explain the features and importance of the education system introduced by the Sophists.
12. In the Encomium of Helen Gorgias gives a demonstration of the power of speech. Why does he believe that speech is such an effective weapon?
13. Outline the different steps through which Gorgias defends Helen in the Encomium of Helen
14. Analyze the Anonymous Iamblichi by examining its (i) title, (ii) literary genre, (iii) content, and (iv) goal
15. Analyze the main features of the Sophists’ theory of society.
16. Outlines the main features of the nature (physis) law/custom (nomos) debate.
17. What was the Sophists’ attitude towards religion and the gods?
18. In which sense is philosophy was a way of life for Socrates?
19. What are the main sources from which we can understand Socrates’ life and thought?
COMMENT ON ONE OF THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES:
1) You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet other go ever flowing one. (Heraclitus, fr. 21)
2) Much learning does not teach understanding, otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hectaus. (Heraclitus, fr. 6)
3) People do not understand how that which is at variance with itself agree with itself. There is a harmony in the bending back, as in the cases of the bow and the lyre. (Heraclitus, fr. 117)
4) Although this Logos is eternally valid, men are unable to understand it – not only before hearing it, but even after they have heard it for the first time, that is to say, although all things comes to pass in accordance with this Logos, men seem to be quite without any experience of it – at least if they are judged in the light of such words and deeds as I am here setting forth according to its nature, and to specify how it behaves. Other men, on the contrary, are as unaware of what they do when awake as they are asleep. (Heraclitus, fr. 1)
5) Wisdom one and the same. It is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus. (Heraclitus, fr. 121)
6) The way up and the way down is one and the same. (Heraclitus, fr. 68)
7) “You will not find out the limits of the soul when you go, travelling on every road, so deep a logos does it have” (Heraclitus, fr. 42)
8) Men should speak with rational mind and thereby hold strongly to that which is shared in common as a city holds onto its law, and even more strongly. For even more strongly all human laws are nourished by one divine law, which prevails as far as it wishes, suffices for all things, and yet somehow stands above them (Heraclitus, fr. 70)
9) The mares which carry me as far as my spirit ever aspired were escorting me, when they brought me and proceeded along the renowned road of the goddess, which brings a knowing mortal to all cities one by one. On this path I was being brought, on it wise mares were bringing me, straining the chariot, and maidens were guiding the way. The axle in the center of the wheel was shrilling forth the bright sound of a musical pipe, ablaze, for it was being driven forward by two rounded wheels at either end, as the daughters of the Sun, were hastening to escort after leaving the house of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands. There are the gates of the roads of Night and Day, and a lintel and a stone threshold contain them. High in the sky they are filled by huge doors of which avenging Justice holds the keys that fit them. The maidens beguiled her with soft words and skillfully persuaded her to push back the bar for them quickly from the gates. They made a gaping gap of the doors when they opened them, swinging in turn in their sockets the bronze posts fastened with bolts and rivets. There, straight through them then, the maidens held the chariot and horses on the broad road. And the goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in hers, and addressed me with these words: 'Young man, accompanied by immortal charioteers, who reach my house by the horses which bring you, welcome - since it was not an evil destiny that sent you forth to travel this road (for indeed it is far from the beaten path of humans), but Right and justice. There is need for you to learn all things - both the unshaken heart of persuasive Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true reliance. But nevertheless you will learn these too - that the things. (Parmenides, The Journey)
10) Come now, I will tell you the only ways of inquiry there are for thinking: the one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, is the path of Persuasion (for it attends upon Truth), the other, that it is not and that it is necessary for it not to be, this I point out to you to be a path completely un-learnable, for neither may you know that which is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor may you declare it. For the same thing is for thinking and for being. That which is there to be spoken and thought of must be. For it is possible for it to be, but not possible for nothing to be. There is still left a single story of a way, that it is.’ (Parmenides, fr. 5)
11) About the gods, I am not able to know whether they exist or do not exist, nor what they are like in form; for the factors preventing knowledge are many: the obscurity of the subject, and the shortness of human life. (Protagoras, Fragments)
12) Now man, having a share of the divine attributes, was at first the only one of the animals who had any gods, because he alone was of their kindred; and he would raise altars and images of them. He was not long in inventing articulate speech and names; and he also constructed houses and clothes and shoes and beds, and drew sustenance from the earth. Thus provided, mankind at first lived dispersed, and there were no cities. But the consequence was that they were destroyed by the wild beasts, for they were utterly weak in comparison of them, and their art was only sufficient to provide them with the means of life, and did not enable them to carry on war against the animals: food they had, but not as yet the art of government, of which the art of war is a part. After a while the desire of self-preservation gathered them into cities; but when they were gathered together, having no art of government, they evil intreated one another, and were again in process of dispersion and destruction. Zeus feared that the entire race would be exterminated, and so he sent Hermes to them, bearing reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of cities and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Hermes asked Zeus how he should impart justice and reverence among men:-Should he distribute them as the arts are distributed; that is to say, to a favored few only, one skilled individual having enough of medicine or of any other art for many unskilled ones? "Shall this be the manner in which I am to distribute justice and reverence among men, or shall I give them to all?" "To all," said Zeus; "I should like them all to have a share; for cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues, as in the arts. And further, make a law by my order, that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall be put to death, for he is a plague of the state. (Plato, Protagoras)
13) But if it was speech which persuaded Helen and deceived her heart, not even to this is it difficult to make an answer and to banish blame as follows. Speech is a powerful lord, which by means of the finest and most invisible body effects the divinest works: it can stop fear and banish grief and create joy and nurture pity. I shall show how this is the case, since it is necessary to offer proof to the opinion of my hearers: I both deem and define all poetry as speech with meter. Fearful shuddering and tearful pity and grievous longing come upon its hearers, and at the actions and physical sufferings of others in good fortunes and in evil fortunes, through the agency of words, the soul is wont to experience a suffering of its own. But come, I shall turn from one argument to another. Sacred incantations sung with words are bearers of pleasure and banishers of pain, for, merging with opinion in the soul, the power of the incantation is wont to beguile it and persuade it and alter it by witchcraft. There have been discovered two arts of witchcraft and magic: one consists of errors of soul and the other of deceptions of opinion. All who have and do persuade people of things do so by molding a false argument. For if all men on all subjects had both memory of things past and awareness of things present and foreknowledge of the future, speech would not be similarly similar, since as things are now it is not easy for them to recall the past nor to consider the present nor to predict the future. (Gorgias, The Encomium of Helen)
14) In whatever field of endeavor one wishes to achieve the very best results, whether it be wisdom, courage, eloquence or excellence, either as a whole or any part of it—he will be able to achieve this on the following conditions. First, one must possess natural ability, and this is a matter of good luck; the other elements, however, are in one’s own hands: he must be eager for noble things and willing to work hard, beginning his studies very early in life and seeing them through to completion over a long period of time. If even one of these factors is absent, it is impossible to reach the highest goal in the end; but if any human being has all these things, he will be unsurpassed in whatever he takes on. (Anonymous Iamblichi)
15) A time there was when disorder ruled human lives, which were then, like lives of beasts, enslaved to force; nor was there then reward for the good, nor for the wicked punishment. Next, it seems to me, humans established laws for punishment, that justice might rule over the tribe of mortals and wanton injury be subdued; and whosoever did wrong was penalized. Next, as the laws held [mortals] back from deeds of open violence, but still such deeds were done in secret,—then, I think, some shrewd man first, a man in judgment wise, found for mortals the fear of gods, thereby to frighten the wicked should they even act or speak or scheme in secret. Hence it was that he introduced the divine telling how the divinity enjoys endless life, hears and sees, and takes thought and attends to things, and his nature is divine, so that everything which mortals say is heard and everything done is visible. Even if you plan in silence some evil deed it will not be hidden from the gods: for discernment lies in them. So, speaking words like these, the sweetest teaching did he introduce, concealing truth under untrue speech. The place he spoke of as the gods' abode was that by which he might awe humans most, — the place from which, he knew, terrors came to mortals and things advantageous in their wearisome life— the revolving heaven above, in which dwell the lightning, and awesome claps of thunder, and the starry face of heaven, beautiful and intricate by that wise craftsman Time, — from which, too, the meteor's glowing mass speeds and wet thunderstorm pours forth upon the earth. Such were the fears with which he surrounded mortals, and to the divinity he gave a fitting home, by this his speech, and in a fitting place, and [thus] extinguished lawlessness by laws. (Critias, Sisyphus)