REVIEWER IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

 THE PRE-SOCRATICS
- Pre-Socrates is the term used to call the ancient philosophers
- Western Philosophy began in Ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. In
Ionia, it is said to be the Cradle of Western Thought.
- The Pre-Socratics were interested in a wide variety of topics, especially in
what we now think of as natural science rather than philosophy. These
early thinkers often sought naturalistic explanations and causes for
physical phenomena.

 MILESIAN SCHOOL
- The first Pre-Socratic philosophers were from Miletus on the Western
Coast of Anatolia, also referred as the early Ionian philosophers.
- THALES - He believed that the fundamental substance or primary
constituent of reality is water. The most popular among the three.
Considered also as an astronomer because he was credited to have
successfully predicted an eclipse.
- ANAXIMANDER - He believed that earth is cylindrical and is suspended
in space, was the first philosopher to draw a map.
- ANAXIMENES - He went back to the flat-earth theory, but unlike Thales
who did not give an exact shape of the earth, he gave a definite shape by
claiming that the earth is and other heavenly bodies are like saucers
floating in the air. The earth is flat and round.

 PYTHAGOREAN SOCIETY
- PYTHAGORAS - He believed that the primary constituent of reality
would be numbers. Anything could be explained through members. He be-
lieved that the oldest and shortest words are YES and No. The three classi-
fications of men during the time of Pythagoras: The lovers of pleasure, The
lovers of success and The lovers of wisdom.

 EPHESIAN SCHOOL
- HERACLITUS - First philosopher to affirm clearly that the soul or life
principle commonly believed in by the Greeks is also the principle that
grounds humans as moral and intellectual agents. He believed that a person
cannot take two rivers at the same time. He was known for his idea of
change.

 ELEATIC SCHOOL
- The Eleatic School, called after the town of Elea(modern name Velia in
South Italy), emphasized the doctine of the one. The Eleatics defended the
unity and stability of the universe.
- XENOPHANES - He was an elegiac and gnomic poet, a wandering
rhapsodist, in whom the mystery of nature awakened a profound religious
and speculative impulse.
 - PARMENIDES - He proposed that the only thing that is permanent in this
world is BEING. His idea that reality is being and that we are, therefore
interconnected.
- ZENO - He taught that the world of sense , with its apparent motion and
plurality, is merely an illusion. The "true being" behind the illusion is
absolutely one and has no plurality (Monism) and furthermore it is static
and unchangeable. Accordingly, our sense do not give us reliable
knowledge but only opinion. So, to get the truth of things , it is more
reliable to go by way of thought than by way of sensation.

 PLURALIST SCHOOL
- EMPEDOCLES - He was the proponent of the notion that reality is made
up of the four elements: earth, air, fire and water.
- ANAXAGORAS – One of the important contribution of Anaxagoras is his
idea about the “NOUS” or the mind.

 ATOMIST SCHOOL
- LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS - contributed their idea that the
ultimate substances that reality is made of are ATOMS. Atoms which
means inseparable or indivisible, must be the ultimate constituent of
matter.

 THE SOPHISTS
- PROTAGORAS - According to him, human, being the measure of all
things means whatever knowledge one might achieve about anything
would be limited by human capacities.
- GORGIAS - His aim was to show that everything is equally true, it may
be said that Gorgias strove to show that everything is equally false.
- THRASYMACHUS - He said that people must still aggresively assert to
pursue their interest to achieve goals; and justice must be the law of the
stronger.

 THE TRIUMVIRATE
- SOCRATES - He did not claim to be “wise” and merely considered
himself a “midwife” that helped inquiring minds achieve wisdom. He
believed that philosophy could enable a man to live a life of virtue.
- PLATO - A student of Socrates, he wrote down his mentor’s teaching and
incorporate some of his ideas. His Dialectic, a method of inquiry where
two opposing ideas are discussed in an attempt to arrive at new
knowledge. Plato refers to wonder as the origin of philosophy.
- ARISTOTLE - Aristotle's moral thoughts support that having a good life
is not simply being good but to achieve and fulfill our distinctive end as
human being. According to him, the supreme good of man is happiness. He
 studied logic that led to the formulation of a formal process of analyzing
reasoning which gave rise to Deductive Reasoning, the process of which
specific statements are analyzed to reach a conclusion or generalization. A
top-down approach. His principle with the State and Political life is
that man is by nature a social being, and is forced to depend on social
organization for the attainment of happiness.

 POST-ARISTOTELIAN
- EPICURIANISM - Epicurus was born at Samos in the year 341 or 342
B.C. The Epicurean notion of philosophy defined philosophy as the art of
making life happy.
- STOICISM - The stoics evidently considered themselves the true
disciples of Socrates, and it was, without doubt, from Socratic principles
that they deduced their idea of the aim and scope of philosophy. The
Stoics agreed with the Epicureans in referring philosophy primarily in
pursuit of happiness, but instead of laying down theoretical principles as
the stoics and epicureans had done, they taught that the first step of
happiness is to forego all theoretical inquiries and to disclaim all certainty
of knowledge.
- SCEPTICISM - They taught that the first step of happiness is to forego
all theoretical inquiries and to disclaim all certainty of knowledge.

 SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
- PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY - exhibits all the characteristics of the age to
which it belonged - the era of the struggle and triumph of Christianity and
of the first adjustment of Christian thought to pagan civilization and
culture.
- SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY - begins with the reconstruction of
European civilization in the ninth century, was from the outset a reaction
against the intellectual stupor of the times. The restoration of the study of
grammar and rhetoric.
- SAINT AUGUSTINE - St. Augustine's notion of morality was developed
not just as a theory, but all are manifested in the real moral problems of
human beings.
- ST. THOMAS AQUINAS - He is known as the "Angelic Doctor" of the
Church. As St. Thomas Aquinas defined, a just law as "an ordinance of
reason promulgated by competent authority for the sake of common good,"
For him, the object of all appetite is the good; the end of all human action
is happiness. Universal good, which is the conscious or unconscious aim
of all rational action, is fully realized in the infinite good, which is God.