Greek Science, Arts and Culture

Pre-Socratics, Socrates and Plato

15 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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Random questions from this topic, one at a time. You see the answer and the explanation straight after each one.

All 15 questions

  1. Which pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus proposed that water is the originating principle of all matter?
  2. For Democritus, the only true realities are the void and what?
  3. Which influential philosopher and mathematician was born on the eastern Aegean island of Samos?
  4. Which classical philosopher left no written works, with knowledge of his life coming from the accounts of his pupils Plato and Xenophon?
  5. Which philosophical school did Plato found around 387 BC in a grove outside Athens?
  6. Founded by Aristotle at the Lyceum in Athens, which famous philosophical school began the tradition that laid the groundwork for modern science?
  7. What is best known for his thirteen-book treatise, the Elements, considered his magnum opus?
  8. Stepping into a bath and realizing how to determine the volume of a crown, which ancient mathematician allegedly ran naked crying "Eureka!"?
  9. Which scholar calculated the circumference of the Earth around 240 BC using shadow angles?
  10. Which ancient Greek physician from the island of Kos was also known as Hippocrates II, named after his grandfather?
  11. Which early pre-Socratic philosopher is credited with the earliest use of the word apeiron ("infinite" or "limitless") to designate the original principle?
  12. According to Diogenes Laërtius, which philosopher taught that the sum of things flows like a stream, associated with the saying "Panta rhei"?
  13. In modern interpretations, who is often seen as presenting a theory of unchanging "being" that spurred debate about the nature of change among subsequent natural philosophers in Presocratic philosophy…
  14. Which ancient Greek astronomer proposed that the fixed stars were extremely distant and presented an early heliocentric model?
  15. Which mathematician and engineer was active in Alexandria during the Roman era?

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