PhilosophyPhilosophy (love of wisdom in ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. It is a rational and critical inquiry that reflects on its own methods and assumptions. Historically, many of the individual sciences, like physics and psychology, formed part of philosophy. But they are considered separate academic disciplines in the modern sense of the term.
AtomismAtomism (from Greek ἄτομον, atomon, i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism and its atoms appeared in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian philosophical traditions. Leucippus is the earliest figure whose commitment to atomism is well attested and he is usually credited with inventing atomism. He and other ancient Greek atomists theorized that nature consists of two fundamental principles: atom and void.
Pre-Socratic philosophyPre-Socratic philosophy, also known as Early Greek Philosophy, is ancient Greek philosophy before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers were mostly interested in cosmology, the beginning and the substance of the universe, but the inquiries of these early philosophers spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society, ethics, and religion. They sought explanations based on natural law rather than the actions of gods. Their work and writing has been almost entirely lost.
Western philosophyWestern philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word philosophy itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία sophía, "wisdom").
Ancient GreeceAncient Greece (Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (600 AD), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC (though this excludes a number of Greek city-states free from Alexander's jurisdiction in the western Mediterranean, around the Black Sea, Cyprus, and Cyrenaica).
MetaphysicsMetaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.
PhysicsPhysics is the natural science of matter, involving the study of matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, with its main goal being to understand how the universe behaves. A scientist who specializes in the field of physics is called a physicist. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines and, through its inclusion of astronomy, perhaps the oldest.
Zeno of EleaZeno of Elea (ˈziːnoʊ...ˈɛliə; Ζήνων ὁ Ἐλεᾱ́της; 495-430 BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia (southern Italy) and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Plato and Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes. Little is known for certain about Zeno's life. The primary source of biographical information about Zeno is Plato's dialogue Parmenides, which recounts a fictionalized account of a visit that Zeno and Parmenides made to Ancient Athens in 450 BC, at a time when Parmenides is "about 65", Zeno is "nearly 40", and Socrates is "a very young man".
VacuumA vacuum (: vacuums or vacua) is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective vacuus for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in a laboratory or in space.
