1. What are some characteristics of the new modes of thought Lindberg identifies with the first Greek philosophers?

2.  What is the fundamental constituent of reality according to Thales?  According to Anaximander?  According to Anaximenes?  How are their positions similar?  How are they different?

3. Describe three ways Lindberg distinguishes the Milesians from their predecessors.

4. Describe the atomism of Leucippus and Democrites.  How does it differ from the pluralism of Empedocles?

5. What is the Problem of Change?  How does Heraclitus address it?  How does Parmenides address it?

6. What is the Problem of Knowledge?  How does Parmenides’ position on change influence what he takes to be knowledge?

7. According to Plato, how does the World of the Forms differ from the sensible corporeal world?  What constitutes true reality for Plato?

8. How does Plato address the Problem of Change?  Can you think of a difficulty with his position?

9. What constitutes knowledge for Plato?  How do we acquire knowledge?
 

1. Is the Timaeus intended as a myth or as a literal description of the origin of the cosmos?

2.  How is the creation of the cosmos in the Timaeus different from the Judeo-Christian account of creation?

3. How does Plato's geometric atomism address the Problem of Change?

4. Accroding to Timaeus, why is it the case that the world must have been created?  Why does this require a creator?  Why must it be that the creator used an eternal and unchanging pattern in the creation?

5. Why does the World Body consist of the four elements?

6. Why do you think Plato describes the World Soul as divided into harmonic intervals?

7. What is the conception of time in the Timaeus?

8. What is the relation between necessity and reason/mind?  How does the cosmos result from their interaction?

9. What is the Receptacle of Being?  What role does it play in the creation?
 

1. Given a choice between the World of the Forms and the sensible corporeal world, where does Aristotle locate true reality?

2.  What is the distinction between matter and form according to Aristotle?

3. Where does the process of acquiring knowledge begin for Aristotle?  What is its end product?

4. What problematic aspect of change is the doctrine of potentiality and actuality supposed to address?  How does it do this?

5. Given that change is possible (according to the doctrine of potentiality and actuality), how does it actually come about:  what aspect of a thing is responsible for motion and change?  How does Aristotle’s answer influence his investigation of Nature?

6. What are the four different answers (“causes” or “explanatory factors”) Aristotle gives to the question, What makes something what it is?

7. Describe the cosmos according to Aristotle:  What is it made out of?  How is it divided into regions?  Is it eternal or does it have a finite age?  Can a vacuum exist?

8. Why do earth and water descend toward the center of the cosmos and water and fire ascend toward the periphery?

9. What is the cause of natural motion?  What is the cause of forced or violent motion?

10. What is the relation v  F/R meant to represent?  In what ways is it not a legitimate representation of Aristotle’s thought?

11. How is motion in the celestial realm different from motion in the terrestrial realm?  What is the cause of motion in the celetial realm?
 

1. What are the simple movements?

2.  How do simple bodies move?

3. Why must there be a simple body that moves by nature in a circle?

4. Why is circular motion necessarily primary to straight motion?

5. Why is the simple body that undergoes circular movement eternal and perfect?

6. Why is the simple body that undergoes circular movement finite?

7. Why is there only one heaven?

8. Why is the heaven spherical?

9. Why must the Earth be at rest at the center of the universe?

10. How many spheres make the heavens go round?
 

1. Plotinus suggests that there are two methods by means of which we can regain our intimate knowledge of God.  One is to realize the trivial nature of the things we, in our fallen disgrace, have come to place importance on.  What is the second method which Plotinus will subsequently engage in in the following passages?

2. How does Plotinus describe Soul?  How is his description different from Plato's description of the World Soul?

3. How does Plotinus describe the relation between Soul and Intellect?

4. What do you think Plotinus means when he describes the realm of Intellect as the "age of Kronos"?

5. What is the relation between Intellect and Being?

6. What features associated with the Intellect lead Plotinus to posit the One?

7. What problem of ancient philosophy does Plotinus concern himself with in explaining the nature of the One?

8. Why does Plotinus describe the One as immobile?  Why is it then hard to describe how secondaries arise from the One?  How does Plotinus describe this process?

9. To describe how Intellect follows from the One, Plotinus appeals to the principle that what is "fully achieved" engenders.  What reasons can you think of for accepting this principle?

10. Plotinus describes part of an individual soul as remaining in the Intellect, thus providing a direct link between individuals and the One.  Why then do we remain "unaware"?  How do we become aware?

11. Describe Plotinus' Two-Act theory, as given in Ennead V.4, chapter 2.  How does it solve the Problem of the One and the Many?
 

Hermes Trismegistus (Yates pp. 1 - 19)
1. The Asclepius and the Pimander (and other works in the Hermetic Corpus) were written in the 1st - 3rd centuries AD.  According to Yates, what are some of the characteristics of this epoch?

2. What are the themes of the Asclepius and the Pimander?

3. Who or what was Hermes Trismegistus?  According to Yates, why did many Renaissance thinkers think he actually existed?

4. How does Hermes appear in the writings of Lanctantius?

5. How does Hermes appear in the writings of Augustine?

6. How does Hermes figure into Ficino's account of the prisca theologia (ancient theology)?

7. According to Yates, what separates Renaissance magic from medieval magic?

Ficino’s Pimander and the Asclepius (Yates pp. 20-28; 35-38)
8. What is the distinction between pessimistic gnosticism and optimistic gnosticism?

9. What aspects of Yates' account of the Pimander are Platonic?  What aspects are Plotinian?

10. What are some of the similarities Ficino identified between the Pimander and the book of Genesis?  What are some differences that Yates points out?

11. According to the Asclepius, man has a double nature.  What is this double nature and why does man have it?

12. What are the 36 decans?

13.  How does man "make gods" according to the Asclepius?
 

Hermes Trismegistus and Magic (Yates pp. 44-61)
1. According to Yates, how do gnosticism and magic go together?

2. What aspects of Plotinian (Neoplatonic) metaphysics make it compatible with the mechanics of sympathetic magic?

3. What is the significance of the decans to sympathetic magic?

4. According to Yates, what were the sources for the Picatrix?  What is its main subject matter?

5. Describe the order of nature as given in the Picatrix.

6. According to Yates, what is the distinction between Ficino’s "astral magic" and astrology?

Ficino’s Natural Magic (Yates pp. 62-83)
7. What are the key features of Ficino’s Neoplatonic metaphysics?  What role do the "seminal reasons" play in it?

8. How may the Magus reform material species when they degenerate?  What is the similarity that Yates draws between this and the practices mentioned in the Asclepius?

9. What is the primary application of Ficino's magic?

10. Why does Ficino stress that celestial images have their power from the world and not from demons?  What is the basis of this claim?

11. What is the role of the spiritus mundi in Ficino’s metaphysics?  What does Yates think is the source of this concept?

12. Why does Yates think Ficino stayed away from images of the decans on his talismans, using only planetary images instead?

13. Explain how each of the following adjectives applies to Ficino's magic:  medicinal, talismanic, sympathetic, pneumatic, planetary, natural.

14. According to Yates, what are some ways that Ficino's "new elegant" Renaissance magic differs from "that old dirty magic" associated with the Medieval Picatrix?  How are they similar?
 

1. In what sense is magia naturalis (natural magic) "spiritual"?  In what sense is Cabalist magic "spiritual"?

2. According to Yates, what are some of the similarities between the Hermetic writings and Cabala?

3. According to Yates, in what sense is Pico's magic natural?  In what sense does it go beyond the natural magic of Ficino?

4. What does Pico think must be added to natural magic to make it truly effective?

5. What are the ten sephiroth?  Why is the Hebrew language of central importance to Cabalism?

6. How can we come to have knowledge of God and Nature according to Cabalism?

7. In what sense can Cabalist magic be called "angelic" magic?

8. According to Yates, how did Pico attempt to unite Christianity with the Jewish Cabala?

9. Pico's Cabalistic magic seeks to go beyond Ficino’s natural magic by aiming for angelic powers beyond the natural realm of the stars and planets. How then can Pico avoid the Augustinian Prohibition against demonic magic?

10. How do numbers enter into Pico's magic?

11. In what sense is Pico's magic mystical?  How does this make it different from Ficino's magic?

12. In what sense is the correspondence between the sephiroth and the planets the completion of natural magic?

13. Pico's 9th Magical Conclusion is "There is no science that assures us more of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Cabala."  What is the significance of this for Yates?

14. What does Yates think is the relation Pico saw between the Hermetica and the Cabala?
 

Copernicus vs Ptolemy (Cohen pp. 24-52)
1. What is an epicycle?  What is a deferent?  What type of planetary motion can they account for?

2. What is an equant?  What type of planetary motion can it account for?

3. Why should the Copernican system be referred to as "heliostatic" instead of "heliocentric"?

4. Why is it wrong to claim that the Copernican system was simpler than the Ptolemaic system?

5. How does the Copernican system account for retrograde motion?  In what sense is its account better than the Ptolemaic account?

6. How does the Copernican system account for the fact that Venus is never seen at midnight?  How does the Ptolemaic system account for this fact?

7. Do you think it is an advantage for the Copernican system that it allows one to calculate relative distances from the planets to the sun?  How might a Ptolemaic sympathizer respond to this alleged advantage?

8. What is the phenomenon of stellar parallax?  How is the absence of observed stellar parallax a count against the Copernican system?

Galileo & the Telescope (Cohen pp. 53-80)
9. Describe one of the arguments against the claim that the Earth is in motion.  What was Copernicus' response?  Do you think it's effective?

10. Describe three observations made by Galileo that he interpreted as indicating that the heavens are imperfect.

11. Describe an observation made by Galileo that he interpreted as indicating that the Earth is not unique.

12. What is the significance of Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus?  How do you think a dedicated Aristotelian (ie, a Ptolemaic sympathizer) could have responded?
 

1. If a 1 pound ball and a 10 pound ball are dropped simultaneously from a tower, which will hit the ground first according to the "elementary textbook" account?  Why is this account wrong?

2. According to Aristotle, what is the relation between the speed of an object and the resistance of the medium through which it travels?

3. According to Aristotle, what is the relation between the speed of an object and the motive force that moves it?

4. In what respects is the formula V  F/R an inaccurate representation of Aristotle’s views?

5. What is uniform motion according to Galileo?  What does the thought experiment of dropping  objects from the masts of moving ships and ships at rest supposed to demonstrate?

6. How can the ship experiments referred to in #5 be used as support for the Copernican system of the world?

7. Why does Galileo choose the relation V  T to describe uniformly accelerated motion?

8. According to Cohen, what are the steps in Galileo's reasoning from the definition of uniformly accelerated motion V  T, to his Law of Freely Falling Bodies D  T²?

9. How does Galileo's Law of Freely Falling Bodies D  T² explain the empirical fact that a 1 pound ball and a 10 pound ball, dropped simultaneously from a tower, will hit the ground simultaneously (given no air resistance)?

10. How does Galileo describe the motion of a projectile?

11. Newton's principle of inertia states that an object, initially at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line, will continue to be at rest or in uniform motion along a straight line in the absence of an external net force.  How is Galileo's description of a falling object experiencing an air resistance equal to its weight a limited statement of this principle?

12. How is Galileo's description of the motion of a ball on an infinite plane a limited statement of the principle of inertia?  According to Cohen, why does Galileo consider motion on such infinite planes physically impossible?

13. What aspects of Galileo's views on motion are Aristotelian?
 

Kepler (Cohen 127-147)
1. In what sense is a circle a special type of ellipse?

2. Why does Cohen characterize Kepler as a "sleepwalker"?

3. What is the relation between the 5 Platonic solids and the orbits of the planets according to Kepler?

4. What are Kepler's first and second laws of planetary motion?

5. What is Kepler's third law of planetary motion?  What does it indicate about the nature of the sun?

6. What aspects of Kepler's description of planetary motion were unacceptable to Galileo's Mechanistic inclinations?  What aspects of Kepler were unacceptable to Galileo's Aristotelian inclinations?

Descartes (Principles of Philosophy)
7. Why don't we have to worry about being decieved by "clear and distinct" perceptions, according to Descartes?

8. What is the essence of corporeal substance?  What is the essence of thinking substance?

9. Is there a difference between an extended body and an extended space, according to Descartes?

10. What is the distinction between "internal place" and external place", according to Descartes?

11. What do variation and diversity in matter depend on?

12. Does Descartes think it takes more action to move a body than to keep it at rest?

13. What is Descartes' first law of motion?

14. How does Descartes' first law of motion resolve Aristotle's problem of describing projectile motion?

15. What is Descartes' second law of motion?
 

Descartes & Henry More (Koyre 110-124)
1. Descartes distinguishes between extended substance (body/matter) and thinking substance.  More distinguishes between matter and spirit.  Why does More think Descartes’ definition of matter (i.e., extended substance) is too wide?

2. What does More suggest as an alternative definition of matter that allows it to be made distinct from "spirit"?

3. According to More, a vacuum, as the absence of matter, is possible.  Is such an absence "absolute"?  If not, then what "fills" a vacuum, if not matter?

4. What is More's criticism of Descartes' view that atoms do not exist?

5. Why does More argue, against Descartes, that the world is infinite?

6. What is the relation between God and the material world according to More?  According to Descartes?

More on God and Space, Spirit and Matter (Koyre 125-154)
7. Does More think there could be space without matter?  Does Descartes think this is possible?

8. According to More, what are some properties of spirit that make it distinct from body?

9. Why does Koyre think that More's concept of spirit wasn't all that outlandish in the context of the 17th century?

10. Why is gravity important to More?

11. What is space for More?

12. Why does More think Descartes' metaphysics excludes God from the world?

13. Why does More think Aristotle's finite cosmos is incompatible with God's omnipotence?

14. What are some properties of absolute space, according to More?
 

(Part I)
1. What are the "classical" Scholia?  What is their main claim?

2. What are the four principles underlying the views in the Principia that Newton claims the ancients had knowledge of?

3. Why do McGuire and Rattansi think the classical Scholia should not be interpreted as a "classical flourish to a scientific treatise", but rather must be taken as a serious endeavor by Newton to substantiate his views?

(Part II)
4. How does Newton concieve infinite space?

5. According to McGuire and Rattansi, did Newton completely separate his studies of natural philosophy from his religious and moral studies?  How do they describe the framework within which Newton conducted these studies?

(Part III)
6. What is the central idea behind the vaious prisca traditions that thinkers such as Newton adopted?

7. Who was Moschus the Phoenician?  What role does he play in the prisca tradition that attempted to legitimize the doctrine of atomism?

8. What is the main criticism that the Cambridge Platonists have of Descartes' philosophy?

9. What is the historical thesis that Henry More uses to explain the origins of Descartes' philosophy?

(Part IV)
10. According to McGuire and Rattansi, what are some of the differences between Newton and the Cambridge Platonists?

11. Besides interpreting the texts of ancient natural philosophy, what other interpretive pursuits did Newton engage in?
 

Study Questions on Newton:  New Synthesis (Cohen 148-184)

1. What is Newton's First Law of Motion?  How does it explain the fact that a ball thrown upward from a uniformly moving train will fall back to the spot from which it was thrown?  How does it explain the same fact for a train at rest?

2. What is Newton's Second Law of Motion?  What is the constant of proportionality between impressed force and acceleration (change of motion)?

3. What is Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation?  In what sense is it "universal"?  What is the historical significance of this?

4. How does the combination of the 2nd Law of Motion (F = mA) and the Law of Universal Gravitation explain the fact that all objects have the same acceleration when they fall freely at any given spot on the Earth, regardless of their mass or weight?