From the Beginning to Plato

424 GLOSSARY
geometrical algebra: modern interpretive term applied primarily to the
application of areas: the term expresses the idea that
underlying the geometric formulation of much of
Greek mathematics are concerns familiar from
modern algebra.
happiness: see ‘eudaimonism’.
heroic code: the range of behaviour held to be acceptable among
the heroes of Greek epic poetry.
Hesiodic: pertaining to the archaic Greek poet Hesiod (c.700
BC), author of the Theogony, a poem describing the
origins and family relationships of gods and
goddesses.
Homeric: pertaining to Homer, the poet (?late eighth-cent. BC)
to whom the authorship of the two great verse epics,
the Iliad and the Odyssey, was traditionally ascribed.
homoeomerous: (Aristotelian technical term) having all parts of the
same nature as the whole. E.g. flesh is a
homoeomerous substance, since every part of a piece
of flesh is a piece of flesh.
incommensurable not commensurable.
(assumetros):
indifference reasoning: reasoning relying on the Principle of Sufficient
Reason. See ‘Sufficient Reason, Principle of.
instrumental, intrinsic: a good is instrumental if it serves as a means towards
some distinct end, but intrinsic if it constitutes an end
(or part of an end) in itself.
intellectualism, Socratic: a central tenet of Socratic morality, the doctrine that
virtue is the expertise (q.v.) of the good, more
frequently expressed as ‘Virtue is knowledge’.
interval (diastēma): loosely defined term corresponding to the ‘distance’
between two musical pitches, often applied to the
ratios associated with those distances.
lonians: the collective term for those pre-Socratics (q.v.) who
came from the Greek cities of Ionia, the central area
of the coast of Asia Minor.
irrational: see ‘rational’.
logos: this Greek term conveys a range of meanings related
to language, calculation, proportion, rationality and
system. It can mean ‘speech’ or ‘discourse’, or the
reason or argument offered in support of a claim. It
can also refer to the definition, or formula, that
characterizes a thing.
mean (meson): a magnitude or number intermediate in size between
two others and satisfying some other condition. The