It was not so in Greece, where philosophers professed less, and undertook more. Parmenides pondered nebulously over the mystery of knowledge; but the pre-Socratics kept their eyes with fair consistency upon the firm earth, and sought to ferret out its secrets by observation and experience, rather than to create it by exuding dialectic; there were not many introverts among the Greeks. Picture Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher; would he not be perilous company for the dessicated scholastics who have made the disputes about the reality of the external world take the place of medieval discourses on the number of angels that could sit on the point of a pin? Picture Thales, who met the challenge that philosophers were numskulls by “cornering the market” and making a fortune in a year. Picture Anaxagoras, who did the work of Darwin for the Greeks and turned pericles from a wire-pulling politician into a thinker and a stetesman, Picture old Socrates, unafraid of the sun or the stars, gayly corrupting young men and overturning governments; what would he have done to these bespectacled seedless philosophasters who now litter the court of the once great Queen? To Plato, as to these virile predecessors, epistemology was but the vestibule of philosophy, akin to the preliminaries of love; it was pleasant enough for a while, but it was far from the creative consummation that drew wisdom’s lover on. Here and there in the shorter dialogues, the Master dallied amorously with the problems of perception, thought, and knowledge; but in his most specious moments he spread his vision over larger fields, built himself ideal states and brooded over the nature and destiny of man. And finally in Aristotle philosophy was honoured in all her boundless scope and majesty; all her mansions were explored and made beautiful with order; here every problem found a place and every science brought its toll to wisdom. These men knew that the function of philosophy was not to bury herself in the obscure retreats of epistemology, but to come forth bravely into every realm of inquiry, and gather up all knowledge for the coordination and illumination of human character and human life.

Total words: 358

Topic: "Philosophy in Antiquity"

Greek philosophers like Pamenides had an obscure vision of knowledge.Pre-socratic Greeks had a stagnant approach of knowledge instead of discernment of thesis and antithesis.Typification of Democritus reveals him as the one opposed to the pedantic scholastics.Thales,as against these philosophers, showed his penchant for materialism.Anaxagoras transformed the cognitions from the dummy politics into evolutionary thinking.Socrates as opposed to present-day abstruse scholars was a free thinker.Plato favoured epistemology as a preliminary for philosophy but infact fell far short of parctical wisdom.He pondered over the real and abstract natures of man and apparently explained the socio-politics of human life. And Aristotle meditated upon every aspect of human life.They were opposed to the intricate nature of knowledge and proposed refinement of human nature through learning.

Naveed ..... You will get good marks in precis paper....

Lets see some other attempt...

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well done Naveed...keep it up..... u deserve gud marks.....

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"Who do many calculations are victorious"

my thanx to both khuram bhai and aristotle bhai...but you know the above passage is a test of our acquaintance with the philosophy of ancient times ,,,so there might be dual meanings attached to such passages...so pray that the examiner may check the papers in accordance with my thinking of the whole paragraph ....once again many a thanx

AoA

In fact it was a difficult paragraph for common people except philosophers like Naveed.

Regards,

Godoo

nice effort Naveed, but your overall contribution for the forum has been quite
below par both in terms of quality and quantity(with an exception of
abovementioned precis) .... just gird up your lions, bcoz the confused CSS
aspirants like me are in dire need of help from your side

with regards maria

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[SIZE="4"]soul searching is better than back biting[/SIZE]

Hey people as far as the precis is concerned..well no one can be sure abt it...
not even Naveed..cuz it was about philosophy,,,the title cud be nething
from Practical Philosophy to Practical thinkers of greece..to anything
and sum ppl i knw even argue tht no one was supposed to write the names of the philosophers as they were anything but illustrations....so it all cum downs to the paper checker....
so dunt fret n pray .. thats all there to do...
it was a very VERY subjective paragraph..
dunt loose hope and hang in there...n remember
"Dunt let the fear of striking out keep u frm playing again"
be cool everyone

AoA all,
As m quite junior here despite i'd dare say that the precis seems quite ordinary and does'nt require us to be philosophers but masters at english..Here's my feeble attempt at it...

"The dynamism of Greek Philosophers"

The Greek philosophers preferred more practising than preaching.They believed in the dynamism of the subject of philosophy and its value in the betterment of humanity.They therefore incessantly continued their research into the subject till it was given final shape by Aristotle.

For example, if the Parmenides vaguely wondered over knowledge and its attributes, the pre-socratics introduced obeservation and experimentation as key to it.If Democritus contended baseless beliefs of his predecessors, Thales defended the philosophy's advancement as a subject against all odds.If Anaxagoras introduced philosophy into politics, Socrates revolutionized politics.If Plato sought to base philosophy on love as basic human instinct and illogically bulit ideal states and subjects, Aristotle logically founded it on wisdom and immensely helped humanity in all spheres of knowledge.

Its 125 words i guess...I wd b extrmly grateful for some learned comments..
Allah haafiz

@Murad:

In this paragraph, contributions and approaches adopted by different philosophers have been presented as 'facts'. If paragraph presents this 'fact': "Parmenides pondered over the mystery of knowledge", then actually no one can deny this fact that Parmenides pondered over the mystery of knowledge. Since the 'facts' mentioned in the paragraph cannot be denied, it means that paragraph is not subjective.

Another 'fact', for instance is that according to Plato, the basis of philosophy was epistemology. Here no candidate would be supposed to deny this fact. No one would be allowed to mention his/ her own subjective opinion that lets say: "According to Plato, basis of philosophy was not epistemology."

So my brother, this is actually an 'objective' paragraph. Candidates are supposed to present the 'same' facts as are mentioned in the paragraph. These 'facts' however should have to presented in summerized form.

If the demand of exam question would be to 'comment' or to 'criticize' the contents of paragraph, then it would be 'subjective' because then you would be in need to express your own 'subjective' opinions about the contents of Para.

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Where is the SIGNATURE....????