ZENO OF ELEA

Zeno of Elea was a presocratic philosopher and a disciple of Parmenides. His main goal was to defend Parmenides’ claim that reality is one and unchanging. To do so, Zeno developed a series of logical arguments known as paradoxes, which aimed to show that movement and plurality lead to contradictions.

The most famous of these is the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, which argues that a faster runner can never overtake a slower one because he must first reach the point where the slower runner has already been. Through such reasoning, Zeno challenged common sense and sensory perception, insisting that true understanding comes from rational analysis rather than observation. 

Multiple Choice

1. What was Zeno’s main philosophical goal?

To support Heraclitus
To defend Parmenides
To promote mythology
To explain the elements

2. What do Zeno’s paradoxes attempt to show?

Motion leads to contradictions
Motion is easily explained
Motion is physical illusion only
Motion is caused by atoms

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True / False

3. Zeno believed sensory perception was always reliable.

True
False

4. Achilles and the Tortoise is a paradox about motion.

True
False

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Fill in the Gap

5. Zeno argued that true knowledge comes from __________.

observation
reason
tradition

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