[rmunn]

The Greek philosophers (Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, et al), and the project was, as my Philosophy 101 prof said, that they wanted to learn everything there was to know. An impossible goal, obviously, but they were dreaming the impossible dream.

[skybrian]

I’m wondering if a Greek historian would agree with that summary. Aren’t the texts we have pretty fragmented?

[rmunn]

I could be wrong about him meaning the Greek philosophers (since I don't remember the rest of the lecture), though since it was the intro to a Philosophy 101 class that's who I assumed he meant at the time.

As for fragmented texts, at the time when the Greek philosophers were alive there were a lot more texts available to them than we now have. A lot was lost over the years, including when the library at Alexandria burned (48 BC, I believe). We know they had access to many texts we don't because they quote from them, referencing material that we no longer have access to.

But this is a side issue. The main point of my comment was how the prof managed to communicate two or three things at once by the simple action of walking into the classroom, already lecturing, precisely at the scheduled start of the class.