Discipline: Parmenides was a presocratic philosopher who believed that existence was timeless, eternal, and unchanging. The change that we appear to see is only an illusion due to how we perceive the world.

Presentation: Zeno of Citium was the founder of Stoicism, which held that the path to happiness was living "according to nature", meaning for the Stoic according to the universal reason that is in nature. Things beyond our control shouldn't effect our happiness, because happiness stems only from virtue. So if bad things exist, we should rationally accept that they exist, and they should cause us no suffering.

Gossip: Democritus was an early Atomist, believing that atoms (objects which could no longer be divided into smaller parts) were the only things that exist. For Democritus, there were still many different kinds of atoms, possibly infinitely many, but larger objects that were composed of the atoms didn't properly exist. He believed the world was totally determined by the causal interaction of the atoms.

Excuse: Zeno of Elea was famous for his many paradoxes, most of which were proving that motion is impossible. Similar to how Parmenides believed that time was an illusion, Zeno thought his paradoxes logically showed that motion must be some kind of illusion, and doesn't actually occur.

Brainstorming: Thales believed that everything was composed of a single substance (he picked water). Heraclitus thought everything was composed of fire, although he didn't take it to mean a substance like Thales, but more of an means of change between substances.

The Plan: In The Republic, Plato said that the general populations would have to be told a sort of "noble lie" to keep society together and encourage the less educated classes to behave morally and keep in line with the State. The more educated classes would study philosophy, and know the truth about how to behave virtuously.