1. 1. GREEK

PHILOSOPHY: THE

BEGINNINGS, PRE-

SOCRATIC

PHILOSOPHERS Manuel Torres

Philosophy Department

Philo

sophy II

1

GREECE WITHIN EUROPE

2

Philo

sophy II

THE HELADE (HELLAS) AND ITS COLONIES

3

Philo

sophy II

1 Elea:Parmenides 2 Crotona:Escola pitagórica 3 Agrigento: Empédocles 4 Leontino:Gorgias 5 Siracusa. 6 Estagira:Aristóteles 7 Abdera:Demócrito; Protágoras 8 Atenas: Sócrates; Platón 9 Clazomene:Anaxágoras 10 Colofón:Jenófanes 11 Éfeso:Heráclito 12 Mileto:Tales; Anaximandro;Anaxímenes 9, 10,11, 12: IONA 1,2,3,4,5: Magna Grecia

GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE BEGINNINGS

1. The step from myth to logos

2. Myth: its role and definition

3. The search of the arché: Pre socratic philosopny.

4. There is only one arché:

1. Thales of Miletus, 6th century BC

2. Anaximander of Miletus, 6th century BC

3. Anaximenes of Miletus, 6th century BC

4. Heraclites of Ephesus, 5th century BC

5. Parmenides of Elea, 5th century BC

5. There are several archei:

1. Pythagoras (5th) and his school: “all things are numbers”

2. The atomists: Empedocles (5th), Anaxagoras (5th) Leucippus (5th) and Democritus (4th)

Philosophy II 4

ROLE OF MYTH AND RELIGION

"Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a

maggot, and he creates Gods by the dozen."

Montaigne, French philosopher of the 165th century

"All mythology overcomes and dominates and shapes

the force of nature in the imagination and by the

imagination; it therefore vanishes with the advent of

real mastery over them."

Marx, Grundrisse, p:110; German philosopher of the 19th

century.

Philosophy II 5

DEFINITION OF MYTH

Myths are general narratives based on tradition and

legend.

They are designed to

explain the general and local beginnings,

natural phenomena,

inexplicable cultural conventions, and

anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself.

Most myths involve supernatural forces or deities but

many legends and myths passed on oral basis have a

myth structure without gods.

Philosophy II 6

MYTH VERSUS LOGOS

Myth Logos

Gods There is not opposition human / gods

Nature is explained using myths

Nature is explained using reason

unpredictable predictable

Not debate, not discussion Debate, discussion over centuries searching

Total explanations Partial explanations

Traditions, legends is its base Reason, not culture, is the base

Transcendent explanation Immanent explanation

Philosophy II 7

ARCHÉ OF PHYSIS

Arché:

Essence

Principe

Origin

Cause

Reason

Physis:

Cosmos, universe, the whole

nature

The nature or essence of each

single object inside the nature

Arché of physis

Essence of the cosmos

Essence of each object of

nature

Principe or origin of the

cosmos and of each object

inside nature

Cause of the universe and

of each single object

within.

Reason of the universe and

of each single object

within.

Philosophy II 8

ARCHÉ OF PHYSIS

The question about the arché of physis includes

several philosophical problems:

The problem of movement of natural elements (local

movement or displacement and changes of state)

Is there only one arché or various?

What is the origin (not temporal) of nature?

How can we discover the arché? Rational or empirical

methods.

Abstract or empirical / concrete arché.

9

Philo

sophy II

PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS

The history of philosophy in the West begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly called the pre-Socratics. This is not to deny the occurrence of other pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian and Babylonian cultures.

However, the early Greek thinkers add at least one element which differentiates their thought from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world -- we find reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.

As it turns out, nearly all of the various cosmologies proposed by the early Greek philosophers are profoundly and demonstrably false, but this does not diminish their importance.

For even if later philosophers summarily rejected the answers they provided, they could not escape their questions: What is life?

From where does everything come?

Of what is it really made out?

How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?

And why can we describe them with a singular mathematics?

10

Philo

sophy II

THALES OF MILETUS,

6TH CENTURY BC

"Nor is it hard to see how the meteorological considerations may have led Thales to adopt the views he did. Of all the things we know, water seems to take the most various shapes. It is familiar to us in a solid, a liquid, and a vaporous form, and so, Thales may well have thought he saw the world-process from water and back to water again going on before his eyes. The phenomenon of evaporation naturally suggests that the fire of the heavenly bodies is kept up by the moisture they draw from the sea. Even at the present day, people speak of the ‘sun drawing up water.’ Water comes down again in rain; and lastly, so the early cosmologists thought, it turns to earth. This may have seemed natural enough to men who were familiar with the rivers of Egypt which had formed the Delta, and the torrents of Asia Minor which bring down large alluvial deposits."

J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophers, p. 49.

Philosophy II 11

THALES OF MILETUS,

6TH CENTURY BC

Thales was one of the seven wise men of the classical

Greece.

He argued that water was the origin of nature giving

two main reasons:

Earth flouts over water.

Every life form requires humidity, and water is the nature of

humid things

Water is one arché, it is a material arché and

everything else comes out from water.

Philosophy II 12

ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS,

6TH CENTURY BC

According to Diogenes, "He adduced the Infinite (the in-determined, apeiron) as the principle and element; he neither determined it as water, air or any such thing."

Hegel, History of Philosophy, Vol. 1:185.

The one surviving fragment of Anaximander's book may be translated like this:

“Whence things have their origin,

Thence also their destruction happens,

As is the order of things;

For they execute the sentence upon one another

- The condemnation for the crime -

In conformity with the ordinance of Time”

Philosophy II 13

ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS,

6TH CENTURY BC

He was a disciple of Thales

Water can not be the arché because fire and water are opposite, and there is not chance of explaining how could fire come from water.

The arché can not be something already known, it must be something not determined (the apeiron, the un-determinate).

Apeirón means: “what existed at the beginning”.

It is the material cause, substance without limits and eternal (but with explained as an abstract concept).

Philosophy II 14

ANAXIMENES OF MILETHUS

6TH CENTURY BC.

"Observe, in following this succession of thinkers, how their logic, their stock of ideas, their power of abstraction, increase as they grapple with their problem. It was a great advance in human thinking when Thales reduced the manifold appearances of things to one First Principle. Another great step was taken when Anaximander chose, as his First Principle, not a visible form of things like water, but a concept like the Indeterminate. But Anaximenes was still not content. When Anaximander sought to explain how the different things emerged from the Indeterminate, he gave a reply that was a mere metaphor. He said it was a process of ‘separating out.’ Anaximenes felt that something more was needed, and came forward with the complementary ideas of Rarification and Condensation, which offered an explanation of how quantitative changes could produce qualitative ones."

B. Farrington 15

Philo

sophy II

ANAXIMENES OF MILETHUS

6TH CENTURY BC.

Disciple of Anaximander and Thales

The arché can not be water because,

It must be air because air is the vital principle of

life

Air must be before life forms.

Everything comes from air through different level

of density:

Heat expands density

Cold contracts density

Each thing in nature comes through condensation or

expansion of air because heat or cold influence

16

Philo

sophy II

HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS,

5TH CENTURY BC

Known as “the Obscure”.

We conserve fragments of his book: About physis.

His thought is mainly ethic, but the law for human beings is the law of the cosmos, so that his philosophy is at the same time a cosmology.

Nothing is still, everything moves, changes because there is a permanent fight between the opposites.

But even if everything changes, reality is ONE, unique. Fire is the symbol of this unity and of this permanent change

17

Philo

sophy II

HERACLITES OF EPHESUS,

5TH CENTURY BC

Our eyes not show us this permanent change, we

need to use our mind, our logos to discover the

cosmic logos: the natural order under the chaos.

The permanent change is directed by this cosmic

logos (measure, reason, calculation…).

Most humans are not able to understand this

unity of nature under the apparent chaos.

Wisdom, knowledge involves to understand this

chaos, and its logos, its hidden order.

18

Philo

sophy II

HERACLITES’ QUOTES Of this Word's being forever do men prove to be uncomprehending, both before they

hear and once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Word they are like the inexperienced experiencing words and deeds such as I explain when I distinguish each thing according to its nature and declare how it is. Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep. (DK22B1)

On those stepping into rivers staying the same other and other waters flow. (DK22B12)

As the same thing in us is living and dead, waking and sleeping, young and old. For these things having changed around are those, and conversely those having changed around are these. (DK22B88)

All things are an exchange for fire, and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods. (DK22B90)

This world-order, the same of all, no god nor man did create, but it ever was and is and will be: every living fire, kindling in measures and being quenched in measures. (DK22B30)

The turnings of fire: first sea, and of sea, half is earth, half fire-wind (prêstêr: some sort of fiery meteorological phenomenon). (DK22B31a)

Sea is liquefied and measured into the same proportion as it had before it became earth. (DK22B31b)

Heraclites criticizes the poet who said, 'would that strife might perish from among gods and men' [Homer Iliad 18.107]' for there would not be harmony without high and low notes, nor living things without female and male, which are opposites. (DK22A22)

19

Philo

sophy II

HERACLITES’ QUOTES

We must recognize that war is common and strife is justice, and all things happen according to strife and necessity. (DK22B80)

War is the father of all and king of all, who manifested some as gods and some as men, who made some slaves and some freemen. (DK22B53)

To souls it is death to become water, to water death to become earth, but from earth water is born, and from water soul. (DK22B36)

If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos]. (DK22B45)

The people [of a city] should fight for their laws as they would for their city wall. (DK22B44)

Speaking with sense we must rely on a common sense of all things, as a city relies on its wall, and much more reliably. For all human laws are nourished by the one divine law. For it prevails as far as it will and suffices for all and overflows. (DK22B114)

The wise, being one thing only, would and would not take the name of Zeus [or: Life]. (DK22B32)

God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger, and it alters just as when it is mixed with incense is named according to the aroma of each. (DK22B67)

20

Philo

sophy II

PARMENIDES OF ELEA,

5TH CENTURY BC

21

Philo

sophy II

"And it is all one to me / Where I am to begin; for I shall return there again."

"For never shall this prevail, that things that are not are."

"Nor was [it] once, nor will [it] be, since [it] is, now, all together, / One, continuous; for what coming-to-be of it will you seek? / In what way, whence, did [it] grow? Neither from what-is-not shall I allow / You to say or think; for it is not to be said or thought / That [it] is not. And what need could have impelled it to grow / Later or sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus [it] must either be completely or not at all."

"Thinking and the thought that it is are the same; for you will not find thought apart from what is, in relation to which it is uttered."

"For thought and being are the same."

"It is necessary to speak and to think what is; for being is, but nothing is not."

"Helplessness guides the wandering thought in their breasts; they are carried along deaf and blind alike, dazed, beasts without judgment, convinced that to be and not to be are teh same and not the same, and that the road of all things is a backward-turning one."

"How could what is perish? How could it have come to be? For if it came into being, it is not; nor is it if ever it is going to be. Thus coming into being is extinguished, and destruction unknown."

"For never shall this prevail: that things that are now, are. But hold back your thought from this way of inquiry, nor let habit born of long experience force you to ply an aimless eye and droning ear along this road; but judge by reasoning the much-contested argument that I have spoken."

"[What exists] is now, all at once, one and continuous... Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike; nor is there any more or less of it in one place which might prevent it from holding together, but all is full of what is."

PARMENIDES OF ELEA,

5TH CENTURY BC

We conserve fragments of his book: About physis; On nature. Two main fragments of his poems called: Way of truth discusses that which is real

Way of Seeming discusses that which is illusory.

The way of truth: he stated that there are two ways of inquiry: that it is (to be), that it is not (not to be)

But, he said that the latter argument (that it is not) is never right because nothing can not be and be an object of speech and thought at the same time.

He implied that it could not have "come into being" because "nothing comes from nothing.“

movement was impossible because it requires moving into "the emptiness", and Parmenides identified "the emptiness" with nothing, and therefore (by definition) it does not exist

That which does exist is The Parmenidean One which is timeless, uniform, and unchanging.

22

Philo

sophy II

PARMENIDES OF ELEA,

5TH CENTURY BC

Parmenides was a prophet, magician and healer (just like Pythagoras, Empedocles and many others), and his philosophy is presented in verse, through mythology and obscure mystic visions.

The philosophy he argued was, he says, given to him by the Goddess of the underworld (Tartaros):

“Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things - both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief”.

Way of seeming: he set out a contrasting but more conventional view of the world, thereby becoming an early exponent of the duality of appearance and reality.

For him and his pupils the phenomena of movement and change are simply appearances of a static, eternal reality.

23

Philo

sophy II

PYTHAGORAS (5TH) AND HIS SCHOOL:

“ALL THINGS ARE NUMBERS”

Pythagoras opened his school to men and women students alike. They called themselves the Mathematikoi (a secret society)

The Pythagoreans followed a structured life of religious teaching, common meals, exercise, reading and philosophical study. Music featured as an essential organizing factor of this life: the disciples would sing hymns to Apollo together regularly; they used the lyre to cure illness of the soul or body; poetry recitations occurred before and after sleep to aid the memory.

Philosophy II 24

PYTHAGORAS (5TH) :

“ALL THINGS ARE NUMBERS”

No texts by Pythagoras survive, although his disciples wrote under his name quoted their master's doctrines with the phrase autos ephe ("he himself said"); making difficult to determine which ideas Pythagoras taught originally, as opposed to the ideas his followers later added.

IN astronomy, the Pythagoreans were well aware of the periodic numerical relations of the planets, moon, and sun.

The celestial spheres of the planets were thought to produce a harmony called the music of the spheres (Johannes Kepler too).

The Harmony of the Worlds. Pythagoreans also believed that the earth itself was in motion and that the laws of nature could be derived from pure mathematics. It is believed by modern astronomers that Pythagoras coined the term cosmos, a term implying a universe with orderly movements and events.

25

Philo

sophy II

PYTHAGORAS (5TH) :

“ALL THINGS ARE NUMBERS”

Pythagoras had the pioneering insight into the numerical ratios which determine the musical scale, since this plays a key role in many other areas of the Pythagorean tradition, and since no evidence remains of earlier Greek or Egyptian musical theories.

Another important discovery of this school was the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with its side. This result showed the existence of irrational numbers.

The influence of Pythagoras has transcended the field of mathematics, and the Hippocratic Oath — with its central commitment to First do no harm — has its roots in the oath of the Pythagorean Brotherhood

26

Philo

sophy II

THE ATOMISTS: EMPEDOCLES (5TH),

ANAXAGORAS (5TH), LEUCIPPUS (5TH) AND

DEMOCRITUS (4TH)

27

Philo

sophy II

Atom: the smallest part of mater, what you obtain after dividing matter to the maximum.

EMPEDOCLES

“Then there are Ionian, and in more recent times Sicilian muses, who have arrived at the conclusion that to unite the two principles is safer, and to say that being is one and many, and that these are held together by enmity and friendship, ever parting, ever meeting, as the-severer Muses assert, while the gentler ones do not insist on the perpetual strife and peace, but admit a relaxation and alternation of them; peace and unity sometimes prevailing under the sway of Aphrodite, and then again plurality and war, by reason of a principle of strife”. Plato, Sophist

“To the elements it came from

Everything will return.

Our bodies to earth,

Our blood to water,

Heat to fire,

Breath to air”. Matthew Arnold's poem "Empedocles on Etna“ (dramatizing the philosopher's last hours before he jumps to his death in the crater, Empedocles made this prediction).

Philosophy II 28

ANAXAGORAS

Anaxagoras (c. 500 BCE–428 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek member of what is now often called the Ionian School of philosophy.

Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of scientific inquiry from Ionia to Athens.

His observations of the celestial bodies led him to form new theories of the universal order, and brought him into collision with the popular faith.

He attempted to give a scientific account of eclipses, meteors, rainbows and the sun, which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the Peloponnesus; the heavenly bodies were masses of stone torn from the earth and ignited by rapid rotation.

Anaxagoras was arrested by his friend Pericles' political opponents on a charge of contravening the established dogmas of religion (some say the charge was one of Medism), and it required all the eloquence of Pericles to secure his release.

Even so he was forced to retire from Athens to Lampsacus in Ionia (434-433 BCE), where he died about 428 BCE. Citizens of Lampsacus erected an altar to Mind and Truth in his memory, and observed the anniversary of his death for many years afterward.

Anaxagoras wrote a book of philosophy, but only fragments of the first part of this have survived through the preservation of Simplicius of Cilicia (6th century CE).

29

Philo

sophy II

ANAXAGORAS

All things have existed in a sort of way from the beginning. But originally they existed in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves, endless in number and inextricably combined throughout the universe. All things existed in this mass, but in a confused and indistinguishable form. There were the seeds (spermata) or miniatures of corn and flesh and gold in the primitive mixture; but these parts, of like nature with their wholes (the omoiomere of Aristotle), had to be eliminated from the complex mass before they could receive a definite name and character.

The existing species of things having thus been transferred, with all their specialities, to the prehistoric stage, they were multiplied endlessly in number, by reducing their size through continued subdivision; at the same time each one thing is so indissolubly connected with every other that the keenest analysis can never completely sever them.

The work of arrangement, the segregation of like from unlike and the summation of the omoiomere into totals of the same name, was the work of Mind or Reason. This peculiar thing, called Mind (nous), was no less illimitable than the chaotic mass, but, unlike the logos of Heraclitus, it stood pure and independent a thing of finer texture, alike in all its manifestations and everywhere the same. This subtle agent, possessed of all knowledge and power, is especially seen ruling in all the forms of life.

30

Philo

sophy II

ANAXAGORAS

Its first appearance is Motion. It originated a rotatory movement in the mass (a movement far exceeding the most rapid in the world as we know it), which, arising in one corner or point, gradually extended till it gave distinctness and reality to the aggregates of like parts.

Anaxagoras marks a turning-point in the history of philosophy. With him speculation passes from the colonies of Greece to settle at Athens. By the theory of minute constituents of things, and his emphasis on

mechanical processes in the formation of order, he paved the way for the atomic theory.

By his enunciation of the order that comes from reason, on the other hand, he suggested, though he seems not to have stated explicitly, the theory that nature is the work of design.

The conception of reason in the world passed from him to Aristotle, to whom it seemed the dawn of sober thought after a night of disordered dreams.

From Aristotle it descended to his commentators, and under the influence of Averroes became the engrossing topic of speculation.

31

Philo

sophy II

LEUCIPPUS, 5TH CENTURY BC

Leucippus or Leukippos (5th century BC) was the originator of atomism, the philosophical belief that everything is composed entirely of various imperishable, indivisible elements called atoms.

There are no existing writings which we can attribute to Leucippus, since his writings seem to have been enfolded into the work of his famous student Democritus (q.v. for more on atomism). In fact, it is virtually impossible to identify any views about which Democritus and Leucippus disagreed.

Leucippus was born at Miletus (or some said Elea, for his philosophy is associated with the Eleatic philosophers), a contemporary of Zeno, Empedocles and Anaxagoras of the Ionian school of philosophy. His fame was so completely overshadowed by that of Democritus, who systematized his views on atoms, that Epicurus doubted his very existence, according to Diogenes Laertius x. 7. However Aristotle and Theophrastus explicitly credit Leucippus with the invention of Atomism.

32

Philo

sophy II

DEMOCRITUS

Democritus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (460 BC- 370 BC), student of Leucippus, and co-originator of the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable indivisible elements which he called "atomos“.

Democritus is also the first philosopher we know who realized that what we perceive as the Milky Way is the light of distant stars.

Democritus was among the first to propose that the universe contains many worlds, some of them inhabited: "In some worlds there is no Sun and Moon, in others they are larger than

in our world, and in others more numerous. In some parts there are more worlds, in others fewer (...); in some parts they are arising, in others failing. There are some worlds devoid of living creatures or plants or any moisture."

He was also a pioneer of mathematics and geometry in particular.

Democritus' body of work did not survive the Middle Ages. Aristotle tells us that his theory of matter, commonly called atomism, was a reaction to Parmenides, who denied the existence of motion, change, or the void. 33

Philo

sophy II

DEMOCRITUS

He was first thinker on record to argue for the existence of an entirely empty "void".

In order to explain the change around us from basic, unchangeable substance he argued that there are various basic elements which always existed but can be rearranged into many different forms. He argued that atoms only had several properties, particularly size, shape, and mass; all other properties that we attribute to matter, such as color and taste, are but the result of complex interactions between the atoms in our bodies and the atoms of the matter that we are examining.

Reality to Democritus consists of the atoms and the void. Atoms are indivisible, indestructible, eternal, and are in constant motion..

This leaves no room for the intelligent direction of things, either by human or divine intelligence, as all that exists are atoms and the void. Democritus stated, "Nothing occurs at random, but everything occurs for a reason and by necessity." hs a buttface

34

Philo

sophy II

DEMOCRITUS QUOTES

The following excerpts are from Democritus' extensive writings on ethics, of which little remain:

"Disease occurs in a household, or in a life, just as it does in a body."

"Medicine cures the diseases of the body; wisdom, on the other hand, relieves the soul of its sufferings."

"The needy animal knows how much it needs, but the needy man does not."

"It is hard to fight with desire; but to overcome it is the mark of a rational man."

"Moderation increases enjoyment, and makes pleasure even greater."

"It is childish, not manly, to have immoderate desires."

"The good things of life are produced by learning with hard work; the bad are reaped of their own accord, without hard work."

"The brave man is he who overcomes not only his enemies but his pleasures. There are some men who are masters of cities but slaves to women."

"In cattle excellence is displayed in strength of body; but in men it lies in strength of character."

"I would rather discover a single cause than become king of the Persians." 35

Philo

sophy II

PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS

There is only ONE arché.

Milethus school Heraclithus Parmenides

Mater is alive (hilozoism)

Thales: water

Anaximander: apeiron

Anaximenes: air

Everything is in the process of change

Logos = arché

battle of contraries

Unity and harmony are the battle

Human reason is part of universal logos

Fire is the expression of this battle of logos

Being = though

Way of truth and way of seeming (two poems).

The being does not change and

the being is eternal

There is not not-being (seeming way)

Philosophy II 36

PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS

There are SEVERAL archéS

Phytagoric School Empedocles Anaxagoras Atomistic school: Leucippus and Democritus

“All things are numbers”

Soul = immortal

Numbers order = natural order

everything comes from the opposition: evens / odds; limited / unlimited

World: harmony of numbers (music)

Purification of soul = getting back to original order

Four roots of everything: water, air, fire and earth.

They mix because love

They become separate because hate

Empiric knowledge comes because the encounter between similar things

Omoimera: seeds or spermata of all things in reality.

Nous is the origin of the order of the omoimera

Reality is formed by atoms

Atoms are homogeneous and not divisible

Different objects and realities form by the mixture of atoms

There is not origin for the movement

Reality is explained in a mechanic way

Philosophy II 37