7 Presocratics Century BCE - 4th Century BCE
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During the middle of the first millennium BCE, several ground-breaking views about reality appeared independently in different areas of the world. After building up relatively stable civilizations and within centuries of each other, humans across several continents started to recognize their own nature as thinking, rational beings. They started thinking about the world around them in terms that went beyond just mythos, storytelling or legend. The Presocratics basically asked two metaphysical questions (questions about reality): What is the true nature of the cosmos? How and why do things change? But why question what reality is? We can look around and see what reality looks like, hear what reality sounds like, feel reality, taste reality, and smell reality. Well the problem seems to be that if we had always relied on the macroscopic world of our senses, we would have missed out on quite a bit of what we think of as important parts of "reality" now. The desk you are sitting in doesn't seem like it's composed of mostly empty space and tiny electrically charged colorless particles moving at incredible speeds. It's taken theories and investigation to learn that "solid" objects are actually empty space and particles. The point is that the world isn't as it immediately seems...and the thinkers of the axial period were attempting to see beyond their "common sense" views in order to explore the reality behind them. They recognized that the world need not be at all like the way it seems to us and that it isn't necessary to suppose that reality is anything like our sensory experience of it. In fact, besides thinking of them as philosophers, you can think of the Presocratics as proto-scientists or early theoretical scientists. Important Terms Cosmos: the world or universe conceived as a unified and orderly arrangement of parts, contrasted against chaos; cosmology theories about the nature of the world Mythos: the myths or folklore that give supernatural explanations for the world and its origins Logos: a Greek word variously translated as logic, reason, account, statement, argument, arrangement, proportion, natural law or word Reductionism: a way of explaining an object or phenomenon that goes beneath its surface presentation and gives an account in terms of its more basic, fundamental parts Naturalism: the view that the world around us and our experience of it can be explained soley in terms of natural phenomena Monism: the view that ultimately, the cosmos is composed of one kind of stuff Pluralism: the view that the cosmos is composed of many different kinds primitive or basic things
Materialism: the view that reality is ultimately composed of some kind of material (as in matter) or physical "stuff" Idealism: the view that ideas, thoughts, or mental events are ultimately the most real aspect of our existence Dualism: the view that mind and matter are both real and some aspects of mental phenomena are non-physical The Milesians Thales: (c.640-546 BCE) First Western philosopher and citizen of the Greek seaport Miletus (now Turkey). Philosophy began when it occurred to Thales that the cosmos might be made out of a more "fundamental kind of stuff" than we perceive. Thales noticed that since things change, there must be some thing that underlies the change: "some thing that changes, yet does not change. There must be a unity behind the apparent plurality of things, a Oneness disguised by the superficial plurality of the world. Otherwise the world would not be a world; rather it would be a disjointed grouping of unrelated elements." This was a monumental step because 1) it shaped the course of philosophy as well the sciences 2) it shaped the kinds of questions that we think to ask about the world. Today we just automatically assume that everything consists of various combinations of more basic elements, but for Thales, this was a truly novel suggestion. In fact, we should probably be impressed that he even thought to ask, "what is the world really like?" He wasn't willing to accept the opinions, mythologies, or superstitions handed down for generations. In place of mythological accounts of nature and human behavior in terms of divine agencies (gods, goddesses, and spirits), he and other Presocratics provided explanations in terms of laws and abstract generalizations. Thales thought the cosmos could be reduced to one underlying element: water...of course he was wrong, but what were his reasons for picking water? Well, if there were something more fundamental or basic than what we perceive with our senses, it would have to take on many shapes and forms. It would have to be flexible and fluid. Out of the elements like earth, wind, and fire...water might seem like the most versatile substance, after all, it can be a gas, a liquid, or a solid. Anaximander: (610-c. 547 BCE) student of Thales He argued that the most basic substance of the cosmos has to be more elementary than water, fire, earth, or air. If it were simply one of these elements, the cosmos would have already returned to its most primitive state (perhaps an early formulation of the principle of entropy). He suggested that it had to be a primordial "stuff"--which he called apeiron (the indefinite, unbounded, or limitless)--this was a chaos or a void which yielded a variety of things in the world.
Apeiron must be unobservable, ageless, boundless, and indeterminate; ageless meant the substance must be eternal (similar to the law of conservation of matter); boundless meant unlimited; and indeterminate meaning undefined or unspecific. His theory sounded something like this: From this basic stuff a nucleus of fire and dark mist formed. The mist concentrated and formed a dense core that wound up being the world we inhabit. Outside the mist, the world is surrounded by fire and we are able to perceive the fire as stars through holes in the mist. The seasons are explained as changes in the powers of heat and cold, wetness and dryness. Anaximenes: (fl.c. 545 BCE) student of Anaximander Anaximenes wasn't satisfied with the story of aperion. So instead he suggested that the basic substance of the cosmos is air. Everything we see around us is made up of either condensed or rarefied "primordial air." Through rarefication (making it less dense or thinner, like air at high altitudes) air becomes fire. Through condensation (concentrating or making it more dense) air becomes first wind, then clouds, then water, then earth, then stone. Up to this point, the philosophers we've talked about have been materialists. However after them cropped up philosophers who argued that the world also contained immaterial stuff. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A mystic and leader of an underground cult who were secretive about their written documents and doctrines According to Pythagoras and his followers, the real nature of the cosmos is numbers--or in other words "that a correct description of reality must be expressed in terms of mathematical formulas." You can think about this with reference to physical laws that can be expressed as mathematical formulas. According to Thano:
"Many of the Greeks believe Pythagoras said all things are generated from number. The very assertion poses a difficulty: How can things which do not exist even be conceived to generate? But he did not say that all things come to be from number; rather, in accordance with number--on the grounds that order in the primary sense is in number and it is by participation in order that a first and a second and the rest sequentially are assigned to things which are counted."
So the idea is that the world corresponds with numbers, rather than is made from numbers. Things because exist they can be distinguished from one another, they can be distinguished because they are countable. Whatever the thing, whether it is physical like a chair or mental like an idea, it participates in the order and harmony of the universe because it can be distinguished, sequenced, counted, and ordered. This is how we can start thinking of reality (fundamental reality accessible only to reason) as eternal and unchanging. Numbers (instruments of counting), not as physical entities, are the source or fount of reality and we can only have access to fundamental reality through our capacity to reason (by counting, arithmetic, equations).
Heracleitus: (c. 535-475 BCE) Greek nobleman from Ephesus, "the Dark Philosopher" or "the obscure one"
"This cosmos none of the gods nor human beings made, but it always was and is and will be everliving fire, being lit in measures and extinguished in measures." Heracleitus, fr. 30
So Heracleitus thought that the fundamental stuff of the cosmos is fire: but he wasn't making the assertion in the same literal way that Thales was. Heracleitus wanted to call attention to a certain property of fire that is analogous to reality; the form of the flame stays the same while the flame's fuel is constantly in a state of change. While things might initially appear to have a kind of stability, the cosmos is constantly in a state of flux. There is no reality except for the reality of change: permanence is illusion. "Reality is composed of...a process of continual creation and destruction." All change is determined by a cosmic order that he called logos. Logos governs change and makes it rational rather than chaotic or arbitrary--and through logos there is a harmonious union of opposites. Each thing contains its opposite, we are simultaneously young and old, coming into and going out of existence.
"Over those who step into the same river, different and again different waters flow." Heracleitus fr. 12
Heracleitus is famous for this aphorism, which basically says that you can't step into the same river twice. What he is calling our attention to is the phenomenon of sameness over change. Even though we might identify a river as one in the same, the river is constantly flowing and replacing molecules of H2O and as well as sediment at the bottom... physically, it is a different river. This issue gets even more interesting if you think of your own sense of personal identity. Parmenides: (fl. Ca. 485? BCE) Parmenides wasn't interested in figuring out what the cosmos's fundamental substance was. Instead he took on a different style of inquiry. He assumed some very basic a priori principles (we can call them axioms) and attempted to deduce from them the true nature of Being.
Being doesn't change 1. If something changes it becomes different. 2. If Being itself were to change, then it would become something different. 3. The only thing that is different from Being is nonbeing. 4. Since nonbeing isn't the case, Being doesn't change. Being is a unitary, a single thing 1. If there were multiple things, they wouldn't all be the same or identical (in order for something to be a second thing, it would have to be different) 2. So any thing other than Being would be nonbeing 3. Therefore there is only a single Being
Being is an undifferentiated whole: it doesn't have any parts 1. Parts are different than the whole 2. If something is different than Being, it wouldn't be Being 3. Therefore Being doesn't have any parts Being is Eternal 1. Being always was and always will be, it is eternal 2. Being can't come into existence because: a. First, something cant come from nothing, so there was always something b. Second, even if something could come from nothing, there would be no explanation of why it came from nothing at one time and not at another 3. Since change is impossible, Being can't change, 4. Therefore if Being can't change, then it can't go out of existence, hence its eternal
From all of this Parmenides comes to the conclusion that Being is One: permanent, unchanging, indivisible, and undifferentiated. I know that was a little insane. It will be ok. The Pluralists Empedocles (c.490-439 BCE) According to Empedocles true reality is permanent and unchangeable, yet we can't dismiss the change we experience as pure illusion. He asserted that our objects of experience do change, but they are composed of basic particles of matter that do not change (the particles are made of earth, air, fire, and water). He wasn't too far off in his theories, according to Empedocles changes in the qualities, quantities, and relationships of objects of our experience are changes in the positions of basic particles that make them up. He also gave us an explanation of why change and movement occurs. He thought that the basic elements enter new combinations under two forces love and strife (we can think about this in more familiar terms as attraction and decomposition). Anaxagoras (500-428 BCE) brought philosophy to Athens where it spread like wildfire He thought that all changes in objects are changes in the arrangements of underlying particles, however unlike Empedocles, he believed that the particles were infinitely divisible (infinite seeds). Part of his theory was that each substance has its own corresponding kind of particle, and that every substance contains particles of every other kind. So your brain has little bits of wood, and banana, and water, dog poop...etc. He believed that what distinguishes one substance from another is the proportion of each kind of particle, e.g., more brain particles in a brain, more wood particles in a table. Anaxagoras introduced the topic in metaphysics that is commonly called the distinction between mind and matter or between the mental and the physical. He suggested that motion is caused by something called nous, something that falls somewhere between the definitions of "mind" and "reason". Features of Nous (Mind) 1. Mind is separate and distinct from matter in that it alone is unmixed 2. Inheres in all things but has nothing material in it
3. The world as we know it was created by the act of mind, differentiating one big mass of matter 4. Mind did not create matter, but acted on it Leucippus and Democritus (460-379 BCE) The atomists All things are composed of tiny, imperceptible, indestructible, indivisible, eternal, uncreated particles. They called these particles "atoms." According to Leucippus and Democritus atoms: 1. were composed of the same matter but different in size and shape, and weight 2. were the smallest physical unity beyond which further division is impossible 3. infinitely numerous and eternally in motion 4. composed the objects we experience by combining in different ways 5. have been around forever and have been moving for as long as they've been around We experience their combining, disassembling, and recombining as generation, decay, erosion and the burning of everyday objects. Unlike Anaxagoras, they didn't think that mind was responsible for the initial motion of the atoms. Instead they argued that atoms operate in strict accordance with physical laws. So the future motion of the atoms would be completely predictable for anyone with sufficient information about their shapes, sizes, locations, direction, and velocities. Determinism: the view that future states and events are completely determined by preceding states and events 1. Anything an atom does has to do with the given existing circumstances 2. Physical laws determine what each atom does in the existing circumstances 3. If laws determine that an atom does X in circumstance C, then given circumstance C, the atom has to do X Doctrine of Free-will: the view that choice and human agency governs our actions