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Notes on Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Philosophy 131: Philosophy of Religion - Epperson
Milesian School
Thales of Miletus 624-548
Anaximander of Miletus 610-546
Anaximenes of Miletus fl. 545
Pythagorean School
Pythagoras 580 - 500, founded school in Kroton
Heracleitus of Ephesus 540 – 480, fl.504-501
Eleatic School
Xenophanes Reputed founder, but no evidence.
Parmenides Founder: Born 515, dialogue with Socrates, 451-449
Zeno 495 - 430
Empedocles of Akragas 490 - 430
Anaxagoras 500 - 428, came to Athens in 480
Atomist School
Leucippus fl. 400 – 500; Of the Eleatic School, student of Zeno
Democritus 460 – 370
THE MILESIAN SCHOOL
Introduction
THESIS: The genesis of Greek philosophy can be placed in the Ionian philosophical tradition.
Ionia was the cradle of Greek philosophy; Miletus (modern day Turkey, city of Soke) was the cradle of Ionian philosophy.
Aegean Greek culture submerged by the Dorian invasions of 11th century BC. Aegean spirit preserved by Ionia—philosophy, literature, art, etc.
Homer – Ionian literature
Ionian cosmology
Greek mathematics influenced by Egyptian mathematics; Greek astronomy influenced by Babylonian astronomy; but neither were ‘derived from’ these. Greek math was more theoretical than Egyptian; Greek astronomy more empirical than Babylon’s astrological divinations.
Unique to Greece: Desire to discover the essence of things. Knowledge for its own sake.
Not tied to religious exclusivity (as Indian philosophy, etc.) Not tied to practical benefits, either (Eastern philosophy = ways of avoiding unhappiness, etc)
Thales of Miletus 624-548
Anaximander of Miletus 610-546
Anaximenes of Miletus fl. 545
Thales of Miletus: The earliest Ionian philosopher. Focused on change from birth to death via growth and change.
Attempted to discern the ‘primary substance’ undergoing change—i.e., the permanence underlying an ever changing world. Here the concept of primary ‘substance’ is defined NOT as ‘matter’ in the conventional sense; instead, the idea of primary substance is that of ‘archê’ –i.e., the ‘origin’ of all things and/or the ‘defining principle’ of all things.)
Various Ionian philosophers differed on their notions of ‘primary substance,’ but all held it to be material.
Thales = water
Anaximenes = air
Heraclitus = fire
Not sheer ‘materialists’ though because no distinction between spirit and matter. Ionians were then more primitive scientists than philosophers in the strict sense of the word. Did more than merely observe, though: used speculative thought to theorize the fundamental characterization of the various primary substances. Therefore, Ionian materialism is more an ‘abstract materialism’ than modern empirical materialism. The idea is that unity is fundamental: Unity in difference, and difference entering in to Unity. Also, a law-governed universe where balance is the governing principle.
Thales of Miletus
Predicted the eclipse of 585 bc according to Herodotus; died in 546; almanac, navigation via ursa minor.
Water is the primary substance. Water becomes ‘air’ through heat; becomes ice (and by extrapolation, ‘earth’) via cold.
First to raise the question of the ultimate, fundamental nature of the world. First to raise the notion of Unity in Difference.
Aristotle, the major source for Thales's philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was interested in almost everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics. He proposed theories to explain many of the events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the cause of change. Thales was much involved in the problems of astronomy and provided a number of explanations of cosmological events which traditionally involved supernatural entities. His questioning approach to the understanding of heavenly phenomena was the beginning of Greek astronomy. Thales's hypotheses were new and bold, and in freeing phenomena from godly intervention, he paved the way towards scientific endeavour. He founded the Milesian school of natural philosophy, developed the scientific method, and initiated the first western enlightenment.
The questions which excited [the Milesians] were of this kind: Can this apparently confused and disordered world be reduced to simpler principles so that our reason can grasp what it is and how it works? What is it made of? How does change take place? . . . They abandoned mythological and substituted intellectual solutions. . . . [It] was no longer satisfying to say that storms were roused by the wrath of Poseidon, or death caused by the arrows of Apollo or Artemis. A world ruled by anthropomorphic gods of the kind in which their contemporaries believed — gods human in their passions as well as in their outward form — was a world ruled by caprice. Philosophy and science start with the bold confession of faith that not caprice but an inherent orderliness underlies the phenomena, and the explanation of nature is to be sought within nature itself. . . . (Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. A history of Greek philosophy. Vol.1, The earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 44-45)
Aristotle defined wisdom as knowledge of certain principles and causes (Metaph. 982 a2-3). He commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales, the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy (Metaph. 983 b21-22). He recorded: 'Thales says that it is water'. 'it' is the nature, the archê, the originating principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water.
To Aristotle, the theories of Thales were so obviously different from all that had gone before that they stood out from earlier explanations. Thales's views were not ancient and primitive. They were new and exciting, and the genesis of scientific conjecture about natural phenomena. It was the view for which Aristotle acknowledged Thales as the founder of natural philosophy.
Anaximander of Miletus
Younger associate of Thales; believed the ‘primary substance’ (again, where ‘substance is defined not as ‘matter’ in the conventional sense; instead, the idea of primary substance is that of ‘archê’ –i.e., the ‘origin’ of all things and/or the ‘defining principle’ of all things.)
For Anaximander, this ‘primary substance’ / archê’ was necessarily indeterminate or ‘boundless.’ This is because only the boundless is incapable of further reduction to some more fundamental archê . At the same time, any definite or limited substance would ultimately be reduced to its primary, unbounded substance—since the latter has no limits restricting its encroachments into other, non-primary substances. Therefore, if the primary substance were water per the thesis of Thales, everything would ultimately have been reduced to water long ago, which isn’t the case. The primary substance as archê’, for Anaximander, is substance without limits.
Encroachments of one element upon another (heat in winter, cold in summer) are considered ‘injustices.’
Eternal motion brings things into being. Vortex-like, so that the heavier elements are central and the lighter elements tend toward the circumference. The world is not a flat disc of water, but rather a short spinning cylinder.
Man evolved from other animals. All life originated in the sea and according to changing environments, then adapted.
Anaximenes of Miletus
Said to have been a student of Anaximander. Unlike Thales and Anaximander, he held that air is the primary substance from which all other substances are produced via natural forces. Condensation is an example of solid matter coming from air, via wind, then water, then stones (earth); fire comes from air via rarefaction. Air is the half-way point between earth and fire. The earth is a flat disc floating on air.
Conclusion: The Ionian philosophers were driven by the wonder and joy of discovery; they believed man could know things as they are objectively.
THE PYTHAGOREAN SOCIETY
2nd Half of the 6th century, Pythagoras—an Ionian—founded a religious Pythagorean Society at Kroton in South Italy. A school with an ascetic and religious character stemming from the religious revival in the Ionian civilization toward its end—the attempt to provide genuine religious elements not provided in the Milesian cosmologies nor in the Olympian mythology. Movement to skepticism on the one hand and to the ‘mystery religions’ on the other once the freshness and vigor of the early Ionian civilization (and the Milesian philosophies of this time) waned. Same happened during the fall of the Roman Empire.
Common ground between Orphicism (worship of Dionysius) and Pythagoreanism: both organized into communities with initiations, etc; both posited the transmigration of souls—that the soul is the important part of man, not the imprisoning body.
Not essentially a political group, but involved in politics. Had political control in Kroton, but their lodges were burnt down and they were subject to persecution in 440-430 bc Society later revived in Tarentum, Italy in the fourth century.
Ideas centered around purity and practices of purification and the transmigration of souls. The soul is aided, trained, and purified via silence, music, and mathematics.
The soul is the seat of power in man, not the body (in contrast to the Homeric ‘shades’ or ‘shadow image’ of the departed). But there is no self-consciousness or self-identity bound up with the soul; self-identity doesn’t transmigrate, in other words.
Many of the philosophical and mathematical contributions were likely not by Pythagoras himself, but by someone in the Pythagorean school, such as Philolaus.
Mathematico-metaphysical philosophy: Mathematical primacy in nature. All things are numerable. Musical intervals are also numerical; if musical harmony is dependent on number, so is harmony in the universe. Milesian cosmologies focused on the conflict of opposites in the universe; they Pythagoreans focused on the harmony of the universe via numerical relations. Number is fundamental. The final real things ARE numbers. Anaximander held that indeterminacy is fundamental; Pythagoras held that this indeterminacy is balanced by the ‘Limit’ which gives it form, according to the harmony between the two expressed by number.
According to Aristotle: The Pythagoreans held that the elements of number are the even and the odd; the latter are finite, the former infinite. (I.E. Even numbers are equated with the indefiniteness of Anaximander; odd numbers are the ‘limit’ which provides harmony. 1 precedes from both, since it is both even and odd.
The Pythagoreans regarded numbers spatially: 1 = point, 2 = line, 3 = plane, 4 = solid. All bodies consist of points in space which together constitute number. Evinced by the ‘tetraktys’ figure, sacred to the Pythagoreans. 10 = the sum of 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Objects are sums of points; numbers are sums of points; therefore, objects are numbers.
The ‘limited’ cosmos (odd numbers) is surrounded by the unlimited or boundless cosmos (air, even numbers.) The odd ‘gnomons’ (figures used to geometrecise numbers) are always quadratic; the even gnomons are constantly changing rectangular shapes:
5 5 5 6 6 6 6
3 3 5 4 4 4. 6
1 3 5 1, 3, 5, odd, always square 2 2 4 6 2, 4, 6, even, ever- elongating rectangles
‘Marriage’ = 3, the combination of the first masculine number, 1, and the first feminine number, 2.
‘Justice’ = 4, etc. This type of numerical assignment seems arbitrary, though—a misapplied extrapolation of mathematics.
The ‘Pythagorean Theorem’: their biggest contribution to mathematics. While it is also evinced in the Sumerian computations, the Pythagorean theorem transcended the mere arithmetical and geometrical fact and combined them in a deductive system.
The earth was spherical and revolved, along with the planets and the sun, around the central fire or ‘hearth of the Universe’ represented by the number 1. The world inhales air (the unlimited) from the unlimited mass outside it. (the influence of Anaximenes and Anaximander here.)
The Pythagoreans emphasis on the soul and its tripartite nature and proper care influenced Plato, who was also strongly influenced by their mathematical speculations.
HERACLITUS
An Ephesian (modern day Turkey, village of Selcuk) who flourished approx. 504-501 bc. Disdain for the common man and for the famous of the past. ‘Most men are bad.’ ‘All things are in a state of flux.’ (not really his, though.) This is not the kernel of his philosophy, but it is a central idea. By saying that all things change, he is not saying that there is no reality, however. This is not the most important feature of his philosophy, though, since it is not novel (we saw it in other Ionian philosophers).
The fundamental concept expressed in his ‘Word’: Unity in diversity, difference in unity. Anaximander considered the encroachements of opposites on each other as ‘injustices’ and a disorder that mars the purity of the ‘One.’ Heraclitus says that the conflict among opposites is essential to the One. The only One exists in the tension of opposites, and this tension is essential.
“We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.” Numenius, Frag. 16 (Copleston I, 40).
“Men do know know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.” Frag. 51, ibid Copleston)
Reality is The One, but The One is Identity in Difference.
The ‘primary substance’ for Heraclitus is fire—and not just to be different from Thales and Anaxamenes. Fire depends on strife and tension. It feeds on and springs up from a multitude of objects, changing them into itself. Fire embodies the tension between the ‘upward’ and ‘downward’ paths elemental to change and the birth of the cosmos: Fire when condensed becomes water, which then becomes earth (downward path); and the earth liquefies, evaporates, etc… (upward path). He refers almost everything to the evaporation from the sea.
In an ever-changing world, ‘enduring’ substance is explained thus: Fire takes from things by kindling, and turns back into things by extinguishment. ‘All things are an exchange for Fire, and Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares.” Frag 90. Copleston 42) Matter changes, but the aggregate quantity of matter remains constant.
“The hidden attunement of the universe” is the balance of the upward and downward paths.
This leads to a certain relativism: “To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.” Frag. 102 This is the inevitable conclusion of a pantheistic philosophy—that everything is justified.