Topic 2: The Presocratics: Questions about the world: Milesians, Pythagoreans, Parmenides

Most Concrete(physically real): You can sensibly perceive it

Ex: The rose is red

Abstract/Theoretical Judgement

Roses (i.e., the Rose, universally taken) are x (certain characteristic(s) which define roses universally).

• Here, the object I'm talking about is universal/theoretical, but relates to (and defines) all the particular objects. I can point to examples of particular, concrete roses. I can also imagine one. This kind of reasoning is used extensively in the empirical sciences

Most Abstract/Philosophical Theoretical Judgement

Being is x.
God is x.
The world is x.

• Here, especially re. the concept of Being, I'm talking about the most abstract and universal object which applies to/relates to absolutely everything, even things which perhaps are not concretely/physically real. Eg., my thoughts even have being, albeit not physical being (there are many kinds of being: physical, mental, spiritual, psychological). Because it is so broad, this
  object is “foundational,” i.e., what a philosopher says about “Being” is meant to define all beings. In contrast to other theoretical concepts, I can't form any image in my mind of “Being”. Also, because it applies to such a wide range of things, indicating Being by pointing out concrete sensibly perceived things doesn't help me understand this idea. Being is basically something I simply think and reason about

Bottom-Up Argument (inductive)

builds general claims or broad theories by starting with specific facts, observations, and foundational pieces of evidence

Top-Down Argument

starting with general principles, grand theories, or macro-level structures and using them to deduce conclusions about specific details or lower-level parts

What are the Milesians mythic account of the world?

Questions about the origins of the universe, and our own existence explained through stories about the gods, and how the world was created, as well as our place within the universe, our relationship to the gods, and how we should behave.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

• The first cosmologists, studying the basic principles of the world, important for both the empirical sciences and philosophy. Included many schools of thought, from the earliest cosmologies of the Milesians, through the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, the Eleatics, the Pluralists, the Atomists— each presenting a different understanding of what the world is in its foundational principles, using logic and argumentation, both empirical and analytical, to support their assertions about the world

• In addition to having questions about what the world is, many also had questions about motion (important for physics), the nature of heavenly bodies, and the soul- all of which they attempted to explain theoretically.

What was the Milesians main questions?

What is the world made of?/ What is the one common material of the world?

What did the Milesians believe about the common material

That it is the “one” which makes the “many” things we experience in the world around us

Ontology Definition

The study of beings

Epistemology Definition

The study of how we know beings

Pythagoras and Pythagoreans history:

6th C. B.C., lived in different parts of Southern Italy (now Calabria and Basilicata). The
Pythagoreans were a religious/philosophical group (included both men and women)

Key Topics of Pythagoras and the Pytahgoreans

The soul according to the Pythagoreans

Influenced by Eastern religions, esp. re. understanding of the immortality/reincarnation/transmigration of the soul, and panpsychism (all souls are part of one divine soul): believed the soul migrated into all different life-forms; for this reason, they were vegetarians, and even would not eat plant foods if it meant that you had to kill the plant

What is a key influence on Plato

Pythagoras’s understanding of the soul

What were the 2 principles that the Pythagoreans believed in regarding the soul and body dualism

1. The material principle/cause that accounts for the material/mortal reality
2. A second principle (later came to be known as the formal principle/cause) to account for immaterial realities, such as the soul

Why was Mathematics important for Pythagoras

For Pythagoras, the main way we have access to the intelligibility of the universe
is through mathematics. Indeed, for Pythagoras the world itself is made of numbers- all reality ordered to the logic of mathematical proportions, which creates an overall harmony in the universe (link between math and music)

Where did Parmenides originate

Born in Elea, a Greek colony, in Southern Italy (about 140 k's south of Naples)

What is Being according to Parmenides

Being is Self-Identical, Eternal, Unchanging, Selfsame, and Beyond Appearances, Change,Coming-to-be and Passing-Away. Being is perfect, simple Oneness

Not-Being according to Parmenides

We can’t think of Not-Being because it’s too vast a concept. The only thought we have, which is a true thought, is the thought of Being. Being=Truth, and logic brings us to realize this

Becoming according to Parmenidies

• "Becoming" is the middle ground between Being (existing, never changing) and Not-Being (not existing at all).

• Parmenides argued that true reality must be perfectly permanent—it either is or is not. Because everything in our daily lives is constantly changing (you are growing, aging, changing your mind, or moving), nothing in our everyday world is completely permanent

• Parmenides decided that the physical world of change isn't true reality—it’s just an illusion. True reality ("Being") never changes.

Parmenides on trust

Trust reason, not your physical senses. Your senses show you a world of change, birth, and death (a mix of "is" and "is-not"), which Parmenides considers misleading mortal opinion. Pure reason, however, points to one unchanging, permanent reality ("It IS").