Pre Socratics

Testimonia

paraphrasing / stories collected from later sources about pre Socratic philosophers

Fragments

quotes (that were from works maybe a thousand years later)

Why does philosophy most likely start in Greece around 585 BCE?

• Thales predicted an eclipse

• trade - encourages exchange of ideas

• government - philosophy requires leisure

• writing - ideas are more permanent, encourages exchange of ideas, promotes stable government

Why are the Presocratics called the Presocratics?

Their ideas focused more on natural philosophy and thinking about how nature came to be whereas Socrates marks a turning point where moral philosophy starts to become more included in philosophical inquiry

What is the ancient Greek word archḗ mean in the context of this class?

Archḗ refers to the beginning materials of the world, the principle or source from which all things arise

What does the word “philosophy” literally mean when you break it down into its ancient Greek roots “philos” and “sophia”?

• philos = love (friendly)

• Sophia = wisdom

• therefore, philosophy is the love of wisdom

Define teleology

the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise

What is Material Monism?

the belief that the source of which all things come to be, the archḗ, is one material rather than multiple

Who are the material monists?

Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes

What is pluralism?

the belief that reality arises and is composed of multiple things rather than one

Who are considered the pluralists?

Anaxagoras and Empedocles

Thales

• predicted an eclipse in 585 BCE

• material monist (water)

• earth is flat and rests on water

How is Thales’ theories different from the creation myths of Hesiod and Homer?

Focused on nature coming from nature as opposed to arising from divinity

Thales Stories

1. Olive Presses - predicted that there would be a rise in the olive crop, got a bunch of olive presses and sold them once his prediction came true

   • emphasizes the utility of philosophy

2. Little girl and the well - Thales was so engrossed by the stars that he fell in a well

   • emphasizes impracticality of Thales and pokes fun at him

There are two different ways people interpret Thales claim “everything is made of water”? What are these two different interpretations?

Everything comes from water or everything is actually composed of water

Thales says that magnets must have soul. Why?

Thales equates motion to the soul, so because magnets can cause motion, they must have a soul

Anaximander

• pupil of Thales

• material monist: apeiron

• invented the gnomon, global map, and map of the heavens (celestial)

• predicted an earthquake

Why does Anaximander reject water as the primary underlying substance?

Water doesn’t explain its opposite, fire

Apeiron

• unlimited

• indeterminate motion (always moving)

• spatially unlimited

• made up of indeterminate stuff

• temporally unlimited

• deathless / indestructible

• hot and cold can arise from it because it is unlimited in so many respects

Motion is indeterminate according to Anaximander. Why?

The apeiron has to be moving to account for motion but this motion has to be indeterminate to account for circular and linear motion

How is the world formulated through the Apeiron?

The apeiron evolves into specific substances that then evolve into others; people came from a fish-like creature because they had long nursing periods

Earth is a column suspended in air. Why doesn’t it fall?

• Earth is surrounded by a dark mist, ring of fire is stable and the dark mist turns (accounts for movement of stars)

• Earth does not have a reason to move, so it does not

Why do we say that Anaximander is one of the first Greek thinkers to posit the Principle of Sufficient Reason?

The earth is a stone column and doesn’t move because it has no reason to, which follows the Principle of Sufficient Reason

What is the Principle of Non-Contradiction? Why think Anaximander’s theory of the Apeiron implies this principle?

The Principle of Non-Contradiction holds that opposite statements cannot be true simultaneously; the apeiron is unlimited (i.e. temporally) so it can account for opposites

How do Human beings come to be? Why is Anaximander often thought to have a proto-evolutionary theory?

Humans arise from fish-like creatures due to their long nursing period and other animals came directly from the water; accounts for how disadvantageous traits may be selected against

Anaximenes

• pupil of Anaximander

• material monist: aer

• Earth is flat and sits on aer

Why does Anaximenes reject Aperion?

• apeiron doesn’t meet the criteria for being a good theory

  • observable

  • found everywhere / familiar

  • understandable

Aer

• properties are dependent on its density (rarefaction makes aer less dense and condensation makes it more dense)

• most rarefied is fire and most condensed is stone

Heraclitus

• everything is in flux

• logos

• pessimistic / misanthropic

Logos

• has to be taught / learned through experience

• everything can be explained / understood through logos

• infallible not relative

• accessible/objective

• according to logos all things are one

• could be truth or logic maybe

What does Heraclitus think of Human Knowledge? What can we know?

• people approach things as if they were asleep (only from their perspective)

• still has some hope for people being able to learn knowledge ( or logos)

Why does Heraclitus think there is a difference between how things appear to us and how they really are?

Sensory perception is entirely based on the person (subjective), whereas truth is objective (think of room is hot example)

Why are humans so bad at understanding the Logos?

Humans move as if they are asleep, so they only take things through their own perspective

What is the Unity of Opposites? How does the Unity of Opposites relate to his account of Logos?

• everything is in flux

• opposites are the same and different (changes with perception)

• difference between appearance and truth

• everything has hot and cold, up to the perceiver on which is attributed in a specific moment

What are the attributes of the Soul? What is the soul’s relationship to logos?

• logos of the soul is deep/unlimited and is self-increasing

• soul is responsible for reasoning / understanding

• water → soul; earth → water; if soul becomes water, then soul dies; if water becomes earth, water dies

• soul is physical (base on interaction w/ water and best when dry)

Why do you think Parmenides presents his views in the form of a poem?

writing in verse might make more people likely to read it and also would make his ideas more memorable

Why do you think Parmenides says he learned these things from a Goddess?

Parmenides emphasizes the difference between truth and perception, so learning the truth would need to come from some place outside of experience (i.e. divinity)

What are the two paths according to the Goddess?

The Way of Truth/Persuasion and the Way of Mortal Opinion

The Way of Truth

• what is comes from what is

• what is not is unimaginable

• what is

  • whole, shaken, complete, now altogether one

What is

• comes from what is (ungenerated)

• whole

• unshaken (not in any kind of motion / not fluid)

• complete

• imperishable

• of a single kind

• now altogether one

• the only thing

• there is no generation or.corruption (~to conservation of mass)

• the coffee is hot → the coffee is not cold (inherent contradiction)

The Way of Mortal Opinion

• what is not

• “to be and not to be are thought to be the same and not the same”

  • anything you can tell about the world through perception is nonsense and not truth

• unfathomable

• known through experience

• how things appear

• false

Empedocles

• pluralist, 6 arche: earth, wind, fire, water, love, and (my personal favorite) strife

• studied astronomy

• thought of himself as a god

Empedocles 4 elements & explanation of opposites

1. Earth, wind, fire, and air

2. opposites are represented through the different, opposing properties of the elements

What are Love and Strife? How do they cause change?

Love and Strife are the driving forces that are responsible for the different combinations of the four elements. Love brings things together and strife tears them apart in a cyclic fashion. They are equally matched in strength

Why does Empedocles believe in reincarnation?

Empedocles believes that everything is made from the 6 arche and nothing perishes, therefore my conservation of matter reincarnation must happen

Like is affected by like. What does this mean? What is the problem with this view?

1. The elements are in us and also in the things we perceive; the same elements interact with one another to form our perceptions

2. thinking takes place in the heart

3. what makes something more than a sum of its parts? We see a cup but not the individual elements even though they are there. Also no mechanism for this interaction

How are animals generated? Why is Empedocles often considered to be a precursor to theories of natural selection and evolution?

There is no teleological explanation, in a period between the elements being completely together and them being completely apart, animals arise. Random combinations, but better ones are more difficult for Strife to separate (very similar to natural selection)

In what way does Empedocles’ theory of the four elements, plus love and strife, fail to preserve Parmenides claim that what is can only come from what is not. Why might we think that on Empedocles’ theory what is does come from what is not?

• Issue: see a cup but cannot pick out the specific elements–what extra thing is making the cup a cup? (how is a whole more than a sum of its parts?)

  • Anaxagoras takes this issue very seriously (feel that it is a violation of Parmenides conservation of mass type theory)

There is a portion of everything in everything. What does this mean?

Everything is a starting material and can be found in every other substance (although in different proportions)

Nous (Mind) What is it? How does it explain change in the universe?

• Nous is a starting material and is the only thing that is not mixed with anything else (or it would just be everything else)

• knows and controls all things

• in the beginning everything was altogether, then in spun out and separated

Anaxagoras 6 principles

1. There is no coming to be or perishing

2. There are many different types of “basic ingredients”

3. There is a portion of everything in everything

4. Each things is most plainly those things of which it has the largest portions

5. There are no smallest portions (nothing is indivisible because everything is in everything so it can always be divided again)

6. Nous (Mind) is unmixed with other things and has the following functions:

   • it knows all things

   • rules all things

   • sets all things in order

   • causes motion

What is the main objection to Anaxagoras’ claim that there is a portion of everything in everything that we discussed in class?

If everything is in everything, there cannot be a largest portion of something, because that things has everything in it too

In what way is Anaxagoras’ theory similar to Anaximander’s apeiron?

everything is in everything in a boundless sort of way, everything arises from this clump of starting material

Who are the atomists?

Democritus and Leucippus; believed world was made up of atoms and void

Atom

• means uncuttable

• uniform, eternal, unchangeable

• infinite number of atoms

• imperceptible

• differ in size and shape

Differences among atoms

1. shape → rhythm

2. arrangement → touching

3. position → turning

Motion (atomists’ view)

• void is necessary for motion

• no principle of motion or change

How do atoms explain opposites?

Different shapes, arrangements, and positions of atoms allow for them to adopt different properties (thus allowing for opposites)

What does it mean to say atoms move by necessity?

Motion of atoms follow the principle of sufficient reason, only moving if there is a need for it

What is the atomists’ argument for why matter is not infinitely divisible (as Anaxagoras suggests)?

1. Body is made up of something (assumption)

2. If body is composed of something, then it is infinitely divisible (Anaxagoras belief)

3. Body is infinitely divisible (conclusion of premise 1 & 2)

4. If (3), then body can be divided everywhere

5. Body can be divided everywhere (conclusion of 3 & 4)

6. A magnitude is a body that has not yet been divided

7. If there is a body that has been divided everywhere, then there is no magnitude

8. There is no magnitude (conclusion of 6 & 7)

9. If (8), then body is composed of nothing

10. Body is composed of nothing (8 & 9) void (contradicts 1st statement)

Need to change #2 to make argument valid