Chapter 2 - The Pre-Socratics and the Sophists

From Vaughn Textbook, Topics: Thales and Anaximander; Heraclitus; Parmenides; Democritus; and Protagoras and the Sophists

Who were the pre-Socratics?

The first philosophers, most of whom flourished before Socrates in 5th century B.C.

What made the pre-Socratics the first philosophers?

Their way of seeking answers about the world rather than the answers themselves

How did ancient Greek philosophers differ from the general population?

They refused to follow traditional ways of thinking like religion and let reason and experience guid them to the truth

What was Thales’ greatest contribution to both philosophy and science?

His method of setting out to look for natural explanations for natural phenomena that were as simple as possible

What did Thales contend was the central element?

He saw water as the source of all that exists and that everything consists of it in some way

What did Anaximander contend was a central element?

He saw a substance called apeiron as a formless, imperishable substance that is the beginning of all that exists but has no beginning itself

What was Heraclitus’ central idea?

The idea of logos, the principle, formula, or law of the world order → understanding it would be to understand reality, grasp the divine, and know the eternal pattern underlying all of nature and all of humankind

How did Heraclitus conceive of the universe?

He thought that every part of the universe was in flux, but behind the changing appearances was an unchanging pattern called the logos

How did Heraclitus conceive of the cosmos?

He though of it as eternal, rational force, with the logos steering all things as a divine thought operating according to its own logic

For what is Parmenides remembered?

His systematic employment of deductive argument outside of mathematics, mainly to reason consistently from basic premises to interesting conclusions

What main distinctions did Parmenides make?

He made two distinctions that became of importance to philosophy: reason and the senses, and appearance and reality

What was Parmenides’ theory about reality?

He thought the universe is uniform throughout, without emptiness, with every part being the same → not a multiplicity of objects and forces, but one thing that is solid, uniform, and perfect, called the One 

What important theory did Democritus put forth?

That of atomism

What is ancient atomism?

The view that reality consists of an infinite number of minute, indivisible bits called atoms moving rapidly in an infinite void, or empty space

What did Democritus present that was contrary to Parmenides?

He posited the void, a space that does not contain objects or things but is nevertheless not the same as nothing and that allows for motion

How did Democritus view the world?

He saw it as mechanistic with things happening in a particular way because of the blind machinery of nature, not any deity or agent of purpose

How does Democritus’ theory apply to our understandings?

Although modern physicists have different understandings of the term, Democritus’ basic insight about atoms being fundamental units making up the universe has yet to be refuted

What were Sophists?

Itinerant professor who, for a fee, would teach a range of subjects that could be of practical or intellectual benefit such as rhetoric, argument, law, ethics, and politics

How did the Sophists explain the world?

They preferred naturalistic explanations and downplayed traditional accounts that attributed causes to the gods

How did the Sophists view moral beliefs and legal codes?

They saw them as human inventions that varied from society to society rather than being determined by gods or nature

Who was the leading proponent of subjective relativism?

The Sophist Protagoras

What was the famous argument of Protagoras?

Reality is what you believe it to be

Who rejected subjective relativism?

Plato

Why did Plato reject subjective relativism?

Because its argument undermines itself → if everything one believes is true, then to not believe in subjective relativism is correct

Why might Thales of thought water was so fundamental?

• Its capacity to convert into different forms → if it could change between liquid, solid, and gas then perhaps it could change into materials for other objects

• Its importance to nourishment, growth, and life

How did Anaximander’s theories differ from Thales’?

Anaximander thought Thales was incorrect in his assertion that everything came from water, Anaximander instead believed all things existed in opposition to another and came from apeiron

Why did Anaximander think the Earth was suspended in space?

He thought the Earth was a flat disk suspended by virtue of being the centre of everything and equidistant to all points → he believed for everything there must be a reason, and there is no reason for the Earth to move, so therefore it must be suspended in the middle

What did Heraclitus mean by “all are in flux, like a river”?

He was referring to how you can never step into the same river twice - it will be different the second time due to the constant flow of water, and that the universe is the same → everything is changing constantly, but beneath that change is the logos which allows us to identify patterns, just like how we can identity a river as such despite the change

What did Empedocles believe?

He believed that animals were not created whole by a deity, but evolved from weird creatures that reproduced and created species that could survive

How did Empedocles’ beliefs differ from those of Darwin?

Darwin believed in natural selection that favoured certain traits of species, while Empedocles believed singular traits existed before merging together (singular eyes, arms, etc.)

What did the Pythagoreans teach?

They taught the doctrines of an immortal soul and reincarnation, called metempsychosis, in which the soul traTvels through cycles of death and rebirth, being born again and again into the form of humans, gods, or animals

How did the Pythagoreans conceive of mathematics?

They assigned numbers to ideas (mind = 1, male = 2, female = 3, justice = 4) and thought the soul could be purified and united with the divine through contemplation of pure ideas, especially numbers

What is rationalism?

The view that through unaided reason we can come to know what the world is like

What is empiricism?

The view that our knowledge of the empirical world comes solely from sense experience

What is the reasoning behind Parmenides’ conception of the One?

He maintains that because we cannot speak of what is not, we can’t speak about things truly changing, moving, or coming in and out of existence, because to do so would be to suggest variance from what something isn’t → what is must have always been, including the universe

What is Zeno’s paradox of motion?

To travel a distance, you must first go half the distance, and to travel that distance you must first go half of the half distance, and so on → you will never travel the distance and will in fact not move at all

What kind of argumentation did Zeno create?

Dialectic → a proposition is stated and its implications are drawn out in order to reveal the proposition’s weakness

What does Zeno’s paradox suggest?

That our perceptions of motion are untrue

How was Democritus’ conception of the cosmos more realistic than Parmenides’?

It could better explain change, destruction, creation, and variation 

How do we conceive of atoms differently than Democritus?

We know they are destructible, divisible, mostly hollow, and impermanent

What is rhetoric?

The art of verbal persuasion

What is relativism?

The doctrine that the truth about something depends on what people or cultures believe

What is subjective relativism?

The notion that truth depends on what a person believes

What is cultural relativism?

The idea that truth depends on what a culture believes