Introduction to Humanities Lecture 3 Pre-Socratic Philosophy

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Introduction to HumanitiesLecture 3Pre-Socratic
Philosophy

• By David Kelsey

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Philosophical Questions myths

• In the 6th and 5th century B.C. questions about
  the nature of the world began to take importance.
• Questions such as
• What is the meaning of life?
• Does life end in death?
• What is the best life to live?
• Prior to the 6th century B.C., answers to such
  questions came in the form of myths.

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Myths

• Myths
• a story told and retold as a part of tradition.
• Often involved the Gods in some struggle, either
  with each other or with human beings, and
  intervening in human life for good or evil.
• The Greeks and their Gods
• Kronos, Rhea, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Aphrodite
• Myths often involve a moral lesson.

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An example of a myth

• An example in the first few lines of Homers
  Iliad (page 5 of Melchert)
• Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus son
  Achilles,
• murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans
  countless losses,
• hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy
  souls,
• great fighters souls, but made their bodies
  carrion, feasts for the dogs and birds,
• and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
• Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and
  clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant
  Achilles.
• What god drove them to fight with such a fury?
• Apollo the son of Zeus and Leto. Incensed at the
  king
• he swept a fatal plague through the army--men
  were dying
• and all because Agamemnon had spurned Apollos
  priest.
• The Iliad, Book 1, 1-12

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Explaining Homers Iliad

• Whats Homer on about
• The theme of the Iliad rage (the irrational
  anger of Achilles)
• The Greeks capture a beautiful girl in a Trojan
  raid and the army awards her to Agamemnon
• Her father, a priest, pleads for her return
• Agamemnon finally gives up the girl but demands
  Achilles prize, a lovely woman.
• Enraged, Achilles refuses to fight
• Patrocles pleads with Achilles to return to
  battle but he refuses.
• So Patrocles talks Achilles into letting him use
  Achilles armor to fight himself. During the
  battle Patrocles is killed by the great Trojan
  warrior Hector
• Achilles rejoins the battle and wreaks havocHe
  meets Hector in battle and kills him.
• Achilles then drags Hectors body back to the
  greek camp...
• The story ends with Hectors father, King Priam,
  travelling at night to the Greek camp to plead
  for his sons bodyAchilles gives up the body.

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New Answers to Philosophical Questions

• During the 5th and 6th centuries B.C. there arose
  a discontent among some.
• Not content with the myths as answers
• In early philosophical thought, certain questions
  gained precedence.
• The Question of the one an the many
• The appearance/reality distinction
• Human reality

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Thales

• Thales of Miletus (625-547 B.C.)
• Held that
• 1) the cause and element of all things is water
• Water is underlying everything
• 2) all things are filled with Gods
• So the Gods are explanations for why things exist
  and happen,
• Example
• Problem for Thales view
• Why water?

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Anaximander

• Anaximander
• 612-545 B.C.
• from Miletus as Thales was.
• Held the following
• Given any state of things, Z, it had a beginning
• But then some prior state, Y, must have brought Z
  to be
• But Y must have had a beginning
• So some prior state X must have brought Y to be
• But this reasoning cannot go on forever
• So there is something that has no beginning
• What does Anaximander call this thing without a
  beginning?

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Anaximanders boundless

• The boundless
• The beginning for all things
• No beginning and no end
• Called divine
• Encompasses all things and steers all things
• Indefinite in character
• Swirling in a vortex like motion
• Swirling water in a pan
• Why think that the boundless is swirling in a
  vortex?
• Just look around.
• Problem how can one such abstract cause account
  for all the variety we see in nature?
• Do we need one big cause?

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Pythagoras

• Pythagoras
• 570-495 B.C.
• Lived in Croton (southern Italy) most of his
  adult life
• Had much influence on Plato
• Much influence on mathematics and music
• He and his followers first developed Geometry
• Developed the Pythagorean theorem
• Discovered the mathematical ratios of musical
  intervals the octave, the fifth and the fourth
• Believed in Dualism.
• The soul
• Reincarnation
• A Vegetarian

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Heraclitus

• Heraclitus
• 540-480 B.C.
• Lived in Ephesus (north of Miletus, on the shores
  of Asia Minor)
• Wrote the book of Heraclitus
• His solution of the one and the many
• We live in a world of many. There is a multitude
  of apparently different, changing and conflicting
  things.
• This multitude of things is made one by the
  logos.
• The logos is

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The Logos

• The logos
• The law like or rational process or structure or
  pattern which governs all things.
• The logos provides structure in chaos
• Reality is a flux, structured by the logos
• All things are in flux, like a river ever
  changing, yet preserving an identity through the
  changes.
• River metaphor although the water that makes the
  river is ever changing, it is the same river.
• The logos is the structure that unifies the many
• In every one, many persist.
• Example

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The Logos continued

• The Logos continued
• The logos is a divine fire
• Divine fire
• All things are an exchange for fire, and fire
  for all things (DK 22 B 31, IEGP, 91)
• Fire both is the world order, I.e. the logos, and
  manifests itself in that world order
• Through the logos there is a harmonious union of
  opposites
• Reality is in a state of constant change but All
  things come into being through opposition
• Without tension, opposition and conflict, the
  world could not persist
• Example
• The divine world order guarantees a balance of
  opposites
• Example

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Perceiving the Logos

• Perceiving the Logos
• Humans pay no attention to the logos.
• We perceive conflict, disorder and chaos.
• But there is structure behind the madness. This
  is the logos.
• The logos
• all that is and ever will be is ever changing.

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The Ethics of Heraclitus

• The logos and how we should act
• Always be at one with the logos in ones actions
  and character. Act according to a balance of
  opposites.
• Moderation is the greatest virtue
• It is never good for man to get all he wishes

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Parmenides

• Parmenides
• from Elea (now the southern part of Italy)
• lived from 515 B.C. to roughly 450 B.C.
• The first Rationalist wants to see where
  reasoning and argument takes us
• An argument for Monism
• Monism is the metaphysical view that there is
  only one type of thing as opposed to more than
  one.
• 1. Thought and being are the same
• 2. You cannot think nothing
• 3. Things dont ever come into being.
• And 4. Things dont ever fall out of existence.
• Thus, 5. Things dont have beginnings or endings
  and change is impossible.

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There is only the One

• So what follows from this argument
• Time is an illusion
• what is must exist all at once in a continuous
  present
• What is, is indivisible
• The one has no parts
• There cannot be things of different kinds
• There is only the one. It is eternal,
  indivisible and unchanging.
• The appearance/reality distinction is also
  solved
• So Parmenides view is counterintuitive

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Atomism

• Democritus and Leucippus were the originators of
  Atomism.
• Not much is known of Leucippus
• Democritus
• 460-360 B.C.
• lived in Abdera in the middle of the 5th century
  B.C.
• Atomism gives us a solution to the one and the
  many problem which isnt counterintuitive like
  Parmenides solution.
• Atomists think we can grant that being and not
  being are opposites and that not being is not.
• But they think that from this monism neednt
  follow

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An Ambiguity

• Atomism calls attention to an ambiguity in
  Parmenides argument
• The ambiguity is in the term what is.
• For Democritus, what is can be either body or
  empty space.
• So space can be empty in that it contains no
  things and yet it can have being of its own.
• Democritus calls empty space the void

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Atomism vs. Monism

• Here we see the contrast in views
• Parmenides Atomism
• ? ? ? ?
• Being Not-Being Being
  Not-Being
• Is Is Not Is
  Is Not
• Thing No-Thing
• Body Void

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Atoms

• So for Atomism, reality consists of atoms and the
  void.
• Bodies that we can see and touch are composed of
  atoms.
• Atoms
• Tiny, indivisible, indestructible and exist
  eternally
• In constant motion
• Mechanical laws
• Can differ in 3 ways

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How Atoms form into bodies

• Atoms combine and hook together to form the
  bodies we can see and touch
• Atoms move about in the void
• Atoms can hook into each other
• If enough atoms get hooked together, they can
  form bodies that are visible to us
• Bodies differ
• An explanation of change
• A body comes into being
• A body passes away

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The Implications of Atomism

• Here are some implications of the view
• 1-there is no room for intelligent design or
  purpose in explaining events or actions
• The laws of motion and freedom of the will
• 2-Everything in the universe must be explained in
  terms of materialist terms, I.e. there is only
  atoms, the void and the mechanical laws that
  govern their behavior.
• So the mind and the soul must be explained in
  completely materialist terms.
• Sensations, mental states and qualia
• Other problems
• Ghosts, angels and reincarnation

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The rise of Athens

• During the 4th 5th centuries B.C. Athens
  becomes the center of Greek cultural life
• Greece was composed of city states, which
  included
• The city states each had their own citizens,
  armies, etc.
• Democracy
• 499 B.C. Eastern Greek city states (on the
  shores of Asia Minor) rebelled against Persian
  taxation.
• Athens sends 20 ships to defend against the
  Persians and burns Sardis to the ground.
• The Persians respond
• 480 B.C. The Persian king Xerxes took an army
  of near 200,000 to defeat Athens
• Leonidas lead Spartan soldiers to meet the
  Persians at Thermopylae many Persians killed but
  the Spartans are defeated
• The Persians are defeated by the Athenians in a
  sea battle
• The Persians returned a year later to be defeated
  again
• As a result, Athens gains prominence and wealth.
• Athens forms the league for the future defense of
  Greek lands rules the sea

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The Sophists

• The Sophists were teachers.
• Popular during the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.
• Protagoras was one of the greatest
• Taught virtue, politics, astronomy, geometry and
  arithmetic, music and philosophy
• Most notably taught rhetoric
• The uses of rhetoric
• Rhetoric are the principles and practice of
  persuasive speaking.
• By using the principles of persuasive speaking,
  one can make a case for any position at all.
• Rhetoric was taught
• The Sophist claimed to teach how to turn the
  weaker argument into the stronger one

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Man is the Measure of All Things

• The Sophists thought man is the measure of all
  things
• Since any position can be made to persuade, there
  are only opinions
• So humans are confined to appearances and we
  cannot discriminate truth from opinion
• Can we gain truth at all?
• So man is the measure of all things
• There is no criterion, standard or mark by which
  to judge except ourselves
• This is the view known as Relativism
• Says truth is relative to the individual, group
  or culture

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Physis Nomos

• Physis
• The characteristics of the world or things in
  general independent of what human beings impose
  on it
• Nomos
• custom or convention
• Example
• Things for which humans alone have decided that
  they be so
• For the Sophists, morality, virtue and justice
  were a question of Nomos not Physis.
• Right and wrong, just and unjust are merely a
  convention because we sort such questions out by
  consulting the laws.

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The Peloponnesian War

• The Peloponnesian War
• Between the Greek city states of Athens and
  Sparta
• Occurred between 431 and 404 B.C.
• Death and killing was pervasive throughout
• Lead to the defeat of Athens and the beginning of
  the end of the Golden Age of Greece
• The peace treaty and the Thirty

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The Thirty

• The Thirty
• Were supported by Spartan men-at-arms
• Carried out a purge of criminals and wrong doers
• Executed criminals and persecuted many
• Lasted almost a year
• The thirty were finally defeated but Athens would
  never recover

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Results of the Thirtys reign of terror

• Results of the reign of terror on the people of
  Athens and Greece
• Athenians lost confidence
• The world and human affairs seemed beyond
  managing
• Disillusionment at Sophistry
• A Greek known as Aristophanes wrote The Clouds
• To Aristophanes, argument was nothing more than a
  contest that the most persuasive will always win
• The central concern of Socrates