Early Greeks (the pre-Socratics)

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Early Greeks (the pre-Socratics)

• Three forms of philosophy
• Problem with the gods
• 6TH century revolution in natural philosophy
• The pre-Socratic natural philosophers
• The question of the Stuff
• The question of change
• The question of knowledge (epistemology)

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Three forms of Philosophy

• Logic, ethics, natural (physics) philosophy

• all are ways of knowing

• Greeks valued knowledge

"All men by nature desire to know." Aristotle

• rational animals

• macrocosm/ microcosm

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II. Problem with the gods

• pre-Socratic rationalism reaction against the
  gods

(Socrates 470 399 BCE)
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III. Pre-Socratic philosophers

• Burst of intellectual activity

• Questions never asked before

• Critical analysis

• Natural explanations no gods

• World is orderly and predictable

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A. The question of the Stuff
That of which all things consist, from which
they first come and into which they are
ultimately resolved the element and origin of
all things. Aristotle
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A. The question of the Stuff
2. The Atomists
Democritus (460 370 BCE)

• Mechanistic

• Deterministic

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A. The question of the Stuff
3. Empedocles (490 -430)
By earth we earth perceive,By air bright air, by
fire consuming fire,Love too by love, and strife
by grievous strife. Empedocles, On Nature
Earth, air, water, fire
Love
Strife
(solid, gas, liquid, energy)
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A. The question of the Stuff
4. The Pythagoreans
Music of the spheres
Geometry of Nature
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B. The question of change

• All change is a logical impossibility

• Being and not being

• Change of place (motion) is
• impossible

Zenos paradoxes
Significance

• Led to a confrontation logic versus the senses

• Led to questioning how we know what we know
• (epistemology)

• Everyone following Parmenides must address

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C. The question of knowledge
Epistemology

• the senses versus the intellect

• senses unreliable

• auditory
• illusion

• Real truth through the exercise of reason alone

Importance attention directed to reasoning,
argumentation
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