The First Philosophers of Ancient Greece

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The First Philosophers of Ancient Greece

• Prof. Rose Cherubin
• Department of Philosophy
• George Mason University
• http//www.gmu.edu/courses/phil/ancient/index.htm

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Thales of Miletus (late 7th to mid-6th century
BCE)Miletus is in Ionia, in western Asia Minor.

• Why is what is the way it is? ?
• What is what is?
• Water stands under everything as a source.
  (paraphrase of Thales in Diogenes Laertius)
• advances in geometry and astronomy

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Anaximander of Miletus (very late 7th - late 6th
century BCE)

• The apeiron as the source of all things
• apeiron means unlimited, indeterminate, or
  infinite
• geometry?gnomon as seasonal sundial?map of the
  world?model of the cosmos?cosmological theory
• discovery of space
• questions of order and direction

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Anaximenes of Miletus (early 6th late 6th BCE)

• aer (misty air)
• constant change and renewal
• the how of things felting

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Pythagoras of Samos (c.570 c.500) and the early
Pythagoreans of Croton and Tarentum(Samos is an
island off the coast of Ionia.)

• all things are fundamentally number, or numbers
  and things have a common source
• some connection between this idea and moral,
  political, and religious principles used to
  organize Pythagorean communities

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Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570 c.478)Colophon
is in Ionia, not far from Miletus.

• Under what conditions could knowledge be
  possible?
• What would it take to make the universe work?
  (The Greek gods dont have what it takes...)

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Heracleitus of Ephesus (c.540 c.480)Ephesus is
also in Ionia, not far from Miletus and Colophon.

• Stability and change are they both real? How if
  at all can we account for both?
• Proposal the Logos (account, word, speech,
  reason) is a principle that would explain the
  universe in a way that takes into account
  regularities, unity, opposition, and change. (It
  is not clear that we can completely grasp the
  Logos.)

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The Eleatics Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus

• These three philosophers are often grouped
  together. Their work shares many common elements,
  but there are also important differences.
• Zeno is reported to have been a student of
  Parmenides, and indeed came from the same town.
  Melissus word choices and content indicate that
  he studied Parmenides work.
• All three argued that the claim that there are
  multiple things results in contradictions, as
  does the claim that anything moves.

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Parmenides of Elea (c.515 mid-5th century)Elea
is in southwestern Italy, at Velia (near Paestum).

• The earliest surviving example of deductive
  reasoning in ancient Greek thought appears in
  Parmenides poem.
• In Parmenides poem, a goddess argues that on a
  viable road of inquiry, signs indicate that what
  is is one, unchanging, eternal, continuous.

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Zeno of Elea (c.490 at least mid-5th century)

• Zenos paradoxes attempted to show that if we
  assume that there are multiple things or that
  anything moves, we are led to contradictory
  conclusions.
• Zeno did not conclude from this that what is is
  one and unmoving. Evidence suggests that his
  point was to ask whether and how there could be a
  coherent account of the nature of what is.

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Melissus of Samos (c.480 late 5th century)

• Melissus argued that what is simply is one and
  unmoving, and that all impressions to the
  contrary must simply be wrong.
• Melissus does not seem to have considered (as
  Zeno did) whether the assumption that what is is
  one has any contradictory or incoherent
  consequences.

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Taking on the Eleatic Challenge Philosophy in
the late 5th and early 4th centuries

• How can there be a coherent, non-contradictory
  account of the existence of multiple and changing
  things?
• How can we account for diversity and commonality?
  
• How can we account for change and motion without
  saying that anything comes to be from nothing,
  perishes into nothing, or is both discrete and
  continuous in the same way at the same time?

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Empedocles of Acragas (c.492 c.432)Acragas is
in Sicily, at Agrigento.

• sampled phrases from Parmenides and Heracleitus
• first philosopher to suggest that there are
  exactly 4 fundamental and eternal elements air,
  earth, fire, water
• held that these combined and separated in
  evolutionary processes, under the influence of
  the forces of Love and Strife

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Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c.500
c.428)Clazomenae is in Ionia.

• response to Parmenides and Zeno
• Seeds whirled by cosmic Mind formed, and are
  forming, the universe.
• Each thing and each seed is named for what
  predominates in it.
• earliest known example of a non-cyclical cosmic
  evolution in Greek thought

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Philolaus of Croton (c.475 late 5th or early
4th)Croton and Tarentum were Pythagorean
communities in southeastern Italy (modern Crotona
and Tarento).

• A Pythagorean of the second generation, Philolaus
  responded to issues raised by Parmenides and
  Zeno.

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Democritus of Abdera (c.460 c.360) and
Leucippus of (maybe) Abdera (born somewhat
earlier than Democritus)Abdera is in the
northern part of the Greek peninsula.

• The basic components of what is are tiny
  uncuttable (atomos) things of uniform, colorless,
  odorless, temperatureless material. These move
  through empty space.
• This conception was developed further by Epicurus
  in the later 4th century, and survived into early
  modern times (Hobbes and Gassendi, 16th-17th
  century CE).

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Coming Attractions

• Socrates of Athens (469 399 BCE)
• Plato of Athens (428 328 BCE)
• Aristotle of Stagira (384 322 BCE)