A chronological history of greek philosophy
Submitted by Elston on Fri, 09/11/2009 - 01:23
Tags:
- Thales
- Thales is sometimes regarded as the founding father of Greek philosophy. He was born in 625 BC in Miletus and was an accomplished geometer and astronomer who is rumoured to have predicted solar eclipses, discovered the year had 365 days, and the dates for the winter and summer solstices. His most important philosophical idea was that all matter could be reduced to a single entity. He considered this substance to be water (whereas today we believe it to be energy). He thought that everything originated in water and was thus made up of it; that land and life itself sprung up out of the oceans; that the world was flat and rested on the water (like a log floating in a stream). When the earth quaked this was the rocking of the water underneath. He was at least correct in his assumption that water is an essential necessity for life. The most famous story of Thales goes like this: One evening while Thales was gazing at the heavens he accidentally fell down a nearby well. A servant girl observed this and made fun of him. When asked why a man as clever as he fell into a well he replied, “I was so interested in the skies that I forgot where I was going.” The generally accepted moral here is akin to the archetype of the absent-minded professor; however, I wonder if his tumble wasn’t a result of his reluctant shyness towards women?There are two more famous stories about this forerunner of philosophy: one in which he acquires substantial wealth after predicting a surge in olive oil demand and another in which he cleverly diverts a strong river current into two streams thus allowing the army of Croesus to pass. The latter expands upon his obsessive relationship with water, while the former is suppose to prove that philosophers could be rich businessmen if they chose, but would prefer to solve life’s mysteries instead; ie they suffer from a more insatiable form of greed: wanting others to adopt your worldview.
- Anaximander
- Anaximander likewise thought matter could be reduced to a single, universal entity (the material principal). However, he did not think it was one of the elements (ie water) nor any substance of which humans were aware. Anaximander called the substance Indefinite, something ineffable and mysterious from which all the heavens and the worlds were birthed. The Earth and its different elements separated off from the Indefinite a long time ago to form the world we know. And we will eventually be ‘destroyed’, only to return to that primordial concoction. Furthermore, when the world was being formed, a sphere of flame surrounded Earth like bark around a tree. Parts of this flame-bark were exhaled into the sky and this is how the stars came to be. This process left behind little pipe-like passages in the ‘atmosphere’ allowing us to see the stars. Eclipses and the cycles of the moon are a result of these channels being periodically blocked. He believed the top of the world was flat, but that the sides were curved and circular, like a column. He also pointed out the ‘infinite regress’ in Thales argument about water supporting the Earth: if land is supported by water then what is holding the water up? Anaximander did not think the Earth rested on anything; he considered it a free-floating object hanging in space. He felt as if the elements were constantly fighting one another for dominance, and that is what caused the different seasons and also night/day.
- Anaximenes
- Anaximenes learned from the Miletus school and was a pupil of Anaximander. His thinking was closer to Thales in that he thought all matter was comprised of a single element, which to Anaximenes was air. Everything was made up of the element air. Even rocks were considered a highly condensed form of this element. He also taught that the properties ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ differed only in their concentration of matter. Cold was a result of condensed air, whereas hot was air that was more spread-out. An example he used was when a man blows on his palm with pursed lips, the air was cool because it was more compact. When he loosened his lips the air was hotter, being less packed. Also, instead of water (like Thales believed) the Earth rested on air. He reasoned that the clouds were a result of thickened air and that when air becomes highly compressed it squeezes out rain.
- Pythagoras
- Pythagoras was born in 570BC in Samos and coined the term philosopher (‘a lover of wisdom). He was most influential for laying down the foundation of mathematics as we know it today. He felt the entire world was made up of numbers (or shapes and forms) and that everything could be explained through mathematical formulas. A certain configuration of numbers was justice, such and such a combination was beauty, and yet another was the soul. The two ‘elements’ of number were odd and even. Even was unlimited, odd limited. He held the number 10 (decad) in high esteem, believing it to be the perfect number. The tetrad was the discovery that 1, 2, 3, 4 all add up to 10. Pythagoras placed significance on each number in tetrad: 1-point, 2-line, 3-surface (triangle), 4-solid (pyramid). He is the inventor of the famous Pythagoras theorem known to just about any educated person. It shows that the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle is equal to the sums of the squares of the enclosing sides (quite an ingenious discovery). It is said Pythagoras sacrificed an ox in celebration. He thought life was like a festival and the best men were not those who came to have fun, nor those to make money, nor those to display a particular talent, but rather the philosophers who watched from a distance and made sense of the totality. Over the course of his life he formed a quasi-religious cult where he taught and studied with his followers, the Pythagoreans. Living in his secret society one had to follow all kinds of strange rituals and dietary laws, such as: worship with bare feet, be respectful in your speech, do not speak of mathematics when the sun goes down, always make your bed – among others. He believed in the immortality of the soul and that when a creature died its soul was reincarnated into another creature (this belief originated in Egypt). When a human died, that soul would not come back into another human body for 3000 years. It is said that one day Pythagoras saw a man whipping a puppy and he bade him stop because the puppies’ yelps sounded like that of a deceased friend. The Pythagoreans were the first to say the Earth was not in the middle universe, but rather the center was fire and the earth revolved around it along with all the other heavenly bodies.
- Xenophanes
- Xenophanes was born 570BC and is the first man to express the idea that we can’t ever know the whole truth about the world due to our limited appraisal of reality. Even as science becomes more and more sophisticated, we will still fall short of total comprehension.
- Heraclitus
- Heraclitus taught sometime around 500 BC and is perhaps the strangest of all Greeks. He hailed from Ephesus, a town very close to Miletus and they called him “The Obscure or Enigmatic One”. He spoke often of the Logos, a force that lies just below the surface of existence that most are unaware of. The Logos contains many contradictions and paradoxes, but keeps everything in unity. Another concept of his was the Unity of Opposites, which was the notion that concepts and ideas do not have innate meaning, but interact with other concepts in a system and thus derive their meaning. Thus Good gets its meaning from Evil and they are one and the same. “Disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger satiety, weariness rest.” He regarded war and strife as necessary for human beings and believed there would never be true peace on Earth: destruction and chaos were always close behind. Finally, he believed that everything was always changing and that no two things are ever the same. Things are constantly becoming and never are. Matter is always moving. He is perhaps a kind of proto-Nietzsche.
- Parmenides
- Parmenides believed that nothing in the universe ever passed into non-existence, but rather that energy was just displaced. In other words, you cannot destroy energy nor create it.
- Empedocles
- Empedocles believed the four elements were equally dominant. Earth, air, water, fire were brought together by Love; but then Strife drove them apart. ‘The many became one and then the one became many’. The elements themselves never disappeared but rather coalesced and separated in cycles.
- Socrates
- Socrates was a martyr for Reason who strove to live an honest life above all else ‘Nothing pleases me unless it is true’. He was rational to the point of absurdity and had a stunning ability to follow ideas to their logical conclusion. His style of philosophizing was to question other people’s beliefs so that he could understand their actions. This often left him more confused then when he started and gave him the troubling insight that people didn’t exactly know why they did things. His teachings were published by a student – Plato; and it is from him we get the Socratic dialogues. These generally consist of someone patiently enduring Socrates’ endless questioning and/or posturing, though they are well written and a joy to read.
- In Euthyphro, Socrates talks to a much-respected friend of his who is charging his own father with murder: Euthyphro explains that a paid worker on his families’ farm became very drunk and slit the throat of a slave. Euthyphro’s father beat the worker, bound him up & left him unattended for a few days when he eventually died. Euthyphro upholds that murder is an unholy act because it is displeasing to the gods and therefore unholy, thus he is obliged to turn his father in lest his soul become corrupt. Socrates asks what holiness is: it is that which is dear to the gods. Socrates points out that the gods often fight over their differences and what is dear to some is hateful to others, therefore how could his friend be certain that his charge is a holy one? Furthermore, Socrates explains that an act is not holy because the gods love it; the gods love it BECAUSE it is holy – nevertheless Socrates never finds out what holy actually is. This dialogue is one of the best and shows Socrates’ dizzying and excessive logical abilities. His continual naïveté hints vaguely of a subversive sarcasm. However, it seems the most interesting part of the dialogue was overlooked, which is the moral conundrum faced by Euthyphro, whose actions deserve scrutiny. First of all, are we to believe that Euthyphro is charging his father for reprimanding an insolent low life who put the whole farm in danger through his carelessness? The father had every right to murder that man, but Socrates’ principles slink away from any semblance of common sense, thus turning the whole thing into a comedy.
- Democritus
- Democritus was one of the most prophetic philosophers. He postulated that all matter consisted of indivisible particles called atoms (Greek for ‘cannot be cut’), which are the smallest pieces of matter. Atoms are full, solid & contain no void. The world then consists of different configuration of these atoms put together with lots of space in between. He was also a kind of fevered visionary who saw glimpses of other worlds. These visions showed different Earths containing two suns, two moons, or no moons and an enormous sun. He also saw worlds where there were no plants, animals or vegetation.
Author Comments:
This is my own version of the history of Greek philosophy. It consists simply of what I find interesting about these thinkers along with my own interpretation of them. It is occasionally irreverent, but I'm primarily interested in the actual ideas of these philosophers. I plan to work on this and add every significant Greek thinker I can find out about. It is in chronological order. The thinkers I believe are the most significant have biggest names.
Cloned From:
Diggin this. Are you working from Russell's history perchance?
I'm using three books. One is very general (The Story of Philosophy), another is little more detailed (Ancient Philosophy), and the third is made up of actual texts written by the Greeks (Greek Philosophy from Thales to Aristotle). Unfortunately they don't have Russell's book at the library, maybe it's checked out (though I would love to read it). It's very fascinating stuff and on top of all these great old ideas, it's helping me understand newer philosophy like Nietzsche (who I'm now realizing spends a huge amount of time in his books giving his opinion on entire schools of philosophy). Glad you are liking it. So far I've been really surprised by how interesting the pre-Scoratics were.
Russell's book is the bible on this stuff. Good though so far. (: