3. Presocratics - Birth of Philosophy Flashcards
Philosophy is a __________ to mythology?
Reaction
the Presocratics were only interested in…
…scientific explanations and not myths for how the world works. Thus, they stole fire from heaven
Who were the three Milesians?
- Thales
- Anaximander
- Anaximenes
Thales + Anaximenes saw stuff as the constituent of everything, while Anaximander proposed non-stuff
Thales
First philosopher. Had wealth and leisure.
Claim: WATER IS THE BASIC CONSTITUENT OF EVERYTHING
asked: “what is stuff made of?” - asking this question itself was stealing fire from heaven
Why: 1. simplicity 2. stuffness 3. explanation of motion
Anaximander
Claim: Aiepron (the boundless, the unlimited, the infinite) is the principle of all matter
metaphysical answer to the question “what is stuff made of?” first shift towards rationalism
What question were the presocratics asking?
what is the arche?” meaning, “what is the fundamental unchanging basis of reality?”
or “what is stuff made of?”
Anaximenes
Claim: AIR (PHEUMA) IS THE FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUENT OF EVERYTHING
response to Anaximander’s Aepiron answer as too indeterminate.
Distinguish Being and Becoming
Being: The arche, which is the fundamental unchanging basis of reality
Becoming: that which is coming in and going out of existence, and changes throughout time
Pythagoras
Claim: MATHEMATICS IS THE BASIS OF ALL THINGS
he discovered irrational numbers, something that shouldn’t have been discovered by humans
he believed that when we die, our souls move from one place to another, not upwards
“being is more important than becoming” - ultimate reality is being
Xenophanes
original critic of religion. (had an intuition about Iliad/Odyssey) he believed we should have modesty about what we claim about knowing God.
introduced the ‘god of the philosophers’ as eternally changeless, unlike the God of the Bible that is in movement
Heraclitus
claim: THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS. OF EVERYTHING IS FIRE AND LOGOS
sounds dualist: rational (logos) and physical (fire/change)
seems empiricist, and saw the unity of opposites: change is permanence
Heraclitus follows Thales and Anaximenes in the tradition of “stuffness” but also includes the abstract: logos
Parmenides
claim: THERE REALLY IS ONLY ONE THING
What is, is. What is not cannot be and cannot be thought. Nothing cannot be thought. Parmenides believes that there is no change and something is always being.
Founder of rationalism, defying sense-experience
Parmenides (rational) “there is no change” vs
Heraclitus (empirical) “there is change”
Zeno of Elea
seems more paramedian than Parmenides.
Zeno thinks there is a WHOLE while we see parts of it.
Pardoxes: “how can an infinite process ever end?”
Zeno’s Paradoxes
How can infinite process? halving, half the half etc… ever end? (achilles and the tortoise race)
Also, argument against motion: motion is things over space + time. Motion is a cluster of motionless frames, so how can a bunch of motionless frames = motion? we think we observe motion, but motion doesn’t exist.
