9/3 - Pre-Socratics Slides

7/30/2019 9/3 - Pre-Socratics Slides

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The Pre-Socratics


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Important Pre-suppositions

Greek philosophy as a process (rather than a strict disipline) begins with posingserious questions about the universe while relying on rational argumentation

this is contrasted with the content of religious dogma and mythologicalhistory.

Pre-Socratics, notably of the Milesian School, are preoccupied with the whatofexistence more than the whyor the how. That comes afterwards for to

understand how something operates, it is necessary to first identify itsessence... or so they seem to have thought.


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Pre-Pre-Socratic Era

Greek Dark Ages(1100 - 800 BCE)

- Collapse of Bronze Age/Mycenaen Civ

- Loss of certain Greek written languages

- Hesiod Mythos beings w/ chaos (creation: ex nihilo)


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Xenophanes of Colophon

Theologan not as traditional at the time prior to Christianity

Satirized Homer and Hesiod Mythos + Early Greek Pantheon

But if cattle and horses and lions had hands

or could paint with their hands and create workssuch as men do,

horses like horses and cattle like cattle

also would depict the gods' shapes and make theirbodies

of such a sort as the form they themselves have.


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Thales

Seen as the first real Western philosopher (via rationalargumentation)Water is the one substance of all things because(notjustbecause he said so):

1) must supply all life

2) must undergo change

3) something that can form all shapes/objects

4) capable of motion

A criteria is set prior to investigating the substance that best fits


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Anaximander

Worshiped Aperon

(infinite, boundless, limitless)

Theorized the four elements - density based

(water, earth, air, fire)

- Apeiron unifies these elements

- It is eternal and composed of contrasts/opposites

- Infinite worlds created and destroyed

- Basis for believing in reincarnation


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Anaximenes

The one substance is air.

- Earth (flat) rarifies the stars

- Moon and Sun also flat (rotating on air)- Density connected with hot/cold

Breathing illustration

Last of the 3 material monists


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Anaxagoras

Was (originally condemned to death) forced into exile for seeing the sun as afiery rock...


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PythagorasPythagorianism

- faith in numbers

- worshipped Apeiron

- vegetarian diet

- women welcome

Issue of the One and theMany

- types vs. tokens

(III vs. 3 vs. vs. three,etc.)

Universality of Theorems:

Thales' Theorem (cow sacrifice)

Pythagorean Theorem

He would be a modernabstract object realist

Numbers and mathematical objectsexhaust/explain all states of affairs

Harmony found in all things...


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ParmenidesPath to Truth is in that which Cannot-Not Be

All is one (and one is all)

Change & motion are illusions

- change implies a coming in and out of being

- Nothingness does not exist

- Only Being No Becoming

PATH OF OPINION

- implies a non-necessity, thus a non-being

- impossible to even think of


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Zeno of Elea

Known for Paradoxes of Motion

Used Reductio ad Absurdum

Paradox of the Runner

Paradox of Achiles & Turtle

Paradox of the Arrow


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Heracl i tus

- All is change

- All is in flux

- Only substance can be fire

However underlying Logos

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it'snot the same river and he's not the same man.


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Protagoras

Man is the measure of all things

SOPHISM:

Relativistic philosophy (truth and morality)

Emphasis on argumentation > actual position

Political excellence is a virtue


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DemocritusAtomism:

- the answer to the question of substance is in the mannerof its divisibility, more so than its identity

- therefore, it is evident that the world is made up ofindivisible particles called atoms, regardless ofwhatever their true essence might be (although their

functionality is revealed within theirfinite manifestations)- we can intuit this by observing the conservation of matter

Leucipp

usNothing random can occur...All things happen necessarily out of reason

(Mechanistic) Determinist position


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Some Modern Cons iderat ion s

Is the idea of a world outside of our minds congrous with the ideaof a physical world?

Does the notion of substance require a more robustunderstanding than the goal-limited results of modern science?

Scientists have a special place in their hearts for the (at leastearly) Pre-Socratics: the original goals are constantlyreexamined and the intial impulse of wonder is a scientific one

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9/3 - Pre-Socratics Slides