Many people think that Greek philosophy is largely
composed of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. These men were indeed great
thinkers, but there were many great men who came before them. Despite their
brilliance, these men have been overlooked. History has only a vague
recollection of their names. But these men grappled with just the same
questions philosophy has been asking for years. In fact, they were the first to
really ask them. This is where philosophy as we know it begins. It begins with
questions like, “what is the world made of” and “how do we balance the one and
the many?”
According
to contemporaries, these men wrote works of literature expounding what they
thought, and they also taught other men. Many of them had disciples who
followed in their footsteps. Sadly, nearly all of their works have been lost to
the ages. However, we can be thankful that men like Aristotle, Plato, and
others have preserved, interacted with, and remembered the ideas these men had.
Today, their ideas remain as mere fragments.[1] But this
does not stop us from seeing how dynamic their thoughts were.
The
Pre Socratics were pioneers because they rejected the animistic and
polytheistic religions of their society, and they began to ask questions. More
importantly though, they found the answers to these questions not by asking an
oracle or receiving a vision, instead, they used reason and observation to come
to their conclusions. Their pursuit of knowledge was one that resembles what we
see in society now. Through logic and empirical evidence, they sought out
answers to their questions.[2]
It
should be noted that at this time, no distinction was made between philosophy and
any other science or humanity. The scientist and philosopher was one man at
this time. The men of this era would simultaneously predict eclipses and talk
about philosophy. They would produce maps and discuss cosmology.[3] This
sometimes led to conflict with religious people because these thinkers sought
rational thought rather than magic and mysticism.
Greek
thought began in Ionia. The first three major thinkers came out of Ionia in
Asia Minor. These three greats, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, compose
the Milesian School.[4] The
Milesian School was the product of a culture that had transcended subsistence
and had begun to thrive. Only then could men like Thales appear.
Thales
lived from 625 BC to 550 BC.[5] He was
the first great thinker to arise out of Ionia. Thales began asking the question
that dominated the first part of pre Socratic thought. What is the world made
of? Thales’ answer was water. He believed that the fundamental building block
of the universe was water or moisture. Other than Aristotle quoting Thales as
saying, “Everything is full of gods,” we have very little of what Thales said
or thought. His arguments or reasons for believing such things have been lost
to us.[6]
Significantly, Thales was the teacher of the next man in the Milesian School.
Anaximander
was a disciple of Thales. He too grappled with the question of cosmology. Anaximander
saw Thales simple answer of water to be, well, too simple. He saw the world
more as continual opposition of four basic qualities. These four basic
qualities, hot, cold, dry, and wet, separate out of the “apeiron” and define
each other by opposition. The apeiron was the primal mass at the beginning, which
began to spin. The four elements were present but were not distinct. As the
apeiron spun, the four elements coalesced into pockets of similarity. From
this, the universe sprang. Anaximander has life beginning in mud and slime. He
believes that men slowly evolved from an early fish like creature. Apparently,
Charles Darwin isn’t all that original.[7]
Anaximader
trained Anaximenes who attempted to further refine his mentor’s philosophy.
Anaximenes thought that Anaximander’s apeiron was just really too paradoxical
and illogical. He chose “aer” as his fundamental element. Aer is like air, but
it’s more of what we think of as mist. Anaximenes saw a flaw in his
predecessor’s thinking and that was their failure to explore how their elements
became what we saw in the world around us. Because, clearly, rocks don’t feel
like water. How could water become rock then? Anaximenes explored condensation
and rarefaction as the means whereby aer becomes the things we see.[8]
Anaximenes
also believed that there was a special kind of rare aer that is basicly soul
material. A breath of this special aer is trapped in man and animals. This aer
is almost a god-like thing so Anaximenes thinks that we all have a piece of
this nebulous god thing inside of us. [9]
Despite
what you may think, the Milesians were not materialists. You see, for such a
category to exist, the early thinkers would have to have placed a distinction
between the physical and the spiritual. At this time, no such distinction
existed. Their conception of such things was not split into two hermetically
sealed categories like modern thought is. They were not materialists because
there was only one “thing” that they conceived of. What they sought was to find
the structure of the cosmos. [10]
The
two men who came after these first philosophers were the giants every Greek
philosopher after them had to live in the shadow of. Their struggle between the
one and the many defined Greek philosophy for the longest time. The first man,
Heraclitus, believed that all was flux. The second, and more influential, was
Parmenides. He asserted that all was one and that change was an illusion.[11] Men
after them had the task of reconciling these two diametrically opposed ideas.
Heraclitus
was born some time around 540 BC.[12] He was
known for being cryptic in his language. So much so, that he gained the
nickname of “The Riddler.” While he made fun of other learned men, he took his
own philosophy seriously. Heraclitus believed that the basic element of the
universe was fire. Heraclitus chose fire not in quite the same way the others
before him chose their elements. He chose it because it exhibited the qualities
that he used to describe the movement and essence of the cosmos. Fire, by its
nature, thrives on strife and destruction. The flame is fed by consuming other
things. Heraclitus saw this constant tension not as an imperfection, but as
essential to the One.[13]
Consider
a bow and arrow. When you pull back the arrow on the string, there is tension
in the system. The bow wants to move forward. You and the arrow are striving
against it. This equilibrium is how Heraclitus viewed the universe.[14] It is
under constant tension. Like a fire, it is dying down in parts and burning
hotter in others. This means that the total amount of substance in the universe
is constant, but its distribution varies widely.[15] This is
why Heraclitus said that all is flux (change).
Heraclitus
believed in a pantheistic god called The Word or The One. In this “being” (for
a lack of a better term) all tension is resolved. The Word binds everything
together and guides the constant flux.[16]
Parmenides
was a contemporary of Heraclitus, but he thought very differently from him. Parmenides
simply believed that It is. Reality is. Becoming, Parmenides argued, was
logically impossible. Either something is or it is not. If something is, then
there is nothing for it to become. It simply is. But if something is not, then
it can never become something because nothing begets nothing.[17] This
appeared to prove that behind everything is only pure unity. By doing this,
Parmenides introduces some pivotal concepts. He introduces the distinction
between thought and sense. He also brings doubt upon sense and elevates
thought.
The
void, or nothingness, was believed by Parmenides to be required in order for
movement to take place. But since nothingness is itself illogical, then
movement is not possible. This fact, combined with the unity of all, goes to
show that all the change we see is illusion. Everything is motionless and
united at its core so the plurality we sense is not real.
Parmenides
had a disciple by the name of Zeno who attempted to create logical proofs to
destroy that which opposed his master’s thought. Zeno developed arguments
against such things as Pythagorean pluralism, the Pythagorean conception of
space, as well as against motion. His arguments against motion are his most
famous. He developed arguments using Achilles and the Tortoise, running across
a stadium, and a bow and arrow. [18]Zeno’s
goal was to show the logical inconsistencies of motion.
So
we are left with this. We sense and experience change and plurality, but
thought tells us that all things must be one. The men who came next struggled
with these two concepts.
A
man arose to attempt to provide an answer. Anaxagoras, a friend of Pericles,
said that that which is qualitative of the whole, is ultimate. If you were to
separate out the basic elements of every object, then you would have what is
foundational to the universe. Thus, all things are a mixture of these core
elements. We see things like rocks because rock dominates that substance, but
everything is in everything else, no matter how miniscule the degree. [19]Guiding
all this is Mind (or Nous). The Mind is pure thought and facilitates all
motion. However, this was Anaxagoras’ back up plan that he simply resorted to
when he was pressed for more than a mere natural answer. It didn’t work though
because he ended up being exiled for atheism.[20]
A
very striking figure arose next. Empedocles was a flamboyant man who claimed to
do miracles and to be a god. Plus, he was a pretty snappy dresser. Empedocles
wrote his philosophy in verse to a lover (a male) of his.[21]
Empedocles adopted Parmenides’ thoughts on the inability of things to pass out
of being. He attempted to show then that there were six main elements that
composed the universe. He believed that fire, water, air, earth, love, and
strife were all the ultimate and unchanging elements of the universe. Change
was caused by strife causing the elements to flee from one another and gather
by similarity whereas love then seeks to mingle them again. [22]This
cycle causes the movement we experience.
The
fact that Empedocles resorted to vague ideals as guiding principles was
dissatisfying to many. Leucippus and his learner, Democritus, developed a
purely naturalistic theory called Atomism. Atom in Greek means “uncuttable.”
Atoms were believed to be extremely small basic building blocks of the
universe. They had different size, shapes, and patterns. These little atoms
swirl in the vortex of the universe and when they clump together, you get the world
of sense experience.[23]
Leucippus and Democritus carried the purely mechanical rationalism of early
philosophy to its logical end. Atomism was the system that showed there was an
ultimate and unchangeable substance behind the universe, but that it was simultaneously
plural.
The
early Greeks were far more vibrant and thoughtful than is commonly imagined. It
is easy to think that Greek thought begins with Socrates, but that is utterly
far from the truth. We see these men exploring the problem of the one and the
many. We see them exploring the distinction between rational thought and sense
experience. They were men searching for answers to questions that had hardly even
been asked yet.
In Heraclitus, we see
the beginnings of Western thinking. With his emphasis on individuality and
change, Heraclitus laid the foundation for Western thought for the next two
thousand years. Parmenides appears to be much more similar to Eastern
Philosophy. The unity of everything is core to his thought form. Although
Parmenides was the superior thinker (his use of logic and reason was much more
scholarly), Heraclitus won in the long run. Why is that? But that’s exactly the
kind of questions the Pre Socratics were asking. So, let’s thoughtfully
consider what they had to say.
[1] Patricia, Curd, A
Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia. (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996), 7.
[2] Ibid., 1-2.
[3]
Ibid., 5.
[4] W.
K. C., Guthrie., The Greek Philosophers:
From Thales to Aristotle. (New York: Routledge Classics, 2013), 22-23.
[5] Curd, xi.
[6] Guthrie, 24-25.
[7]
Ibid., 25-27
[8] Frederick, Copleston, A History of Philosophy:
Volume 1, Greece & Rome, Part 1 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Books,
1962), 42.
[9] Guthrie, 29.
[10] Guthrie, 31.
[11] Copleston, 69.
[12] Curd, xi.
[13] Copleston, 54, 57.
[14] Guthrie, 42.
[15] Copleston, 58.
[16]
Ibid., 58.
[17]
Ibid., 66-67.
[18]
Ibid., 71-74.
[19] Copleston, 84-85.
[20] Guthrie 2013, 52.
[21] Curd, 61.
[22]
Ibid.
[23] Copleston, 89-91.
Bibliography
Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy:
Volume 1, Greece & Rome,
Volume 1. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Books, 1962.
Curd, Patricia, ed. A Presocratics Reader:
Selected Fragments and
Testimonia. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1996.
Guthrie, W. K.C. The Greek Philosophers: From
Thales to Aristotle. New York City: Routledge Classics, 2013.
