Philosophy and Philosophers - an Introduction to Western Philosophy - Chapter 1
back to ...
or ...
CHAPTER ONE
Presocratic Greek philosophy
The past is not a story; only in retrospect under an interpretation does
it unfold as history like a fictional tale in a book. Consequently, in
reporting what happened in the past we lack one of the characteristics
of a story: a definite beginning. However, in Greece a short time after
600 BC certain changes were taking place in human thought that
seemed to have no precedent; and it is on these changes in the way
human beings began to think about the world and themselves that the
most fundamental aspects of today’s Western civilization—its science,
ethics, politics, and philosophy—are founded. There were events of
significance before this time; but 600 BC onwards marks alterations in
human thought sufficient to describe it as a beginning.
The study of ancient philosophy is normally said to extend from 585
BC to AD 529. Of course, philosophical speculation did not cease at
that date, but the banning of the teaching of Greek philosophy at the
University of Athens by the Roman Christian Emperor Justinian, in AD
529, is thought of as a suitable event to mark a change.
The Presocratic period covers 585 BC to 400 BC and the term
“Presocratic” has the obvious literal sense of denoting those
philosophers living before Socrates. This meaning is only
approximate, as some of the philosophers considered as Presocratics
were contemporaries of Socrates who was born in 470 BC and died in
399 BC. Again the decision to divide history in this way is justified by
its marking another beginning. A change in direction and style of
thought was instigated by Socrates, for knowledge of whom we are
almost entirely dependent on Plato (427–347 BC). The labelling of a
group of many thinkers, whose work stretched over a period of 185
years, as the Presocratics, can be highly misleading if it is taken to
imply a great unity of thought. Nevertheless, comprehension of any
one of this group is aided by consideration of the others. Their views
were diverse, and their degree of knowledge of the work of others
varied greatly.
Considering the enormous claims made for the importance of the
Presocratics, it is extraordinary that we have no document dating from
that time written by these people. What we know of what they said
and wrote comes to us, at best, second-hand, the most substantial
contribution being made by Aristotle (384–322 BC), but also a good
deal from Simplicius (AD 500–540); and there were many others. Of
this derivative information, the most precious is that contained in the
“fragments”; this is not actual text that has survived physically down
the centuries, but rather all purported direct quotations from the
Presocratics. The second source of information is the summaries and
comments of those ancient philosophers and historians who did have
direct access to Presocratic texts. We must beware of the corruption of
Presocratic views by error, misunderstanding, or deliberate pointmaking.
To understand how these philosophers could have had such an
influence on such a wide range of subjects, we have to understand that
the early Greeks did not separate out disciplines in the way we do
now. “Philosophy” literally means “love of wisdom”, and the topics
that fell under this name covered what we now pick out as philosophy,
logic, science, medicine, ethics, social science, psychology, and religion.
The importance of the Presocratic philosophers, particularly the earlier
ones, is to be found in their speculations in physics—the study of
nature—for it is among these early tentative attempts to provide a
complete, simple, unified explanation of the various phenomena of the
world, or universe, that the outline of the methods and concepts of
modern empirical science were first drawn. From a dissatisfaction with
mythical accounts of the world explanations began to emerge that
were generalizable and systematic rather than ad hoc, naturalistic
rather than having recourse to supernatural gods and powers, and that
were, most importantly, backed by arguments open to inspection,
instead of assertions based on authority or mere durability—although
the distinctions between the mythical and the new forms of
explanation were not always sharp. The Presocratic philosophers were
phusikoi (from which comes the word “physics”); speculators on the
workings of nature.
It is necessary first to say something about the world in which they
lived. Philosophy began not on mainland Greece, still less in Athens
where it was later to flourish, but in Ionia—the western seaboard on
the Aegean Sea of what is now Turkey, more generally called Asia
Minor. Mycenaean civilization developed in mainland Greece between
1580 BC and 1120 BC under the considerable influence of the more
ancient Minoan civilization (3000–1000 BC) of Crete. After the collapse
of the Mycenaean civilization, Greeks from the mainland after 1000 BC
began colonizing the islands of the Aegean, and the west coast of Asia
Minor, which became known as Ionia owing to the Ionic form of the
Greek language spoken there. The Greeks of the sixth century BC
looked back upon the Mycenaean period with nostalgia; the essential
features of their myths and religion, told for example through the
poems of Homer, were taken from the Mycenaeans. Around 700 BC the
Ionians flourished with trade increasing around the Mediterranean.
Various peoples influenced the cultural and intellectual growth of
Ionia. From the Scythians in the north they received shamanistic
beliefs that probably influenced Pythagoras. Other peoples to exert
influence on Greek culture were the Lydians and Phrygians in Asia
Minor, the Canaanites and Phoenicians—the latter providing the
Greeks with the tremendously important matter of an alphabet. Egypt
was also a country that fascinated the Greeks, and the effect can be
seen in what the Greeks took from Egyptian mathematics and
medicine. Perhaps the most significant influence was derived from the
Babylonian Empire (which fell to the Persians in 538 BC) where major
advances had been made in mathematics and the data collected on
astronomical events. The Iranian peoples (which included the
Persians) had military domination of Asia Minor by 540 BC.
Against this background Greek city-states began to crystallize out,
first on the mainland, then spreading to Ionia by the 7th century BC.
The change is significant because it created a sympathetic environment
for philosophical thinking and science. The city-states were ruled by
oligarchies, but oligarchies which had come to power with the consent,
and remained under the influence, of a significant proportion of the
population. Although certainly not democracies—since the group with
a say excluded women, slaves, and the poor—these states did at least
embody some kind of stability through a law invested with some
legitimacy through consent, replacing the arbitrary and volatile power
of the absolute despot. A relatively stable and increasingly prosperous
environment, and an alphabet, were opportune conditions for the rise
of scientific and philosophical speculation.
The concerns of Greek philosophy centred on perplexing problems
derived from common observation and nascent science: the one (unity)
and the many (plurality), permanence and change, reality and
appearance, existence (being) and non-existence (non-being). We
observe a world of many things over which we require a sense of its
unity into one world; we observe also a world of change and movement
beyond which we require a sense of its essential stability. Under the
heading of permanence and change comes the search for something
stable behind the restless world as it appears; something that would
either explain the apparent world, or declare it ultimately illusory. We
also observe a world containing a plurality of objects; behind this there
must be something that binds this diversity into one permanent unified
cosmos. Without such a “something”, we lack an overall and ultimate
explanation for the world. The Greek word kosmos (from which we
derive “cosmos”) implies a universe which is ordered and beautiful in
arrangement, and therefore in principle capable of explanation.
Much of Greek philosophy is an attempt to discern underlying
similarity between apparently diverse phenomena, which can act as a
common explanation of the apparently different phenomena.
Similarity is emphasized rather than difference. Thus an explanation of
why two differing phenomena occur might be derived from some
underlying factor beyond the features by which they differ. This
simplifies by eliminating the need for special explanations applicable
only to each phenomenon. This approach is one of the foundations of
modern science. To use an example from modern science: the way in
which, after being dropped from a plane, the phenomena of the falling
of a cow and of a hammer are explained does not require two special
explanations one applicable only to cows and the other only to
hammers, rather the two apparently diverse phenomena are united
under the common underlying reality that they are both physical
bodies.
There are various possibilities that ensue from the attempt to
provide a unified explanation of the phenomena of the universe in the
face of its apparent diversity:
(a) To give an account of some material stuff or substance which
underlies, and can perhaps be used to explain, all the apparent
variety.
(b) To give an account of some universal controlling law which brings
unity to the plurality of the apparent world.
(c) To assert that the world as it appears is an illusion because to be
really as it appears would be inherently contradictory, and to
deduce that the real world must be quite other than it appears.
(d) To be sceptical about our ability to provide a unifying explanation
for the world.
In the Presocratics all these possibilities—which are not of course
mutually exclusive—are considered.
Among the philosophers called Presocratics there are some minor
figures who will not be discussed. Some Presocratics probably wrote
nothing. Of the ones who did write, the amount of evidence we have
as to what they said varies greatly. Unsurprisingly, although there are
difficulties of interpretation in all cases, some are more difficult than
others.
It will be useful first to present a list of the most significant
Presocratics in the rough order in which they are usually considered
and to display the three main phases of Presocratic thought (opposite:
I= pre-Parmenidean, II=Parmenidean, III=post-Parmenidean).
Any attempt to categorize groups of Presocratic philosophers is more or
less arbitrary; the categories must emphasize similarities at the
expense of differences. The Milesians sit quite well together as a
group; although, as will be seen, Anaximander produces sufficiently
unusual views to make us doubt this grouping. Melissus is included
among the Eleatics, although he did not come from Elea, because of his
general approach and because he was probably a pupil of Parmenides.
It is customary to divide these philosophers into those from Ionia and
those from the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily. Pythagoras,
who was born in Ionia, comes under southern Italy because of his
work and influence in that area.
The customary division of Presocratic philosophy into three phases,
as above, is one of which the philosophers themselves would not have
been conscious. The first phase (I) indicates (with the exception of
Xenophanes) an optimism in the power of empirical explanation; the
second (II) denotes a period of the ascendancy of pure reason,
separated from empirical explanation and evidence; the third phase
(III) can be understood as an attempt to reconcile phases (I) and (II).
Let us now look at the Presocratics in the light of the four
approaches, (a), (b), (c), (d), given above, as possible replies which
ensue from asking the central early Greek question: how to explain, or
reconcile, the permanence (one, unity, being) required for a unifying
explanation of the universe, with the appearance of constant change
(many, plurality, becoming). Under this notion we find the following
groupings:
(a) Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Empedocles, Leucippus,
Democritus
(b) Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras
(c) Parmenides, Melissus, Zeno
(d) Xenophanes
To a great extent the guide to putting a particular philosopher in a
certain group is merely a matter of emphasis. Plainly those in (a), say,
have not only to be concerned with the basic stuff of the universe, but
also with the forces that control it, as in (b).
Pre-Parmenidean philosophers
The concept linking the Milesians is that of arche. Arche is an
explanatory concept introduced to understand the Presocratics by
Aristotle; it denotes the original and controlling stuff and first
principle of the universe, the nature of which provides an explanation
of the existing universe, and its origin, as a whole.
Very little is known of the first philosopher-scientist Thales. His
chief subject for explanation is the energy of the universe. One
answer to this is hylozoism: a view whereby everything in the
universe is to some degree animate. This does not mean that stones
are conscious, and subject to pain and desire; all-pervasive life is a
matter of wide degree. Movement is one of the most powerful
intuitive criteria for life, and Thales noticed that magnets were
capable of both being moved and moving certain other objects. In the
case of Thales the arche was water, and seems for Thales to have been
self-moving. That water should have been the arche need not surprise
us greatly since we can immediately reflect upon its life-sustaining
properties, and that, when dried out, things die. This provides an
explanation for the cosmos which dispenses with the need for ad hoc
divine intervention; it is this that marks an important step towards
rational science. But we should not think that such a view necessarily
involves atheism. Indeed, Thales believed that the world as a whole
is pervaded with a divine life-force; this accounts for the change and
variety of the world. Thales also held the view that the earth floats on
a bed of water.
The second, and the most interesting, of the Milesians is
Anaximander. Anaximander’s arche is not any ordinary material stuff,
but what he called apeiron: the infinite or indefinite. Apeiron is a
substance and principle of infinite extent and indefinite character;
because it explains all the universe it is unlimited in extent, and since
from it are evolved all qualities of things, the apeiron itself has no
qualities. Apeiron is neither hot nor cold, wet nor dry; it is
qualitatively neutral. The world as we know it is evolved from the
entirely homogeneous continuum of apeiron by a temporary local
imbalance in opposing elements of the apeiron; and this passing away
and coming to be of worlds is cyclical. Features of the world from the
original state are produced by a process of “winnowing out”, or
shaking, with like qualities gathering with like; this may involve a
doctrine of eternal motion. The controlling principle is a form of
cosmic justice, whereby if one quality gains dominance there has to
be recompense for this by an increase in the opposite quality. The
obvious problem surrounding an explanation from imbalance in
apeiron, is why any kind of imbalance should begin, given its once
homogeneous state.
Anaximander held the view that the earth does not move and is
cylindrical in shape. The doctrine of an immobile earth was to remain
a powerful force in Western cosmology until the time of Copernicus
(1473–1543) and Galileo (1564–1642). The reason for supposing that the
earth was motionless was based on the equality of forces to which it is
subject in its situation equidistant from the edges of the universe.
One of the most interesting aspects of Anaximander is his view on
biology and the origins of life, for here he held that life was derived
from the action of the sun on moist things, whereby fish developed,
and within fish adult humans were originally formed who appeared
when the fish form was shed.
Anaximenes, the last of the Milesian philosophers, presents a less
bold doctrine of arche than Anaximander, for while the arche is infinite,
Anaximenes returns to a physical substance: air. Air is in constant
motion as can be felt, but not seen, from the wind. By a process of
rarefaction and condensation air becomes visible in the forms we
recognize as fire (rarefaction) and water and stone (condensation);
through this process an account is given of how things change. The
earth is flat and rides on air, and it is surrounded by heavenly bodies,
all of which are centres of fire, but most are so distant from earth that
they provide no heat.
With Pythagoras we move to a different phase in Greek philosophy.
In the case of Pythagoras it is even more difficult than usual to
disentangle those doctrines actually originating with him from those
attributed to him by the school of Pythagoreans which appeared later
in southern Italy. Pythagoreanism is what is more important to us from
the aspect of a philosophical study.
Pythagoras, and those who called themselves his followers, fostered
a secret society who kept the doctrines of “The Master” Pythagoras
unrevealed, and also formed a political movement; this, and the
deliberately exaggerated legend woven around Pythagoras, to the
extent of the attribution of magical powers, aroused the suspicion and
derision of contemporary thinkers such as Heraclitus, Xenophanes,
and the historian Herodotus. The Pythagorean sect seems to have been
more concerned with embodying a way of life than encouraging free
inquiry. Nevertheless Pythagoras was a brilliant polymath.
The attribution to Pythagoras, or his followers, of significant
contributions to mathematics and geometry, including Pythagoras’
Theorem, is a matter of dispute among scholars. The activity of
Pythagoreans seemed to centre on an obsession with numbers, which
derived from a realization that mathematics in the form of expressions
in numbers and ratios (proportion) held the key to understanding
many disparate aspects of the world, such as musical harmony and
architectural proportion. Thus pitch in a stringed instrument may be
expressed in numbers as a proportion of total string length. In fact
there seems to be an indication that Pythagoreanism did not see
numbers merely as a means to an explanation of the world, but
thought of the world as number in some sense. The identification of
numbers and objects may have arisen from the association of numbers
with spatial configurations; the number one is a single point in space
from which other shapes are built up. If the number one is a point,
then it is a short step to identifying the number one with a material
point from which material objects are constructed by successive
addition. The number one is the point, number two the line, number
three the surface, number four the solid. An important Pythagorean
doctrine is that a line, or any object with magnitude, is infinitely
divisible, and constructed out of an unlimited number of infinitely
small magnitudes. The Pythagoreans also asserted the existence of the
void and infinite space.
The central importance of the Pythagoreans is that they saw the
essence, or real identity, of a thing as determined not by the stuff of
which it is made, but by its structure. One only has to think of cases of
the same type of object according to structure, made from different
stuff, to grasp a crude idea of the thinking here. The doctrine
concerned with numbers and structure was deeply influential on
Plato’s thinking on the Forms, and on Aristotle’s identification of
substantial individuals with matter plus form or structure. For the
Pythagoreans the structure was determined by the numerical concept
of ratio or proportion. It has been suggested that Pythagoreanism
indirectly encouraged, even if it did not found, the generation of pure,
abstract mathematics and geometry from its pragmatic origins in
Babylonia.
A major doctrine we can attribute to Pythagoras concerns the soul
and its transmigration. The soul is an immortal unity and can be
incarnated and reincarnated in a variety of living creatures; whether
the soul appears in a creature that is lowly or not is determined by the
spiritual purity of the life of that soul in a previous incarnation. Since
everything contains soul, this lent itself to an asceticism which
involved vegetarianism. The cosmological and moral doctrines were
conceived as connected; they were drawn up as displaying the
opposing values of the limited (associated with odd numbers) and the
unlimited (associated with even numbers)—the former denoted the
structured and quantitatively measurable (good), and the latter the
chaotic and irrational (bad). The view was also taken that the world
went through eternal cycles of recurrence. The Pythagoreans seem to
have been the first to suggest that the earth is spherical.
Xenophanes made his contribution to philosophy through poetry, as
did Parmenides and Empedocles, although unlike Xenophanes they
tended to use poetry merely as a vehicle for expressing their ideas;
Xenophanes was primarily a poet. He was undoubtedly aware of the
teachings of Pythagoras, as well as the Milesians. His chief interests
were not with nature directly, but with theology and questions about
the limits of human knowledge. He criticized the traditional
polytheism of Homer, mocking as absurd the unwarranted portrayal of
gods in the human image; horses would, if they could, no doubt draw
gods like horses. He opposed this view to a rational theology of
impersonal monotheism which may have been pantheistic. Although
he was probably not an absolute sceptic about knowledge, he did
indicate that, while opinion should be granted, the term “knowledge”
should be withheld from the total cosmic explanations of the Milesians.
Heraclitus is a figure who stimulates great interest partly because
his oracular pronouncements respond flexibly to a variety of
interpretations. It is possible to see the conscious influence of
Heraclitus’ ideas and manner of expression in Hegel (1770–1831) and
Nietzsche (1844–1900), although one must be cautious of foisting on
thinkers anachronistic interpretation. However, even to his
contemporaries Heraclitus had a reputation for obscurity partly
because of the oblique rhetorical way he expressed his thought, and
partly because of his deliberate eschewal of manifest systematization.
For this reason, as well as the usual problems surrounding the study of
the Presocratics, a wide variety of interpretations has emerged.
His views suggest an aristocratic contempt for the opinions of other
philosophers and the common man. His method of presenting his
ideas reflects his belief that the mode of expression needs to fit the
deep riddle of the world. Again we see the central problem as that of
reconciling change and constancy. Heraclitus adopts the Milesian
procedure of identifying an arche: fire. Knowledge can be obtained
only by combining the information provided by the senses with the
discipline of reason. Heraclitus’ famous view is that everything is in
flux; everything is a process; there is no being, only becoming. But then
the problem is to identify a concept of order in this constant change.
Heraclitus chooses fire as arche; here we have something that is in flux
while maintaining its identity; the problem of stability amidst change
in this case is solved in so far as the fire is kindled and extinguished in
equal measure. This gives the appearance of stability. Air, water, and
earth emerge in that order away from likeness to fire through the local
quenching of the world-fire.
Things come to be and pass away under the influence of a tension
of opposites; if some quality exists, then so must its opposite. The
only factor in the world order not subject to change is the logos, an
objective overall controlling force on the processes which determine
the nature of the world, which can be known only to the limited
extent to which our soul is part of the divine logos. To the extent to
which our souls are more spiritual (fiery) and less affected by bodily
moisture, we gain understanding of the cosmic logos. Sometimes
Heraclitus speaks of the logos in the abstract terms of a controlling
law of measure and proportion, at others it is apparently identified
with the cosmic fire.
A striking metaphor is presented by the bow and lyre: a bow, for
example, is apparently stable, while it is maintained in its constant
state by the equal proportion of opposite forces; the tension of the
wood of the bow opposes the equal tension of the string, resulting in a
static tension. In another example he points out that we cannot step in
the same river twice since the water is in constant flow, nevertheless
we identify it as the same river; the being of the river is maintained in
its becoming. The logos refers to a rational law whereby the existence of
a thing is maintained by the strife of pairs of opposites of equal
measure to form a harmony or unity. The cosmos is also a unity
despite appearances. Indeed, Heraclitus goes further in maintaining an
identity of opposites, citing examples like day and night where a thing
can convert to its opposite and back again; the process is an unbroken
circle. God enters Heraclitus’ cosmology as embodying all opposites,
and as the fire which is the reality behind appearances acting on the
world in accordance with the logos, which maintains an equal
proportion of opposites, so producing all things.
Parmenidean philosophers
With the Eleatic group of philosophers we reach a dramatic change in
outlook and method. The Eleatics reveal problems by a process of
pure deductive reasoning that threatens to show that the progress
made by empirical investigation into nature must be illusory; the
world as it appears cannot be real for it is riddled with intrinsic
contradictions. The Eleatic conclusions are supported by appeal to
reasoned logical argument rather than sensory evidence. By dwelling
on the concept of existence as such, deductions by reason show that
the world in the form that it appears cannot really exist for it involves
factors which contradict deductions from the concept of existence;
and where reason and experience contradict each other, reason must
oust experience.
With Eleatic philosophers we see the clear emergence of an
opposition that persists down through the whole of the subsequent
history of philosophy: whether pure reason or the senses reveal most
accurately the true nature of reality. There are those rationalists for
whom the world as it really is is discovered not by the senses but by
reason; the real nature of the world is determined by processes of pure
deductive reasoning, and if that view of the world clashes with what is
presented by the senses, then what is presented by the senses must be
discounted as mere appearance in favour of the world as it really is
according to reason. In contrast, for the empiricists only the senses can
determine the true nature of the world, if it can be determined at all,
and the other supposed true reality of the rationalist, which is likely to
be radically different from the world as it appears, will generally be
regarded as illusion.
Parmenides was a pupil of Xenophanes, and influenced by
Pythagoras; some of what he says sounds like a direct attack on the
doctrine of all-pervading becoming found in Heraclitus. The work of
Parmenides is divided into two parts: the “Way of Truth”, and the
“Way of Seeming”. The second part, the “Way of Seeming”, provides
speculations on nature in the usual Ionian manner. Yet he seems to
have taken this second part as merely a pragmatic addition, which is
ultimately false, to the truth about the world given in the first part. The
“Way of Seeming” is false, but has pragmatic value in being designed
for dealing with the world as it seems, in contrast with the truth about
the world given in the “Way of Truth”.
Parmenides’ argument proceeds from the premise that “It is”: that
something exists. The only two alternatives to this are posed: (a) to
deny “It is” and assert that there is nothing—this view has had no
defenders, and (b) to assert both “It is” and “It is not”. The exhaustive
choice is between “It is” and “It is not”. Non-existence (“It is not”) is
meaningless, for then we are committed to saying of “It” both that “It
is” and that “It is not” which, being a self-contradiction, cannot be
formulated as a thought. What cannot be thought cannot exist, and
what “is not” cannot enter our thoughts, therefore the existence of
non-existence is impossible, being self-contradictory. For something to
be thought of and spoken of (recognized) it must exist; it is not
possible to speak or think of what is not there—a nothing. Thus what
exists, despite the deliverances of our senses, must always have existed
as a continuous, unchanging, timeless, indivisible unity. Change and
diversity involve the positing of “It is not”—nothing (non-existence)
existing—which is contradictory and so impossible.
This view reconciles the problem of the one and the many by
demonstrating that the appearance of many is impossible as a
reality; permanence is also reconciled with change by denying
change. Thus what is is one and cannot change. Coming to be and
passing away are impossible. Change and plurality involve
becoming; a process from something that is, to something else that
is, involves a something becoming a nothing, and a nothing
becoming a something; but nothing cannot exist and something
cannot come from nothing; and if something comes from
something, then what is must already always have existed.
Therefore all change and plurality are impossible; apparent change
and plurality presented to our senses are an illusion. There is no
void (vacuum), just unbroken existence (plenum) that does not
admit of degrees, in which, obviously, movement is impossible; a
void would mean non-being, which means non-existence, but nonbeing
cannot be (exist). Reality is totally immobile. There is no
kosmos for Parmenides, for kosmos implies structure, and in a true
plenum there can be no structure.
The influence of Parmenides can hardly be overestimated; through
the respect held for him by Plato he came to affect the course of
Western philosophy. (The denial of a void is still found in Descartes
(1596–1650)). From Parmenides grew the Platonic metaphysical and
epistemological doctrine that what can be known must be real, and
what is real, eternal and unchanging cannot be the unstable world
given by experience. There must be objects of knowledge to match the
immutable status of knowledge proper. From this grew scepticism of
empirical knowledge, so that knowledge is taken to apply truly only to
mathematics, geometry, and deductive reasoning.
Melissus was a follower of Parmenides and produced some further
arguments supporting the absolutely unitary nature of reality as
described by Parmenides. His only serious disagreement involved
saying that reality must be infinite in space as well as infinite in time.
For the question could be raised as to what lay beyond the finite
sphere of Parmenidean reality. Parmenides took reality to be a finite
sphere because of the necessity for perfection and completeness. It has
been suggested that the finitude of Parmenidean reality is such as to
rule out the sense of the question “What lies outside the sphere?”. But
this was not to be understood until the conflicting conceptions of space
proposed by Newton (1642–1727) and Einstein (1879–1955)—in
particular whether space was Euclidean or non-Euclidean—reached
some kind of resolution.
Further support for Parmenides came from Zeno. There is good
evidence from Plato to suggest that both Parmenides and Zeno met
Socrates. Zeno’s deductive arguments produce absurd conclusions
derived from taking the world of apparent plurality (divisible), change
and motion as real; the only alternative must be that reality is a
Parmenidean changeless unity. The apparent world cannot be the real
world because analysis of the consequences of its features, if supposed
as real, leads to paradox, contradiction and absurdity. There is also an
opinion that a target for Zeno’s attacks was the Pythagorean thesis that
things with magnitude consist of a plurality of infinitesimal
magnitudes.
The arguments of Zeno divide into two parts: (a) The paradoxes of
plurality, (b) The paradoxes of motion. Each time Zeno’s aim in the
arguments is to elicit a contradiction from the necessary conditions for
plurality and motion. He uses a variety of arguments which have the
general form that, from some proposition p about apparent reality,
both q and then not-q are deduced, which reveals the absurdity of p,
supposing p to be real.
(a) The paradoxes of plurality
(1) Limb (i): If there are many things, then things are infinitely small—
things have no magnitude.
Limb (ii): If there are many things, then things are infinitely
large—things have unlimited magnitude.
Limb (i): If there are many things, there must be a definite
number of things. Otherwise all distinction between one and
many is lost. If the number of things is definite, there must be
some ultimate parts which are indivisible. If they are indivisible,
they cannot have size, for size implies divisibility. Everything is
therefore made up of parts with no magnitude. But then no
matter how many—even an infinite number—of the infinitely
small parts are summed together, they must still add up to
something infinitely small.
Limb (ii): What exists must have size. Something with size can be
added to, or subtracted from, something else; something that
could not add to or subtract from something else would be
nothing. Whatever has size must be divisible; and whatever is
divisible once must be made up of parts that are always divisible;
each part, no matter how small, must have some size, and hence
be divisible. Everything is made up of an infinite number of parts,
all with some magnitude, therefore everything must be infinitely
large.
(2) Limb (i): If there are many things, then they must be finite in
number.
Limb (ii): If there are many things, then they must be infinite in
number.
Limb (i): If there are many things, they must be countable, for there
must be some number that is exactly how many things there are;
no more and no less. Then the number of things must be finite or
limited in number.
Limb (ii): If there are many things, then they must be separate.
Between any juxtaposed but separate items, no matter how close
they are, there must be another item; but then there must be some
item separating that item, and so on ad infinitum. So the number of
things must be unlimited.
(3) One further argument is worth mentioning. If the small grains or
parts of millet make no noise when dropped on the ground, how
can it be the case that when the sum of these, a bushel of millet, is
dropped, it does make a sound?
(b) The paradoxes of motion
(1) Motion is impossible because to traverse any distance it is first
necessary to travel half the distance; but before that it is necessary
to travel half of half the distance. Since there is an infinite number
of such subdivisions in any distance, it is not possible to traverse
any distance, or even take the first step.
(2) Achilles and the Tortoise. In a race, despite Achilles being the
quicker runner, if he gives the Tortoise any head-start at all, he can
never overtake, or even catch up with, the Tortoise. For no matter
how fast Achilles runs, by the time Achilles reaches the point
where the Tortoise was when Achilles set out, the Tortoise will
always have moved on. Achilles would have to pass through an
infinite number of points where the Tortoise was before catching
the Tortoise, which is impossible.
(3) The flying arrow. An arrow in flight is also stationary, for at any
instance it occupies a definite position by filling a volume of space
equal to itself.
(4) The stadium. In a stadium there are three rows of men who first
stand next to one another, first in one position, then in another
position.
Row A is stationary while row B and row C move simultaneously
in opposite directions at the same velocity. B4
passes A3 to reach A4 in the same time as it takes B4 to pass C1 , C2 , C3
, and reach C4 .
But bodies travelling at the same velocity must take the same time to
pass the same number of bodies of the same size. Here twice the
distance was covered in the same time as half the distance. Or
alternatively, half of a given time is equal to the whole of that time.
These arguments are meant to support Parmenides’ thesis that the
world is one and full—a plenum—and therefore incapable of division,
motion, or change. This leaves the senses as a source only of illusion
and falsehood, since the world as it seems to be according to the senses
is impossible and so cannot be real.
Only a few brief remarks can be made on the replies to Zeno’s
arguments. Some mathematicians and logicians have thought Zeno’s
arguments of great subtlety, with the solutions forthcoming only with
the invention of calculus. Aristotle thought some of the fallacies easy
to spot, saying that in the case of the stadium row A is stationary, so
that rows B and C move with twice the relative velocity to each other
as compared to rows B with A, or C with A. Others have thought
Aristotle’s reply unsatisfactory. Still further problems are created if the
change from the two positions is instantaneous, for then there is no
time in which the extra men can be passed; this may lead us to
conclude that time cannot consist of indivisible instances. It has been
pointed out, in reply to the Achilles and the Tortoise case, and similar
arguments, that an infinite series such as ½+¼+⅛+…has the finite sum
1. This too is thought to be a mistaken reply by some: since the first
step can never be taken, the series can never begin.
The intellectual situation in Presocratic philosophy now stood like
this, (a) One could accept the views of the Eleatics and give up the
attempt to explain the world as revealed by the senses; (b) one could
accept the Eleatic view, but try to reconcile it with traditional Ionian
empirical explanation and knowledge of the world (Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, Leucippus, Democritus); (c) one could accept the Eleatic
position but take the view that, although we can have knowledge only
of a world behind and other than appearances, we can have opinion
about the world of appearances, and that world is not a mere nothing;
at the same time major concern would shift, with Socrates and Plato,
from the investigation of nature to that of ethics, meaning, and
epistemology.
Post-Parmenidean philosophers
Taking up the challenge of Parmenides to give some place to the world
as it appears in reality is the remarkable figure of Empedocles. His
surviving work consists of two poems, On nature and Purifications.
Roughly, the first deals with science, and the second with myth and
soul; but the distinction is not clear-cut intellectually nor certain in the
assignment of certain passages to one poem or the other. The poems
are a flawed union of reason, represented to the Greeks by Apollo,
with the mystical vision of Dionysus.
Empedocles accepts the Parmenidean view that the world is a
plenum, that there is no void, and that nothing in the world could
really come into being or be destroyed. But he still maintains that
change is possible within the essential imperishable “all” of the
universe; the basic substance of the cosmos is immutable, but change
occurs through the various interminglings (mixtures) within the
plenum. The limitless cosmos is not a unity but a variously mixed
plurality of imperishable elements. The Presocratic problem of the
one and the many is circumvented by establishing many (four)
Parmenidean “ones” in the reality underlying the appearance of
many.
Knowledge through the use of the senses is possible if they are
used properly. The basic stuff of the world is four “roots” or
elements: earth, water, air, fire. These four archai are equal and
immutable. They mix to create all that there is by the virtue of the
opposing forces of Love and Strife. It must be recognized that the
cosmos is seen as organic; Empedocles adopts a form of hylozoism,
that is, all things are to some degree endowed with life. Love and
Strife are active forces within the world which elicit change from
things.
The world is adjusted according to the relative dominance of the
principles of Love or Strife (attraction and repulsion); this applies
both to local areas of the cosmos and to the cosmos as a whole. Within
the universe as a whole the process operates in great cyclical epochs.
When Love is dominant either locally or globally there is progression
towards order and a harmonious blending of the basic elements;
when Strife is dominant there is progression towards dissonance of
the elements and separation. Strife attracts like to like, thus pulling
the mixed elements apart by pulling like elements together; Love
attracts unlike to unlike, thus pulling the dissimilar elements together.
Within the cosmos where Strife is in overall dominance it is possible
to find local areas of harmonious Love, and the reverse is also the
case. Empedocles in fact believed he lived in a period of increasing
overall Strife.
The development of the world proceeds in four stages in a neverending
cycle; it is therefore incorrect to say the cycle starts
anywhere. To begin somewhere: in the first stage Love rules, and
the world is a homogeneous sphere of fully blended unlike
elements; in the second stage there is a movement from the rule of
Love towards that of Strife, during which time the elements begin
to separate out like to like; in the third stage Strife rules and the
four elements are in separate masses; in the fourth stage the rule of
Love begins to gain over Strife and the elements begin to coalesce or
fuse unlike to unlike. The cycle is thus completed. Our world is in
fact stage two. For the sake of the coherence of this view it is
perhaps necessary to admit the first and fourth stages as only
momentary watersheds; without this it is impossible to see what
could be the engine of change producing destabilization at these
times.
There is a biological counterpart to this development which occurs
during the transitions between the absolute rule of Love and that of
Strife and back again. During the time of Love increasing over Strife,
disunited limbs are formed which are gradually brought together by
Love, but in monstrous forms. During the time of Strife gaining over
Love, “whole-natured forms” arise which are undifferentiated by sex
as is the case with plants; this leads on to our own stage where there is
differentiation by sex and there is great variety of animate life.
Particularly obvious in the first parts of this evolution is the
elimination of unviable life forms which are unable either to nurture or
to reproduce themselves.
Empedocles explains sensation as a physical interaction. In vision,
particles emitted (effluences) from objects fit or fail to fit pores of a
certain shape in the eye; this allows the interaction between the
element entering the sense organ and the same element within us
required for perception. This also accounts for chemical interactions;
for example the failure to mix of oil and water. Perception is effected
by the balance of elements within the faculty of cognition—like
perceiving like. Thought is physical; men think with the blood, and
thought is upset by changes in the elements constituting it.
In the Purifications the mythical story of man presented by
Empedocles is that of the Fall: men are fallen from a higher state of
bliss and a golden age when Love was stronger, and the spirit wanders
in exile clothed in different physical forms—plants, animals, humans—
journeying from a lowly state towards the gods. The soul (psyche—
distinguishing animate from inanimate) is a microcosm, some
combination of the four basic elements. The spirit (daimon) is a further
divine non-physical element by which we approach the gods.
Empedocles gives an account of human biology, including
reproduction, in some detail.
With Anaxagoras we also find a philosopher who accepts the
Eleatic argument for the absolute conservation of being (no nonbeing)
in reality, but for whom, nevertheless, motion and change are
possible. Anaxagoras adopts the interesting thesis that there are no
particular basic elements, but that there is an unlimited number of
eternal stuffs. The multitudinous stuffs of the world were originally
combined in one completely mixed mass, which separated out once
and for all under the motive force of the cosmos, Mind (Nous:
Intellect), which is non-material and infinite. Mind sets things in
order, and is the only thing separated out from the stuffs of the
world. At the beginning of the cosmos Mind starts the separation out
of stuffs by initiating rapid cosmic rotation, causing the cosmos to
grow in size; from then on mechanical causation controls change
except where Mind animates living things. Heavier stuffs collect at
the centre of the vortex, lighter stuffs tend toward the outer edge. The
general process accords with the Ionian tradition. Since every stuff
and quality were in the original mix, it is not necessary in explaining
the world to contradict the Parmenidean principle prohibiting
creation or destruction of what is.
The senses are misleading as to the true nature of the world;
knowledge is possible only through the understanding contributed by
Mind.
Matter is infinitely divisible; a further interesting twist to this
thesis is that every stuff contains a mix of all stuffs. One of the stuffs
is predominant, which gives things their particular character; thus
“gold” names that stuff in which gold is predominant. But there can
be no pure stuffs. Change occurs when the predominant stuff alters
in the remixing of stuffs. The world is built from “seeds” of
qualitatively determinate imperceptible stuff, which are not,
however, indivisible, and of course themselves still contain a portion
of every other stuff.
The combination of an unlimited number of stuffs of unlimited
divisibility stands as a direct denial of the conclusions of Zeno; but this
does not involve the absurdity of supposing either the unlimited size
or unlimited smallness of everything. A thing with an unlimited
number of possible divisions always has elements of a determinate
size, and can have a finite magnitude.
Leucippus and Democritus are usually considered together because
we know almost nothing about Leucippus, although from one
remaining fragment we gather that he espoused atomism and may
even have been its originator. There is a considerable amount of
information on the atomists. The atomic conception of the world as
consisting of ultimate indivisible and indestructible particles moving
in a void has appeared at intervals repeatedly until the beginning of
the twentieth century. So the importance of the Presocratic atomists is
immense.
The atomists set out to reconcile an explanation of the empirical
world with the arguments of the Eleatics banning the positing of the
real destruction or creation of being, or the reality of change and
motion. So every atom has Parmenidean being and moves in the
void (nothingness). The atomists’ conception is the exact opposite
of Anaxagoras’ and is the genesis of the contrast between
explanations which are teleological (purposive) and those which are
mechanistic, involving the distinction of primary and secondary
qualities. In atomism, ultimate atomic constituents have no intrinsic
qualities except size, shape and motion, and they are not divisible.
The ultimate constituents are a-tomic: literally cannot be cut. We
move from Anaxagoras’ world, brimfull of colour, heat, sound,
taste, to a world which is in its ultimate real constituents not even
grey, but colourless; only derivatively are the “subjective” qualities
such as colour experienced owing to the causal effect on us of
atoms.
The atomists took the view that atoms had only what were later
called objective, “primary qualities”: size, shape, motion; “secondary
qualities”, colour, heat and the others, are subjective—that is,
dependent on the experiencing subject—and derived as causal effects
on us from the hooking together and rebounding of certain
combinations of atoms. The ceaseless motion envisaged does not
require a cause, or entail an animistic cosmos, because it has always
been present; eternal motion is an inherent characteristic of matter.
These views led eventually to the modern mechanics of Galileo, and
later Newton, which emerged from the 1,500 years of dominance by
Aristotle, who tended to close the gap between appearance and
reality. In a view like that of the atomists’, which holds both time and
space to be infinite, there is time and space enough for our world to
have come into being by chance. What forms and events occur are, in
fact, determined and depend on the behaviour of the atoms, the
action of like drawn to like, and the determinations of size, shape,
and weight.
The atomist theory of perception and thought is physicalist
(materialist): bodies give off layers or films of atoms, and differently
shaped atoms produce, by impinging on us, differently experienced
qualitative effects. Soul, like fire, consists of particular small round
atoms which can move easily throughout the body. The soul is
dispersed after death, and part of the aim of the atomists was to free
men of the superstitious fearful belief in an afterlife which might
involve punishment.
In one way atomism tends to lead to paradox. The aim of atomism
was to counter Eleatic views in providing an account and explanation
of the empirical world—the world as it appears to the senses—rather
than arguing that the apparent nature of its existence is simply
contradictory and thus totally illusory and unreal; however, the
atomist view leads to a scepticism about knowledge of the world, for
the real nature of the ultimate constituents of the world can only be
postulated, as they are in principle unobservable. The atomic theory
provides an explanation of the world of our experiences only by being
an explanation beyond empirical confirmation. The senses do not
ultimately reveal the real nature of the world; the best that can be said
is that the empirical world functions as if atomism were true. But the
next step from this is epistemological scepticism. The atomists attempt
to avoid this by saying that sensation can take us a certain way, then
rational thought is required to penetrate into the deep nature of the
world; and it may be that this slide from sensation to intellection is a
matter of degree, not a difference in kind. Thus there is no logically
necessary appearance/reality (phenomenon/noumenon) distinction;
the inability to sense atoms directly is a contingent and not a logical
necessity.
There is an additional problem for the atomists. Are the atoms
theoretically indivisible, or only physically indivisible because of
their smallness and absolute density (impenetrability)? If the atoms
are not theoretically divisible, then this conflicts with the assertion
that the atoms have size and shape; if they are theoretically
divisible (just not physically so), then the original Eleatic arguments
against infinite divisibility apply. Despite the difficulties, it seems
that theoretical indivisibility (possession of Parmenidean oneness)
must be asserted if the atomists’ position is to retain its full force.
Post-Parmenidean philosophers 19
What the atomists themselves thought is open to scholarly
disagreement.
Much later in the history of Greek thought atomism appears in the
quietistic scientific and moral teachings of Epicurus (341–270 BC),
which in turn were given memorable poetic exposition by Lucretius
(c.100–c.55 BC).
continued to ...