Pre-Socratics 1
Exotic Journeys: A Tourist's Guide to Philosophy
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Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
Minnesota State University, Mankato
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Pre-Socratics 1 - Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras
Pre-Socratics 2 - Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea
Pre-Socratics 3 - Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Atomists, Sophists
The Pre-Socratics
Topics
Reading the Pre-Socratics
Thales and the Milesians
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pythagoras
I probably do not grant the Pre-Socratic philosophers their full due. I tend to view them as a brief, curious prelude to the grander work of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
The Pre-Socratics present the problem that most of their writings have been lost. We are left with limited fragments of their work plus usually brief secondary sources. So it takes an elaborate scholarly reconstruction to recapture their thought in any depth; and the reconstructions can be limited in scope and cogency or can provoke controversy―because there is such a small base of data to work with. Accordingly, for myself, I prefer to settle for a basic understanding of the ideas and to recognize the philosophical significance of each of the major Pre-Socratics. But I save my most extensive and best efforts in understanding Ancient Western Philosophy for the work that begins with Socrates. The treatment of the Pre-Socratic philosophers here reflects my limited interests.
Yet I cannot deny that the Pre-Socratics introduce fundamental ideas that constantly recur in the history of western philosophy or that they provide nourishing seeds for the philosophical work of Plato and Aristotle. Numerous philosophers (and scientists) have drawn inspiration from their ideas. And I grant that the reconstruction of their philosophical positions presents interesting scholarly puzzles and solutions―which evoke my admiration for the scholars who pursue them.
We might expect to find the origins of Ancient Western Philosophy in Athens, the cultural center of the Greek world. It happens however that the origins lie elsewhere, in Greek colonies in Asia Minor and Italy. A map of the ancient Greek world is available. Eventually, philosophers gravitated toward Athens and Socrates as well as Plato were native Athenians. In search of origins though, we begin with Thales of Miletus.
Thales and the Milesians
Thales (c. 630 - 546 B.C.E.)
Thales was renowned for his wisdom. He had knowledge of astronomy and geometry, where he acquired considerable fame for predicting an eclipse. He also could be a shrewd business man, having once acquired a monopoly in olive oil futures when he expected a particularly good olive harvest. He left no writings.
Major Doctrines
1. Animism
a. All things have souls.
b. Nature is a living process.
2. Basic Stuff in Nature
Thales concluded that the basic stuff in nature was Water, which is also interpretable more generally as the liquid or the moist. This may seem to be a weird conclusion nowadays. But the twentieth century British philosopher, R. G. Collingwood, in his The Idea of Nature, offered several possible justifications for Thales' conclusion:
a. Water is necessary for all life.
b. Water is extremely important in a dry climate.
c. Water is the only substance commonly found in three forms—solid, liquid, and gas.
d. Water was basic to the important phenomena of evaporation and rainfall.
e. Rivers such as the Nile produced the sedimentation that made land fertile for growing crops.
f. The earth was thought to be floating on water.
Philosophical Significance
a. Thales appealed to nature rather than myth or religion to understand existence―thereby generally getting credit for initiating western philosophy.
b. He sought a unifying principle, or basic stuff, to explain difference and change in nature.
Anaximander (611 - 547 B.C.E.)
Anaximander was a student of Thales. He wrote one book (now lost) that was still extant in the generation after Aristotle.
Major Doctrines
1. Argument Against Thales' Position
Water (what is cold and wet) has an opposite, fire (what is hot and dry); But a substance cannot generate its opposite and still be primary. Hence there must be something more basic from which the two opposites arise.
2. Basic Stuff in Nature
Anaximander fixed upon The Boundless (apeiron, Indeterminate, Infinite, Eternal) as the basic stuff in nature. He held that:
a. Everything develops from The Boundless and returns to it.
b. Vortices (rotatory motions) arise in The Boundless to bring about change.
c. The Boundless is capable of producing innumerable worlds.
Scientific Views
1. Shape of the Earth
The earth was cylindrical (like a tamborine) and floating in air.
2. Crude Theory of Evolution
Since human beings require lengthy suckling when young, they could not have survived if they were always as they are now. Hence human beings first arose from the inside of fishes.
a. Qualifications: Anaximander seems to suggest that human beings were in the fish. And he apparently did not think all animals evolved from sea life.
Philosophical Significance
Anaximander recognized that the basic stuff must be more fundamental than any determinate substance in nature.
Anaximenes (6th century, B.C.E.)
Anaximenes had a higher reputation than Anaximander in the ancient world. He had one book that was widely read.
Basic Doctrines
1. Basic Stuff in Nature
Anaximenes argued that Air (which he treated like a substance) was the basic stuff in nature. Everything that exists can be explained in terms of condensation and rarefaction of air―for example, a solid body is due to heavy condensation. He held that:
a. Condensation and rarefaction can be investigated quantitatively.
b. Air provided a way of resolving the difficulty raised by Anaximander against Thales—that is, by viewing air as an underlying stuff that takes on opposites.
c. Air as the basic stuff avoided the vague concept of The Boundless.
d. Breath/human beings = wind/world
e. Temperature can be associated with condensation (lower) and rarefaction (higher).
f. Cold and heat, moisture and motion make air visible.
2. Scientific View
He envisioned a flat earth suspended in air.
Philosophical Significance
a. He suggested there was a quantitative basis for qualitative properties.
b. He took a step in distinguishing substance from quality (for example, cold and heat make air visible).
Reading the Pre-Socratics
For the most part, we have only fragments of the actual writings of Pre-Socratic philosophers. Much of our understanding of their work comes from the accounts of others—for example, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus (a major pupil of Aristotle), and Diogenes Laertius. The German scholar Hermann Diels (late nineteenth century) developed what has come to be the standard collection of fragments—in his Die Fragmente der Vorsocratiker (1903). Later presentations of fragments produce some variations on Diels’ work.
Collections of Pre-Socratic Writings
The readings I include for the Pre-Socratics website here are taken from Charles M. Bakewell’s Sourcebook in Ancient Philosophy (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907.) His Sourcebook contains older translations; but it also resides in the public domain and presents no copyright problems.
There are some other works with a fuller selection of fragments than Bakewell:
John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (New York: Macmillan Company, 1930), 4th edition.
G. S. Kirk and J. E. Raven, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957).
John Mansley Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1968).
My Sources
For my own understanding of the Pre-Socratics, I relied heavily on the following over the years:
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1925), 2 vols.
I must admit that I often turn to Diogenes Laertius for comic relief as he recounts amazing tales of the lives of ancient philosophers. I especially enjoy bizarre stories about their deaths. More needs to be said though. D.L. is an ancient source (having lived perhaps in the third century, C.E.) who also includes worthwhile, often reliable information about the philosophical views of ancient philosophers. In some cases, he is our best ancient source for some philosophers―for example, the views of Aristippus and the writings of Epicurus.
John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (mentioned above).
This was my usual starting point for the fragmented writings of the Pre-Socratics.
W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962 - 1969), Vols. I-III.
Guthrie's excellent, thorough volumes were my deeper source for a scholarly reconstruction of Pre-Socratic philosophy.
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy: Volume I, Greece and Rome (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1946).
R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960)
I found an enlightening explanation of many of the Pre-Socratics in the first fifty-five pages of Collingwood's book (first published in 1945).
Other Sources
A. A. Long, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
This collection of essays takes into account more recent scholarship; and the book has an extensive bibliography.
Edward Hussey, The Pre-Socratics (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972).
Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, ed., The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Anchor Books, 1974).
Internet Links
Prof. Fred W. Wilson, Rochester Institute of Technology
http://www.rit.edu/~flwstv/presocratic.html
Pythagoras (c. 582 - c. 507 B.C.E.)
Life and Savory Info
Pythagoras was born in Samos in Asia Minor but migrated to Croton in southern Italy where there were Greek colonies. (See map.) He attracted a group of followers who acquired some political power. And Pythagoras became the leader of a mystery cult.
a. Little is known about his life and he left no writings. Whether the doctrines attributed to him were his own or of group origin (perhaps after his death) is not clear. At any rate, there came to be a Pythagorean philosophy.
b. The Mystery (Mystic) Cult apparently advanced a set of rules for living that were enigmatic in themselves but had a quite practical interpretation. Below you will find a list of some of the rules, along with the suggested practical interpretation.
1) Abstain from beans =? Abstain from politics (Black and white beans were used
for voting in some Greek cities).
2) Do not look in a mirror beside a torch =? Seek not truth in human inventions.
3) Stir not fire with a sword =? Do not intensify quarrels.
4) Decline the highways; take the footpaths =? Do not seek notoriety.
5) Speak not, turned towards the sun =? Do not tell everything to everybody.
c. Diogenes Laertius, in his Lives of Eminent Philosophers, offers curious legends about Pythagoras' death―some of them focused on beans, interestingly enough. According to one story, when some inhabitants of Croton, fearing the establishment of a dictatorship, attacked his group, they chased and then caught up with him (because he refused to cross a field of beans), slitting his throat. According to another story, the Pythagoreans were fighting for Agrigentum in a war against Syracuse (see map) and Pythagoras was killed trying to avoid a bean field.
Main Doctrines
1. The Soul
The Pythagoreans believed in the transmigration of the soul and in the need for the purification of the soul (somewhat like the transmigration and purification of the soul described in the Phaedo, 80 - 84). The soul is seen as a form separable from the body.
2. Mathematics and Nature
The doctrine most closely associated with the Pythagoreans however holds that mathematics is the key to understanding nature. Their strong interest in mathematics ranged from the study of mathematics itself to music to science to numerology.
a. They observed that qualitative differences among musical notes depend upon rates of vibrations and lengths of strings; hence qualitative differences depend upon mathematical proportions. This, in turn, led to some inferences about harmony:
1) Harmony is dependent upon numbers.
2) Music brings harmony to the soul and purifies it.
3) The whole universe is brought into harmony by number.
4) Persons should be in harmony with the universe.
b. The earth inhales from the boundless and applies limits to the indeterminate through number.
c. All things are numbers.
1) The interpretation of this statement is not always clear.
2) Numbers can generate geometrical figures and hence the figures of things:
1 → point
2 → line
3 → surface
4 → solid
3) Numbers can be associated with human life:
4 → justice (Justice is "foursquare"?)
3 or 5 → marriage
7 → opportunity 7.
Philosophical Significance
a. Pythagoras (or the Pythagoreans) introduced exact quantitative studies to the understanding of nature—the origin, in effect, of mathematical physics.
b. Pythagoras (or the Pythagoreans) stressed the importance of form over the basic stuff or substratum—that is, the concept of number as form imposed on some primal stuff.
Philolaus (late 5th century, B.C.)
Philolaus was a noted Pythagorean, best known for displacing the earth from the center of the universe, holding that the earth and sun revolve around a central fire. According to John Burnet in Early Greek Philosophy, he argued that things have number as opposed to saying that things are numbers.