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Introduction
I. Philosophy (xvii)
A. attempt to understand nature
B. Greek science
1. found nature more complicated than expected
C. Greek science becomes philosophy
1. discovered it was necessary to study science itself
A. method
II. Science
A. underlying visible changes in nature
1. underlying material "stuff" in process
B. problem
1. nature of material
a. water, air, or fire
2. change it is subject too
a. evaporation, silting-up, etc
3. clarification
a. assumptions concerning change
1. ambiguous
b. problematic questions
1. something passes through change
2. how is the one real "stuff" related to its appearances
c. early answers
1. contradicted each other
a. lead to skepticism about rezones, use
III. Parallel development (xviii)
A. conduct
B. social movement from feudalism to the "new rich"
1. chivalric ideal of honor
a. replaced by passion as justification for everything
2. natural science
a. if world a purely natural process, then where does morality fit
C. Last quarter of fifth century after world war
1. social trends achieved greatest intensity
2. Zeus
a. dethroned
b. replaced by Whirlwind as king
3. primary philosophical question
a. how to rehabilitate belief in the existence of an objective moral order and public truth derived from reason
4. necessity
a. resolve paradoxes
1. change
2. one and many
3. appearance and reality
b. confronting sophists
5. two major solutions
a. each influenced subsequent thought
b. solutions
1. atomism
2. theory of forms
c atomism
1. universe
a. without purpose
b. collection of small particles
1. differ quantitatively
d. theory of forms
1. Plato
a. Forms
1. super sensory
2. relation to sense experience without clear explanation
2. Aristotle
a. wanted to deal with Plato's lack of clarity
1. introduced individual substance
a. amalgam of form and matter; achievement and possibility
3 both Plato and Aristotle
a. universe purposive not just mechanical
IV. Philosophers after 5th century war and prior to Alexander
A. all strove toward reason as basis of conduct
1. rational
a. long-range happiness
1. attainable through
a. active life of
1. personal culture
2. public achievement
2. limited to
a. small elite
1. capacity and leisure to pursue
V. after Alexandrian Empire falls
A. negative ideals re-emerge
1. apathy
2. passivity
B. Roman Empire
1. arrested fall of classical culture
2. enabled
a. Stoics
1. develop a social theory
2. failed
C. barbarians
1. completed decay of classicism
2. led to re-establishment of a centralized deity
VI. contemporary times (xix)
A. Classicism remains an ideal
1. difference
a. Greeks
1. contemplation is end in itself and secular
b. contemporary
1. knowledge is instrument for changing the world, and is also secular
Pre-Socratic Philosophy
I. Beginning of a history of philosophy (p.1)
A. sixth century
1. Thales
a. father of Greek philosophy
II. history of philosophy itself
A. no definitive start
B. Blended
1. despite lack of records
2. gradual change
a. mythic to philosophical
3. continuum
C. early thought (p. 2)
1. trying to find explanations
a. criteria
1. crude
D. later thought
1. still somewhat anthropomorphic
III. prelude to Thales
A. Homer' s Iliad
B. Hesiod
IV. Homer
A. Iliad
1. brief moment of Trojan war
2. dispute
A. between
1. Agamemnon
2. Achilles
B. over
1. a woman
3. Achilles
a. loses woman
b. stops taking part in the war
1. causes Greek losses
c. Odysseus
1. Tells Achilles
a. man needs strength but also moderation
d. phoenix
1. old tutor of Achilles
a. tame temper and be a man of action and a find speaker
2. Achilles is too proud
e. lack of reason
1. leads to catastrophe
a. Patroclus dies (p.3)
b. Achilles avenges Patroclus by killing Hector who killed Patroclus
4. Zeus for Homer
a. not omnipotent
b. harassed by wife, children, and relatives
1. like a human father
B. Homer's Greek state
1. in principle
a. monarchial
1. kink not absolute
2. public opinion of
a. warriors and nobles limited royal prerogative
3. not limited in modern sense
a. powers of ruler and ruled
1. not clearly defined in writing or constitutional practice
4. king can over rule public opinion
5. king not subject to law
a. law
1. not conceived as a body of rules affecting everyone
C. Homer and nature
1. not systematic (p.4)
2. focused on the unpredictable (p.3)
a. gods responsible (p.4)
1. Zeus ultimately responsible
a. impulsive
3. gods interference (p.5)
a. often capricious
b. some has rational
1. examples
a. punishment
1. Achilles
a. lack of moderation in his wrath
b. hubris
1. insubordination
c. moderation hubris
1. related
a. the immoderate man became an insubordinate man
2. never fails to be punished by gods
4. gods for Homer
a. does not suggest
1. divine rules are good for man
2. gods are ideals to be emulated
b. characteristics
1. impetuous, egotistical, lustful, selfish, dishonest, etc.
2. Homeric heroes are superior
c. gods are worshiped because they are powerful (more so than man)
d. worship
1. business transaction
e. causal agent
1. responsible for
a. regular order of events
b. interruptions of order
f. above gods
1. fate
a. blind inscrutable will
b. Homer finding way towards causal order (p.6)
1. non-purposive in nature
c. before causal order order could be attained
1. one order as moral law pertaining to gods and man had to be achieved
V. Hesiod
A. period
1. 8th century probably
2. reflected
a. economic difficulties facing small farmers
1. choice
a. serfdom
b. emigration
B. may have been a small farmer
1. wrote against nobles oppressing the poor
a. Works and Days
1. how brother Persus bribed an official in order to steal Hesiod's inheritance from father
b. vision
1. correct noble's abuses
2. Zeus
a. not hot headed
b. created justice
1. sooner or later wold win out
C. Homer
1. justice
a. against man who set himself up as equal to the gods or superior
b. warrior code
1. worst offense
a. insubordination
D. Hesiod
1. moral code
a. expressed sentiments of lower class
b. worst offence
1. oppression of weak by strong
E. Hesiod's sanctions
1. Homer
a. a capricious acts of Zeus depending on relative with his attention
2. Zeus
a. moral integrity to choose
b. power of enforcement
c. operation of law
1. regular
2. completely certain
3. took over old notion of fate
a. refinement
1. rejected indiference to humanity
2. became pervasive moral law
F. Works and Days (p.7)
1. typical Greek view
a. man stands apart from nature
b. obligation
1. live in a human way
a. do certain acts
b. abstain from other acts
c. coupled
1. pride in being human
2. responsibility
d. unique
1. did not feel obligated to obey a divine overlord's commands
G. another key concept
1. moderation
a. particularly human trait
b. inner discipline (p.8)
c. self-restraint
d. when ignored
1. punishment sooner or later
e. not in hands of arbitrary or temperamental god
f. uniform force operating through nature
H. concept of moral law
1. still anthropomorphic
I. Theogony
1. origin or genealogy of the gods as told in myths
a. Webster's New World Dictionary
2. describes origins of the gods and process by which the world came to be
III. Thales
A. Home (p.8)
1. Miletus
a. Greek colony in Ionia
1. coast of Asia
B. unique achievement
1. possibly predicted an eclipse
a. calculated by modern astronomer as having occurred in 585 B.C.
C. Aristotle
1. lived about 250 years later
2. indicated Thales believed
a. water is the cause of all things
b. all things are filled with gods
D. Thales' concepts
1. indicated that the world process was natural
E. Cosmogony
1. the origin or generation of the universe
a. Webster's New World Dictionary
2. not yet a science
a. could develop into a science
3. not a genealogy of the gods
F. Water (p.9)
1. capable of many transformations
2. may have appeared
a. evaporated
1. becomes air
b. precipitation
1. becomes water
c. silting
1. becomes earth
d. spring
1. earth becomes water
G. concept of world
1. one thing
H. to reach concept of world
1. notion of a unifying principle
a. possibly inherited from religious past
2. secular point of view
a. look to nature not gods
I. consequence of concept
1. theories
a. public assertions
b. not private fantasies
c. statements about the world
d. open to criticism and rejection based on
1. internal consistency
2 empirical evidence
J. first known to have asked question
1. why do things happen as they do?
2 implies
a. unconscious assumptions about answer called for
1. determined course of philosophy
K. successors (p.10)
1. gradually uncovering his assumptions
a. discovering paradoxes
b. revision of assumptions
1. to escape paradoxes
L. assumptions
1. gradually revealed
2. one thing
a. cause of all else
b. monistic
c. reductionist
3. answers to question is a thing
a. later when monism abandoned "thing" was still the answer
b. concept still present today
4. nature of water (thing)
a. not causal
b. transformative
1. it becomes
c. active
1. all things are full of gods
a. denial of divine causality
b. move themselves
1. natural force within
a. first concept of process
IV. Anaximander (p.11)
A. home
1. Miletus in Ionia
2. considered
a. younger contemporary of Thales
B. wrote a book
1. one sentence survives
a. "From what source things arise, to that they return of necessity when they are destroyed; for they suffer punishment and make reparation to one another for their injustice according to the order of time."
1. not certain how much is direct quotation.
C. what is clear
1. following Thales' basic basic position while correcting details
a. there is a "one" stuff
b. process through which it becomes other things
c. process is necessary
D. agreement with Thales
1. one basic stuff that is in process
E. disagreement with Thales
1. what stuff is
2. nature of transformative process
F. basic stuff
1. not water or any other element
2. boundless substance
a. water is too specific
1. now become hot or dry?
a. opposite of itself
G. Anaximander's criticism
1. logical problem
a. consistency
2. contradiction
a. things that are not water actually are, like rocks
H. modification of hypothesis
1. the one stuff
a. no limiting characteristics
1. infinite
I. world process (p. 12)
1. particular thing originates from the boundless and returns to it
2 the boundless
a. type of reservoir or bank
J. categories of individual stuff
1. opposites
a. hot-cold
b. wet-dry
c. day-night
2. implies compulsion
3. world basically disorderly
K. need for explanation
1. orderliness of world
L. detailed explanation of world process
1. world
a. separated from boundless
1. circular motion
a. similar to an eddy
b. one of many passing in and out of existence
2. hot and cold
a. first to separate
1. hot
b. hot
1. circle of fire surrounding cold
c. sun, moon, and stars
1. " wheels of fire"
a. separated from original fire and cold
2. heat dried up parts of moist inner areas
a. caused
1. differentiation between sea and land
3. moist areas on earth
a. life begins
b. man
1. was like a fish
2. came from other species
a. lengthy period of suckling
3. could never survive early earth
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