|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
Adventures in Philosophy |
 |
|
||
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Select: The Eleatic School - The Pluralists - The Atomists |
|
|
The Doctrine of Permanence, changelessness. The Eleatic School resumed discussion of the problem of being and becoming and attacked the opposition between sense knowledge and intellectual knowledge. The problem can be summed up: Reality in a logical manner appears to us under two different aspects - accordingly as it is presented to our senses, or as it is presented to our mind. Our senses perceive the multiplicity, the becoming, while our mind perceives the unity. Now the characteristics of unity are opposed to those of multiplicity. To which of the two must our consent be given for the ultimate reality? Heraclitus had answered that the only reality is becoming; the Eleatics say the opposite, that unity alone is being and that multiplicity is non-being, an illusion, considered both from the viewpoint of logic and metaphysics. The representatives of the Eleatic School are Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus. In The Radical Academy
a. Xenophanes "There is one God, sovereign alike over gods and men, unlike man either in appearance or in thought. He sees all things entirely, hears all things entirely, and thinks all things entirely." Xenophanes (picture) was born at Colophon in Asia Minor about 590 B.C. and died at the age of more than ninety years. From his youth he was a soldier and had taken part in the defense of the Greek Ionian colonies against the Persian invasion. When these fell to the Persians, Xenophanes, in order not to submit to the conqueror, took up the life of a minstrel and went about singing the stories of the gods and heroes in the public squares. Finally he stopped in the Ionic colony of Elea in southern Italy, whence his school took its name. He was the author of a poem of which only a few fragments remain, was a poet-philosopher who sought to draw the attention of men away from coarse anthropomorphism to the highest concept of divinity. Philosophy As a speculative theologian, Xenophanes revolted against the polytheism of his day and presented the doctrine of the One Indivisible God, resembling Hebrew monotheism. To represent the gods as men is to alter their nature in order to make them similar to us. These errors are due to the imaginations of men. But the "Optimus" is one, and bears no resemblance to no one. It does seem, however, to some commentators on his philosophy that Xenophanes confused God with space and with the universe taken in its totality. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
b. Parmenides "Nothing can be but what can be thought. Being is. Non-being is not." The most noted thinker of the Eleatic School is Parmenides (picture), who was born at Elea about 540 B.C. He was called "the Great" by Plato. He was author of a poem about nature which he divides into two parts: "Voices of Truth" and "Voices of Opinion" of which a few fragments remain. Philosophy Xenophanes' criticism of popular religion and anthropomorphism was taken up and transferred by Parmenides to cosmic nature. We find ourselves face to face with Unity, which is the totality of reality. There is but one path which is the beginning of Being and it is indestructible, without beginning or end, infinite, changeless, without parts and lacking nothing. Thought is Being, therefore Thought and Being are One. We cannot think non-Being, therefore it does not exist. Parmenides relies on his own consciousness for his conception Being. God dwells in the depths of the human mind as Truth and Reason, like an altar light within the temple. Being is infinite in Space and is changeless. Parmenides influenced Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all of whom had great respect for him. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
c. Zeno of Elea A chosen disciple of Parmenides, Zeno (picture) was born in Elea about the year 500 B.C. Aristotle called him the first dialectician because he assumed the task of proving with arguments how much of paradox there was in the doctrine of his master. Parmenides had reduced becoming to non-being and to illusion. Zeno attempted to prove just what exactly is becoming. Philosophy To understand the arguments of Zeno it is necessary to remember that becoming signifies movement. If the movement were not real but illusory, it would follow that becoming also has no other consistency save that of illusion; this is the task which Zeno assumed. His arguments are four, but they follow the same pattern; for they all begin with the supposition that space (the line) is composed of infinite parts, and that it is impossible to cross these infinite parts of which space is composed. As a consequence, all that to us seems to move does not move in reality, for movement is an illusion. The Argument of Achilles The hero of the winged foot can never overtake the turtle (a symbol of slowness) because the hero gives the turtle the handicap of space. Let us suppose that this interval between Achilles and the turtle is twenty feet, and while the her runs twenty feet, the turtle advances one foot. Achilles cannot reach his running mate, because while he runs twenty feet the animal moves one foot, and while he runs a foot, his rival will one-twentieth of a foot, and successively, while Achilles runs one-twentieth of a foot, the animal will have traveled one-twentieth of a twentieth of a foot, and so on, ad infinitum. The Argument of the Arrow The arrow will never reach its target. Before striking the target, the arrow must traverse half the distance, and before it reaches half this space it must traverse one-half of this half, ad infinitum. Thus the arrow remains ever at the same place, no matter how much it may seem to be displaced. Such Sophistic arguments, as Aristotle later noted, are based on a false prejudgment that space is made up of an infinite number of parts. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
d. Melissus Melissus raised theological innovations to the dignity of a metaphysic and interprets Being materialistically. Melissus was born at Samos and lived during the fifth century B.C. He accepts and defends Parmenides' doctrine of being, but unlike his master, he maintains that being is infinite, because it cannot be limited, neither by another being, in so far as being is one, nor by non-being, which does not exist. In agreement with Parmenides, he maintains that change and motion do not exist in nature, for both imply an absurd transition from being to non-being. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The Positive Contributions of the Eleatic School to the Perennial Philosophy The Eleatic School had the merit of calling the attention of philosophers to the concept of being and becoming, of motion, of time, of space, and of continuity. Its importance is such that all succeeding thought represented a victory over the one-sided and apparently contradictory conceptions held by Parmenides (unchanging being) and Heraclitus (successive becoming). The Pluralists are those philosophers who, putting to themselves the problem of being (Parmenides) and of becoming (Heraclitus), attempt a reconciliation between the two factions by having recourse to more primordial elements. They attempt on the one side the being of Parmenides, but they break it up into various parts, so that the root of things would be found in various elements. The composition and decomposition of these original elements would give the explanation of the becoming of Heraclitus. Thus the Pluralists believe that they have overcome the opposition between being and non-being. The chief philosophers of this group are Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists. The Atomists will be treated separately. a. Empedocles There are four qualitative elements: earth, air, fire, water, which are united by attraction and repelled by repulsion. Empedocles (picture) lived from approximately 490 to 430 B.C. Of Doric origin, he was a physician, naturalist, poet, philosopher, and wonder-worker. He wrote two book, "Physics" and "Purifications" of which large fragments remain. It is said that the people revered him as a worker of wonders and that he died on an exploration of Mount Etna in Sicily. Philosophy Like Parmenides, Empedocles admits that being is not born nor does it die, because it is eternal. Unlike Parmenides, he says that being is quadruple: land, water, air, and fire. These four elements are the roots of things, the latter being only different combinations of these elements. To explain the process of these combinations, he has recourse to two forces, primitive and fundamental - love and strife. From the beginning, since elements were regulated by love, they were an indistinct whole and formed the sphere. In the process of time, strife, which circulated about the sphere, penetrated and divided the elements. Thus they came to form the stars (zone of fire, ether (air), the oceans, and the earth; and from the earth came forth all things, including plants and men. An alternating balance of hate and of love destroys men until, by a natural reaction of love, hatred will be banished and everything will return to form once more the ancient sphere, to begin again a new period of hate and love similar to the first. That part of Empedocles' theory dealing with the four elements endured longest, and fell into decline only with the advent of modern chemistry. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
b. Anaxagoras Of Ionic origin, Anaxagoras (picture) was born about 500 B.C., and died in 428 B.C. Invited by Pericles, he went to Athens, where he remained about thirty years. Accused of impiety, he was obliged to leave the city in 431 B.C., and went to Lampsacus, where he founded a school. He wrote a work entitled "Peri Physeos," of which large fragments are extant. Philosophy Parmenides' "being" is constituted, according to Anaxagoras, of an infinite number of particles, homogeneous but qualitatively different. (Aristotle called this agglomerate "homoeomeries," that is, homogeneous parts.) They enter to make part of every becoming, and the prevalence of a given quality of particles over another is the reason for the qualitative difference of things. Such particles are endowed with an immanent intelligence, which Anaxagoras designated with the name "Nous." The "Nous" gathers and distinguishes the "homoeomeries" of the original Chaos; for this reason the "Nous" is the cause of their distinctions and groupings. No matter how often Anaxagoras had admitted that to give a reason for the distinctions and groupings of an infinite number of particles it was necessary to have recourse to intelligence, every time he explains becoming he fails to make us of the "Nous" and runs to the conduct of natural laws. Hence he is reproved by Plato and Aristotle for not having known how to use his discoveries in the determination of final causes. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
The Atomists contend for more simple elements than earth, air, fire, and water. They look to invisible atoms which are impenetrable, invisible spatial entities differing only in form, weight, and size. The Atomist School was founded by Leucippus, but the major representative of his school is his disciple, Democritus. Leucippus All modern physicists may be regarded as followers of Leucippus of Miletus (picture), the founder of atomism whose way of thinking has led to immense results in science and practical life. His theory that the Universe is composed of an infinite number of elements which are characterized by quantitative differences has undergone many and important modifications, but it has maintained its validity even after the "indivisible" atoms could be split. All of Leucippus' works, among which the book Megas Diakosmos (The Great Order of the Universe) and Peri Nou (On Mind) were most famous, are lost. In the fourth century B.C. his writings were reedited together with those of his disciple Democritus in one and the same collection. This led Epicurus to deny the historical existence of Leucippus, and some recent scholars have professed the same opinion. But, as Aristotle and Theophrastus remarked, there are differences between the doctrines of Leucippus and Democritus. Although Leucippus created the vocabulary of Greek atomism he remained in many respects more closely connected with the Ionian cosmologists of the older schools, while Democritus proceeded to a strictly scientific view on physical and mental phenomena. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On The Internet
Democritus There exist invisible atoms which are impenetrable, invisible spatial entities differing only in form, weight, size. Democritus (picture) was born about 460 B.C. and lived about ninety years. He was a physician, a naturalist, and an avid searcher for knowledge. He journeyed into many regions to increase his notions, and many fragments of his works remain. General Philosophy Democritus declared that nature and the organization of matter is the homogeneity of all bodies, and that indeterminate matter is divided into an infinite number of molecules (atoms) differing in size and form but endowed with perpetual motion which is derived from their essence. Because atoms are endowed with motion, Democritus admits a second primordial element, the void, that is, infinite space which surrounds the atoms and gives them the possibility of movement. The differences in gravity cause the atoms to whirl into motion, thus giving origin to the formation of things. Every union of atoms indicates a birth, just as every separation of atoms indicates a death. Thus from the primitive void have come the stars and the earth and all beings, including man. The soul also is formed of light atoms similar to those of fire, and with death it is resolved into atoms. On the Gods Democritus does not deny the gods, but even they, he says, are subject to the universal mechanism. They arose from the composition of atoms, and will be reduced to their component parts by decomposition. They live in interastral space, happy and not concerned with the destiny of men. The wise man does not fear them because they are powerless to do either good or evil. On Knowledge Democritus admits only sensitive cognition, a product of the motion of atoms, which in a light form separate themselves from the body, penetrate the empty spaces of our organism and set in motion the atoms of our sensitive faculties. The movement produces cognition. Not everything that comes to us through the senses is really outside the sensitive faculty. Democritus distinguishes the objective properties which are real in bodies - such as form, size, movement, etc.; and the subjective qualities which are due to the reactions of our faculties - for example, odor, color, taste, etc. These are in the objects only as a point of origin; in the subject they exist as specific qualities. A Mechanical System The system of Democritus, the model upon which all the materialistic systems will more or less be re-formed, presents to us a world regulated by mechanics (motion) and by the natural laws which act in the picture of cosmic necessity. No rationality is possible in this world of mechanical forces and hence no finality or purpose. Thus are formed and are broken up the heavens and earth. Thus human generations succeed one another, without there being a reason for their birth or for their decomposition; they are unconscious effects of unconscious causes. Life and death have no value, and everything is swallowed up in the night of atoms, whence everything took its origins. A system like that of Democritus does not solve, but aggravates the problem of life, and inclines man to despair without comfort. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
Democritus distinguishes the objective properties which are real in bodies -- such as form, size, movement, etc.; and the subjective qualities which are due to the reactions of our faculties -- for example, odor, color, taste, etc. These are in the objects only as a point of origin; in the subject they exist as specific qualities.
The problem which claimed the attention of the first philosophers was a cosmological question: What is the first principle which determines the origin and the end of things? This question was answered in a variety of ways as has been seen above. This ends the period of the Naturalists. The next period is called the Metaphysical Period, and includes Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
|
|
|
Introduction & Directory |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.
This Page Was Updated On