|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
The Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Page 1
General Notions As Greece is a mountainous and rather barren country, its inhabitants have been obliged from remote times to seek new lands that would offer them work and prosperity. At the beginning of the sixth century before Christ, we find one winding series of coastal colonies, extending from the coast of Asia Minor to Africa, to Spain and to southern Italy. Here the Greeks were so numerous that they outnumbered the inhabitants of Greece properly so called, and hence the name Magna Graecia was given to this far-flung territory. The colonies, favored by democratic liberties and economic well-being, and moreover having contact with a greatly advanced civilization, had an opportunity to develop their natural sense of culture. Among the Grecian stocks which have contributed greatly to the formation of philosophy is the Ionian strain, which was spread through Asia Minor, the islands of the Aegean Sea (Ionia), and southern Italy and Sicily. It is among the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor that the story of philosophy takes its beginning, because it was in the flourishing city of Miletus that the first three Western philosophers were born and lived: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes. The problem which claims the attention of the thinkers of Miletus is for the most part cosmological. Nature, as presented to our senses, is a continuous "becoming" -- a passage from one state to another, from birth to death. However, this transition is not arbitrary; it happens according to a fixed law: everything repeats itself or flows in cycles -- day, night, the seasons, etc. What is that first principle whence things draw their origin at birth, and whereto are all things resolved in death? This is the problem of the Ionians: the search for this principle which is the first reason for all succession in the world of nature. It is the principle which the Ionians believed they could discover in a natural element; by means of this element they attempted to explain nature through nature. The principle which they assign becomes conceived of as divine. Thus the Ionian thinkers are pantheists in so far as they do not distinguish God from nature. Thales Thales (picture) was born at Miletus about the year 624 B.C., and lived until about 546. Mathematician, astronomer, businessman -- to him are attributed many voyages and many discoveries. The more probable of these is that he was the first to foretell an eclipse. For Thales the principle of things is water, which should not be considered exclusively in a materialistic and empirical sense. Indeed it is considered that which has neither beginning nor end -- and active, living, divine force. It seems that Thales was induced to proffer water as the first principle by the observation that all living things are sustained by moisture and perish without it. Further, Thales affirms that the world is "full of gods." It is not easy to see how this second affirmation agrees with the first. It may be that he was induced by the popular belief in polytheism to admit the multiplicity of gods. In The Radical Academy
Anaximander Anaximander (picture) was born at Miletus about the year 611 B.C., and died about 547. Probably a disciple of Thales, he also was a mathematician and astronomer, philosopher and poet. He was the author of a poem entitled Peri physeos, of which only a fragment is extant. For Anaximander the first principle of all things is the "indeterminate" -- apeiron. There are no historical data to enlighten us as to what Anaximander may have meant by the "indeterminate"; perhaps it was the Chaos or Space of which physicists speak today. Whatever may be the answer to the this question, it is necessary to keep in mind that the problem consists in the search for a metaphysical principle which would give an account of the entire empirical world, and hence the apeiron is not to be confused with any empirical element. All things originate from the Unlimited, because movement causes within that mysterious element certain quakes or shocks which in turn bring about a separation of the qualities contained in the Unlimited. The first animals were fish, which sprang from the original humidity of the earth. Fish came to shore, lost their scales, assumed another form and thus gave origin to the various species of animals. Man thus traces his origin from the animals. Because of this, Anaximander has come to be considered the first evolutionist philosopher. In The Radical Academy
Anaximenes Anaximenes also was born at Miletus toward the end of the sixth century B.C., and died about 524 B.C. Probably a disciple of Anaximander, he composed a treatise of unknown title. For Anaximenes, the first principle from which everything is generated is aid. Air, through the two opposite processes of condensation and rarefaction, which are due to heat and cold, has generated fire, wind, clouds, water, heaven and earth. Thus Anaximenes, like Thales and Anaximander, reduces the multiplicity of nature to a single principle, animated (hylozoism) and divine, which would be the reason for all empirical becoming. With Anaximenes the School of Miletus closes, for the turn of events in this city ranked as one of the principal causes of the Graeco-Persian wars and Miletus was destroyed in 494 B.C. Its inhabitants were dispersed throughout the Greek world, and one of them was to reach Elea, a city of southern Italy, and there found the school which was to be called Eleatic, after the city of its origin. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
Pythagoras (picture), founder of the Pythagorean School, was born at Samos about 570 B.C. His life is surrounded by legend. Many voyages -- one of them to Egypt -- are attributed to him. It is certain that at about the age of forty years he came to Italy in Magna Graecia, and in Croton, the Doric colony, founded a school with scientific, religious, and political leanings. To this school were admitted youths of both sexes of the high aristocracy who were divided into various sections according to the grade of initiation to learning. The political aims of the school raised up much opposition, and in a popular uprising in 497 the school was given to the flames. Pythagoras seems to have removed himself to Metapontum before this uprising and died there either in the same or the following year. Pythagoras left no writings, and the doctrine which is known under his name must be attributed to him and to his disciples, especially to Philolaus, who lived until the time of Socrates. The Pythagoreans cultivated the mathematical sciences and the study of mathematics led them to the observation that everything could be represented through a number. The number appears not as an abstraction, but as a real being, the generator of all things: they concluded that the number should be retained as the essence, the principle of reality. This passing from the abstract order of number to the actual order of being today seems simple-minded and silly. It was not, however, so considered by the Pythagoreans, for they were the first to observe that number applied not only to the motions of the heavens and the succession of time, but also to the harmony of sounds (the height of the sound is in inverse proportion to the length of the string). It was easy for the cultivators of mathematics to bow down before the number and consider it as a divine reality. Through a long theory on numbers the Pythagoreans attempted to explain the multiple and the notion of becoming. Numbers are divided into even and odd; the even numbers unlimited, the odd ones limited. Since everything is a number, the constitutive elements of things are the evens and the odds, the unlimited and the limited, the worse and the better. This radical opposition would give the explanation of all the world of multiplicity, even its moral aspects: justice is represented by the square (even multiplied by even); love, friendship, because they indicate perfect harmony, were identified with the number eight; health with the number seven. Even and odd number originated from the "One." It is from the One that all the other numbers, which are the constitutives of multiplicity, proceed. Multiplicity hence is reduced to unity, and it is in unity that all differences and contrasts are annulled, and the harmony of the multiple ends in silence. The perfect and sacred number for the Pythagoreans is ten, which results from the principal combinations: 1, 2, 3, 4 -- these are identified as the point, line, surface and volume, and when added, they result in the number ten. For the Pythagoreans there are ten heavens. To make up this number, they add to the traditional nine a tenth, which they call "antiterra." The heavens all revolve around one central point which is called "Fire." For the Pythagoreans the soul is harmony. Descended to earth through some mysterious fault (Orphic-Dionysian doctrine), it passed through various bodies (even those of animals) by successive births (metempsychosis) to reestablish primitive harmony and to return to the place where it lived in happiness. Pythagoreanism indicates progress over the Ionic School. It is elevated from a natural element found in the Ionic School to a conceptual one, such as number. The Pythagoreans also affirmed the sphericity of the earth and of the other heavenly bodies, and the revolution of the heavenly bodies around a central Fire. The concept of the soul and of its purification induced the Pythagoreans to ascetical practices although, of course, these were not shorn of superstitions. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On the Internet
Heraclitus (picture), called the Obscure because of his manner of expressing his thoughts in a paradoxical and enigmatic form, was born in Ephesus, an Ionic colony in Asia Minor. Of royal or noble stock, he lived alone and deprecated vulgar knowledge and vulgar methods. He lived between the fifth and sixth centuries B.C., but the exact dates of his birth and death are not known. He wrote one works, Peri physeos, in verse, of which only large fragments are extant. The preceding thinkers of Ionia and of Italy had sought to reach a principle distinct from becoming and from multiplicity, a principle which at the same time would be the ultimate reason for that same becoming and multiplicity. For Heraclitus this search for a principle distinct from becoming is vain, for becoming is itself the first principle of reality, the essence of things. Everything that exists, including man himself, exists because it is in a continuous process of passage from one state to another. If this passage should cease, reality would be annulled. "All things flow, everything runs, as the waters of a river, which seem to be the same but in reality are never the same, as they are in a state of continuous flow." This is the central point of the doctrine of Heraclitus. This process of becoming finds its origin in Fire, an animated and primordial element, not to be confused with empirical fire. Because of its unstable nature Fire most closely corresponds to becoming. The process which this primordial element underlies is the so-called stairway down and the stairway upward. Thus Fire is changed into water and this latter into earth (descending steps). Through the Great Year (of unknown duration) the earth will be transformed into water and the water into Fire (ascending stairway). The laws of becoming are antitheses, the passage from one state to its contrary (the law of contraries). "Struggle is the rule of the world, and war is the common mother and mistress of all things." We would not wake up if first we did not sleep, and vice versa; the same is true of everything else that exists. Construction and destruction, destruction and construction -- this is the law which extends to every sphere of life and of nature. Just as the same universe (cosmos) arose from the primordial Fire, so must it return to it again. Thus the root of Heraclitus' teaching is found in the double process of life and death, of death and life, which forever is developed and developing. Since for Heraclitus everything originates from Fire, the human soul is a small particle of this Fire, and in the universal palingenesis (rebirth) will return to Fire. Nature is animated because the first principle, Fire, is animated (hylozoism). In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
|
||
|
Main Page & Index |
||
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[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.