Evolution of Western Philosophy: Pre-Socratics to Modernity
The first philosophers of history are called Pre-Socratics (before Socrates). The central theme of their philosophy was the physis or research into nature. Their beginning, the arche, is that from which all beings in the universe are generated, that of which all beings are made, the true nature of all, explaining the various changes that occur in nature.
Most important Pre-Socratics:
1. The Milesians: From Miletus in Ionia, lived in the sixth century BC.
- Thales of Miletus: The first principle from which everything arises and to which everything returns is water. Water is the arche from which everything springs and to which everything returns. He also said everything is full of gods and that everything is animated and alive.
- Anaximander of Miletus: Understood physis as everything around us being determined. The source in general cannot be determined at once as a given. Anaximander believed the arche should be apeiron (undetermined).
- Anaximenes of Miletus: Said the arche is air. Things arise from air by condensation and rarefaction. Rarefaction arises from air by fire, condensation by clouds, water, and land (earth, stone).
2. Pythagoras of Samos: Numbers constitute the nature of things, their arche. Numbers have a qualitative nature. Qualities are presented as geometric measurements: one is the point, two is a line, three is a surface, four are the points required for the simplest body. Ten is the perfect number. Numbers give us the being of things, their arche.
3. Heraclitus of Ephesus: Lived between the second half of the sixth and the fifth century BC. Things are constantly changing; the world is in permanent change. Everything flows. This is shaped like a war of opposites and is governed by fire or reason.
4. Parmenides: One of the earliest exponents of Western metaphysics. The foundation is being. Being is common to all things, for all things are something. When one thing becomes another, a substrate remains after these changes. This is the common substrate to things as they arise.
5. Empedocles: Sicily, fifth century BC. There are four principles or roots: earth, air, water, and fire. The mixture of these roots gives rise to things. They disappear when the roots are separated. Mixtures and separations are discussed in terms of two forces: love, which unites, and hate, which separates.
6. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: The original elements of nature are seeds. By joining and separating seeds, things arise. Initially, there is an absolute mix from which things separate. This separation is called nous (mind, reason).
7. Atoms: The founder of the atomistic school is Leucippus, contemporary of the sophists and Socrates. The most representative philosopher is Democritus of Abdera. He is included in the Pre-Socratics because his thinking aligns with theirs. For atomists, the world is made up of an infinite number of atoms that are eternal and equal. They move in a timeless vacuum, fitting and colliding with each other, generating compound things with features like immutability, unity, eternity, indivisibility, and limitation. Atoms are mechanistic and anti-finalist. The cosmos has no purpose because it is conceived as a machine.
They do not defend the existence of a single original principle (arche) but several. Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the atomists are called pluralists; the rest are monists.
Explanation of Pre-Socratic Thought: Magic and Myth
First attempts at explanation: magic and myth. Magic tries to solve practical problems using rituals and spells to dominate supernatural forces through secret procedures accessible only to certain privileged individuals. The base is the belief that all things are animated by spirits. Myth is a sacred and symbolic narrative recounting important events about natural and social phenomena. Myth explains reality and the individual’s place in it through gods and heroes.
Sense and Reason
Rational knowledge uses two cognitive faculties: the senses and reason. Observation provides immediate sense of reality. Reason includes data provided by the senses and deduces relationships between phenomena, considered cause and effect.
Metaphysical Period
Western philosophy emerges in the Greek colonies. The first thinkers seek a rational explanation. Philosophy comes as criticism against traditional knowledge based on myths. Pythagoras invented the term philosophy. Socrates emphasized the point of knowing (only knowing that one knows nothing). His pupil Plato emphasized love. Philosophy stems from the recognition of human ignorance and the desire to leave it behind. Aristotle states that philosophy was born from admiration. It is governed by a rationale for laws that reveal it is a cosmos, not chaos. For the first Pre-Socratic philosophers, reality is something fixed and permanent. Philosophy emerged as a search for truth in the rational behavior of phenomena. Philosophers move away from mythical explanations and seek objective truth and demonstrative philosophical knowledge. It provides solutions to specific problems: how to achieve happiness, what constitutes a just society, and how human action must be addressed by theoretical knowledge.
Steps in Mythological Explanation
- Fetish: Ascribing life to material objects, similar to humans but more powerful.
- Polytheism: Explanation through various supernatural beings superior to humans who could influence their world.
- Monotheism: All phenomena depend on the will of one omnipotent supernatural being (God).
About the Origin and Nature of Sound
All natural phenomena were dependent on the gods and were unpredictable. This made it impossible to know regularities. The Greeks had a deeply rooted idea of fate, believing in a mysterious power governing the universe, dominating even the gods. The desire to explain natural reality using reason emerged, seeking rational explanations. Cosmological questions arose, with the universe and nature as central themes. Changes are caused by an order (cosmos) that human reason must discover and translate into legislation. The anthropological turn made the human being the main theme of reflection during the Age of Pericles, consolidating social and political life and a philosophical view based on knowledge of human nature from psychology, ethics, and politics.
Christian Thought: Reason and Faith
From the first century to the end of the fourteenth century, medieval Christian thought emerged and took hold in Europe. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe was divided into several kingdoms. The Church became the unifying cultural element, imposing its intellectual authority. Christianity is based on supernatural beliefs and truths revealed by God.
Epistemological Period
From the fifteenth century in Europe, a process of historical transformation called modernism occurred. Modern thought emerged in confrontation with medieval religious culture, changing the attitude to reality and the understanding of the relationship between man and himself. A broad movement known as humanism replaced theocentrism with an anthropocentric and naturalistic view. The independence of reason began. The new science brought a picture of the universe opposed to medieval thought, leaning on Greek thinkers like Pythagoras, Archimedes, or Euclid.
Modernity
Renaissance scientific and philosophical ideas dismantled the conviction of human knowledge to answer big questions about reality. Descartes’ rationalism was the originator of modernity, defending reason and contempt for the senses. Reason alone can discover all about reality. British empiricism states that the origin and value of knowledge depend on data collected through experience and sensations. Kant’s transcendental idealism posits that we do not know things as they are in themselves but through our minds. Kant’s tasks for philosophy: Answer the questions, “What do I know?”, “What should I do?”, “What can I expect?”, and “What is man?” The achievement of a freer and more just humanity depends on these answers.
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries are known for contemporary philosophy. Kant ended another stage of philosophy, now explaining everything from the subject.
What is Philosophy?
Ortega y Gasset said it is a passion that every man undertakes as part of the human mind. Philosophy attempts to answer the most genuine human need: to know the truth.
Characteristics of Philosophy
Philosophy is radical in that it intends to reach the last explanatory principles of reality and meaning, not just how things are. It is rational knowledge, born with the objective to understand and interpret reality rationally, arguing and justifying. It is critical knowledge, always rethinking traditionally accepted knowledge, never accepting what is established just because it has been.
Disciplines
metaphysics, which is beyond the physical, she wondered what there is and for the essence, the true being of what there is, of things that you only get by reason. surgio metaphysics with epistemology that attempts to answer what and in what way can we know? or what is the best way to learn?
BIAS affirmation prior to adequate knowledge of a thing
DOGMATISM uncritical attitude to truth claims without admitting discussion
METAPHYSICS this discipline studies the reality from first principles or causes
Epistemology term comes from Greek and means gnose philosophical discipline that studies human knowledge.
COSMOGONIA explanation on the origin and formation of the world
LOGOS Greek word that refers to the order of reason and the word
Theocentricism explanation of reality whose main point of reference to God.
Innate ideas ideas and principles that the human mind has
INSTINCTS innate behavior patterns of animals
SUBJECTIVE valid for yourself but may not coincide with others
Objective for all to be a common knowledge
CRITICA assess, analyze what can be studied
ESSENCE trial or affirmation prior to knowledge