Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Arche: A Quest for Understanding

Posted on Oct 26, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Philosophy

Definition: The ongoing critical activity of developing theories to describe, explain, or account for certain aspects of human experience. It encompasses all fields of knowledge.

Defining Philosophy

By Subject

Philosophy differs from other fields by the sets of questions asked.

  • Metaphysics (or, ontology): Nature, origin, and existence of cosmos, divinity, and mind.
  • Epistemology: Theory of knowledge and truth.
  • Logic: The science of rationality and inference.
  • Ethics: Right and wrong, good and evil.
  • Social and Political Philosophy: Proper form of human societies and civilizations.
  • Aesthetics: Art and beauty.

Historically

  • Contemporary Schools (c. 1900-present): Continental (Europe), Analytic (UK/US).
  • Ancient: Western and Eastern.

Mythos vs. Logos

  • Mythos: Explaining natural phenomena using the supernatural.
  • Logos: Explaining natural phenomena using naturalistic explanations.

Methodology

  • Scientific Method/Dialogic Method: Whereby all statements are analyzed via questions, seeking flaws within.

Pre-Socratic Philosophers

Definition: Not philosophers who lived before Socrates, but those ancient philosophers not influenced by Socratic philosophy.

Goals: To know and understand the Arche (Greek: Fundamental Principle) and to contradict Theogonies (stories of the origin of divine agents).

Thales of Miletus (c. 625-547 BCE)

  • Considered the first philosopher (source: Aristotle).
  • Predicted the 585 BCE solar eclipse.
  • Gained knowledge from Egypt.
  • Arche: Water (mutable, necessary for life, and plentiful).

Anaximander (610-c. 547 BCE)

  • Thales’ student.
  • Invented the gnomon (sundial).
  • First world cartographer.
  • Arche: Order of nature from internal mechanisms.
  • Apeiron: The indeterminate, the unlimited, the indefinite.
    • Aboriginal, nameless, formless.
    • Possesses all properties.

Anaximenes (c. 545 BCE)

  • Student of Thales or Anaximander.
  • Arche: Air (neutral).
  • Explanation for Differences: Density changes lead to material change.

Pythagoras (c. 580-500 BCE)

  • Located in Southern Italy.
  • Created a school that survived 400 years, notably including women.
  • Arche: Numbers.
  • Beliefs: Souls’ immortality and reincarnation.

Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BCE)

  • From Ephesus, Asia Minor.
  • Quote: “Much learning does not teach understanding.” (Knowledge is not just facts).
  • Arche: Rational, objective, law-like, intelligent, directing all things, difficult but not impossible to understand (divine, omnipresent, but not impersonal).
  • Arche: Fire (change).
  • Problem of Identity: Questioned criteria of sameness.

Parmenides of Elea (c. 515-440 BCE)

  • Poet and philosopher.
  • Stressed the right methods of inquiry.
  • Antagonist of Heraclitus.
  • Arche: An unchanging being that is a unitary, undifferentiated whole, and eternal.

Empedocles (c. 490-430 BCE)

  • Poet and doctor (nutrition).
  • 4-Element Theory of Matter: Things can change, but their constituent parts (4 elements) do not.
  • Love & Strife: Processes of change/arrangement of nature’s fundamental parts.

Anaxagoras (c. 500-428 BCE)

  • Brought philosophy to Athens from Ionia.
  • Mind/Matter Distinction: Nous (mind, reason) is the finest level of being, immaterial.
  • Arche: Set of infinitely divisible particles.

Leucippus & Democritus (The Atomists)

  • Arche: Set of indivisible particles.
  • No teleology (telos = end, purpose, goal).
  • Determinism: The theory that all things happen out of necessity (cause and effect) and there is no free will.

Socrates (469-399 BCE)

  • Athenian philosopher, mason, and former soldier.
  • Known through others’ writings (Aristophanes, Xenophon, Plato).
  • Opposed the Sophists, itinerant teachers of rhetoric who aimed to win arguments regardless of truth.
  • Oracle of Delphi’s prophecy about Socrates: Not a lack of knowledge, but certainty.
  • Sentenced to death in 399 BCE for corrupting the youth (charge: atheism).
  • Actual reasons for the charge: Confounding him with Aristophanes’ character and angering influential figures.

Plato (c. 428-346 BCE)

  • Real name: Aristocles.
  • Began as a Heraclitian philosopher.
  • Founder of the Academy.
  • Prolific writer; Socrates is a frequent character.
  • Theory of Forms (from The Republic): Knowledge = Belief + Truth + Understanding. Forms are abstract, non-corporeal archetypes that are the necessary cause of all existence. They are eternal, unchanging, unmoving, indivisible, and infinite.
  • A Priori Reasoning: Uses solely the faculties of mind and rules of logic.
  • A Posteriori Reasoning: Uses input from the senses.

Key Terms

Definitions for various philosophical terms such as Agoge, Ataraxia, Conceptualism, Creation ex nihilo, Epoche, Hellenistic age, Neoplatonism, Nominalism, Principle of non-contradiction, Pyrrhonists, Realism, Skepticism, Teleological explanation, Ten Tropes, Total vs. modified skeptic, Universals, Aesthetics, Appeal to emotion, Argument, Argumentum ad hominem, Begging the question, Counterargument, Epistemology, Fallacy, False dilemma, Logic, Moral philosophy (ethics), Metaphysics (ontology), Non-sequitur, Philosophy, Political philosophy, Red herring, Reduction ad absurdum, Social philosophy, Socratic method, Straw man, Switching the burden of proof, and Thought experiment.