THE PRESOCRATICS

Main differences between the Mythologists and the Naturalists The naturalists developed a new way of studying the natural world determinist assumption, where it is assumed that no event happens by chance, but always for a natural reason. They developed new terminology to express new concepts: cosmos, phusis, arche, logos. Employed arguments based on observation.

The Milesians Equated the arche, the principle of all things, with the urstoff, the basic stuff The Milesians were the first (European) philosophers to argue that there must be a unity that explains all phenomena behind the apparent plurality of things (Monism) Thales and Anaximander made use of analogy - a conceptual tool whereby two different objects or events are likened, in order to explain the characteristics or behaviour of one by reference to the characteristics or behaviour of the other. Thales: the principle of all things is water Anaximander: the arche must be something beyond any of the opposites. It is more primitive than the opposites, an indeterminate something (apeiron), out of which all opposites come to be and into which all pass away. Anaximenes: the arche is air. He explained difference in quality by reference to difference in quantity (Reductionism - the method of explanation that takes an object that confronts us on the surface as being one kind of thing and shows that the object can be reduced to a more basic kind of thing at a deeper but less obvious level of analysis). All presocratic philosophers accepted a basic ontological axiom nothing comes out of nothing All presocratic philosophers were materialists (with the exception of Pythagoras)

Heraclitus Rejected the doctrine of Monism Rejects the Milesian notion of arche (the world originating from a single substance) Rejects the Milesian notion of unchanging substance (what characterizes reality is a basic process of change, represented by fire) Develops the theory of the unity of opposites The two paths of change the downward and the upward path The world is animated and kept in order by the Universal Reason, Logos Mans reason is just an instance in the Universal Law, a canalisation of it

Xenophanes rejection of the anthropomorphic gods The basic stuff is earth Criticises the anthropomorphic gods - If oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds Monist or monotheist? Friggieri says he was a monotheist (one and only one God exists). God is eternal, neither finite nor infinite, neither changing nor unchanging. He says that we cannot know the whole truth about this God. Copleston favours the interpretation that considers Xenophanes a Monist. He offers two arguments to support this 1) the school which Xenophanes is reputed to have founded, the Eleatic school (founded by Parmenides), was a monistic school (its members adhered to the idea that only one substance exists) 2) monotheism was an unfamiliar notion with the Greek thought of that time, and such a position would have been something exceptional. However, there is not enough evidence to say which interpretation is true.

Pythagoras the principles of things are numbers By studying principles of mathematics, one develops and encourages the elements of form and order in oneself. At a time when the first philosophers were inquiring into the material constituent(s) of the world, the Pythagoreans were promoting the human soul as the source of order in the body.
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The principles of mathematics are the principles of all things. They were particularly struck by the importance of numbers: all things are numerable, and we can express many things numerically. More than that, they concluded that all things are numbers. The world may be called a kosmos, a word which combined the notions of order, fitness and beauty. Pythagoras is said to have been the first to call it by this name. Pythagoreanism is a philosophy of form, not of matter. Since they shifted the emphasis of philosophy from matter to form, the cosmology of the Pythagoreans differs essentially from the naturalist type.

Parmenides Being is, not-Being is not The Way of Truth (man guided by reason) and The Way of Opinion (man guided by experience or the senses) Two main concepts Being (what is) and not-Being (Nothingness, what is not) the highest opposites (compare with Heraclitus opposites) Change is an illusion Copleston on Parmenides:
His doctrine in brief is to the effect that Being, the One, is, and that Becoming, change, is illusion. For if anything comes to be, then it comes either out of being or out of not-being. If the former, then it already is in which case it does not come to be; if the latter, then it is nothing, since out of nothing comes nothing. Becoming is, then, illusion. Being simply is and Being is One, since plurality is also illusion (Copleston p. 48).

Motion (a type of change), is an illusion Being cannot move to where it is not (notBeing) Being (which is material) is One and Complete for Being to be divided, it requires something that divides it, and the only thing that can be apart of Being, is not-Beingwhich is not Being is temporally infinite (as nothing comes out of nothing) and spatially finite

Melissus Being is spatially infinite Melissus, a student of Parmenides, agrees almost with all of his masters philosophy. He only objects to the idea that Being is finite. He argues that if Being is finite, it must be

bounded by the nothing (its opposite), and if Being is bounded by the nothing, then it must be infinite.

Zeno Zeno a disciple of Parmenides, is mostly famous for devising clever riddles/paradoxes in defence of Parmenides claim that motion and plurality are impossible (against the Pythagoreans who accepted motion and plurality/the divisibility of space to infinity). In a race in which the tortoise has a head start, the swifter-running Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. Before he comes up to the point at which the tortoise started, the tortoise will have got a little way, and so on ad infinitum. The flying arrow is at rest. At any given moment it is in a space equal to its own length, and therefore is at rest at that moment. So, it's at rest at all moments. The sum of an infinite number of these positions of rest is not a motion.

Empedocles Like Parmenides, he claimed that being cannot arise nor pass away, for being cannot arise from not-being, nor can it pass away into not-being, and that being is material. He thus claimed that matter is indestructible and eternal. Four fundamental eternal particle-types (or roots): fire particles, water particles, earth particles and air particles and these which when mingled together form all the different objects in the world. Empedocles transfers the changelessness that Parmenides attributes to the entire world to his four elements, and replaces the static singularity of Parmenides world with a dynamic plurality Introduces the concept of active force to account for change: Love (Harmony) and Hate (Discord). Love is the force that brings together different particles, while Hate is the force that separates particles. Periodic world-cycles characterized by the domination of Love at one point and by the domination of Hate at another point. Anaxagoras
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Anaxagoras, like Empedocles, accepts Parmenides thesis that being neither comes into being nor passes away - like Empedocles, he is not as radical as Parmenides as to negate change. All objects are composed of an infinite number of invisible and varying eternal particles or seeds - in everything there is a portion of everything Introduced the concept of Nous or Mind - Anaxagoras argues that Nous is the principle that controls change (does not create matter, which is eternal). It is found in all living things, but is limited to work to its maximum by different bodies. In his Metaphysics Aristotle says on Anaxagoras that he stood out like a sober man from the random talkers that had preceded him, but he also says that whenever he is at loss to explain why anything necessarily is, he drags it (Nous or Mind) in. But in other cases he makes anything rather than Mind the cause.

Democritus and Leucippus The random/purposeless movement of atoms, they claimed, is always subject to laws of nature whose existence, in turn, fulfils no particular plan. Eternal and indivisible atoms that move in a void Nothing happens of its own accord but only in accordance with fixed natural laws. When Leucippus and Democritus argue that everything happens for a reason, they do not mean that everything is directed toward some specific goal, but that everything has a natural cause that makes it happen. Democritus atomism, then, rests on two main premises: (i) There is no divine force which governs or plans motion nor is there any purpose in the universe; however, (ii) Everything follows natural laws and therefore everything happens for a (physical) reason and by necessity. Our senses tell us that objects have weight, smell, colours and so on. However, the qualities that we attribute to objects, Democritus argues, are simply conventional names that we give to the sensations we experience when we look at something, smell it and so on. Our judgements are therefore subjective impressions of things and not clear and absolute knowledge of them.