1. HISTORY of PHILOSOPHY
Reference: History of Philosophy by Scott-
Kakures,Castagnetto,Benson, Taschek and Hurley,
1993
PREPARED by Raizza P. Corpuz
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2. The Pre-Socratics
• The roots of Western philosophy (as opposed to Eastern, i.e., Indian
and Chinese) are to be found in the pre-Socratic philosophers,
beginning in the sixth century BCE.
• These philosophers lived, as the term implies, before Socrates, so
that they obviously did not consider themselves as pre-Socratics;
this is a term that was imposed upon them by later generations.
• The fact the they are called "pre-Socratics" implies that ancient
Greek philosophy should be organized around Socrates and Plato.
• This implies that all pre-Socratic philosophers were preliminary to
or preparatory of Socrates and Plato.
• That this is true is, however, a presupposition that should not
necessarily be accepted as fact.
• Most of the so-called pre-Socratics came from the eastern or
western parts of the Greek world; Athens would only later enter the
philosophical fray.
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3. • "Pre-Socratic" is the expression commonly used to
describe those Greek thinkers who lived and wrote
between 600 and 400 B.C. It was the Pre-Socratics who
attempted to find universal principles which would
explain the natural world from its origins to man's
place in it. Although Socrates died in 399 B.C., the term
"Pre-Socratic" indicates not so much a chronological
limit, but rather an outlook or range of interests, an
outlook attacked by both Protagoras (a Sophist) and
Socrates, because natural philosophy was worthless
when compared with the search for the "good life."
• To give the Pre-Socratic thinkers their full due would
require an article of encyclopedic scope. Given that, I
have decided to list a number of sites on individual
Pre-Socratic thinkers.
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4. The Milesians
• Miletus was an Ionian city; Ionia was a Greek
colony on the Aegean coast of western Asia
Minor.
• In the sixth century BCE, Miletus produces three
philosophers: Thales, Anaximander, and
Anaximenes.
• These philosophers seek the one, unchanging
material principle of all things. Aristotle says of
the first philosophers, which includes the
Milesians:
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5. “Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the
principles (tas archas) which were of the nature of matter
(tas en hulês) were the only principles of all things (archas
pantôn). That of which all things that are consist, the first
from which they come to be, the last into which they are
resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its
modifications), this they say is the element and this the
principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is
either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is
always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be
absolutely when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor
ceases to be when loses these characteristics, because the
substratum, Socrates himself remains, just so they say
nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be
some entity-either one or more than one-from which all
other things come to be, it being conserved”.
(Metaphysics 983b)
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6. Material Principle of All Things
• Aristotle explains that the Milesian philosophers concentrate their efforts on ascertaining
the principle (archê) of all things, which they consider to be matter (hulê).
• By matter is meant the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. By principle (archê) is
meant that which which explains and causes the existence of another; an archê limits and
conditions.
• Aristotle says that the Milesians sought to discover, "that of which all things that are consist,
the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved."
• The Milesians pursued this intellectual course because they believed that ultimately all
things (or being) was material and one; for them, to be able to say what everything is made
of is to explain everything.
• In other words, what these men sought was to determine the origin and nature of
everything by identifying the most basic material element that all things ultimately are, that
from which all things emerge and return, or, as Aristotle puts it, the principle of all things,
which is material.
• This is why Aristotle calls them "physicists" (physiki or physiologi). An implication of Milesian
philosophy is that, ultimately there is no generation and destruction, since all things are
water and water is first and unchanging.
• The changes that human beings experience are accidental and not substantial: water
modifies its appearance but never ceases to be what it is, water.
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7. • Born in the sixth century BCE, Heraclitus was an Ephesian, who, by
all accounts, was not a terribly social creature. Diogenes Laertius
reports that Heraclitus refused to participate in public life in
Ephesus, heaping scorn on his fellow citizens and the city's
constitution; he eventually "became a hater of mankind"
(misanthropesas), and withdrew from Ephesus, wandering in the
mountains and eating grass and other plants. Only when he became
ill did he return to Ephesus, where he died of the illness that drove
him back to the city (Lives, 9. 2-4). Many of his sayings provide
evidence of Heraclitus' contempt for human kind. Fr. 29, for
example, says, "The best choose one thing in place of all else,
'everlasting' glory among mortals; but the majority are glutted like
cattle" (Clement, Strom. V. 59, 5). Fittingly, Hippolytus describes him
as follows, "But Heraclitus, a natural philosopher of Ephesus,
surrendered himself to universal grief, condemning the ignorance of
the entire of life, and of all men; nay, commiserating the (very)
existence of mortals, for he asserted that he himself knew
everything, whereas the rest of mankind nothing" (Refut. 5).
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8. • All Things Are in Flux
• Heraclitus teaches that all things are flux or
change; contrary to what sense data might
indicate at times, nothing is permanent, but
everything is constantly becoming something
else or going out of existence.
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9. Pythagoras & Pythagoreanism
• Pythagoras was an Ionian Greek born on the island of Samos in the
sixth century BCE. He was supposed to have visited Thales in
Miletus, who advised him to travel to Egypt to learn more about
mathematics and astronomy. About 535 BCE, Pythagoras did go to
Egypt, but was taken prisoner to Babylon by the Persian king
Cambyses II. Pythagoras returned to Samos eventually, but then
went to the Greek colony in Croton, in southern Italy. There he
founded a religious community and philosophical school, whose
inner circle of followers were called "mathematikoi." Many puzzling
restrictions are said to have been in force in the community, such as
not eating beans and not wearing a ring (see Iamblichus, Protr. 21).
These are known as the Akousmata, and in many instances appear
to be superstitions.
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10. • It is said that for the Pythagoreans the elements of
number are the even and the odd, the limited and the
unlimited; this is because numbers derive from the
One and the One from the even/unlimited and the
odd/limited. Although obscure, perhaps owing to an
inadequate philosophical lexicon, Pythagoreanism
seems to hold that originally (temporal and/or
logically) there exists the principle of the unlimited (or
even), as a type of prime matter, without order
or formal identity, co-eternal with which is the
principle of the limited (or odd), which imposes order
and formal identity on the unlimited The unlimited is
passive, whereas the limited is active.
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11. Parmenides
• Plato claims that Parmenides visited Athens at the age of 65 c. 450 BCE,
when Socrates was a young man, thus making him an older contemporary
of Socrates (Plato, Parmenides, 127a-c). If Plato’s account is trustworthy,
then Parmenides was born in the later part of the sixth century, c. 515-10
BCE. Diogenes Laërtius claims, however, that Parmenides flourished just
before 500 BCE, which would put his year of birth earlier c. 540 BCE (Lives,
9.23). So the date of Parmenides’ birth is uncertain. Belonging to a
wealthy and prominent family, Parmenides resided in Elea, a Greek city in
southern Italy, which, according to Herodotus, had been founded by
Ionian Greeks fleeing the Persians just before 535 BCE (1.164). For this
reason, his philosophy is often referred to as Eleatic philosophy. Plato has
Socrates say that he was impressed by Parmenides when he met him as a
young man: "Parmenides seems to me to be, in Homer's words, 'one to be
venerated' and also 'awful'. For I met him when I was very young and he
was very old, and he appeared to me to possess an absolutely noble depth
of mind." Two of Parmenides’ more prominent followers were Zeno of
Elea and Melissus of Samos. Also Parmenides had an influence on Plato,
who wrote a dialogue named Parmenides.
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12. Anaxagoras
• Anaxagoras was born in Clazomenae in Asia Minor c. 500 BCE; c. 480-79
BCE he came to Athens, where he became the first Athenian philosopher
of note. Plato relates that Anaxagoras had a close association with
Pericles, the famous Athenian statesman, orator and general: "And that is
what Pericles acquired to supplement his inborn capacity. He came across
the right sort of man, I fancy, in Anaxagoras, and by enriching himself with
high speculation and coming to recognize the nature of wisdom and
folly—on which topic Anaxagoras was always discoursing—he drew from
that source and applied to the art of rhetoric what was suitable thereto"
(Phaedrus, 270a). According to Diogenes, when someone lamented the
fact that Anaxagoras would die in a foreign land, he replied, "The descent
to Hades is much the same from whatever place we start" (Lives, 2. 11).
While in Athens, Anaxagoras was indicted for holding that the sun was
actually a mass of red-hot metal, and not a god, presumably, and for
treasonable correspondence with Persia; he was condemned to death.
Pericles, however, intervened on his behalf and the death sentence was
commuted (Lives, 2.12-14).
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13. • Everything in Everything
• Anaxagoras also asserts that there are
quantities of everything in everything.
Although one type of seed may predominate,
thereby determining how something will
appear ("But each single thing is and was most
manifestly those things of which it has most in
it
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14. Xenophanes
• Xenophanes was born c. 570 BCE, and was a native of
Ionia Colophon in Asia Minor. With the coming the
Persians, early in his life, he took up residence in Sicily,
where he supported himself as a poet in the court of
Hieron; he expressed his philosophical views in verse,
much of which was satirical. From Sicily, he went to
Magna Graecia (southern part of Italy), where he
became a celebrated philosopher. Xenophanes was
reputed to have been the founder of the Eleatic school,
of which Parmenides is the best known representative
(see Plato, Sophist 242c-d; Aristotle, Metaphysics 986 b
10-25).
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15. • The True Nature of God
• God as Spherical and the Cosmos
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16. Empedocles
• Empedocles was born in Akgragas, a Greek city in Sicily,
sometime in the early fifth century BCE. He played an
important role in the political affairs of his city, being
known as a defender of democracy. He was also reputed to
have been a religious teacher and leader, probably being
involved in some form of Pythagoreanism. Empedocles
wrote two philosophical poems entitled On
Nature and Purifications, of which several fragments have
survived. Some of the fragments are too brief to be of
much use in reconstructing his philosophical views, but
there are others that are longer and quite useful. In
addition, later philosophers summarize Empedocles' view
and, in some cases (e.g., Aristotle), are critical of them.
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17. Love and Strife
• Simply positing the existence of four elements
composed of minimum particles does not
explain becoming; what is required is a means
by which these four elements intermingle and
separate. Unlike the Milesians and others,
Empedocles does not assume that the
elements are self-moving, even though they
are divine and sentient.
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18. Reincarnation
• It seems that Empedocles believes that human
beings are actually "daemons" (or spirits) that are
forced to wander from one existence to another
because they have followed "Strife" by acting
violently and shedding blood. It follows that all
human beings are in a desperate situation
because all are forced into a corporeal life
because of the guilt of past transgressions.
Otherwise they would be residing with the
immortal gods
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