The Early Greek Philosophers

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Chapter 2 The Early Greek Philosophers
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The Pre-Socratic Philosophers
pp. 28-34
625-547

• Founder of the critical tradition.

p. 32 B Russell quote about water

• Sought physis, fundamental substancewater.

Thales
610-547

• Water a compound of more basic materials.

• Rudimentary theory of evolutionfish.

Anaximander
540-480

• Never walk through the same stream
  twicebecoming.

• Physis is fire.

Heraclitus

• Dialectic Things exist in polar opposites.

Ca. 515

• Took a view opposite to that of Heraclitus.

• Change is illusory. One fixed, finite reality,
  understood only through reason.

Parmenides

• We cannot think of something that does not exist
  (reification).

• Zeno of Elea (495), Zenos paradox, motion an
  illusion.

580-500

• Two worlds abstract/permanent/Parmenidean and
  empirical/changing/Heraclitean

• Mathematical harmony Pythagorean Theorem.

Pythagoras

• First law of acoustics, harmonious when one
  string twice as long as another on lute.

earthsolid airgas fireplasma waterliquid
490-430

• Four elements earth, air, fire, and water.

• Two causal powers love and strife.

Empedocles

• Objects emanate eidola, faint copies of
  themselves, enter blood through pores.

• He was a physician. Placed mental functions in
  the heart where eidola are matched.

500-428

• Infinite number of elementsseeds.

• Mind is pure, doesnt contain other seeds.

• Everything contains everything else, seeds.

Anaxagoras

• Mind not necessarily present in all things, when
  it is life exists.

460-370

• Is matter infinitely divisible? The a-tom.

• Elementism, reductionism. Eidola (emanations are
  atoms).

Democritus

• Five senses, four primary colors (black/white,
  red/green).

• Thinking in brain, emotions in heart, and
  appetite in liver.

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Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine

• Health is a balance cold vs hot, moist vs dry.

fl. ca. 500

• One of first to dissect human body.

Galen (130-200 AD) Phlegm - phlegmatic Blood -
sanguine Yellow Bile - choleric Black Bile -
melancholic

• Traced optic nerve to the brain.

Alcmaeon
Early Greek Medicine

• Placed mental functions in the brain, unlike
  Empedocles who placed them in the heart.

460-377

• Often referred to as the father of medicine.

• Kept detailed records of mumps, epilepsy,
  hysteria, arthritis, tuberculosis, etc.

Hippocrates

• Agreed with Empedocles about four elements
  earth, air, fire, and water.

• Hippocratic Oath help sick, chaste religious
  in life, practice, etc.

Sophists The Relativity of Truth
485-410

• Man is the measure of all things.

• Shifted focus from physical world to human
  concerns.

Protagoras

• Much in common with contemporary postmodernism.

• Relativity there is no universal truth.

485-380

• All things are equally true/false.

• Even more extreme than Protagoras nihilism,
  solipsism.

Gorgias

• Self can be aware of nothing but its own
  experiences and mental states.

• If there is physical world, we only experience
  it through senses, relationship cannot be known.

560-478

• Religion is a human invention.

• Olympian gods acted suspiciously like humans.

Xenophanes

• Can be seen as an early Sophist.

470-399

• The life which is unexamined is not worth
  living.

• Sought the essence of such things as beauty,
  justice, truth.

Socrates

• Used a method called inductive definition.

427-347

• Theory of Forms and the Doctrine of Anamnesis
  (reminiscences)

The Titans of Philosophy

• Analogy of the Divided Line and the Allegory of
  the Cave.

Plato

• The nature of the soul (3 types, from Republic).

384-322

• Causation and teleology The Four Causes.

• Entelechy and the scala naturae (from neutral
  matter to the unmoved mover).

Aristotle

• Cognitive psychology senses, reason, memory,
  imagination, dreaming.

• The Nichomachean Ethics.

600 BC
500 BC
400 BC
200 BC
100 BC
0
700 BC
300 BC
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Weimer, Walter B. (1973). Psycholinguistics and
Platos Paradoxes of the Meno. American
Psychologist, 28(1), 15-33.
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• Describe some of the events that may have
  concerned primitive humans and discuss how they
  accounted for and attempted to control those
  events. (pp. 29-30)
• Summarize the major differences between Olympian
  and Dionysiac-Orphic Religion. (pp. 30-31)
• What distinguishes the attempts of the first
  philosophers to understand nature from the
  attempts of those who preceded them? (p. 31)
• What did the cosmologists attempt to do? (p. 31)
• Why were the first philosophers called
  physicists? List the physes (plural of
  physis) arrived at by Thales, Anaximander,
  Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Empedocles,
  Anaxagoras, and Democritus. (pp. 31-38)
• Summarize Empedocles view of the universe. (pp.
  36-37)
• Summarize Empedocles view of how species of
  animals, including humans, came into existence.
  (p. 36-37)
• What important epistemological question did
  Heraclitus philosophy raise? (p. 32-33)
• Give examples of how logic was used to defend
  Parmenides belief that change and motions were
  illusions. (p. 30)
• Differentiate between elementism and reductionism
  and give examples of each. (p. 34)
• What were the major differences between temple
  medicine and the type of medicine practiced by
  Alcmaeon and the Hoppocratics? (pp.35-36)
• How did the Sophists differ from the philosophers
  who preceded them? What was the Sophists
  attitude toward knowledge? In what way did
  Socrates agree with the Sophists, and in what way
  did he disagree? (37-40)
• What observations did Xenophanes make about
  religion? (p. 39)
• What, for Socrates, was the goal of philosophical
  inquiry? What method did he use in pursuing that
  goal? (p. 40)

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• What are the charges brought against Socrates by
  the Athenians? What were perhaps the real
  reasons Socrates was convicted and sentenced to
  death? (pp. 40-41)
• Describe Platos theory of forms or ideas. (p.
  41)
• In Platos philosophy, what was the analogy of
  the divided line? (pp. 41-42)
• Summarize Platos cave allegory. What points was
  Plato making with this allegory? (pp. 42-43)
• Discuss Platos reminiscence theory of knowledge.
  (p. 43)
• Compare Aristotles attitude toward sensory
  experience with that of Plato. (pp. 45-46)
• Provide evidence that Aristotles philosophy had
  both rational and empirical components. (p. 46)
• According to Aristotle, what were the four causes
  of things? (pp. 46-47)
• Go to http//www.noncontradiction.com/ and click
  on The Four Causes under the heading
  Aristotelian Resources.
• Discuss Aristotles concept of entelechy. (p. 47)
• Describe Aristotles concept of scala naturae and
  indicate how that concept justifies a comparative
  psychology. (p. 47)
• Discuss Aristotles concept of soul. (pp. 47-48)
• Discuss the relationship of sensory experience,
  common sense, passive reason, and active reason.
  (pp. 47-49)
• Summarize Aristotles views on imagination and
  dreaming. (pp. 49-50)
• Discuss Aristotles views on happiness. What for
  him provided the greatest happiness? What
  characterized the life lived in accordance with
  the golden mean? (pp. 50-51)
• Discuss Aristotles views on emotions. (p. 51)
• In Aristotles philosophy, what was the function
  of the unmoved mover? (p. 49)
• Describe the laws of association that Aristotle
  proposed. (p. 49)
• Summarize the reasons Greek philosophy was
  important to the development of Western
  civilization. (pp. 57-58 pp. 51-52, Popper 1958
  quote)

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