Presocratics and Socrates
Mythos vs. Logos: Rather than uncritically accepting
things because of the traditions or stories (myths) told about how they
came to be, thinkers in the West began in the sixth century BC to try to
explain why things are the way they are. They tried to give the logos
or rationale of things, a rational (vs. mythic) explanation of nature.
They did this by proposing that there is something constant in nature beneath
or behind the appearance of change. That is, they suggested that reality
should be understood primarily in terms of an unchanging principle in nature,
and that things in nature change as a result not of supernatural or divine
intervention but as a result of internal forces. Furthermore, our senses
are unreliable in discerning what is fundamentally real: reality and appearance
are different.
These thinkers lived before the fourth century B.C. philosopher Socrates,
so they are called "pre-Socratics":
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Thales of Miletos (c. 580 BC) was the first thinker in the West
to provide a rational explanation of things. By claiming that everything
can be explained in terms of water, he proposes that there is a way to
make sense of our experience of changes in the world. Behind the
appearance of change, he suggests, is something constant (a one behind
the many) in terms of which everything is to be understood. This turn from
myth to reason is significant in three ways: it focuses on a natural rather
than a supernatural explanation, it suggests that reality is different
from appearances, and it describes not only the fundamental nature of reality
(as water) but also how things in nature change (as a result of internal
forces).
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Anaximander of Miletos (c. 545 BC) disagrees with Thales about the
fundamental material principle of reality because, he argues, it does not
make sense to say that something that is the opposite of water--namely,
that which is dry--must be explained in terms of water. Instead of
saying that any contrary must be explained in terms of its opposite, Anaximander
says that the ultimate principle of being must have no discernible characteristics
or properties: it is "the Unlimited" or "the Indeterminate" (the apeiron).
It is the substance of which everything is made but it is never experienced
by itself. It appears as various combinations of earth, air, fire,
and water, whose changes are regulated according to rhythms or harmonies
that correct the injustice created by extremes of contrary qualities such
as hot-cold, wet-dry, rough-smooth, light-dark.
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Anaximander moves beyond Thales in two ways: he describes ultimate reality
abstractly, in terms that are not tied to what one sensually experiences
(thus elevating the mind over the senses); and he accounts for observed
natural changes in terms of law-like necessity.
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Anaximenes of Miletos (c. 545 BC) rejects Anaximander's notion
of the Unlimited, claiming that since nothing definite can be said about
something that has no discernible characteristics, nothing can be said
about the Unlimited--even that it is the ultimate principle of sensible
reality. Air, on the other hand, does have identifiable characteristics
and, like water, might be seen as having the capacity for different forms
of material expression. But more importantly, air gives life to living
beings and is the formative force that "breathes" existence into inanimate
beings as well insofar as things are differentiated in terms of how densely
air is compacted: individual things are thus distinguishable insofar as
they express the condensation or rarefaction of air. Very fine air
is fire, very condensed air is stone; wind, clouds, water, and earth are
stages in between that indicate increasing condensation.
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Anaximenes' ideas contain three significant advances: First, his doctrine
of condensation and rarefaction makes the distinction of things quantifiable
and provides a mathematical basis for talking about nature. Second,
his hierarchical arrangement of reality indicates that there is a definite
progression in nature and a reason why things are related to one another
in an order of higher and lower forms of complexity. Third, living
beings are distinguished from inanimate beings in virtue of the rarefaction
of air that defines them, not some supernatural soul or mystical force;
and the condensation and rarefaction of their air is also what explains
their activity. By means of this third point, Anaximenes is able
to join the quantifiable basis for distinguishing things to the force that
moves them.
Together, these three Milesians represent the development of the distinctive
way of thinking we identify as "philosophical." They highlight the
distinction between appearance and reality, search for what is constant
beneath what we experience as change, challenge the reliability of our
senses, and indicate how the examination of reality is an on-going development.
All three adopt a materialist metaphysics, one in which reality is understood
primarily in physical terms. The mythic elements that survive in
their thought are often ignored or rejected by later materialists.
Other early philosophers proposed different explanations for understanding
the logos or rationale of things. For example:
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Heraclitus believed that seeing the world in terms of its constant
patterns of change (like fire) was central.
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Democritus suggested that the world was comprised of atoms.
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Pythagoras claimed that everything is ultimately mathematical, orderly,
harmonic (including the soul).
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Parmenides and his student Zeno argued that only that which
is unchanging is really real, so the changing sensible world is unreal.
All of these thinkers attempt to give a rational (rather than mythic) account
of experience and reality. That is what makes them the first philosophers.
Socrates (d. 399 BC)
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Socratic method: ask questions to discover the essence of what makes a thing be what it is. Without knowing what a thing is, one cannot act intelligently.
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"Virtue is knowledge" means the ability to act based on what one knows.
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"The unexamined life is not worth living" means that the excellence or virtue (aretê) of human existence demands understanding.
- Socratic ignorance: Socrates is ignorant of the essence of things and, more importantly, does not know why he does what he does or how he should act. His lack of a justification in acting is like being ignorant. But he does know the method for determining the essence of a thing (e.g., justice, virtue), and in that sense he is wise.