《古希腊文明演绎》
Lecturer: Wu Shiyu (Malcolm)
Email: shiyuw@sjtu.edu.cn
Website: http://sla.sjtu.edu.cn/bbs
Greek Philosophy
Pre-Socrates: Quest for Being
(the archê) and Becoming
Review: What Philosophy Means
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1. “Philosophy” means “love [philia] of
wisdom [sophia].”
2. But what is wisdom?
Being able to answer the “perennial” or
“fundamental” questions.
Review: Subject Matter
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Our subject matter: The earliest period of
western philosophy which begins in 585 with
the work of Thales of Miletus and ends with
Aristotle (322).
The course will be divided into four distinct
units: the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle.
Hesiod’s Being
Tell me these things, Olympian Muses,
From the beginning, and tell which of them came first.
In the beginning there was only Chaos, the Abyss,
But then Gaia, the Earth, came into being,
Her broad bosom the ever-firm foundation of all,
And Tartaros, dim in the underground depths,
And Eros, loveliest of all the Immortals.
Hesiod’s Theogony
Thales, the Founder of philosophy
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Gave his date as 585 B.C. from Miletus;
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Thales was the first natural philosopher, the
first thinker in the west to give what the
Greeks called the “Logos”, the first to give
logos of nature (Aristotle).
What is a logos?
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A logos is a rational explanation.
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The word logos is present in many suffix of
the English words. (Biology=a logos of life;
Psychology= the logos of the soul or mind)
What is a logos?
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“Of those who first pursued philosophy, the
majority believed that the only principles of
all things are principles in the forms of matter.
For that out of which all existing things are
composed and that out of which they
originally come into being, that into which
they finally perish, the substance persisting,
but changing in all of its attributes. ”
Quoting from Aristotle
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Thales is called the first philosopher precisely
because he is the first, according to Aristotle,
to give logos of nature.
Thale’s Being (the archê)
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Thales believed that the “principle” of all things is
material, is in the form of matter.
The word principle(wonderful and extremely
important)
The Greek word archê can be translated as principle,
as origin, as beginning, as source. It also can mean
ruler. So perhaps what it means is the beginning
which then rules over everything that follows.
(archaic, archaeology)
The archê then is the beginning, not in the sense of
time, but the beginning, the fundamental origin of
everything else.
Thale’s Being (the archê)
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“The archê is water.” (Thales)
Aristotle speculates how Thales could’ve come
up with this idea, that is, the origin of all things
is water. “Maybe Thales got the idea from
seeing that nourishment of all things is moist,
and the hot itself comes to be from the moist.”
(Aristotle)
Thales
Thales of Miletus
One of the Seven Wise Men
Thales: Quest for Being
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Thales is an empirical thinker, who use sense
to experience in order to get information or
knowledge about the world; uses his eyes, his
ears in order to understand the world.
From all of the observations, Thales derived a
conclusion: Arche, the principle, the origin
was water.
Thales of Miletus
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With the spirit of free inquiry, Greek thinkers
then began to challenge the traditional and
established ideas, and also present their own.
Using his reasoning capacity, using his senses,
using his mind. (primitive, childish, but
revolutinary)
It’s the battle that Plato 200 years later would
describe as the old battle between philosophy
and poetry.
The Milesian School
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Thales (585 B.C.), Anaximander (610-540 B.C.), and
Anaximenes (585-528 B.C. ).
The Milesian School began their quest for being (the
archê), that is, how the world is originated and what
is it made up of? They were interested in looking for
a unifying element, asking the question: what is there
behind all the constant change? In their search for the
archê(the origin of all becoming), each of the three
philosophers would come up with their own theory.
Anaximander (610- 540 B.C.)
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The second thinker of the Milesian School and
student of Thales
Agreed with Thales that the world has an origin
(archê) that can be comprehended by rational thought.
Disagreed with Thales on what the archê was. Where
Thales claimed water, Anaximander held that the
archê is not in ordinary, limited, determinate
substance like water.
In his point of view, “the indefinite,” to apeiron, was
the archê. The term to apeiron in Greek could be
translated as “the indefinite,” “the unlimited,” or “the
indeterminate.” (to=the; apeiron=indefinite).
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The principle of all things, Anaximander
maintained, is not an element, be it air, water,
earth or fire. Neither is it something in
between. He claimed that those elements could
not explain all of the opposites found in the
universe. The one that can explain is the
substance to apeiron, which can eternally give
birth to whatever will be. He explained that the
origin of the Universe is the separation of
opposites in the primal matter. And then all
dying things are returning to apeiron, the mass
from which they came.
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他是这样写作的——一个典型的哲学家，
只要还没有被外异的要求夺去自然质朴的
品质，就会这样写作：以风格宏伟、勒之
金石的字体，句句都证明有新的启悟，都
表现出对崇高沉思的迷恋。每个思想及其
形式都是通往最高智慧路上的里程碑。作
出解释呢？
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Anaximander有一回这样言简意赅地说道：
“事物生于何处，则必按照必然性毁于何
处；因为它们必遵循时间的秩序支付罚金
，为其非公义性而受审判。”
一个真正的悲观主义者的神秘箴言，铭
刻在希腊哲学界石上的神谕。（让我想起
米利都这个城邦的命运）
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他停留在浓密的阴影里，这阴影象巨大的
鬼魂一样笼罩在这样一种世界观的峰巅。"
不确定者"如何能堕落为确定者，永恒者如
何能堕落为暂时者，公义者如何能堕落为
非公义者呢？我们愈是想接近这个问题，
夜色就愈浓。
Thales and Anaximander
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Thales, as an empiricist, using his ability to
make observation about the world, and then
concluding from his observations that the
world at its core must be water.
Anaximander, however, rejects this view of his
teacher, rejecting what it seems to be Thales’
most positive contribution to the development
of Western philosophy.
Thales and Anaximander
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The archê, in his view, is responsible for
everything else and therefore the archê must
be fundamentally different from everything
else (everything in world of becoming).
Seen from this perspective, Anaximander is a
kind of rationalist, using pure reasoning in
order to arrive at his conclusion. Anaximander
might have reasoned that if we want to
preserve the concept of being, of the archê,
then it was imperative to negate all limits.
Anaximenes (585-528 B.C. )
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Anaximenes, student of Anaximander, both agreed
and disagreed with his teacher Anaximander.
Agreed that there is a rational archê of the world
and that there was a problem with Thales’ view that
the archê is the water.
Disagreed with Anaximander that the archê is the
indeterminate (to apeiron). Anaximander’s to
apeiron (the indeterminate), in Anaximenes’ view, is
no different from Hesiod’ CHAOS, and both of them
become unintelligible.
Anaximenes (585-528 B.C. )
To think, Anaximenes argues, is to think about
something determinate. For Anaximenes, the archê
was air. Air is to be found everywhere, and it
participates in physical processes. Air was acted on
by natural forces and transformed into other
materials, which came together to form the world
through the processes of rarefaction (变稀薄) and
condensation (浓缩).
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In Anaximenes’ view, air, like water, is intelligible,
but air is superior to water for it is intangible. It is
easier, therefore, to conceive of air as being
responsible for all things. Anaximenes probably
thought that air combined the advantages of Thales’
archê with the indefinite qualities of Anaximander’s
to apeiron. With air, Anaximenes attempted to solve
the problem of Being and Becoming, of the One and
the Many.
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“He used simple and economical Ionic
speech”。这是相对于Anaximander而言的。
阿那克西曼德虽然是用散文撰述哲学作品
的第一人，但仍保留诗意化的语言：
“speaking of them thus in rather poetical
terms”。阿那克西曼尼能够使用简单而经济
（simple and economical）的语言来进行哲
学写作，表明思辨能力以及语言的掌握、
运用能力的提高。
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From the above, it can be seen that the Milesian
School, in fact, started the first debate in
Western philosophy which was held on the
question “Is Being itself determinate or
indeterminate?”
Being and Becoming
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These are basic philosophical terms.
The word becoming refers to the process coming into
being and going out of being, coming into being and
perishing. Becoming is a category. It labels a chunk
of reality. That chunk of reality which goes through
the process.
By contrast, the word being refers to that which
endures, something which is in the world of around,
in the category of becoming into being and goes out
of being. But being itself remains. It remains the same.
Reformulate Hesiod’, Thales’, Anaximander’s and
Anaximenes’ position.
Xenophanes and Pythagoras
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Besides the Milsian School, also speculating
about the world were two other thinkers in the
6th century BC, Xenophanes(570-475 B.C.)
and Pythagoras(570-500 B.C.) .
Xenophanes
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Born in Colophon, near Miletus, around 570.
As neighbor to the Milesian School
geographically, he was also a neighbor
conceptually.
On one hand, he began to use rational thought
to probe into the world; on the other hand, he
joined the Milesian quest for Being.
Xenophanes
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For Xenophanes, god is the archê and god is
the Being. God is one and permanent. God
itself does not move, but it is able to move
everything else by his mind alone.
Xenophanes
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A critic of the Greek polytheism ( 多神教,多
神论). He asked the question: why, if the god
insists on the morality for us, don’t they act the
moral way? Why is Zeus having all these
affairs? “Now I tell you something,” said
Xenophanes, “If dogs have gods, they would
look like dogs; if frogs have gods, they would
like frogs. All of these are just our reading of
ourselves into the world of a divine.”
Xenophanes
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Xenophanes was also questioning social values
and criticized the worship of Athletes of his
age: “Why do we pay so much attention to
these overweight muscled-up boxers who went
to the Olympic Game? What have they ever
done to serve anyone? Why should they
receive food and board to their rest of their
lives and make fortunes? ”
Pythagoras (570-500 B.C.)
Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagoras
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While Thales was called “the father of philosophy”,
Pythagoras was known as "the father of numbers".
Pythagoras believed that everything was interrelated
with mathematics, and thought that everything was
able to be measured in rhythmic patterns or cycles,
and the musical intervals could be explained
mathematically. In sum, he worshipped in numbers,
which, he believed, were permanent and stable.
Pythagoras
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To him, Number is an excellent candidate for the
archê. Pythagoras would take the side of Thales and
Anaximenes in the Milesian debate.
The archê must be determinate, and numbers have
this feature. Numbers cannot be touched or seen or
sensed in any way, but they can be thought, namely,
they are intelligible like Thales’ water and
Anaximenes’ air. Numbers are stable and permanent.
Particular things, however, in Pythagoras mind, are
sensible and they do change.
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And the Pythagoreans believed in reincarnation (再
投胎,再生,转世).
Pythagoras was most famous as the founder of the
Pythagorean Theorem
In addition, Pythagoras also made significant
contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in
the late 6th century BC. The influence of Pythagoras
has transcended the field of mathematics.
The Pythagorean theorem: The sum of the areas of the two squares
on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse
(c).
Medieval woodcut showing Pythagoras with bells in Pythagorean tuning
Pythagoras, the man in the center with the book, teaching music, in The
School of Athens
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A kind of crisis has been developing in the
sixth century, in the ancient Greek philosophy.
Questions to discuss
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1. Do you think that the world has an archê? If
so, does it seem more plausible to you that it
is determinate or indeterminate?
2. What might be some contemprary
candidates for the archê?
3. The contemporary world is often described as “the
age of the computer.” Are we living in Pythagorean
times?
4. Do you think there are aspects of life that cannot be
reduced to numbers? What might these be?
Heraclitus (535-475B.C.)