Notes on Pre-Socratic Philosophy
Philosophy 131: Philosophy of Religion - Epperson
Milesian School
Thales of Miletus
Anaximander of Miletus
Anaximenes of Miletus
624-548
610-546
fl. 545
Pythagorean School
Pythagoras
580 - 500, founded school in Kroton
Heracleitus of Ephesus
540 – 480, fl.504-501
Eleatic School
Xenophanes
Parmenides
Zeno
Reputed founder, but no evidence.
Founder: Born 515, dialogue with Socrates, 451-449
495 - 430
Empedocles of Akragas
490 - 430
Anaxagoras
500 - 428, came to Athens in 480
Atomist School
Leucippus
Democritus
fl. 400 – 500; Of the Eleatic School, student of Zeno
460 – 370
THE MILESIAN SCHOOL
Introduction
THESIS: The genesis of Greek philosophy can be placed in the Ionian philosophical tradition.
Ionia was the cradle of Greek philosophy; Miletus (modern day Turkey, city of Soke) was the
cradle of Ionian philosophy.
Aegean Greek culture submerged by the Dorian invasions of 11th century BC. Aegean spirit
preserved by Ionia—philosophy, literature, art, etc.
Homer – Ionian literature
Ionian cosmology
2
Greek mathematics influenced by Egyptian mathematics; Greek astronomy influenced by
Babylonian astronomy; but neither were ‘derived from’ these. Greek math was more theoretical
than Egyptian; Greek astronomy more empirical than Babylon’s astrological divinations.
Unique to Greece: Desire to discover the essence of things. Knowledge for its own sake.
Not tied to religious exclusivity (as Indian philosophy, etc.) Not tied to practical benefits,
either (Eastern philosophy = ways of avoiding unhappiness, etc)
Thales of Miletus
Anaximander of Miletus
Anaximenes of Miletus
624-548
610-546
fl. 545
Thales of Miletus: The earliest Ionian philosopher. Focused on change from birth to death via
growth and change.
Attempted to discern the ‘primary substance’ undergoing change—i.e., the permanence
underlying an ever changing world. Here the concept of primary ‘substance’ is defined
NOT as ‘matter’ in the conventional sense; instead, the idea of primary substance is that
of ‘archê’ –i.e., the ‘origin’ of all things and/or the ‘defining principle’ of all things.)
Various Ionian philosophers differed on their notions of ‘primary substance,’ but all held
it to be material.
Thales = water
Anaximenes = air
Heraclitus = fire
Not sheer ‘materialists’ though because no distinction between spirit and matter. Ionians were
then more primitive scientists than philosophers in the strict sense of the word. Did more than
merely observe, though: used speculative thought to theorize the fundamental characterization of
the various primary substances. Therefore, Ionian materialism is more an ‘abstract materialism’
than modern empirical materialism. The idea is that unity is fundamental: Unity in difference,
and difference entering in to Unity. Also, a law-governed universe where balance is the
governing principle.
Thales of Miletus
Predicted the eclipse of 585 bc according to Herodotus; died in 546; almanac, navigation via ursa
minor.
Water is the primary substance. Water becomes ‘air’ through heat; becomes ice (and by
extrapolation, ‘earth’) via cold.
3
First to raise the question of the ultimate, fundamental nature of the world. First to raise the
notion of Unity in Difference.
Aristotle, the major source for Thales's philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first
person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter
and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was interested in almost
everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science,
mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics. He proposed theories to explain many of the
events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the cause of change. Thales
was much involved in the problems of astronomy and provided a number of explanations of
cosmological events which traditionally involved supernatural entities. His questioning approach
to the understanding of heavenly phenomena was the beginning of Greek astronomy. Thales's
hypotheses were new and bold, and in freeing phenomena from godly intervention, he paved the
way towards scientific endeavour. He founded the Milesian school of natural philosophy,
developed the scientific method, and initiated the first western enlightenment.
The questions which excited [the Milesians] were of this kind: Can this apparently
confused and disordered world be reduced to simpler principles so that our reason
can grasp what it is and how it works? What is it made of? How does change take
place? . . . They abandoned mythological and substituted intellectual solutions. . .
. [It] was no longer satisfying to say that storms were roused by the wrath of
Poseidon, or death caused by the arrows of Apollo or Artemis. A world ruled by
anthropomorphic gods of the kind in which their contemporaries believed — gods
human in their passions as well as in their outward form — was a world ruled by
caprice. Philosophy and science start with the bold confession of faith that not
caprice but an inherent orderliness underlies the phenomena, and the explanation
of nature is to be sought within nature itself. . . . (Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. A
history of Greek philosophy. Vol.1, The earlier Presocratics and the
Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 44-45)
Aristotle defined wisdom as knowledge of certain principles and causes (Metaph. 982 a2-3). He
commenced his investigation of the wisdom of the philosophers who preceded him, with Thales,
the first philosopher, and described Thales as the founder of natural philosophy (Metaph. 983
b21-22). He recorded: 'Thales says that it is water'. 'it' is the nature, the archê, the originating
principle. For Thales, this nature was a single material substance, water.
To Aristotle, the theories of Thales were so obviously different from all that had gone before that
they stood out from earlier explanations. Thales's views were not ancient and primitive. They
were new and exciting, and the genesis of scientific conjecture about natural phenomena. It was
the view for which Aristotle acknowledged Thales as the founder of natural philosophy.
Anaximander of Miletus
Younger associate of Thales; believed the ‘primary substance’ (again, where ‘substance is
defined not as ‘matter’ in the conventional sense; instead, the idea of primary substance is that of
‘archê’ –i.e., the ‘origin’ of all things and/or the ‘defining principle’ of all things.)
4
For Anaximander, this ‘primary substance’ / archê’ was necessarily indeterminate or
‘boundless.’ This is because only the boundless is incapable of further reduction to some more
fundamental archê . At the same time, any definite or limited substance would ultimately be
reduced to its primary, unbounded substance—since the latter has no limits restricting its
encroachments into other, non-primary substances. Therefore, if the primary substance were
water per the thesis of Thales, everything would ultimately have been reduced to water long ago,
which isn’t the case. The primary substance as archê’, for Anaximander, is substance without
limits.
Encroachments of one element upon another (heat in winter, cold in summer) are considered
‘injustices.’
Eternal motion brings things into being. Vortex-like, so that the heavier elements are central
and the lighter elements tend toward the circumference. The world is not a flat disc of water,
but rather a short spinning cylinder.
Man evolved from other animals. All life originated in the sea and according to changing
environments, then adapted.
Anaximenes of Miletus
Said to have been a student of Anaximander. Unlike Thales and Anaximander, he held that air is
the primary substance from which all other substances are produced via natural forces.
Condensation is an example of solid matter coming from air, via wind, then water, then stones
(earth); fire comes from air via rarefaction. Air is the half-way point between earth and fire. The
earth is a flat disc floating on air.
Conclusion: The Ionian philosophers were driven by the wonder and joy of discovery; they
believed man could know things as they are objectively.
THE PYTHAGOREAN SOCIETY
2nd Half of the 6th century, Pythagoras—an Ionian—founded a religious Pythagorean Society at
Kroton in South Italy. A school with an ascetic and religious character stemming from the
religious revival in the Ionian civilization toward its end—the attempt to provide genuine
religious elements not provided in the Milesian cosmologies nor in the Olympian mythology.
Movement to skepticism on the one hand and to the ‘mystery religions’ on the other once the
freshness and vigor of the early Ionian civilization (and the Milesian philosophies of this time)
waned. Same happened during the fall of the Roman Empire.
5
Common ground between Orphicism (worship of Dionysius) and Pythagoreanism: both
organized into communities with initiations, etc; both posited the transmigration of souls—
that the soul is the important part of man, not the imprisoning body.
Not essentially a political group, but involved in politics. Had political control in Kroton, but
their lodges were burnt down and they were subject to persecution in 440-430 bc Society
later revived in Tarentum, Italy in the fourth century.
Ideas centered around purity and practices of purification and the transmigration of souls.
The soul is aided, trained, and purified via silence, music, and mathematics.
The soul is the seat of power in man, not the body (in contrast to the Homeric ‘shades’ or
‘shadow image’ of the departed). But there is no self-consciousness or self-identity bound up
with the soul; self-identity doesn’t transmigrate, in other words.
Many of the philosophical and mathematical contributions were likely not by Pythagoras
himself, but by someone in the Pythagorean school, such as Philolaus.
Mathematico-metaphysical philosophy: Mathematical primacy in nature. All things are
numerable. Musical intervals are also numerical; if musical harmony is dependent on
number, so is harmony in the universe. Milesian cosmologies focused on the conflict of
opposites in the universe; they Pythagoreans focused on the harmony of the universe
via numerical relations. Number is fundamental. The final real things ARE numbers.
Anaximander held that indeterminacy is fundamental; Pythagoras held that this
indeterminacy is balanced by the ‘Limit’ which gives it form, according to the harmony
between the two expressed by number.
According to Aristotle: The Pythagoreans held that the elements of number are
the even and the odd; the latter are finite, the former infinite. (I.E. Even numbers
are equated with the indefiniteness of Anaximander; odd numbers are the ‘limit’
which provides harmony. 1 precedes from both, since it is both even and odd.
The Pythagoreans regarded numbers spatially: 1 = point, 2 = line, 3 = plane, 4 =
solid. All bodies consist of points in space which together constitute number.
Evinced by the ‘tetraktys’ figure, sacred to the Pythagoreans. 10 = the sum of 1,
2, 3, and 4.
6
Objects are sums of points; numbers are sums of points; therefore, objects are
numbers.
The ‘limited’ cosmos (odd numbers) is surrounded by the unlimited or boundless
cosmos (air, even numbers.) The odd ‘gnomons’ (figures used to geometrecise
numbers) are always quadratic; the even gnomons are constantly changing
rectangular shapes:
5
5 5
6 6 6 6
3
3 5
4 4 4. 6
1
3 5
1, 3, 5, odd, always square
2 2 4 6
2, 4, 6, even, everelongating rectangles
‘Marriage’ = 3, the combination of the first masculine number, 1, and the first
feminine number, 2.
‘Justice’ = 4, etc. This type of numerical assignment seems arbitrary, though—a
misapplied extrapolation of mathematics.
The ‘Pythagorean Theorem’: their biggest contribution to mathematics. While it
is also evinced in the Sumerian computations, the Pythagorean theorem
transcended the mere arithmetical and geometrical fact and combined them in a
deductive system.
The earth was spherical and revolved, along with the planets and the sun, around
the central fire or ‘hearth of the Universe’ represented by the number 1. The
world inhales air (the unlimited) from the unlimited mass outside it. (the influence
of Anaximenes and Anaximander here.)
The Pythagoreans emphasis on the soul and its tripartite nature and proper care influenced
Plato, who was also strongly influenced by their mathematical speculations.
HERACLITUS
An Ephesian (modern day Turkey, village of Selcuk) who flourished approx. 504-501 bc.
Disdain for the common man and for the famous of the past. ‘Most men are bad.’ ‘All things are
in a state of flux.’ (not really his, though.) This is not the kernel of his philosophy, but it is a
central idea. By saying that all things change, he is not saying that there is no reality, however.
7
This is not the most important feature of his philosophy, though, since it is not novel (we saw it
in other Ionian philosophers).
The fundamental concept expressed in his ‘Word’: Unity in diversity, difference in unity.
Anaximander considered the encroachements of opposites on each other as ‘injustices’ and a
disorder that mars the purity of the ‘One.’ Heraclitus says that the conflict among opposites is
essential to the One. The only One exists in the tension of opposites, and this tension is
essential.
“We must know that war is common to all and strife is justice, and that all things come into
being and pass away through strife.” Numenius, Frag. 16 (Copleston I, 40).
“Men do know know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite
tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.” Frag. 51, ibid Copleston)
Reality is The One, but The One is Identity in Difference.
The ‘primary substance’ for Heraclitus is fire—and not just to be different from Thales and
Anaxamenes. Fire depends on strife and tension. It feeds on and springs up from a multitude of
objects, changing them into itself. Fire embodies the tension between the ‘upward’ and
‘downward’ paths elemental to change and the birth of the cosmos: Fire when condensed
becomes water, which then becomes earth (downward path); and the earth liquefies, evaporates,
etc… (upward path). He refers almost everything to the evaporation from the sea.
In an ever-changing world, ‘enduring’ substance is explained thus: Fire takes from things by
kindling, and turns back into things by extinguishment. ‘All things are an exchange for Fire, and
Fire for all things, even as wares for gold and gold for wares.” Frag 90. Copleston 42) Matter
changes, but the aggregate quantity of matter remains constant.
“The hidden attunement of the universe” is the balance of the upward and downward paths.
This leads to a certain relativism: “To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold
some things wrong and some right.” Frag. 102 This is the inevitable conclusion of a pantheistic
philosophy—that everything is justified.
God is the universal reason, the universal law immanent in all things, binding all things into a
unity and determining the constant change in the universe according to universal law.
8
Reason and consciousness in man—the firey element—are the valuable element. When fire
leaves the body, the water and earth remaining are worthless. Remaining dry is the wisest and
best course of action. ‘It may pleasure souls to become moist, but it is death to soul to become
water.’
Human laws should be the embodiment of the Universal Law. This participation of man in the
Reason of the universe paved the way for the universalist ideas of Stoicism.
Some claim that Heraclitus believed in a periodic universal conflagration, where all becomes
fire, as the Stoics believed, such that they inherited it from him. Copleston says there is no
evidence for this.
Heraclitus: Unity in Plurality. The desire to conceive of a unity in the obvious plurality comes
from the fact that things ARE interdependent, and this interdependence IS the unity among the
plurality. The only unity is the unity in diversity. ‘Man is right in seeking unity, but it is wrong
to assert unity to the detriment of plurality.’ Copleston, 44
A material universe which houses life MUST be a changing universe. But change implies both
diversity and stability ‘for there must be something which changes. And so there will be identity
in diversity.’ Copleston 46
THESIS: Heraclitus of Ephesus conceived of a genuine philosophic notion of Unity in Diversity,
though he did not adequately systematize it.
ELEATIC SCHOOL
Elea, in southern Italy. Reputed founder is Xenophanes, but no evidence that he was ever there.
Reputed because he was a monist, per the Eleatic School. (Not a monotheist, though, which
would have been too bizarre to be taken seriously at the time.)
Parmenides:
A citizen of Elea, was likely the real founder of the Eleatic School. Born around 500 bc;
conversed with Socrates around 451-449 bc when 65 years old.
Wrote his philosophy in poetic verse. Believed that Being, the One, is and that change or
Becoming is an illusion. For if anything comes to be, it comes either out of being or non-being;
if the former, then it already is; if the latter, then it is nothing, since only nothing can come from
nothing.
9
Plurality is then also an illusion.
Rejects Pythagorean school because it embraces the concept of change.
Introduces a duality of Truth vs. Appearance; or Reason vs. Sense. Makes explicit this
distinction between Truth and Appearance, only implicit in other philosophies (Heraclitus, etc)
This is NOT ‘Idealism’ though (Plato, etc); because the One is not necessarily mere thought;
Parmenides believes it to be material, and the ‘illusion’ is that the One is plural and differentiated
and changing. The Eleatic School is Monistic Materialism. Only reason—not sense—can
apprehend the material and unchanging One. Despite this, he is often called the father of
‘Idealism.’ This is wrong. He may have influenced the Idealism of Plato, but his true lineage
goes down through Empedocles and Democritus.
Anything that CAN be MUST be; for if one were to imagine something that did not exist, it
would be nothing, and could not be the object of speech and thought. To thing about nothing is
the same as to not think. If you can thing about it and speak about it then it must be.
Also, paradoxically, if something merely COULD be, then it could never actually come to be, for
it would come out of nothing if it didn’t exist already, and out of nothing comes nothing.
The ‘it’ which ‘is’ is therefore necessarily COMPLETE and immovable and continuous. It must
be spherical, finite in size but infinite temporally—spherical so that it looks the same from all
perspectives.
Asserts the indestructibility of matter, later adopted by Democritus and Empedocles. Democritus
accounted for change by varying aggregations of material, indestructible atoms.
Heraclitus asserted Becoming, but not exclusive of Being (for the One is Fire); but Permenides
asserted Being exclusive of Becoming.
Plato synthesizes the two: Parmenides’s distinction between sense-objects and true objects
via reason, the latter the only reality because the former are subject to the Heraclitean ‘flux.’
The objects of true knowledge are stable and eternal, like the Being of Parmenides—but not
material like the Being of Parmenedes.
10
Aristotle carries it further: Being in the sense of the ultimate immaterial reality (God) is
changeless, subsistent thought. Material being, per Heraclitus, is subject to change, but
according to concrete, stable forms (a la Plato) only forms of concrete material. The
dilemma of Parmenides is solved by accounting for ‘becoming’ via the concept of Potentia.
Being does not arise out of nothing, nor out of being precisely as being ‘actu’, but rather out
of Potentia—a different kind of something.
THESIS: The Eleatics in general denied the reality of multiplicity and motion. There is one
principle, Being, which is material and motionless. We sense motion and multiplicity, but
through reason, we can determine that it is mere illusion. True being is discovered, therefore, by
Thought.
Unlike Heraclitus, who attempted to show the dialectic, mutual interrelation between plurality
and unity—change and stability, the Eleatics believed in sheer unity and the Pythagoreans in
sheer diversity/plurality—(even though each concept ultimately presupposes the other).
Yet Heraclitus’ philosophy was also unsatisfactory in that it could not sufficiently account for
stability in the universe, and was bound up with materialistic monism.
EMPEDOCLES OF AKRAGAS
Akragas (Agrigentum) in Sicily. Approx 444-43. Amalgamated previous philosophies.
Embraced Parmenides’ concept of material being without end, indestructible, etc. Nothing arises
from nothing; something cannot arise out of nothing. But accounted for the experience of
change, motion, and plurality via an atomist doctrine: Collections of atoms may come into and
go out of being, but the atoms themselves do not.
Empedocles invented the classification of matter into the four classes: Earth, Air, Fire, and
Water. These cannot interchange. Objects come into being via the intermingling of the four
elements, and cease to be via the separation of the elements.
Empedocles mediates the philosophy of Parmenides and the facts of sensory experience.
The processes of nature re: these four particles are attributed to TWO FORCES: Love (attraction,
harmony); Hate (repulsion, discord). The former brings the four elements together; the latter
separates them and destroys the unity of the particles, thus destroying the composite ‘object.’
World-process is cyclic: Starts with Love (mingling of elements) then moves to Hate
(dissociation of particles into their individual element groups). The world as we know it is in the
11
period of the cycle just after the initial primary sphere and the stage of total separation of the
elements. Hate is gradually penetrating the sphere. Air was the first to be separated off when the
earth was formed, then fire, then earth. Water is squeezed out by centrifugal force from the
earth’s rotation.
Believed in transmigration of the soul in his Book of Purifications.
ANAXAGORAS
Born at Clazomenae in Asia Minor around 500 bc; came to Athens in the Persian Army, 480-79.
First philosopher to settle into the city, which would later flourish in philosophy.
Teacher of Pericles.
Accepted, like Empedocles, the theory of Parmenides that Being neither comes into or passes out
of existence, but is unchangeable. Atomist, like Empedocles, but unlike him, did not hold to the
four elements. He believed that atoms are qualitatively the same as their larger object. Some
objects are composed of many different types of atoms.
In the beginning, the multiplicity of particles were intermingled homogenously. ‘In everything,
there is a portion of everything.’ Otherwise, he could not explain change. If grass becomes
flesh, there must be some flesh particles in the grass. There is cold in warm, and warm in cold.
Empedocles attributed motion to the two fundamental forces Love and Hate; Anaxagoras
attributes it to the principle of Nous or Mind. Introduces the concept of ‘mind’ but doesn’t
portray it as non-corporeal; does not introduce a kind of dualism in that regard. Nous is in all
living things—the same in all. Matter is eternal, but Nous sets the vortex in motion and creates
matter. All change is due to Nous.
THE ATOMIST SCHOOL
Founded by Leucippus of Miletus… Member of the school of Parmenides, student of Zeno.
Difficult to discern in this school between the works of Leucippus and Democritus; the latter
came much later and was not a pre-Socratic.
Atomism is the logical development of the philosophy of Empedocles, who reconciled
Parmedian changelessness with the evident change of matter, via elemental particles and the two
forces Love and Strife. The Philosophy of Empedocles formed a transitional stage to the
12
explanation of all qualitative differences by a mechanical juxtaposition of material particles in
different patterns. (Love and Strife would have to be replaced by a more sensible mechanics.)
All these mechanics were developed by the Atomists.
According to Leucippus and Democritus: Infinite number of atoms; imperceptible; differ in size
and shape, but have no quality other than solidity and indivisibility. They move in the void.
Unlike Empedocles, who said the void is corporeal, Leucippus says the void is non-being,
which is just as real as being. Space is not a body, but is as real as a body—a different species
of reality. (Later, Epicurus would add the force of ‘weight’ to atoms such that they all move
downward—influenced by Aristotle’s concept of weight).
Democritus by contrast said there was no up or down or middle in the void. Collisions among
atoms set up the ‘vortex’ (Anaxagoras) and formed the world. Leucippus held that larger bodies
would tend toward the center (against Anaxagoras, who held the opposite). Like atoms are
brought together as in a sieve. This forms the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water.
Leucippus didn’t use Empedocles’ two forces, or Anaxogoras’ Nous; didn’t feel the need for
any moving force. Atoms have eternal motion. Aristotle later criticized the lack of
accounting for this motion. Leucippus sought no Unmoved Mover.
The atoms of Leucippus and Democritus are the monads of the Pythagorean School, only
with the properties of Parmenidean being, for each is the Parmenidean ‘One.’ And as the
elements arose from various arrangements and positions, they are like Pythagorean numbers.
Leucippus rejects the Pythagorean spherical model for earth, saying it is more like that of
Anaximenes (like Anaxagoras), a short spinning cylinder.
The Atomists—Leucippus and Democritus—give an explanation of the world that is purely
mechanical, and that is their contribution—the introduction of MECHANICAL
MATERIALISM.
PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY
All explorations as to the relationship and status of One and Many; Unity and Plurality;
Continuity and Change.
The quest for and anticipation of an underlying unity was not primarily driven by empirical
induction; it was an intuition and a purely philosophical cosmology.
13
Pre-socratic Philosophy centers on the world, not the self. The early Greek philosophers were
primarily cosmologists. The stumbling blocks in this endeavor lead to a change of focus from
Object, with the pre-Socratics, to Subject with the Socratics—from the Cosmos to Man himself.