Pre-Socratics – The Natural Philosophers: (600-450 B.C)
Early Greek philosophers were called natural philosophers because they focus on the world and tried to stay away from the mythical reasons
They were looking for natural not supernatural answers to why things happen how they happen.
Most pre-Socratics believed in a basic subsistence at the base of all change, where everything came from and go back to, called the arche

Believed in four elements: Air, earth, fire and water.
Two stages of pre-Socratic thought:

Ø     To understand the nature world/physical world

Ø     To study the human world

 

Thales – Natural Philosopher: Miletus

Thales thought that the source of all things, or arche is water.

 “All things are full of gods” Thales said, and believed in “life germs” that were in all living things.

Thales traveled around and was much influenced by Egyptian ways of thought.

 

Anaximander (611-549 B.C) Natural Philosopher: Miletus

Anaximander believed in infinite many of worlds that evolve and disappear in the “boundless” and that the arche is an unknown substance, which is infinite and necessary.  The “boundless” was Anaximander’s arche for he believed that none of the four elements could be the arche, because they would cancel the other elements out, for example if all things were made of water then it would cancel out anything dry or warm.

 

Anaximenes (570-526 B.C) Natural Philosopher: Miletus

Anaximenes believed that the arche is air because it is the most neutral of elements. If air is condensed it turns to wind then cloud, water earth and stone, if air is rarified then it turns into fire.

 

Pythagrous (581-497 B.C) Mathematician: Miletus

 Pythagrous thought very highly of numbers and numerical equations, he is most famous for his theorem of right triangles (called the Pythrorium Theorem; the square of the hypotenuse of the right triangle equals the sum of the other two sides squared; A² + B² = C²), he realized that there were numerical patterns in music.
Pythagrous’s arche could be said to be numbers, or numerical and rational equations; for everything is composed of numbers.
Pythagrous’s religion had to do with the heavenly bodies, he saw that there were nine planets so he irrationally said that they was another planet out there, because ten was thought to be a sacred number. These ten planets, as they go whirling through the cosmos make music, and Pythagrous believed that one must learned to purify their mind, body and soul in order to hear the music. The immortality of the soul was also important to Pythagrous, he said that the soul would keep coming back one life after another if it wasn’t perfected to hear the music. Once a soul could hear and was able to embrace the music of the planets it was allowed to rise up and become one with the music.

 

Heraclitus (540-480 B.C) Natural philosopher: Ephesus
Heraclitus believed that change and flow in nature is all that nature is. As he said: “You can never step in the same river twice.” He thought that once you stepped into the river again, both the river and the have changed

Heraclitus also believed that the world is ruled by opposites, there would be no peace without war, no spring without winter – without opposites the world would stop being. He went even farther and said that everything is both good and bad; he seems to be forgetting that something can be bad or seem bad for someone or something, but be good or seem good for another; it doesn’t mean that it is inherently both good and bad.
To Heraclitus God is war and peace and spring and winter. God, for him, was something that loved and enjoyed everything in the world. He used a Greek word meaning reason instead of the word “God”; God is universal reason.
“The opinions of most people are like the playthings of infants.” Heraclitus said, he obviously disliked his fellow man

 

Parmenides  (540-480 B.C) Rationalist
Parmenides was a monist; he also believed that everything that exists has always existed and will always exist. “Nothing that exists could have could from nothing and nothing that exists can change into nothing”
Parmenides also believed that there is no such thing as change, nothing can change into something other than what it is (being is perfect it has no need to change). He ignored his senses (what he saw in nature) and stuck to his reason, because he thought that our senses give us an illusional view of the world
He said that what can exist does exist. What does not exist cannot exist (non-being cannot exist).
 A thing can be thought about only if it is possible for it to exist, if you think of something that does not exist, then you are not thinking of anything, therefore you are not thinking. –  what is possible = what is actual = what is necessary

 

Zeno (490-435 B.C)
Zeno was a pupil of Parmenidies and defended his ideas of monism by developing complex paradoxes that explained that in the long run pluralism’s ideas are more absurd (Redutco ad absurdum – A method of attacking philosophical positions by exposing their absurdities)

 

Empedocles (490-430 B.C) - Sicily

 Empedocles believed that Parmenidis and Heroclitius were right in one assumption and wrong in the other: nothing changes, but we must rely on our senses.
He thought the there was no single basic substance, but rather that there are four “roots” which the world was made of; earth, air, fire and water. Everything is a mix of those four elements and  that different things depended on their different combinations.
 Empedocles asked: What makes the substances combine and what makes it dissolve again? He decided that two forces of nature; love, brings thing together and strife pulls things apart.

Empedocles also answered the question: How can I see something?: The earth in one’s eye sees the earth around them; water sees water; fire, fire; and air, air.

 

Anaxagoras (500-420 B.C) – Athens
Anaxagoras believed that the world is made up of thousands of tiny particles, which he called “seeds” and that everything can be divided. There is part of everything in each particle, in a particle that makes up a tree there is also a bit of grass, flowers, water, etc. He believed that mind or intelligence is the “glue” that combines the particles to make beings.
Anaxagoras said that the sun isn’t a god, but a hot stone bigger than a country and all heavenly bodies are made of the same stuff as earth; that there might be life on other planets, and that the moon gives off no light by itself (the light comes from earth).

 

Demaocritus (460-370 B.C) Materialist
Demaocritus is most famous for his Atom theory: Nature is built out of minute, infinite, unbreakable particles, called atoms, which cannot break down any smaller. There are different shapes and varieties of atom, when joined they make up all different shapes. Atoms move around in space, but have hooks so they can connect together.When something dies or disintegrates the atoms fly away and become something else. He believed that there was no force that brought the atoms together, instead that everything is done mechanically. Democritus also believed in “soul atoms” and when something dies these atoms fly away and scatter like all others.

 

§         Fatalism – fortune telling, oracles, astronomy

·        Pythia – The oracle at Delphi. In Greece before doing anything drastic people would consult the oracle and her priests. “Know thyself”.

·        Sickness is from the gods sent as a punishment, you can pray to get well.

·        Medical science – when sickness comes it’s because nature is off balance, to be well is to have a sound, healthy mind in a sound, healthy body.

§         Athens was the center of Greek culture and had the first system of democracy