EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHY BEFORE SOCRATES

May 28th 585 BC, there is a war going one between lydia and the medes, and during
their battle, a solar eclipse occurs. All the soldiers panic, and run from the field on both
sides. Just south of here in a trading town called Miletus, in a region called Ionia,
science as we know it starts. The culture there is cosmopolitan, they are compfortable
with the culture of the world at large. anyway, at that date, in that city, there is a man
named Thales 624bc-545bc, who looks up at the sky, and smiles, because he had
predicted, using patterns of observation, the solar eclipse. The Soldiers thought 1: There
is a purpose to the acts of the gods. often this purpose malicious or whimsical 2: Luck is
a force, you go through life rolling cosmic dice. 3: Fate; their are spirits that determine
how long you will live and the preordained course of your life. Thales, on the other
hand, see patterns in nature, and makes Rational Inferences. He, and the other two
great scientists believed in Metaphysics (Physics=body's Meta=Above) which asks the
questions "what is the nature of reality?" "what acounts for the unity in the universe?".
The early scientists, the natural philosophers wanted to know about nature, asked those
questions. This period of Greek thought is known as the cosmological period, becaues
the influential thinkers of the day primarily asked metaphsyical qeustion. Thales said
that the basic stuff that unifies everything was water. The Epistomological question:
"How do we know what qoulifies as truth?" "how to explain change?". Thales answers
that by saying that there is a spontanous transformation because things are full of the
gods (matter possess life). Everything is in flux/process because they are full of the
gods. Anaximander 610- 545 was the second of the three greats, he was the first human
evolutionist, holding that life came from the primordial oceon, and that eventaully the
animals would turn into humans. He believed in the transmigration of the soul,
meaning that the soul is in the body, but the body changes, so the soul goes into a new
body (reincarnation). He also belives in the Apeiron (that which is boundless/ infinate,
that which cannot be described, that which all things flow from, and, eventaully, all
things shall return). Whether the being/thing he talks of is a personal God or something
impersonal is ambigious. He could have been a theist, or a pantheist. The forces of
nature are caused by the 5 elements of the Apeiron, earth, air, fire, water, ether. His
student is Anaximenes 545BC Claimed that the theory of his teacher was too
metaphysical, and so claimed that air was the binding force of the universe. Two forces
account for nature. Rarefation (that process by which things heat up) Condensation (the
process of cooling down). Democritus 460-360 Anthroplogical period, concerned with
human interaction, society, ethic, etc. Democratus is the father of philosophical
materialism, a form of science that theorizes everything is made of matter that is made
up of Atoms, which are governed mechanistically, by the random collision of eachother.
Ultimately, morality is atom based, and thus, the meaning of life is human flourishing.
Course atomic activity are those things that are simply sense pleasures, but the problem
with them is that they throw us off balance, which brings a lack of transqoulity. Their is
then refined Atomic Activity, the fire Atoms, produces rational behavior, happiness in
logic and truth, this form of happiness results of peace of mind and true happiness. To
Democritus their were no gods, negating the trancendental realm. The other
philosophers saw the problem in his logic, a seperation between free thought and
morality and mechanistic theory. The scool of sophists, the most influential of which
was Progoras of Abdera 490-420, said that turth is relative, and said "man is the
measure of all things". Man could be interpreted to mean either individuals or society.
This means that morality and law are conventions, man made, Abritrary at that. What is
made important in this is the art of debate, the art of winning the argument, is more
important that actual truth. he negates UNIVERSAL MORALITY, TRUTH,
KNOWELEDGE. Gorgias 483-375 Who negates existence. 1: nothing exists. 2: if
anything exists, we could not know it. 3: if we should find out that something exists,
you could not communicate it. He is a Nihilist. A thing is never a thing becaues it's
always changing. His students then go down two paths. A: if truth us relative, then
Might makes right 2: There is a natural law, therefore, society should be free of
ineqoulity.
Signifiance: Their moving towards more rational theory, the beginning of eternal
debates. Rebellions against society. it produces socrates, plato, and aristostle.