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The Presocratics the Western Philosophical Tradition Began In

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The Presocratics the Western Philosophical Tradition Began In The Presocratics The Western philosophical tradition began in ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. The first philosophers are called “Presocratics” which designates that they came before Socrates. The Presocratics were from either the eastern or western regions of the Greek world. Athens — home of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — is in the central Greek region and was late in joining the philosophical game. The Presocratic’s most distinguishing feature is emphasis on questions of physics; indeed, Aristotle refers to them as “Investigators of Nature”. Their scientific interests included mathematics, astronomy, and biology. As the first philosophers, though, they emphasized the rational unity of things, and rejected mythological explanations of the world. Only fragments of the original writings of the Presocratics survive, in some cases merely a single sentence. The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts of early philosophers, such as Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics, The Opinions of the Physicists by Aristotle’s pupil Theophratus, and Simplicius, a Neoplatonist who compiled existing quotes. The first group of Presocratic philosophers were from Ionia. The Ionian philosophers sought the material principle (archê) of things, and the mode of their origin and disappearance. Thales of Miletus (about 640 BCE) is reputed the father of Greek philosophy. He declared water to be the basis of all things. Next came Anaximander of Miletus (about 611-547 BCE), the first writer on philosophy. He assumed as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance (to apeiron)itself without qualities, out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became differentiated. His countryman and younger contemporary, Anaximenes, took for his principle air, conceiving it as modified, by thickening and thinning, into fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth. Heraclitus of Ephesus (about 535-475 BCE) assumed as the principle of substance aetherial fire. From fire all things originate, and return to it again by a never-resting process of development. All things, therefore, are in a perpetual flux. However, this perpetual flux is structured by logos– which most basically means ‘word,’ but can also designate ‘argument,’ ‘logic,’ or ‘reason’ more generally. The logos which structures the human soul mirrors the logos which structures the ever-changing processes of the universe. Aristotle says of the first philosophers, which includes the Milesians: Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles (tas archas) which were of the nature of matter (tas en hulês) were the only principles of all things (archas pantôn). That of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance remaining, but changing in its modifications), this they say is the element and this the principle of things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed, since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be absolutely when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when loses these characteristics, because the substratum, Socrates himself remains, just so they say nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some entity-either one or more than one- from which all other things come to be, it being conserved. (Metaphysics 983b) Aristotle explains that the Milesian philosophers concentrate their efforts on ascertaining the principle (archê) of all things, which they consider to be matter (hulê). By matter is meant the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. By principle (archê) is meant that which which explains and causes the existence of another; an archê limits and conditions. Aristotle says that the Milesians sought to discover, "that of which all things that are consist, the first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved." They pursued this intellectual course because they believed that ultimately all things (or Being) was material and one; for them, to be able to say what everything is made of is to explain everything. In other words, what these men sought was to determine the origin and nature of everything by identifying the most basic material element that all things ultimately are, that from which all things emerge and return, or, as Aristotle puts it, the principle of all things, which is material. This is why Aristotle calls them "physicists" (physiki or physiologi), by which he meant those who believe that all things were physical, or made of matter. An implication of Milesian philosophy is that, ultimately there is no generation and destruction, since all things are one of the four elements. The changes that human beings experience are accidental and not substantial: water modifies its appearance but never ceases to be what it is, water. Aristotle explains Thales' philosophical views as follows: Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles (tas archas) which were of the nature of matter (tas en hulês) were the only principles of all things (archas pantôn)....Yet they do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle is water (for which reason he declared that the earth rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist and kept alive by it (and that from which they come to be is a principle of all things). He got his notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist nature, and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things. Some think that even the ancients who lived long before the present generation, and first framed accounts of the gods, had a similar view of nature; for they made Ocean and Tethys the parents of creation, and described the oath of the gods as being by water, to which they give the name of Styx; for what is oldest is most honorable, and the most honorable thing is that by which one swears. It may perhaps be uncertain whether this opinion about nature is primitive and ancient, but Thales at any rate is said to have declared himself thus about the first cause. Hippo no one would think fit to include among these thinkers, because of the paltriness of his thought. (Metaphysics 983b 7-27) The diversity of the world of common sense is the result of the modification of water to appear as something other than water. Water is that which is unchanging in a world of becoming. In one sense, Thales's view is that there is no true coming to be or passing away because all things are ultimately water, so that change is mere appearance, and is not ultimately real. In this way, according to Thales, reality is different from appearance because not everything appears to be one unchanging thing.Aristotle also relates that Thales believes that the earth rests on water (983b 21; see also On the Heavens 294a 28). It seems that if it must rest upon anything at all, the earth, which is water, must rest upon the first material principle, water. Anaximander shares Thales' assumption that all things originate from one original element and ultimately are that element; to use Aristotle's terminology, he holds that there is a first (material) principle (archê) of all things. Unlike Thales, however, Anaximander asserts that the first principle is not water, but what he calls the apeiron, translated as the Indeterminate or Limitless. Simplicius, drawing upon Theophrastus' work, gives the following account of Anaximander's view: Anaximander named the archê and element of existing things the apeiron (the infinite), being the first to introduce this name for the archê. He says that it is neither water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a different substance that is limitless or indeterminate, from which there come into being all the heavens and the worlds within them. Things perish into those things out of which they have their being, according to necessity. (Phys. 24. 13) For Anaximander, the archê, or first principle, is not any of the elements—earth, water, air or fire— but that which precedes the elements (and everything else), from which the elements emerge and which they all ultimately are From it comes all things, but it is none of those things: "all the heavens and the worlds within them." Because this archê is no existing thing, but the source and foundation of them, Anaximander names it the apeiron (the infinite), by which he means that the archê is indeterminate and has no characteristics: it is before and beyond all distinctions made with respect to being. According to Simplicius (and previous interpreters), Anaximander reasons that the first principle (archê) cannot be one of the elements derivative of it, such as water: "It is clear that when he observed how the four elements change into one another, he did not think it reasonable to conceive as one of these as underlying the rest, but posited something else" (Phys. 24.13). If all four elements change into one another, then the first principle cannot be one of these elements but must be prior to all of them; in other words, there must be a source of the four elements that itself has no source, for only that which is not any of the elements could give rise to them. It seems that Anaximander put this forth as a necessary or logical truth: implicitly he is appealing to the impossibility of infinite regress in explanation. Probably alluding to Anaximander, Aristotle explains, "There are some people who make this [a body distinct from the four elements] the infinite (apeiron), and not air or water, in order that the other elements may not be annihilated by the element which is infinite.
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