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The Presocratics 5-1

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THE MILESIAN NATURALISTS

The Presocratics
WHO WERE THEY?
The Presocratics a term which designates the first group of Philosophers. What inis formation do we get from the term itself? Pre-socratics These people must have lived before Socrates. O.K., you are more or less right. However Democritus is considered a Presocratic Philosopher even though he was younger than Socrates. So how can we understand that before Socrates include such Philosophers? to How about taking it to refer to a sort of trend or fashion Some people keep producing ? a certain style of clothes or music or accessories even if the main trend has changed. So Presocratic Philosophy could be considered as the trend in Philosophy before Socrates invented his style of Philosophy and guys like Democritus were contemporaries of Socrates who did not accept and follow his style of making Philosophy. That was a great insight, Men Clara. Using s more Philosophical terms, we would say that the distinction is more CONCEPTUAL than CHRONOLOGICAL. Socrates and Democritus, though contemporaries, had a very different idea (concept) of how to do Philosophy, of what Philosophy was all about. If they had a very different idea of what Philosophy was about, why do we call them both Philosophers? If Socrates were right (or if we were to decide that Socrates research is to be called Philosophy by convention), the Presocratics would not be true Philosophers, would they? Wait a minute Think Tank. You could have different style of clothes and they would all be clothes Same thing in Philosophy OK, Men but if I not mistaken, here we are speaking about a DEFINITION of what Phis, m losophy is about, not simply about the characteristics of a particular style of Philosophy. For Socrates, the Presocratics were not really Philosophers because they did not satisfy his criteria of what constituted real Philosophical thinking. You are both right, in a way. We consider the Presocratics and the Socratics (i.e. the followers of Socrates, people like Plato ) both Philosophers because we adopt an understanding of Philosophy that includes them both, namely that of Aristotle. If we were to adopt Plato definition of Philosophy (the s Socratic definition the presocratics would ), not be considered true Philosophers. This is the approach followed in some revolutionary textbooks, such as the one by Pierre Hadot, who calls Presocratic thought Philosophy before PhilosophyTraditional textbooks follow Aristotle by convention, and include . the Presocratics as the first group of Philosophers, while noting that some of their re Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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search would today be more considered as rudimentary science than Philosophy. We ll come back to this. Now, let see how can we classify the Presocratics? Were they a s uniform body of thinkers? Whiz These Philosophers lived in different places in different times, but I think we can risk a very rough classification in two big groups. On one hand we have certain thinkers and philosophical communities interested in what constituted nature. We refer to them as the naturaliststheir ideas were developed mainly in the GREEK POLEIS OF ASIA MINOR in ; the VIth century BCE. On the other hand we find a heterogeneous group of thinkers spread over the GREEK POLEIS IN ITALY, who developed their own Philosophical ideas between the VIth and the Vth century BCE. From these two groups, we get a third group forming in ATHENS in the Vth century. In Asia Minor, we have the Milesian School (Thales, Anaximander and Anaximene from the city of Miles in Ionia), Heraclitus (from Ephesus), Xenophanes (from Colophon), and Anaxagoras (from Clazomenae). Pythagoras, legendary founder of the Pythagorean sect also came from this part of the world (from the island of Samos). In Italy (or MAGNA GRAECIA, Greater Greece as it came to be called), we have the , Eleatic school (Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus from Elea), Empedocles (from Agrigento in Sicily) and Gorgias (from Leontini in Sicily). To complicate the picture a bit, we must add a number of people (and Philosophical communities) that emigrated from Asia Minor to Italy, like Pythagoras and Xenophanes. Note that more significantly, it was the ideas that emigrated: the Pythagoreanswere communities spread all over Italy and which discussed certain ideas attributed to a legendry fellow called Pythagoras .1 In the Vth century, Athens becomes a great centre of intellectual activity. It attracts Parmenides, Empedocles and Gorgias from Italy; Anaxagoras from Asia Minor; Democritus and Protagoras from Abdera (near the Bosphorus). With them, these thinkers bring along new trends in philosophy: Eleatism (Parmenides), Atomism (Democritus), Sophism (Gorgias, Protagoras).

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Tank

PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOMYTHY

I would like to go back to the question whether the Presocratics were philosophers or not. Friggieri (2000:2ff.), for instance, follows Aristotle and considers the Milesian naturalists to be the first Philosophers. He cites an authority, Jonathan Barnes, who in turn seeks to defend Aristotle's distinction between guys like Thales and the Pythagoreans (whom Aristotle considers Philosophers and mentions in Metaphysics A) and guys like Homer and Hesiod (whom Aristotle considers irrelevant to the history of the theory of the 4 causesi.e. the subject-matter of Metaphysics A, and whom he calls philomythoi , (lovers/followers of myths). Hadot (2002:10) adopts a Platonic definition of Philosophy, and claims that there is no radical distinction in structure and purpose between the cosmogonies (narratives relating the origin of the cosmos, e.g. Hesiod cosmogony; first s chapters of the book of Genesis ) of the philomythoi and the studies regarding nature (peri physeos) of the naturalists (physiologoi, physikoi). Hadot cites G. Naddaf studies s on the subject which show that the naturalists investigations on Nature (Physis) do substitute a rationaltheory of nature for the mythical narratives but rationaldiscourse here merely means positing a battle between physical realities which seek to predominate one over the other, instead of positing a battle between personified natural forces (the gods) found in the mythical cosmogonies2. Hence the radical distinction, for

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Later on, even Plato (a Socratic) spent a good number of years active in Italy. A cosmogony is an account of how the universe came to be. One of the oldest Greek mythical writings is the Cosmogony Hesiod. of Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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Hadot, is the one between what came before Socrates and what came after Socrates and this distinction separates what is Philosophy from what is not. Who is right, therefore, Friggieri or Hadot? Sap. O.K. That a nice question Let us state it more clearly. For Friggieri (and Barnes), the s distinction Philosophy/non-Philosophy corresponds to the distinction rational explanation/mythical narrativehence the Milesian naturalists are the first Philosophers since , they substitute a rational explanation of nature for the mythical narratives of the poets , the philomythoiFor Hadot (and Naddaf), the distinction . rational explanation/mythical narrative while remaining a valid distinction, is not radical enough to distinguish be, tween Philosophy/non-Philosophy . I tend to agree with Hadot on this point, but I would not hastily conclude (as he does) that we should write history of Philosophy starting from Socrates and not before. There are some elements of Philosophy in Hesiod and Homer as there are in the Milesian Naturalists we simply have to interpret the myths3 philosophically and not mythologicallyParmenides too writes using the style of a myth, and we still call him a philoso. pher, not a mythologist (mythologos, philomythos). Other cultures (non-western) have their own philosophical notions that we have to filter from myths, proverbs, etc. Myths are not irrational or a-rational. So the distinction rational explanation/mythical narrative cannot be used to demarcate the frontier between Philosophy/non-Philosophy but this does not entail that Philosophy started after the Presocratics in some form, it could also have preceded them4. This said, I find that there are pedagogic reasons to start History of Philosophy from the Presocratics. Their ideas are interesting, accessible to the beginner, and most of the stuff is fundamental to what comes afterwards. I would give more importance to the questions raised by Parmenides than to those raised Thales and Anaximander, but the discussion of the Milesian naturalists is very readable, and it makes more sense to split the Milesians and the Eleatics from the poets than to split the Eleatics from the Milesians. In the end, we start writing Philosophy from the Milesian Naturalists mainly because tradition has done so since time immemorial and we like it that way. Tradition follows Metaphysics A, as though it were the first History of Philosophy textbook (which it is not, since Aristotle, in this book, is mainly concerned with a History of Aristotelian Physics (the theory of the 4 causes)). I feel that tradition gives too much importance to Aristotle s distinction between philosophoi (philosophers) and philomythoi, which distinction becomes particularly relevant only in the effort to provide an Apology of Socrates and eventually becomes crucial in the effort to provide an Apology of Christianity pitting by Greek philosophy in bulk against Greek religion in bulk (as if they were two separate worlds). Nevertheless, it is interesting to see what Barnes has to say... maybe you could give us a summary, Whiz. Whiz 1. According to Barnes, the Milesian naturalists are philosophers because: They invented a NEW DISCIPLINE (Cosmology? Metaphysics? Physics? Philosophy?) with its own method and ends. This assumed the existence of an ORDERED UNIVERSE, in which one event follows another because there is an intelligible reason for such a change. Such an ordered universe is one which we can make sense of and understand; The invented a new terminology, the main notions of which where: kosmos, physis, arche , logos. This reflected a new vision of the universe; They used arguments that sought to confirm their hypothesis using evidence.

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Paul Ricoeur insists on this in Symbolique du Mal La . Aristotle himself is careful about this. He does not say that Thales is the founder of philosophy this type of but of b philosophy (i.e. that concerned with the causes of nature), see Metaphysics A 983 . Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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What do you think of such a characterization? Do these characteristics constitute a radical distinction between these authors and the poetsbetween their works Nature , On (Peri Physeos)5 and the ancient cosmogonies? Men s I am not an expert in Philology but as far as I know, we have no fragments of the Milesian Naturalists containing arguments it was Aristotle and the later authors who, when mentioning the theories of the Naturalists, tried to imagine what arguments Thales may have had to claim that the arche is water. We have to wait for Parmenides to get proof that some of the later Presocratics sought to consolidate their statements with arguments. Curiously enough, Parmenides arguments are presented within the context of a poetic narrative so the suggestion that poetic narrative and argumentation using evidence are mutually exclusive literary genres which can be used to distinguish Poets from Presocratic Philosophers is flawed. Hence, I donthink we have enough grounds t to attribute (3) to the Milesians. I donknow about (2): I donthink they invented these t t words, and I donthink we have enough samples of Greek literature from the different t poleis in this period to be able to make the claim that they gave such terms a radically new meaning. There is little evidence that Homer and Hesiod's use of, say, "kosmos" was radically different from that of Anaximander... if we do not try to read Aristotle's 'Physics' and 'De Caelo' into Anaximander's words, that is. As regards (1), the idea of an ordered universe is present already in the myths; as Irwin (1996:16ff) argues, Homer presents the will of Zeus as something which is, on the whole, intelligible, something whose rationality reflects a belief in the existence of an ordered universe. Men you make Barnes s, characterization seem quite awkward. I would like to ask you, Master Sapiens, if you admit at least a clear (if not radical) distinction between the Milesian naturalists and the poets. If yes, what would that be? If there is a distinction between philosophy and philomythy, it is the radically critical attitude that the Philosophers, starting from the Milesians, have to the world around them. It is the unquenched, un-stifled inquisitiveness of the intelligent child in each one of us that makes us philosophers. The little child asks a question: 'why is the sky blue?'; 'why is stealing bad?'. A philosophical answer will sprout dozens of new questions. A mythological answer is one that stifles this inquisitiveness by providing solutions that do not stimulate further questions simply because they refer to some mysterious notions that cannot be put to question. Imagine you are told that that a thunderbolt strikes a person because an invisible god throws it like a spear to punish that mere mortal. For what? For trying to be like the gods, or as the Greeks would say, for that chief injustice: trespassing, going beyond the limit fixed for humans. Such an answer would hardly stimulate you to ask further questions; you would moreover shut your mouth lest your inquisitiveness constitute a similar offence (knowing more than humans are allowed to know). If one is told that thunderbolts result from static electricity, one may start asking what static electricity is, and end up asking what a Higgs boson is ( and if it really exists)6. Now here s a question that scientists today still cannot answer. And if they ever do, there will be more questions down the line. Knowledge is more a matter of asking good questions than of providing good answers. Truth (aletheia) is something that becomes manifest when the veil of falsehood is lifted7. Good, radical questions unveil falsehoods. I do not believe we can make a clear-cut distinction in History of Philosophy between ancient Philosophy and Philomythy since the very history of Philosophy is the history of such an ever-deeper radical questioning. In every generation we find people who want to cling to the security of the given and people who want to risk digging deeper. The Miletan naturalists were the latter sort of persons; in this sense they were philosophers.
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We are told that such was the typical title of the works of the early Philosophers . This is one of the big questions in contemporary Physics. 7 The Greek word Aletheia (truth) literally means unveiling , uncovering . Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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Were they radical enough? Were they really the first such people? Was this attitude born only in the culture of VI th century Ionia? I do not think there are clear-cut positive answers to these questions. Aristotle and Plato had an interest to kick Homer and Hesiod out of their picture of what is Philosophy after all, these poets the authorities are on those very gods in whose name Socrates was killed. Those days it was a question of philosophers us or them mythologists, killers of Socrates Nowadays, we are more . careful when we come to wipe myths off the picture, since we risk dumping too many claims of non-Western cultures to some Philosophical history. And that is not so politically correct! In any case, it good philosophy to question radically even what constis tutes philosophy!

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Sap. Lee

Physis and the search for an Arche

NATURALIST VERSUS POST-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS
Please welcome a new disciple: Lee Sin. She has prepared some questions about the Milesian Naturalists, for us to answer. Lee Thanks, Master Sapiens. To start, I must admit that I found the above discussion somewhat confusing. You seemed to be making a distinction between philosophers and lovers of myths (philomythoi). But in the beginning you were talking about the naturalists physiologoiAnd sometimes you speak about the Presocratics. Are these simply other . terms for philosophers ? Claire maybe you could clarify The Presocratics were the Philosophers who style of philosophising predates Socras tes. Many of these are called Naturalists, either because they were interested in research regarding nature ( physishence they were called , physiologoior else because ) Aristotle (a later philosopher) fitted them within his scheme of the development of Physics (or rather the Study of Nature ). If I understood well what Master Sapiens was saying, however, it is a point of contention whether the Naturalists were Philosophers or not. Well according to Hadot Leave that alone for a sec. Start from Aristotle Aristotle calls the Naturalists, Naturalists (Physiologoi), rather than Philosophers. So for Aristotle, they are not Philosophers in the strong sense of the world (real Philosophy for Aristotle is that starting with Socrates). The complication that we will bracket is that Aristotle wrote a history of the development of the study of nature (Naturalism Physics in the Arisotelian sense), and this history has been read through the ages as a History of Philosophy, hence making of the Naturalists the first Philosophers. O.K.: Aristotle Naturalists not Philosophers. Here comes the tough question underlying Lee question ( remember Philosophy is all about radical questioning ): s What is the difference between Naturalism and Post-Socratic Philosophy? Hey you yourself didn answer that one! It the same as the difference between t s Philomythy and Philosophy the latter entails more radical questioning! Good one, Whiz. But here comes the punch. What is the precise nature of the radicalism in question? What jump is there between Naturalism and Post-Socratic Philosophy? All right, I help you here. The jump is from the concept of Physis (Nature) to that of Being. ll Naturalism studies all of nature, and this, on the first reading, means the whole material universe, in Greek kosmosNaturalism is hence a study of the cosmos, a Cosmology. . Post-Socratic Philosophy studies all that is, all reality, all of being Note that some .
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Presocratic philosophers (the ones who do not fit the title Naturalists very well) started to realise that Being is something more than the material (or physicaluniverse (or, in ) other words, there was more to the cosmos that its material components: trees, stones, stars, chairs i.e. bodies a general sense, as used in modern Physics). The transiin tion from Naturalism to Philosophy was hence not as abrupt as it may seem above The words Physis and Cosmos was expanded to include the newly discovered nonmaterial reality. So, tell me now, were the Naturalists Philosophers or not? Men s In a sense they were! Because they studied the whole of reality as they knew it: Material reality. They were not Philosophers in the strong sense because the study of the immaterial reality constitutes an essential part of anything we would call PhilosophyIn their . studies they came across non-material reality, and they widened the scope of their research to include it. They also widened the terms kosmos and physis . What do you mean by non-material reality? That includes a lot of things. To seek a solution to the problem, Aristotle appealed to our use of language (b.t.w., that typical in Philosophy, do not be put off!). When we say s something , it is existswe usually mean that it exists as a body in space, it has mate, rial reality: The table is. There is a star over there. Pebbles exist. A philosopher would further link this to our way of knowing it this something (another typical Philosophical operation). How do we usually know bodies? We meet them around, they are present to our senses, to our perception (in Greek aesthesis So we have linked a kind of things ). (material bodies) with one type of linguistic expression (the use of the verb be the to in form: is exists with one type of knowledge (perception, sense data, x , x ), aesthesis ). We playing a game on three levels: being, knowledge of that being, expression of that re knowledge. We call these levels the ONTOLOGICAL/METAPHYSICAL level, the EPISTEMOLOGICAL level and the LINGUISTIC level. Now, note that there are different uses of the verb beConsider: think, therefore to . I there must be something somewhere that is doing the thinking, that we may call . I Hence I amThat different from saying am because I can feel my body why? . s I Tank Sap. Men s Well, you know it in a different manner (using your thinking rather than your senses). Fine. How about the can we simply assume from the above reasoning that it is just I another body space? in It not obviously so I donfeel my thoughts. I donsee them at least not while I s t t m doing this reasoning. You need some substantial assumptions to link that something somewhere that is doing the thinking with the body I can feel with some part of it, or say the brain. Hence, the is not obviously some part of my biological self. In this sense I it is not material . The as the centre of my thinking self is not something we come to know using percepI tion, and hence it is not a bodyIt , but intuitively, its existence seems different from . is that of bodies in space. Hence when we say amwe are using the verb be a I , to in secondary sense, not in the primary sense noted above. O.K. Now consider: grass IS GREEN IS TRUE , x , murder IS BAD , shower IS DOUCHE (in French) , Alfa Romeo IS A CAR times 2 IS SIX , 3 , red IS FOR TOP smoking IS THE RULE OD ISPhysical S , no , G . properties, logical values, moral qualities, synonyms, kinds, mathematical entities, signs, regulations, supernatural beings all of these beingsare not obviously bodies in space. They , they are exist but not simply as things we meet around. Now, some of these are clearly linked to material objects, and are known by perception say physical properties such as length or smoothness or bluishness8. Others are less so say moral qualities they are usually attributed to a subject having a body (say a person: John is

Lee Sap.

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Colours do tend to cause further complications, though. Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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goodbut they are not really properties (such as rotundity or dark skin colour) stuck to ) that physical entity. Hardly anybody would admit that we have some queer moral sense to detect moral qualities such as we have sight to detect visible properties. Numbers are even less material when counting apples or coins they seem linked to material ob jects, in geometry they somehow link to distances in space between objects but then, in arithmetic and algebra, they seem to attain a life of their own. Human minds and supernatural beings seem the most immaterial of all beings. In these cases, any knowledge we may have of such entities must be coming from the use of the mind independent of aesthesis. Greeks call the mind nousits use independent of the senses is ; noesisWe may also call it . thinking , intellect , intelligence , reasoning (from the Latin ratio and even ) logic (from logos a Greek word indicating the way our speech is or, dered so as to MAKE SENSE, an ordering assumed to be very similar or identical to our way of thinking) So we have: mind versus senses, logic versus aesthesis, immaterial versus material, physical bodies versus non-physical entities, primary use of the verb to be versus a variety of secondary uses. Now what is the link to Lee question? s Tank Sap. Is this distinction precisely the gain in depth and radicalness that characterises the transition from Naturalism to Post-Socratic Philosophy? Exactly. The Naturalist search for an understanding of totality of being widened the is by the discovery of such a distinction: from seeking to UNDERSTAND what the material universe is to seeking to UNDERSTAND physical bodies PLUS their properties PLUS the natural laws governing their transformations PLUS moral qualities, human (and other?) rational minds (or souls, selves, egos, spirits ), linguistics, social practices etc. etc. etc. In time, so many disciplines bud out of Philosophy to study the different types of so entities(Biology and Medicine study living bodies, Maths studies numerical entities, Ethics studies moral qualities, Sociology/Politics/Jurisprudence study social entities ). Philosophy unites all these as it studies things as entitiesqua Beings. And furthermore , it asks the radical questions that the different disciplines that study different beings cannot ask such as does such-and-such entity really exist? there any real differ, is ence between this entity studied by this discipline and that entity studied by that discipline? the methods used by that discipline adequate to study that entity? Now, , are maybe it time Lee asked another question s

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Lee

THE NATURE OF NATURE

O.K. I was reading about the Milesian Naturalists and I met the following Greek terms: Ko smos, Arche , Phy sis, Stoiche ion, Aita and furthermore there was written that their studies were cosmologicalNow . Cosmology no modern science, as far as I know is Master Sapiens mentioned the disciplines that budded out of Philosophy. But tradition has often distinguished, WITHIN PHILOSOPHY, between discourse about the entities in the universe (Cosmology), discourse about persons, their minds/spirits and their behaviour (Anthropology-Psychology-Ethics), and discourse about super-natural entities (Theology). The fragments from the Milesian naturalists indicate that these philosophers were mainly concerned with Cosmology. Cosmology is rational discourse (logos) concerning the kosmos (often translated as world or universe which is taken to refer to the TOTALITY OF REALITY, the WHOLE OF ), NATURE (physis). Now, when we use the word nature English we often think of ALL THE THINGS in e.g. Mother Natureor These substances are found in nature this meaning associates physis very closely with kosmos, such : that they are almost interchangeable.
AROUND US TAKEN TOGETHER

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Nevertheless, we also use naturein another sense. Consider the following phrases in ordinary language: What is the nature of this sauce? (What is it made of/where did you get it from?). What the nature of that dog? (How will it behave will it bite me or not?) Biological evolution, by its very nature, tends to produce beings that are most adapted to their environment9 (Where will it go? What is its purpose?). To understand something, we ask what is it? more specifically or what is its natureand we seek to know what it is made of, what is its origin, how will it be, have, what is its purpose. We usually answer the what-is-it? question by giving a common name ( s a DOG but that name tags the NATURE of the thing: if it a dog it ), s then it must behave in such and such a way, it will hurt if trodden on because it s made of such and such material, etc. Knowing the nature of dogs, or of fires, persons, etc. we understand the world we live in. The world becomes liveable because things can be recognised by their nature and grouped according to their nature, and we can learn how to deal with dogs and fires and persons etc. THINGS IN THE UNIVERSE (AND ULTIMATELY THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE) SEEMS TO BEHAVE ACCORDING TO AN INTELLIGIBLE ORDER. This is the essence of Naturalism: finding the NATURE of things so as to understand the whole universe. Here the meaning of nature practically identical to that of is arche which is usually translated as , principle .

Arche is big word in Greek. Its meaning became richer as Philosophical thought regarding the cosmos evolved. It came to mean several things, which Aristotle eventually came to distinguish when describing his theory of the 4 causes (aitiai, sing. aitia). As we said, this is what the first Philosophers were after: the arche of things, and ultimately the 10 arche of the whole kosmos (the first principle/s of nature; the nature of nature .) The word arche probably Aristotle the Presocratics would most probably have used is s, physis the second sense to mean the same thing. Arche , like all big words, tends to in widen its meaning with time As we said above, the first philosophers were looking for a , question as we do when we MATERIAL PRINCIPLEi.e. they were asking the WHAT-IS-IT look at some strange foodstuff. They were asking, in other words, something in the whereabouts of: what is the stuff from which all things are made? (compositional substrate) and what is the stuff from which all things came to be? (originating substrate). They probably did not distinguish properly between these two ways in which we can understand the material principle (the stuff from which the universe IS COMPOSED, and the stuff from which it ORIGINATED) which, for us, are clearly distinct. Sea Salt, for instance, originates from sea water, but is not composed of sea water. A rusty nail may be composed almost entirely of rust, but did not originate from rust (they did not use rust to manufacture the nail). But we too, at times, confuse origin and composition, like the Milesians11. Later Philosophers realised that the material principle was not enough to explain the nature things. Think of a city built from Lego blocks. It came to be from, and is made of up of a number of different coloured blocks (say 20 different types). But a list of the different types of blocks including the quantities of each used in the city is not enough to reconstruct the city from scratch. You also need the design, the form of the city, the laws according to which each Lego block should be laid. When people realized that a

Many biologists would doubt that evolution has a nature such a teleological kind (i.e. a nature that specifically of makes it move towards a set purpose). Gene mutations (that are the fundamental basis of such an adaptability the to environment) are random, and not directed towards a bettering of the species in any particular way. 10 nd st The first nature understood according to the 2 meaning above, the second nature understood according to the 1 meaning above. 11 However, it could be that the later Milesians (e.g. Anaximenes) were aware of the difference, as we shall see. Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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principle can also be something of this sort, formal non-material, they widened the , sphere of meaning of arche include this meaning. to Sap. O.K., but before going into this, let us focus on the principle as MATERIAL SUBSTRATE, i.e. as understood by the Milesian Naturalists before things got more complicated. Before we proceed, keep this in mind: the Greeks had TWO traditions regarding the origin of things. One is the doctrine of the FOUR ELEMENTS: all things are composed of a combination of 4 elements (stoicheia, sing. stoicheion): Earth, Air, Fire and Water12. The other is that of the OPPOSITES: things in nature occur due to the interaction of opposites: good and bad, straight and curved, light and dark, true and false, limited and limitless This means that already in Greek culture we have the idea that things originate from/are composed of other things which are more basic. They do not originate form nothingnessThey are not ultimately composed of . nothingnessThis means that things come . to being by the transformation of something else. As Aristotle says in his famous text Metaphysics A (the place where he gives the history of the concept of Arche , and hence fits the Philosophers who preceded him within his theory regarding Nature and Being):
Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things. That <stuff> 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 he loses these characteristics, because the substratum (subject), i.e. Socrates himself, remains. Similarly they say that 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. Metaphys. 983b 6-17

So what do we have here? Pale-skinned Socrates going to Bronze-skinned Socrates with Socrates not being created or destroyed. Marble block to marble statue the marble is not created or destroyed. Take that a step higher. Earth as rock on a cliff and earth as marble. Same earth, different appearance How about a substance x that presents itself as water in certain conditions and as earth in others. If such a thing exists, the sea and the marble block as different forms of x, just as Pale-skinned Socrates and Bronze-skinned Socrates are different forms of Socrates. How about finding for all the things that exists (for our intents and x purposes, material stuffs That would be the ). arche everything. Now, have you kept of in mind the two traditions? How do they come in? Men s Well, they provide hints regarding what that may be. Could be one of the elements or x more than one Could be one of the opposites, or a set of opposites, or a number of sets. Must we have one principle or more than one? What do you think, Whiz?

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The doctrine that nature was composed of/derived from THESE 4 elements (earth, air, fire, water) is first clearly stated by Empedocles (a later Philosopher), but we find rudiments of a 4-element basis of nature in mythology, e.g. in Hesiod. Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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Whiz

Well, Aristotle says that there may be one or more than one. We have to find out. Theoretically, reducing everything to one would be the nicest option because if you had two things, say 1 x and 2you would still be tempted to ask if they were simply transformax , tions of some further principle, . But at this stage we can only try to take this reduction x as far as it goes. Good. Reducing everything in existence to one principle is called MONISM. The Milesian Naturalists (Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes) were monists they tried to get everything down to one original basic stuff. Later authors find monism hard to sustain on a material level. Some however tried to defend it at all costs. Later on, the discovery of non-material entities makes Philosophers search for non-material principle for such entities, and some seek some sort of superprinciple beyond the material / non-material divide. Material and non-material entities would then simply be different forms of this same principle. This absolute beingor super-entityeventually becomes a Philosophical GodThat where things get out of hand but maybe things have already gone out of . s hand with our simple clarifications of the Naturalists terminology. Have you got any other queries, Lee?

Sap.

5.2.3
Lee

THE ARCHE AND CHANGE

Friggieri (2000:12) argues that the first Philosphers were after the STABLE BASIS OF THINGS, since the things around us, as perceived by our senses, seem perpetually changing. Waves come and go, but the sea remains the same. What does this mean? What does this have to do with what we are saying? O.K. This gives us a good occasion to revise and extend what we already said ve Men s? Well, Lee, it just what we were saying about Socrates s skin colour. Socrates, as perceived by our senses is always changing, but we believe it the same Socrates whens ever we meet him. Socrates is that beyond the different manifestations we meet x around pale or bronze skinned, young and handsome or old and sickly, beginner musician or virtuoso. Recall what Tank said earlier about being dogs. We reduce the different appearance of our pet to Scruffy and all the Scruffys to the kind DogThat is how . we make sense of the universe: we group different appearances (my pet as it appeared this morning my pet as it appeared this evening) and reduce them to manifestations of the same entity (Scruffy); we group entities (Scuffy; Auntie Chihuahua; that stray s pest who chased me yesterday ) and reduce them to kinds (Dogs) tagged by common names ( Dogs (B.t.w., when we reduce everything to one big kind, we get ). Beings as a common name the common factor that unites all things is that they are that why s there so much fuss in Philosophy about the verb be s to !) Now let come to another big issue behind Lee question. Philosophers seek the s s arche , O.K.. Common people use language, and tag things with common names; hence they unknowingly assume that even though Socrates never appears the same, there is a stable Socrates behind all the manifestations we get through aesthesis. There are stable things in the world even though everything seems to be ever changing. Otherwise we would not be able to make any sense of anything if, say, every time we meet something or someone we have to treat it as something totally new. The world would be unliveable if we were to assume that there is nothing stable behind the changing appearances. Believing in an ordered universe means that even though things seem always changing, there is stability in the universe, there is IDENTITY THROUGH CHANGE. And common people tacitly admit they believe in an ordered universe every time they use language: if there was nothing but ever-changing appearances, we wouldnbe able to t speak about Scruffy or about dogsYet, at the same time, common people often (tac. itly) make the mistake of moving from the observation world APPEARS intrinsically the
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TRANSIENT to the world IS intrinsically TRANSIENTEverything comes and goes, every. thing changes, for so it SEEMS. Yet by their use of language humans admit that they cannot live in a world that is REALLY so. This dilemma introduces a distinction between the REAL and the APPARENT that becomes fundamental to Philosophy, especially with Socrates: Common people (hoi Polloi) stop at the appearances, Philosophers go beyond to seek the ESSENCE of things, the what is it esti) of things. (ti

The water in the river changes, but we still refer to it as the same riverWhat is the . river? What is its nature? What is the sea beyond the apparent wave motion? Do you believe that rives and seas exist? Why? Your senses tell you there nothing stable you s can call sea or riverSo there is no such thing as a . riveris there? Do you believe , there is a guy called Socrates? Do you believe this is a hand It gets dirty, pale, wrin? kled, tanned, rough there is no such thing as a handis there? Yet if you were really , to believe that there is nothing stable behind the apparent changes you would go crazy you would be afraid to move your hand once its dirty it because it seems to be a different hand, no longer the hand you were always familiar with. So what? Well, let s ask the question again. What is the river? What is its nature? What is there beyond the different manifestations of the river of Socrates of this hand? What is the arche ? Sap. So, to conclude: looking for the Arche or for the , nature something means looking of for that thing that is stable notwithstanding the changes that thing experiences or maybe, notwithstanding the changes that our senses make us believe the thing experiences (since, as some philosophers come to conclude, change may after all not be real but simply apparent). The first Philosophers stick to material stuffs as candidates for possible answers to the question, as we said before. They therefore seek material stability. Later Philosophers come up with concepts such as form essence the or the that indicate that what is stable lies beyond the material composition of things. That certainly makes more sense when speaking of rivers and persons, for example. For Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, the stability and simplicity underlying the apparent changes and differences could be found by finding that single MATERIAL origin/constituent that remains the same notwithstanding the surface changes and differences. For Thales, this is water: just as liquid water, ice and steam are all forms of the same water, so other things (the opposites, the elements) could be forms of water. When a pond freezes, its appearance to the senses (sight, touch, taste ) changes, but, in fact, it is always the same body of WATER. Hence, when a friend brings a sample of ice from a mountain and a sample of water from a lake, no matter how different, they both have the same material composition and origin, the same principle, the same nature, the same arche W ATER. It all seems different, but it all the same: it all water! : s s So, for Thales, even if your friend were to bring you a piece of rock from the mountain, it would still be water.

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Lee Whiz

Thales of Miles
Who was Thales? Thales {Talete minn Miletu} is considered the first Greek Philosopher. He lived in the Greek city of Miles in Asia Minor, and flourished (was at the peak of his life) in 585 BCE. We have no extant fragments of his work; only testimonies remain. Four important ones are found in Aristotle;

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others abound in legends about this guy well, you may read about his purchases of vineyards and his fall into a cistern in a standard textbook. Here are the 4 testimonies (with references to Aristotle works containing them you may look them up in s www.perseus.org): 1. The earth rests on water. (De Caelo 294a28) 2. Water is the arch of all things. (Metaph. 983b18) 3. The magnet has a soul. (De Anima 405a19) 4. All things are full of gods. (De Anima 411a7) Sap. Men s Quickly, Men could you give us a typical interpretation of 3 and 4, which are the least s, important? As regards 3, some experts have come up with the idea that Thales MAY have had a theory about life saying something like thing is alive if it can cause movement in a something else (note: in Greek has a soul alive We have no testimony that as= is ). serts he had such a theory, but if we were to suppose that he did believe something of the sort, then the testimony would make sense. What scholars tend to exclude is panpsychism, i.e. that Thales believes that everything (from rocks to elephants) is alive. The standard interpretation of 4 avoids recourse to traditional religion (well, the experts are so keen to defend Aristotle distinction between philomythos and philosophos that s they would shun any suggestion that the first Philosophers had anything to do with traditional religion). Hence, gods taken to mean is forces in nature (some later thinkers did insist that the traditional Greek gods where nothing but personified natural forces), and the testimony taken to mean not look beyond the things themselves to understand do their behaviour. They act according to forces present within them, within nature, not according to some supernatural divine will You can understand nature not by reflection . on the GODS LIVING ON MOUNT OLYMPUS, but by making experiments on things themselves to determine the FORCES PRESENT WITHIN NATURE ITSELF . How about testimony no. 1? Aristotle13 seems to reduce it to (2), as one may easily do if rests interpreted loosely is as based on is , depends on , has its origins and foundations inBy this interpretation, . the earth, as all other things, has its origins and foundations in water; hence water is its arche . Other authorities would rather postulate that this statement forms part of a cosmological theory which pictures the earth resting at the bottom of a hemispherical bubble of air floating in a universe full of water (a sort of cosmic aquarium). Such a cosmic theory may find empirical evidence in earthquakes; if you hold such a view, you may easily explain earthquakes as the result of the rocking of the earth in the water-filled universe. Lee, such queer scientific theories may not have impressed you very much, but surely they are admirable because they are the oldest samples of scientific reasoning. The truly interesting testimony in our quest for the arche of nature is (2), which Men already s explained somewhat at the end of the last section. I would like to read you a comment on this testimony by S. Marc Cohen14: Arch is Aristotles word: it means beginning or source or principle (cf. archaic, archaeology, architect ). Aristotle is here talking about what he called the material arch , which can be either the stuff from which something originated or the stuff of which it is composed. Thus, Thales thought (Aristotle tells us) that everything either originated in water (cosmogony) or is actually (now!) made of water (constituent analysis).

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In Metaphys. A 983b; in De Caelo his words sustain the second interpretation, below. http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/thales.html (as on 11th December, 2002) Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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So what is the scientific or philosophical interest of Thales ruminations about water? He is attempting to provide a theory which is: 1. General (it covers a whole range of similar cases, not just a single one). 2. Based on observation (although it transcends all observations). 3. Makes no appeal to supernatural causes. This last point is worth dwelling on. Many people before Thales had offered explanations of natural phenomena. These traditional (Homeric) religious accounts also went beyond the observable. For example, thunder was attributed to Zeus throwing lightning bolts; storms at sea were thought to be due to the wrath of Poseidon. The difference is that Thales explanations are natural, not supernatural. He does not appeal to anthropomorphic beings in attempting to explain natural phenomena. I think Cohen comment is quite clear. It notes the two different possible understands ings of a material principle discussed above, i.e. as ORIGIN and as COMPONENT / CONSTITUENT. Indirectly, it also brings out neatly the importance of the difference between fragments and testimonies. The fact that we have no extant fragments of Thales means that all we know about this philosopher is filtered by Aristotle interpretation, and more s precisely, by Aristotle attempt to provide a historical foundation to his theory of the s Four Causes in Metaphysics A framing his predecessors as participants in a quest by for the arche Arch is Aristotles word). Other testimonies (especially in the case of ( other Presocratics) may be of help, but it is useful to keep in mind that the authors of these testimonies were usually posterior to Aristotle and were almost certainly influenced by Aristotle reading of the Presocratics. s

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Sap. Lee

Anaximander of Miles
Lee, maybe you could tell us something of what you read about Anaximander. Born 611-10 BCE, died shortly after 547 BCE, disciple of Thales and probably his successor as Master of the school of Miles. He is said to have written a treatise Nature On , in prose, though abounding in poetic imagery. Some testimonies depict him as an inventor, a land surveyor and as a legislator. He conceived the earth as a cylinder suspended in a spherical universe surrounded by the heavenly bodies equidistant from the earth. Such heavenly bodies are made of fire, enveloped in air; they are visible through apertures, like those of a wind instrument, that may be blocked at times, causing eclipses. Besides numerous testimonies, we have one fragment of Anaximander, recorded in Simplicius ( Commentary to Aristotle Physics; VI Cent. AD), who was preserving an s account of Theophrastus ( The opinions of the naturalistsIV Cent. BCE), a student of ; Aristotle. It possible that Simplicius may have gotten the quote from yet another coms mentator, Alexander (i.e. from his now lost commentary on Aristotle Physics). Sims plicius also states, in the testimony that contains the fragment, that the arche for Anaximander was the APERION (i.e. the limitless , undefined , indefinite , infinite , unconfined , borderless ). Fine. I would call that a good summary. Let us get down to business, now and read the fragment. They pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time. That quite a riddle. Maybe you could read the context, too. s Simplicius writes: Anaximander ... said that the APEIRON was the first principle and element of things that are, and he was the first to introduce this name for the first principle
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[i.e., he was the first to call the first principle indefinite]. He says that the first principle is neither water nor any other of the things called elements, but some other nature which is indefinite/infinite out of which come to be all the heavens and the worlds in them: The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be, according to necessity, for15 they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time (Chronos), as he says in rather poetical language. Sap. O.K. This is basically it. What can we make out of it? Simplicius continues by saying that Anaximander came to designate the Apeiron as the principle since he had a problem with Thales solution that placed one of the elements themselves as the substrate of the elements. Remember, when we were speaking of x and x1 and x2? Thales said that the elements themselves were different forms of the same thing, . But that thing was nothx ing but water, one of the elements. What problem could Anaximander have had with that? Well, remember the context here Simplicius is commenting on Aristotle Physs ics, and the idea that one element can be derived from another, (or more powerfully, according to the doctrine of the opposites) that one opposite may be derived from another, is unacceptable in Aristotelian Physics. As Aristotle says (Phys. 204b22), uniting somewhat the doctrine of the 4 elements and that of the opposites: ... the elements are opposed to each other (for example, air is cold, water moist, and fire hot), and if one of these were infinite the rest would already have been destroyed. But, as it is, they say that the infinite is different from these, and that they come into being from it. So Simplicius assumes that Anaximander, through the same sort of reasoning, noted in Thales theory what an Aristotelian would obviously note as wrong: the x behind x 1, x2, x3, and x4 couldnitself be one of these (x1, x2, x3, or x4), but must be something beyond, t and different from them. It must be something of which x1, x2, x3, and x4 (in our case, the elements) would be manifestations. One should never mix a thing with its manifestation. If Anaximander noted this flaw in his master theory, he must have started searching for s something from which the elements, and the opposites, could be derived, something that is not itself one of the elements or the opposites otherwise it would defeat the purpose. It cannot be black, or the white could not be derived from it; it cannot be good, or the bad would not result from it; it could not be water or else fire could not come out of it . This sort of reasoning on the material level ultimately entails that we are after something QUALITATIVELY INDEFINITE it cannot have any recognizable characteristics. Being the single principle, which exists alone before all things came to be from it, it must also be SPATIALLY AND TEMPORALLY INFINITE: it has no beginning or end in time or space, it is infinite, limitless. All of these characteristics (qualitatively indefinite, spatially infinite, temporally infinite) are conveyed by the Greek word a-peiron , limit-lessThat is why . Simplicius thinks Anaximander called the principle apeironLet us see, now, if some. one has the guts to attempt to decipher the fragment. Men s All Right The things that are perish into the things out of which they come to be the things in existence (the world as we know it) originates from the apeiron and will : return to become apeiron upon destruction. According to necessity This must be . so, there is no other possibility; the world (its elements, its opposites) cannot come from something else, nor can it become anything else upon destruction. they pay penfor alty and retribution to each other for their injustice the elements/opposites try to : overcome and destroy one another but what happens if they do that is that the distinctions between them are lost, and everything, in time ( in accordance with the ordering of time decays back into the indefinite, the infinite, the limitless. The eternal movement )

15

Many scholars consider the part indicated in bold typeface to be the fragment; others reduce it to the part in bold after this note (and consider the first part as a comment by Simplicius or Theophrastus or Alexander). Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM

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is that from the apeiron, to the ordered world (kosmos), with its distinctions and borders (remember that in Greek mythology, the gods created the world by the process of separation of things from a primordial chaos, and that trespassing, is the great injustice for the Greeks16 especially when humans try to go beyond what is mortal and invade what is divineand back to the apeiron. ) Sap. Tank Very good, Men Why is the trespassing of the elements/opposites beyond their limits s. an injusticehere? , In this context, hot, cold, etc. are probably thought of as things, not qualities. No one of the opposites could have been infinite, or there would be nothing else and no one of the opposites could have been the arch , or its opposite would never have come to be. Now, since all the elements are either opposites or are essentially connected to an opposite (e.g., water is cold, fire is hot), no element, no familiar stuff can be the original arch . This reasoning leads us to look for an arch that is devoid of any particular quality or characteristic (which is quite hard to conceive, since we can think of nothing that is bare qualities, and even harder to describe!) In all this we must insist that this stuff of is not emptiness or vacuumsince the Greeks had problems with conceiving a void , they did not have zeros in their maths, and for them, emptiness was equal to nothingness, and nothing the does not exist (so there is no such thing as emptiness)17. Hence the apeiron must have filled the whole universe as a sort of gas18. Now, coming back to the fragment, injustice means invading and occupying the space of your adversary (think of the Greeks and the Trojans, etc.) such that the adversary is left devoid of any territory. Restoring justice means separating the opposites once again, creating boundaries this is what the gods do when creating the world: they separate the opposites (in particular hot and cold, wet and dry) to give rise to the elements; they separate peoples to give rise to nations. Note that a mythological reading of the fragment is also possible19: Chronos (time) is also considered to be the oldest of the gods, the first being to originate and plausibly he is considered as the god directing the whole process, the god that gives order the chaotic apeiron. Some testimonies insist that to the apeiron was in continuous circular motion, a rotating stuff that, so to speak, exuviates the opposites and the elements. Sap. Lee That quite a detailed explanation. Lee, maybe you could read Cohen assessment of s s Anaximander, as a conclusion. Here it comes: Anaximander theory is: s 1. A response to a (perceived) logical difficulty in Thales theory. 2. Postulation of a theoretical entity to explain observable phenomena. 3. The postulation of something beyond experience was not new (cf. the gods). What was new: what is postulated is not personified or anthropomorphic. It is a kind of matter.
Some philologists have linked the concept of hybris (wanton violence) with that of trespassing limits set by Zeus. Emptiness is archaically personified as the elemental goddess Chaos, which is also called Aeros (hence personifying ). Chaos is also conceived as an entity opposed to the ordered world as we know it, kosmos. A good website on air the Greek deities is www.theoi.com. 18 The closest conceivable thing to the aperion air; in fact Anaximander disciple Anaximenes does propose air as is s the arche . Some scholars also suggest that Anaximander may be referring to air, but the testimony that bears the fragment from Anaximander insists that for this philosopher, the arche was not one of the elements. A more mythological interpretation of the fragment would associate apeiron with Air/Chaos, from which the ordered world (Kosmos) is derived, according to the ordering of Chronos through a series of separations (creation of boundaries). 19 This is not necessarily opposed to the more scientific reading, but could complement it, given that these philosophers cannot have abandoned the mythological explanation of the universe completely they were not that mature . The traditional interpretation (that often portrays them as atheists, or at least as persons who have rejected the traditional gods for some post-Socratic conception of Godis clearly ideological when it tries to interpret such texts while ) completely putting aside mythology.
17 16

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Problem: how can the apeiron contain the opposites it gives rise to and still be a simple unity?

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Sap.

Anaximenes of Miles
This problem you just mentioned with targets the MONISM in Anaximander apeiron. We s will come back to it when discussing Parmenides: can everything be reduced to a single material stuff? Monism is also present in Anaximander follower, Anaximenes. Anaxis mander reduced all to the Apeiron, Anaximenes to Air. But is not this a retrograde choice? Anaximander theory already concluded that the s arche could not be yet another element! It does seem so but Anaximenes solved Anaximander problem differently. He was s not too bothered, it seems, with the opposites, and concluded that all things result from transformations of air, via two processes: RAREFACTION and CONDENSATION. Air, becoming less dense (rarefying), turns into fire. Air, becoming more dense (condensing), turns into wind, then into cloud, then water, then earth, then stone. Hence, all the elements along this continuum can be transformed into each other through these simple processes. I have an idea. How about turning the problem inside out? It could be that Anaximander was speaking about air, after all. The whole thing about looking for a principle of the elements that is not one of the elements came from Simplicius, did it not? Sure, an Aristotelian would have noted that flaw in Thales theory but maybe Anaximander did not. Simplicius thought he did, and interpreted the apeiron accordingly! That interesting. You are claiming that Simplicius misinterpreted Anaximander and pros jected Aristotle theories onto his writings. That could be probable if Simplicius did not s have the whole text of Nature front of him while he was writing his testimony. On in Otherwise, I think he would have realised that apeiron was Anaximander s word for (if your air interpretation is correct). Now, you need to do some philological work on Simplicius to determine what familiarity Simplicius could have had with Anaximander s original text. That is beyond the scope of our present discussion but it the real stuff s historians of Philosophy do. Tradition has usually trusted the interpretation of doxographers like Simplicius, with due reservations when they blatantly project later theories onto earlier texts. Let us simply take assume this attitude, and say that Anaximenes didnreally like the idea of choosing t apeiron principle. His continuum solves the Aras istotelian objection to some extent: there is nothing beyond x1 to x4 from which they are derived. Each is derived from the other. The relationship to the arche is horizontal, not vertical, so to speak. If it is so, why did he choose Air as the principle? What is special about air? He could have chosen any other element along the continuum. That a question for us to answer. Two theories have been proposed. One insists that he shared some of Anaximander views about the arche being infinite and indefinite, and s air seems to be the most likely candidate for that. According to this interpretation, he

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would have shunned something theoretical (unobservable) such as the apeiron since we cannot verify its existence, and instead looked for elements with similar features. According to another theory, Anaximenes must have distinguished clearly between the principle origin (cosmogonical principle) and as constituent (constituent principle) as and that he intended air primarily as a cosmogonical principle. This means that for Anaximenes, all the other elements originated from an original body of air by such processes. In the beginning, there was air. Everything came to be from air. In a way, Anaximenes could also look at Air as a constituent principle (everything is made up of air), but on his theory, this is as good as saying everything is made of water or everything is made of cloud ). Men s Wait a sec. I still think that the Aristotelian objection holds. Anaximenes is using the word in two ways. In one sense, it is simply one of the elements along the continair uum. In another sense, it is the component and origin of all the elements along the continuum. Just like chemists use the term waterit indicates the liquid form of the stuff : H2O and is also used as the standard name of the compound be it in solid form (ice), liquid form ( water in the first sense) or gaseous form ( ). ice So you would accept the first interpretation. Air as the stuff from which all elements originate and are composed is something like the apeiron of Anaximander. Air as one of the elements may have particular qualities, etc. Do you think Anaximenes made the distinction between the principle as origin and the principle as constituent? No. I think that is a later distinction, that the Milesian did not come to appreciate. Well, Men I think that you are having some very interesting ideas lately! Seriously, I s, believe your ideas are precious. Most historians of Philosophy agree that first-year students in Philosophy provide the best insights into these authors since they seek the simplest explanations and avoid projecting later theories onto the works of these authors. Obviously, you have to confirm such insights by philological research. You have to check whether the simplicitydoes not assume modern ideas about nature. For instance, adopting your distinction regarding the meanings of , some have tried to inair terpret Anaximenes as saying: everything (along the continuum) is made up of particles of a stuff I call ; the elements (water, air etc.) are simply Air in different densities, Air particles of air packed differently, in some the particles lie close together (e.g. in earth ), in others they are far apart (e.g. in )This interpretation is suspicious because we fire. have to be careful when speaking of particles. Anaximenes would probably not uphold a particulate theory Why, do you think? Any ideas? O.K. Hint: what did we say about emptiness and non-being? Particles must be surrounded by empty space. But the Greeks had difficulty in conceiving such a thing as empty space. Everything must be full of air, and air must be a solid thing But, if so, how can it rarefy or condense? How can there be more or less of it? Great conclusion, Lee (great question, that is!). Anaximenes is not really that monist after all. He is unwittingly admitting a second principle: empty space. But we will come back to that with Parmenides So we back to the monist problem we started with. By re the way, as regards Anaximander, we forgot to mention the biographical stuff. Clara, please, fill us in on this guy Born in Miles probably near 586 BCE, died around 528-25 BCE, probably friend and disciple of Anaximander, wrote a treatise natureof which two fragments (one dubiOn , ous) remain. Used less poetic language than Anaximander in his writings. Said that the Earth was flat, and that it sat at the centre of the universe sustained by air. Heavenly bodies (pictured as leaves of fire) are fixed to a sort of heavenly dome that rotates as a whole around the earth, as a cap rotates around the head
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Sap. Lee

That enough. Any questions? s I think you favour the interpretation that Air is the arche because it is the only element present at the origin, and all things derived from it, (rather than Men interpretation that s Air just a name for the stuff composing all the elements along the continuum). Acis cording to the former interpretation, locally, things change into air and air back into other things. Is there a point in cosmic history, according to Anaximenes, where all things will return back to air, where there will be a global conversion into air which would be a sort of end of the world And if so, would there be a new beginning again, every time, from ? air, as Anaximander cycle of creation and destruction from and into the apeiron? s I think that Anaximenes would opt for a global cycle from and into air, since for the Greeks, time was cyclical, so the universe had to return to its point of departure every so often. A testimony from Hippolytus also points in this direction. At this point, I would like to add a further disturbing element to the picture. In a fragment from Aetius, Anaximenes depicts the universe as a huge living organism, breathing air ( Aer Greek denotes in , air breath and sometimes even steam our soul, which is ). As aer keeps everything together so does aer embrace the worldAir animates and sustains everything even . in the cosmic sense of being the stuff in which the universe floatsThis indicates that . Anaximenes is not so detached from anthropomorphisms, as some experts would have him. Is Aer a sort of God, a spirit? Does Anaximenes think that the whole universe is a living thing? Is Aer a biological principle? Is it a material principle after all? Are you confused now? Yes every time I feel I am understanding something you come with a new interpretation That exactly how things are with these early Philosophers. I would be fooling you if you left here with a neat little scheme on your notepad And what about the exam? Keep it simple if you donhave much time and space to dedicate. Say that the principle t for Anaximenes was air, and mention the continuum. Forget the last part about air and breath it seems too esoteric for a typical examiner who knows the presocratics from s the classical textbook. If you like, say that everything for Anaximenes is derived from/made of air. Want know a secret? What we do in here is not really about reconstructing what these guys actually said or wrote or thought. It about us training to ask s radical questions about everything and using these poor fellows and their fragments/testimonies as an example. Otherwise we would simply be doing Doxography, not Philosophy. We would simply be collecting interpretations from textbooks about ancient Philosophers. You donhave a clear picture of what Anaximenes thought? Well, t neither do I. Who says he does is a fake! One thing I sure of: we done some great m ve Philosophy today!

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Rene Mario Micallef, 11-Mar-03 12:10 AM