Transcript Pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy

Part 1: The Little Three
M. C. Escher
There are only two places for things
to exist…
 In our minds
Or
 Outside our minds
METAPHYSICS
 the branch of
philosophy that
addresses what
is real
 ontology: what is
 cosmology:
how it
came into being
The
Pre-Socratic
Materialists…
Their primary questions were:
 What is the world made of?
 What does it mean for something to exist?
 What happens to things when they change?
What came first?
 Prior to philosophy all phenomena were explained by
myths
 Philosophy developed in the Greek colony of Miletus
(present day Turkey)
 Philosophy was an attempt to explain the world using
reason
Why did philosophy start in Miletus?
 Miletus was a trading center and open to many ideas
and influences
 Basic Geometry came from the Egyptians
 Star Lore and Calendar skills came from Asia
 Exposed to many religious myths
Why did philosophy start in Miletus?
 Greeks were developing the idea of democracy
 Greeks valued imagination and attention to detail
in literature
 Greeks believed nature was consistent and could
be understood through close examination
 Greek poets, Homer and Hesiod, suggested that
complex matter had developed from a primitive
state of water, air, fire and earth
Was something in the air?
 Between 800 B.C. and 200 B.C. philosophy started
 Confucius and Lao-Tse in China
 Hindu Upanishads and Buddha in India
 Zoroaster in Persia
 Hebrew Prophets in Israel
 Homer and the birth of drama in Greece
Thales
 Born around 640 B.C. in Miletus
 Attempted to use logic and observation to answer
questions about the nature of the universe (logos)
 Considered the 1st philosopher
 Used scientific knowledge borrowed from the
Babylonians to predict a solar eclipse
 Converted Egyptian geometry from engineering to
math
 1st to study magnetism
Thales
 Worked as an engineer
 Active in politics
 Became impoverished due to his study of
philosophy, but used astrology to make a fortune
Thales’ Nature of the Universe
 Thales abandoned the myth that everything was
made up of earth, air, fire and water
 He believed everything was made of water since
water could be observed in 3 state (solid, liquid
and gas)
 Believed that humans were also made up of water
and returned back after death
 This meant that nature was supreme and mankind
was a mere part of the universe
Anaximander
 Born in 610 B.C. in
Miletus
 Considered the
successor to Thales
 He disagreed with
Thales philosophy, but
continued his science
 Made the 1st star map,
sun dial and model of
the universe
Anaximander’s Nature of the Universe
 Believed that everything in the Universe came from
apeiron (the infinite)
 Orginially the infinite was whole, but motion with in it
caused it to break into the four elements
 Eventually the elements would fit back together and
the inifinite would be whole again.
Anaximines
 Died around 528 B.C.
 1st to distinguish
between planets and
stars
 Believed that rainbows
were a natural
phenomenon not a
goddess
Anaximines’ Nature of the Universe
 Did not believe in apeiron, because something that
was not specific could not create specific elements
 Believed that everything was made of air because air
was essential to life
 Hard objects were simply more air crammed into
smaller spaces (states of matter)
Anaximines’ Nature of the Universe
 Believed that the soul was made of extremely thin pure
air
 The soul held the body together
 When humans died their soul disintegrated