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Stoic Six Pack 9: The PreSocratics – Anaximander, The School of Miletus, Zeno, Parmenides, Pre-Socratic Philosophy and The Eleatics
The philosophers who preceded Socrates (469 - 399 BC), the PreSocratics, were the first recorded individuals to reject mythological explanations for the unknown. Aristotle called the PreSocratics physikoi meaning physicists, after physis , nature, because they sought natural explanations for phenomena, as opposed to the earlier theologoi , theologians, whose philosophical basis was supernatural. The physikoi invented maps, an early time-keeping device in the form of a sun-dial and they were the first to logically argue that the earth was a spherical shape.
While most of the physikoi produced significant texts, none of their works have survived in complete form. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers (often biased) and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. Diogenes Laërtius divides them into two groups, Ionian and Italiote , led by Anaximander and Pythagoras, respectively. Other key figures include Thales, Zeno and Parmenides.
Stoic Six Pack 9 – The PreSocratics brings together a broad selection of key primary and secondary texts to help shed light on this important early philosophy school.
Stoic Six Pack 9 – The PreSocratics
Anaximander's Book, the Earliest Known Geographical Treatise by William Arthur Heidel.
The School of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraclitus by John Marshall.
The Pre-Socratics by George Grote.
The Logic of the Pre-Socratic Philosophy by William Arthur Heidel.
The Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus by John Marshall.
The Pre-Socratics by Benjamin Cocker.
Includes image gallery.
While most of the physikoi produced significant texts, none of their works have survived in complete form. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers (often biased) and historians, and the occasional textual fragment. Diogenes Laërtius divides them into two groups, Ionian and Italiote , led by Anaximander and Pythagoras, respectively. Other key figures include Thales, Zeno and Parmenides.
Stoic Six Pack 9 – The PreSocratics brings together a broad selection of key primary and secondary texts to help shed light on this important early philosophy school.
Stoic Six Pack 9 – The PreSocratics
Anaximander's Book, the Earliest Known Geographical Treatise by William Arthur Heidel.
The School of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraclitus by John Marshall.
The Pre-Socratics by George Grote.
The Logic of the Pre-Socratic Philosophy by William Arthur Heidel.
The Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus by John Marshall.
The Pre-Socratics by Benjamin Cocker.
Includes image gallery.
- GenresPhilosophy
184 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2016
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December 19, 2021
Stoalaispaketin yhdeksännessä osassa päästään tutustumaan esisokraattisiin filosofeihin ja heidän ajatteluunsa. Tosin tähän on lisätty mukaan vielä Platonin Valtio. Cockerin, Heidelin, Groten ja Marshallin tekstien lisäksi käytetään jonkin verran historioitsijoita antiikista kuten Herodotosta ja Straboa.
Alkuun lähdetään kreikkalaisen filosofian syntysijoilta Jooniasta eli nykyisen Turkin länsiosista ja tarkemmin Miletosta, joka oli 500-luvulla alueen vauraimpia kaupunkivaltioita sekä idän ja lännen välillä kukoistava kauppapaikka. Silloisella Miletolla (ennen persialaisten valloitusta) oli yhteensä noin 80 siirtokuntaa nykyisen Italian niemimaalta aina Mustanmeren rannoille asti.
Varsinaista miletolaista filosofista koulua tai koulukuntaa ei ole ollut niin kuin nykyään ymmärretään jotkut opinahjot tai oppisuunnat filosofisine lähtökohtineen ja käsitejärjestelmineen. Ehkä ensimmäinen ja merkittävin (Thaleen ohella) oli Anaximander, jonka keksintöihin on lueteltu mm. päiväntasaukset ja tunteihin jaettu kellotaulu ja monet maantieteeseen ja kartografiaan sekä kosmologiaan liittyvät ensimmäiset oivallukset, ja niitä ovat kehitelleet monet muut Pythagoraan ja Ptolemaioksen lisäksi. Mm. avaruuden äärettömyys on Anaximanderin päätelmistä peräisin.
Näiden miletolaisten filosofien myötä alkoi tieteissä ja taiteissa murtua homeeriset ja hesiodiset tarinat olympolaisista jumalista, ja nämä alettiin ymmärtää enemmänkin historiallisina myytteinä. Thales on tässä suhteessa ehkä merkittävin aikalaisfilosofeista, sillä hänen on sanottu esittäneen ensimmäisenä kriittisiä kysymyksiä, siis sellaisia, joita ei ollut ennen lausuttu. Hän pyrki tavoittamaan aiemmin piilossa olleita merkityksiä maailmasta ja sen ilmiöistä syvällisemmin kuin aiemmin oli edes ajateltu. Thalesta voidaankin pitää perustellusta syystä länsimaisen filosofian varsinaisena pioneerina.
Miletolaisista ajattelijoista Anaximenes ohitetaan miltei tyystin, joskin antagonististen voimien olemassaolo ja muutosvoimat kylmästä kuumaan ja kuivasta kosteaa jne. tulivat pohdintojen aiheiksi. Siitä päästäänkin luontevasti Herakleitokseen, joka oli alkujaan Efesoksesta lähtöisin. Hänelle kaikki oli muutosta, eikä hänen maailmaansa kuuluneet stabiilius pysähtyneisyydestä puhumattakaan. Herakleitokselle kaikki oli ikuisessa muuttumisen tilassa, ja aikakin oli vain kuin lasten noppapeliä. Tavallaan jo tässä filosofissa kiteytyvät stoalaisuuden perusprinsiipit tyynessä ja hiljaisessa kestävyydessään, jolloin mitkä tahansa elämänmuutokset eivät aiheuta mielen kuohuntaa, ja sitä onkin kutsuttu panteistiseksi apatiaksi.
Sitten onkin aika purjehtia Joonian rannikolta lähelle Amalfin seutuja nykyisen Italian niemimaalle, tarkemmin Eleaan, josta esittelyyn otetaan neljä filosofia: Ksenofanes, Parmenides, Zenon ja Melissus. Eleassa Ksenofaneen perustama filosofinen koulukunta tunnetaan eleaatikkoina. Näille oli ominaista jo perustajasta lähtöisin kiistää vallitsevan dualismin olemassaolo, toisin sanoen he pitivät koko ajatusta mahdottomana selittää maailmaa siten. Antiikin ajatteluun liitetyt peruselementit maa, vesi, tuli ja ilma ovat myös näiltä samaisilta filosofeilta peräisin. Ilmahan symboloikin jatkuvaa muutosta. Tosin Ksenofaneen oppilas Parmenides ei jatkuvaan muutokseen uskonut, ja hänelle todellinen olemassaolo oli loppumatonta, luomatonta, liikkumatonta ja muuttumatonta, eikä tämän ulkopuolella ollut mitään eikä siinä ollut mitään tekemistä havainnoimisen tai tarkkailun kanssa. Parmenideen kerrotaan olevan aikansa kunnioitetuin filosofi ja dialektiikan, metafysiikan, logiikan ja idealismin perustaja. Hän piti mm. rakkautta jumalallisena voimana. Zenon puolestaan oli Parmenideen ajatusten kuuliainen jakaja, vaikkei filosofiaa juuri kehittänytkään. Tosin itse Aristoteles on nimittänyt hänet logiikan isäksi ja koko dikotomian kyseenalaistajaksi. Melissuksen saavutuksiksi nimetään logiikan ja dilemman ”tieteiden” kehittely.
Länsimaisen antiikin Kreikan filosofian historia voidaan jakaa karkeasti kolmeen osaan: esisokraattisiin, sokraattisiin ja jälkisokraattisiin aikakausiin. Ensin mainittu alkoi Thaleesta, toinen Sokrateen syntymästä Aristoteleen kuolemaan ja viimeinen Aristoteteen kuolemasta vuoteen nolla. Tässä opuksessa nimenomaan valotettiin länsimaisen filosofian alkuhämäristä niitä perimmäisiä ajattelijoita ja filosofisen ajattelun airuita, ja lopussa on vielä kuvagalleria patsaineen ja maalauksineen.
Alkuun lähdetään kreikkalaisen filosofian syntysijoilta Jooniasta eli nykyisen Turkin länsiosista ja tarkemmin Miletosta, joka oli 500-luvulla alueen vauraimpia kaupunkivaltioita sekä idän ja lännen välillä kukoistava kauppapaikka. Silloisella Miletolla (ennen persialaisten valloitusta) oli yhteensä noin 80 siirtokuntaa nykyisen Italian niemimaalta aina Mustanmeren rannoille asti.
Varsinaista miletolaista filosofista koulua tai koulukuntaa ei ole ollut niin kuin nykyään ymmärretään jotkut opinahjot tai oppisuunnat filosofisine lähtökohtineen ja käsitejärjestelmineen. Ehkä ensimmäinen ja merkittävin (Thaleen ohella) oli Anaximander, jonka keksintöihin on lueteltu mm. päiväntasaukset ja tunteihin jaettu kellotaulu ja monet maantieteeseen ja kartografiaan sekä kosmologiaan liittyvät ensimmäiset oivallukset, ja niitä ovat kehitelleet monet muut Pythagoraan ja Ptolemaioksen lisäksi. Mm. avaruuden äärettömyys on Anaximanderin päätelmistä peräisin.
Näiden miletolaisten filosofien myötä alkoi tieteissä ja taiteissa murtua homeeriset ja hesiodiset tarinat olympolaisista jumalista, ja nämä alettiin ymmärtää enemmänkin historiallisina myytteinä. Thales on tässä suhteessa ehkä merkittävin aikalaisfilosofeista, sillä hänen on sanottu esittäneen ensimmäisenä kriittisiä kysymyksiä, siis sellaisia, joita ei ollut ennen lausuttu. Hän pyrki tavoittamaan aiemmin piilossa olleita merkityksiä maailmasta ja sen ilmiöistä syvällisemmin kuin aiemmin oli edes ajateltu. Thalesta voidaankin pitää perustellusta syystä länsimaisen filosofian varsinaisena pioneerina.
Miletolaisista ajattelijoista Anaximenes ohitetaan miltei tyystin, joskin antagonististen voimien olemassaolo ja muutosvoimat kylmästä kuumaan ja kuivasta kosteaa jne. tulivat pohdintojen aiheiksi. Siitä päästäänkin luontevasti Herakleitokseen, joka oli alkujaan Efesoksesta lähtöisin. Hänelle kaikki oli muutosta, eikä hänen maailmaansa kuuluneet stabiilius pysähtyneisyydestä puhumattakaan. Herakleitokselle kaikki oli ikuisessa muuttumisen tilassa, ja aikakin oli vain kuin lasten noppapeliä. Tavallaan jo tässä filosofissa kiteytyvät stoalaisuuden perusprinsiipit tyynessä ja hiljaisessa kestävyydessään, jolloin mitkä tahansa elämänmuutokset eivät aiheuta mielen kuohuntaa, ja sitä onkin kutsuttu panteistiseksi apatiaksi.
Sitten onkin aika purjehtia Joonian rannikolta lähelle Amalfin seutuja nykyisen Italian niemimaalle, tarkemmin Eleaan, josta esittelyyn otetaan neljä filosofia: Ksenofanes, Parmenides, Zenon ja Melissus. Eleassa Ksenofaneen perustama filosofinen koulukunta tunnetaan eleaatikkoina. Näille oli ominaista jo perustajasta lähtöisin kiistää vallitsevan dualismin olemassaolo, toisin sanoen he pitivät koko ajatusta mahdottomana selittää maailmaa siten. Antiikin ajatteluun liitetyt peruselementit maa, vesi, tuli ja ilma ovat myös näiltä samaisilta filosofeilta peräisin. Ilmahan symboloikin jatkuvaa muutosta. Tosin Ksenofaneen oppilas Parmenides ei jatkuvaan muutokseen uskonut, ja hänelle todellinen olemassaolo oli loppumatonta, luomatonta, liikkumatonta ja muuttumatonta, eikä tämän ulkopuolella ollut mitään eikä siinä ollut mitään tekemistä havainnoimisen tai tarkkailun kanssa. Parmenideen kerrotaan olevan aikansa kunnioitetuin filosofi ja dialektiikan, metafysiikan, logiikan ja idealismin perustaja. Hän piti mm. rakkautta jumalallisena voimana. Zenon puolestaan oli Parmenideen ajatusten kuuliainen jakaja, vaikkei filosofiaa juuri kehittänytkään. Tosin itse Aristoteles on nimittänyt hänet logiikan isäksi ja koko dikotomian kyseenalaistajaksi. Melissuksen saavutuksiksi nimetään logiikan ja dilemman ”tieteiden” kehittely.
Länsimaisen antiikin Kreikan filosofian historia voidaan jakaa karkeasti kolmeen osaan: esisokraattisiin, sokraattisiin ja jälkisokraattisiin aikakausiin. Ensin mainittu alkoi Thaleesta, toinen Sokrateen syntymästä Aristoteleen kuolemaan ja viimeinen Aristoteteen kuolemasta vuoteen nolla. Tässä opuksessa nimenomaan valotettiin länsimaisen filosofian alkuhämäristä niitä perimmäisiä ajattelijoita ja filosofisen ajattelun airuita, ja lopussa on vielä kuvagalleria patsaineen ja maalauksineen.
July 20, 2020
Every once and a while I read a number of articles (for instance on one of Shakespeare's plays or something else I'm reading or watching) and group them together as a "book" for my Goodreads goals. This is the same sort of thing, only pre-made by someone else (the editor is anonymous) and sold for ninety-nine cents on the Kindle store. It's part of a series of "Stoic Six Packs", collections of six articles on various topics in ancient Greek philosophy; the selections are in the public domain and all very outdated, but I read anything I can find on the presocratics, who are a particular interest of mine. This "book" contained one real gem that was worth the price; the other four were misfires.
Four, not five? To begin with, one selection wasn't here at all. I was looking forward from the contents to reading what George Grote, one of the better-known classicists of the nineteenth century had to say about the presocratics. There was a title page saying "The Presocratics/by George Grote". However, the next page begins with an "abstract" of Plato's Republic, which was essentially just a paraphrase of the arguments of the dialogue, with no commentary whatsoever; I'm not even sure whether it was by Grote, though that doesn't really matter. It was the sort of thing a high school student might read as a crib, of no real interest to anyone else. It made no mention of the presocratics, except insofar as some characters in the dialogue are "Sophists" who are sometimes lumped with the presocratics. There was nothing even about them as actual existing thinkers, just a paraphrase of what their characters say in the dialogue. I assume it was an accident by the person who put this together and included the wrong file.
The first article chronologically was called "The Pre-Socratics" by Benjamin Cocker, apparently a chapter in a book called Christianity and Greek Philosophy published in 1871. It was totally worthless. Cocker begins with the premise that everyone, always and everywhere, is born with an "intuition" that there is a unique, incorporeal God who created the universe; he considers it "proven" that the Greeks (contrary to everything we know about their early religion) believed in this unique, incorporeal God. Since the presocratics don't explicitly deny that there is such a God (because the idea never occurred to them, obviously), we are entitled to assume that it was the real basis of their system, and that they were talking about how God created the world from water, the Infinite, air, fire, etc. He tells us nothing specific that everyone doesn't know about their systems, and bases himself on hints in the late, Latin writings of Cicero, ignoring all the earlier Greek sources that contradict his theory. In short, Christian special pleading which should not have been included.
The next two selections were actually both chapters from the same book by John Marshall, A Short History of Greek Philosophy, published in 1891. The first chapter is "The School of Miletus: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Herclitus"; the second is "The Eleatics: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus". They were both fairly standard short treatments of the subject as it was understood at the time, and the book was probably a textbook. (Note that the Six Pack has nothing at all about the Atomists.)
Next is a 1903 article by William Arthur Heidel, called "The Logic of the Pre-Socratic Philosophy", from Studies in Logical Theory. This dealt with the general presuppositions of the earliest Greek philosophers had some interesting ideas about their evolution. Unfortunately it was based on a very schematic use of the subject, predicate, copula formula which made it difficult to understand.
Finally, the gem: another article by Heidel, from 1921, called "Anaximander's Book, the Earliest Known Geographical Treatise". Most treatments of the presocratics are based on Aristotle and the doxographic tradition, which consider the philosophies purely from a cosmological and metaphysical viewpoint. Heidel on the other hand has collected the references to Anaximander in particular from ancient works on geography. One thing we know about Anaximander is that he is credited with making the first map of the world; he is also credited (obviously incorrectly) with the invention of the sundial, but he may well have been the first to use it for astronomical -- and geographical -- theory. He is also credited with astronomical discoveries such as the obliquity of the zodiac. The Suda -- still referred to as "Suidas" in 1921 -- in its article on Anaximander credits him as having written not just one book On Physics but several others: A Tour of the Earth, The Sphere, and so forth. The writers of the sixth century did not use titles, and these are all conventional titles added in the catalogs of the later libraries such as the Museum at Alexandria; some of them may be titles of parts of the same book which existed as separate manuscripts in the library. Tour of the Earth is a title given to all early books which combine history and geography. Many of the titles attributed to Anaximander are also books attributed to his younger colleague Hecataeus, who may have been mainly concerned with improving the theories of Anaximander. The conclusion Heidel comes to is very interesting: the cosmic theory of Anaximander, and the fragments about the evolution of life in the sea, are an introduction to a longer book concerned with the history/geography of the world. He suggests that with Anaximenes and Hecataeus, this complex is divided into specialized studies of cosmology and geography, so that Anaximenes is known only for his cosmic theory and Hecataeus is a geographer not considered in the doxographical tradition as a philosopher.
This view of Anaximander -- which may also explain the little we know about Thales -- seems very plausible, and I don't really understand why none of the more recent books and articles on the presocratics consider the idea or the testimonia from the geographical tradition; perhaps they are still too focused on Aristotle and the doxographers. In reading this, I thought about two analogies (not in Heidel). One is the way the book of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus serve as an introduction to the law code of the Torah. The other, even closer, if modern example, is the first adult book I ever read: H.G. Wells' Outline of History, which begins with chapters on astronomy and the evolution of life as an introduction to the actual human history of the world.
Four, not five? To begin with, one selection wasn't here at all. I was looking forward from the contents to reading what George Grote, one of the better-known classicists of the nineteenth century had to say about the presocratics. There was a title page saying "The Presocratics/by George Grote". However, the next page begins with an "abstract" of Plato's Republic, which was essentially just a paraphrase of the arguments of the dialogue, with no commentary whatsoever; I'm not even sure whether it was by Grote, though that doesn't really matter. It was the sort of thing a high school student might read as a crib, of no real interest to anyone else. It made no mention of the presocratics, except insofar as some characters in the dialogue are "Sophists" who are sometimes lumped with the presocratics. There was nothing even about them as actual existing thinkers, just a paraphrase of what their characters say in the dialogue. I assume it was an accident by the person who put this together and included the wrong file.
The first article chronologically was called "The Pre-Socratics" by Benjamin Cocker, apparently a chapter in a book called Christianity and Greek Philosophy published in 1871. It was totally worthless. Cocker begins with the premise that everyone, always and everywhere, is born with an "intuition" that there is a unique, incorporeal God who created the universe; he considers it "proven" that the Greeks (contrary to everything we know about their early religion) believed in this unique, incorporeal God. Since the presocratics don't explicitly deny that there is such a God (because the idea never occurred to them, obviously), we are entitled to assume that it was the real basis of their system, and that they were talking about how God created the world from water, the Infinite, air, fire, etc. He tells us nothing specific that everyone doesn't know about their systems, and bases himself on hints in the late, Latin writings of Cicero, ignoring all the earlier Greek sources that contradict his theory. In short, Christian special pleading which should not have been included.
The next two selections were actually both chapters from the same book by John Marshall, A Short History of Greek Philosophy, published in 1891. The first chapter is "The School of Miletus: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes and Herclitus"; the second is "The Eleatics: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus". They were both fairly standard short treatments of the subject as it was understood at the time, and the book was probably a textbook. (Note that the Six Pack has nothing at all about the Atomists.)
Next is a 1903 article by William Arthur Heidel, called "The Logic of the Pre-Socratic Philosophy", from Studies in Logical Theory. This dealt with the general presuppositions of the earliest Greek philosophers had some interesting ideas about their evolution. Unfortunately it was based on a very schematic use of the subject, predicate, copula formula which made it difficult to understand.
Finally, the gem: another article by Heidel, from 1921, called "Anaximander's Book, the Earliest Known Geographical Treatise". Most treatments of the presocratics are based on Aristotle and the doxographic tradition, which consider the philosophies purely from a cosmological and metaphysical viewpoint. Heidel on the other hand has collected the references to Anaximander in particular from ancient works on geography. One thing we know about Anaximander is that he is credited with making the first map of the world; he is also credited (obviously incorrectly) with the invention of the sundial, but he may well have been the first to use it for astronomical -- and geographical -- theory. He is also credited with astronomical discoveries such as the obliquity of the zodiac. The Suda -- still referred to as "Suidas" in 1921 -- in its article on Anaximander credits him as having written not just one book On Physics but several others: A Tour of the Earth, The Sphere, and so forth. The writers of the sixth century did not use titles, and these are all conventional titles added in the catalogs of the later libraries such as the Museum at Alexandria; some of them may be titles of parts of the same book which existed as separate manuscripts in the library. Tour of the Earth is a title given to all early books which combine history and geography. Many of the titles attributed to Anaximander are also books attributed to his younger colleague Hecataeus, who may have been mainly concerned with improving the theories of Anaximander. The conclusion Heidel comes to is very interesting: the cosmic theory of Anaximander, and the fragments about the evolution of life in the sea, are an introduction to a longer book concerned with the history/geography of the world. He suggests that with Anaximenes and Hecataeus, this complex is divided into specialized studies of cosmology and geography, so that Anaximenes is known only for his cosmic theory and Hecataeus is a geographer not considered in the doxographical tradition as a philosopher.
This view of Anaximander -- which may also explain the little we know about Thales -- seems very plausible, and I don't really understand why none of the more recent books and articles on the presocratics consider the idea or the testimonia from the geographical tradition; perhaps they are still too focused on Aristotle and the doxographers. In reading this, I thought about two analogies (not in Heidel). One is the way the book of Genesis and the beginning of Exodus serve as an introduction to the law code of the Torah. The other, even closer, if modern example, is the first adult book I ever read: H.G. Wells' Outline of History, which begins with chapters on astronomy and the evolution of life as an introduction to the actual human history of the world.
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