Up to socrates

Realising and apologising about the length of time since last blog post, here are some notes from a History of Western Philosophy up to the section on Socrates. The book is a goldmine of information, a truly interesting read. Having said that, I cant help but say something about the way it's written. I'm undecided on my opinion on it, it isnt written like your standard textbook (which it isnt...) but written in the style of a lengthy conversation or lecture. Though this gives it an awesomely personal feel, and helps you connect to the feeling that Russell is putting across, it makes it that bit harder to assimilate the information. Either way, throwing my tiny issues against the might of Bertrum Russell's History of Western Philosophy, which was called "A precious book ... a work that is in the highest degree pedagogical which stands above the conflicts of parties and opinions." by Albert Einstein, makes me feel suitably petty. Anyway, here are some notes.

The rise of Greek civilisation

·         Greece set the standard for civilisation growth.

·         They invented mathematics and science and philosophy

·         Philosophy began with Thales who can be dated to the year 585 B.C.

·         The links between the early religions are clear through the presence of an overbearing female motif, this is because many started as early fertility cults.

·         Since the mainland of Greece was mainly infertile, the maritime tradition flourished, both with trade and piracy. Piracy was only a temporary solution though so trade was preferable.

·         There were vast differences between the social systems within Greece. Some, such as Sparta, were based upon war and slavery, whereas others, such as Athens were all about gaining knowledge.

·         The first notable product of the Hellenic world was Homer, there is some argument about whether Homer was a single man or a congregation of poets. Homer’s poems prove that it was a civilised world.

·         Though the Greeks had largely banished fear of unknown, it was still present through legend and myth. This fear was kept at bay by their knowledge, but kind of crept in in moments of doubt.

·         Religion was based in tribes rather than individual belief. It was a group mentality. You wouldn’t follow a religion and do something for personal salvation rather for the good of the group/tribe. Here the gods are seen as animalistic, primal, and supernatural

·         In homers work however, the gods are portrayed as more human, working the soil with their hands and getting into fights with each other. The only difference between human and god is the immortality.

·         Greece was made up of many different states, which themselves consisted of a city surrounded by agricultural areas.

The Milesian school

·         Miletus was a growing city where there was a large slave population and a bitter class struggle between the rich and poor free population.

·         Thales, with whom philosophy is apparently born, came from Miletus. His travels to Egypt in the main meant that he brought geometry back with him. However, what little he knew was mainly from Egyptian guesswork.

·         Since he was an early philosopher, his science was crude, but nonetheless spawned much discussion.

·         Anaximander was the second philosopher of the Milesian school. He believed that all things came from one base substance (Thales thought this to be water) but didn’t believe this material to be anything that we would recognise.

·         The base substance would be transformed into every substance that we see in the world.

·         Anaximander’s argument for one undefinable substance was that air is cold, fire is hot and water is moist, if any of them were the fundamental substance then surely the ones which aren’t would’ve ceased to be.

Pythagoras

·         Intellectually one of the most important men to have lived.

·         It is debated whether Pythagoras was the son of an important businessman or of Apollo.

·         Like Thales he learned most of his knowledge while visiting Egypt. However, he set up his school of thought in Croton, where he had a following of disciples and was a founder of a school of mathematics.

·         He set a religion with a whole load of crazy rules.

·         Pythagoras’s greatest achievement was his theorem about right angled triangles. This however led to many failures in further mathematic advances.

Parmenides

·         Parmenides invented a form of metaphysical argument that, in one form or another, is to be found in more subsequent metaphysicians down to and including Hegel.

·         The only true being is ‘the One’, which is infinite and indivisible.

·         He insists that there is no such thing as change, because we can never truly know what is commonly regarded to have past, and therefore everything must be happening at the same time.

Empedocles

·         Basically a later Pythagoras.

·         He was a politician, and also claimed that he was a god. He was supposed to have worked miracles, and is famous for the discovery of air. He discovered this when he observed a small girl playing with a water clock. He observed that when the clock was pushed down upon the water’s surface, the water didn’t simply stream in but was forced down by what was in the clock. He then surmised this to be air.

·         he was the founder of the Italian school of medicine, knew that the moon shone due to reflected light and thought that the sun did also

·         he believed the material world to be a sphere and believed that everything was made up of two main elements, love and strife.

Athens in relation to culture

·         Athens went through a prolonged period of basic mediocrity, but then due to many coinciding events it became a more prominent Greek state. For example, it was sacked by the Persians and it’s reconstruction put it back on the map so to speak.

·         Philosophically, Athens produced two major names, Socrates and Plato. Athens flourished philosophically because it was a fairly open civilisation. It was open to thought and learning and therefore was seen as a haven to the great minds of the time.

Anaxagoras

·         The first to introduce philosophy to the Athenians.

·         Spent thirty years in Athens where he is thought (but not universally recognized to have) influenced Euripedes.

·         Anaxagoras believed that everything was infinitely divisible, that even the smallest portion of matter contains small bits of almost every element.

·         He helped to form Socrates.

The atomists

·         Leucippus and Democritus were the founders of atomism.

·         Leucippus was from Miletus and was much influenced by Parmenides. His existence however is debated.

·         Demicritus also travelled to gain knowledge, spending time in Egypt and Persia.

·         Their theories were remarkably like our modern ones, they believed that everything is constructed out of atoms, which are physically but not geometrically, indivisible.

·         That between the atoms is empty space, atoms are indestructible and that they are constantly in motion.

·         They tried to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause. The ‘final cause’ of an occurrence is an event in the future for the sake of which the occurrence takes place. The concept of purpose is only applicable within reality, not to reality as a whole, for example you can ask why someone does something and get an answer, but if you try and apply it to the natural world there is no clear answer.

Protagoras

·         Protagoras was a sophist, which was basically a teacher. Since there was no set schooling, sophists were employed by the rich families and therefore had a certain class distinction.

·         The danger associated with being a sophist is that you could be accused of impiousness and corrupting the young, as Protagoras himself is thought to have been.

·         He visited Athens twice and wrote a book called On the Gods.

·         He was an early exponent of pragmatism, insofar as the ideas that, according to Plato, he discussed have some clear parallels with pragmatism.

·         After the defeat to the Spartans and Socrates execution, Athens ceases to be politically important.