Intro to Ancient Greek Philosophy

Intro to Ancient Greek Philosophy

R.S. StewartLecture 1:

Intro: The Pre-Socratics

Map of Ancient Greece

AthensThe Agora where Socrates ‘lectured’

AthensParthenon: Built between 447 & 438 BCE with adornments continued to 432 BCE. It has served as a treasury, been converted both to a Christian Church and a Mosque and was badly damaged when bombed by Venetians while serving as an Ottoman armory in 1867.

AthensParthenon

Parthenon on AcropolisArtist's rendition

AthensHerodion Theatre (looking down from the Parthenon)

AthensTemple of Zeus (from Parthenon)

AthensTemple of Zeus

AthensTemple

External Nature

• Thales, water• Anaximander, the indefinite• Empedocles, air earth, fire, and water• Democritus, atoms• Materialism, Reductionism, Determinism, and

Mechanism

The Beginnings of Western Philosophy

• Socrates and the Story of the Oracle at Delphi (from Apology): Philosophy as a critical stance in search of proper definitions

Thales (b c.624 BCE): The first Pre-Socratic

“All is water” The discovery of nature and the rejection of mythopoeic explanations

The Milesians

• Thales, water• Anaximander (b. 610

BCE), The Indefinite• Anaximenes (b585 BCE),

Air• Plenums and the lack of

space

Parmenides of Elea

Parmenides’ (fl. Early 5th C BCE) argument against motion

• An Argument in Philosophy = a set of reasons put forward (called premises) in support of a claim (called the conclusion).

• 1) What is, is; what is not, is not.– Assumption 1: Law of the excluded Middle– Assumption 2: What exists must be knowable by

having consistent properties.

Parmenides’ argument against motion

• 1) What is, is; what is not, is not.• 2) Change requires motion.• 3) Motion requires empty space.• 4) Empty space is nothing or something that is

not.• 5) Empty space is not• 6) Motion is not.• 7) Change is not.• Therefore, Nothing ever changes or can change.

Democritus (b. Thrace, ~460-457 BCE)

• Atomic theory and the resolution of Parmenides’ problem

• Matter comes in units that are ‘uncuttable’ (automa or atoms) This means that empty space (that which is not) cannot enter into the atom (which is).

• Empty space exists as the separator of atoms.• Atoms differ in size, shape and position.• Atoms are self moving.

The Sophists• A shift to law and politics: Democracy and the

need for public speakers.• Relativism.• “A human being is the measure of all things – of

things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.” Protagoras

• There are two opposing arguments concerning everything.” Protagoras

• “To make the weaker argument the stronger.” Protagoras