The Early Greeks

1. The Early Greeks

2. Early experiments (as told by Herodotus) • Psammethichus and the kids (7th cent. BC) • Croesus and the Oracles (5th cent. BC) • Both attempts to control conditions of inquiry, but not science as we know it • Earliest science (ca 600 BC) in Greece • Some knowledge in Egypt and Babylonia, but mixed with magic and superstition. • Search for knowledge for its own sake begins in Greece

3. Early Greek thinkers • “cheery obliviousness” to divisions among specialized fields; embraced all that exists • Science and philosophy are one • Some practitioners (physicians, lawyers, engineers), but philosopher-scientists took on the whole universe—any aspect that struck their fancy. • Goal: seems to have been a synthesis of all knowledge” • Roots of Psychology in this philosophy/science and medicine

4. Many modern psychological concepts found in early Greek cosmologies • E.g., attempt to reduce universe to it elements, I.e., reduce the complex to the simple • This is start toward making the world intelligible (as long as you don’t look too far beyond common sense) • Has repeatedly proved its effectiveness by achievement • A dominant tendency of human beings faced with complex situations

5. Thales • Basic element = water • Whole world is alive and animated-- even rocks • Question: why in the world would a smart guy say things like this? • Answer: all objects have power of movement if one knows how to bring it about • Huh? Think about magnets; static electricity

6. Anaximenes (ca 540 BC): air • Empedocles (ca 440 BC): • earth, air, fire, water plus forces of love and strife • Rudimentary theory of evolution • Democritus • Atoms • Different types of atom: soul atoms; body atoms • Soul atoms smaller and more active • Because soul atoms can interpenetrate body atoms, mind can make contact with and affect physical world. • Bingo! Solution to mind/body problem (yeah, right) and commitment to materialism and determinism.

7. Heraclitus (ca 500 BC) • Now let’s just wait a second here… this is nutty • At core of universe, there is no lasting substance; nothing solid; no stable element • Basic element: Fire. Why? • Significant characteristic is impermanence or change (even mountains change over time; can’t step in the same stream twice…. Yada yada). Only change is real.

8. Note the point here: Only change is real. “Things” are not real; they are always changing. Senses reveal what seem like substantial objects, but thought, which transcends experience, perceives reality, which is change. • Sensations are static and relative to a point in time, an individual, etc • While common sense sees things, Heraclitus saw processes.

9. Parmenides: • Exactly opposite view: all change is an illusion. Only one reality, and it is infinite, uniform, motionless, fixed. • This is the start of Rationalism

10. Democritus (ca 420 BC) • All sensations are false • There isn’t anything corresponding to them • Of course there is color, sweet, cold., etc… but they are caused by something else…. The atoms in the void, which are not sensed. • Senses give no information about reality; all are subjective • Centuries later, these came to be called secondary qualities and became important to Galileo, Descartes, Locke, and others.

11. So.. Along comes Anaxagoras. • Also believed it’s not possible to reduce the world to material substance, although he did propose a large number of different elements • The thing is: Anaxagoras didn’t care. • Even if one knew the elements, still couldn’t account for the world. The order of the world, as well as its elements, must be explained. • Protest against reduction to elements – Holy gestalt, Batman!

12. Pythagoras • Basic explanation for everything could be found in numbers and numerical relationships. • Tho these are abstract, they are still real and influence the empirical world (I am now getting a headache). • World of numbers known only through reason. • Dualistic universe: one part abstract, permanent, and intellectually knowable the other part is empirical, changing, and known through the senses

13. OK… OK… Time out! • The Sophists • You could probably make any argument about the ultimate nature of reality and there would be no way to confirm it. • Thus, likely that no single truth exists; truth is relative. • Sophism marked a change in philosophy. • Question was no longer “what is universe made of?”, but”what can humans know and how can they know it?” • Shift toward epistemological questions

14. Summary of Issues • What is the universe made of? Is there a primary element? If so, what? • Do things constantly change or do they never change? • What, if anything, is permanent enough to be known with certainty? • If sensory experience provides information only about a constantly changing world, how can it be a source of knowledge?

15. Is there a distinction between mind and body? • Most early philosophers were monists: No real difference between mind and body; both accounted for by the elements (whatever they might be) • Some were dualists (most prominent: Pythagoras) • Difference between mind and body (between physical and abstract). For Pythagoras, sensory experience inhibits attainment of abstract knowledge and should be avoided). Mind or soul is immortal.