Natural Philosophy

1. Natural Philosophy The Pre-Socratic Philosophers

2. What were the first questions? • What were the first answers?

3. ORIGIN STORIESClaims & Supports: the beginning of thought.

4. Pangu • The universe is caused by an outside force that is itself uncaused. • Nuwa • People are nobles because Nuwa made them carefully. • People have yellow skin because they are made from yellow soil. • People who are disabled are that way because Nuwa was careless. • People exist because Nuwa was lonely.

5. LOOK at the map of the world. Why would the locations of Greece and Asia Minor be good locations for an intellectual revolution? • Other areas of change: • China……..Confucius • India………Buddha • Persia…….Zoaster

6. Thales of Miletus (624-546 BCE)

7. Primary Question: What is everything made up of? • Response: There must be one substance from which everything else is made. • This primary substance (arche) is WATER! • Rationale: Water is all around us in different forms – water as water, water as steam, water as steam… • And earth could have solidified from water. Also, don’t many creation myths emphasize water in the beginning?

8. Other Tidbits • None of his writing survives. • Astronomy – he is said to have calculated eclipses, set the seasons and divided the year into 365 days. • Magnets are alive!

9. BONUS Brain Teaser! • How could you find out the height of the Great Pyramid? You can’t look it up and although you may travel to Egypt, you can’t climb the Pyramid with a giant measuring tape!

10. Thales’ Solution

11. ANAXIMANDER (610-546)

12. Response: The primary substance (arche) is apeiron, a formless, timeless, boundless “something”. • What problems does this attempt to address in Thales’ theory?

13. BONUS Brain Stretcher! • What came first, the chicken or the egg?

14. Followup • Do ALL things have a cause /origin? • (Whether we answer yes or no, there’s bound to be trouble!)

15. Infinite Regress

16. Infinite Regress • If everything must have an origin then we are in trouble because it leads to infinite regress! • If the past is infinite, then we can never reach the present. • But if everything starts at a finite point in time, what came before that? • “Solution”: the uncaused cause

17. Other Odds & Ends • Origins of Life • All life comes from the sea! • (1) "Anaximander says that the first animals were produced in moisture, enclosed in thorny barks. When their age increased they came out into the drier part, their bark broke off, and they lived a different mode of life for a short time." (R, 11) • -- Aetius (5.19.4) • Origins of People • (3) "Anaximander... believed that there arose from heated water and earth either fish or animals very like fish. In these humans grew and were kept inside as embryos up to puberty. Then finally they burst and men and women came forth already able to nourish themselves." (R, 12) • -- Censorinus, On the Day of Birth (4.7)

18. Anaximander’s Map of the World

19. PYTHAGORAS (580 – 500)

20. Background • Student of both Thales & Anaximander. • Originally from Ionia, he later settled in Italy. • He did not write anything himself! • What do you know about him?

21. Pythagorean Theorem

22. Pythagorean Musical Theory • Developed the notion of ratios in music – that the length of a string determines its pitch. • So, there is a proper proportion in all things that gives order to the universe!

23. Music of the Spheres • The planets and stars move according to math equations which correspond to musical notes, and thus, make music as they move about the heavens.

24. Pythagoras’ Math Cult! • Math = Religion • Math/numbers are Pythagoras’ arche – all things are made from numbers (think the Matrix!) • Math and music (which is based on math) create order. • “Number is the ruler of forms and ideas and the cause of gods and demons.” • Math can predict ALL things because each object in the universe has its own numerical essence.

25. Number Meanings • 1 – unity • 2 – imperfect (female) • 3 – whole (male) • 4 – perfect (justice) • 5 – marriage • 6 – marriage • 7 – virgin • 8 – cube • 9 – horizon • 10 – the decade / divine – it contains all musical and arithmetical proportions

26. IT GETS WEIRDER!

27. Have you heard the one about the…….

28. The Life of a Pythagorean “monk” [Women welcome!] • Based on dualism – the idea that the body and soul are in conflict and the body must be subject to discipline in order to gain true knowledge. • No possessions • Vegetarian • Remain silent – for moral discipline and for secrecy!

29. Metempsychosis • A form of reincarnation • The soul is immortal and can be reborn into different forms – hence the vegetarianism of his followers.

30. And finally….. • Pythagoras was a miracle worker! • He could be in 2 places at once! • He journeyed to the Underworld! • He was the son of Apollo and the Oracle at Delphi. • He had golden thighs!?????

31. HERACLITUS: The Obscure One (500’S)

32. Background • A strict ascetic - lives as a hermit • His writing is purposely difficult to understand • “The part I understand is excellent, and so too, no doubt, is the part I do not understand; but it needs a Delian diver to get to the bottom of it!” Socrates

33. Beliefs • The truth can only be arrived at through careful introspection – you must discover your own true nature and only then may you understand the sensory data around you. Otherwise this data is worthless! • “Learning many things does not bring wisdom.”

34. No man steps in the same river twice…EXPLAIN.

36. The universe is in a constant state of change. • Matter” is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes. • If everything is always changing how can you truly know it?

37. There is an underlying order to this change. • The guiding force behind this order is logos / reason. • Reason exists in all people and all things, and is a manifestation of universal reason / logos • Logos / reason is eternal and provides unity.

38. So, which of the 4 elements do think is associated with Heraclitus’ concept of change? What is his arche?

40. So CHANGE = FIRE = LOGOS / REASON = GOD • God is the fire. The god/fire destroys and creates….EXPLAIN • What god does is good, so what the fire does is good (whether we like it or not) and we should accept it! • And, by the way, get ready for the massive conflagration that happens every 50,000 years!

41. Connections

42. PARMENIDES (515 - ?)

43. Are you a table?

44. Background • From the Eleatic school of philosophy (in Italy) • Wrote a philosophic / didactic poem called On Nature • He is a rationalist – truth comes NOT from the senses but from reason. Your senses are unreliable. (Give an example.) • Versus an empiricist who would believe that the senses are king.

45. Your senses can deceive you…

46. Problems with Heraclitus • Heraclitus said that world is always ______. • Parmenides says that we only think this is true because our senses have deceived us! The true nature of reality is orderly and permanent.

47. How you = the table • First of all, imagine NOTHING.

50. You can’t do it can you!? • The first self-evident truth is that, “It exists.”- it can’t NOT be. • Nothingness is an impossibility – you cannot know it, you cannot picture it, you cannot think about it. • So, thought = being – if you can think it, it exists.