INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

1. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY THE WORLD OF ANCIENT GREECE

2. Athens as it might have looked at the height of its power

3. Ancient Greece became famous for its philosophers Serious minded individuals who did a lot of thinking

4. One of the first was THALES He was very into water. The basic substance of the world was water

5. When the water was warmed up Gasses were formed

6. When the water was cooled down It was responsible for everything solid in the world

7. Then there was HERACLITUS He recognized the theory of opposites That which goes up

8. Then there was HERACLITUS He recognized the theory of opposites That which goes up BLAM Also comes down

9. Time to get up HERACLITUS Heraclitus believed that there had to be opposites in life. If one has hot then there has to be cold. If there is good then there has to be bad If there is peace there has to be strife

10. NOTHING said HERACLITUS ever remains the same. Everything changes. Everything is in a state of flux

11. “NOTHING” said HERACLITUS “ever remains the same. Everything changes. Everything is in a state of flux” It is impossible to step into the same river twice. By the time your second boot goes in, the river has changed. The only permanent thing in the world is that everything changes.

12. What about CRATYLUS He was a pupil of Heraclitus He maintained that nothing was permanent. By the time one had finished speaking The words and the meaning of the sentence will have changed and gone!

13. It’s not over yet because there’s PARMENIDES The world was formed from some unchanging substance. He denied TIME VARIETY MOTION The world is made of basic matter which can never change He had a pupil Zeno

14. ZENO and his paradoxes Presenting Achilles and the Tortoise The tortoise challenged Achilles to a race The tortoise is given a start. In any given time the runner covers half the distance to the tortoise, but of course by then the tortoise has moved on, so the runner can never catch him up!

15. Finally you should know about DEMOCRITUS He believed that the world was made up of single indivisible units he called ATOMS. Each atom has a form and shape which cannot change, but these atoms, he thought, were constantly moving and re arranging themselves. This caused movement, changes of shape and even changes of colour.