Chapter 2: Reality The First Philosophers Introducing Philosophy, 10th edition Robert C. Solomon, Kathleen Higgins, and Clancy Martin

The First Greek Philosophers Ancient philosophical traditions looked beyond ordinary experience for an understanding of “reality” The first appeared in the middle of the first millennium B.C.E.

The Ionian Naturalists Pre-Socratics who lived in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. in and around Greece: Thales Everything is water Anaximander Ultimate reality: apeiron Anaximenes Everything is air

Monism, Materialism, and Immaterial “Stuff” Monism: the attempt to reduce all of the varied things in the world to one kind of thing All monistic views rely on materialism: reality is ultimately composed of some kind of material "stuff"

Heraclitus Conception of an immaterial “stuff”: fire Fire represents flux or change Change has a form that underlies all reality, called the logos

Democritus Pluralist: more than one basic “stuff” makes up the universe Universe is made up of tiny bits of stuff that he called atoms

Animism All of these philosophers also believed in animism: all things, including rocks and animals, are living

Pythagoras Pythagoras: numbers are the real nature of things Reincarnation and immortality of the soul Emphasis on logic and thought

The Appearance/Reality Distinction Underlying reality thought to be quite different from how the world appears Thales–all is composed of water Democritus–the unchanging and indestructible atoms Heraclitus–perpetual changing world also has logos

Parmenides A monistic mathematician Reality must be eternal and unchanging; therefore, the world of our experience cannot be real The world of change should not be of interest to philosophy

The Sophists Gorgias: there is no reality, and even if there were, we could not know anything about it Protagoras: man is the measure of all things, meaning there is no reality except for what we take to be reality Anticipated both pragmatism and relativism

Metaphysics These various theories are called metaphysical doctrines Ask and attempt to answer the most basic questions about the universe and the “stuff” of which it is composed Aristotle called this stuff substance Ontology–concerned with being Cosmology–studies the universe