Home Ground and the Nature of Philosophy

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Philosophy is…. The search for self-understanding.

Philosophy is…. Love and pursuit of wisdom.

Philosophy is…. Asking of questions about the meaning of our basic concepts.

Philosophy is…. Search for fundamental beliefs that are rationally justified.

Where did philosophy come from? What is a myth or “mythos?” What does a myth do? Why is a mythos valuable? Situates the world within a context the provides meaning to life and events—e.g. natural events have supernatural causes (Zeus and thunder). Promotes community—we’re all in the same story. Very stable society: “So behaved the sacred ancestors; so must we behave.” Provides moral code. What is this hurricane and why is it happening?

Theater of Miletus 6 th Century BCE (600 BCE-501 BCE); near coast of present-day Turkey. Collapse of social and political structures leads to collapse of mythos. Collapse of mythos: You’re still in the story, but it’s not clear in what sense it’s a story with characters. The story itself is in question.

Logos Greek for “word.” Source of English “logic”— psychology, biology, sociology, etc. Logos refers to speaking or setting forth ideas in words, which implies a certain kind of thinking about, reflection upon, and evaluation of those words—LOGICAL ANALYSIS. The force of thought leads to wisdom (Sophia) & those who have love (Philo) for wisdom and devote themselves to its pursuit are engaged in “philosophia”— the love of wisdom.

The “Pre-Socratics” The challenge: Find a way to create order and harmony without the myths. “Inquirers” who used reason and senses (and not just gods and myths) to determine the nature of the universe & its phenomena. Began the Western tradition of “philosophy.” Idea: “I can create explanations of what happens by observing phenomena and using reason/logic to draw inferences.” Empedocles fragment

Thales of Miletus BCE) Things change—bodies decay, plants grow, etc. If there is change, there must be something that changes AND something that doesn’t change— otherwise, chaos. Therefore, unity (Oneness) underneath the plurality of the world. So what is the unifying, unchanging substance that is hidden by the appearance of constant change?

It changes without changing. Hogwash? How far is the leap from the claim that water is the building block of everything and the claim that atoms are? Key insight? Plurality of the world must be reducible to one category. “The first principle and basic nature of all things is water,” says Thales. Rivers turn into deltas….waters turns into ice and then back into water….which turns into steam…which becomes air….which becomes wind….which fans fire, etc.

Anaximander BCE) Student of Thales. How can water become its opposite, fire? The source of all things has to be greater than any of the things. In fact, it has to be greater than any “thing”—it has to be a non-thing or beyond-thing.

The “Boundless” or “Unlimited” (apeiron). The Boundless is opposed to nothing because everything is it. Boundless originally in vortex, disrupted, fragmented into elements (Big Bang?). World will end and return elements to unified Boundless.

Anaximenes BCE) Criticism of Anaximander: An unspecific, indeterminate, “something-or-other” is no better than nothing at all. Besides, “Nihilo nihil” (from nothing comes nothing). Air is it. Less dense=fire. Condensed=cloud and water. More condensed=earth and rock. Key idea: Differences in quality are really differences in quantity.

Some Pre-Socratics Focused Not on Explanations of the Material World but on Nature of Ideas Xenophanes of Elea BCE) “But mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have a human voice and body.” (fragment 5) (fragment 6)

Parmenides BCE) Shows that the nature of reality can be demonstrated through logic without observation. Follow this: “It is” “It is” is a truth of reason that does not depend on observation. “It is” “It is It is “It is.” “It is” cannot be denied without self-contradiction: “It is not” is “It is nothing,” but if “nothing” exists, then it is not nothing; it is something. “It is.”

So….. Since “nothing” cannot be thought without thinking of it as “something,” there is no nothing, only Being. Being must, therefore, be uncreated (if it were created it would have been created from nothing, and there is no nothing); indestructible (if destroyed, it would turn into non-Being, but there is no nothing); eternal (if it were not eternal it would eventually become non- Being); indivisible (if it could be divided, there would be spaces of non-Being between it parts, but there is no non- Being).

And, therefore, Parmenides says…. Motion is impossible. For Being to move, it would have to go from where Being is to where Being isn’t (but there can’t be any such place where Being isn’t!)

Zeno of Elea BCE) Defended Parmenides. Even given the possibility of motion, it is impossible to ever get anywhere.

Parmenides and Zeno Force a choice between sensory observation and mathematics and logic. The senses deceive, so reason/logic should reign. This later becomes the tension between empiricism and rationalism.