Philosophy – Unit 1 Pre-Socratic Theories of Reality

Materialism and materialist philosophers  Materialism is the philosophical belief/view-point that all of reality is made up of physical components.  According to philosophical materialists, EVERYTHING in the universe is made up of physical parts, even things like the mind and consciousness.  Therefore, materialists believe that consciousness is a result of the brain and not an immaterial soul or spirit.

Thales ( BCE)  Thales is generally regarded as the first western philosopher  Thales asked the question: what is the most basic substance of the world?  Remember that its easy for us to take this question for granted, we know about chemical elements and, particles etc. But in Thales’ day, this was a revolutionary question.  Thales concluded that the world is ultimately made of water. He came to this conclusion after observing that the world rests atop of water and that all life depends on it.

Anaximander ( BCE)  A student of Thales, Anaximander disagreed with his teacher’s belief that the world was made of water  Instead, Anaximander argued that the world consisted of apeiron or “non-specific stuff”.  He believed that you couldn’t directly experience this “stuff”, instead you could only see its manifestations.  All of the opposites in the world, hot and cold, wet and dry, long and short, were made up of apeiron and thus held the world together.

Anaximenes ( BCE)  Anaximenes, a student of Anaximander, again rejected his teachers belief in apeiron. Instead, he argued that that the world was made of air.  Anaximenes argued that water was thickened air and that earth was VERY thick air.  Anaximenes came to these conclusions upon observing that all life needed to breathe and it was this air that thickened to become the body.  Anaximenes also observed that water vapour (steam) condenses to form water and can further thicken to become solid ice.

Democritus ( BCE)  Democritus formed a radical theory: he believed that all of creation was formed by tiny elements called atoms.  According to Democritus, these atoms could not be further broken down but could join in an infinite range of combinations to produce all of the things in the world.  Democritus claimed that atoms are indestructible and eternal, it is only the forms that they create which can be destroyed.

Immaterialism and Immaterialist philosophers  Immaterialism is the direct opposite of materialism.  Immaterialism argues that reality is best explained in non-physical terms.  As such, these philosophers would argue that what we experience as real is actually just our immaterial mind (soul, psyche, mind) interacting with and perceiving non-physical objects and phenomena.  It is only our perception of things which makes them seem real.

Pythagoras  You are all probably familiar with Pythagoras because of his mathematical theories.  It might not surprise you that Pythagoras believed that reality actually consisted of numbers.  He argued that numbers were the only truly indestructible and eternal elements and that everything else depended on numbers to exist.  He also argued that numbers must be more real than objects because objects can perish whereas numbers will always exist.

Parmenides  Parmenides argued that the world cannot be real because it is constantly changing.  If everything in the world is constantly changing then we cannot trust our perceptions of them.  Thus Parmenides argued that we can only grasp reality by mentally comprehending it.

Monism and Dualism  When discussing metaphysics and what reality is like, certain philosophical view points can be broken down into smaller categories.  For example, materialism and immaterialism – whether or not reality is made of physical stuff or mental stuff.  We can further break these view-points down into monism and dualism.  Monism = any theory that states that the world is made up of ONE basic element.  Dualism = any theory that states that the world is made up of TWO basic elements.  Pluralism = any theory that the world is made up of numerous basic elements.

THINK PAIR SHARE Which of the philosophical theories we just covered are monist? Are any dualist? Can you think of any theory that could be considered pluralist?

Democritus  Read the following passage by Democritus and answer the questions.