Ancient Greece is generally believed to be the birthplace of Western philosophy. Above is the acropolis of Athens and below is Pergamon in present day Turkey--in ancient times it was part of the Greek empire.
Below is an artist's rendition of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Before Persia was conquered by the Greek king Alexander the Great, Babylon was a cultural center for many years. It is quite likely that Babylonian thought and literature had more of an effect on Greek philosophy than is often admitted. In fact, Thales is said to have traveled to both Egypt and Babylon, possibly incorporating some of the things he learned into Greek philosophy. Of course, the surviving writings we have from the Greeks are far closer to completion than most writings we have from the Babylonians. The remains of the once great city of Babylon are in present day Iraq.
We are now studying the presocratics, the first known Western philosophers, whose home was ancient Greece. As the term implies, presocratics were the philosophers who existed before Socrates (this shows you how important Socrates remains to philosophy).
Before going directly into their ideas, it is useful to know the historical context. What were the presocratics developing their ideas in response to? These first philosophers arose in a world of myth, in world where the explanations for the mysteries of existence were the interactions of Gods and Goddesses. The presocratics sought explanations that were rational, that were based on ideas that built upon each other. However strange and off-base their initial explanations seem, we have to remember that these first philosophers were trying something new and different, something that reached beyond mythological explanations.
Thales (624-545 b.c.e.)
Take, for example, Thales, the first known Western philosopher. He came up with the idea that one substance underlies all things: water. Again, this seems almost childish to us, but that’s because we live in a world where information is everywhere, where we have access to the greatest ideas of many cultures from many times and places (just check Wikipedia).
Today it is almost common sense for us to think that nothing happens without a reason. People often say "everything happens for a reason," though different people may mean different things by this popular phrase. Religious followers often mean that there is a plan laid out by God of which they are a part, or religions like Buddhism (if you’re OK with calling it a religion) employ principles like karma. In the West this idea can be traced to the presocratic philosopher Anixamander (611-546 b.c.e.) in searching for what held the earth up. It is known as the principle of sufficient reason.
Heraclitus (500 b.c.e.)
Heraclitus, an important presocratic, sought an underlying principle for the stages of matter. If matter goes through different stages, what holds it all together? Heraclitus thought it was something called "logos." For Heraclitus, it was the underlying principle of all things, what unified everything. As Soccio points out, the word “logos” itself means numerous things in Greek. Do you see a connection to the Tao here?
Heraclitus' writings come from fragments found in the writings of other authors. For some of these fragments, check this website: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/heraclitus.html
Heraclitus distinguished between the way things appear and the way things really are. By doing so he started a philosophical theme that is still being discussed today: appearance vs. reality. We’ll talk more about this when we get to Descartes. To modernize his example, Heraclitus would say that a guitar string seems at rest only because the string and the guitar pull equally against each other. There is actually a tension between the two. What does this mean? It can be seen as a metaphor for the nature of the world. The world, at the level of appearance, is like the guitar string. But in reality, there is a tension beneath the stability that we don't see.
Parmenides (5th Century b.c.e.)
Parmenides sought a solution to the one and the many. That is, how does the one underlying nature of the cosmos (the logos) appear to be many things? If there is one unifying principle underlying all of reality, why are there multiple people, and rocks, and cities, (etc.)? Parmenides reasoned, like Heraclitus, that there is a difference between appearance and reality. While it appears that things change, at the fundamental level of reality, things do not change. For Parmenides, the fundamental level of reality is being. He thought being was eternal since being could not have come from nothing. Nothing, being by nature nothing, cannot produce something, he reasoned. Thus being is an eternal, unchanging thing.
This is all very abstract, isn’t it? If you feel like you’re in the dark here, don’t worry. As long as you have a basic grasp of these ideas, or at least of what these early thinkers were trying to do, you’ll be fine. Much of the philosophical branch of philosophy called "metaphysics" is theorizing like this about the nature of reality, about what produces the reality we experience. This abstract reasoning will help you build a foundation for understanding other philosophers. Not all philosophy is overly abstract, but it wouldn't be philosophy if I didn't introduce you to at least a couple overly abstract concepts.
While Parmenides thought that being was one and was unchanging, Empedocles (5th Century b.c.e.) thought that being was one, but that change still occurred. He thought that motion occurred within the existing reality. In other words, there is one being and parts of it exchange places with each other.
The attempts to solve the problem of the one and the many eventually led the presocratic philosophers to posit the existence of small entities that combine in certain ways to form other, larger objects at our level of experience. Those small entities were called “atoms” and the larger entities they form are people, chairs, grains of sand, etc. Thus atoms were thought by the presocratics to be the ultimate foundation of life. You cannot divide atoms further; there is nothing smaller. Atoms alone cannot be sensed or seen, but when combined with other atoms, they become visible to us.
Democritus (460-370 b.c.e.)
Democritus, who ultimately developed atomism, made a distinction that went beyond the one Parmenides tried to make between being and not being. Basically, Democritus said that even being can have empty space. The term he used for this empty space was “void.” Interestingly, Democritus thought there was no order to the universe, no guiding intelligence. He thought atoms came together based on some sort of internal logic that needs no outside explanation. He thought elements of the world could be predicted if we only had the proper knowledge. This insight will play a role in determinism (which we’ll study later in the class). Determinism makes the claim that every action you make is simply a result of natural laws over which you have no control.
Notice how, in some sense, these early Greeks were scientists, dividing up the world and giving names to its components. And also notice how many of their terms and ideas have been built upon by scientists throughout the centuries: "atoms," "the void."
Following the presocratics were sophists, relativists who believed truth is only a matter of appearance and that language can be manipulated to make anything seem "right" or "wrong," "true" or "false." The text describes the social climate of Ancient Athens. At the time, many Athenians were ethnocentric (they believed their ways were superior to other cultures). Since Athens was a trade center, Athenians were challenged by the people from other cultures coming to the city. There was a climate of free speech that eventually gave rise to a sort of formalized education. When one theory or idea was created, it was critiqued by others. And then the new idea was critiqued, and revised, and critiqued again. This is philosophy. This is also the beginning of the division of philosophy called “logic.” As many of you know, I’m sure, there are “Logic and Critical Thinking” courses offered on any college campus. These classes typically deal with the reasoning and arguments in more detail than we will go into in this class.
The Sophists
The sophists were people who had a particular reaction to all the different ideas that were floating around. Most came from outside of Athens and offered to teach their worldly wisdom—for a price. They were the first to charge for their teachings, something which Socrates would eventually dispute. The sophists were also the first to ask What is true? coming to the conclusion that there is, in fact, no truth. In other words, they thought it was possible to argue the “truth” of any position based on your feelings for that position. Have you ever known anyone who has a knack for winning any argument? These people, like sophists, can find some sort of reason to defend any position. Being “right” or “wrong” has nothing to do with it; gaining the upper hand or the power in an argument or debate was the most important thing to a sophist.
Below is an artist's rendition of Zeus, the supreme Greek God. The presocratics were not happy with mythological explanations for what was going on around them.
The presocratics asked questions about the nature of the world and sought rational explanations. Although their questions were abstract, they sometimes stumbled upon profound truths that advanced general human knowledge. For instance, the abstract question What is the nature of the universe? eventually led the presocratics to say that the universe is made up of small particles that come together to produce larger objects--atoms. Modern scientists have taken this discovery and gone further, showing that atoms themselves are divisible into many other particles.
It's unfortunate that women are often ignored in philosophy and other branches of knowledge. Luckily this is starting to change. We do have some records of female philosophers in Ancient Greek times. Above is a statue of Aspasia, a female philosopher mentioned by Plato in his dialogues. We don't have much historical information about her, but there is evidence that she may have trained people in rhetoric or owned a brothel where other philosophers came to discuss ideas with her. Later, we'll be studying a couple of female philosophers: Simone de Beauvoir and Martha Nussbaum.
Sophists and other philosophers often just sat around and pondered the unknowable things. The dialogues of Plato chronicle some of these conversations.
Relativism
This, of course, leads us into relativism or the belief that knowledge only exists in the eye of the observer. Another way to think of this is “truth for me” and “truth for you.” There is no other kind of truth, thought the Sophist. This can also be interpreted as “true for my culture” and “true for your culture.” This is the difference between individual relativism and cultural relativism.
Undoubtedly, the idea of relativism has occurred to some of you. Even among close friends, there are usually differences in interpretation in terms of what is right or what is true. For instance, one person might think prostitution is wrong. And the person who has no problem with prostitution thinks eating meat is wrong. What do we make of these differences? Is there any objective truth or morality? Is there something that everyone believes is right or wrong in every situation? Even things as seemingly clear as murder are not always so clear. Is murder wrong for all humans at all times? What about the death penalty or euthanasia? You might be thinking, well murder is always wrong when the victim deserves it. But then you’re not talking about murder anymore; you’re talking about murder under certain conditions.
But you have to wonder the following about relativism. If there really is no ultimate truth and everything really is a "matter of perspective" why is it that we all believe that the earth is round? If someone believes the earth is flat, is that "just as true" as the belief that the earth is round? Or, if I believe the door to my house is where a wall appears to be, is that "just as true" as someone who believes that the door everyone walks in and out of is the actual door?
Pragmatism
Protagoras (481-411 b.c.e.), the most famous sophist, took a complex look at the idea of relativism. If truth is relative to cultures and to people then where do we go from there? Protagoras thought that all our values, beliefs, and customs are dependent on where we grow up, who our parents are, and how we are biologically put together. This is something that will recur again and again in philosophy. Every belief we have, reasoned Protagoras, cannot possibly be independent of our cultural conditioning. What is the solution?
Pragmatism is the solution. Pragmatism is the idea that, since there is no objective truth, what is important is what works (that is, what is pragmatic). To the extent that ideas are useful to us, they are meaningful, says Protagoras. What do you think of this? How far could one take this? Is it “useful” for a mother to tell her kids there are demons in a nearby lake to prevent them from drowning? Protagoras espoused a go-with-the-flow attitude toward life: realize that the customs of your society are simply that, your customs, but follow them anyway to be practical. Why make a scene at work because your boss wants you to do something you don’t want to? Just do it, says Protagoras.
I’ll mention briefly moral realism, or that idea that “might makes right.” This is as simple as it seems: what is right is determined by whoever has the power. Since we are studying Nietzsche later, and since he is going to build on this idea in a much more interesting way, I’m not going to go into any detail at this point.