A History of Greek Philosophy

Abstract

Extent: 5 vols Contents I introduction and summary i Ii the beginnings of philosophy in greece 26 Iii the milesians 39 A. Introduction 39 B. Thales 45 (I) Date: the eclipse 46 (2) Family 50 (3) Traditional character 50 (4) Mathematics 52 (5) Water as arche: the unity of all things 54 (6) Mythical precursors 58 (7) Rational explanations 6i (8) Selfchange and life: hylozoism 62 (9) The unity of being: science and myth 67 Additional note: water and 'life' 71 C. Anaximander 72 (i) Date, writings, interests 72 (2) The Unlimited as arche 76 (3) The opposites 78 (4) The meaning of apeiron 83 (5) The apezron divine 87 (6) Cosmogony and cosmology 89 (7) Origin of animal and human life 101 (8) Meteorology 105 Additional note: 'innumerable worlds' io6 D. Anaximenes page 115 (i) Date and writings 115 (2) Air as arche 115 (3) Unconscious presuppositions ii6 (4) Explanation of change: rarefaction and condensation lig (5) Air, life, and divinity I27 (6) Cosmogony and cosmology I32 (7) Meteorology 139 (8) Conclusion 139 E. The Milesians: conclusion 140 Iv pythagoras and the pythagoreans 146 A. Difficulties 148 B. Methods of approach 157 (i) Sources of the sixth and fifth centuries 157 (2) Fourthcentury sources excluding Aristotle and his pupils i6i (3) PostPlatonic sources 09 (4) The a priori method 17I C. Life of Pythagoras and external history of the school 173 D. Outline of the Pythagorean philosophy i8i (i) Man and his place in nature i82 (2) Numbers and the cosmos 212 (a) Introductory: the musical intervals. 212 Additional note: 'speed' and pitch 226 (b) Numbers and things: Aristotle's evi dence for the general nature of the doctrine 229 (c) Numbers and things: the generation of things from numbers 239 (d) Cosmology 282 (e) Abstractions as numbers 301 (3) The nature of the soul 3o6 E. Individual Pythagoreans Page 319 (i) Hippasus 320 (2) Petron 322 (3) Ecphantus 323 (4) Hicetas 327 (5) Philolaus 329 (6) Archytas 333 Appendix: Time and the Unlimited 336 V alcmaeon 34i VI XENOPHANES 36o (i) Date and life 362 (2) Social and political outlook 364 (3) Writings 365 (4) Tradition 366 (5) Destructive criticism 370(6) Constructive theology 373 (7) God identified with the world 38i (8) All creatures bom from earth 383 (9) Alternation of wet and dry ages 387 (io) Astronomy and meteorology 390 (i i) Theory of knowledge 395 (i2) Conclusion 401 Vii heraclitus 403 (i) Difficulties and policy 403 (2) Sources 405 (3) Writings 4o6 (4) Date and life 4o8 (5) Obscurity and contempt for mankind 410 (6) Prophetic character 413 (7) Relation to earlier thinkers page 05 (8) Philosophical methods: selfsearch V6 (9) The Logos V9 (io) Three basic statements (a) Harmony is of opposites 435 (1) Everything is in continuous motion and change 449 (c) The world an everliving fire 454 O i) Final explanation of the theory of change: fire and soul 459 (I2) Change and stability: the concept of measure 464 (13) The complete worldpicture: theology 469 04) Religion and the fate of the soul 473 (15) Astronomy and meteorology 482 (i6) Conclusion 486 Appendix: The riverstatement 488 I the eleatics i A. Parmenides I (i) Date and life 1 (2) Writings 3 (3) A central problem 4 (4) The prologue 6 (5) Two ways of inquiry: one true the other impossible 13 (6) The true way and the false 20 (7) The only true way: the marks of 'what is' 26 (a) It is eternal, neither coming into being nor perishing 26 (b) It is continuous and indivisible 3 1 (c) It is motionless, and lies complete within peirata 34 (d) Recapitulation: comingintobeing, loco motion and alteration are names without content 39 (e) It is 'like a round ball' 43 (8) The false way of what seems to mortals 50 (9) Cosmogony and cosmology 57 (io) Theory of knowledge: the soul 67 (i i) Being and seeming 71 Appendix: the opposites in Parmenides 77 B. Zeno 8o (i) Date and life 8o (2) Writings and method 8i (3) History of interpretation page 83 Bibliographical note 85 (4) General purpose 87 (5) Plurality 88 (6) Motion: the paradoxes 91 (7) Place 96 (8) Sensation: the millet seed 97 (9) Zeno and Parmenides 97 (io) Conclusion 100 Note on certain Chinese paradoxes 100 C. Melissus 10I (I) Introductory 10I (2) The nature of reality 102 (a) Reality has the characteristics stated by Parmenides and others consistent with them 103 (b) Reality is infinite io6 (c) Reality has no body I10 (d) Reality feels no pain 113 (3) Relation to other philosophers I15 II IONIANS AND ELEATics: THE RISE AND FALL Of monism i19 Iii empedocles 122 A. Introduction 122 B. Date and life 128 C. Personality: healer and wonderworker 132 D. Writings 134 E. Escape from Parmenides: the four roots 138 Additional notes: (I) the divine names of the elements, (2) the immutable elements and fr. 26. 2 144 F. Structure of matter: the theory of mixture and its relation to atomism viii 147 G. Love and Strife page 152 H. Causation in Empedocles: chance, necessity and nature 159 1. The cosmic cycle x67 First stage: the Sphere of Love i68 Second stage: the advance of Strife 171 Third stage: Strife triumphant 174 Fourth stage: the advance of Love 178 Conclusion i8o Additional note: the interpretation of fr 3 5 i83 J. Cosmogony and cosmology x85 (I) Cosmogony i85 (2) Shape of the cosmos Igo (3) The sun and the two hemispheres 191 (4) The moon 197 (5) The earth i98 (6) The sea 199 K. The formation of living creatures 200 L. The structure of animate nature: physiology 21I (I) The ratio of the mixture 211 (2) Medicine and physiology: reproduction 2x6 (3) Respiration 220 (4) Sleep and death 226 (5) Madness 227 M. Cognition, thought, sensation 228 (I) All cognition is of like by like 228 (2) Pores and effluences (including excursus on magnetism) 231 (3) Vision 234 (4) Hearing 238 (5) Smell 240 (6) Taste and touch 241 (7) Pleasure and pain 242 (8) Conclusion 242 N. The Purifications page 244 (I) Introduction 244 (2) The opening of the poem 246 (3) The Golden Age of Love 248 (4) The sin of bloodshed: reincarnation 249 (5) The fallen spirits 211 (6) The way to salvation 256 (7) The gods 257 (8) The nature and destiny of the 'soul' 263 Iv anaxagoras 266 (I) Date and life 266 (2) Writings 269 (3) The problem of becoming 27X (4) Mind 272 (5) Theory of matter 279 (6) The initial state: cosmogony 294 (7) Cosmology and astronomy 304 (8) Earth and sea 310 (9) Meteorology 31I (io) One world or more? 313 (I I) origin and nature of living things 315 (I 2) Sensation 3i8 (13) Theory of knowledge 319 (14) Conclusion 320 Additional notes: (I) chronology of Anaxagoras's life, (2) Euripides and Anaxagoras, (3) the words 61ioiopep@s 6tiotoapeia 322 Appendix: Selected passages on Anaxagoras's theory of matter 327 V archelaus 339 Vi philosophy in the second half of the Fifth century 345 Appendix: Some minor figures of the period (Hippon Cratylus, Clidemus, Idaeus, Oenopides) 354 VII DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA Page 362 (I) Life and writings 362 (2) The fundamental thesis: air as archi 364 (3) Air is intelligent and divine 368 (4) Physical theories: cosmogony and cosmology meteorology, magnetism 370 (5) Life, thought, sensation 373 (6) Physiology 378 (7) Conclusion 379 V111 the atomists of the fifth century 382 A. Leucippus 383 B. Democritus 386 C. The atomic theory 389 (I) Fundamentals 389 (2) General nature of atoms 392 (3) Motion and its cause 396 (4) Nature of the original motion: the question of weight 400 (5) innumerable worlds: cosmogony 404 (6) The four elements 413 (7) Causality in atomism: necessity and chance 414 (8) The heavenly bodies; the earth; other natural phenomena 4I9 (9) Time 427 (io) Soul, life and death 430 Additional note: Democritus 'On the Next World' 436 (I I) Sensation 438 Additional note: the number of the senses in Democritus 449 (12) Thought 451 (13) Theory of knowledge 454 (14) Biology, physiology, medicine 465 (15) Man and the cosmos: the origin of life 471 (i6) Culture, language and the arts page 473 07) Religion and superstition 478 (i8) Logic and mathematics 483 (ig) Ethical and political thought 489 (:zo) Conclusion 497 Appendix: Indivisibility and the atoms 503 Iii what is a sophist? 27 (I) The word 'sophist' 27 (2) The Sophists 35 (a) Professionalism 35 (h) Intercity status 40 (c) Methods 41 (d) Interests and general outlook 44 (e) Decline or adolescence? 49 (f) Rhetoric and scepticism 50 (g) Fate of sophistic literature: Plato and Aristotle 5I IV THE 'Nomos''PHYSIS' ANTITHESIS IN MORALS And politics 55 (I) Introductory 55 (2) The upholders of nomos 6o (a) Anthropological theories of progress 6o Protagoras on the original state of man 63 (c) Other equations of nomos with the just and right (Critias, examples from Hero dotus and Euripides, Socrates, the Anon. lamblichi, pseudoLysias, the speech against Aristogeiton) 68 Appendix: some passages descriptive of human progress 79 (3) The realists page 84 (a) Thucydides 84 (b) Thrasymachus in the Republic 88 (c) Glaucon and Adimantus 97 (d) Nature and necessity 99 (4) The upholders of physis 10I (a) Selfish IoI (i) Callicles: physis as the right of the stronger 10I (ii) Antiphon: physis as enlightened selfinterest 107 (iii) Other witnesses (Euripides Aristophanes, Plato) II3 (b) Humanitarian:,written and unwritten law 117 Appendix: Pindar on nomos IF V the social compact 135 Vi equality 148 (I) Political equality I48 (2) Equality of wealth 1 52 (3) Social equality 152 (4) Slavery I55 (5) Racial equality i6o Vii the relativity of values and its effects on ETHICAL THEORY i64 VIII RHETORIC AND PHILOSOPHY (Seeming and being believing and knowing, persuading and proving) I76 0 (1) General 176 (2) Protagoras i8i Appendix: Protagoras fr. I DK i88 (3) Gorgias I92 (4) Other views: scepticism extreme and moder ate (Xeniades, Cratylus, Antiphon) 200 (5) Language and its objects Page 204 (6) Grammar 2I9 Additional notes: (i) Prodicus and Thucy dides, (2) Synonymic and philosophy 223 Ix rationalist theories of religion: Agnosticism and atheism 226 (I) Criticisms of traditional religion z26 (2) Agnosticism: Protagoras 234 (3) Atheism: Diago