Protagoras and The Sophists

A sophist was a man who made his living by teaching things that would be useful to them and are not taught in regular curriculum. As there was no public provision for such education, the Sophists taught only to those who had private means. This tended to give them a certain class bias which was increased by political circumstances of the time.

In Athenian democracy, judges and most executive officers were chosen by lot and served for short periods. They were thus average citizens with their characteristic prejudices and lack of professionalism. The plaintiff and defendant or prosecutor and accused appeared in person, not through professional lawyers. Naturally, success and failure depended largely on oratorical skill in appealing to popular prejudices. Although a man had to deliver his own speech, he could hire an expert to write the speech for him, or, as many, preferred, he could pay for instruction in the arts required for success in the law courts. These arts the Sophists were supposed to teach. They taught the art of arguing, and as much knowledge as would help in this art. Broadly speaking, they were prepared, like modern lawyers, to show how to argue for or against any opinion and were not concerned to advocate conclusion of their own. Those, to whom philosophy was closely bound to religion, were naturally shocked; to them, the sophists appeared frivolous and immoral. The sophists were prepared to follow an argument wherever it might lead them. Often it led to skepticism. One of them, Gorgias, maintained that nothing exists; that if anything exists; and to be knowable by any one man, he could never communicate it to others.

Protagoras was most prominent amongst the sophists. Protagoras was born about 500 B.C; at Abdera in Thrace, the city from which Democritus came. He twice visited Athens. His second visit to Athens is described somewhat satirically in Plato’s Protagoras, and his doctrines are discussed seriously in Theaetetus. He is chiefly noted for his doctrine that “Man is measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not.” This is interpreted as meaning that each man is the measure of all things and that when men differ there is no objective truth in virtue of which one is right and other is wrong. The doctrine is essentially skeptical and is presumably based on deceitfulness of the senses.

Russel quotes Plato, in the Theaetetus, to explain Protagoras. One opinion can be better than other but not necessarily truer. For e.g. when a man has jaundice everything looks yellower to him. There is no sense in saying that things are not really yellow, but the color they look to a healthy man, one can say, however that since health is better than sickness, the opinion of man in health is better than that of man who has jaundice. This point of view is akin to Pragmatism.

Leucippus and Democritus - The Atomist

Leucippus and Democritus are considered to be the founders of Atomism. Though Democritus place is later in the chronology, along with Socrates, he is generally considered along with Leucippus.

Leucippus seems to have flourished around 440 B.C. He comes from Miletus and carried on the rationalistic and scientific way of philosophy associated with the city. He was much influenced by Parmenides and Zeno. Epicurus, a later follower of Democritus doubted his existence. There are, however, a number of allusions to him by Aristotle and it seems incredible that these would have occurred if he had been merely a myth.

Democritus was from Abdera in Thrace. He flourished around 420 B.C. He travelled widely in eastern & southern lands in search of knowledge. He seems to have visited Egypt and Persia.

Leucippus, if not Democritus, was led to atomism in the attempt to mediate between monism as represented by Parmenides and pluralism as represented by Empedocles. Their theory is remarkably akin to modern physics. They believed that everything consists of atoms and atoms are physically invisible and indestructible. The atoms have always been in motion and there are infinite numbers of atoms. The space between two atoms is empty. Atoms have different shape and size. Whether Atomist considered atoms as weightless is debated. But there is considerable reason to think that weight was not an original property of atoms of Leucippus and Democritus.

It seems more probable that, on their view, atoms were originally moving at random. Democritus said that there was neither up nor down in the infinite void and compared the movement of atom in the soul to that of motes in sunbeam where there is no beam. As a result of collisions the collection of atoms comes to form Vortices.

Contrary to popular perception in antiquity, Atomists were strict deterministic, who believed that everything happens in accordance with the natural laws. Democritus explicitly denied that anything can happen by chance.

Aristotle and others reproached Leucippus and Democritus for not accounting for original motion of atoms (i.e. how the atoms got into motion), but in science causation must start from something, and wherever it starts no cause can be assigned for initial datum. The world may be attributed to a creator, but even the creator himself is unaccounted for.

The atomists sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause. The “final cause” of an occurrence is an event in the future for the sake of which the occurrence takes place.

Taking an example if we ask, “Why are railways built?” the answer would be because people would travel. This is the “final cause” why railways are built. When we ask “Why” concerning an event, we may mean either of two things. We may mean “What purpose did this event serve?” or we may mean “What earlier circumstances caused this event?”

The answer to the former question is teleological explanation, or an explanation by final causes, the answer to the latter question is mechanistic explanation. The mechanistic question leads to scientific knowledge, while the teleological question does not. The atomist asked the mechanistic question and gave mechanistic answers. Their successors, until the renaissance, were more interested in teleological question, and thus led science up a blind alley.

As regards the teleological explanation, it eventually arrives at creator whose purpose is realized in the course of nature. But if a man is so obstinately teleological as to continue to ask what purpose is served by the Creator, it becomes impious. The conception of purpose, therefore, is only applicable within reality, not to reality as whole.

A similar argument applies to mechanistic explanations. One event is caused by another and other by third and so on. But if we ask for a cause of the whole, we are driven again to creator who must himself be uncaused. All causal explanations, there must have an arbitrary beginning. This is why it is no defect in the theory of atomist to have left the original movements of atoms unaccounted for.

Leucippus was concerned to find a way of reconciling the arguments of Parmenides with the obvious fact of motion and change. Leucippus thought he had a theory which harmonized with sense perception and would not abolish either coming to be and passing away or motion and the multiplicity of things. He made this concession on the facts of perception. On the other hand he conceded to the monists that there could be no motion without void. The result is a theory which he states as follow:

“The void is a “not being”, and no part of “What is” is a “not being”; for 'what is' in the strict sense of term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not one, on the contrary, it is many, infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of the bulk. The many move in the void (for there is a void): and by coming together they produce coming to be, while by separating they produce passing away. Moreover, they act and suffer action whenever they chance to be in contact (for there they are not one) and they generate by being put together and becoming intertwined. For the genuinely one, on the other hand, there could never have come to be a multiplicity, nor from genuinely many a one: that is impossible.”

It will be seen that there was on which everybody so far was agreed, namely there could be no motion in the plenum. In this, all alike were mistaken. There can be cyclic motion in a plenum, provided it has always existed. The idea was that a thing could only move into an empty space, and that in a plenum, there are no empty spaces. It might be contended, perhaps validly, that motion could never begin in a plenum, but it cannot be validly maintained that it could not occur at all.

To the Greeks, however, it seemed that one must acquiesce in the unchanging world of Parmenides, or admit the void. One may put the Parmenidian position in this way: “You may say that there is the void; therefore the void is not nothing; therefore it is not the void.” It cannot be said that Atomists answered this argument; they merely proclaimed that they proposed to ignore it on the ground that motion is a fact of experience, therefore there must be a void, however difficult it may be to conceive.

Democritus worked out his theories in considerable details and some of the working out is interesting. Each atom, he said, was impenetrable and indivisible because it contained no void. When you use a knife to cut an apple, the knife has to find empty places where it can penetrate; if the apple contained no void, it would be infinitely hard and therefore physically indivisible. Each atom is internally unchanging, and in fact a Parmenidian one. The only thing that atoms do is to move and hit each other, and sometimes to combine. They are of all sorts of shapes; fire is composed of small spherical atoms; and so is the soul. Atoms, by collision produce vortices, which generates bodies and ultimately worlds. There are many worlds, some growing, some decaying; some may have no sun or moon, some several. Every world has a beginning and an end.

Life developed out of the primeval slime. There is some fire everywhere in a living body. Thought is a kind of motion and is thus able to cause motion elsewhere. Perception and thought are physical process. Perception is of two sorts, one of the sense and one of the understandings. Perception of the latter sort depend only on the things perceived, while those of the former sort depends also on our senses, and therefore apt to be deceptive. Like Locke, Democritus held that such qualities as warmth, taste, and color are not really in the object, but are due to our sense organs, while such qualities as weight, density and hardness are really in the object.

Democritus was through-going materialist; for him, the soul was composed of atoms and thought was physical process. There was no purpose in universe, there were only atoms governed by mechanical laws. He disbelieved in popular religion and argued against nous of Anaxagoras. In ethics he considered cheerfulness as the goal of life, and regarded moderation and culture as the best means to it. He disliked everything violent and passionate; he disapproved of sex, because he said, it involved the overwhelming of consciousness by pleasure.

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae, in Ionia, about the year 500 B.C. He spent about thirty years of his life in Athens around 462 B.C to 432 B.C. He was probably induced to come by Pericles and was the first one to introduce philosophy to Athenians. As Pericles grew week his men, including Anaxagoras, were troubled by his enemies. What happened actually is not certain, except that Anaxagoras had to leave Athens. He returned to Ionia, where he founded a school.

Anaxagoras carried out on the scientific, rationalist tradition of Ionia. He was from the school of Anaximene. He was first to suggest mind as primary cause of physical change. Anaxagoras held that everything is infinitely divisible, and that even the smallest portion of matter contains some of each elements. Things appear to be that of which they continue most. For e.g. everything contains some fire but what we know as fire is one in which fire is preponderant.

Like Empedocles, he agrees against the void. His greatest achievement is that he differed from his predecessors in regarding mind (nous) as a substance that enters into the composition of living things and distinguishes them from dead matter. In everything, he says, there is portion of everything except mind. There are certain things which contains mind also. In such things mind has power over all things that have life; it is infinite and self ruled and is mixed with nothing. Mind is the source of all motion. It causes a rotation, which is gradually spreading throughout the world, and is causing the lightest things to go to the center and the heaviest to fall towards centre. Mind is uniform and is just as good in animals as in man. Man’s apparent superiority is due to the fact that he has hands; all seeming differences of intelligence are really due to bodily differences.

Aristotle and Socrates complain that Anaxagoras, after introducing mind, makes very little use of it. Aristotle points out that Anaxagoras introduces mind as a cause when he know no other. Wherever he can, he gives mechanical explanation.

In cosmology he had great achievements. If we discount Parmenides cryptic suggestion, Anaxagoras was the first to explain that moon shines by reflected light. He gave the correct theory of eclipse. The sun and stars, he said, are fiery stones, but we do not feel the heat of stars as they are distant. The sun is larger than Peloponnesus, the moon has mountains and inhabitants.

Bertrand Russell summarizes Anaxagoras contribution as:

“Anaxagoras kept alive the rationalist and the scientific tradition of Ionians. One does not find in him the ethical and religious preoccupations which, passing from Pythagoras to Socrates and from Socrates to Plato, brought an obscurantist bias in Greek Philosophy. He is not quite in the first rank, but he is important as the first to bring philosophy to Athens, and one of the influences that helped to form Socrates.”

A brief history of Athens

Attica at the beginning of the historical period was a self supporting agricultural region. It's capital was a small town inhabited by artisans and craftsmen. The town was called Athens.

In the Homeric age Attica, like other Greek cities, was a monarchy. Over the period the king became just a titular power and the control passed to aristocracy. The aristocrats oppressed both the artisans and the countrymen. A compromise in the direction of the democracy was affected by Solon early in the sixth century, and much of his work survived through a subsequent period of tyranny under Peisistratus and his sons. When the tyranny became week the aristocrats, as an opponent of tyranny, advocated democracy. Democratic process gave power back to aristocracy.

The greatness of Athens begins at the time of the two Persian wars (490 B.C and 480-79 B.C). Before this Ionia and Magna Graecia, which comprised of cities of South Italy and Sicily, were center of learning which produced great men.

The victory of Athens against the Persian king Darius at Marathon (490 B.C) and combined Greek fleet against his son Xerexes (480 B.C) under the Athenian leadership gave Athens great Prestige.

The Persian occupied Ionia and a part of mainland Asia Minor rebelled after the Persian were driven out of mainland Greece by the combined Greek force. Athens became the leader against the war against Persia. The other cities gave Athens the monetary help and Athens provided them with soldiers and ships. Gradually Athens acquired naval supremacy over the other empire and gradually transformed the empire into Athenian empire.

Athens became rich and prosperous under the leadership of Pericles, who governed by the free choice of people. The age of Pericles was the glorious time in the Greek history. Literature and Philosophy made a great Leap.

Pericles rebuilt the temple on Acropolis which was destroyed by Xerxes. He also built the Parthenon at the end of this period. Athens was most beautiful and splendid city of Hellenic world. In Philosophy, Athens contributes only two great names, Socrates and Plato. Plato belonged to later period but Socrates passed his youth and early manhood under Pericles. Pericles ruled for 30 years until his fall in 430 BC.

Until the fall of Pericles, democratic process gave power to the aristocracy. But towards the end of his life the leaders of Athenian democracy began to demand a larger share of Political power. At the same time, his imperialist policy caused increasing friction with Sparta, leading to Peloponnesian war (431 – 404 B.C) in which Athens was completely destroyed.

Empedocles

Empedocles lived around 440 BC in Acreages’, on the south coast of Sicily. He was a younger contemporary of Parmenides, though his doctrines were somehow akin to Heraclitus.

In most Greek cities, including Sicily, there was a constant conflict between democracy and tyranny. The leader of whichever party was defeated was executed or exiled. Those exiled seldom scrupled to enter into negotiation with the enemies of Greece-Persia in the east and Carthage in the west. Empedocles who was a democrat didn’t choose any of them after his banishment and rather preferred a life of sage.

Empedocles was a queer mixture of a scientist, a philosopher and a heretic.

Science: His most important contribution to science was his discovery of air as a separate substance. This he proved by the observation that when a bucket or any similar vessel is put upside down into water, the water does not enter into the bucket. He also discovered an example of centrifugal force: that if a cup of water is whirled round at the end of a string, the water does not come out. He had his own theory for evolution and the survival of the fittest. He also believed that moon and sun shines from the reflected light.

Cosmology: He established that the earth, air, fire and water are four basic elements. Each of these is ever lasting and every other thing in this world is a compound of these basic elements. These substances are combined by Love and Strife. Love and Strife are also basic substances along with the four. Period of dominance of love and strife keeps changing. Every compound substance is temporary; only the elements together with love and strife are everlasting.

Empedocles held that the material world is a sphere; that in golden age strife was outside the sphere and love inside and then gradually strife starts entering the sphere and displacing love at worst completely outing it. The process then reverses.

Religion: He had an orphic/Pythagorean view of religion. At times he speaks himself exuberantly as God and at other as a great sinner undergoing expiation for his impiety. It is said that he jumped into the crater of Mount Etna to prove that he is God.

Parmenides

Parmenides was native of Elea, in southern Italy. His date is uncertain but it is said that young Socrates met him when Parmenides was 65 years of age. This makes his birth around 515 BCE. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy.The southern Italian & Sicilian philosophy was more related to mysticism unlike the Ionian philosophy which was scientific and skeptical in nature. Mathematics, under the influence of Pythagoras, flourished in Magna Gracie in southern Italy and was entangled with mysticism and was not scientific as it is today.

Parmenides was influenced by Pythagoras but the extent to this influence is conjectural. Parmenides is historically important as he is considered to be inventor of Logic but what he really invented was metaphysics based on Logic.

His doctrine is divided into two parts “the way of truth” and the “the way of opinion”. The Way of Truth discusses that which is real, which contrasts in some way with the argument of the Way of Opinion, which discusses that which is illusory. In his poem ‘In Nature’ he illustrates his doctrine .He considered the senses deceptive, and condemned the multitude of sensible things as mere illusion. The only true being is “the One” which is infinite and indivisible. It is not, as in Heraclitus, a union of opposites, since there are no opposites. He apparently thought for instance, “Cold” means only “not Hot”, and “Dark” means only “not light”. “The One” of Parmenides is different from “The God” we conceive because Parmenides considered the one as a material and extended, for he speaks of it as a sphere present everywhere, encompassing everything hence indivisible and indestructible. Heraclitus maintained that everything changes; Parmenides retorted that nothing changes. The essentials of his teaching as follow:

“Thou canst not know what is not-that is impossible-nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be”

“How, then, can what is be going to be in future? Or how could it come into being? If it came into being, it is not, nor is it if it is going to be in the future. Thus is becoming extinguished and passing away not to be heard of."

"The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, as to which it is uttered.”

Bertrand Russell explains this argument as:

“When you think you think of something; when you use a name, it must be the name of something. Therefore both thought and language requires objects outside themselves. And since you can think of a thing or speak of it at one time as well as at another, whatever can be thought of or spoken of must exist at all the time. Consequently there can be no change, since change consists in things coming into being or ceasing to be”

Parmenides contends that, since we know what is commonly regarded as past, it cannot be really be past, but must, in some sense , exist now. Hence he infers that there is no such thing as change.

Xenophanes & Heraclitus

Xenophanes’ date is uncertain between c 570 - 475 BCE. He was from Colophon, a city in the region of Lydia, but lived most of his life in southern Italy. He lived in between the times of Pythagoras and Heraclitus. This is concurred as he alludes to Pythagoras and Heraclitus alludes to him.

Xenophanes philosophy shows a streak of skepticism. He satirized the polytheistic beliefs of the Greeks. He believed in one God and considered it as formless. He argued that if Horses and Cows could paint they would paint God as themselves just like Humans give a humanly form to god. The Ethiopian God is black and the Thracian god is blue eyed with red hairs. Xenophanes is often seen as one of the first monotheists, in the Western philosophy of religion.

His epistemology held that there exists a truth of reality, but that humans as mortals are unable to know it. Therefore, it is possible to act only on the basis of working hypotheses - we may act as if we knew the truth, as long as we know that this is extremely unlikely. This aspect of Xenophanes is the basis of Critical rationalism. Xenophanes can be considered the first amongst the rationalists.

Xenophanes ridiculed Pythagoras’ theory of transmigration. Xenophanes considered that all things are made up of earth and water.

Heraclitus flourished around 500 B.C. He was citizen of Ephesus in Ionia. Though an Ionian, he didn’t belong to the scientific schools of Miletus. From the solitary and melancholic life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called "The Obscure," and the "Weeping Philosopher." He was a mystic of different type. He regarded fire as the primordial substance. He is famous for his doctrine of flux and doctrine of strife.

Doctrine of Flux: The doctrine that everything is in the state of flux is most famous of Heraclitus.

“This world, which is same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever living fire, with measures kindling and measures going out. The transformed fire are , first of all, sea, and half of the sea is earth, half whirlwind.”

Such a world, Heraclitus believed, is always in a state of flux.

“You cannot step twice into the same river ; for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.”

Doctrine of Strife: This doctrine is about mingling of opposites to create harmony. “Men do not know”, he says, “how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is and attunement of opposite tensions, like that of bow and lyre”. His belief in strife is connected with this theory, for in strife opposite combines to produce motion which is in harmony. There is unity in the world, but it is unity resulting from diversity. This doctrine contains the germ of Hegel’s Philosophy, which proceeds by synthesizing of opposites. The metaphysics of Heraclitus, like that of ‘Anaximander’ is dominated by a conception of cosmic justice, which prevents the strife of opposite from ever issuing in the complete victory of either.

Heraclitus’s ethics is a kind of proud asceticism, very similar to Nietzsche’s. He regards the soul as a mixture of fire and water, the fire being the noble and the water being ignoble. The soul that has most fire he calls “dry”. “The dry soul is the wisest and the best”. It is pleasure to soul to become moist. It is death to soul to become water.

Pythagoras

In 6th century BC, Island of Samos was a commercial rival to Miletus. Polycrates became the tyrant of Samos in around 535 BC. Polycrates was not a man with moral scruples. Since the rival Miletus was destroyed by Persia, Polycrates used his navy primarily for Piracy. To stop the westward expansion of Cambyses, the Persian King, Polycrates aligned himself with Amasis, the king of Egypt. When Cambyses devoted all his energy against Amasis, Polycrates realized that he was part of losing side. Such an unscrupulous man he was, he sent his navy against Egypt. The Navy mutinied and returned to attack Polycrates but mutiny was suppressed. Eventually his avarice got rid of him. He was captured at the Persian Satrap at Sardes and was executed. Despite all his covetousness he was a patron of art and learning. He modernized Samos with public works.

Pythagoras was a citizen of Samos during the time of Polycrates. Pythagoras did not like Polycrates and might have left to Egypt where it is supposed that he learned Egyptian wisdom. But what is certain that Pythagoras established himself at Croton, an important city in southern Italy. At Croton Pythagoras founded a society of disciples, which was influential in the city but eventually the citizen turned against him and he had to move to another southern Italian city of Metapontion, where he died.

Pythagoras is the one of the most interesting and puzzling men in history. He founded a religion whose main tenet was transmigration of soul. He advocated the control of state by religion and rules of saints. Some taboo from Pythagorean religion are listed below:

1) Not to eat from beans
2) Not to pick up what has fallen
3) Not to touch a white cock

4) Not to break bread

5) Not to step over a crossbar

6) Not to stir the fine with iron
7) Not to eat with whole loaf
8) Not to pluck a garland
9) Not to sit on a quart measure
10) Not to eat the heart
11) Not to walk on highway
12) Not to let swallows share one’s roof
13) When the pot is taken of the fire, not to leave the mark of it in the ashes, but to stir them together
14) Do not look in the mirror beside a light
15) When you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth out the impression of body

Cornford in his book “From Religion to Philosophy” says that
‘ The school of Pythagoras represents the main current of that mystical tradition which we have set in contrast with the scientific tendency”

Conford regards Parmenides, whom he calls “the discoverer of Logic” as “an off shoot of Pythagoreanism”. Pyathgoreanism was a movement to reform Orphism as Orphism was a movement to reform the worship of Dionysus.

Pythagoras believed that the soul is immortal and is transmigrated from one being to another . In a Pythagorean society men and women were admitted on equal terms, property was held in common and there was a common way of life, even the scientific and mathematical discoveries were deemed collective.

When Pythagoras said “all things are numbers”, what he might have intended is that the numbers are there in all aspects of life. He discovered numbers in music, shape, size, everywhere. He presumably thought world as atomic and of bodies as built up of molecules composed of atoms in various shapes. The greatest discovery of Pythagoras was that the sum of square sides of a right angled triangle is equal to the square of hypotenuse (3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2). But unfortunately this led to the discovery of incommensurable. For e.g. in an isosceles right angled triangle of sides 1 inch each let the length of hypotenuse be m/n where there is no common factor between m & n. That means one of them is odd and one even. But m^2/n^2 = 2 or m^2 = 2 n^2. This shows that neither m can be odd or n can be odd. So no fraction m/n will measure hypotenuse. This is a contra hypothesis. But with the help of geometry Euclid explained this proposition of incommensurable. This convinced the Greek mathematicians that geometry must be established independent of Mathematics and geometry remained superior to mathematics till the time of Rene Descartes. 

The influence of geometry upon philosophy and scientific method has been profound. Geometry starts with axioms which are self evident, and proceeds by deductive reasoning, to arrive at theorems that are very far from self evident. It thus appeared to be possible to discover things about the actual world by first noticing what is self evident, and then using deductive reasoning to prove complex phenomena. Theology, in its exact scholastic forms, takes it style from this source. The combination of mathematics and theology which began with Pythagoras characterized religious philosophy in Greece, in middle ages, and in modern time to Kant.

The Milesian School

Greek philosophy started in Miletus in Asia Minor (present day Turkey) with Thales. Miletus like other commercial cities of Ionia underwent tumultuous economic and political development in the 6th and 7th century BC. Initially power was in the hands of landowners. They were replaced by plutocracy of merchants who in turn were replaced by the Tyrants who achieved power with the help of democratic parties.

Thales together with Anaximander and Anaximene formed the Milesian school of thought. The Milesian philosophy was scientific and rationalistic.

Thales successfully predicted the solar eclipse which had taken place in 585 BC and that is why historians put him at that time in the chronological map. Thales got the knowledge of Astronomy from Lydia which had cultural contacts with the Babylonians. Babylonian astronomers have discovered that eclipse occurred in a cycle of 19 years. Thales was supposed to have travelled to Egypt and thence got the knowledge of geometry to Greece. Thales believed that the primal substance of this universe is water. Everything is made of water and eventually decomposes in it. He believed that magnets have soul as it attract iron. Today Thales philosophy and science might seem to be crude but it was a big stimulus to thought and observation and was empirical.

 Anaximander the second philosopher from Mellitus who was 64 years of age in 546 BC agreed with Thales that all things originated from single primal substance but that is not water as Thales believed. Anaximander believed that the primary substance is infinite, eternal and ageless. It encompasses the entire world and every thing is derivative of it. He makes an important and remarkable statement:

“Into that from which things take rise they pass away once more, as is ordained, for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice according to the ordering of time”

Anaximander reasoned that the primal substance cannot be water or any other element. If that would be the case it would subjugate all other elements (fire, air, earth etc.) and would be the only element left and others would cease to exist. So he concluded that all other elements are modified form of primal substance.

Anaximander, though not as respected in antiquity as the other two philosophers, has earned reverence of modern day philosopher for his prescient thoughts.

Anaximene the third proponent of Milesian school must have lived before 496 BC as that year Miletus was destroyed by the Persian in the course of suppression of Ionian revolt. Anaximene said that the primal substance is air and all other elements are modified from it. Water is condensed air, earth is con densed water, stone is condensed earth and the soul is rarified air.

The Milesian school is very important, not for what they have achieved, but what they have attempted. It was untouched by the religious movement connected with Bacchus and Orpheus. The speculation of Thales, Anaximander & Anaximene are to be regarded as the scientific hypothesis and seldom show any intrusion of anthromorphic desires and moral ideas which prevailed in Greece at that time. 

The Origin of Greek Philosophy

A philosopher’s thought is influenced by the surrounding in which he lives. Just like a particular type of soil supports particular plants, the culture and conditions of a place give rise to particular ideas or philosophies. It’s not a matter of chance that Buddha happened to be in India or Mohammad in Arabia, it was the conditions prevalent in the 6th century BCE India that gave rise to Buddhism and 7th Century AD Arabia that gave rise to Islam. Therefore before I delve into the origin of Greek philosophy which is believed to begin with Thales (6th century BCE), let me outline the origin of Greek civilization and its theology. What we know today distinctly as the School of science and School of Philosophy was a common school in around 6th century BC at the times of Thales. The Greek acquired this knowledge from the Egyptians and the Sumerians (Mesopotamia)

Influence of Egypt and Mesopotamia on Greece

The oldest of civilizations developed in Egypt around river Nile and in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) around river Tigris and river Euphrates around 5th millennium BC.

Though contemporary and proximate both the civilizations were marked different in their theology. The Egyptian believed that after death soul descends into the underworld where it is judged by Osiris based on the life on the Earth and eventually it will return to the body. This belief led to the mummification of body and construction of tomb. About 1800 B.C Egypt was conquered by Semites known as Hykos. In their two centuries of rule the Hykos must have spread the Egyptian civilization in current day Syria and Palestine (Phoenicia).

In Mesopotamia Sumerians were the rulers. They invented cuneiform writing. Later Semites conquered the Mesopotamia and learned the cuneiform from Sumerian. Initially there were many independent cities but eventually city of Babylon became supreme and every other city became its subordinate and the God of Babylon ‘Marduk’ become the supreme god. Babylonian culture unlike the Egyptian was more concerned with happiness in this life rather than in after life. It was more scientific. The division of circle in 360 degrees, days in 24 hours, prediction of lunar eclipse were discovered by the Babylonians.

The civilization of Egypt and Mesopotamia and was agricultural. The surrounding cultures were primarily pastoral. Gradually maritime trade developed. In commerce the island of Crete seems to have been pioneers. For about eleven century i.e. from 2500 BC to 1400 BC Minoan culture is believed to be existent in Crete. Minoans were artistically advanced culture. The Minoan were in close touch with Egyptians and also had proximity with Syria and Asia Minor. They worshipped goddesses and most prominent was the ‘mistress of animals’ who was a huntress and probably source of Artemis (The Greek goddess of hunting). Before the destruction of Minoan culture; it spread about 1600 BC to mainland Greece.

The Greek Civilization

In mainland Greece the civilization that existed is called the Mycenaean. The origin of Mycenaean is uncertain but it can be conjectured with a lot of certainty is that at least the aristocracy consisted of fair haired invaders from north, who brought Greek language with them. The Mycenaean came to Greece in three successive waves, first the Ionians, then the Achaeans and last the Dorians.

The Ionians were the first to conquer Greece and they adapted the Minoan culture, but subsequently were overthrown by Achaeans who also embraced Minoan culture. But the last of the conquerors the Dorians were who retained their Indo-European religion of their ancestors. During the later part of Mycenaean culture some of the inhabitants became agriculturist while some settled into the island of Asia Minor and then into Sicily and southern Italy where they founded cities which lived by maritime commerce.

In mainland Greece the land is mountainous and largely infertile but there are patches of fertile valleys with easy access to sea. These valleys later became independent city states. Greece was divided into large number of independent states. Notable among them were Sparta for its martial superiority, Athens for its cultural superiority, Corinth was rich, prosperous and a great commercial center, Arcadia was primarily agricultural. As the resources in these cities became constraint they started colonializing other cities. In administration there was a general development, first from monarchy to aristocracy, and then alternation of tyranny and democracy.

The Greek Literature

The Greek learned the art of writing from Phoenicians (present day Syria and Palestine) , who like other inhabitants of Syria were exposed to both Egyptian and Babylonian Influences. Phoenicians were the maritime superpower till the rise of Greek cities of Ionian, Italy and Sicily.

The Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey was first notable literary contribution of Hellenic civilization. It is believed that Home was not one person but a series of poets from 750 to 550 BC. In both the epic the leading family is house of Pelops. A brief outline is given below (from ‘Primitive culture in Greece’, H.J. Rose)

“Tantalos, the Asiatic founder of the dynasty, began its career by direct offence against the Gods; some said, by trying to cheat them into eating human flesh, that of his own son Pelops. Pelops, having been miraculously restored to life, offended in his turn. He won his famous charioteer race against Oinomaos, King of Pisa, by connivance of latter’s charioteer, Myrtilos, and then got rid of his confederate, whom he had promised to reward, by flinging him into the sea. The curse descended to his son, Atreus and Thyestes, in the form of what the Greeks called Ate, a strong if not irresistible impulse to crime. Thyestes corrupted his brother’s wife and thereby managed to steal the ‘luck’ of the family, the famous golden-fleeced ram. Atreus’s son Agamemnon, who offended Artemis by killing a sacred stag, sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia to appease the goddess and obtain a safe passage to Troy for his fleet, and was in turn murdered by his faithless wife Klytaimnestra and her paramour Agisthos, a surviving son of Thyestes. Orestes, Agamemnon’s son , in turn avenged his father by killing his mother and Aigisthos.”

Iliad and Odyssey were the products of Ionia i.e. part of Hellenic Asia Minor and Adjacent Island.

Greek Mythology and its impact on Philosophy

Among the multitude of gods that Greeks worshipped one was ‘Dionysus’ or ‘Bacchus’ the disreputable god of wine and drunkenness. Out of his worship arose profound mysticism, which greatly influenced many of the philosophers. Anybody who wished to study the development of Greek thought it is imperative to understand the evolution of Dionysus.

(Dionysus)

Dionysus or Bacchus was a Thracian god. Thrace was an agricultural state and culturally inferior to Greece. Like primitive agriculturalist Thrace had a fertility cult and worshipped a god who improved fertility. His name was Bacchus. When Thracian learned making beer and wine and got intoxicated they found it divine and attributed it to Bacchus. Thus his function of promoting fertility got associated with wine and intoxication.

The cult of Bacchus passed from Thrace to Greece where it was vehemently opposed by the Orthodox. The cult of Bacchus contained many barbaric acts like tearing wild animals to pieces and eating the whole of them raw. Adherents would spent the whole night on the bare hills in dance which stimulated ecstasy and in an intoxication perhaps partly alcoholic but mainly mystical. The worship of Bacchus in its original form was savage and in many way repulsive. It was not in this form that it influenced the philosopher, but in spiritualized form attributed to Orpheus, which was ascetic and substituted mental for physical intoxication.

Orpheus origin is uncertain. He can be an actual person or a God. Like Bacchus he came from Thrace but it seems probable that the movement associated with his name came from Crete. This is because the orphic doctrine contain much that seems to have provenance in Egypt and it is chiefly through Crete that Egypt would have influenced Greece. Orpheus would said to have been a reformer who was torn to pieces by frenzied Maenads actuated by Bacchic orthodox. Though less is known about Orpheus his teachings are well known. The Orphic believed in transmigration of souls; they thought that soul hereafter might achieve eternal bliss or suffer eternal or temporary torment according to its way of life on earth. They aimed at becoming pure partly by ceremonies of purification, partly by avoiding certain kinds of contamination.

The Orphic were an ascetic sect; wine to them, was only a symbol. The intoxication that they sought was that of “enthusiasm” of union with the god. They believed in acquiring mystic knowledge unattainable by ordinary means. This mystical element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was reformer of Orphism. From Pythagoras Orphic elements entered into the Philosophy of Plato, and from Plato into most later philosophy that was in any degree religious.