NOTES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Antecedents of the Greek Genius

The world today has attained by way of technology what previous civilizations can only
dream of. Yet, no matter how advanced, we still stand in awe at what the ancients
attained in spite of their antiquated technology. We look at ancient Greece or ancient
Egypt and we marvel at their achievements. We continue to stand in awe because we
have never really left the shadow of their monuments.

While many are mystified by the sheer volume and size of the pyramids, intellectuals are
however drawn to the legacy of Greece, for while little has remained of their monuments,
it is the spirit of their age that has really brought us to where we are today. Says Edith
Hamilton of the Greek genius:

Of all that the Greeks did only a small part has come down to us and we
have no means of knowing if we have their best. It would be strange if we
had. In the convulsions of that world of long ago there would be no law
that guaranteed to art the survival of the fittest. But this little remnant
preserved by the haphazard of chance shows the high-water mark reached
in every region of thought and beauty the Greeks entered. No sculpture
comparable to theirs; no buildings ever more beautiful; no writings
superior. Prose, always late of development, they had time only to touch
upon, but they left masterpieces. History has yet to find a greater exponent
than Thucydides; outside of the Bible there is no poetical prose that can
touch Plato. In poetry, they are all but supreme; no epic is to be mentioned
with Homer; no odes to be set beside Pindar; of the four masters of the
tragic stage, three are Greek.1

1. The Synthesis of Mind and Spirit

Hamilton asks what causes were responsible for this achievement. She poses as the
distinguishing mark of the Greek civilization the “supremacy of the mind in men’s

1
Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way, (Time Inc., 1963), p. 3. While it is admitted that the
Greeks were masters of their own time and that their legacy has endured throughout the centuries, it would
be an exaggeration to put them at the pinnacle of human civilization. While their style and art have been
foundational for mankind, it would be more honest to say that the Greeks set up what later on served as
stepping stone for other civilizations to achieve.

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affairs”.2 The Greeks, according to Hamilton, “were the first intellectualists. In a world
where the irrational had played the chief role, they came forward as the protagonists of
the mind”.3

Hamilton contrasts the mindset between East and West.

In the ancient world before Greece, the things that are not seen had
become more and more the only things of great importance. The new
power of mind that marked Greece arose in a world facing toward the way
of the spirit. For a brief period in Greece East and West met; the bias
toward the rational that was to distinguish the West, and the deep spiritual
inheritance of the East, were united.4

Hamilton characterized the western mind as rational and empirical. It was a mind that
was directed outside of itself, to the facts that are not within the mind, but graspable by
the mind. It must be remembered, however, that mind, in the western lexicon, also refers
to the spiritual power of man, and that the words “rational” and “empirical” are, at one
point in the history of western philosophy, contrasted to each other. What Hamilton
means, therefore is that of mind as self-consciously observing reality outside of itself, not
in isolation from other minds, but acting with and in conjunction with other minds, such
that what results in the observation is not mere personal and subjective experience, but a
collective insight.

In contrast, the eastern mind was preoccupied with subjective, spiritual experience. It is
concerned mostly with non-empirical realities, and its claims were to be validated only by
personal testimony rather than by communal assent based on the presentation of evidence
and the rational evaluation thereof.

Hamilton presented a case in point the civilization of ancient Egypt.

Before Greece the domain of the intellect belonged to the priests. They
were the intellectual class of Egypt. Their power was tremendous. Kings
were subject to it. Great men must have built up that mighty organization,
great minds, keen intellects, but what they learned of old truth and what
they discovered of new truth was valued as it increased the prestige of the
organization. And since Truth is a jealous mistress and will reveal herself
not a whit to any but a disinterested seeker, as the power of the priesthood
grew and any idea that tended to weaken it met with a cold reception, the
priests must fairly soon have become sorry intellectualists, guardians only

2
Ibid., p. 6.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid., p. 8.

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 of what seekers of old had found, never using their own minds with
freedom.5

Egyptian civilization was centered on the afterlife. While the Egyptians may have
contributed much to the development of human civilization (architecture, writing,
geometry, astronomy, mathematics, irrigation), they were not able to achieve the Greek
genius presumably due to limitations on human reason their culture has inherently
imposed upon their minds. The same is said of India, where “the idea of truth became
completely separated from outside fact; all outside was illusion; truth was an inner
disposition. In such a world, there is little scope for the observing reason or the seeing
eye. Where all except the spirit is unreal, it is manifest folly to be concerned with an
exterior that is less than a shadow”. 6

2. Love for Life

The Greeks on the other hand, were in love with life. Life in the here and now. Life in all
its exuberant splendor. This is displayed in their love for play. Play as in games as well as
in drama. Says Hamilton:

If we had no other knowledge of what the Greeks were like, if nothing

were left of Greek art and literature, the fact that they were in love with
play and played magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived
and how they looked at life. Wretched people, toiling people, do not play.
Nothing like the Greek games is conceivable in Egypt or Mesopotamia. 7

2.a. The Games

The Olympic games were wholly unique to Greek civilization. Although we take sports
for granted today as part of the social organization of mankind, games, on the scale and
grandeur of the Greeks, was non-existent among ancient civilizations except among the
Greeks. Roman entertainment was a poor and degenerate copy of Greek athletics. Sports

5
Hamilton., pp.10-11. Hamilton elaborated that the priests relied on two strategies to
preserve their power: ignorance and misery. Keeping the people ignorant and miserable made them
dependent on their priestly power. “To teach the people so that they would begin to think for themselves
would be to destroy the surest prop of their power. No one except themselves must have knowledge, for to
be ignorant is to be afraid, and in the dark mystery of the unknown a man cannot find his way alone. He
must have guides to speak to him authority. Ignorance was the foundation upon which priest-power
rested…Their instinct was sure: the mystery of the people was the opportunity of the priest. Not only an
ignorant populace but one subjugated and wretched was their guarantee. With men’s thoughts directed
more and more toward the unseen world, and with the keys to t firmly in their own grasp, their terrific
power was assured”. pp. 11-12.
6
Hamilton., p.13.
7
Ibid., p. 17.

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was an expression of the Greeks’ joie de vivre, the love for life which is manifest in their
celebration of the Olympic games.

2.b. Drama

What was manifested in the games was also expressed in their literature. Love for life did
not discount the brutality of human existence. The Greeks were no stranger to human
misery, but their own appraisal of pain is the other side of their appreciation of life. It was
their keen awareness of the inherent beauty of life that gave them a keener insight into the
nature of pain. This dual reality they expressed in the twin form of drama: the comic and
the tragic. The comic sought to celebrate life’s idiosyncrasies and ridicule those who
seem to take too seriously its sober propositions. The tragic underlines the absurdity of
human existence and the tortuous twists of fate that often befall hapless and helpless
mortals. Even the gods were not exempt from the sorrows of life. Yet, in their awareness
of the dual nature of life, the Greeks were never reduced into terrified stupor. They
brought the lines of human existence on stage, so that all who have the imagination may
see in the plays the narratives of their own lives, and perhaps, in the universalization of
their personal feelings, they may find comfort in the shared experience. Thus, no other
edifice exemplifies the Greek spirit than the theatre. “A tomb in Egypt and a theatre in
Greece”8, nothing highlights more the difference between these two ancient civilizations.

3. The Autonomous Individual

The individual emerged early in Greek history. Perhaps the topography of Greece
contributed to the autonomous spirit of the individual. “The absolute monarch-submissive
slave theory of life flourishes best where that are no hills to give a rebel refuge and no
mountain heights to summon a man to live dangerously”, says Hamilton9. In Greece, the
form of government and the way of life gave importance to the value of the individual. In
other despotic states, the individual merely exists for the despot. In the Persians of
Aeschylus, the Persian queen is told that the Greeks fight as free men to defend what was
precious to them.10 This idea is all the more remarkable because it is a line from a play,
implying that the concept of an autonomous individual was not only an insight made by
historians concerning the Greeks, the Greeks themselves were already conscious of the
concept and distinguished themselves from other civilizations by it.

The free man, the man who thinks for himself and by himself, the man who fights for
what he thinks is right and what he values as precious, the man who lives by his own
lights, and obeys laws not because he is bound by it but because he has rationally
evaluated it to be beneficial to the common good, this is the man who was so unlike the
men and women of other civilizations of the same period.

8
Ibid., p. 20.
9
Hamilton., p. 20.
10
Ibid., p. 22.

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This spirit of autonomy thus left every Greek citizen the freedom to think for himself. In
this respect, he was not dependent on institutional influences to shape his thoughts and
direct his destiny. The Greeks never “went to a priest for guidance or advice”. 11 Religion
has a role in their life, but “the place of the priest in Greece was in the background. The
temple was his and the temple rites, but nothing else”. 12 True, Socrates listened to the
oracle at Delphi concerning his supposed superior wisdom over any other man in Athens,
but he did not take it as gospel truth. He instead went about trying to test it by conversing
with all the supposed wise men of Athens.

The Greeks, therefore anticipated the modern mind. They were not content with oracles.
They had to test its validity. They were not dependent on what other people say, they had
to test it with their own powers of observation and reason. They valued knowledge so
much their word for “school” comes from the word for “leisure”, implying that for the
Greeks, learning was not at all unpleasant. It was in fact a pleasurable enterprise. They
called their healers “physicians”, from a word that denotes “nature”, implying that for
them, healing was not a matter of having connections with the supernatural. To be a
physician, in fact, was to be master of the ways of nature, for the human body is a thing
of nature to be understood by the powers of observation and reason, not by supplication
to the gods. 13

In summary, Greek genius emerged from a culture that cultivated the powers of the mind
by allowing the impulses of the spirit to explore the real, concrete world around it. Unlike
other ancient civilizations where mind was trapped by its world within and freedom was
suppressed by fear and misery, the Greeks gave free reign to the mind to explore the
world, to compare his spiritual insights with facts, to test all claims of the mind in the
public forum. Thus, in ancient Greece, there was a unique synthesis of the inner and outer
realities of human existence. The Miletians wondered about the material constitution of
the world, but Plato explored the depths of the human psyche. The Greeks were the first
scientists as well as the first ethicists. Both enterprises were centered solely on the
individual as the subject of experience. Says Hamilton of this synthesis:

What marked Greece off from Egypt and India was not an inferior degree
of spirituality but a superior degree of mentality. Great mind and great
spirit combined in them. The spiritual world was not another world from
the natural world. It was the same as that known to the mind. Beauty and
rationality were both manifested in it. They did not see the conclusions
reached by the mind and those of the spirit as opposed to each other.
Reason and feeling were not antagonistic. The truth of poetry and the truth
of science were both true. 14

11
Ibid., 23.
12
Ibid.
13
Cf. Ibid., pp. 25-26.
14
Hamilton., p. 31.

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The distinction between mind and spirit, however, must be qualified to mean the
difference between the powers of reason and the impulses of the soul. To be sure, reason
is a faculty of the soul, and part of the soul’s impulse is to know. But there is a real
distinction between logical thinking and intuitive grasp, between scientific investigation
and poetic creations. What Hamilton contrasts in her comparison of mind and spirit is the
distinction between science and art. In this sense, therefore, what the Greeks achieved
was a remarkable synthesis between science and art, between logical thinking and artistic
creativity, between objective analysis and subjective experience, between empirical
evidence and intuitive sentiments.

This remarkable synthesis was never duplicated again in the history of the world. The
Romans briefly resurrected the art of democratic governance but soon succumbed to
oriental despotism. They created magnificent structures only to house debauched
spectacles and degenerate contests between animals and men. The early Church exhibited
the high mindedness of Greek spirituality, but soon succumbed to human ambition and
intrigue. The monasteries of the Middle Ages were mere islands in the midst of a more
widespread barbarism. The Renaissance celebrated the height of human artistic powers
but soon collapsed under the weight of its own excess. The reformation restored the
austere spirituality of the Greeks but was bereft of its artistic expressions. The
Enlightenment exalted reason but had less in art and still less in ethical values. What
remains for us to evaluate is the spirit of our own times. We must ask ourselves, are we
true heirs of the Greek genius, or is our time a poor copy of what the Greeks so very
briefly achieved?

II. HISTORICAL TIMELINE

A. Cretan Civilization (2500-1200 B.C.)

Between 2000 to 1600 B.C., Cretan civilization reached its peak. The Cretans invented a
system of writing, which originally was hieroglyphic then evolved more or less syllabic
into script.

Around 1400, a cataclysmic upheaval, some attributed to the eruption of a volcano on

Santorini island nearby, caused Cretan civilization to decline rapidly and to succumb to
an invasion from people coming from the mainland. This mainland people took control of
the center of Cretan civilization, Knossos.

B. Mycenean Civilization (c.1200-1000)

The mainland people, called Mycenaean, existing since 2200, gained power and
organization sometime in 1600. When Crete collapsed, the Mycenaeans filled up the

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vacuum left by the Cretans. Myceanean civilization was organized around small
kingdoms built around kings and vassals. This was the time of Agamemnon, Achilles,
Oedipus, Odysseus and the like. This was also the time of the Trojan wars.

C. The Dark Ages (1000 - 800)

Dorian migration into Greece. Greek-speaking people from the north migrated into or
invaded the Mycenaean kingdoms. For one reason or another, Mycenaean civilization
declined. Little is known of this period in ancient Greece.

D. The Archaic Period (800-500)

Around the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Archaic Period, the Greeks
began to organize themselves into independent City-States, the largest of which was
Athens, which at its height had about a population of 250,000.

Around 800 B.C., the Ionian Greeks reacquired the means of a written language. This
time, the Phoenician alphabet was borrowed and modified to create a Greek written
language. The ability to write spread rapidly.

Around 750 were written the two great Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which
were stories that happened in the Mycenaean period but which now took on a mythical
dimension. The poems were attributed to Homer, who was either one person or a group
of writers compressed together into a singe identity.

Around this time also, the Greek City States exploded in population and began to build
colonies to the west (Italy, Sicily, Spain and Southern France).

Philosophy and Science began to flourish in the ensuing prosperity and relative peace.
Around 590-500, we hear a succession of Greek achievements in Thales and
Anaximander, who initiated Ionian science, and Pythagoras and Heraclitus, who were the
successors of Thales.

E. The Golden Age (500-300)

The Greeks victory over the Persians signaled the entry of Greece into her Golden Age.
Between 490-479, Persia invaded Greece and was thwarted by an alliance of the Greek
City-States, in Marathon, in Salamis, in Platea, in Thermopylae. After their victory over
Persia, the Greeks began to feel a robust confidence over their own culture and
civilization. Athens, who led the resistance against the Persians, began to play a leading
role. She organized the Delian League, which was originally meant to bolster Greek
defense against future Persian invasions, but which later on became a trade confederation
and a platform for Athens to dominate the other smaller city-states.

In 461, Pericles was elected leader of Athens. He presided over the expansion of
Athenian Empire. It was during this time that Greek drama reached its peak, with the

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writings of Aristophanes and Aeschylus. In 438, the Parthenon, epitome of Greek
architecture, was completed. Sophocles reached the apex of his career.

Yet, the success of Athens also sowed the seeds of her demise. Rivalry with Sparta broke
into full-scale war in 431-404. The Peloponessian Wars, so called because it was fought
largely in the Peloponessian peninsula, exacted a heavy price among the Greeks. The
Greek city-states had to take sides between Athens and Sparta. Athens was brought to her
knees, and the golden age ended.

Meanwhile, the flourishing of Greek culture continued, with the likes of Euripides,
Socrates and Thucydides gracing the scene. Yet it was a sign of Greek decline that in
399, Socrates was condemned to death due to political intrigues and Athenian insecurity.
Between 390-60, however, the Athenian firmament was lit up by Plato, who was the
moderate successor of Socrates.

In 371Thebes, an ally of Athens, won over Sparta. Athens began her recovery but in 359,
Philip of Macedonia invaded Athens. The ideal of the city-state began to die out. The
cultural and philosophical mantle of Plato, was however, carried on by Aristotle, who
was then mentoring Alexander, son of Philip. Philip died in 336, and was quickly
succeeded by Alexander the Great, who then took off to conquer Persia and the rest of
Central Asia. He was dead in 323, leaving behind no heir and a fragmented empire.

In 323, Ptolemy and the other generals of Alexander cut up his empire among
themselves. The city-states were supplanted by empire, and a new power was rising in the
West. Rome was emerging as a Republic along the lines of the Greek city-state. It was
not long before it began to set its sights on accomplishing what Alexander failed to
realize in his lifetime.

III. FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE RISE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

1.) The Greek Language

a.) The alphabet (alpha – beta)

The Greek alphabet originated from the Phoenicians and from Semitic languages. It later
evolved into its own. It was vastly more speculative and more capable of abstract thought
than ideograms (characters) and pictograms (hieroglyphics).

b.) The use of the neuter. It allows the language to present the intentional object of
thought as subject. The neuter signifies something omnipresent. It has to do not
with the quality of a being (which may be personified as male or female in the
case of the masculine and feminine gender) but the quality of a whole space,
“being”, in which all things appear. (Gadamer, Early Greek Thinking.)

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 c.) The copula. The use of the verb “to be” (EIMI) link subject and predicate.
Initially, it meant composition, but later on took the sense of “persistence” or
“state”.

2.) Greek Mythology and Cosmogony

a.) Greek Mythology contributed to the spread and development of the Greek
language. The Iliad and the Odyssey provided the basic moral intuition of the
Greeks. Mythology provided them with a “world-view” by which “world” for
them becomes conceivable and well-thought out. In the stories of the Iliad and the
Odyssey, a certain morality shaped the consciousness of the Greeks.

b.) The cosmogonies of Hesiod gave the Greeks an idea of how the world began.
This prodded them to investigate further the nature of the world. The idea of
“beginning” is important for the development of philosophy.

Cosmology refers to the investigation of the structure of the Universe as a whole.

Cosmogony refers to the study of the origins of the world, that is, how the universe came
to be. While cosmology is properly philosophical, Cosmogony belongs to the realm of
literature and anthropology. Yet, cosmogony is important to philosophy, especially to
Greek philosophy because it posits the “origins” of the world, that is, it points out the
idea of the “arche” or the beginning of things. It was from such an idea that philosophy
had its roots.

The foremost Greek cosmogonist was Hesiod. He was a farmer, living around 750-700
who also wrote poetry. His Works and Days gives us an idea of farm life during his time.
It was his Theogonies, however, that is most relevant to our study.

The Greeks conceived of the earth as cylindrical in shape, with one end the inhabited
part, and the other, called Tartarus, the underworld. Arching over the flat, upper part is
heaven while ocean surrounds the inhabited area.

Hesiod anthropomorphized the different elements which make up the universe. In the
beginning was the primeval, undifferentiated blob, and within was born a “gap” or Chaos,
which separated Heaven and Earth. From Chaos was born Erebos, the dark, and Night.
Erebos and Night lay together and from their union was born Aither, the air and Hemera,
the day. The separation of earth and sky gave birth to Ouranos and Gaia, heaven and
earth. Gaia gave birth to Pontos, the barren sea. Gaia lay with Ouranous and gave birth to
Okeanos, the ocean stream. The youngest of Gaia’s offspring was Kronos, or time.

The tales of Hesiod were not always logical or systematic. While Chaos was first in the
order of things, it is also said that Ouranous and Gaia actually produced him.
Accordingly, Ouranous lay over Gaia and kept other beings from being born. Kronos,
seeing the oppression of Gaia, castrated Ouranous, who then drew back, thus producing
the space between heaven and earth.

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The overlapping in the sequence of events shows that Hesiod was making a compilation
of many tales told by several traditions. The systematization and the attempt to explain
the origin and order of the universe gave rise to the concept of causality. From personal
causality, however, the Greeks began to develop the idea of a world governed by
impersonal forces.

IV. THE MILETIANS

The Miletians started the trend of moving away from mythos and into the realm of logos.
Rational explanations began to supplant mythological ones. The scientific explanation
gave greater freedom to man than the mythological ones, for the power of mythology
derives from the idiosyncrasy of the gods. When events in nature are regarded as the
personal whim of a god, life on earth becomes a struggle to win the favor of the
divinities. The problem with this set up was that it was not always known what will
please the gods, and who is the particular god to please.

Natural explanations, however, freed men from fear of the divinities. When men began to
understand nature as wholly mechanical, they realized nature could be mastered and even
manipulated. Mastery of nature, however, requires knowledge of how they work and
what their basic constitution was. There was thus an attempt at identifying the most basic
element/s of nature.

A. Thales ( c. 624-545 B.C.)

Thales was a man of practical wisdom and experience. He is listed as one of the Seven
Sages of ancient Greece(four appear consistently in many lists: Bias of Priene, Pittacus of
Mitylene, Solon, the lawgiver of Athens, and Thales). He is credited with introducing
Geometry to Greece. He shoed how to measure he height of the pyramid by calculating
the length of its shadow at a time of the day when a man’s shadow is equal to his height.
During the Persian War, he showed the army how to cross a wide river by building a dam
and diverting the flow into two narrower channels across which bridges could then be
builtHe probably had knowledge of Babylonian astronomy because he was able to predict
an eclipse which duly occurred in 585 B.C.

Plato in the Thaetetus described how Thales was laughed at by a woman when he fell into
a well, he “was looking up to study the stars and stumbled down a well. She scoffed at
him for being so eager to know what was happening in the sky that he could not see what
lay at his feet”. Aristotle recounts the story in his Politics:

“There is a story which is told of Thales of Miletus. It is a story about a scheme for
making money, which is fathered on Thales owing to his reputation for wisdom. He was
reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to how the uselessness of philosophy.
According to the story, observing from his knowledge of meteorology while it was yet
winter that there would be a great harvest of olives in the coming year, he gave deposits
for all the wine-presses in Miletus and Chios, which he hired at a low price because no

10
one bid against him. When harvest time came, and there was sudden and simultaneous
demand for the olive presses, he let out the stock he had collected at any rate he chose to
fix; and making a considerable fortune, he succeeded in proving that it is easy for
philosophers to become rich if they like, but that their ambition lies elsewhere.”

What we know of Thales we got chiefly from Aristotle. He is mentioned in Metaphysics

I, 3. He writes:

“Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says the principle is water (for which
reason he declared that the earth rests on water), getting the notion perhaps from seeing
that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that heat itself is generated from the moist
and kept alive by it (and that form which they come to be is a principle of all things. He
got this notion from this fact, and from the fact that the seeds of all things have a moist
nature, and that water is the origin of the nature of moist things.”

What does Aristotle mean when he said Thales is “the founder of this type of
philosophy”? He writes in the same portion of the Metaphysics:

“Of the first philosophers, then, most thought the principles which were of the nature of
matter were the only principles of all things. That of which all things that are consist, the
first from which they come to be, the last into which they are resolved (the substance
remaining, but changing in its modifications), this, they say is the element and this the
principle of all things, and therefore they think nothing is either generated or destroyed,
since this sort of entity is always conserved, as we say Socrates neither comes to be
absolutely when he comes to be beautiful or musical, nor ceases to be when he loses
these characteristics, because the substratum, Socrates himself, remains. Just so they say
nothing else comes to be or ceases to be; for there must be some entity – either one or
more than one – from which all other things come to be, it being conserved.”
The idea that the earth rested on water is not unique to Thales. In Hesiod, water encircles
the world. Among people of the Near East, like Egypt, Palestine and Babylonia, a similar
conception can be found. Yet, Thales’ theory marks a break from the mythological point
of view because he did not posit quasi-personal elements in his attempt to explain reality.
Rather, he originated the idea of a basic stuff from which everything came to be and into
which everything will be resolved. He did not say that water is the “father” or “mother”
of everything. Rather, as Aristotle tells us, water is the principle of all things, that is,
water is the constitutive element of all things.

There is, however, an aspect by which Thales remains mythological in his thinking.
Aristotle mentions that for Thales, “all things are full of gods”. What this statement
means we cannot be certain, but we can surmise that in ascribing material causality to
things, Thales posited self-movement in things so as to explain change. Note that were
Thales mythological in his understanding, he would not have posited gods in all things,
since agency can be ascribed to external gods whom the Greeks believed were powerful
beings, capable of changing something into another. But to posit gods or daimons, that is
living spirits in all things means for Thales, things have an inherent dynamism
independent of the efficient causality of the gods.

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 B. Anaximander (c. 610-545 B.C.)

A decidedly philosophical approach was that of Anaximander, who was a contemporary

of Thales. Our knowledge of Anaximander comes chiefly from Theophrastus, one of
Aristotle’s students. Here is what he says of him:

“Anaximander of Miletos, son of Praxiades, a fellow citizen and associate of Thales, said
that the material cause and first element of things was the Infinite, he being the first to
introduce this name of the material cause. He says it is neither water nor any of the so-
called elements, but a substance different from them which is infinite, from which arise
all the heavens and the world s within them.

“He says that this is “eternal and ageless” and that “it encompasses all the worlds”.

“And into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, “as is meet:
for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustices according to
the ordering of time”, as he says in these somewhat poetical terms.

“And besides this, there was an external motion, in which was brought about the origin of
the worlds.

“He did not ascribe the origin of things to any alteration in matter, but said that the
oppositions in the substratum, which was a boundless body, were separated out.”

For Anaximander’s reasoning, we have the argument from Aristotle:

“Further, there cannot be a single, simple body which is infinite, either as some hold, one
distinct from the elements, which they then derive from it, or without this qualification.
For there are some who make this (i.e., a body distinct from the elements) the infinite,
and not air or water, in order that the other things may not be destroyed by their infinity.
They are in opposition one to another – air is cold, water is moist, and fire hot --- and
therefore, if any one of them were infinite, the rest would have ceased to be by this time.
Accordingly they say that what is infinite is something other than the elements, and from
it the elements arise”.

Daniel Kolak (The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy) theorized that “the most
important disagreement between Anaximander and Thales can be summarized in the
following question: ‘to what degree can truth be expressed using ordinary language’?”
(Kolak, p. 5). Appearances are deceiving. They are at the surface of what is real about
anything. Thus, for Thales, the reality behind everything is water. Anaximander,
however, went further into the reality of water as the basic stuff. Anaximander thus
asked, is there something more basic than water? If there is a reality more basic than
water, can language present it to us? Is there a name to it which is itself different from

12
anything we have experienced? For Anaximander, ordinary language is limited by our
experience. Thus, if the basic stuff goes beyond appearances, we therefore must give it
name different from all the others. The basic stuff is “non-visualizable” because it goes
beyond the datum of experience. For Anaximander, water is just a metaphor of the basic
stuff – it being indefinite in its consistency. For Anaximander therefore, the basic stuff is
the “boundless” or the “apeiron”, negating what is most basic in our experience of reality.

Because philosophy deals with ultimate causes which are well beyond our immediate
experience, it is therefore compelled to invent now language (neologisms) in order to
designate a non-visualizable reality. Water, for Anaximander, therefore, is a metaphor for
the apeiron, since it is the element closest to the nature of the basic stuff – (the same can
be said of air). Water, or air as the case may be is indefinite – it spreads out itself into
whatever space there is. The apeiron too is of such characteristics, only more pervasive.
Water and air could not be the basic stuff for Anaximander because in spite of its
characteristics, it is still definable and therefore determined – it is not as boundless or as
infinite as the apeiron is conceived to be. “In other words, the concrete empirical concept
(water or air), is for Anaximander not the literal truth, but the truth expressed
metaphorically”(Kolak, p. 5). It is in fact the apeiron which is the more literal truth. This
element Anaximander calls the “arche”.

Concept of Nature

While the apeiron is not visualizable, the secondary, derivative stuffs (earth, air, water
and fire) are most observable. These in turn are observed as always in strife. The
Fragment speaks of injustices which the elements (all things) commit against each other.
This conflict among the elements are most visible in nature. The changing of the seasons
in particular, demonstrates the same phenomenon. But what sets Anaximander apart from
Greek mythology is his claim that the elements pay reparation out of necessity
“according to the ordering of time”. It is not by the whim of any god that things change,
but by the ordering of time. This concept of nature became the norm of western
philosophy.

Excursus: The Beginnings of the Universe (from Chet Raymo, An Infinite Look at the
Night Sky, p. 8-9, 13-14).

The universe began 15 billion years ago from an infinitely small, infinitely hot seed of
energy – what mathematicians call a singularity. This singularity was not “somewhere” –
the fabric of space-time came into existence with the explosion. There was no “before”,
at least none that we can presently know. Space swelled from the singularity like a
balloon inflating from nothing. Time began. During the first trillionth-trillionth-trillionth
of a second, matter and anti-matter flickered in and out of existence. The fate of the
universe hung precariously in a balance, it might grow, or it might collapse back into
nothingness. Suddenly, it ballooned to enormous size… in what scientists call the
inflationary epoch, bringing the first particles of matter – the quarks – into existence.
Within one-millionth of a second, the rapid swelling ceased, and the quarks began to
combine into protons, neutrons and electrons.

13
The universe began to expand and cool, but now at a more stately pace. Already, it was
vastly larger than what we are able to observe today. Within a few more minutes, protons
and neutrons combined to form the first atomic nuclei – hydrogen and helium – but still
the universe was too hot for the nuclei to snag electrons and make atoms. Not until
300,000 years after the beginning did the first atoms appear. Tiny density variations in
the grassy universe of hydrogen and helium were accentuated by gravity, which pulled
together the first stars, gassy planets and galaxies. There were not yet any solid-surface
earth-like planets, because there were not yet significant quantities of elements heavier
than hydrogen and helium, such as carbon, oxygen, silicon and iron. (These elements
would be cooked up later in the cores of massive stars and distributed to space when stars
died explosively at the end of their lives).

The concept of the big-bang had its genesis in the 1920s when a big new telescope was
mounted in Mt. Wilson in California. The telescope was able to peer deep into the sky
and mad a startlingly discovery – many of what seemed like nebulae structures were in
reality vast swarms of individual stars. We now call these swarms galaxies, from the
Greek word “galaktos” or milk. The individual stars in these distant galaxies were then
measured according to their distance from earth.

Astronomers Edwin Hubble and Milton Humason completed the picture when they
discovered that the galaxies are actually racing away from us. (Light that is moving
towards you would appear in a specific way in the spectrum – blue – while light racing
away from the observer would appear red – the same phenomenon is observed when an
ambulance is racing towards or away from an observer). The universe of the galaxies are
expanding.

If the galaxies were moving apart, then they must have been closer together in the past.
Theoretically, we can run the movie backward, using the laws of physics to tell us what
happens. The galaxies converge. The density of matter increases. The temperature soars.
Atoms dissolve into their constituent parts. Mass evaporates into pure energy. Run the
movie 15 billion years into the past and the whole thing – the entire universe of galaxies
that exist today – collapses into an infinitely dense, infinitely hot mathematical point. The
singularity. The progenitor of the big bang.

C. ANAXIMENES (585 – 528 B.C.)

Anaximenes disagrees with Anaximander, saying that our description of reality must stay
within the bounds of our language, that is, within the bounds of our experience. Abstract
terms, or terms coined artificially must be avoided because eventually, they are bound to
become meaningless.

Anaximenes’ thoughts comes down to us, again, through Theophrastus:

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“Anaximenes of Miletos, son of Eurystratos, who had been an associate of Anaximander,
said, like him, htat the underlying substance was one and infinite. He did not, however,
say it was indeterminate, like Anaximander, but determinate for eh said it was Air.

“From it, he said, the things tht are, and have been, and shall be, the gods and things
divine, took their rise, while other things come from its offspring.

“Just as, he said, our soul, being air, holds us together, so do breath and air encompass the
whole world.

“And the form of air is as follows. Where it is most even, it is invisible to our sight; but
cold and heat, moisture and motion, make it visible. It is always in motion; for, if it were
not, it would not change so much as it does.

“It differs in different substances in virtue of its rarefaction and condensation.

“When it is dilated so as to be rarer, it becomes fire; while winds, on the other hand, are
condensed air. Cloud is formed from air by felting; and this, still further condensed,
becomes water. Water, condensed still more, turns to earth, and when condensed as much
as it can be, to stones.

V. THE PRE-PARMENIDEANS

A.) XENOPHANES (570 -470 B.C.)

From Colophon, 50 miles north of Miletus. When Colophon was absorbed by the Persian
empire, he migrated to the western part of Magna Graecia (Italy). 118 lines of his poetry
survived.

Xenophanes was not a natural philosopher in the tradition of the Miletians. He was a
poet, but in his poetry, he extended the Miletians natural philosophy into the realm of
popular religion. He thus drew out the religious implications of Miletian philosophy of
nature.

The Miletians had attempted to substitute natural causes and processes for
anthropomorphic conceptions. But they did not say anything about the gods of popular
belief. It was left to Xenophanes to work out the religious implications of their theories.

Critique of the Greek Religious Conception

1. The Greeks gods were mostly explanations of natural phenomena. Miletian

natural philosophy made this explanation superfluous.

2. The Homeric gods were morally undesirable.

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 3. The gods were mostly projections of people’s racial characteristics.

Having lost their explanatory purposes and unmasked of their immorality and racial bias,
the gods became altogether became unnecessary in the Greek consciousness. Xenophanes
had to work out a substitute for the popular gods, and he found this in the Miletian
urstoff. The basic stuff was uncreated and eternal, immovable and imperishable, thus, it is
divine. In Xenophanes conception, this one god is “greatest among gods and men and in
no way like mortals in body or in mind”. Xenophanes thus started the tradition of rational
theology.

The other area which he opened was epistemology, or the study of the nature of
knowledge. He says, “No man knows or ever will know the truth about he gods and about
everything of which I speak. For even if someone were, by chance, to speak the whole
truth, he would not know it – in all things there is opinion”.

B.) PYTHAGORAS (570 – 495 B.C.)

A native of the island of Samos, near Miletus. Left Samos in 530 B.C. and migrated to
Croton in southern Italy. In Croton, he gathered a group of disciples around him, which
later became the Pythagoreans. This group soon dominated the political life of Croton
and the surrounding area. Around 500 B.C., a rebellion broke out against Pythagorean
rule, and while some were killed, others fled, including Pythagoras himself. He died in
495.

The Pythagoreans was not just a political group. They constituted a brotherhood and a
religion. They had a set of beliefs and initiation rites. This is what makes Pythagorean
philosophy to identify, because it is not clear which actually came from Pythagoras and
which came from his followers. Pythagoreanism continued to exist nearly two hundred
years after Pythagoras’ death.

Pythagorean Religious beliefs:

1. The transmigration of the soul – souls are reincarnated in the bodies of other
beings, including animals.

2. Immortality of the soul – the archaic conception of the soul was as a life principle,
which in Homeric literature is given a weak subsistence after death. It retains its
identity but is more of a empty form of self than a truly substantial being. In
Pythagoras’ teachings, the soul is given immortality is therefore raised to the level
of the divine, for only divine beings are immortal in Greek lore.

3. Devaluation of the Body – because the soul was given importance, the body was
consequently devalued.

4. Catharsis – since the body was deemed a prison of the soul, the series of
reincarnation is supposed to purify it, but this purification or catharsis is achieved

16
 only through theoria and historie, that is, intellectual speculation and inquiry.
Intellectual activity is the process whereby liberation of the soul is achieved.

It was said that Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosophos, or lover of
wisdom. The Pythagorean coopting of philosophy provided the break between
philosophy as quasi-science (the Miletians), and philosophy that is related to
religion and ethics (Plato). The two becomes united in Aristotle.

Pythagorean Philosophical Principles:

1. Mathematics – the universe or the cosmos is arranged in a rational way. This

rationality is reflected in the proportions inherent in nature. The Pythagoreans
acquired their mathematics and geometry from Babylonia and Egypt. It is possible
that the Pythagorean theorem was formulated by Pythagoras’ himself (the square
of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides of a right
triangle: a2 = b2 + c2)

2. Music – Music is dependent on mathematical principles. For example, the

difference in notes are determined by the ratio of the length of the strings.
Accordingly, strings with lengths with the ratio of 2:1 are an octave apart. Notes a
fifth above another is 3:2. A fourth above another is 4:3.

3. Numbers – incidentally, the sum of the four integers constituting of 2:1, 3:2, 4;3 is
10 (1+2+3+4). Hence, ten is the perfect number for the Pythagoreans. Because
this ratio and proportion is inherent in nature and somehow governs nature, the
Pythogoreans came to look at number as the constituent element of the Universe.

4. Form – the preoccupation with ratio, proportion gave the pythagoreans the insight
that things are constituted by numbers. This was reinforced by the numerical
values of geometric forms, according to which one is point, two is a line, three is
a plane, four is square, five is a pyramid, etc. The fact that the Greeks represented
numbers not by the way we make us of the Hindu-Arabic numerals but by the use
of dots (as in the dots of a dice) reinforced this belief.

5. Opposites and Oppositions – The cosmos is governed by the opposition between

the limited (numbered and ordered and proportioned) and the unlimited (the
unproportioned and the disordered). Odd and even numbers exhibit this
opposition. Other oppositions are:

Limit---unlimited

Odd---even

One---plurality

Right---left

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 Male---female

Rest---movement

Straight---crooked

Light---darkness

Good---bad

Square---oblong

C.) HERACLITUS (540-480 B.C.)

- a nobleman born in Ephesus

- criticized figures of authority: when Hermodorus was put on trial for corrupting
the youth, Heraclitus remarked that “the Ephesians would do well to hang
themselves, very adult man, and to bequeath their city-state to adolescents” (from
the Trial of Socrates)

- for Heraclitus, order in the universe is the model for human thinking – the
Cosmos -- but the human mind must ignore the deceptive appearances and focus
instead on the internal logic of the universe which he called the Logos.

Cosmology:

- Heraclitus was thought to be a cosmologist: “The world, which is the 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 of it kindling and measures going out”
(Aphorisms, 20)

- The Logos is the underlying logic of existence. When the mind apprehends the
logic of the universe, it becomes a mirror which reflects the Cosmos. This is
possible when the mind perceives regularities and transcends the ever-changing
and ephemeral sensations and lifts itself to the view sub-species aeternitatis. This
is possible because mind (psyche) and universe (cosmos) are inextricably linked
by the same logos. This insight is not seen directly but is intuited. Non-awareness
of the logos is like being asleep.

- “We ought not to act and speak like men asleep.”

- “But other men know not what they are doing when awake, even as they forget
that what they do in sleep.”

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 - Change: “You cannot step into the same river twice.”

- All things are always changing. Although experience tells us that things change,
we persist in thinking that they are stable, and that when they do change, we are
surprised. That things change is hardly a philosophical insight. But the acceptance
that things actually change is wisdom itself. We sometimes delude ourselves that
things will always be the same, even if we have already affirmed that things do
change. When change actually happens, we find it hard to accept it.

- The other side of this wisdom is that despite the change, there is something stable
which remains, and that even in the flux of things, the flux itself, the changes,
follow a certain pattern. Hence, in the ultimate analysis, things do not change,
rather change calls things into being.

- Unity: By listening to the Logos, we see that all things are one. “When you have
listened not to me but to the Logos, it is wise within the same Logos to say, ‘All is
One’”.

- But how do we explain opposites in the world? Opposites are really aspects of one
reality. Heraclitus held that war and strife are constant realities in the world. How
then are opposites made one? Is not reconciling opposites concord and harmony?
When Heraclitus insisted on the opposites being one, he was not proposing to
resolve the opposition, but that each side of the opposition are really just aspects
of the same reality --- harmony, in effect, is productive tension.

VI. THE ELEATICS

A.) PARMENIDES (515-450 BC)

Born at Elea, was thought to be a student of Anaximander. For a time, he may have
joined the Pythagoreans.

The only existing writing we have of Parmenides are 160 lines of his poem “Nature”. The
poem has a prologue, which has survived complete.

In the prologue, he describes his journey from darkness into light. It is presented in an
allegory of coming out of ignorance into enlightenment. A goddess welcomes him and
tells him the way of truth.

Parmenides’ style recalls the poets (Homer and Hesiod) and cloaks his claim with the
authority of revelation or inspiration.

3 ways one might discover the truth:

1. To speak of what does not exist

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“It is not, and there must be non-being”. This stance, however, is impossible. What does
not exist cannot be thought of.

2. To speak of “what is” and to say that “it is and it is not”, or that “it is both the same
and not the same”. This is a statement against Heraclitus.

3. To say that “it is, and non-being is impossible”.

Implications:

*thought and being are one and the same because we cannot think of non-being.

*ultimate reality is permanent and unchangeable.

Monism:

One path is left for us to speak, namely, that it is. In this path are very many tokens that
what is is uncreated and indestructible; for it is complete, unmovable and without end.

Nor was it ever, nor will it be, for now it is; all at once, a continuous one. For what kind
of origin for it will you look for? In what way and from what source could it have drawn
its increase?

Against Anaximander:

Wherefore, Justice doth not loose her fetters and let anything come into being or pass and
let anything come into being or pass away, but holds it fast.

Thus is becoming extinguished and passing away not to be heard of.

Moreover, it is immovable, without beginning and without end.

Since then, it has a furthest limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a rounded
sphere.

*Parmenides is important because he was the first philosopher to have ever posed the
question of Being qua Being.

*As a logician, he proposed what we now know as modal concepts:

1. necessity – that it is, and that it is impossible for it not to be.

2. impossibility – that it is not, and it cannot be.

*Parmenides is considered a proto-logician because he is interested in certain concepts

and their logical implications and relationships.

*the problem with Parmenides is that he limited modal statements to only two: necessity
and impossibility. There is a third modal statement, a third way that is, possibility.

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* Parmenides cannot accept the third modal concept of possibility because he was talking
of being qua being.

Implications:

1. He denies change = without possibility and necessity, there cannot be change.

2. No becoming.

3. No potentiality = everything is in act. That is why, it is easy to say with

Parmenides that the world is God, or being itself is God. Yet, our experience tells
us that our world is constantly changing and that this change is possible only
because there is potentiality in our world.

*Parmenides lacked the concept of “essence” as a limiting element upon “esse” or Being
qua Being. Yet, it is not that he is unaware of the lines of this argument. Parmenides
knows the concept of possibility, as when he spoke of a third way of thinking:
“Undiscerning crowds, who hold that it is and is not the same, and all things travel in
opposite directions”.

4. For Parmenides, there is no creation, no annihilation. If pushed to the most extreme

conclusion, Parmenides’ monism becomes pantheism.

B.) ZENO OF ELEA (490-430 BC)

Philosophy in ancient Greece began when thinkers made the distinction between
appearance and reality.

e.g., Miletians: the urstoff is the basic reality, the variety of things are merely
appearances of that reality.

Heraclitus: logos is reality, change is merely appearance.

Parmenides: unity, indivisibility of being is reality, variety of beings, mixture of

being and nothing is appearance.

*The primary question then of Greek philosophy is “what is the reality behind the
appearances of things?”

Zeno of Elea wanted to show to show that many of what we presume to be reality is
really an illusion. His thesis: The common view of reality based on appearances is non-
sensical.

His method: not poetry (as in Parmenides) nor aphorisms (as in Heraclitus) but through
carefully reasoned proof that recalls the Pythagorean theorem.

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Zeno uses dialectic, which Plato, in the Sophist attributes to him. Dialectic uses the steps
by which the mind reasons through an argument. It is the precursor to the syllogism.

In his use of dialectics, however, Zeno uses paradoxes to confute our common-sensical
view of reality. He uses the dialectical steps to show that reality as we know it is in fact
false, or at least non-sensical. His methos may be called reductio ad absurdum.

Zeno’s Paradoxes

1. The arrow: the arrow is in place. Place is that space occupied by the object.
Motion is the transfer from one place to another, but a thing will always occupy
the same space, hence it cannot transfer from one place to another.

Answer: there is an erroneous conception of place. Local motion is change in

location, and location is the place occupied by the object in relation to other objects.

2. Achilles and the tortoise: Achilles must cross an infinite number of points in order
to reach the point where the tortoise is. An infinite number of points cannot be
traversed. Thus, Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise.

Answer: The distance between the Achilles and the tortoise may be infinite in
division, but it is not infinite in extension.

3. Moving parallels: Half the time, double the time. Given three trains of the same
length (twenty meters). The first train (A) is stationary. The second train (B)
moves at a distance of ten meters per minute. The third train (C) moves in the
opposite direction at the rate equal to train B. In one minute, train B and C shall
have moved ten meters each, yet relative to each other, they shall have covered
each other’s length. Hence, they have moved twenty meters.

Answer: a body moving at a constant speed in one direction moves twice as fast
relative to a body moving in the opposite direction at the same speed as the first.

VII. POST PARMENIDEAN PHILOSOPHY

The philosophers after Parmenides had to struggle against his monism. If there is no
change nor motion, then there is no science. What then is the future of cosmology at this
stage in the history of philosophy?

We must remember that at this time, there was no clear distinction between science and
philosophy. There was in fact no science as we know it today. All attempts at knowledge
were speculative rather than experimental.

There were three attempts at cosmology after Parmenides:

1. Empedocles

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 2. Anaxagoras

3. the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus)

What distinguished these three from the pre-Parmenidean cosmologists was that they
were pluralistic in their theory. Reality for them cannot be traced to one stuff, but to
several basic stuffs.

Post Parmenidean philosophy also included the element of causation in their theory,
which is mostly external to the stuffs themselves.

The Pre-Parmenidean philosophers on the other hand did not posit causation in their
theory, or at least, they posit it within the basic stuff itself (e.g., Thales who said that “all
things are full of gods”, posting internal dynamism to things).

Here at this point, the distinction between material cause and efficient cause came to be
made.

A.) EMPEDOCLES (492-432)

-from Acragas

-claimed to know how to raise the dead back to life.

-credited by Aristotle for inventing the art of rhetorics.

-made important contributions to Greek medical theory

-wrote in epic poetry.

Cosmology:

-accepted the Eleatic theory that nothing can come from nothing and that something
cannot become nothing.

-posited four basic stuffs: earth, air, fire and water

-they are the four roots = uncreated, indestructible, and unchangeable.

-they are differentiated from each other by their essential attributes.

-there is no void, all are filled up by these four elements.

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Change:

-mixture of the elements.

-something “new” is created by the mixture of the 4 roots, but in reality, nothing came
about. There is only the four roots being mixed together. “Destruction” is separating the
mixture.

-Empedocles uses the notion of proportion to explain the nature of things, although these
are without scientific basis.

-He pioneered the idea of the chemical conception of matter.

Efficient Causes:

-What caused the mixing and separating? Love and Strife.

-forces of nature derived from moral concepts.

-not attraction and repulsion but two forces of attraction.

B.) Anaxagoras (500-428)

-from Clazomenae in Ionia.

-agreed with Empedocles that there can be no real coming into being and passing away.

-creation and annihilation are nothing but mixture and separation.

-unlike Empedocles, however, Anaxagoras thought that there are not only four elements,
but many, since the chemical ratio for many things (e.g. bone) are fixed and determinate,
hence they must be “elements” themselves.

-if there is no coming to be, then everything must have been present from the very
beginning.

The Elemental:

-something is elemental if and only if the result of dividing a chunk of it into two makes
two chunks of the same stuff.

-thus, for Anaxagoras, there is an infinitely large number of ultimate kinds of matter.

-although Anaxagoras can posit the existence of “elemental” things, he cannot give a
sufficient account of individual things.

24
-in scholastic philosophy, individuality is provided by matter in the case of material
things, by essence in the case of immaterial beings.

-there is a contradiction in Anaxagoras’ account: while he can say that cheese, gold or
cake are “elemental”, cheese and cake are actually mixtures.

To resolve: in everything there is a portion of everything. That is, one thing is something
because of the predominance of that stuff in that thing. All others are minor.

Cosmogony:

-originally, all the stuffs were blended together in equal proportion. This primeval mix
was almost immobile. Eventually, a rotary motion began. This motion, called the vortex,
separated the stuffs into what they are now.

The Nous:

-Nous: mind , conceived by Anaxagoras as a stuff that is pure, without mixture.

*Omoiomeres=elemental

*Anomoiomeres= non-elemental

C.) ATOMISM

Leucippus (c. 460BC)

- teacher of Democritus

- in reponse to the Eleatics, the atomists posited the Void – the empty space.

- Parmenides assumed that “what is” is matter. The atomists thinks that empty
space is “something”. For them, “not being” exists as well as “being”.

Particles:

- things are not made up of basic stuffs, but stuffs are made up of undifferentiated
particles of matter which differ only in size and shape. The atomists conceived
matter as particulate or corpusculate. These particles are uncreated and
imperishable, no characteristic or properties except for shape and size. They are

25
 indivisible, completely filled up, with no space inside. They move around in
empty space.

Causal Agent:

- The atomists did not posit any efficient cause, but they simply assumed that there
was already motion. This motion of the particles brought some together into
clusters. Thus, some beings came to be, others are destroyed.

- There is therefore no rational order in the universe. Everything in the world is

purely accidental, serendipitous and mechanical.

Perception:

- perception is caused by the interaction of objects, not by the qualities of objects

themselves.

Knowledge:

-made possible by perception= the interaction of things with our senses and the
accompanying movements within ourselves. Thus, there is only knowledge of
appearances. And yet, we gain knowledge of the atoms through reason. How can we
perceive atoms if they cannot be sensed?

Answer: the interaction of the atoms within us gives us an intuition of atomism.

VII. THE SOPHISTS

A.) PROTAGORAS

-born in Abdera, Thrace

-travelled extensively. He observed that cultures and customs vary from place to place.

-he made the conclusion that religious and moral codes are based not upon human nature,
nor on God-given truths, since God would not deceive many people with too many
“truths”.

-rather, ways of life are socially constructed conventions.

-rhetoric therefore, or the art of persuasive speech, should be used to influence people’s
opinions and change them in ways that would be best for their societies.

-this requires that leaders should be sophists.

-influenced Pericles (495-429) with this teaching.

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-the king must also be a sophist.

B.) THE SOPHISTS

-sophos – wisdom

-philo- love

lover of wisdom = philosophy

The sophists were originally considered the wise men of ancient Greece. They first
appeared in the city-states during the 5th century BC as traveling teachers for hire, who
taught the youth of the aristocracy who aspired to power.

-the democratic set-up of Athens effected a shift in the acquisition and exercise of power.

-before, power was transferred along the lines of the Aristocracy, inherited or passed on
by way of political ties, wealth and position.

-in a democracy, however, one has to develop intellectual and persuasive skills.

-the sophists became useful by providing education to anyone who could afford their f
ees. Their success made them sought-after, not unlike today’s lawyers or even priests.

-there was no public education, so much of the population was uneducated.

-the person who could afford the services of a sophist would have access to public life.

-Protagoras was one such sophist. His theory on perception was much admired by Plato.

“about the gods, I am not able to know whether they exits or not exist, nor what they are
like in form; for the factors preventing human knowledge are many: the obscurity of the
subject and the shortness of human life”.

Most famous proposition: “Man is the measure of all things”.

“Of all things the measure is man; of existing things, that they exist, of non-existent
things, that they do not exist”.

Plato’s commentary in the Cratylus:

Socrates: So what is true of existing things, according to Protagoras, is this: what each
thing itself is depends on the individual perceiving it. This is what Protagoras means
when he says, “man is the measure of all things”. The way things appear to me is the way
they are for me; the way things appear to you is the way they are for you.

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+this is the beginning of relativism. How does one overcome this relativism?

For Protagoras, truth does not exist independently of the mind, but is itself a product of
human thought. And so, in order to attain “truth”, one has not to impose it on the outside,
one must simply educe it from the inside.

Protagoras, in Plato’s dialogue of the same title, compares the taste of a sick person with
that of one who is healthy. The same food may taste bitter to the sick person, but
delicious to the healthy. So to effect a change in the taste, one does not impose the food
on the sick person, one must rather treat him of his illness. In like manner, when someone
has a distorted view of reality, one must “cure” the distortion through “rhetorics” or
persuasion of the person so that he may adapt the more positive view on things.

-education, therefore, produces the change of the condition from bad to good. The
physician does this by drugs. The sophist, through words.

When the person, upon education, attains a more positive disposition, he will be able to
attain “better” beliefs, not “truer”.

+but this is impossible to achieve if one maintains a relativistic epistemology. If no

certainty can be attained, how can there be education?

VIII. THE SOCRATICS

A.) SOCRATES (470-399)

-mother was Phaenarete – a midwife

-was initially captivated by Anaxagoras’ theory of the mind (nous) but was disappointed
upon learning that mind for Anaxagoras is simply the causal agent of the vortex.

-there is no agreement as to what exactly Socrates taught.

The Apology

The Apology is not a dialogue, but a defense speech in a legal proceeding. The jury
consisted of 501 Athenians, all male. The Apology was written by Plato, presumably
based on his recollections of the event in which he took part. The trial took place in 399
B.C.

Structure of the Apology:

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I. Preamble

Socrates begged the jury not to make a disturbance when he engages in the manner of
cross-examination he has always been known for.

II. Defense of his Reputation as man who makes the weaker argument the
stronger (a charge which puts in league with the sophists). Biographical note
on the oracle of Delphi – shows that true wisdom is not in knowing much, but
in being open to the revelation of being.

III. Defense against the deposition against him.

1. Corrupting the young = If I make my associates wicked, then I run the risk
of being harmed by him.

2. Impiety= claims he believes in spirits, as when he believes his daimon,

thus he believes in gods.

IV. Defense of his Vocation: It was the god (his daimon) who ordered him to live
the life of a philosopher, and he will fulfill his destiny even if it means his
death (29a). It would be disgraceful to abandon one’s vocation for fear of
harm or death.

The fear of death is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to
think one knows when one does not know (29a).

Socrates considers this a profound insight. Why is thinking /admitting that one
does not know important? What is the attitude of one who thinks he does not
know?

What is Socrates’ advise to any one of the mebers of the jury who would ask
him to stop his philosophical activities? (29a)

Socrates’ aim was to make the Athenians give importance to the “care of the
soul”.

How does one care for the soul?

1. devotion to the truth = do not stretch the truth

2. constant self-examination = do not live a double life

3. examination of one’s beliefs = do not be blinded by prejudices

4. dialogue with others = put your ideas at risk

5. study = widen your horizons so that you will not risk inbreeding of ideas

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 6. involvement in the lives of others= do not isolate yourself from others.
They are a source of support for you as well as a source of new ideas.

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person” – Bruce Lee

Scott Peck posits an “Objective Observer” as the way towards maturity. In our language,
an “Objective Observer” is conscience, but we need to develop our conscience by
obeying it and by being sensitive to it.

Why does Socrates think that if the Athenians kill him, they cannot harm him more than
themselves? (30d)

“I do not think it is permitted that a better man be harmed by a worse”.

Socrates thought of himself as a gadfly to pester and therefore stir up the great but
sluggish Athenian horse (30e).

He denies that he is a sophist (29e)

Speaks about his daimon (29d)

Explains why he is not a politician: “A man who really fights for justice must lead a
private, not a public life, if he is to survive for even a short time” (32)

-calls for a testimony of the young whom he has taught.

V. Conviction and Assessment

VI. Sentence to Death and Discourse on Death

Why is death a blessing?

Socrates espouses ignorance of what happens after death. True to his teachings, he was
philosophical to the end. Death was either an eternal sleep or a new way of being. Either
way, death is not to be feared.

This brings us to the question of why we are learning things that in the end, will not count
as true knowledge.

We are earning these things because we are submitting our minds not to the truth but to
the process of truth’s self-revelation. The philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and
all those who came before and after them have the quality of truth because any
speculation of the human mind always share in the activity of the Divine.

Learning or the process of learning allows you to involve yourself in the ongoing
dialogue between mind and reality. It is this dialogue that will allow you to experience

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reality as it unfolds. The mind needs ladders to attain the higher levels of reality. Once
the ladder is superseded, it would no longer be of any use.

B.) PLATO

THE SEVENTH LETTER

The Ethical Life for Plato (340d)

That whatever his occupation, he holds fast to philosophy…

And to the daily discipline that best makes him apt at learning and remembering and
capable of learning soberly with himself…

While for the opposite way of life, he has a persistent hatred.

The Difficulty of the Philosophical Endeavor:

=some put themselves to the task, others give up easily upon realizing how difficult the
task is (340e).

=still others persuade themselves that they have already heard enough and need make no
further effort (341).

= philosophy in Plato’s mind is the ethical way of life.

=he made it clear that his philosophy could not be written down, for this knowledge
could not be put into words like other sciences; but after a long and continued discourse
between teacher and pupil, in joint pursuit of subject, suddenly, like light flashing forth
when a fire is kindled, it is born in the soul and straight away nourishes itself.

The Excursus

Plato explains why his philosophy could not be put into words:

Knowledge is acquired through the following: onoma, logos, eidolon, episteme.

Example:

Name: circle

Logos: a line equidistant to the center

Eidolon: drawing of a circle

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 Episteme: our knowledge of the circle

The four instruments can be easily manipulated. If we limit ourselves to the four means,
we would simply be making a play of words, and we would indeed sound wise. But in
regard to the thing-in-itself, we would easily be confounded and refuted by one who can
manipulate the four means without regard to the thing-in-itself (343d).

 this means that the best argument is not necessarily the right one.

Example: +Parmenides’ argument: being is not non-being, non-being is nothing,

Therefore, there cannot be a multiplicity of being.

+Spinoza = Substance is that which exists in itself and of itself.

There cannot be two substances because either they are one or the other is
not a something which exists in and of itself.

Therefore, there is only one substance.

Plato makes clear that because of the weakness of language (342e), the four means are by
nature defective.

The issue in the Excursus is the discrepancy between the insight and its demonstration.

Hans-Georg Gadamer: Sophism and Dialectics in Plato’s Seventh Letter

-makes a distinction between two kinds of dialectic:

1. Thinking in opposites = eleatics, Hegel

2. differentiation of concepts

It is the second kind of dialectics that Plato was concerned in the Excursus in the Seventh
Letter.

Each of the four means of knowledge has a tendency to bring a reality of their own… for
all are something beside the thing they represent. They all have a reality of their own, a
character which differentiates them from the thing itself.

1. Word= brings its own reality to the fore, namely the sound of the word, its
spelling, the image it evokes. The word is mere convention.

2. The definition = the weakness of the word as such is supposed to be overcome by

the definition, for the definition specifies what is not fully articulated in the word.
But the very procedure of conceptual definition contains something arbitrary and

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 uncertain, for the genus under which a thing is to be subsumed obviously lacks
singleness of meaning. There exists no clear unambiguous structure of being.

“An unequivocal, precise coordination of the sign world with the world of facts,
i.e., of the world of which we are the master and of the world which we seek to
master by ordering it with signs, is not language. The whole basis of language and
speaking, the very thing which makes it possible, is ambiguity, or metaphor…”

3. The image = the image is never an exact copy of the thing, a particular case does
not exhaust the richness of a concept.

4. Knowledge or Insight = in knowledge and insight, there is distortion too:

obstinacy which makes us refuse to acknowledge that someone else might be right
and we are wrong.

The general weakness of all four means is that whatever is meant to present something is
never that thing. It lies in the nature of the means of knowing that in order to be means,
they must have something inessential about them. This, according to Plato, is the source
of our error, for we are always misled into taking that which is inessential for something
essential.

PLATO’S SO-CALLED DOCTRINES

1. Doctrine of the Forms (Allegory of the Cave)

2. Doctrine of Anamnesis

3. Political Doctrine (The Republic):

The State is to have three classes of people:

a. Guardians

b. Auxiliaries

c. Artisans, Common People

Plato’s Political Theory is actually an ethical theory:

Guardians = Wisdom

Auxiliaries = Fortitude

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Submission of the lower to the higher = temperance

Proper performance of Funcitons = justice

 the classes of people and their interrelation, therefore is a scheme for the Cardinal
Virtues.

Plato’s Cosmogony (Timaeus):

- What is unchanging is apprehended by intelligence and reason, what is changing

is apprehended by opinion.

- The world, being sensible, cannot be eternal and must have been created by God.

- Since God id good, he made everything after the pattern of the eternal.

- He wanted everything to be like himself.

- Creation is conceived not out of nothing but out of disorder into order.

- The agent of creation is the demiurge.

- Put intelligence in the soul and the soul into the body.

- Made the world as a whole a living creature and having soul and intelligence.

- There is only one world, not many, because the world must be the one closest to
the original (the form).

- The world is a globe since only the globe is alike everywhere.

- It rotates because circular motion is most perfect, and since this is its only motion,
it has no feet or hands.

- The world is one living animal.

- The planets, the heavenly bodies were created so that animals may know how to
reckon with numbers and therefore, time.

- God made one soul for each star.

- If a man lives, his soul goes to a star, if not he becomes a woman, and if still she
persists in living badly, she becomes a brute.

- Plato still uses fire, earth, water and air as the four basic elements

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 - There are two souls in man: one immortal, the other mortal. The immortal is
created by God and is located in the head. The mortal is created by gods, subject
to affections, found in the breast.

- -transmigration of souls: when a man is cowardly and unrighteous in life, his soul
migrates to the body of a woman. If a woman is light-minded, she becomes a bird.
Those without philosophy will become wild land animals. The most stupid are the
fishes.

C.) ARISTOTLE (384-322)

-Born in Stagyra in Thrace. His father was a physician to the King of Macedonia.

-at age 18, he was a pupil under Plato.

-in 343 B.C. he tutored Alexander, son of Philip, from age 13 to 16.

-at the death of Alexander, the Athenians turned against his friends, including Aristotle,
who was indicted for impiety.

-he fled Athens, not wanting the city to commit a crime against philosophy twice.

Aristotle’s Method:

-wrote in systematic treatises. His treatises were critical, careful, pedestrian and common-
sensical.

-his interpretation of Plato influenced all other interpretations. He understood in Plato’s

Doctrine of Ideas an ultra-realist conception of the universal.

-for Aristotle, however, nouns (names) are words that refer to substances. Adjectives or
qualifiers are predicated of many subjects (nouns). E.g., man refers to the particular man.
When we say “man” referring to the idea, this idea does not exist in itself, but is
concretized in the particular human being.

-thus, universals cannot exist by themselves but only in particular things.

-hylemorphism; every material thing is made up of matter and form.

Three kinds of substances:

1. those that are sensible and perishable

2. those that are sensible but not perishable (heavenly bodies)

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 3. those that are not sensible nor perishable (man’s rational soul and God)

-God’s existence is proven by the argument of the First Cause.

-the first mover must be in itself umoved, eternal, pure act, substantial, immaterial.

-God is pure thought because thought is best.

-the actuality of thought is life, because that which has life is most akin to thought.
(thought is able to attract, to move, to speculate and investigate, to arrive at the truth)

-God moves by attraction, everything else is moved by this movement.

-God and the world are eternal.

-the agency of God is not creation but movement.

-only God is pure form, without matter.

-god does not care for the world, the world is an eternal clock, given the initial movement
by God.

The Soul

-rejects Plato’s transmigration of the soul.

-the soul is the form of the body.

-makes a distinction between mind and soul

-the mind is an indestructible substance implanted in the soul, indestructible (immortal).

-form confers unity upon an amount of matter.

Ethics

-eudaomonia = happiness or blessedness

-to be attained through the virtues.

-two kinds of virtues: intellectual and moral

-intellectual virtues are to be taught, moral virtues are products of habit.

-to attain eudaemonia, we must form ourselves in the virtues.

-virtue = arête,(excellence)

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the Golden Mean: every virtue is a mean between two extremes, excess and defect

cowardice === courage === rashness

miserliness === liberality == prodigality

humility ===== pride ===== vanity

boorishness === wit ====== buffoonery

bashfulness === modesty == shamelessness

The connection of the virtues: every virtue is connected with the other, such as no one
can really be virtuous in one aspect without being virtuous in every other aspect. The one
virtue that connects all together is prudence.

Physics:

Movement/change:

1.quantitative change

2. qualitative change

3. local motion

Local motion is change from one place to another. This presupposes the concepts of place
and time.

Place: topos = It is the limit within which a body is, a limit that is considered immobile.
This differs from the conception of the Eleatics because for them, place is the limit that
defines the thing itself. In Aristotle, place is the limit within which a body is (e.g. a room
that contains the table. Thus, we can say the table is in the room). This limit should be
immobile relative to the body. Consequently, everything in the universe is in place, the
universe is not.

-motion of projectiles: explained through the law that compulsory movements tends to
decelerate, natural movements tend to accelerate. (e.g., a projectile thrown into the air
makes a curve and settles back to land on the ground; compare with the movement of the
wind, which is a natural movement.

-Aristotle’s theory of projectile motion shows ignorance of law of gravity and of friction.
In reality, an object can move if the force of gravity had not pulled and slowed it down.

Time

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Time is that aspect of element of change or movement which makes it possible for the
mind to recognize a plurality of phases. It is the measure of movement as countable.
Without a counting mind, there would still be time or duration, but in a potential way, in
the sense that the actual phases are not recognized as such.

Infinite Bodies

Bodies cannot be infinite in extension but can be potentially infinite by division. There
can be no actual infinite division.

Telos

All natural motion is directed towards an end. This is the movement from potentiality to
actuality, the embodiment of form in matter.

Aesthetics

In Metaphysics, Aristotle describes beauty as having the chief forms of symmetry, order
and definiteness. That is why mathematics has a certain diagnostic value in regard to
beautiful objects. The beautiful is the object of contemplation, not desire.

In Poetics, Aristotle makes comedy a species of the ugly.

Art:

1. Technology: completing the work of nature. (functional art)

2. Fine arts: imitating nature = not mere imitation but highlighting the more
universal element in things.

Poetry:

-Poetry points to what is universal in human experience.

-History is an account of particular experiences.

-hence poetry is more superior to history.

-Poetry deals with probability, whereas history recounts an action or event which has
happened in the past.

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Music: most imitative of all the arts because it imitates moral moods. It has power to
form character and is useful in the education of the young.

Tragedy:

The aim of tragedy is catharsis. Tragedy is an imitation of an action and life, hence plot is
most important. Plot means there should be organic structural unity. Catharsis is to purge
the soul of the emotions of pity and fear through the harmless outlet of drama.

IX. POST ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHERS

The demise of the city-state bought about a shift in Greek consciousness. Hilsophers no
longer concerned themselves with the question “how can men create a good state?”.
Rather, they had to ask themselves, how can we be virtuous in a wicked world? This was
the question which preoccupied Aristotle, as well as those who came after him. The
collapse of the city-state made the philosophers orphans. They had no institution they
could pledge allegiance to. The city-state was replaced by the concept of empire, and
later on, of the Church.

Four schools founded during the time of Alexander the Great:

A. Cynics

B. Sceptics

C. Stoics

D. Epicureans

Aristotle was the last cheerful Greek philosopher. After him, philosophy was all retreat
from the world.

A.) The Cynics

Founded by Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates. Something transformed him and made

him disdainful of all worldly things. He decided not to have anything but simple
goodness. He associated himself with working men and took to open-air preaching. Fro
him, all refined philosophy is useless. What could be known can be known by the simple
man. He believed in a return to nature and advocated the abolition of government, of
private property, of marriage and of established religion. He despised luxury and all
pursuit of pleasure, and condemned slavery.

Antisthenes had a disciple, Diogenes. Diogenes’ father was a money changer who had
been sent to prison for defacing the coinage. He resolved to do what his father had done,

39
only in a more widespread manner. He despised all forms of government and system of
honor. All were base metal and lying superstition. He thus decided to live like a dog (thus
the word cynic, which came from the word “kuwn” (dog) or kynikos (dog-like)). The
cynics defied all conventions of religion, manner, dress, housing, food, decency.
Diogenes was said to have lived in a pitcher. He lived by begging. Though they
denounced the world, they had a passion for virtue. Cynics, therefore cannot be described
as “cynical”. They sought liberation from desire.

Four basic doctrine of the cynics:

1.) The goal of life is happiness which is attained through harmony with nature.

2.) Happiness depends on self-sufficiency and self-mastery.

3.) Self-sufficiency and self-mastery is attained through the formation of virtue

(arete)

4.) To attain arete, one must free oneself from the influences of wealth, power, and
fame, which have no value in nature.

5.) Suffering is caused by false judgment of value, which cause negative emotions
and a vicious character.

B.) Skepticism

Main proponent was Pyrrho, a soldier who fought for Alexander the Great and went with
him to as far as India. Skepticism is based on the unreliability of the senses but extended
it to moral and logical skepticism. When skepticism is extended to morality, there will be
no ground for preferring one course of action to another. One simply has to conform to
local custom. The ignorant were as wise as the man of learning. All knowledge is only a
playful toying with ideas. Although relativist, it is ultimately dogmatic, because it claims
that knowledge is impossible.

Timon, another Skeptic, denied the possibility of finding basic principles that would
ground deduction. All arguments are circular.

C.) Epicureanism

Epicureanism was founded by Zeno and Epicurus. It was primarily designed to effect
tranquility. Pleasure is the beginning and end of this present life. Pleasure for Epicureans
refers especially to gustatory pleasure. Pleasure of the mind is contemplation of the
pleasures of the body.

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The ideal state of the Epicurean is “static pleasure”, when the body is in a state of
equilibrium or contentment. “Dynamic pleasure”, on the other hand, is the enjoyment of
pleasure insofar as the body is presently craving for it.

Thus, the goal is “absence of pain”. To avoid pain, one must flee from every form of
culture and public life. This is the only way one can avoid enemies. Sexual love is
rejected because this too can cause pain. The greatest of social pleasures is friendship.
The greatest good of all prudence.

Two of the greatest sources of fear is religion and dread of death. Epicureans adopt the
atomic conception of matter. They are therefore materialists. They posit the existence of
gods, but they were largely rational hedonists and do not care about men. The gods
simply enjoy their state of bliss.

D.) Stoicism

Stoicism was founded in the 3rd Century BC by Zeno, but has a long history dating up to
Marcus Aurelius in 180 A.D. Stoicism advocates indifference to pain and suffering.
Virtue was highly valued. The stoics believed in cosmic determinism, thus human
freedom depends on one’s knowledge of the fates. Change is an illusion because
everything is rigidly determined by the natural law. Natural Law (law of nature), however
is the order inherent in the cosmos.

They believed in the idea of eternal recurrence. Originally, everything was fire, then the
other elements came to be. Eventually, however, everything will be reduced into a cosmic
conflagration.

The law of nature was ordained by a Law-Giver who is also a beneficent provider. God is
not distinct from the world. Man must unite himself to the will of nature, that is, virtue.
Only virtue really matters. All passion is condemned. One must have complete
indifference to the vagaries of human existence.

Excerpts from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything
irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to
winnowing your thoughts, so that if someone says, “what are you thinking about?” you
can respond at once, (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or that. And it would be
obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and
considerate ones – the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure
and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander or envy, or anything
else you would be ashamed to be caught thinking.

Someone like that – someone who refuses to put off joining the elect – is a kind of priest,
a servant of the gods, in touch with what is within him and keeps a person undefiled by
pleasures, invulnerable to pain, untouched by arrogance, unaffected by meanness, an

41
athlete in the greatest of all contests – the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything
that happens… welcoming wholeheartedly whatever comes – whatever we are assigned –
not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or
think.

He does only what is his to do, and considers constantly what the world has in store for
him – doing his best, and trusting that all is for the best. For we carry our fate with us –
and it carries us. (Book Three, No. 4, p. 29)

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I will deal with today will be
meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because
they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of
evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the
same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. None of
them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. (Book Two, No. 1, p. 17)

X. NEOPLATONISM

Plotinus (A.D. 204-270)

Founder of Neoplatonism. He is the last great philosopher of antiquity. He lived during

the most tumultuous periods of the Roman Empire. The Roman military was becoming
more conscious of its power and was easily corrupted by those who have the money to
buy themselves into power. The frontiers became porous and the barbarians started to
chafe around the edges of the empire. War and pestilence diminished the population and
onerous forms of taxation caused financial ruin in the cities and provinces. It was only
around the time of his death that order was reestablished in the empire with the accession
of Diocletian and Constantine.

The grim social conditions of Plotinus’ time is hardly reflected in his philosophy. He
turned away from the misery of the concrete world and fled into a contemplation of an
eternal world of goodness and beauty. Plato’s world of ideas provided a safe haven for
idealistic minds like Plotinus. Like the emerging Christian religion during his time,
Plotinus posited an alternative reality as reason for hope. In this sense, Christianity is
closer to Platonism than any other philosophy, because it provided a framework on which
the whole Christian theology could be built.

Plotinus’ life is known to us through Porphyry, whose real name was Malchus. Plotinus
was born in Egypt and studied in Alexandria under Ammonius Saccas, who is often
regarded as the founder of neo-platonism. He fought under the Emperor in Mesopotamia,
and later on settled in Rome. He gained as patron the Emperor Gallienus, who was more
interested to converse with him than in the affairs of the state. His writings are compiled
under the title the Enneads.

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Metaphysics:

Plotinus posits a trinity of divinities: The One, Nous and Soul. These three are not co-
equal as the persons of the Christian Trinity. The One is supreme, Nous comes next, Soul
is last.

The One is sometimes called God, sometimes the Good. It transcends Being, which is the
first sequent upon the One. There is no way to describe the one, except by saying “it is”.
It is indefinable, and in regard to it, there is more truth in silence than any words
whatsoever.

The second is Nous, or Spirit (translated sometimes as Intellectual-Principle, sometimes

as mind, but Bertrand Russel, whom we are following here, follows Dean Inge, who
translates it as Spirit, with the proviso that the term should also connote the intellectual
content of “mind”). Nous is the image of the One. It is the light by which the One knows
itself. It is the self-knowledge of the One. It is possible for us to know the Divine Mind, a
knowledge which we lost by self-will. To know the Divine Mind, we must study our own
soul when it is most god-like: we must put aside the body, and the part of the soul that
moulded that moulded the body, and sense with desires and impulses and every such
futility; what is then left is the image of the Divine Intellect (the Nous).

The nous is not to be confused with Anaxagoras’ idea, which posits a pure material
substance, without mixture. Anaxagoras’ version is only the efficient cause of his
cosmos, around which the vortex, or the circular movement of the elements, revolve. It is
also not to be confused with the logos of Heraclitus, which is merely the comprehension
of order in the universe.

“Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that they hold some
greater thing within them, though they cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir
them and the utterances that come from them they perceive the power, not themselves,
that moves them: in the same way, it must be, we stand towards the Supreme when we
hold nous pure; we know the Divine Mind within, that which gives Being and all else of
that order: but we know too that other, know that it is none of these, but a nobler principle
than anything we know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason, mind, and feeling;
conferring these powers, not to be confounded with them” (Enneads, V, 3, 14, as quoted
in Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 289-290).

Plotinus is the precursor of the Christian mystic. In his description of how we ascend
towards the One, he uses the analogy of light as the very thing which allows us to know
the One. Light from the sun enables us to see the sun, so illumination from the One
allows us to see its brilliance. “How is this to be accomplished?” “Cut away everything.”

The Third consequent is the Soul. Soul is inferior to Nous, but it is the author of all things
in nature. It is the offspring of the Divine Intellect.

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