(Originally Written September 5, 2006 in History I)
Class Notes:
Pythagoras (circa 580-510 BC)
-born in Samos, Italy
-founded Croton, a city in Southern Italy
-Influence Plato more than any other philosopher
-Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans were heavily influenced by the Orphic Cult, but broke away from it.
Pythagorean Order was:
1. Political
2. Religious
3. Ethical
-Shared property and was somewhat socialistic
-Utopian Society
-Believed in an immortal soul
-Worked to purify that soul
-believed in the transmigration of the soul
Doctrines:
1. Numbers are real things (all things are numbers and numbers are all things)
-Observer independent/public
-Precise identities
-Systematic relationships betwixt them
Worked with figured numbers: sets of numbers
Square numbers, i.e. 1, 4, 16...
Oblong numbers, i.e. 6, 12, 18...
Triangular numbers, i.e. 3, 6, 10, 15...
2. Astronomy
-Music of the spheres - the heavenly bodies play a silent symphony
-Knew earth rotated on its axis
3. Table of Contraries
-The cosmos is a harmony of opposites
4. Health - "insomnia"
-an equilibrium betwixt opposites
5. Transmigration of the soul/metempsychosis
6. Tripartheid soul
-Reason (only in men)
-Passion
-Intelligence
7. Ethics
-The chief end of life is to achieve harmony and wisdom in life and thus get off the wheel of rebirths
Parmenides (515-450 BC)
-From Elea in Italy
-Wrote The Way of Truth and The Way of Opinion
-A radical empiricist
1. Use of logic
-applied mathematical reasoning to philosophy
-first to use formal logic
-law of identity (what is, is)
-Method of indirect proof: assume what you think is false is true and then disprove it:
1. Assume X
2. Show that X is Y
3. Y is false
4. Therefore, Not X
2. Assumptions
-What is, is
-What is not, is not
3. Absolute Monism
-All is one
A. Being is uncreated
B. Being is indestructible
C. Being is eternal
D. Being is unchangeable
Zeno of Elea (490-430 BC)
-Parmenides' favorite pupil
-Zeno's paradox
-Arguments against plurality
-logic is a reliable method of knowledge
-plurality and change are unreal
-Four paradoxes of motion
1) The Bisection
-assumes that space is infinitely divisible
-Before one can traverse the whole way one must traverse half, before one can traverse halfway, one must traverse halfway of the halfway, before one can traverse halfway of the halfway, one must traverse halfway of the halfway of the halfway, ad nauseum to infinity
2) Achilles and the Tortoise
- Assumes that time is infinitely divisible
3) The Arrow
- Assumes that time and space is infinitely divisible
-You can't see motion, therefore motion doesn't exist
4) The Chariots
-Assumes that neither time nor space is infinitely divisible
-Place paradox - any particular place implies an infinite number of places. That's absurd. Therefore, there is no place.
- The millet seed paradox
-If a single millet seed falls it makes no noise, but if a bushel of millet sees falls it makes a noise. How can anything multiplied by 0 be something. Therefore, we should not trust the senses.
The Atomists
Democritus (494-404 BC)
-Nothing exists except the atoms and the void
-atom means 'un-cuttable'
-atoms are small, indestructible, indivisible, eternal bits of matter that make up all physical objects
-They come in all shapes & sizes and are qualitatively neutral
-The void is empty space
-All causes are mechanistic, there is no intellectual influence
-Physical objects are aggregates of atoms
-human soul is also an aggregate of atoms, but the atoms are especially small, mobile and spherical
-peace of mind is when the soul's atoms are the least disturbed or at a state of rest
Ethics of Democritus
-The end of all action is tranquility
-Democritus was a hard determinist
The Sophists
General tendencies:
-knowledge is subjective
-truth is relative
-law is artificial
-justice is provincial
-virtue is prudence
Gorgias (483-375 BC)
- In Defense of Helen of Troy
-Helen deserted Menelaeus for one of four reasons:
1) Fate (divine force)
2) Human Violence
3) Overpowering persuasion
4) Irresistible passion
-On not being or nature
1) Nothing exists
2) If something does exist, it can't be known
3) If it can't be known, it can't be communicated
Protagoras (481-411 BC)
-"Man is the measure of all things"
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