The Milesians & Pythagorus according to Russell

(Originally written February 6, 2014 on scrap paper)

The History of Western Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
Book I
Chapter II - The Milesian School

Thales, circa 585 BC, believed that water was the original substance out of which all other things were formed, magnets had a soul because they moved iron and that all things were full of gods.

Anaximander, born circa 610 BC, slightly younger than Thales, also believed that all things came from an original substance. Unlike Thales, who thought this was water, Anaximander taught that the original substance was an eternal, infinite substance.

Anaximander believed that this original substance was transformed into empirical substances (i.e. fire, water, etc.) and then transformed back again. Each of the empirically observable substances wished to enlarge itself at the expense of others, but a cosmic justice superseded the elements and kept them in check.

Justice - a profound Greek belief, taught that each thing had an eternally fixed proportion and that when things began to overstep their bounds a correction would take place. This justice bound both the natural and supernatural, man and god alike. However, this justice, though being supreme over man and god, was not a supreme god.

Anaximander taught a sort of evolutionary theory. "Man, like every other animal, was descended from fishes" (Russell, 27). Unlike Darwinian reasoning though, Anaximander used a rational argument to support his theory. The length of human infancy is too long for it to have been the original state; otherwise, man would have not survived.

Anaximenes, the third of the Milesians, held that the fundamental substance was air.

The soul is air. Fire is rarefied air. Water is condensed air. Very condensed air is earth.

The Milesian school was, though crude, very scientific in nature. There was limited religious nature in it.

Miletus was a cultural melting pot. Greek religion and thought mixed with successful commercial activity brought in by both Egyptian and Babylonian and fused with the thinking. This blending of culture provided the spark for philosophical thinking to begin.

Chapter III - Pythagorus

"Pythagorus was intellectually one of the most important men that ever lived, both when he was wise and when he was unwise" (Russell, 29).

Pythagorus combined mysticism and mathematics. He was a reformer of Orphic traditions, itself a reformed worship of Bacchus. In this way, Pythagorus took an already mystical transformation of Bacchic rites and made it even more intellectually bent.

Pythagorus put more stock in the otherworldly, relegated the physical world to the illusionary. He taught the transmigration of souls and taught that the soul was immortal.

The body is a tomb of the soul. However, suicide is not an option without permission of God.

There are three classes of men: those who buy and sell (the lowest), the participants, like those at the Olympics and the spectators who simply think on the doings of the participants. These are the philosophers and by doing this, they can achieve release from the wheel of birth.

In Pythagorean thought, because the contemplative life was the achievement of all that is worth achievement, mathematics took on a sort of ecstatic context. Discovery in mathematics was sort of an intoxicating experience - a oneness with god.

Pythagorus embodies two diverging views of religion. Personal religion is derived from ecstasy - union with God; theology is derived from mathematics. Theology is derived from mathematics as it takes the shape of geometry. Geometry (Euclidian) starts with axioms deemed to be self-evident and then derives theorems from deductive reasoning. Theology proceeds in a similar fashion. Pythagorus embodied both personal religion (mystical nature) and theology (a system based on deductive reasoning).

Russell seems to be doing a bit of this geometry when he states "But for him (Pythagorus), Christians would not have thought of Christ as the Word; but for him, theologians would not have sought a logical proof of God and immortality. But, in him all this is implicit. How it became explicit will appear" (Russell, 37). And now from the axiom that Pythagorus began the long tradition of mathematical theology (an axiom deemed self-evident by Russell we shall see the theorems...)