Pre-Socratic Philosophy

(1) What is metaphysics?

(2) What does Xenophanes’ claim about the form of a horse’s god tell us about the possibility of
human knowledge of the Divine?

(3) What distinguishes philosophy from science and mythology?

(4) Why is inquiry into arché a philosophical rather than a scientific issue?

(5) What might Heraclitus mean by claiming that ‘We step and do not step into the same rivers, we
are and we are not’?

(6) What is Zeno trying to demonstrate in his paradoxes?

(1) What is Metaphysics?

Investigation of the fundamental nature of existence and the world.

Closely linked to epistemology, the investigation of whether how we acquire knowledge of the
world and whether that knowledge is reliable.

Constant theme: appearance and reality: how things appear to us apparently differs from how
they really are.
Problem preoccupied Plato, Descartes etc. Sense data seems unreliable: bent stick in water…

The epistemological problem might precede the metaphysical one: knowing that the senses are
sometimes unreliable generates the idea that the world is not the same as what we directly perceive.

Topics of Metaphysics

(1) Ontology: study of what it is for something to exist. Also the kinds of things in the world and
how they are related to each other
(2) Particular objects and their universal properties
(3) Determinism and free will
(4) Identity and change
(5) The Nature of Mind – a physical or mental thing?
(6) Necessity and possibility
(7) God
(8) Space and time
(9) Cause

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(2) What does Xenophanes’ claim about the form of a horse’s god tell us about
the possibility of human knowledge of the Divine?

We make God in our own image…But a believer will say that this is irrelevant. We are obliged to
conceive God in quasi-human terms but this says nothing very much about whether God exists
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(3) What distinguishes philosophy from science and mythology?

Distinction science and philosophy

Both are concerned with understanding the world.

Science seeks to discover the truth about the world via experimentation. Empiricism rejects
theoretical knowledge and only accepts direct sensory evidence. But a focus on facts and
experiments without theory or analysis, on the how and ignoring the why, results in an
impoverished science.

(i) Traditional armchair philosophers tended to think that the nature of the world could be deduced
from fundamental premises, and made no attempt to seek evidence for their theories. They argue
about what the world should be like, given, say, a belief in God.

Modern philosophers accept that empirical knowledge – scientific, psychological etc. – is essential
to understanding philosophical issues. After all, philosophical explanations always assume scientific
truths: such as regularity and reliability of our experience. We cannot doubt everything.
BUT there is still a difference:

(ii) The difference between philosophy and science appears as follows. A chemist might be
interested in the precise mechanism by which oxygen and hydrogen are produced through
electrolysis of water. She wants to know exactly what happens when certain procedures cause water
to decompose into these two gases, and will explain this cause in terms of chemical interactions at a
sub-molecular level.

The philosopher, on the other hand, is interested in the much more general notion of what it
means one thing to cause another. He wants to examine the concept of cause, one which will
apply to every instance of causation. Hume famously asked what happens when one billiard ball hits
another. We do not actually see one billiard ball causing the other to move. We just see one hitting
the other and the other moving away. We have no sense impression of one ball necessarily causing
the other to move, and form the idea of cause as a matter of habit and association.

Mythology

Myths are narratives that attempt to explain natural phenomena. Three theories: distorted accounts
of real historical events (Troy); allegories for natural phenomena or psychological concepts;
personification of inanimate objects and forces.

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Thunder caused by the angry Zeus throwing a thunderbolt: an ‘explanation’ without any empirical
evidence, so not scientific. Why isn’t it a philosophical explanation either? Because before we
assume that thunder is always caused by Zeus, we must demonstrate his existence. In other words,
philosophy always has some empirical input, and to that extent is co-extensive with science.

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(4) Why is inquiry into arché a philosophical rather than a scientific issue?

What is arché? Belief that one principle or one substance underlies all the varied and changing
phenomena of the world we experience.

The arché anticipates idea of laws of nature

Many of the Pre-Socratics’ ideas have parallels in modern science – especially the idea of some
kind of underlying unity. Again a very modern idea. Physicists seek what is called a unified field
theory, attempting to describe all fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, quantum
mechanics) and the relationships between elementary particles in terms of a single theoretical
framework.

Why is arché a philosophical rather than a scientific principle?

Simply, because philosophers are reasoning from a premise – that one underlying principle unites
varied phenomena. But they are not directly investigating the nature of that principle. They are
affirming, not demonstrating.

Science involve forming a hypothesis and making experiments to confirm or disprove the
hypothesis.

The Pre-Socratics are ontological monists: the world is essentially composed of one underlying
substance that explains superficial appearances
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The Pre-Socratic Philosophers

Main Figures

Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes: the first Western philosophers, all from the city state of Miletus
in Ionia

Pythagoras

Democritus and atomic theory

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Parmenides: a single eternal reality underlies change

Heraclitus

What links these philosophers? (a) seeking explanations of the nature of the physical world: not
simply accepting mythological accounts. Beginnings of both science and philosophy (engaged in
the same quest: understanding of the world. Compare the scientist asking how x causes y and the
philosophers asking what it is for z to cause y)

Metaphysical questions, about the fundamental nature and origin of the universe, the nature of
change and identity (it is possible for one thing to change into another?); space, time and infinity

(b) belief in an underlying unity, the arché

Thales: The arché, the first principle is water….

Anaximander The arché is ‘neither water nor any other of the so-called elements but some different
infinite nature’, ‘the unlimited’

Anaximenes: first principle is air

(c) Reason provides a better route to understanding of ‘reality’ than the senses because our
senses provide knowledge of outward appearances. Our senses provide knowledge only of outward
appearances, not of what underlies these appearances. This becomes a dominant theme of Western
philosophy for the next 2000 years.

We also find the growing belief that nature is intelligible, that its workings can be grasped by the
human mind. So the Pre-Socratics are undeniably the first real philosophers and scientists – at least
that we know of in the Western world. (Logos: a reason, an explanation)

What distinguishes them?

For the Milesians, what is real is fixed and permanent; change is what had to be explained. They
understood changes as alterations of some underlying material which is, in its own nature,
unchanging.

Heraclitus reversed this notion: only change is real, and permanence is an illusion.

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(5) What might Heraclitus mean by claiming that ‘We step and do not step into
the same rivers, we are and we are not’?

Heraclitus is important for his influence on Plato, especially for the idea that while the
phenomenal world - the world we experience through the senses – is in a state of constant change

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and flux, there is an underlying order and unity. There is a universal principle through which all
things are interrelated.

Nevertheless, the world as it really is, is unknowable. The material world is, in some sense, unreal,
and that the real, knowable, world was immaterial. We live like dreamers with a false view of the
world – the idea revived in Plato’s allegory of the cave.

Also stressed the need for men to live together in harmony – again an important Platonic idea. The
physical and the social world mirror each other.

The unity of opposites: Belief that opposite qualities may be present in the same thing

Also stressed that our concepts are defined in terms of, and require, their opposites. For example,
good and evil, hot and cold, health and disease define each other. We can’t have a concept of one
without the other. But because many concepts are defined in terms of their opposites, (good and
evil, hot and cold etc.) it doesn’t follow that two opposites are necessarily simultaneously present.

One thing can have two wholly different aspects: He argues that sea-water can be both pure and
polluted since it brings life to fish and death to humans. But argument is weak. If he thinks that sea-
water is therefore both pure and polluted, full-stop, he has committed the ‘fallacy of the dropped
qualification.’ Sea-water is good for fish and bad for humans, but from this it does not follow that it
is both good and bad. Heraclitus says at one point that ‘the same thing is both living and dead’,
which is obviously literally untrue.

Similarly, he claims that ‘day and night are one’ and ‘the same thing is both living and dead.’ But
here he is describing cases in which one opposite succeeds another, not cases in which a single
object is simultaneously characterised by both opposites.

Balancing of these opposites enables us to understand that hidden connections underlie the
seemingly chaotic nature of the world, with change in one direction being balanced by a
corresponding change in another.

Again a very modern idea: in theoretical physics we have the laws of the conservation of mass
and energy (matter nor energy can be neither created nor destroyed, and according to the special
theory of relativity, are equivalent to one another)

Fire is the fundamental substance uniting all things. This seems to be an odd idea – how is fire
supposed to be part of water, ice etc.? But again we know that heat, or rather variations in
temperature, is the driving force behind all movement in the universe. At absolute zero there is no
movement. Heraclitus chooses fire because it is linked to change.

Change is the key idea. To say that every object manifests some pair of contrary properties is just to
say that every object undergoes change. So the doctrine of ‘unity of opposites’ is, for Heraclitus, a
way of making the point that every object is subject to change

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Puzzles about Identity, Change and Persistence

Analogy of life and a river

(1) Firstly Heraclitus’s statement is presented by Plato (Cratylus 402A) as Heraclitus…says that
everything moves on and that nothing is at rest; and, comparing existing things to the flow of a
river, he says that you could not step into the same river twice.

(2) What Heraclitus actually said was: ‘We step and do not step into the same rivers, we are and we
are not.’ OR ‘Upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow’.

A. On the one hand, this is merely a verbal puzzle that can easily be cleared up applying the tools
of conceptual analysis.

The expression ‘same river’ is ambiguous: it can mean (a) ‘stream of fresh water flowing alone a
definite course from source to outlet’. It is defined geographically. The River Thames can be
defined precisely as that stream originating at point A and finishing at point B. It can also mean (b)
‘same body of water comprising precisely the same molecules’. So under description (a) we CAN
step into the same river twice. Under description (b) we CANNOT.

So you step into different water but the same river. The river changes (in physical composition) but
remains the same (geographical entity). So something can be the same in one sense and different in
another sense.

B. What he is really talking about is a much deeper puzzle: how identity persists despite change.

Heraclitus is drawing attention to here is the fact that everything is in a state of constant flux. We
are not the same people we were when we entered the room 10 minutes ago or even 10 seconds ago.
During that period we will have lost several million molecules of skin, thousands of brain cells will
have dies…etc.

In the same way we change but remain the same. Analogy isn’t very good, for people infinitely
more complex than rivers.

So the river is only the same and yet different because of different ways in which it is being
described (as a geographical entity/as a body of water). In the same way you are and you are not
the same person that you were yesterday.

Heraclitus confuses matters by talking about a ‘unity of opposites’: a pair of opposites being present
in the same object. But sameness and difference cannot be simultaneously properties of objects.
They are not properties at all. Being as red a beetroot is a property, being the same as oneself is not
a property.

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What makes you the same person that you were yesterday?

The same body? But suppose during the night you were drugged and your brain transplanted into
someone else?

Suppose your memories are transplanted?

Locke and the Prince and the Cobbler

The mind of the Prince was somehow transferred to the body of the Cobbler, and vice versa. If the
Cobbler’s body has the Prince’s memories then he is the Prince.

Bodily continuity may not be enough to establish continuation of PI. Psychological and not physical
identity are important.

The same memories? Even here, a problem. Locke also talks about the middle-aged man who
remembers being a boy, and later the old man remembers being middle aged. But the old man has
no memories at all of being a boy. So memories do not provide the link between various states of
the same person. But we do not want to say that the old man and the boy are different people.

So neither the same body, the same brain nor the same memories are sufficient for someone
remaining the same person?
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Partial change: The Ship of Theseus

(S1). Every part is replaced bit by bit so we have (S2). Then these bits are reconstructed to create a
second ship (S3). Which is the same ship as the first, (S2) or (S3)? The standard answer is that
continuity between the various stages is more important than the actual materials. There is a causal
chain linking (S1) and (S2) which is lacking in (S3) and this together with the continuing function of
the ship leads us to say that (S2) is the same ship.

Parts of the ship relate to each other in that they all serve a common end. A rebuilt ship serves the
same function and so is the same ship.

When each part is changed it must do the same kind of job as its predecessor. For example, we
couldn’t convert a yacht into a steamer and call it unproblematically the same ship.

Precisely the same applies to people. If we replaced parts of another person bit by bit, replacing
even parts of their brain, we would still say he remained the same person if continuity was
preserved. (Possible in principle, in logic – if not in practice)
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(6) What is Zeno trying to demonstrate in his paradoxes?

Achilles and the tortoise

Suppose Achilles moves at 10 metres/second and the tortoise at 1 metre/second. The tortoise has a
head start of 100 metres. By the time Achilles has run 100 metres, the tortoise has advanced 10
metres. By the time Achilles has covered this 10 metres, the tortoise has advanced 1 metre. And so
on. So A can never catch up with the tortoise.

Zeno is trying to show that, contrary to the evidence of our senses, the notions of change and
motion are illusory.

Parmenides

This give support to Parmenides’ claim that ‘all is one’. The appearance of movement and change
simply mask a static, eternal reality.

Influence on Plato and a whole tradition in Western Philosophy: the truth cannot be known through
sensory perception, which can be deceptive. Only pure reason leads to understanding.

Contrast between the Way of Truth and the Way of Opinion.

NB both Zeno and Parmenides were from Elea.

Solution of the Paradox

NB Both common sense and mathematics proves that there is no paradox, but a philosophical
paradox remains. Perhaps we should just say, so much the worse for philosophy.

Zeno argues that every time Achilles reaches the tortoise's last position, the tortoise will have
advanced further. However, this ignores their different speeds. Start from the point where Achilles
has covered 10 metres and the tortoise has advanced 1 metre. In the next full second Achilles will
run another 10 metres, passing the tortoise who will have advanced only one metre.

Underlying fallacy: Achilles and the tortoise are taking an infinite number of increasingly tiny steps,
and an infinite number of steps must give an infinite result. But ½ + ¼ etc. has a finite sum: just less
than 1. It approaches infinitely close to one but never actually reaches it.

David Lockwood October 2009