Pre-Socratic Greek

Philosophy
BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus

Dr. Anupam Yadav

Development of Early Greek

Thought
The early Greek thinking rooted in religious thinking and having traces of the
mythical ideas, developed in complex and comprehensive systems, laid the
foundation to the Western Philosophy. The early Greek thinking is the product of
the Hellenic civilization, flourished in Athens, Rome, Alexandria and in Asia Minor.
The

initial orientations of their thinking were directed toward inquiries into

the essence of the objective world.
Gradually the interests shifted from the objective reality to the study of the
human mind and of the human conduct: of logic, ethics, psychology, politics, and
poetics.
In the course of investigation, the study of metaphysics and of human knowledge
also became indispensible. And finally the problem of God and mans relation to
him became central.

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The Problem of Substance

Thales:
Thales was born in Miletus, a colony of Greece, about 624 B.C.
According to him, water is the original stuff, basing it on the
fact that nourishment, heat, seed which are essential to life
contain moisture.
He believed in the process of transformation and looked upon
nature as moving, acting and changing.
Anaximander:
To him, the essence of the things is not water but the
Boundless or Infinite, an eternal, imperishable substance out of
which all things are made. It is understood as an indeterminate
potential matter or qualitative undifferentiated matter.
Contd.
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The Problem of Substance

From this mass of undifferentiated matter different
substances are separated; first the hot and then the cold, the
hot surrounding the cold as a sphere of flame..
Anaximenes:

The first principle of things is One and Infinite, but not

undifferentiated. It is Air according to him. The reason for
selecting this is that being dry and cold it is intermediate
between fire (warm and dry) and water (cold and moist). Air or
breath is the life-giving element. As mans soul, which is air,
holds him together so it also sustains the whole world. The
cosmic air is animate and extends infinitely through space.

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Pythagoreans
Pythagoras, the founder of this group, was less
interested in the essence of things than with the
question of the form and relation of things. As
mathematicians
they
were
interested
in
quantitative relations, which are measurable, and
they began to speculate upon the problem of the
uniformity or regularity in the world.
Numbers are the principles of things, not as being
stuff or substance but as their formal or relational
structure. Things are the copies or imitation of
numbers. (This distinction between matter and
form became central to Platonic and Aristotelian
systems of metaphysics)
Numbers are odd and even, so limited and
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The Problem of Change

The early physicists focused on the primal unity and its
transformation. The problem of Change didnt draw their
attention.
Heraclitus: The Universe is in the state of ceaseless
change. One cannot step twice into the same river. He
chose the most mobile substance as the first principle, i.e,
fire. Fire changes into water and then into earth, and the
earth changes back into water and fire. The way upward
and the downward are one. Everything is in permanent flux
though we do not perceive them.
The world is a union of opposites, there is a harmony.

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Parmenides Idea of Permanence

Parmenides was a metaphysician and challenged
Heraclitus teaching that everything changes. Fire
becomes water , water earth and earth fire. How can a
thing both be and not be? If being is also becoming; it
must have come either from non-being or from being. If
it has come from non-being, it comes from nothing
which is impossible, if from being then it has come
from itself. It is identical with itself.
Being and thought is one, i.e. reality is rational. It is
homogeneous, continuous and eternal. The world of
senses is illusion.
Logical thought compel us to see the world as a unity,
as unchangeable. But he does not explain how the idea
of permanence and change can be reconciled.
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Xenophanes
In Xenophanes we find the first traces of scepticism in Greek
thought.
He was a theologian who believed that God is one, eternal
and unlimited.
He was also a pantheist. Seeing oneness with God and the
forces of nature. He was interested in reducing God to the
level of the forces of nature, rather than elevating the world
to the level of the divine. He didnt resolve the
incompatibility between the One and the sensible world of
the constant changes.

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Zeno: the Dialectician

He was a pupil of Parmenides. He challenged the idea of
plurality and motion as self-contradictory.
If the whole of being is plurality, it is made up of many
parts, and this whole can be proved to be both infinitely
small and infinitely great: infinitely small because it
consists of infinitely small parts (which can be further
subdivided) and infinitely great, because to any finite part
we can always add an infinite number of other parts. It is
an absurdity that the same whole is infinitely small and
great.
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Summary
Early Greek thinkers were engaged in inquiring about the
nature of Physical reality.
The underlying quest is for knowing the Substance
Change and Permanence become central problems
Instead of matter, form or number is considered to be the
basis of reality
Unity and plurality are sometimes understood as integral
but also as self-contradictory
The idea of One is equated with God and God is
equated with Nature

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THANK YOU
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Pilani Campus