Greek philosophers

PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS

HUMAN NATURE
The Romans are perhaps the originators of the
translation of the term man as ver which in turn gives
birth to the word virtue (or that which is fitting for
man).
Accordingly, the term nature is derived from the Latin
word natura which means that which lets something
originate from itself.
It also comes from another Latin word nasci which
means to be born or to originate.

 Socratess humble one-liner: What I know is that I do

not know.
It is wise to say that what we say of anything is what
we say of anything, not that what we say of anything is
really say of what really things are.

Agere sequitur esse

A thing acts according to its nature

 In applying this construction of nature to man, it means

that man should only think, feel, and act based on his
nature.
This is one insight, obviously, that restricts man to stay
put at the very ambience of that which is rigidly
allotted or stationed for him.
Outside the domain of his nature, man can readily be
charged of being inhuman.

 The question about truth became deeply entwined with

the problem of goodness.
Scholastic view, good means that which satisfies that
which craves for it.
Simply stated, good is a satisfier of something that
which lacks what is lacks.
This means that a sort of thinking, feeling, and doing
may be deemed in consonance with man if they are all
good.

 Badness or evil, therefore, all stay outside the

parameters of humanity.

 Does this mean that man is a finished product?

Does this mean that man is determined kind of
creature?

 Martin Heidegger lament that this understanding of

man is very disastrous to man himself.
This is because this understanding fails to acknowledge
the insurmountable loads of possibilities that allow him
to soar and excitingly breathe to the fullest realization
of what he can afford to muster for himself.
DASEIN

 Needless to say, human nature is characterized as

universal and static.
Basic stuff or substance of human nature:
Body (material element)
Soul (spiritual element)

THALES
Thales considered water as the urstuf.

ANAXIMANDER
Younger contemporary and a pupil of Thales.
The primary substance out of which all these specific
things come, is an indefinite or boundless realm or
apeiron.
As a consequence of this motion, the various specific
elements come into being as they separated off from
the original substance.
Proto-evolutionist

ANAXIMENES
Young associate of Anaximander
He designated air as the primary substance from which
all things come.
To him, air undergoes two processes, namely:
condensation and rarefaction.
Body as condensed air
Soul is rarefied air.

PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoreans said that things consist of numbers.
The study of the mathematics is the best purifier of the
soul.

 Game of Philosophy, according to Pythagoras:

(Olympian game)
Lowest class, who go there to buy and sell.
Next, who go there to compete, to gain honors.
Best of all, who come as spectators, who reflect upon and
analyze what is happening.

 Theory, in Greek means, to look on.

The final mystical triumph of the Pythagorean is
liberation from the wheel of birth, from the migration
of the soul to animal and other forms in the constant
progress of death and birth.
In this way, the spectator achieves a unity with god and
shares his immortality.

 Pythagoras conviction that man is a dipartite body and

soul.
To the Pythagoreans, the human soul is immortal,
divine, and is subjected, to metempsychosis.
As immortal and divine, they believe that the soul has
fallen and is, so to say, imprisoned in the body.
This imprisonment, however is a sure possibility for
the souls release from its entrapment in the body.

HERACLITUS
To Heraclitus, the logos is the blanket principle of
change.
Problem of change, all things are in flux.
You cannot step twice into the same river.
He believes that fire makes the urstuff.

 Unity in Diversity
Ferriols, Hidwaang bumubuo.

PROTAGORAS
man is the measure of all things.