[RD] Ancient Philosophy (from Thales to Socrates) discussion thread

[Kyriakos]

I think it may be interesting for a few posters, particularly in regards to current philosophical thoughts they may read about ^^ Besides, I can answer questions, given that I am to again present a series of seminars on this subject this month. There had been a thread of mine on this subject, but many years ago, so it wouldn't be a good idea to just resurrect that.

So discussion can be generally on any subset of Greek philosophy in this time period (roughly, 7th century BC-4rth century BC), and tied subjects (eg more modern philosophy).

The three main types of ancient Greek philosophy are: Physical (to do with phenomena in the material world), Ethical (about theories on how to better live) and Dialectic (about notions and what it means to think).

As an OP I think it will be the best to just summarize how philosophy is argued to have started in ancient Greece (a good source, with historical value, is Diogenes Laertios' Lives of Philosophers), and why it was regarded as a distinct field than (say) mysticism or general thought.

-The main view in antiquity was that Greek philosophy differed from other civilization's similar studies, primarily due to it being an open field (not restricted to sects or other groups, such as Egyptian priests, Babylonian chaldeans, Persian magoi etc) and usually (but not in all cases; prominent exceptions include Pythagoras, the Eleans and to a smaller degree Plato) not featuring any theological elements.
-The first Greek philosopher was Thales, from Miletus. He also is the only philosopher who is part of the group of "the Seven Sages", and thus had one of his apofthegmata inscribed in the oracle at Delphoi (it read "Nothing in Excess", similar to a latter one by Aristotle). Thales was regarded in a similar way to how Einstein is regarded in current pop culture, being mentioned (eg) in plays by Aristophanes as a synonym for genius. More importantly, he is credited with providing the first theorem-based proof in mathematics, with his important theorem of analogy in intersecting lines. Another theorem of his is about angles in a circle, formed by points in the periphery.
Thales also presented solutions to more practical matters, using geometry. A method of calculating a ship's distance from the shore (without needing that much space in the shore either), as well as the calculation of the height of the larger pyramid at Giza (through shadows in a sun dial, and their analogy to the Pyramid's shadow) are two good examples of that.
Lastly, it is reported that he might have predicted an eclipse, which took place the day of a battle between Lydians and Persians.

The two students of Thales were Anaximander (also from Miletus) and Pythagoras. From Anaximander we get the notion of infinity - prior to him, the term was used in Greek only as an epithet, for example in Homer, to describe the vastness of the sea. From Pythagoras... we arrive at the very important first discovery of an irrational number (the diagonal of a square), apart from the eponymous theorem.

 

[Narz]

Epicurus is my fave. What the guy said just makes sense and he's not asking you to make all sorts of presuppositions.

 

[IgrOK[SU]]

Were the ancient philosophers smart? I mean, the modern average student gets more information about the world and faces more complex problems than Plato or Aristotle did in their lifetime combined.
I'm not sure Plato would understand the special relativity theory or Aristotle - modern gender discussions. Both are unbeliveably difficult to understand.
Maybe they just picked the "low-hanging fruit" of philosophy?

 

[Kyriakos]

He wasn't unique in that, although perhaps he is mostly known for it due to the epicurean philosophy being largely on ethics. Another philosopher with similar view on god(s) was Protagoras, according to the fragments - the most famous of which would be "Man is the meter of things; of those that exist, that they do exist, of those that do not exist, that they do not". Although it is arguable how it was meant (there is discussion of the quote in Plato).

@Igrok, not sure how you mean it. There aren't a million pages of "low hanging fruit" anyway ^^ A nice quote by Martin Heidegger is that "the rest of western philosophy can be seen as a series of footnotes on ancient Greek philosophy".
I'd say that the two most important notions in Greek philosophy had been Infinity and the Atom. They largely are owed to the discussion between the eleans (Parmenides/Zeno etc) and Democritus. The discussion had major importance in math, since it took Archimedes himself to officially get the notion of infinity in math to be accepted as part of theorem-based systems (starting with his method of evaluating pi, itself an improvement over one devised by a mathematician in Plato's Academy). Another development tied to this was Eudoxus' theory of fractional analysis.
Useful to note that (in current math) geometry is identified as a system examining both the distinct and the continuous=>incorporates the notion of infinity.

 

[Hygro]

Which story is Socrates (I believe***) articulating the Athenians have more self discipline because they practice getting drunk, whereas the Spartans never do?

It may have been Thebans, Cretans, and Spartans, three of those four peoples.

 

[Kyriakos]

Which story is Socrates (I believe***) articulating the Athenians have more self discipline because they practice getting drunk, whereas the Spartans never do?

It may have been Thebans, Cretans, and Spartans, three of those four peoples.

I don't recall ^^ Maybe the... Symposium?

 

[Hygro]

I asked my old professor who assigned that reading and he doesn’t know what I’m even talking about

 

[Gori the Grey]

Infinity and the Atom

Numbers keep going; matter stops at some smallest unit.

 

[Kyriakos]

Numbers keep going; matter stops at some smallest unit.

The latter is debatable- and was debatable already in ancient Greece. Namely, the eleatic philosophers explicitly argued that the divisions of matter are unlikely to stop somewhere. Democritus, on the other hand, responded with the theory of a smallest particle, which he named an atom (the term means 'indivisible'). Then the theories revolved largely around atoms in a type of void (the void in this sense also an eleatic theory, by Melissos of Samos)

There were a number of variations in the atomic theory in ancient Greece, btw. A famous one was by Anaxagoras, friend and teacher of Perikles. According to it, the smallest possible particles were surrounded by a void, but so were all other types of particles, and the arrangements lead to difference in visible form. Other variations are more grandiose (including an infinity of particles in everything).

Tbf, one can (if they wish to) also trace this kind of theory earlier, to Heraklitos of Ephesos, who argued (probably metaphorically, since all of his work is written in metaphors) that fire is the only object, but is forced to attain a form it simply cannot, and in its struggle has to assume the myriads of forms seen in the world ^^
Trivia: in the five platonic solids, the one with the least vertices, the tetrahedron, was tied to "fire", since it would cause the most pain when one comes into contact with it. Iirc the cube was tied to earth.

 

[Hygro]

Numbers keep going; matter stops at some smallest unit.

Does it?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Numbers keep going; matter stops at some smallest unit.

Numbers are just a made up way of organizing one's thoughts. Matter equals Energy divided by the speed of light squared. Is energy restricted or constrained? Are quantum particles actually matter at all or is matter just a result of quantum relationships and connections. Perhaps it is similar in some way to how a useful equation is just a particular assembly of otherwise nonsensical numerical symbols.

 

[Lexicus]

Does it?

Depending on how you define "matter", maybe

 

[Narz]

Were the ancient philosophers smart? I mean, the modern average student gets more information about the world and faces more complex problems than Plato or Aristotle did in their lifetime combined.
I'm not sure Plato would understand the special relativity theory or Aristotle - modern gender discussions. Both are unbeliveably difficult to understand

And completely irrelevant to the day to day life of the average person.

If the modern philosophers existed today they'd probably be caught up in minutiae on the internet like the rest of us

Wisdom =/ knowing a bunch or random stuff (or thinking you know it anyway)

Socrates 'all I know is I know nothing' is more relevant today than ever, mofos read a couple articles, watch a few YouTube videos and think they're smarter than the ancients, whose mistakes, without the protections of the modern world could be deadly.

Of course perhaps the freedom is be dumb and make mistakes without serious consequence makes us smarter in the long run but I'm skeptical... time will tell.

The defining philosophy of the modern age seems to be narcissism, obsession w individual identity (fostered by our consumer culture), whether we can overcome this and cooperate on a global level is the defining question. If we don't answer this one there likely won't be more questions except to popcorn munching aliens watching the earth show from space, namely who's next.

 

[Moriarte]

I mean, the modern average student gets more information about the world and faces more complex problems than Plato or Aristotle did in their lifetime combined.

Ah yes, complex problems of modern youth! Switching iphones on and off. Buying a good cs:go mic on ebay. Ordering food delivery online! I’m sure Aristotle would throw in the towel when confronted with such complexity. When you get the time, ask your average modern student to write a couple of pages of text. Then open Aristotle’s politics and compare, which of the two brains has better capacity to analyse and solve complex problems.

 

[Kyriakos]

Ah yes, complex problems of modern youth! Switching iphones on and off. Buying a good cs:go mic on ebay. Ordering food delivery online! I’m sure Aristotle would throw in the towel when confronted with such complexity. When you get the time, ask your average modern student to write a couple of pages of text. Then open Aristotle’s politics and compare, which of the two brains has better capacity to analyse and solve complex problems.

^^
He practically invented most fields of study. Although that was to great degree due to the aversion of most Greek philosophers of examining the physical, instead of the mental world*. This trait today is more common among mathematicians.
Even back then, it is said that Archimedes saw very little in his own inventions, when compared to his theoretical results. Only built complicated machines when it was absolutely needed so as to defend Syracuse from Rome (which he achieved; the city fell from betrayal).

*this is also demonstrated in the OP painting by Raphael, where Plato points to the sky, while Aristotle to a mid point.

A very characteristic result of this difference, is Aristotle's (usually termed as) "third man argument", which was an attempt to negate the platonic theory of archetypes. Although from a philosophical standpoint, it can be argued that it wasn't really functional an attack. The argument by Aristotle was that if there was an archetype, and an object which was influenced by the archetype, then if you had any other third object influenced in form by both it would have to serve itself as their archetype. But the theory by Plato is about archetypes standing outside the world of forms, thus not being in such a series= being by definition their type and not a member of the set, which means that any potential member of the set was taken into account in the definition of the theoretical archetype of it.
This also leads to the "no third way" principle in Aristotelian logic (which carries on to current formal logic), and dictates that "an object can have a trait at a point in time, or not have it, but it cannot both have and not have it" (this is a direct reaction to platonic views on dialectics, as can very notably be read in the dialogue with Parmenides). Itself the principle creates a limit, but also allows for solutions within a limited context, so is treated as the basis of all axiomatic systems.

If one wishes to, they can primarily identify the difference in interest on physics on the one hand, thoughts on the other. Although, ultimately, things break up in physics too (eg quantum theory).

Lastly, the debate carried on (still does, in other fields), although it became much less refined. Eg you can trace it into the (imo rather tiresome) polemics between Kant and Hume, on empiricism vs idealism. In the end (as even Kant could note ^^ ) even the empirical data has to be incorporated through thought, and thus take a mental form.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The latter is debatable-

Does it?

I wasn't making the claim in my own voice, but rather just showing that two of the early philosophers' contributions to Western thought tend in opposite directions. We need to be able to think of unboundedness; we need to be able to think of boundedness.

They laid down these basics for us. These thoughts were "low hanging fruit" in the sense that they had to be established early, for other kinds of thinking to occur. But they weren't for that reason easy thoughts to get thunk. Infinity is not intuitive. The visible universe looks big but limited.

Yes, I think modern physics has decided to replace the atom with infinity, infinitesimality.

 

[Kyriakos]

Judging by the fierce resistance to every point in the road of developing the notion of infinity, it is a very difficult subject. And then it was already placed front and center by the 5th century BC and Zeno's collection of arguments against limits.
On Zeno, there are various interpretations, but personally I am of the view that he was making an argument about the difference between how thought functions, to empirical phenomena*. While Achilles would run past the tortoise fast in the material world, in the mental world you can observe the race from the point of view of distinct moments in time, thus Achilles will remain behind for an eternity (in the same way that 1 will become 2, but if you are stuck to decimals you will never get to 2).

A problem is always the confusion (in interpretations) of whether this related to mental or physical phenomena, or even if it is specifically mathematical. Math-wise, Achilles is moving in ever decreasing paces, while the tortoise barely moves (but still moves and its every new stage is the limit of Achilles' reach by definition), so there isn't any wonder there.

A funny trivia: it is said that when Zeno was presenting this to Diogenes the Cynic (but iirc the dates don't match; if Socrates was a youth when they met - if they even met, as in the dialogue - then Diogenes would be a boy), to demonstrate that movement cannot exist, Diogenes just stood up and left to show it does

*then again, the eleatics were said to believe that the cosmos was a singularity, a oneness of infinite divisions only for limited observers such as humans; "All is One".

 

[Lexicus]

 

[Gori the Grey]

Diogenes just stood up and left to show it does

Johnson kicked a rock and said "Thus I refute Berkeley"

Due to Zeno, when I'm practicing archery, I always aim a little past the target.

 

[Hygro]

relatedly, when getting into nerf wars as a kid I learned the best way to dodge incoming fire was to suddenly stand still.