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

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I made this (10min) video about why, imo, hedonism is superior to Stoicism (YouTube won't let me use greater than symbol for some reason)

Open to feedback from Kyr or others because I have quite a layman's understanding of both philosophies.

I feel like I'm in some sort of fever dream because I have a presentation on ethical theory in a week, and just a few hours ago my group member suggested hedonism as our theory of choice. And one of the first things I see on OT is this thread, and then this post

 

[Narz]

I feel like I'm in some sort of fever dream because I have a presentation on ethical theory in a week, and just a few hours ago my group member suggested hedonism as our theory of choice. And one of the first things I see on OT is this thread, and then this post

Since I posted that I've been on a binge of this guy called David Pearce I discovered on the hedonism wiki page, he's a hedonist, believe in negative utilitarianism (never heard of it until yesterday), transhumanist who wants to abolish suffering with genetic engineering and comes across as a pretty likable guy to sit and have some soma with.

 

[Plotinus]

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".

Surely that was Whitehead, wasn’t it?

I’m convinced that either Plato or Aristotle was the greatest thinker of all time, but I’m not sure which. The fact that both came along in the same place at the same time is astonishing, even more so than the coincidence of Newton and Leibniz.

But count me as one of the Epicureanism fans. I teach my first-year students about Lucretius on the fear of death and it seems to be consistently one of the most popular and discussion-provoking topics I cover. I’m still not sure whether I agree with him though!

Overall though, my favourite ancient philosophy is scepticism. I like Carneades a lot (of the New Academy) but the main man has to be Sextus Empiricus. There’s simply no answering his arguments.

[EDIT] I just realised that the thread is supposed to be Thales to Socrates though! Well, they had a few bright ideas too, I suppose…

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

i remember reading somewhere that the Greeks came up w the idea of atoms

I'm not sure I understand the question

Democritus was Greek.
Democritus came up with the idea of atoms.
Therefore a Greek came up with the idea of atoms.

Some Greeks philosophers did not consider that what we modern people call the number "one" as a number.
I really can't see what your difficulty is with that, Narz.

 

[Plotinus]

Late edit.
I'm sure he would have noticed that steam condenses back into water.
Therefore steam atoms must be very small.
Furthermore, they cannot be connected to each other because that would be liquid water or ice.
Therefore, it seems logical to conclude that steam is composed of water atoms, and that each must be surrounded by a void.

Does that sound like a "reasonable" take on the way Democritus might have reasoned?

Not really, because ancient atomists thought that atoms were always surrounded by void, whether they were in a solid state or not. Democritus thought that the fact that atoms are surrounded by void is why you can cut an apple with a knife: the knife goes through the void between the atoms of the apple.

Ancient atomists didn’t think of atoms the way we do, so it’s usually a mistake to be misled by the similar terminology into attributing modern reasoning to them. In the case of Epicureans they didn’t even think that atoms are necessarily too tiny to see.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Overall though, my favourite ancient philosophy is scepticism. I like Carneades a lot (of the New Academy) but the main man has to be Sextus Empiricus. There’s simply no answering his arguments.

It's a shame that the source and wording of the following (attributed to Epicurus via others Hume?) is disputed. It's not easy (for me) to answer those arguments.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Or has further research clarified the matter?

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Not really, because ancient atomists thought that atoms were always surrounded by void, whether they were in a solid state or not. Democritus thought that the fact that atoms are surrounded by void is why you can cut an apple with a knife: the knife goes through the void between the atoms of the apple.

Ancient atomists didn’t think of atoms the way we do, so it’s usually a mistake to be misled by the similar terminology into attributing modern reasoning to them. In the case of Epicureans they didn’t even think that atoms are necessarily too tiny to see.

Thanks for the clarification! (I remember that apple argument now. Probably read it in Bertie when I was a youngster.)
Did any philosophers claim that atoms must be spherical?

 

[Kyriakos]

Not really, because ancient atomists thought that atoms were always surrounded by void, whether they were in a solid state or not. Democritus thought that the fact that atoms are surrounded by void is why you can cut an apple with a knife: the knife goes through the void between the atoms of the apple.

Ancient atomists didn’t think of atoms the way we do, so it’s usually a mistake to be misled by the similar terminology into attributing modern reasoning to them. In the case of Epicureans they didn’t even think that atoms are necessarily too tiny to see.

But this wouldn't have allowed for theories of atoms and voids to come directly from a discussion of possible unlimited divisibility of matter. And not all (ancient Greek) theories of atoms referred to homogeneous form; typically they were trying to present models where due to some factor one element superseded the rest in a group.
Due to relative proximity to the first philosophers (then again, Aristotle routinely refers to Thales as "ancient", which makes sense since they are 3 centuries apart), the debate often highlights also theories of primordial elements (it can be tied, if poetically, to some of those, including the fire of Heraklitos and the spermata of Empedocles, both minute and in flux).

As for spherical, both Xenophanes and Parmenides liked to speak of a perfect sphere as the shape of the world, which would be "in reality" a singular entity, but from the point of view of people it appears as a world of endless diversity.

 

[Plotinus]

Yes, atoms were supposed to be different shapes, explaining the different properties of different substances. Though it's a long time since I last studied this stuff, I must admit!

Origen supposedly thought that the resurrection body would be spherical, as it's the perfect shape, but in fact he probably said this of the stars. But that's taking us well away from presocratic philosophy.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's been some time since I looked into all that atomic stuff too - originally it was a (very) small part of seminars I was organizing for libraries (that all started nearly a full decade ago...)

 

[Angst]

Since I posted that I've been on a binge of this guy called David Pearce I discovered on the hedonism wiki page, he's a hedonist, believe in negative utilitarianism (never heard of it until yesterday), transhumanist who wants to abolish suffering with genetic engineering and comes across as a pretty likable guy to sit and have some soma with.

haven't seen it yet, but knowing about other supporters and the nature of "effective altruism", i'd be wary. the core idea is ok, but it's mostly spread around by some really whack people

 

[Narz]

haven't seen it yet, but knowing about other supporters and the nature of "effective altruism", i'd be wary. the core idea is ok, but it's mostly spread around by some really whack people

Wack how?

The ideas are more important than the messengers (unless they're my neighbors)

 

[Moriarte]

I'm not really interested in either success or failure of EA, but here's one article.

Effective Altruism Contributed To The Fiasco At OpenAI

The chaos at OpenAI in response to CEO Sam Altman's firing reveals the problematic influence of the Effective Altruism movement.

www.forbes.com

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Wack how?

The ideas are more important than the messengers (unless they're my neighbors)

You can find many whackos in its long history, and also brilliant but desperately sad cases like George R. Price.

George R. Price - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Narz]

You can find many whackos in its long history, and also brilliant but desperately sad cases like George R. Price.

George R. Price - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Oh yeah I remember reading about him. He clearly had some unresolved issues but that doesn't mean his ideas at any given point were bs, gotta separate the person for their ideas. Most great people are more than a little screwed up.

 

[Narz]

I'm not really interested in either success or failure of EA, but here's one article.

Effective Altruism Contributed To The Fiasco At OpenAI

The chaos at OpenAI in response to CEO Sam Altman's firing reveals the problematic influence of the Effective Altruism movement.

www.forbes.com

It's not surprising Forbes would take umbridge with effective altruism and defend self-interest.

Suddenly rich super nerd with emotional problems and high ideals not perfect??! More @ 11

Negative ultilitarianism seems a less risky philosophy to program into algorithms as what is good is more open to debate than what is harmful (suffering, disease, abuse, forced labor, etc)

But you can cherry pick weird stuff said by the advocates of any ideology, it's neither here nor there. And any ideology currently considered extreme or "weird" is obviously going to attract weirdos and the most vocal among them will generally be the most weird.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

Oh yeah I remember reading about him. He clearly had some unresolved issues but that doesn't mean his ideas at any given point were bs, gotta separate the person for their ideas. Most great people are more than a little screwed up.

I did not dismiss his idea in any way. I think he was brilliant in his work. His ultimate personal flaws are completely irrelevant to his work on altruism.

 

[Moriarte]

But you can cherry pick weird stuff said by the advocates of any ideology, it's neither here nor there. And any ideology currently considered extreme or "weird" is obviously going to attract weirdos and the most vocal among them will generally be the most weird.

Any socially oriented ideology that misses the mark of aspiring towards equality of ownership of means of production.. is toothless. Whether it’s ideologues or proponents are weird or not is neither here nor there.

Seems like an elitist club where silicon valley nerds save the planet, on the first zoom in.

 

[Plotinus]

His ultimate personal flaws are completely irrelevant to his work on altruism.

I don’t know about him in particular, but this seems an odd general observation. I can understand saying that someone’s personal ethics are irrelevant to (say) their work in biology or astronomy, but how can it be irrelevant to their work in ethics?

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

I don’t know about him in particular, but this seems an odd general observation. I can understand saying that someone’s personal ethics are irrelevant to (say) their work in biology or astronomy, but how can it be irrelevant to their work in ethics?

There's nothing for you to ponder there, Plotinus.
It was a response to Narz, and it was very specific to George Price.
The closest analogy would be Nietzsche's actual work on ethics, and his last years when he responded to his sister bringing him some "good" books to read with (something like): "I used to write good books, didn't I?"