Presocratics
The Presocratics are thinkers who, in ancient Greece , participated in the origins of philosophy and lived from the mid- seventh century BC. BC until the fourth century BC. AD , that is to say for the most part before Socrates (470-399 BC.). Some thinkers, however, were considered pre-Socratic Socrates' contemporaries, such as atomic and some sophists.
We consider the Presocratics (or Antsocratiques) as the initiators of many aspects of philosophical speculation. The first writer philosopher , their thinking may be a biased presentation. Originating mostly from the Greek colonies of the time located in modern Turkey ( Ionia ) and the current Italy ( Magna Graecia ), the most famous pre-Socratic authors are Thales , Anaximander , Pythagoras , Heraclitus , Parmenides , Zeno of Elea , Anaxagoras , Empedocles and Democritus.
Summary |
Introduction of all
A profound influence
If the history of philosophy , following the views of Plato and Aristotle , made Socrates a decisive moment in the history of ideas , so that there is a "before" and "after" Socrates, the thought of it can yet be conceived without that of his predecessors and contemporaries. The Presocratics were, like Socrates, and after him a great influence on philosophy. It is excessive to consider Socrates as the single point converge in a story teleological from Greek thought, and it is good for it to retain the title of "Socratic" is to some extent correct many of Socrates did not precede them .
Socrates himself is the first mention in the dialogues of Plato , the influence these thinkers have had on him, although he often had to criticize . Plato himself developed theories about the formation of the universe or the life of the soul after death is notoriously influenced by the school of Pythagoras , and he mentions several times the thought of Heraclitus (including It inherits its design from the motive of the matter) and that of Parmenides (whose theory on the stability of being may have influenced his theory of "forms"), the latter being a character in one of his dialogues maturity . As for Aristotle, he borrows from his theory of pre-Socratic four elements , and his conception of Being is largely a response (including through Plato) to the thesis of Parmenides . In modern philosophical tradition, Hegel , Nietzsche , Heidegger , Bachelard and more recently Castoriadis and Marcel Conche , are among the greatest commentators Presocratics, and it are deeply inspired. In the literary tradition, their influence is noticeable in Friedrich Hlderlin (The Death of Empedocles), Paul Valry (The Marine Cemetery on Zeno of Elea ), Rene Char ( Fury and mystery , on Heraclitus ), Milan Kundera (prologue The Unbearable Lightness of Being , on Parmenides ).
Two parts and two directions
The Presocratics came mainly from two regions around the Mediterranean , which belonged in antiquity to the Greek world, as the great cities had established Greek colonies:
- one hand, the Ionians ( Thales , Anaximander and Heraclitus in particular) living in the flourishing cities near the coast of present Turkey as Miletus and Ephesus , and were devoted mainly to studying the principles of nature ;
- on the other hand, Italy, that is to say the Pythagoreans and Eleatics ( Parmenides , Zeno of Elea ), lived in what is called Great Greece , that is to say, the southern today's Italy and Sicily , and turned instead to the speculative metaphysics.
The Presocratics have in common, roughly, for some of these physical studies (Ionian schools), and another part metaphysical speculation on being and movement (Italian schools), these two aspirations are not mutually exclusive of each other - Pythagoras, for its part, combines the two traditions as born in Samos (Ionia), he will found cities and schools in Greater Greece (around Crotone ). Through the travels of some of them, especially in Athens, their thinking will spread throughout the Greek world, inspiring the first great philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) .
Innovations major theoretical
However, the Presocratics devoted mostly to the study of nature (physis in Greek), the fact that Aristotle designates by the name of former "physiologists" and they are sometimes called the former " physicists, "rather than" philosophers ". They were also generally versatile scholars, both Surveyors (still known in this regard the theorems of Thales and Pythagoras ), astronomers, and interested in the biological phenomena. Their main contribution is to seek to explain the origin and formation of the world, rather than by myths or fictions, but by rigorous concepts, that is to say by reason over imagination, inaugurating and the premises of natural science. This important phenomenon has been themed by some historians as the passage of the civilization of the mythos (the story) to logos (reason), that is to say, the myths of science - a phenomenon that continues until the fifth century BC. BC, which are born again science like philosophy ( Socrates ), history ( Herodotus ) and medicine ( Hippocrates ).
Most treaties Presocratics had published "On Nature" (Peri physeos) , which were other than cosmogonies , written mostly in verse - which shows that much still remained faithful to the poetic tradition . By fragments and quotations that have reached us, we know that in these treaties on the nature, the Ionians sought a principle (in Greek "arche") to explain the formation of the cosmos and the existence of life : for Thales , this will be water, for Anaximenes , air; for Heraclitus , fire; for Empedocles , this will be the four elements at once, combining them, for school atomism of Leucippus , it will be atoms and the void. The principle of organizing the world is so identified in the primary elements of matter (sometimes referred to this concept as " elementalism ). But others will find this principle other than the physical elements: thus, for Anaximander , the principle is infinite, for Pythagoras , the number, for Anaxagoras , mind.
In addition, the Ionian physics and atomism in its wake, reports of change and movement in nature by the opposition of certain attributes in this primordial substance, such as heat and cold, dry and moist, dense and rare, love and hate, like and the unlike, etc.. These conceptual oppositions open field for theoretical science that breaks with the mythological traditions - though the mythology is not entirely denied by these thinkers, but coexists with their research . We can see in the level of abstraction attained by the research of "physical", the origin of thoughts more "metaphysical" that led the Presocratics to the nature of being. In fact, Heraclitus goes on to say that it is mobility that characterizes the universe because all things are continuing to tip in their hand (mobile). Parmenides and the Eleatics argue instead that being is motionless, absolutely identical to itself, because they refuse the existence of non-being. As to the Pythagorean School , based on the idea that the cosmos obeys digital harmonies, she seeks to unravel the mysteries of nature through the study of numbers and will also be the cause of musicology.
Timeline of major Presocratics
Different schools
The Ionians
The Milesians
- Thales , who was one of the Seven Sages , saw in the water the principle of the world.
- Anaximander , who believed that the principle of the world was a apeiron , we can also speak as the Unlimited
- Anaximenes said that the principle of the world was the air.
Other Ionian
- Heraclitus of Ephesus (560-480 BC.) wanted to answer the question raised by Miletus Thales and Anaximander : what remains through the fate of men? Thales saw water as the principle of all things, Heraclitus rather saw the fire, which for him was the reason, the logos. Heraclitus sought to grasp the unity of conflicting tensions. We can consider it a cause of a thought dialectic.
The Eleatics
- Xenophanes , born in Ionia , is, according to Plato, the founder of the Eleatic school , school of philosophy in the south of Italy to present Elea , colony Phocaea in Ionia. Author of satirical elegies which already seems to break an ironic criticism of polytheism from the Homeric legacy.
- Parmenides is the philosopher of Being and the father of the ontology. He was a leading representative of the Eleatic school, and reached to 65 at Athens , where he met Socrates. He began to form the first concepts to the search for truth : truth perfect (being is), and confusing opinion (doxa, ie imperfect). Parmenides we are best known by Zeno of Elea , his disciple, as well as one of Plato's dialogues, which bears his name: Parmenides. Parmenides is the author of a poem of nature. According to Parmenides, Being is and nonbeing is not. This proposal may seem like a truism. It really is, as the foundation of his doctrine, carries a range of developments very important: it is the germ of the principle that something can not be what it is and at the same time its opposite. This principle is the basis of all logic and Aristotle, therefore, with all our Western logic, who founded the science today. With this conception of reality ontological Parmenides has paved the way for the philosophy of ideas. He provided the concept of method and contributed ideas fundamental to philosophy. His distinction between truth and opinion announces that Plato be established between science and conjecture.
- Zeno of Elea , a follower of Parmenides, was part of the Eleatic school. It is, according to Aristotle, the inventor of dialectic. See Zeno's Paradoxes.
The Pythagoreans
The atomic
- Democritus , born at Abdera in Thrace around 460 BC. BC, Parmenides borrows the concept of Being.
But it follows a new innovative way. Indeed, Democritus, Leucippus as his companion, split Eleatic being single in a myriad of particles, "ideas" or "atoms". Somehow, the atoms will leverage the UN in the emptiness of the world.
The Sophists
Political situation of the Presocratics
In the fifth century, the philosophical debate to be held in Athens. The political unit of ancient Greece is that of the city; unit tragic and bloody, because the cities did not cease to compete. However, although they came from different cities, the Presocratics were among the first to realize the unity of the Greek peoples, and they were often pan-Hellenists Criticism of "pre-Socratic" Michel Onfray in his course "Engineering Hedonism I - The archipelago pre-Christian" (2002/2003) at the Popular University of Caen challenges (questioning longstanding - see Nietzsche, and is widely adopted by the Hellenists) the concept of pre-Socratic, the term giving him too much according to Plato and the idealism in the history of philosophy, deliberately minimizing the importance of other philosophers and gathering under the same Naming trends of thought away. It follows a writing of history by Platonism itself victorious - victorious because in philosophical agreement with the perfect medieval scholastic all-powerful for centuries, which will handle the copying of ancient texts and the determination of "clericalism" correct. Thus, the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus are not a current of thought prior to Socrates or Plato, but are instead a contemporary alternative to the idealism of Plato, and are found much later in Epicurus and Lucretius. This materialist was strongly opposed by Christianity. Repr. in two volumes, by W. Kranz, Zrich, 1951, with t. III: Worindex, Namen-und Stellenregister, Zurich, 1952. (Chronologically) Notes and references
Notes
Fragments and Testimonials
Studies
See also
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