Series | History of Ancient Western Philosophy, Pt. 3
Early Greek Philosophy — From Parmenides to the Pluralists
Truth and Illusion
--
Hi again everyone.
This is Part 3 of the series. You can find more entries as they are added by clicking the link below.
In the previous installment, we covered several of the earliest Pre-Socratic philosophers of nature… or Physikoi, as Aristotle called them. We saw how each thinker was concerned with finding stability within the chaotic world they inhabited.
Some Physikoi searched for a stable, foundational principle — or archē — to undergird all that instability. Others— like Heraclitus — embraced the idea of change.
Here we’ll be continuing that theme by looking at two more groups of thinkers: 1) the Eleatic monists, Parmenides and Zeno and 2) the pluralist philosophers who responded to them.
Parmenides and Being
If I’m being honest, Parmenides (born around 515 BCE) is one thinker I’d prefer NOT to focus on… not because I think his ideas aren’t worthwhile, but because it’s hard for me to say anything definitive — or perhaps even coherent — about his philosophy.
One reason for this is that very little of his metaphysical poem known as “On Nature” has survived. We have nearly 160 fragmented lines of what is believed to be a total of over 800 in the original.
But, also… what HAS survived is just REALLY hard to interpret.
The poem is styled as a retelling of a dream Parmenides had about visiting a goddess in the Halls of Night and how he learned from her the way of truth and how to distinguish it from the way of popular opinion — or, doxa in Greek.
It’s rife with paradoxes and contradictions that are clearly intended to point toward deeper truths, but most of those conclusions seem to have gone missing.
Parmenides believed that the phenomenal world — the one which we experience — is really just an illusion.
For him, ultimate reality, or “Being,” was an unchanging and undivided Oneness.
Here’s how he put it:
Come now, I will tell thee — and do thou hearken to my saying and carry it away — the only two ways of search that can be thought of. The first, namely, that It is, and that it is impossible for it not to be, is the way of belief, for truth is its companion. The other, namely, that It is not, and that it must needs not be, — that, I tell thee, is a path that none can learn of at all. For thou canst not know what is not — that is impossible — nor utter it. . .
for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be. —DK28 B2-3
In other words, Parmenides is arguing from the premise that nothingness can’t exist — since it isn’t a “thing” at all — toward the conclusion that there’s no such thing as void. And, if there is no void… then the empty space we perceive between objects is likewise just an illusion.
That’s why he’s traditionally associated with the dictum “All is Being.”
It’s not clear whether he intended this as an affirmation of Ontic Monsim — the idea that all concrete existence really is a singular entity, or as an Ontological Principle — i.e. as a condition for the possibility of existence.
After all, for anything to exist, it must be possible for something to exist… or, as later philosophers would put it, nothing ever came from nothing.
Honestly, nobody REALLY knows what to make of all this, but scholars have provided a few interpretive strategies:
- Strict monism — This reading of Parmenides puts emphasis on the metaphysical distinction between true Being and mere appearance.
- Two-world views — This interpretation places an emphasis on the epistemological difference between a priori (before experience) and a posteriori (resulting from experience) types of knowledge.
- Essentialism —This take puts emphasis on the predicative (rather than existential) sense of Greek “to be.”
Bertrand Russell saw Parmenides’ philosophy as kind of a pagan precursor to the Christian ontological argument — i.e. if something can be thought, then it must exist, since it’s impossible to think of some non-existent thing.
Probably, though, Parmenides means something more like this: for anything to exist at all, there have to be some truths that exist eternally (like the truth that something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time).
I guess the best thing I can say about Parmenides is that he — like some other famous philosophers throughout history — completely changed the game for thinkers who would come later.
Besides the negation of empty space, several other philosophical consequences follow from Parmenides’ “all is Being” thesis. It renders impossible notions like change, generation, and destruction. After all, for something to cease to exist — say, as in death — it would mean that it both existed and didn’t exist.
These are philosophical problems which generations of philosophers — beyond those covered in this post — would desperately seek to solve.
Even Plato acknowledged that he needed to be careful in crafting his philosophy, lest he run afoul of the great Parmenides.
Zeno and the Paradoxes of Motion & Plurality
Zeno (c.495–430BCE) was a follower of Parmenides, who’s perhaps now more famous than his teacher.
In a way, Zeno has become the poster child for Pre-Socratic philosophy — as almost everyone has head of at least ONE of the paradoxes he devised to support the strict monism of Parmenides.
In fact, Zeno’s paradoxes were already notorious by the time of the Roman philosopher Seneca (d. 65 CE), who once wrote:
“If I accede to Parmenides there is nothing left but the One; if I accede to Zeno, not even the One is left.”
However, some experts claim Zeno’s paradoxes are really just early examples of Platonic dialectic and the Socratic reductio ad absurdum, since they start from common beliefs and end in absurdities.
We know that Plato spent some time around Elea a few decades after Parmenides and Zeno had died, so it’s plausible he picked up some insights during his visit.
Zeno offered 2 main sets of paradoxes, one devoted to undermining the plurality of objects and the other attacking the concept of motion.
The Paradoxes of Plurality
- The Argument from Denseness
- The Argument from Finite Size
- The Argument from Complete Divisibility
I’ll just say something about this last one.
It claims that if you continue dividing an object into smaller and smaller pieces, you are bound to end up with one of three possibilities: 1) you eventually get to pieces so small that they are nothing, 2) the tiny pieces are really something, but they have no size and can’t be divided, or 3) the tiny pieces are something, and they have size.
But, if the tiny pieces are nothing, how can nothing be added to nothing to make something? If the pieces have no size, then how can things with no size be added to make larger objects? If they have size, then how is it they cannot be divided further?
All 3 options seem to land us in absurdity.
The Paradoxes of Motion
- The Dichotomy
- Achilles and the Tortoise
- The Arrow
- The Stadium
The paradoxes of motion are likewise intended to show how absurd the common views about movement all were.
Rather than spend time recounting each one, you can just check out this TedEd video, which illustrates the Dichotomy Paradox beautifully.
Pluralist Reactions to Parmenides & Zeno
Ironically enough, the successors of Parmenides and Zeno have become known as “the Pluralists.”
Although “pluralism” is a philosophical term used in various ways — including in political philosophy and theories of truth — these thinkers were pluralists in the metaphysical sense.
This broadly defined group included the likes of Empedocles and Anaxagoras as well as the atomists, Leucippus and Democritus.
They all seem to have been reacting to the five central Parmenidean doctrines:
(1) There is only One.
(2) There is no motion.
(3) There is no generation or destruction.
(4) There is no qualitative change or differentiation between objects.
(5) There is no void.
As the “pluralist” classification indicates, each of these figures responded to Parmenides by rejecting the extreme monism of (1). They likewise all rejected (2): as each endorsed some sort of motion.
BUT, they all accepted (3) by agreeing the cosmos was infinite.
Where the pluralists differ among themselves is over (4) and (5): the reality of qualitative differences and the existence of the void.
Democritus and Leucippus disagreed with Parmenides and Zeno and posited BOTH change/differentiation AND the existence of a void. Anaxagoras and Empedocles each broke ranks — in his own way — with Parmenides over (4), but toed the line on (5).
Let’s take a closer look at how…
Anaxagoras (c. 500–428 BCE)
Like many of the Pre-Socratic philosophers we’ve already considered, Anaxagoras hailed from a Greek city-state on the coast of Asia minor.
But, unlike the rest, he actually spent much of his life in Athens.
Some accounts claim he arrived as part of a Persian envoy some time after the invasion of 480, hit it off with the Athenian leader Pericles, and ended up staying for several decades… until he was tried for impiety and banished around 437/6.
This may be one reason Anaxagoras is referenced in Plato’s Phaedo — the dialogue in which Socrates is executed on charges of impiety.
That such a charge was leveled against Anaxagoras isn’t all that surprising when one considers the finer points of his philosophy. Like Parmenides, he thought the universe was eternal, but also embraced the notion of change.
The way he reconciled the two was definitely a break with traditional Greek religious views.
He posited the existence of two eternal entities — the mass of substance out of which everything is made and the cosmic mind that initiated the process of turning that mass into the things of the world.
And when I say turning… I really mean TURNING!
He claimed that at the beginning of this process the cosmic Mind set the infinite mass into a swirling vortex that allowed for infinitesimal “seeds” of things to spin together and accumulate into the objects of the world.
Mind controls the spinning of the vortex, as it churns out more and more objects.
In this way, Anaxagoras argued that everything is made of the same “seeds” — but that differentiations between animal, mineral, and vegetable result from the ratio of the kinds of seeds present in the object.
Thus, his famous dictum:
“In everything there is a portion of everything except Nous [Mind], and there are some things in which there is Nous also.” —DK 59 B12
He means this quite literally — as he points out that bread must have some portion of hair in it and cheese must have some portion of bone in it, because when we eat them our hair and bones grow strong.
So, contra Parmenides and Zeno, Anaxagoras was perfectly comfortable with the idea that things could go on being divided into infinity, because each smaller division will contain the seeds of everything else.
Despite how far-fetched all of this sounds today, Anaxagoras could at least be credited with starting a conversation about continuity and infinitesimals that would motivate philosophers for centuries to come.
Empedocles (c. 494–434 BCE)
Empedocles is another interesting case… as his biography is made up of more legend than history. It’s said he claimed to be a god and had a reputation for performing miracles.
Some accounts say he even jumped into an active volcano in order to prove his divinity!
Since he came from a city-state in present-day Sicily, it’s thought that he must have been influenced by Pythagoreanism.
Like many Pythagoreans, he argued for reincarnation and was a practicing vegetarian.
He was first posit the theory of the four elements— earth, air, water, and fire — which he claimed comprised EVERY existing thing, in varying ratios.
These combinations were under the control of two primordial daimones (spirits) — Love and Strife — which initiated the cosmic cycle. Love (Eros) attracts the elements together and Strife (Eris) tears them asunder again — in an infinite process of cosmic shuffling and reshuffling. That’s how he explained change, motion, and differentiation WITHOUT needing a concept of the void.
As Aryeh Finkelberg has argued, Empedocles’ physical doctrine can be viewed as “the final stage of a development which can be traced through Parmenides’ doxa back to Xenophanes’ ‘physics.’”
For Empedocles, however, human life itself is only a part of this cosmogonical dance caused by Love and Strife, one in which a miserable cycle of metempsychosis is set off due to “false speech.”
Like Homer and Hesiod, Empedocles invokes the Muse, but his invocation calls for something different — viz. to have Logos (Reason) placed in his visceral organs. He sought “purification” through asceticism and the ultimate release from reincarnation in the combination of poetry with argumentation… through which, “one may become a prophet, singer, doctor, or leader, and eventually a god (fragment B146).”
Also, for what it’s worth, you may not be surprised to hear that some accounts tell of Empedocles traveling east, beyond Persia — to the land of the “Magi” — as his philosophy resonates with several ideas from the traditions of Asia.
Leucippus (early 5th century) & Democritus (c. 460–370 BCE)
After hearing about some of these more outlandish Pre-Socratic ideas, it’s probably good we’re ending with the ancient atomists. Theirs is a philosophy that ended up getting a few things (mostly) right.
They’re called “atomists” because they believed the universe was comprised of an infinite number of indivisible particles (atoma means “uncuttable” in Greek), in various sizes and shapes, moving through an infinite void.
Traditional accounts of the atomists have always lumped them together in a student-teacher relationship. Whether this is true or not is hard to say… since classical historians said this about almost all thinkers who hailed from the same place, or shared similar opinions.
Peter Adamson has described how this has affected their place in the history of philosophy…
As far as their philosophy goes, it’s not easy to say where Leucippus stops and Democritus starts. In the ancient sources many of the atomist doctrines are just ascribed indiscriminately to both of them. — p. 52
Like Anaxagoras, these atomists thought the cosmic process involved a spinning vortex — in which heavier atoms clumped together near the center, comprising the earth, while lighter ones shifted toward the outside, making up the heavens.
But, it should be noted that any resemblance to protons, neutrons, and electrons — or to the spinning of the Milky Way galaxy — in this account is strictly accidental. Since the particles we call atoms CAN be split, they wouldn’t actually qualify for what Leucippus and Democritus had in mind.
One contemporary scientific idea the atomists DO appear to have anticipated, however, is the many worlds hypothesis.
Since they asserted that both atoms and the void were infinite, they needed a way to explain how a finite cosmos — even one as expansive as ours — could be made up of an infinite amount of ANYTHING… so they posited the existence of infinite parallel worlds, in which all the possible combinations of atoms get played out.
So, although the atomists disagreed with Parmenides about the Oneness of the cosmos, they ended up with a very similar view when it came to human understanding — i.e. that all perception is just an illusion that masks a deeper, unseen cosmic truth.
Or as Democritus wrote:
“by convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.” — DK 68B9
Okay everyone, that’s it for now. In Part 4, we’ll turn our attention towards Socrates and Plato.
See you there!
