Today we turn our minds to the origins of Western philosophy and science. Yes, how did they start ? Mainly with a group of about ten thinkers called the Pre-Socratics. Read on below ….
Of course, other cultures pursued science, philosophy, mathematics, engineering – Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, South America – but here we are looking at the origins of Western philosophy and science.
Early Greek philosophy and science – the Pre-Socratics
It’s not clear why, but about 600BC, the Greeks started to develop a new type of thinking based in reason, principles and observation, as opposed to the earlier mythical thinking. Aristotle called the new thinkers ‘physiologoi’, as opposed to ‘mythologoi’. We of course recognise this as the beginning of Western philosophy and science, though it took a long time to develop all the tools were are familiar with, such as how to do logic, analysis and evidence.
The collective name given to the early Greek philosophers is The Pre-Socratics – they lived in the 500s and 400s BC and came before Socrates (469-399 BC).
Note: ‘Ancient philosophy’ encompassed both philosophy and science. Someone like Aristotle was definitely both a philosopher and scientist in the modern sense. They gradually separated over time, but it’s difficult to say when they definitely become two separate disciplines: even in the modern era, physics was called ‘natural philosophy’.
Did you know ?: The word ‘philosophy’ is Greek (philosophia) for ‘love of wisdom’; and the word ‘science’ is Latin (scientia) for ‘knowledge’.
What did the pre-Socratics do ?
They were pioneers in starting to think in a philosophical and scientific way. While their ideas are v basic and sometimes mistaken, they did start creating the building blocks of modern philosophy and science.
They had a conviction that there was an order (logos) in the world (kosmos), so that it could be understood rationally. Even this basic vision was very revolutionary – as opposed to some mythical thinking that the world was mysterious and ruled by unknown forces (though Greek myth did have the idea that the world was orderly and had come out of chaos).
The pre-Socratics were mainly interested in the physical make-up of the world: matter, different types of things, what things were made of, how they changed and how the world began. These are clearly questions of geography and science as much as of philosophy.
The main questions the pre-Socratics asked were:
what is everything made of ?
how did the world begin ?
how do things change ?
what keeps everything in balance ?
They were trying to account for many features of the world, which was v difficult without modern science:
why do things have colour ?
why do things change in form and texture ?
what are things made of ?
why are things different from each other ?
where does life and energy come from ?
where does everything come from ?
why is everything the way it is ?
Clearly modern science has answered most/all of these questions but the pre-Socratics were just starting out. Their main contribution was to start hypothesizing and to develop concepts which helped people to think and explore.
Did you know ?: The main reason that ancient Greek science and medicine only developed to a certain point is that they relied mainly on theory: they did not do enough experimentation and observation.
(Eminent exceptions were Aristotle in biology and Galen in medicine.) Our knowledge starting advancing significantly in the 1600s-1700s with thorough experimenting and observing.
Who were the Pre-Socratics ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy
There were about ten major thinkers.
Initially, there were two main schools:
The Milesians (on island of Miletus off Asia Minor, western Turkey) in late 500s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milesian_school They were mainly geographers and astronomers and interested in the ultimate substance (arche) that everything is made of or based in.
Thales – who believed:
water was the ‘arche’.
also did geometry, astronomy. Reportedly predicted an eclipse correctly.
Anaximander – who believed:
the ‘arche’ was not a thing but ‘the infinite’
the universe is mechanical
there may be other worlds
humans evolved from sea creatures. Comment: obviously amazingly advanced ideas !
He predicted an earthquake
Anaximenes - who believed:
air was the ‘arche’.
matter changed with expansion and condensation.
There was then a big leap forward with:
Heraclitus – who believed:
everything was in a constant state of flux and change (though this might be fast or slow)
but it was not chaos, but there was an ultimate balance (justice) and a tension between opposites (hot-cold, heavy-light, wet-dry)
The Eleatics (city of Elea, south Italy) in early 400s – more mystical and spiritual. They were v influenced by the religion Orphism (connected with Orpheus the musician) which believed the soul was trapped in the body and could escape after several reincarnations if it became enlightened (like Buddhism). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleatics
Parmenides – who believed:
everything was one (actually one great enormous sphere) and unchanging
change and variety was an illusion
Pythagoras – who believed:
numbers and mathematics held the key to the meaning of everything
numbers had mystical qualities
He or one of his pupils discovered the famous triangle theorem: the square of the long side of a triangle is equal to the squares of the other two sides.
in reincarnation (like the Orphics)
This led to a third, wider group – the Pluralists – who believed things were made of a range of elements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralist_school
Empedocles – who believed:
everything was ultimately made of earth, air, fire and water (the four elements)
the different ratios of the elements gave each thing its distinctive character
Comment: this was clearly a first step towards the elements in chemistry
Anaxagoras – who believed:
everything was comprised of a mix of different types of material
Comment: a further step towards the modern elements
Democritus, Leucippus – who believed:
everything was comprised of tiny indivisible things, which they called ‘atomoi’ (meaning ‘cannot be divided, cut’)
Comment: this was a theory of atoms, and clearly they were right, though it was only a hypothesis.
Their idea proved influential in the long run. It was recorded in a scientific poem by the Roman Lucretius (1st cent BC), which was lost then re-discovered in the 1400s.
This re-introduced the idea into scientific circles. You can read about this in the book The Swerve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swerve
So you can see that the Pre-Socratics came up with a range of fundamental ideas. Some were v accurate, others not, but they all helped people to think clearly about basic concepts:
change and stability
one and many
sameness and variety
origins and ongoing development
the infinite
Although some of their ideas are v quaint and simple to us moderns, it’s clear once you read up on them that they were v learned and intelligent people with great ideas and some impressive knowledge (eg in geometry, astronomy).
What Happened To Greek Philosophy After That ?
The pre-Socratics had laid the foundation, and philosophy marched on ….
into the Classical phase (400-300BC): dominated by the three giants Socrates, Plato, Aristotle – really the Big Three of classical philosophy, in the same way that Bach-Mozart-Beethoven are major founders-influencers in classical music and the Beatles-Dylan-Rolling Stones are in rock music. Between them, they really mapped out most of the main questions and proposed many of the answers. Someone said ‘All of Western philosophy is footnotes to Plato’.
Then the Hellenistic phase: 300-100BC
when various schools emerged, notably the Stoics, Epicureans. Also, the Cynics.
science also developed, with the engineer-inventor Archimedes (the lever, the screw, ‘Eureka’) and the astronomer Eratosthenes who correctly estimated the diameter of the world.
Then the Roman phase: 100BC-300AD, with Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius. Also, Galen in medicine.
And then a late Neo-Platonic phase, which revived and developed Plato’s thinking: Proclus, Porphyry.
What Happened to Classical Philosophy after the Classical Era ?
The influence of classical philosophy continued on into the mediaeval and modern eras:
Aristotle became dominant, because although Greek was forgotten in the West, there were Latin translations of Aristotle. He was known as ‘The Philosopher’. Amazingly, Plato was forgotten for a thousand years in the West.
Mediaeval thinking was dominated by theology. They saw Greek philosophy as basically correct (in the same way that we think of science) and often sought to integrate Christian theology with Greek philosophy.
This is very much what Thomas Aquinas, the greatest mediaeval theologian, sought to do. His great work (magnum opus) is Summa Theologica (a ‘summing-up’ of theology, which actually runs to several volumes).
Boethius wrote a meditation called The Consolation of Philosophy.
However, there was a fair amount of philosophy and science, more than we tend to think, as this book highlights: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science/dp/1848311508
The Renaissance (re-birth) was v much a re-discovery of Greek and Roman culture, so philosophy came to the fore again. This painting ’The School of Athens’ by Raphael shows lots of eminent Greek philosophers debating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens Plato and Aristotle are in the middle, as nos 14 and 15 in the Wiki guide.
When the Enlightenment began, and rationality and modern science started to advance in earnest, there would be much reference in particular to Aristotle, Euclid (logic) and other thinkers. Many philosophers and scientists actually wrote in Latin, which functioned as an international language of learning (eg Descartes’ ‘Cogito ergo sum’ (I think therefore I am); and Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (First Mathematical Principles). However, as scientific discovery advanced, with better evidence and experimentation, modern science moved ahead of ancient science; and gradually left it behind.
Now, in the modern era, although both philosophy and science have moved on, we still look back, mainly to the Greeks but also the Romans, as the founders of Western thinking in this area. They are still important reference points in most philosophical discussions.
Thought for You
Which of these ideas or thinkers do you find most appealing or insightful ? Why do you like them ?
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