History of Western Philosophy

Bertrand Russell

Part I The Pre-Socratics

1. The Rise of Greek Civilization
There were two big civilizations before Greece: Egypt and Mesopotamia: o Agriculture was easy due to the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates; o Polytheism with superior God, to whom the divine King held a special relationship; o There was a military and a priestly aristocracy, the latter being able to encroach on political power if they thought the king was not abiding with custom; o Cultivators were serfs owned by the aristocracy. Egypt: o Writing was invented there in 4000 B.C (and not much later in Mesopotamia); o Religion focused upon death: judgment by Osiris in the underworld according to the deeds made during lifetime; o Soul returns to the body (hence the mummies and the pyramids); o 1800 B.C. they were conquered by Semites named Hyksos. Babylonia: o Religion focused upon prosperity in this world; o Magic, divination, astrology (24 hours, 360 degrees, prediction of eclipses). Both religions were based in fertility cults; Political motives would transform religion, praying for both fertility and victory in war: A rich priestly caste elaborated the ritual and the theology, and fitted together into a pantheon the several divinities of the component parts of the empire, p. 68 (And this already sounds like St. Augustine); From religion would also derive morality the oldest known legal code is that of the Hammurabi, king of Babylon (2067-2025 B.C.), delivered to him by Marduk, the Babylonian God; From 2500 1400 B.C. there was the Minoan Civilization in the island of Crete, engaged in commerce of weapons with Egypt: o Most indubitable goddess was the Mistress of Animals from which the classical Artemis was probably derived; o Belief in Egyptian after life; o As they were protected by sea, they did not have any military culture; o Much more cheerful and not as superstitious as the Egyptians.

1600 B.C. The Minoan Civilization spreads to the Greek Mainland and gives rise to the Mycenaean Civilization (1600 900 B.C.) They were more based upon war; Greek conquerors came in three waves: o Ionians Adopted the Minoan Civilization o Acheans Weakened it; o Dorians Retained their Indo-European religion Greeces classical religion would be a mixture of the two. The mainland of Greece is mountainous and infertile when the population grew, the only option was to make colonies Asia Minor, Sicily, Italy General development from monarchy to aristocracy to an alternation between tyranny and democracy: o Monarchy Kings were not absolute advised by a Council of Elders, they could not transgress custom; o Tyranny Rule of a man whose claim to power was not hereditary; o Democracy Government by all the citizens. The first product of the Hellenic Civilization was Homer: o Widely held opinion that he was a series of poets (either between 750-550 B.C. or before the 8th Century B.C.); o His poems achieved fixed form during the 6th Century B.C.; o Brought to Athens by Peisistratus (560-527 B.C.) o The Homeric poems, like the courtly romances of the later Middle Ages, represent the view of a civilized aristocracy, which ignores as plebeian various superstitions that are still rampant among the populace p. 84 o Such genuine religious feeling as is to be found in Homer is less concerned with the gods of the Olympus than with more shadowy beings such as Fate or Necessity or Destiny, to whom even Zeus is subject. Fate exercised a great influence on all Greek thought, and perhaps was one of the sources from which science derived the belief in natural law p. 88 o Homer shows that the Olympian Gods were indeed aristocratic conquerors. In the middle of the 6th Century the Persian Empire was established by Cyrus, and the Ionian Greek cities were conquered, starting a big rivalry between Persia and Greece. This led to the philosophers being refugees, wandering between cities and spreading civilization; The religion in ancient times was not towards the Olympians, but to Bacchus: o Thracian God of fertility; o With the discovery of beer and wine, he became more and more associated with intoxication His functions in promoting fertility in general became somewhat subordinate to his functions in relation to the grape and the divine madness produced by wine, p. 97 o His cult had barbaric elements tearing wild animals and eating them raw and feminist elements dances stimulating to ecstasy, in which women were mystically intoxicated.

o In Greece it served to react against the restraints of civilization The worshipper of Dionysius reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed, he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of everyday preoccupations; o Ritual based on enthusiasm God enters into the worshipper, and he becomes one with God. Bacchus influenced the Greek civilization mainly through Orpheus and the Orphics, a movement that came from Crete: o Transmigration of souls; o The soul achieves eternal bliss or torment according to life on earth; o They aim at becoming pure; o Man is partly of Earth, partly of Heaven, and the end is to become one with Bacchus. Through a pure life, we are more heavenly and less earthly; o Dionysius is the son of Zeus and Persephone, and he was torn by the Titans, everything but the heart being eaten this led to Dionysiuss second birth. According to the ritual, the tearing of an animal and eating its raw flesh re-enacts this process. Hence, There were, in fact, two tendencies in Greece, one passionate, religious, mystical, otherworldly, the other cheerful, empirical, rationalistic, and interested in acquiring knowledge of a diversity of facts, p. 118. The Bacchean tendency is the one that will influence Pythagoras, Plato, and Christian theology. The theories of the Milesian school must be interpreted as scientific, and not philosophical hypotheses. Philosophy and science begin with Thales, native of Miletus, Asia Minor: o Predicted eclipse in 585 B.C.; o Water is the original substance. Anaximander: o Born about 610 B.C,; o All things come from a single primal substance infinite, eternal, ageless, it encompasses all the worlds o Into that from which things take their rise they pass away once more, as is ordained, for they make reparation and satisfaction to one another for their injustice to the ordering of time. Justice is balance several elements continually walk towards equilibrium without ever reaching it. o The gods were subject to justice just as much as men were, but this supreme power was not itself personal, and was not a supreme God Hence it is not surprising that the first liberal institutions were born in Greece. o There was an eternal motion, in the course of which was brought about the origin of the worlds. The worlds were not created, as in Jewish or Christian theology, but evolved.

2. The Milesian School

Anaximenes: o Flourished in 492 B.C. o The fundamental substance is air, and the others depend on the quantity of condensation thereof. Flourished at about 532 B.C. He was native of Samos (near Asia Minor), but later established himself at Croton and finally at Mentapontum, both in Southern Italy. Founded a religion based in the transmigration of souls and very strange dogmas eating beans is a sin. He represented a movement of reform in Orphism only the unseen unity of God is valuable, while what is visible is false. There were, for him, three sorts of people: o Low Merchants; o Middle Those who compete (athletes); o High Those who simply look on and practice disinterested science Theory meant Passionate sympathetic contemplation, which lead to the prestige of mathematics All things are numbers. From Pythagoras this tradition passed on to Euclid, down to Descartes and the other rationalists (see p. 164). The fact that they discovered mathematics and the art of deductive reasoning led thus to the supremacy of the rationalist deductive method and to the inevitable disbelief in the crucial method of induction. Between Pythagoras and Heraclitus there was on important philosopher: Xenophanes: o He was Ionian and lived in southern Italy; o He believed all things are to be made of earth and water; o He was extremely skeptical towards gods: The gods did not reveal, from the beginning,/All things to us, but in the course of time/Through seeking we may learn and know things better./But as for certain truth, no man has known it,/Nor shall he know it, neither of the gods/Nor yet of all the things of which I speak./For even if by chance he were to utter/The final truth, he would himself not know it:/For all is but a woven web of guesses. This was of a rationalism diametrically opposed to Pythagoras. Heraclitus flourished about 500 B.C., and he was an aristocrat of Ephesus; He was part of the mystical tradition; Fire is the fundamental substance; Everything is born by the death of something else: Mortals are immortals, and immortals are mortals, the one living the others dead and in dying the others life There is unity in the world through the combination of opposites; He was anti-democratic and speaks ill of Homer; Because he thought all men were bad, he believed only force would compel them to act for their own good;

3. Pythagoras

4. Heraclitus

War is the father of all and the king of all Heraclitus values power obtained through self-mastery, and despises the passions that distract men from the central ambitions FIND PAGE This world (...) was ever, is now, and every shall be our ever-living fire, with measures kindling and measures going out The doctrine of perpetual flux; It is the opposite which is good for us The strife of opposites can never issue in the complete victory of either (Note: Even in this conception there is something permanent, namely progress itself and its immanent goal) Native of Elea, south of Italy (traditionally inclined towards mysticism), flourished in the first half of the 5th Century B.C. The senses are deceptive; The only true being is the One (nous), infinite and indivisible; There are no opposites: Cold = Not Hot; He divides his philosophy in two parts: the way of truth and the way of opinion. As regards the way of truth: o Thou canst not know what is not (...). How, then, can what is be going to be in the future? Or how could it come into being? If it came into being, it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future. Thus is becoming extinguished and passing away not to be heard of. o Bertrand Russell says: The essence of the argument is this: When you think, you think of something. Therefore, both thought and language require objects outside themselves. And since you can think of a thing or speak of it at one time as well as at another, whatever can be thought of or spoken of must exist at all times. Consequently there can be no change, since chance consists in things coming to being or ceasing to be. o He makes thus two fallacies: Presupposes words have a constant meaning at all times; Whatever the name [George Washington] suggests to us, it must be not the man himself, but something now present to sense or memory or thought. What remained of Parmenides was the concept of substance and its indestructibility. Citizen of Acragas, south coast of Sicily, flourished around 440 B.C.; Democratic politician; In science: o Air is a separate substance; o One example of centrifugal force; o There is sex in plants; o Theory of evolution and survival of the fittest; o Moon shines by reflected light, and this is also true of the sun; o Light takes very little time to travel;

5. Parmenides

6. Empedocles

o Solar eclipses are caused by the interpolation of the moon; o Founder of the Italian school of medicine. In philosophy: o Earth, air, fire and water are the four everlasting elements; o Different proportions form complex substances; o The substances are combined by Love and separated by Strife, the other two primitive substances; o Changes are governed by Chance and Necessity; o Loves combination is complete, Strife sorts them out. When the separation is complete, Love reunites All compound substances are temporary; o World is a sphere: In the Golden Age, Love is all in, and afterwards Strife starts making its way cycle. In religion: o Mainly Pythagorean; o Refers to himself as a God; o Caves Allegory is anticipated by him. Rejected monism and teleology. The greatness of Athens begins at the time of the two Persian wars 490 B.C. and 480-79 B.C. Athens was victorious against Darius in the first war and Xerxes in the second. This gave them great prestige. Ionias liberation was effected by Athens predominant partner against Persia. According to this alliance, any constituent State was bound to contribute either a specified number of ships, or the cost of them. The latter was more frequent, and thus Athens built the ships, became a maritime superior to the other cities, and vastly increased its wealth. This was the start of the Athenian Empire, which attained its Golden Age with Pericles (460 B.C. 430 B.C.), elected by the free choice of the citizens. The Age of Pericles: o Aeschylus inaugurated Greek tragedy; o Pericles was devoted to the reconstruction of the temples in the Acropolis destroyed by Xerxes. Hence, he built the Parthenon, he commission Phisias sculptures of divinities, etc. o Herodotus, the father of History, was encouraged by the Athenian State; o Before Pericles, the only notable Athenian had been Solon Athens lagged behind Magna Graecia; o Socrates was of this period; o Deductive reasoning had been just discovered; Before Pericles; o Attica was agricultural, and Athens its capital, full of artisans and skilled artificers. o They discovered vines and olives was more profitable, but it needed more capital farmers got indebted.

7. Athens in Relation to Culture

o Aristocracy oppressed the farmers and artisans; o There was, in the 6th Century, a compromise towards democracy with Solon; o Tyranny followed with Peisistratus; o With Pericles, the rule of the aristocracy resembled 19th Century England. However, the aristocracy began demanding more power, and Athens imperialistic policy caused frictions with Sparta, which led to the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). Athens was utterly defeated. o However, Platos academy was only closed by Justinian in A.D. 529.

8. Anaxagoras
Native Ionian, he was born in 500 B.C., and he was in Athens in 462-432 B.C. he was the first to bring them philosophy. He was of the scientific and rationalist tradition. Pericles induced him to go to Athens. With the higher level of culture, opponents got aroused, and Anaxagoras was prosecuted, being accused of teaching that the sun was a red-hot stone and the moon was made of earth (this same accusation was made to Socrates, who made fun of the prosecutors by saying they were out of date); Doctrine: o Everything is infinitely divisible; o Things appear to be that of which contains the most; o Mind is infinite, self-ruled and is mixed with nothing. It separately enters into living beings. o Everything contains opposites. o Mind is source of all motion, causes a rotation whereby light things get into the circumference, and heavy things are drawn to the centre. o Mind is just as good in animals as in man, the latter having apparent superiority due to bodily differences. o He discovered the correct theory of eclipses the moon is below the sun. o He thought the sun and stars are fiery stones. Founders: Leucippus and Democritus. Leucippus was born in Miletus and flourished around 440 B.C. Parmenides and Zeno influenced him. Democritus was born in Abdera, Thrace, and flourished around 420 B.C. He was a contemporary of Socrates and the Sophists, but it is hard to disentangle him from Leucippus. He made several journeys to Egypt. Everything is composed of physically (not geometrically) indivisible atoms. Between them there is empty space. They are indestructible. They are eternally in motion, moving at random. There are infinite number and kinds of atoms

9. Atomists

With collisions, atoms formed vortices this is a mechanical and not spiritual explanation, as in Anaxagoras. Everything happens in accordance to natural laws they were strict determinists. They did not account for the initial movement, for it too must have had another cause, which is endlessly unascertainable. They provided the answer to the mechanistic question: What earlier circumstances caused this event? The successors provided the teleological explanation: What purpose did this event serve? Both of them are only applicable within reality, not reality as a whole. They tried to harmonize the facts of motion and change with Parmenides: The void is a not-being, and no part of what is is a not-being; for what is in the strict sense of the term is an absolute plenum. This plenum, however, is not one; on the contrary, it is a many infinite in number and invisible owing to the minuteness of their bulk. The many move in the void (for there is a void): and by coming together they produce coming-to-be, while by separating they produce passing-away. Moreover, they act and suffer action whenever they chance to be in contact (for there they are not one), and they generate by being put together and become intertwined. From the genuinely one, on the other hand, there could never have come to be a multiplicity, nor from the genuinely many a one: that is impossible Subsequent history: o Aristotle: Void is place bereft of body space is the receptacle of matter; o Newton: There is absolute space, and a difference between absolute and relative motion; o Descartes: Extension (property of occupying space) is the essence of matter, there is not extension (adjective) without matter (substantive), hence there is matter everywhere, for there is nothing that can be without matter; o Leibniz Space is a system of relations; o Modern physicist Matter is not unchanging substance, but merely a way of grouping events. Everything is in flux, space is a system of relation, and, since Einstein, distance is between events, and implies time as well as space (causal conception). As regards Democritus: o Warmth, taste, and colour are in the object (like Locke); o Thought is a kind of motion o First materialist: Soul was composed of atoms; Thought is a physical process; There is no purpose in the Universe, only atoms governed by mechanical laws. o Utilitarian (like Bentham) Cheerfulness is the goal of life. Chief of the Sophists (meaning professor) Men who made their living by teaching you men useful things; Flourished in the latter half of the 5th Century;

10. Protagoras

Skeptical movement; Athenian democracy: o Judges and executive offices were chose by lot and served for short periods, o Plaintiff and defendant appeared in person, Sophists taught them lawyer skills; o Associated with cultural conservatism. Protagoras was born in 500 B.C. at Abdera. He made a code of laws for the city of Thurii in 444-3 B.C. Man is the measure of all things, of things that are that they are, and of things that are not that they are not Each man is the measure of all things, and when men differ, there is not objective truth. The majority are hence the arbiters he was led to the defense of law, convention, and traditional morality. Gorgias: Nothing exists, and if it does, it is unknowable. At the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans established in Athens an oligarchical government, known as the Thirty Tyrants. Socrates was the teacher of their leader, Critias.