Lecture 4

HSS 102
Jan. 13, 2017

The Birth of Naturalism in Greece

(The Pre-Socratics) and India (the
Lokayata)
Something new emerges in Greece and India almost simultaneously:

An attempt to explain nature from within, using natural causes alone, not invoking
any gods or spiritual principles. Rise of naturalism is seen as the beginning of
science.

The Greek naturalist philosophers are called the Pre-Socratics, that is, they came
before Socrates (b.469-d.399 BCE) , who is considered one of the most important
thinker of classical Greek civilization. As most of them came from the island of
Miletus in the Ionian region of Greece (now a part of Turkey), they are sometimes
also referred to as the Ionians.

The Indian philosophy of naturalism or materialism is called Lokayata.

What do we mean by naturalism?

a. The recognition that the natural world is distinct from the spiritual or
supernatural world; that the natural phenomena are not the products of
random or arbitrary influences of supernatural/spiritual forces, but are
determined by regular sequences of causes and effects.
b. The causes and ultimate source of things in this world are material, i.e., made
up of some kind of substance.
c. These causes and effects occurring in nature can be understood by the
human mind.

With this understanding of nature, the ancient naturalists asked the following
kind of questions:

What is nature?
What are things made of?
What is the original, unchanging substance which underlies the variety of the
natural world? Behind the plurality, there is a unity.
What causes change by which things come into existence, grow and die?

These questions had been asked before. But the Ionian philosophers came up
with NEW answers which left the gods out.
 Greek civilization, as all other civilizations, had a rich mythology in which
forces of nature had been treated as divine . For example, in the early Greek myths
of Homer, the sun was worshipped as Apollo, the earth was the mother goddess
called Gaia, Poseidon was the god of the sea and could bring about storms and
earthquakes, Zeus was the father of all gods and could bring about lighting and
thunder etc. (Zeus resembles our own god Indra.)

They did not personify nature and Homers gods disappeared from their
explanations of natural phenomena. That does not mean that ordinary Greeks
stopped believing in their gods. Even the philosophers we will look at below did not
become atheists per se, but in so far explaining the physical world, they left the
gods out and explained the phenomena of nature from within.

The spirit of the ancient Greek naturalists is expressed well in the following quotes
by two 20th century scientists:

What Ionia and ancient Greece provided is not so much inventions or technologies,
but the idea of systematic inquiry, the notion that laws of nature, rather than
capricious gods, govern the world, and these laws can be understood by human
beings. Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

The great discovery of the ancient Greeks was the conviction that the world has a
unified order and can be explained by natural laws. E.O. Wilson, Consilience

Why in Ionia?

Due to migration, Greek colonies had been established along the coast of Asia Minor
(modern day Turkey). It is in one of these Greek-speaking city-states called Mellitus
where naturalistic philosophy is supposed to have begun.

This region was an important trading center on the shores of the Mediterranean
ocean, where merchants and manufacturers held power. Being a port, this region
also brought in sailors and merchants from other parts of the world. So ideas
mingled and new ideas were born.

Some well-known Ionian naturalists which you should know about

Thales [ pronounced Thay-leez] (fl. 585, contemporary of Mahavira in India) is recognized

as the earliest of all Greek naturalists. He became famous for predicting a solar eclipse in
585, but it was most probably a lucky guess.

He is remembered for his theory that the earth emerged out of water just plain ordinary
water, not the water of some sacred river, or some kind of divine fluid -- on which it floats
like a log. No gods support the earth on their shoulders e.g. Atlas but it simply floats like
a log floats in water.

According to Aristotle, from whose writings we have come to know of pre-Socratic

philosophy, Thales believed that is the origin of things and the fundamental substance out
of which all is made of and to which all will return.
All is water? Seems silly.
What could he have meant? Earth as an organism which requires water, emerges out of
water and remains immersed in water so as to sustain itself.
Besides water can change its form from fluid to vapor, and solid.

There were ancient myths in Babylon and Egypt in which the God Marduk had separated
earth from waterThales leaves Marduk out.

Anaximander (fl. 550): Was a student of Thales. He was not satisfied with the idea that
the earth is supported by the sea that it floats like a log in water.

If this was the case, then what supported the sea -- and so on, ad infinitum.

He was the first to propose that the earth is not supported by anything at all and that it is
simply a solid object hanging in the center of the universe. It does not fall down because it is
balanced by being equi-distant from other heavenly bodies.

He identified the fundamental stuff of the universe with what he called aperion, something
unlimited and undefined. Everything that exists, he thought, precipitates out of it.

He was also thought that

a. The earth is cylindrical in shape, quite like a drum. We walk on one of its flat
surfaces, while the other one is on the opposite side.
b. the sky is a transparent sphere which moves and carries the sun and the stars around
the earth. This idea of the sun and stars as attached to a transparent sphere will be
picked up later by Aristotle and will become a central assumption of pre-Copernican
astronomy.

Anaximenes (fl. 535) : was Anaximanders student.

He identified air, vapor or breath as the basic substance out of which the universe is made.
Difference between different elements was due to the rarefaction of the vapor into fire or its
condensation into wind, cloud, water earth and stone. The cosmic vapor gave rise to
movement within itself and this movement, which was rotatory, differentiated and
segregated the various natural substances. The more rarefied forming stars, while the more
dense becoming earth.

Intermission

There was a big debate in Greece around this time (5-6th

century, BCE) about change and permanence. We need not
get into the details as they are largely philosophical. But very
briefly, there were two opposite camps:

Heraclitus: who believed that there is nothing permanent,

everything is changing all the time. His most well-known
saying is you cannot step into the same river twice.

Parmenides : who took the opposite position that there is no

change at all, that whatever exists has always existed and will
always exist. Why did he think that? He believed that you can
never say that nothing exists, because you cannot logically
say anything about something that is nothing. So there cannot
be any change because that would mean something that is,
can become nothing, and that (i.e. nothing) does not exist
by definition.
 Empedocles (fl 450 BCE) came up with an idea that took the middle-ground
between the idea of constant change and the idea of no change at all.

He agreed with Parmenides that matter is eternal it cannot come out of nothing
and cannot end into nothing. But that does not mean there is no change. According
to him, what is eternal and unchanging are four elements: Earth, water, air and fire.
But what changes is their combination: they come together in certain proportions
for a certain length of time and then they break apart. So the elements are
permanent, but they are constantly changing in their relation with other elements.

This idea of four elements will become basic to Greek medicine and to Aristotles
view of the world.

Anaxagoras (c. 500428 b.c.e.) was from Clazomenae in Asia Minor. He taught in Athens and for a short
time taught Socrates. Questionable sources say that he was convicted of teaching impiety by declaring
that the Sun was a red-hot rock.

Unlike Socrates, who would be executed some year later on a similar charge of impiety, Anaxagoras was
exiled from Athens because of the intervention of Pericles, his former student. Anaxagoras reworked the
thought of Empedocles. He rejected the idea that the four basic elements are earth, air, fire, and water,
which combine and disintegrate due to the forces of love and strife.

Instead, he asserted that there was an infinite variety of minute "seeds" that are the basis for all of the
variety of things in the world. Moreover, many new combinations of the seeds create the myriad objects in
the world because of the actions of an orderly divine mind, or nous in Greek.

Ancient Greek atomists

The word atom comes from atomos which means uncuttable.

Atomists Leucippus of Melitus (fl 410), Democritus (fl. 410), argued that the world is made
up of infinity of tiny atoms moving randomly in void. These particles came in any number of
shapes and that explains the variety we see on earth. It is these that are eternal and un-
changing .

EVERYTHING IS MADE OF ATOMS IN MOTIONonly the size, shape and arrangement of

atoms decides everything .
 Theory of atomism: Like attracts like, -- just like doves flock together with other doves,
cranes with cranes, similarly shaped atoms stick together.

Democritus tried to explain as much of the observed world in terms of configuration of

atoms:

Sweet things made of round and large atoms

Sharp tasting things small, angular atoms

Salty things large, angular, crooked atoms

Oily thinground, fine and small atoms

RECEPTION OF NATURLIST IDEAS:

Naturalists were seen as atheists who were challenging peoples gods. So they were not
much liked. For eg. Anaxagoras (500 bce) who taught that the heavenly bodies are not
gods, but red-hot rocks was persecuted.

Naturalism remained a minority view until it returned as the dominant worldview of the
scientific revolution.
Lokayata: Naturalism in India:
As in other Axial Age civilizations (see the beginning of this lecture), one finds the beginning
of abstract thought in India. Around the time when the Upanishads were composed, the
question arose:

What lies behind the power of gods and rituals?? What is it that gives all the gods of nature
their powers??

The answer that the Upanishads came up with is what lies at the heart of Hinduism:

What lies behind all appearances, all gods, all phenomena of nature is a COSMIC SOUL they
called the Brahman. Everything in this universe is an emanation of this Brahman. The
human soul (atman) is identical with the cosmic soul (Brahman). or Tat-tvam asi, as the
Chandogya Upanishad teaches in the story of Uddalaka Aurni and his son Shevetketu,
(chapter 6, 14:1-4)

So, the ultimate reality that lies behind everything is Brahman or spirit. What is the nature of
Brahman? How can we know it?

Tat tvam-asi: Uddalaka Aurni and his son Shevetketu, Chandogya Up. (6:14:1-4)
Like the salt, barman could not be seen, but is present everywhere.
(Assignment: find and read the story of Uddalaka and Shvetketu.
NETI-NETI: Brahad-aranyaka. Yajanvalkya is talking to Maitireyi; and this is the core of
what he says: We cannot know Brahman because he is identical with Atman.
Because the self is identical with the infinite, it cannot know the infinite. A person can
only see, taste, smell something that is separate but when the whole Brhman is a
persons very self, who is the object and who is the subject? Thus, he says,: BU,
4.5.15.
But how do we know this invisible Brahman? Not with your eyes, but with
your soul. Go inwards, realization

Naturalism in India emerged in opposition to, or as a counter-thesis to, the core of

Vedic-Upanishadic teaching.

This doctrine is called lokayata which has two meanings:

1. Literal meaning: that which is found among people, or prevalent in the world;
Lokesu aytah (prevalent) lokayata.
2. A philosophy that believed in nothing but this concrete material world (loka) and
denied everything beyond it.

When was Lokayata:

Around the same time as the Greek naturalism, that is around 6 th to 5th BCE. Around
the time of Mahavira and Buddha.

Who
 There are no historical individuals who we can identify, like Thales, or Democrtius in
Greece.

The name Charvaka appears both as a proper noun in Mahabharata it is the name
given to a villain. But it also means sweet tongued and stands for someone who
can sweetly fool you etc.

We dont know for sure, but scholars think they were apostate Brahmins, who could
no longer believe in the vedic rituals. Compare with the Greek naturalists who came
from manufacturers and trading classes

Literature:

1. NO original texts are available now. But we know lokayata texts existed, as they are
mentioned by their critics. The scholarly consensus is Brishpati Sutra was the original
source. Important texts that mention Lokayata ideas (in a negative manner) are:
Arthshastra (written around 3 century BCE ) mentions Lokayata among the
three systems of logic based philosophy or (aan-vik-shiki in Sanskrit ) namely
Samkhya, Yoga and Lokayata
Manu Smriti mentions hetushastra and haitukas as nastikas, heretics who
did not respect the Vedas.
2. Important Vednatists like Shankaracharya(788-820 CE) and his student
Madhavacharya (14 CE) consider Lokayata important enough to try to defeat it.
Madhava wrote a well-kn0wn text called sarvadarshan sangraha in which he
describes Lokayata ideas among the 16 philosophical views. Madhavas
chapter in this book is considered the standard text on lokyata by modern
scholars.

Lokayata Doctrines:

NEGATIVE COMPONENT: Denial of shruti and smriti, or denial of the Vedic worldview.

Shankaras description of Lokayayata doctrine which he calls Deha-atman vada

Unlearned people and the Lokayatas are of the opinion that the mere body,
endowed with the quality of intelligence is the Self [while Vedantin] maintain
that the Lord is the Self of the enjoyer. They consider intelligence to be a
mere attribute of the body.

This is how the 14th century Advaita vedantist by the name of Madhavacharya described the
Lokayta view in his Sarvadarshana Sangraha :

In this school, the four elements, earth, water, fire and air , are the original
principles; from these alone, when transformed into the body, intelligence is
produced, just as the inebriating power is developed from the mixing of
certain ingredients, and when these are destroyed, intelligence at once
perished as well. therefore, the soul is only the body distinguished by the
attributes of intelligence, since there is no evidence for any soul distinct from
the body
Madhavas account of Lokayata doctrines can be summarized as follows:

1. The only valid source of knowledge is your sense perception: only those things are
real that you can see for yourself, and otherwise access through your senses (smell,
taste, hear etc.). What the Vedas say or what anyone else says has no validity unless
you can validate it by your senses.
2. Earth, water, air and fire are the only realities.
3. Consciousness arises from these four elements in the same way as the intoxicating
nature of alcohol arises from combination of elements which dont separately have
any intoxicating effect.
4. The so call self or atman does not survive death: the body simply dissolves into the
four elements and atman dies with it.

What were the lokayatas denying? They were denying the very heart of the Vedic and
upanshidic worldview, namely, that there is a soul, no karman, no rebirth.

A modern scholar by the name of Giuseppe Tucci listed the following ten doctrines:

1. Sacred literature should be disregarded as false

2. There is no deity or supernatural
3. There is no immortal soul; nothing exists after death of the body
4. Karma is inoperative
5. All is derived from material elements or Mahabhutas
6. Material elements have an immanent force or svabhava.
7. Intelligence is derived from these elements
8. Only direct perception gives true knowledge
9. Religious injunctions are useless
10. The aim of life is to get maximum of pleasure.

Lokayatas positive doctrine: Did not use logic only to destroy or oppose Veda but also
affirmed a naturalistic worldview that everything is governed by natural law, or svabhava of
matter.

Unlike the Greeks, did not seek unity behind phenomena. In India, it was the Vedic tradition
that sought to explain the unity and found it in the concept of Brahmana, an impersonal
force

RECEPTION OF LOKAYATA:

The open attacks that the Lokayatas launched on Vedas, Brhamins and their rituals is often
cited as an example of great openness of Hinduism and Indian culture.

But the fact is that the mainstream of religious authorities associated Lokayata with asura,
daitya, and other dark forces: those representing the materialist point of view get cast as
villains. For example

Chandogya Upanishad: Indra and Virochana come to Prajapati who tells them about
atma free from evil, without age, without death, without sorrow, without thirst and
without hungr. One w ho realizes the Self will attain all the worlds and obtain all
power at first, both the god (Indra) and the demon (Virochana) are satisfied with
the idea that the self is the body. But Indra returned to the guru to find the REAL SELF
 that is not the body, while the demon, Virochana, taught his fellow demons that body
is all there is.
Maitri Upansihad (Vii, 8=9) teaches that one must shun those who deny the
existence of the soul.. This doctrine was taught to the demons in order to bring about
their destruction.
Vishnu Purana describes the Lokyata view pretty accurately but presents it as the
teaching of Mayamoha, the great deceiver who wins more and more people to the Ausra
or daitya side which is eventually annihilated by the gods.
Mahabharata tells the story of Charvaka who was a raxasa disguised as a Brahmin, and
how he was killed by pious Brahmins. Charvakas mistake: he chided the victorious
Pandavas for killing their brothers.
In Ramayana, Lokayata philosophy is put in the mouth of Javali, who tries to dissuade
Rama from obeying his father and going to the forest.

In addition, manu smriti lays strictures against social intercourse with Lokyatikas:

Manu advises that one should not even speak with the haitukas (logicians) who are
heretics (pasandis), transgressors of caste and hypocrites.

Lokayata epistemology:

Greeks emphasized reason above senses.

Lokayta were radical empiricists considered direct perception alone as valid evidence: only
that which is acquired through the means of five senses is considered valid.

So radical that they denied induction: they believed that mere multiplication of individual
instance obtained by sense perception is not enough for universal truths.

Lokayata ethics:

Because Lokayatas emphasized material nature and bodily senses, their critics assumed that
Lokayatas were hedonists who only believed in bodily pleasures. That is one reason
Lokayata philosophy fell in disrepute.