A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

Empedocles[11] (490 to 430 B. C.) was the first Dorian philosopher, a partisan of the democracy, and belonged to a rich family of Agrigentum. He became a distinguished statesman, but he later fell from popular favor. Then, in the garb of a magician, he traveled as physician and priest through Magna Græcia. His political affiliations would prevent his direct connection with the Pythagoreans, but he showed that the Pythagoreans influenced him, and his career is an imitation of that of Pythagoras. He was acquainted with the theory of Heracleitus, and he knew Parmenides personally. He was one of the first rhetoricians, and was probably connected with a large literary circle. He is the first and most imperfect representative of the reconciliation. The story of his suicide by leaping into Mt. Ætna is supposed to be a myth.

Anaxagoras (500–425 B. C.), a man of wealthy antecedents, was much esteemed, was born in Clazomenæ in a circle rich in Ionian culture, but was isolated from practical life. He declared the heaven to be his fatherland and the study of the heavenly bodies to be his life’s task. He went to Athens about 450 B. C., where he formed one of a circle of notable men of culture. He lived in Athens under the patronage of Pericles, but in 434 B. C. he was expelled. In Athens he was intimate with such men as Euripides, Thucydides, and Protagoras. He represents the first appearance of philosophy in Athens.

The life of Leucippus is almost unknown. He wasprobably born in Miletus, visited Elea, and settled in Abdera.

The Later Pythagoreans. After the Pythagoreans as a religious and political body had been defeated at Crotona, they lost their prestige and were scattered to the four winds. They were beaten in the battle of Crotona (510 B. C.) and dispersed about 450 B. C. Pythagoras died 504 B. C. His scattered followers, these later Pythagoreans, formed a school of philosophy which had its centre at Thebes. Destroyed as a religious body the members lost their superstitions and turned their attention to philosophy, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and physics. As mathematicians and as astronomers they are the most notable among the ancients. Philolaus is the probable originator of their philosophy of numbers. This school disappeared about 350 B. C. Pythagoreanism reappeared later under the name of neo-Pythagoreanism.

The Philosophy of Empedocles. Empedocles conceived the number of elements to be four,—earth, air, fire, and water,—an arbitrary enumeration, which nevertheless persisted in the popular imagination throughout the Middle Ages. He chose this number of elements because they included all the elements in his predecessors’ theories. By the transposition and new arrangement of these elements he could account for the variety of the world. The efficient causes that make these different separations and mixtures are Love and Hate, two mythical and sensuous entities. Love is the cause of the union of things, Hate of their separation.

This is the general metaphysical theory that Empedocles uses to explain the physical world and especially physiological phenomena; and he is probably best knownas the author of the aphorism, “Like attracts Like.” For example, he conceives the physical world as continuously repeating itself through four cosmic stages, each centuries long. The world moves therefore in cyclical evolution, in which Love is bringing like elements together only to be followed by stages of the separation of the like elements by Hate,—an endless cosmic procession.

But Empedocles’ interest in cosmology was only a part of his dominating interest in the organic world. He held some interesting evolution theories. His special interest in human physiology led him to frame the first theory of perception. Man is composed of the four elements, and he can know the universe around himself because Like in him attracts Like in the external world. The earth forms our solid parts, water the liquid parts, air is the vital breath, and fire is the soul. The blood contains the four elements, and is therefore the real carrier of life. If we perceive anything, it is because we have qualities similar to that thing. The element in us attracts the like element outside. He fancifully explained how parts of each element pressed upon parts of like elements—earth upon earth, air upon air; and how these clung together until sundered by Hate. The senses have only a partial number of elements, while the reason has them all; therefore sense knowledge is partial when compared with rational knowledge.

The Philosophy of Anaxagoras. The pluralistic conception of the nature-substance, that was originated by Empedocles in this crude form, got a more complete character in the hands of Anaxagoras. For Anaxagoras took exception to the arbitrary assumption of Empedocles that the elements were only four in number. Howcould this world of infinite variety be derived from only four elements? We must postulate as many elements as there are qualities, if by merely shuffling them—by various combinings and separatings of them—their infinite number is to be explained. There are a plural number of elements qualitatively distinct. Every perceptual thing is composed of these heterogeneous parts or qualities or elements. But how do you know an element when you find one? Always by the fact that when you divide it, its parts are homogeneous. The elements are, therefore, those substances that divide into parts that are like one another; while the perceptual objects of nature can be divided into parts that are unlike one another. They are called “seeds” by Anaxagoras, and designated as “homoiomeriai” by Aristotle and later philosophy. This was a time, it must be remembered, when chemical analysis had not developed, and when mechanical division and change of temperature were the only means of investigation. Form, color, and taste were the characteristics that differentiated elements. So Anaxagoras was content to name as elements such things as bones, muscles, flesh, marrow, metals, etc. The countless elements or qualities are present in a finely divided state throughout the universe. Every perceptual object has present in it all elements, even opposite elements. It is, however, known and named by the element that prevails in it at any particular instant. For example, fire contains an element of cold but the fire element prevails. Opposites attract, and the qualitative change in a thing consists in the predominance of some other quality already present in it.

For the efficient cause of the combining and separating of the elements Anaxagoras selected one of theelements. He called it the Nous, the Greek word for mind or reason. Many historians have therefore concluded that Anaxagoras is the author of an idealistic philosophy. Aristotle says of Anaxagoras that he “stood out like a sober man among the random talkers that had preceded him.”But both Plato[12] and Aristotle are disappointed with the way in which Anaxagoras handles the conception of Nous and, as a matter of fact, the Nous, as Anaxagoras uses it, is not less hylozoistic than the Love and Hate of Empedocles. In the Nous Anaxagoras threw out a thought that was too big for him. Its introduction, however, marks the breaking up of pre-Socratic hylozoism. Anaxagoras wrote down the word, Nous, from which comes the contrast with matter. He stripped the mythical dress from the efficient cause of Empedocles and substituted Nous, because he wished to emphasize the unity of the cosmic process. The Nous is one of the elements; it is “thought-stuff,” it is a corporeal substance. It differs from all the other elements in that it is the finest, the most mobile, and has the power of self-motion. If among the early schools motion is life, here we find the new conception of self-motion as most alive. Instead of a departure from hylozoism, this is a rehabilitation of hylozoism in more perfect form. The Nous is the cause of the harmony and order of the cosmos.

The Philosophy of the Atomists—Leucippus and the School at Abdera. Only circumstantial evidence is left to testify to the early beginnings of the school of atomists at Abdera. About 450 B. C., owing to the rise of Athens and the great victory of Cimon over the Persians, the Ionian civilization on the coasts of Asia Minorhad a new lease of life, and there was a renewal of scientific activity in the cities. The influence of the Milesians appeared and Anaxagoras’ doctrine, which had been widely disseminated, began to have great vigor. Among the philosophers of this section was one about whom we know very little, except that his name was Leucippus and that he was the father of atomism. Miletus was probably his native place, and after visiting Elea he settled in Abdera in Thrace. We know that the polemic of Zeno was directed against contemporary atomism; and we know the theories of the pupils of Leucippus, of Protagoras, and of Democritus, in whom the doctrine of atomism culminated. Probably the theory of Leucippus was that the cosmic substance is composed of an infinite number of elements quantitatively distinct, in opposition to Empedocles’ theory of a fourfold division as well as against Anaxagoras’ theory of an infinite number of qualities. Atomism in this early form represents one of the ways that Greek thought took in reconciling the conflicting claims of Heracleitus and Parmenides. The doctrine of atomism will be presented fully in its greatest representative, Democritus.