Words for Board: Empiricism, Thales, Xenophanes, Sophist, Anaxagoras, Democratus, Protagoras, Relativist

Well! Here you are, back from your 1st big test!! Hope you did ok (or, if not, you know where you went wrong). Anyway, onward and upward.

Now you get to hear about early Greek philosophy. First: How do you know if something is true? There are 2 ways: 1. Tradition. Other people have told you it's true. Teaching is traditional as well as religion. You have to accept that it's true by faith. 2. Empiricism is based on empirical evidence. You find out what is true for yourself by using your 5 senses to bump into the world and using your reason to explain what you've found. Philosophy is using way #2. Sometimes reason contradicts what tradition teaches. But Stockmyer isn't really sure we get truth either way. To find out all about truth, attend the Philosophy class at Maple Woods (you may not get it there, either, but supposedly you should get closer to it).

Thales was one of the first philosopher that made it big. His dates are 640-546 BC, a little before the Persian Wars to place him in a time slot in your head. The dates will just give you kind of an idea where these men were in time to see if their ideas were influenced by the circumstances of the day. You aren't responsible for the dates. Thales came from Myletus in Asia Minor, which in his time was the most cultured city in Greece. He worked as a military engineer for King Cretius (sp?) of Lydia. One of the neat things he did: King Cretius wanted to put a bridge across a great river. Bridge builders could only build so far, and they could only get halfway across. Thales figured out how to drop rocks in the middle of the river, creating an island to build to from both sides thereby spanning the river. Thales was looking for the 1st cause–what everything came from. He said that water was the central element out of which everything was constructed. He figured that out cuz water is the only thing that comes in all 3 forms: liquid, gas (steam), and solid (ice). He said that all living things have water in common. He discovered (with some figures from the ancient Sumerians) that eclipses happen in a predictable pattern. He predicted an eclipse for 585 BC and it happened. People didn't like it cuz eclipses were supposed to be omens from the gods and they didn't like having the gods predictable. He was supposed to have died by falling into a well and drowning (which Stockmyer thinks is neat, cuz he died in the element he thought was basic to all life).

Xenophanes came around 510 BC. He said we don't know anything about the gods cuz you can't use your empirical senses to tell you about them. He said man made god in man's image (which is true–barbarians have barbaric-looking gods. White men have white gods, etc.). People didn't like him much. It was dangerous to go around knocking religion, especially to semi-primitive people.

Before I continue, you probably want to how these men go to be famous if nobody liked them cuz they preached against religion. Good question . . . These men were Sophists ("Wise Man"), men who taught wisdom. There were no colleges or schools in Greece. A traveling teacher would come to your town and set up a podium and preach for a few days and, if some rich man liked him, he'd hire him to teach his sons. If nobody liked you, you moved on to the next town. When you'd taught all you knew, you moved on, too. The big money was teaching in Athens. If you made it there, it was the high point of your career. It was a very informal education.

Anaxagoras was famous by the time he was 20. He hit Athens about 480 BC (end of the Persian Wars). He was an astronomer type person (which the Greeks don't like cuz they mess up religion). He wrote a book on nature and had it mass-produced and sold lots of them (it was neat to own a book back then). People were shocked by his ideas. He said the sun was a glowing mass of rock many times the size of the Peloponnesus. He said the moon gets its light from the sun and that the moon and sun were eclipsed because of the positions of the earth and moon. He said there was probably intelligent life on other planets. He did make some mistakes. For instance, he said that thunder was caused by clouds colliding and lightning by friction. He was looking for a natural explanation for things as opposed to a religious one. A soothsayer came in town one day offering to say some soothes. He brought a sheep to slay and make predictions from. Anaxagoras killed the sheep and said there was nothing neat about killing sheep. He made people upset and his political enemies charged him with heresy and got him booted out of town. He moved on to a small town. (Greeks were wild for fam and wanted their town put on the map. Small towns would let the weirdo philosophers live in their town cuz it put them on the map. Big towns didn't need the publicity.)

Democratus (about 430 BC in Athens) discovered the molecular theory. He said everything in the universe was made up of molecules so small nobody could see them. He caused lots of laughs down at the local barber shop. They asked him if they couldn't see the little things, just what did they look like? Democratus said some had little hooks on them and some were sticky and some were fuzzy puff-ball types. Creation happened cuz the little things kept bumping into each other and sticking together. He also questioned whether the senses could really tell the truth about the universe. Such as, how do you know this is really a piece of paper? You say, you can see it. But what if you were in the dark? Ah, you can feel it? But how do you know your sense of touch isn't lying to you? Does it feel the same wet? Today, we don't know things like if people perceived the same colors. How do you know what you see as red isn't seen as more of a red-orange to someone else but they've been taught it's red? Besides, there may be a whole other range of senses and dimensions that we just don't know about.

Protagoras came from 480-410 BC. He got to Athens late. He wrote the book, Truth. (Why bother to call if anything else?) Most of the book is lost but we have the 1st sentence: "Man is the measure of all things . . . ." Man decides what is beauty, truth, etc. There is no absolute fixed standard. As men change, so do their truths, beauties, etc. He was a Relativist. Everything is relative to time, place, circumstances, etc. He told a little teaching story about a Greek and a Hindu meeting. They started discussing funeral customs. The Greeks gathered the loved ones together and preformed religious ceremonies and then burned the body. The Hindu was aghast. Hindu people gathered the loved ones, performed the religious ceremonies and then ate the body to take part of their spirit into yourself. Each were shocked at the other but each were right in their particular customs in their hometowns. Protagoras also said we don't know much about the gods cuz how could we study them? Man is limited in how he can find out about the gods. He believed that man's life was too short. Eventually, the Athenians ran him out of the city and burned his books. Actually, there are 3 possible positions you can take on the god(s): 1. A theist is a person who believes in god/gods (monotheist/polytheist). 2. An atheist doesn't believe in any god(s). Or 3. An Agnostic–"I Don't Know" middle of the road, anything is possible type. Protagoras was an agnostic (he said he didn't know cuz how could he find out?).

In the modern world, most people aren't that fanatical about science or religion. 100 years ago, you had to pick one or the other as your philosophy of life. But today you can have both. To get around the differences, some religions preach that there's no difference between true religion and true science; that god made science so we can know both and accept both. That's how religions eventually accepted the idea of evolution. Actually, it's a matter of faith: You can believe what you believe (or disbelieve, as the case may be).