Ancient Greek Philosophy: Logos, Physis, and Arche
Ancient Greek Thought: A Foundation
I. Early Greek Thought
From the 12th to the 6th century BC, Western thought developed. Ancient civilizations’ knowledge accumulated systematically. Greek society was aristocratic, agricultural, and militaristic, organized into stable poleis (city-states). These were independent economic units with strong political unity, supported by a large slave population and a class system: nobility (military commanders and landowners) and slaves.
This era saw advancements in technology, arts, and crafts, leading to early scientific activity. Education was informal, lacking a structured system or guiding sacred texts. Poets like Homer and Hesiod were key educators, using epic poetry to transmit knowledge.
II. The Logos: Rational Explanation
The 7th century BC brought social unrest and the rise of democracy. Intellectually, the 6th century saw the emergence of logos, gradually replacing myth-based knowledge. Logos offered a rational explanation of reality and humanity’s place within it, using reason and justification, without resorting to gods or supernatural forces.
Logos classified reality and knowledge through opposites: necessary vs. contingent; permanent vs. changeable; essential vs. apparent; unity vs. plurality. The concepts of necessity, permanence, essence, and unity relate to physis (nature).
Logos also classified knowledge: sensory knowledge (opinion, focused on the contingent and changing) and rational knowledge (universal, necessary, focusing on permanence, essence, and unity).
III. Physis: Understanding Nature
Physis is crucial in ancient Greek thought, linking logos‘ opposing concepts. It is permanent yet explains change; it is the essence of things and the basis of appearances; it is the unity of things and the principle of plurality.
Physis, in ancient Greek thought, had several characteristics:
- Living: Conceived as a living organism with internal activity and motion, unlike artificial things.
- Dynamic: Constantly changing and transforming; change (motion) is the most universal phenomenon.
- Ordered: A cosmos, an ordered whole where each being has its place and function.
- Mysterious: Its secrets are for philosophers to discover.
- Spatially finite, temporally eternal: Finiteness represents perfection; time is cyclical.
- Sacred, but non-supernatural: It is respected, not to be transformed.
Physis has two meanings: the cosmos (the ordered universe) and the essence of each natural substance. Investigating the nature of things leads to the question of the ultimate principle of reality (arche).
Arche means origin, cause, and permanent substrate. It is the origin of beings, the explanation for universal transformation, and the substance of beings.
Explanatory Models of Physis
Heraclitus of Ephesus: Dynamic Monism
Heraclitus emphasized intellectual knowledge, advocating reflection over sensory appearances. He explained physis through change, logos, and fire. Reality is constantly evolving; everything changes. Change occurs through the struggle of opposites (water, air, fire, earth), regulated by logos (universal reason, wisdom, divine, identified with calculation, measurement, and proportion).
Fire is the arche (original cosmic constituent), eternal fire from which the universe originated.
Parmenides of Elea: Static Monism
Parmenides was the first to conceptually treat physis. Reason dictates a single reality, unique, indestructible, indivisible, homogeneous, stationary, unchanging, finite, and invisible. Change and movement are sensory illusions.
Pythagoras: Dualism
Pythagoras believed mathematics held the key to the universe, revealing its harmonic structure. He posited a physis with elements of the unlimited (odd) and limited (even).
Pluralistic Philosophies
Pluralistic models arose to address the difficulties of monistic models. Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Plato are prominent examples.
Empedocles
Empedocles explained physis through four elements (combined in different proportions) filling all space. Change is the mixing and separation of these elements, driven by love and discord (forces that Parmenides denied).
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras addressed what Parmenides denied: real plurality and motion. Everything has always existed; nothing truly new is created. All substances exist in each thing (homeomerias), originally mixed, later separated and combined by swirling motion, guided by Nous (ordering intelligence, a spiritual reality).
Democritus of Abdera: Atomism
Democritus (with Leucippus) proposed atomism. The three original elements are being (full), not-being (empty), and eternal motion. The universe is composed of atoms (indivisible, indestructible, invisible, homogeneous, differing in size and shape) moving in empty space. Visible bodies result from atomic collisions.