Pre-Socratic Philosophers: From Sophists to Atomists
The Sophists
The Sophists instigated a philosophical revolution, shifting the focus of reflection from Physis (nature) to man. With them begins the humanist period of ancient philosophy, which displays these features:
- The problem of political virtue acquired primary importance.
- The Sophists demonstrated a great spirit of freedom regarding tradition, norms, and codified behaviors.
- They became educators and teachers of society, receiving compensation for it (teaching oratory, dialectic, etc.).
- The aristocracy was in crisis, along with the traditional values linked to it.
Their theoretical positions were diverse:
Relativism: Protagoras affirmed this position, stating that everything is relative; there is no absolute truth, nor are there absolute moral values. The only criterion is the individual. “Man is the measure of all things” (an individualist position), because things appear differently to each person.
Skepticism: Gorgias adopted this intellectual attitude (If Being existed, we could not know it; if we knew it, we could not express it). One cannot arrive at the truth of things.
Conventionalism: This is the philosophical stance under which the Sophists claimed that moral and legal laws are only the product of agreement between men.
It distinguishes between:
- Conventional laws (nomos): A set of standards to govern common life.
- Laws of nature (physis): A set of rules rooted in human nature and unrelated to any convention.
The Pre-Socratics
The Pre-Socratics were the first philosophers in history. They were located in Ionia and southern Italy in the 7th century BC. Their theories were based on the arche (the original principle from which everything emerges). Order takes the place of chaos. Everything comes down to a single element. There were monists and pluralists.
Monists
Thales of Miletus (7th century BC): The first philosopher, a great mathematician, and astronomer. His theory stated that water is the arche; everything is water because everything is life, and everything is related to water. Water is present throughout nature (living things are wet, not dry, etc.).
Anaximander of Miletus (7th century BC): The second philosopher. He made a qualitative leap because he did not point to a particular natural element, but considered the arche to be indeterminate, the indefinite. Example: cold-hot / dry-damp.
Anaximenes of Miletus (6th century BC): He returned to a natural element. He considered the arche to be air (infinite). He said that through the process of rarefaction, air becomes fire, and through the process of condensation, it is converted into wind, water, earth, and heavier materials. Air or spirit is the most subtle; it is life and intelligence and possesses the ability to order and rule the world.
Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ionia) (5th-6th century BC): Called “the Obscure” because his fragments are very difficult to understand and are enigmatic. His theory stated that the law of concordance, harmony, and unity of all things was the opposition of each thing to the other. He proposed fire as the natural element from which everything emerges. He said that the entire natural world is in constant motion. There is a dialectical struggle in each being, and that explains change. He believed in the Logos (the law governing the cosmos).
Pythagoras (6th-5th century BC): Founded a religious sect, believing in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. He excelled and conducted research in astronomy, mathematics, and music. For them, the essence is the number (each thing corresponds to a number). He concluded that the tetraktys was his sacred number.
Parmenides (6th-5th century BC): Founded Eleatic Ontology because, for him, the arche of everything is Being. “What is, is, and what is not, is not.” He had a principle of identity: Being -> Not Being; Not Being -> Being. Becoming is impossible, for there is no evolution in the sense of ceasing to be. Becoming is an illusion, and the world is the sphere of compact and motionless Being.
Pluralists
Empedocles: Proposed to consider the four basic elements (earth, water, air, fire). Nature and being are conceived as a place of harmony. All bodies are made up of visible pieces of the four elements, mixed and matched, each moving to the momentum of two opposing forces: love that unites and hatred that separates. Man can know the universe and its elements.
Anaxagoras: Thought of nature as a mixture, in varying doses, of infinitely divisible particles of the elements moved from an original swirl by a divine intelligence that is forming natural phenomena. These particles are materials and respond to the qualities of all that is manifest in the cosmos, whether visible or hidden (called homeomerias, which are similar parts).
Democritus: Said that the world is composed of homogeneous, indivisible particles. Everything tangible and intangible is formed by clouds of atoms that form endlessly. Atoms are separated by a gap where there is nothing and within which they are grouped. They are infinite; everything is made of equal atoms, granting a certain entity to nothing, to the void. The void relates some atoms to others. Almost nothing is something, a scene or frame where the atom evolves.