06 Beyond Naturalism

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s.6.1 Xenophanes of Colophon p.6-1

Ren Mario Micallef, 14-01-2004 8:22 PM

6.1 Xenophanes of Colophon

6.1.1 INTRODUCTION

Sap. We have little to say about this Philosopher at this stage since he did not seem too in-terested in the search for an arch of nature. He was no Naturalist. he was not muchinterested in material things, but rather in God.

Whiz He was a religious guy, you mean

Sap. Not really. He asked himself what would be a correct representation of God? Homersgods were no good for him. They resemble human beings too closely tobe taken seriously as gods. In a way, Xenophanes lies beyondnaturalism since he brings Philosophical questioning to bear on anotherrealm of being: the divine. O.K. Thats your introduction. Now lets goto the biographical stuff Tank

Tank Xenophanes was born in Colophon (Ionia), around 570 BCE.

When he was 25, he left his city and spent the rest of his lifetravelling, going from one polis to another, without eversettling anywhere. He used to compose poems, oftenpungent and satirical, targeting popular beliefs, and wentaround declaiming them in public. He also wrote poemsnarrating the history of some polis he was visiting. Heseems to have known the theories of the Milesians; somesay he was a disciple of Anaximander, but we cannot givethis too much weight since, as Master Sapiens said, he wasnot much of a Naturalist. At the very most we can say that hecould have visited Ionia (which is relatively close to Colophon),and got in contact with the Naturalists there. A long-standingtradition in History of Philosophy presents him as the master of

Parmenides and founder of the school of Elea. Actually, there islittle to link his doctrine to that of the Eleatics, and he was toomuch of a nomad to have founded a Philosophical School hencemost modern scholars doubt there is any real substance in thattradition.

Sap. Fine. Now we are going to change our way of proceedingsomewhat, since from now on, the original material becomes morecopious, and we can actually start working with the texts. I am goingto hand over to you a selection of fragments from this authorarranged according to major themes we can trace in his works.We will read the fragments in each section and then discuss theauthors philosophy, one theme at a time. Mens: maybe you couldtell us what are the three big themes in Xenophanes

Mens 1. Critique of Traditional Religion (accused of anthropomorphism)

2. Cosmological ideas

3. Proposal of a New Conception of the Divine (God Totality of Being)


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6.1.2 FRAGMENTS(DKNUMBERING)

(10) Since all at first have learnt according toHomer....

(11) Homer andHesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame and a disgraceamong mortals, stealings and adulteries and deceivings of one another. R. P. 99.

(12) Since they have uttered many lawless deeds of the gods, stealings and adulteries and de-ceivings of one another. R. P. ib.

(14) But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, andvoice and form. R. P. 100.

(15) Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and pro-duce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen likeoxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds. R. P. ib.

(16) The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blueeyes and red hair. R. P. 100 b.

(18) The gods have not revealed all things to men from the beginning, but by seeking they find intime what is better. R. P. 104 b.

(2) What if a man win victory in swiftness of foot, or in the pentathlon, at Olympia, where is theprecinct of Zeus by Pisa's springs, or in wrestling, -- what if by cruel boxing or that fearful sport

men call pankration he become more glorious in the citizens' eyes, and win a place of honour inthe sight of all at the games, his food at the public cost from the State, and a gift to be an heir-loom for him, -- what if he conquer in the chariot-race, -- he will not deserve all this for his portionso much as I do. Far better is our art than the strength of men and of horses! These are butthoughtless judgements, nor is it fitting to set strength before wisdom. Even if there arise a mightyboxer among a people, or one great in the pentathlon or at wrestling, or one excelling in swift-ness of foot -- and that stands in honor before all tasks of men at the games -- the city would benone the better governed for that. It is but little joy a city gets of it if a man conquer at the gamesby Pisa's banks; it is not this that makes fat the store-houses of a city.

(27) All things come from the earth, and in earth all things end. R. P. 103 a.

(28) This limit of the earth above is seen at our feet in contact with the air; below it reaches downwithout a limit. R. P. 103.

(29) All things are earth and water that come into being and grow. R. P. 103.

(33) For we all are born of earth and water. R. P. ib.

!"#$%&

(23) One god, the greatest among gods and men, neither in form like unto mortals nor inthought.... R. P. 100.

(24) He sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over. R. P. 102.

(25) But without toil he swayeth all things by the thought of his mind. R. P. 108 b.

(26) And he abideth ever in the selfsame place, moving not at all; nor doth it befit him to go aboutnow hither now thither. R. P. 110 a.

6.1.3 DISCUSSION

Sap. Good. Now what do you think about his verses on Homer and Hesiod and the Gods?

Whiz Sarcastic, I would say

Sap. They come from satires. Even the first one about learning according to Homer musthave been quite pungent he is probably suggesting that this sort of learning is no


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learning at all. Learning the myths only fills your mind with silly fantasies. The gods ofHomer and Hesiod, and indeed, those of any culture, resemble that culture too closely tobe taken seriously they must have been invented! Thats the gist of what Xenophanesis saying. What problem do you see with this sort of critique of traditional religion?

Mens Is it too radical?

Sap. Yes but why?

Lee It would depict all known religions as false since all religions have some degree of an-thropomorphism.

Sap. True. And what do you find problematic with that? Why shouldnt we dump all religions?

Tank I think we should allow that if the divine were to exist, it could only reveal itself to hu-mans using human means any experience or knowledge of the divine we may pos-sess must be human experience/knowledge. If the divine were a rational being, than wewould have to refer to it using language and imagery from our experience of rational be-ings, i.e., of other humans in our culture and society.

Sap. So: we know God in human form for we cannot know God otherwise, but God is not ahuman being, and God is beyond human forms. So Greeks, Ethiopians, Thracians havegods that resemble them, but behind those depictions of the divine, there may lie a di-vine realm that does not have Greek, Ethiopian, Thracian, or indeed any other particularfeature. Yet that divine realm presents itself to different cultures in forms that such cul-tures are acquainted to. Thats interesting. What that means is that we should be carefulabout the forms through which the divine presents itself to us, as these are not an es-sential part of the being of the divine. O.K. However there are also some commentsabout Ethics that are important in the following fragments (Fr 11, 12). The Ethics of theHomeric gods are not acceptable. The gods who are supposed to be models of virtueare beings who perform so many bad things

Mens All right, the gods were bad from a modern or Christian ethical viewpoint, but theirlawless deeds do not cause so much problem from the Archaic Greek ethical viewpoint.The hero is above the law, his aret does not primarily depend on his respect for othersand their property. Weve seen all this when we did Homer theres nothing so wrongwith the lawless deeds Xenophanes is ascribing them

Sap. for the Archaic culture, there is nothing so wrong. For Xenophanes and his audience,probably, yes. What has changed, then, if the Homeric models of virtue start to be ac-cused of vice?

Mens The ethics?

Sap. Yes but in what way?

Mens I dont know

Sap. youve just said it: law. Remember the history bit in the introduction when we spokeabout the introduction of constitutions and laws in the poleis? In the Archaic culture,gods and heroes were above the law. Now, with constitutions in place, everyone mustabide by the law. Nobody is beyond the established law no hero-king who lords it overall and whose wish is supreme. Abiding by the written law or breaking it becomes very

relevant to what is considered good or bad. Now, LAWS PUT RESPECT TOWARDS OTHERCITIZENS AND THEIR PROPERTY IN THE FIRST PLACE before athletic virtues, leadership,might, courage. And suddenly, the gods themselves seem corrupt because they arelawless! In the new political and social culture that had surfaced in Greece, models ofvirtue could not be lawless. Note that in a similar way, Fr. 2 hits out again against theathletic and agonistic virtues that were valued by the Archaic culture: wisdom is muchbetter than these according to Xenophanes. Note also that people in the city squareswere ready to listen to his satires and provide him a living for such poetry, so, to some


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extent, they must have found his words plausible, if not always easy to accept. Thismeans that the culture was changing, and wealthy people started to be interested in ac-quiring wisdom, rather than only be trained for fighting. What bearing do such observa-tions on change in culture and politics have on the value of accusations of anthropomor-phism?

Whiz Xenophanes is criticizing a past culture of being anthropomorphic because his culture

has taken some distance from that cultureSap. Yes, but what I mean is is Xenophanes critique itself anthropomorphic, when we takeanthropomorphism to a higher level?

Mens What do you mean?

Sap. O.K. Anthropomorphism literally means in human form an accusation of anthropo-morphism is usually used to criticize something as merely a product of a particular cul-ture (hence having no existence in itself, outside that culture). Homeric gods were theproduct of the Archaic culture. They do not exist (says the critique) because you dontfind them (and they dont make sense) outside that culture. They are so tied up with thatculture that they must simply be products of that culture they dont REALLY exist. Sothats what the critique from anthropomorphism tells us. Now we can take the game to ahigher level. Xenophanes critique of the Archaic culture (a critique from anthropomor-

phism) is possible because he comes from a new culture. He can criticize the gods aslawless (and consider lawlessness unacceptable in a characterization of the divine) be-cause his culture gives so much importance to the rule of law. Were it not for the contin-gent fact that he lived in Greece when the poleis system was developing together withits intrinsic constitutional structure, he would probably not find the lawlessness of theHomeric gods and heroes problematic. Hence his standpoint (the one from which he isaccusing the old religion and ethics) is situated within another particular culture; it is nota standpoint independent of all cultures. His critique (that uses an accusation of anthro-pomorphism) is SOMEWHAT DEPENDENT ON THE CULTURE HE ABIDES (its HIS CULTURE ANDPERSONAL EXPERIENCE that ultimately seeks a conception of the divine as law-abidingand devoid of any racial connotations a God who doesnt steal, cheat, etc., and is notparticularly Greek, Ethiopian, etc). Hence in some way the critique itself is anthropo-morphic, because, as any critique, it somewhat reflects the person and culture that

makes it. A critique from anthropomorphism tends to backfire if taken to the extreme.Tank Maybe we can never get to a viewpoint on reality totally devoid of anthropomorphism.

However, if fragment 18 is right, human knowledge progresses, and the viewpoint wehave now must be better than the one we had in the past. When the Greeks discoveredthe value of laws, and the value of observing them if you wanted to be a good and virtu-ous person, Ethics may a great step forward

Sap. I agree that most Ethical systems after that did incorporate the value of law, and theconcept of equality before a common law, somewhat. So most later ethical systemsconsider the Homeric concept of aret a false model of the good. But they remain PAR-TICULAR ethical systems if they are any better it is because they have outlived Ho-meric Ethics are widely accepted nowadays. They have not proved wrong the Homericidea of what is good and what is bad. Is that progress as we have, say, in Physics,

from Newton to Einstein? Sure, it could be that we do make progress in our knowledgeof most things. But its not necessarily so certainly, if many believe that there is pro-gress in science, not so many believe that there is real progress in ethics, in politics, insocial structures, etc. Its hard to distinguish progress from simple change with no par-ticular direction.


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O.K. maybe Ive lost some of you guys. Lets leave this point for now and go to the nexttheme: cosmological ideas (Frr. 27-29, 33). Well we can put this past us saying thatpractically no modern scholar thinks that Xenophanes was another naturalist whosearch was earth or perhaps earth and water. His cosmology was more of an attempt totrash the mythical cosmologies, where the different mythical gods sustaining the earth

and overshadowing the heavens are removed from the picture. His cosmology hasbeen deemed eccentric, incoherent and incomprehensible since antiquity. Somehow, forhim, anything goes, as long as it falsifies Homer and Hesiod. By the way in this con-text he speaks about fossils and mentions Malta. More interesting, however, are thefragments where he seeks to provide his own image of the divine. What characteristicsdoes that have, Lee?

!"#$%&

Lee Xenophanes God is one, not anthropomorphic, does not move, and does everythingwith the power of his/her mind.

Sap. Monotheism therefore? Do you think this is monotheism as we would know it, say, inChristianity/Judaism/Islam?

Whiz I think there must be some degree of anthropomorphism is all of these religions. I cannotsee Xenophanes God being worshipped by any religion I know its more like an idearegarding how God should (not) be, rather than anything else.

Sap. In fact, some interpreters would associate this God with the world as a whole, with thetotality of being. In that case, Xenophanes would be a pantheist (one who believes thatEVERYTHING IS GOD) which is not far from being an atheist (one who believes thatTHERE IS NO GOD) because if you dont make a distinction between what is divine andwhat is human and worldly, if you dont SEPARATE the sacred from the profane, then theword sacred has no particular meaning. God becomes another term for Being in gen-eral. Other interpreters avoid this association (so, according to these, Xenophanes be-lieves that God is God, and the world is the world), but then, as you say, Whiz, we canmake very little out of this conception of God. What other characteristics can we attributeto such a God? Does it make sense to worship such a God? How can we know his/herwill and accomplish it, if that is possible? O.K., well be meeting some of these Philoso-phical Gods along the way. They are ideals that help us correct some ideas about Godcoming from popular religion. But, for the believer, they can never really substitute theknowledge of the divine coming from religious experience. And they will convince no realAtheist O.K., any questions?

Mens In the beginning, you said that tradition links Xenophanes to the Eleatics how come?

Sap. Incidentally, if we were to accept the first interpretation above, we have an image ofGod/Being that is somewhat similar to that of Parmenides. This may be the reason whysome ancient authors considered Xenophanes the master of Parmenides and founder ofthe Eleatic school. It is a very weak link, though. Actually, Plato may have linked theEleatics to Xenophanes in sarcastic tone, since for him, Xenophanes was no real phi-losopher just an old minstrel who went around singing his silly satires thats the guy

who started the Eleatics so you can imagine what sort of Philosophy comes from sucha founder. Then people may have took Plato seriously, and started to understandXenophanes comments about God with reference to Eleatic ideas at which point onemight even suspect that some Eleatic terminology got into the fragments and the testi-monies. Hey, if you remember, we also started off saying that there was little to sayabout this author maybe we were wrong! In any case, we did have a good discussion


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s.Heraclitus of Ephesus p.6-6


starting from his fragments. So lets go on to Heracleitus (or Heraclitus) and start withour Whos who summary Mens will you oblige?

6.2 Heraclitus of Ephesus

6.2.1 INTRODUCTION

Mens Born around 540 BCE in Ephesus (Ionia), died around 480 BCE. A hard and haughtyman, he did not sympathize with the democratic regime in his polis, and when asked towrite a new constitution for the city, he refused. Towards the end of his life, he left thecity and retired in the temple of Artemis, as the doxographer Diogenes Laertius (c. 200CE) recounts in his 8th book of Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers: Whensomebody asked Heraclitus to decree some rules, he showed no interest because thegovernment of the city was already bad. Instead, he went to the temple of Artemis andplayed dice with children. Finally he became misanthrope, withdrew from the world, andlived in the mountains feeding on grasses and plants. However, having fallen in this wayinto dropsy he came down to town and asked the doctors in a riddle if they could make adrought out of rainy weather. When they did not understand he buried himself in a cow-stall, expecting that the dropsy would be evaporated by the heat of the manure; but even

so he failed to effect anything, and ended his life at the age of sixty.Sap. Maybe you could also mention his nicknames

Mens He is known in Philosophy as the riddler and the obscure one. This is because hecomposed sayings that are hard to decipher, that seem to contradict themselves. Forthem to make sense, these aphorisms as they are called must be interpreted. Nowbeing quite snob, Heraclitus never really bothered to explain them to others as theepisode above illustrates hence one is never sure whether he/she is interpretingHeraclitus correctly. This is why his writing appear so obscure you never quite know ifyou are understanding him or not.

Sap. Whiz, you who have read something about his author, maybe you could tell us brieflywhat most interpreters understand him as saying

Whiz So, the Milesians believed that things can be reduced to one principle, hence were mo-nists. They believed that there is a plurality of things (of material bodies) in the universe,and that each has an identity such that we can call it Socrates or my pen, or that tree.Hence they believed in permanence. They also believed that things change, but to un-derstand nature we need to look at things in their permanence, rather than at theirchanges. Heraclitus, on the other hand, believes that change is supreme. Everythingchanges, everything flows like a river in Greek panta rhei. Nothing is fixed and stable,but the laws that govern change in the universe; matter itself is always changing andthere are no fixed things in the universe. His icon of the arch is fire fire is not a mate-rial thing, it has no material permanence. In a fire, matter is continuously consumed, itconstantly changes. Yet, the fire itself is constant as long as it is fed oxygen andflammable material in the right way and in the right measures FOLLOWING THE FIXEDLAWS OF COMBUSTION the flame will keep on burning.

Sap. Thats a good introduction, Whiz. Now let us read the themesLee 1. Human Ignorance both of the common people and of those deemed wise

2. The Eternal Logos

3. The Unity of the Opposites; Strife and Harmony

4. Fluxism and the Universal Becoming

5. Fire and Cosmology


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6. Metempsychosis

6.2.2 FRAGMENTS(DKNUMBERING)1

'()!

(121) The Ephesians would do well to hang themselves, every adult man, and bequeath theirCity-State to adolescents, since they have expelled Hermodrus, the most valuable man amongthem, saying: 'Let us not have even one valuable man; but if we do, let him go elsewhere and liveamong others.'

(49) One man to me is(worth) ten thousand, if he is the best.

(29) The best men choose one thing rather than all else: everlasting fame rather than things mor-tal. The majority, like cattle, are satisfied by feeding well.

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(40) Much learning does not teach one to have intelligence; for it would have taught Hesiod andPythagoras, and again, Xenophanes and Hecataeus.(42) Homer deserves to be flung out of the contests and given a beating; and also Archilochus.

(105) Homer was an astrologer.

(57) Hesiod is the teacher of very many, he who did not understand day and night: for they areone.(104) What intelligence or understanding have they? They believe the people's bards, and use as

their teacher the populace, not knowing that 'the majority are bad, and the good are few'.3

(81) (On Pythagoras). Original chief of wranglers.

(47) Let us not conjecture at random about the greatest things.(108) Of all those whose discourse I have heard none arrives at the realisation that that which iswise is set apart from all things.

(28) The most wise-seeming man knows, (that is), preserves, only what seems [].

(56) Men are deceived over the recognition of visible things, in the same way as Homer, who wasthe wisest of all the Hellenes; for he too was deceived by boys killing lice, who said: 'What wesaw and grasped, that we leave behind; but what we did not see and did not grasp, that webring.'

(87) A foolish man is apt to be in a flutter at every word(or, 'theory': Logos).(17) For many men those who encounter such things do not understand them, and do notgrasp them after they have learnt; but to themselves they seem(to understand).

(34) Not understanding, although they have heard, they are like the deaf. The proverb bears wit-ness to them: 'Present yet absent.'

(73) We must not act and speak like men asleep.(89) To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common (to all), whereas in sleepeach man turns away(from this world) to one of his own.

(78) Human nature has no power of understanding; but the divine nature has it.*+

(1) The Law(of the universe) is as here explained; but men are always incapable of understand-ing it, both before they hear it, and when they have heard it for the first time. For though all thingscome into being in accordance with this Law, men seem as if they had never met with it, whenthey meet with words (theories) and actions (processes) such as I expound, separating each

thing according to its nature and explaining how it is made. As for the rest of mankind, they areunaware of what they are doing after they wake, just as they forget what they did while asleep.

1 From: Freeman, K., 1948. Ancilla ot the Pre-Socratic Philosophers. A complete translation of the Fragments in Diels,Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Harvard University Press. Cambridge (Massachusetts). USA.2Revised translation. Freeman has: The best men choose one thing rather than all else: everlasting fame among mor-tal men. The majority are satisfied, like well-fed cattle.3 Saying attributed to Bias of Prin. Diels, Vors., ch. 10, 3, s. I.


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(2) Therefore one must follow (the universal Law, namely) that which is common(to all). But al-though the Law is universal, the majority live as if they had understanding peculiar to themselves.

(32) That which alone is wise is one; it is willing and unwilling to be called by the name of Zeus.(89) To those who are awake, there is one ordered universe common (to all), whereas in sleepeach man turns away(from this world) to one of his own.

(113) The thinking faculty is common to all.

(72) The Law(Logos): though men associate with it most closely, yet they are separated from it,and those things which they encounter daily seem to them strange.

(50) When you have listened, not to me but to the Law (Logos), it is wise to agree that all thingsare one.

(41) That which is wise is one: to understand the purpose which steers all things through allthings.

(114) If we speak with intelligence, we must base our strength on that which is common to all, asthe city on theLaw (Nomos), and even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by one,which is divine. For it governs as far as it will, and is sufficient for all, and more than enough.

,%-./'%

(126) Cold things grow hot, hot things grow cold, the wet dries, the parched is moistened.(10) These are joined: whole and not whole, connected-separate, consonant-dissonant.

(53) War is both king of all and father of all, and it has revealed some as gods, others as men;some it has made slaves, others free.

(54) The hidden harmony is stronger(or, 'better') than the visible.

(60) The way up and down is one and the same.(103) Beginning and end are general in the circumference of the circle.

(61) Sea water is the purest and most polluted: for fish, it is drinkable and life-giving; for men, notdrinkable and destructive.

(62) Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal: (each) lives the death of the other, and diestheir life.

(67) God is day-night, winter-summer, war-peace, satiety-famine. But he changes like (fire) whichwhen it mingles with the smoke of incense, is named according to each man's pleasure.

(102) To God, all things are beautiful, good and just; but men have assumed some things to be

unjust, others just.(111) Disease (is what) makes health pleasant and good, (likewise) hunger satisfaction, weari-ness rest.

(88) And what is in us is the same thing: living and dead, awake and sleeping, as well as youngand old; for the latter(of each pair of opposites) having changed becomes the former, and thisagain having changed becomes the latter.

(50) When you have listened, not to me but to the Law (Logos), it is wise to agree that all thingsare one.

(51) They do not understand how that which differs with itself is in agreement: harmony consistsof opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre.

(8) That which is in opposition is in concert, and from things that differ comes the most beautifulharmony.

(80) One should know that war is general (universal) and jurisdiction is strife, and everythingcomes about by way of strife and necessity.

(125) The 'mixed drink'(Kyken: mixture of wine, grated cheese and barley-meal) also separatesif it is not stirred.


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(*) Homer was wrong in saying: "Would that strife might perish from among gods and men!" Hedid not see that he was praying for the destruction of the universe; for, if his prayer were heard,all things would pass away....

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(124) The fairest universe is but a dust-heap piled up at random.

(6) The sun is new each day.

(12) Anhalation(vaporisation). Those who step into the same river have different waters flowingever upon them. (Souls also are vaporised from what is wet).

(49a) In the same river, we both step and do not step, we are and we are not.

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(126) Cold things grow hot, hot things grow cold, the wet dries, the parched is moistened.(30) This ordered universe(cosmos), which is the same for all, was not created by anyone of thegods or of mankind, but it was ever and is and shall be ever-living Fire, kindled in measure andquenched in measure.

(31) The changes of fire: first, sea; and of sea, half is earth and half fiery water-spout (whirlwind).. . Earthis liquefied into sea, and retains its measure according to the same Law as existed be-fore it became earth.

(36) To souls, it is death to become water; to water, it is death to become earth. From earthcomes water, and from water, soul.

(64) The thunder-bolt(i.e. Fire) steers the universe.(90) There is an exchange: all things for Fire and Fire for all things, like goods for gold and goldfor goods.

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(24) Gods and men honour those slain in war.(25) The greater the fate(death), the greater the reward.(27) There await men after they are dead things which they do not expect or imagine.

(62) Immortals are mortal, mortals are immortal:(each) lives the death of the other, and dies theirlife.

6.2.3 DISCUSSION

'()!

Sap. We will not go through all the fragments but just through the themes and say somethingabout each. Starting from that about human ignorance, what are your reactions to Hera-clitus?

Whiz Hes quite a snob! He make a clear distinction between common people (hoi polloi) andthe betters (hoi aristoi) and for him (as for Xenophanes), the betters are the wise,not the physically strong and mighty (as aristoi is understood by the Archaic culture).Then, he puts all the wise people that came before him (Homer, Hesiod, Xenophanes,Hecataeus, Archilocus, Pythagoras) in the category of bards they are fake sages.Hence, only he (and maybe his friend, Hermodorus) are wise. The others are simply

wise-seeming men who recall (and hence know, Fr. 28) only what SEEMS (rather thanwhat IS).

Sap. I think youve got it, Whiz. But for one thing. I wouldnt picture him as saying everyonebut me is a fool, but rather I am one of the very few who really know what true knowl-edge is; many others, that the populace deems wise, have been deceived. One the onehand, Heraclitus sneers at the common people, who stop at appearances, whose

4 Fragment not found in the D-K text, but in the Bywater exemplary edition, R. P. 34 d.


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knowledge is not based on what IS but on what SEEMS. Hence they only have opinion,subjective belief, DOXA rather than truth or objective knowledge, ALETHEIA. On theother hand, most of the sages that people look up to for wisdom are no better theysimply have gathered a big quantity of doxa, of subjective belief based on appearance,and did not overcome the chasm (Fr. 108) that divides doxa from altheia (truth). Hence,instead of altheia, they end up with polymthia: general knowledge, a heap of dubiousbeliefs. The pun on the lice (Fr. 57) is quite good: guys like Homer pass on to us asknowledge what in fact they did not see (understand) and grasp; if they ever really un-derstood something in their lives they probably did not recognize it as the truth, and dis-carded it as children discard lice hence it is not contained in their writings. Their writ-ings contain only what they think they grasped but they didnt (like the childrens hair af-ter they thought they cleaned it: it contains the lice that they think they grasped and re-moved but they didnt). This lack of awareness of the truth that is so common amongpeople is then compared to sleep by Heraclitus when we are sleeping (and dream-ing), it seems as though we are awake but we arent. Thats how Heraclitus sees theworld of doxa

Mens But is it possible to understand anything if the truth is so hard to reach? Fr. 78 is verysceptical about human powers of understanding can we every understand anythingfor Heraclitus.

Sap. O.K. Understanding, truth, are divine they belong to divine nature rather than to hu-man nature. But I do not think that Heraclitus is saying that he is just like everyone elseand has never understood anything, nor that he is some sort of god. As we see from thesecond theme, all people can understand the Logos (and hence have true knowl-edge) all people can (at least theoretically) wake up from their doxa sleep and haveunderstanding. Such an awakening would lead us into the realm of the divine truth isdivine. But there is the seed of the divine in all humans. Thats how I understand Fr. 78.

*+

Lee But what is the Logos?

Sap. Tank, maybe you could tell us something about this Greek word

Tank Logos has a great number of meanings in Greek. The main meaning is word, saying,

expression, proverb. Heraclitus aphorisms are indeed logoi. Legein, to say, tospeak, in Greek indicates sensible, serious discourse that binds the speaker, not simplychatting. The speaker who uses logos is expected to express how the world truly is:when he/she says the ball is round, he/she judges how the ball truly is and declares itas being round. Hence, legein is also to judge the world, to probe and measure howthings are. But also, proper discourse is intimately linked to proper thinking. It is themind that formulates proper statements about the world, propositions, so logos is aproduct of our mental faculties, that make judgements about the world in an orderly(logical) way. Logos expresses a piece of ones mind, it manifests ones reasoning,ones reason and ones rationality. Finally, our capacity of naming things and linkingthem logically using rational discourse allows us to order our common experience of theworld. When we say that is a tree, we are fitting that thing over there appearing to oursenses in our common understanding of the world (since language is shared with oth-

ers) whoever knows what a tree is and how it behaves will be able to fit that thing overthere in his scheme of things. So logos is also an order that we discover in nature (or,maybe, that we impose on nature) whenever we speak (and think) about the worldaround us. If that is a tree, then it will behave as all trees do, otherwise it is not a tree.

Lee I am finding this hard to follow

Sap. O.K. Logos in Greek is all of these: word, saying, expression, measurement, propor-tion, judgement, reason, rationality, law, and also study or inquiry (as in Bio-logy from


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bios-logos: an inquiry about life). Now what about law? Think of this. When we lookaround us, we see pens and desks and walls and people. Yet our eyes give us no morethan a 3-d colour map all things that we visually detect get flattened into a soup ofcolour on the retina. But unless we are in some crazy alien environment we dont SEEpatches of colour. We see tables and chairs and trees and houses. They have depth notonly because we see from both eyes (stereoscopic vision) but especially because we in-stantly reconstruct objects using our mind such that we see the OBJECTS. Hence wedeal with them in a way that presupposes our knowledge of that sort of OBJECT. We seeSOFT grass in the field, COLD water in a half-frozen lake, we see also the BACK SIDE ofthe tree trunk that is hidden from sight most of our seeing is in fact a matter of mem-ory and thought filling in a mental model of what lies around us. Sense data (from oureyes, etc.) only SKETCHES THE CONTOURS of that model. We actually detect visually verylittle of that tree on the horizon. But we see a tree. When we get nearer, it becomes aconiferous tree, then a pine tree, then the pine tree near my uncles cottage. We dontsee it as a green dot or a green triangle. The tree I see is in my mind as much as overthere. It is as if my mind analyses the data from my senses, and then goes through asort of dictionary or encyclopaedia or object-database, selects tree from that list, andplaces it in the model of what lies around me. When more data from the senses comesit, it revises the model if tree is confirmed, it looks up the list under tree and fits pinetree to the picture. Or it revises the model and puts in, say, conical mound of earth.This is possible because we constantly classify our sense experience to reconstruct ob-jects in our mind. We never visually detect all of the tree. We only detect parts of it onour retina, and it is always fused with other things in the background. WE DONT VISUALLYDETECT OBJECTS because our retina does not cut up the picture into trees and grass andrivers, and it always detects them as ONE WHOLE CONTINUOUS THING. Are you with me?

Mens More or less, yes. Objects are like files in our mind where we have all the informationabout, say, a pine tree. We also assume that pine trees exist in nature, but our sensesdont ever bring us in contact directly with a pine tree, but with different bits and manifes-tations of the pine tree, its cones, its bark, its wood, its leaves, its branches and all thisat sunrise, sunset, mid-day, night, and in winter, spring, summer, autumn Our sensesgive us like partial photos which we put together to get the whole picture of the pinetree.

Sap. Fine. But we believe that there are pine trees in nature, as there are in our mind. Thepine tree manifests itself to us in so many ways, but we recognize it and label it pinetree. Sometimes we may be in doubt whether a young coniferous tree is a pine tree ornot. So we may label it simply coniferous tree or tree. But there we wouldnt consider itas a mixture of pine/elm/beech if were specifying its either a pine or its not. Objectsusually fall into rigid compartments in our mental filing cabinet. Each compartment has alabel, its name. Each object has a corresponding word. The words are more stable andrigid than the objects they designate. A river is something that changes constantly, butwe call it a river just as much as we call a mountain a mountain. Well, mountains changetoo. A river is never the same, and yet its always the same river. Pine trees change, andno one pine tree is identical to another, but the mental folder pine tree is always thesame folder (even if the name may change or the contents may be corrected). This isthe Heraclitean logos bring us. The word (logos) pine tree exists in our language, inour mind and there are pine trees in the world (e.g. Pinus halipensisis a botanical re-ality). But we never directly encounter in our experience of the world the CLASS or KINDpine tree, we only encounter INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS that WE JUDGE form part of this group.The name exists, the mental object exists, and we assume the real object exists in na-ture, even if our senses never give us an identical experience of a pine tree twice. Theworld AS SEEN BY OUR SENSES IS ALWAYS CHANGING: rivers flow, people change... Theworld AS RECONSTRUCTED BY OUR MIND AND OUR LANGUAGE (logos) is made of fixed ob-


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jects just as a dictionary is made of fixed entries and a filing cabinet of stable files. Mindand language give an order to our sense experience by their faculties of classificationand judgement, hence the logos is also law, ordering, systematisation.

Lee So that is why the second group of fragments speak about the universal law the Lo-gos with capital L.

Sap. All people share the mental folder pine tree (at least within one given culture, probably,

for most such objects, in all cultures). We assume that pine trees really exist. So whenall humans learn to recognize pine trees, they will all have the same label in their mind.The Logos is thus common and universal. Within the folder pine tree we also get thepine trees possible configurations, its behaviour in strong winds, in winter, in summerAll that is logos, all that is universal, all that is LAW: Pine trees behave in that way, that istheir NATURE (physis!). Pine trees change, but their LOGOS, their nature, does not. Hera-clitus is ultimately ask us to discover the truth about things, their logos. He wants us toget those mental folders right. It is only there that we can have order and stability, not inour sense data. Thats one interpretation of Heraclitus.

Another one is more radical. It says that there is no order and stability in the materialworld; the only stability and order that exist are in our mind. There is no such thing as apine tree, except in our mind and in the dictionary. The material world is made of a mul-tiplicity of objects that are always changing and melting one into the other. The materialworld is like the a 3-d version of the psychological blot test we see things that are inour mind, not in reality. Note, however, that for Heraclitus, the Logos is universal; itsomehow exists in the mind of God, in some ideal mind5. Its not an order present in thematerial world (according to this interpretation), but it is neither an order residing only inparticular human minds. Later philosophers would say that the Logos has a non-materialexistence of its own, independent of human minds. Otherwise it would not be universal,common, and every mind would necessarily have its own peculiar understanding of theuniverse and its ordering. Thats what hoi polloibelieve that there is no universal Lo-gos, only particular logoi. Hence they rarely, if ever, come to understand the universe,since they stick to their PARTICULAR OPINIONS (doxai) about things.

Whiz How does Zeus come into the picture (Fr. 32)?

Sap. In Homer the order in the universe is that decreed by Zeus, so it is the Logos in the mind

of Zeus. Heraclitus would accept the idea of a God in whose mind the LAW WHICH DE-TERMINES HOW EVERY THING IN THE UNIVERSE AND HOW THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE MUSTBEHAVE, I.E. THE LOGOS, is inscribed. Whether you call him Zeus or not is your problem;Heraclitus would not be too eager to attribute to such a God the myths one usually at-tributes to the Homeric Zeus. That is why he says it is willing and unwilling to be calledby the name Zeus. In any case, the point here is that there is one LOGOS, one law gov-erning the universe, and it is divine (Fr. 114). Its oneness makes it common to all peo-ple, even though most are too distracted to get to know it (i.e. to get the information intheir mental folders right, identical to what is contained in the mental folders of thisGod). Most people are overwhelmed by the changing appearances, the apparent lackof permanence around them and are not ready to seek the truth, to learn the true natureof things. Heraclitus, on the other hand, not only wants to understand the Logos of par-ticular things (pine trees, etc.) but, more importantly, he seeks to understand the Logosof the whole of Nature, of the whole Cosmos. This would in some way be his arch, theprinciple that explains how the whole of nature behaves. And what does the Logos ofthe whole of nature say? What is the supreme universal law? It is that all things areone.

5 God here is simply a guarantee of universality... not a particularly religious sort of divinity. The true Logos is in Godsmind, and when we discover it, we partake in the divine. This is why true understanding is of a divine nature for Hera-clitus.


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,%-./'%

Whiz Does that mean that everything we see is one single block of matter?

Sap. Thats more what Parmenides would say. The oneness of Heraclitus is sometimescalled the unity of the opposites, and this brings us to the third theme. Remember thetraditional idea that the world is made of conflicting opposites (in Anaximander, for in-stance)? Heraclitus says that in all things, in all objects, in all matter, the opposites aresimultaneously present, and in constant conflict or strife (PLEMOS). As the frame andthe string in a bow the act in different directions and the tension (strife, polemos) keepsthe bow together (Fr. 51), so is it in all things. The opposite tendencies present in eachobject create a tension that keeps that object together, as a harmonious whole. Werethis tension to cease, the object (and on a lager scale, the whole universe) would fallapart (Fr. *). Strife is thus harmony (Fr. 80), the opposites are one. The opposites notonly coexist in things, they cannot exist without one another. Disease is what makeshealth pleasant and good: there wouldnt be anything particularly healthy if diseasewere not to exist, nor would there be anything particularly satiating if one never experi-enced hunger (Fr. 111). In the same seawater, live-giving and destructive properties co-exist and sometimes one overcomes the other, and vice versa depending on who in-gests that seawater (Fr. 61). The divine mind (i.e. whoever understands the Logos)would understand this oneness of all opposite tendencies, and would see everything asbeautiful, good and just, since no thing can be what it is unless its opposite existed: ifanything is beautiful, it is because the existence of its opposite makes it so, so its oppo-site contributes to its beauty making the whole beautiful (Fr. 102). The common peoplesmind welcomes a descent on the road and grumbles when there is an ascent to climb.But the way up and down is one and the same (Fr. 60): a descent is pleasant becausethere is a slope, and hence also an ascent. In all strife, then, there is hidden harmony(Fr. 54) and this is better than apparent harmony since it is the one that truly keepsthings together. Heraclitus picture of the universe is that of something that is held to-gether by tension, movement, strife (like the posset kyken in Fr. 125): different ten-dencies and components in conflict keep it together. STRIFE MAKES OF ALL OPPOSITESONE HARMONIOUS WHOLE, all things are one. Strife (Polemos) is therefore the arch, theLogos. But strife is also (one with) its opposite, harmony according to this very theory.

Change and conflict are the basis of nature, the arch, the Logos, the nature of the uni-verse, the LAW governing the universe. Hence, change is also order and stability (Lo-gos). This law which is change, this harmony which is strife, this oneness which is a plu-rality of conflicting tendencies: this is the Logos, the arch; this is the truth (aletheia)about nature. In the end, this is the mental structure we should use to understand thereality around us, the model according to which we can understand, grasp and seeproperly all things around us. This is the way the mind of God would order a universethat is (or at least, appears) intrinsically chaotic. O.K. I asked Whiz to read somethingabout Heraclitus fluxism Whiz

012,#&

Whiz Mainly, its the idea that everything changes. The opposite tendencies pull all things attimes to one side, at times to the other, hence things are always changing (though the

tension, the Logos, is always the same). The river thing in Frr. 12 and 49a is anotherdouble-sided story, as most things in Heraclitus (I notice you often repeated fragmentsunder more than one heading). On one hand we are and are not in the same river be-cause different waters flow all the time in the river, and hence THE RIVER CHANGES (it isnot the same river). On the other hand, Heraclitus holds a cosmological theory thatstates that souls are vaporised by what is wet, so the presence of water dissolves mysoul. Hence when I step into the river I am destroyed (because my soul is vaporised)


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and when I come out again, my soul is restored: by stepping into the river I AM CHANGED.Hence I am and am not in the same river.

Sap. If I and the river and everything else is always changing (this idea is called Fluxism), iswhat am I? What is a river?

Whiz There are moderate and extreme versions of Fluxism. If everything were to change al-ways in all respects (as extreme fluxists like Cratylus would hold), there would be no

stability in the world. If we were to believe this we could not coherently use language, asthe things designated by our words would have no stable existence. They would bemere appearances with no identity. Cratylus (the Heraclitean master of Plato) is said tohave lived his last days pointing at things, without ever speaking. Moderate fluxists, onthe other hand, would hold that things are always changing in some respect that al-lows the possibility that they may be stable in some (other) respects. I think that Heracli-tus was a moderate fluxist, because he provided stability to things via the Logos.

Sap. O.K. The thing is quite complex due to the fact that the Logos is a non-material thing,and the Pre-Socrates were just starting to discover the existence of non-material entitieswith Heraclitus. Heraclitus is saying (without maybe realizing this fully) that there is sta-bility on a non-material level (the universal logos), which has real existence (in the mindof Zeus or wherever). He could be AN EXTREME FLUXISTON THE MATERIAL LEVEL (all ma-terial things change always in all respects), but then admit that the Logos has a stabilityof its own and that it gives an order to the universe by classifying the manifestations ofmatter according to its word bank. But surely this would be a MODERATE FLUXISM if onebelieves that not everything is material: if so, everything changes always in all its MATE-RIAL respects, but not in its non-material respects. What Plato comes up with after hisencounters with Cratylus and Socrates is a non-material identity of things that he callsthe form or idea. The pine tree in my mental database, if identical to that universalpine tree in the mind of God, is the form according to which all material pine trees aremodelled.

So, it is difficult to tell if, for Heraclitus, there is any real order in the (material) worldsince we do not know if he believes there is anything else but the material world (theLogos seems to exist in an immaterial world, the mind of God which provides it uni-versality but it is not until Plato that an immaterial world is clearly postulated in Philoso-

phy). For Heraclitus, the universe may be like the blot in the blot test (see above: secondinterpretation), having no intrinsic order with all order coming from the Logos (so itsall in the Mind. with a big M, though, for it is in no particular mind, but in ALL mindsthat think properly)6. Plato says: from our observation of the material world, there seemsto be no order: everything changes. But there is an aspect of all things that neverchanges: its form. This is not in the material world, but in the world of ideas, the Mind ofGod. But if it is the same God that shaped the world according to the ideas present inhis/her mind, then the material world and the objects within it do have one aspect inwhich they do not change: their form, their logos. The pine tree in the world is a pine treebecause it is modelled on the entry pine tree in Gods mind. If it is so, then we KNOW(according to Plato) that there is an order in the material world by virtue of its beingmodelled on the LOGOS (not because our senses tell us that the world is ordered: theydont!). Plato has taken the whole thing a full circle from material world appears in flux

dont know if it has any order the only order I can see is that in my mind, the Logos to

6 Heraclitus and Cratylus would be moderate fluxists if they believed in a stable non-material world of ideas (or logoi),like Plato. Probably, however, this was still beyond them. If so, they believed only in a material world (i.e. that all thatexisted was material) and hence were extreme fluxists (all is material, and all material things change continuously in allrespects: thus no stability is possiblewhich explains why Cratylus stopped using language). This however would re-veal an incoherence in their position: if the Logos is part of the material world, it is not immune from flux, and it cannotbe really universal.


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s.The Pythagoreans p.6-15


O.K., if my minds Logos is universal, the individual logoi, or forms, are those present inGods mind, but the material world must have been created according to Gods mind, soI know that it has an order. There are such things as pine trees in the world, not be-cause I visually detect pine trees (I visually detect no more than ever-changing colourmaps, and when I analyse these maps, I simply get partial images of things ever new),but because I mentally construct pine trees and those mental constructions are thesame that must have been used when the world around me was shaped. Plato comes toclaim that the mental objects are more real than the material objects in the world, theyhave a higher and more stable existence.

O.K. Ill leave you with this for now Ill just add that extreme fluxism denies the possi-bility of IDENTITY: of anything being THE SAME (identical to itself) today and tomorrow, insummer and in winter. Nothing is ever the same, so no object exists! Nothing has iden-tity over time. We have to save identity from being shipwrecked by such theories as ex-treme fluxism, otherwise words would lose their meaning and language would becomesenseless. And when the identity of human beings is involved (personal identity), deny-ing identity means denying moral responsibility for ones actions, among other things:Im not the same guy who killed that person because since then Ive changedtheresno such thing as I. Problems with the identity of objects (e.g. the story of the Ship ofTheseus) and with personal identity (e.g. the moral consequences of Startrek-type tele-

transportation) make interesting reading. Mens, maybe you could finish off the last twothemes with some brief comments.

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Mens Heraclitus believes the universe worked according to a cycle of quenching and rekin-dling of fire. The sun is reconstituted anew every day according to a daily cycle ofevaporations and condensations from and to the world (hence Fr. 6). There is a sort ofcontinuum here: Fire Water Earth (& Air?). In any case, what is most relevant isthe importance given to fire. In some textbook you find that fire is the arch for Heracli-tus. This is only partially true. Fire appears as the protagonist element in these natural-istic fragments, but the bulk of the fragments is not naturalistic: the arch, as we saidabove, is the Logos, and the Logos of the universe is strife, polemos (that is one withharmony). Fire is a good icon of the Logos and of polemos: its material components are

always changing, but flame lives on, it is stable. Combustion can be seen as a conflictbetween flammable materials and air (as long as both are present, there is the tensionthat keeps the fire going), furthermore it follows a law, a Logos: the materials combine incertain measures or proportions (a modern chemist would invoke the chemical equationthat governs the combustion process this is its stable logos that constitutes the fire).So in many ways, fire is both Logos and polemos.

The last section deals with the Greek theory of reincarnation (or better, transmigration)of souls (metempsychosis), which links his sayings on people with his fluxism and histheory of the unity of opposites.

6.3 The Pythagoreans

6.3.1 PYTHAGORAS AND THEEARLYPYTHAGOREANS

Lee We mentioned Pythagoras, before, among the so-called sages. Who was he?

Tank The Pythagoreans were a sect, widespread in Greece, who knew a certain Pythagorasof Samos as their founder. (Samos is an island off the coast of Asia Minor). Pythagorasis said to have travelled widely, and so did his doctrine: Pythagoreanism flourished inSouthern Italy and Asia Minor, its popularity varied. Even after the sect died out (after


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some 200 years of existence), its doctrines came in fashion now and again at latertimes, as neo-Pythagorean schools developed. A great philological problem resultingfrom this is that, since many of the Pythagoreans attributed their discoveries to Pythago-ras (and some neo-Pythagoreans to the original sect), it is difficult to separate earlierfrom later doctrines. Furthermore, it was a secret sect; for many years their doctrineswere unknown to people at large; it is only later that the secrecy rules were relaxed, andmembers of the sect were allowed to disseminate their Pythagorean beliefs. By the timethis happened, more than 100 years had passed since the earliest Pythagorean com-munities had been founded and the earliest Pythagorean authors themselves were con-fused as to what ideas came from who, where and when. It is possible that some phi-losophers such as Parmenides, Heraclitus and Melissus were Pythagoreans for sometime, then left the sect and developed a philosophy of their own.

Pythagoras was known for his wisdom and left nothing in writing. He was born around572 BCE. The order he founded (probably the first communities were started in Italy)was originally of a religious nature; eventually, it took the shape of a sort of freema-sonary and members helped one another to secure the high places in society. The in-volvement in politics eventually brought about periods of persecution as people reactedto their infiltration into all spheres of political life.

Mens What do we know about early Pythagoreanism?

Tank The early sect held doctrines of a religious nature, and ones of a more scientific nature.They believed in transmigration of souls (metempsychosis), practiced abstinence fromcertain foods, observed certain taboos called akousmata. They considered the body(sma) as the tomb (sma) of the soul; to escape from the cycle of transmigration, andhence liberate the soul from the body, one had to practice abstinence and observe theakousmata. However, Pythagoreans also believed that the best way to live life, andhence to liberate the soul from the body, was that of practicing theoretical activity (sci-ence, mathematics, philosophy). Hence, many Pythagoreans devoted their energies tomathematical and scientific research, making some major breakthroughs in geometry.

Early Pythagoreans probably used arrangements of pebbles to represent numbers,eventually, they came to use dotted representation of numbers of the sort we see ondice and dominoes. The zero had not yet been discovered, hence a convenient arith-

metical system such as that using Arabic numerals was still far away. Even so, theycounted to ten and then over again (thus, they used a decimal system). The numberten was therefore a special number, called the decad, and represented using a trianglewith four rows of dots (tetraktys) of 1, 2, 3 and 4 dots respectively:

The tetraktys was considered sacred, and they swore by it. As regards geometry, theydiscovered that a triangle with sides in the proportions 3:4:5 must be a right-angled tri-angle, and that the square on the hypotenuse (h2) of a right-angled triangle must be

equal to the sum of the squares on the sides. If the hypotenuse is the diagonal of asquare, h2 would thus be equal to twice the area of the square (2s2). However, thisgeometrical discovery lead to an arithmetical scandal, since simple arithmetic doesntprovide solutions to problems based on this knowledge. If h is a whole number, s mustbe an irrational number (since no square number can be divided into two equal squarenumbers), hence the problem remained insoluble because their arithmetic was notgeared up to the task. This was kept secret since THEY HOPED TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHINGWITH THEIR SIMPLE ARITHMETIC.


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Everything means everything. The Pythagoreans hoped to explain how the whole uni-verse works using numbers. They studied proportions in music and discovered that mu-sic can be reduced to numerical relationships (e.g. octaves, fifths, fourths). If music canbe reduced to an arithmetical system why not the whole universe?

In their cosmology, they mentioned the limit and the boundless (perasand apeiron), andAristotle tells us they consider the boundless as a sort of breath that was inhaled by the

world (made of limited things) so as to separate the things within it: hence they believedin the existence of free space as a sort of infinite principle that separates out the individ-ual (limited) things in the universe.

6.3.2 LATERPYTHAGOREANISM:FRAGMENTS ANDTESTIMONIES

Sap. After that illuminating introduction to Early Pythagoreanism, let us go on to later theories.Maybe we could start by reading Aristotles testimony, and then give the fragments fromPhilolaus.

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(Testimony from Aristotle:Metaphysics A (tr. W. D. Ross))

Contemporaneously with these philosophers and before them, the so-called Pythagoreans, whowere the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this study, but also having been brought

up in it they thought its principles were the principles of all things. Since of these principles num-bers are by nature the first, and in numbers they seemed to see many resemblances to the thingsthat exist and come into being-more than in fire and earth and water (such and such a modifica-tion of numbers being justice, another being soul and reason, another being opportunity-andsimilarly almost all other things being numerically expressible); since, again, they saw that themodifications and the ratios of the musical scales were expressible in numbers;-since, then, allother things seemed in their whole nature to be modelled on numbers, and numbers seemed tobe the first things in the whole of nature, they supposed the elements of numbers to be the ele-ments of all things, and the whole heaven to be a musical scale and a number. And all the prop-erties of numbers and scales which they could show to agree with the attributes and parts andthe whole arrangement of the heavens, they collected and fitted into their scheme; and if therewas a gap anywhere, they readily made additions so as to make their whole theory coherent. E.g.as the number 10 is thought to be perfect and to comprise the whole nature of numbers, they saythat the bodies which move through the heavens are ten, but as the visible bodies are only nine,

to meet this they invent a tenth the 'counter-earth'. We have discussed these matters more ex-actly elsewhere.

But the object of our review is that we may learn from these philosophers also what they supposeto be the principles and how these fall under the causes we have named. Evidently, then, thesethinkers also consider that number is the principle both as matter for things and as forming boththeir modifications and their permanent states, and hold that the elements of number are theeven and the odd, and that of these the latter is limited, and the former unlimited; and that theOne proceeds from both of these (for it is both even and odd), and number from the One; andthat the whole heaven, as has been said, is numbers.

Other members of this same school say there are ten principles, which they arrange in two col-umns of cognates-

limit and unlimited,

odd and even,

one and plurality,

right and left,

male and female,

resting and moving,

straight and curved,

light and darkness,


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good and bad,

square and oblong.

In this way Alcmaeon of Croton seems also to have conceived the matter, and either he got thisview from them or they got it from him; for he expressed himself similarly to them. For he saysmost human affairs go in pairs, meaning not definite contrarieties such as the Pythagoreansspeak of, but any chance contrarieties, e.g. white and black, sweet and bitter, good and bad,great and small. He threw out indefinite suggestions about the other contrarieties, but the Py-thagoreans declared both how many and which their contrarieties are.

From both these schools, then, we can learn this much, that the contraries are the principles ofthings; and how many these principles are and which they are, we can learn from one of the twoschools. But how these principles can be brought together under the causes we have named hasnot been clearly and articulately stated by them.

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(1) Nature in the universe was fitted together from the Non-Limited and the Limiting, both the uni-verse as a whole and everything in it.

(2) All existing things must necessarily be either Limiting, or Non-Limited, or both Limiting andNon-Limited. But they could not be merely Non-Limited (nor merely Limited). Since however it isplain that they are neither wholly from the Limiting nor wholly from the Non-Limited, clearly then

the universe and its contents were fitted together from both the Limiting and the Non-Limited.This is proved also by actual existing things; for those of them which are made of Limiting (ele-ments) impose Limit, whereas those made of both Limiting and Non-Limited (elements) both doand do not impose Limit, and those made of Non-Limited (elements) will appear Non-Limited.

(4) Actually, everything that can be known has a Number; for it is impossible to grasp anythingwith the mind or to recognise it without this (Number).

(5) Actually, Number has two distinct forms, odd and even, and a third compounded of both, theeven-odd; each of these two forms has many aspects, which each separate object demonstratesin itself.

(6) This is how it is with Nature and Harmony: the Being of things is eternal, and Nature itself re-quires divine and not human intelligence; moreover, it would be impossible for any existing thingto be even recognised by us if there did not exist the basic Being of the things from which theuniverse was composed, (namely) both the Limiting and the Non-Limited.

But since these Elements exist as unlike and unrelated, it would clearly be impossible for a uni-verse to be created with them unless a harmony was added, in which way this (harmony) didcome into being. Now the things which were like and related needed no harmony; but the thingswhich were unlike and unrelated and unequally arranged are necessarily fastened together bysuch a harmony, through which they are destined to endure in the universe. . . .

The content of the Harmony (Octave) is the major fourth and the major fifth; the fifth is greaterthan the fourth by a whole tone; for from the highest string (lowest note) to the middle is a fourth,and from the middle to the lowest string (highest note) is a fifth. From the lowest to the third stringis a fourth, from the third to the highest string is a fifth. Between the middle and third strings is atone. The major fourth has the ratio 3:4, the fifth 2:3, and the octave 1:2. Thus the Harmony (Oc-tave) consists of five whole tones and two semitones, the fifth consists of three tones and a semi-tone, and the fourth consists of two tones and a semitone.

(11) One must study the activities and the essence of Number in accordance with the power ex-isting in the Decad (Ten-ness); for it (the Decad) is great, complete, all-achieving, and the originof divine and human life and its Leader; it shares.... The power also of the Decad. Without this, allthings are unlimited, obscure and indiscernible.

For the nature of Number is the cause of recognition, able to give guidance and teaching to everyman in what is puzzling and unknown. For none of existing things would be clear to anyone, ei-ther in themselves or in their relationship to one another, unless there existed Number and its es-sence. But in fact Number, fitting all things into the soul through sense perception, makes them


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recognisable and comparable with one another as is provided by the nature of the Gnomon7, in

that Number gives them body and divides the different relationships of things, whether they beNon-Limited or Limiting, into their separate groups.

And you may see the nature of Number and its power at work not only in supernatural and divineexistences but also in all human activities and words everywhere, both throughout all technicalproduction and also in music.

The nature of Number and Harmony admits of no Falsehood; for this is unrelated to them. False-

hood and Envy belong to the nature of the Non-Limited and the Unintelligent and the Irrational.

Falsehood can in no way breathe on Number; for Falsehood is inimical and hostile to its nature,whereas Truth is related to and in close natural union with the race of Number.

(14) The ancient theologians and seers also hear witness that because of certain punishmentsthe soul is yoked to the body and buried in it as in a tomb.

6.3.3 LATERPYTHAGOREANISM:DISCUSSION

Sap. In the first paragraph of Aristotles testimony, we have a great deal of information aboutthe sect some of which we mentioned already. If Pythagoreanism started off as a reli-gious movement, it ended up searching for the arch of nature as the many scientificmovements of the time; hence Pythagoreans constructed their own cosmology usingnumbers: numbers are clearly the principles of maths, and if mathematical relationship

can explain all things (as they explain all music), then numbers must be the arch ofeverything. In the second paragraph, Aristotle gives us a neat scheme of their scientificoutlook in this way:

Even & Odd The One Number All things (the whole heaven).

The One is considered both even and odd, hence it unites within it the two elements ofnumber, the two opposite tendencies present in number (does the name Heraclitusring a bell here?). So: even and odd are the elements of the One, which is the arch ofnature. The One and the numbers derived from it, i.e. Number in general, gives rise toall things, it is their principle in a formal and also in a material sense (since thepresocratics did not yet believe that there could be a non-material world, so the numbershad also to be material in some strange way).

The complication comes in where Aristotle links the Even and Odd with Boundless

(Unlimited) and Limit, respectively. Is this his addition, or maybe a Platonic addition? Wecannot tell. Aristotle goes on to give what another group of Pythagoreans believe sohe seem to be telling us that not all Pythagoreans would accept his neat scheme. Theseother Pythagoreans believe that all things are derived from a decad of paired opposites.The first pair of opposites in the decad is Boundless-Limit. If these are linked to evenand odd as Aristotle thinks, there could be a sort of super-theory linking the numericalscheme and the scheme with the decad of opposite pairs. We do not know if any Py-thagorean made such a synthesis of the two schemes or if it is only Aristotle trying to puttogether two disparate Pythagorean theories (coming from different Pythagoreanschools).

Lee Can we use the fragments from Philolaus to tell?

Sap. The fragments are problematic in that we do not know if they are from one source (Phi-

lolaus) or only attributed to Philolaus. Furthermore, Philolaus may have been a Py-thagorean guy who collected information about the theories held in the different Py-thagorean schools. Most of the fragments speak either of numbers or of bound-less/limit we cannot really reconstruct Aristotles two schemes from the fragments, letalone tell whether they were linked. Let us therefore leave it at that, and move on toParmenides, a philosopher that put into question the tendency to reduce things to two

77 A figure used in solving geometrical problems.


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s.6.4 Parmenides of Elea p.6-20


principles/elements/tendencies: such as even/odd, boundless/limit or the unity of theopposites in Heraclitus. Parmenides advocated a return to monism, as we find in theMilesians, but this time a monism of a more radical sort.

6.4 Parmenides of Elea

6.4.1 INTRODUCTION

Mens So, Parmendes came from Elea (somewhere near Naples); he was born around 515-510 BCE according to Platos testimony. Tradition has it that he was disciple of Xeno-phanes but we already said that this is highly unlikely. More probably, he was a Py-thagorean for some time then left the sect. He is said to have been a legislator in Eleaand to have visited Athens.

Sap. Something about the Poem?

Mens Parmendes wrote a poem which is referred to as his writing On Nature, Peri Physeos.A good deal of it has been preserved. It is a literary work in three parts: Prologue, Sec-tion 1 (The way of Aletheia) and Section 2 (The way of Doxa). He plays around withthe verb to be and with Being all over the place such that the poem is said to be the

first attempt at an ontology: a study of Being (on, ontos) indeed, many ontologies fol-low in the history of Philosophy. He distinguishes knowledge based on WHAT IS fromknowledge based on WHAT SEEMS, as we did when explaining the Heraclitean logos:knowledge coming from the mind (known to be true by virtue of its logical structure) IS,knowledge coming from the senses SEEMS. Now, true inquiry (about whatsoever), forParmenides, is that proceeding from the mind; no proper inquiry can proceed from thesenses (since these sometimes deceive us and are hence not trustworthy) only opin-ion (doxa) can come from these. Truth (aletheia) respects the universal ordering of na-ture that can be perfectly rendered by a proper use of our mind; nature cannot but re-spect that ordering if it is to have any order at all (recall Platos developments on Hera-clitus). If our senses tell us otherwise they must be deceiving us.

Now true inquiry can theoretically be of two types: inquiry on how things are (on theirbeing); inquiry on how things are not (on their non-being). Parmenides tells us that this

second type of inquiry cannot be used in practice since we can have no knowledge ofnon-being: it does not exist! So we cannot think about it, nor speak about it. There is nologos concerning non-being. Here we note that Parmenides makes being, thought andspeech coincide: we SAY what we THINK, and we THINK the way things ARE. The orderpresent in nature must be the same order present in my thinking, and that must also bethe have logic present in my (correct) speaking. That is why his investigations on theproper use of the verb to be end up becoming a description of how the universe is.

The Prologue depicts a scene where Parmenides (or the reader) passes from the hu-man (mortal) realm of the DOXA to the divine realm of ALETHEIA, as the goddess Dikopens the gates that separate the house of night (ignorance, false knowledge) from thedaylight. As in the case of the Heraclitean Logos, true knowledge here is divine. Dikethen makes two speeches to the stranger who has just come to visit her: she explainsfirstly what truth is, and how to make true enquiries about things (Section 1), secondly,she expounds the opinions of the mortals (Section 2). The existence of this secondsection has been much debated: if such opinions are not trustworthy, and indeed false(given the image of the world resulting from Section 1), why would Parmenides use upso much of his poem to explain them to us? Is this a method by which he is teaching hisdisciples the ideas of his adversaries? Is this a formal retraction of his earlier beliefsabout nature? Or does he admit that what we can know using the mind alone is very lim-ited, hence we must make use of knowledge coming from the senses for managing our


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daily lives keeping in mind its dubious nature? Its hard to tell, especially since thesecond section is the most fragmented and incomplete.

6.4.2 THE POEM(RECONSTRUCTED FROM THE FRAGMENTS)8

[PROLOGUE]

(1) The mares, which carry me as far as my heart desires, were escorting me. They brought and

placed me upon the well-spoken path of the Goddess, which carries everywhere unscathed themortal who knows. Thereon was I carried, for thereon the wise mares did carry me, straining topull the chariot, with maidens guiding the way. The axle, glowing in its naves, gave forth the shrillsound of a musical pipe, urged on by two rounded wheels on either end, even whilst maidens,Daughters of the Sun, were hastening to escort me, after leaving the House of Night for the light,having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands.

Ahead are the gates of the paths of Night and Day. A lintel and stone threshold surround them.The aetherial gates themselves are filled with great doors, for which much-avenging Justice holdsthe keys of retribution. Coaxing her with gentle words, the maidens did cunningly persuade her topush back the bolted bar for them swiftly from the gates. These made of the doors a yawning gapas they were opened wide, swinging in turn the bronze posts in their sockets, fastened with rivetsand pins. Straight through them at that point did the maidens drive the chariot and mares alongthe broad way.

The Goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in Hers, uttered speech and thus addressed

me: "Youth, attended by immortal charioteers, who come to our House by these mares that carryyou, welcome. For it was no ill fortune that sent you forth to travel this road (lying far indeed fromthe beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. And it is right that you should learn all things,both the persuasive, unshaken heart of Objective Truth, and the subjective beliefs of mortals, inwhich there is no true trust. But you shall learn these too: how, for the mortals passing throughthem, the things-that-seem must 'really exist', being, for them, all there is.

[THEWAY OFALETHEIA(TRUTH,OBJECTIVITY)]

(2) "Come now, listen, and convey my story. I shall tell you what paths of inquiry alone there arefor thinking:

[#1]. The one: that it is andit is impossible for it not to be. This is the path of Persua-sion, for it accompanies Objective Truth.

[#2]. The other: thatit is not andit necessarily must not be. That, I point out to you, is apath wholly unthinkable, for neither could you know what-is-not (for that is impossible),

nor could you point it out.(6) "Whatever can be spoken or thought of necessarilyis, since it is possible for it to be, but it isnot possible for nothing to be. I urge you to consider this last point, for I restrain you firstly fromthat path of inquiry [#2], and secondly from:

[#3]. The one on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander, two-headed, for helpless-ness in their breasts guides their wandering minds and they are carried, deaf and blindalike, dazed, uncritical tribes, for whom being and not-being are thought the same andyet not the same, and the path of all runs in opposite directions. (7) For never shall thisbe proved: that things that are notare. But do restrain your thought from this path of in-quiry, and do not let habit, born from much experience, compel you along this path, toguide your sightless eye and ringing ear and tongue. But judge by reason the highlycontentious disproof that I have spoken.

(8a) "One path only is left for us to speak of: thatit is. On this path there are a multitude of indica-

tions that what-is, being ungenerated, is also imperishable, whole, of a single kind, immovableand complete. Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one and continuous.For what coming-to-be of it will you seek? How and from where did it grow? I shall not permit youto say or to think that it grew from what-is-not, for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. Whatnecessity could have impelled it to grow later rather than sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus itmust either fully be, or be not at all. Nor will the force of conviction ever allow anything, from

8 Text 1996 Allan Randall ([email protected]), edited from translations by David Gallop, Richard D. McKirahan, Jr.,Jonathan Barnes, John Mansley Robinson and others. The D-Knumbering of the fragments is given in round brackets.


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what-is, to come-to-be something apart from itself; wherefore Justice does not loosen her shack-les so as to allow it to come-to-be or to perish, but holds it fast.

"The decision on these matters depends on this: either it is or it is not. But it has been decided,as is necessary, to let go the one as unthinkable and unnameable (for it is no true path), but to al-low the other, so that it is, and is true. How could what-is be in the future? How could it come-to-be? For if it came-to-be, it is not, nor is it if at some time it is going to be. Thus, coming-to-be isextinguished and perishing unheard of.

"Nor is it divisible, since it all alikeis. Nor is there any more of it here than there, to hinder it fromholding together, nor any less of it, but it is all a plenum, full of what-is. Therefore, it is all continu-ous, for what-is touches what-is.

"Moreover, unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without beginning or end, since coming-to-be and perishing were banished far away, and true conviction drove them out. Remaining thesame, in the same place, it lies in itself, and thus firmly remains there. For mighty Necessity holdsit fast in the bonds of a limit, which fences it about, since it is not right for what-is to be incom-plete. For it lacks nothing. If it lacked anything, it would lack everything.

(8c)"Since, then, there is an ultimate limit, it is completed from every direction like the bulk of aperfect sphere, evenly balanced in every way from the centre, as it must not be any greater orsmaller here than there. For neither is there what-is-not, which could stop it from reaching its like,nor is there a way in which what-is could be more here and less there, since it all inviolablyis. Forequal to itself in every direction, it reaches its limits uniformly.

(3) "The same thing is there for thinking of and for being. (4) Look upon things which, though ab-sent, are yet firmly present in thought (for you shall not cut off what-is from holding fast to what-is,since it neither disperses itself in all directions throughout the order of the Cosmos, nor does itgather itself together). (8b) It is the same thing, to think of something and to think that it is, sinceyou will never find thought without what-is, to which it refers, and on which it depends. For noth-ing is nor will be except what-is, since it was just this that Fate did shackle to be whole and un-changing; wherefore it has been named all things that mortals have established, persuaded thatthey are true: 'to come-to-be and to perish', 'to be and not to be' and 'to shift place and exchangebright colour'.

[THEWAY OFDOXA (OPINION,SUBJECTIVITY)]

(5) "Wherever I begin, it is all one to me, for there I shall return again.

(8d) "Here I stop my trustworthy speech to you and thought about Objective Truth. From here on,learn the subjective beliefs of mortals; listen to the deceptive ordering of my words. For theymade up their minds to name two forms, one of which it is not right to name at all (here is wherethey have gone astray) and have distinguished them as opposite in bodily form and have as-signed to them marks distinguishing them from one another:

[#1.] Here, on the one hand, ethereal flame of fire, gentle, very light, everywhere thesame as itself...

[#2.]But not the same as this other, which in itself is opposite: dark night, a dense andheavy body.

"All this order I present to you as probable, so that no mortal belief shall ever outdo you. (9) Butsince all things have been named light and night, and their powers have been assigned to each,all is a plenum of light and obscure night together, both equal, since nothingness partakes in nei-ther.

(10) "You shall know the nature of the ether and all the signs in the ether, the destructive worksof the splendid Sun's pure torch, and whence they came-to-be. And you shall learn the wander-ing works of the round-faced Moon, and its nature, and you shall know also the surroundingheaven, whence it grew and how Necessity did guide and shackle it to hold the limits of the stars.(14) The Moon: night-shiner, wandering around the Earth, an alien light, (15) always looking to-wards the rays of the Sun. (15a) The Earth: rooted-in-water. (11) And you shall learn how Earthand Sun and Moon and the ether common to all, the Milky Way and the outermost heaven, andthe hot force of the stars did surge forth to come-to-be.

(12) "For the narrower rings are filled with unmingled fire, the ones next to them with night, but adue amount of fire is inserted amongst it. In the midst of these is the goddess who governs every-


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thing. For she rules over hateful birth and union of all things, sending female to unite with male,and again conversely male with female.

(13) "She devised Love first of all the gods. (18) When man and woman mingle the seeds of lovethat spring from their veins, a formative power, maintaining proper proportions, moulds well-formed bodies from this diverse blood (for if, when the seed is mingled, the forces therein clashand do not fuse into one, then cruelly will they plague the offspring with a double-gender). (17)She placed young males on the right side of the womb, young females on the left.

(16)"According to the union within each person of disparate body parts, thus does mind emergein humans. For it is the composition of body parts which does the thinking, and Thought (since itdefines the plenum) is the same in each and every human.

(19)"Thus, according to belief, these things were born and now are, and hereafter, having grownfrom this, they will come to an end. And for each of these did humans establish a distinctivename. (20) One and unchanging is that for which as a whole the name is: 'to be'."

6.4.3 DISCUSSION

Sap. Whiz, maybe you could show us the sketch you have done of the scene in the prologue.

Whiz Here it is there are two paths, representing mental pathways of inquiry. You can alsosee the goddess, the chariot

Sap. Fine. We will not linger on the Prologue, though its symbolism is very interesting. In the

text you have #1, #2 and #3, corresponding to the two ways of aletheia (being and non-being respectively) and the path of doxa (what seems, is). In #3, he describes this thirdpath as one trodden by double-headed mortals. If the senses could deceive us, whatSEEMS may BE but may just as well NOT BE. So what seems is what is or is not: thethird path is the one that says what is or is not, is. But this is obviously false or so itseems!

Mens Your use of the verb to be is becoming quite confusing, here!

Sap. Youre right it is not only confusing, but as we shall discover, confused! Considerthese two sentences: John is and John is tall? What do they mean? The first statesthat he really exists. The second attributes a property to John. Are they two completelydifferent and unconnected uses of the verb to be? Not really, because the existence ofJohn includes and presupposes physical characteristics such as height, and moreover,

when stating that John is tall, we are supposing (or assuming) that there exists thatsomething (John) were talking about.

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