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[sid] => 161230
[catid] => 1
[aid] => mick
[title] => INTRODUCING ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
[time] => 2010-07-19 00:15:34
[hometext] => FRIENDS , I PRESENT TO YOU ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY IN VERSE !
[bodytext] => Friends , I present to you the very edifice of Western Philosophy in Verse , dating back over two thousand five hundred years of History ! Based on my painstaking research work because of my love for Philosophy ! And while doing so , I tried to make the complex areas simple , as I tried to put it in rhyme , without sacrificing authenticity ; and also keeping in mind brevity ! The first part deals with Pre-Socrates Period commencing with Thales , the Father of Philosophy , and ending with the age of The Sophists – which precedes the age of Socrates . INTRODUCING ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY COMPOSED IN VERSE BY RAJ NANDY (**ALL COPY RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR**) PRE – SOCRATIC PERIOD INTRODUCTION Man is born as a thinking being , With an inborn quest for knowledge and its endless thirst ; Which gave rise to his intuitive and speculative thoughts , In an effort to quench his intellectual lust ! Thus ‘philosophia’, – Greek for ‘love of wisdom’, - In ancient Greece took its birth ! To seek the real behind the apparent , The substance behind the shadow ; For all things on this planet earth , Became the endeavor behind all his thoughts and speculations ; And those ancient Greeks led the way - towards this noble deliberation ! THE IONIANS OR MILESIAN PHILOSOPHERS In the sixth century before Christ was born , Came the Ionian or Milesian philosophers , - as they were called . To delve at truth both simple and pure , And to find answers to questions that should endure ! They were no longer satisfied with mythical and superstitious explanations ; And tried to delve into things using reasonable speculations ! They all pondered on a single substance called the ‘arche’ , From which all things derived , and was perhaps the original reality ! They also deliberated on the problems of identity and change , And how all things in nature rearranged ! THALES OF MILETUS During sixth century BC , on the western coast of present day Turkey , In the thriving Greek colony of Miletus , Was born the Father of Greek Philosophy ! He was Thales , regarded as one of the Seven Wise Men of Greek History ! He broke the shackles of all mythical and superstitious speculations , And liberated Greek minds for proper philosophic deliberations ! He declared ‘water’ to be the ‘arche’ of all creation ! Water was that single substance from which all things derived ; And with time , into which all things would finally subside ! Thales :The First Philosopher Scientist : Thales visited Egypt to study geometry , And also developed his unusual mathematical ability ! Back in 585 BC he became very famous , - By accurately predicting an eclipse of the sun ! Those early days of antiquity , had no clear divisions between science and philosophy ! With philosophy , science , and mathematics , - all were rolled into one ; Thales became very renowned for his theorems ! One theorem stated that when you draw a triangle , Inside a semi-circle , it always had a right angle ! He was the first to introduce the process of deduction , - Deriving mathematical statements from logical observations ! He was an exceptional man of antiquity , Much ahead of his time , - deserving publicity ! ANAXIMANDER (611-546 BC) Had introduced the sun-dial into Greece . His treaties ‘On Nature’ was the first philosophical work in Greek prose , - Which the people of Greece had ever known ! For him the ‘arche’ was the ‘Boundless or the Infinite’; A space filling animate mass , a kind of mysterious mixture , From which all things arose through separation , Whose true nature he never described , - Specifically or otherwise , in all his deliberations ! ANAXIMENES (588-524 BC) A pupil of Anaximander - declared it was air , mist or vapor , Which held the key to all reality forever ! From air all things arose through rarefaction and condensation ; Rarefied air into fire gets blown ! But when condensed it transformed into , - Wind , cloud , water , earth and stone ! Man’s soul which is air , holds him together , So does the air which envelopes the earth - sustaining all matter ! Since all changes are produced by motion , and motion being eternal ; Further clarification he felt was not needed , and had nothing more to tell ! These Milesians with their innovative philosophy , Tried to seek a single explanation for the universe , and its multiplicity ! PYTHAGORAS OF SAMOS (580-500 BC) Background : Born in the Greek island of Samos in the Northen Agean Sea , - Off the coast of Asia Minor of modern day Turkey ; It was around late 6th century BC ! He settled in Croton , a Doric Greek colony - Of southern Italy , in 529 BC . Lectured mostly in philosophy and mathematics . Started a secret society called the Order of the Pythagorians ; They followed rigid ascetic practices and were strict vegetarians ! Pythagoras is said to have traveled extensively – visiting foreign lands ; And in him the traditional knowledge of other classical civilizations blend ; Wherein we can also find , a mystical trend ! He is said to have picked up geometry from the Egyptians ; Arithmetic from the Phonesians , and astronomy from the Chadeans ! His mystical trends and religious practices came from the Orient ! These mystical believes include the belief in the transmigration of the soul ; While his pupils carried on his noble traditions ! He had taught verbally , and is quoted by Plato and Aristotle frequently ! And alluded to by Neoplatonist philosophers of later history ! His Theory of Numbers and Musical Ratios : His number theory was rather unique and exotic , His mystical thoughts blending with mathematics ! Even numbers were said to be feminine , And odd numbers stronger and masculine ! Since even plus odd always gives odd , While two evens could never produce an odd ! But the numbers that impressed him the most , Were found by him in the Musical Ratios - as we can see , As I had mentioned in my poem “Pythagoras and his Music of the Spheres” already ; From which I now proceed to quote liberally ! Pythagoras is generally known for his famous theorem of geometry , Had a scientific bent of mind which did blend with his philosophy ! He is the first Greek philosopher credited to have heard , - Cosmic music of the heavenly bodies in their diurnal orbit round the sun ! The Book of Job speaks of a time when the stars of the morning sang together while afloat ! And in his ‘The Merchant of Venice’ , Act V, Shakespeare wrote :- “There is not the smallest orb that thou beholdest But in their motion like an angle sings , Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins , Such harmony is in the mortal souls , But whilst this worldly vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in , we cannot hear it !” Pythagoras while playing the Lyre one day , Formulated his musical theory as historians say ! Just as distinct notes were produced by the varying lengths of the Lyre strings , So did the planets , revolving in there divinely fixed frequency ratios ; And combined to form God’s philharmonic orchestra , - His grand cosmic show ! Thus in his Theory of Music the mystic Pythagoras , Related it all to mathematical ratio of numbers ! He tried to resolve through numbers the relation of all things , - As the underlying principle of all living beings ! Our modern day popular science of Numerology , Owes much to Pythagoras and his mystical number philosophy ! Since Numbers never lied and always told the truth , They were considered Humanity’s ultimate good ! THE PROBLEM OF TRANSFORMATION AND CHANGE ! So far in the opening verses we have seen , The Ionian philosophers all delved in , - The substantial nature of all things ! While the Pythagoreans dealt with quantitative relations , - Of order , harmony , and number unifications , Blending their thoughts with mystical traditions ! The next philosophical issue with which the Greek’s dealt , - Was the problem of becoming , transformation , and change ! A name which now features from the past , - is Hera*****us of Ephesus ! Hera*****us of Ephesus (540-480 BC) : Born in the Greek island of Ephesus in the Agean Sea , In an aristocrat family , he displayed contempt for democracy ! For Thales , if my readers recall , everything was made of ‘water’ ! Anaximenes thought ‘air’ was the primitive element ; While Pythagoras had reduced everything to his ‘exotic numbers’ ! For Hera*****us the primary world-stuff was ‘fire’ ! Fire with its heat , light and combustion , was an animate thing , - The very soul of all creation and living being ! The ever living fire was never at rest , And Pythagoras at times called it vapor or breath ! The soul was a mixture of fire and water , Where fire was noble and water ignoble ! A soul that had most fire was deemed to be the best , Since a dry soul was always the wisest ! All things were in a state of flux he had said ; For you cannot step into the same water twice , As water keeps flowing past your feet all the while ! All things change to merging with time’s flow , A process so gradual , one hardly perceives or come to know ! “Nothing ever is - everything is becoming” , Thus rose the philosophy of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ ; That distinguished Hera*****us from Parmenides ! The world continues to be in a state of flux , Where strife (Nekos) and love (Philia) , Are the dividing and uniting forces in control , To ensure the balance and unity of the whole ! Harmony is the union of opposites ; Just as the high and low musical notes combine , To create music and melody in our life ! The principle of the universe is becoming and change , And with his dynamic metaphysics Hera*****us tried to delve , The ultimate reality behind all things as he had felt ! Next we move on to Parmenides and his philosophy of ‘being’ ; Directly opposed to Hera*****us’ notion of ‘becoming’ ! PARMENIDES (515 BC – 450 BC) : Born in Elea a city south of present-day Napels , At the age of 65 years visited Athens , And was interviewed by the youthful Socretes , - as Plato says ! He was the founder of the Elactic School ; Declared all changes to be mere illusory , - and not to be fooled ! In reality it was only changelessness , - only a state of ‘being’ ; Far removed from Hera*****us’ change and flux , and ‘becoming’ ! Since for ‘being’ to change and ‘become’ , it must have come , - From a being , or non-being , or nothing ! To come from a ‘non-being’ or ‘nothing’ was impossible ! But if from a ‘being’ , then it has come from itself ; And has always been an ‘identical being’, - Parmenides strongly felt ! It was evident then , that from being only being can come , Hence there was only one eternal , indivisible being , which was continuous ! Moreover , he declared ‘being’ and ‘thought’ were one ! For what cannot be thought cannot be , And what cannot be , that is ‘non-being’, - cannot be thought ! ‘Thought’ and ‘being’ for him were identical ! All change for Permanides being inconceivable , - The world of sense he declared was an illusion ! Sense perception reveals a world of plurality and change ; An illusory world of opinion and appearance ! Later , Bertrand Russell in his ‘History of Western Philosophy’, Suggested Parmanides was a victim of linguistic Fallacy ! Yet he gives him credit for the ‘invention of Metaphysics based on logic!’ Both Melissus and Zeno as pupils of Permanides , Continued his traditions in his Electic School of Philosophy ! Zeno’s through his four paradox on movement tried to demonstrate , The indivisibility and unchanging reality without change ! Zeno with his words of magic, is reputed to have laid the foundation of Logic ! THE PLURALISTS : Empedocles & Anaxagoras That single primary substance the ‘arche’ of the Ionian philosophers , Was challenged by Emphedocles (b.495BC) and Anaxagoras(b.500BC) ! Emphedocles spoke of four qualitative elements of Nature ; As Earth , Air , Fire and Water ! And also of two mythical beings - love and hate ; Which caused all elements to unite , or to separate and break ! Therefore they were called ‘Pluralists’, - Since for them only a single primary substance , - did not exist . This above position was refuted by Anaxagoras , Who claimed these elements were not merely four , But they were countless in number and many more ! It was neither love or hate but ‘nous’ , - a spontaneous active mind ; Was the source of all movements and life of Mankind ! THE ATOMISTS : Little is known about the Father of the School of Atomist called Leucippus , He was made famous by his pupil Democritus ! For him Parminedes’ non-being void did never exist ; And Democritus spoke of atoms as indivisible spatial entities ; Moving in a void or empty space , as the building stones of reality , - Which led to the formation of different objects and its multiplicity ! Just like the comedies and tragedies of those days , - Were composed of the same letters of the alphabets , - Democritus had said . He was a rationalist and maintained , all genuine way of knowledge began , - When sense perception ends ! For sense perception was obscure knowledge ; And thoughts which transcends sense perception and appearance , Reaching the very atoms in our being , Becomes the only genuine knowledge of human beings ! But these philosophical thoughts only marked a beginning ! THE SOPHISTS (481- 411BC) : They were wise and skilful men of Greek history, Lectured on art, rhetoric and oratory . Also trained young men for political life , Were like intellectual mercenaries of their time ; For all their teaching came at a price ! Beyond the reach of ordinary men , Which made Socrates later criticize them ! There chief exponent was Protagoras , Who had emphasized amongst all other things , - ‘Man as the measure of all things !’ But those Sophist had failed to see, the forest for the trees ! They failed to recognize ‘man’ from ‘men’ , While exaggerating the differences in human judgments ; Ignoring the common areas of agreements ! Sophistry soon degenerated into selfish and fallacious reasoning ; And was rejected by many thinking beings ! CONCLUDING PART-I : With this my readers I come to the end of Part-I of Ancient Greek Philosophy in Verse . I had aimed at simplicity for easy understanding , Without sacrificing authenticity ; Being a true lover of Philosophy ! The second part would cover the Age of Socrates , The Cynics , and The Cyrenaic ; Stopping short of Plato and his ideal World of Forms . Thanks for reading ! Author : Raj Nandy New Delhi ***ALL COPY RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR*** [comments] => 2 [counter] => 442 [topic] => 31 [informant] => RAJNANDY [notes] => Took block off this poem and I sincerely apologize for my error. Shakespeare's works are no longer copyrighted. Moderator_18 Sep 20, 2010 [ihome] => 0 [alanguage] => english [acomm] => 0 [haspoll] => 0 [pollID] => 0 [score] => 0 [ratings] => 0 [editpoem] => 1 [associated] => [topicname] => StoryPoetry )
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