Early Philosphy
...ales theory proved to be wrong, it seems to me that Thales sparked a great era of thinking in the ancient world and also a great period of ancient quests for knowledge. Anaximenes had an extremely similar theory to that of Thales. Like Thales, Anaximenes declared there to be one basic underlying substance; the difference between the two is that Anaximenes proclaimed this substance to be air. A common theme with both of these philosopher’s ideas appears to be the fact that the answers they were searching for back then are still being sought after today in modern science. Another philosopher of the same time and place as Thales and Anaximenes was Anaximander. Anaximander was actually a pupil of Thales, thus they were asking themselves and each other the same questions. As Anaximander examined the questions and evidence, he took Thales’ theory one step further by claiming there was an unknown and even more basic substance of which everything was made out of. Knowing what we know today, we can see that this part of Anaximander’s claim is correct. All three of these specific theories are extremely impressive to me in multiple ways. Yes, almost anyone from today would probably be to come up with better explained, clearer and more correct answers than the theories listed above, however that is not the point; the point is that these men were the first ever to ask and attempt to answer these questions, they were thinking outside of the proverbial box. That fact that their answers then were as close to the answers of today is downright amazing if you think really think about it. Yet another somewhat similar theory to those of the Milasians was the theory of Heraclitus, who declared that reality’s only constant, was its change. He chose one element to symbolize this constant change: fire. Basically, Heraclitus declared the fundamental element of which everything was made to be fire, due its unstable existence. It would be impossible today to decide whether or not Heraclitus believed fire was literally the fundamental physical building block or he just used it to make a representation. I believe fire to be a great representation of the idea he is trying to convey. Since everything was constantly changing according to Heraclitus, then you could never see, touch or feel the same exact thing twice. As a direct result of Heraclitus’ reasoning, the problems of (personal) identity arose. Essentially, the problems of identity deal with a contradiction presented in Heraclitus’ theories. If you are always changing, then how can you be the same person that you were yesterday? I find this question to be extremely interesting and thought provoking; one can only imagine the answers given by the thinkers of the day. With modern science as advanced as it is, we can know that over the course of seven years every molecule within our bodies is replaced. All of Heraclitus’ thoughts aside, considering we know now for a fact that we change physically and completely over the course of time, there has to be a legitimate answer to the problem of personal identity. I see this as a great illustration of how closely related ancient philosophy is to modern science. Another significant philosopher of the time, Parmenides, would be described as such due to his original ideas and methods. At first glance his ideas merely oppose those of Heraclitus; however he employs unique logic and methods in order to come to his conclusions. Some of the things that separated Parmenides from most of the philosophers of his time are the fact that he was not searching for “some kind of fundamental stuff,” or the exact nature of reality. I applaud Parmenides for this because at this point in time philosophy was a new thing and by itself was already abstract enough; he made his philosophical journey off the (slightly) beaten path. If Parmenides was not searching for fundamental basics or the nature of being, then what was he looking for? Parmenides essentially built upon what was already concluded and stated by others around him, which leads into a concept which he was given credit for; that of A priori and A posteriori. A priori is something that can be known prior to experience. A posteriori is something that is known only after the fact. He based many of his theories and beliefs on this concept. One particular theory includes the declaration that being does not change, is unitary, undifferentiated and eternal. While reading some of this specific section in the text, I had a feeling that some of Parmenides’ philosophy is a bit redundant. Take the explanations of being being an undifferentiated whole and being unitary, for example, it says that “. . . it does not have any parts. Parts are different from the whole, and if something is different from being, it wo...