Questions tagged [presocratics]
The presocratics were early Greek philosophers active during or before the time of Socrates.
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Mystery Heraclitus fragments in Apocalypse Culture Vol. 1
Fire will come, and judge, and condemn all things.
Leave rest and quiet to the dead, where they belong.
Whatever we see when awake is death; when asleep, dreams.
—Heraclitus
Heraclitus is quoted ...
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What presocratic philosopher got rich, disproving his detractors who thought philosophy didn't have practical applications?
What presocratic philosopher got rich?
I remember a story about one who was criticized for not applying his intelligence to making money. What use was his philosophy if it didn't produce practical ...
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Is all philosophy of the Pre-Socratics and Plato actually philosophy, and if so, why?
Dialogues that contain something like an objective argument, like the Republic, or the Parmenides, would be philosophy in the sense we understand it today, but what about the Timaeus, or even the ...
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The firmament in the hexaemeral cosmogony and compatibility with Thales
I realize any GPT analytical snippet may have its flaws, but I find it an alluring tool (if it continues to improve) to offer educated conjectures on what pre-Socratics would have to say about certain ...
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Reconciling Parmenides with the Kabbalist notion of Ein Sof
While contrasting the ontological systems of Parmenides and Kabbalists may seem arbitrary, I hope it will not be fruitless.
For now, I'm aiming to examine one specific concept: Ein Sof. As wiki puts ...
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Why is Xenophanes B34 epistemological fragment also gnoseological?
I was reading a History of Ancient Philosophy (from the National Research council in Spain, CSIC) book where the following Xenophanes' fragment B34 is classified as gnoseological, without further ...
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Is Zoroastrianism underappreciated when in relation to its influence of Early Greek Philosophy?
It would be nice to believe that the Early Greek Philosophers were entirely original in their ideas, though it would be rather simplistic to say that such a reality was true. When examining, let's ...
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How did the Anaximander’s fragment challenge Greek philosophy?
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
– The condemnation for the crime –
In conformity with ...
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Is Thales's claim that everything starts with water/wetness, in ontological meaning, in agreement with his claim that: "Everything is full of gods"?
Thales claimed water as his arche, but Aristotle says that he also said that "Everything is full of gods". Are those two claims in agreement?
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What is known of Anaximander's reasoning behind his belief that the Earth floated?
Anaximander was the first philosopher (at least that I know of) to argue that the Earth floated in space without support and without being enveloped by the cosmic ocean. I have heard his reasoning for ...
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Simplicius of Cilicia - Citation System
I am reading the wonderful "The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy" (Daniel W. Graham).
There are frequent excerpts from Simplicius' commentary on Aristotle's Physics.
I would like to look up the ...
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Is Heraclitus really a Mobilist?
I learned that Heraclitus stressed the importance of change and the ephemeral nature of things in the cosmos. However, it seems that Heraclitus refers to a "logos":
The opening of Heraclitus' book ...
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Why does Parmenides impose a limit on his Being?
Parmenides mentions twice in the poem what-is has limit in the part where he talks that what-is is “like the bulk of ball” (B8: lines 42, 49, pages 60, 61).
42:
But since the limit is ultimate, it ...
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Were any pre-Socratic philosophers interested in building schools/academies?
Plato, as a lot of people know created the Platonic Academy, which focused on teaching many subjects, but didn't any pre-Socratic philosophers think of making an academy/school for teaching subjects ...
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Paradox of motion in the emptiness
The philosophers of the Eleatic school, analyzing the nature of the movement, came to this paradox: in order for the body to move, it needs emptiness. But what is emptiness? This is what exists, but ...
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Which pre-Socratic believed the sun was a burning bar of iron?
I had it in my head that it was Anaximander, but I'm not finding it (and it's been a couple of decades since this concept was introduced to me;) Any help is much appreciated.
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Why did Parmenides rely on a fantastic fable to explain a sensitive-refusing theory?
There's one point in Parmenides' philosophy where he distinguishes between the 'Way of the Truth' and the 'Way of the Doxa' in a poem called On Nature.
In said manuscript, the philosopher states the ...
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Did Plato record actual conversations in his dialogues?
For example, Did Socrates really meet Zeno in Parmenides as a young man and the conversation that took place between them was recorded by Plato?
Are ANY of Plato's dialogues recordings of actual ...
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Why is Aristotle's objection not considered a resolution to Zeno's paradox?
It seems to me, perhaps naïvely, that Aristotle resolved Zenos' famous paradoxes well, when he said that,
Time is not composed of indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of ...
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Book about presocratic cosmology
Is there any book focusing on presocratic cosmological ideas?
Such as Heraclitus: The Cosmic Fragments, but covering all of the presocratics.
My main motivation is that I would like to give a lecture ...
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How historically grounded is the standard narrative of the Irrationals in Antiquity?
Its commonly said that the Pythagoreans were unbalanced by the discovery of the irrationals; since their philosophy was predicated on ratios; ratios of two finite numbers.
Still, it is natural to ...
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What did Democritus talk about when he talked about "atoms"?
What did the ancient atomists, e.g. Democritus, say about the number of different sorts of atoms? Did they assume four sorts, corresponding to the four elements (earth, water, air, fire, water)?
Any ...
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Why didn't Thales say the water is principle of matter, but the originating principle, according to Russell?
If I remember Russells Short History of Western Philosophy correctly, Russell unequivocally maintains that Thales was the first philosopher of note. He said:
The world is made of water
Russell does ...
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If Parmenides denied the reality of void, would he then have affirmed the reality of space?
Lucretious, in his poem de rerum natura had atoms moving through the void. It seems at least from a modern perspective that his void is what we would call space.
The interesting question, which I ...
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Why are the hellenic philosophers before Platos time referred to as pre-socratic?
It seems plausible to me that they could equally have been called pre-Plato. Whats the significance of Socrates? Did he instill an ethical turn in Hellenic philosophy (or be seen to do so)?
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