Eleatic No-Changers: "Unnatural Philosophers"

Eleatic No-Changers: "Unnatural Philosophers" The Milesians and Heraclitus interpreted experience as phenomena of the senses, characterized by constant change. Our knowledge of the world can come only from seeking patterns in the flux. The philosophers of Elea disputed this interpretation in what seems a bizarre way, so that Aristotle called them the "unnatural philosophers." They were Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno.

Xenophanes the Rhapsodist Xenophanes (570-475) was a colorful character, a wandering rhapsodist who eventually became a poet himself. Unlike most philosophers, he did not come from a wealthy family. He left Colophon in Ionia after the Persian invasion; he was twenty-five when he left and he wandered for sixty-seven years. He attacked the official view of the gods, as represented anthropomorphically in his day. He settled in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy Xenophanes believed that the Deity was everywhere and everything. In fact, Xenophanes thought it demeaning for a god to "be somewhere else" and "to come when called.“ He wrote that, "It (being) always abides in the same place, not moved at all, nor is it fitting that it should move from one place to another."

God is everything, the All-One, and it does not move. From this point of view, reality, the All-One, is not knowable through sense experience and, in fact, sense experience is wholly illusion. In particular, all movement and change of other kinds are illusions. If god, which is all reality, does not move from place to place, then movement is just apparent. Here is a rationalism that is not based on dualism and the afterlife, as was the case with the Pythagoreans. Xenophanes was a monist like the Milesians, but he was by no means a naturalist and he was not an empiricist.

Parmenides (540-470) came from a noble and rich family in Elea and wrote an excellent constitution for that city. What he wrote in The Way of Truth, is not straightforward: It must be that that, which may be spoken of and thought of, is what is; for it is possible for it to be, but it is impossible for nothing to be. This I bid you think on. (Nahm, 1964, p. 93) “Nothing” – empty space - does not exist! Neither do time and motion. It is/being is the only reality and anything else is nonexistent.

Reality is a homogeneous, motionless, timeless sphere devoid of perceptual characteristics? Bizarre as that seems, it is at least partly reasonable concerning the illusory nature of time. According to Parmenides, anything that can be thought - exists - and anything that ever existed still exists. All this follows from the assumption that time is an illusion and we will see the same argument proposed by Saint Augustine centuries later.

Parmenides was attacked for the seeming absurdity of his views - rationalism is in many ways absurd (since it is nonsense) and it is only through reason, not experience, that Parmenides' conclusions can be entertained at all.

Zeno: What was the Purpose of His Famous Paradoxes? Zeno of Elea was a favorite disciple of Parmenides and a handsome man who flourished in the mid fifth century B.C. He lectured in Athens when 40 and later was accused of plotting against the tyrant Nearchus of Elea. He was tortured to death without implicating his accomplices and, like the Pythagorean woman Timycha a century later, is said to have bitten off his tongue and spat it at his persecutor.

His purpose was to defend Parmenides' rationalist philosophy against detractors and he did so in such a way that Aristotle called him the inventor of dialectic (Zeller, 1883/1964). The targets of his 40+ deductions, in which he began with opponents' postulates and showed them to result in contradictions, were the Pythagoreans. He criticized their atomism, their belief in empty space, and their belief (shared by the Milesians) that motion and other change are basic aspects of reality.

Empiricism and common experience tell us that the world is a multitude of things and that they are always changing. Is that illusion? Does the rational method of the Eleatics show that matters are different? Zeno asked whether the "many" is finite or infinite.

If there are many things, are they infinitely small (like the atomon), which is invisible with no mass, extension, or bulk? How do many such "nothings" add to produce a "something?" One grain of millet falling makes no sound. How can a million grains make a sound? How can a million "nothings" make a "something?" How do you answer him?

Yet, if the unit has some magnitude, then it is divisible. The divisions must also be divisible and so on to infinity. Thus the unit must be infinitely large, since it is infinitely divisible. Hence, there cannot be many things, since they would have to be, but could not be, infinitely small or infinitely large. So reality is one thing and time and movement are illusions? Consider the problem of the moving arrow. The arrow must either be moving at a place where it is or where it is not. It cannot be moving in a place where it is or it would not be there. It cannot be moving in a place where it is not since it is not there. Hence, it cannot be moving.

The Eleatics show us, interestingly, that it is possible to be a material monist and yet believe in a reality beyond sensation. But they were indeed "unnatural," since they deprecated the information gained through the senses and emphasized the importance of reason. Reason leads to odd conclusions, for the Eleatics and for many subsequent thinkers.

Parmenides' questioning the reality of time and thus suggesting that everything that ever existed exists now has obvious implications for immortality and was adopted by Saint Augustine. Zeno's arguments show that logic can make the world provided by the senses seem a strange place, perhaps no stranger than the "reality" of Parmenides.

Democritus vs Protagoras In the 4th and 5th Centuries BC, two main interpretations of the relation of mind and body were clearly formulated and they have remained in pretty much their original form through the millennia. Their first clear renditions appeared in the teachings of Democritus and Protagoras. The issue was the nature of epistemology, or the question of the origin and nature of knowledge.

One influential attempt to deal with this problem is associated with Democritus, probably born in 460 B.C., credited with inventing atomism and the copy theory of perception. • Anaxagoras, who proposed an infinity of "seeds", held that they vary infinitely in quality, or the nature of their being. • Democritus saw atoms as all qualitatively identical. They differed in size, shape, and density, but not in the material comprising them.

Unique among the ancients, he also postulated the existence of the void; atoms circulate in empty space, nonbeing. • The notion of emptiness is still difficult to accept and it is only recently that the existence of an "ether" to fill space and propagate light waves and other radiation has been abandoned.

For Democritus, things come into existence and cease to exist as atoms comprising them coagulate and disperse. • The soul is likewise composed of atoms, but these are more swiftly moving than are body atoms. If the soul atoms escape and disperse, we die and this is a constant danger. • Luckily, the air around us is filled with these rapidly moving atoms and if we keep inhaling we can replenish any soul atoms that may have escaped When we die, "the pressure of the atmosphere dominates…”

The Epistemology of Atomism For the atomists, knowledge arises because objects are constantly giving off copies of themselves (eidolae, simulcra). • Objects vibrate, as the atoms of which they are constituted constantly move, sending delicate hollow frames of different shape and organization that remain coherent because "birds of a feather flock together” (Nahm, 1962, p. 189). • They are real particles, not just reflected light, and they may mold the air that travels to our eyes.

These copies or representatives literally pass through us and, on the way, they are detected by our special psychic (soul) atoms. Since the soul atoms are finer and more closely packed than are body atoms, they act as a sieve, "straining" the copy atoms and detecting their pattern. • For the atomists, we see, hear, smell, and touch because we take part of the substance of the things we sense into our bodies. In many versions of this theory, we respond to representations in a "like knows like" manner. • While there is no color in nature, the shape of atoms and their arrangements give us color, so that white is smooth and black is rough.

Trueborne knowledge corresponds to actual experience. • Repetition leads to self-generated responding, as proposed by Hebb (1949) reverberation circuits (cell assemblies and phase sequences). • This may produce error – “bastard knowledge.” • It is through confirmation - "agreement and disagreement" of past and subsequent experiences - that we distinguish truth and error, at least, insofar as that can be done.

The representational theory was crude and, needless to say, we no longer accept it. Or do we? How do we deal with the same problem today? For example, how do we see?

Light stimulates our receptors on the retina, after it passes through the optic nerve ganglion cells, the amacrine cells, bipolar cells, and horizontal cells. The optic nerve’s million fibers carry the message to the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus and then to visual cortex area V1. There are at least 27 maps of the retina on the occipital cortex and information from LGN layers 1 and 2 go to the dorsal extrastriate path to the parietal and medial temporal cortex. Fibers from LGN layers 3-6 form the ventral path and end in the fusiform area of the temporal lobes. • In this series of copies, who sees? • Philosophers call this view epistemological dualism; there are subjects (such as ourselves) who know objects (the things that we sense) and the subject and object are two different things. How could it be otherwise?

Protagorasand an Alternative to Rationalism • The fact is that the static view that relies on the subject/object distinction and that cannot explain seeing and hearing is not the only way of looking at things. • That alternative stresses dynamics (processes) rather than statics (things) and it was first proposed by the Sophist philosopher Protagoras. His proposal seems strange, since it is unlike the familiar story that we have been taught since early childhood. • Yet it is worth considering in view of the fact that the representational theory leaves out everything that is really important.

Who were Sophists and what did they teach? (rhetoric, dialectic, politic, eristic) • Man is the measure of all things, of that which is, that it is, and of that which is not, that it is not. Truth is relative! • As William James wrote much later, when we go the "world" goes with us. The earth opens, the sky falls, the mountains crumble and all things end their existence. Because what is "real" is the product of our personal experience!

Protagoras did not accept the view that a "real world" sends off copies in the form of atoms that affect some mysterious "psychic atoms" within us. • He realized that this really begged the question; instead of the copy theory, Protagoras stressed activity as the basis of reality • Perception for Protagoras was an interchange. For example, when we see an object, such as an orange, we do not receive copies of it, as the representational theory holds. • Things exist only while someone is perceiving them (Freeman, 1953, p. 349)

In the nineteenth century an American philosophy developed that assumed that truth exists in degrees. Thus, Newton's physics is true, but quantum theory is truer. The relative truth of a statement depends on its pragmatic (or practical) utility. Protagoras appears to have held a similar view, unsurprising, since the Sophists were nothing if not pragmatic. • Protagoras taught that opinions are all true, but some are "healthier," "more desirable," and "better" than others. One of the founders of pragmatism, F. C. S. Schiller, habitually called himself a disciple of Protagoras (Russell, 1945, p. 78).

Socrates • The amazing story of his student, Alcibiades • The story of the Delphi Oracle and Plato’s Confessions • Plato and the Easter Bunny • What’s wrong with Plato?

Alcibiades • 420 BC Alcibiades is a general • 415 BC Co-commander of expedition against Syracuse • Accused of mutilation of busts of Hermes • In Sicily – recalled for trial • Goes to Sparta – betrays Athens • Seduces Spartan’s king’s wife • 412 – stirs revolt in Athens’s allies • 411 - What?? Returns to Athenian fleet • 410 – destroys Spartan navy, Persian army • 407 – placed in charge of Athen’s military • 409 – led in Athens’s capture of Byzantium • Deposed and fled to Thrace • Spartans destroyed Athens’s fleet • 30 tyrants rule Athens • Alcibiades murdered in Asia Minor. • Democrats resume power in Athens in 403BC

Socrates had been his teacher and was thus charged with corrupting the youth of Athens. What did he teach? For Socrates, knowledge and virtue were inseparable - happiness lies only in doing that which is good and to do good requires that we know what is good. No one willingly does evil and the fact that evil deeds are done shows only that people are ignorant. Is this true? The most highly educated population that has existed on earth was in Germany in the early 1930s. Socrates’ second crime was his argument against the extreme democracy of Athens.

The Death of Socrates He was tried and sentenced to death by the democratic government that replaced the thirty tyrants who Sparta had installed after their victory over Athens. According to Plato, he would not have been convicted, if only 30 of the 501 judges had voted differently. Juries always had an odd number of members, to avoid tied votes, and the balloting for Socrates came out surprisingly favorably - 221 for acquittal and 280 against. Why was he killed?

In cases where the accused was condemned, the prosecution and defense each proposed a penalty and the jury had to choose between them. In this case the prosecution proposed death and Socrates was expected to propose a fine or exile. But he proposed that he be given free meals in the Prytaneum, where the Council of the Assembly met, a privilege granted to heroes of the olympic games and public benefactors. Finally he offered to pay a fine, but the vote for death was 360 to 141. After an unusual delay and a chance to escape, he drank the poison and died.

The Contribution of Socrates The dialectic method used by Socrates and by Plato was borrowed from Zeno and Protagoras and guaranteed that topics in empirical science would not arise. Such a method, which begins with a question like, "What is good (or truth, or justice, or friendship)?" and proceeds through an interchange of questions and answers is only useful to clarify the ways in which we use words.

Plato …that every soul pursues as the end of all her actions, dimly divining its existence, but perplexed and unable to grasp its nature with the same clearness and assurance as in dealing with other things, and so missing whatever value those other things might have. (Cornford, 1945, p. 216) [See Plato and the Easter Bunny, on website, http://www.geocities.com/malonejc2007]

“Plato” name • Socrates’ death • “imaginary conversations” • slave market – Academy • Doxa versus knowledge • Sir David Ross on forms • three reasons for forms: ontological, logical, teleological • reminiscence/anamnesis

The way to happiness …is to know what is good and what is good is the truth. Hence, the goal of life is the pursuit of truth and that means knowing the Forms. Piercing the veil of appearances is difficult and is possible only for "highly gifted natures, after a long course of intellectual discipline and practical experience” (Cornford, 1945, xxix). The "knowing" itself is a sort of remembering - recalling knowledge that one had before birth but that became clouded by subsequent sensory experience and the opinion (inferior knowledge) that sensation brings. How does that happen?

Plato described the amnesia that occurs in Hades that obliterates memories of past lives. After a somewhat constrained choice of a new identity - varieties of men, women, and animal - the souls were bound by the threads of necessity, making their choice of new identity irreversible. Their memories of past life fade after crossing the "plain of Forgetfulness," leading to the river of "Unmindfulness," from which they must drink. Then, in the midst of thunderstorm and earthquake during the night, they are "driven upwards in all manner of ways to their birth, like stars shooting (Jowett, p. 397). Small wonder that all memory is lost!

Actually, reminiscence is only one part of what Plato calls reason. The other two parts are memory and dialectic. "Dialectic," as Plato used the term, referred to a simple question and answer series, continued until it was possible to get a grasp on the logos of the Form involved. Logos here means only "account," not the lawfulness of the universe.

The clearest argument for this rationalist view appears in the dialogue, Theaetus, though it is evident throughout Plato's writings. The question revolves around the issue of whether the senses provide true knowledge. Is knowledge all derived from perception or must one go beyond the "veil of appearances?"

What is wrong with the argument in the Theaetetus?

The belief that "real" reality is hidden and that it is not what our senses present to us has been a persisting theme for thousands of years, in both religions and philosophies. Plato's version of "truth beyond the veil of appearances" is derived from the popular theory of Pythagoras, presented in Plato's Timaeus.

But how can we know reality, if not through sensory experience? For Plato, as for most Greeks before him, knowing this reality is equivalent to knowing what is the "good," and is thus the basis for ethics and thus the key to happiness.

The Allegory of the Cave Ancient authors attributed the allegory of the cave to Empedocles, but it could as well have been proposed by Parmenides, Zeno, Pythagoras, or any other rationalist. As Plato presented it, the world of sense experience is as unreliable a sign of truth as would be shadows thrown on the wall of a cave. This is meant as analogous to the human condition, in which the ever-changing world of sights and sounds is mistaken for the real world of Forms. How can we escape the chains that keep us in the cave and emerge into the sunlight to experience reality as it actually is? Book VII of The Republic reveals how this escape is possible.

One must study and understand those subjects that involve abstractions. These include arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, astronomy and harmonics. Astronomy is important only as it concerns the movement of solid bodies and harmonics is the study of harmony. While these subjects have practical applications, their real worth is in leading the soul out of the ephemeral world of the senses and into the unchanging world of the mind. Thus we pass from darkness into light and come to understand the idea of the Good.

The Three Parts of Soul and Society (Sounds like Freud?) • Three parts of the psyche • Education in The Republic • Harmonia … the wild beast in our nature, gorged with meat and drink, starts up and walks about naked...and there is no conceivable folly or crime, however shameless or unnatural - not excepting incest or parricide - of which such a nature may not be guilty...(Jowett, p. 330)

Two millennia later, Freud shared that view, "The good are those who content themselves with dreaming what the wicked actually do." (1913, p. 493) [See History Chapter 3 on www.geocities.com/malonejc2007 for Plato/Freud relation] The cycle of governments Aristocracy Timocracy Oligarchy Democracy

Alexander of Macedonia • In 334 B.C. Alexander invaded Persian territories with 30,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry, including 5,000 Greek mercenaries. • In ten years he conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, and other lands as far to the east as the Punjab in India. • He destroyed the Persian Empire, the greatest that the world had known (in Russell’s opinion, 1945, p. 218), in three battles. • His men persuaded him to stop their eastward march into India and they returned to Babylon in 800 ships in 327 B.C., where Alexander died four years later at age 32.

Aristotle A further problem respecting the attributes of the soul is whether they all belong to body and soul together or whether any of them are peculiar to the soul alone – a difficult question but unavoidable. (Wheelwright, p. 67) “(some believe) in minds without brains and souls without bodies…” [Eliot Valenstein, ABAI, Chicago, IL, May 26, 2008]

Where is the Magic? • The Pythagoreans and Plato conceived the world as a machine composed of atoms and the body as a lifeless vessel necessary to house and to empower the immortal soul. • The soul was the very definition of magic, capable of knowing the truth inherent in it because of its past existences and intermissions in the world of Forms. • This magical entity was similar in its chief features to the "ghosts" in all of the machines that have been proposed by mind/body dualists from ancient times through Descartes and through the mechanical and computational models of the centuries since. The essentially lifeless machinery of the body is a mere housing for a magical mind - at least, according to this extremely popular theory.

Can we do without this magic? • No, we cannot. The fact is that the universe is partly magical and we can only choose where to draw the line separating the magic and the inert machinery. • Pythagoras, Plato, and the information processors chose to concentrate the magic in a "soul," or "mind," - or ghost. That is a method that worked in the physical sciences from Galileo on. • But another division of magic and "natural" had great appeal for many centuries and it still does. If we are unconcerned with the development of modern science, we may even prefer it to the method of concentrated magic.

Like the monists of Miletus and Elea, Aristotle preferred to distribute the "magic" through nature. Different substances were different because of specific "essences," or "natures" that gave them their properties and living things were different because they were organic, a name that Aristotle coined. Plants, animals, and humans have lower or higher "souls" as the defining aspect of their being. This is best understood by considering Aristotle's treatment of causality.

Eleatic No-Changers: "Unnatural Philosophers"