Pre-Socratics vs Sophists
Well, there’s a classical philosophical sight: you can classify European history of philosophy for a couple of periods starting with Milesian school in the beginning and till 20th-century modern philosophy. If we’re using this one, where the main criteria of classification are age of foundation, then first of primary periods will be the Pre-Socrates one.
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Generally, this period is quite strange, cause it’s too similar to tales, one step to mythology if we’re researching it for the first time. But the main difference, as we know from previous posts, is an understanding method, and pre-Socrates philosophers used a philosophical method of world understanding. Pre-Socratics made great stuff, which became a material for all the next generations of philosophers and scientists, but of course, the knowledge they gave us was very far from modern one.
The first guy called Anaxagoras lived in 5 age before c., he was a child of rich parents, but one day he found himself on a cross way of two branches and he had chosen to become a philosopher. He was the first guy who found that world’s cause is hidden in tiny homoeomeries (before that philosophers thought of it as a plan of four spheres such as fire, water etc.). Homoeomeries are like seeds, and important thing — it’s not an atom. Homoeomeries are much closer to quarks. It has consciousness. Also, Anaxagoras said that Sun is not any kind of God, according to him, it is just an extremely hot melting boulder.
Democritus — another interesting pre-Socratic. Democritus is the guy who can be called the first atomist, but we already knew about Anaxagoras. Let’s find the difference between them.
Democritus atoms don’t have consciousness, just small particles existing only in a form of a chaotic movement, that world contains. Actually, there’s no sense to place Democritus on the top of the ancient philosophical discussion. His atoms are not the same as today’s ones. Atom translated from the ancient Greek as unsplittable, so today we’re using this word just like the name, and as I said — we’re doing it wrong.
We’ve already spoken about the classification of philosophical ideas. The second variation of classification — winged one.
So we’ve got for ancient times just two sides (two wings). First one is “idealistic”, the second one is “materialistic”. This type of classification was made by German philosopher, Friedrich Engels. If we’ll use this type of classification, then Anaxagoras will be on the left side with idealists and Democritus on the right and yet he’ll be there alone, later Aristotle will meet him but it will happen much later. Anyway, Democritus not just “atomic” founder. A big part of his unique method is isonomy.
Isonomy contains three parts, three laws if it is possible to use this word to explain what’s going on.
First: atoms can be of different sizes, from micro world ones, to planet sized.
Second: all points and directions in great “nothingness” are equal.
This law shows us why ancient philosophy so difficult to understand. The sentence I used the second law means only that there is no better or worse phenomena or materials — all of them are the same, and nowadays we know that if we’ll add neutrons — result will be in isotope achievement. And if we’re adding protons — we’ll get a new material.
The third principle: in great “nothingness” atoms are moving chaotically in all the directions with any speeds. So the movement is like phenomena — doesn’t need any cause for itself. Everything is existing in a state of movement. In the sixteenth century, Italian physicist, Galileo Galilei, will tell everybody about inertia principle, but it will be nothing but detailed rebranding, post-reflection of Democritus Isonomy laws.
One more thing we have to discuss in case of Democritus — he was the adherent of multiverse theory (which didn’t exist back then). He told that multiverse — direct consequence of Isonomy principles. If there is an infinite quantity of atoms moving chaotically, in any directions, then they are precisely existing in the same combination of similar atoms somewhere else. Of course, it does not nowadays’s multiverse theory, but it’s the base, at least one of.
Pre-Socratics were philosophers-naturalists. Main problems they were thinking about were cosmos, universe, creation, astronomy, etc. In terms of the philosophical classification, they are called Naturephilosophers. But ones upon a time, thinkers of the ancient world turned towards the problems of human personality. And the first problem, which became a discussion point was the truth.
Sophists — branch of educated people, who were concentrated on proving something.
They said that you can prove anything — it depends only on your rhetorical skills, cause there’s no absolute truth, everything is relative. As you can predict, their idea was called relativism. Sophists were great lawyers and teachers, earned lots of money. However, it couldn’t stand still like this for a long time, and Socrates took the place in the philosophical arena. His main idea was a dialogue. We have to talk and discuss problems, but we can find the truth, not an absolute one, but objective one. The difference is in the truth duration. To do this and to beat sophists’ speaking skills, he suggested dealing with definitions before arguing. Socrates philosophical method was in asking a chain of questions, and to make his opponent understand what he’s talking about by himself. Socrates didn’t leave us any written materials, all we know about him and his philosophical style — we know from his student — Plato.
Talking direct way — for his contemporaries, Socrates was just a homeless sick freak, arguing with people, with no understandable reason for them. But he did a lot for philosophy — firstly, because he created Plato, second achievement — dialectics — idea of passing over opposite replicas, denial of opposite replicas, third — he made a connection between material and spiritual parts of human being and it’s not just a connection, but spiritual for Socrates — no less real than a material. More, cognition not just it, but it is a separate being.
Actually, in a philosophical classification, Socrates is the first classical one. He created philosophy like the separate method of truth-finding. From here we’re starting drawing scheme, where all our modern ideas can be consolidated to Socrates.
