Handbook of the History of Philosophy
(From Pythagoras to Plato)

By Albert Stöckl

§17. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans

  1. About the time that Ionic Philosophy attained its highest development in Asia Minor, another phase of philosophical thought had its rise in the Greek Colonies of Italy. Here the inquiries of philosophers were no longer directed to the origin of things from Primary Matter, they turned rather on the Being or Essence of things in themselves. The Pythagorean school was the first to give this direction to philosophical investigation, but it made mathematics the basis of all its inquiries, and thus was led to certain mathematico-philosophical conceptions of the nature of things, which are altogether peculiar to the Pythagoreans.
  2. Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, was born at Samos about the year 582 B.C.. So many legends have become associated with his name that it is difficult to obtain a trustworthy account of his life and labours. Legends and traditions are, however, at one in representing him as a man of extraordinary knowledge. He is reckoned amongst the most remarkable of the founders of mathematical science. It is recorded of him that he succeeded in measuring the pitch of musical notes, and that he also made many discoveries in Astronomy. Some accounts make him the disciple of Pherecydes and Anaximander. It is probable that he travelled into Egypt, and there made acquaintance with the lore of the priests. About the year 529 B.C. he settled in Crotona, in Southern Italy, and there established a society whose aims were at once ethical, religious, and political.
  3. In this Pythagorean association a rigid ethico-religious rule of life was enjoined. “A period of probation, during which the fitness of the candidate was tested, preceded admission into the society. The disciples were bound for a long time to mute obedience, and to unconditional subjection to the authority of the traditional teaching (αὐτὸς ιϕα): strict self-examination was required from all: it was forbidden to propagate the doctrines of the sect among the people.” The members of the society were divided into classes, according to the extent of their initiation into the Pythagorean “orgies.” Nothing certain is known regarding the names given to these classes, the terms Esoteric, and Exoteric, are usually employed to distinguish them. 1 They exercised themselves in gymnastics and music. They had their meals in common (συσσιτια), and they were subject to certain rules as to diet: for example, they were forbidden to eat beans, fish, or flesh. Hunting was not allowed amongst them.
  4. In politics the Pythagorean sect belonged to the aristocratic party. Hence the Pythagorean doctrines gained supporters among the aristocratic classes in many Italian cities, and secured for the aristocratic party a certain intellectual standing. But these aristocratic leanings excited the opposition of the democratic party, and brought about the final extinction of the sect. Pythagoras himself, it is said, after twenty years’ residence at Crotona, was expelled by a rival party under Cylon, and forced to retire to Metapontum, where he died soon after. The attacks of the democratic party on the |47| Pythagoreans were renewed in subsequent times. A century after the death of Pythagoras, the Pythagoreans of Crotona were attacked by the “Cylonites” during a conference in the “house of Milo”: the house was set on fire, and all perished, with the exception of Archippus of Tarentum and Lysis. Soon after this the political importance and power of the Pythagoreans in Italy came to an end: in the time of Plato, however, the Pythagorean Archytas was at the head of the administration in Tarentum.
  5. The following are named as the most distinguished of the ancient Pythagoreans: Philolaus, a contemporary of Socrates, the first to make public in a written work the system of the school: Simmias and Cebes, who, according to Plato’s “Phaedo,” were friends of Socrates: Ocellus, the Lucanian; Timaeus, of Locri: Ecchecrates and Acrio; Archytas of Tarentum; Lysis and Eurytus: Alcmaeon of Crotona, a youthful contemporary of Pythagoras, who held the doctrine of contraries, of which he enumerated ten: Hippasus of Metapontum, who held Fire to be the material principle of all things; Ecphantus, who combined the atomistic theory with that of the world-guiding Spirit, and who taught the revolution of the earth on its axis; Hippodamus of Miletus, architect and politician. Epicharmus, the comic poet, and others, are stated to have held doctrines akin to those of the Pythagoreans.–(Cfr. Ueberweg.)
  6. As for the sources from which our knowledge of the Pythagorean doctrines is derived, we have to rely chiefly on Aristotle. Pythagoras himself left no written work (the “Carmen Aureum” attributed to him is undoubtedly spurious). Nor has any work of the older Pythagoreans come down to us which we can trust as genuine. Böckh has collected fragments of a work by Philolaus. They would help us to a knowledge of the early Pythagorean teaching if we could be certain they were genuine: but they have been subjected to damaging criticism, and have been finally assigned to the last century before Christ. In the same way the fragments of Archytas of Tarentum, collected by Orelli, have been disparaged. The same may be said of the treatise of Oscellus Lucanus, De rerum natura, and of Timaeus Lucanus. We have, therefore, to recur to Aristotle for our knowledge of the older Pythagorean system. Other accounts of the system we can accept only in so far as they are in accord with his.
  7. All that we can with certainty trace back to Pythagoras himself are the doctrine of Metempsychosis, the system of Mathematico-theological speculation, and the fixing of certain ethical and religious rules of conduct. When, then, we speak of Pythagorean doctrines, we mean no more than the teaching of Pythagoras as developed by his disciples and followers. We have here to do not so much with the personal opinions of the philosopher himself, as with the tenets of the Pythagorean school.
  8. According to Aristotle (Met. 1, 2, 5), the Pythagoreans contemplating the order of nature, and the regularity of natural formations, with minds formed to mathematical conceptions, were led to make numbers the essential constituents of things. It was the fundamental principle of their teaching that Number is the essence (οὐσία) or ultimate basis (ἀρχή) of all things. Every individual thing is a number, and the aggregate of all things is a vast system of numbers (Arist. Met: 1, 5., 6-12, 6., 8-13, 6). According to this view, all things are not only arranged in numerical order, numbers are not merely symbols of the cosmical system, they constitute the substantial essence of all things. Aristotle states expressly that the Pythagoreans did not conceive numbers to be actually distinct from things (Met. 1, 6-13, 6):
  9. “Everything which is the object of knowledge includes Number; without this element it could not possibly be the object of thought or knowledge. Now truth is a peculiar innate attribute of Number: it is of the very nature of Number or Harmony to reject deception as inimical and antagonistic. It is its function to rule and regulate, and to teach the hitherto unknown. Hence the conclusion that what is the most |48| fixed and indefectible in our knowledge must also be the unchangeable essence of things in themselves.” Things are therefore to be regarded as copies of numbers, because in them the universal nature of Number is reduced to individual existence.
  10. The originating principles of Number are Indefiniteness and Limit. The union of both constitute Number, as well of the “monadic” (mathematical) order, as of the “geometrical”: in each case, Number is the outcome of the combination in harmony of the two principles. Number is either odd or even: the former is the symbol of the Perfect, the latter of the Imperfect. The Pythagoreans assigned specially prominent functions in their system to the numbers four (τετρακτύς) and ten (δεκάς).
  11. If it be true that Number constitutes the essential being of all things, it follows that the generating principles of Number—Indefiniteness and Limit—are the ultimate principles of all things. Everything consists of an unlimited and a limited (limiting) element, whereby its being is constituted. The unlimited is the indeterminate basis of being (in Aristotelian phraseology, the Matter): the limit is the determining principle by which the indeterminate is reduced to definite being (in Aristotelian phraseology, the Form). These two elements when combined constitute the essence of the determinate object.
  12. We have now to consider in what fashion the Pythagoreans applied these general principles to explain the actual being of things in themselves, and in their relation to one another. Here we come upon their teaching regarding the nature of bodies. Having assumed that the ultimate elements of all things are the Undefined, and the Defining or Limiting, the Pythagoreans, when investigating corporeal nature, seem to have regarded the Undefined as vacuum, the Limit or defining element as a multitude of points fixed in some way or other in this empty space. So that their general principle: “All things are either numbers, or consist of numbers that are contained in them,” is in this connection transformed into the other: “All bodies consist of points or units in space, which when taken together constitute a number.” This is an assertion of the theory that the constituent parts of the corporeal substance are themselves simple elements, and on this theory only can their nature be explained.
  13. True to their mathematical conceptions the Pythagoreans regarded material bodies as proximately formed of super-imposed surfaces: these surfaces as formed of lines, and the lines formed of points. These purely mathematical conceptions they transferred to the real order, and taught accordingly that the single constituent elements of the mathematical body were also the real constituent elements, or, to use the words of Aristotle, the substance of the body in nature (Met. 7. 2.) By the juxtaposition of several points a line is generated, not merely in the scientific imagination of the mathematician but in external reality also: in the same way the surface is generated by the juxtaposition of several lines, and finally the body by the combination of several surfaces. Points, lines, and surfaces are therefore the real units which compose all |49| bodies in nature, and in this sense all bodies must be regarded as numbers. In fact every material body is an expression of the number Four (τετρακτύς) since it results, as a fourth term, from three constituent elements (Points, Lines, Surfaces).
  14. Simple points are not, however, enough of themselves to explain the nature of material bodies; we must also call to our aid the notion of vacuum, for it is by this that intervals of space are interposed between the points, without which they could not form lines, surfaces and bodies. If we suppose two points to co-exist without an interposed space, they coalesce and become one, and the formation of a line or body becomes impossible. Combinations of the unextended cannot produce extension unless we suppose intervals of space interposed, and this supposition becomes possible only when we assume the existence of a vacuum in which the points are distributed.
  15. This vacuum is the Undefined which we must assume as the substratum of the defining element—the points. This vacuum affording intervals of empty space between the points, they are able to arrange themselves in juxtaposition and so to form bodies. In this way then do the Undefined and Defining constitute the very being of material bodies. Vacuum, the Undefined, is, however, something negative in character, it does not contribute positively to the formation of bodies, it is merely a condition pre-supposed in order to make it possible for the positive unextended units to combine in a natural formation and constitute a body. The positive elements in the body are these units—their “number”: they are the “substance” of all things corporeal.
  16. It is thus that the Pythagoreans developed their principle that everything is Number in its application to material things, arriving in this fashion at a purely idealistic conception of the material world. Matter, as such, disappears, and there remain only ideal elements and ideal relations. The differences between bodies are explained by assuming different modes of combination on the part of the units, i.e., different intervals of separation between them. In the same way are explained the several mathematical forms with which the Pythagoreans invested the several bodies, the Cube—the form of the Earth, the Icosahedron—the form of the Air, the Sphere—the form of Water, the Pyramid—the form of Fire.
  17. It would also appear that the Pythagoreans not only regarded each individual body as a number, but furthermore regarded the entire world as a vast arrangement of numbers. This numerical system of the Universe was framed upon the number ten. As the number ten is the most prominent in the system of numbers, so the whole Universe consists of ten bodies, namely—the heaven of the fixed stars, the five planets, the sun, the moon, the earth, and the counter-earth. 2 The wholly unchangeable portion of the Universe is that which stretches from the heaven of the fixed stars to the moon. 3 A less perfect part of the |50| Universe extends from the moon to the earth; here again we meet with defect and change in individuals, immutability only in genera and species.
  18. In the centre of the Universe is the Middle Fire. This is the animating principle of the whole. It diffuses light and heat through the Universe and is the source of life to all things. The great bodies composing the world revolve round this Middle Fire. Their motion is not purely natural, i.e., determined by a blind necessity of nature: the evidences which it gives of Reason and Purpose force us to attribute it to self-impulsion, and lead us to the conclusion that these bodies are endowed with Reason. In accordance with this reasoning the Pythagoreans reverenced the stars as gods.
  19. An all-embracing harmony prevails throughout the Universe. For as the numerical system, reducing to unity a number of constituent parts, is harmony in itself, so must the Universe, which is the numerical system actualized, be regarded as a harmoniously arranged whole, and be described as the κόσμος in the veritable sense of the word. Admitting that the heavenly bodies are arranged in an order determined by mathematical relations it follows that their movements must contribute to this general harmony, that from their movements a musical harmony must result—the music of the Spheres.
  20. This peculiar notion of a music of the spheres was thus set forth in more detailed explanation by the Pythagoreans. The velocity of the celestial bodies in their motion round the Middle Fire must be proportioned to their distance from one another, and as every regularly vibrating body emits a note, it follows that harmony must result from the simultaneous movements of the heavenly bodies; that the sphere of the fixed stars must emit the deepest note, the sphere of the moon the highest, while the intermediate spheres will emit intermediate notes. Our ears are not sensible to the music of the spheres. But this arises either from the circumstance that we have been hearing it from our birth, and we distinguish a note only when we can contrast it with a previous silence, or because the harmony of the universe is a combination of sounds too intense to affect our sense of hearing.
  21. Above the Universe, which is thus disposed in whole and in part according to number and measure, stands the Divine Monad, the Divine Spirit. As the unit is above all numbers, and is yet the basis of all numbers, so the Divine Being, though raised above all things which are numbered and measured, is yet the source of the being of alL God is the one, eternal, enduring, unchangeable Being, resembling only Himself, different from all other things, the one cause of all corporeal reality, who from eternity determines and upholds the universal order. Under the rule of this Divine Being, the world has subsisted from eternity, and will so subsist without end, for neither within it nor without it is there any other cause which can affect it. God is the ruler and guide of all things. He alone is wise. Nearest to Him in the perfection of its nature is that Fire which occupies the centre of the world. There is a sense, therefore, in which it may be said that the Middle Fire |51| is the home of God. Hence the Pythagoreans sometimes named it the Watch-station, or Citadel of Jove (Διὸς ϕυλακή, Ζηνὸς πύργος). The daimons occupy an intermediate position between God and man.
  22. In their view of the human soul the Pythagoreans are also influenced by their mathematical speculations. The Soul, too, is a number: it moves itself (Arist. de anim. 1. 2). They hold it to be an efflux from the Middle Fire, and to share in the divine nature in the same way as the source from which it comes. By number and harmony it is bound to the body, which is at once its instrument and its prison. A distinction must be made between what is rational and what is irrational in the souL The latter alone is possessed by brutes, man possesses both.
  23. The soul is indestructible; it outlives the body. The present life must be regarded as a process of purification for the soul. This process is continued after death, the soul is fated to inhabit other bodies, animal or human (metempsychosis). With this theory is associated the doctrine of retribution. The souls that are incurable are at last flung into Tartarus, while those which purify themselves rise higher and higher in the scale of life, and at last attain to life incorporeal.
  24. The Pythagoreans seem to have held the view that the supreme good for man was assimilation with God, and the bliss thence resulting. The means to reach this end is Virtue. Virtue is essentially Harmony. It consists in the harmonious equilibrium of the faculties of the soul, by which the tendencies of the irrational part of the soul are subordinated to Reason. To establish this interior harmony in himself is the task of man in life. He can effect it by striving after true knowledge (philosophy), and by ascetic exercises. To this end the ordinances and the rule of life of the Pythagoreans were directed. They all aimed at repressing the tendencies of the irrational soul, and bringing them under the control of Reason. The moral maxims which were impressed in the symbolical language of the Pythagoreans were no more than the commendations of virtue as the harmony of man’s inner nature. The Pythagoreans also employed music to charm the passions to rest, and to excite healthy energy. Gymnastics served the same purpose. The essence of justice consists in retribution (τὸ ἀντιπεπονθός). Justice is a number which taken an equal number of times is equal (ὰπιθμὸς ὶσάκις ἴσος—square number).

The Eleatics

  1. The Eleatics resembled the Pythagoreans in this, that they applied themselves to investigating the being or essence of things, rather than their origin. They differed from the Pythagoreans in abandoning mathematical formulae, and conducting their speculations on lines more strictly metaphysical. They made no attempt to explain the being of things by speculations on their origin, they left the beginning of things completely out of sight, and by this method arrived at a theory of inert abstract Monism. The Ionians had fixed their thought exclusively upon the origin of things, and this exclusiveness had led them to deny all enduring |52| unchanging being; the Eleatics, on the other hand, gave such prominence to the enduring, unchanging being of things, that a beginning of things came to appear to them impossible, a view which they distinctly asserted, at least as a speculative truth.
  2. To understand aright the Monism of the Eleatics, we must, however, remark that the representatives of that philosophy, while asserting as a speculative principle the oneness of all things, added to this a physical theory which was at variance with the metaphysical principle, and which explained the origin of things from a certain primary matter. While the metaphysical speculation of the Eleatics denied a beginning of things their physical theories re-asserted it and sought to explain it. This inconsistency the Eleatics endeavoured to justly by maintaining that physical science is concerned only with the world of appearances, that its task is to explain things as they appear, and so far as they appear in the world of phenomena. Pure speculation, on the other hand, is concerned with real being which lies behind these appearances: it takes no heed of mere phenomena, and may thus deny a beginning of things, since this belongs to the world of appearances, not to the sphere of real being. It is not necessary to point out that the inconsistency cannot be got rid of in this way. {Ed. Note that Stöckl’s notion of inconsistency is a materialistic Aristotelian view.}
  3. The leading representatives of Eleatic Monism are Xenophanes, who formed the doctrines of the school into a theological system; Parmenides, by whom they are expounded in metaphysical form as a theory of being; Zeno, whose exposition is chiefly dialectic—a defence of the teaching of the school against the vulgar belief in the plurality of things, and in their origin and dissolution; and Melissus, who in his teaching approached again to the views of the early Philosophers of Nature.

§18. Xenophanes of Colophon

  1. Xenophanes was born at Colophon in Asia Minor about 569 B.C. As a wandering rhapsodist he visited many of the Hellenic cities, but finally settled at Elea in Lower Italy, where he founded the Eleatic School. Fragments of his poetical compositions have come down to us, but hardly anything of his philosophical writings has been reserved. What remains of his works has been collected and edited by Fulleborn.…The principal philosophical didactic poem of Xenophanes bears the title περὶ ϕύσεως.
  2. Starting with the principle that “nothing comes from nothing,” Xenophanes arrives at the conclusion that things cannot begin to be, for if we suppose a thing to come into existence we must suppose it to come either from nothing or from something else. It cannot come from |53| nothing; ex nihilo nihil; it must therefore come from something else. But if it comes from something else there is no need why it should begin to be since it already existed. An origin of things is therefore unnecessary and inadmissible. It is wholly unthinkable. There is Being, but no Becoming.
  3. The plurality of things depends upon a beginning of things. If there is no beginning there are no different things which begin to be. It follows, since existences do not begin, that no plurality of things exists. As there is a Being of things, but no origin of things, so there is but one Being of things, not a multiplicity. Hence the dictum of Xenophanes “All is One, One is All.” This universal One is in itself undivided and indivisible, eternal and unchangeable, like to itself throughout, as a globe.
  4. This One Being Xenophanes describes as rational, and names God. God is the One Only Being, existing tranquilly in himself, always like himself, excluding all new existence, multiplicity and change, perfect in himself: he is hearing, sight, thought, all eye, all ear, all intellect. On the strength of this theory Xenophanes assails Polytheism, as well as the anthropomophic and anthropopathic conceptions of the deity adopted by Homer and Hesiod, and maintains the doctrine of one all-ruling God.
  5. In the science of Physics, Xenophanes advocates empirical knowledge, which, however, he holds to be merely opinion, and to be unworthy of entire confidence. He believes Water and Earth to be the primary elements from which corporeal things have been evolved by a purely natural process. The principal of life in living things is a breath of ethereal fire. The Earth extends downwards and the Air upwards without limit. The stars are fiery clouds. The sea at one time covered what is at present the dry land. This is proved by the petrified remains of marine animals found on high mountains. We must, therefore, admit alternating conditions of mixture and separation between Earth and Water.

§19. Parmenides of Elea

  1. Parmenides, whom Aristotle (Met. 1, 5.) makes a pupil of Xenophanes, was born at Elea about 515 or 510 B.C., and was therefore a younger contemporary of Xenophanes. Following in the wake of this philosopher he formulated in its fulness the metaphysical principle of the Eleatic doctrine, and in such fashion that the Monistic theory in his hands attained a thoroughly idealistic development. He appears to have exercised an influence for good on the legislation and on the morals of his native city. Plato pays the highest tribute to his moral character as well as to his philosophy. His principal work was a didactic poem περὶ ϕύσεως, of which fragments have been preserved by Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. 7, 111.), by Diogenes Laertius (9, 22), by Proclus (on the Timaeus of Plato), and by Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physics). |54|
  2. The speculative doctrines of Parmenides may be summed up in the following propositions:
  Being alone exists; Non-being is nothing. Hence there is no beginning of Being. How could that which exists begin to be? It could not come from me non-existent, for this is nothing; it could not come from the existent, for it is itself the existent.
  Being is absolutely one; outside the unit of Being there is nothing, consequently the supposed plurality of things, and the changes of things dependent on this plurality are mere appearances.
  Being is eternal and unchangeable, without birth or beginning, immutable, limited only by itself. In form it is a beautifully rounded sphere, one and eternal, the space within which is occupied without any vacuum.
  Being is, furthermore, nothing else than the thought in which it is known. The thought itself is Being. Being and the concept of Being are one. In this sense all Being is pregnant with reason, and reason permeates all things.
  Truth belongs entirely to thought. As Being alone is thinkable, so also that alone which is thinkable and thought is Being. The senses do not bring us truth. They only deceive us, and it is precisely this deception of the senses which seduces men into the belief in, and the graceful tricks of speech about the multiplicity and the changes of things.
  3. In his physical theories Parmenides endeavours to explain (hypothetically) that phenomenal world which the operations of thought show to be unreal. In this explanation he sets out from two opposing principles which bear to one another in the sphere of appearances the same relation that exists between Being and Non-being. These principles are Light and Night, with which the antithesis of Warm and Cold, Fire and Earth, is connected. On the proportions in which these principles or elements are mingled depend the plurality and differences of things in the world of phenomena. The force at work in these processes is Eros, the oldest of the gods. The soul is a mixture of the four elements.

§20. Zeno of Elea

  1. Zeno was bom about B.C. 490-485, and was the friend and pupil of Parmenides. It is said that he took part in the efforts of this philosopher for the ethical and political amelioration of his fellow-citizens, but that haying failed in an enterprise against the tyrant Nearchus, he was taken prisoner, and died under tortures heroically endured. In his philosophy he aimed at developing in dialectic form the idealistic Monism of Parmenides. He brought forward a number of “proofs” to show that the admission of plurality and change, as of motion or space, leads to inexplicable self-contradiction. 4 |56|
  2. The principal proofs adduced by Zeno in his attempt to give in dialectic form an indirect demonstration of the Monism of Parmenides are the following:
  Against the reality of motion he argues (Arist. Phys. 6, 2-9.):
  (a) Motion cannot begin, for a body cannot reach a new position without passing through innumerable intervening positions. The moving body must first pass through half the intervening space, and then again through half this space, and so on indefinitely.
  (b) Achilles cannot overtake the tortoise, for, no matter what the position he reaches, he will find that the tortoise has advanced still further.
  (c) The arrow, though flying through the air, is, nevertheless, at rest, for at every moment it is in some one place, now here, now there, but always, as long as it is in any one place, it is at rest.
  (d) The half of a given period of time is equal to the whole, for the same point moving with different velocities in passing through the same space will at one time, occupy half the period, at another the whole.
  As these contradictions cannot be explained away it follows that there can be no motion at all, and that what we call movement is merely an appearance.
  Against the reality of space Zeno argued thus (Arist. Phys. 4, 3):
  If Being exists in space this space itself should exist in another space, and so on without end. As this is impossible, it follows that there is no such thing as space.
  Against the plurality of things Zeno adduces the following arguments (Simplicius in Phys. Arist. fol. 30, 6):
  (a) If a plurality of things exist the number of these things is either determinate or infinite. “These things are as many as they are, neither more nor less: but if they are as many as they are, they exist in determinate number.” On the other hand “if a plurality of things exist they must be infinite in number: for between things that are different other things must be interposed, and between these again others, and so on till the number becomes infinite.” The admission of a plurality of things thus involves a contradiction which it is impossible to solve.
  (b) Again if a plurality oi objects existed, the aggregate should be at once infinitely great and infinitesimally small. Each object must nave some magnitude. But magnitude is only possible when the component parts of the object are separated by an interval. The interval which must thus be admitted has itself a magnitude, and must therefore be separated by another interval from the things which it separates, and so on without end. It follows from this that every object must be infinitely great since it is composed of an infinitude of parts each of which has some magnitude. On the other hand, from the same premises we must conclude that every object must be infinitesimally smalL For if the parts of a thing are infinite in number, eo ipso they must be infinitesimally small. But an aggregate of infinitesimally small magnitudes must be infinitesimally small. In this way the admission of a plurality of things again leads us to a contradiction.
  Against the truth of sensuous preceptions Zeno argues as follows:
  If a measure of corn in falling produces a sound, then each single grain, and each part of a grain, must also produce a sound. If this be not the case, then the whole measure, the action of which is only the sum of the action of its parts, cannot produce a sound. Here again we have a contradiction from which we cannot escape as long as we admit the truth of sensuous perceptions.
  3. In his theory oi physical nature Zeno is in accord with the other Eleatics. He admits four elements, the Warm, the Cold, the Dry, and the Moist—in which we recognise the familiar four elements. He furthermore admits a moving force which controls everything—Necessity, of which there are two species, Discord and Love. With regard to the soul he holds with Parmenides, that it is a mixture of the four elements. In this compound some elements may predominate, but none can be entirely absent. He seems to have made the parity and godliness of the soul consist in the preponderance of the purer elements over the impure. |56|

§21. Melissus of Samos

  1. …Simplicius has preserved several fragments of a work of Melissus, περὶ του ὄντος, or περὶ ϕύσεως. Its purpose is to establish the principle of Eleatic Monism by direct demonstration. “Oneness seems, however, to him to consist rather in the continuity of substance than in the notional unity of being.”
  2. Being exists, says Melissus, for if there were no being it would be impossible to speak of it. It cannot have become what it is, for it could only have arisen out of Non-being or out of Being. From Non-being nothing can arise, and it cannot have come from Being, for thus it would already have existed, and would not have arisen. Nor can Being perish: for it cannot become Non-being: and if it again become Being it has not ceased to be. Bein? is therefore eternal. From this we may deduce the following essential attributes of Being:
  Being is infinite. Since it is eternal it has neither beginning nor end. And what is without beginning or end is infinite. (Observe this transition from infinitude of time to infinitude of extension).
  Being is one. If there were two existent beings the one would limit the other, and Being, it has been shown, is without end or limit.
  Being is immovable and immutable. It is immovable, for motion supposes a vacuum, and vacuum there is none, since vacuum is Non-being and Non-being has no existence. It is immutable for (a) change would involve plurality. Suppose for example, from rarefied it became dense, or from dense rarefied, the first would involve its becoming more, the second its becoming less. (b) In case of change the actually existent should pass away, and, in part at least, become non-existent. If in the course of thirty thousand years this happened to the whole, the whole would in that time have passed away.
  Being is furthermore indivisible. This follows from its unity and its immutability. Since it is indivisible it has no parts, and consequently is not a body—a body without parts is unthinkable. It is, therefore, incorporeal.
  3. What we see, hear and feel, is not true Being: otherwise it should have the attributes enumerated above. The multiplicity of things, motion and change are, therefore, appearances, not realities. In his physical theories Melissus does not differ materially from his predecessors of the same school.


  Editor's note: We shall skip the interlude of reaction to nascent Idealism—the period ruled by the Sophists who enshrined the world of appearances, not reality, of intellectual materialism as doubt, begetting Skepticism and Cynicism. Chief among them were Protagoras of Abdera (“Man is the measure”), Gorgias of Leontini, Hippias of Elis, and Prodicus of Ceos.


§23. Socratic Philosophy

  1. We have now made acquaintance with the purely negative tendency of the teachings of the Sophists, and the destroying influence which they exercised on Philosophy. But their teachings were not without their positive effect on the progress of Philosophy in Greece. This positive service they rendered by provoking a reaction which not only brought about the downfall of their own system but initiated a new progressive movement which carried Philosophy in Greece to its highest stage of development. Out of the reaction against the procedure of the Sophists came the Socratic Philosophy, represented in its three masters, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who have won for themselves undying fame in the history of Philosophy.
  2. Anaxagoras had, as we know, carried the Ionic Philosophy to Athens, Parmenides and Zeno had there represented the Eleatic School, while Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans were known at Athens by their writings, or it may be that some of the latter visited the city in person. In this way Athens became the centre in which the various schools of Greek Philosophy were brought into contact, and were enabled to influence one another. A first consequence of this conflux of philosophical doctrines was the breaking up of the several philosophical systems—a result which we observe in the teaching of the Sophists. But this disaster was soon followed by a new development of philosophic thought. The new movement was favoured by the circumstance that its leaders had before them philosophical systems whose defects and one-sidedness they were warned to avoid, and were thereby incited to seek a new point of departure for philosophic inquiry. Athens thus became not only the central seat of Art in Greece, but also the home of Greek Philosophy in the period of its greatest glory.
  3. If we inquire what was the new point of departure which Greek Philosophy adopted at this period we shall find that philosophic thought, instead of making external nature the only subject of investigation^ turned back upon itself, and proclaimed that self-knowledge, theoretical and practical (ethical), was of more importance for the attainment of truth than the knowledge of Nature. Self-knowledge, the investigation of the moral order, had hitherto been neglected in favour of the study of the physical world: it was now accorded the first place in the estimation of the philosopher. Hereby a purer knowledge of the Divine Nature became attainable. And Attic Philosophy thus rose to a Theology that stands high above the opinions regarding God and things divine offered by the earlier philosophical systems of Greece. Theology now became the centre and the crown of philosophical science. |62|
  4. Socrates was the founder of Attic Philosophy, or, better, his labours may be said to have prepared the way for it. He did not aim at constructing a complete system of Philosophy. The instruction, to which he applied himself exclusively, was directed to incite his pupils to a deeper study of things, and to guide them in the right path of investigation. All his pupils did not, however, apprehend rightly the mind of their master: many of them fastened upon some one or other of the special points in his teaching, and devoted themselves to the development of the point so selected. These philosophers are said to have been “imperfectly Socratic.” Plato, on the other hand, gave comprehensive development to the principles of his master, and, with his clear idealistic mind, brought to its fullest perfection the germs contained in the instructions of Socrates. 5 Plato was succeeded by his pupil Aristotle, who on many points is at variance with his master. But Socrates by his wonderful acuteness and penetration of mind, his quick power of observation, his vast knowledge, and his methodical procedure, was enabled to build up a system which is worthy to take an independent place by the side of Plato’s. …

§24. Socrates

  1. In their sketches of the life of Socrates, Xenophon (Socr. Memorabilia) and Plato (Apology) are at one on all essential points. Socrates was born at Athens about the year 471 B.C. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor, and his mother, Phanaenarete, a midwife. In youth he was trained to his father’s calling, and he is said to have shown some skill in the practice of it. It is probable, however, that he gave himself early in life to philosophical investigations. The story that he was a pupil either of Anaxagoras or of Archelaus rests upon no good authority. He seems however, to have been well acquainted with the earlier philosophical systems of the Greeks. The meeting between Socrates and Parmenides mentioned by Plato may be accepted as historically true.
  2. Socrates served as a soldier in the military expeditions of Potidaea, of Delium, and of Amphipolis, but he declined to take any further part in political affairs. His mission he believed to be the education of youth, and this duty he believed to have been assigned him by an oracle. (Plato, Apol. p. 21.) He did not invite pupils, but allowed any one who |63| chose to listen to his instructions. His personal demeanor and his mode of life were calculated to attract attention, and to win favour. His external appearance bespoke his poverty and simple habits, while his peculiarities of face and manner, his practice of staring about him, and of halting suddenly as he walked, could not fail to attract notice. He esteemed it a desirable thing to have few necessities. By the dignity and the gentleness of his disposition he drew to himself a large number of youths and men, many of whom he formed to higher aims, and trained to become distinguished citizens. To the boastful Sophists he opposed his plain common sense, his “irony,” and his strength of character: but for all this he was himself represented on the stage as a Sophist. He believed that he had by him a “Daimon” whose warning voice directed him what to do and what to avoid.
  3. In his old age, shortly after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants, the democratic party, represented by Miletus, brought a charge against him which was supported by the democratic politician Anytus, and the orator Lycon. The charge was to the effect that Socrates had offended by rejecting the gods recognised by the state, and by introducing a new and strange Daimon, and that he had furthermore offended by corrupting the young men. The charge was, therefore, the same as had been made at an earlier period by Aristophanes, in the Clouds. After a bold and somewhat haughty defence of himself, Socrates was declared guilty by the judges and condemned to die by poison. He submitted his conduct but not his convictions to the sentence of the tribunal. He refused the means of escape provided for him by Crito, and in the presence of his disciples, and friends who had assembled in his prison, he drank the poisoned draught (399 B.C. ). His death, justly glorified by his followers, secured for his teaching an universal and enduring recognition.
  4. Socrates pursued in his instructions a double purpose. His first object was to form his disciples to a higher morality, and to save them from the libertinism to which they were led by the teaching of the Sophists. For this end he insisted specially on self-knowledge, for he saw clearly that the man who knows himself is the only man who can bridle and control his appetites and passions. Hence the well-known maxim “Γνωθι σεαυτόν,” “know thyself.” Socrates was not blind to the necessity of self-knowledge as a means to the attainment of truth, but in framing this maxim he had in view primarily ethical considerations.
  5. The second object of Socrates was to lead his disciples to a clear and certain knowledge of truth. In pursuance of this purpose he invented a peculiar method of instruction which has been called by his name, and the essential character of which is implied in the name Eristic (method of discovery) which is sometimes given to it. He did not lay down fully formulated principles, but endeavoured by continued questioning to lead his hearers to discover for themselves the principles he had in view. The tendency of the Socratic method was at once positive and negative.
  Beginning with commonplace things and every day events, he interrogated his pupil regarding them, and out of every answer given drew |64| material for a new question, till he at last obliged him to confess that what he had taken for truth was not really true. Throughout the interrogatory, however, he was careful to express deference for the superior intelligence and wisdom of his pupil, till they finally gave way under the dialectical test applied to them. In this negative process consisted the Socratic “Irony” (εἰρώνεια). But his method led to positive results also. Socrates endeavoured by the same plan of continued questioning to lead his disciples to the discovery of positive truth. He named his method Maieutic, or intellectual midwifery, as it aimed at bringing truth into life in the minds of his pupils, and in this respect he found an analogy between his task and the duties undertaken by his mother.
  6. We may observe that the method of Socrates is wholly inductive. In his questioning he endeavours to pass by induction from the particular to the general. The object of the entire method, as far as it aims at a positive result, is to gain clear and accurate notions of things as they exist, in order to attain thereby to objective truth—to universal principles. Aristotle has justly observed (Met. 13, 4), that we owe to Socrates the method of Induction and Definition (τοὺς τʹἐπακτικοὺς λόγους καὶ τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου). Induction from the particular to the general, and the clear definition of general notions to which this process leads, was established by the Socratic method, and in this consists its lasting importance to philosophical science.


“Inductive reasoning that draws upon sensory evidence
is fatal to logical deduction.”–Edna Lister



  7. With regard to the peculiar philosophical tenets of Socrates, we know only what his disciples have told us: he was not, as we know, a writer. As far as his teaching regarding the Divine Nature can be gathered from these accounts, he seems to have held with Anaxagoras that God is a spirit who rules the world. He grounds his belief in the gods on the teleological argument furnished by the structure of living organisms in which the parts serve the requirements of the whole, taking as the basis of his reasoning the principle that whatever exists for a useful end must be the work of intelligence πρέπει μὲν τὰ ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ γιγνόμενα γνώμης εἶναι ἔργα. (Xenoph. Memorab. I. 4, 4 sqq. IV. 3, 3 sqq.) Just as in our own actions we are ourselves guided by reason, so the entire world is guided by the Divine Reason. The Wisdom (ϕρόνησις) which rules in all that exists determines everything according to its good pleasure, it frames and upholds the universal order: τὸν δλον κόσμος συντάττων τε καὶ συνέχων. Socrates combats the belief which attributes human passions to the gods, but he does not seek to destroy the old mythology, or even to explain it allegorically. The gods, like the human soul, are invisible, but their operations give unmistakable evidence of their existence. The gods are omniscient and omnipresent, they govern all things according to the rules of righteousness, and have their sufficiency in themselves. (Xen. Mem. I. 3, 3. IV. 3, 13.)
  8. Regarding the immortality of the soul, Socrates expresses himself doubtfully, in the Apology of Plato. But his conviction that the present me would be little worth, and not at all preferable to death, if the life to follow did not furnish more favourable conditions for human |65| effort is proof of his leanings on this question. His own boundless trust in the care of the gods for the just man, and the unanimity among his followers on the point (Plato Phaed.: Xenoph. Cyrop. VIII, 7, 3 sqq) sufficiently confirm the view that Socrates held the soul to be immortal. He expressed no definite view regarding the soul’s condition after death: he was satisfied to maintain that the soul of the just man is set free by death from the embarrassments of the body and enters into the fuller enjoyment of truth.
  9. The Supreme Good of man is happiness. Not a happiness that depends on some accident of fortune (εὐτυχία) but the happiness attained by action and knowledge (εὐπραξία). This happiness is attained through assimilation with the Divinity. External goods avail nothing; to have no need of anything is a divine attribute, to want as little as possible is the nearest approach to the Divinity. Scientific knowledge is a further condition of this assimilation with the Divine Nature. Practical excellence is identified with this knowledge. Both in one make Wisdom. Wisdom must therefore be the ultimate end of man’s moral action. In his moral life he must strive after knowledge, and true knowledge is the knowledge of the Good—the knowledge of that Divine Reason which governs all things. This leads immediately to moral goodness, for theoretical knowledge and practical excellence are ethically one. What is good is at the same time useful.
  10. In the light of these principles, the further ethical teaching of Socrates, especially his theory of Virtue, becomes easily intelligible. Virtue and Knowledge are one. The knowledge of what is right, and the doing of it, are inseparable, because they are identical. It follows that no man can knowingly do wrong: for if he knows what is good, he also chooses it. The man who acts wrongly does not act so with deliberation, but in ignorance: he is deficient in perfect knowledge of what is good. The evil doer is only involuntarily (ἄκων) wicked. It may even be said that the man who knowingly is guilty of lying, or other misdeeds, is better than the man who unwittingly lies, or otherwise does wrong (Xen. Mem. III. 9, 4: IV. 2, 20. Plat. Gorg., Apol. p. 25. Prot. p. 346. Arist. Eth. Nic. VII. 3, etc.) 6 As a consequence of its identity with the knowledge of what is good, Virtue is one, and is a matter of instruction.
  11. The State is of divine institution. The true rulers are those whose rule is guided by understanding. The laws are either written or unwritten. The latter are the rule and standard of the former: their divine origin is manifested by the fact that any violation of them entails a punishment determined by Nature itself.

“Imperfectly Socratic” Philosophers

  1. By the “imperfect” or “partial” followers of Socrates we mean those of his disciples who, failing to comprehend the whole mind of their |66| master, addressed themselves to one or other of the special points of his teachings which they developed to the exclusion of the others. Two characteristics, we have observed, were strongly marked in the teaching of Socrates, the dialectical and the ethicaL The former we may call the operative element in the instructions of Socrates, the latter the result in which his instructions culminated. These two elements became separated in the teaching of the “imperfectly Socratic” philosophers. One class devoted themselves mainly to the development of the dialectical side of the teaching of Socrates, the other gave exclusive prominence to the ethical, which they strove to develop in conjunction with certain principles borrowed from the pre-Socratic schools. To the first class belong the Megaric or Eristic, and the Elian or Eretrian Schools; to the second, the School of the Cynics, and the Cyrenaic or Hedonist School.


Editor’s note: The Schools mentioned above—the Megaric (Eristic), the Elian or Eretrian, the Cynics, and the Cyrenaic (Hedonist)—all managed to muddy the flowing stream of Philosophy and to obscure the course in which Socrates had directed it.

Read Stöckl’s analysis of Plato.


Endnotes

1^ According to Iamblichus the Esoteric were further divided into the class of the strivers (των σπουδαίων), the class of the spiritualized (των δαιμονίων), and the class of the divinised (των θείων).

2^ By Counter-earth the Pythagoreans meant a hemisphere detached from that which we inhabit, and moving parallel to it.

3^ Beyond the sphere of the fixed stars lies the encompassing fire (περιέχον πΰρ).

4^ In the Parmenides of Plato mention is made of a prose work (σύγγραμμα) by Zeno, which was divided into a series of arguments, each of which set up some hypothesis (ὑπόθεσις), which was then proved absurd, and so the Oneness of Being was indirectly established. On account of this method of demonstration Aristotle has styled Zeno the founder of dialectic.

5^ Among the immediate disciples of Socrates we may further mention Aeschines an Athenian, Cebes a Theban, Simon a shoemaker of Athens, and Xenophon an Athenian general and writer. The latter wrote a life of Socrates and contributed to the Philosophy of Education the well-known Cyropaedia.

6^ The man who knowingly does wrong; is in a better position than the man who does it unwittingly, for the reason that ignorance and neglect of knowledge are the greatest of all sins, and the source of all moral evil.


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Reference

Stockl, Albert. Pythagoras, Handbook of the History of Philosophy, Part I, Pre-Scholastic Philosophy. T. A. Finlay, trans. Dublin: M. H. Gill and Son, 1887.