The Presocratics: Workshop I - The Milesians
By Don Finkel
I. (15 minutes) In answering the following questions, please put aside anything you have learned about science. Imagine that there is no science yet, and that all you have to go on is what you can observe, and the conclusions you might draw about what you observe.
Look carefully at the burning candle. Individually, write down your answers (your intuitions) to the following questions about the candle. Take time to ponder, but don't take too long writing for any one question; you have only 15 minutes to get through them all.
a. What do you see?
b. Where does the smoke come from?
c. Where does the smoke go to?
d. Is the flame you saw on the match the same flame as the one you see on the candle?
e. As the candle burns, where does the missing wax go?
f. Where did the heat come from? Where does it go?
g. Where does the light come from and where does it go to?
h. Where did the color of the candle go to? Where did it come from originally?
i. Do the wax and wick vanish from the universe and are the heat and smoke and light created at just the same time? If so, how do you account for the coincidence in time?
j. If not, do the wax and wick get transformed into heat, light, and smoke? If so, then must they not be made of a common underlying substance--something which is neither wax, nor wick, nor smoke, nor heat, nor light, but which is more real than any of them?
k. If we accept the latter idea, that wax and wick on the one hand and smoke, heat, and light, on the other are all made out of the same substance, what makes them each appear different to us?
II. (60 mins.) Divide up into groups of four. Work with people you don't know. Place your chairs so you form a little circle. Discuss each of the following questions and try to agree on an answer. Appoint a scribe to be responsible for writing down the group's answer to each question. Everyone should take some notes of what is going on; you can draw on the scribe's records afterwards to complete your notes. In addition, have one person keep an eye on the time so your group moves the questions according to schedule.
A. Thales (20 mins.)
1. Thales asserted "The first principle and basic nature of all things is water." (F1, p.44) What could he mean by this? How could he possibly have believed such a thing?
2. If Thales were describing what happens as the candle burns down to "nothing," what might he say?
3. In the practice of interpretation, there is a slogan that says, "Make it good!" This is closely related to what is called "The Principle of Charitable Interpretation." The idea behind "Make it good!" is to assume that what you are reading is sensible, intelligent, and has something important to say, even if on your first or second reading it does not appear to. That is, make the text good yourself by finding what is good in it. Use this principle with Thales' assertion F1. Given your current understanding of nature and the world, what is the partial truth expressed in Thales assertion? Paraphrase his assertion so that it is both true and important in today's world.
4. Wheelwright says that what is important about the Milesians is not the conclusions they reached, but their new way of asking questions. What question is Thales trying to answer with his assertion above?
B. Anaximander (20 mins.)
1. Anaximander claimed "The Unlimited is the first-principle of things that are. It is that from which the coming-to-be [of things and qualities] takes place, and it is that into which they return when they perish, by moral necessity, giving satisfaction to one another and making reparation for their injustice, according to the order of time." (F1, p. 54)
According to one commentator, Anaximander believed that "the most important forces at work ... were what were later called 'the opposites': pairs of opposed entities of which the most frequently invoked were 'the hot' and 'the cold', 'the wet' and 'the dry'. ... The 'opposites' were above all forces, agents of physical change, each present in varying degrees at different places." (E. Hussey, The Presocratics, p. 20) Moreover, as Wheelwright, explains, "Each actually existing thing ... is a usurper; for during the time that it exists it "commits injustice" by preventing its opposite from existing; accordingly it must eventually pay the penalty by yielding up its overt existence and returning to its submerged place in the great qualitative reservoir [the Unlimited]." (p. 53)
What could Anaximander have meant by these assertions?
2. If Anaximander were describing what happens as the candle burns down to "nothing," what might he say?
3. Use the "make it good" principle with Anaximander's assertion F1. Given your current understanding of nature and the world, what is the partial truth expressed in this assertion?
4. What question is Anaximander trying to answer with his assertion F1?
C. Anaximenes (20 mins.)
1. According to Simplicius, a later Greek commentator, "Anaximenes ... agreed with [Anaximander] that the essence of things is one and unlimited; on the other hand he declared that it is not indeterminate but that it has the specific nature of air, which differs in rarity and density according to the kind of things into which it forms itself. Rarefied it becomes fire, condensed it becomes wind, then cloud, and as the condensation increases it becomes successively water, earth, and then stones. Everything else gets made out of these." (T6, p. 62)
In what way is air an improvement over water as a candidate for the basic element out of which all things are made?
2. If Anaximenes were describing what happens as the candle burns down to "nothing," what might he say?
3. Use the "make it good" principle with Anaximenes' ideas in T6. Consider the possibility that Anaximenes might be trying to combine what is best in Thales and Anaximander and is presenting an improved set of ideas that overcomes the weaknesses in each of their approaches to explanation. Give an account of T6 that shows its strengths, and if possible, that puts to use the preceding hypothesis.
4. What question or questions is Anaximenes trying to answer with his assertions above?
III. (15 mins.)
1. Have your scribe read aloud your group's answers to the #4 questions for the three philosophers (the questions they were trying to answer). How would you characterize these questions as a whole? What kind of questions are they? How do they differ from questions you might guess, based on The Kojiki, that the early Japanese people were asking about their world?
2. Are these questions, or these kind of questions, ones that Homer could have asked? Explain why or why not.
3. Are these questions, or these kinds of questions, more closely linked to oral-traditional culture or to culture that has felt the impact of the closely-associated technologies of writing and counting? Explain your response.