This is a review of lectures given by Eugen Fink at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau in the winter term of 1947/48, “Fundamental Questions of Ancient Philosophy,” edited by Franz A. Schwarz.

Taken from the Great Philosphers, Volume II.

Volume 35 of Heidegger’s Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. In it, Heidegger leads his students in a close reading of two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of (...) Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present. (shrink)

Volume 35 of Heidegger's Complete Works comprises a lecture course given at the University of Freiburg in 1932, five years after the publication of Being and Time. During this period, Heidegger was at the height of his creative powers, which are on full display in this clear and imaginative text. In it, Heidegger leads his students in a close reading of two of the earliest philosophical source documents, fragments by Greek thinkers Anaximander and Parmenides. Heidegger develops their common theme of (...) Being and non-being and shows that the question of Being is indeed the origin of Western philosophy. His engagement with these Greek texts is as much of a return to beginnings as it is a potential reawakening of philosophical wonder and inquiry in the present. (shrink)

It is usually assumed that Heraclitus is, exclusively, the philosopher of flux, diversity and opposition while Parmenides puts the case for unity and changelessness. However, there is a significant common understanding of things, not simply an accidental similarity of understanding. Both philosophers, critically, distinguish two realms: on the one hand, there is the one, common realm, identical for all, which is grasped by the ‘logos that is common’ or the steady nous that follows a right method in order to interpret (...) the real. On the other hand, the realm of multiplicity seen and heard by the senses, when interpreted by ‘barbarian souls’, is not understood in its common unity. Analogously, when grasped by the wandering weak nous it does not comprehend the real’s basic unity. In this paper I attempt to defend the thesis that both thinkers claim that the common logos or the steady intellect grasp and affirm the unity of the real. (shrink)

Von Parmenides (um 515-455 v. Chr.), dem zusammen mit Anaximander und Heraklit bedeutendsten Denker der Vorsokratik und Begrunder der Schule der Eleaten, ist ein in Versen abgefasstes "Lehrgedicht" erhalten. Das Fragment zahlt, nicht zuletzt aufgrund seiner Vermittlung durch Platon, zu den Grundungsdokumenten der abendlandischen Philosophie. Der Politiker und Philosoph Kurt Riezler (1882-1955) unternimmt es in seiner 1934 erstmals erschienenen Interpretation des parmenideischen Gedichts, das in seinen beiden Teilen dargelegte sachliche Verhaltnis von Schein und Sein als innere Verflechtung philosophisch zu legitimieren. (...) Die Ausgabe enthalt den griechisch-deutschen Text und wurde von Hans-Georg Gadamer bearbeitet und mit einem Nachwort versehen. (shrink)

Esta obra, que podemos encontrar dentro de la oportuna colección de Humanidades de las Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza es la primera traducción en castellano que se ha realizado de Eraclito e la sua legenda publicada en 1979, que hasta 2018 solo estaba al alcance de quienes hablaran italiano. Como su título indica, es un trabajo realmente útil para la investigación e interpretación de los textos de Heráclito de Éfeso. Su tesis es una propuesta de interpretación sustentada en una (...) rigurosa contextualización de la que se da cuenta a lo largo de la obra, cuya conclusión es que las lecturas que se han venido realizando han extraído y descontextualizado los ejemplos de carácter físico que el filósofo usa para explicar el objeto político de su obra, con lo que la tradición habría perdido de vista el sentido de la misma: la política del momento. Su autor, Antonio Capizzi desarrolló su docencia en la Universidad de La Sapienza de Roma, en la que se especializó en la historia de la filosofía griega. Sus trabajos se caracterizan por una detallada contextualización histórica, alejándose de otras interpretaciones heredadas de la tradición. Destacan sus trabajos Introduzione a Parmenide y Platone nel suo tempo, dedicados a Parménides y a Platón, respectivamente. (shrink)

Abstract:The history of metaphysical thought has been dominated by the notion of substance as the ground of being, with substance, primarily following Aristotle, being understood in terms of independent/separate existence. This understanding raises fundamental problems, a primary one being the one–many problem. As Plato recognizes in both Parmenides and the Sophist, to assert being to be fundamentally either one or many leads to contradictions. However, there is an alternative understanding of the ground of being which can be traced to some (...) of the earliest Presocratic thinkers. The author examines two of those philosophers, Anaximander and Heraclitus, and explores how they understand the ground of being primarily in terms of relation. (shrink)

Within the timespan of two years, two books have been published on the Presocratics as scientists. In 2011 appeared Carlo Rovelli’s The First Scientist. Anaximander and His Legacy, (Yardley: Westholme), and in 2013 Daniel Graham’s Science before Socrates. Whereas Rovelli, whose main field of study is quantum gravity, argues that Anaximander was the first scientist, Graham maintains that Anaximander should not count as a scientist. Empirical science started with Anaxagoras, who used his assumption that solar eclipses occur when the moon (...) blocks its light (“antiphraxis”) to measure the size of the sun on the occasion of a solar eclipse, and to a lesser extent with Parmenides, who recognized that the moon receives its .. (shrink)

La obra de Heráclito y Parménides nos resulta desconocida en su integridad. Sin embargo, pocos filósofos han sido tan comentados como ellos. Pero esta crítica –diversa y contradictoria– de los fragmentos de su Περι Φύσεως, y de su Poema, respectivamente, en vez de aclarar, ha servido para ocultar aún más sus genuinas reflexiones filosóficas, pues muchos de estos escritos se han utilizado ya sea para alabar a Heráclito o Parménides, ya sea para criticarlos y contraponerlos, o bien para justificar intereses (...) espurios. Este trabajo versa sobre las controversias del πάντα ρει, del πύρ y del λογος según el pensamiento del filósofo de Éfeso, dejando para otra ocasión las interpretaciones de la doctrina del filósofo de Elea sobre la άλήνεια y la δόγος, advirtiendo que siempre se planteará el problema de la duda respecto respecto a la autenticidad o falsedad, orden y estructura de sus fragmentos como fuente.We find the work of Heráclito and Parménides unknown in their integrity. However, few philosophers have been so commented as them. But this diverse and contradictory critic - of the fragments of their "Peri Phuseos" and of their Poem, respectively, instead of clarifying, it has been good to hide even more their genuine philosophical reflections, because many of these writings have either been used to praise Heráclito or Parménides, either to criticize them and to oppose them, or to justify spurious interests. This work turns on the controversies of the "panta rei" of the "pur" and of the logos according to the thought of the philosopher of Éfeso, leaving for another occasion the interpretations of the doctrine of the philosopher of Elea on the "alhueia" and of the "doxa", noticing that [he/she] will always think about the problem of the doubt regarding the authenticity or falsehood, order and it structures of its fragments like source. (shrink)

Fascinating illustrations contribute to this illuminating and award-winning account of how and why philosophy emerged and make it a must-read for any inquisitive thinker unsatisfied with prevailing assumptions on this timely and highly relevant subject._ By taking the reader back to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy more than 500 years B.C., the author, with unparalleled insight, tells the story of the Pythagorean quest for otherwordly konwledge -- a tale of cultism, political conspiracies, and bloody uprisings that eventually culminate in (...) tragic failure. The emerging hero is Parmenides, who introduces for the first time a technique for testing the truth of a statement that was not based on physical evidence or mortal sense-perception, but instead relied exclusively on the faculty we humans share with the gods: the ability to reason. "Figures from Anaximander to Zeno, the ruins where they lived and thought, and the paradoxes and thought-experiments they proposed are depicted among the [many] well-chosen color illustrations. The results read like an introductory textbook, but one that has been lovingly written, lavishly laid-out and crisply printed-- making it engaging enough to draw in readers to whom it has not been assigned." - _ Publishers Weekly___ "_To Think Like God_ is a highly ambitious book... Hermann's approach deserves to be taken seriously as an alternative to standard interpretations." - _ Richard D. McKirahan, Jr., Edwin Clarence Norton Professor of Classics and Professor of Philosophy, Pomona College___ "Arnold Hermann brings fresh life into the specialists' debates... a blow of wind that dissipates much fog." - _ Walter Burkert, Professor Emeritus of Classical Philology, University of Zurich___ ARNOLD HERMANN_ is pursuing independent research on the origins of philosophy and methods of thinking. He specialices on subjects connected with Parmenides and Plato's _Parmenides._. (shrink)

Bridging from Husserl to Iamblichus, this book contributes phenomenological readings of Plotinus, Aristotle, Parmenides, and Heraclitus, in which prevalent misconceptions about the very identity of time in the phenomena of motion are corrected, and time's role in Greek philosophy recovered.

Over the past few decades there has been a rebellion brewing in the world of Parmenides scholarship. Most of the things you probably think you know about the man have come under serious and sustained attack. No longer is it safe to accept on trust the view—which G. E. L. Owen so forcefully defended in his 1960 paper “Eleatic Questions”—that according to Parmenides there exists only one thing, ungenerated, indestructible, unchanging, indivisible, and spherical. Nor is it safe to assume that (...) he had no real commitment to empirical theorizing, and sought only to demolish the cosmological tradition that was initiated and developed by his Ionian predecessors Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. All of.. (shrink)

A close reading of the poem of Parmenides, with focal attention to the way the proem situates Parmenides' insight in relation to Hesiod and Anaximander and provides the context for the thought of "... is". I identify three pointed ambiguities, in the direction of the journey to the gates of the ways of Night and Day, in the way the gates swing open before the waiting traveler, and in the character of the "chasm" that their opening makes, and I suggest (...) ways in which these ambiguities at once complicate and determine the significance of the thought of "... is" and its implications for the status of the opinions of mortals. (shrink)

Como dijimos en la Parte I, las obras de Heráclito y Parménides nos resultan desconocidas en su integridad. Sin embargo, pocos filósofos han sido tan comentados como ellos. Pero esta crítica –diversa y contradictoria– de los fragmentos heraclitanos y del Poema de Parménides, respectivamente, en vez de aclarar, ha servido para ocultar aún más sus genuinas reflexiones filosóficas, pues muchos de estos escritos se han utilizado ya sea para alabar a Heráclito o Parménides, ya sea para criticarlos y contraponerlos, o (...) bien para justificar intereses espurios. Esta Parte II de nuestro trabajo versa sobre las interpretaciones de la doctrina de la •8Zhg4" y de la *`>" en el filósofo de Elea, advirtiendo de nuevo que siempre se planteará el problema de la duda respecto a la autenticidad o falsedad, orden y estructura de sus fragmentos como fuente.As we said in the Parte I, the works of Heráclito and Parménides we find unknown in their integrity. However, few philosophers have been so commented as them. But this –diverse and contradictory critic– of the fragments heraclitanos and of the Poem of Parménides, respectively, instead of clarifying, it has been good to hide even more their genuine philosophical reflections, because many of these writings have either been used to praise Heráclito or Parménides, either to criticize them and to oppose them, or to justify spurious interests. This Part II of our work turns on the interpretations of the doctrine of the •8Zhg4" and of the *`>" in the philosopher of Elea, noticing again that [he/she] will always think about the problem of the doubt regarding the authenticity or falsehood, order and it structures of its fragments like source. (shrink)

Pretende-se explicitar a emergência da noção de individualidade a partir de Homero e Hesíodo, noção que nos textos míticos é difícil captar em função de outra estrutura do pensamento apanhado nos textos. Posteriormente, será indicado que em Heráclito, Parmênides, Empédocles, tal noção se torna mais complexa e já em Platão e Aristóteles há uma polissemia do lógos que transgride em parte o mito, e tece o campo da metafísica, de modo a pensar-se em uma “substância individual” regida pela ideia de (...) “simplificação”. (shrink)

Reads Presocratics such as Homer, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Empedocles from within the realm opened up by Heidegger's thinking.

English summary: With his research on early Greek philosophy, Hermann Diels created the definitive works of his era, and his Fragments of the Presocratics remains the standard work on the topic. However, the scholar never published a panorama of his unmatched knowledge. For the first time, a transcript of the lecture in which Diels represented his vision of Hellenic thought is now available. The script from the 1897/98 winter semester documents the oratory and pedagogy of the great Hellenist and was (...) provided by one of his exceptional students, the Munich-based Egyptologist Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing. Diels proved himself as a clear-headed thinker discussing the historical course of early proverbial wisdom, the natural and political theory of Plato, and the conceptual precision of Aristotle. Central figures such as Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus are concisely drawn and colored. Thus the text offers an absorbing picture of the origins of theoretical consciousness in Europe. German text. German description: Mit seinen Forschungen zur fruehgriechischen Philosophie hat Hermann Diels Epoche gemacht; seine aFragmente der Vorsokratiker sind weiterhin das Standardwerk zum Thema. Nie jedoch hat der Gelehrte ein Panorama seines unerreichten Wissens veroffentlicht. Erstmals wird nun eine Mitschrift jener Vorlesung zuganglich, in der Diels seine Sicht des hellenischen Denkens darstellte. Das Skript aus dem Wintersemester 1897/98 dokumentiert vorzueglich Sprachkraft und Padagogik des grossen Grazisten; es stammt von einem Ausnahme-Studenten, dem spateren Muenchner Agyptologen Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing.Im historischen Gang von frueher Spruchweisheit bis zur Natur- und Staatslehre Platons und der begrifflichen Prazisionsarbeit des Aristoteles hebt Diels besonders das Fortwirken grosser Denkmuster hervor. Zentrale Gestalten wie Anaximander, Heraklit, Parmenides oder Demokrit sind pragnant und farbig gezeichnet. So bietet der Text ueber seinen fachhistorischen Wert hinaus ein fesselndes Bild der Urspruenge theoretischen Bewusstseins in Europa. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Die massgebenden Menschen: Sokrates, Buddha, Konfuzius, Jesus. Die fortzeugenden Gründer des Philosophierens: Plato, Augustin, Kant. Aus dem Ursprung denkende Metaphysiker: Anaximander, Heraklit, Parmenides, Plotin, Anselm, Spinoza, Laotse, Nagarjuna. Bibliographie (p. 957-968).

In this dissertation I uncover a logic of the development of atomism in early Greek philosophy that has not been previously recognized in the philosophical literature. This logic results from the nature of subjectivity and the attempt by reflective subjects to understand the world in which they live. Thus because of the nature of illusions built in to perception and reflection, reflective subjects who attempt to understand their world will develop more or less accurate accounts according to their ability to (...) see through these illusions. ;Physicalism, as it is understood by Professor Phillip Scribner of The American University and explained in currently unpublished manuscripts, provides the interpretative key that reveals the underlying logic in the development of early Greek philosophy. It is therefore necessary to explain this particular form of physicalism in some detail in order to understand the terminology and categories to be used in the historical analysis. To this end I explain the physicalist ontology and philosophy of science, the genesis of the problem of mind in Modern and Contemporary philosophy, the physicalist solution to the problem of mind, and the nature of the physicalist critique of the history of philosophy. ;In the historical sections the themes of materialism, reductionism, and realism are used to compare the views of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus, and Democritus and to show how their various positions on the themes follow from their assumptions about the nature of subjectivity. I argue that the predecessors of atomism were all naive realists and that this assumption about the nature of mind generates the problems of early Greek philosophy. The resolution of these problems follows from the development of critical realism by Leucippus and a form of proto-physicalism by Democritus. ;The main sources used are English translations of Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker by H. Diels, edited by W. Kranz, and a variety of secondary sources which provide the consensus of modern authorities. (shrink)

El cambio suele ser, según una larga tradición filosófica, concebido como incompatible con la noción de ser en cuanto tal. Dicho de otro modo: si acaso existe un ser que sea en un sentido más propio y auténtico que las cosas de este mundo, el mismo deberá necesariamente excluir de sí toda forma de cambio y movimiento. Ser y devenir serían en cuanto tales nociones contradictorias y mutuamente excluyentes. Así, por ejemplo, Parménides elimina del Ser el movimiento y el cambio, (...) Platón concibe a las Ideas como inmutables, Aristóteles a su Primer Motor como inmóvil, la Escolástica concibe a Dios como Acto Puro, exento de potencia, y Kant, finalmente, opone lo incausado a lo causado y lo necesario a lo contingente como términos antinómicos. Hegel, en cambio, se remite a Heráclito y considera con él que el devenir constituye la sustancia misma del ser. Según Hegel, las nociones de ser y devenir no se excluyen mutuamente; por el contrario, el concepto de lo que es en sentido auténtico no sólo no excluye de sí el devenir, sino que en la medida en que deba ser algo real y no una mera abstracción mental, será por eso mismo algo concreto y determinado que como tal deberá contener el movimiento y el cambio como una de sus características esenciales. La crítica de Hegel a la clásica contraposición de ser y devenir se inscribe, en último análisis, en su proyecto general de crítica a las categorías del entendimiento abstractivo como categorías inadecuadas para pensar y comprender correctamente lo real. (shrink)

The Anaximander fragment -- Logos (Heraclitus, fragment B 50) -- Moira (Parmenides VIII, 34-41) -- Aletheia (Heraclitus, fragment B 16).

El término lógos fue objeto de un crecimiento desmesurado desde que los filósofos descubrieron su riqueza, y sus múltiples transfiguraciones, lo cual impide traducirlo de una manera unívoca. Ya en Heráclito su significación es múltiple, y, un siglo después, Platón lo utiliza dos mil cuatrocientas ochenta y tres veces. Este crecimiento desmesurado se explica: tanto la expresión (escrita u oral) del pensamiento, que es el discurso, presente ya en Heráclito, como la relación entre nociones, que es el razonamiento, procedimiento introducido (...) por Parménides, son los dos matices que monopolizará lógos a partir de Platón, surgidos naturalmente de su raíz (el discurso une palabras; el razonamiento, argumentos). Aristóteles hará del lógos, con el significado de “habla”, la esencia del ser humano, y finalmente, con el estoicismo, la irresistible ascensión de la noción culminará con su significado de razón. (shrink)

The term “Presocratics” refers to a group of Greek thinkers who lived not later than Socrates and who were not decisively influenced by him. They are often referred to as the first philosophers as they represent the dawn of human speculation in the West. The essay examines the fragments of major Presocratics - Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empidocles and Anaxagoras, which contain their views and arguments as reported by subsequent authors. Although these fragments are incomplete and are based (...) on secondary quotations, it is possible to sift through them and develop coherent and logical interpretations that approximate the original idea and intentions of these philosophers. The aim of this essay is to shed light on the philosophical meaning and significance of the concept of Arche (ἀρχή) – an untranslatable Greek word that connotes origin, principle, first in the series, or source, which constitutes the central thread of speculation among the Presocratics and their most influential contribution to the history of Western thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Translating archaic Greek philosophies presents a complex of opportunities and challenges for translators, several of which are regularly overlooked. Among these figure prominently the culture and thematics of oralcy and the predisciplinarity in which early Greek thinking took shape. Additionally, translators engaged with early Greek thinking face layers of interpretive history and expectations that can determine the scope of possible translation, which, in turn, limits the range of interpretive possibilities. Yet their predisciplinary or at least hybrid modes summon a (...) broad attention to contexts of language, forms, and meanings that may challenge, or even disrupt, the predominant lines of inquiry and interpretation. How can translation motivated by the oralcy and predisciplinarity of archaic Greece open new directions for interpretation of the early Greek thinkers? Ranging through Anaximander, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and others, this article articulates some possibilities for translating on and beyond the boundaries of philosophy. (shrink)

This celebratory Festschrift dedicated to Charles Kahn comprises some 23 articles by friends, former students and colleagues, many of whom first presented their papers at the international "Presocratics and Plato" Symposium in his honor. The conference was organized and sponsored by the HYELE Institute for Comparative Studies, Parmenides Publishing, and Starcom AG, with endorsements from the International Plato Society, and the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania. While Kahn's work reaches far beyond the Presocratics and (...) Plato, it is in these subject areas that the distinction of his scholarship has come to be regarded as virtually unrivaled. The articles contributed to this volume are by some of the most renowned scholars working on these topics today, their breadth and depth bearing witness to his profound impact and influence on the discipline of Ancient Greek Philosophy._ Charles Kahn taught Classics and Philosophy at Columbia University from 1957 to 1965, and has since been teaching in the Philosophy Department of the University of Pennsylvania. He spent a year as Visiting Professor at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, and had additional Visiting Fellowships at Balliol College, Oxford and Clare Hall, Cambridge, and a term as Visiting Professor at Harvard. He is the recipient of several prestigious research grants, from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2000 he was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of _Anaximander and the Origins of Greek Cosmology, The Verb “Be” in Ancient Greek, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, and Essays on Being_. His latest book,_Plato and the Post-Socratic Dialogue_, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. _ Contributors: Julia Annas Sarah Broadie Lesley Brown Tomás Calvo-Martínez Diskin Clay John M. Dillon Dorothea Frede Arnold Hermann Carl A. Huffman Enrique Hülsz Piccone D. M. Hutchinson Paul Kalligas Vassilis Karasmanis Aryeh Kosman Anthony A. Long Richard McKirahan Susan Sauvé Meyer Alexander P.D.Mourelatos Satoshi Ogihara Richard Patterson Christopher J. Rowe David Sedley Richard Sorabji. (shrink)

I do not mean to suggest that Kroner's book is not in many places interesting and learned, nor that, in its original form of lectures, it had no value. But, apart from the exaggeration and distortion of the central thesis, the detailed treatment of historical points leaves one with little confidence and robs the work of what usefulness it might have had. Thus an unquestioning application of Nietzche's division of Greek thinkers into 'Dionysiac' and 'Apollonian' leads to remarks like the (...) following: "Aristotle has little in common with the Dionysian romanticism and universal dynamism of Heraclitus, and yet there is a kinship between them based upon becoming instead of being". What evidence we have for the Presocratic period is harshly treated. On p. 85 this is the 'more literal' of two versions of Anaximander's fragment and its introduction: "All things are going back through destruction, whence they had come through generation, according to what is due; for they suffer just punishment by repayment to each other the wrong in the succession of time"--but Anaximander did not, in fact, write nonsense like this. Even a simple sentence like Heraclitus fr. 113 is mistranslated as "Thinking is the same for all," where the Greek is ξυνόν and not τὸ αὐτό. Nor is Kroner incapable of rebuking others for mistakes of his own; thus on p. 110 he writes: "J. Burnet, e.g., waters down the words of Parmenides which literally rendered are: 'The same is to know and that on behalf of which thought is,' by letting Parmenides say: 'You cannot find thought without something that is as to which it is uttered.'" But Burnet was translating not the line translated by Kroner, but the following one, a line ignored by Kroner and one which seriously damages his interpretation of Parmenides. Then the Greek word ἰδέαι, used of Plato's Forms, is implied to connote ideas existing in the mind; Socrates is the most worth-while of Greek thinkers because in some respects he resembled Jesus Christ; he was not really an ethical thinker, though, and in any case Plato's Forms owed nothing to him--and so on. The best treatment is of Aristotle; and there are many short sections of acute discussion, as, for example, on the meaning of the second part of the Parmenides. But the mind may be spinning so wildly by the time it reaches them that it is incapable of recognizing them. Cambridge University. (shrink)

The Milesian protophilosophy was an important phase in the development of Western thought. The first philosophical ideas of the origin and the nature of the world arose from the mythological images. The author tries to show, that the Milesian conceptions do not draw on the particular Greek myths, but on the archaic mythology embodying various mythological motives - the archetypes. The latter emerge spontaneously from human unconciousness and become a part of consciousness. Thales' idea, that "water is the origin of (...) all tings... and therefore the earth floats on water", is the expression of mythical experience based on the archetype of chaos. Its archetypal image is "the primal water" as the source of the arising world. Similarly there is an analogy between Anaximander's apeiron and the archetype of chaos. The transition from the mythical-imaginative thought to rational and abstract one is represented also by Anaximenes, who also makes use of various archetypes . The mythical-imaginative thought differs from rational conceptual thought in that in the former the part is identical with itself as well as with the whole, while in the latter the relationship between the part and the whole is dichotomical. The Greek thought developes into a purely dualistic way of thinking, which is fully manifested in Parmenides. (shrink)

O tema deste artigo é o antagonismo entre duas “escolas” filosóficas que se desenvolveram a partir de princípios opostos: as “escolas” jônica e a itálica. Aquela desenvolveu-se desde Tales em Mileto, passando por Anaximandro, Anaxímenes, Heráclito, Leucipo, Demócrito, Epicuro..., cuja filosofia se denomina materialista A segunda, de Parmênides, Zenão... até, principalmente, Sócrates, Platão e Aristóteles, cuja filosofia se chama idealista. O proposto é um esquema de releitura dessa história e uma problematização mínima das suas consequências. Verifica-se que desde a Antiguidade (...) os filósofos reconheciam a existência desse antagonismo e conscientemente opunham-se entre si, numa luta cuja vitória, a história o conta, foi dos idealistas. Não se trata de um estudo exaustivo de cada um desses filósofos, mas apenas alguns, aqueles por mim considerados mais exemplares da época dos primórdios da filosofia grega. Ressalta-se, ainda, que esse antagonismo vem sendo recorrentemente negligenciado nos manuais de história da filosofia. Como o único meio para mostrar isso é o de evidenciar a incoerência dos manuais a partir dos próprios textos e testemunhos desses filósofos, o leitor encontrará, com maior ênfase, uma análise do desenvolvimento do atomismo em Leucipo a partir da filosofia de Anaxímenes, ao contrário da afirmação costumeira de que o atomismo se originou da doutrina do Ser de Parmênides. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Die Vorsokratiker: Ein philosophisches Portrȧt by Thomas BuchheimIstván BodnárThomas Buchheim. Die Vorsokratiker: Ein philosophisches Portrȧt. München: C.H. Beck, 1994. Pp. 262. Paper, DM 48.00.This book is a continuous narrative of highlights of presocratic philosophy. The vista offered by Buchheim is revisionary. The presocratics are behind a curve of the road of the philosophical enterprise. What we usually perceive is a mirage created by the doxographic tradition, emanating ultimately (...) from Aristotle. This much might be uncontroversial: the history of presocratic philosophy has been for the last two centuríes a continuous effort to liberate the remains of those early philosophers from the imputations of later authors. But Buchheim’s project is more ambitious than our ordinary occupation with the presocratics. He postulates a specific, markedly presocratic type of appropriation of the world, and then uses this as a yardstick to elicit a new understanding of the mutilated body of the early texts. Presocratic thought is not theoretical, but rather reactive; it cannot extricate itself from the situation in which it is directed at its object.While some of his discussion is perceptive, the chapters abound in idiosyncratic interpretations. It will suffice to mention only a few of Buchheim’s central claims by way of illustration. Although it has been widely held that Anaximander’s apeiron is not only boundless, but also indefinite, Buchheim’s contention that it should be seen as a disorienting and chaotic matrix which provides no foothold for the discerning and distinguishing mind overshoots the mark. This claim does not mesh well with the allowance in Anaximander that there can be a plurality of simultaneous worlds. There can be a disorienting extension beyond the single cosmos, but several (and as some testimonies would claim, evenly distanced) worlds cannot possibly be separated by a medium which defies the notion of extension altogether.Few will be convinced by Buchheim’s claim that Heraclitus did not formulate a doctrine of opposites because he, coming before Parmenides, could have had only a conception of “counteractive parties in an originally unifying contention” (82), since Heraclitus’ provocative pronouncements would thereby be diluted into mere platitudes. Since Empedocles never calls his rhizömata elements, Buchheim impugns the Empedoclean origin of the four element doctrine. For this he needs to explain away much of the evidence of the fragments. Some of the images Empedocles deploys would suggest a mere juxtaposition of the ingredients, some might indicate some more intimate bond arising between these. As Buchheim aptly notes, the choice in this matter is not obvious. Nevertheless there are places where Buchheim’s interpretation is at a serious disadvantage. Empedocles B8, on the standard reading would rule out the [End Page 521] notion of a phusis (growth, generation) or teleutë- (end, perishing) of any mortal thing, and would allow for the mixιs (mixing) and diallaxιs (separation) of what is mixed together. Immortal things, devoid of generation and perishing by default, are understandably not taken into account here. On Buchheim’s reading, however, Empedoclean rhizömata would be allowed to grow, and hence, by a similar reasoning, to perish.In Chapter 5, Buchheim accuses Aristotle of systematically replacing the dynamically loaded expressions of the ancient atomists, characterizing the ultimate building blocks of nature, with static, geometric idioms. The sole exception where Aristotle does not rob the atomists of this dynamic conception of atomic nature, Buchheim claims, is Physics 8.9 265b23ff. But the uniqueness of the passage rests on Buchheim’s idiosyncratic translation. On the standard interpretation (going back at least to Simplicius) Aristotle asserts only that, according to the atomists, nature performs local motion, and not—as Buchheim would have it—that the nature of the atoms is the very performing of local motion.Contrary to Buchheim’s general characterization of presocratic thought as imbued or integrated with the circumstances of cognition, Anaxagoras’ nous is pure and distinct, not mixed with any other ingredient of the universe. For this reason, Buchheim in his final chapter presents Anaxagoras as a transitional figure between presocratic thought and later, classical metaphysics. The details of this claim, just like the overall characterization of the presocratics, are bound... (shrink)

What is religion? What does the concept of religion mean? Today, the word ‘religion’ appears everywhere; a seemingly all pervasive notion associated with a vast array of phenomena, including: war, terrorism, politics, science fiction, morality, and of course, with delusion and irrationality. However, what religion is, or what it means, remains a highly contested matter. It will be the aim of this paper to offer an interpretation of the meaning of the concept of religion by using just one of many (...) philosophical ways of approaching religion, namely; phenomenology as ontology. The paper will focus upon the remaining fragments of three Pre-Socratic philosophers; Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, seeking in these fragments the basic conceptual subject matter for an interpretation of the meaning of religion. I will argue that these fragments reveal that the meaning of religion is a relation between being-human and what gets called the arche (or ground of being). Further, I will argue that this relation can be conceptually determined as a quest for ground: the ground of the human sense of being and of grounding thinking, meaning, truth, and purpose… Ultimately, I will argue in this paper that there are two essential characteristics of the meaning of religion as this relation to ground(ing). First, insofar as religion belongs to humans in our being; the meaning of religion may be characterized as the directed-ness of being-human towards meaning and purpose. Additionally, as with all relationships, the relationship that constitutes religion has a ‘towards which’ – or – if you will, a being that is related to. Thus, the second essential characteristic of religion will be disclosed as the arche; that which is the ground of being and as such, that which is otherwise than being. (shrink)

Brief educational paper. The author sketches the most important aspects of Heraclitean theory of fire as the ‘principle’, ‘beginning’ or ‘origin’ (arché) of existing things. The presentation puts his concept of arché in the background of Heraclitean famous aphoristic dicta (‘everything flows’ – panta rhei, among others) and his theory of universal logos. Although the philosophy of Heraclitus is not very distinct from other theories by archaic philosophers of nature (Anaximander, Anaximenes, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles), its specificity makes Heraclitus one of (...) the most influential and inspiring figures of Ancient world. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between justice and nature in key figures in early Greek philosophy in order to understand the idea of nature that grounds Plato’s account of justice. Tracing the idea of justice through Anaximander, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, I show that each figure uses justice in unique and innovative ways to explain different concepts of nature. Among the Presocratics then, justice is a heuristic for grasping the newly emerging and evolving concept of nature. It is in turn this (...) evolving concept of nature that ushers in the transformation of justice from the conventional Hesiodic notion of “legal settlement” or “paying one’s debts” to Plato’s philosophical account of justice based on nature. The transformation is marked by the development of several key epistemological criteria and teleological facets in the earliest concepts of nature. As such, Plato’s account of justice in the Republic is deeply indebted to Presocratic conceptions of justice and nature. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Primordial Beginning Anaximander and the Beginning of Metaphysics Heraclitus Parmenides Plato Aristotle.

Volume 2 presents the great metaphysicians of West and East, the substance and character of their ideas, and their historical position in philosophy, including Anaximander, Plotinus, Spinoza, Heraclitus, Anselm, Lao-Tzu, Parmenides, Nicholas of Cusa, and Nagarjuna.

A contraposição entre as concepções cosmológicas de Parmênides e de Heráclito pauta a abordagem deste ensaio no âmbito da filosofia do design, e com principais interlocutores os filósofos Hans Jonas, Ernst Cassirer, Bruno Latour e Vilém Flusser e os teóricos do design Per Galle e Richard Buchanan. O pano de fundo se estabelece com os recorrentes debates sobre o “contexto da indeterminação” dos problemas em design. Ao buscar compreender idiossincrasias desse campo em bases metafísicas, nos afastamos da rigidez de ontologias (...) substancialistas e de éticas dualistas e nos concentramos na ontologia do devir, na ética monista e no conceito de “Homo Pictor” de Jonas, pensador influenciado pela teoria evolucionista darwiniana. O objetivo é explorar conexões entre esses conceitos filosóficos e características projetivas, em benefício de atuações menos antagônicas dos designers, em suas relações com projetos, com o mundo construído e com a natureza. (shrink)

La vida no es más que un sueño. Desde Heráclito y Parménides hasta la actualidad, esta hipótesis de que solamente vivimos en los sueños en los que nos sueña un supuesto espíritu o voluntad universal, ha merecido una atención filosófica en distintos momentos históricos. Si así fuera, no somos sino espectros en un mundo soñado. Todo es sueño. Heráclito distingue ese mundo propio de cada cual, en el que nos sumergimos al dormir y en el que soñamos, de otro mundo (...) en gran medida compartido con otras personas cuando estamos despiertos. Siendo así, alternamos la vida en dos mundos, en sueños, pero también en vigilia. Zubiri habla de procesos humanos de irrealización de los contenidos aprehendidos en la formalidad de realidad que nos es dada en aprehensión primordial. Es la construcción provisional de contenidos de mundos irreales, pero siempre desde una realidad en la que ya estamos instalados. Soñar, fantasear, construir espectros y ficciones, son algunas modalidades de esa irrealización. Pero vivimos solamente en un mundo, en la realidad, y es en ella y desde ella como podemos fantasear y soñar. A nuestro entender, la primera hipótesis metafísica de que toda la vida no sea sino un sueño puede recibir al menos dos críticas. Por una parte, es una idea que se basa en la atribución, en la extrapolación discutible, de una capacidad humana, la de poder soñar o fantasear, a instancias metafísicas extrahumanas que nos sobrepasan, sean Brahman, o espíritu, o voluntad universal. Por otro lado, pensemos si algunos caracteres tan determinantes de las entrañas de nuestra vida encarnada, como el dolor y el sufrimiento, algunas formas de amor, o la firme confianza en una promesa personal recibida, por citar algunos, ¿son solo ensoñaciones? Si estas críticas fueras ciertas, la vida sería algo más que un sueño. (shrink)

O breve ensaio de Heidegger O que é isto - a Filosofia? guarda em si as questões essenciais sobre os fundamentos, perspectivas norteadoras e finalidades que possibilitaram o surgimento da filosofia como forma eminente do conhecimento ocidental. Contemplando o modo como Parmênides, Heráclito, Platão e Aristóteles estabelecem o sentido do Ser, Heidegger mostra em que sentido os filósofos gregos depuseram no νoεῖν e no λόγος fundamento essencial de ἀλήθεια. Na exposição que Heidegger faz das continuidades e distinções características de cada (...) um dos filósofos gregos por respeito à questão do sentido do Ser e da Verdade destacaremos concomitantemente os pressupostos do próprio pensamento de Heidegger, os quais o orientaram na abordagem do Ser. (shrink)

The early Presocratics’ major speculative and critical initiatives—in particular, Anaximander’s conceptions of the justice of the cosmos and of the apeiron as its archē and Xenophanes’s polemics against immorality and anthropomorphism in the depiction of the gods and against any claim to divine inspiration—appear to break with Hesiod’s form of thought. But the conceptual, critical, and ethical depth of Hesiod’s own rethinking of the lore that he inherits complicates this picture. Close examination of each of their major initiatives together with (...) the relevant passages in Hesiod shows that even in the course of departing from his thought, Anaximander and Xenophanes also reappropriate and renew it. In a postscript I pose some questions for future inquiry into Heraclitus’s and Parmenides’s receptions of Hesiod. (shrink)

Introduction -- The pre-socratic philosophers -- Sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. -- Thales -- Anaximander -- Anaximenes -- Pythagoras -- Heraclitus -- Parmenides -- Zeno -- Empedocles -- Anaxagoras -- Leucippus and Democritus -- The Athenian period -- Fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. -- The Sophists -- Protagoras -- Gorgias -- Thrasymachus -- Callicles and Critias -- Socrates -- Plato -- Aristotle -- The Hellenistic and Roman periods -- Fourth century B.C.E. through fourth century C.E. -- Epicureanism -- Stoicism -- (...) Neoplatonism -- Medieval and Renaissance philosophy -- Fifth through fifteenth centuries -- Saint Augustine -- The encyclopediasts -- John Scotus Eriugena -- Saint Anselm -- Muslim and Jewish philosophies -- Averroës -- Maimonides -- The problem of faith and reason -- The problem of the universals -- Saint Thomas Aquinas -- William of Ockham -- Renaissance philosophers -- Continental rationalism and British empiricism -- The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries -- Descartes -- Hobbes -- Spinoza -- Leibniz -- Locke -- Berkeley -- Hume -- Kant -- Post-kantian British and continental philosophy -- The nineteenth century -- Hegel -- Schopenhauer -- Kierkegaard -- Marx -- Nietzsche -- Utilitarianism -- Bentham -- Frege -- Pragmatism, the analytic tradition, and the phenomenological tradition and its aftermath -- The twentieth century -- Pragmatism -- James -- Dewey -- The analytic tradition -- Moore -- Russell -- Logical positivism -- Wittgenstein -- Quine -- The phenomenological tradition and its aftermath -- Husserl -- Heidegger -- Sartre -- Structuralism and poststructuralism -- Saussure -- Lévi-Strauss -- Lacan -- Derrida -- Irigaray. (shrink)

Western philosophy begins with Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Or so we are told by Aristotle and many members of the later doxographical tradition. But a good case can be made that several centuries before the Milesian thinkers began their investigations, the poets of archaic Greece reflected on the limits of human intelligence and concluded that no mortal being could know the full and certain truth. Homer belittled the mental capacities of ‘creatures of a day’ and a series of poets of (...) the archaic period declared that mortals think only in terms of ‘what they meet with’ while failing to detect the larger cycles that make for success or failure. While Xenophanes embraced this pessimistic tradition, a number of early thinkers (Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, and Philolaus) expressed a more positive view of the powers of human intelligence, at least in those who heard and took to heart their novel philosophical teachings. (shrink)

The Beginning of Knowledge brings together almost all of Gadamer's essays on the Presocratics. In each of the essays Gadamer discusses the origins of knowledge in the western philosophical tradition. Beginning with a hermeneutical and philological investigation of the Heraclitus fragments he moves on to a discussion of the Greek Atomists and the Presocratic cosmologists. In the final two essays he elaborates on the profound debt that modern science owes to the Greeks and shows how their works have shaped modern (...) day physics, mathematics and medicine. The philosophers discussed include Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Anaximander, Heraclitus and Parmenides. This is a major work from one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers. (shrink)

Para que um discurso sobre o espetáculo do mundo transcendente seja acolhido como totalidade inteligível e coerente, urge desvencilhar-se da arbitrariedade do domínio de trêmulos contornos do sensível, esfera de opiniões apenas. É o que propõe Platão, na esteira das reflexões dos primeiros pensadores: para suprir deficiências que causam a elisão da realidade e transformar a linguagem num veículo de intelecção autêntica dos conceitos essenciais de um pensar filosófico, ele a coloca no centro de uma especulação rigorosa. Tal como seus (...) antecessores Heráclito e Parmênides, Platão revela logofilia ao empenhar-se na construção de uma nova estrutura discursiva, diferente daquela do homem comum, desencadeando no campo da Filosofia uma revolução que se tornara indispensável: elabora um modelo fundador - princípio de uma ordem permanente propedêutica à construção de uma linguagem formal e abstrata - referente a entes que os homens, na maioria, por si mesmos não conseguem visualizar. Somente nela poderá reverberar a verdade universal das Formas que, ao emprestarem seus nomes à infindável série dos particulares sensíveis, os clarifica e lhes confere significação. Com as teorias que a partir das Formas desenvolve e expõe nos Diálogos , o filósofo visa induzir o leitor a preparar-se para operar, metodicamente, a conversão de sua alma ao plano desses seres ideais, supra-sensíveis, e apreender, assim, a realidade que tudo fundamenta e torna cognoscível. (shrink)