Widely praised for its accessibility and its concentration on the metaphysical issues that are most central to the history of Greek philosophy, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle offers a valuable introduction to the works of the Presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle. The Fifth Edition of Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy features a completely revised Aristotle unit, with new translations, as well as a newly revised glossary.
The Plato unit offers new translations of the Meno and Republic. As one attempts to read the history of Greek philosophy, one discovers a complete absence of essential information concerning the early life and training of the so-called Greek philosophers, from Thales to Aristotle. No writer or historian professes to know anything about their early education. All they tell us about them consists of a a doubtful date and Greek philosophy: thales to aristotle readings in the , widely praised for its accessibility and its concentration on the metaphysical issues that are most central to the history of greek philosophy, greek philosophy: thales to aristotle offers the greek mode of thought in western philosophy Download the greek mode of thought in western philosophy or read online here in PDF or EPUB.
Please click button to get the greek mode of thought in western philosophy book now. Some of the most famous and influential Greek philosophers of all time were from the ancient Greek world, including Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle.
He is reputed among historians as the Father of Ancient Greek Philosophy. He is also interested in philosophy generally, and has published work in the philosophy of sex and love, and on film. He has also translated many Ancient Greek texts, mostly by Plato and Aristotle.
Marc Cohen, Patricia Curd, and C. Edited by S. September — pp. Without fanfare, it explains the concepts of the ancient Greek philosophers clearly and concisely. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Greek Classical Philosophy Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato. Commencing with Thales of Miletus and continuing to the end of the Ancient Period of philosophy by way of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Epictetus this book explores the major contributions of each philosopher as well as looking at archaeological and historical sites where they lived, worked and thought.
This book is an outstanding introduction to ings of Plato and Aristotle, ancient Greek thought reached its zenith. These giants of human thought developed all-embracing systems that explained both the nature of the universe and the humans who inhabit it. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up.
Download Free PDF. David Vender. A short summary of this paper. Download Download PDF. Translate PDF. The Greek Philosophers: from Thales to Aristotle. By W K C Guthrie. London: Routledge, Suggestions for further reading, index. The book opens auspiciously. What we get is a ver- sion of the standard heroic story which What survives of ancient Greek philoso- makes the ancient Greeks our first cousins.
Cov- ture. On page 3, we find this: very fact that they are tacit. Because they remain unstated, we need to uncover them The approach which I have suggested should have the advantage of showing up certain im- carefully and patiently, like an archeolo- portant differences between the Greek ways of gist would brush the dust off ancient foun- thought and our own, which tend to be ob- dations hidden under layers of sediment.
Guthrie gives us a version from tion as the forerunners of modern atomic physics his teacher and mentor, Francis Cornford, or political theory. For all the immense debt starting on page which Europe, and with Europe England, owe to Greek culture, the Greeks remain in many re- Cornford in his inaugural lecture at Cambridge spects a remarkably foreign people, and to get remarked that philosophical discussion in any inside their minds requires a real effort, for it given epoch is governed to a surprising extent means unthinking much that has become part by a set of assumptions which are seldom or and parcel of our mental equipment so that we never mentioned.
There will be some funda- spects inferior, has this advantage, that it is mental assumptions which adherents of all the based both on a more intensive study of Greek variant systems within the epoch unconsciously habits of thought and linguistic usage and on presuppose. By studying the ways in which the elsewhere. Greeks used their words - not only the philoso- phers, but poets and orators and historians in a This is fine indeed.
The quotation continues to suppositions of the epoch in which they lived. Sadly, except for parts of On Sensation, these works are lost and survive only in fragments quoted by later scholars; but where they are available, they can provide important evidence for Presocratic thought. The Roman orator Cicero first century BCE quotes from and refers to the early Greek thinkers in his accounts of philosophy, of which he was a serious student.
Clement of Alexandria second half of the second century CE was the author of a work called Miscellanies, comparing Greek and Christian thought. In the course of this, he often quotes Presocratic philosophers. Sextus Empiricus, the skeptical philosopher of the second century CE, quotes many Presocratic views on sense perception and knowledge. Plutarch, writing in the second century CE, quotes from many of our early Greek philosophers in his numerous essays, collected under the title Moralia.
The Placita Opinions , a work from the second century CE, also gives information about the Presocratics. Though formerly attributed to Plutarch, it was in fact written by someone else. That person, about whom nothing else is known, is conventionally referred to as pseudo-Plutarch. In the late second or early third century CE, Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome, wrote a book called Refutation of All Heresies, in which he argued that Christian heresies can be linked to Greek philosophical thought.
In this ambitious work, he gives summaries of Presocratic views and quotes extensively from several of the early Greek philosophers.
Diogenes Laertius third century CE produced an entertaining and wideranging but not entirely reliable work called Lives of the Philosophers, drawing on many sources that are now lost. It contains biographical reports, lists of book titles, and summaries of views. Although it was influential in its time, it must be used with caution, as it contains much hearsay and invention.
In his commentaries, Simplicius provides quotations from a number of important Presocratics, especially Parmenides, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles in all three cases, Simplicius is the only source for some passages. Alexander of Aphrodisias c.
This collection has defined the scholarly conventions for referring to Presocratic texts, whether in Greek, Latin, or a modern translation. For each Presocratic philosopher DK assigns an identifying number: for example, Heraclitus is 22 and Anaxagoras is These quotations are also referred to as the fragments, since all we have are small sections from longer works. Furthermore, DK identifies the testimonia and fragments by unique numbers.
Thus text identified as 22A2 refers to Heraclitus 22 testimony A number two 2 ; and text identified as 59B12 refers to Anaxagoras 59 fragment B number twelve In all cases, the source of the testimony or fragment from which DK drew the text appears at the end of the passage.
All of the translations in Chapter 9 Anaxagoras are mine. Notes on the texts are scattered throughout this collection. Notes from the translator McKirahan are marked as such; all other notes are mine. Finally, in the translations of quoted passages from ancient authors, I use a system of brackets Tradition reports that Thales was the teacher of Anaximander, who in turn taught Anaximenes.
Aristotle begins his account of the history of philosophy as the search for causes and principles in Metaphysics I with these three. Thales Thales appears on lists of the seven sages of Greece, a traditional catalog of wise men. The chronicler Apollodorus suggests that he was born around BCE.
Thus, Apollodorus arrives at the date by assuming that Thales indeed predicted an eclipse in BCE, and was forty at 5. Plato and Aristotle tell stories about Thales that show that even in ancient times philosophers had a mixed reputation for practicality.
Plato, Theaetetus a 2. Then, while it was still winter, he obtained a little money and made deposits on all the olive presses both in Miletus and in Chios, and since no one bid against him, he rented them cheaply. When the time came, suddenly many requested the presses all at once, and he rented them out on whatever terms he wished, and so he made a great deal of money. In this way he proved that philosophers can easily be wealthy if they wish, but this is not what they are interested in.
Aristotle, Politics 1. In his account of the cosmos, Thales reportedly said that the basic stuff was water: This could mean that everything comes from water as the originating source, or that everything really is water in one form or another. Aristotle, the source of the reports, seems unsure about which of these propositions Thales adopted.
According to the tradition that Aristotle follows, Thales also said that the earth rests or floats on water. Aristotle also reports that Thales thought that soul produces motion and that a magnetic lodestone has soul because it causes iron to move.
Thales said that the sun suffers eclipse when the moon comes to be in front of it, the day in which the moon produces the eclipse being marked by its concealment. Causes are spoken of in four ways, of which. For that of which all existing things are composed and that from which they originally come to be and that into which they finally perish—the substance persisting but changing in its attributes—this they state is the element and principle of the things that are.
For there must be one or more natures from which the rest come to be, while it is preserved. However, they do not all agree about how many or what kinds of such principles there are, but Thales, the founder of this kind of philosophy, stated it to be water. He may have gotten this idea from seeing that the nourishment of all things is moist, and that even the hot itself comes to be from this and lives on this the principle of all things is that from which they come to be —getting this idea from this consideration and also because the seeds of all things have a moist nature; and water is the principle of the nature of moist things.
This is the oldest account that we have inherited, and they say that Thales of Miletus said this. It rests because it floats like wood or some other such thing for nothing is by nature such as to rest on air, but on water. He says this just as though the same argument did not apply to the water supporting the earth as to the earth itself!
Aristotle, On the Heavens 2. Aristotle, On the Soul 1. He was said to have been the first person to construct a map of the world, to have set up a gnomon at 2. This indefinite stuff is moving, directive of other things, and eternal; thus it qualifies as divine. The hot takes the form of fire, the origin of the sun and the other heavenly bodies; while the cold is a dark mist that can be transformed into air and earth.
Both air and earth are originally moist, but become drier because of the fire. In the first changes from the originating apeiron, Anaximander postulates substantial opposites the hot, the cold that act on one another and that are in turn the generating stuffs for the sensible world. The reciprocal action of the opposites is the subject of B1, the only direct quotation we have from Anaximander and the extent of the quotation is disputed by scholars.
Here he stresses that changes in the world are not capricious, but are ordered; with the mention of justice and retribution he affirms that there are lawlike forces guaranteeing the orderly processes of change between opposites. Anaximander also had theories about the natures of the heavenly bodies and why the earth remains fixed where it is. He made claims about meteorological phenomena, and about the origins of living things, including human beings.
In addition he said that motion is eternal, in which it occurs that the heavens come to be. The things that are perish into the things from which they come to be, according to necessity, for they pay penalty and retribution to each other for their injustice in accordance with the ordering of time, as he says in rather poetical language.
This is eternal and ageless and surrounds all the worlds. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1. For it is deathless and indestructible, as Anaximander and most of the natural philosophers say. Aristotle, Physics 3. When it was broken off and enclosed in certain circles, the sun, moon, and stars came to be.
Pseudo-Plutarch, Miscellanies 2 It stays at rest because its distance from all things is equal. We walk on one of the surfaces and the other one is set opposite. The stars come to be as a circle of fire separated off from the fire in the kosmos and enclosed by dark mist.
There are vents, certain tube-like passages at which the stars appear. For this reason, eclipses occur when the vents are blocked. The moon appears sometimes waxing, sometimes waning as the passages are blocked or opened. The circle of the sun is twenty-seven times that of the moon , and the sun is highest, and the circles of the fixed stars are lowest.
Winds occur when the finest vapors of dark mist are separated off and collect together and then are set in motion. Rain results from the vapor arising from the earth under the influence of the sun. Lightning occurs whenever wind escapes and splits the clouds apart. For whenever it [wind] is enclosed in a thick cloud and forcibly escapes because it is so fine and light, then the bursting [of the cloud] creates the noise and the splitting creates the flash against the blackness of the cloud.
For it is no more fitting for what is situated at the center and is equally far from the extremes to move up rather than down or sideways. And it is impossible for it to move in opposite directions at the same time. Therefore, it stays at rest of necessity. When their age advanced they came out onto the drier part, their bark broke off, and they lived a different mode of life for a short time.
For this reason they would not have survived if they had been like this at the beginning. Pseudo-Plutarch, Opinions 2 In these, humans grew and were kept inside as embryos up to puberty. Then finally they burst, and men and women came forth already able to nourish themselves.
Censorinus, On the Day of Birth 4. Anaximenes Ancient sources say that Anaximenes was a younger associate or pupil of Anaximander. Like Anaximander he agrees with Thales that there is a single originative stuff, but he disagrees with both Thales and Anaximander about what it is.
Anaximander seems to have left it unclear just what it is that comes from the apeiron and then produces the hot and the cold, and Anaximenes could well have argued that the apeiron was simply too indefinite to do the cosmic job Anaximander intended for it.
Like the other Presocratics, Anaximenes gave explanations of all sorts of meteorological and other natural phenomena. Becoming finer, it comes to be fire; being condensed, it comes to be wind, then cloud; and when still further condensed, it becomes water, then earth, then stones, and the rest come to be from these.
He too makes motion eternal and says that change also comes to be through it. Pseudo-Plutarch, Opinions AB Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 1.
The rest come to be out of the products of this. The form of air is the following: when it is most even, it is invisible, but it is revealed by the cold and the hot and the wet, and by its motion. It is always moving, for all the things that undergo change would not change if it were not moving. For when it becomes condensed or finer, it appears different. For when it is dissolved into a finer condition it becomes fire, and on the other hand air being condensed becomes winds.
Cloud comes from air through felting,7 and water comes to be when this happens to a greater degree. When condensed still more it becomes earth, and when it reaches the absolutely densest stage it becomes stones.
As a result he claimed that it is not said unreasonably that a person releases both hot and cold from his mouth. For the breath becomes cold when compressed and condensed by the lips, and when the mouth is relaxed, the escaping breath becomes warm because of rareness. Plutarch, The Principle of Cold 7 F 7.
The term here is extended to describe any other process in which the product is denser than and so has different properties from the ingredients.
This is why it rides upon the air, as is reasonable. Pseudo-Plutarch, Miscellanies 3 For it does not cut the air below but covers it like a lid, as bodies with flatness apparently do; they are difficult for winds to move because of their resistance.
They say that the earth does this same thing with respect to the air beneath because of its flatness. And the air, lacking sufficient room to move aside, stays at rest in a mass because of the air beneath.
The stars came into being from the earth because moisture rises up out of it. When the moisture becomes fine, fire comes to be and the stars are formed of fire rising aloft. There are also earthen bodies in the region of the stars carried around together with them. He says that the stars do not move under the earth as others have supposed, but around it, as a felt cap turns around our head. The sun is hidden not because it is under the earth but because it is covered by the higher parts of the earth and on account of the greater distance it comes to be from us.
Because of their distance the stars do not give heat. When it is condensed still more, rain is squeezed out. Hail occurs when the falling water freezes, and snow when some wind is caught up in the moisture. This is why earthquakes occur in droughts and also in heavy rains. For in the droughts, as was said, the earth is broken while being dried out, and when it becomes excessively wet from the waters, it falls apart.
Aristotle, Meteorology 2. He reportedly traveled in Egypt and Babylonia, leaving Samos around to escape the rule of the tyrant Polycrates.
Eventually, Pythagoras settled in Croton, in southern Italy. There he was well-respected and gained political influence. He founded a community for himself and his followers that was philosophical, political, and religious. The exclusivity of the group angered some, and in about there was an uprising in Croton and elsewhere in Italy against the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans were temporarily driven out of Croton, and many were killed.
Pythagoras himself took refuge in Metapontum and died not long afterwards some say he starved himself to death in a temple. Despite these and other setbacks—some Pythagoreans departed for the Greek mainland—there continued to be groups of Pythagoreans in southern Italy until about Even then Archytas of Tarentum remained.
He was a great mathematician and a friend of Plato. Little is known of the views of Pythagoras himself, except that he had a reputation for great learning—a reputation that would later be mocked by Heraclitus—and that he was most likely the originator of the important and influential Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, a view that Xenophanes ridiculed. This difficulty is noted by those in the ancient world who wrote about Pythagoras see selection number 8 below.
All these different branches of study were connected in Pythagorean thought, for the Pythagoreans believed that number was the key to understanding the cosmos. Their original insight seemed to be that the apparent chaos of sound can be brought into rational, hence knowable, order by the imposition of number.
They reasoned that the entire universe is a harmonious arrangement kosmos in Greek , ordered by and so knowable 8. Some scholars think the division belongs to later stages of Pythagoreanism. The Pythagoreans apparently rejected the Ionian methods of inquiry, and turned from searching out the basic stuff of the universe to a study of the form that makes it a kosmos.
Note on the texts: The evidence about Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism is to be found in several chapters in DK. In the texts given here, the first number in parentheses is the DK number for the chapter in which the passage occurs. Otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras and moreover Xenophanes and Hecataeus. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 9. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 8. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 1. For when he reached out with all his mind, easily he would survey every one of the things that are, yea, within ten and even twenty generations of humans.
This passage is from Empedocles, who does not mention Pythagoras by name here, and there is doubt both ancient and modern whether he meant to praise Pythagoras here or someone else. Diogenes Laertius suggested that the verse was meant to honor Parmenides.
Pythagoras himself was greatly admired for this, and his followers even nowadays name a way of life Pythagorean and are conspicuous among others. Plato, Republic 10 a—b 7. When it has made a circuit of all terrestrial, marine, and winged animals, it once again enters a human body as it is born. Its circuit takes three thousand years. Some Greeks have adopted this doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it were peculiar to them. I know their names, but do not write them.
Herodotus, Histories 2. But it was especially well-known by all that first he declares that the soul is immortal; then that it changes into other kinds of animals; in addition that things that happen recur at certain intervals, that nothing is absolutely new, and that all things that come to be alive must be thought akin. Pythagoras seems to have been the first to introduce these opinions into Greece.
Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras 19 9. Once he had been born Aethalides and was believed to be the son of Hermes. When Hermes told him to choose whatever he wanted except immortality, he asked to retain both alive and dead the memory of what happened to him.
Afterwards he entered into Euphorbus and was wounded by Menelaus. Euphorbus said that once he had been born as Aethalides and received the gift from Hermes, and told of the migration of his soul and what plants and animals it had belonged to and all it had experienced in Hades.
When Euphorbus died his soul entered Hermotimus, who, wishing to provide evidence, went to Branchidae, entered the sanctuary of Apollo, and He said that when Menelaus was sailing away from Troy he dedicated the shield to Apollo. The shield had already rotted away and only the ivory facing was preserved. When Hermotimus died, it [the soul] became Pyrrhus the Delian fisherman and again remembered everything. When Pyrrhus died it became Pythagoras and remembered all that had been said. The philosophy of the akousmatikoi consists of unproved and unargued akousmata to the effect that one must act in appropriate ways, and they also try to preserve all the other sayings of Pythagoras as divine dogma.
These people claim to say nothing of their own invention and say that to make innovations would be wrong. But they suppose that the wisest of their number are those who have got the most akousmata. Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 81, 82; from Aristotle? What are the Isles of the Blest? Sun and Moon. What is the oracle at Delphi? The tetractys, which is the harmony in which the Sirens sing.
What is most just? To sacrifice. What is the wisest? Number, and second wisest is the person who assigned names to things. What is the wisest thing in our power? What is most beautiful?
Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras 82; from Aristotle? Aristotle, fr. Rub out the mark of a pot in the ashes. Do not wear a ring.
Do not have swallows in the house. Spit on your nail parings and hair trimmings. Roll up your bedclothes on rising and smooth out the imprint of the body.
Do not urinate facing the sun. Selections from Iamblichus, Protrepticus 21; from Aristotle? The tetractys is a certain number, which being composed of the four first numbers produces the most perfect number, For 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 come to be This number is the first tetractys and is called the source of ever-flowing nature, since according to them the entire kosmos is organized according to harmonia, and harmonia is a system of three concords, the fourth, the fifth, and the octave, and the proportions of these three concords are found in the aforementioned four numbers.
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7. Since numbers are naturally first among these, and in numbers they thought they observed many resemblances to things that are and that come to be. The one is com For when this is surrounded and limited by the odd it provides things with the quality of unlimitedness. Evidence of this is what happens with numbers. For when gnomons are placed around the one, and apart, in the one case the shape is always different, and in the other it is always one.
He says that most human matters are pairs, identifying as the oppositions not definite ones like the Pythagoreans. On his own evidence, he lived to a great age, and although the subjects discussed in the surviving fragments and testimonia give evidence of the scope of his travels, the details of his life are hazy.
He was born c. He refers to Pythagoras and the doctrine of transmigration of souls in one fragment, and some in the ancient tradition say that he was a teacher of Parmenides this is most unlikely. He rejected the traditional views of the Olympian gods, such as are found in Homer and Hesiod, and claimed that there was a supreme non-anthropomorphic god, who controls the cosmos by thought. Whether or not Xenophanes claimed that there was a single god or only that the supreme god was the greatest of an unnamed number of gods is debated by scholars.
He rejected divination and the view that natural phenomena, such as rainbows, have divine significance and claimed that there is no divine communication to human beings. Humans must find out for themselves by inquiry; moreover, Xenophanes raises questions about the possibility of sure and certain knowledge, and suggests that humans must be satisfied with belief or opinion, although he probably thought that this must be backed with evidence. He had a keen interest in the natural world, which is not surprising, given his commitment to inquiry.
He argued that the earth is indefinitely broad and extends downwards indefinitely, thus rejecting the view that the sun travels under the earth. Recent scholarship has come to appreciate Xenophanes as a crucial figure in early Greek thought, whose views on knowledge and the divine were important for later thinkers. B1 For now the floor is clean, and the hands of all, and the cups.
One is putting on the woven wreaths, another is offering fragrant myrrh in a bowl, a mixing bowl stands full of joy, another wine, gentle and scented of flowers, is at hand in wine-jars and boasts that it will never betray us.
In the middle, frankincense is sending forth its holy scent. There is cold water sweet and pure. Golden loaves of bread are served and a magnificent table is laden with cheese and rich honey. In the center an altar is completely covered in flowers and the rooms are full of song and good cheer. Cheerful men should first sing a hymn to the god with well-omened words and pure speech. When they have poured an offering and prayed to be able to do acts of justice for indeed these are the first things to pray for , it is not going too far hubris if you drink only as much as permits you to reach 5 10 15 4.
Athenaeus, Scholars at Dinner They would grant him a seat of honor at the games, he would enjoy meals at public expense and a gift from the city for his children to inherit. Even if he were to be victorious with horses he would obtain these things.
Though he is not as worthy of them as I. For superior to the strength of men or horses is my wisdom. But these ways are misguided and it is not right to put strength ahead of wisdom, which is good. Pankration: A vicious sport combining boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing. B8 Already there are sixty-seven years tossing my speculation throughout the land of Greece, and from my birth there were twenty-five in addition to these, if indeed I know how to speak truly about these matters.
B10 Ever since the beginning all have learned according to Homer. Herodian, On Doubtful Syllables B11 Both Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all deeds which among men are matters of reproach and blame: thieving, adultery, and deceiving one another. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 1.
B14 But mortals suppose that the gods are born, have human clothing, and voice, and bodily form. Clement, Miscellanies 5. B15 If horses had hands, or oxen or lions, or if they could draw with their hands and produce works as men do, then horses would draw figures of gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and each would render the bodies to be of the same frame that each of them have. B16 Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and dark, Thracians, that theirs are grey-eyed and red-haired.
Clement, Miscellanies 7. Scholium on Aristophanes, Knights ; tpc B18 By no means did the gods intimate all things to mortals from the beginning, but in time, inquiring, they discover better.
Stobaeus, Selections 1. B23 One god, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in form or thought. Clement, Miscellanies, 5. B27 For all things are from the earth and all return to the earth in the end. Theodoretus, Treatment of Greek Conditions 4.
But the lower part goes down without limit. Achilles Tatius, Introduction to the Phaenomena of Aratus 4. B29 All things that come into being and grow are earth and water. B30 Sea is the source of water and the source of wind.
For not without the wide sea would there come to be in clouds the force of wind blowing out from within, nor streams of rivers nor rain water from the sky, but the great wide sea is the sire of clouds and winds and rivers. Geneva Scholium on Iliad Heraclitus Homericus, Homeric Allegories B32 She whom they call Iris, this too is by nature cloud: purple, and red, and greeny-yellow to behold.
Scholium BLT on Iliad B33 We all come into being out of earth and water. Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians B35 Let these things be believed as resembling the truth. Plutarch, Table Talk 9. B38 If god had not fashioned yellow honey, they would say that figs are far sweeter. Herodian, On Peculiar Speech A12 Xenophanes used to say that those who say that the gods are born are just as impious as those who say that they die, since either way it follows that there is a time when the gods do not exist.
Aristotle, Rhetoric 2. A30 Some declared the universe to be a single substance. For the others add change, since they generate the universe, but these people say it is unchangeable. Xenophanes, who was the first of these to preach monism Parmenides is said to have been his student made nothing clear. A32 He says that the sun is gathered together from many small fires. He declares that the earth is without limit and is not surrounded by air in every direction, that all things come into being from the earth.
And he says that sun and stars come into being from the clouds. Pseudo-Plutarch, Miscellanies 4 A40 The sun out of incandescent clouds.
A38 are constituted out of ignited clouds that die down every day but become fiery again by night, just like coals. A44 All things of this sort [comets, shooting stars, etc.
A33 [Xenophanes] says that the sun comes to be each day from the gathering together of many small fires, that the earth is unlimited and surrounded by neither the air nor the heavens.
0コメント