Adam Turner
Karen Scheafer
HUM 2211
22 April 2012
Universal Philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy began in the 6th century B.C.E. and is responsible for much of the western philosophies we know today. Two different types of philosophers, humanists and naturalists presented different ways of viewing the universe. Naturalists, also known as pre-Socratic, tended to focus on nature and discovering the primary matter of the universe. Humanists strayed away from the elements of nature and focused their theories on the study of the mind. While naturalists were concerned with how things were created the Humanist were interested in skepticism. Furthermore naturalists involved themselves with using math and science to prove theories while Humanist focused on the ethics and virtues of society. While both groups were searching for the answers to the universe, their approaches were worlds apart.
Naturalists were the first philosophers and their emphasis was on nature and the rational reasoning behind natural occurrences. Naturalists lived in a time where natural disasters were viewed as supernatural anger and they chose to discover a more scientific reasoning behind these occurrences. “The pre-Socratics stripped nature of supernatural associations” (Fiero 100). Naturalists explored questions such as, “What is everything made of?” and developed reasoning to discover a single substance that formed nature (Fiero 100). Humanists took a different approach, asking question such as, “How do we know what we know?” (Fiero 101). Humanists were interested in exploring the mind and the world of inquiries. The first group of humanists were known as the sophists and they were “concerned with defining the limits of human knowledge” (Fiero 101). They understood man was the individual creating the answers and therefore the knowledge could only be as deep as man’s mind was. Sophists explored human affairs and the depth of the mind in order to create improvements on human life (Classics Technology Center).
Naturalists emphasize how things are created and refer to the laws of nature in that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or that if anything else beyond the universe exists it does not affect the natural universe (Naturalism). Some pre-Socratic philosophers’ theories supported this thought and they each provided their own contribution to how the universe was created. Thales focused on elements that formed nature and believed water was the basis of all things (Fiero 100). Heraclitus of Ephesus believed in the essence of change and that there was no permanence in the universe. He provided the example, “You cannot step twice into the same river,” (Fiero 100) meaning the waters, much like the universe are constantly changing and evolving. While pre-Socratic thinkers were concerning themselves with the creation of the universe, humanists and especially Sophists were more involved with their teachings including skepticism. They proposed that the theory of truth has no absolute and it is only how we perceive the truth in our individual minds. They believed we are unable to say with absolute certainty something that is outside of our minds and, “We can only know ideas present in our mind” (The Sophist). One humanist, Protagoras, taught his students to argue on both sides of a question to find the whole truth to a question. In this sense both sides of the argument are true because those debating the question can only know what is true in their own minds (The Sophist). Protagoras argued that fact and knowledge were limited by human opinion and said, “Man is the measure of all things” (Fiero 101).
Pre-Socratics used math and science to explore the realities of the universe. One such pre-Socratic thinker was Pythagoras who believed the true basis of realities was to be discovered through numbers. Pythagoras was one of the founding fathers of mathematics and believed the truths of numbers were, “Eternal and unchanging” (Fiero 100). While it may now seem obvious that numbers are not abstract, to the Pythagoreans it was a new way of thinking. They were the first to observe that numbers not only were applicable to things such as succession of time, but also that it is relatable to music (Rafed.net). Another pre-Socratic thinker, Hippocrates, was the founder of medicine and he influenced diet and the way we now think of many diseases. He was an important contributor to separating the supernatural from the natural to create medical science (Fiero 101). Instead of basing diseases on supernatural causes he used physiological imbalances to explain diagnoses. Another naturalist using math and science to explain the universe was Democritus who helped to develop the atomic theory of matter. Democritus argued the mind existed of the same things that other items in nature consisted of (Fiero 100). As oppose to using math and scientific theories, humanist such as Socrates and Aristotle directed a portion of their studies on ethics and virtue. Socrates believed in truth and justice above all. He believed that “to know good is to do good” (Fiero 102) meaning in order to be good one must first understand what good truly is. Socrates took an inward look at himself and was constantly completing self-examination. Socrates created a question and answer technique called dialectical method and would sometimes ask his fellow men, “What is the greatest good?” (Fiero102). Aristotle, another humanist, also examined what true happiness would mean and studied how to attain true happiness. Aristotle believed each item or person must first define its essence in order to live up to its main purpose. He proposed a human’s true purpose is the ability to reason and therefore a person’s happiness lies in the ability to reason and to take action (Fiero 109).
Greek philosophers explored many different ideas of the universe. They delved into question such as, “How was earth created,” and, “Why was earth created?” Some philosophers, naturalists, proposed theories of natural elements that comprise earth while other philosophers, the humanists, focused on the world of the mind. Within each category lie many different philosophers providing twists on each theory while following the basic principles of their group. Philosophers Hippocrates and Pythagoras provide scientific reasoning to the earth’s mysteries while philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates allow us access to the reasoning of the human mind. Whether it is Socrates’ dialectical method or the Pythagorean Theorem we can still find the ideas of these philosophers in our teachings today.