#pre-socratics

Heraclitus- Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, chapter by chapter (4)

Yesterday we looked at how Pythagoras sought to explain the world through numbers. Reducing things to numbers reduces them to unchanging facts, or at the very least, to unchanging patterns. Heraclitus believed that nothing ever stayed the same, and it is this which we shall look at today.

Background

Most of what we know of Heraclitus comes from Plato and Aristotle’s writings. We know that he was…

Pythagoras- Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, chapter by chapter- (3)

In this chapter Russell looks at Pythagoras. We all remember him from mathematics in school, but the influence he had was rather impressive.

Background

We have just looked at the intellectual climate of Miletus with Thales, Anaximenes and Anaximander. Pythagoras lived roughly during the same time. He was a citizen of Samos. Samos was a rival of Miletus in terms of trading, also trading in gold…

A History of Western Philosophy, chapter by chapter- (1) The Pre-Socratics

In this series I will explain Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, chapter by chapter, in digestible pieces.

In this first chapter, Russell concerns himself with laying the foundations of Greek culture. This is integral to further discussion because many of the foundational aspects of early Greek culture persisted in, and influenced, the philosophy following it. Much influence can…

Tales thought Arche was water, since everything begins and ends as water or moisture. He was wrong.

Anaximander saw that Tales was wrong, but Aperion was lacking too, for it was too complex.

Anaximenes returned back to Tales, this time espousing air.