Philosophy

Module 1:  Making Decisions

In this forum, think about a decision you made in your life in which emotions guided you and how now you would solve that situation using critical thinking? Explain and compare both ways clearly, then visit the contribution of at least 2 of your classmates and exchange opinions on which of these is the correct way to solve situations.

If you are new to Canvas, follow  these directionsLinks to an external site.  for participating in the discussion and to review the  academic expectations  for your submission.

Submission Instructions:

· Submit your initial discussion post by 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Then, react critically to at least two of your classmates' discussion posts by 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday.

· Contribute a minimum of 250 words to the initial post. It should include at least 2 academic sources, formatted, and cited in APA.

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Module 1:  Origins of Philosophy – Pre-Socratics/Cosmologists 

Don't forget to visit the  Readings and Multimedia  area  to watch some films about this topic.

 

                             

Prometheus gave humans fire in ancient Greek mythology.

Johnblack. (2020, July 8). Human origins according to ancient Greek mythology. Ancient-Origins.Net; Ancient Origins.  https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-folklore/greek-mythology-and-human-origins-0064Links to an external site.

Human beings always want to know. We want to be able to understand and explain the world around us. Mysteries are a constant challenge for the human mind. We want answers and we don’t stop until we find them. At least that’s the way it should be.  Before we developed the philosophical approach to understanding the world around 2,500 years ago, we came up with different myths. These myths provided an explanation, not a scientific one, but at least they kept us at ease in front of uncertainty. Monsters, spirits, supernatural powers helped us understand, at least we thought, the phenomena around us that did not have an explanation. Why was there a flood? Because we needed to sacrifice more to the gods. Why is not raining? Because the gods are angry at us. Why were such and such punished? Because he or she did not obey the gods. We provided mythological answers to our questions. In the myth of Prometheus, humans received fire from this god, and for this, he is punished. The Greeks understood that they had knowledge, or at least they could develop higher knowledge on the things in the world. The myth of Prometheus shows that they were aware that knowledge was the power that would help us get closer to truth, or “logos”.     

Homer

Although the name Homer might bring a different character to your mind, the original, at least the most ancient Homer we know about, is related to  The Iliad and The Odyssey. Some of us might not be familiar with  The Iliad for example. But if we say "Troy", some ideas might come to mind.  The Iliad is the story of the city also known as Troy by the Greeks.  Homer’s Iliad is important because it looked at reality in detail. It is considered by many as the first piece of literature that conveyed reality with a deep observation that has lasted for thousands of years. Homer places the gods in the Iliad and the Odyssey on the same plane as humans, as they share the same space, the same battlefield; sometimes they even get angry at humans. 

Miletus, Ionia

One fascinating thing that happens when we gather different minds from different backgrounds and different cultures that try to solve problems in the real world is critical thinking. It is not enough to come up with myths anymore. This happened in the city of Miletus around the 500s BCE. There was a lot of commerce going on. Miletus was a busy Greek port that welcomed products from all over the known world at the time. People from Egypt, Persia, and India met in Miletus. 

                             

Map of archaic Greece by van der Crabben J on World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from  https://www.worldhistory.org/image/328/map-of-archaic-greece/Links to an external site.  

The first philosophers we are going to talk about were fascinated with the universe, or cosmos. That’s why they are also known as the cosmologists. People call them the pre-Socratics because they came before Socrates, who represents a landmark in philosophical thought. The good thing about calling them the Cosmologists is that it reminds us of what they wanted to know. They wanted to understand the Cosmos right in front of them. They wanted to explain the fundamental essence of the world. And they wanted to do it using reason, not myth, nor tradition, nor authorities.    For practical purposes, the people at Miletus had to solve problems constantly. From Miletus we get who is considered the first philosopher we know of; Thales (624-546 BCE). Thales was an engineer of sorts. One thing we will see is that these first philosophers today would be considered scientists. They wanted to know what was the one substance of which the whole of reality was made of. The huge difference between them and what came before them through myth was that they wanted to free themselves from supernatural explanations. They wanted to explain the world using reason and not myth, or custom, or tradition, or authority. Thales took the challenge of trying to figure out the origin of everything without resting on what most thought then. The answers they gave were not correct or right by today’s standards. Thales, for example, suggested that water was the original source of all things. Today we know that this is not correct. But what is important is that he went beyond myth and tradition, using logical and rational thinking to try to provide an answer to such a huge question. Thales thought that since water is in everything, and even our bodies are mostly water, then water had to be it. He was mistaken. But at least he tried to use reason to explain himself. He didn’t just say, “A miracle occurred, and we got the world”.   

Thales’ student, Anaximander, thought that the primary substance of the world could not be water, like his master thought, but the “ apeiron”. This was an indeterminate and infinite element. “Anaximander seems to have imagined the Boundless as originally moving effortlessly in a great cosmic vortex that was interrupted by some disaster (a Big Bang?), and that disaster caused opposites – dry and wet, cold and hot…" (Palmer, 2020).

Then came Anaximenes, who argued that the fundamental essence of reality was air. But, why air? Well, he argued, we live if we breathe. Air changes into different forms. Pythagoras (ca. 572 – 500 BCE), on the hand, argued that the cosmos could be understood if we apply numbers to it. All of reality for Pythagoras was numbers. Harmony in music, for example, since there was a specific measurable distance between one note and another.   

Some ideas to understand the universe by the cosmologists	There must be a unity behind the apparent diversity of the universe
Thales (624-546 BCE)	The first principle and basic nature of all things is water.
Anaximander (ca. 610 – ca. 546 BCE)	The boundless, the unlimited, the apeiron
Anaximenes	The most fundamental element is air
Pythagoras (ca. 572 – ca. 500 BCE)	The totality of reality can be expressed in terms of mathematical laws
Xenophanes (ca. 570 BCE)	All things are earth. Also criticized the propensity to anthropomorphize divinity
Heraclitus (ca. 470 BCE)	“Reality is composed not of a number of things but of a process of continual creation and destruction.” “Conflict is justice.” “War is father and king of all.”

 

Logos

To get the idea of the magnitude and importance of this first step toward human philosophical development we need to understand the concept of “logos”. For the Greeks, acquiring “logos” was the key to access truth and reality. You are familiar with the concept of logic, which we find in words like psycho logy, bio logy, and so on. The word “logos”, in the original Greek, had different meanings but they were all related. Logos meant “word”, or “concept”. Think about this, when you want to express an idea, you need to turn it into words and concepts that will help you express it. We even think in concepts and words. Which means that she who wants to know needs to possess “logos”. If we want to acquire higher levels of knowledge, we must learn how to conceptualize the world. Greek philosophers knew the importance of developing the “logos”, or word, to conquer reality.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

( Bible Gateway passage: John 1:1 - King James Version, n.d.)

Hundreds of years later, even the author of the Gospel of John knew. This gospel was written originally in Greek to attract a wider audience and to challenge the philosophers’ claim to knowledge. The original Greek first verse of the Gospel of John says that in the beginning was the “logos”. The Christian writer of the Gospel knew the power of “logos” so he equated the “logos” to God, meaning that God was the truth. Further in the course, we will discuss more of these topics. For now, we want to emphasize the importance “logos” has toward the empowerment of knowledge.

 

References:

Bible Gateway passage: John 1:1 - King James Version. (n.d.). Bible Gateway.  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201%3A1&version=KJVLinks to an external site.  

Palmer, D. (2020).  Looking at philosophy: The unbearable heaviness of philosophy made lighter (7th ed.). McGrawHill.