Order 517382: Pre Socratic Philosophy

Phil 260/2 A Presocratics and Plato First Short-Paper

Instructor: Andrea Falcon Teaching Assistants: Nicholas Kerklaan, Michael Giesbrecht, and Madchen Specht

Choose one of the following passages and write a two (maximum three) page exegetical account of that passage. You should identify the main topic of the passage and explain in your own words any claims, distinctions, or arguments made with respect to this topic. You should attempt to make the train of thought expressed in the passage as clear as possible. Limit your discussion to the passage you have selected. Your paper should not contain lengthy quotations, an introduction, a conclusion, footnotes or other paraphernalia of the standard college paper. This is an exercise in close textual reading. Due in class on Wednesday, September 27, 2017. We will not accept electronic submissions. T1 Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 1.6.1-2 (A Presocratic Reader Chapter 2/The Milesians, T10, p. 17):

“(1) He [sc. Anaximander] says that the archê is neither water nor any of the other things called elements, but some nature which is apeiron, out of which comes to be all the heavens and the worlds in them. (2) This is eternal and ageless and surrounds all the worlds. (3) In addition he said that motion is eternal, in which it occurs that the heavens come to be

T2 Theophrastus, quoted by Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 24.26-25.1 (A Presocratic Reader

Chapter 2/The Milesians, T21, p. 19): “(1) Anaximenes, like Anaximander, declares that the underlying nature is one and unlimited but not indeterminate [apeiron], as Anaximander held, but definite, saying that it is air. (2) It differs in rarity and density according to the substances <it becomes>. 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. (3) He too makes motion eternal and says that change also come to be though it.”

T3 Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 152.21-153.13 (A Presocratic Reader Chaper 13/Diogenes of

Apollonia, T5, p. 140) “(1) And my opinion, that which possesses intelligence is what people call air, and all humans are ruled by it and it rules all things. (2) For in my opinion, this very thing is god, and it reaches everything and arranges all things and is in everything. (3) And there is no single thing that does not share in this. But no single things shares in it in the same way as anything else, but there are any forms both of air itself and of intelligence.”