Dialogues · Chapter
§ II explained
This chapter explores the early Greek philosophers' approach to understanding nature, emphasizing their reliance on analogy, personification, and abstraction.
What happens
This chapter explores the early Greek philosophers' approach to understanding nature, emphasizing their reliance on analogy, personification, and abstraction. It contrasts their methods with modern science, noting their tendency to see unity in the cosmos, their struggle with the influence of language, and their use of mathematics and number to explain both celestial and human phenomena. The text defends ancient philosophy against modern criticisms, arguing that their speculative methods were appropriate for their time and laid essential groundwork for later thought.
Themes in this chapter
Knowledge and Ignorance
The chapter examines how early philosophers moved from mythological personification to abstract reasoning, grappling with the limits of knowledge and the influence of language and analogy.
The Soul and Immortality
Implied in the discussion of the inner world of ideas and the conception of a supreme being or principle underlying the universe.
Characters to notice
- Plato
Referenced as the author of dialogues such as 'Theaetetus' and 'Statesman', and as a thinker who struggled with the influence of words and abstractions.
- Socrates
Mentioned as a contemporary of Plato, part of the intellectual context of the early philosophers.
- Heracleitus
Referenced as representing the principle of motion, with Heraclitean fanatics ridiculed in Plato's 'Theaetetus'.
- Parmenides
Implied as representing the Eleatic school, which saw only a principle of rest in nature.
- Xenophanes
Quoted for the notion of 'one God, greatest among Gods and men, who was all sight, all hearing, all knowing'.
- Homer
Mentioned as a poet whose works were interpreted by early philosophers.
Key passages
“The Greek philosopher looked at the blue circle of the heavens and it flashed upon him that all things were one; the tumult of sense abated, and the mind found repose in the thought which former generations had been striving to realize.”
When the Greek philosopher gazed at the sky, he suddenly grasped that everything is unified; sensory confusion quieted, and his mind rested in an idea that earlier ages had sought.
Describes the intuitive leap toward monism in early Greek philosophy.
“They were mastered by their ideas and not masters of them.”
Their ideas controlled them, rather than them controlling their ideas.
Critique of early philosophers' lack of critical distance from their own theories.
“The great source of error and also the beginning of truth to them was reasoning from analogy; they could see resemblances, but not differences; and they were incapable of distinguishing illustration from argument.”
Analogy was both their main source of mistakes and their starting point for truth; they noticed similarities but not differences, and could not tell an example from a proof.
Highlights the dual role of analogy in early philosophical method.