Empedocles: Thought Provoking and Existentially Satisfying!

For those of you who were mildly distressed with all this coming-to-be and passing away nonsense, whether you're Zeno and Parmenides and make the distinction based on that which-is and that which isn't, or you're Anaximander revelling in that sin which is coming-to-be, Empedocles should be a sunny reprieve from such unsettling philosophical notions. Why? Because he sees a false dichotomy between that which is eternal and that which is effimeral. In a move that would make modern high school physics teachers proud, he suggests that everything is made up of some mixture of the roots (fire, water, air and earth) and the forces of Love (bringing together) and Strife (hateful force of tearing apart), and that the matter of these are neither created nor destroyed as things come into and out of being; rather, different amounts and mixtures of an ever-existent whole (comprised of the roots, Love and Strife) mix together (or break apart, as the case may be) to create different beings. As such, when a creature "dies," the eternal parts that make it up simply return to the whole and are re-mixed into something new. In other words, everything that is is in some way tied to the eternal. This seems to nicely wrap up the issue of that which-is and that which-is-not, plus the convenience of humans being able to trust their sensory experiences. Again, a nice reprieve, and certainly easier to deal with on an existential level than some of the other philosophers we've studied thus far.

When I Googled Empedocles, this picture turned up. He certainly looks cooler than those other philosophers do.

Considering all these things, there are a few thoughts that come to mind that seem worth discussing. First, while no mention of it is made, Empedocles's use of the roots, Love and Strife to physically make up human beings might be interestingly extended to the use of these fundamental building blocks to form individual human dispositions. In this way, particularly because Empedocles was a physician, perhaps his idea of the roots, Love and Strife can be compared to the four humors, in that the four humors also identify both physical and dispositional characteristics of individuals. Carrying this idea a bit further, Empedocles implies quite often that Love (Aphrodite) is a force of good, versus Strife, which is a force of evil. As such, could the dispositional makeup of a person (particularly their goodness versus their badness) be explained based on the degree to which either Love or Strife participated in their formation? I honestly don't know, though the prospect itself is rather interesting.

Another thought worth pondering is the parallel between Love/Strife and Eros/Chaos. In both cases, there exists one fundamental driving force for bringing the fabric of existence together (Love and Eros), as well as a single driving force for tearing things apart (Strife and Chaos). Perhaps Empedocles has been influenced by Hesiod as well as by Parmenides and Pythagoras.

Zeno: The Poster-Child for Couch Potatoes

I hate running. My lungs wheeze in protest, my muscles cramp up and my everything sweats. The only good part of running is when it’s over, and you can drink a couple-dozen gallons of water before hitting the showers and plopping back down on the couch. So, naturally, I look for any excuse in the book to avoid the abhorrent activity. Luckily for me, Zeno offers the perfect excuse: Motion doesn’t actually exist, so why bother?

Reading Zeno, the one aspect of his philosophy that repeatedly sticks out to me is the concept of infinity. In particular, he goes through quite the rig-a-marole to prove motion doesn’t exist using the concept of infinity. Consider Zeno’s  first three (out of four) arguments regarding motion. The first is the Dichotomy, the argument that “there is no motion” because a given distance between A and B can be infinitely divided in half (half the distance between A and B, and that half is divided in half, and so on) (Curd 68). The infinite number of divisions means that point B can never be reached from point A. Personally, if I were one of those unfortunate souls who ran the Bear Trail on a regular basis, just the thought of this argument would be enough to make me strongly reconsider my daily exercise regimen.

Infinity? That seems like an awful long time for morning cardio.

Infinity rears its ugly head yet again in the Achilles argument. As Zeno describes it, “the slowest as it runs will never be caught by the quickest [because] the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued departed” (Curd 68). In other words, as a result of Dichotomy, the pursuer will never reach the point at which the slow runner started because the distance must be infinitely divided, meaning that the slow runner will always be ahead of the fast runner. Admittedly, this argument doesn’t particularly help my cause; all I’d really have to do to win a race (assuming I’d ever start one) is start a few feet in front of all the faster runners in order to win, regardless of how agonizingly slow I decided to run. However, the chances of me reaching the finish line (pesky Dichotomy argument) are pretty much non-existent, so that doesn’t give me much incentive. 

The third argument (which, as it so happens, has no fancy name like the first two do) states that “if…everything is always at rest when it occupies a space equal to itself, and what is moving is always ‘at a now,’” then the moving object in question is motionless (Curd 69). This concept reminds me of watching an instant replay of a football game frame-by-frame. As the player moves in space, he is frozen motionless in each individual frame as the play moves forward. The motionlessness of each frame, though , applies to all movement (or lack-thereof?); as long as we occupy a space equal to ourselves and every moment in time is a “now,” then we are not actually moving. This certainly takes some of the glamour out of instant replays. It also makes me think that, no matter how much running I do (presumably for my own good), I won’t actually be moving. This seems to defeat the purpose of running, which is active motion to get me in shape. As such, really, why bother?

I honestly didn’t understand the last argument (I think it would’ve required a blackboard and lots of bad doodling), but I’m sure it in some way proves my point, too. If someone wants to help me prove my point further, feel free to leave a picture representation (because really, that’s what it would take) in the comments box below.

Please Parmenides, be a bit more clear!

As Nietzsche paints him, Parmenides is the pessimistic  step-ancestor of Descartes. By that, of course, I’m referring to cogito ergo sum, the now-commercialized catchphrase of Descartes and a foundational idea in Parmenides thought. For Parmenides, empirical evidence is useless; that which is empirical is gathered through observation (i.e., our senses), and the senses cannot be trusted to provide any true insight into that which exists. 

Say what you want, you're not going to convince a dog that leftovers don't exist. Perhaps keener canine senses are all the more deceiving.

 

 

So, it would seem that our senses trap us in a proverbial hall of mirrors, unable to make heads or tails of reality and far too confused to know which direction grants escape from the illusion. How then, you may ask, can we know anything if not through the use of our senses? After all, empirical evidence is the stuff science is built on, and that junk seems pretty real to me (until you start getting into some of the freakier theoretical physics). Logic, that oddball among all other philosophy classes, makes a valiant rescue. Parmenides claims that it is only through logical inference that the truth of matters can be discovered, and indeed the foundation for that (as far as I could make out from Nietzsche, anyway) is thought. To be honest, I missed the part where Parmenides made sense of why thought is trustworthy when information gathered from the senses is not (yeah, Parmenides, at least Descartes made his reasoning on that matter semi-clear). For the sake of moving the conversation forward, I’m just going to let him have that one and assume that I legitimately missed something in the text. If any of my humble readers would be so kind as to explain this to me, I’d greatly appreciate it.

What can be gathered more clearly from Parmenides thought, though, is the common denominator for all of the Pre-Socratics thus far: the concept of the one. That which-is is whole, unmoving, unchanging and eternal, with no beginning and no end. That which-is is the one, and constitutes all (the only singular thing) that actually exists. Anything that has passed away or come into being fits squarely in the other camp, that which-is-not; this includes, of course, human beings, who (last time I checked) are generally quite fond of the notion that they exist.

Now, some confessions, and a few questions I’d like to ask of anyone who happens upon this page with a deeper philosophical understanding than my own. I must admit at this point a deficiency in my certainty of Parmenides’ philosophy; these are the conclusions that I came to as I understood his philosophy, so any additional helpful perspectives you have would be welcomed. As far as I could discern, there was no proof given for Parmenides’ existence, and only the statement of thought being part of that which-is alludes to this possibility. From his perspective, is there any logical evidence that other humans exist? Is there any logical evidence that HE exists? If not, then what exactly are we (other than non-existent, because that really clears nothing up)? To say that we are phantasms of another person’s senses assumes that other people exist to be deceived by their senses. I also see little point in articulating a philosophy for non-existent people to read and understand their non-existence. It seems there are some pretty fundamental questions here that need answering in order for his philosophy to be moderately cohesive.

Pythagoras: More than Just a Math Guy

If you're anything like me, all you knew about Pythagoras before taking a philosophy class (and possibly even after that) was that he was responsible for the beginning of your high school geometry class nightmares. However, despite the fact that the Pythagorean theorem is what Pythagoras is most popularly known for, there's a lot more to him than he's given credit for nowadays. 

Pythagoras's greatest achievement can
be duplicated by a cat with a pizza box. 

Pythagoras wasn't just a great mathematician. He spawned an entire religion in which the fundamental agent of order within the universe was number. All in all, his conclusion doesn't seem completely ludicrous (unlike Thales' water nonsense). The Pythagoreans observed that the imposition of number can reveal harmony where previously only chaos could be perceived in sound, later generalizing this principle to all things. In other words, numbers organize the seemingly chaotic world into something that is rational and knowable, and thus must be the fundamental ordering agent. Worth mentioning, though, is the distinction between number as an ordering agent and the "fundamental principles" of the Milesian philosophers. While the Milesian philosophers sought to find the most basic stuff that the universe was formed from, Pythagoras proposed that number ordered the universe and made it knowable. In other words, where the Milesians proposed a material building block for the universe, Pythagoras proposed that all things within the universe (regardless of what they're made up of) are ordered by numbers.

"Big deal," you say, "he discovered the basis for geometry and part of chaos theory. That's hardly a basis for a religion." After proposing the fundamental ordering principle of the universe, Pythagoras decided to give this whole religion thing an encore that has been appropriately dubbed the "transmigration of souls." To me, this seems like a fun Greek twist on the concept of reincarnation. In a cycle that lasts a measly 3000 years, the immortal soul goes through a cycle of being "reborn" into a new animal every time its previous body dies; further, the newly transmigrated soul has no memory of its previous lives. Eventually you're reborn as a human, die, then have to wait another 3000 years to be a human being again (Curd 25). This doesn't make a lot of sense when you realize that Pythagoras claimed to have been a human in past lives several times within the span of 3000 years, but maybe (as a favorite of Hermes) he was given some special treatment.

Maybe pizza box cat is really Pythagoras reincarnated. 

The Human Mind: Easy-Bake Oven of Deities

Xenophanes raises several important (and, to the modern reader, what may seem like obvious) issues regarding Greek religion. His argument can ultimately be boiled down to human beings projecting their own nature upon the divine. Consider, for instance, Clement's quote about horses, oxen and lions (oh my!). The argument is made that, if these animals had the capacity to create works of art, the figures they'd draw would be "gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and each [of these animals] would render the bodies [of their gods] to be of the same frame that each of them have (Curd 34)"

If I were a horse, this is totally the way I'd imagine my almighty deity.

Taken one way, humans are only doing what any creature with the capacity to imagine deities would do: making their gods in their own image. It's not evidence taken only from the Greeks, either; the Ethiopians and the Thracians are cited as imagining their deities in exactly the same manner (Curd 34). What easier way to make a religion than to create gods that are glorified (and shinier) versions of human beings? And, of course, this form of religion comes absolutely problem free, right? Enter the next part of Xenophanes argument: human iniquities, including "all deeds which among men are matters of reproach and blame: thieving, adultery, and deceiving one another (Curd 34)." In making the gods in their own image (in specific reference to the Greeks), they also endowed the gods with all manner of human flaws. It seems difficult to me to put my faith in a pantheon who is equally as susceptible to temptation as I am.

Though they fail at setting an acceptable moral precedent,  at least Ares and Aphrodite's behavior has the makings of an interesting dollar-store romance novel.  

Xenophanes appears to feel the same way, except he adds in that instead there exists a single supreme god "not at all like mortals in form or thought" who remains unchanging and controls the universe by the power of thought (Curd 31, 35). Further, this kind of god could be far-removed from humanity (as opposed to constantly interfering like the traditional Greek pantheon), and could be eternal. This brings up another complaint that Xenophanes had with the set-up of Greek religion; the gods were all born, which means that there is a point in time in which the gods did not exist and consequently couldn't have control of the universe. In Xenophanes eyes, this was equally as impious as suggesting that the gods could die (Curd 36). All in all, the traditional Greek pantheon leaves a lot to be desired, from their inability to consistently set a good example for their human followers to their finite existence leaving open a lot of questions about who was running the universe before they came along.