![]() ![]() Plato and AristotleĪs a young man Plato (427-347 BCE) met a follower of Heraclites (d. In his paradox of the flying arrow Zeno argued that at any moment an arrow occupies a definite position, and since between two moments there is nothing but other moments the arrow can only occupy separate positions but never move from one position to another. The possibility of motion was also attacked by Zeno of Elea (ca 490-430 BCE). Hence, even the slightest change is impossible. What he meant by this striking phrase is that change cannot but be illusory because that which is not cannot be, while that which is cannot cease to be. “What is, is what is not, is not.” The paradox of the flying arrow, Zeno of Elea In a poem which has partially survived, Parmenides wrote But what Greek philosophers searched for is pure reality, which, they assumed, is complete, whole, and motionless. They can only convey illusory opinions, such as the notion that things are subject to motion and change. According to Parmenides, the senses are inherently untrustworthy. The problem of being and its relation to becoming or change was introduced by Parmenides (born ca. ![]() This will be treated below but at this point we will have to go a bit further into the notion of being in Greek philosophy. Significantly, the concept of being is absent in Chinese thinking and more than that, it would have been impossible for it to emerge. Our thought experiment was meant to demonstrate how the Greek thinkers could have arrived at the notion of a world of being. In ancient Greece this world was called the world of being ― the true, ultimate reality of ideas (Plato) and the essences of things (Aristotle) were conceived as changeless and of the nature of being. Because the essences of perceptible things can only be found in thinking many ancient Greeks assumed that they formed part of another world ― a rational world separate from the sensible world. This brings us to a very important point because this view entails that a rift emerges between our everyday world and another world that is accessible only by means of thinking. A rational and a sensible world An elder Plato walks alongside a younger Aristotle ― Raphael Thus, as mentioned, the essential or ideal chair being a definition, it is nowhere to be found in the world of the senses but only in the world of thought. Adding or subtracting a few features would make our carefully formulated definition useless because chairs might suddenly turn out not to be chairs anymore. But this clarity comes at the price of invariability because definitions are not to be changed. Knowing what a chair essentially is, always and under all circumstances, chairs may be clearly distinguished from stools. Thus, such a definition cannot but constitute a determination, that is, a delimitation of what the thing is and hence also of what it is not. This process is concluded by a definition, which states what the thing in question essentially is. Therefore, in order to answer the question as to what a thing is, thinking has to proceed from the perceptions of a number of particular things to a general concept. Recall that the point of departure of ancient Greek thinking is the world of the senses, notably vision. The examples that have been presented are simple but they should have offered sufficient information to appreciate the following conclusions. 28-43 part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 – part 5 – part 6 – part 7 – part 8 – part 9 – part 10 – part 11 – part 12 – part 13 – part 14 – part 15 – part 16 – part 17 Being in or beyond the world of ancient Greek thinking Walking Two Roads- Accord and Separation In Chinese and Western Thought. Aanleveren van bijdragen voor het Wijsheidsweb.Actualiteit en/of persoonlijke doorleving.Zoroastrische, Joodse, Christelijke, Islamitische richtingen.Animistische en sjamanistische richtingen.Germaanse, Noordse en Keltische perspectieven. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |