FROM MYTH to REASON: The PRESOCRATICS

“Science must begin with

myths and with criticism
of myths,” Sir Karl
Popper

Myth to
Science Science is the critique of
myths, there would be
no Darwin has there
been no Book of
Genesis,” W.B. Yeats
Ancient Greece
Independent City-States, bound by
shared culture and religion
The Olympic games
776 BCE to 393 CE, a run of
293 consecutive Olympiads.
The Acropolis of Athens
Zeus at Mount Olympus, 5th BCE
Temple of Zeus, today
 The Parthenon:
Temple to Athena in Athens (447 BCE)
First evidence of Greek alphabetic writing:
the Diplyon Vase (750 BCE)
 Dipylon inscription

ΗΟΣΝΥΝΟΡΧΕΣΤΟΝΠΑΝΤΟΝΑΤΑΛΟΤΑΤΑΠΑΙΖΕΙ
ΤΟΤΟΔΕΚΛ[?]ΜΙ[?]Ν

"whoever of the dancers now dances most lightly ...",

The Greek Alphabet
 Greek Numbers

units α β γ δ ε ϛ ζ η θ
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
tens ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ϟ
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
hundreds ρ σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω ϡ
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
thousands ͵α ͵β ͵γ ͵δ ͵ε ͵ϛ ͵ζ ͵η ͵θ
1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 9000
Timeline of Pre-Socratics
 “Inquiry into the Nature of Things”
(peri phuseos historia)
• An attempt to understand the phenomena of
nature in purely physical or mechanical
terms, without magical powers, without
monsters, without human-like
(anthropomorphic gods).
• A belief that there is natural order of things –
what they called a kosmos – that no man or
god has made.
 Xenophanes (b. 520 bce) on Gods as
human constructs
• But if cattle and horses and lions had hands
or could paint with their hands and create works
such as men do,
horses like horses and cattle like cattle
also would depict the gods' shapes and make
their bodies
of such a sort as the form they themselves have.
...
Ethiopians say that their gods are snub–nosed
[σιμούς] and black
Thracians that they are pale and red-haired.[21]
 “Discovery of Nature”
• The recognition that the natural world is distinct
from the spiritual or supernatural world; that the
natural phenomena are not the products of
random or arbitrary influences of
supernatural/spiritual forces, but are determined
by regular sequences of causes and effects.
• The causes and ultimate source of things in this
world are material, i.e., made up of some kind of
substance.
• These causes and effects occurring in nature can
be understood by the human mind.
Questions that the pre-Socratics asked
• What is the beginning (arche) or source of all
things?
• What is reality and what is only appearance?
• What is everything made of? Is it one "stuff"
or many "stuffs?"
• nature of change, of being, of becoming, and
quantity.
 The Ionian Enlightenment
• “What Ionia and ancient Greece provided is not so
much inventions or technologies, but the idea of
systematic inquiry, the notion that laws of nature,
rather than capricious gods, govern the world, and
these laws can be understood by human beings.” Carl
Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
• “ The great discovery of the ancient Greeks was the
conviction that the world has a unified order and can
be explained by natural laws.” E.O. Wilson, Consilience