Excerpt from Small Group #2

I particularly enjoyed answering the fourth question for the small group paper, so I decided to post my answer here. 

IV.

Parmenides, Zeno, and Empedocles all addressed the same issue of being and “what-is” while coming to different conclusions. For simplicity’s sake in comparing the three, we will focus on one of Parmenides’ claims – everything that must be is what-is.

Zeno differed from Parmenides in methodology and in doing so violated Parmenides’ primary claim.  Initially it appeared that Zeno defended Parmenides well. He argued that “things that are are many, they must therefore be both like and unlike, but this is impossible” (66). so “things are not many” (67). When Zeno was questioned about his relationship to Parmenides, he stated that his work was “actually a defense of Parmenides’ argument” by showing that the opposite conclusion “suffers still more ridiculous consequences” (67). But by using negation and paradoxes, Zeno followed the Parmendian path of “the other” which is supposedly “entirely unable to be investigated: for neither can you know what is not (for it is not to be accomplished) nor can you declare it” (58). Furthermore, Zeno’s paradoxes showed that logic is in direct conflict with sensual experience. I disagree with Zeno that his conclusions were less absurd than those of the Parmenides ridiculers, but that does not have any bearing on the fact that Zeno was trying to align himself with Parmenides by utilizing methods condemned by him.

In this sense, Empedocles was the opposite of Zeno. He attempted to distance himself from Parmenides, but I believe he actually enhanced and continued Parmenides’ initial inquiry. With an allusion to Parmenides’ route of Persuasion, Empedocles stated, “It is not possible to reach and approach <the divine> with our eyes or grasp it with our hands, by which the most powerful highway of persuasion strikes the minds of men” (79). Somehow Empedocles ascertained divine knowledge, though, and he taught mankind “the four roots of all things” (81), fire, water, earth, and air, and expressed that “there is coming-to-be of not a single one of all mortal things, nor is there any end” (82). Even though Parmenides finally concluded that everything that is could only be one thing, both Parmenides and Empedocles wrestle with the question of coming-to-be and believe what-is does not come-to-be but always is. Furthermore, both recognize the duality of existence. Parmenides faced a dilemma when “before his gaze our empirical world divided into two separate spheres [. . .] the latter really express only the lack, the absence of the former positive” (PTAG 72). Empedocles also observed this dichotomy and explained it through “coming together into one by Love and at another each being borne apart by the hatred of Strife” (Cured 83).

Parmenides posited the questions – what is coming-to-be, what is, and how do we know? Zeno, attempting to agree with his mentor, inevitably goes counter to him. Empedocles, blinded by the grandeur of his own thought, took Parmenides’ views and expressed them through a different lens; in doing so he answered Parmenides and reaffirmed his original philosophy. 

Error 404: This post does not exist

I started writing this post before class started. Well, actually, I started thinking about it. But because I started before class, and time is infinitely divisible, it is impossible for the start time of class to have eclipsed before my blog was finished, correct?

I must admit; Zeno has been my favorite philosopher to study so far. Without a doubt he has been the most thought provoking. I would like to do three things. First, restate Zeno’s arguments. Second, simply discuss a few of the paradoxes. And finally, draw my own conclusions.

Zeno claims that he is attempting “a defense of Parmenides’ argument [. . .] what-is is one”. To do so, he assumes the opposite position, shows the absurdities of the opposite position, and concludes Parmenides must be correct.

His four paradoxes of motion are:

1) The Dichotomy: “There is no motion because that which is moving must reach the midpoint before the end”

Looks easy enough…

According to Zeno, “it is always necessary to traverse half the distance, but these are infinite, and it is impossible to get through things that are infinite”.

2) Achilles & Tortoise: “The slowest as it runs will never be caught by the quickest”.

MC Hammer is always one step ahead.

“For the pursuer must first reach the point from which the pursued departed, so that the slower must always be some distance in front”.

3) The Arrow: “The arrow is stopped while it is moving”.

So THAT’S how he does it.

“This follows from assuming that time is composed of ‘nows'”.

4) The Stadium: “Equal bodies moving in a stadium alongside equal bodies in the opposite direction, the one group moving from the end of the stadium, the other from the middle, at equal speed”. “It follows that half the time is equal to double”.

It’s a stadium…

I’ll be honest – this one went *whoosh* way over my head.

So what do all these paradoxes mean? The Dichotomy and Achilles & Tortoise tell us that we can never reach a destination because there is an infinite amount of points we must first reach. The Arrow tells us that we are always stationary so we can never be moving. Zeno believes the paradoxes point out an absurdity (plurality) that “suffers still more ridiculous consequences” than Parmenides’ seemingly “many ridiculous consequences”.

If motion does not exist, than our entire conception of reality falls (not literally because that involves movement) into shambles. The only possible solution is that the entire universe and all of its parts are all one substance. Therefore, we are not moving – simply being. Achilles can pass the Tortoise because Achilles is the Tortoise and…not the Tortoise…and…and…eh…hm…

I believe that Zeno wants to steer us in this direction; however, if our text did not explicitly say Zeno was trying to support Parmenides, I would have used Zeno as a critique of using solely logic as a method of inquiry.

Here’s a paradox for Zeno.

Let’s assume that logic is the only valid form of philosophic inquiry. From logic, we reach these paradoxes that directly contradict seemingly obvious aspects of existence. But logic is supposed to lead to a greater understanding of existence, and logic cannot remedy these paradoxes. Therefore, logic cannot be the only valid for of philosophic inquiry.

But what do I know? I don’t even exist.

 

CSI: Greece

Setting: 5th century Greece, BCE. The CSI unit has just discovered the dead body of Logictus Maximus floating in the Fiume Palistro river outside of Elea.

Pythagoras: My god! Who would have done such a thing to poor Logictus?

Xenophanes: Surely God has nothing to do with this my simple man; God does not commit such immoral acts.

Heraclitus: The only constant is change.

Xenophanes: Oh do be quiet Heraclitus.

Pythagoras: Maybe if we search long enough, we can find his soul in a new body and it can tells us who killed him!

Innocent Bystander: Detectives, I saw Obvious Killerious shoot him with an arrow!

Parmenides: Nonsense. Whatever you do, do not be guided by your dull eyes. Test all things with the power of your thinking alone.

Innocent Bystander: But, I saw it clear as day! Logictus was just sitting in the agora and Obvious pulled out a bow and…

Parmenides: All sense perceptions yield but illusions. We must consult logic.

Heraclitus: It is not possible to step into the same rivers.

Xenophanes: For the love of…

Pythagoras: Gents, if we calculate the speed of the current of the river we can determine at what time his body was cast in the river and…

Parmenides: Let us assume that the arrow has true being. Then there would be no rest, hence no position for the arrow, hence no space-which is impossible to conceive. Let us assume that time is real. Then it could not be infinitely divisible…

Innocent Bystander: But surely I tell you that I SAW IT HAPPEN! Oh wait…he’s coming back. He’s about to shoot me t….[innocent bystander is shot by Obvious]

[All four philosophers are too busy ignoring Obvious to see what is going on around them]

 

I see screenplay writing in my future.

 

Mind the Gap

In highschool, I was on the speech and debate team. I distinctly remember a lecture from my coach about the three methods of communication – logos, pathos, and ethos – or logic, emotion, and character. Each was a useful component of successful argumentation, so you can imagine my pleasure to read Heraclitus.

Heraclitus defined logos as “a single divine law” that “controls and steers the cosmos”. It “is an objective and independent truth available to all” that “bridge[s] the gap between divine and human knowledge”.

The connection is logos.

What I really appreciated about Heraclitus was his reconciliation between human knowledge and logos. He believed that “although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding [. . .] they put their trust in popular bards”.

Anyone who has heard “YOLO” knows what I mean.

Because we “are at odds with the logos“, what we “meet every day appear[s] strange”. But not I, right? Surely my understanding of the world is correct, and things only appear strange because…well…they are. As Heraclitus said, “pigs rejoice in mud more than in pure water”.

This guy knows what I mean.

I believe it is imperative for us to understand that our whole library of knowledge is 1) incomplete and 2) probably inaccurate. We filter our observations through our worldview and screen out what doesn’t fit. Because of this, “to god all things are beautiful and good and just, but humans have supposed some unjust and other just”.

I believe Thomas Aquinas draw his inspiration from Heraclitus when he said that evil was just the absence of good. As humans, we see injustices as evidence that God is not perfect or does not exist. But we simply lack the complete understanding, knowledge of the logos,  to recognize the reality. We “would not have known the name of justice if these things [unjust things] did not exist”. Furthermore, “disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger satiety, weariness rest”.

Yes, the last quotes were from Heraclitus, too.

Numb3r5!

Math is a really cool thing! And lucky for us, Pythagoras thought so as well. He observed that “numbers seemed to be primary in all nature, [and] supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things that are”. Reminds me of Math Curse.

‘Mrs. Fibonacci says, “You know everything can be thought of as a math problem”.’

But I digress. When I initially read Pythagoras in A Presocratics Reader, I was highly anticipating a mention of the Pythagorean Theory. To my dismay, he was too concerned with “souls” and “puppies”. However, the last page of our reading was saturated with quotes about numbers.

I want to substantiate Pythagoras’ theories and show how he utilizes a level of higher-thinking on par with Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. Numbers really are the building blocks of nature.

Most flowers or plants have leaves and seeds in a pattern that follows the Fibonacci Sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…).

There are 55 spirals curving left and 34 curving right.

Other “magic numbers” seem to appear all over nature. The Virtruvian Man shows how the human body follows a set of ratios.

Da Vinci notes over 20 unique proportions found in the human body.

But the most important number is the “golden ratio”. According to guardian.com,

Claude Debussy used it explicitly in his music and Le Corbusier in his architecture. There are claims the number was used by Leonardo da Vinci in the painting of the Mona Lisa, by the Greeks in building the Parthenon and by ancient Egyptians in the construction of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.

It was this elusive nature that led the 15th-century Italian friar and mathematician Luca Pacioli to equate the golden ratio with the incomprehensibility of God.

And for the science nerds…

It turns out that at a critical value of the spin, a black hole flips from negative to positive specific heat – that is, from growing hotter as it loses heat to growing colder. What determines the critical value? The mass of the black hole and the golden ratio!

Is it any surprise that Pythagoras thought numbers were the foundation of nature? What I find most impressive is that Pythagoras recognized the significance of some numbers and was able to create a whole worldview centered on them. Like Thales who observed the properties of water and made a “critical leap” to conclude the universe was made solely of water, Pythagoras revolutionized the way mankind thought of the world.