Philosophy in the Western world is traditionally traced back to ancient Greece (in Miletus, a Greek city on the west coast of Asia minor), specifically to the region of Ionia in 6th century B.C.

Greek philosophy develops over against the background of the Homeric tradition as represented in the Iliad and Odyssey.

The gods are human in character (especially in that they share with humans the property of rational agency, thereby making their goals and actions relatively predictable). The gods exert a limited power over the forces of nature, but some things happen by chance.

The Homeric tradition embodies a rational conception of the world, that the world is ordered. This order is personified in Zeus (the chief of the gods). The Homeric tradition views the world as a place of personal, intelligent determination. Events are often explained in terms of divine activity, i.e., caused by the gods. Call this the personal and mythical explanatory framework of the Homeric period.

Not all events are the outcome of personal, intelligent determination in the Homeric worldview. The character of the Fates or moirai suggests an amoral and impersonal order in the world which is quite independent of humans and gods. The world is a blend of rational order and chance, a world in which some things are within the control of rational agents and other things are not.

Between the 7th and 5th century B.C., a new movement within Greek thought begins with the aim of providing a rational and systemic account of the natural and moral order of the world. These thinkers enquire into the nature (phusis) of things. In contrast to the personal, mythical explanatory framework of the Homeric period, the naturalist movement seeks rational explanations of natural phenomena in terms of then nature of things and their causal properties.

What is the arche of the cosmos, where arche is taken to be the source or origin of the world?

1. there is a cosmic sphere which is bounded by the sky

2. the earth is at the center of this cosmic sphere

3. the fixed stars are at the circumference, and the sun and moon and planets circling in between.

4. the arche (or source of the world) lies beyond the cosmos and surrounds it.

1-3 constitute the cosmos, the contents of which are subject to change and dissolution, being mainly composed of elements or qualities which conflict with each other. The arche (4) is a purer nature than the "opposites" within the universe which had "separated out" or "condensed" from it. The arche is living, everlasting, and active, itself the initiator of the changes which formed the cosmos. According to Aristotle (Physics 203b10), the naturalist philosophers understood the arche to be the living, moving, immortal and indestructible source of the cosmos.

The contents of the cosmos constitute natural phenomena. Explanations of natural phenomena among the Milesians, and in the Presocratics in general, proceed by two principles: the stuff of the world and what energizes it to produce other things by change.

Material principles: Given the primary qualities, which comes in two pairs of opposites, viz., hot/cold and moist/dry, there are four elements out of which all corporeal entities are composed, each having its own set proportion of elements.

Four elements are:

1. fire = hot + dry

2. air = hot + moist

3. earth = cold + dry

4. water = cold + moist

Efficient principles: Changes in the world produced by two active forces, viz., and attractive force (such as love or condensation) and a repulsive force (such as Strife or Rarefaction).

The popular presentation of the some of the Presocratic philosophers represents each as trying to reduce the many to the one by positing one of the above elements as the really real - the ousia, and claiming that all the other elements are, appearances to the contrary, simply permutations of the really real. In some way, active forces operating within the basic substance of the world produce change and account for the diversity of world.

1. Points of Discontinuity Among the Milesians

a. Thales (c. 624-546 B.C.): arche is water

b. Anaximander (c. 610-545 B.C.): arche is to apeiron, the unbounded or indefinite

c. Anaximenes (c. 585-528 B.C.): the arche is air.

a. The idea of unity, a single arche (primordial unity). The universe is a derivation of multiplicity from an original unity.

b. The basic stuff of the cosmos is material (or at least imperceptible) (material principle)

c. There is an active force in addition to the real substance. (efficient principle)

d. Method of employing sense experience and thought or speculation (employing material and efficient causal principles). Frequently they employed a method resembling abductive reasoning in contemporary science, which moves from visible, observable phenomena to an imperceptible cause as a postulated hypothesis explaining the phenomena in question.

e. The arche is living, active source of the cosmos, but is of a finer nature than the elements of the cosmos (e.g., simple and omnitemporal - atemporal or everlasting.)

Anaximander and Xenophanes are the first two ancient Greek philosophers who are led to postulate a single, divine being wholly distinct from the world of plurality and change. Explaining plurality and change by appealing to the phusis of things leads to the development of Greek natural theology.

Anaximander, like Thales, argued for a single arche of the universe, and thus thought of the universe as causally related to its origin or source as a derivation of multiplicity from unity. Unlike Thales, Anaximander argued for the sui generis nature of the arche based on the crucial principle that as a principle of explanation the arche must be different than what it explains.

1. The world is composed of opposites (or cyclical processes)

2. Being orderly the world must be unified (or balanced) in some way,

3. Therefore the source of the world is a single noncomposite (which keeps all things in perpetual balance). It has no limit.

Here we find the first clear attempt to emphasize the sui generis nature of the arche of the world. The explanandum (what must be explained) is perata (the definite or composite); the explanans (what explains) is apeiron (indefinite and noncomposite). See fragment #3. The source of the world is other than the world. It is a PRINCIPLE which is different from that of which it is a principle. Also, it appears that the apeiron is an active CAUSE, for it "steers" the universe. The perata "come from" the apeiron in a unique way, but causality of some sort is involved. See fragment #3, #4.

Aristotle writes:

The arche is DIVINE because it is immortal and indestructible. And here we find a parallel with the theology of civic and mythic theology. The locality and materiality of the arche is a difficult matter to determine. Since the Milesians were de facto materialists (the distinction between matterial and spirit not yet having been drawn), and thought of the arche as a fine or very simple substance which surrounded the celestial sphere, Anaximander (despite his commitment to the sui generis nature of the arche) probably thought of the arche as material. What he should have distinguished between was (i) to apeiron as something which was without limit (a material substance) and (ii) to apeiron as the quality of being unlimited (a property of an immaterial substance). At any rate, minimally, a scientific (at least quasi-scientific) pathway to the divine has been established by a causal argument, even if what is understood by "divine" will be subject to further modifications as ancient Greek thought continues to develop.

Xenophanes' main contribution to the development of Greek natural theology is his identifying arche with nous (mind).

Identifying arche and nous is important when viewed from the perspective of the other features of Xenophanes' thought. Whereas Anaximander blends theological language of apparently two levels of discourse (the causal or scientific and the anthropomorphic or mythic or poetic) Xenophanes stresses the god of causal reasoning over the divinity of the received traditions of revelation or poetry (the account of origins and divinity as found in Homer and Hesiod).

Xenophanes reacts against the tendency of anthropomorphizing which permeated popular thinking about the gods. He sees that all such thinking is cultural specific and relative. Homer and the other poets gratuitously and frivolously apply attributes to the gods. But it is all a mere projection of human attributes. ref. #2, #3, #4, #5

For Xenophanes, God is apparently one.

Xenophanes probably held that there were a plethora of active powers in the universe stronger than humans. It is not as clear whether he holds that there are a plethora of personal beings more powerful than humans (and even this would not commit one to polytheism, as traditional theism postulates both God and angels). What we do have in Xenophanes is a belief in a single arche of the universe and the identification of this arche with god. This god, call it the arche-god, is differentiated by both men and "gods" on the grounds of Anaximander's insight that a principle must be different from that of which it is a principle, and Xenophanes uses this insight to refute popular polytheism.

Xenophanes further writes:

Here Xenophanes attributes, not only causal power to the arche, but nous (mind). Despite his protest against the anthropomorphic conception of the gods in Homer, he is compelled - like Homer - to attribute nous to divinity. Thus, two lines of thought converge in Xenophanes. First, the arche IS like the Olympian deities in at least some crucial aspect (for otherwise it could not exert the causal power implied by "shaking all things"). But if arche is a god possessing personal attributes, being an arche it must possess such attributes in a unique manner.

Xenophanes may be viewed as reforming Olympian theology.

(1) Error of Olympian theology: gross anthropomorphizing (i.e., gods are too human).

(2) Truth of Olympian theology: gods have nous (intellect or mind).

(3) Truth of scientific theology: god must be different from everything else.

ALTHOUGH XENOPHANES' PREDICATES NOUS TO THE ARCHE, HE DOES SO FOR REASONS DIFFERENT FROM THE HOMERIC TRADITION.

The causal argument establishes that an arche explains the existence of the world and its causal processes that exemplify order - thus there is a kosmos. However, part of the explanandum is motion, therefore the arche cannot be in motion. So it must cause motion without being in motion (for if it were in motion it would need an explanation of its motion). Something analogous to a person's own volitional activity might be helpful here. And it might be that nous enters at this juncture. Nous moves without being moved in a fashion analogous to human volitional activity. So if the arche is to have any personal attributes, it will be for a distinct reason - an exigency of causal reasoning about the natural world, not because Homer or Hesiod say so!

There is evidence which suggests that in fact Xenophanes' conception of the arche-god is, though not polytheistic, closer to pantheism than monotheism.

Some argue that Xenophanes was actually a pantheist.

(i) the god is finite and spherical

(ii) the universe is finite and spherical, and

Therefore, (iii) the god is the universe.

Support for (i) may be drawn from several sources:

Hippolytus: "He says that the god is eternal and one and similar in all directions and finite and spherical and sentient in all his parts." (A33)

Sextus: "Xenophanes asserted...that all is one, and god consubstantial with all things, and that he is spherical, impassible, unchanging, and rational" (A35)

Theodoret: "He said that the all [to pan] was one, spherical and finite, not generated but eternal, and altogether unmoved." (A36)

There are a number of arguments against this. One is historical. These fragment references are likely to represent a later post-Parmenidean interpretation of Xenophanes. So they may be of dubious accuracy. Second argument is philosophical: the universe undergoes change and the god does not, therefore he cannot be the same as the universe. (counterclaim: all motion does not entail change).

Pythagoras was the founder of a philosophical society with a strong religious character in the late 6th century in South Italy.

Some of the key doctrines of Pythagoreanism:

1. Reality as number: There exists a higher-order reality beyond the physical and visible realm which determines the harmony manifested in the world of becoming. This reality is number. (a) Just as the musical harmony is dependent on number (musical intervals on a stringed instrument capable of being expressed numerically), so the harmony of the universe depends on number. The Pythagoreans may have seen this as a way to deal with the conflict of opposites pointed out by the Milesians. Moreover, (b) number itself is the real. Physical bodies are made up of numbers. It is not merely that things are numerically characterized, but things are actually made up of numbers. 1 is point, 2 is line, 3 is surface, 4 solid; and so numbers are spatial. Every material object in the universe is composed of points which together constitute a number. Pythagoras is also the first to refer to the universe as kosmos (conveying beauty and harmony) to refer to the world, as well as the first to use philosophus for a person who has a love of wisdom.

Pythagoreans seemed to have confused what Aristotle would later call formal and material causes. The formal cause of a thing is that which determines the thing to be the kind of thing it is - a principle of determination (which answers the question, what is it?). The material cause is that out of which something is made - a principle of determinability. The Presocratics had different material causes: Thales "water", Anaximander "the indefinite", and Anaximenes "air". Although number is a formal component to things, the Pythagoreans held that things are also made out of number. The distinction between form and matter had clearly been drawn yet, and so the difference between the structural scheme of things and their material nature was not clearly drawn. The Pythagoreans were probably struggling to express a very new conceptual territory. Plato and Aristotle will move the discussion further along.

2. Transmigration of souls (metempsychosis)

The Pythagoreans believed that person is soul (or at least that this is the most important part of a person). The body is to be regarded as a prison house of the soul. At death we leave the body and are reincarnated in another body and live out another embodied existence. The premise here is that of the kinship of all beings. Pythagoras probably held to transmigration due to an influence by Hinduism (by way of Persia). Plato is very influenced by this doctrine. See fragments #6, #7, #8.

 3. Rules of conduct and Religious Practice

The Pythagoreans held to a fairly strict religious code.

(a) No eating of beans #26

(b) Sacrifices and worship to be carried out without shoes #13

(c) No wearing of rings

(d) Abstain from living things (possible reference to vegetarianism) # 27

(e) Only walk on footpaths, not highways #14

4. Transition from matter-metaphysics to form-metaphysics

Although reality is number and numbers are thought of spatially, nonetheless the formal aspect to number and the view of soul is an important indication that the Pythagoreans began to move away from the de facto materialism of the Milesians (cf. Heraclitus and the Logos). Socrates and Plato make the break complete.

According to Parmenides, reality is essentially static or unchanging. Heraclitus argues that reality is essentially dynamic or changing: panta rhei, all things are changing.

Heraclitus represents at one time both a deviation and continuation of Milesian Presocratic thought. On the one hand, Heraclitus appears as more of a quasi-religious character or prophet than a speculative thinker in the Milesian tradition. His writings are characterized by much symbolism, paradoxes, and aphorisms, many of which are pithy and pungent (all of which contribute to the difficulty of correctly interpreting his thought). There is an interesting similarity between Heraclitus' prophetic tone and contemporary writers such as Pindar and Aeschylus, which some have attributed to a religious revival of sorts at the time. On the other hand, despite this prophetic tone to Heraclitus, we find in Heraclitus an intellectual probing along the same lines as uncovered among the Milesians - the search for the nature of ultimate reality.

Plato tells us:

See fragments #14, #15, #16

Aristotle explains that Heraclitus held:

One component to Heraclitus metaphysical theory is the idea of a universal flux: PANTA RE, all things change.

There is here a strong contrast between Parmenides and Heraclitus - somewhat exaggerated here.

Parmenides:

Being is fundamental. Reality is static and underlies the flux of appearances. Reason is the source of knowledge and truth, not experience.

Heraclitus:

Becoming is fundamental. Reality is essential dynamic and is the reality expressed in appearances. Sense experience is necessary for knowledge since appearances are real.

What is the essential character of the diversity or becoming of the world?

Anaximander had introduced the relevance of "opposites" to the cosmological equation. The word is composed of things, fundamentally divided into opposites, which originate from a noncomposite to apeiron, which now guides or orders the cyclical processes generated by the continual war between opposites. Here the opposites introduce a lack of harmony, and it is the unbounded or noncomposite one which steers the world and keeps it in unity. See fragment #3.

For Heraclitus, the war between opposites is essential to the world. The reality of the cosmos is such that it should express itself as "things in tension." But the becoming here or the dynamic process is not, like Pythagoras and Anaximander a chronological succession of states from disharmony to harmony, repeated endlessly in a cyclical process. They had argued that if the world at exists, then at some time or another there had to be disharmony, for the analysis of the unity of the world implies an antecedent disharmony. Heraclitus argues something very different: At every moment the world exists, there is disharmony (and harmony). Without a constant strife between opposites the world would not exist. Heraclitus views the world much like a stringed instrument. A stringed guitar which stands against the wall appears static, with no movement at all. But it exists in a state of tensions between many forces. If a string is weak or is left for a long period of time on the instrument, eventually it will snap, thereby revealing some dynamic which was underlying the apparent rest. Whatever harmony we perceive is a dynamic one of vigorous and contrary motions, each pulling in its own direction - a kind of tug-of-war. The functioning of a stringed instrument depends on the existence of such contrary forces in balance. So it is with the world. See fragment #19.

Heraclitus challenges the traditional harmonious world thesis. Harmony is the product of opposites or strife.

But along with the doctrine of "flux", there is an explicit commitment to the unity of the world - so much a characteristic of Ionian philosophical speculation. It is only half the story to say that the world is composed ultimately of warring opposites. For Anaximander, the world is a unity out of diversity. For Heraclitus, it is a unity in diversity. It is not that a state of unity follows chronologically after a state of disunity. As the analogy from the musical instrument shows, the world is a unity in diversity. There is within the many, a one; and many within the one.

Consequence: The Identity of Opposites

Fragment #12 teaches that two contradictory things or epithets in the same genus are identical!

(day and night, just and unjust, straight and crooked, etc)

Important factors determining this:

1. Reciprocal succession and change in the world. (e.g., day and night, summer and winter). See fragment #13

2. Relativity of the experiencing subject (e.g., x's being pleasant and unpleasant depends on the person experiencing x), #17, #16, #32

3. Opposite values only appreciated in relation to each other. (e.g. right recognized only in contrast to wrong.), #33

4. Some opposites are parts of the identical thing (e.g., up and down, straight and crooked, as parts of the same road., #12

The identity of opposites is linked to the flux principle. All change is cyclic, but what changes from a to b and back to a again, must have been the same thing all along.

What is the One? or principle of unity of the world?

The unity of the world is located in the activity of what Heraclitus calls the LOGOS, a common word in Greek thought used in a variety of ways to express everything from thought to rational expression. According to Heraclitus, the Logos determines everything that comes to pass [SEE FRAGMENT #5]. So within the changing world everything comes to pass according to a constant of sorts - the Logos. Notice, the Logos "is," while the world changes.

What is the Logos?

Although Heraclitus uses the word in its ordinary and common use, he also uses it as a metaphysical principle.

According to FRAGMENTS #5, #6, #7 , the Logos is:

1. something which one hears or understands (common meaning)

2. that which regulates all events, a kind of universal law of becoming.

3. something with an existence independent of him who gives it verbal expression.

FRAGMENTS #3, #4, #6, state that

4. the Logos is common to every person

5. the Logos is a rational principle, intelligence (and so includes the act of thinking or reflection).

6. The Logos is completely nonperspectival.

So the Logos is at once,

AN EPISTEMIC AND A METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLE,

that which at once determines reality and allows a nonperspectival access to reality.

(cf. the Spirit of Yahweh in the Old Testament, and the Spirit of God and the Logos in the New Testament)

There is dispute among scholars at to whether Heraclitus conceives of the Logos in both these sense, or just one, or both, but more one than the other.

Prior to Heraclitus's time, spiritual (incorporeal) and physical (corporeal) existence were not distinguished, not clearly at any rate. There is an important movement in Greek thought from materialism to a kind of dualism - a clear separation between the spiritual and physical. Pythagoras and the Pythagorean tradition (see IX. below) begin to approach this distinction with their subtle, though yet crude, FORM-metaphysics as opposed to the prior dominating MATTER-metaphysics, and it is accentuated and forms a crucial part of Platonism later, and eventually is assimilated into Christianity. Heraclitus is in a kind of in-between state: The subtlety of his thought required a distinction between spiritual and physical (or between abstract and concrete), but his historical location makes it difficult for him to be sufficiently detached from previous thinking to make the transition.

Consequently, the Logos (human thought and rational principle governing the universe) has material embodiment, like the arche of the presocratics before him. Heraclitus simply could not conceive of any other type of being than material or corporeal being. The divine force which determines the rational order of the universe is also a physical, material entity.

What follows from this, though, is that we get a piece of it or share in it by partly physical means. Parmenides had condemned sense experience. Heraclitus is able to see sense perception as a channel through which we learn or acquire knowledge specifically by means of taking part of the Logos. Heraclitus speaks about a breathing in of the Logos.

The material aspect of the Logos is fire (aither), the highest and most pure form of matter. It is not an actual flame or visible glow, but rather an invisible vapor which is immanent. And so we learn by breathing it in (and it is adulterated in us, being mixed with lower elements).

According to fragment 36, the world is an everlasting fire. It seems that Heraclitus is selecting out one of the elements as the really real, like Thales and Anaximenes did. Fire as Arche. The fire is the Logos in its material (as opposed to abstract) aspect.

The Presocratics prior to Parmenides took their point of departure from experience and tried to locate something in experience or revealed in (or implied by) experience as the basic substance of the world. Basically they were reasoning from experience to an explanation. Parmenides rejects this entire approach. Parmenides begins by assuming some very basic principles clear to the mind. From here he simply deduced by logic what the characteristics of of reality. See fragments #2, #8.

(1) Parmenides distinguishes between WHAT IS (Being) and WHAT IS NOT (Non-being). WHAT IS must be he says, but WHAT IS NOT is not and cannot be.

(2) If Being were to change, then it would become something different.

From these two principles the follow deductions can be made.

(3) Being does not change.

(4) Being is unitary.

(5) Being is an undifferentiated whole.

(6) Being is eternal.

Notice the contrast with Heraclitus. Reality is essentially static, not dynamic.

Reality is grasped by reason (the mind), not the senses.

Zeno, Parmenides' disciple provided arguments for his master's odd ideas.

1. There is no plurality (fragments #3-#5)

The proposition that many things exist entails a contradiction according to Zeno.

(a) If there are many things, they must be finite in number.

(b) If there are many things, there must be existent things in between them.

(c) If there are existent things between any two [of the many], then there will be further existents between these, and so on ad infinitum.

(d) So, if there are many things, there must be an infinite number of things.

(a) and (d) contradict.

2. There is no motion (fragments #6-13)

(a) The Race Course and Achilles

If a person runs a race, he must move from point A (starting line) across the track to some other point B (the finish line). But the path from A to B is infinitely divisible. So to go from A to B, the runner must cross half of the stretch between A and B, and then half of that half, and half of that half, and so on ad infinitum. It will not be possible to traverse an infinite number of stretches in finite time. Therefore, there is no motion, for the runner could not reach any mid-point and so by definition could never get started.

(b) The Arrow

In a similar way, an arrow in flight is never in motion. A thing is at rest just if it has not shifted to any degree out of place to its own dimensions. But at any given instant during its alledged motion, the arrow is in the place it occupies at that instant, the arrow does not moving at any time during its flight.

The Milesian philosophers all agreed that the source of the cosmos is one, so that the explanation of its origin is one of a derivation of multiplicity from some original or fundamental unity. Parmenides and Zeno drop the multiplicity and assert only unity as real. (There is no need to seek an explanatory principle, since there is no (real) plurality or change which needs to be explained. Reality is simply WHAT IS. The burden of post-parmenidean philosophers was to show how change was possible. The pluralists attempted to show this by positing "many" principles (not just one as the Milesians) to explain plurality and change.

Empedocles accepts the Parmenidean principle that Being is and so cannot arise or pass away, and also that being is material. But he denies the unreality of change. He does this by arguing that objects that arise and pass away are composed of smaller parts or particles. Although these elementary particles are eternal and indestructible, the wholes of which they are parts arise and pass away with the joining and separation of these elementary particles. One reason for postulating a multiplicity of basic substances (instead of one) is that one kind of matter cannot change into another kind of matter. Therefore, there must be several different material elements (earth, air, fire, and water), and these four elements are the source of all things. Note that Empedocles takes seriously the evidence of his senses which compel him to admit of change in the world. His commitment to Parmenides' view of reality as static and material forces him to concede a multiplicity of ultimate material particles, who variation in arrangement explains change. Empedocles also attempted to explain why change occurs. "Love" and "Strife" act as forces of attraction and decomposition, effecting new combinations of particles.

Anaxagoras accepts the pluralist position of Empedocles, but whereas the latter postulated four elements as ultimate bits, the former takes the four elements to be in fact composed of yet smaller and qualitatively dissimilar particles. He seems to have thought that everything is infinitely divisible. In the beginning particles of all kinds are mixed together into one. Objects of experience arise when particles of a certain type predominate. For things to change, there must be a portion of everything in everything. Moreover, rather than express the force responsible for change in mythical terms of Love and Strife, he has recourse to Nous (mind), as apparently something distinct and separate from matter. Mind acted upon an undifferentiated mass (i.e., the universe before its formation) and through time various objects were separated off (sun, stars, moon, air, and eventually all the other objects of experience).

Leucippus and Democritus both held that the obejects of experience are made up of tiny, imperceptible particles, called atoms. These atoms are eternal and uncreated. They are composed of the same matter, but differ in qualities such as size, shape, and weight. Color and taste are not really in objects (but weight and hardness are). Unlike Anaxagoras, the atomists held that there were particles further division of which is impossible.

A. Thales: An explanation of the cosmos (i.e., an orderly realm characterized by plurality and change) must involve not only a basic substance (or thing) but also an active force (as the cause of plurality and change). For Thales the arche is water, a substance infused (or insouled) with life as a moving or efficient principle.

B. Anaximander: (1) The arche is both a cause and a principle. As principle it must be different from the thing it explains. Since it explains plurality and change, the arche must be one and unchanging. Anaximander places a wedge between the arche and the cosmos, a wedge necessitated by postulating the arche as an explanatory principle. (2) Anaximander explains the origin of the cosmos in terms of a "separation off" of elements from a primitive mixture, and having been separated these elements war upon each other as opposites. The world of plurality and change is a world of cyclical processes arising from opposing forces in nature.

C. Xenophanes: (1) Presents a strong critique of the anthropomorphism of the Homeric tradition and (2) maintains that the arche is nous (thereby explaining how the sui generis arche can move other things without being in motion itself or making contact with other things), and so (3) presents a revision of the Homeric worldview according to which human attributes are predicated analogously of the arche only on causal or scientific grounds. [rational criteria for talk about god]

D. Heraclitus: (1) reality is essentially dynamic or in flux, though ordered according to the logos (an epistemic and ontological principle). (2) opposition and tension is essential to the harmony of the world.

E. Parmenides and Zeno: (1) Being is one, unchanging, and eternal (2) Being is grasped by the mind, not the senses. (3) All change (e.g., motion) is an illusion. Parmenides cuts off the previous basis for natural theology, for he precludes any argument from experience to Being. The arche is dropped and nous alone explains reality.

F. Anaxagoras, et all: (1) Explains how plurality and change are possible by denying that a plurality of things entails the existence of non-being. (2) Qualitative change is explained by the different arrangement of elementary particles, the motion of which is initiated by the arche-nous. (3) Effects resemble their causes, and so we can explain the latter in terms of the former (and so appearances reveal something of their non-evident causes). This brings back natural theology based on appearances or sense experience.

A. Arche is a cause.

B. Arche is an explanatory principle.

C. Sui Generis: As a principle of explanation, an arche must be different from the thing it is intended to explain.

D. An arche's explanandum is the existence or coming to be of a datum, not what the thing is. (so explanations are not relevant to nonexisting or merely possible beings). What stands in need of explanation by an arche is not what a thing is, but that it is or comes to be. So an arche explains the cause of something's existence.

E. Arche must be necessary (i.e., not in need of explanation itself). It is not the case that an arche might not have been. (This seems to follow from B., for if an arche might not have been, there would have to be an explanation for why it exists and so it would not be different from the things it is intended to explain the existence of.)

F. There is a preference, if not necessity, of one arche over many archai. Economy of explanation, or simplicity, demands that we postulate no more entities than required for our explanans. Moreover, since the explanandum includes plurality, many archai would need a further explanation, and so on. . . .

G. Arche is not evident to the senses (de facto or in principle).

H. Arche as Nous (or mind)

Note the following development:

1. The arche as cause in the form of an ousia with an infused active force (Thales' water)

2. The arche as cause and principle. (Anaximander)

3. The arche as principle as sui generis. (Anaximander)

4. The arche as nous (Xenophanes and Anaxagoras)

5. Arche and nous as mutually exclusive. (Parmenides)

6. Effects reveal something about their causes. (Anaxagoras)

© Michael Sudduth 1997