The Philosophy Book
Page 3
However, Thales was above all a teacher, the first of the so-called Milesian School of philosophers. Anaximander, his pupil, expanded his scientific theories, and in turn became a mentor to Anaximenes, who is believed to have taught the young mathematician Pythagoras.
See also: Anaximander • Anaximenes of Miletus • Pythagoras • Empedocles • Democritus and Leucippus • Aristotle
IN CONTEXT
TRADITION
Chinese philosophy
APPROACH
Daoism
BEFORE
1600–1046 BCE During the Shang Dynasty, people believe fate is controlled by deities and practice ancestor worship.
1045–256 BCE Under the Zhou Dynasty, the Mandate of Heaven (god-given authority) justifies political decisions.
AFTER
5th century BCE Confucius (Kong Fuzi) sets out his rules for personal development and for ethical government.
4th century BCE Philosopher Zhuangzi moves the focus of Daoist teaching more toward the actions of the individual, rather than those of the state.
3rd century CE Scholars Wang Bi and Guo Xiang create a Neo-Daoist school.
In the 6th century BCE, China moved toward a state of internal warfare as the ruling Zhou Dynasty disintegrated. This change bred a new social class of administrators and magistrates within the courts, who occupied themselves with the business of devising strategies for ruling more effectively. The large body of ideas that was produced by these officials became known as the Hundred Schools of Thought.
All this coincided with the emergence of philosophy in Greece, and shared some of its concerns, such as seeking stability in a constantly changing world, and alternatives to what had previously been prescribed by religion. But Chinese philosophy evolved from practical politics and was therefore concerned with morality and ethics rather than the nature of the cosmos.
One of the most important ideas to appear at this time came from the Daode jing (The Way and its Power), which has been attributed to Laozi (Lao Tzu). It was one of the first attempts to propose a theory of just rule, based on de (virtue), which could be found by following dao (the Way), and forms the basis of the philosophy known as Daoism.
Living in harmony with nature is one path the Daode jing prescribes for a well-balanced life. For this man that could mean respecting the ecological balance of the lake and not over-fishing.
Cycles of change
In order to understand the concept of dao, it is necessary to know how the ancient Chinese viewed the ever-changing world. For them, the changes are cyclical, continually moving from one state to another, such as from night to day, summer to winter, and so on. They saw the different states not as opposites, but as related, one arising from the other. These states also possess complementary properties that together make up a whole. The process of change is seen as an expression of dao, and leads to the 10,000 manifestations that make up the world. Laozi, in the Daode jing, says that humans are merely one of these 10,000 manifestations and have no special status. But because of our desire and free will, we can stray from the dao, and disturb the world’s harmonious balance. To live a virtuous life means acting in accordance with the dao.
Following the dao, however, is not a simple matter, as the Daode jing acknowledges. Philosophizing about dao is pointless, as it is beyond anything that humans can conceive of. It is characterized by wu (“not-being”), so we can only live according to the dao by wu wei, literally “non-action.” By this Laozi does not mean “not doing”, but acting in accordance with nature—spontaneously and intuitively. That in turn entails acting without desire, ambition, or recourse to social conventions.
"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom."
Laozi
LAOZI
So little is known for certain about the author of the Daode jing, who is traditionally assumed to be Laozi (Lao Tzu). He has become an almost mythical figure; it has even been suggested that the book was not by Laozi, but is in fact a compilation of sayings by a number of scholars. What we do know is that there was a scholar born in the state of Chu, with the name Li Er or Lao Tan, during the Zhou dynasty, who became known as Laozi (the Old Master). Several texts indicate that he was an archivist at the Zhou court, and that Confucius consulted him on rituals and ceremonies. Legend states that Laozi left the court as the Zhou dynasty declined, and journeyed west in search of solitude. As he was about to cross the border, one of the guards recognized him and asked for a record of his wisdom. Laozi wrote the Daode jing for him, and then continued on his way, never to be seen again.
Key works
c.6th century BCE Daode jing (also known as the Laozi)
See also: Siddhartha Gautama • Confucius • Mozi • Wang Bi • Hajime Tanabe
IN CONTEXT
BRANCH
Metaphysics
APPROACH
Pythagoreanism
BEFORE
6th century BCE Thales proposes a non-religious explanation of the cosmos.
AFTER
c.535–c.475 BCE Heraclitus dismisses Pythagoreanism and says that the cosmos is governed by change.
c.428 BCE Plato introduces his concept of perfect Forms, which are revealed to the intellect and not the senses.
c.300 BCE Euclid, a Greek mathematician, establishes the principles of geometry.
1619 German mathematician Johannes Kepler describes the relationship between geometry and physical phenomena.
Western philosophy was in its infancy when Pythagoras was born. In Miletus, Greece, a group of philosophers known collectively as the Milesian School had started to seek rational explanations for natural phenomena only a generation or so earlier, marking the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition. Pythagoras spent his childhood not far from Miletus, so it is very likely that he knew of them, and may even have studied in their academy. Like Thales, the founder of the Milesian School, Pythagoras is said to have learnt the rudiments of geometry during a trip to Egypt. With this background, it is not surprising that he should approach philosophical thinking in a scientific and mathematical way.
The Pythagorean academy
Pythagoras was also, however, a deeply religious and superstitious man. He believed in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls, and he established a religious cult, with himself cast as a virtual messiah, in Croton, southern Italy. His disciples lived in a collective commune, following strict behavioral and dietary rules, while studying his religious and philosophical theories. The Pythagoreans, as his disciples were known, saw his ideas as mystical revelations, to the extent that some of the discoveries attributed to him as “revelations” may in fact have come from others in the community. His ideas were recorded by his students, who included his wife, Theano of Crotona, and daughters. The two sides of Pythagoras’s beliefs—the mystical and the scientific—seem to be irreconcilable, but Pythagoras himself does not see them as contradictory. For him, the goal of life is freedom from the cycle of reincarnation, which can be gained by adhering to a strict set of behavioral rules, and by contemplation, or what we would call objective scientific thinking. In geometry and mathematics he found truths that he regarded as self-evident, as if god-given, and worked out mathematical proofs that had the impact of divine revelation.
Because these mathematical discoveries were a product of pure reasoning, Pythagoras believes they are more valuable than mere observations. For example, the Egyptians had discovered that a triangle whose sides have ratios of 3:4:5 always has a right angle, and this was useful in practice, such as in architecture. But Pythagoras uncovered the underlying principle behind all
right-angled triangles (that the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the other two sides) and found it to be universally true. This discovery was so extraordinary, and held such potential, that the Pythagoreans took it to be divine revelation.
Pythagoras concludes that the whole cosmos must be governed by mathematical rules. He says that number (numerical ratios and mathematical axioms) can be used to explain the very structure of the cosmos. He does not totally dismiss the Milesian idea that the universe is made up of one fundamental substance, but he shifts the enquiry from substance to form.
This was such a profound change in the way of looking at the world, that we should probably forgive Pythagoras and his disciples for getting somewhat carried away, and giving numbers a mystical significance. Through exploring the relationship between numbers and geometry, they discoved the square numbers and cube numbers that we speak of today, but they also attributed characteristics to them, such as “good” to the even numbers and “evil” to the odd ones, and even specifics such as “justice” to the number four, and so on. The number ten, in the form of the tetractys (a triangular shape made up of rows of dots) had a particular significance in Pythagorean ritual. Less contentiously, they saw the number one as a single point, a unity, from which other things could be derived. The number two, in this way of thinking, was a line, number three a surface or plane, and four a solid; the correspondence with our modern concept of dimensions is obvious.
The Pythagorean explanation of the creation of the universe followed a mathematical pattern: on the Unlimited (the infinite that existed before the universe), God imposed a Limit, so that all that exists came to have an actual size. In this way God created a measurable unity from which everything else was formed.
Pythagoras’s Theorem showed that shapes and ratios are governed by principles that can be discovered. This suggested that it might be possible, in time, to work out the structure of the entire cosmos.
"There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres."
Pythagoras
Numerical harmonies
Pythagoras’s most important discovery was the relationships between numbers: the ratios and proportions. This was reinforced by his investigations into music, and in particular into the relationships between notes that sounded pleasant together. The story goes that he first stumbled onto this idea when listening to blacksmiths at work. One had an anvil half the size of the other, and the sounds they made when hit with a hammer were exactly an octave (eight notes) apart. While this may be true, it was probably by experimenting with a plucked string that Pythagoras determined the ratios of the consonant intervals (the number of notes between two notes that determines whether they will sound harmonious if struck together). What he discovered was that these intervals were harmonious because the relationship between them was a precise and simple mathematical ratio. This series, which we now know as the harmonic series, confirmed for him that the elegance of the mathematics he had found in abstract geometry also existed in the natural world.
The stars and elements
Pythagoras had now proved not only that the structure of the universe can be explained in mathemathical terms—“number is the ruler of forms”—but also that acoustics is an exact science, and number governs harmonious proportions. He then started to apply his theories to the whole cosmos, demonstrating the harmonic relationship of the stars, planets, and elements. His idea of harmonic relationships between the stars was eagerly taken up by medieval and Renaissance astronomers, who developed whole theories around the idea of the music of the spheres, and his suggestion that the elements were arranged harmoniously was revisited over 2,000 years after his death. In 1865 English chemist John Newlands discovered that when the chemical elements are arranged according to atomic weight, those with similar properties occur at every eighth element, like notes of music. This discovery became known as the Law of Octaves, and it helped lead to the development of the Periodic Law of chemical elements still used today.
Pythagoras also established the principle of deductive reasoning, which is the step-by-step process of starting with self-evident axioms (such as “2 + 2 = 4”) to build toward a new conclusion or fact. Deductive reasoning was later refined by Euclid, and it formed the basis of mathematical thinking into medieval times and beyond.
One of Pythagoras’s most important contributions to the development of philosophy was the idea that abstract thinking is superior to the evidence of the senses. This was taken up by Plato in his theory of Forms, and resurfaced in the philosophical method of the rationalists in the 17th century. The Pythagorean attempt to combine the rational with the religious was the first attempt to grapple with a problem that has dogged philosophy and religion in some ways ever since.
Almost everything we know about Pythagoras comes to us from others; even the bare facts of his life are largely conjecture. Yet he has achieved a near-legendary status (which he apparently encouraged) for the ideas attributed to him. Whether or not he was in fact the originator of these ideas does not really matter; what is important is their profound effect on philosophical thought.
Classical architecture follows Pythagorean mathematical ratios. Harmonious shapes and ratios are used throughout, scaled down in the smaller parts, and up for the overall structure.
"Reason is immortal, all else mortal."
Pythagoras
PYTHAGORAS
Little is known about Pythagoras’s life. He left no writings himself, and unfortunately, as the Greek philosopher Porphyry noted in his Vita Pythagorae, “No one knows for certain what Pythagoras told his associates, since they observed an unusual silence.” However, modern scholars believe that Pythagoras was probably born on the island of Samos, off the coast of modern-day Turkey. As a young man, he travelled widely, perhaps studying at the Milesian School, and probably visiting Egypt, which was a center of learning. At the age of about 40, he set up a community of around 300 people in Croton, southern Italy. Its members studied a mixture of mystical and academic studies, and despite its collective nature, Pythagoras was clearly the community’s leader. At the age of 60, he is said to have married a young girl, Theano of Crotona. Growing hostility toward the Pythagorean cult eventually forced him to leave Croton, and he fled to Metapontum, also in southern Italy, where he died soon after. His community had virtually disappeared by the end of the 4th century BCE.
See also: Thales of Miletus • Siddhartha Gautama • Heraclitus • Plato • René Descartes
IN CONTEXT
TRADITION
Eastern philosophy
APPROACH
Buddhism
BEFORE
c.1500 BCE Vedism reaches the Indian subcontinent.
c.10th–5th centuries BCE Brahmanism replaces Vedic beliefs.
AFTER
3rd century BCE Buddhism spreads from the Ganges valley westward across India.
1st century BCE The teachings of Siddhartha Gautama are written down for the first time.
1st century CE Buddhism starts to spread to China and Southeast Asia. Different schools of Buddhism begin to evolve in different areas.
Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha, “the enlightened one”, lived in India during a period when religious and mythological accounts of the world were being questioned. In Greece, thinkers such as Pythagoras were examining the cosmos using reason, and in China, Laozi and Confucius were detaching ethics from religious dogma. Brahmanism, a religion that had evolved from Vedism—an ancient belief based on the sacred Veda texts—was the dominant fai
th in the Indian subcontinent in the 6th century BCE, and Siddhartha Gautama was the first to challenge its teachings with philosophical reasoning.
Gautama, although revered by Buddhists for his wisdom, was neither a messiah nor a prophet, and he did not act as a medium between God and Man. His ideas were arrived at through reasoning, not divine revelation, and it is this that marks Buddhism out as a philosophy as much as (perhaps even more than) a religion. His quest was philosophical—to discover truths—and he maintained that these truths are available to all of us through the power of reason. Like most Eastern philosophers, he was not interested in the unanswerable questions of metaphysics that preoccupied the Greeks. Dealing with entities beyond our experience, this kind of enquiry was senseless speculation. Instead, he concerned himself with the question of the goal of life, which in turn involved examining the concepts of happiness, virtue, and the “good” life.
The middle way
In his early life, Gautama enjoyed luxury and, we are told, all the sensual pleasures. However, he realized that these were not enough on their own to bring him true happiness. He was acutely aware of the suffering in the world, and saw that it was largely due to sickness, old age, and death, and the fact that people lack what they need. He also recognized that the sensual pleasure we indulge in to relieve suffering is rarely satisfying, and that when it is, the effects are transitory. He found the experience of extreme asceticism (austerity and abstinence) equally dissatisfying, bringing him no nearer to an understanding of how to achieve happiness.