A Critical History of Greek Philosophy Part 3

Looking out into the wide heavens, he said, "The One is G.o.d."

[Footnote 4] The thought of Xenophanes is therefore more properly described as pantheism than as monotheism. G.o.d is unchangeable, immutable, undivided, unmoved, pa.s.sionless, undisturbed. Xenophanes appears, thus, rather as a religious reformer than as a philosopher.

Nevertheless, inasmuch as he was the first to enunciate the proposition "All is one," he takes his place in philosophy. It was upon this thought that Parmenides built the foundations of the Eleatic philosophy.

[Footnote 4: Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, Book I. chapter v.]

Certain other opinions of Xenophanes have been preserved. He observed fossils, and found sh.e.l.ls inland, and the forms of fish and sea-weed embedded in the rocks in the quarries of Syracuse and elsewhere. From these he concluded that the earth had risen out of the sea and would again partially sink into it. Then the human race would be destroyed.

But the earth would again rise from the sea and the human race would again [43] be renewed. He believed that the sun and stars were burning ma.s.ses of vapour. The sun, he thought, does not revolve round the earth. It goes on in a straight line, and disappears in the remote distance in the evening. It is not the same sun which rises the next morning. Every day a new sun is formed out of the vapours of the sea.

This idea is connected with his general att.i.tude towards the popular religion. His motive was to show that the sun and stars are not divine beings, but like other beings, ephemeral. Xenophanes also ridiculed the Pythagoreans, especially their doctrine of re-incarnation.

Parmenides

Parmenides was born about 514 B.C. at Elea. Not much is known of his life. He was in his early youth a Pythagorean, but recanted that philosophy and formulated a philosophy of his own. He was greatly revered in antiquity both for the depth of his intellect, and the sublimity and n.o.bility of his character. Plato refers to him always with reverence. His philosophy is comprised in a philosophic didactic poem which is divided into two parts. The first part expounds his own philosophy and is called "the way of truth." The second part describes the false opinions current in his day and is called "the way of opinion."

The reflection of Parmenides takes its rise from observation of the transitoriness and changeableness of things. The world, as we know it, is a world of change and mutation. All things arise and pa.s.s away.

Nothing is permanent, nothing stands. One moment it is, another moment it is not. It is as true to say of {44} anything, that it is not, as that it is. The truth of things cannot lie here, for no knowledge of that which is constantly changing is possible. Hence the thought of Parmenides becomes the effort to find the eternal amid the shifting, the abiding and everlasting amid the change and mutation of things.

And there arises in this way the ant.i.thesis between Being and not-being. The absolutely real is Being. Not-being is the unreal.

Not-being is not at all. And this not-being he identifies with becoming, with the world of shifting and changing things, the world which is known to us by the senses. The world of sense is unreal, illusory, a mere appearance. It is not-being. Only Being truly is. As Thales designated water the one reality, as the Pythagoreans named number, so now for Parmenides the sole reality, the first principle of things, is Being, wholly unmixed with not-being, wholly excludent of all becoming. The character of Being he describes, for the most part, in a series of negatives. There is in it no change, it is absolutely unbecome and imperishable. It has neither beginning nor end, neither arising nor pa.s.sing away. If Being began, it must have arisen either from Being or from not-being. But for Being to arise out of Being, that is not a beginning, and for Being to arise out of not-being is impossible, since there is then no reason why it should arise later rather than sooner. Being cannot come out of not-being, nor something out of nothing. _Ex nihilo nihil fit_. This is the fundamental thought of Parmenides. Moreover, we cannot say of Being that it was, that it is, that it will be. There is for it no past, no present, and no future. It is rather eternally and timelessly present. It is undivided and indivisible. For anything to be divided {45} it must be divided by something other than itself. But there is nothing other than Being; there is no not-being. Therefore there is nothing by which Being can be divided. Hence it is indivisible. It is unmoved and undisturbed, for motion and disturbance are forms of becoming, and all becoming is excluded from Being. It is absolutely self-identical. It does not arise from anything other than itself. It does not pa.s.s into anything other than itself. It has its whole being in itself. It does not depend upon anything else for its being and reality. It does not pa.s.s over into otherness; it remains, steadfast, and abiding in itself. Of positive character Being has nothing. Its sole character is simply its being. It cannot be said that it is this or that; it cannot be said that it has this or that quality, that it is here or there, then or now. It simply _is_. Its only quality is, so to speak, "isness."

But in Parmenides there emerges for the first time a distinction of fundamental importance in philosophy, the distinction between Sense and Reason. The world of falsity and appearance, of becoming, of not-being, this is, says Parmenides, the world which is presented to us by the senses. True and veritable Being is known to us only by reason, by thought. The senses therefore, are, for Parmenides, the sources of all illusion and error. Truth lies only in reason. This is exceedingly important, because this, _that truth lies in reason and not in the world of sense_, is the fundamental position of idealism.

The doctrine of Being, just described, occupies the first part of the poem of Parmenides. The second part is the way of false opinion. But whether Parmenides is here simply giving an account of the false philosophies {46} of his day, (and in doing this there does not seem much point,) or whether he was, with total inconsistency, attempting, in a cosmological theory of his own, to explain the origin of that world of appearance and illusion, whose very being he has, in the first part of the poem, denied--this does not seem to be clear. The theory here propounded, at any rate, is that the sense-world is composed of the two opposites, the hot and the cold, or light and darkness. The more hot there is, the more life, the more reality; the more cold, the more unreality and death.

What position, now, are we to a.s.sign to Parmenides in philosophy? How are we to characterize his system? Such writers as Hegel, Erdmann, and Schwegler, have always interpreted his philosophy in an idealistic sense. Professor Burnet, however, takes the opposite view. To quote his own words: "Parmenides is not, as some have said, the father of idealism. On the contrary, all materialism depends upon his view."

[Footnote 5] Now if we cannot say whether Parmenides was a materialist or an idealist, we cannot be said to understand much about his philosophy. The question is therefore of cardinal importance. Let us see, in the first place, upon what grounds the materialistic interpretation of Parmenides is based. It is based upon a fact which I have so far not mentioned, leaving it for explanation at this moment.

Parmenides said that Being, which is for him the ultimate reality, occupies s.p.a.ce, is finite, and is spherical or globe-shaped. Now that which occupies s.p.a.ce, and has shape, is matter. The ultimate reality of things, therefore, is conceived by Parmenides as material, and this, of course, is the {47} cardinal thesis of materialism. This interpretation of Parmenides is further emphasized in the disagreement between himself and Melissus, as to whether Being is finite or infinite. Melissus was a younger adherent of the Eleatic School, whose chief interest lies in his views on this question. His philosophical position in general is the same as that of Parmenides. But on this point they differed. Parmenides a.s.serted that Being is globe-shaped, and therefore finite. Now it was an essential part of the doctrine of Parmenides that empty s.p.a.ce is non-existent. Empty s.p.a.ce is an existent non-existence. This is self-contradictory, and for Parmenides, therefore, empty s.p.a.ce is simply not-being. There are, for example, no interstices, or empty s.p.a.ces between the particles of matter. Being is "the full," that is, full s.p.a.ce with no mixture of empty s.p.a.ce in it. Now Melissus agreed with Parmenides that there is no such thing as empty s.p.a.ce; and he pointed out, that if Being is globe-shaped, it must be bounded on the outside by empty s.p.a.ce. And as this is impossible, it cannot be true that Being is globe-shaped, or finite, but must, on the contrary, extend illimitably through s.p.a.ce.

This makes it quite clear that Parmenides, Melissus, and the Eleatics generally, did regard Being as, in some sense, material.

[Footnote 5: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap. iv. -- 89.]

Now, however, let us turn to the other side of the picture. What ground is there for regarding Parmenides as an idealist? In the first place, we may say that his ultimate principle, Being, whatever he may have thought of it, is not in fact material, but is essentially an abstract thought, a concept. Being is not here, it is not there. It is not in any place or time. It is not to be found by the senses. It is to be found only in reason. {48} We form the idea of Being by the process of abstraction. For example, we see this desk. Our entire knowledge of the desk consists in our knowledge of its qualities. It is square, brown, hard, odourless, etc. Now suppose we successively strip off these qualities in thought--its colour, its size, its shape.

We shall ultimately be left with nothing at all except its mere being.

We can no longer say of it that it is hard, square, etc. We can only say "it is." As Parmenides said, Being is not divisible, movable; it is not here nor there, then nor now. It simply "is." This is the Eleatic notion of Being, and it is a pure concept. It may be compared to such an idea as "whiteness." We cannot see "whiteness." We see white things, but not "whiteness" itself. What, then, is "whiteness"?

It is a concept, that is to say, not a particular thing, but a general idea, which we form by abstraction, by considering the quality which all white things have in common, and neglecting the qualities in which they differ. Just so, if we consider the common character of all objects in the universe, and neglect their differences, we shall find that what they all have in common is simply "being." Being then is a general idea, or concept. It is a thought, and not a thing.

Parmenides, therefore, actually placed the absolute reality of things in an idea, in a thought, though he may have conceived it in a material and sensuous way. Now the cardinal thesis of idealism is precisely this, that the absolute reality, of which the world is a manifestation, consists in thought, in concepts. Parmenides, on this view, was an idealist.

Moreover, Parmenides has clearly made the distinction between sense and reason. True Being is not known to {49} the senses, but only to reason, and this distinction is an essential feature of all idealism.

Materialism is precisely the view that reality is to be found in the world of sense. But the proposition of Parmenides is the exact opposite of this, namely, that reality is to be found only in reason.

Again, there begins to appear for the first time in Parmenides the distinction between reality and appearance. Parmenides, of course, would not have used these terms, which have been adopted in modern times. But the thought which they express is unmistakably there. This outward world, the world of sense, he proclaims to be illusion and appearance. Reality is something which lies behind, and is invisible to the senses. Now the very essence of materialism is that this material world, this world of sense, is the real world. Idealism is the doctrine that the sense-world is an appearance. How then can Parmenides be called a materialist?

How are we to reconcile these two conflicting views of Parmenides? I think the truth is that these two contradictories lie side by side in Parmenides unreconciled, and still mutually contradicting each other.

Parmenides himself did not see the contradiction. If we emphasize the one side, then Parmenides was a materialist. If we emphasize the other side, then he is to be interpreted as an idealist. In point of fact, in the history of Greek philosophy, both these sides of Parmenides were successively emphasized. He became the father both of materialism and of idealism. His immediate successors, Empedocles and Democritus, seized upon the materialistic aspect of his thought, and developed it.

The essential thought of Parmenides was that Being cannot arise from not-being, and that Being neither {50} arises nor pa.s.ses away. If we apply this idea to matter we get what in modern times is called the doctrine of the "indestructibility of matter." Matter has no beginning and no end. The apparent arising and pa.s.sing away of things is simply the aggregation and separation of particles of matter which, in themselves, are indestructible. This is precisely the position of Democritus. And his doctrine, therefore, is a materialistic rendering of the main thought of Parmenides that Being cannot arise from not-being or pa.s.s into not-being.

It was not till the time of Plato that the idealistic aspect of the Parmenidean doctrine was developed. It was the genius of Plato which seized upon the germs of idealism in Parmenides and developed them.

Plato was deeply influenced by Parmenides. His main doctrine was that the reality of the world is to be found in thought, in concepts, in what is called "the Idea." And he identified the Idea with the Being of Parmenides.

But still, it may be asked, which is the true view of Parmenides?

Which is the historical Parmenides? Was not Plato in interpreting him idealistically reading his own thought into Parmenides? Are not we, if we interpret him as an idealist, reading into him later ideas? In one sense this is perfectly true. It is clear from what Parmenides himself said that he regarded the ultimate reality of things as material. It would be a complete mistake to attribute to him a fully developed and consistent system of idealism. If you had told Parmenides that he was an idealist, he would not have understood you. The distinction between materialism and idealism was not then developed. If you had told him, moreover, that Being is a concept, he would not have understood {51} you, because the theory of concepts was not developed until the time of Socrates and Plato. Now it is the function of historical criticism to insist upon this, to see that later thought is not attributed to Parmenides. But if this is the function of historical scholarship, it is equally the function of philosophic insight to seize upon the germs of a higher thought amid the confused thinking of Parmenides, to see what he was groping for, to see clearly what he saw only vaguely and dimly, to make explicit what in him was merely implicit, to exhibit the true inwardness of his teaching, to separate what is valuable and essential in it from what is worthless and accidental. And I say that in this sense the true and essential meaning of Parmenides is his idealism. I said in the first chapter that philosophy is the movement from sensuous to non-sensuous thought. I said that it is only with the utmost difficulty that this movement occurs. And I said that even the greatest philosophers have sometimes failed herein. In Parmenides we have the first example of this. He began by propounding the truth that Being is the essential reality, and Being, as we saw, is a concept.

But Parmenides was a pioneer. He trod upon unbroken ground. He had not behind him, as we have, a long line of idealistic thinkers to guide him. So he could not maintain this first non-sensuous thought. He could not resist the temptation to frame for himself a mental image, a picture, of Being. Now all mental images and pictures are framed out of materials supplied to us by the senses. Hence it comes about that Parmenides pictured Being as a globe-shaped something occupying s.p.a.ce.

But this is not the truth of Parmenides. This is simply his failure to realise {52} and understand his own principle, and to think his own thought. It is true that his immediate successors, Empedocles and Democritus, seized upon this, and built their philosophies upon it.

But in doing so they were building upon the darkness of Parmenides, upon his dimness of vision, upon his inability to grapple with his own idea. It was Plato who built upon the light of Parmenides.

Zeno

The third and last important thinker of the Eleatic School is Zeno who, like Parmenides, was a man of Elea. His birth is placed about 489 B.C. He composed a prose treatise in which he developed his philosophy. Zeno's contribution to Eleaticism is, in a sense, entirely negative. He did not add anything positive to the teachings of Parmenides. He supports Parmenides in the doctrine of Being. But it is not the conclusions of Zeno that are novel, it is rather the reasons which he gave for them. In attempting to support the Parmenidean doctrine from a new point of view he developed certain ideas about the ultimate character of s.p.a.ce and time which have since been of the utmost importance in philosophy. Parmenides had taught that the world of sense is illusory and false. The essentials of that world are two-- multiplicity and change. True Being is absolutely one; there is in it no plurality or multiplicity. Being, moreover, is absolutely static and unchangeable. There is in it no motion. Multiplicity and motion are the two characteristics of the false world of sense. Against multiplicity and motion, therefore, Zeno directed his {53} arguments, and attempted indirectly to support the conclusions of Parmenides by showing that multiplicity and motion are impossible. He attempted to force multiplicity and motion to refute themselves by showing that, if we a.s.sume them as real, contradictory propositions follow from that a.s.sumption. Two propositions which contradict each other cannot both be true. Therefore the a.s.sumptions from which both follow, namely, multiplicity and motion, cannot be real things.

_Zeno's arguments against multiplicity_.

(1) If the many is, it must be both infinitely small and infinitely large. The many must be infinitely small. For it is composed of units.

This is what we mean by saying that it is many. It is many parts or units. These units must be indivisible. For if they are further divisible, then they are not units. Since they are indivisible they can have no magnitude, for that which has magnitude is divisible. The many, therefore, is composed of units which have no magnitude. But if none of the parts of the many have magnitude, the many as a whole has none. Therefore, the many is infinitely small. But the many must also be infinitely large. For the many has magnitude, and as such, is divisible into parts. These parts still have magnitude, and are therefore further divisible. However far we proceed with the division the parts still have magnitude and are still divisible. Hence the many is divisible _ad infinitum_. It must therefore be composed of an infinite number of parts, each having magnitude. But the smallest magnitude, multiplied by infinity, becomes an infinite magnitude.

Therefore the many is infinitely large. (2) The {54} many must be, in number, both limited and unlimited. It must be limited because it is just as many as it is, no more, no less. It is, therefore, a definite number. But a definite number is a finite or limited number. But the many must be also unlimited in number. For it is infinitely divisible, or composed of an infinite number of parts.

_Zeno's arguments against motion_.

(1) In order to travel a distance, a body must first travel half the distance. There remains half left for it still to travel. It must then travel half the remaining distance. There is still a remainder. This progress proceeds infinitely, but there is always a remainder untravelled. Therefore, it is impossible for a body to travel from one point to another. It can never arrive. (2) Achilles and the tortoise run a race. If the tortoise is given a start, Achilles can never catch it up. For, in the first place, he must run to the point from which the tortoise started. When he gets there, the tortoise will have gone to a point further on. Achilles must then run to that point, and finds then that the tortoise has reached a third point. This will go on for ever, the distance between them continually diminishing, but never being wholly wiped out. Achilles will never catch up the tortoise. (3) This is the story of the flying arrow. An object cannot be in two places at the same time. Therefore, at any particular moment in its flight the arrow is in one place and not in two. But to be in one place is to be at rest. Therefore in each and every moment of its flight it is at rest. It is thus at rest throughout. Motion is impossible.

{55}

This type of argument is, in modern times, called "antinomy." An antinomy is a proof that, since two contradictory propositions equally follow from a given a.s.sumption, that a.s.sumption must be false. Zeno is also called by Aristotle the inventor of dialectic. Dialectic originally meant simply discussion, but it has come to be a technical term in philosophy, and is used for that type of reasoning which seeks to develop the truth by making the false refute and contradict itself.

The conception of dialectic is especially important in Zeno, Plato, Kant, and Hegel.

All the arguments which Zeno uses against multiplicity and motion are in reality merely variations of one argument. That argument is as follows. It applies equally to s.p.a.ce, to time, or to anything which can be quant.i.tatively measured. For simplicity we will consider it only in its spatial significance. Any quant.i.ty of s.p.a.ce, say the s.p.a.ce enclosed within a circle, must either be composed of ultimate indivisible units, or it must be divisible _ad infinitum_. If it is composed of indivisible units, these must have magnitude, and we are faced with the contradiction of a magnitude which cannot be divided.

If it is divisible _ad infinitum_, we are faced with the contradiction of supposing that an infinite number of parts can be added up and make a finite sum-total. It is thus a great mistake to suppose that Zeno's stories of Achilles and the tortoise, and of the flying arrow, are merely childish puzzles. On the contrary, Zeno was the first, by means of these stories, to bring to light the essential contradictions which lie in our ideas of s.p.a.ce and time, and thus to set an important problem for all subsequent philosophy.

{56}

All Zeno's arguments are based upon the one argument described above, which may be called the antinomy of infinite divisibility. For example, the story of the flying arrow. At any moment of its flight, says Zeno, it must be in one place, because it cannot be in two places at the same moment. This depends upon the view of time as being infinitely divisible. It is only in an infinitesimal moment, an absolute moment having no duration, that the arrow is at rest. This, however, is not the only antinomy which we find in our conceptions of s.p.a.ce and time. Every mathematician is acquainted with the contradictions immanent in our ideas of infinity. For example, the familiar proposition that parallel straight lines meet at infinity, is a contradiction. Again, a decreasing geometrical progression can be added up to infinity, the infinite number of its terms adding up in the sum-total to a finite number. The idea of infinite s.p.a.ce itself is a contradiction. You can say of it exactly what Zeno said of the many.

There must be in existence as much s.p.a.ce as there is, no more. But this means that there must be a definite and limited amount of s.p.a.ce.

Therefore s.p.a.ce is finite. On the other hand, it is impossible to conceive a limit to s.p.a.ce. Beyond the limit there must be more s.p.a.ce.

Therefore s.p.a.ce is infinite. Zeno himself gave expression to this antinomy in the form of an argument which I have not so far mentioned.

He said that everything which exists is in s.p.a.ce. s.p.a.ce itself exists, therefore s.p.a.ce must be in s.p.a.ce. That s.p.a.ce must be in another s.p.a.ce and so _ad infinitum_. This of course is merely a quaint way of saying that to conceive a limit to s.p.a.ce is impossible.

But to return to the antinomy of infinite divisibility, {57} on which most of Zeno's arguments rest, you will perhaps expect me to say something of the different solutions which have been offered. In the first place, we must not forget Zeno's own solution. He did not propound this contradiction for its own sake, but to support the thesis of Parmenides. His solution is that as multiplicity and motion contain these contradictions, therefore multiplicity and motion cannot be real. Therefore, there is, as Parmenides said, only one Being, with no multiplicity in it, and excludent of all motion and becoming. The solution given by Kant in modern times is essentially similar.

According to Kant, these contradictions are immanent in our conceptions of s.p.a.ce and time, and since time and s.p.a.ce involve these contradictions it follows that they are not real beings, but appearances, mere phenomena. s.p.a.ce and time do not belong to things as they are in themselves, but rather to our way of looking at things.

They are forms of our perception. It is our minds which impose s.p.a.ce and time upon objects, and not objects which impose s.p.a.ce and time upon our minds. Further, Kant drew from these contradictions the conclusion that to comprehend the infinite is beyond the capacity of human reason. He attempted to show that, wherever we try to think the infinite, whether the infinitely large or the infinitely small, we fall into irreconcilable contradictions. Therefore, he concluded that human faculties are incapable of apprehending infinity. As might be expected, many thinkers have attempted to solve the problem by denying one or other side of the contradiction, by saying that one or other side does not follow from the premises, that one is true and the other false. David Hume, for example, {58} denied the infinite divisibility of s.p.a.ce and time, and declared that they are composed of indivisible units having magnitude. But the difficulty that it is impossible to conceive of units having magnitude which are yet indivisible is not satisfactorily explained by Hume. And in general, it seems that any solution which is to be satisfactory must somehow make room for both sides of the contradiction. It will not do to deny one side or the other, to say that one is false and the other true. A true solution is only possible by rising above the level of the two antagonistic principles and taking them both up to the level of a higher conception, in which both opposites are reconciled.

This was the procedure followed by Hegel in his solution of the problem. Unfortunately his solution cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of his general philosophical principles, on which it wholly depends. I will, however, try to make it as plain as possible.

In the first place, Hegel did not go out of his way to solve these antinomies. They appear as mere incidents in the development of his thought. He did not regard them as isolated cases of contradiction which occur in thought, as exceptions to a general rule, which therefore need special explanation. On the contrary, he regarded them, not as exceptions to, but as examples of, the essential character of reason. All thought, all reason, for Hegel, contains immanent contradictions which it first posits and then reconciles in a higher unity, and this particular contradiction of infinite divisibility is reconciled in the higher notion of quant.i.ty. The notion of quant.i.ty contains two factors, namely the one and the many. Quant.i.ty means precisely a many in {59} one, or a one in many. If, for example, we consider a quant.i.ty of anything, say a heap of wheat, this is, in the first place, one; it is one whole. Secondly, it is many; for it is composed of many parts. As one it is continuous; as many it is discrete. Now the true notion of quant.i.ty is not one, apart from many, nor many apart from one. It is the synthesis of both. It is a many _in_ one. The antinomy we are considering arises from considering one side of the truth in a false abstraction from the other. To conceive unity as not being in itself multiplicity, or multiplicity as not being unity, is a false abstraction. The thought of the one involves the thought of the many, and the thought of the many involves the thought of the one. You cannot have a many without a one, any more than you can have one end of a stick without the other. Now, if we consider anything which is quant.i.tatively measured, such as a straight line, we may consider it, in the first place, as one. In that case it is a continuous indivisible unit. Next we may regard it as many, in which case it falls into parts. Now each of these parts may again be regarded as one, and as such is an indivisible unit; and again each part may be regarded as many, in which case it falls into further parts; and this alternating process may go on for ever. This is the view of the matter which gives rise to the contradictions we have been considering. But it is a false view. It involves the false abstraction of first regarding the many as something that has reality apart from the one, and then regarding the one as something that has reality apart from the many. If you persist in saying that the line is simply one and not many, then there arises the theory of indivisible units.

If you {60} persist in saying it is simply many and not one, then it is divisible _ad infinitum_. But the truth is that it is neither simply many nor simply one; it is a many in one, that is, it is a _quant.i.ty_.

Both sides of the contradiction are, therefore, in one sense true, for each is a factor of the truth. But both sides are also false, if and in so far as, each sets itself up as the whole truth.