Different Views of Greek Philosophers on the Origin of Everything

What is everything made off? This is one of the biggest questions that has been around for thousands of years. Back in the time, many philosophers had tried to answer this mind-blowing question using their pure thoughts and from their experiences. Their conclusions that had been raised up are very interesting, and have had influences towards other generations and even today. Parmenides was one of the well-known natural philosophers who had also tried to answer this interesting question during the pre-Socratics time.

To be able to fully understand how Parmenides came up with his answer, we first have to know what had been influencing Parmenides’ thought. Aside from Parmenides, many philosophers such as, Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus, had also tried to answer that question, and their answers and explanations are what led to Parmenides radical view of the One, in other words, he believes that everything that we know of is made off of one thing.

First and foremost, Thales of Miletus, a natural philosopher from around 635 BC to 548 BC, he is one of the philosophers that had an impact on Parmenides radical view of the One. Back in his time, this question, what is everything made off, were not really a popular question since most of the people were still think that god exists, and that of course god created everything; there is no doubt, we shouldn’t be questioning thee god. Thales was one of the very first people who had come with a very interesting conclusion on what is everything made off? He believed that everything is made up of water; the world begins with water, and the source of everything that exists is water.

His conclusion was really different from other mythic explanations of the origin of existence from other people. He was trying to discover the unifying principle of diversity. Thales did a great job on staying away from common believes of Greek pantheon gods, and search for predictable laws in nature just like modern scientists; like stated above, back in the time, many people still think that god created everything. Thales gave out his explanations on why he believes that everything is made up of water is because everything need water to stay alive: humans, animals, plants. Without water, we will all be dead, and therefore, we are all made up of water. Although many people thought he was a crazy person because god supposed to create everything, he had made a great influence on Parmenides because he was one of the very first person that had ignored the common believes of the society, and started asking questions to those questions that were not supposed to be asked. He had set up the path for Parmenides beliefs.

Second, Anaximander is the next natural philosopher who has also influences Parmenides. Anaximander, a student of Thales, was natural philosopher during 610 BC and 546 BC, who believes that everything was made off of the Aperion which translate to a boundless or infinite, indeterminate Ream where the opposites are contained within it, and when it moves arounds, it divided out into simple substances. Everything came from Aperion, and ended in Aperion, “from what source things arise to that they return when they are destroyed,” said Anaximander. Because Anaximander was Thales student, he helped carry on some of Thales’ ideas, and beliefs throughout the time period, which also set up the path for Parmenides’ beliefs.

Third, Anaximenes is the third natural philosopher who has influences Parmenides’ beliefs. Anaximander, a student of Anaximander, was natural philosopher during 585 BC and 535 BC, believed that everything in this world came from air. His conclusion is based on Thales and Anaximander beliefs; however, he believed that Thales’s everything is made up of water theory is too basic, and Anaximander’s Aperion theory is too vague. He stated that everything came from air; the quantity of the air determines the quality of the object. Anaximenes believed one substance could change in something else by undergoing the process of rarefication and condensation. When the air is cooling off, we get an object that is very tight and thick, and when the air is heating up, we get an object that is very loose. For example, those strong solid substances such as a rock, has less air in it, that’s why they look like a very tight object, on the other hands, fire looks very loose because there is more air in fire. Anaximenes also carried over Thales and Anaximander ideas and beliefs on natural questions which once again helped set up the path for Parmenides beliefs.

Fourth, another philosopher who was one of the most influential philosophers to Parmenides, and of the classical Greek period in general is Pythagoras. Pythagoras was natural philosopher, and was a very well-known mathematician during the year of 572 BC and 500 BC. Believe it or not, Pythagorean and theorem that we all know of today came from Pythagoras. He believed that everything in this world is made off of numbers. According to him, numbers are ideas, and ideas means real. Numbers are objectively true. They are the state of being true for everyone, where we can use formal logic and/or empirical evidence to find out the truth, and true everywhere even outside of a subject’s individual bias, opinion, feeling, etc. Pythagoras believed in a two-world view, a real, perfect world, and our world, which is imperfect. He believed that the only way we can get to be in a real world is by always think of numbers all the time; no sex, no drinking, no meat, no jokes, etc. because when we do those things that were listed, our minds can get distract from thinking about numbers.

Lastly, we have Heraclitus, a natural philosopher during the year of 535 BC to 475 BC who had also influence Parmenides. Heraclitus believed that everything in this world would never stay the same. Everything is in state of constant flux, which means everything is always changing. “We can never step into the same river twice,” said Heraclitus. According to him, he believed that if we go back to the same river, the water in the river would not the same river as the river we used to step in. His conclusion was that everything is made up of fire; fire is the symbol of change of destruction and rebirth. Heraclitus beliefs had led to Parmenides opposing point of view, and had led to his radical view of the One.

Furthermore, these stated above philosophers helped carry along natural questions throughout the time. Many of them had a great influence to many generations of people including us today. One of the natural philosophers that appeared after those stated above philosophers, and had got a major impact from them was Parmenides. Parmenides was a natural philosopher back in the year of around 535 BC to 475 BC. In his radical view in philosophy, there are no separate things, everything is made of one thing.

He opposed the idea by Heraclitus that everything is made of fire, and that everything changes overtime. Instead of answering what everything made of? He came up with an answer to another natural question of himself, what must reality be like? He asserted that everything must keep in line with the principle of non-contradiction; there must be no changes nor moves, and that something can’t come from nothing; if something is in a constant change, we can never know which led to unknowability. He asserts that everything that we see that are separate things that are moving or changing, they are just an illusion, and because we all are living in a world where we use our senses to see the things, that’s why we see things that way. If we use our senses to see the world, the world will be full of faulty information about the nature of reality. To see the truth, we must depend on our mind and the power of reasoning.

To demonstrate his beliefs, he said that if we put a stick in the water, we would see that the stick is bending, and therefore, we can not trust our senses. To sum things up, Parmenides radical view of the One was that, we are all one thing, and that we don’t exist. There is no plurality of objects in the one. Nothing is changing nor moving, they are just our senses.

Imagine there is a cave. At the end of the cave, there are prisoners that are bound up and chained, and are forced their heads to just face forward at the wall at the end of the cave. Behind the prisoners, there is fire that reflex a shadow on to the wall when everything is passing by. According to Plato, there are only two light sources in this story: the sun and the fire. Between the prisoners and the fire, there is a walk way where when people pass by, the light from the fire reflexes their shadows on to the wall making the prisoners to believe that everything on the wall are real. Since day one, they can not move nor turn their heads; they do not even know that there are other things behind them, and the outside world exist, and all they know are their prisoner friends, and shadows that pass through the wall. Every time when people are passing by the fire holding up different puppets, and sometimes these puppets making different noise, they prisoners name and classify these illusions believing they’re perceiving actual entities.

One day, one of the prisoners gets released. He can not believe his eyes to think that there are others things beside shadows on the wall; he believed that nothing else is exist. He knows for sure that this is freedom, and can not ask for anything better; I’m not being chained anymore; I can scratch my head; I can walk; I can turn and look at many things. Suddenly, he is being forced to hold up a puppet, and stand by the fire. Casting the shadow on to a wall. He then realizes that shadows on the wall are not really real objects, and that they are just an illusion.

This is a big deal to him since first he thought that nothing else is exist, and now he can do more thing than sitting down and being chained up, and see more things than what was being cast on to the wall. Later on, the prisoner is brought outside of the cave for the first time. The sunlight hurts his eyes because he was used to only the light of a fire. When his eyes later adjusted to the brightness outside of the cave, he finds the new environment disorienting. When he explores around the area, he comes to find out that there are things out there that are being called “real objects.” When the light from the sun hits objects, they create shadows. He realizes that those shadows were mere reflections, and that they look exactly like what were being cast on to the wall back when he was chained, and were forced to look at the wall inside of the cave. He has discovered that light is the ultimate source of everything he has seen. Later on, he is then brought back in to the cave once again. He goes to his prisoner friends, and has a conversation with them telling them that these shadows are just an illusion, and that they are not real objects. When he expresses his discoveries, they resist to believe in what he was saying believe he is insane.

Plato introduces this example as an analogy of what it’s like to be a philosopher trying to educate others around them. The prisoners represent us; we can be ignorance in open up our minds for the new information, and will hostile to anyone who points out. In his analogy, the prisoners are in the first section of the divided line, the imagination section. In this section, we recognize the likeness of objects; however, we can not learn much, or know the truth about this likeness. When the prisoner first manages to escape from the cave, he has a hard time knowing what are really real objects; he can not tell the difference between the shadows and a real physical object. In the part, the prisoner is in the second section of the divided line, the object-public section. In this section, we face the things of this world. The prisoner inability to understand the difference of a real object and its shadow is like our inability to tell the difference between an object in the visible world and its form in the intelligible world.

When the prisoner has experienced, and has realized what is a true object, the real object, and not its shadow, the prisoner is at a third section of the divided line, the mathematical sections. In this section, we mathematically and scientifically understand that truth and knowledge are both objective concepts. Furthermore, when the prisoner sees the sun, the sun casts a light on the forms of the world. The prisoner equates the fact that all of these objects are products of the light that illuminates them just like the objects in the visible world are products of the forms that illuminate them. The prisoner is experiencing in the fourth section of the divided line, the forms section. In this section, we experience the higher forms, and for this reason, we see what is real.