Heraclitean Pre Socratic Essay Questions
Alex Malecki
PHIL 221
Midterm Exam
Question 1: The Milesian Pre-Socratics were among the first philosophers to construct naturalistic accounts of the universe as a single, unified, self-ordering system that did not require the intervention of deities, or anything else outside the natural world, to call it into existence. The three philosophers associated with this tradition are Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. All three have a similar conception of the universe, at least in the sense that each of them believes that the universe is made of a particular fundamental material, and after a process of differentiation, gives rise to the world (Class notes: 01/27/15).
For Thales everything in the universe came from water, with water being capable …show more content…
A number of passages within the poem explain quite eloquently the Heraclitean conception of fire. The first line of the poem reads, “CLOUD-PUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillows flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-built thoroughfare…” and is indicative of Heraclitus’ conception of fire in that it is expressing the birth of some mighty flame, riding along a road made of air; for it is oxygen that feeds a flame into a persisting existence, and just as fire is the principal cause of the universe, the “thunderbolt [steering] all things”. The next passage of the poem that references Heraclitus’ conception of fire goes, “Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare…” making use of the fragment “fire is want and satiety”. For Heraclitus fire represents both all that is, and all that will never be. Fire has the capacity to both give birth, and to destroy. The above passage in the poem reflects this by referencing the light and warmth offered by the flames of a fire, something that can easily become out of control, dangerous, destructive if it wrestles its ropes of flame away from human …show more content…
However, Democritus is far more reliant on it than Heraclitus. For Democritus sense perception is the primary method of understanding the world. Though he does occasionally account for the way that sense can be distorted he attributes such distortion to other material causes, whether they be distortion by eidola colliding into other eidola, or through a person’s illness causing certain senses to be diminished or altered in such a way as to change a previously experienced sensation into something quite different like when a person with a cold cannot taste his or her
PHIL 221
Midterm Exam
Question 1: The Milesian Pre-Socratics were among the first philosophers to construct naturalistic accounts of the universe as a single, unified, self-ordering system that did not require the intervention of deities, or anything else outside the natural world, to call it into existence. The three philosophers associated with this tradition are Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes. All three have a similar conception of the universe, at least in the sense that each of them believes that the universe is made of a particular fundamental material, and after a process of differentiation, gives rise to the world (Class notes: 01/27/15).
For Thales everything in the universe came from water, with water being capable …show more content…
A number of passages within the poem explain quite eloquently the Heraclitean conception of fire. The first line of the poem reads, “CLOUD-PUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillows flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-built thoroughfare…” and is indicative of Heraclitus’ conception of fire in that it is expressing the birth of some mighty flame, riding along a road made of air; for it is oxygen that feeds a flame into a persisting existence, and just as fire is the principal cause of the universe, the “thunderbolt [steering] all things”. The next passage of the poem that references Heraclitus’ conception of fire goes, “Delightfully the bright wind boisterous ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare…” making use of the fragment “fire is want and satiety”. For Heraclitus fire represents both all that is, and all that will never be. Fire has the capacity to both give birth, and to destroy. The above passage in the poem reflects this by referencing the light and warmth offered by the flames of a fire, something that can easily become out of control, dangerous, destructive if it wrestles its ropes of flame away from human …show more content…
However, Democritus is far more reliant on it than Heraclitus. For Democritus sense perception is the primary method of understanding the world. Though he does occasionally account for the way that sense can be distorted he attributes such distortion to other material causes, whether they be distortion by eidola colliding into other eidola, or through a person’s illness causing certain senses to be diminished or altered in such a way as to change a previously experienced sensation into something quite different like when a person with a cold cannot taste his or her