Preview

How Do the Presocratic Thinkers Grapple with Issues of Materiality and Non-Materiality in Their Respective Solutions to the Problem of the One and the Many?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
563 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Do the Presocratic Thinkers Grapple with Issues of Materiality and Non-Materiality in Their Respective Solutions to the Problem of the One and the Many?
1. HOW DO THE PRESOCRATIC THINKERS GRAPPLE WITH ISSUES OF MATERIALITY AND NON-MATERIALITY IN THEIR RESPECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM OF THE ONE AND THE MANY?

The problem of the One and the Many, that is, explaining how one basic thing can be the source of many varied things. The world contains an enormous variety of objects, some living, others inanimate; some solid, others liquid. It seems reasonable to suppose that all things come from a common source or type of stuff. Identifying that common source, though, is the challenge. This was an issue the Presocratics thinkers grappled with. The theories of the Presocratic philosophers were very daring, sometimes to the point of being bizarre. Being the first ones to venture into the uncharted territories of both philosophy and science, they explored virtually any explanation of things that seemed reasonable. They grappled with issues of the materiality and the non-materiality and their respective solutions to the problem of the One and the many. The Unlimited (the many) and the Limited (the one). All entities can be thought to result from the Unlimited being limited or determined to some definite shape. This is best thought of mathematically. Unity limits plurality and gives it determinate shape. For instance, the soul is the harmony of the body. Since each number is associated with a determinate shape, we can think of things as being numerical and of mathematics as the key to understanding the world. The materiality was given the fundamental or primary qualities, which come in two pairs of opposites, hot/cold and moist/dry, there are four elements out of which all minerals are composed, each having its own set proportion of elements and from the minerals all other corporeal entities in general are formed fire= hot+dry; air= hot+moist; earth=cold+dry and water=cold+moist. The non-materiality was the changes in the world are produced by two active forces, an attractive force (such as Love or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Ch 16 Ap Euro Notes

    • 6012 Words
    • 25 Pages

    People thought the world could be understood through simple keys to nature. The theories of Neo-Platonism, a Renaissance era school of thought based on Plato's belief that "truth lay in essential but hidden "forms"" contributed to these beliefs. Jewish cabala also contributed to this - this form of thought taught that the universe may be built around magical arrangements of numbers. Pythagoras had also thought that the world may be connected by numerical patterns in nature.…

    • 6012 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    *The Idea that everything has a tangible life form associated with it and these many spirits create the balance in the world. Some would hunt and if they found less deer than they figured that the gods were mad and that they were hiding the animals.…

    • 2110 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Materialism by definition is the thought “brain events cause mental events and some mental events cause brain events” in a measurable and quantifiable fashion. Thomas Hobbes famously stated in his book Leviathan that “I can explain all…

    • 1018 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Provide a medium-paragraph length answer to each question below (using full and complete sentences). The questions are about the textbook readings listed on the syllabus for 4/11/12 and 4/18/12.…

    • 1034 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Code Of Hammurabi Essay

    • 2635 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Early Greek philosophy attempted to explain the universe on the basis of unifying principles. P80…

    • 2635 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Jacqueline's Studies

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages

    I. Identify a particular problem that exists in the world (i.e., a behavior, event, or trend):…

    • 486 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Famous Thinker

    • 1213 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The subject of this paper will examine the specific problems or ideas both of these famous thinkers sought to solve, and the solutions they came up with for implementation. The ideas and solutions met with interference from people opposing the change, and many of the solutions were is a constant state of refinement, but their individual solutions all met the test of logic, enabling them to overcome the difficulties and opposition to resolutions.…

    • 1213 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The material cause of an object refers to what something is made from. For example a painting is made up of oil paints and canvas. Aristotle believed that this painting is as it is purely because it is oil paints and canvas; if it was made up of pastels and paper it would not be the painting that it is.…

    • 788 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe uses imagery and symbolism to create an allegory that communicates to the reader the idea that there is no escaping death, no matter what we do. This story is about a man known as Prince Prospero who represents the forces of life, fighting the good fight against death. Or at least running from death by shutting himself up in a fancy castle so he can keep throwing parties. Poe first uses imagery to describe the appearance of the Red Death; The Red Death had “scarlet stains upon the body” (Poe 456). The scarlet stains symbolizes the true appearance of the Red Death or a victim of the Red Death.…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bush Doctrine Unethical

    • 2703 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Theory, and the Golden Rule of politics, as well as the ideals of classical philosophers and the…

    • 2703 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Instead of defining physical reality and analyzing change in terms of Aristotelian substance and form and the classical four elements of earth, air, fire, and water—or the three Paracelsian elements of salt, sulfur, and mercury—corpuscularism discussed reality and change in terms of particles and their motion. Boyle believed that chemical experiments could demonstrate the truth of the corpuscularian philosophy. In this context he defined the term element in Sceptical Chymist (1661): " . . . certain primitive and simple, or perfectly unmingled bodies; which not being made of any other bodies, or of one another, are the ingredients of which all those called perfectly mixt bodies are immediately compounded, and into which they are ultimately…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Health Statistics

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Define the problem: means to forming a question regarding a topic you would like to study.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Problems do not exist in nature but in the minds of people. This can be seen from an examination of the definition of problem: problems stem from the juxtaposition of factors which results in a perplexing or enigmatic state of mind (a cognitive problem), an undesirable consequence (a psychological or value problem), or a conflict which obscures the appropriate course of action (a practical problem). Cognitions, values and practices are attributes of persons, not the objective world (whatever that is).…

    • 2740 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Uns 2030 Study Guide

    • 7207 Words
    • 29 Pages

    Materialism is the idea that everything is either made only of matter or is ultimately…

    • 7207 Words
    • 29 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    St. Thomas Aquinas Summary

    • 1880 Words
    • 8 Pages

    All things have a common origin, a common beginning. In his Quinque viæ, St. Thomas Aquinas discussed about the existence of a higher divine being in the form of five points: the unmoved mover; the first cause; the argument from contingency; the argument from degree; and the “argument from design” idea.…

    • 1880 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics