Category Archives: presocratics

Summary of The Philosphy of Epicurus

presocratics

Epicurus

© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission)
https://darrellarnold.com/2019/08/13/epicurean-hedonism/

Both Ancient India and Ancient Rome knew various types of hedonists. In India, Carvaka proposed that people are and should be motivated by their desire for pleasure. Proponents of Carvaka did recognize that pleasure is often accompanied by pain. However, as cynics about knowledge and the future, they did not develop a system encouraging individuals to forgo short-term pleasure for greater long-term pleasure Continue reading Summary of The Philosphy of Epicurus →

Summary: The Philosophy of Protagoras

presocratics

Image result for PROTAGORASBust of Protagoras

© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission)
https://darrellarnold.com/2019/08/15/protagoras/

Protagoras, who in antiquity was often thought to be an atheist, is often considered the most important of the sophists. The argument passed down from him on our inability to know of the existence or the nature of the gods is brief but powerful: Continue reading Summary: The Philosophy of Protagoras →

The Presocratics – Pythagoras

presocratics

Marble bust of a man with a long, pointed beard, wearing a tainia, a kind of ancient Greek headcovering in this case resembling a turban. The face is somewhat gaunt and has prominent, but thin, eyebrows, which seem halfway fixed into a scowl. The ends of his mustache are long a trail halfway down the length of his beard to about where the bottom of his chin would be if we could see it. None of the hair on his head is visible, since it is completely covered by the tainia.Bust of Pythagoras of Samos in the Capitoline Museums, Rome.

© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission)
https://darrellarnold.com/2018/09/18/presocratics/

Pythagoras was among the most celebrated philosophers of the Antique period. He supposedly was “the first to bring to the Greeks philosophy in general”  and was the first to use the term ‘philosophy’ and to call himself a ‘philosopher.” Continue reading The Presocratics – Pythagoras →

The Presocratics – The One and the Many

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Part of "School of Athens" by Raphael (Raffaelo Sanzio, 1483-1520)

© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission)
https://darrellarnold.com/2018/09/18/presocratics/

One of the earliest disputes of the Greek naturalists and Eleatics concerned the question of the one and the many — that is was the substratum of the natural world or reality itself one substance or many? Continue reading The Presocratics – The One and the Many →

The Presocratics – Parmenides and Zeno

presocratics

Parmenides.jpgBust of Parmenides

© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission)
https://darrellarnold.com/2018/09/18/presocratics/

Hans Georg Gadamer, an important 20th century Germany hermeneutical philosopher, emphasizes … the importance of Parmenides and the Eleatics for Plato’s later theory of the forms. Like Plato … Parmenides, as well as Zeno and other Eleatics, dismisses sense experience as a source of truth. Continue reading The Presocratics – Parmenides and Zeno →