People always try to understand nature. By understanding nature more and discovering new things, the size of the world increases. However, knowledge of nature is always incomplete, there is always a gap. At past, people tried to explain this gap with witchcraft, nowadays we claim everything cannot explain due to lack of technology. History of science is significant because it brings to understand how the world has changed. This period starts at preliterate societies until today. In this essay, ancient philosophy and some important notions about nature will be handled.
The early history of observation and innovation were begun in Egypt and Mesopotamia in 3500-3000 BC. First, written evidence has occurred in this era. Both areas were very important and hosted a very crucial state during this period. Egyptian and Babylonian people’s discovery was based on practical use. More specifically rivers were the major propellant power; the Nile for Egypt, Euphrates, and Tigris for Mesopotamia. For example, Egyptians discovered lunar calendar and nearly length of a year (365 days) because the Nile overflows according to movement of the moon. Flood and irrigation problems led to some mathematical improvement in Egypt. Nature has an impact on their development; the other field of impact was on their creation idea. Rivers were their source of lives, so water shaped notions. For instance their creation ideas, In Babylon creation myth, Enuma Elish, Apsu is the god of fresh water and Tiamat is the god of salt water; in Egyptian creation myth, water also has a very important place.
After Egyptians and Babylonians, there is another important period for natural philosophy called Pre-Socratic (Physikoi) in 300 BC. In Miletus, there were three significant people; Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes. Pre- Socratic term started with them. However, none of their works is known to survive. They have just known from quotations which were quoted from them by posterior people. Because of that, there is a lack of information about them. Generally, it can be said that they were monist, so they tried to explain the universe with one substance. Despite them, Pythagoras claimed another thing. He believed numbers were very crucial to understand the universe. Therefore, he and his follower which is called Pythagoreans focused on mathematics. Another school is the Eleatic school which was founded by Parmenides. His most interesting idea is that change is impossible. His follower Zeno, made up some paradox to show motion is absurd. Empedocles and Democritus were pluralists. Basically, Empedocles believed that there are four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. Love and Strife cause motion. Democritus claimed that everything is formed by atoms, but there is always space (void), void makes a motion is possible.
With Socrates, Physikoi had ended. In contrast with Physikoi, he has abandoned physics, interested in moral philosophy. Socrates was the teacher of Plato. But between them, there were some differences. Plato was a writer, not like Socrates. And his dialogues were called “Platonic Dialogue”, Socrates is the one of the characters in this dialogue. The most well-known motto of Socrates is “All I know I know nothing.” This phrase was told against to Sophist. They claimed that “we know everything, therefore we know anything.” Socrates criticized Sophist because they taught philosophy with money. In spite of Socrates’ criticism, after sophist, people have started to think about whether or not virtue can be learned.
Plato is known as the founder of idealism. Theory of idea is the main point of his notions. He used cave allegory to explain. According to text, the mission of human is getting out of the chain and finding the real and stop looking shadows anymore. Sense is the tools but the knowledge given by sense cannot be always true. However, this process is very painful. In real life, everything is a shadow of an idea. People had known the idea before coming to the world. From heaven to the world, there is Leathe River. If a person passes the river, forgets everything. In the world, he should recollect this information by his own experience. In 367 BC, Aristotle traveled to Athens to study with Plato. He interested a different kind of field and he separated his works into four groups. According to Aristotle, the universe has two parts: the Sublunar world and the Supralunar world. The Supralunar world is made by aether and there is no motion. In the Sublunar world, a motion is possible and has four stages. For Aristotle, there must be something to move everything except itself. This is the Prime Mover; it is the purpose of the entire universe. Neo-Platonism claimed that Plato and Aristotle are in agreement, they tried to prove this idea by commenting the text of both.
To conclude, philosophy is cumulative. The oldest resources are from Egypt and Mesopotamia. After them, early Greek philosophers continued and developed information. In the beginning, the aim of thinking or researching something was understood the nature and how the universe occurred.
(From lecture notes, 13.03.2013)
Sinem Atılgan Uşaklı 