A Protocol Paper in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy
Anaxagoras
Empedocles
What is change? Change, according to
Webster’s Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus, is to make different, to alter,
to transform or to modify. Changes exist everywhere. Even in the letters of
this paper, there are changes. It begun from a simple desktop, and when I
clicked the MSWord, MSWord appeared, so another change occurred. Then, there
is a white thing in the monitor where I can put the words I want to express.
Each time I press a letter or space or any key on my keyboard, there are corresponding
actions that happen, and these actions are also the changes. So, this paper intends
to present and to critic Empedocles’ and Anaxagoras’ phusis or the basic stuff and
thoughts, and to give my idea as well.
Empedocles
Let’s begin with Empedocles.
Empedocles is a citizen of Acragas or Agrigentum in Sicily, and he came from an
aristocratic family. He opposed tyranny and refused the crown of his native town.
He is not only a philosopher, but he is also a religious teacher and a
magician. He claimed to be a healer of the sick, and even someone who recalled
the dead to life. He was a believer of transmigration of the soul, and the
manner of his death was a certain one. But there were stories that said that
Empedocles jumped on the crater of Mt. Etna to prove his godliness.
If
the Thales believed that being is water, and for Heraclitus is fire, and for
Anaximenes is air, for Empedocles, it is the four elements itself: earth,
water, fire and air. Why these four? Because he thought that earth cannot
become water, water cannot become fire, fire cannot become air, and air cannot
become earth. So, for him, the four are unique. Not only unique, but, he also
believed that the four kinds of matter are unchangeable and they are the
ultimate particles that create the concrete objects of the world by their
cooperation with each other.
For
Empedocles, however, the four elements never change; they remain always the
same, and it is through their different combinations that other beings are
brought into existence, which means that they the four elements are capable
only of two things: uniting and separating itself from other elements. (Yarza,
1994) But the question is how can they unite and separate with each other? The
elements are combined through love and separated through hatred or discord.
(Gaarder, 1995) Now we know that there are processes involved between the four
elements: the separation or discord, and the uniting or love. Love and Hate are
material and physical forces that attracts and separate the elements or
particles, respectively. Of course, there is always an imbalance because the
two forces can never go at the same time. So Empedocles identified four stages:
(Stumpf, 2008, p. 19-20)
I.
Love
is present and Hate is totally absent
II.
Hate
starts to invade things but there is still more love present
III.
Hate
predominate and particles begin to separate
IV.
Hate
is present
Then, the elements are now ready again
to begin a new cycle.
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras
was born in Clazomenae, near Miletus, around the year 500 B.C. He was perhaps
the first one to transfer the center of philosophy to Athens, for he remained
in that city teaching for thirty years, until a charge of impiety forced him to
transfer to Lampsacus, where he died around the year 428.
For Anaxagoras, nature is built up of
infinite number of minute particles which are invisible to the naked eye
(Sophie’s World, 1995, p.33) and this was the “seed” or the homeomeries, which
Aristotle defined as the things that remain quantitatively the same even if
they are divided into smaller and smaller parts. (Yarza, 1994) Anaxagoras
believed that the four qualitatively unchanged elements cannot account for the infinite
variety and differentiation of the world of experience. He therefore held that
there is “a portion of everything in everything”. Everything must come from
something that already exists. (Yarza, 1994, p. 51)
In
the beginning, according to Anaxagoras, the universe was an infinite mass
containing the homeomeries of all things. The power or force that is
responsible for the forming of things out of the first mass is the Nous or Mind
or Intelligence. Mind is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by itself.(Stumpf,
2008, p. 21-22)
Change
exists or not?
For
Empedocles and Anaxagoras, they said that their phusis never change or
unchangeable. But the question is “Is there something in this world that does
not change?” Of course there is nothing because everything in this world
changes. I have several examples to prove that everything really changes.
The
first one is in chemistry. For example, we have two elements H2 and
O2. We have the number two subscripted to Hydrogen and Oxygen
because the both of them are binary elements. If we bond the two, we can create
water. But we all know that water has its chemical formula H20. The
question is if the chemical equation is H2 + O2 => H2O,
what happened to one of the elements? Now it is proven that we cannot have an unchangeable
being.
Next
is human being. We know the saying that “people changes”. People change from a
negative attitude to a positive attitude, or vice versa. By the term itself, a
conversion, there is already a change in him. Another for human beings, they
grow tall, they gain weight, and they increase in age, so everything changes.
Next
is in cooking. Before cooking, we buy the ingredients, prepare them, cut them
and boil the meat to make it soft. Even in the boiling itself, the water
temperature increases so there’s change. The meat from hard became soft, so
there’s change. And even when we mix the ingredients together, the color
changes, the smell changes, and the temperature changes. So, again, everything
changes.
Another
example is our actions. As we know, action words are verbs, and we all know
that verb has three tenses: the past tense, present tense and future tense. The
past tells about the actions that already happened, the present tells about the
actions that are continuously happening, and the future tense tells about the
actions that are going to be done. When we say past to present and present to
future, there is a transition of time and this transition means that there is a
change or there are changes occurring. So everything changes.
And
for my last example, I would like to use the four stages presented by Empedocles.
We know that each stage differ from each other, and we also know that there is
a transition from the first stage up to the second, to the third, to the
fourth, and back to the first. And again, by these transitions, we can say
that, there is change.
Therefore,
change exists and it does not happen to nothing in this world.
Man
For
Empedocles, the four elements are his phusis, and for Anaxagoras is the mind.
So I asked myself, can I think of a being that has the phusis of the two
philosophers in one. What came to my mind is man. Man is composed of Empedocles’
phusis, the earth, fire, water and air, and of Anaxagoras, the mind. Where can
we find the earth, fire, water and air in man? The earth is man’s flesh because
God made man from a soil and He breathed it through His nostrils, and the
breath is the air. Fire is man’s heat and water is one of man’s necessities to
live. Man cannot live without his material aspect as well as his non-material
aspect, his mind. Through the mind, man becomes different to other beings
because through the mind, man becomes rational. So man cannot live without the
two phusis.
Bibliography
Webster’s
Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus
History
of Ancient Philosophy
by Ignatius Yarza
Introduction
to Philosophy by
Christine Carmela Ramos
Socrates
to Sartre and Beyond
by Samuel Enoch Stumpf and James Fieser
Sophie’s
World by Jostein
Gaarder
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