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Essay / The philosophy of Western civilization
The philosophy of Western civilization is said to have originated in ancient Greece. Here, these were three of the world's best-known thinkers; Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Unfortunately, this is not where we will begin our study. Although Socrates was perhaps one of the world's greatest thinkers, his philosophy was based on the men who came before him. The philosophical fertility present in ancient Greece was more than abundant by the time the big three appeared. This early era is often called pre-Socratic philosophy, which literally means the philosophy before Socrates. It is here that more than a hundred philosophers have tried to make a name for themselves. In this article we will look at two of them; Anaximander and Pythagoras. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get an Original EssayTo further immerse us in the culture of the time, it would behoove me to explain that pre-Socratic philosophers tended to focus on three main questions. The first of the three is the “one and many” mentality, meaning that a single thing can explain multiple phenomena. In class, we established that this type of thinking can be summed up as deductive or inductive reasoning. Or, in simple terms, bringing the general to the specific, or drawing on the specific to create a general overview of what is happening around us. The second question is that of “change and consistency.” “There is a wide variety of constantly changing objects around us. This can include water, trees, rocks, your dog and even yourself. But the problem is to ask where and why we continue to change. What power is causing this and what is its ultimate purpose in doing so? Also, how can things change while still maintaining their original identity. A withered tree is still a tree and a rock eroded by rain is still a rock. The second half of this problem is consistency. If most things around us, even ourselves, keep changing, this prevents other things from changing. How do plants continue to grow each year in the same soil they grew in the year before? How could the sky ever change when the stars in the sky always return at some point in the year. In this case, our class discussed that everything you perceive could be consistent or corresponding. The consistency being that everything is relative to a set of beliefs that might hold the truth. The corresponding being that the things you perceive are here because they are within the parameters of what you personally believe to be true. Finally, we are brought to the question of relativism and reality. The philosophers of this time had a very limited science, even if it continued to grow. There were not many scientific facts disseminated, but rather theological truths. Thus, many found it difficult to determine whether the principles they had come to believe were absolute or man-made. When it came to relativism, many believed that the opinion presented to them did not necessarily have to be based on the truth of the world but rather be useful as a springboard for growth. As long as a theory could be modified, philosophers considered it to be a sufficiently accurate point of view. Whereas reality-based science was literally what people could see happening right in front of them. If the same result could not be reproduced, then it was no longer a reality, but a falsified theory. These two contradictory factorsgave rise to many different worldviews and led many of these pre-Socratic philosophers to be considered crazy. But without them, the big three would not have existed. Now that the context has been established, we will move directly to the belief of Anaximander the Milesian. This man was one of the first known philosophers of ancient Greece, stationed in a city-state called Miletus (which is now Turkey). He was born in 610 BCE and died in 546 BCE. Anaximander was the Greek philosopher who first developed a systemic philosophical view of the world. Although only a very small fragment of his work survives, Anaximander was known to have been cited by later philosophers in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries. It is said that he traveled to Sparta and installed a shadow-casting wand to predict the equinoxes, solstices, and various times of the day. Later in his life he was also believed to have drawn a map of the world and constructed a celestial globe. Regarding his philosophical views, Anaximander was more of an experimenter. He proposed that everything comes from the "apeiron", or infinity, rather than from any particular element. He rejected the teachings of his teacher Thales, who believed that water was the link between all life on earth. Rather, he thought that the first beings were born from moist elements of evaporation and that man came from another kind of animal like a fish or a bird. He thought this because the time it took to nurture a child was very long, and if they were simply formed from water, they would not have survived as long as they did now. Anaximander was also the type to question the child's movement. stars above him. He believed that the inhabited part of the Earth was flat while the rest of the world was shaped like a cylinder. He believed this because the sun and moon were constantly at the same distance no matter how many times they appeared. The Earth was arranged in such a way that everything revolved around it because it had no reason to move. However, he did not forget his speech. He asserted that the world was not eternal because everything would one day be destroyed and returned to infinity, in which a new world would later be born. Thus, all existing things must “pay to each other a penalty and chastisement for their injustice, according to the disposition of the times,” as he is quoted as saying. Anaximander is also said to have further researched early astrology, but his efforts were very easily overlooked. Regardless, his attempts to rationalize and explain the world had a lasting influence and were developed by many philosophers after him. Second, we will talk about the famous mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras. He was born in 570 BCE and died between 500/490 BCE. Pythagoras was based in Metapontum, Lucanium (Italy) and formed the Pythagorean Brotherhood here. With his men, he formulated many principles that would later influence the thinking of Plato and Aristotle and contribute to the future development of mathematics. It is not known exactly how many of his works have survived, but it is known that many of his followers cited his name in their own personal discoveries. He is, however, generally accredited for the theory of the functional meaning of numbers and for musical speculation. It is also said that within his own school, he gave birth to the idea of the transmigration of souls. Although its main doctrine is that "all things are numbers", meaning that the essence of all things can be determined by relating them numerically. At the beginning, this practice was also a very broad generalization of.