3. From Mythos to Logos: The Pre-Socratics

[@colonelweird]

The texts shown on screen are from The Portable Greek Reader, edited by W. H. Auden (Viking Penguin, 1948). It's still in print and widely available.

[@robertpeak3335]

Really enjoyed this, it has helped develop my self. I like listening to people who are competent. Thankyou.

[@Myth190]

Thanks, a concise presentation of pre-socratics.

[@jenniferyoung5291]

Good job!!! -J.YO' ( Important for us all to realize that philosophy has a basis FAR before "Socrates/Plato"!)

[@luckylenny2506]

Great job!

[@phantasmaticdelivery]

Excellent lecture, thank you a lot ! i have a question - could you possibly tell what book did you show? I'm studying philosophy in Russia but i'd also want to have materials in English and this one looks well structured. Thanks!

[@LOEWE-MEDIA]

Thank you!

[@avs-]

thank you for this

[@patrickvernon4766]

I think you may be mistaken. Mythology can be true, but not expected to be real. Logos must be split in two, between pre-socratic and post-socratic definitions. I found this through Martin Heidegger’s revelations. He said the pre-socratic logos was grounded in poetry and dasein with the ancient formula good instincts= happiness, whereas post socratic became rootless cosmopolitan and eventually nihilist, with the formula reason+ virtue =happiness or man is a rational animal. The former was dynamic and authentic where the words had a reference point. The latter words were used conventionally until they thought meaning came from words themselves, the former gave us poetry and meaning the latter gave us technology and hedonism. If you have any comments on this please let me know or correct me, im trying to understand this better this is my understanding so far

[@patrickvernon4766]

Not hedonism but nihilism*

[@charlesgodwin2191]

You nailed it!

[@shanejohns7901]

All Things are solid, liquid, or gas Water is solid, liquid, or gas Ergo: Water is All Things? I realize the pre-Socratics didn't have the benefit of Aristotle's breakthroughs in Logic, but wow...that's crazy.

[@raycosmic9019]

That which is, that is nothing in particular (actual), is by definition everything in general (potential). Thales = water = energy = flow. Life flows like water, like a river. You can never step into the same stream twice. All that is, is in flux. The Rhythm of Life is a movement and a rest. Since change is the only constant in this world, it can only move in two directions; for the better or for the worse, and thus can be influenced by choice. Every choice we make generates a corresponding timeline of experience. The optimum (Heaven), is always found somewhere between the extremes of too much and too little (hell). Anaximander: Since That which is, is everything in potential, it is all-inclusive, Absolute, the One without a second, thus Infinite. Since potentiality is Infinite, actuality must be Eternal. Since the potential for actualization is Infinite, the actualization of potential is Eternal. Xenophanes: Since only Creative Intelligence can either affirm or deny that That which is, either is or is not Creative Intelligence, That which is, is Creative Intelligence. Being all-inclusive, Creative Intelligence is omnipresent. We are all It to an unknowable/inexhaustible extent, as the facets if a Diamond are 'both' distinct from each other 'and' the Diamond itself. Love is the recognition of our shared Being. What appears as separate and opposite is in Reality - Continuum. What appears as the separate and opposite hot and cold and never the twain shall meet, is in Reality the complementary self-extensions of hotter and colder, that proceed from and return to meet in the middle of the Continuum we call 'temperature'. There is always some of each in the other, if only a molecule or two, no absolute division, only a difference of degree, not of kind. Heraclitus: Every choice we make generates a corresponding timeline of experience. What we experience are our perceptions. Every perception is to some extent memory. Every memory is to some extent imagination. If the resulting narrative needs to be changed, change perspective. Is it a limit or a creative guideline. No wrong answer - only a choice. Each experience of each day is 'both' the fruit of yesterday's choices 'and' the seed choices of tomorrow's experience. What the living fire of conscious attention dwells on today, we dwell in tomorrow. The Logos or Word of Truth is ever faithful (loyal, true,isomorphic) to Reality (That which is). Reality = unitary Concepts = binary Mythos = all things are composed of the Gods.

[@Tschoo]

Nice

[@SspaceB]

“Right?”

[@shanejohns7901]

It's too bad these early Greeks didn't know calculus back then. It surely would have caused them to progress to actual Chemistry much faster. Their lack of calculus had them thinking that the hare would always be some distance ahead of the tortoise at every moment in time, provided the tortoise had been given some distance head start. And yet that's clearly not what they observed. So that would clearly cause some of them to reject logic itself, because they were using logic and coming up with answers that were clearly untrue.