Читать книгу A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy онлайн

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(4) In common with all ancient peoples these Greek philosophers did not believe that the universe had unlimited space. On the contrary, they believed that it was limited and in the shape of an egg.

Table of Cosmologists.

The Monists

2. Xenophanes at Colophon and Elea.

4. Heracleitus at Ephesus.

The Pluralists

5. Empedocles at Agrigentum.

6. Anaxagoras at Clazomenæ.

7. The later Pythagoreans mainly at Thebes.

8. Leucippus at Abdera.

How the Philosophical Question Arose.

MAP SHOWING WHERE THE COSMOLOGISTS LIVED

(None of the Cosmologists, except the later Pythagoreans, lived in the motherland of Greece. Philosophical activity during this period took place in the colonies. The map shows the cities which were the centres of philosophy and the homes of the philosophers as indicated.)

The Greek Monistic Philosophies.

The Milesians, who form the earliest philosophical school in European history, seem to have assumed two facts as self-evident about the substance of the universe: (1)There is a single cosmic substance identical with itself, which is the basis of all the changes in nature; (2)Moving matter is the same as life. The Milesians were quite unconscious that these two assumptions were contradictory, but the contradiction impressed their successors—Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and the Eleatics; and divided them in their development of philosophy. Matter which keeps identical with itself is the Unchanging8 and is brought into opposition with Life, the Changing, or matter which moves. The question for Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and the Eleatics—and indeed for all future philosophy—was: How can the changing processes of life be explained by an unchanging substance?