Greek Philosophy After Heraclitus - Continued In Verse - With the Pluralists
THE PLURALISTS : Empedocles & Anaxagoras
That single primary substance the ‘arche’ of
the Ionian philosophers ,
Was challenged by Emphedocles (b.495BC)
and Anaxagoras(b.500BC) !
Emphedocles spoke of four qualitative elements
of Nature ;
As Earth , Air , Fire and Water !
And also of two mythical beings - love and hate ;
Which caused all elements to unite , or to
separate and break !
Therefore they were called ‘Pluralists’, -
Since for them only a single primary substance , -
did not exist !
This above position was refuted by Anaxagoras ,
Who claimed these elements were not merely
four ,
But they were countless in number and many
more !
It was neither love or hate but ‘nous’ , -
a spontaneous active mind ;
Was the source of all movements and life
of Mankind !
THE ATOMISTS :
Little is known about the Father of the
School of Atomist called Leucippus ,
He was made famous by his pupil Democritus !
For him Parminedes’ non-being void did never
exist ;
And Democritus spoke of atoms as indivisible
spatial entities ;
Moving in a void or empty space , as the building
stones of reality , -
Which led to the formation of different objects
and its multiplicity !
Just like the comedies and tragedies of those
days , -
Were composed of the same letters of the alphabets , -
Democritus had said .
He was a rationalist and maintained , all genuine
way of knowledge began , -
When sense perception ends !
For sense perception was obscure knowledge ;
And thoughts which transcends sense perception
and appearance ,
Reaching the very atoms in our being ,
Becomes the only genuine knowledge of human
beings !
But these philosophical thoughts only marked
a beginning !
THE SOPHISTS (481- 411BC) :
They were wise and skilful men of Greek history,
Lectured on art, rhetoric and oratory .
Also trained young men for political life ,
Were like intellectual mercenaries of their time ;
For all their teaching came at a price !
Beyond the reach of ordinary men ,
Which made Socrates later criticize them !
There chief exponent was Protagoras ,
Who had emphasized amongst all other things , -
‘Man as the measure of all things !’
But those Sophist had failed to see, the forest
for the trees !
They failed to recognize ‘man’ from ‘men’ ,
While exaggerating the differences in human
judgments ;
Ignoring the common areas of agreements !
(To be continued)
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