CONTENTS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Grote, George
PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
Speculative Philosophy in Greece, before and in the time of Sokrates.
Change in the political condition of Greece during the life of Plato
Early Greek mind, satisfied with the belief in polytheistic personal agents, as the real producing causes of phenomena
Belief in such agency continued among the general public, even after the various sects of philosophy had arisen
Thales, the first Greek who propounded the hypothesis of physical agency in place of personal. Water, the primordial substance, or ἀρχή
Anaximander — laid down as ἀρχή the Infinite or Indeterminate — generation of the elements out of it, by evolution of latent, fundamental contraries — astronomical and geological doctrines
ib.
Anaximenes — adopted Air as ἀρχή — rise of substances out of it, by condensation and rarefaction
Pythagoras — his life and career — Pythagorean brotherhood — great political influence which it acquired among the Greco-Italian cities — incurred great enmity, and was violently put down
The Pythagoreans continue as a recluse sect, without political power
Doctrine of the Pythagoreans — Number the Essence of Things
ib.
The Monas — ἀρχή, or principle of Number — geometrical conception of number — symbolical attributes of the first ten numbers, especially of the Dekad
11
Pythagorean Kosmos and Astronomy — geometrical and harmonic laws guiding the movements of the cosmical bodies
12
Music of the Spheres
14
Pythagorean list of fundamental Contraries — Ten opposing pairs
ib.
Eleatic philosophy — Xenophanes
16
His censures upon the received Theogony and religious rites
ib.
His doctrine of Pankosmism; or Pantheism — the whole Kosmos is Ens Unum or God — Ἓν καὶ Πᾶν. Non-Ens inadmissible
17
Scepticism of Xenophanes — complaint of philosophy as unsatisfactory
18
His conjectures on physics and astronomy
ib.
Parmenides continues the doctrine of Xenophanes — Ens Parmenideum, self-existent, eternal, unchangeable, extended — Non-Ens, an unmeaning phrase