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A BRIEF HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY – General Character of the First Period in the History of Greek Philosophy

GREEK PHILOSOPHY – I. NATURALISM

§ 6 – General Character of the First Period in the History of Greek Philosophy

 We have now, as will presently appear, finished the first great epoch in the history of Greek philosophy. Before going further we must briefly sum up its characteristics. As to subject-matter, thought has in this epoch been occupied chiefly with external nature, —man and the supernatural receiving but little consideration. As to its method, it has been speculative, hypothetical, and deductive rather than observational, inductive, «scientific» —rather than because, in any case, something must be «given» or assumed at the start, and where this is true, there is room for rough induction at least. The greatest achievement in method is, doubtless the «dialectic» of the Eleatics and the Heraclitic «unity of opposites,» which are «possessions for all time». Of these we shall hear again, farther on. Finally, as to the general attitude of thought in this epoch, there has been a change from simple unsophisticated confidence in the power of the mind to know nature to a kind of scepticism, —scepticism, indeed, not with reference to the scope of reflection but with reference to sense-perception. This scepticism reached its highest degree in the Atomists, with whom even the power of thought reached the minimum, i.e., the power to know just the «void,» «atoms,» and the motion of atoms. This seems to be the natural consequence of regarding reality as external to mind, and, viewed as such, may be considered one of the best lessons to be gathered from the study of very early Greek speculation. A higher thought, the obverse of this, is virtually contained in the theory of Anaxagoras, the reality and unity of all things in mind.