Empedocles (490-430 BC):
He believed that “true reality is permanent and unchangeable and it is absurd to dismiss the change we experience as mere illusion”. He is the first philosopher to reconcile and combine the metaphysics of Parminedes and Heraclitus. Nature consisted of four elements: Water, Air, Earth and Fire. “All in all”. All natural process were due to coming together and separating of four elements. Love and Strife are two forces of nature. The idea of the object of experience and the apparent changes in their qualities, quantities and relationship are reality changes in the position of four elements. Empedocles (490-430 BC)
Anaxagoras (500-420 BC):
Nature is build up of an SMALLEST PARTICLES invisible to eyes. The mind (nous) put the smallest particles together. The mind is everywhere. It is the finest of all things and the purest and the purest. It has the knowledge about everything It is a greatest power that control the forces in the cosmos. Anaxagoras (500-420 BC)
The Atomists:
All things are composed of ATOMS – tiny, imperceptible, indivisible, eternal and uncreated partitcles composed of exactly the same matter but different size, shape and weight. They are continuously in motion and various combination come and go. Infinitely numerous and eternally in motion by combining with one another in various ways. Ex. Decay, erosion, burning of objects The Greek philosophers believed that for motion to occur, there must be a VOID/EMPTY SPACE. Void is where moving things change position. Empty space is real because things move and percieve by senses. The Atomists
The Proponents of Atomists:
Democritus (460-370) He was the most widely traveled of the early philosophers. He tought that most human waste their lives pursuing foolish desires and pleasures. He was interested in pursuing wisdom and truth than riches. As a result, he spent his life in poverty. Leucippus He lived in Miletus during mid-fifth century B.C. He was the founder of atomist school. He affirmed the reality of space where objects move. The Proponents of Atomists