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I remember back in the days of radio
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that one of the popular programs on the
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air which was later then made into a
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television program was called Truth or
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Consequences where the contestants would
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be asked a question and if they failed
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to give the proper response then they'd
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have to go through some kind of silly
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penalty
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well as We Gather now for this course an
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overview of the history of philosophy I
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would like to think of this course in
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terms of the idea of truth and
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consequences
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because sometimes it's important for us
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to stop and think that ideas have
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consequences in fact just about
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everything that happens in this world
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is preceded by some idea
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an artist doesn't produce his work
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without first having some concept in his
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mind of what it is he wants to create in
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his medium
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but a far beyond the realm of Art and
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music the whole concept of political
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Theory by which nations rise and by
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which they fall are all related in the
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final analysis to ideas to Concepts and
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so it's very important particularly for
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Christians to understand something about
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the historical process of theoretical
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thought and how ideas have interacted
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with our own Christian faith and belief
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system
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and so what I want to do is give a brief
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historical overview this is of an
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introductory nature this is not an
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advanced course in technical
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philosophy so we'll be skating lightly
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over the surface of the historical
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progress now obviously when we begin our
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study of philosophy we're going to be
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looking at it in terms of the history of
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Western philosophical thought and the
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textbooks will frequently tell us that
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Western philosophy started on May the
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28th
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585
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BC now I'm not exactly sure what time of
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the day that was that that philosophy
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was born
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well the reason for this date is not
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arbitrary
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but it is because on this date in
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antiquity
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a solar eclipse took place
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and what was so extraordinary about this
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eclipse of the sun was that it was
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predicted in advance by a very capable
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scientist whose name was thales
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and thales lived in Ionia
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and he is generally regarded to be the
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founder of ancient Greek philosophy now
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this date's important to us for this
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reason from a Christian perspective we
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know that long before thales began his
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inquiry into philosophical matters that
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a lot of philosophical thinking had been
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done in the East and certainly in the uh
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among the Hebrews because we have a
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philosophical depository of great
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richness that is found in the Old
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Testament that predates the work of
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thales but here we're focusing on the
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development of a special school of
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thought a special science
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that we associate with ancient Greek
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civilization
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so the first group of philosophers that
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we will look at by way of introduction
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is that group of philosophers called the
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pre
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socratics
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that's a pretty simple concept isn't it
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pre means beforehand and the
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pre-socratics refer
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to those philosophers who were engaged
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in their work before Socrates now just
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about everybody's heard about Socrates
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and his famous student Plato and Plato's
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famous student
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Aristotle and so on but philosophy in
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the west did not begin with Socrates
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there was a significant development of
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theoretical thought before Socrates ever
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appeared on the scene and so when we
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look at Origins we start with this fella
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by the name of thales
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now what thales was trying to solve
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was perhaps the the most ancient
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question of all that thinkers grappled
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with and wrestled with and we can call
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that the question or the problem of the
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one and the many
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the one and the many another way that we
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can describe this problem or this
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question is by speaking of the
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relationship between unity and diversity
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I frequently talk about the simple word
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that we hear every day the word universe
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or the word university
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and the term universe is one of those
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Mongrel words where we take two diverse
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words and kind of jam them together and
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coin an entirely new word and the two
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words that are jammed together to create
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the word Universe are the words unity
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and diversity
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and so the very idea of a universe
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is that we are living in a system of
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reality that has all kinds
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of specific different things
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there we Behold a multitude of diverse
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objects we see chickens and pigs and
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grass and flowers and houses and Roads
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and cars all these specific individual
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things that are diverse one from another
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well the ancient Greek philosopher was
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asking the question how do all these
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bits of reality that we encounter every
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day
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fit together
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is there anything that provides Unity
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to this wide diversity of experience
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that we have
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is the world in which we live
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a symphony in the final analysis or is
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it cacophony
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Carl Sagan raised the question is it
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Cosmos or is it chaos and the difference
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between Cosmos and chaos is simply the
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difference
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between an orderly structure
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and that which admits to no order and
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anything that is ordered has to have
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something that makes everything cohere
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that makes everything Unified
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now we go away from the world universe
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and we go to the word university
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and that is an institution where
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allegedly we go to look at the
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individual disciplines like biology and
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chemistry and astronomy and Mathematics
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and sociology and history and psychology
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and all these different disciplines
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where you can go to one school and learn
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all about these diverse fields of
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inquiry but the assumption is that in
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the University
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we can discover
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an integrated coherent view of the world
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in which we live
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now that whole question of the one and
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the many
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unity and diversity
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was the question that this scientist in
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the 6th Century BC by the name of thales
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was passionately engaged in trying to
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resolve
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and what he was looking for is what we
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call Ultimate
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Ultimate Reality
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now what does he mean or what do the
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ancient thinkers mean by Ultimate
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Reality
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well
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one of the technical terms that we learn
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in the study of philosophy is the word
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metaphysics
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metaphysics
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and we're all familiar with the term
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physics
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because physics describes the natural
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world
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of forces and powers and things and how
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they interact
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metaphysics is the attempt by the
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philosopher to go above and beyond
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the seeing world that we encounter with
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our five senses from day to day
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to search for that which is above and
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beyond the Physical Realm from which
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everything comes and by which everything
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gains its ultimate unity and harmony
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another concern that the ancient Greeks
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had
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was for the word that they called Telos
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we get the word teleology from this word
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Talos
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and the Greek word tell us can be
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translated by the English words end
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or goal
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or purpose
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and so the question of sayles and of the
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ancient philosophers was not simply what
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is everything made of and how did it
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come to pass
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but also the deeper question of why
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why are things the way that they are is
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there any purpose for Birds is there a
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purpose for wind and for water for stars
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and for for the moon and is there any
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purpose to human existence that was a
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serious
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theological teleological question that
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is they're asking for the goal or the
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end this is a profoundly theological
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question for those of us who are
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Christians in fact the old Westminster
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shorty catechism begins with the first
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question what is man's Chief end that is
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it's asking what is the purpose or the
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tell-offs of human existence well these
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were the kinds of questions that were
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being raised by the pre-socratic
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philosophers
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I once talked to a fella who's currently
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the head of the philosophy Department of
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a very prestigious University in America
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and I knew him when he was a student
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and he was working on his PhD in
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philosophy at that time and we were
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having a conversation
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and he said you know
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the thing that amazes me most about
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philosophy and I said no what's that and
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he said
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all of the questions
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that have wrestled with by modern
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thinkers
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were already explored in antiquity
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and he said I've discovered there are
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only so many questions to ask about
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reality and those fellows back there
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asked them all maybe they weren't quite
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as refined and sophisticated as some
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later thinkers were but at a fundamental
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introductory way the ancient
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pre-socratic philosophers were honing in
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on the most basic questions of human
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existence well again the first question
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is
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what is
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this Ultimate Reality or for the Greek
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it was the question what is The RK the
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chief the ruling
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stuff out of which everything comes
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it was the search
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for essence
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when we talk about the word essence we
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talk about essence or substance
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or the simplest word is stuff
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I remember when I lived in Holland was
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going to school over there and trying to
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learn that language and and was
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impressed by how graphic the language
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was because we went to the store to get
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a vacuum sweeper and we discovered that
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the name of a vacuum sweeper was a stuff
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sucker which literally means a stuff
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sucker you run this machine over the
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carpet and it sucks up all of the stuff
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that is there so we can get somewhat
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abstract when we talk about essence or
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substance or we can get right down to
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the nitty-gritty when we're talking
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about the stuff of life and of reality
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well for thales
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thaley said that the ultimate Essence
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the ultimate stuff the ultimate
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substance The RK
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the Ultimate Reality from which
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everything comes
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in the universe
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is water
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now do you remember when Paul met with
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the philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens
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at the seat of ancient culture and he
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engaged in some discussions with these
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philosophers on that occasion it was the
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stoics and the epicureans
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and he noticed that they had an altar to
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an unknown God and he then began to
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preach to them and he said that which
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you Worship in ignorance I declare to
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you in power and didn't even your poets
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understand that it is within God or in
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him that we live
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and move and have our being
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remember that
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three things that Paul said about God
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that in God we live
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we move
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we have our being
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now Paul understood I'm sure at that
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time that he was addressing the three
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biggest questions of ancient philosophy
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because the ancient philosopher and
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scientists like thales was interested in
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what is the being or substance or stuff
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out of which everything comes
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what is the stuff or substance or origin
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of life
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and
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how can we account
00:16:05
for this great mystery of motion
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why do things move how did they get
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started moving in the first place you
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hear cosmetology cosmologist telling us
00:16:20
today about their theories of the origin
00:16:23
of the universe the Big Bang idea where
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for all eternity all of the matter and
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energy of the universe was compressed
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into this infinitesimal point of
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Singularity remained organized and
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stable
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presumably for eternity and then on one
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Wednesday afternoon a two o'clock boom
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it blows up and the question is begged
00:16:47
immediately is if there is such a laws
00:16:49
as the law of inertia the things that
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are at rest stay at rest unless acted
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upon by an outward outside force you ask
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what was the outside force that stepped
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into this picture of
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Eternal organization and caused this
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explosive change
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in other words
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who moved
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something moved
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how did that motion start
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those are the questions that theylease
00:17:20
was was trying to answer and again we
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might smile or even smirk when we hear
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that his answer to all of these things
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was water
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seemed so naive and pre-scientific and
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unsophisticated to us but think about it
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for a moment first of all in trying to
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understand
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uh being
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the essence of things
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he noticed that everything in his
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experience
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whether they were animals vegetables or
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minerals
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appeared to his eyes
00:17:55
in one of three forms
00:17:58
his whole experience of reality was an
00:18:01
experience of things that were either
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solid
00:18:04
or liquid
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or gas
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and he said no matter how diverse this
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diversity is we can reduce everything
00:18:15
that we encounter to one of these three
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things a solid a liquid or gas now he
00:18:21
said if I can look beyond that and say
00:18:24
is there some underlying metaphysical
00:18:28
stuff that will account for these three
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different forms of things
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and so he looked for a substance
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that had the power or the ability to
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exist in any of these three forms and
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what was the most obvious candidate it
00:18:49
was water
00:18:50
in its natural state is a liquid when it
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freezes it becomes a solid and when it
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evaporates it becomes steam or a gas
00:19:04
and so he said so everything must be
00:19:07
made out of water
00:19:09
either in the hardened form like ice or
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the liquid form or the gaseous form
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and they said okay
00:19:18
how can I account for life
00:19:22
well all of the life that I discover
00:19:24
around me seems to require water
00:19:30
for a seed to grow it must
00:19:33
become wet before it can germinate
00:19:37
and for human beings and animals and
00:19:40
flowers and grass to grow and to
00:19:43
continue to live requires a constant
00:19:46
replenishing with water
00:19:50
seems to be necessary
00:19:53
to life
00:19:55
and if that's the case
00:19:57
then maybe it is the most basic
00:20:00
substance
00:20:01
that creates life itself
00:20:05
so now he has a preliminary answer to
00:20:08
the problem of being
00:20:10
the problem of life
00:20:12
but he still was left with the problem
00:20:14
of
00:20:15
motion how can I account for motion
00:20:20
he said well to account for motion
00:20:23
in light of a primitive understanding of
00:20:26
inertia he said
00:20:28
we have to look for some substance that
00:20:32
is high low
00:20:34
zoeistic
00:20:36
now that's just a fancy word
00:20:39
that means self-propelled
00:20:43
something that has the ability to move
00:20:46
itself we have a word for that in
00:20:48
English and it's the word
00:20:51
Otto which means self right
00:20:54
mobile
00:20:56
an automobile is something that has the
00:20:59
power of mobility in and of itself at
00:21:02
least when it's working and the gas tank
00:21:05
is filled and so on then you don't have
00:21:07
to push it to make it go but the idea of
00:21:11
of motion being explained required that
00:21:15
something somehow somewhere had the
00:21:18
ability to move itself because if
00:21:21
everything were at rest
00:21:23
and eternally at rest
00:21:25
and if the law of inertia is true
00:21:28
how long would it stay at rest
00:21:31
forever
00:21:32
and when we see something move like this
00:21:35
chalk up in the air
00:21:37
we realize that the chalk is is is still
00:21:40
now it's inert until acted upon by an
00:21:43
outside force which is my hand and I
00:21:46
exert pressure my arm is moving I let go
00:21:49
of the chalk and the chalk moves
00:21:52
so motion is caused by some previous
00:21:56
motion
00:21:57
and if that previous motion is caused by
00:22:01
motion prior to that
00:22:03
then we have to ask what caused that
00:22:05
motion
00:22:06
and we keep asking that question how
00:22:10
long
00:22:11
forever and we get into an infinite
00:22:13
regress that doesn't make any sense
00:22:15
unless we find something that has the
00:22:18
ability
00:22:20
to move
00:22:22
on its own
00:22:24
well for thales
00:22:27
that was water
00:22:29
because water has the ability to move
00:22:33
how did he know that by observing Rivers
00:22:37
and he noticed that Creeks were running
00:22:39
that there was a tie there was a current
00:22:42
of moving water he noticed that he
00:22:45
couldn't see anything that was tugging
00:22:48
at the Seas to make them move he didn't
00:22:50
know anything about the tidal forces of
00:22:53
the gravitational pull of the moon and
00:22:55
that sort of thing to his naked eye in
00:22:57
Antiquity it seemed like water was
00:23:00
churning and moving on its own
00:23:04
without being dependent on something
00:23:07
outside of itself
00:23:09
so you look at these things and you say
00:23:11
wow maybe he wasn't so foolish after all
00:23:14
because he's given us a basic
00:23:17
explanation
00:23:19
for being
00:23:21
for life
00:23:23
and for motion
00:23:25
and so for him
00:23:27
the answer to all of the Mysteries of
00:23:30
the one and the many
00:23:32
could be found in one Ultimate Reality
00:23:36
called water
