World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 368

phy, in its distinct sense, had its start in the early sixth century B.C. in Asia minor under the Greek power .Both science and philosophy took their Rise, and great philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Heracleitus, Zeno, Democritus, Protagoras etc.contributed mainly to the theoretical solution of the.cosmological problems that are connected with processes in nature .The further development ,chiefly under the political conditions of the time , the appearance of the sophists was significantly important. In fact, through great sophists varied learning of different branches of knowledge was available.' We get an interesting picture of what the sophists and their activities were like in Plato's dialogue, the Protagoras.'
The sophists were pluralists, and according to Prof.A.K.Rogers, the doctrine given by Heracleitus, 'Fire lives the death of Earth, and Air lives the death of Fire; Water lives the death of Air, and Earth that of Water' was the first philosophic statement of the famous doctrine of Relativity. On the other side, the refutation of this we find in Parmenides whose philosophy 'is based on the Absolute denial of change and multiplicity in the world, and their reduction to the pure illusion. To him, only the One exists and that one is external, immutable, immovable, and indivisible.
With these philosophers and sophists of the pre-Socratic period, some pluralists and with a number of innovative thinking as well as effective rhetoric, there was refutation, a strong denial to the very fundamental stand point regarding Truth or reality. And it is at this point we see Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who are to decide the fate of future of western philosophy for the next two millenniums .None of these three could be just summarized in few pages. Plato, mainly out of the three, is the most relevant to our topic. Even then let us see what they have to say about the Absolute or reality or Truth.
Socrates :( 469-399B.C) We should always remember that Socrates was a moralist who was dissatisfied with the explanations of the physicist and so he turned to mind. But this too disappointed him and then he was led to strike out a new path. Instead of looking to the physical world, he turned his gaze within to the intellectual essences which the mind itself reveals. Against all the Pluralist and Relativists, against the sophists, Socrates comes out with an argument of some traditional doctrines including 'a realm of true reality above the world of senses to which the soul aspires to attain to the final consummation of a unity with God. "Through Plato's account of Socrates intellectual development we know, "his conviction that behind the flux of sensible appearances, and somehow (he is) capable of explaining it, there lies a most real world, which we can at least be assumed is the abode of perfect goodness." All the virtues will be, as he continues, one at the bottom: for it is only the oneness (Absoluteness of the universal good that makes particular good things possible.
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