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Morrisey
Fledgling
8 Posts |
 Posted - Dec 03 2005 : 1:06:54 PM
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We had a study group this morning in the library and when we were reviewing the Skeptics and we couldn't figure out what their view on nature was at the time. We also had a question about whether being an atomist meant that one was a monist or a pluralist. We know at this point there was only one type of atom but we also didn't know if the concept of the void factored in or not.
Any help that anyone could give would be great. THANKS! |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 03 2005 : 1:52:36 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Morrisey
We had a study group this morning in the library and when we were reviewing the Skeptics and we couldn't figure out what their view on nature was at the time. We also had a question about whether being an atomist meant that one was a monist or a pluralist. We know at this point there was only one type of atom but we also didn't know if the concept of the void factored in or not.
Any help that anyone could give would be great. THANKS!
Cat,
The Skeptics have no view on nature. That’s what the Skeptics are about: not having any views, or in other words: suspending judgment. (This, at any rate, is what the Pyrrhonists are all about, but the Academic Skeptics are like the Pyrronists in being without any positive doctrine on subjects such as physics.)
Monists don’t hold that there’s just one type of thing; they hold that there’s just one thing, so the atomists were pluralists. They also talk about the void, but the crucial thing is that they hold that there are many things, not just one.
Hope this helps.
Tom |
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non
Journeyman
72 Posts |
Posted - Dec 03 2005 : 3:53:18 PM
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I think if you read really closely through the discussion of the Stoic picture of the universe vs. the Epicurean picture, you'll find that when you really hone in on the details, it's not so easy to tell monism from pluralism. For example, Stoics still hold that you can tell the difference between a tree and an antelope, but if they are monists then the tree is the same thing as the antelope, or more precicely in Stoic terms, the tree is part of the same thing that the antelope is part of. But then how does that differ from the supposedly pluralist Epicureans? Sure, they hold that there's lots of atoms, and that the atoms are distinct from the void, but couldn't a Stoic just construe those as different parts of the same whole? Is there any concrete difference between monism and pluralism besides word usage? There seem to be big implications for accepting one view or the other, meninglessness for pluralist Epicureans, compleate intelligence/rationality for the Stoics, but even those views start to look only superficially different if you stare at them for too long.
I'm not really helping here I guess.
But I've been rather concerned about this as of late. If there's anybody around who thinks they can make the distinction really clear, I'd love to see it done, because right now I'm all twisted up in this thing and I can't see a way out.
hasta |
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diogenes
Newcomer
2 Posts |
Posted - Dec 03 2005 : 4:56:47 PM
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| I may be completely off the mark, but it seems to me that the main difference between monism and pluralism is the existance of any kind of space between things. When you consider that there is void between atoms, this gives atoms the opportunity to come together and separate in order to form things that are completely separate entities. Whereas, when you believe that everything is fire (or logos), you are not saying that there are a bunch of fire atoms floating around that come to together and break apart to form separate things. It almost seems like you have to assume that when your senses are telling you that you see two distinct things (a tree and an antelope for instance), your mind is just playing tricks on you in getting you to believe that the two are separate in some way. So, in order to be a monist, you must always have to go back to parmenides' "way of truth" and "way of mortal opinion" and take it for granted that all the things your senses are telling you are lies. This seems very close to a sceptical point of view, the only difference being that a monist must assert that there is any kind of "way of truth" at all. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2005 : 10:34:56 AM
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Adam,
The existence of truly empty space (void) between things might well be said to constitute the decisive difference between the atomistic pluralists and the non-atomistic pluralists (such as Anaxagoras and Empedokles), but both the atomistic pluralists and the non-atomistic pluralists count as pluralists because they think that there really are many different distinguishable onta (beings): fire, air, water, and earth for Empedokles, and the infinitely many basic things for Anaxagoras.
So I like your second suggestion better than your first one (though I guess I’m not entirely sure you meant to present it as a second suggestion):
quote:
Originally posted by diogenes
It almost seems like you have to assume that when your senses are telling you that you see two distinct things (a tree and an antelope for instance), your mind is just playing tricks on you in getting you to believe that the two are separate in some way. So, in order to be a monist, you must always have to go back to parmenides' "way of truth" and "way of mortal opinion" and take it for granted that all the things your senses are telling you are lies. This seems very close to a sceptical point of view, the only difference being that a monist must assert that there is any kind of "way of truth" at all.
I think myself, though, that all these characters (from Anaximenes on, at any rate) operate with something like Parmenides’ distinction between the “way of truth” and “the way of mortal opinion.” All of them distinguish in one way or another between the way things seem and the way they really are, and of course the distinction between the monists and the pluralists is a distinction between competing “ways of truth.”
Having said this, I feel I must add that I’m not the least bit sure any of it is likely to help Non out with what’s puzzling him. But maybe the following would be of some help with that....
The reason the Stoics’ physics (which is really Herakleitos’ physics, so far as what’s crucial for our present purposes is concerned) qualifies them for the title “monists” is this: all of the various forms of early Ionian monism involve, in effect, an assertion of the form “appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the truth is that everything consists of....” What distinguishes one of these positions from the others is the term one uses to fill in the blank: “air,” “fire,” etc. If we then look at the position that results through Aristotelian lenses, we can see that what qualifies all these thinkers as monists is that they’re what might be called “one-substance theorists,” where the term “substance” is, seemingly, being used in the sense of something akin to what Aristotle conceptualizes as matter. For Anaximenes, fire, water, and earth aren’t properly basic substances at all; they’re all just different forms of air. Similarly, for Herakleitos and the Stoics, air, water, and earth are just different forms of fire.What makes Empedokles a pluralist is that he’s a “four-substance theorist”: he takes fire, air, water, and earth to be four irreducibly different stuffs—materials none of which can be seen as a form of any of the others. If this is right, a similar account could be given for Anaxagoras.
But when we get to Parmenides, we seem to be looking at a different species of monism. Parmenides, too, holds that “appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the truth is that....”—but now note that with Parmenides, we’ve got what might be called a bigger blank to fill in, for he wouldn’t go on to add the words “everything consists of....” Instead, he’d go on to add the words “the number of onta is....” and to fill in that second, smaller blank with the word “one.” This makes his position more like that of the atomists, who could say that according to there view, “appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, the truth is that the number of onta is many,” and who don’t have any use for anything like the concept of matter at all.
So maybe (here’s hoping this suggestion doesn’t muddy the waters further instead of clarifying things), we need to distinguish between atomistic and non-atomistic monists just as we distinguish between atomistic and non-atomistic pluralists. On this view, Parmenides would be an atomistic monist: someone who holds that the one thing there is is radically indivisible in a way in which such things as Anaximenes’ air and Herakleitos’ fire can’t be said to be. (It makes sense to speak of distinct parts of the air or fire there is on those thinkers’ views, whereas on Parmenides’ view, it doesn’t make any sense to speak of distinct parts of that which is at all.)
Well, there it is: an attempt to extend my response to you, Adam, so as to make it a response to Non’s call for a way to make the distinction between monists and pluralists really clear as well. Probably way too much to attempt in a single post!
But also, note that with this last twist, I’ve given a new meaning to the term “atomist” that makes it possible to talk about atomists who were monists (pace the one of my former selves who posted the original reply to Cat’s question about this above) as well as atomists such as Leukippos and Demokritos, who clearly weren’t. I’ve maintained above that Parmenides would qualify as an atomist who’s a monist. Melissos would clearly qualify, for as Simplicius assures us, “he himself proves that what is is indivisible” (see 15.4, McKirahan 292). Remember: what makes an atom an atom isn’t that it’s surrounded by empty space; it’s that it’s atomos—uncuttable, unsplittable (i.e., indivisible).
Tom |
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non
Journeyman
72 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2005 : 12:27:17 PM
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So then, to sum up perhaps: the big difference between the Stoic universe and the Epicurean one is that the Epicurean one is divisible, whatever that turns out to mean. The Stoic universe consists of one, indivisible thing,which though it twists and turns, it remains one thing. Like taffy in a streacher maybe, with things as we know them just being tangles of the one thing that is (this view is not all that far from looking at matter as little twists of energy, but then thats another monster). Tht would make me nice and happy, if it weren't for the Stoic view that there are two distinct parts of what is that permeate one another compleatly. Pneuma and matter namely. These two distinct elements make up everything in the Stoic world, and they seem to be distinct and seperable, like wine mixed in with water (see Long, p.159-60). Unless pneuma and matter are really insperable, the Stoics start sliding back towards a kind of plurlism. Dualism, as it were.
Am I off base here? Is Long? What's going on with this stuff?
I could just be mucking things up for no reason, but I really feel off balance whenever monism/pluralism comes up.
Thanks for the help though guys. |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - Dec 04 2005 : 8:40:00 PM
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Non,
Sorry to make difficulties, but that’s not at all how I’d sum things up. Atoms are indivisible. The Epicurean universe is neither a divisible thing nor an indivisible thing: it’s not one thing. Rather, it consists of many things: the many atoms and the void that’s found between the atoms. The Stoic universe—more precisely, God, nature, the logos, the cosmic fire—is in an important sense thoroughly divisible, indeed infinitely divisible: one can take any part of it, cut it in two, and move the parts away from one another; other parts will of course “fill in” between those parts. This is precisely what never happens with anything that’s indivisible.
Tom |
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Quick question on Skeptics and atomists
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