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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: INV-JED |
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IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY . Under this name are included a number of philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Mainly Ionians by birth, they are united by a local tie and represent all that was best in the early Ionian intellect. It is a most interesting fact in the history of Greek thought that its birth took place not in Greece but in the colonies on the Eastern shores of the Aegean Sea. But not only geographically do these philosophers form a school; they are one in method and aim. They all sought to explain the material universe as given in sensible perception; their explanation was in terms of matter, movement
movement
The first name in the list
The successors of Thales were Anaximander and Anaximenes, who also sought for a primal substance of things. Anaximander postulated a corporeal substance intermediate between air and fire on the one hand, and between earth and water on the other hand. This substance he called " the Infinite " (ra &7rEipov). Unlike Thales, he was struck by the infinite variety in things; he felt that all differences are finite, that they have emerged from primal unity (first calledapxn by him) into which they must ultimately return, that the Infinite One has been, is, and always will be, the same, indeterminate but immutable. Change, growth and decay he explained on the principle of mechanical compensation (bibovai -yap aira TIT tV Kai &LK71V T7hS aILKLaS). Anaximenes, pupil of Anaximander, seems to have rebelled against the extreme materialism of his master. Perceiving that air is necessary to life, that the universe is surrounded by air, he was convinced that out of air all things have resulted. The process by which things grow is twofold, condensation (auevwois) and rarefaction apalwois), or, in other words, heat and cold. From the former process result cloud, water and stone; from the latter, fire and aether. This theory is closely allied to that of Thales, but it is superior in that it specifies the processes of change. Further, it is difficult not to accept Cicero's statement that Anaximenes made air a consciousdeity; we are, at all events, justified in regarding Anaximenes as a link (perhaps an unconscious link) between crude Hylozoism (q.v.) and definitely metaphysical theories of existence. We have seen that Thales recognized change, but attempted no explanation; that Anaximander spoke of change in two directions; that Anaximenes called these two directions by specific names. From this last, the transition to the doctrine of Heraclitus is easy. He felt that change is the essential fact of experience and pointed out that any merely physical explanation of plurality is inherently impossible. The Many is of Sense; Unity is of Thought. Being is intelligible only in terms of Becoming. That which is, is what it is in virtue of its perpetually changing relations (7ravra ;id Kai oisEP 1s vet). By this recognition of the necessary correlation of Being and Not-being, Heraclitus is in a very real sense the father of meta-physical and scientific speculation, and in him the Ionian school of philosophy reached, its highest point. Yet there is reason to doubt the view of Hegel and Lassalle that Heraclitus recognized the fundamental distinction of subject and object and the relations of mind and matter. Like the early Ionians he postulated a primary sub-stance, fire, out of which all things have emerged and into which all must return. This elemental fire is in itself a divine rational process, the harmony of which constitutes the law of the universe. Human knowledge consists in the comprehension of this all-pervading harmony as embodied in the manifold of perception; the senses are " bad witnesses " in that they report multiplicity as fixed and existent in itself rather than in its relation to the One. This theory gives. birth to a sort of ethical by-product whose dominant note is Harmony, the subordination of the individual to the universal season; moral failure is proportionate to the degree in which the individual declines to recognize his personal transience in relation to the eternal Unity. From the same principle there follows the doctrine of Immortality. The individual, like the phenomena of sense, comes out of the infinite and again is merged ; hence on the one hand he is never a separate entity at all, while on the other hand he exists in the infinite and must continue to exist. Moreover, the soul approaches most nearly to perfection when it is least differentiated from elemental fire; it follows that " while we live our souls are dead within us, but when we die our souls are restored to life." This doctrine is at once the assertion and the denial of the self, and furnishes a striking parallel between European thought in its earliest stages and the fundamental principles of Buddhism. Knowledge of the self is one with knowledge of the Universal Logos (Reason) ; such knowledge is the basis not only of conduct but of existence itself in its only real sense.Thus far the Ionian philosophers had held the field of thought. Each succeeding thinker had more or less assumed the methods of Thales, and had approached the problem of existence from the empirical side. About the time of Heraclitus, however, there sprang up a totally new philosophical spirit. Parmenides and Zeno (see Eleatic School) enunciated the principle that " Nothing is born of nothing." Hence the problem becomes a dialectical a priori speculation wherein the laws of thought transcend the sense-given data of experience. It was therefore left for the later Ionians to frame
Diogenes
Apollonia
special
Anaxagoras (q.v.) elaborated a quasi-dualistic theory according to which all things have existed from the beginning. Originally they existed in infinitesimal fragments, infinite in number and devoid of arrangement. Amongst these fragments were the seeds of all things which have since emerged by the process of aggregation and segregation, wherein homogeneous fragments came together. These processes are the work of Nous (vows) which governs and arranges. But this Nous, or Mind, is not incorporeal; it is the thinnest of all things; its action on the particle is conceived materially. It originated a rotatory movement, which arising in one point gradually extended till the whole was in motion, which motion continues and will continue infinitely. By this motion things are gradually constructed not entirely of homogeneous particles (the homoeomere, haoiopil) but in each thing with a majority of a certain kind of particle. It is this aggregation which we describe variously as birth, death, maturity, decay, and of which the senses give inaccurate reports. His vague dualism works a very distinct advance upon the crude hylozoism of the early Ionians (see ATOM), and the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle show how highly his work was esteemed. The great danger is that we should credit him with more than he actually thought. His Nous was not a spiritual force; it was no omnipotent deity; it is not a pantheistic world-soul. But by isolating Reason from all other growths, by representing it as the motor-energy of the Cosmos, in popularizing a term which suggested personality and will, Anaxagoras gave an impetus to ideas which were the basis of Aristotelian philosophy in Greece and in Europe at large. In Diogenes
Apollonia
things are at bottom the same, or interaction would be impossible (iravra ra Isvra afro poi abro"v krepoio TBai Sal pi abro elm. This universal substance is Air. But Diogenes went much farther than Anaximenes by attributing to air not only infinity and eternity but also intelligence. This Intelligence alone would have produced the orderly arrangement which we observe in Nature, and is the basis of human thought by the physical process of inhalation. Another pupil of Anaxagoras was Archelaus of Miletus (q.v.). His work was mainly the combination of previous views, except that he is said to have introduced an ethical side into the Ionian philosophy. " Justice and injustice," he said, " are not natural but legal." He endeavoured to overcome the dualism of Anaxagoras, and in so doing approached more nearly to the older Ionians. The last of the Ionians whom we need mention is Hippo (q.v.), who, like Archelaus, is intellectually amongst the earlier members of the school. He thought that the source of all things was moisture (so bypov), and is by Aristotle coupled with Thales (Metaphysics, A 3). 10PHON, Greek tragic poet, son of Sophocles. He gained the second prize in 428 B.C., Euripides being first, and Ion third. He must have been living in 405, the date of the production of the Frogs of Aristophanes, in which he is spoken of as the only good Athenian tragic poet, although it is hinted that he owed much to his father's assistance. He wrote 50 plays, of which only a few fragments remain. It is said that Iophon accused his father before the court of the phratores of being incapable of managing his affairs, to which Sophocles replied by reading the famous chorus of the Oedipus at Colonus (688 ff.), with the result that he was triumphantly acquitted.See Aristophanes, Frogs, 73, 78, with scholia; Cicero, De seneclute, vii. 22; Plutarch, Moralia, 785 B; A. Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum fragments (1889); O. Wolff, De Iophonte poets ( Leipzig
I.O.U. (" I owe you "), a written acknowledgment of a debt. It usually runs thus: To. I.O.U. pounds. (Signed) . Date. An I.O.U., if worded as above, or even if the words " for value received " are added, does not acquire a stamp, as it contains no terms of agreement. If any such words as " to be paid on such a day " are added, it requires a stamp. An I.O.U. should be addressed to the creditor by name, though its validity is not impaired by such omission. Being a distinct admission of a sum due, it is prima facie evidence of an account stated, but where it is the only item of evidence of account it may be rebutted by showing there was no debt and no demand which could be enforced by virtue of it. An I.O.U. is not negotiable. End of Article: IONIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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