PHILOS 25A Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Xenophanes, Pre-Socratic Philosophy, Stobaeus
Document Summary
Understanding ourselves (and the universe): pythagoras, xenophanes, and heraclitus. The first philosophers started with a limited set of philosophical questions. We only know a shit ton of gossip about what he said. Most of what we know about pythagoras is law. Reported to have argued for the thesis about immortality of the soul and rebirth of the soul. Those called pythagoreans took hold of mathematics and were the first to advance that study; and being brought up in it, they believed that its principles are the principles of all things that are. Poems in which he asked the question about the limits of human knowledge. If god had not fashioned yellow honey, they would say that figs are far sweeter . By no means did the gods intimate all things to mortals from the beginning, but in time, inquiring, they discover better. Style of writing that made it difficult to be understood.
