PRESOCRATICA SEMPERVIRENS

The subject of this section is a beautiful ever-blooming flower that abundantly merits its pseudo-botanical species designation which I have coined for it. It is not merely by coincidence that this section follows my Nietzsche section in an immediate structural sequence. My friend Nietzsche has indeed many features that can legitimately count him among the pre-Socratic philosophers, which fact is explicitly underscored in his personal preference for them, shining through his splendid work Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks, and, of course, practically through all his other great works.

Practically everything Nietzsche says about the pre-Socratics in the following paragraph from Philosophy can be equally applied to him as well:

“Any nation is put to shame when one points out such a wonderfully idealized company of philosophers as that of the early Greek masters, Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Socrates. All those men are integral, entire, and self-contained, and hewn out of one stone. Severe necessity exists between their thinking and their character. They are not bound by any convention, because at that time a professional class of philosophers and scholars did not exist. They all stand before us in magnificent solitude, as the only ones who then devoted their life exclusively to knowledge. They all possess the virtuous energy of the Ancients, whereby they excel all the later philosophers in finding their own form and perfecting it by metamorphosis in its most minute details and general aspect. For they were met by no helpful and facilitating fashion. Thus, together, they form what Schopenhauer, in opposition to the “Republic of Scholars,” has called a “Republic of Geniuses”;--- one giant calls to another across the arid intervals of ages, and, undisturbed by a wanton noisy race of dwarfs, creeping about beneath them,--- the sublime intercourse of spirits continues.”

Even those aspects of this paragraph which ostensibly do not apply, can be reconstituted in such a way that makes them exceptions which only prove the rule. Thus we can well say that Nietzsche, too, is not bound by any convention, even more remarkably, given that in his time a professional class of philosophers had long been established.

But returning to the “literal” pre-Socratics now, it is terribly unfortunate for all of us that their works have not been able to reach us, except in fragments and in references by later philosophers, particularly by Plato and Aristotle, whose accounts may not have been altogether objective, because of their immense egos, that may have been inserted into their interpretations. But here is what Lord Bertrand Russell has to say about this “second-hand” inconvenience, in the essay on Heraclitus in his History of Western Philosophy:

“(Heraclitus) works, like those of all philosophers before Plato, are only known through quotations, largely made by Plato or Aristotle for the sake of refutation. When one thinks what would become of any modern philosopher if he were only known through the polemics of his rivals, one can see how admirable the pre-Socratics must have been, since even through the mist of malice spread by their enemies they still appear great.”

Among other things that can be said about them, the pre-Socratics, more than anybody else, have deserved the epithet renaissance men, being all things in one, philosophers, poets, scientists, even religious leaders. We may scoff at their level of science as much as we like, but their perspicacity in working with what they had got, is second to no Dèscartes, Pascal, or Einstein. Besides, there is another peculiar factor here, which I cannot fail to point out.

The ancients talking about physics isn’t all nonsense. These were great men, and they can teach us a great deal. What they indeed show us in their desperately outdated, and often ridiculous, scientific opinions, are their thinking patterns which are of the greatest interest to our own thinking and hypothesizing about things which we do not know.

(I must make an interpolation here concerning the impressive scientific achievements of the pre-Socratics, whom I may have inadvertently offended, suggesting that their talk about physics may sound ludicrous to modern ears. In fact, their physics was quite sophisticated, even by our modern standards. Long before the earth was still represented in Christian cartography as a flat circular disk, long before the support system for it required either three whales or four elephants standing on a giant turtle, there used to be a spherical earth, attributed to Pythagoras, who was reasoning wisely that--- once we had learned that the sun and the moon were spherical,--- why would the earth be anything else?)

And lastly, let us remember my observation of the consistent monotheism, which can be accurately called philosophical monotheism, of the great Greeks, consistently referring to, or implying, one God, although themselves living in a distinctly polytheistic society. Without returning substantially to this subject, let me specify that this monotheism does not originate with Plato, but can be traced to its earliest manifestations, yes, in pre-Socratic philosophy, as I am going to convincingly demonstrate, when I am talking about each individual pre-Socratic. Therefore, the theological claim to original monotheism cannot be made on behalf of any of the great religions of our day, as PreSocratica Sempervirens is no less deserving of sharing that crown.

So, let us go back countless ages in time and enter their incomparably precious world of great wisdom and great learning with unavoidable admiration and awe.