Early Greek Philosophy — John Burnet (Empedocles fragments)

1 Aet. ii. 1, 3.

2 Windelband, § 25. .The period is well described by Fredrich, Hippokratische Untersuchungen, pp. 130 sqq. It can only be treated fully in connexion with the Sophists.

8 For an amusing picture of the Herakleiteans see Plato, 722. 179 e. The new interest in language, which the study of rhetoric had called into life, took with them the form of fantastic and arbitrary etymologising, such as is satirised in Plato’s Cratylus.

4 Arist. Met. T, 5. 10102 12. He refused even to speak, we are told, and only moved his finger.

> Sext. adv. Math, vii. 65 (R. P. 235); AZ.X.G. 979 a 13 (R. P. 236).

418 Early Greek Philosophy

Thales was really final. Fresh life must be given to
the speculative impulse by the raising of new problems,
those of knowledge and conduct, before any further

progress was possible ; and this was done by _ the>
_“Sophists” and Sokrates. Then, in the hands of
~ Demokritos and Plato, philosophy took a new form,

and started on a : fresh course. Ἂς

Appendix

THE SOURCES A,—PHILOSOPHERS

1. Ir is not very often that Plato allows himself to dwell upon the history of philosophy as it was before the rise of ethical and epistemological inquiry ; but when he does, his guidance

is simply invaluable. His artistic gift and his power of enter-

ing into the thoughts of other men enabled him to describe the views of early philosophers in a thoroughly objective manner, and he never, except in a playful and ironical way, sought to read unthought-of meanings into the words of his

_ predecessors. Of special value for our purpose are his con-

trast between Empedokles and Herakleitos (Soph, 242 d), and
his account of the relation between Zeno and Parmenides
(Parm. 128 a).

See Zeller, “ Plato’s Mittheilungen tiber friihere und gleich-

_ zeitige Philosophen” (A7ch. v. pp. 165 544.) ; and Index, s.v. Plato. °

2. Asarule, Aristotle’s statements about early philosophers

are less historical than Plato’s. Not that he failed to under- _ stand the facts, but he nearly always discusses them from the ᾿ς point of view of his own system. He is convinced that his _ own philosophy accomplishes what all previous philosophers _ had aimed at, and their systems are therefore regarded as

“lisping” attempts to formulate it (AZe/. A, 10. 993 ἃ 15). It is also to be noted that Aristotle regards some systems in a 419 274

Plato.

Aristotle

Stoics.

Skeptics.

Neoplatonists.

420 Early Greek Philosophy

much more sympathetic way than others. He is distinctly unfair to the Eleatics, for instance.

It is often forgotten that Aristotle derived much of his
information from Plato, and we must specially observe that
he more than once takes Plato’s irony too literally.

See Emminger, Die Vorsokratischen Philosophen nach den Berichten des Artstoteles, 1878. Index, s.v. Aristotle.

3. The Stoics, and especially Chrysippos, paid great attention to early philosophy, but their way of regarding it was simply an exaggeration of Aristotle’s. They did not con- tent themselves with criticising their predecessors from their own point of view; they seem really to have believed that the early poets and thinkers held views hardly. distinguishable from theirs. ‘The word συνοικειοῦν, which Cicero renders by accommodare, was used by Philodemos to denote this method of interpretation,! which has had serious results upon our tradition, especially in the case of Herakleitos (p. 157).

_ 4. The same remarks apply mutatis mutandis to the Skeptics. The interest of such a writer as Sextus Empiricus in early philosophy is to show that skepticism went back to an early date—as far as Xenophanes, in fact. But what he tells us is often of value; for he frequently quotes early views as to knowledge and sensation in support of his thesis.

5. Under this head we have chiefly to consider the com- mentators on Aristotle in so far as they are independent of the Theophrastean tradition. Their chief characteristic is what Simplicius calls εὐγνωμοσύνη, that is, a liberal spirit of inter- pretation, which makes all early philosophers agree with one another in upholding the doctrine of a Sensible and an

1 Cf. Οἷς. De nat. D. i. 15, 41: “ἘΠῚ haec quidem (Chrysippus) in primo libro de natura deorum, in secundo autem vult Orphei, Musaei, Hesiodi Homerique fabellas accommodare ad ea quae ipse primo libro de deis immortalibus dixerat, ut etiam veterrimi poetae, qui haec ne suspicati quidem sunt, Stoici fuisse videantur.” Cf. Philod. de piet. fr. c. 13, ἐν δὲ τῷ δευτέρῳ τά τε εἰς "Opdéa καὶ Μουσαῖον ἀναφερόμενα καὶ τὰ παρ᾽ Ὁμήρῳ. καὶ Ἡσιόδῳ καὶ Ἐϊριπίδῃ καὶ ποιηταῖς ἄλλοις, ὡς καὶ Κλεάνθης, πειρᾶται συνοικειοῦν ταῖς δόξαις αὐτῶν.

a en , ν

The Sources 421

Intelligible World. It is, however, to Simplicius more
than any one else that we owe the preservation of the frag- Ὁ
ments. He had, of course, the library of the Academy at
his disposal.

B.—Doxographers

6. The Doxographi graect of Professor Hermann Diels The Doxo- . (1879) threw an entirely new light upon the filiation of the ©” ee later sources ;; and we can only estimate justly the value of statements derived from these if we bear constantly in mind _ the results of his investigation. Here it will only be possible

to give an outline which may help the reader to find his way

in the Doxographi graeci itself.

7- By the term doxographers we understand all those The writers who relate the opinions of the Greek philosophers, Thee and who derive their material, directly or indirectly, from the great work of Theophrastos, @voixdv δοξῶν ιη (Diog. v. 46). Of this work, one considerable chapter, that entitled [epi αἰσθήσεων, has béen preserved (Dox. pp. 499-527). And Usener, following Brandis, further showed that there were important fragments of it contained in the commentary of Simplicius (sixth cent. a.D.) on the First Book of Aristotle’s Φυσικὴ ἀκρόασις (Usener, Analecta Theophrastea, pp. 25 544.) These extracts Simplicius seems to have borrowed in turn from Alexander of Aphrodisias (¢. 200 a.D.); cf. Dox. p. 112 sqq. We thus possess a very considerable portion of the First Book, which dealt with the dpyaé, as well as practically the whole of the last Book.

From these remains it clearly appears that the method of Theophrastos was to discuss in separate books the leading topics which had engaged the attention of philosophers from Thales to Plato. The chronological order was not observed ; the philosophers were grouped according to the affinity of their doctrine, the differences between those who appeared to agree most closely being carefully noted. The First Book, however, was in some degree exceptional ; for in it the order was that of the successive schools, and short historical and chronological notices were inserted. ᾿

Yoxographers,

he Placita ᾿ nd Stobaios.

atios.

422 Early Greek Philosophy

8. A work of this kind was, of course, a godsend to the epitomators and compilers of handbooks, who flourished more and more as the Greek genius declined. These either followed Theophrastos in arranging the subject-matter under heads, or else they broke up his work, and rearranged his statements under the names of the various philosophers to whom they applied. This latter class form the natural transition between the doxographers proper and the biographers, so I have ventured to distinguish them by the name of | biographical doxographers.

I. DoxOGRAPHERS PROPER

9. These are now represented by two works, viz. the Placita Philosophorum, included among the writings ascribed to Plutarch, and the Zclogae Physicae of John Stobaios (c. 470 A.D.). The latter originally formed one work with the Mor7- legium of the same author, and includes a transcript of some epitome substantially identical with the pseudo-Plutarchean Placita. It is, however, demonstrable that neither the Placita nor the doxography of the £c/ogae is the original of the other. The latter is usually the fuller of the two, and yet the former must be earlier; for it was used by Athenagoras for his defence of the Christians in 177 A.D. (Dox. p. 4). It was also the source of the notices in Eusebios and Cyril, and of the History of Philosophy ascribed to Galen. From these writers many important corrections of the text have been derived (Dox. pp. 5 sqq.).

Another writer who made use of the /Vacifa is Achilles
(not Achilles Tatius). Extracts from his Εἰσαγωγή to the
Phaenomena of Aratos are included in the Uvranologion of
Petavius, pp. 121-164. His date is uncertain, but probably
he belongs to the third century a.p. (Dox. p. 18).

το. What, then, was the common source of the Placita and the Zclogae? Diels has shown that Theodoret (¢ 445 A.D.) had access to it; for in some cases he gives a fuller form of statements made in these two works. Not only so, but he also names that source ; for he refers us (Gv. aff. cur. iv. 31)

The Sources 423

to ’Aeriov τὴν περὶ ἀρεσκόντων συναγωγήν. Diels has accord- ingly printed the Placita in parallel columns with the relevant parts of the Zclogae, under the title of “εἰ Placita. The quotations from “ Plutarch” by later writers, and the extracts of Theodoret from Aetios, are also given at the foot of each

page.

11. Diels has shown further, however, that Aetios did not draw directly from Theophrastos, but from an intermediate epitome which he calls the Vetusta Placita, traces of which may be found in Cicero (infra, § 12), and in Censorinus (De die natalt), who follows Varro. The Vetusta Placita were composed in the school of Poseidonios, and Diels now calls them the Poseidonian ᾿Αρέσκοντα (Uber das phys. System des Straton, p. 2). There are also traces of them in the “ Homeric Allegorists.”

It is quite possible, by discounting the somewhat unin- telligent additions which Aetios made from Epicurean and other sources, to form a pretty accurate table of the contents of the Vetusta Placita (Dox. pp. 181 sqq.), and this gives us a fair idea of the arrangement of the original work by Theophrastos.

12. So far as what he tells us of the earliest Greek philo- sophy goes, Cicero must be classed with the doxographers, and not with the philosophers ; for he gives us nothing but extracts at second or third hand from the work of Theophrastos. Two passages in his writings fall to be considered under this head, namely, “ Lucullus” (Acad. ii.), 118, and De natura Deorum, i, 25-41.

(a) Doxography of the “ Lucullus.”—This contains a meagre and inaccurately-rendered summary of the various opinions held by philosophers with regard to the ἀρχή (Dox. pp. 119 sqq.), and would be quite useless if it did not in one case enable us to verify the exact words of Theophrastos (Chap. I. p. 52, #. 2). The doxography has come through the hands of Kleitomachos, who succeeded Karneades in the headship of the Academy (129 B.c.).

(ὁ) Doxography of the “De natura Deorum.”—A fresh light was thrown upon this important passage by the discovery at

The Vetusta Placita.

Cicero.

Hippolytos.

The Stro- mutets.

‘* Diogenes Laertios.”

424 Early Greek Philosophy

Herculaneum of a roll containing fragments of an Epicurean treatise, so like it as to be at once regarded as its original. This treatise was at first ascribed to Phaidros, on the ground of the reference in ZPp. ad Aft. xiii. 39. 2; but the real title, Φιλοδήμου περὶ εὐσεβείας, was afterwards restored (Dox. p. 530). Diels, however, has shown (Dox. pp. 122 sqq.) that there is much to be said for the view that Cicero did not copy Philodemos, but that both drew from a common source (no doubt Phaidros, Περὶ θεῶν) which itself went back to a Stoic epitome of Theophrastos. The passage of Cicero and the relevant fragments of Philodemos are edited in parallel columns by Diels (Dox. pp. 531 sqq.).

II. BIoGRAPHICAL DOXOGRAPHERS

13. Of the “ biographical doxographies,” the most important is Book I. of the Refutation of all Heresies by Hippolytos. This had long been known as the Pizlosophoumena of Origen ; but the discovery of the remaining books, which were first published at Oxford in 1854, showed finally that it could not belong to him. It is drawn mainly from some good epitome of Theophrastos, in which the matter was already rearranged under the names of the various philosophers. We must note, however, that the sections dealing with Thales, Pythagoras, Herakleitos, and Empedokles come from an inferior source, some merely biographical compendium full of apocryphal anecdotes and doubtful statements.

14. The fragments of the pseudo-Plutarchean Stromatets, quoted by Eusebios in his Praeparatio Evangelica, come from a source similar to that of the best portions of the P/zloso- phoumena. So far as we can judge, they differ chiefly in two points. In the first place, they are mostly taken from the earliest sections of the work, and therefore most of them deal with the primary substance, the heavenly bodies and the earth. In the second place, the language is a much less faithful transcript of the original.

15. The scrap-book which goes by the name of Diogenes Laertios, or Laertios Diogenes (cf. Usener, Zficurea, pp. 1 sqq.),