Three Ancient Meanings of Matter

The more facts we learn, greater our need of perspectives in which they can be exhibited as coherent and manageable. A proper perspective in case of our knowledge of historical philosophies should not only avoid ignoring or distorting facts accumulated in piecemeal discovery; it should highlight general patterns of thought and motivation that generated special theories. Just because there is such a vast literature on philosophies of Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle-probably three most influential conceptual schemes of classical antiquity-it is always worth renewing question of extent to which we can discover system in their interrelations. This paper concentrates on meanings assigned to concept of matter in cosmologies of these three philosophies and on some peculiarities of method that seem connected with them. Also I should not be sorry if perspective advanced by this paper helped to counteract what seems to me frequently excessive emphasis in philosophical historiography on interests peculiar to particular times and cultures, to detriment of more permanent problems and persisting proposals for their resolution. The dialogue of systems we shall consider demonstrates how misleading it can be to speak of the Greek view of matter, or time, or space, or method, for purposes of contrasting it with the Hebraic, or the medieval, or the modern view. Democritus does indeed share with Aristotle a language and a heritage, but his way of thinking about nature is in significant ways more similar to that of Hugh Eliot or J. J. C. Smart than to that of his contemporary and compatriot. The question is not entirely a theoretical one. It raises whole issue of limits of intercultural communication. If we are unable to learn from Greeks just because they were Greeks, or perhaps prescientific, or because they had not yet learned to ask the right questions, then I fear we shall also be impatient in having to listen to voices of contemporary cultures whose ways of speaking are not those we prefer or with which we are most familiar. My assumption has rather been that in coming to understand oppositions in Greek cosmological debates we shall also shed light on alternatives open to us

Epistemology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy

• Galen’in Element Teorisi ve Acı Argümanı Bağlamında Antik Atomcu Teoriye Getirdiği Eleştiriler

  Open Access•Tugay Taşçı•Tasavvur / Tekirdağ İlahiyat…•2021

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