" But these states are also conditioned throughout by the things in which the
perceived
prop erties appear, and here the arrangement and the situation which the atoms have taken with reference to each other in the process of composition are of principal importance.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
1879); of the Poetics, by Wharton (Camb.
1883) ; of the Politics, by Welldon (Camb.
1888), Jowett (2 vols.
, Oxford, 1886-88) ; of the Rhetoric, by Welldon (Lond.
and N.
Y.
1886) ; also tr.
of all of the above and of the Metaphysics, Organon, and History of Animals in the Bohn Library.
Editions of the Politics with valuable introduction by Newman (Oxford, 1887, 2 vols.
); of the Ethics, by A.
Grant.
Cf.
also Art.
in Enc.
Brit.
, Aristotle bv A.
Giant; T.
H.
Green in Works; A.
C.
Bradley, A'* Theory of the State, in Hellenica.
E.
Wallace, Outlines of A.
's Phil, is convenient for the student.
]
§ 9. Metaphysics grounded anew in Epistemology and Ethics.
The great systematisers of Greek science exercised a swift but just criticism upon the Sophistic doctrine. They saw at once that among the doctrines of the Sophists but a single one possessed the worth of lasting validity and scientific fruitfulness — the perception theory of Protagoras.
1 Of the newer editions, that of the Berlin Academy (J. Bekker, Brandis, Rose, Usener, Bonitz), 6 vols. , Berlin, 1831-70, is made the basis of citations. The Parisian edition (Didot) is also to be noticed (DUbner, Bussemaker, Helta) 5 vols. , Paris, 1848-74.
Chat. 3, § ! >. ] The New Metaphysics. 105
1. This, therefore, became the starting-point for Democritus and for Plato ; and both adopted it in order to transcend it and attack the consequences which the Sophist had drawn from it. Both admit that perception, as being itself only a product of a natural process, can be the knowledge of something only which likewise arises and passes away as transitory product of the same natural process. Perception then gives only opinion (&6£a) ; it teaches what appears in and for human view (called vd^w in Democritus with a genuine Sophistic mode of expression), not what truly or really {ireg with Democritus, eVr«K with Piato) is.
For Protagoras, who regarded perception as the only source of knowledge, there was consequently no knowledge of what is. That he took the farther step of denying Being altogether and declaring the objects of perception to be the sole reality, behind which there is no Being to be sought for, — this " positivist" conclusion is not to be demonstrated in his case : the doctrine of " nihilism " there
no Being expressly ascribed by tradition only to Gorgias.
If, nevertheless, from any grounds whatever, universally valid knowledge (ympru; yvwiit) with Democritus, imar-finn with Plato) was
to be again set over against opinions, the sensualism of Protagoras must be abandoned and the position of the old metaphysicians, who distinguished thought (oWou), as higher and better knowledge, from perception, must l>e taken again (cf. 6). Thus Democritus and Plato both in like manner transcend Protagoras by acknowledg ing the relativity of perception, and looking to "thought" agaiu for knowledge of what truly is. Both are outspoken rationalists. 1
This new metaphysical rationalism yet distinguished from the older rationalism of the cosraological period, not only by its broader psychological basis, which owed to the Protagorean analysis of perception, but also in consequence of this, by another valuation of perception 'tself from the standpoint of the theory of knowledge. The earlier metaphysicians, where they could not fit the contents of perception into their conceptional idea of the world, had simply rejected them as deceit and illusion. Now this illusion had been explained (by Protagoras), but in such way that while sarrendering its universal validity the content of perception might yet claim at least the value of transient atid relative reality.
This, in connection with the fact that scientific knowledge was
Cf- Seat. Kmp. Adv. Math. VIII. 66. The doctrine of Democritus with nm^ri to " genuine " knowledge most ihaiply formulated in Sext . Kmp. Adv.
JMata. VII. 139. Plato'* attack upon the Protagorean sensualism found prin cipally in the Thtatetus, his positive rationalistic attitude in the Phtzdriu, Sym-
BrjmUic, and Phado.
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106 Tlie Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I.
directed toward the abiding " true " Being, led to a division in the conception of reality, and with this the fundamental need of explana tory thought came to clear, explicit consciousness, — a need which unconsciously lay at the basis of the beginnings of science. To the two kinds of knowledge — so Democritus and Plato taught — cor respond/two different kinds of reality: to perception a changing, relative, transient reality or actuality ; to thought a reality homo geneous, absolute and abiding. For the former Democritus seems to have introduced the expression phenomena; Plato designates it as the world of generation, ytWes : the other kind of reality Democ ritus calls ra tTttf ovra ; Plato, to ovtux; ov or obo-la [that which really
or essence].
In this way perception and opinion gain correctness which is
analogous to that of scientific thought. Perception cognises chang ing reality as thought cognises abiding reality. To the two modes of cognition correspond two domains of reality. 1
But between these two domains there exists for this reason the same relation, as regards their respective values, as obtains between the two kinds of cognition. By as much as thought, the universally valid act of consciousness, above perception, the knowledge valid only for individuals and for the particular, by so much the true Being higher, purer, more primitive, raised above the lower actuality of phenomena and the changing processes and events among them. This relation was especially emphasised and carried out by Plato for reasons hereafter to be unfolded. But appears also with Democ ritus, not only in his theory of knowledge, but also in his ethics.
In this way the two metaphysicians agree with the result which the Pythagoreans (cf. and had likewise won from their premises, viz. the distinction of higher and lower kind of reality. Nevertheless, in the presence of this similarity we are not to think of dependence in nowise in the case of Democritus, who was complete stranger to the astronomical view of the Pythag oreans, and scarcely in the case of Plato, who indeed later adopted the astronomical theory, but whose idea of the higher reality (the doctrine of Ideas) has an entirely different content. The case rather that the common, fundamental motive which came from the conception of Being propounded by Parmenides, led in these three quite different forms to the division of the world into sphere of higher and one of lower reality.
The pragmatic parallelism in the motives of the two opposed systems of Democritus and Plato reaches step farther, although
Best formulated in Plat. , Tim. 27 D ff. , eapeoially 29 <X
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3, § 9. ] The New Metaphysics : Democritus, Plato. 107
bat a short step. To the world of perception belong, without doubt, the specific qualities of the senses, for these disclose their relativity in the fact that the same thing appears differently to different senses. But after we have abstracted these qualities, that which remains as in object for the knowledge of the truly actual, is primarily the form which things have, and both thinkers designated as the true essential nature of things the pure forms (l&au).
But it almost seems as though here they had nothing in common but the name, striking as this fact is ; for if Democritus understood by the l&iu, which he also called uxn^ra, his atom-forms, while Plato understood by his ! 8«u'or ub\j the conceptions corresponding to logical species (Oattungsbegriffe), then the apparently like state ment that the truly existent consists in " forms " has a completely different meaning in the two authors. For this reason we must here, too, remain in doubt as to whether we should see a parallel dependence upon Pythagoreanism, which, to be sure, had previously found the essence of things in mathematical forms, and whose influ ence upon the two thinkers may be assumed without encountering any difficulties in the assumption itself. At all events, however, if a common suggestion was present, it led to quite different results in the two systems before us, and though in both of them knowledge of mathematical relations stands in very close relation to knowledge of true reality, these relations are yet completely different with the respective thinkers.
4. The relationship thus far unfolded between the two rational istic systems changes now suddenly to a sharp opposition as soon as we consider the motives from which the two thinkers transcended the Protagorean sensualism and relativism, and observe also the consequences which result therefrom. Here the circumstance be comes of decisive importance, that Plato teas the disciple of Socrates, while Democritus experienced not even the slightest influence from the great Athenian sage.
With Democritus the demand which drives him to transcend the position of Protagoras grows solely out of his theoretical need and develops according to his personal nature, — the demand, namely, that there is a knowledge, and that this, if it is not to he found in perception, must be sought for in thought; the investigator of Nat ure believes, as against all the Sophistic teaching, in the possibility ef a theory that shall explain phenomena. Plato, on the contrary, sets out with his postulate of the Socratic conception of virtue. Virtue is to be gained only through Tight knowledge ; knowledge, however, is cognition of the true Being : if, then, this is not to be found in perception, it must be sought for through thought. For
108 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
Plato philosophy grows, according to the Socratic principle,1 out of the ethical need. But while the Sophistic friends of Socrates were endeavouring to give to the knowledge that constituted virtue some object in the form of a general life-purpose, the good, pleasure, etc. , Plato wins his metaphysical position with one stroke, by drawing the inference that this knowledge in which virtue is to consist must be the cognition of what is truly real, the oiWu, — as opposed to opinions which relate to the relative. In his case the knowledge in which virtue is to consist demands a metaphysics.
Here, then, the ways are already parting. Knowledge of the truly real was for Democritus, as for the old metaphysicians, essentially an idea of the unchangeably abiding Being, but an idea by means of which it should be possible to understand the derivative form of reality which is cognised in perception. His rationalism amounted to an explanation of phenomena, to be gained through thought; it was essentially theoretical rationalism. For Plato, on the contrary, knowledge of the truly real had its ethical purpose within itself; this knowledge was to constitute virtue, and hence it had no other relation to the world given through ception than that of sharply defining its limits. True Being has
for Democritus the theoretical value of explaining phenomena ; for Plato, the practical value of being the object of that knowledge which constitutes virtue. His doctrine as regards its original principle, essentially ethical rationalism.
Democritus, therefore, persevered in the work undertaken in the school of Abdera, — the construction of metaphysics of Nature. With the help of the Sophistic psychology he developed Atomism to comprehensive system. Like Leucippus, he regarded empty space and the atoms moving in as the true reality. He then attempted not only to explain from the motion of these atoms all qualitative phenomena of the corporeal world as quantitative phenomena, but also to explain from these motions all mental activities, including that knowing activity which directed toward true Being. Thus he created the system of materialism.
Plato, however, was led to the entirely opposite result by his attachment to the Socratic doctrine, which proved to be of decisive importance for his conception of the essential nature of science.
Socrates had taught that knowledge consists in general concep tions. If, however, this knowledge, in contrast with opinions, was to be knowledge of what truly, actually is, there must belong to the content of these conceptions that higher Being, that true essential
Set forth most clearly in the Meno, 96 fl.
per
1
5.
a
is
it
a
is,
Caar. 5, f 10. ] Syttem of Materialism : Demoeritus. 109
reality which, it was held, could be grasped only by thought, in contrast with perception. The " forms " of true reality, knowledge of which constitutes virtue, are the species or class-concepts ( Gattungs- begriffe), tl&yj. With this consideration, the Platonic conception of the - Idea" first gains its complete determination.
So understood, Plato's doctrine of Ideas presents itself as the summit of Greek philosophy. In it are combined all the different lines of thought which had been directed toward the physical, the ethical, the logical first principle (ip\yi or <f>vois). The Platonic
Idea, the species or class-concept, is firstly the abiding Being in the change of phenomena; secondly, the object of knowledge in the change of opinions ; thirdly, the true end in the change of desires.
But this oioui, from the nature of its definition, is not to be found within the sphere of what may be perceived, and everything cor poreal is capable of being perceived. The Ideas are then something essentially different from the corporeal world. True reality is
The division in the conception of reality takes on accordingly a fixed form ; the lower reality of natural processes or generation (yiytott), which forms the object of perception, is the corporeal world ; the higher reality of Being, which thought knows, is the incorporeal, the immaterial world, rorot votjtos. Thus the
PUtonic system becomes immaterialism, or, as we rail it after the meaning given by him to the word "Idea," Idealism.
it. In the Platonic system, accordingly, we find perhaps the most extensive interweaving and complication of problems which history has seen. The doctrine of Demoeritus, on the contrary, is ruled throughout by the one interest of explaining Nature. However
rich the results which this latter doctrine might achieve for this its proper end, — results which could be taken up again in a later, similarly disposed condition of thought, and then first unfold their whole fruitfulness, — at first the other doctrine must surpass this, all the more in proportion as it satisfied all needs of the time and united within itself the entire product of earlier thought. More points of attack for immanent criticism are perhaps offered by the Platonic system than by that of Demoeritus ; but for Greek thought the latter was a relapse into the cosmology of the first period, and it was Plato's doctrine that must become the system of the future.
S 10. The System of Materialism.
The systematic character of the doctrine of Demoeritus consists in the way in which he carried through in all departments of his work the fundamental thought, that scientific theory must so far
incorporeal.
110 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
gain knowledge of the true reality, i. e. of the atoms and their motions in space, as to be able to explain from them the reality which appears in phenomena, as this presents itself in perception. There is every indication (even the titles of his books would show this) that Democritus took up this task by means of investigations covering the entire compass of the objects of experience, and in this connection devoted himself with as great an interest to the psy chological as to the physical problems. So much the more must we regret that the greater part of his teachings has been lost, and that what is preserved, in connection with accounts of others, permits only a hypothetical reconstruction of the main conceptions of his great work, a reconstruction which must always remain defective and uncertain.
1. It must be assumed in the first place that Democritus was fully conscious of this task of science, viz. that of explaining the world of experience through conceptions of the true reality. That which the Atomists regard as the Existent, viz. space and the par ticles whirring in has no value except for theoretical purposes. It only thought in order to make intelligible what perceived; but for this reason the problem so to think the truly real that
may explain the real which appears in phenomena, that at the same time this latter reality may " remain preserved " as some thing that " " in derived sense, and that the truth which inheres in may remain recognised. Hence Democritus knew very well that thought also must seek the truth in perception, and win out of perception. ' His rationalism far removed from being in con tradiction with experience, or even from being strange to experience. Thought has to infer from perception that by means of which the latter explained. The motive which lay at the foundation of the mediating attempts following the Eleatic paradox of acosmism became with Democritus the clearly recognised principle of meta physics and natural science. Yet unfortunately nothing now known as to how he carried out in detail the methodical relation between the two modes of cognition, and how the process by which knowledge grows out of perception in the particular instance was thought by him.
More particularly, the theoretical explanation which Democritus
The very happv expression for this juur<if«r tA <pair6iumi. Cf. also Arist. Oen. et Corr. 832, a,
Hence, the expressions in which he recognised the truth in the phenome non e. g. Arist. Dt An. 404 27, and the like. To attempt, however, to construe out of this " sensualism" of Democritus, as has been attempted by E. Johnson (I'lauen, 18«8), contradicts completely the accounts with regard to his attitude toward Protagoras.
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Chap. 3, § 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. Ill
gave for the contents of perception consists, as with Leucippus, in the reduction of all phenomena to the mechanics of atoms. What appears in perception as qualitatively determined, and also as in volved iu qualitative change (dXAoiov/xt^ov), exists " in truth " only as a quantitative relation of the atoms, of their order, and their motion. The task of science is then to reduce all qualitative to quantitative relations, and to show in detail what quantitative rela tions of the absolute reality produce the qualitative characteristics of the reality which appears in phenomena. Thus, the prejudice in favour of khat may be perceived or imaged (anschauiich), as if spatial form and motion were something simpler, more comprehensible in themselves, and less of a problem than qualitative character and
alteration, is made the principle for the theoretical explanation of the world.
Since this principle is applied with complete systematic rigour to the whole of experience, Atomism regards the psychical life with all its essential elements and values as also a phenomenon, and the form and motion of the atoms which constitute the true Being of this phenomenon must be stated by the explanatory theory. Thus
matter in its form and motion is regarded as that which alone is truly real, and the entire mental or spiritual life as the derived, phenomenal reality. With this the system of Democritus first assumes the character of conscious, outspoken materialism.
2. In the properly physical doctrines, the teaching of Democritus presents, therefore, no change in principle as compared with that of Leucippus, though there is a great enrichment by careful detailed investigation. He emphasised still more sharply than his predeces sor, where possible, the thought of the mechanical necessity (dvayio/, which he also occasionally called Aoyos), in accordance with which all occurrence or change whatever takes place, and further defined this thought as involving that no operation of atoms upon one another is possible except through impact, through immediate con tact, and further, that this operation consists only in the change of the state of motion of the atoms which are also unchangeable as regards their form.
The atom itself as that which "is," in the proper sense of the word, has accordingly only the characteristics of abstract corpore ality, viz. the filling of a limited space, and the quality of being in motion in the void. Although all are imperceptibly small, they yet exhibit an endless variety of forms (JS«u or trxJPJlTa)- To form,
which constitutes the proper fundamental difference in the atoms, belongs in a certain sense also size ; yet it is to be observed that the same stereometrical form, e. g. the sphere, may appear in different
112 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part L
sizes. The larger the atom, the greater its mass ; for the essential quality of what is, is indeed materiality, space-claiming. For this reason Democritus asserted weight or lightness to be a function of size,1 evidently yielding to the mechanical analogies of daily life. In connection with these terms (/3opu and Koi)<^ov), however, we are not to think of the falling motion, but solely of the degree of mechani cal movability or of inertia. ' Hence it was also his opinion that as the atom-complexes whirled about, the lighter parts were forced out ward, while the more inert with their inferior mobility were gath ered in the middle.
The same properties communicate themselves as metaphysical qualities to things which are composed of atoms. The form and size of things is produced by the simple summation of the form and size of the component atoms ; though in this case, the inertia is not dependent solely upon the sum total of the magnitudes of the atoms, but upon the greater or less amount of empty space that remains between the individual particles when they are grouped together. The inertia depends therefore upon the less or greater degree of density. And since the ease with which particles may be displaced with reference to one another depends upon this interruption of the mass by empty space, the properties of hardness and softness belong also to the true reality that is known by thought.
All other properties, however, belong to things not in them selves, but only in so far as motions proceeding from things act upon the organs of perception ; they are " states of perception as it is in process of qualitative change.
" But these states are also conditioned throughout by the things in which the perceived prop erties appear, and here the arrangement and the situation which the atoms have taken with reference to each other in the process of composition are of principal importance. 3
While, then, form, size, inertia, density, and hardness are properties of things irtrj, i. e. in truth, all that is perceived in them by the indi vidual senses as colour, sound, smell, taste, exists only vd/iwor diem, i. e. in the phenomenon. This doctrine, when taken up anew in the philosophy of the Renaissance (cf. Part IV. ch. 2) and later, was
1 As the most extensive exposition for this and for the following topic The- ophr. De Sens. 61 ff. (Doz. D. 516) is to be compared.
5 It is scarcely to be decided now whether the motion of their own, which Atomism ascribed to all the atoms as primitive and causeless, was thought ol by Democritus as conditioned already by the size or mass, so that the greater had, even from the beginning, possessed less velocity. At all events, these determinations held good for him within the sphere of the mechanical operation of the atoms on one another. What is larger can be pushed with greater diffi culty ; what is smaller can be pushed more easily.
» Cf. Arist Gen. et Corr. I. 2, 316 b 6.
Cbaf. 3, § 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. 113
designated as distinguishing between the primary and secondary fnalities of things, and it is desirable to introduce this expression htrre, since it corresponds throughout to the metaphysical and episte- nological sense in which Democritus made the Protagorean doctrine useful for his own purpose. While the Sophist would make all properties secondary and relative, Democritus admitted this only for the qualities perceived by special senses, and set over against these the quantitative determinations as primary and absolute. He there fore designated also as " genuine knowledge " the insight into the
primary qualities to be won through thought, while, on the contrary, perception which is directed toward the secondary qualities he termed " obscure knowledge " (yvrjvi^ — (XKorirj yvw/117).
3. The secondary qualities appear accordingly as dependent upon the primary ; they are not, however, dependent upon these alone, but rather upon the action of these upon the percipient agent. But in the atomistic system that which perceives, the mind or toul, can consist only of atoms. To be more explicit, it consists, according to Democritus, of the same atoms which constitute also the essence of fire: namely, the finest, smoothest, and most mobile.
These are indeed scattered also through the whole world, and in so far animals, plants, and other things may be regarded as animate, as having souls,' but they are united in largest numbers in the human body, where in life a fire-atom is placed between every two atoms of other sorts, and where they are held together by breathing.
Upon this presupposition, then, analogous, as we see, to the older systems, Democritus built up his explanation of phenomena from the true essence of things. That perception, and with the secondary qualities, arises from the action of things upon the fire- atoms of the soul. The reality which appears a necessary result of the true reality.
In carrying out this doctrine Democritus took up and refined the theories of perception advanced by his predecessors. The effluxes (ef. above, 3) which proceed from things to set in motion the
organs and through them the fire-atoms, he called images (ct&oAa), and regarded them as infinitely small copies of the things. Their impression upon the fire-atoms perception, and the similarity between the content of this perception and its object was held to be secured thereby. Since impact and pressure are the essence of all the mechanics of the atoms, touch regarded as the most primitive sense. The special organs, on the contrary, were regarded as capable of receiving only such images as corresponded to their own forma
tion and motion, and this theory of the specific energy of the sense was worked out very acutely Demooritus. From this
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is
it
f 6,
is
is,
it
114 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I.
followed also that in case there were things whose effluxes could not act upon any one of the organs, these would remain imperceptible for the ordinary man, and for these perhaps " other senses " might be accessible.
This theory of images appeared very plausible to ancient thought. It brought to definite expression, and indeed to a certain extent explained, the mode of representing things which is still common for the ordinary consciousness, as if our perceptions were " copies " of things existing outside of us. If one did not ask further how things should come to send out such miniature likenesses of them selves into the world, he might think that he understood, by means of this theory, how our " impressions " can resemble things with out. For this reason this theory at once attained the predominance in physiological psychology, and retained its position until after the beginnings of modern philosophy, where it was defended by Locke.
Its Significance, however, for the conceptions in the system of Democritus, lies in this, that it was regarded as describing that motion of the atoms in which perception consists. It remained hidden from this materialism, which was such from principle, as well as from all its later transformations, that perception as a psychical activity is something specifically different from any and every motion of atoms, however determined. But in seeking out the individual forms of motion from which the individual percep tions of the special senses arise, the philosopher of Abdera caused many a keen observation, many a fine suggestion, to become known.
4. It is interesting now that the same fate befell the materialistic; psychology of Democritus as had befallen the pre-Sophistic meta physicians (cf- § 6) : too, was obliged in certain respect to oblit erate again the epistemologica2 contrast between perception and thought. Since, that all psychical life regarded as motion of the fire-atoms,1 and since the motion of atoms in the connected sys tem of the universe conditioned by contact and impact, follows that thought, which knows the truly real, can be explained only from an impression which this truly real makes upon the fiery atoms, — explained therefore itself only through the efflux of such images. As psychological process, therefore, thought the same as percep tion, viz. impression of images upon fire-atoins the only difference
that in the case of perception the relatively coarse images of the atom-complexes are active, while thought, which apprehends true reality, rests upon contact of the fire-atoms with the finest images, with those which represent the atomic structure of things.
Arist. De An. 405 8.
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it,
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is
a
;
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Chap. S, 5 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. 115
Odd and fantastic as this sounds, the indications are yet all in favour of the supposition that Democritus drew this conclusion from
the presuppositions of his m iterialistic psychology. This psychol ogy knew no independent, internal mechanism of ideas or conscious states, but only an arising of ideas through the motion of atoms Hence it regarded ideas that were evidently deceptive as also - impressions," and sought for these the exciting images. Dreams, tj§. were traced back to ci&uAa which had either penetrated into the body in the waking state and on account of their weak motion had previously produced no impression, or had first reached the fiery items in sleep, evading the senses. A mysterious ("magnetic," or -psychic," we should say to-day) action of men upon one another appeared comprehensible on this hypothesis, and an objective basis was given to faith in gods and demons by assuming giant forms in
infinite space from which corresponding images proceeded.
In correspondence with this Democritus seems to have thought of
* genuine knowledge " as that motion of the fire-atoms which is pro duced by the impression of the smallest and finest images, — those which represent the atomic composition of things. This motion is, however, the most delicate, the finest, the gentlest of all — that which comes nearest to rest. With this definition the contrast between per ception and thought was expressed in quantitative terms — quite in the
spirit of the system. The coarse images of things as wholes set the aery atoms into relatively violent motion and produce by this means the '•obscure insight " which presents itself as perception ; the finest images, on the contrary, impress upon the fiery atoms a gentle, fine
motion which evokes the "genuine insight" into the atomic structure of things, i. e. thought. In consideration of this, Democritus com mends the thinker to turn away from the world of the senses, quite in contrast with the mode of thought which would develop truth out of perception. Those finest motions assert their influence only where the coarser are kept back ; and where too violent motions of the . fiery atoms take place, the result is false ideation, the iWo^pomlv. 1
5. This same quantitative contrast of strong and soft, violent and gentle motion, was laid by Democritus at the basis of his ethical fAeory also. * In so doing he stood with his psychology completely upon the inteUectualistic standpoint of Socrates in so far as he transposed the epistemological values of ideas immediately into ethical values of states of will. As from perception only that
: Theophr Dt Sent. 68 (Doz. D. 516).
» The resemblance with the theory of Aristippus (§ 7, 9) is so striking, that Ik* assumption of a causal connection ia scarcely to be avoided. Yet it may be that we should seek for this rather in a common dependence upon Protagoras,
in the interaction of Atomism and Hedonism upon each other.
'
116 Tlie Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1
obscure insight follows which has for its object the phenomenon and not the true essence, so also the pleasure which arises from the excitation of the senses is only relative (vo/^p), obscure, uncertain of itself, and deceitful. The true happiness, on the contrary, for which the wise man lives "according to nature" (<f>v<ru), the cv&u/to- v! a, which is the end (rc'Aot) and measure (ovpos) of human life, must not be sought in external goods, in sensuous satisfaction, but only in that gentle motion, that tranquil frame (cvcorw), which attends upon right insight, upon the gentle movement of the fiery atoms. This insight alone gives to the soul measure and harmony (£u/ajm- rpia), guards it from emotional astonishment (aOav/juuria), lends it security and imperturbability (drapa&a, aOa^fila. ) , — the ocean-calm
(yaAi/Vrj) of the soul that has become master of its passions through knowledge. True happiness is rest (ijo-vxwi), and rest is secured only by knowledge. Thus Democritus gains as the capstone of his system his personal ideal of life, — that of pure knowledge, free from all wishes ; with this ideal, this systematic materialism cul minates in a noble and lofty theory of life. And yet there is in it also a tendency which characterises the morals of the age of the Enlightenment : this peace of mind resting upon knowledge is the happiness of an individual life, and where the ethical teachings of Democritus extend beyond the individual, it is friendship, the rela tion of individual personalities to one another, that he praises, while he remains indifferent as regards connection with the state
§ 11. The System of Idealism.
The origin and development of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas is one of the most difficult and involved, as well as one of the most effective and fruitful, processes in the entire history of European thought, and the task of apprehending it properly is made still more difficult by the literary form in which it has been transmitted. The Platonic dialogues show the philosophy of their author in process of constant re-shaping : their composition extended through half a century. Since, however, the order in which the individual dialogues arose has not been transmitted to us and cannot be estab lished absolutely from external characteristics, pragmatic hypotheses based on the logical connections of thought must be called to our aid.
1. In the first place there is no question that the opposition between Socrates and the Sophists formed the starting-point for Platonic thought. Plato's first writings were dedicated to an affectionate and in the main, certainly, a faithful presentation of the Socratic doctrine of virtue. To this he attached a polemic
Chap. 3. § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 117
against the Sophistic doctrines of society and knowledge marked by increasing keenness, but also by an increasing tendency toward establishing his own view upon an independent basis. The Platonic criticism of the Sophistic theories, however, proceeded essentially from the Socratic postulate. It admitted fully, in the spirit of Protagoras, the relativity of all knowledge gained through percep tion, but it found just in this the inadequacy of the Sophistic theory for a true science of ethics. 1 The knowledge which is necessary for virtue cannot consist in opinions as they arise from the changing states of motion in subject and object, nor can it consist of a rational consideration and legitimation of such opinions gained by perception ; * it must have a wholly different source and wholly different objects. Of the corporeal world and its changing states —
Plato held to thh view of Protagoras in its entirety — there is no science, but only perceptions and opinions ; it is accordingly an i*mrporeal world that forms the object of science, and this world most exist side by side with the corporeal world as independently as does knowledge side by side with opinion. 3
Here we have for the first time the claim of an immaterial reality, '•rought forward expressly and with full consciousness, and it is dear that this springs from the ethical need for a knowledge that is raised above all ideas gained by sense-perception. The assump tion of immateriality did not at first have as its aim, for Plato, the explanation of phenomena : its end was rather to assure an object for ethical knowledge. The idealistic metaphysics, therefore, in its first draft * builds entirely upon a new foundation of its own, with out any reference to the work of earlier science that had been directed toward investigating and understanding phenomena; it is aa immaterial Eleatism, which seeks true Being in the Ideas, with out troubling itself about the world of generation and occurrence, *hi'h it leaves to perception and opinion. *
To avoid numerous misunderstandings* we must, nevertheless, expressly point out that the Platonic conception of immateriality (•vwparor) is in nowise coincident with that of the spiritual or
psychical, as might be easily assumed from the modern mode of thinking. For the Platonic conception the particular psychical
1 On thin point, the Thecrtetut brings together the whole criticism of the S"f*. »ulc doctrine.
» Uf» *A*«4t nrrk XA>«*, Thtat. 201 E. (Probably a theory of Antisthenes. ) • Aria*. Met. I. «. 987 a 32 ; XIII. 4, 1078 b 12.
' A* act forth in the dialogues Pheedrut and the Symposium.
' la mitigations aa to theoretical and natural science are first found in the
■teat dialogues.
' To which the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-PIatonic transformation of the
soonna of Ideas gave occasion. Cf. It. II. ch. 2, { 18.
1 18 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
[PahtI.
functions belong to the world of Becoming, precisely as do those of the body and of other corporeal things ; and on the other hand, in the true reality the " forms " or " shapes " of corporeality, the Ideas of sensuous qualities and relations, find a place precisely as do those of the spiritual relations. The identification of spirit or mind and incorporeality, the division of the world into mind and matter, is un- Platonic. The incorporeal world which Plato teaches is not yet the spiritual.
Kather, the Ideas are, for Plato, that incorporeal Being which is known through conceptions. Since, that is, the conceptions in which Socrates found the essence of science are not given as such in the reality that can be perceived, they must form a " second," " other " reality, different from the former, existing by itself, and this imma terial reality is related to the material, as Being to Becoming, as the abiding to the changing, as the simple to the manifold — in short, as the world of Parmenides to that of Heraclitus. The object of ethical knowledge, cognised through general conceptions, is that which " is " in the true sense : the ethical, the logical, and the phys ical ipxi (ground or first principle) are the same. This is the point in which all lines of earlier philosophy converge.
2. If the Ideas are to be " something other " than the percep tible world, knowledge of them through conceptions cannot be found in the content of perception, for they cannot be contained in it. With this turn of thought, which corresponds to the sharper separa tion of the two worlds, the Platonic doctrine of knowledge becomes much more rationalistic than that of Democritus, and goes also decidedly beyond that of Socrates ; for while the latter had devel oped the universal out of the opinions and perceptions of individuals inductively, and had found it as the common content in these opin ions and perceptions, Plato does not conceive of the process of induction in this analytical manner, but sees in perceptions only the suggestions or promptings with the help of which the soul bethinks itself of the conceptions, of the knowledge of the Ideas.
Plato expressed this rationalistic principle in the form that phil osophical knowledge is recollection (Ava/j-v^mt). He showed in the example of the Pythagorean proposition ' that mathematical knowl edge is not extracted from sense-perception, but that sense-percep tion offers only the opportunity on occasion of which the soul recollects the knowledge already present within her, that is, knowl edge that has purely rational validity. He points out that the pure mathematical relations are not present in corporeal reality ; on the
1 Meno, 80 ft. ■•-. .
Cm**. 8, § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 119
contrary, the notion of these relations arises in us when similar figures of perception offer but the occasion therefor, and he extended this observation, which is completely applicable to mathematical knowledge, to the sum total of scientific knowledge.
That this reflection upon what is rationally necessary should be conceived of as recollection is connected with the fact that Plato, is little as any of his predecessors, recognises a creative activity of the consciousness, which produces its content. This is a general limit for all Greek psychology ; the content for ideas must somehow be given to the " soul " ; hence, if the Ideas are not given in perception, and the soul nevertheless finds them in herself on occasion of per ception, she must have already received these Ideas in some way or other. For this act of reception, however, Plato finds only the
mythical representation,1 that before the earthly life the souls have bekeid the pure forms of reality in the incorporeal world itself, that the perception of similar corporeal things calls the remembrance back to those forms forgotten in the corporeal earthly life, and that from this awakes the philosophical impulse, the love of the Ideas
(Igmt), by which the soul becomes raised again to the knowledge of that true reality. Here, too, as in the case of Democritus, it is shown that the entire ancient rationalism could form no idea of the process of thought except after the analogy of sensuous percep tion, particularly that of the sense of sight
What Socrates in his doctrine of the formation of conceptions had designated as induction, became transformed, therefore, for Plato, into an intuition that proceeds by recollecting (owaywyij) , into re flection upon a higher and purer perception (Anschauung). This pare perception, however, yields a plurality of ideas corresponding to the multiplicity of objects which occasion such perceptions, and from this grows the further task for science to know also the rela- Uam» of the Ideas to each other. This is a second step of Plato's
beyond Socrates, and is specially important for the reason that it led shortly to the apprehension of the logical relations between concep tions. It was principally the relations of the subordination and co ordination of concepts to which Plato became attentive. The division of the class-concepts or logical genera into their species phjliil a great part in his teaching. ' The possibility or impossibility of the onion of particular conceptions is brought more exactly into
' r%mdr. 240 B.
* CL Pkileb. 16 C. Yet this dividing process is not any where especially promi- tm in the writings that are certainly Platonic. It is handled with the pedantry U a school in the Sophist and Politicus. Antiquity preserved " definitions " and '• diriaioui " from the Platonic school. In Athtnaus. 1 1. M* C, is an instance of SBOckary, by a comic poet, at this academical concept-splitting.
120 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1.
consideration,1 and as a methodical aid he recommended the hypo thetical method of discussion, which aims to examine a tentatively proposed conception by developing all the possible consequences that would follow from the possibility of its union with conceptions already known.
These logical operations taken as a whole, by means of which the Ideas and their relations to one another (KMvwvCa) were to be found, Plato denoted by the name dialectic. What is found in his writings concerning it has throughout a methodological character, but is not properly logical.
3. The doctrine of knowledge as recollection stood, however, in closest connection with Plato's conception of the relation of Ideas to the world ofphenomena. Between the higher world of oicria and the lower world of yciw«, between what is and what is in process of Becoming, he found that relation of similarity which exists between archetypes (impaSiiytiaTa) and their copies or images (<t&uXa) . In this, too, a strong influence of mathematics upon the Platonic philosophy is disclosed : as the Pythagoreans had already designated things as imitations of numbers, so Plato found that individual things always correspond to their class-concepts only to a certain degree, and that the class-concept is a logical ideal which none of its empirical examples comes up to. He expressed this by the conception of
It was thus at the same time established that that second world, that of the incorporeal Ideas, was to be regarded
as the higher, the more valuable, the more primitive world.
Yet this mode of representing the matter gave rather a deter
mination of their respective values than a view that was usable for metaphysical consideration : hence Plato sought for still other desig nations of the relation. The logical side of the matter, according to which the Idea as class-concept or species represents the total uni tary extent or compass, of which the individual things denote but a part, appears in the expression participation (ptOifa), which means that the individual thing but partakes in the universal essence of the Idea; and the changing process of this partaking is emphasised by the conception of presence (jrapowia). The class-concept or species is present in the thing so long as the latter possesses the qualities which dwell in the Idea. The Ideas come and go, and as these now communicate themselves to things and now again withdraw, the qualities in these things which are like the Ideas are successively changed to the eye of perception.
The precise designation of this relation was, for Plato, an object 1 Phcedo, 102 B.
imitation (/u/t>7o-t? ) .
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] S>/ ft em of Idealism: Plato. 121
of only secondary interest, provided only the difference between the world of Ideas and the corporeal world, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, were recognised. 1 Most important and sufficient for him was the conviction that by means of conceptions that knowledge which virtue needs of what truly and really could be won.
A. Peipeis, Oniologia Platonica. Leipe. 1883.
§ 9. Metaphysics grounded anew in Epistemology and Ethics.
The great systematisers of Greek science exercised a swift but just criticism upon the Sophistic doctrine. They saw at once that among the doctrines of the Sophists but a single one possessed the worth of lasting validity and scientific fruitfulness — the perception theory of Protagoras.
1 Of the newer editions, that of the Berlin Academy (J. Bekker, Brandis, Rose, Usener, Bonitz), 6 vols. , Berlin, 1831-70, is made the basis of citations. The Parisian edition (Didot) is also to be noticed (DUbner, Bussemaker, Helta) 5 vols. , Paris, 1848-74.
Chat. 3, § ! >. ] The New Metaphysics. 105
1. This, therefore, became the starting-point for Democritus and for Plato ; and both adopted it in order to transcend it and attack the consequences which the Sophist had drawn from it. Both admit that perception, as being itself only a product of a natural process, can be the knowledge of something only which likewise arises and passes away as transitory product of the same natural process. Perception then gives only opinion (&6£a) ; it teaches what appears in and for human view (called vd^w in Democritus with a genuine Sophistic mode of expression), not what truly or really {ireg with Democritus, eVr«K with Piato) is.
For Protagoras, who regarded perception as the only source of knowledge, there was consequently no knowledge of what is. That he took the farther step of denying Being altogether and declaring the objects of perception to be the sole reality, behind which there is no Being to be sought for, — this " positivist" conclusion is not to be demonstrated in his case : the doctrine of " nihilism " there
no Being expressly ascribed by tradition only to Gorgias.
If, nevertheless, from any grounds whatever, universally valid knowledge (ympru; yvwiit) with Democritus, imar-finn with Plato) was
to be again set over against opinions, the sensualism of Protagoras must be abandoned and the position of the old metaphysicians, who distinguished thought (oWou), as higher and better knowledge, from perception, must l>e taken again (cf. 6). Thus Democritus and Plato both in like manner transcend Protagoras by acknowledg ing the relativity of perception, and looking to "thought" agaiu for knowledge of what truly is. Both are outspoken rationalists. 1
This new metaphysical rationalism yet distinguished from the older rationalism of the cosraological period, not only by its broader psychological basis, which owed to the Protagorean analysis of perception, but also in consequence of this, by another valuation of perception 'tself from the standpoint of the theory of knowledge. The earlier metaphysicians, where they could not fit the contents of perception into their conceptional idea of the world, had simply rejected them as deceit and illusion. Now this illusion had been explained (by Protagoras), but in such way that while sarrendering its universal validity the content of perception might yet claim at least the value of transient atid relative reality.
This, in connection with the fact that scientific knowledge was
Cf- Seat. Kmp. Adv. Math. VIII. 66. The doctrine of Democritus with nm^ri to " genuine " knowledge most ihaiply formulated in Sext . Kmp. Adv.
JMata. VII. 139. Plato'* attack upon the Protagorean sensualism found prin cipally in the Thtatetus, his positive rationalistic attitude in the Phtzdriu, Sym-
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106 Tlie Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I.
directed toward the abiding " true " Being, led to a division in the conception of reality, and with this the fundamental need of explana tory thought came to clear, explicit consciousness, — a need which unconsciously lay at the basis of the beginnings of science. To the two kinds of knowledge — so Democritus and Plato taught — cor respond/two different kinds of reality: to perception a changing, relative, transient reality or actuality ; to thought a reality homo geneous, absolute and abiding. For the former Democritus seems to have introduced the expression phenomena; Plato designates it as the world of generation, ytWes : the other kind of reality Democ ritus calls ra tTttf ovra ; Plato, to ovtux; ov or obo-la [that which really
or essence].
In this way perception and opinion gain correctness which is
analogous to that of scientific thought. Perception cognises chang ing reality as thought cognises abiding reality. To the two modes of cognition correspond two domains of reality. 1
But between these two domains there exists for this reason the same relation, as regards their respective values, as obtains between the two kinds of cognition. By as much as thought, the universally valid act of consciousness, above perception, the knowledge valid only for individuals and for the particular, by so much the true Being higher, purer, more primitive, raised above the lower actuality of phenomena and the changing processes and events among them. This relation was especially emphasised and carried out by Plato for reasons hereafter to be unfolded. But appears also with Democ ritus, not only in his theory of knowledge, but also in his ethics.
In this way the two metaphysicians agree with the result which the Pythagoreans (cf. and had likewise won from their premises, viz. the distinction of higher and lower kind of reality. Nevertheless, in the presence of this similarity we are not to think of dependence in nowise in the case of Democritus, who was complete stranger to the astronomical view of the Pythag oreans, and scarcely in the case of Plato, who indeed later adopted the astronomical theory, but whose idea of the higher reality (the doctrine of Ideas) has an entirely different content. The case rather that the common, fundamental motive which came from the conception of Being propounded by Parmenides, led in these three quite different forms to the division of the world into sphere of higher and one of lower reality.
The pragmatic parallelism in the motives of the two opposed systems of Democritus and Plato reaches step farther, although
Best formulated in Plat. , Tim. 27 D ff. , eapeoially 29 <X
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3, § 9. ] The New Metaphysics : Democritus, Plato. 107
bat a short step. To the world of perception belong, without doubt, the specific qualities of the senses, for these disclose their relativity in the fact that the same thing appears differently to different senses. But after we have abstracted these qualities, that which remains as in object for the knowledge of the truly actual, is primarily the form which things have, and both thinkers designated as the true essential nature of things the pure forms (l&au).
But it almost seems as though here they had nothing in common but the name, striking as this fact is ; for if Democritus understood by the l&iu, which he also called uxn^ra, his atom-forms, while Plato understood by his ! 8«u'or ub\j the conceptions corresponding to logical species (Oattungsbegriffe), then the apparently like state ment that the truly existent consists in " forms " has a completely different meaning in the two authors. For this reason we must here, too, remain in doubt as to whether we should see a parallel dependence upon Pythagoreanism, which, to be sure, had previously found the essence of things in mathematical forms, and whose influ ence upon the two thinkers may be assumed without encountering any difficulties in the assumption itself. At all events, however, if a common suggestion was present, it led to quite different results in the two systems before us, and though in both of them knowledge of mathematical relations stands in very close relation to knowledge of true reality, these relations are yet completely different with the respective thinkers.
4. The relationship thus far unfolded between the two rational istic systems changes now suddenly to a sharp opposition as soon as we consider the motives from which the two thinkers transcended the Protagorean sensualism and relativism, and observe also the consequences which result therefrom. Here the circumstance be comes of decisive importance, that Plato teas the disciple of Socrates, while Democritus experienced not even the slightest influence from the great Athenian sage.
With Democritus the demand which drives him to transcend the position of Protagoras grows solely out of his theoretical need and develops according to his personal nature, — the demand, namely, that there is a knowledge, and that this, if it is not to he found in perception, must be sought for in thought; the investigator of Nat ure believes, as against all the Sophistic teaching, in the possibility ef a theory that shall explain phenomena. Plato, on the contrary, sets out with his postulate of the Socratic conception of virtue. Virtue is to be gained only through Tight knowledge ; knowledge, however, is cognition of the true Being : if, then, this is not to be found in perception, it must be sought for through thought. For
108 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
Plato philosophy grows, according to the Socratic principle,1 out of the ethical need. But while the Sophistic friends of Socrates were endeavouring to give to the knowledge that constituted virtue some object in the form of a general life-purpose, the good, pleasure, etc. , Plato wins his metaphysical position with one stroke, by drawing the inference that this knowledge in which virtue is to consist must be the cognition of what is truly real, the oiWu, — as opposed to opinions which relate to the relative. In his case the knowledge in which virtue is to consist demands a metaphysics.
Here, then, the ways are already parting. Knowledge of the truly real was for Democritus, as for the old metaphysicians, essentially an idea of the unchangeably abiding Being, but an idea by means of which it should be possible to understand the derivative form of reality which is cognised in perception. His rationalism amounted to an explanation of phenomena, to be gained through thought; it was essentially theoretical rationalism. For Plato, on the contrary, knowledge of the truly real had its ethical purpose within itself; this knowledge was to constitute virtue, and hence it had no other relation to the world given through ception than that of sharply defining its limits. True Being has
for Democritus the theoretical value of explaining phenomena ; for Plato, the practical value of being the object of that knowledge which constitutes virtue. His doctrine as regards its original principle, essentially ethical rationalism.
Democritus, therefore, persevered in the work undertaken in the school of Abdera, — the construction of metaphysics of Nature. With the help of the Sophistic psychology he developed Atomism to comprehensive system. Like Leucippus, he regarded empty space and the atoms moving in as the true reality. He then attempted not only to explain from the motion of these atoms all qualitative phenomena of the corporeal world as quantitative phenomena, but also to explain from these motions all mental activities, including that knowing activity which directed toward true Being. Thus he created the system of materialism.
Plato, however, was led to the entirely opposite result by his attachment to the Socratic doctrine, which proved to be of decisive importance for his conception of the essential nature of science.
Socrates had taught that knowledge consists in general concep tions. If, however, this knowledge, in contrast with opinions, was to be knowledge of what truly, actually is, there must belong to the content of these conceptions that higher Being, that true essential
Set forth most clearly in the Meno, 96 fl.
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Caar. 5, f 10. ] Syttem of Materialism : Demoeritus. 109
reality which, it was held, could be grasped only by thought, in contrast with perception. The " forms " of true reality, knowledge of which constitutes virtue, are the species or class-concepts ( Gattungs- begriffe), tl&yj. With this consideration, the Platonic conception of the - Idea" first gains its complete determination.
So understood, Plato's doctrine of Ideas presents itself as the summit of Greek philosophy. In it are combined all the different lines of thought which had been directed toward the physical, the ethical, the logical first principle (ip\yi or <f>vois). The Platonic
Idea, the species or class-concept, is firstly the abiding Being in the change of phenomena; secondly, the object of knowledge in the change of opinions ; thirdly, the true end in the change of desires.
But this oioui, from the nature of its definition, is not to be found within the sphere of what may be perceived, and everything cor poreal is capable of being perceived. The Ideas are then something essentially different from the corporeal world. True reality is
The division in the conception of reality takes on accordingly a fixed form ; the lower reality of natural processes or generation (yiytott), which forms the object of perception, is the corporeal world ; the higher reality of Being, which thought knows, is the incorporeal, the immaterial world, rorot votjtos. Thus the
PUtonic system becomes immaterialism, or, as we rail it after the meaning given by him to the word "Idea," Idealism.
it. In the Platonic system, accordingly, we find perhaps the most extensive interweaving and complication of problems which history has seen. The doctrine of Demoeritus, on the contrary, is ruled throughout by the one interest of explaining Nature. However
rich the results which this latter doctrine might achieve for this its proper end, — results which could be taken up again in a later, similarly disposed condition of thought, and then first unfold their whole fruitfulness, — at first the other doctrine must surpass this, all the more in proportion as it satisfied all needs of the time and united within itself the entire product of earlier thought. More points of attack for immanent criticism are perhaps offered by the Platonic system than by that of Demoeritus ; but for Greek thought the latter was a relapse into the cosmology of the first period, and it was Plato's doctrine that must become the system of the future.
S 10. The System of Materialism.
The systematic character of the doctrine of Demoeritus consists in the way in which he carried through in all departments of his work the fundamental thought, that scientific theory must so far
incorporeal.
110 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part L
gain knowledge of the true reality, i. e. of the atoms and their motions in space, as to be able to explain from them the reality which appears in phenomena, as this presents itself in perception. There is every indication (even the titles of his books would show this) that Democritus took up this task by means of investigations covering the entire compass of the objects of experience, and in this connection devoted himself with as great an interest to the psy chological as to the physical problems. So much the more must we regret that the greater part of his teachings has been lost, and that what is preserved, in connection with accounts of others, permits only a hypothetical reconstruction of the main conceptions of his great work, a reconstruction which must always remain defective and uncertain.
1. It must be assumed in the first place that Democritus was fully conscious of this task of science, viz. that of explaining the world of experience through conceptions of the true reality. That which the Atomists regard as the Existent, viz. space and the par ticles whirring in has no value except for theoretical purposes. It only thought in order to make intelligible what perceived; but for this reason the problem so to think the truly real that
may explain the real which appears in phenomena, that at the same time this latter reality may " remain preserved " as some thing that " " in derived sense, and that the truth which inheres in may remain recognised. Hence Democritus knew very well that thought also must seek the truth in perception, and win out of perception. ' His rationalism far removed from being in con tradiction with experience, or even from being strange to experience. Thought has to infer from perception that by means of which the latter explained. The motive which lay at the foundation of the mediating attempts following the Eleatic paradox of acosmism became with Democritus the clearly recognised principle of meta physics and natural science. Yet unfortunately nothing now known as to how he carried out in detail the methodical relation between the two modes of cognition, and how the process by which knowledge grows out of perception in the particular instance was thought by him.
More particularly, the theoretical explanation which Democritus
The very happv expression for this juur<if«r tA <pair6iumi. Cf. also Arist. Oen. et Corr. 832, a,
Hence, the expressions in which he recognised the truth in the phenome non e. g. Arist. Dt An. 404 27, and the like. To attempt, however, to construe out of this " sensualism" of Democritus, as has been attempted by E. Johnson (I'lauen, 18«8), contradicts completely the accounts with regard to his attitude toward Protagoras.
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Chap. 3, § 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. Ill
gave for the contents of perception consists, as with Leucippus, in the reduction of all phenomena to the mechanics of atoms. What appears in perception as qualitatively determined, and also as in volved iu qualitative change (dXAoiov/xt^ov), exists " in truth " only as a quantitative relation of the atoms, of their order, and their motion. The task of science is then to reduce all qualitative to quantitative relations, and to show in detail what quantitative rela tions of the absolute reality produce the qualitative characteristics of the reality which appears in phenomena. Thus, the prejudice in favour of khat may be perceived or imaged (anschauiich), as if spatial form and motion were something simpler, more comprehensible in themselves, and less of a problem than qualitative character and
alteration, is made the principle for the theoretical explanation of the world.
Since this principle is applied with complete systematic rigour to the whole of experience, Atomism regards the psychical life with all its essential elements and values as also a phenomenon, and the form and motion of the atoms which constitute the true Being of this phenomenon must be stated by the explanatory theory. Thus
matter in its form and motion is regarded as that which alone is truly real, and the entire mental or spiritual life as the derived, phenomenal reality. With this the system of Democritus first assumes the character of conscious, outspoken materialism.
2. In the properly physical doctrines, the teaching of Democritus presents, therefore, no change in principle as compared with that of Leucippus, though there is a great enrichment by careful detailed investigation. He emphasised still more sharply than his predeces sor, where possible, the thought of the mechanical necessity (dvayio/, which he also occasionally called Aoyos), in accordance with which all occurrence or change whatever takes place, and further defined this thought as involving that no operation of atoms upon one another is possible except through impact, through immediate con tact, and further, that this operation consists only in the change of the state of motion of the atoms which are also unchangeable as regards their form.
The atom itself as that which "is," in the proper sense of the word, has accordingly only the characteristics of abstract corpore ality, viz. the filling of a limited space, and the quality of being in motion in the void. Although all are imperceptibly small, they yet exhibit an endless variety of forms (JS«u or trxJPJlTa)- To form,
which constitutes the proper fundamental difference in the atoms, belongs in a certain sense also size ; yet it is to be observed that the same stereometrical form, e. g. the sphere, may appear in different
112 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part L
sizes. The larger the atom, the greater its mass ; for the essential quality of what is, is indeed materiality, space-claiming. For this reason Democritus asserted weight or lightness to be a function of size,1 evidently yielding to the mechanical analogies of daily life. In connection with these terms (/3opu and Koi)<^ov), however, we are not to think of the falling motion, but solely of the degree of mechani cal movability or of inertia. ' Hence it was also his opinion that as the atom-complexes whirled about, the lighter parts were forced out ward, while the more inert with their inferior mobility were gath ered in the middle.
The same properties communicate themselves as metaphysical qualities to things which are composed of atoms. The form and size of things is produced by the simple summation of the form and size of the component atoms ; though in this case, the inertia is not dependent solely upon the sum total of the magnitudes of the atoms, but upon the greater or less amount of empty space that remains between the individual particles when they are grouped together. The inertia depends therefore upon the less or greater degree of density. And since the ease with which particles may be displaced with reference to one another depends upon this interruption of the mass by empty space, the properties of hardness and softness belong also to the true reality that is known by thought.
All other properties, however, belong to things not in them selves, but only in so far as motions proceeding from things act upon the organs of perception ; they are " states of perception as it is in process of qualitative change.
" But these states are also conditioned throughout by the things in which the perceived prop erties appear, and here the arrangement and the situation which the atoms have taken with reference to each other in the process of composition are of principal importance. 3
While, then, form, size, inertia, density, and hardness are properties of things irtrj, i. e. in truth, all that is perceived in them by the indi vidual senses as colour, sound, smell, taste, exists only vd/iwor diem, i. e. in the phenomenon. This doctrine, when taken up anew in the philosophy of the Renaissance (cf. Part IV. ch. 2) and later, was
1 As the most extensive exposition for this and for the following topic The- ophr. De Sens. 61 ff. (Doz. D. 516) is to be compared.
5 It is scarcely to be decided now whether the motion of their own, which Atomism ascribed to all the atoms as primitive and causeless, was thought ol by Democritus as conditioned already by the size or mass, so that the greater had, even from the beginning, possessed less velocity. At all events, these determinations held good for him within the sphere of the mechanical operation of the atoms on one another. What is larger can be pushed with greater diffi culty ; what is smaller can be pushed more easily.
» Cf. Arist Gen. et Corr. I. 2, 316 b 6.
Cbaf. 3, § 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. 113
designated as distinguishing between the primary and secondary fnalities of things, and it is desirable to introduce this expression htrre, since it corresponds throughout to the metaphysical and episte- nological sense in which Democritus made the Protagorean doctrine useful for his own purpose. While the Sophist would make all properties secondary and relative, Democritus admitted this only for the qualities perceived by special senses, and set over against these the quantitative determinations as primary and absolute. He there fore designated also as " genuine knowledge " the insight into the
primary qualities to be won through thought, while, on the contrary, perception which is directed toward the secondary qualities he termed " obscure knowledge " (yvrjvi^ — (XKorirj yvw/117).
3. The secondary qualities appear accordingly as dependent upon the primary ; they are not, however, dependent upon these alone, but rather upon the action of these upon the percipient agent. But in the atomistic system that which perceives, the mind or toul, can consist only of atoms. To be more explicit, it consists, according to Democritus, of the same atoms which constitute also the essence of fire: namely, the finest, smoothest, and most mobile.
These are indeed scattered also through the whole world, and in so far animals, plants, and other things may be regarded as animate, as having souls,' but they are united in largest numbers in the human body, where in life a fire-atom is placed between every two atoms of other sorts, and where they are held together by breathing.
Upon this presupposition, then, analogous, as we see, to the older systems, Democritus built up his explanation of phenomena from the true essence of things. That perception, and with the secondary qualities, arises from the action of things upon the fire- atoms of the soul. The reality which appears a necessary result of the true reality.
In carrying out this doctrine Democritus took up and refined the theories of perception advanced by his predecessors. The effluxes (ef. above, 3) which proceed from things to set in motion the
organs and through them the fire-atoms, he called images (ct&oAa), and regarded them as infinitely small copies of the things. Their impression upon the fire-atoms perception, and the similarity between the content of this perception and its object was held to be secured thereby. Since impact and pressure are the essence of all the mechanics of the atoms, touch regarded as the most primitive sense. The special organs, on the contrary, were regarded as capable of receiving only such images as corresponded to their own forma
tion and motion, and this theory of the specific energy of the sense was worked out very acutely Demooritus. From this
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114 The Greeks: Systematic Period. [Part I.
followed also that in case there were things whose effluxes could not act upon any one of the organs, these would remain imperceptible for the ordinary man, and for these perhaps " other senses " might be accessible.
This theory of images appeared very plausible to ancient thought. It brought to definite expression, and indeed to a certain extent explained, the mode of representing things which is still common for the ordinary consciousness, as if our perceptions were " copies " of things existing outside of us. If one did not ask further how things should come to send out such miniature likenesses of them selves into the world, he might think that he understood, by means of this theory, how our " impressions " can resemble things with out. For this reason this theory at once attained the predominance in physiological psychology, and retained its position until after the beginnings of modern philosophy, where it was defended by Locke.
Its Significance, however, for the conceptions in the system of Democritus, lies in this, that it was regarded as describing that motion of the atoms in which perception consists. It remained hidden from this materialism, which was such from principle, as well as from all its later transformations, that perception as a psychical activity is something specifically different from any and every motion of atoms, however determined. But in seeking out the individual forms of motion from which the individual percep tions of the special senses arise, the philosopher of Abdera caused many a keen observation, many a fine suggestion, to become known.
4. It is interesting now that the same fate befell the materialistic; psychology of Democritus as had befallen the pre-Sophistic meta physicians (cf- § 6) : too, was obliged in certain respect to oblit erate again the epistemologica2 contrast between perception and thought. Since, that all psychical life regarded as motion of the fire-atoms,1 and since the motion of atoms in the connected sys tem of the universe conditioned by contact and impact, follows that thought, which knows the truly real, can be explained only from an impression which this truly real makes upon the fiery atoms, — explained therefore itself only through the efflux of such images. As psychological process, therefore, thought the same as percep tion, viz. impression of images upon fire-atoins the only difference
that in the case of perception the relatively coarse images of the atom-complexes are active, while thought, which apprehends true reality, rests upon contact of the fire-atoms with the finest images, with those which represent the atomic structure of things.
Arist. De An. 405 8.
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Chap. S, 5 10. ] System of Materialism : Democritus. 115
Odd and fantastic as this sounds, the indications are yet all in favour of the supposition that Democritus drew this conclusion from
the presuppositions of his m iterialistic psychology. This psychol ogy knew no independent, internal mechanism of ideas or conscious states, but only an arising of ideas through the motion of atoms Hence it regarded ideas that were evidently deceptive as also - impressions," and sought for these the exciting images. Dreams, tj§. were traced back to ci&uAa which had either penetrated into the body in the waking state and on account of their weak motion had previously produced no impression, or had first reached the fiery items in sleep, evading the senses. A mysterious ("magnetic," or -psychic," we should say to-day) action of men upon one another appeared comprehensible on this hypothesis, and an objective basis was given to faith in gods and demons by assuming giant forms in
infinite space from which corresponding images proceeded.
In correspondence with this Democritus seems to have thought of
* genuine knowledge " as that motion of the fire-atoms which is pro duced by the impression of the smallest and finest images, — those which represent the atomic composition of things. This motion is, however, the most delicate, the finest, the gentlest of all — that which comes nearest to rest. With this definition the contrast between per ception and thought was expressed in quantitative terms — quite in the
spirit of the system. The coarse images of things as wholes set the aery atoms into relatively violent motion and produce by this means the '•obscure insight " which presents itself as perception ; the finest images, on the contrary, impress upon the fiery atoms a gentle, fine
motion which evokes the "genuine insight" into the atomic structure of things, i. e. thought. In consideration of this, Democritus com mends the thinker to turn away from the world of the senses, quite in contrast with the mode of thought which would develop truth out of perception. Those finest motions assert their influence only where the coarser are kept back ; and where too violent motions of the . fiery atoms take place, the result is false ideation, the iWo^pomlv. 1
5. This same quantitative contrast of strong and soft, violent and gentle motion, was laid by Democritus at the basis of his ethical fAeory also. * In so doing he stood with his psychology completely upon the inteUectualistic standpoint of Socrates in so far as he transposed the epistemological values of ideas immediately into ethical values of states of will. As from perception only that
: Theophr Dt Sent. 68 (Doz. D. 516).
» The resemblance with the theory of Aristippus (§ 7, 9) is so striking, that Ik* assumption of a causal connection ia scarcely to be avoided. Yet it may be that we should seek for this rather in a common dependence upon Protagoras,
in the interaction of Atomism and Hedonism upon each other.
'
116 Tlie Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1
obscure insight follows which has for its object the phenomenon and not the true essence, so also the pleasure which arises from the excitation of the senses is only relative (vo/^p), obscure, uncertain of itself, and deceitful. The true happiness, on the contrary, for which the wise man lives "according to nature" (<f>v<ru), the cv&u/to- v! a, which is the end (rc'Aot) and measure (ovpos) of human life, must not be sought in external goods, in sensuous satisfaction, but only in that gentle motion, that tranquil frame (cvcorw), which attends upon right insight, upon the gentle movement of the fiery atoms. This insight alone gives to the soul measure and harmony (£u/ajm- rpia), guards it from emotional astonishment (aOav/juuria), lends it security and imperturbability (drapa&a, aOa^fila. ) , — the ocean-calm
(yaAi/Vrj) of the soul that has become master of its passions through knowledge. True happiness is rest (ijo-vxwi), and rest is secured only by knowledge. Thus Democritus gains as the capstone of his system his personal ideal of life, — that of pure knowledge, free from all wishes ; with this ideal, this systematic materialism cul minates in a noble and lofty theory of life. And yet there is in it also a tendency which characterises the morals of the age of the Enlightenment : this peace of mind resting upon knowledge is the happiness of an individual life, and where the ethical teachings of Democritus extend beyond the individual, it is friendship, the rela tion of individual personalities to one another, that he praises, while he remains indifferent as regards connection with the state
§ 11. The System of Idealism.
The origin and development of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas is one of the most difficult and involved, as well as one of the most effective and fruitful, processes in the entire history of European thought, and the task of apprehending it properly is made still more difficult by the literary form in which it has been transmitted. The Platonic dialogues show the philosophy of their author in process of constant re-shaping : their composition extended through half a century. Since, however, the order in which the individual dialogues arose has not been transmitted to us and cannot be estab lished absolutely from external characteristics, pragmatic hypotheses based on the logical connections of thought must be called to our aid.
1. In the first place there is no question that the opposition between Socrates and the Sophists formed the starting-point for Platonic thought. Plato's first writings were dedicated to an affectionate and in the main, certainly, a faithful presentation of the Socratic doctrine of virtue. To this he attached a polemic
Chap. 3. § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 117
against the Sophistic doctrines of society and knowledge marked by increasing keenness, but also by an increasing tendency toward establishing his own view upon an independent basis. The Platonic criticism of the Sophistic theories, however, proceeded essentially from the Socratic postulate. It admitted fully, in the spirit of Protagoras, the relativity of all knowledge gained through percep tion, but it found just in this the inadequacy of the Sophistic theory for a true science of ethics. 1 The knowledge which is necessary for virtue cannot consist in opinions as they arise from the changing states of motion in subject and object, nor can it consist of a rational consideration and legitimation of such opinions gained by perception ; * it must have a wholly different source and wholly different objects. Of the corporeal world and its changing states —
Plato held to thh view of Protagoras in its entirety — there is no science, but only perceptions and opinions ; it is accordingly an i*mrporeal world that forms the object of science, and this world most exist side by side with the corporeal world as independently as does knowledge side by side with opinion. 3
Here we have for the first time the claim of an immaterial reality, '•rought forward expressly and with full consciousness, and it is dear that this springs from the ethical need for a knowledge that is raised above all ideas gained by sense-perception. The assump tion of immateriality did not at first have as its aim, for Plato, the explanation of phenomena : its end was rather to assure an object for ethical knowledge. The idealistic metaphysics, therefore, in its first draft * builds entirely upon a new foundation of its own, with out any reference to the work of earlier science that had been directed toward investigating and understanding phenomena; it is aa immaterial Eleatism, which seeks true Being in the Ideas, with out troubling itself about the world of generation and occurrence, *hi'h it leaves to perception and opinion. *
To avoid numerous misunderstandings* we must, nevertheless, expressly point out that the Platonic conception of immateriality (•vwparor) is in nowise coincident with that of the spiritual or
psychical, as might be easily assumed from the modern mode of thinking. For the Platonic conception the particular psychical
1 On thin point, the Thecrtetut brings together the whole criticism of the S"f*. »ulc doctrine.
» Uf» *A*«4t nrrk XA>«*, Thtat. 201 E. (Probably a theory of Antisthenes. ) • Aria*. Met. I. «. 987 a 32 ; XIII. 4, 1078 b 12.
' A* act forth in the dialogues Pheedrut and the Symposium.
' la mitigations aa to theoretical and natural science are first found in the
■teat dialogues.
' To which the Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-PIatonic transformation of the
soonna of Ideas gave occasion. Cf. It. II. ch. 2, { 18.
1 18 The Greeks : Systematic Period.
[PahtI.
functions belong to the world of Becoming, precisely as do those of the body and of other corporeal things ; and on the other hand, in the true reality the " forms " or " shapes " of corporeality, the Ideas of sensuous qualities and relations, find a place precisely as do those of the spiritual relations. The identification of spirit or mind and incorporeality, the division of the world into mind and matter, is un- Platonic. The incorporeal world which Plato teaches is not yet the spiritual.
Kather, the Ideas are, for Plato, that incorporeal Being which is known through conceptions. Since, that is, the conceptions in which Socrates found the essence of science are not given as such in the reality that can be perceived, they must form a " second," " other " reality, different from the former, existing by itself, and this imma terial reality is related to the material, as Being to Becoming, as the abiding to the changing, as the simple to the manifold — in short, as the world of Parmenides to that of Heraclitus. The object of ethical knowledge, cognised through general conceptions, is that which " is " in the true sense : the ethical, the logical, and the phys ical ipxi (ground or first principle) are the same. This is the point in which all lines of earlier philosophy converge.
2. If the Ideas are to be " something other " than the percep tible world, knowledge of them through conceptions cannot be found in the content of perception, for they cannot be contained in it. With this turn of thought, which corresponds to the sharper separa tion of the two worlds, the Platonic doctrine of knowledge becomes much more rationalistic than that of Democritus, and goes also decidedly beyond that of Socrates ; for while the latter had devel oped the universal out of the opinions and perceptions of individuals inductively, and had found it as the common content in these opin ions and perceptions, Plato does not conceive of the process of induction in this analytical manner, but sees in perceptions only the suggestions or promptings with the help of which the soul bethinks itself of the conceptions, of the knowledge of the Ideas.
Plato expressed this rationalistic principle in the form that phil osophical knowledge is recollection (Ava/j-v^mt). He showed in the example of the Pythagorean proposition ' that mathematical knowl edge is not extracted from sense-perception, but that sense-percep tion offers only the opportunity on occasion of which the soul recollects the knowledge already present within her, that is, knowl edge that has purely rational validity. He points out that the pure mathematical relations are not present in corporeal reality ; on the
1 Meno, 80 ft. ■•-. .
Cm**. 8, § 11. ] System of Idealism : Plato. 119
contrary, the notion of these relations arises in us when similar figures of perception offer but the occasion therefor, and he extended this observation, which is completely applicable to mathematical knowledge, to the sum total of scientific knowledge.
That this reflection upon what is rationally necessary should be conceived of as recollection is connected with the fact that Plato, is little as any of his predecessors, recognises a creative activity of the consciousness, which produces its content. This is a general limit for all Greek psychology ; the content for ideas must somehow be given to the " soul " ; hence, if the Ideas are not given in perception, and the soul nevertheless finds them in herself on occasion of per ception, she must have already received these Ideas in some way or other. For this act of reception, however, Plato finds only the
mythical representation,1 that before the earthly life the souls have bekeid the pure forms of reality in the incorporeal world itself, that the perception of similar corporeal things calls the remembrance back to those forms forgotten in the corporeal earthly life, and that from this awakes the philosophical impulse, the love of the Ideas
(Igmt), by which the soul becomes raised again to the knowledge of that true reality. Here, too, as in the case of Democritus, it is shown that the entire ancient rationalism could form no idea of the process of thought except after the analogy of sensuous percep tion, particularly that of the sense of sight
What Socrates in his doctrine of the formation of conceptions had designated as induction, became transformed, therefore, for Plato, into an intuition that proceeds by recollecting (owaywyij) , into re flection upon a higher and purer perception (Anschauung). This pare perception, however, yields a plurality of ideas corresponding to the multiplicity of objects which occasion such perceptions, and from this grows the further task for science to know also the rela- Uam» of the Ideas to each other. This is a second step of Plato's
beyond Socrates, and is specially important for the reason that it led shortly to the apprehension of the logical relations between concep tions. It was principally the relations of the subordination and co ordination of concepts to which Plato became attentive. The division of the class-concepts or logical genera into their species phjliil a great part in his teaching. ' The possibility or impossibility of the onion of particular conceptions is brought more exactly into
' r%mdr. 240 B.
* CL Pkileb. 16 C. Yet this dividing process is not any where especially promi- tm in the writings that are certainly Platonic. It is handled with the pedantry U a school in the Sophist and Politicus. Antiquity preserved " definitions " and '• diriaioui " from the Platonic school. In Athtnaus. 1 1. M* C, is an instance of SBOckary, by a comic poet, at this academical concept-splitting.
120 The Greeks : Systematic Period. [Part 1.
consideration,1 and as a methodical aid he recommended the hypo thetical method of discussion, which aims to examine a tentatively proposed conception by developing all the possible consequences that would follow from the possibility of its union with conceptions already known.
These logical operations taken as a whole, by means of which the Ideas and their relations to one another (KMvwvCa) were to be found, Plato denoted by the name dialectic. What is found in his writings concerning it has throughout a methodological character, but is not properly logical.
3. The doctrine of knowledge as recollection stood, however, in closest connection with Plato's conception of the relation of Ideas to the world ofphenomena. Between the higher world of oicria and the lower world of yciw«, between what is and what is in process of Becoming, he found that relation of similarity which exists between archetypes (impaSiiytiaTa) and their copies or images (<t&uXa) . In this, too, a strong influence of mathematics upon the Platonic philosophy is disclosed : as the Pythagoreans had already designated things as imitations of numbers, so Plato found that individual things always correspond to their class-concepts only to a certain degree, and that the class-concept is a logical ideal which none of its empirical examples comes up to. He expressed this by the conception of
It was thus at the same time established that that second world, that of the incorporeal Ideas, was to be regarded
as the higher, the more valuable, the more primitive world.
Yet this mode of representing the matter gave rather a deter
mination of their respective values than a view that was usable for metaphysical consideration : hence Plato sought for still other desig nations of the relation. The logical side of the matter, according to which the Idea as class-concept or species represents the total uni tary extent or compass, of which the individual things denote but a part, appears in the expression participation (ptOifa), which means that the individual thing but partakes in the universal essence of the Idea; and the changing process of this partaking is emphasised by the conception of presence (jrapowia). The class-concept or species is present in the thing so long as the latter possesses the qualities which dwell in the Idea. The Ideas come and go, and as these now communicate themselves to things and now again withdraw, the qualities in these things which are like the Ideas are successively changed to the eye of perception.
The precise designation of this relation was, for Plato, an object 1 Phcedo, 102 B.
imitation (/u/t>7o-t? ) .
Chap. 3, $ 11. ] S>/ ft em of Idealism: Plato. 121
of only secondary interest, provided only the difference between the world of Ideas and the corporeal world, and the dependence of the latter upon the former, were recognised. 1 Most important and sufficient for him was the conviction that by means of conceptions that knowledge which virtue needs of what truly and really could be won.
A. Peipeis, Oniologia Platonica. Leipe. 1883.
