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苏菲的世界|Sophie’s World

自然派哲学家|The Natural Philosophers

属类： 双语小说 【分类】魔幻小说 -[作者: 乔斯坦·贾德] 阅读：[30765]
《 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 字+字- 行+行- 页+页- 》
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……没有一件事物可以来自空无……

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那天下午苏菲的妈妈下班回家时，苏菲正坐在秋千上，想着哲学课程与席德(那位收不到她父亲寄来的生日卡的女孩)之间究竟有什么关系？妈妈在花园另一头喊她：“苏菲，你有一封信！”苏菲吓了一跳。她刚才已经把信箱里的信都拿出来了，因此这封信一定是那位哲学家写来的。她该对妈妈说什么好呢？“信上没有贴邮票，可能是情书哩！”苏菲接过信。

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“你不打开吗？”她得编一个借口。

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“你听过谁当着自己妈妈的面拆情书的吗？”就让妈妈认为这是一封情书好了。虽然这样挺令人难为情的，但总比让妈妈发现自己接受一个完全陌生的人——一个和她玩捉迷藏的哲学家——的函授教学要好些。

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这次，信装在一个白色的小信封里。苏菲上楼回房后，看到信纸上写了三个新的问题：

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万事万物是否由一种基本的物质组成？

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水能变成酒吗？

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泥土与水何以能制造出一只活生生的青蛙？

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苏菲觉得这些问题很蠢，但整个晚上它们却在她的脑海里萦绕不去。到了第二天她还在想，把每个问题逐一思索了一番。

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世上万物是否由一种“基本物质”组成的呢？如果是，这种基本物质又怎么可能突然变成一朵花或一只大象呢？同样的疑问也适用于水是否能变成酒的问题。苏菲听过耶稣将水变成酒的故事，但她从未当真。就算耶稣真的将水变成了酒，这也只是个奇迹，不是平常可以做到的。苏菲知道世间有很多水，不仅酒里有水，其他能够生长的事物中也都有水。然而，就拿黄瓜来说好了，即使它的水分含量高达百分之九十五，它里面必然也有其他的物质。因为黄瓜就是黄瓜，不是水。

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接下来是有关青蛙的问题。奇怪，她的这位哲学老师好像特别偏爱青蛙。

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她或许可以接受青蛙是由泥土与水变成的说法。但果真这样，泥土中必然含有一种以上的物质。如果泥土真的含有多种不同的物质，则它与水混合后说不定真的可以生出青蛙来。当然，它们必须先变成蛙卵与蝌蚪才行。因为，无论再怎么浇水，包心菜园里是长不出青蛙的。

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那天她放学回家后，信箱里已经有一封厚厚的信在等着她了。

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她像往常一样躲到密洞中去看信。

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哲学家的课题

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嗨，苏菲，又到上课的时间了。我们今天就不再谈白兔等等，直接上课吧。

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在这堂课里，我将大略描述从古希腊时期到现代，人们对哲学的观念。我们将按照应有的次序，逐一道来。

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由于这些哲学家生活的年代与我们不同，文化也可能与我们相异，因此也许我们应该先试着了解每位哲学家给自己的课题，也就是说，明白他们每个人关注、质疑的事项是什么。可能有的哲学家想探索植物与动物是如何产生的，有的则想研究世间是否有上帝或人的灵魂是否不朽等问题。

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知道了每一位哲学家的“课题”之后，我们就比较容易了解他的思想的脉络，因为没有任何一位哲学家会企图探讨哲学的所有领域。

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我之所以用“他”来代表哲学家是因为在这期间哲学乃是男人的专利。从前的妇女无论做为一个女人或一个有思想的人都只有对男人俯首听命的份。这是很悲哀的事，因为许多宝贵经验就这样丧失了。一直要到本世纪，妇女们才真正在哲学史上留下了足印。

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我不想出家庭作业给你，不会让你做很难的算术题目或类似的功课，也不会让你背英文的动词变化。不过我偶尔会给你一些简短的作业。

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如果你接受这些条件，我们就开始吧。

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自然派哲学家最早的希腊哲学家有时被称为“自然派哲学家”，因为他们关切的主题是大自然与它的循环与变化。

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我们都曾经好奇万物从何而来。现代有许多人认为万物必定是在某个时刻无中生有的。希腊人持有这种想法的并不多，由于某种理由，他们认定有“一种东西”是一直都存在的。因此对于他们而言，万物是如何从无到有并非重要的问题。他们惊叹的是水中如何会有活鱼、瘠土里如何会长出高大的树木与色彩鲜丽的花朵。而更让他们惊异的是女人的子宫居然会生出婴儿。哲学家用自己的眼睛观察。他们发现大自然的形貌不断改变。

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这类变化是怎么发生的呢？举个例子，原来是属于物质的东西何以会变为有生命的物体？早期的哲学家都相信，这些变化必定来自某种基本物质。至于他们何以持此看法，这就很难说清楚。我们只知道，经过一段时间后，他们慢慢形成这样的观念，认为大自然的变化必定是某种基本物质造成的。他们相信，世上必定有某种“东西”，万物皆由此衍生，而且最终仍旧回归于此。

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我们最感兴趣的并不是这些早期的哲学家找出了哪些答案，而是他们问了什么问题、寻求何种答案等等。我们对他们的思考方式较感兴趣，而不是他们思考的内容。

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我们已经知道他们所提的问题与他们在物质世界观察到的变化有关。他们想寻求其中隐含的自然法则。他们想要从古代神话以外的观点来了解周遭发生的事。最重要的是，他们想要透过对大自然本身的研究来了解实际的变化过程。这与借神话故事来解释雷鸣、闪电或春去冬来的现象大不相同。

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就这样，哲学逐渐脱离了宗教的范畴。我们可以说自然派的哲学家朝科学推理的方向迈出了第一步，成为后来科学的先驱。

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这些自然派哲学家的论述，至今只留下断简残篇。我们所知的一小部分乃是根据两百多年后亚理斯多德的著作。其中只提到这些哲学家所做的若干结论，因此我们无法确切了解他们是经由何种方式达成这些结论。不过，我们根据已知的资料可以断定这些早期希腊哲学家的“课题”与宇宙的基本组成物质与大自然的变化等问题有关。

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米雷特斯的三位哲学家

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我们所知道的第一位哲学家是泰利斯(Thales)。他来自希腊在小亚细亚的殖民地米雷特斯，曾游历过埃及等许多国家。据说他在埃及时曾计算过金字塔的高度，他的方法是在他自己的影子与身高等长时测量金字塔的影子高度。另外据说他还在公元前五八五年时准确预测过日蚀的时间。

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泰利斯认为水是万物之源。我们并不很清楚这其中的意思。或许他相信所有的生命源自于水，而所有的生命在消融后也仍旧变成水。

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他在埃及旅游时，必定看过尼罗河三角洲上的洪水退去后，陆地上的作物立刻开始生长的现象。他可能也注意到凡是刚下雨的地方一定会出现青蛙与虫子。

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更可能的是，泰利斯想到了水结成冰或化为蒸气后又变回水的现象。

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此外，据说泰利斯曾宣称：“万物中皆有神在”。此话含义为何，我们同样只能猜测。也许他在看到花朵、作物、昆虫乃至蟑螂全都来自黑色的泥土后，他便想象泥土中必定充满了许多肉眼看不见的微小“生命菌”。但有一件事情是可以肯定的：他所谓的“神”并非指荷马神话中的天神。

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我们所知的第二个哲学家是安纳克西曼德(Anaximander)。

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他也住在米雷特斯。他认为我们的世界只是他所谓的“无限定者”(注：世界由无限定者元素所构成)中无数个生生灭灭的世界之一。

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要解释他所谓“无限”的意思并不容易，但很明显的他并不像泰利斯一样认为世界是由一种物质造成的。

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也许他的意思是形成万物的物质不一定不是这些已经被创造出来的事物。因此这种基本物质不可能是像水这样平常的东西，而是某种无以名之的物质。

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第三位来自米雷特斯的哲学家是安那西梅尼斯(Anaximenes，约公元前57O年～公元前526年)。他认为万物之源必定是“空气”或“气体”。毫无疑问，安那西梅尼斯必定熟知泰利斯有关水的理论。然而水从何来？安那西梅尼斯认为水是空气凝结后形成的。我们也可看到下雨时，水是从空气中挤出来的。安那西梅尼斯认为当水再进一步受到挤压时，就会变成泥土。他可能曾经注意到冰雪融解时，会有泥土、沙石出现。他并认为火是比较精纯的空气。

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因此他主张空气是泥土、水、火的源头。

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这与“水是万物生长之源”的理论相去不远。也许安那西梅尼斯认为泥土、空气与火都是创造生命的必要条件，但“空气”或“气体”才是万物之源。因此，他和泰利斯一样，认为自然界的一切事物必定是由一种基本物质造成的。

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没有任何事物会来自虚无

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这三位米雷特斯的哲学家都相信，宇宙间有一种基本物质是所有事物的源头。

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然而一种物质又如何会突然变成另外一种东西？我们可以把这个问题称为“变化的问题”。约莫从公元前5OO年开始，位于意大利南部的希腊殖民地伊利亚(Elea)有一群哲学家也对这个问题很有兴趣。其中最重要的一位是帕梅尼德斯(Parmenites，约公元前54O～公元前48O年)。

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帕梅尼德斯认为现有的万物是一直都存在的。这个观念对希腊人并不陌生，他们多少认为世上的万物是亘古长存的。在帕梅尼德斯的想法中，没有任何事物会来自虚无，而已经存在的事物中也不会消失于无形。

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不过，帕梅尼德斯的思想比其他大多数人更加深入。他认为世上根本没有真正的变化，没有任何事物可以变成另外一种事物。

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当然，帕梅尼德斯也体认到大自然恒常变迁的事实。透过感官，他察觉到事物的确会发生变化，不过他无法将这个现象与他的理智思考画上等号。当他不得不在依赖感官和依赖理智之间做一个选择时，他选择了理智。

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你听过“眼见为信”这句话。不过帕梅尼德斯甚至在亲眼见到后仍不相信。他认为我们的感官使我们对世界有不正确的认识，这种认识与我们的理智不符。身为一个哲学家，他认为他的使命就是要揭穿各种形式的“感官幻象”。

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这里坚决相信人的理智的态度被称为理性主义。所谓理性主义者就是百分之百相信人类的理智是世间所有知识泉源的人。

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所有事物都是流动的

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帕梅尼德斯的时代另有一位哲学家叫做赫拉克里特斯(Heraclitus，约公元前54O～公元前48O)。当时他从以弗所(Ephesus)来到小亚细亚。他认为恒常变化(或流动)事实上正是大自然的最基本特征。我们也许可以说，赫拉克里特斯对于自己眼见的事物要比帕梅尼德斯更有信心。

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赫拉克里特斯说：“所有事物都是流动的。”每一件事物都在不停变化、移动，没有任何事物是静止不变的，因此我们不可能“在同一条河流中涉水两次”。当我第二次涉水时，无论是我还是河流都已经与从前不同了。

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赫拉克里特斯指出，世间的事物都是相对的。如果我们从未生病，就不会知道健康的滋味。如果我们从未尝过饥饿的痛苦，我们在饱足时就不会感到愉悦。如果世上从未有过战争，我们就不会珍惜和平。如果没有冬天，春天也不会来临。

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赫拉克里特斯相信，在事物的秩序中，好与坏、善与恶都是不可或缺的。如果好坏善恶两极之间没有不停的交互作用，则世界将不再存在。

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他说：“神是白天也是黑夜，是冬天也是夏天，是战争也是和平，是饥饿也是饱足。”这里他提到的“神”所指的显然不是神话中的神。对于赫拉克里特斯而言，神是涵盖整个世界的事物。的确，在大自然不停的变化与对比中，我们可以很清楚地看见神的存在。

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赫拉克里特斯经常用logos(意为“理性”)这个希腊字来替代“神”一词。他相信，人类虽然思想不见得永远一致，理性也不一定同样发达，但世上一定有一种“普遍的理性”指导大自然所发生的每一件事。

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“普遍的理性”或“普遍法则”是所有人都具备，而且以之做为行事准则的。不过，赫拉克里特斯认为，大多数人还是依照个人的理性来生活。总而言之，他瞧不起其他的人。他说；“大多数人的意见就像儿戏一般。”所以，赫拉克里特斯在大自然不断地变迁与对比的现象中看出了一个“一致性”。他认为这就是万物之源，他称之为“上帝”或“理性”。

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四种基本元素

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从某方面来看，帕梅尼德斯和赫拉克里特斯两人的看法正好相反。帕梅尼德斯从理性的角度认为没有一件事物会改变。赫拉克里特斯则从感官认知的观点认为大自然不断在改变。究竟谁对谁错？我们应该听从理性还是依循感官？帕梅尼德斯和赫拉克里特斯各自主张两点。

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帕梅尼德斯说：1．没有任何事物会改变。

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2．因此我们的感官认知是不可靠的。

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赫拉克里特斯则说：1．万物都会改变(“一切事物都是流动的”)2．我们的感官认知是可靠的。

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两人的意见可说是南辕北辙。但究竟谁是谁非？这样各执一词、相持不下的局面最后由西西里的哲学家恩培窦可里斯(Empe—docles)解决了。

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他认为他们两人各有一点是对的，也各有一点是错的。

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他指出，他们两人之所以有这个根本性的差异是因为他们都认定世间只有一种元素存在。他说，果真如此，则由理性引导的事物与“眼睛可见到的”事物之间将永远有无法跨越的鸿沟。

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他说，水显然不会变成鱼或蝴蝶。事实上，水永远不会改变。纯粹的水将一直都是纯粹的水。帕梅尼德斯主张“没有任何事物会改变”并没有错。

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但同时恩培窦可里斯也同意赫拉克里特斯的说法，认为我们必须相信我们的感官所体验到的。我们必须信任自己亲眼所见的事物，而我们的确亲眼看到大自然的变化。

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恩培窦可里斯的结论是：我们不应该接受世间只有一种基本物质的观念；无论水或空气都无法独力变成玫瑰或蝴蝶。大自然不可能只由一种“元素”组成。

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恩培窦可里斯相信，整体来说，大自然是由四种元素所组成的，他称之为四个“根”。这四个根就是土、气、火与水。

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他指出，大自然所有的变化都是因为这四种元素相互结合或分离的缘故。因为所有事物都是由泥土、空气、火与水混合而成，只是比例各不相同。他说，当一株花或一只动物死亡时，它们体内的这四种元素就再度分离了，这些变化是肉眼可见的。不过土、气、火与水却是永远不灭的，不受他们所组成事物的影响。因此，说“万物”都会改变是不正确的。基本上，没有任何一件事情有变化。世间发生的事不过是这四种元素的分合聚散罢了。

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也许我们可以拿绘画来做比喻。假如一位画家只有一种颜料——例如红色——他便无法画出绿树。但假如他有黄、红、蓝、黑四色，他便可以将它们依照不同的比例来调配，得出数百种颜色。

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或者也可以拿烹饪来比方。如果我只有面粉，那么我得是个魔法师才能做出蛋糕来。但如果我有鸡蛋、面粉、牛奶与糖，我便可以做出各式各样的蛋糕。

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恩培窦可里斯之所以选择土、气、火与水做为大自然的四个“根”并非偶然。在他之前有些哲学家也曾经试图证明宇宙的基本元素不是水，就是空气或火。泰利斯与安那西梅尼斯也曾经指出，水与气都是物质世界中不可或缺的元素。希腊人则相信火也同样重要。举例来说，他们发现阳光对所有生物的重要性，也知道动物与人都有体温。

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恩培窦可里斯可能观察过木材燃烧的情形。他看到木材因此分解。木材燃烧时发出“劈啪！劈啪！”的声音，那是“水”，另外也有某些东西随着烟雾往上升，那是“气”，而“火”更是明白可见的。至于火熄灭后所残余的灰烬便是“土”了。

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恩培窦可里斯将自然界的变化解释为四个“根”的分合聚散之后，仍有一件事情有待解释。是什么因素使得这些元素聚合在一起，创造了新的生命？又是什么因素使得这些聚合物——例如花——再度分解？恩培窦可里斯认为自然界有两种力量。他称之为“爱”与“恨”。

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爱使得事物聚合，而恨则使他们分散。

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他将“物质”与“力量”分开来。这是值得注意的一件事。即使是在今天，科学家们仍将“矿物”与“自然力”分开。现代科学家相信，自然界的一切变化都可说是各种矿物在不同自然力之下相互作用的结果。

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恩培窦可里斯并提出“我们何以能看见某物”的问题。例如我们何以能“看见”一株花？其间究竟发生了什么事？苏菲，你有没有想过这个问题？如果没有，你现在可有机会了。

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恩培窦可里斯认为，我们的眼睛就像自然界的其他事物一样，也是由土、气、火、水所组成。所以我们眼睛当中的“土”可以看见周遭环境中的土，我们眼中的“气”则看到四周的气，我们眼中的“火”看到四周的火，我们眼中的“水”则看到四周的水。我们的眼睛中如果缺少这四种物质中的任何一种，便无法看到大自然所有的事物了。

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万物中皆含有各物的一部分

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还有一位哲学家也不认为我们在自然界中所看到的每一件事物都是由某一种基本物质——如水——变成的。他的名字叫安纳萨哥拉斯(Anaxagoras，公元前5OO～公元前428年)。他也不相信土、气、火、水就能够变成血液与骨头。

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安纳萨哥拉斯主张大自然是由无数肉眼看不见的微小粒子所组成，而所有事物都可以被分割成更小的部分。然而，即使是在最小的部分中也有其他每种事物的成分存在。他认为，如果皮肤与骨头不是由其他东西变成，则我们喝的牛奶与吃的食物中也必定有皮肤与骨头的成分。

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我们用一些现代的例子也许可以说明安纳萨哥拉斯的思想。

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现代的镭射科技可以制造所谓的“镭射摄影图”。如果一张镭射摄影图描绘的是一辆汽车，且这张图被切割成一片一片的，那么我们虽然手中只有显示汽车保险杆的那一张图，也仍旧可以看到整辆汽车的图像。这是因为在每一个微小的部分中都有整体的存在。

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从某一方面来说，我们身体的构造也是一样。假如我的指头上掉落了一个皮肤细胞，此一细胞核不仅会包含我皮肤的特征，也会显示我有什么样的眼睛、什么颜色的头发、有几根指头、是什么样的指头等等、人体的每个细胞都带有决定所有其他细胞构造方式的蓝图，因此在每一个细胞中，都含有“各物的一部分”；整体存在于每一个微小的部分中。

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安纳萨哥拉斯称呼这些含有“各物的一部分”的“小粒子”为“种子”。

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我们还记得恩培寞可里斯认为“爱”凝聚各种元素组成整体的力量。安纳哥拉斯也认为“秩序”是一种力量，可以创造动物与人、花与树等。他称这个力量为“心灵”或“睿智”。

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安纳萨哥拉斯之所以引起我们的兴趣，一方面也是因为他是我们所知第一个住在雅典的哲学家。他生长于小亚细亚，但在四十岁时迁居雅典。他后来被责为无神论者，因此最后被迫离开雅典。

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他还说过，太阳不是一个神，而是一块红热的石头，比希腊的培洛彭尼索斯半岛还大。

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安纳萨哥拉斯对天文学很感兴趣。他相信天上所有物体的成分都与地球相同。这是他研究一块陨石后达成的结论。他因此想到别的星球上可能也有人类。他并指出，月亮自己并不会发光，它的光来自于地球。同时他还解释了日蚀的现象。

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P．S：苏菲，谢谢你注意听讲。你可能需要将这一章读个两三遍才能完全理解。不过话说回来，要理解一件事物总是要费一些力气的。你的朋友如果有人一点不费力气就可以样样精通的话，我相信你也不会很欣赏她。

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关于宇宙基本组成物质与自然界变化这个问题的最佳答案，必须要等到明天再说了。到时你将会认识德谟克里特斯(Democrltus)。今天就到此为止了。

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苏菲坐在密洞中，透过浓密的灌木丛中的小洞向花园张望。在读了这么多东西后，她得理清她的思绪才行。

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显然的，白水除了变成冰块或蒸气之外，永远不能变成其他的东西，甚至也不能变成西瓜，因为西瓜里面除了水以外还有别的。

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不过她之所以这么肯定，是因为她曾经在学校中上过课。如果她没有上过相关的课，她还会这么肯定冰块的成分完全是水吗？至少她得密切观察水如何结冻成冰块、又如何融解才行。

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苏菲再次试着运用自己的常识，而不去想她从别人那儿学到的知识。

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帕梅尼德斯不承认世上任何事物会变化。苏菲愈想愈相信从某一方面来说，他是对的。在智性上，他无法接受事物会突然转变成“另外一种完全不同的事物”的说法。要坦白说出这个观念一定需要很大的勇气，因为这必定意味着他必须驳斥人们亲眼所见到的种种自然界的变化。一定有很多人取笑他。

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恩培窦可里斯一定也是个聪明的人。因为他证明这世界是由一种以上的物质组成，如此自然界才可能在万事万物实际上皆未曾改变的情况下产生种种变化。

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他只凭推理就发现了这个事实。当然他曾经研究过大自然，但他却没有现代科学家的设备来进行化学分析。

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苏菲并不一定相信万事万物都是由土、气、火与水所组成。但这又有什么关系呢？就原则上来说，恩培窦可里斯说得没错。如果我们要接受自己亲眼所见的各种大自然的变化而又不致违反自己的理性，唯一的方式就只有承认世间存在着一种以上的基本物质。

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现在，苏菲发现哲学这门课程更有趣了，因为她可运用自己的常识来理解这些哲学思想，而毋需凭借她在学校学到的知识。她的结论是：哲学不是一般人能够学到的，但也许我们可以学习如何以哲学的方式思考。

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 nothing can come from nothing 

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When her mother got home from work that afternoon Sophie was sitting in the glider , pondering the possible connection between the philosophy course and Hilde Moller Knag, who would not be getting a birthday card from her father.

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Her mother called from the other end of the garden, "Sophie! There’s a letter for you!"

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She caught her breath. She had already emptied the mailbox, so the letter had to be from the philosopher. What on earth would she say to her mother?

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"There’s no stamp on it. It’s probably a love letter!"

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Sophie took the letter.

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"Aren’t you going to open it?"

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She had to find an excuse.

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"Have you ever heard of anyone opening a love letter with her mother looking over her shoulder?"

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Let her mother think it was a love letter. Although it was embarrassing enough, it would be even worse if her mother found out that she was doing a correspondence course with a complete stranger, a philosopher who was playing hide-and-seek with her.

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It was one of the little white envelopes. When Sophie got upstairs to her room, she found three new questions:

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Is there a basic substance that everything else is made of?

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Can water turn into wine? How can earth and water produce a live frog!

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Sophie found the questions pretty stupid, but nevertheless they kept buzzing around in her head all evening. She was still thinking about them at school the next day, examining them one by one.

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Could there be a "basic substance" that everything was made of? If there was some such substance, how could it suddenly turn into a flower or an elephant?

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The same objection applied to the question of whether water could turn into wine. Sophie knew the parable of how Jesus turned water into wine, but she had never taken it literally . And if Jesus really had turned water into wine, it was because it was a miracle, something that could not be done normally. Sophie knew there was a lot of water, not only in wine but in all other growing things. But even if a cucumber was 95 percent water, there must be something else in it as well, because a cucumber was a cucumber, not water.

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And then there was the question about the frog. Her philosophy teacher had this really weird thing about frogs.

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Sophie could possibly accept that a frog consisted of earth and water, in which case the earth must consist of more than one kind of substance. If the earth consisted of a lot of different substances, it was obviously possible that earth and water together could produce a frog. That is, if the earth and the water went via frog spawn and tadpoles . Because a frog could not just grow out of a cabbage patch, however much you watered it.

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When she got home from school that day there was a fat envelope waiting for her in the mailbox. Sophie hid in the den just as she had done the other days.

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THE PHILOSOPHERS’ PROJECT Here we are again! We’ll go directly to today’s lesson without detours around white rabbits and the like.

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I’ll outline very broadly the way people have thought about philosophy, from the ancient Greeks right up to our own day. But we’ll take things in their correct order.

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Since some philosophers lived in a different age--and perhaps in a completely different culture from ours--it is a good idea to try and see what each philosopher’s project is. By this I mean that we must try to grasp precisely what it is that each particular philosopher is especially concerned with finding out. One philosopher might want to know how plants and animals came into being. Another might want to know whether there is a God or whether man has an immortal soul.

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Once we have determined what a particular philosopher’s project is, it is easier to follow his line of thought, since no one philosopher concerns himself with the whole of philosophy.

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I said his line of thought--referring to the philosopher, because this is also a story of men. Women of the past were subjugated both as females and as thinking beings, which is sad because a great deal of very important experience was lost as a result. It was not until this century that women really made their mark on the history of philosophy.

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I do not intend to give you any homework--no difficult math questions, or anything like that, and conjugating English verbs is outside my sphere of interest. However, from time to time I’ll give you a short assignment.

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If you accept these conditions, we’ll begin.

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THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS The earliest Greek philosophers are sometimes called natural philosophers because they were mainly concerned with the natural world and its processes.

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We have already asked ourselves where everything comes from. Nowadays a lot of people imagine that at some time something must have come from nothing. This idea was not so widespread among the Greeks. For one reason or another, they assumed that "something" had always existed.

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How everything could come from nothing was therefore not the all-important question. On the other hand the Greeks marveled at how live fish could come from water, and huge trees and brilliantly colored flowers could come from the dead earth. Not to mention how a baby could come from its mother’s womb!

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The philosophers observed with their own eyes that nature was in a constant state of transformation . But how could such transformations occur?

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How could something change from being substance to being a living thing, for example?

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All the earliest philosophers shared the belief that there had to be a certain basic substance at the root of all change. How they arrived at this idea is hard to say. We only know that the notion gradually evolved that there must be a basic substance that was the hidden cause of all changes in nature. There had to be "something" that all things came from and returned to.

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For us, the most interesting part is actually not what solutions these earliest philosophers arrived at, but which questions they asked and what type of answer they were looking for. We are more interested in how they thought than in exactly what they thought.

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We know that they posed questions relating to the transformations they could observe in the physical world. They were looking for the underlying laws of nature. They wanted to understand what was happening around them without having to turn to the ancient myths. And most important, they wanted to understand the actual processes by studying nature itself. This was quite different from explaining thunder and lightning or winter and spring by telling stories about the gods.

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So philosophy gradually liberated itself from religion. We could say that the natural philosophers took the first step in the direction of scientific reasoning, thereby becoming the precursors of what was to become science.

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Only fragments have survived of what the natural philosophers said and wrote. What little we know is found in the writings of Aristotle, who lived two centuries later. He refers only to the conclusions the philosophers reached. So we do not always know by what paths they reached these conclusions. But what we do know enables us to establish that the earliest Greek philosophers’ project concerned the question of a basic constituent substance and the changes in nature.

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THREE PHILOSOPHERS FROM MILETUS The first philosopher we know of is Thales, who came from Miletus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor . He traveled in many countries, including Egypt, where he is said to have calculated the height of a pyramid by measuring its shadow at the precise moment when the length of his own shadow was equal to his height. He is also said to have accurately predicted a solar eclipse in the year 585 B.C.

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Thales thought that the source of all things was water. We do not know exactly what he meant by that, he may have believed that all life originated from water--and that all life returns to water again when it dissolves.

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During his travels in Egypt he must have observed how the crops began to grow as soon as the floods of the Nile receded from the land areas in the Nile Delta . Perhaps he also noticed that frogs and worms appeared wherever it had just been raining.

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It is likely that Thales thought about the way water turns to ice or vapor --and then turns back into water again.

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Thales is also supposed to have said that "all things are full of gods." What he meant by that we can only surmise . Perhaps, seeing how the black earth was the source of everything from flowers and crops to insects and cockroaches , he imagined that the earth was filled with tiny invisible "life-germs." One thing is certain--he was not talking about Homer’s gods.

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The next philosopher we hear of is Anaximander, who also lived in Miletus at about the same time as Thales. He thought that our world was only one of a myriad of worlds that evolve and dissolve in something he called the boundless . It is not so easy to explain what he meant by the boundless, but it seems clear that he was not thinking of a known substance in the way that Thales had envisaged . Perhaps he meant that the substance which is the source of all things had to be something other than the things created. Because all created things are limited, that which comes before and after them must be "boundless." It is clear that this basic stuff could not be anything as ordinary as water.

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A third philosopher from Miletus was Anaximenes (c. 570--526 B.C.). He thought that the source of all things must be "air" or "vapor." Anaximenes was of course familiar with Tholes’ theory of water. But where does water come from? Anaximenes thought that water was condensed air. We observe that when it rains, water is pressed from the air. When water is pressed even more, it becomes earth, he thought. He may have seen how earth and sand were pressed out of melting ice. He also thought that fire was rarefied air. According to Anaximenes, air was therefore the origin of earth, water, and fire.

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It is not a far cry from water to the fruit of the earth. Perhaps Anaximenes thought that earth, air, and fire were all necessary to the creation of life, but that the source of all things was air or vapor. So, like Thales, he thought that there must be an underlying substance that is the source of all natural change.

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Nothing Can Come from NothingThese three Milesian philosophers all believed in the existence of a single basic substance as the source of all things. But how could one substance suddenly change into something else? We can call this the problem of change.

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From about 500 B.C., there was a group of philosophers in the Greek colony of Elea in Southern Italy. These "Eleatics" were interested in this question.

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The most important of these philosophers was Parmenides (c. 540-480 B.C.). Parmenides thought that everything that exists had always existed. This idea was not alien to the Greeks. They took it more or less for granted that everything that existed in the world was everlasting . Nothing can come out of nothing, thought Parmenides. And nothing that exists can become nothing.

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But Parmenides took the idea further. He thought that there was no such thing as actual change. Nothing could become anything other than it was.

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Parmenides realized, of course, that nature is in a constant state of flux . He perceived with his senses that things changed. But he could not equate this with what his reason told him. When forced to choose between relying either on his senses or his reason, he chose reason.

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You know the expression "I’ll believe it when I see it." But Parmenides didn’t even believe things when he saw them. He believed that our senses give us an incorrect picture of the world, a picture that does not tally with our reason. As a philosopher, he saw it as his task to expose all forms of perceptual illusion.

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This unshakable faith in human reason is called rationalism. A rationalist is someone who believes that human reason is the primary source of our knowledge of the world.

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All Things Flow A contemporary of Parmenides was Heraditus (c. 540-480 B.C.), who was from Ephesus in Asia Minor. He thought that constant change, or flow, was in fact the mosf basic characteristic of nature. We could perhaps say that Heraclitus had more faith in what he could perceive than Parmenides did.

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"Everything flows," said Heraclitus. Everything is in constant flux and movement, nothing is abiding . Therefore we "cannot step twice into the same river." When I step into the river for the second time, neither I nor the river are the same.

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Heraclitus pointed out that the world is characterized by opposites. If we were never ill, we would not know what it was to be well. If we never knew hunger, we would take no pleasure in being full. If there were never any war, we would not appreciate peace. And if there were no winter, we would never see the spring.

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Both good and bad have their inevitable place in the order of things, Heraclitus believed. Without this constant interplay of opposites the world would cease to exist.

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"God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, hunger and satiety," he said. He used the term "God," but he was clearly not referring to the gods of the mythology . To Heraclitus, God--or the Deity--was something that embraced the whole world. Indeed, God can be seen most clearly in the constant transformations and contrasts of nature.

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Instead of the term "God," Heraclitus often used the Greek word logos, meaning reason. Although we humans do not always think alike or have the same degree of reason, Heraclitus believed that there must be a kind of "universal reason" guiding everything that happens in nature.

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This "universal reason" or "universal law" is something common to us all, and something that everybody is guided by. And yet most people live by their individual reason, thought Heraclitus. In general, he despised his fellow beings. "The opinions of most people," he said, "are like the playthings of infants."

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So in the midst of all nature’s constant flux and oppo-sites, Heraclitus saw an Entity or one-ness. This "something," which was the source of everything, he called God or logos.

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Four Basic ElementsIn one way, Parmenides and Heraclitus were the direct opposite of each other. Parmenides’ reason made it clear that nothing could change. Heraclitus’ sense perceptions made it equally clear that nature was in a constant state of change. Which of them was right? Should we let reason dictate or should we rely on our senses?

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Parmenides and Heraclitus both say two things:

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Parmenides says: a) that nothing can change, andb) that our sensory perceptions must therefore be unreliable. Heraclitus, on the other hand, says: a) that everything changes ("all things flow"), andb) that our sensory perceptions are reliable.

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*    *    *

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Philosophers could hardly disagree more than that! But who was right? It fell to Empedocles (c. 490-430 B.C.) from Sicily to lead the way out of the tangle they had gotten themselves into.

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He thought they were both right in one of their assertions but wrong in the other.

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Empedocles found that the cause of their basic disagreement was that both philosophers had assumed the presence of only one element. If this were true, the gap between what reason dictates and what "we can see with our own eyes" would be unbridgeable.

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Water obviously cannot turn into a fish or a butterfly. In fact, water cannot change. Pure water will continue to be pure water. So Parmenides was right in holding that "nothing changes."

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But at the same time Empedocles agreed with Heraclitus that we must trust the evidence of our senses. We must believe what we see, and what we see is precisely that nature changes.

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Empedocles concluded that it was the idea of a single basic substance that had to be rejected. Neither water nor air alone can change into a rosebush or a butterfly. The source of nature cannot possibly be one single "element."

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Empedocles believed that all in all, nature consisted of four elements, or "roots" as he termed them. These four roots were earth, air, fire, and wafer.

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All natural processes were due to the coming together and separating of these four elements. For all things were a mixture of earth, air, fire, and water, but in varying proportions. When a flower or an animal dies, he said, the four elements separate again. We can register these changes with the naked eye. But earth and air, fire and water remain everlasting, "untouched" by all the compounds of which they are part. So it is not correct to say that "everything" changes. Basically, nothing changes. What happens is that the four elements are combined and separated--only to be combined again.

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We can make a comparison to painting. If a painter only has one color--red, for instance--he cannot paint green trees. But if he has yellow, red, blue, and black, he can paint in hundreds of different colors because he can mix them in varying proportions.

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An example from the kitchen illustrates the same thing. If I only have flour, I have to be a wizard to bake a cake. But if I have eggs, flour, milk, and sugar, then I can make any number of different cakes.

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It was not purely by chance that Empedocles chose earth, air, fire, and water as nature’s "roots." Other philosophers before him had tried to show that the primordial substance had to be either water, air, or fire. Thales and Anaximenes had pointed out that both water and air were essential elements in the physical world. The Greeks believed that fire was also essential. They observed, for ex-ample, the importance of the sun to all living things, and they also knew that both animals and humans have body heat.

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Empedocles might have watched a piece of wood burning. Something disintegrates . We hear it crackle and splutter. That is "water." Something goes up in smoke. That is "air." The "fire" we can see. Something also remains when the fire is extinguished. That is the ashes--or "earth."

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After Empedocles’ clarification of nature’s transformations as the combination and dissolution of the four "roots," something still remained to be explained. What makes these elements combine so that new life can occur? And what makes the "mixture" of, say, a flower dissolve again?

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Empedocles believed that there were two different forces at work in nature. He called them love and strife . Love binds things together, and strife separates them.

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He distinguishes between "substance" and "force." This is worth noting. Even today, scientists distinguish between elements and natural forces. Modern science holds that all natural processes can be explained as the interaction between different elements and various natural forces.

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Empedocles also raised the question of what happens when we perceive something. How can I "see" a flower, for example? What is it that happens? Have you ever thought about it, Sophie?

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Empedocles believed that the eyes consist of earth, air, fire, and water, just like everything else in nature. So the "earth" in my eye perceives what is of the earth in my surroundings, the "air" perceives what is of the air, the "fire" perceives what is of fire, and the "water" what is of water. Had my eyes lacked any of the four substances, I would not have seen all of nature.

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Something of Everything in EverythingAnaxagoras (500-428 B.C.) was another philosopher who could not agree that one particular basic substance--water, for instance--might be transformed into everything we see in the natural world. Nor could he accept that earth, air, fire, and water can be transformed into blood and bone.

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Anaxagoras held that nature is built up of an infinite number of minute particles invisible to the eye. Moreover, everything can be divided into even smaller parts, but even in the minutest parts there are fragments of all other things. If skin and bone are not a transformation of something else, there must also be skin and bone, he thought, in the milk we drink and the food we eat. ~~A couple of present-day examples can perhaps illustrate Anaxagoras’ line of thinking. Modern laser technology can produce so-called holograms. If one of these holograms depicts a car, for example, and the hologram is fragmented, we will see a picture of the whole car even though we only have the part of the hologram that showed the bumper . This is because the whole subject is present in every tiny part.

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In a sense, our bodies are built up in the same way. If I loosen a skin cell from my finger, the nucleus will contain not only the characteristics of my skin: the same cell will also reveal what kind of eyes I have, the color of my hair, the number and type of my fingers, and so on. Every cell of the human body carries a blueprint of the way all the other cells are constructed. So there is "something of everything" in every single cell. The whole exists in each tiny part.

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Anaxagoras called these minuscule particles which have something of everything in them seeds.

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Remember that Empedocles thought that it was "love" that joined the elements together in whole bodies. Anaxagoras also imagined "order" as a kind of force, creating animals and humans, flowers and trees. He called this force mind or intelligence (nous).

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Anaxagoras is also interesting because he was the first philosopher we hear of in Athens. He was from Asia Minor but he moved to Athens at the age of forty. He was later accused of atheism and was ultimately forced to leave the city. Among other things, he said that the sun was not a god but a red-hot stone, bigger than the entire Peloponnesian peninsula.

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Anaxagoras was generally very interested in astronomy. He believed that all heavenly bodies were made of the same substance as Earth. He reached this conclusion after studying a meteorite . This gave him the idea that there could be human life on other planets. He also pointed out that the Moon has no light of its own--its light comes from Earth, he said. He thought up an explanation for solar eclipses as well.

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P.S. Thank you for your attention, Sophie. It is not unlikely that you will need to read this chapter two or three times before you understand it all. But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn’t admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.

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The best solution to the question of basic substance and the transformations in nature must wait until tomorrow, when you will meet Democritus. I’ll say no more!

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Sophie sat in the den looking out into the garden through a little hole in the dense thicket

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. She had to try and sort out her thoughts after all she had read.

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It was as clear as daylight that plain water could never turn into anything other than ice or steam. Water couldn’t even turn into a watermelon, because even watermelons consisted of more than just water. But she was only sure of that because that’s what she had learned. Would she be absolutely certain, for example, that ice was only water if that wasn’t what she had learned? At least, she would have to have studied very closely how water froze to ice and melted again.

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Sophie tried once again to use her own common sense, and not to think about what she had learned from others.

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Parmenides had refused to accept the idea of change in any form. And the more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that, in a way, he had been right. His intelligence could not accept that "something" could suddenly transform itself into "something completely different." It must have taken quite a bit of courage to come right out and say it, because it meant denying all the natural changes that people could see for themselves. Lots of people must have laughed at him.

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And Empedocles must have been pretty smart too, when he proved that the world had to consist of more than one single substance. That made all the transformations of nature possible without anything actually changing.

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The old Greek philosopher had found that out just by reasoning. Of course he had studied nature, but he didn’t have the equipment to do chemical analysis the way scientists do nowadays.

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Sophie was not sure whether she really believed that the source of everything actually was earth, air, fire, and water. But after all, what did that matter? In principle, Empedocles was right. The only way we can accept the transformations we can see with our own eyes--without losing our reason--is to admit the existence of more than one single basic substance.

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Sophie found philosophy doubly exciting because she was able to follow all the ideas by using her own common sense--without having to remember everything she had learned at school. She decided that philosophy was not something you can learn; but perhaps you can learn to think philosophically .

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