PHIL 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Atomism, Xenophanes, Anaximander
Document Summary
Problems of early philosophy: the one and the many. If reality is in some sense one, what accounts for the many different individual things that we experience? (melchert 11: reality and appearance. Might reality in fact be very different from the way it appears in our experience? (melchert 11): the place of humans in the universe. Who are we, and how are we related to the rest of what there is? (melchert 11). Thales: the one as water: looking to this world for explanation, water as the cause and element of all things, all things are filled with gods. In saying that all things are full of gods, thales apparently meant that ___________. Explanations of events in the world could be explained in terms of events in the world. Even though water has unusual properties of appearing in several different states, water itself is not unusual. It is just one of the many things that needs to be explained (melchert).
