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IONIAN SCHOOL OF See also:PHILOSOPHY . Under this name are included a number of philosophers of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. Mainly See also:Ionians by See also:birth, they are See also:united by a See also:local tie and represent all that was best in the See also:early Ionian See also:intellect. It is a most interesting fact in the See also:history of See also:Greek thought that its birth took See also:place not in See also:Greece but in the colonies on the Eastern shores of the See also:Aegean See also:Sea. But not only geographically do these philosophers See also:form a school; they are one in method and aim. They all sought to explain the material universe as given in sensible See also:perception; their explanation was in terms of See also:matter, See also:movement, force. In this they differed from the Eleatics and the Pythagoreans who thought in the abstract, and explained knowledge and existence in metaphysical terminology. In tracing the development of their ideas, two periods may be distinguished. The earliest thinkers down to Heraclitus endeavoured to find a material substance of which all things consist; Heraclitus, by his principle of universal See also:flux, took a new See also:line and explained everything in terms of force, movement, dynamic See also:energy. The former asked the question, " What is the substratum of the things we see?"; the latter, " How did the sensible See also:world become what it is; of what nature was the See also:motive force?" The first name in the See also:list of the Ionian philosophers—and, indeed, in the history of See also:European thought—is that of Thales (q.v.). He first, so far as we know, sought to go behind the See also:infinite multiplicity of phenomena in the See also:hope of finding an infinite unity from which all difference has been evolved. This unity he decided is See also:Water (7ravra Hep LorLv). It is impossible to discover precisely what he conceived to be the relation of this unity to the See also:plurality of phenomena. Later writers from whom we derive our knowledge of Thales attributed to him ideas which seem to have been conceived by subsequent thinkers. Thus the See also:suggestion preserved by See also:Stobaeus that he conceived water to be endowed with mind is discredited by the specific statement of 'See also:Aristotle that the earlier physicists (physiologi) did not distinguish the material from the moving cause, and that before Anaxagoras no one postulated creative intelligence. Again in the De anima (i. 5) Aristotle quotes the statement that Thales attributed to water a divine intelligence, and criticizes it as an inference from later speculations. It is probably safest to See also:credit Thales with the See also:bare See also:mechanical conception of a universal material cause, leaving See also:pan-theistic ideas to a later See also:period of thought. The successors of Thales were Anaximander and Anaximenes, who also sought for a primal substance of things. Anaximander postulated a corporeal substance intermediate between See also:air and See also:fire on the one See also:hand, and between See also:earth and water on the other hand. This substance he called " the Infinite " (ra &7rEipov). Unlike Thales, he was struck by the infinite variety in things; he See also:felt that all See also:differences are finite, that they have emerged from primal unity (first calledapxn by him) into which they must ultimately return, that the Infinite One has been, is, and always will be, the same, indeterminate but immutable. See also:Change, growth and decay he explained on the principle of mechanical See also:compensation (bibovai -yap aira TIT tV Kai &LK71V T7hS aILKLaS). Anaximenes, See also:pupil of Anaximander, seems to have rebelled against the extreme See also:materialism of his See also:master. Perceiving that air is necessary to See also:life, that the universe is surrounded by air, he was convinced that out of air all things have resulted. The See also:process by which things grow is twofold, condensation (auevwois) and rarefaction apalwois), or, in other words, See also:heat and See also:cold. From the former process result See also:cloud, water and See also: Yet there is See also:reason to doubt the view of See also:Hegel and See also:Lassalle that Heraclitus recognized the fundamental distinction of subject and See also:object and the relations of mind and matter. Like the early Ionians he postulated a See also:primary sub-stance, fire, out of which all things have emerged and into which all must return. This elemental fire is in itself a divine rational process, the See also:harmony of which constitutes the See also:law of the universe. Human knowledge consists in the comprehension of this all-pervading harmony as embodied in the manifold of perception; the senses are " See also:bad witnesses " in that they See also:report multiplicity as fixed and existent in itself rather than in its relation to the One. This theory gives. birth to a sort of ethical by-product whose dominant See also:note is Harmony, the subordination of the individual to the universal See also:season; moral failure is proportionate to the degree in which the individual declines to recognize his See also:personal transience in relation to the eternal Unity. From the same principle there follows the doctrine of See also:Immortality. The individual, like the phenomena of sense, comes out of the infinite and again is merged ; hence on the one hand he is never a See also:separate entity at all, while on the other hand he exists in the infinite and must continue to exist. Moreover, the soul approaches most nearly to perfection when it is least differentiated from elemental fire; it follows that " while we live our souls are dead within us, but when we See also:die our souls are restored to life." This doctrine is at once the assertion and the denial of the self, and furnishes a striking parallel between European thought in its earliest stages and the fundamental principles of See also:Buddhism. Knowledge of the self is one with knowledge of the Universal See also:Logos (Reason) ; such knowledge is the basis not only of conduct but of existence itself in its only real sense.
Thus far the Ionian philosophers had held the See also: Parmenides and See also:Zeno (see Eleatic School) enunciated the principle that " Nothing is See also:born of nothing." Hence the problem becomes a dialectical a priori speculation wherein the See also:laws of thought transcend the sense-given data of experience. It was therefore See also:left for the later Ionians to See also:frame an eclectic See also:system, a See also:synthesis of Being and Not-being, a correlation of universal mobility and See also:absolute permanence. This examination of diametrically opposed tendencies resulted in several different theories. It will be sufficient here to See also:deal with Anaxagoras, See also:Diogenes of See also:Apollonia, See also:Archelaus and See also:Hippo, leaving See also:Empedocles, Leucippus and See also:Democritus to See also:special articles (q.v.). The latter three do not belong strictly to the Ionian School. Anaxagoras (q.v.) elaborated a quasi-dualistic theory according to which all things have existed from the beginning. Originally they existed in infinitesimal fragments, infinite in number and devoid of arrangement. Amongst these fragments were the seeds of all things which have since emerged by the process of See also:aggregation and segregation, wherein homogeneous fragments came together. These processes are the See also:work of Nous (vows) which governs and arranges. But this Nous, or Mind, is not incorporeal; it is the thinnest of all things; its See also:action on the particle is conceived materially. It originated a rotatory movement, which arising in one point gradually extended till the whole was in See also:motion, which motion continues and will continue infinitely. By this motion things are gradually constructed not entirely of homogeneous particles (the homoeomere, haoioµ€pil) but in each thing with a See also:majority of a certain See also:kind of particle. It is this aggregation which we describe variously as birth, See also:death, maturity, decay, and of which the senses give inaccurate reports. His vague See also:dualism See also:works a very distinct advance upon the crude hylozoism of the early Ionians (see See also:ATOM), and the criticisms of See also:Plato and Aristotle show how highly his work was esteemed. The See also:great danger is that we should credit him with more than he actually thought. His Nous was not a spiritual force; it was no omnipotent deity; it is not a pantheistic world-soul. But by isolating Reason from all other growths, by representing it as the motor-energy of the Cosmos, in popularizing a See also:term which suggested See also:personality and will, Anaxagoras gave an impetus to ideas which were the basis of Aristotelian philosophy in Greece and in See also:Europe at large. In Diogenes of Apollonia we find a return to Anaximenes. Diogenes (q.v.) began by insisting on the See also:necessity of there being only one principle of things, herein contradicting the See also:pluralism of Heraclitus. This principle is that of the universal homogeneity of nature; all things are at bottom the same, or interaction would be impossible (iravra ra Isvra afro poi abro"v krepoio TBai Sal pi abro See also:elm. This universal substance is Air. But Diogenes went much farther than Anaximenes by attributing to air not only infinity and eternity but also intelligence. This Intelligence alone would have produced the orderly arrangement which we observe in Nature, and is the basis of human thought by the physical process of inhalation. Another pupil of Anaxagoras was Archelaus of See also:Miletus (q.v.). His work was mainly the See also:combination of previous views, except that he is said to have introduced an ethical side into the Ionian philosophy. " See also:Justice and injustice," he said, " are not natural but legal." He endeavoured to overcome the dualism of Anaxagoras, and in so doing approached more nearly to the older Ionians. The last of the Ionians whom we need mention is Hippo (q.v.), who, like Archelaus, is intellectually amongst the earlier members of the school. He thought that the source of all things was moisture (so bypov), and is by Aristotle coupled with Thales (See also:Metaphysics, A 3). 10PHON, Greek tragic poet, son of See also:Sophocles. He gained the second See also:prize in 428 B.C., See also:Euripides being first, and See also:Ion third. He must have been living in 405, the date of the See also:production of the Frogs of See also:Aristophanes, in which he is spoken of as the only See also:good Athenian tragic poet, although it is hinted that he owed much to his father's assistance. He wrote 50 plays, of which only a few fragments remain. It is said that Iophon accused his father before the See also:court of the phratores of being incapable of managing his affairs, to which Sophocles replied by See also:reading the famous See also:chorus of the See also:Oedipus at Colonus (688 ff.), with the result that he was triumphantly acquitted. See Aristophanes, Frogs, 73, 78, with scholia; Cicero, De seneclute, vii. 22; See also:Plutarch, Moralia, 785 B; A. See also:Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum fragments (1889); O. See also:Wolff, De Iophonte poets (See also:Leipzig, 1884). I.O.U. (" I owe you "), a written See also:acknowledgment of a See also:debt. It usually runs thus: To—. I.O.U. — pounds. (Signed) —. Date—. An I.O.U., if worded as above, or even if the words " for value received " are added, does not acquire a See also:stamp, as it contains no terms of agreement. If any such words as " to be paid on such a See also:day " are added, it requires a stamp. An I.O.U. should be addressed to the creditor by name, though its validity is not impaired by such omission. Being a distinct See also:admission of a sum due, it is prima facie See also:evidence of an See also:account stated, but where it is the only See also:item of evidence of account it may be rebutted by showing there was no debt and no demand which could be enforced by virtue of it. An I.O.U. is not negotiable. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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