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Colloquium 2

Colloquium 2 Perplexity was there in waiting at the birth of Western philosophy. Whatever exactly Thales meant by saying that all is water, he surely began, as we would, with a contrast between water and non-water, or perhaps between liquid and non-liquid, where our grasp of the first sort of thing is partly fixed by our grasp of the contrasting sort. Then he pulled the conceptual rug out from under us by announcing that really everything is of the first sort. Later pre-Socratic philosophers followed the same pattern. Heraclitus insisted that everything is in flux. Again, we begin with a contrast between flowing or changing things and static or unchanging ones. And then the philosopher tells us that nothing is really of the second sort. We are in danger of losing our conceptual bearings. Even more obviously, Zeno's paradoxes incite perplexity. How could we have good reason to deny that Achilles, a proverbially fast runner, can catch up with the tortoise, a proverbially slow one? And how could we be given a cogent argument for the absurd conclusion that, throughout its flight, an arrow is at rest? So Western philosophy, even the earliest Western philosophy, invites perplexity. Did it also http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy Online Brill

Colloquium 2

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
Copyright 1999 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
1059-986X
eISSN
2213-4417
DOI
10.1163/2213441797X00055
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Perplexity was there in waiting at the birth of Western philosophy. Whatever exactly Thales meant by saying that all is water, he surely began, as we would, with a contrast between water and non-water, or perhaps between liquid and non-liquid, where our grasp of the first sort of thing is partly fixed by our grasp of the contrasting sort. Then he pulled the conceptual rug out from under us by announcing that really everything is of the first sort. Later pre-Socratic philosophers followed the same pattern. Heraclitus insisted that everything is in flux. Again, we begin with a contrast between flowing or changing things and static or unchanging ones. And then the philosopher tells us that nothing is really of the second sort. We are in danger of losing our conceptual bearings. Even more obviously, Zeno's paradoxes incite perplexity. How could we have good reason to deny that Achilles, a proverbially fast runner, can catch up with the tortoise, a proverbially slow one? And how could we be given a cogent argument for the absurd conclusion that, throughout its flight, an arrow is at rest? So Western philosophy, even the earliest Western philosophy, invites perplexity. Did it also

Journal

Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy Online – Brill

Published: Jan 1, 1997

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