1. Pluralists: Reality’s Many Elements Anaxagoras and Friends

2. Pluralists  After Parmenides, impossible to return to monist explanation of reality  Reality can not be reduced to one thing –Not like Monists (Thales & Co.)  World is composed of many elements

3. Empedocles  Like Pythagoras (scientific+spiritual)  Expertise was medicine and math  Theory: everything made up of all 4 elements (fire, earth, air, water)  Forces of Love and Strife complementary and impact world

4. Anaxagoras  500-432 BC  First to introduce philosophy to Athenians (encouraged by Pericles) –Athenians prosecuted him so he left  First to suggest mind as primary cause of physical changes  First to explain moon shines by reflected light  Correct theory of eclipses, sun (hot stone) and moon (mountains and…inhabitants?)

5. Infinitely Divisible No new reality can originate, therefore everything existed since always  reality reducible to an infinite number of “seeds.” –“seeds” contain elements of everything and are in everything (some more than others) –“Everything participates in everything“ –Particles originally in huge mass that began separating… how??

6. Nous  Omniscient, impersonal MIND –Not mixed with anything  Gives order and constancy to universe  Source of all motion  Enters into the composition of living things –Differentiates them from dead matter

7. Understanding  Nous is an exterior cause/understanding –Opens perspectives for Plato and Aristotle  First time idea of God as principal ruler of universe –“intelligent design?”  Yet always returns to whirlpool motion promoted by nous

8. Legacy  Brought philosophy to Athens  Rationalist and scientific  Helped form Socrates and Athenian schools  No religious or ethical preoccupations  Set stage for Democritus