Socrates and Presocratic philosophy – Courses by Dr Sven Erlic

“The first step towards knowledge is admitting ignorance”. Socrates, arguably the most influential person that ever lived, still shapes our society. Studying his thoughts, preserved through Plato, is remarkably rewarding and challenging. This course will critically analyse Socratic arguments and that of his predecessors, the Presocratics, who through a process of critical debate and reasoned argument, invented rational thought and pre-science. Presocratic philosophy is the systematic rational study about the ultimate nature of reality, which reaches extraordinary and disturbing conclusions.

Lecture 1: Philosophy, Science and Rational Thought

“All is Water”
How is it that this simple statement brought on the invention of rational thought? And why is it that rational thinking had to be invented, what was there before philosophy? At this introductory lesson we will examine how thought, rationale and reason were expressed in societies around the world before the intellectual revolution.

Lecture 2: Miletus Intellectual Revolution

What is the nature of reality?
Why has the city state of Miletus been credited with being the birthplace of science? Who instigated this radical new approach to knowledge and how did a few simple thoughts evolve into a complex search for the ‘causes and principles’ of the natural world and natural phenomena?

Lecture 3: Xenophanes & Pythagoras

“All is but a woven web of guesses”
Xenophanes has through the ages occasionally been excluded from the company of the early philosophers. The week we will examine what makes him controversial and the argument, by eminent philosopher Karl Popper, that Xenophanes first formulated and established the primary scientific principle of conjectural knowledge. In this lecture we will also examine the mystical Pythagorean thought and its mathematical origin.

Lecture 4: Heraclitus of Ephesus

“The road there is the same as the road back”
Why was it that in ancient literature no-one was more quoted, imitated or interpreted the Heraclitus? According to Heraclitus: the general run of people are as unaware of their actions while awake as they are of what they do while they are asleep. And what does he mean when he says: You cannot step in the same river twice? Be careful, after this lecture you might also find yourself frequently quoting Heraclitus, it is irresistible!

Lecture 5: Parmenides & Zeno of Elea

That which does not exist, can not become existence
Discover Zeno’s paradoxes and how the first monist Parmenides, when he argues that the perception of movement and change is an illusion, proves “beyond a doubt a conclusion that is beyond belief”. Parmenides, in aphoristic cryptic fashion, conclusively demonstrates that change can not occur because all change is a matter of something ceasing to exist or starting to exist. And therefore “All is one, unchanging and unmoving”.

Lecture 6: Empedocles, Anaxagoras & the Atomists

“Everything happens for a reason and by necessity”
This week we will examine Anaxagoras’ cosmological concepts and investigate how Empedocles followed both Heraclitean and Parmenidean doctrines, combining them into a new and surprising theory. We will follow how Leucippus and his pupil Democritus, in search of a nature-of-matter that is consistent with sense perception, developed the concept of atoms. We will also evaluate if the theory they developed is contestable by Parmenidean arguments.

Lecture 7: Socrates and the Sophists

“The unexamined life is not worth living”
Socrates took philosophy on a new path, examining human behaviour and discussing ethics. But becoming the world’s first real teacher, teaching people ‘how to think’, got him in trouble. In a jury of his peers he announced: I would rather die then give up Philosophy! This week we will examine his method of teaching and tackle three questions; why is it claimed that Socrates is responsible for bringing on the greatest change in humanity; why is he such a mark in the landscape; what was his argument with the Sophists?

Lecture 8: Socrates

“The only evil is ignorance”
Contrary to popular belief, Socrates is adamant, “Doing the right thing is always in your best interest”. He persistently argues that you can make better people, not just more efficient members of society but really ‘better’ people, by making them knowledgeable. This week we will go through the arguments Socrates uses to explain that: Knowledge is both the necessary and the sufficient condition for doing the right thing.