>>Dr. Kerry Magruder: Thanks for joining me
in the History of Science Collections of the
University of Oklahoma Libraries. I've selected
two books from the vault that may awaken our
interest in the story of the Presocratic natural
philosophers. Most of our knowledge of the
origins of the Greek debate about what nature
is and how nature is known depends upon Aristotle.
Aristotle attributed the origin of physics,
or natural philosophy, to the Presocratics
in Book 2 of his Physics, and in Section A
of his Metaphysics. In this 17th-century work,
philosopher Ralph Cudworth surveyed the ideas
of ancient thinkers. Cudworth, as a so-called
"Cambridge Platonist," was committed to the
idea of an ancient wisdom, which lay hidden
in ancient writings for the modern scholar
to recover. By means of this ancient wisdom,
Cudworth believed one might harmonize philosophy
and religion. The frontispiece depicts ancient
philosophers gathered around the altar of
religion. Some of these we will recognize,
like Aristotle, Socrates and Pythagoras on
your left. But who are the ones on the right,
whom Cudworth classifies as atheists — Strato,
Epicurus, and Anaximander? Anaximander is
one of the Presocratic natural philosophers.
The Presocratics have left us many memorable,
often cryptic, aphorisms: "All things are
full of gods." "You cannot step twice into
the same river, for fresh waters are ever
flowing around you." "How can what is consist
of what is not?" "In all things there is a
portion of everything." But more importantly,
the Presocratics left us with fundamental
questions about what nature is, and how nature
is known. In grappling with these two questions,
the Presocratics established a tradition of
logical debate as a search for theoretical
causes. That tradition, which became known
as "physics," remains as important and influential
today as the mathematical sciences and the
medical practices that were the legacy of
the Presocratics' eastern and southern neighbors.Science
is a story. What stories do you want to hear
and tell about the Presocratic natural philosophers?
