IDEALISM (MENTALISM) IN EARLY GREEK METAPHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Xenophanes and others (with some remarks on the «Gigantomachia over being» in Plato’s Sophist)

Abstract

(1) Preliminary criticism of the presuppositions of the denial of existence of idealism in early Greek thought: pseudohistorical evolutionism, Platonocentrism that ignores the archaic features of Plato’s metaphysics and psychology, and the modern stereotype of «Presocratics» as physicalists, a product of the late 19th century (excessive) positivist reaction against Hegelianism and German idealism in the English-speaking historiography of Greek philosophy. (2) Demiourgos and creationism in Pre-Platonic philosophy. Creation by divine mind is a form of objective idealism (mentalism). (3) The thesis of Myles Burnyeat and Bernard Williams (no idealism in Greek philosophy) is criticized. We point to scholastic and ancient (Platonic) roots of Descartes’ substance dualism of body and mind, as well as to the even more ancient Pythagorean roots of Plato’s doctrine of immortal soul. (4) A provisional taxonomy of different types of idealism (mentalism) in ancient Greek philosophy is proposed. 11 types are distinguished. (5) The evidence of the Orphic-Pythagorean graffiti from Olbia on the early Pythagorean substance dualism of body and soul proves its Preplatonic origin. (6) Criticism of modern naturalistic interpretations of Pythagorean first principles peras and apeiron (Burkert, Huffman and others). Peras and apeiron (a geometrical analogue of later terms form and matter) are self-subsistent incorporeal mathematical essences, out of which physical bodies are «constructed» (αρμόζειν, another geometrical term for «construction») by the divine mind-demiourgos. (7) The identity of Being and Mind in Parmenides. A refutation of the grammatically impossible anti-idealist interpretation of fr. B 3 by Zeller, Burnet and their followers. Parmenides’ Kouros is a poetic image of Pythagoras as the originator of the Western Greek monotheistic theology of the noetic One, conceived as a Sphere of immutable thinking divine light (the conceptual metaphor of the Invisible Sun of Justice that «never sets»). (8) The psychological and ethical dimensions of the Eleatic doctrine of Being, almost totally neglected in the mainstream of the post-Burnetean literature. The Pythagorean doctrine of the indestructible soul serves as a practical tool of military psychological engineering: the education of fearless warriors. Strabo’s commonly neglected report on invincible Eleatic warriors, educated by Parmenides’ nomoi, is to be taken seriously. (9) The «battle of gods and giants over being» (Gigantomachia peri tes ousias) in Plato’s Sophist 246a as a testimony on the Preplatonic metaphysical idealism (mentalism). It is argued that the two warring camps should not be confined to contemporary atomists and academics only: the whole Ionian (naturalism) and Italian (idealism) traditions, mentioned in Plato’s context, are meant, i.e. the whole history of Greek philosophy. (10) Some clarifications on the use of the terms idealism, naturalism, dualism etc.