THE HARROVIAN - Vol. CXXXV No.27 - June 24, 2023 - Junior Classical Society讲座新闻

Aug 26, 2026

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THE HARROVIAN issue Vol. CXXXV No.27 (June 24, 2023) records a lecture by Arthur Yang to the Junior Classical Society on Classical philosophy and its impact on Western thought. The report traces key Pre-Socratic thinkers, including Thales’ water as a starting hypothesis, Anaximander’s Boundless and reductio reasoning, and the Pythagoreans’ numerical explanations. It then surveys Parmenides’ monism and “Ways” of Truth and Seeming, Heraclitus’ flux through fire and opposites, Socrates’ pursuit of knowledge for the Good, and Plato and Aristotle’s lasting intellectual frameworks.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time18 min

AccessFree to download

Junior Classical Society

Lecture overview: Classical philosophy and Western thinking

Pre-Socratics: Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoreans

Parmenides and interpretations of the “Ways”

Heraclitus: flux, opposites, and unity

Socrates and the pursuit of knowledge

Plato: Academy and world of ideas vs appearances

Aristotle: study under Plato and early classifications

THE HARROVIAN | VOL. CXXXV NO.27 | June 24, 2023 | | --- | --- | | | | JUNIOR CLASSICAL SOCIETY ‘The Greek Philosophers’, Arthur Yang, West Acre, 7 June On Wednesday 7 June, Arthur Yang, West Acre, presented a lecture to the Junior Classical Society on Classical philosophy. The lecture covered many Greek philosophers who set the course for Western thinking. Yang also mentioned that their ideas would influence cultural tradition for the next 2000 years. Yang started with the Pre-Socratics era, which began with Thales and the Milesians. Thales was born around 62BC in Miletus in Ionia and was one of the seven sages of Greek antiquity. Thales thought that ‘All things were made of water’. Living in a coastal city allowed him to observe that the water evaporated into clouds, which dissolved into the rain. From this observation, Thales thought it was plausible to claim that water condensed into earth as well. Although this claim was incorrect, his method was an extremely important step in philosophical thinking. Thales was one of the first to reach a general conclusion by summing up the particulars or cases. Thales’ pupil, Anaximander, also came from Miletus. Anaximander, born around 610BC, doubted Thales. He did not understand why Thales chose water over other elements and instead proposed a fundamental and infinite substance called the Boundless. This is an example of metaphysical monism, the view that the world arises from one material only. Anaximander also suggested a theory that humans evolved from another species. He was one of the first people to use the logic of reductio ad absurdum (establishing a claim by stating how absurd the opposite scenario is) . Anaximander thought that human babies could not have survived in the wild, so we must have come from something else. However, Anaximander concluded that we evolved from fish, having conducted studies on shark fossils. Next, Yang talked about the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras was a native of the island Samos near the Ionian coast. He created a more scientific and especially mathematical philosophical tradition. Taking inspiration from the mathematical precision of the harmony of strings on a harp, Pythagoras suggested that everything was made from numbers. He also held the belief that philosophers are the pinnacle of civilisation as they merely contemplate and spectate the world without any involvement. Yang went on to talk in-depth about Parmenides and the Eleatics. Parmenides was a native of Elea, a city in southern Italy and developed the monist theory of the Milesians in his two-volume poem On Nature. The first part of his poem is called‘On Truth’, and it contains his rational teachings. Parmenides thought that you could not think about things that did not exist as then you would be thinking about nothing while thinking. He also suggested that the world must be uniform as parts of the world must not have more not-being (which does not exist) than others. Parmenides concluded that the world is a uniform sphere of matter made of one substance in a motionless and timeless state. In the second part of his poem, which is called‘On Seeming’, Parmenides outlines the science of mortal. The‘Way of Seeming’ directly opposes the ‘Way of Truth’, which is confusing as Parmenides contradicts himself. Yang proceeded to explain some different interpretations of Parmenides’actions. One of these interpretations is that the Way of Truth is somehow compatible with the Way of Seeming, explaining that the rational concept of the world appears to us as the sensory world in a different way. Yang told us that if this was Parmenides’intention, then his views foreshadow that of Plato’s forms, the dualism of Descartes, and even the idealism of Kant and Schopenhauer. Parmenides might also be suggesting that perhaps human reason is inaccurate. Starting purely from reason and ending with a disconcerting conclusion would show the inaccuracy and unreliability of human reasoning. This would show t

FAQs

What was the main focus of Arthur Yang’s lecture for the Junior Classical Society?

The lecture focused on Classical philosophy and how major Greek philosophers shaped Western thinking across the following centuries.

How did Thales and Anaximander differ in their ideas about the world?

Thales proposed that all things were made of water based on observations, while Anaximander doubted this and suggested a fundamental infinite substance called the Boundless.

Which later philosophers did Yang connect to the ideas of the Pre-Socratics?

Yang linked Parmenides and Heraclitus to later traditions and then covered Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, showing how these frameworks influenced subsequent philosophy.

Aug 26, 2026

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