6) From Chaos to Cosmos

Introduction to Philosophy
Course: The Invention of Philosophical Rationality
Fifth class dedicated to the the numbers as the first cause
Pythagoras and his followers thought the first principle of everything is numbers. Is this consistent with the logic of becoming as developed by their predecessors? What is new about it? This topic includes Pythagoras’ concepts of “cosmos” and of the “limited” and the “unlimited.”
Course description:
At its inception, philosophy is both Physics and a philosophy of nature. Philosophy begins by applying reason and logic to our observation of physical reality. The key phenomenon that philosophy tries to explain is physical change and, in so doing, it develops the very structure of its rational process. A good overview of the logical path followed by the earliest philosophers in ancient Greece is the best way to approach philosophy and shape the minds of those who want to be able to philosophize.
This course examines the thinking of the early Greek philosophers from the point of view, not of their specific answers or conclusions, but of their logic. Particular attention is given to the dispute between Parmenides and Heraclitus, and to the apparent contradiction between "being" and "becoming", which in many ways has always marked the entire history of philosophy.