At the risk of bringing us back to Heidegger, I have to point out that although the Ancient Greeks did "start" metaphysics, their precursors had already killed metaphysics before they started it. At least according to Heidegger, both Heraclitus and Parmenides showed the inherent errors of metaphysical thinking prior to its coming into being in formal practice.
Continental philosophy, especially French, over the last 50 odd years has been keenly interested in dismantling the whole 2,500 year old edifice of metaphysical thought.
At least according to Heidegger, both Heraclitus and Parmenides showed the inherent errors of metaphysical thinking prior to its coming into being in formal practice.
That doesn't mean that, for instance, Democritus was right about atoms for the right reasons. All this getting stuff right about the world on the basis of pure thought is a dangerous conceit. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
To fully understand what that meant and means requires an understanding of what Logic and Mathematics were 'on about' from around 1870 to l933. To (greatly) simplify, Frege, Hilbert, Russell, Whitehead, & All That Crew were attempting to construct an intellectual tool that would always, when correctly used, derive a True and Valid answer.
Gödel's Proof = You Can't.
By moving to the Second Order, on the other hand, the True/False OR False/True oscillation is, sometimes, capable of resolution.
But that, very often, takes you outside the original axiomatic system.
That was the sailing-over-the-edge moment.
Now it may be that arithmetic really is consistent, but that is another truth function that is "uncomputable." The Fates are kind.
Heidegger understands Parmenides to be saying something quite the opposite of those who came after. So, there is no agreement there.
And genealogy is important. If we are to credit certain Ancient Greeks with the very foundation of thinking about subject-object relations, then we can't ignore those who came before and troubled that very relationship. We'd be privileging the form of thought which dominated the next few millenia as somehow an originary idea.
One of the annoying things about philosophy is that whatever you say there's always a presocratic who said it first.
Is that a quote from Hesiod?
;-)
