Earth, water, fire, and air
Met together in a garden fair
Put in a basket bound with skin
If you answer this riddle
If you answer this riddle, you'll never begin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s3KHT5JYdU

and to identify one as the arche would be pointless and yet, the Greeks, for some reason, thought it necessary to find the arche. Quare? — Agent Smith

I still think it is necessary to find the Arche and I am disagree with being pointless. Aristotelian logic was founded on these basic pillars. Accroding to Aristotle there is a principia prima. Thus, the first principles of demonstration. One of the interesting points of Arche is the fact that, according to Aristotle, those not need to be proven because they are already "first principles"(principia prima) and self-evident (they are known to be true simply by understanding them). So, I guess Thales or Heraclitus saw water and fire as basic principles of logic to understand everything around us.

In the other hand, Kant says: synthetic a priori propositions are first principles of demonstration but are not self-evident. Yet, the debate starts in these premises again and over again etc...

The video is restricted content, unfortunately. It doesn't matter, I'm used to censorship. As for your riddle, splendiferous!

Interesting. i was just wondering about how we would choose the arche from the available options if it's true that they're all different states of each other.

I am not aware if there are different states of each other. Yet, I really think that we have to choose the arche from the available options because of they are considered as basic point of logic. It is true that they seem to be "primitive" but not less important.

Hypothesis non fingo.

My candidates for arche:
dao, or atomist void, or natura naturans ... :fire:

My candidates for arche:
dao, or atomist void, or natura naturans ... :fire: — 180 Proof

The arche goes by many names. To Anaximander, it's apeiron; not sure about this but in Christianity, it's the void; to Laozi it was the Tao. If you'll permit me take a theistic stance, God is seen as a creator i.e. His creative power is Ein Sof and what could be more creative than pulling something out of thin air i.e. in the beginning there was ... nothing".

As a philosophical naturalist I exclude non-natural 'first principles'.

As a philosophical naturalist I exclude non-natural 'first principles'. — 180 Proof

I intelligo.

Christianity, it's the void — Agent Smith

For John, it was the Word. Augustine interpreted that to say:

“In the beginning, O God, you made heaven and earth in your Word, in your Son, in your Power, in your Wisdom, in your Truth, speaking in a wondrous way, and working in a wondrous way. … ‘How great are your works, O Lord, you have made all things in wisdom!’ (Ps 103:24) That wisdom is the beginning, and in that beginning you have made heaven and earth.” — St. Augustine, Confessions, Book 11, Chapter 9

I intelligo.

What is the word?

i was just wondering about how we would choose the arche from the available options if it's true that they're all different states of each other. — Agent Smith

Pardon me for saying, but you have a way of presenting these ideas in such a way that it trivialises them. Like you've reached into a scrabble bucket full of words and out pops one - 'arche' in this case. 'Let's riff on that!'

I'm not going to pretend that I have any deep insights into arche - only that I think it's one of those seminal terms in Greek philosophy and the subject of many a learned discourse (none of which I've read.) But even as a casual reader, I can't help but notice, on a superficial level, the etymological connection between arche, archetype and also perhaps architect. In any case, the 'first principle' or origin or ground of all that is. But I also think grasping the meaning of such ideas, at once archaic and profound, is not at all an easy matter. (I am sceptical, for instance, whether there there is any real equivalent in modern science.) It's a word that ought to convey a certain gravitas, something to be contemplated, not simply tossed onto the board to stimulate chatter.

I think I could also say that in the original context that these ideas were considered, there was a sense of vital importance in understanding it - as if your life depended on understanding it. I recall in the thread on the Phaedo from a couple of years back, for instance, Socrates' attitude towards the arche of Anaxagoras to which he was initially attracted, but which he finally rejected, because it provided only a mechanistic account of causation ('bones and sinews'), not an account in terms of the reason for acting as one does (ref). Socrates, Heraclitus and the other philosophers wrestled with these questions. Presumably the different formulations they arrived at weren't simply interchangeable, because they themselves felt the answer to the question made a really big difference, in a life-or-death kind of way.

Anyway, one thing which we nowadays possess, which the ancients certainly did not, is the internet, and the ability to retrieve with a few keystrokes information on what the different views of the matter were, but it still takes work to absorb them.

~~ I'm puzzled by your preference for the Incredible String Band, when there were others who could sing...

Fairport - Sandy Deny! Or Steeleye - Gay Woods?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-one-review-platonic-particles-and-waves-of-history-11673628851

(might/might not be paywalled, although it opened for me.)

What is the word? — Agent Smith

Apparently, whatever G_d says ...

What is the word? — Agent Smith

Are you asking that in the context of your OP saying it is pointless to look for an origin? Are you asking for a way to hear the Logos without the theological frame it was brought forward within? Are you asking how the Word is used within that framework?

An answer that might wrestle with one of those questions leaves the others uninvolved.

Is Arche more akin to "first causes" or axioms or postulates from which first causes might emanate?

Is Arche more akin to "first causes" or axioms or postulates from which first causes might emanate? — jgill

All 3: first substratum, first cause, first axiom

Rather than axioms, they are universal affirmative principles of understanding.

All 3: first substratum, first cause, first axiom — Agent Smith

:up:

Are you asking that in the context of your OP saying it is pointless to look for an origin? — Paine

I thought the same... but it looks like that we are convincing @Agent Smith to think otherwise!

I thought the same... but it looks like that we are convincing Agent Smith to think otherwise! — javi2541997

Yes, he is capable of doing a merry dance amongst the partygoers here. :cool:

:smile:

I like to dance, but be warned, it might look like a seizure!


I'm just lookin' for a good reason to identify one substratum as primary among many when they're all interchangeable.

No, bereshit, there was a/the word per John. What, in your opinion, is that word? A word in the sense of a word in a language or something else?

Apparently, whatever G_d says ... — 180 Proof

Any guesses as to what the first word was that issued forth from God's lips?

I'm just lookin' for a good reason to identify one substratum as primary among many when they're all interchangeable — Agent Smith

Well, you can identify the substratum as primary depending on what you consider as primary quality or the "beginning" of everything. What I mean is that is up to you. For example, I would choose Thales's water arche because without this substratum is impossible to survive.

First off, apologies if you feel I'm trivializing a profound idea. It's unintended. I only read the Wiki entry on the topic and it's obvious that the Greeks were tryin' ta reduce everything to a one from which everything arises (monism). The problem, as described in the OP, is that the four Greek elements (fire, water, air, earth) are equivalent to each other (being only different states, transmutable via heating/cooling) and there's no logic to isolating one as the arche. That Heraclitus thought the arche is fire, Anaximenes air, Thales water, is the symptom that confirms my diagnosis, oui?

P. S. I really appreciate your constructive criticism. I'm an amateur philosopher and it seems making silly mistakes is part and parcel of being one. Mes amie, bear with me. Danke for your patience and generous assistance.

Well, you can identify the substratum as primary depending on what you consider as primary quality or the "beginning" of everything. What I mean is that is up to you. For example, I would choose Thales's water arche because without this substratum is impossible to survive. — javi2541997

Read me reply to Wayfarer (vide supra)

You're a good sport. I too am an amateur, or rather, as I said, a casual reader, but I try and take these kinds of ideas seriously.
--

By way of a footnote to the origin of the term 'logos' - there is rather a good entry in the New Advent encylopedia, The Logos, from which:

God, according to them [the Stoics], "did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe" (Galen, "De qual. incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world "as honey does the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv. Hermogenem", 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, "Hymn to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I, 527-cf. 537).

A description which I find compelling and with some parallels, I feel, to the basic idea of (pan)semiotics. Of course, subsequently the logos became literally 'the Word', thence, 'the Bible', thence 'Religion', which kind of snuffed out the entire idea, or rather, kicked it into the long grass of mainstream theology.

I intelligo ... The excerpt you provided is strong evidence of real philosophers doing real philosophy and I see now what you meant when you called me out for trivializing deep ideas. Mea culpa!

The logos is an aspect of find-an-arche mindset, but notice fire, water, earth, air are physical contrariwise.

Any guesses as to what the first word was that issued forth from God's lips? — Agent Smith

אֶהְיֶה‎ (’Ehyeh).