ἀνάγκη:

Greek, coercion

 

Oedipus:

In Oedipus at Colonus (Sophocles), Oedipus says to Theseus: “Lord, this voice is that most hated that could come to this father.  Don’t drive me by coercion to come to yield to these things.” 

 

Leucippus (fly about of themselves):

(5th century pre-Socratic) posited that atoms were always in motion, the atomists (including Democritus) did not address the issue of a specific first mover; instead they refer to necessity & chance, by which they meant ‘absence of purpose’; order is the result of “like to like” and not design; ordered arrangement can arise automatically, a by-product of the random collisions of bodies in motion, no attractive forces or purposes need be introduced to explain the sorting

and see above page 385

 

Democritus (shock &counter-shock):

(460-370 BC) his atoms move about in an infinite void (Aristotle tells us), repelling one another when they collide or combining into clusters by means of tiny hooks & barbs on their surfaces; their primary movement results from random collision with other atoms, these collisions cause them to move away from one another when struck, to drift into empty spaces away from more densely packed regions

 

Aristotle (accidents):

(384–322 BC ) for Aristotle an “accident” is an attribute that may or may not belong to a subject, without affecting its essence, a property having no necessary connection to the essence of the thing.  He defines 9 types of accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation, action, and passion.  Accidents are non-substantial properties (e.g. a black cat, the accidental is black, the substance is cat).

 

Empedocles (love and hate):

(494- 434 BC), love & hate are the 2 key organizing principles of the universe; in his 2 hexameter verses, On Nature, and the Purifications he pioneered the influential 4-part Classical elements (air, water, earth, fire), which, aided by the 2 active principles, Love & Strife, organize the Cosmos.  Last of the pre-Socratic thinkers to use verse, he has a strong religious dimension, embracing religious injunctions & magical practices.  He occupied a significant position in the history of Pre-Socratic philosophy as a figure moving between religion & science.

 

Anaxagoras (meetings & partings):

(500–428 BC) his cosmology starts with an unlimited mixture of all ingredients, the material of natural living things & heavenly bodies, primary, imperishable ingredients, a totally undifferentiated & confused blend of everything; he introduces Nous (cosmic mind) as the first cause, the preserver of order in the cosmos; it is motion & begins the rotations of the heavens; over time the processes of mixture (meetings) & separation (partings), the attendant clumping together & breaking apart of the ingredients of the stars, clouds, comets, planets, leads to the predominance of certain ingredients, the creation of the material universe we perceive. 

and see chapter IX page 311

 

minute cities (Classical history):* see EndNote<A>

the basic unit of Greek politics was the polis; there were about 750 such city states in Greece; they were ruled by democracies, tyrants or oligarchy; usually exclusive & jealous of their “rights”; quarrelsome & frequently at war with each other.

 

dynastic states (17th, 18th centuries): see EndNote<A>

the Baroque Summer (1500-1800) saw the rise & domination of the great royal families of Europe: the House of Valois & Bourbon (France), the Habsburgs (Holy Roman Empire), the union of Aragon & Castile I (Spain), the House of Plantagenet & Tudor (England).

 

Galileo (force):

(1564–1642) Aristotle stated that a body could only remain in "violent", "unnatural", or "forced" motion so long as an agent of change (the "mover") continued to act on it.  Galileo questioned this & using experiments proved Aristotle wrong.  Galileo recognized “force” or inertia; he posited that objects retain their velocity in the absence of any impediments to their motion.  This would be called the law of intertie & it would be formalized by Newton.  Spengler places Galileo in the early Faustian Summer.

 

Milesians (ἀρχή):

the Milesian school (6th century BC) were pre-Socratics who explained natural phenomena without recourse to the will of anthropomorphized gods.  Anaximander (610-546 BC) was 1 of 3 main thinkers.  The Greek word ἀρχή means first principle or element & was used by Anaximander referring to the origins of the universe.  His cosmology explains that in the beginning there is ONLY original & originating undefined stuff, from which all the heavens & worlds in them came to be.   This primordial substance was not any of the known substances (the air, water, fire & earth of Empedocles), but could be transformed into them & into each other.  This stuff through its own inherent powers, gives rise to the phenomena of the cosmos; it is a first mover.  Spengler places the Pre-Socratics in the early Apollonian Summer.

 

Democritus:

(460-370 BC) one of the first atomists, a figure of the Apollonian early Autumn, part of the Greek scientific enlightenment & religion of rationality

 

Leibnitz

(1646–1716) listed in the end tables as a figure of the Faustian summer, the start of the purely philosophical world feeling, the move towards realism rather than idealism; Spengler as well lists him with Newton as an originator of the new mathematical concept

 

Archimedes:

(287–212 BC )Archimedes was a scientist during the Apollonian Winter, the age which sees the dawn of the great super cities (megalopolitan) & Roman Empire, the end of spirit & metaphysics.

and see Chapter II, page 59, Chapter III pages 111 & 112 Chapter VII page 236

 

Helmholtz::

(1821-1894) German physicist & physician, lived 1 generation after the great mathematicians Gauss, Cauchy & Riemann, deep in the Faustian Winter period

and see Chapter II, page 64 Chapter XI page 377

 

Nietzsche (pathos of distance):

In the Genealogy of Morals, he talks of the “pathos of distance”.  The idea of goodness originated in social class privilege: the good were those of the higher social order; eventually the idea of goodness was “internalized” from social class to character traits associated with the privileged caste (e.g. courage, magnanimity).  Goodness is associated with exclusive virtues.  Not everyone should be excellent, as to be excellent is to be distinguished from the ordinary.  In that sense, good/bad valuation arises out of a “pathos of distance” expressing the superior, excellent people feel over ordinary ones; this gives rise to a “noble morality”.  Nietzsche argues this moral pattern dominated the ancient Mediterranean cultures (the Homeric world, later Greek & Rome, ancient philosophical ethics).

 

Baroque: * see EndNote<B>:

the Faustian Summer (1500-1800 AD,) is what Spengler calls the Baroque period, although in the history of art it is considered to be roughly 1740 to 1810, flowing out of the Renaissance & Mannerist periods.

 

Ionic: * see EndNote<B>:

Spengler names the Apollonian Summer “Ionic” dating it 450-350 BC.  The Ionic Order originated in the mid-6th century BC in Ionia & SW coast of Asia Minor, and became common in 5th century BC mainland Greece.

 

Ancien Régime: * see EndNote <B>

French meaning “the Old Regime”, the political & social system of France from the 15th century to 1789, ruled by the late Valois and Bourbon dynasties.

 

Periclean Athens: * see EndNote <B>

part of Spengler’s Apollonian Late Culture (Summer); he describes it as the politics of the Agora,  the pure polis, absolutism of the demos.  

 

potential theory (tension):

in 19th-century physics, reference to gravity & the electrostatic force, modelled using functions called the gravitational & electrostatic potential, both of which satisfy Poisson's equation.  Gravitational potential at a location is equal to the work (energy transferred) per unit mass needed to move an object to that location from a fixed reference location.  Electric potential is the amount of energy needed to move a unit of electric charge from a reference point to the specific point in an electric field (without producing kinetic energy or radiation).  At the atomic level, when atoms or molecules are pulled apart they gain potential energy with a restoring force, the restoring force is tension.