Biocentrism in Water Philosophy

In their pursuit of finding out the ecological foundation of this world, the ancient Greeks asked, “What is the stuff out of which the world is made?”³¹⁰In response to this question, the Greek philosophers came up with ideas of such things as water, air, fire, atom, etc, which they regarded as primordial in type. In the naturalistic explanation of Thales (624 BC – 546 BC)³¹¹, we get conceptual resource of biocentric points. The conceptual resource of biocentrism is presented in the following explanation:

“… he [Thales] thought that water is the original substance, out of which all others are formed; and he maintained that the earth rests on water….he said the magnet has a soul in it, because it moves the iron; further, that all things are full of god.” ³¹²

308 Heiddeggar, Martin, 1975. Early Greek Thinking, Translated by David Krell and Frank Capzuzzi, New York: Harper and Row, p.55.

309 Heiddeggar, Martin, 1975. pp.16-17.

310 Jones, W.T., 1970. A History of Western Philosophy: the Classical Mind, 2^nd Ed, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovith, p.14.

311 Thales is a known as a first philosopher in Greece. We get a brief explanation of his philosophy in Aristotle Metaphysics.

a. Thales, the founder of western philosophy, says that the principle is water [and therefore declared the earth to be on water] perhaps taking the supposition from the fact that the nutriment of all things is moist and that heat comes to be and is sustained by the moist, that from which they come to be is the principle of things…He also noticed that the seeds of everything have a moist nature and that water is the beginning of the growth of moist things… Thales at any rate is said to have explained the principles and origins of things in this way. (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1,3 983b20-984a2).

b. Thales seems also, from what they say, to have supposed that soul was something moving, if he said that the stone possesses soul because it moves iron.(Aristotle, De anima 1,2 405a 19).

c. And some say that soul pervades everything, for which reason, perhaps, Thales thought that all things are full of Gods. (De anima 1,5,411a 7)

312 Cf. Russell, B.,1961. History of Western Philosophy, London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., New Edition,p.45, also see Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p.51.

Now, we can draw at least three conclusions about the two ideas; the first statement is materialistic and the rest of the two statements have got a metaphysical as well as pantheistic approach respectively:

Figure 6.1: Different approaches of Thales Philosophy

This view is also introduced in Hargrove interpretation about “philosophical attitude”. He comments that: 1. “Thales was primarily interested in the nature of the physical world”³¹³ and 2. “…its interrelationship with mind”. So, on the basis of Hargrove’s explanation, we can state that Thales’s philosophy is biocentric in nature.

It is biocentric from two standpoints:

Firstly, from the following citation of Hargrove, we understand that philosophy of Thales is a materialistic in nature. May quote from Hargrove:

“…Thales was concerned with and the assumption he made about the natural world….he conceived of the world in material or physical terms and was fundamentally committed to the idea that objects encountered in the world were made out of some kind of material substance or matter.”³¹⁴

The matter water is such a substance out of which all other environmental materials are formed. As the ultimate stuff, the matter water reinforces all things. Thus, all things become connected with each other. As such, the modern biocentrist Paul Taylor also claims that biotic contents are interdependent.

Secondly, the second hypothesis of Thales, which is very important in the context of Greek thoughts appear as a mirror of biocentrism. Before coming to this point, we can examine Thales’ philosophy about material processes. He was very much curious about “how the soul or mind influenced physical objects.”³¹⁵ Here, the term soul appears as the symbolic form of life. In other words, the physical world is full

313 Hargrove, Eugene, 1989. Foundations of Environmental Ethics, Chapter One:

“Philosophical attitude”, United States: Prentice Hall, Inc.

314 Hargrove, 1989. p.17.

315 Hargrove, 1989, p.17.

All things are water ► materialistic approach

All things are full of God. ►pantheistic Magnet has got a soul ► metaphysical

of life. This very trend is similar to biocentrism. In fact, the ancient wave in the western philosophical traditions is based on materialism. All these started from Thales through his attempts for find out the answers to the following question:

“What is the ultimate stuff of this world?”

This very idea is close to pantheistic beliefs. Thales mentioned about a magnet, which moved towards iron. This movement was supposed to be an indication that it possibly contained a soul in it. Again, the statement — “all things are full of magnet”

—also indicates that the soul is allocated throughout the world and that the world is also intermingled with the soul.If we explain the term pantheism in the context of Greek philosophy, aliveness of the matter would be quite clear. Actually, the word pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (='all') and theos (='God'). So, the concept pantheism means that 'All is God'. In essence, pantheism holds that there is no divinity other than the universe and nature. Pantheism is a religious belief that reveres and cares for nature. It is a religion that joyously accepts this life as our only life and this earth as our only paradise. However, this earth can be paradise if we look after it. In pantheistic belief, all things are linked through a profound unity. In life and in death, we, the human beings, are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realizing this we can find our joys and our peace.³¹⁶ So, pantheistic view is bioentric in nature.

It is further discussed below:

A human being is a part of the whole, which is called the universe, human being is a part of this universe and they are also limited in time and space. We experience thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. These feelings create a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. Such delusion circumscribes us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. On the other hand, it has also capacity to embrace us with the all-living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. We have also observed deeply that nature and God are very much connected with each other. Therefore, Thales’ materialism as well as pantheistic standpoints substantially makes attempts to achieve a new manner of thinking, which can provide humanity the easiest way to survive. From the analysis made above, we get the impression that nature and any other natural processing factors are important and fundamental. For this reason, Thalesian perspective of pantheism and the

316 Harrison, Pantheism, 1999.

materialism reconstruct nature as biocentrist can do. Another prominent philosopher of the Greek wave is Anaximander, who posited the first principle. All beings emerge from this first principle and to it they all return. This presencing is not the same as the mere beings that physis propels forward, in the form of time.³¹⁷