文档介绍：—CHAPTER 2
The Early Greek Philosophers
The World of Precivilized Humans 1957; Murray, 1955). Early humans made no distinc-
tions between animate (living) and inanimate ob-
Imagine living 15,000 years ago. What would your jects or between material and immaterial things.
life be like? It seems safe to say that in your lifetime Another approach used to explain the world as-
you would experience most of the following: light- sumed that a ghost or spirit dwelt in everything, in-
ning, thunder, rainbows, the phases of the moon, the cluding humans, and that these spirits were as real as
aurora borealis (northern lights), death, birth, ill- anything else. The events in both nature and human
ness, dreams (including nightmares), meteorites, conduct were explained as the whims of the spirits
eclipses of the sun or moon, and perhaps one or more that resided in everything. The word spirit is derived
earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, or volcanic from the Latin word for “breath”(Hulin, 1934, p. 7).
eruptions. Because these events would touch your Breath (later spirit, soul, psyche, or ghost) is what
life directly, it seems natural that you would want to gives things life, and when it leaves a thing, death re-
account for them in some way, but how? Many of sults. This vital spirit can sometimes leave the body
these events—for example, lightning—cannot be and return, as was assumed to be the case in dream-
explained by the average citizens of civilized coun- ing. Also, because one can dream of or think of a per-
tries even today; but we have faith that scientists can son after his or her biological death, it was assumed
explain such events, and we forted and less that the person must still exist, for it was believed
fearful. However, as an early human you would have that if something could be thought of it must exist
no such scientific knowledge available. We men- (reification). With this logic, anything the mind
tioned in the previous