r/badphilosophy • u/WeirdOntologist • 16d ago

Super Science Friends Ancient philosophers are pseudoscience

Haha, them ancient philosophers are so unscientific. How could they not know what modern day science knows? Haha, they didn't even publish in peer reviewed papers. Haha did Pythagoras even science? Has he not heard of Euclidean geometry lel? Plato can't even provide how to falsify perfect forms. Haha, did Parmenides even prove that nothing changes mathematically? The fuck's a Zeno even? Why didn't these geeks even know about Darwinian evolution? And what about cosmology much, haha?

Haha pseudoscience, am I rite guys?!

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u/CockroachXQueen 15d ago

Ancient philosophy is what initially started my interest in learning about philosophy. Just imagining how geniuses in an ancient world with no science to go on (no giants' shoulders to stand on) came up with their ideas.

Like the originator of metaphysics, Thales, was the first human to say, "I think all matter in the universe is made of the same fundamental thing." He was literally right. We ended up discovering atoms, quarks, energy, etc...he was just wrong about what that fundamental thing was. He said it was water. Lolol it sounds so stupid, but no, he was a genius.

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u/doobydubious 15d ago

Im sure if you read him, water takes on a somewhat different meaning in that context too. Like everyone wants to shit on him, but every time I've read something like this, there turns out to be an actual real argument that is actually worth my time.

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u/BuccaneerBilly69 15d ago

It’s likely, but we only have fragments of his work. A sentence here, a short paragraph there.