1 Introduction ................................................. 3
Genesis of the work. Overview.
PART ONE: Before Miletus
2 A Brief History of Coping ................................... 11
Evolution of life forms from one-celled to human, based on
the relation of coping to their environments.
Language .................................................... 30
Speculative account of language origin, and the vast
differences language makes in belief-based behavior.
4 High and Low Beliefs ........................................ 37
Presentation of this central distinction of the work-
roughly, unverified/verified.
5 The "Will to Believe" ....................................... 45
Faith and confidence: to what extent beliefs are subject
to the will.
6 Eden ........................................................ 49
Beliefs in hunter-gatherer bands, the "natural" human
environment. Low beliefs true, high beliefs false but
edifying. An "invisible membrane" protecting high from low.
7 Babylon ..................................................... 59
How in "unnaturally" large social units arising after
invention of agriculture, high beliefs became
institutionalized and provided social glue.
PART TWO: Miletus To Alexandria
8 Miletus: The Invention of Science ........................... 65
The unique achievement of Thales: a Grand Unified Theory
of Everything based on low beliefs: science. The "Milesian
Requirements": monism, naturalism, rationalism.
9 Anaximander and Anaximenes .................................. 75
Consolidation and improvement of Thales' Grand Theory by
his Milesian successors. Ideas of evolution and of
dialectic.
10 Science and Philosophy Come to Italy ........................ 81
The Grand Theories of Xenophanes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus,
Parmenides, and Empedocles. How they did, and did not,
conform to the Milesian requirements.
11 Athens I .................................................... 95
Anaxagoras's Grand Theory. The Sophists: Protagoras and
relativism. Socrates.
12 Atomism ..................................................... 99
High point of ancient science. Democritus's breakthrough:
"subjective" nature of colors, and so on. Elimination of
teleology from explanation. Epicurus and Lucretius.
13 Athens II: Plato ........................................... 104
A great philosopher but thoroughly antiscientific. Naive
theory of meaning (words as names) sole basis of his
Grand Theory.
14 Athens III: Aristotle ...................................... 102
Extraordinary achievements of this man—after Thales, the
greatest scientist of all time. Explained nature of
scientific explanation as proof of necessity, the
"couldn't be otherwise." But reintroduced teleology.
15 Alexandria ................................................. 121
Much science but little philosophy. Skepticism: rejection
of all high beliefs.
16 Beliefs About Believers .................................... 124
Greek theories of mind or "soul." Nearness of Aristotle's
view—soul the Form of the body—to modern functionalism.
Contents (xiii)
PART THREE: The Legacy Of Christianity I
17 Jerusalem Collides with Athens ............................. 133
Christianity, imposed by force on the ancient world, had
a Grand Theory based on a notion entirely foreign to
Greek thought, that of the Omnipotent Creator/Legislator
(OCL). He could do anything imaginable and was constrained
by nothing. So there was no longer anything that "could
not be otherwise." Therefore, science in the sense of
proving necessity was impossible; it could at most only
investigate "second causes," what the OCL had hitherto
allowed; and this included miracles. Aquinas softened
this doctrine somewhat by dividing knowledge between
Revelation (the soul and its fate) and Reason (everything
else), but the compromise was breaking down at the
beginning of the seventeenth century.
18 Cartesianism ............................................... 144
Descartes's attempt to shore up the Aquinian compromise
and the Real Distinction between soul and body by
intellectual jujitsu involving the hypothetical Evil
Demon: a skeptical ploy going beyond Pyrrhonism to cast
doubt on all beliefs, low as well as high. The Evil
Demons relation to the OCL. Reasons not to be scared by
the Evil Demon, his persistence in philosophy notwithstanding.
19 Miletus Preserved I: Hobbes ................................ 151
Hobbes's banishment of theology from philosophy and his
reassertion of the Milesian requirements.
20 Institutions ............................................... 154
Digression a la Hobbes on institutional facts, that is,
beliefs dependent on the existence of conventions.
Rights. Sketch of a consent theory of the State not
dependent on an assumption of equality among the
consenters.
21 Miletus Preserved II: Spinoza .............................. 165
The Grand Theory in which God = Nature; ultimate
reassertion of the Milesian requirements.
22 The Strange Case of David Hume ............................. 170
Impossibility of maintaining the sovereignty of Reason on
Cartesian and Lockian assumptions. The "Problem of
Induction": its disappearance on rejection of the
medieval doctrine of "logical possibility."
23 Ethics Without Edification ................................. 177
Bearing of the theory of high and low beliefs on ethics.
Investigation of whether in fact a viable morality might
exist without propping up by high beliefs.
24 L'Envoi .................................................... 197
Overview of conclusions reached in this book.
25 Conclusion? ................................................ 204
Reflections on whether the Milesian insight was a good
idea for animals like us to have had, all things
considered and sub specie aeternitatis.
Glossary ...................................................... 207
References and Further Readings ............................... 211
Index ......................................................... 215
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