Człowiek wobec czasu u wybranych presokratyków

The paper depicts in general outline the attitude of man towards time in the main representatives of the pre-Socratean philosophy: Thales, Anaximander, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Alkmeon, and Parmenides. For Anaximander, the time is a judge who determines guilt and metes out penance for injustice. It denotes inevitableness of some phenomena. The “master” of Anaximander – Thales – claimed that everything has a soul which is immortal. Now, Empedocles sought to prove that all things are immortal on the basis of the so-called cycle of changes. Assuming fire to be the primitive substance (of the soul as well), Heraclitus claimed that it has always been, is, and will be, hence it is everlasting. With the theory of metempsychosis in mind, Pythagoras opposed the immorality of the soul. Alkmeon of Croton also distinguished the immortal man from the immortal soul. With Parmenides, however, we observe a kind of eternal chain of becoming and destruction, the chain which includes man who neither comes into existence nor dies.