This chapter focuses on presocratic thinkers living in Magna Graecia (Sicily and southern Italy) in the sixth and fifth centuries bce. The main theme is the unity of opposites (a form of antithesis), treated in various ways by these thinkers, and the economic, political and mystic influences on their treatments. Parmenides’ radical separation between the one and plurality (or the paths of truth and opinion) reflects the contrast between possession of money and its circulation. This is informed by Parmenides’ aristocratic outlook; his account of the two paths is also modelled on mystic initiation. The Pythagoreans and Empedokles both adopt a more inclusive framework that embraces opposites within an overall unity, symbolising both the possession and circulation of money and a broad political structure. The Pythagorean cosmos, conceived in terms of fire, harmony and order or calculation, accommodates both poles in their table of opposites. Empedokles’ cosmic cycle includes the opposed subjectivities (with political connotations) of love and strife, while reincarnation accommodates divergent and opposed states of selfhood within an overall wholeness. Unity of opposites is framed by these thinkers in terms of the (introjected) inner self and (projected) cosmos, matching the wholeness offered by mystic initiation.

Antithesis in the form of the unity of opposites appears to a limited extent in the early mythic cosmogonies. However, this theme emerges much more strongly in subsequent presocratic thought. This phenomenon was analysed closely by Geoffrey Lloyd without being explained; here, presocratic speculation on the cosmos is explained as ‘cosmisation’, that is, interpretation shaped by a combination of political and economic factors alongside mystery cult. Anaximander’s idea of the universe as apeiron (‘unlimited’) is interpreted as a projection of the qualities of money, reflecting the emerging process of monetisation. Anaximander’s characterisation of the interchange of different elements within the unlimited in terms of ‘order’ and ‘retribution’ reflects both monetisation and emerging political structures. Similar factors underlie Herakleitos’ sustained focus on antithesis in the sense of the unity of opposites. Herakleitos’ universe is one of continuity within constant change, unity within interchange, expressed as fire or logos (‘reason’ or ‘calculation’). This worldview reflects the expanding influence of commercial exchange that underpins the emergence of a unified polis. It also reflects the paradoxical combination of unity and opposites within mystery cult, which is formulated in ritual language and gestures couched as antithetical dyads.

This chapter defines the terms used throughout the book to analyse prevalent patterns in literature, thought and visual art in Ancient Greece (eighth to fourth centuries bce) and corelate them with the contemporary economic and political situation. Aggregation is defined as a paratactic sequence or assemblage of otherwise unrelated items. Antithesis is defined as the symmetrical representation of opposites. Antithesis is subdivided into antagonistic or peaceful, balanced or unbalanced, focused or unfocused. These are the central terms for this book. A further category, of less importance for this purpose, is asymmetrical opposition, which is subdivided into antagonistic and balanced or antagonistic and unbalanced or non-antagonistic.

This chapter discusses the increasing presence of antithesis, rather than aggregation, in fifth-century Greek historiography, tragedy and vase-painting. In certain key incidents and in narrative patterns in Herodotus and Attic tragedy, we find antithesis in the form of the unity of opposites and the reversal of an apparently stable situation. This reflects the influence of mystic initiation, Pythagorean thinking (in the case of Aeschylus), and, in a broader sense, the emergence of the polis, in which social oppositions are contained within a political unit. In fifth-century Attic vase-painting and sculptural groups, there is also a progressive shift from aggregation to antithesis, paralleling the pattern found in the newly emerging genres of historiography and tragedy. This too reflects the increasing prevalence of monetary exchange and interactions within the unified framework of the polis.

In ‘Early Learning in Plato’s Republic 7’, James Warren provides an analysis of Socrates’ account of the sort of early learning needed to produce philosopher-rulers in Republic 7 (521c–525a), namely a passage describing a very early encounter with questions that provoke thoughts about intelligible objects and stir up concepts in the soul. Warren explains how concepts of number, more specifically the concepts ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘a pair’, and so on, play an essential role in these very early stages of the ascent towards knowledge, and he stresses the continuity between the initial and very basic arithmetical concepts and the concepts involved in more demanding subjects taught in later stages of the educational curriculum. On this account, Socrates is prepared to ascribe to more or less everyone an acquaintance with some, albeit elementary, intelligible objects. This, in turn, can shed some light on broader debates in Platonic epistemology about the extent to which all people – not just those whom Socrates calls philosophers – have some conceptual grasp of intelligibles.

Cebes’ cloakmaker objection presents an alternative model of the soul according to which it is ultimately destroyed in the process of providing life to the body. Socrates’ final argument rejects this model by arguing that the soul’s bringing life to the body, far from destroying the soul, is precisely what ensures that it must be immortal and imperishable. In doing so, the argument identifies a way in which the soul has a characteristic of the divine – immortality – thereby specifying one way in which it is akin to the divine, as Socrates claimed in the kinship argument. Thus, the final argument responds to Cebes’ cloak maker objection in a way that further fills in the kinship argument’s account of the soul. The final argument also includes an important discussion of forms and ordinary objects. I argue that Socrates here identifies the most basic reason why forms cannot be ordinary, perceptible things: ordinary objects are receptive of opposites, whereas forms cannot be.

Cebes’ challenge leads to what is typically called Socrates’ four “immortality arguments,” which structure the core of the dialogue. Despite this common label, Cebes’ challenge does not ask Socrates to show that the soul is immortal, and Socrates’ first three arguments do not claim to show immortality. Instead, Cebes challenges Socrates to address people’s fear that the soul disperses and so is destroyed when someone dies; not being destroyed upon death is, I argue, different from being immortal. After discussing Cebes’ challenge, the chapter turns to the cyclical argument, providing a new account of its basic structure. It is based on an agreement that does not require Socrates to say anything here about the nature of the soul. Nonetheless, the argument is important for aiming to show that a Pythagorean view is correct – reincarnation – by understanding death and rebirth as part of a much larger phenomenon: the coming to be and passing away of opposite things.

Since the arguments that Plato provides in the Republic for the thesis that the human soul consists of three parts (reason, spirit, appetite) are notoriously problematic, I propose other reasons for accepting tripartition: reasons that we too could endorse, or at least entertain with some sympathy. To wit, (a) the appetitive part of Plato’s divided soul houses desires and tendencies we have because we are animal bodies programmed to survive (as individuals and as a species) in disequilibrium with a variegated, often varying environment, (b) the spirited middle part houses status concerns that belong to us as social animals, while (c) what makes us rational animals is a faculty of reason, conceived in strikingly non-Humean terms, which determines what is best all things considered. Other psychic tendencies may then be explained in terms of the education and mutual interaction of the three parts we are ‘programmed’ for from birth.

Chapter 5 of De mundo is markedly different from the preceding chapters examining technical details of astronomy, geography and meteorology. Chapter 5 takes an overall survey, presenting a view of the whole cosmos as a unified, well-ordered, magnificent and eternal whole – a true kosmos. Chapter 5 can be divided into three parts: the first introduces the Heraclitean principle of the harmony of opposites (396a33–b22), the second shows how this principle applies to the cosmos (396b23–397a5), and the third argues that the cosmos, built on this principle, is majestic and indestructible (397a5–b8). The detailed analysis of each part is accompanied with an attempt to position this text against the views of other Hellenistic philosophical schools, of the Epicureans and the Stoics as well as the Platonists. Having set forth the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the cosmos, it was important for the author of De mundo to show that this does not undermine the beauty and teleological order of the world nor does it remove the need for God, thus setting the stage for Chapter 6.

Heraclitus’s doctrine of a cosmogonic unity of opposites held together in harmoniēis the topic of “Heraclitus and the Quantum.” Like Anaximander, Heraclitus posits a self-organizing universe in which objects and agents interact to form relational wholes. It is argued that Heraclitus’s ideas anticipate physicist Niels Bohr’s atomic theory of complementarity and the systems thinking of early cyberneticists. Extended from a description of the cosmos to a prescription for living, Heraclitean harmoniē, it is argued, is tantamount to sustainability, and provides a profounder, more durable alternative to some modern prescriptions circulating under the same conceptual umbrella.

Some negotiators (such as US President Donald Trump) think of negotiation as a zero-sum game, others (such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel) as an opportunity for win–win. In reality, most transactions include both aspects. Paradoxically, negotiations require the creation as well as the distribution of value. While they can be compatible, often they are not. I show the six tactics that are required for each, thus arriving at the tactical paradox of the task. It is graphically illustrated by the symbol of Yin & Yang.