positions above the level at which groups can still be relatively large and visible
(i.e., above about six) is self-defeating. This does not mean that there cannot
be periods when positions proliferate to very large numbers. The number got
dangerously high in Plato’s generation in Greece, when in addition to the
Academy there were also the schools of Megara, Cyrene, Elis, Abdera, Cyzicus,
the emerging Skeptic movement, Isocrates’ school of rhetoric, and the rem-
nants of the Pythagoreans. But most of these groups dropped out within a
generation or two, leaving a structural limit of three to six. Conflict is limited
by itself.
Why then do lineages appear in the first place, some proving successful,
some proliferating, others declining? Because of changing external conditions
of social life which provide material bases for intellectuals to work and pub-
licize themselves. That is why, although ideas do not reduce to surrounding
social conditions, nevertheless large-scale political and economic changes indi-
rectly set off periods of intellectual change. We will trace both levels in a
two-step process of social causality: the inner splits and alliances which take
place as networks maneuver under the law of small numbers; and the outer
changes in the material base, which trigger periods of inner realignment.The Forming of an Argumentative Network
and the Launching of Greek Philosophy
Look now at the shifting structure of Greek philosophy. The earliest philosophy
gradually crystallizes out of a plethora of political “wise men” and questioners
of the traditional religious beliefs in the generations around 600 b.c.e. Here
external conditions are prominent: the democratic revolution and political
reforms, the spread of literacy, and their effect in undermining the religious
practices connected with traditional political life.^2 A crucial step follows: an
intellectual community separates out by turning toward its own topics and
standards of competition. The initial rounds of discussion are cosmological.
Anthropomorphic deities once defined the categories of the natural world; the
social conditions which undermined the old religious cults now open a new
argument space. Into this vacuum step the first secular intellectuals. The
community concerned with the topics of proto-philosophy begins to form
among cosmological poets such as Alcman (late 600s) or even Hesiod (700s),
introducing order into the disparate religious myths, depicting the rise of the
cosmos as a genealogy of deities. In the generation of Pherecydes and Xeno-
phanes, intellectuals reflectively distance themselves from the myths by reinter-
preting or criticizing. Thales, later singled out as the “first philosopher” be-
cause he expressly recognizes the shifting of old cultural capital into a new
problem space, declares that “all things are full of gods,” and goes on to in-82 •^ The Skeleton of Theory