Daniel Filan: Yeah, and I still talk about air and fire. It’s not like those concepts have gone away. I think we would agree about, for the most part, what stuff I run into in my every day is air and what stuff is water.
Imo it’s more accurate to say that the concepts of air, fire, water, and earth (or at least very similar ones) existed way before humans tried to come up with a metaphysical theory. Greeks just appropriated these concepts and extrapolated them into four basic building blocks of matter/everything, which roughly correspond to the folk understanding of air, fire, water, and earth but also assume quite a bit more. Those extrapolated concepts did go away but their folk predecessors stayed with us.
Imo it’s more accurate to say that the concepts of air, fire, water, and earth (or at least very similar ones) existed way before humans tried to come up with a metaphysical theory. Greeks just appropriated these concepts and extrapolated them into four basic building blocks of matter/everything, which roughly correspond to the folk understanding of air, fire, water, and earth but also assume quite a bit more. Those extrapolated concepts did go away but their folk predecessors stayed with us.