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Readings for Ancient Greece 2 --
Unit 17, Classical Greek Philosophy
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Contents:
1.
Ancient Greek Philosophy (from Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
2. Ancient Greek Philosophy (from
Wikipedia)
3. Socrates (from Wikipedia)
3a. Criticism of
Socratic thought (from Wikipedia)
4. Plato
(from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
5. Aristotle (from Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
5a.
Peripatetic School (from Wikipedia)
6. Stoicism (from
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
7. Epicureanism (from
Wikipedia)
8. Ancient Greek Skepticism
(from Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy)
9. Neoplatonism (from
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
10. Islamic Neoplatonism (from Islamic
Philosophy Online)
11. Neoplatonism and
Christianity (from Wikipedia)
12. List of important Ancient Greek Philosophers (from
http://www.greek-islands.us/ancient-greece/greek-philosophers/)
1.
Ancient Greek Philosophy
From:
Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/greekphi/
The Ancient Greek philosophers have played a pivotal
role in the shaping of the western philosophical
tradition. This article surveys the seminal works
and ideas of key figures in the Ancient Greek
philosophical tradition from the Presocratics to the
Neoplatonists. It highlights their main
philosophical concerns and the evolution in their
thought from the sixth century BC to the sixth
century AD.
The
Ancient Greek philosophical tradition broke away
from a mythological approach to explaining the
world, and it initiated an approach based on reason
and evidence. Initially concerned with explaining
the entire cosmos, the Presocratic philosophers
strived to identify its single underlying principle.
Their theories were diverse and none achieved a
consensus, yet their legacy was the initiation of
the quest to identify underlying principles.
This
sparked a series of investigations into the limit
and role of reason and of our sensory faculties, how
knowledge is acquired and what knowledge consists
of. Here we find the Greek creation of philosophy as
“the love of wisdom,” and the birth of metaphysics,
epistemology, and ethics. Socrates,
Plato,
and Aristotle
were the most influential of the ancient Greek
philosophers, and they focused their attention more
on the role of the human being than on the
explanation of the material world. The work of these
key philosophers was succeeded by the Stoics and
Epicureans who were also concerned with practical
aspects of philosophy and the attainment of
happiness. Other notable successors are Pyrrho's
school of skepticism
and the Neoplatonists such as Plotinus
who tried to unify Plato's thought with theology.
Table
of Contents
- Presocratics
- Socrates
and his Followers
- Plato
- Aristotle
- Stoicism
- Epicureanism
- Skepticism
- Neoplatonism
1. Presocratics
The
Western philosophical tradition began in ancient
Greece in the 6th century BCE. The first
philosophers are called "Presocratics" which
designates that they came before Socrates. The
Presocratics were from either the eastern or western
regions of the Greek world. Athens -- home of
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
-- is in the central Greek region and was late in
joining the philosophical game. The Presocratic's
most distinguishing feature is emphasis on questions
of physics; indeed, Aristotle
refers to them as "Investigators of Nature". Their
scientific interests included mathematics,
astronomy, and biology. As the first philosophers,
though, they emphasized the rational unity of
things, and rejected mythological explanations of
the world. Only fragments of the original writings
of the Presocratics survive, in some cases merely a
single sentence. The knowledge we have of them
derives from accounts of early philosophers, such as
Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics,
The Opinions of the Physicists by
Aristotle's pupil Theophratus, and Simplicius, a
Neoplatonist who compiled existing quotes.
The
first group of Presocratic philosophers were from
Ionia. The Ionian philosophers sought the material
principle (archê) of things, and the mode
of their origin and disappearance. Thales
of Miletus (about 640 BCE) is reputed the father of
Greek philosophy. He declared water to be the basis
of all things. Next came Anaximander
of Miletus (about 611-547 BCE), the first writer on
philosophy. He assumed as the first principle an
undefined, unlimited substance (to apeiron)itself
without qualities, out of which the primary
opposites, hot and cold, moist and dry, became
differentiated. His countryman and younger
contemporary, Anaximenes,
took for his principle air, conceiving it as
modified, by thickening and thinning, into fire,
wind, clouds, water, and earth. Heraclitus
of Ephesus (about 535-475 BCE) assumed as the
principle of substance aetherial fire. From fire all
things originate, and return to it again by a
never-resting process of development. All things,
therefore, are in a perpetual flux. However, this
perpetual flux is structured by logos--
which most basically means 'word,' but can also
designate 'argument,' 'logic,' or 'reason' more
generally. The logos which structures the
human soul mirrors the logos which
structures the ever-changing processes of the
universe.
Philosophy
was first brought into connection with practical
life by Pythagoras
of Samos (about 582-504 BCE), from whom it received
its name: "the love of wisdom". Regarding the world
as perfect harmony, dependent on number, he aimed at
inducing humankind likewise to lead a harmonious
life. His doctrine was adopted and extended by a
large following of Pythagoreans, including Damon,
especially in Lower Italy.
That
country was also the home of the Eleatic doctrine of
the One, called after the town of Elea, the
headquarters of the school. It was founded by Xenophanes
of Colophon (born about 570 BCE), the father of
pantheism, who declared God to be the eternal unity,
permeating the universe, and governing it by his
thought. His great disciple, Parmenides
of Elea (born about 511), affirmed the one
unchanging existence to be alone true and capable of
being conceived, and multitude and change to be an
appearance without reality. This doctrine was
defended by his younger countryman Zeno
in a polemic against the common opinion, which sees
in things multitude, becoming, and change. Zeno
propounded a number of celebrated paradoxes, much
debated by later philosophers, which try to show
that supposing that there is any change or
multiplicity leads to contradictions. The primary
legacy of Zeno is that subsequent scholars became
very aware of the difficulty of properly handling
the concept of infinity.
Empedocles
of Agrigentum (born 492 BCE) appears to have been
partly in agreement with the Eleatic School, partly
in opposition to it. On the one hand, he maintained
the unchangeable nature of substance; on the other,
he supposes a plurality of such substances -- i. e.
the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire. Of
these the world is built up, by the agency of two
ideal principles as motive forces -- namely, love as
the cause of union, strife as the cause of
separation. Empedocles was also the first person to
propound an evolutionary account of the development
of species.
Anaxagoras
of Clazomenae (born about 500 BCE) also maintained
the existence of an ordering principle as well as a
material substance, and while regarding the latter
as an infinite multitude of imperishable primary
elements, qualitatively distinguished, he conceived
divine reason or Mind (nous) as ordering
them. He referred all generation and disappearance
to mixture and resolution respectively. To him
belongs the credit of first establishing philosophy
at Athens, in which city it reached its highest
development, and continued to have its home for one
thousand years without intermission.
The
first explicitly materialistic system was formed by
Leucippus
(fifth century BCE) and his pupil Democritus
of Abdera (born about 460 BCE). This was the
doctrine of atoms -- literally 'uncuttables' --
small primary bodies infinite in number, indivisible
and imperishable, qualitatively similar, but
distinguished by their shapes. Moving eternally
through the infinite void, they collide and unite,
thus generating objects which differ in accordance
with the varieties, in number, size, shape, and
arrangement, of the atoms which compose them.
The
efforts of all these earlier philosophers had been
directed somewhat exclusively to the investigation
of the ultimate basis and essential nature of the
external world. Hence their conceptions of human
knowledge, arising out of their theories as to the
constitution of things, had been no less various.
The Eleatics, for example, had been compelled to
deny that senses give one any access to the truth,
since to the world of sense, with its multitude and
change, they allowed only a phenomenal existence.
However, reason can give one knowledge of what the
One is like--or, more accurately, what it is not
like.
Retaining
the skepticism of the Eleatics about the senses,
while rejecting their doctrines about the ability of
reason to reach truth apart from the senses, the Sophists
held that all thought rests solely on the
apprehensions of these senses and on subjective
impression, and that therefore we have no other
standards of action than convention for the
individual. Specializing in rhetoric, the Sophists
were more professional educators than philosophers.
They flourished as a result of a special need for at
that time for Greek education. Prominent Sophists
include Protagoras,
Gorgias,
Hippias,
and Prodicus.
2. Socrates and his Followers
A
new period of philosophy opens with the Athenian
Socrates (469-399 BCE). Like the Sophists, he
rejected entirely the physical speculations in which
his predecessors had indulged, and made the thoughts
and opinions of people his starting-point; but
whereas it was the thoughts of and opinions of the
individual that the Sophists took for the standard,
Socrates questioned people relentlessly about their
beliefs. He tried to find the definitions of the
virtues, such as courage and justice, by
cross-examining people who professed to have
knowledge of them. His method of cross-examining
people, the elenchus, did not succeed in
establishing what the virtues really were, but
rather it exposed the ignorance of his
interlocutors.
Socrates
was an enormously magnetic figure, who attracted
many followers, but he also made many enemies.
Socrates was executed for corrupting the youth of
Athens and for disbelieving in the gods of the city.
This philosophical martyrdom, however, simply made
Socrates an even more iconic figure than would have
been otherwise, and many later philosophical schools
took Socrates as their hero.
Of
Socrates' numerous disciples many either added
nothing to his doctrine, or developed it in a
one-sided manner, by confining themselves
exclusively either to dialectic or to ethics. Thus
the Athenian Xenophon
contented himself, in a series of writings, with
exhibiting the portrait of his master to the best of
his comprehension, and added nothing original. The
Megarian School, founded by Euclides
of Megara, devoted themselves almost entirely to
dialectic investigation of the one Good. Stilpo
of Megara became the most distinguished member of
the school. Ethics predominated both with the Cynics
and Cyrenaics,
although their positions were in direct opposition.
Antisthenes
of Athens, the founder of the Cynics,
conceived the highest good to be the virtue which
spurns every enjoyment. Cynicism continued in Greece
with Menippus and on to Roman times through the
efforts of Demonax
and others. Aristippus
of Cyrene, the founder of the Cyrenaics,considered
pleasure to be the sole end in life, and regarded
virtue as a good only in so far as it contributed to
pleasure.
3. Plato
Both
aspects of the genius of Socrates were first united
in Plato of Athens (428-348 BCE), who also combined
with them many the principles established by earlier
philosophers, and developed the whole of this
material into the unity of a comprehensive system.
The groundwork of Plato's scheme, though nowhere
expressly stated by him, is the threefold division
of philosophy into dialectic, ethics, and physics;
its central point is the theory of forms. This
theory is a combination of the Eleatic doctrine of
the One with Heraclitus's theory of a perpetual flux
and with the Socratic method of concepts. The
multitude of objects of sense, being involved in
perpetual change, are thereby deprived of all
genuine existence. The only true being in them is
founded upon the forms, the eternal, unchangeable
(independent of all that is accidental, and
therefore perfect) archetypes, of which the
particular objects of sense are imperfect copies.
The quantity of the forms is defined by the number
of universal concepts which can be derived from the
particular objects of sense.
The
highest form is that of the Good, which is the
ultimate basis of the rest, and the first cause of
being and knowledge. Apprehensions derived from the
impression of sense can never give us the knowledge
of true being -- i.e. of the forms. It can only be
obtained by the soul's activity within itself, apart
from the troubles and disturbances of sense; that is
to say, by the exercise of reason. Dialectic, as the
instrument in this process, leading us to knowledge
of the ideas, and finally of the highest idea of the
Good, is the first of sciences (scientia
scientiarum). In physics, Plato adhered
(though not without original modifications) to the
views of the Pythagoreans, making Nature a harmonic
unity in multiplicity. His ethics are founded
throughout on the Socratic; with him, too, virtue is
knowledge, the cognition of the supreme form of the
Good. And since in this cognition the three parts of
the soul -- cognitive, spirited, and appetitive --
all have their share, we get the three virtues:
Wisdom, Courage, and Temperance or Continence. The
bond which unites the other virtues is the virtue of
Justice, by which each several part of the soul is
confined to the performance of its proper function.
The
school founded by Plato, called the Academy
(from the name of the grove of the Attic hero
Academus where he used to deliver his lectures)
continued for long after. In regard to the main
tendencies of its members, it was divided into the
three periods of the Old, Middle, and New Academy.
The chief personages in the first of these were
Speusippus (son of Plato's sister), who succeeded
him as the head of the school (till 339 BCE), and
Xenocrates of Chalcedon (till 314 BCE). Both of them
sought to fuse Pythagorean speculations on number
with Plato's theory of ideas. The two other
Academies were still further removed from the
specific doctrines of Plato, and advocated skepticism.
4. Aristotle
The
most important among Plato's disciples is Aristotle
of Stagira (384-322 BCE), who shares with his
master the title of the greatest philosopher of
antiquity. But whereas Plato had sought to elucidate
and explain things from the supra-sensual standpoint
of the forms, his pupil preferred to start from the
facts given us by experience. Philosophy to him
meant science, and its aim was the recognition of
the purpose in all things. Hence he establishes the
ultimate grounds of things inductively -- that is to
say, by a posteriori conclusions from a
number of facts to a universal. In the series of
works collected under the name of Organon,
Aristotle
sets forth the laws by which the human understanding
effects conclusions from the particular to the
knowledge of the universal.
Like
Plato, he recognizes the true being of things in
their concepts, but denies any separate existence of
the concept apart from the particular objects of
sense. They are inseparable as matter and form. In
matter and form, Aristotle
sees the fundamental principles of being. Matter is
the basis of all that exists; it comprises the
potentiality of everything, but of itself is not
actually anything. A determinate thing only comes
into being when the potentiality in matter is
converted into actuality. This is effected by form,
inherent in the unified object and the completion of
the potentiality latent in the matter. Although it
has no existence apart form the particulars, yet, in
rank and estimation, form stands first; it is of its
own nature the most knowable, the only true object
of knowledge. For matter without any form cannot
exist, but the essential definitions of a common
form, in which are included the particular objects
may be separated from matter. Form and matter are
relative terms, and the lower form constitutes the
matter of a higher (e.g. body, soul, reason). This
series culminates in pure, immaterial form, the
Deity, the origin of all motion, and therefore of
the generation of actual form out of potential
matter.
All
motion takes place in space and time; for space is
the potentiality, time the measure of the motion.
Living beings are those which have in them a moving
principle, or soul. In plants the function of soul
is nutrition (including reproduction); in animals,
nutrition and sensation; in humans, nutrition,
sensation, and intellectual activity. The perfect
form of the human soul is reason separated from all
connection with the body, hence fulfilling its
activity without the help of any corporeal organ,
and so imperishable. By reason the apprehensions,
which are formed in the soul by external
sense-impressions, and may be true or false, are
converted into knowledge. For reason alone can
attain to truth either in cognition or action.
Impulse towards the good is a part of human nature,
and on this is founded virtue; for Aristotle
does not, with Plato, regard virtue as knowledge
pure and simple, but as founded on nature, habit,
and reason. Of the particular virtues (of which
there are as many as there are contingencies in
life), each is the apprehension, by means of reason,
of the proper mean between two extremes which are
not virtues -- e.g. courage is the mean between
cowardice and foolhardiness. The end of human
activity, or the highest good, is happiness, or
perfect and reasonable activity in a perfect life.
To this, however, external goods are more of less
necessary conditions.
The
followers of Aristotle, known as Peripatetics
(Theophrastus
of Lesbos, Eudemus of Rhodes, Strato of Lampsacus,
etc.), to a great extent abandoned metaphysical
speculation, some in favor of natural science,
others of a more popular treatment of ethics,
introducing many changes into the Aristotelian
doctrine in a naturalistic direction. A return to
the views of the founder first appears among the
later Peripatetics, who did good service as
expositors of Aristotle's works, such as Avicenna
and Averroes.
The
Peripatetic School tended to make philosophy the
exclusive property of the learned class, thereby
depriving it of its power to benefit a wider circle.
This soon produced a negative reaction, and
philosophers returned to the practical standpoint of
Socratic ethics. The speculations of the learned
were only admitted in philosophy where serviceable
for ethics. The chief consideration was how to
popularize doctrines, and to provide the individual,
in a time of general confusion and dissolution, with
a fixed moral basis for practical life.
5. Stoicism
Such
were the aims of Stoicism,
founded by Athens about 310 by Zeno of Citium (in
Cyprus), and brought to fuller systematic form by
his successors a heads of the school, Cleanthes
of Assos, and especially Chrysippus
of Soli, who died about 206. Important Stoic
writers of the Roman period include Epictetus
and Marcus Aurelius. Their doctrines contained
little that was new, seeking rather to give a
practical application to the dogmas which they took
ready-made from previous systems. With them
philosophy is the science of the principles on which
the moral life ought to be founded. The only
allowable effort is towards the attainment of
knowledge of human and divine things, in order to
thereby regulate life. The method to lead men to
true knowledge is provided by logic; physics
embraces the doctrines as to the nature and
organization of the universe; ethics draws from them
its conclusions for practical life. Regarding Stoic
logic, all knowledge originates in the real
impressions of things on the senses, which the soul,
being at birth a blank slate, receives in the form
of presentations. These presentations, when
confirmed by repeated experience, are
syllogistically developed by the understanding into
concepts. The test of their truth is the convincing
or persuasive force with which they impress
themselves upon the soul.
In
physics the foundation of the Stoic
doctrine was the dogma that all true being is
corporeal. Within the corporeal they recognized two
principles, matter and force -- that is, the
material, and the Deity (logos, order,
fate) permeating and informing it. Ultimately,
however, the two are identical. There is nothing in
the world with any independent existence: all is
bound together by an unalterable chain of causation.
The agreement of human action with the law of
nature, of the human will with the divine will, or
life according to nature, is virtue, the chief good
and highest end in life. It is essentially one, the
particular or cardinal virtues of Plato being only
different aspects of it; it is completely sufficient
for happiness, and incapable of any differences of
degree. All good actions are absolutely equal in
merit, and so are all bad actions. All that lies
between virtue and vice is neither good nor bad; at
most, it is distinguished as preferable,
undesirable, or absolutely indifferent. Virtue is
fully possessed only by the wise person, who is no
way inferior in worth to Zeus; he is lord over his
own life, and may end it by his own free choice. In
general, the prominent characteristic of Stoic
philosophy is moral heroism, often verging on
asceticism.
6. Epicureanism
The
same goal which was aimed at in Stoicism was also
approached, from a diametrically opposite position,
in the system founded about the same time by Epicurus,
of the deme Gargettus in Attica (342-268), who
brought it to completion himself. Epicureanism, like
Stoicism, is connected with previous systems. Like
Stoicism, it is also practical in its ends,
proposing to find in reason and knowledge the secret
of a happy life, and admitting abstruse learning
only where it serves the ends of practical wisdom.
Hence, logic (called by Epicurus (kanonikon),
or the doctrine of canons of truth) is made entirely
subservient to physics, physics to ethics. The
standards of knowledge and canons of truth in
theoretical matters are the impressions of the
senses, which are true and indisputable, together
with the presentations formed from such impressions,
and opinions extending beyond those impressions, in
so far as they are supported or not contradicted by
the evidence of the senses. In practical questions
the feelings of pleasure and pain are the tests.
Epicurus's physics, in which he follows in
essentials the materialistic system of Democritus,
are intended to refer all phenomena to a natural
cause, in order that a knowledge of nature may set
men free from the bondage of disquieting
superstitions.
In
ethics he followed within certain limits the Cyrenaic
doctrine, conceiving the highest good to be
happiness, and happiness to be found in pleasure, to
which the natural impulses of every being are
directed. But the aim is not with him, as it is with
the Cyrenaics,
the pleasure of the moment, but the enduring
condition of pleasure, which, in its essence, is
freedom from the greatest of evils, pain. Pleasures
and pains are, however, distinguished not merely in
degree, but in kind. The renunciation of a pleasure
or endurance of a pain is often a means to a greater
pleasure; and since pleasures of sense are
subordinate to the pleasures of the mind, the
undisturbed peace of the mind is a higher good than
the freedom of the body from pain. Virtue is
desirable not for itself, but for the sake of
pleasure of mind, which it secures by freeing people
from trouble and fear and moderating their passions
and appetites. The cardinal virtue is prudence,
which is shown by true insight in calculation the
consequences of our actions as regards pleasure or
pain.
7. Skepticism
The
practical tendency of Stoicism and Epicureanism,
seen in the search for happiness, is also apparent
in the Skeptical School founded by Pyrrho
of Elis (about 365-275 BCE). Pyrrho disputes the
possibility of attaining truth by sensory
apprehension, reason, or the two combined, and
thence infers the necessity of total suspension of
judgment on things. Thus can we attain release from
all bondage to theories, a condition which is
followed, like a shadow, by that imperturbable state
of mind which is the foundation of true happiness.
Pyrrho's immediate disciple was Timon.
Pyrrho's doctrine was adopted by the Middle and New
Academies (see above), represented by Arcesilaus of
Pitane (316-241 BCE) and Carneades
of Cyrene (214-129 BCE) respectively. Both attacked
the Stoics for asserting a criterion of truth in our
knowledge; although their views were indeed
skeptical, they seem to have considered that what
they were maintaining was a genuine tenet of
Socrates and Plato.
The
latest Academics, such as Antiochus of Ascalon
(about 80 BCE), fused with Platonism certain
Peripatetic and many Stoic dogmas, thus making way
for Eclecticism,
to which all later antiquity tended after Greek
philosophy had spread itself over the Roman world. Roman
philosophy, thus, becomes an extension of the
Greek tradition. After the Christian era
Pythagoreanism, in a resuscitated form, again takes
its place among the more important systems.
Pyrrhonian skepticism
was also re-introduced by Aenesidemus,
and developed further by Sextus Empiricus. But the
preeminence of this period belongs to Platonism,
which is notably represented in the works of
Plutarch of Chaeronea and the physician Galen.
8. Neoplatonism
The
closing period of Greek philosophy is marked in the
third century CE. by the establishment of Neoplatonism
in Rome. Its founder was Plotinus
of Lycopolis in Egypt (205-270) and its emphasis is
a scientific philosophy of religion, in which the
doctrine of Plato is fused with the most important
elements in the Aristotelian
and Stoic
systems and with Eastern speculations. At the summit
of existences stands the One or the Good, as the
source of all things. It emanates from itself, as if
from the reflection of its own being, reason,
wherein is contained the infinite store of ideas.
Soul, the copy of the reason, is emanated by and
contained in it, as reason is in the One, and, by
informing matter in itself non-existence,
constitutes bodies whose existence is contained in
soul. Nature, therefore, is a whole, endowed with
life and soul. Soul, being chained to matter, longs
to escape from the bondage of the body and return to
its original source. In virtue and philosophic
thought soul had the power to elevate itself above
the reason into a state of ecstasy, where it can
behold, or ascend up to, that one good primary Being
whom reason cannot know. To attain this union with
the Good, or God, is the true function of humans, to
whom the external world should be absolutely
indifferent.
Plotinus's
most important disciple, the Syrian Porphyry,
contented himself with popularizing his master's
doctrine. But the school if Iamblichus, a disciple
of Porphyry, effected a change in the position of
Neoplatonism, which now took up the cause of
polytheism against Christianity, and adopted for
this purpose every conceivable form of superstition,
especially those of the East. Foiled in the attempt
to resuscitate the old beliefs, its supporters then
turned with fresh ardor to scientific work, and
especially to the study of Plato and Aristotle,
in the interpretation of whose works they rendered
great services. The last home of philosophy was at
Athens, where Proclus (411-485) sought to reduce to
a kind of system the whole mass of philosophic
tradition, until in 529 CE, the teaching of
philosophy at Athens was forbidden by Justinian.
--------------------------
2.
Ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient
Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and
continued throughout the Hellenistic period
and the period in which Ancient Greece was part
of the Roman Empire. It dealt with
a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy,
ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric, and aesthetics.
Many philosophers today concede
that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since
its inception. Alfred North
Whitehead once noted: "The safest general
characterization of the European philosophical tradition
is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."[1]
Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic
philosophers to Early Islamic
philosophy, the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment.
Some
claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced
by the older wisdom literature and mythological
cosmogonies of the ancient Near East. Martin Litchfield
West gives qualified assent to this view,
stating, "contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the
early Greek
philosophers' imagination; it certainly gave
them many suggestive ideas. But they taught themselves
to reason. Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek
creation."[2]
Subsequent
philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates (as presented by Plato) that it is conventional to
refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic
philosophy. The periods following this until the
wars of
Alexander the Great are those of "classical
Greek" and "Hellenistic" philosophy.
Pre-Socratic
philosophy
The
convention of terming those philosophers
who were active prior to Socrates the pre-Socratics
gained currency with the 1903 publication of Hermann Diels' Fragmente
der Vorsokratiker, although the term did not
originate with him.[3]
The term is considered philosophically useful because
what came to be known as the "Athenian school"
(composed of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) signaled a profound
shift in the subject matter and methods of philosophy;
Friedrich Nietzsche's
thesis that this shift began with Plato rather than
with Socrates (hence his nomenclature of "pre-Platonic
philosophy") has not prevented the predominance of the
"pre-Socratic" distinction.[4]
The
pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were
distinguished from "non-philosophers" insofar as they
rejected mythological explanations in favor of
reasoned discourse.[5]
Milesian
school
Thales
of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first
philosopher,[6]
held that all things arise from water.[7]
It is not because he gave a cosmogony that John Burnet
calls him the "first man of science," but because he
gave a naturalistic explanation of the cosmos and supported it with
reasons.[8]
According to tradition, Thales was able to predict an
eclipse and taught the
Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids.[9]
Thales
inspired the Milesian school of
philosophy and was followed by Anaximander, who argued that
the substratum or arche could not be water or
any of the classical elements but
was instead something "unlimited" or "indefinite" (in
Greek, the apeiron). He
began from the observation that the world seems to
consist of opposites (e.g., hot and cold), yet a thing
can become its opposite (e.g., a hot thing cold).
Therefore, they cannot truly be opposites but rather
must both be manifestations of some underlying unity
that is neither. This underlying unity (substratum, arche)
could not be any of the classical elements, since they
were one extreme or another. For example, water is
wet, the opposite of dry, while fire is dry, the
opposite of wet.[10]
Anaximenes in turn
held that the arche was air, although John
Burnet argues that by this he meant that it was a
transparent mist, the aether.[11]
Despite their varied answers, the Milesian school was
searching for a natural substance that would remain
unchanged despite appearing in different forms, and
thus represents one of the first scientific attempts
to answer the question that would lead to the
development of modern atomic theory; "the Milesians,"
says Burnet, "asked for the φύσις of all things."[12]
Xenophanes
Xenophanes
was born in Ionia, where the Milesian school
was at its most powerful, and may have picked up some
of the Milesians' cosmological theories as a result.[13]
What is known is that he argued that each of the
phenomena had a natural rather than divine explanation
in a manner reminiscent of Anaximander's theories and
that there was only one god, the world as a whole, and
that he ridiculed the anthropomorphism of the
Greek religion by claiming that cattle would claim
that the gods looked like cattle, horses like horses,
and lions like lions, just as the Ethiopians claimed
that the gods were snubnosed and black and the
Thracians claimed they were pale and red-haired.[14]
Burnet
says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific
man, with many of his "naturalistic" explanations
having no further support than that they render the
Homeric gods superfluous or foolish.[15]
He has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic philosophy, although
that is disputed, and a precursor to Epicurus, a representative of a
total break between science and religion.[16]
Pythagoreanism
Main article: Pythagoreanism
Pythagoras lived at roughly
the same time that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to
the latter, the school that he founded sought to
reconcile religious belief and reason. Little is known
about his life with any reliability, however, and no
writings of his survive, so it is possible that he was
simply a mystic whose successors
introduced rationalism into Pythagoreanism, that he
was simply a rationalist whose successors
are responsible for the mysticism in Pythagoreanism,
or that he was actually the author of the doctrine;
there is no way to know for certain.[17]
Pythagoras
is said to have been a disciple of Anaximander and to have
imbibed the cosmological concerns of the
Ionians, including the idea that the cosmos is
constructed of spheres, the importance of the
infinite, and that air or aether is the arche
of everything.[18]
Pythagoreanism also incorporated ascetic ideals, emphasizing
purgation, metempsychosis, and
consequently a respect for all animal life; much was
made of the correspondence between mathematics and the
cosmos in a musical harmony.[19]
Heraclitus
Heraclitus
must have lived after Xenophanes and Pythagoras, as he
condemns them along with Homer as proving that much
learning cannot teach a man to think; since Parmenides refers to him in
the past tense, this would place him in the 5th
century BCE.[20]
Contrary to the Milesian school, who
would have one stable element at the root of all,
Heraclitus taught that "everything flows" or
"everything is in flux," the closest element to this flux
being fire; he also extended the teaching that seeming
opposites in fact are manifestations of a common
substrate to good and evil itself.[21]
Eleatic
philosophy
Parmenides
of Elea cast his philosophy against those who
held "it is and is not the same, and all things travel
in opposite directions,"—presumably referring to
Heraclitus and those who followed him.[22]
Whereas the doctrines of the Milesian school, in
suggesting that the substratum could appear in a
variety of different guises, implied that everything
that exists is corpuscular, Parmenides argued that the
first principle of being was One, indivisible, and
unchanging.[23]
Being, he argued, by definition implies eternality,
while only that which is can be thought; a
thing which is, moreover, cannot be more or
less, and so the rarefaction and condensation of the
Milesians is impossible regarding Being; lastly, as
movement requires that something exist apart from the
thing moving (viz. the space into which it moves), the
One or Being cannot move, since this would require
that "space" both exist and not exist.[24]
While this doctrine is at odds with ordinary sensory
experience, where things do indeed change and move,
the Eleatic school followed Parmenides in denying that
sense phenomena revealed the world as it actually was;
instead, the only thing with Being was thought, or the
question of whether something exists or not is one of
whether it can be thought.[25]
In
support of this, Parmenides' pupil Zeno of Elea attempted to
prove that the concept of motion was absurd and
as such motion did not exist. He also attacked the
subsequent development of pluralism, arguing that it
was incompatible with Being.[26]
His arguments are known as Zeno's paradoxes.
Pluralism
and atomism
The power
of Parmenides' logic was such that some subsequent
philosophers abandoned the monism of the Milesians,
Xenophanes, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, where one
thing was the arche, and adopted pluralism, such
as Empedocles and Anaxagoras.[27]
There were, they said, multiple elements which were
not reducible to one another and these were set in
motion by love and strife (as in Empedocles) or by
Mind (as in Anaxagoras). Agreeing with Parmenides that
there is no coming into being or passing away, genesis
or decay, they said that things appear to come into
being and pass away because the elements out of which
they are composed assemble or disassemble while
themselves being unchanging.[28]
Leucippus also proposed an
ontological pluralism with a cosmogony based on two
main elements: the vacuum and atoms. These, by means
of their inherent movement, are crossing the void and
creating the real material bodies. His theories were
not well known by the time of Plato, however, and they were
ultimately incorporated into the work of his student,
Democritus.[29]
Sophistry
Sophistry
arose from the juxtaposition of physis (nature) and nomos
(law). John Burnet posits its origin in the scientific
progress of the previous centuries which suggested
that Being was radically different from what was
experienced by the senses and, if comprehensible at
all, was not comprehensible in terms of order; the
world in which men lived, on the other hand, was one
of law and order, albeit of humankind's own making.[30]
At the same time, nature was constant, while what was
by law differed from one place to another and could be
changed.
The first
man to call himself a sophist, according to Plato, was
Protagoras, whom he presents
as teaching that all virtue is conventional. It was
Protagoras who claimed that "man is the measure of all
things, of the things that are, that they are, and of
the things that are not, that they are not," which
Plato interprets as a radical perspectivism, where some
things seem to be one way for one person (and so
actually are that way) and another way for another
person (and so actually are that way as well);
the conclusion being that one cannot look to nature
for guidance regarding how to live one's life.[31]
Protagoras
and subsequent sophists tended to teach rhetoric as
their primary vocation. Prodicus, Gorgias, Hippias, and Thrasymachus appear in
various dialogues,
sometimes explicitly teaching that while nature
provides no ethical guidance, the guidance that the
laws provide is worthless, or that nature favors those
who act against the laws.
Classical
Greek philosophy
Socrates
Socrates,
born in Athens in the 5th
century BCE, marks a watershed in ancient Greek
philosophy. Athens was a center of learning, with
sophists and philosophers traveling from across Greece
to teach rhetoric, astronomy, cosmology, geometry, and
the like. The great statesman Pericles was closely associated
with this new learning and a friend of Anaxagoras, however, and his
political opponents struck at him by taking advantage
of a conservative reaction against the philosophers;
it became a crime to investigate the things above the
heavens or below the earth, subjects considered
impious. Anaxagoras is said to have been charged and
to have fled into exile when Socrates was about twenty
years of age.[32]
There is a story that Protagoras, too, was forced
to flee and that the Athenians burned his books.[33]
Socrates, however, is the only subject recorded as
charged under this law, convicted, and sentenced to
death in 399 BCE (see Trial of Socrates). In
the version of his defense speech presented
by Plato, he claims that it is the envy he arouses on
account of his being a philosopher that will convict
him.
While
philosophy was an established pursuit prior to
Socrates, Cicero credits him as "the first
who brought philosophy down from the heavens, placed
it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged
it to examine into life and morals, and good and
evil."[34]
By this account he would be considered the founder of
political philosophy.[35]
The reasons for this turn toward political and ethical
subjects remain the object of much study.[36][37]
The fact
that many conversations involving Socrates (as
recounted by Plato and Xenophon) end without having
reached a firm conclusion, or aporetically,[38]
has stimulated debate over the meaning of the Socratic method.[39]
Socrates is said to have pursued this probing
question-and-answer style of examination on a number
of topics, usually attempting to arrive at a
defensible and attractive definition of a virtue.
While
Socrates' recorded conversations rarely provide a
definite answer to the question under examination,
several maxims or paradoxes for which he has become
known recur. Socrates taught that no one desires what
is bad, and so if anyone does something that truly is
bad, it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance;
consequently, all virtue is knowledge.[40][41]
He frequently remarks on his own ignorance (claiming
that he does not know what courage is, for example). Plato presents him as
distinguishing himself from the common run of mankind
by the fact that, while they know nothing noble and
good, they do not know that they do not know,
whereas Socrates knows and acknowledges that he knows
nothing noble and good.[42]
Numerous
subsequent philosophical movements were inspired by
Socrates or his younger associates. Plato casts
Socrates as the main interlocutor in his dialogues, deriving from them the
basis of Platonism (and by extension, Neoplatonism). Plato's
student Aristotle in turn criticized
and built upon the doctrines he ascribed to Socrates
and Plato, forming the foundation of Aristotelianism. Antisthenes founded the
school that would come to be known as Cynicism and
accused Plato of distorting Socrates' teachings. Zeno of Citium in turn
adapted the ethics of Cynicism to articulate Stoicism. Epicurus studied with Platonic
and Stoic teachers before renouncing all previous
philosophers (including Democritus, on whose atomism
the Epicurean
philosophy relies). The philosophic movements that
were to dominate the intellectual life of the Roman
empire were thus born in this febrile period
following Socrates' activity, and either directly or
indirectly influenced by him. They were also absorbed
by the expanding Muslim world in the 7th through 10th
centuries CE, from which they returned to the West as
foundations of Medieval philosophy
and the Renaissance, as discussed
below.
Plato
Plato was
an Athenian of the
generation after Socrates. Ancient tradition
ascribes thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters to him,
although of these only twenty-four of the dialogues
are now universally recognized as authentic; most
modern scholars believe that at least twenty-eight
dialogues and two of the letters were in fact written
by Plato, although all of the thirty-six dialogues
have some defenders.[43]
A further nine dialogues are ascribed to Plato but
were considered spurious even in antiquity.[44]
Plato's
dialogues feature Socrates, although not always as the
leader of the conversation. (One dialogue, the Laws,
instead contains an "Athenian Stranger.") Along with Xenophon, Plato is the primary
source of information about Socrates' life and beliefs
and it is not always easy to distinguish between the
two. While the Socrates presented in the dialogues is
often taken to be Plato's mouthpiece, Socrates'
reputation for irony, his caginess regarding his
own opinions in the dialogues, and his occasional
absence from or minor role in the conversation serve
to conceal Plato's doctrines.[45]
Much of what is said about his doctrines is derived
from what Aristotle reports about them.
The
political doctrine ascribed to Plato is derived from
the Republic,
the Laws, and the Statesman.
The first of these contains the suggestion that there
will not be justice in cities unless they are ruled by
philosopher kings;
those responsible for enforcing the laws are compelled
to hold their women, children, and property in common; and the individual is
taught to pursue the common good through noble lies; the Republic
says that such a city is likely impossible, however,
generally assuming that philosophers would refuse to
rule and the people would refuse to compel them to do
so.[46]
Whereas
the Republic is premised on a distinction
between the sort of knowledge possessed by the
philosopher and that possessed by the king or
political man, Socrates explores only the character of
the philosopher; in the Statesman, on the
other hand, a participant referred to as the Eleatic
Stranger discusses the sort of knowledge possessed by
the political man, while Socrates listens quietly.[46]
Although rule by a wise man would be preferable to
rule by law, the wise cannot help but be judged by the
unwise, and so in practice, rule by law is deemed
necessary.
Both the
Republic and the Statesman reveal the
limitations of politics, raising the question of what
political order would be best given those constraints;
that question is addressed in the Laws, a
dialogue that does not take place in Athens and from
which Socrates is absent.[46]
The character of the society described there is
eminently conservative, a corrected or liberalized timocracy on the Spartan or Cretan model or that of
pre-democratic Athens.[46]
Plato's
dialogues also have metaphysical themes, the
most famous of which is his theory
of forms. It holds that non-material abstract
(but substantial) forms (or ideas), and
not the material world of change known to us through
our physical senses, possess the highest and most
fundamental kind of reality.
Plato
often uses long-form analogies
(usually allegories)
to explain his ideas; the most famous is perhaps the Allegory of the Cave.
It likens most humans to people tied up in a cave, who
look only at shadows on the walls and have no other
conception of reality.[47]
If they turned around, they would see what is casting
the shadows (and thereby gain a further dimension to
their reality). If some left the cave, they would see
the outside world illuminated by the sun (representing
the ultimate form of goodness and truth). If these
travelers then re-entered the cave, the people inside
(who are still only familiar with the shadows) would
not be equipped to believe reports of this 'outside
world'.[48]
This story explains the theory of forms with their
different levels of reality, and advances the view
that philosopher-kings are wisest while most humans
are ignorant.[49]
One student of Plato (who would become another of the
most influential philosophers of all time) stressed
the implication that understanding relies upon
first-hand observation:
Aristotle
Aristotle
moved to Athens from his native Stageira in
367 BCE and began to study philosophy (perhaps even
rhetoric, under Isocrates), eventually
enrolling at Plato's Academy.[50]
He left Athens approximately twenty years later to
study botany and zoology, became a tutor of Alexander the Great,
and ultimately returned to Athens a decade later to
establish his own school: the Lyceum.[51]
At least twenty-nine of his treatises have survived,
known as the corpus Aristotelicum,
and address a variety of subjects including logic, physics, optics, metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric, politics, poetry, botany, and zoology.
Aristotle
is often portrayed as disagreeing with his teacher
Plato (e.g., in Raphael's School
of Athens). He criticizes the regimes described in Plato's Republic and Laws,[52]
and refers to the theory
of forms as "empty words and poetic metaphors."[53]
He is generally presented as giving greater weight to
empirical observation and practical concerns.
Aristotle's
fame was not great during the Hellenistic period,
when Stoic logic was in vogue, but
later peripatetic
commentators popularized his work, which eventually
contributed heavily to Islamic, Jewish, and medieval
Christian philosophy.[54]
His influence was such that Avicenna referred to him simply
as "the Master"; Maimonides, Alfarabi, Averroes, and Aquinas as
"the Philosopher."
Hellenistic
philosophy
The philosopher Pyrrho from Elis, in an anecdote taken from
Sextus Empiricus'
Pyrrhonic Sketches.
(upper) PIRRHO • HELIENSIS •
PLISTARCHI • FILIVS
translation (from Latin): Phyrrho . Greek .
Son of Plistarchus
(middle) OPORTERE • SAPIENTEM
HANC ILLIVS IMITARI
SECVRITATEM translation (from Latin): It is
right wisdom then that all imitate this
security (Phyrrho pointing at a peaceful pig
munching his food)
(lower) Whoever wants to apply
the real wisdom, shall not mind trepidation
and misery
During
the Hellenistic and Roman periods, many
different schools of thought developed in the Hellenistic
world and then the Greco-Roman
world. There were Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Syrians and Arabs who
contributed to the development of Hellenistic
philosophy. Elements of Persian philosophy
and Indian philosophy also
had an influence. The most notable schools of
Hellenistic philosophy were:
- Neoplatonism: Plotinus (Egyptian), Ammonius Saccas, Porphyry
(Syrian), Zethos (Arab), Iamblichus
(Syrian), Proclus
- Academic
Skepticism: Arcesilaus, Carneades, Cicero (Roman)
- Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus
- Cynicism: Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope,
Crates of Thebes
(taught Zeno of Citium, founder of Stoicism)
- Stoicism: Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Crates of Mallus
(brought Stoicism to Rome c. 170 BCE), Panaetius, Posidonius, Seneca (Roman), Epictetus (Greek/Roman), Marcus Aurelius (Roman)
- Epicureanism: Epicurus (Greek) and Lucretius (Roman)
- Eclecticism: Cicero (Roman)
The
spread of Christianity throughout the
Roman world, followed by the spread of Islam, ushered
in the end of Hellenistic philosophy and the
beginnings of Medieval philosophy,
which was dominated by the three Abrahamic
traditions: Jewish philosophy, Christian philosophy,
and early Islamic
philosophy.
Transmission
of Greek philosophy under Islam
During
the Middle Ages, Greek ideas
were largely forgotten in Western Europe (where,
between the fall of
Rome and the East-West
Schism, literacy in Greek had declined
sharply). Not long after the first major expansion of
Islam, however, the Abbasid caliphs
authorized the gathering of Greek manuscripts and
hired translators to increase their prestige. Islamic philosophers
such as Al-Kindi (Alkindus), Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Ibn
Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) reinterpreted these
works, and during the High Middle Ages Greek
philosophy re-entered the West through translations
from Arabic to Latin. The re-introduction of
these philosophies, accompanied by the new Arabic
commentaries, had a great influence on Medieval philosophers
such as Thomas Aquinas.
See also
Notes
- Alfred
North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Part
II, Chap. I, Sect. I
- Griffin, Jasper; Boardman,
John; Murray, Oswyn (2001). The Oxford
history of Greece and the Hellenistic world.
Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press.
p. 140. ISBN0-19-280137-6.
- Greg
Whitlock, preface to The Pre-Platonic
Philosophers, by Friedrich Nietzsche
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001),
xiv–xvi.
- Greg Whitlock, preface to The
Pre-Platonic Philosophers, by Friedrich
Nietzsche (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
2001), xiii–xix.
- John
Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato,
3rd ed. (London: A & C Black Ltd., 1920),
3–16. Scanned
version from Internet Archive
- Aristotle, Metaphysics
Alpha, 983b18.
- Aristotle,
Metaphysics Alpha, 983 b6 8–11.
- Burnet, Greek
Philosophy, 3–4, 18.
- Burnet, Greek
Philosophy, 18–20; Herodotus, Histories,
I.74.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 22–24.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 21.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 27.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 35.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 35; Diels-Kranz, Die
Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Xenophanes frr.
15-16.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 36.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 33, 36.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 37–38.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 38–39.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 40–49.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 57.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 57–63.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 64.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 66–67.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 68.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 67.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 82.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 69.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 70.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 94.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 105–10.
- Burnet,
Greek Philosophy, 113–17.
- Debra
Nails, The People of Plato (Indianapolis:
Hackett, 2002), 24.
- Nails,
People of Plato, 256.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero, Tusculan Disputations,
V 10–11 (or V IV).
- Leo
Strauss, Natural Right and History
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 120.
- Seth
Benardete, The Argument of the Action
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000),
277–96.
- Laurence
Lampert, How Philosophy Became Socratic
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).
- Cf.
Plato, Republic
336c & 337a, Theaetetus
150c, Apology of Socrates
23a; Xenophon, Memorabilia
4.4.9; Aristotle, Sophistical
Refutations 183b7.
- W. K. C. Guthrie, The
Greek Philosophers (London: Methuen, 1950),
73–75.
- Terence Irwin, The
Development of Ethics, vol. 1 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press 2007), 14
- Gerasimos
Santas, "The Socratic Paradoxes", Philosophical
Review 73 (1964): 147–64, 147.
- Apology of Socrates
21d.
- John
M. Cooper, ed., Complete Works, by Plato
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), v–vi, viii–xii,
1634–35.
- Cooper,
ed., Complete Works, by Plato, v–vi,
viii–xii.
- Leo Strauss, The
City and Man (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1964), 50–51.
- Leo Strauss, "Plato", in History
of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and
Joseph Cropsey, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press 1987): 33–89.
- "Plato
- Allegory of the cave" (PDF). classicalastrologer.files.wordpress.com.
- "Allegory
of the Cave". washington.edu.
- Garth Kemerling. "Plato:
The Republic 5-10". philosophypages.com.
- Carnes Lord, Introduction
to The Politics, by Aristotle (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1984): 1–29.
- Bertrand Russell, A
History of Western Philosophy (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1972).
- Aristotle,
Politics,
bk. 2, ch. 1–6.
- Aristotle,
Metaphysics,
991a20–22.
- Robin
Smith, "Aristotle's
Logic,"
Stsmgotd Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(2007).
References
- Bakalis,
Nikolaos (2005). Handbook of Greek Philosophy:
From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and Fragments,
Trafford Publishing ISBN
1-4120-4843-5
- John
Burnet, Early
Greek Philosophy, 1930.
- William
Keith Chambers Guthrie, A History of Greek
Philosophy: Volume 1, The Earlier Presocratics
and the Pythagoreans, 1962.
- Kierkegaard, Søren,
On the Concept of Irony
with Continual Reference to Socrates,
1841.
- Martin Litchfield
West, Early Greek Philosophy and the
Orient, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
- Martin
Litchfield West, The East Face of Helicon:
West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth,
Oxford [England] ; New York: Clarendon Press,
1997.
- Charles Freeman (1996). Egypt,
Greece and Rome. Oxford University Press.
- A.A.
Long. Hellenistic Philosophy. University
of California, 1992. (2nd Ed.)
- Artur
Rodziewicz, IDEA AND FORM. ΙΔΕΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΔΟΣ. On
the Foundations of the Philosophy of Plato and
the Presocratics (IDEA I FORMA. ΙΔΕΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΙΔΟΣ.
O fundamentach filozofii Platona i
presokratyków) Wroclaw, 2012.
- Baird, Forrest E.; Walter
Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida.
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice
Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6.
Further
reading
- Nightingale,
Andrea Wilson, Spectacles
of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy:
Theoria in Its Cultural Context,
Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN
0-521-83825-8
- Loudovikos, Nikolaos,
Protopresbyter, Theological History of the
Ancient Hellenic Philosophy – Presocratics,
Socrates, Plato (in Greek), Pournaras
Publishing, Athens, 2003, ISBN
960-242-296-3
- The
Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search for
the Good Life, by Bettany Hughes (2010) ISBN
0-224-07178-5
- Luchte,
James, Early Greek Thought: Before the Dawn,
in series, Bloomsbury Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, Bloomsbury Publishing, London,
2011. ISBN
978-0567353313
External
links
|
Ancient Greek philosophical
concepts
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-----------------
3. Socrates
Socrates (;[2]
Greek: Σωκράτης
[sɔːkrátɛːs],
Sōkrátēs; 470/469 – 399 BC)[1]
was a classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of
the founders of Western philosophy. He
is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the
accounts of classical writers, especially the writings
of his students Plato and Xenophon and the plays of his
contemporary Aristophanes. Plato's dialogues are among the most
comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from
antiquity, though it is unclear the degree to which
Socrates himself is "hidden behind his 'best disciple',
Plato".[3]
Through
his portrayal in Plato's dialogues, Socrates has
become renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, and it is this Platonic
Socrates who lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic method, or elenchus.
The latter remains a commonly used tool in a wide
range of discussions, and is a type of pedagogy in which a series of
questions is asked not only to draw individual
answers, but also to encourage fundamental insight
into the issue at hand. Plato's Socrates also made
important and lasting contributions to the field of epistemology, and his
ideologies and approach have proven a strong
foundation for much Western philosophy that has
followed.
The
Socratic problem
Nothing
written by Socrates remains extant. As a result, all
first-hand information about him and his philosophies
depends upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close
comparison between the contents of these sources reveals
contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility
of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is
known as the Socratic problem,[4]
or the Socratic question.[5][6]
To
understand Socrates and his thought, one must turn
primarily to the works of Plato, whose dialogues are thought
the most informative source about Socrates' life and
philosophy,[7]
and also Xenophon.[8]
These writings are the Sokratikoi logoi, or Socratic dialogues,
which consist of reports of conversations apparently
involving Socrates.[9][10]
As for
discovering the real-life Socrates, the difficulty is
that ancient sources are mostly philosophical or
dramatic texts, apart from Xenophon. There are no
straightforward histories, contemporary with Socrates,
that dealt with his own time and place. A corollary of
this is that sources that do mention Socrates do not
necessarily claim to be historically accurate, and are
often partisan. For instance, those who prosecuted and
convicted Socrates have left no testament. Historians
therefore face the challenge of reconciling the various
evidence from the extant texts in order to attempt an
accurate and consistent account of Socrates' life and
work. The result of such an effort is not necessarily
realistic, even if consistent.
Amid all
the disagreement resulting from differences within
sources, two factors emerge from all sources pertaining
to Socrates. It would seem, therefore, that he was ugly,
and that Socrates had a brilliant intellect.[11][12]
Socrates
as a figure
The
character of Socrates as exhibited in Apology, Crito, Phaedo and Symposium concurs
with other sources to an extent to which it seems
possible to rely on the Platonic Socrates, as
demonstrated in the dialogues, as a representation of
the actual Socrates as he lived in history.[13]
At the same time, however, many scholars believe that in
some works, Plato, being a literary artist, pushed his
avowedly brightened-up version of "Socrates" far beyond
anything the historical Socrates was likely to have done
or said. Also, Xenophon, being an historian, is a more
reliable witness to the historical Socrates. It is a
matter of much debate over which Socrates it is whom
Plato is describing at any given point—the historical
figure, or Plato's fictionalization. As British
philosopher Martin Cohen
has put it, "Plato, the idealist, offers an idol, a
master figure, for philosophy. A Saint, a prophet of
'the Sun-God', a teacher condemned for his teachings as
a heretic."[14][15]
It is also
clear from other writings and historical artefacts, that
Socrates was not simply a character, nor an invention,
of Plato. The testimony of Xenophon and Aristotle,
alongside some of Aristophanes' work (especially The Clouds), is useful in
fleshing out a perception of Socrates beyond Plato's
work.
Socrates
as a philosopher
The problem
with discerning Socrates' philosophical views stems from
the perception of contradictions in statements made by
the Socrates in the different dialogues of
Plato. These contradictions produce doubt as to the
actual philosophical doctrines of Socrates, within his
milieu and as recorded by other individuals.[16]
Aristotle, in his Magna Moralia, refers to
Socrates in words which make it patent that the doctrine
virtue is knowledge was held by Socrates. Within
the Metaphysics, he states Socrates was occupied
with the search for moral virtues, being the ' first
to search for universal definitions for them '.[17]
The problem
of understanding Socrates as a philosopher is shown in
the following: In Xenophon's Symposium,
Socrates is reported as saying he devotes himself only
to what he regards as the most important art or
occupation, that of discussing philosophy. However, in The
Clouds, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as
accepting payment for teaching and running a sophist school with Chaerephon. Also, in Plato's Apology and Symposium, as well
as in Xenophon's accounts, Socrates explicitly denies
accepting payment for teaching. More specifically, in
the Apology, Socrates cites his poverty as proof
that he is not a teacher.
Two
fragments are extant of the writings by Timon of Phlius pertaining
to Socrates,[18]
although Timon is known to have written to ridicule and
lampoon philosophy.[19][20]
Biography
Carnelian gem imprint
representing Socrates, Rome, 1st century BC-1st
century AD.
Details
about the life of Socrates can be derived from three
contemporary sources: the dialogues of Plato and Xenophon
(both devotees of Socrates), and the plays of Aristophanes. He has been
depicted by some scholars, including Eric
Havelock and Walter Ong,
as a champion of oral modes of communication,
standing against the haphazard diffusion of writing.[21]
In
Aristophanes' play The Clouds, Socrates is
made into a clown of sorts, particularly inclined toward
sophistry,
who teaches his students how to bamboozle their way out
of debt. However, since most of Aristophanes' works
function as parodies, it is presumed that his
characterization in this play was also not literal.[22]
Early life
Socrates
was born in Alopeke, and belonged to the tribe Antiochis. His
father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, or
stonemason.[23][24][25]
His mother was a midwife named Phaenarete.[26]
Socrates married Xanthippe, who is especially
remembered for having an undesirable temperament.[27]
She bore for him three sons,[28]
Lamprocles, Sophroniscus and Menexenus. His friend Crito of Alopece
criticized him for abandoning them when he refused to
try to escape before his execution.[29]
Socrates
first worked as a stonemason, and there was a tradition
in antiquity, not credited by modern scholarship, that
Socrates crafted the statues of the Three Graces, which
stood near the Acropolis until the 2nd century AD.[30]
Xenophon
reports that because youths were not allowed to enter
the Agora, they used to gather in
workshops surrounding it.[31]
Socrates frequented these shops in order to converse
with the merchants. Most notable among them was Simon the Shoemaker.[32]
Military
service
For a time,
Socrates fulfilled the role of hoplite, participating in the Peloponnesian
war—a conflict which stretched intermittently over
a period spanning 431 to 404 B.C.[33]
Several of Plato's dialogues refer to Socrates' military
service.
In the
monologue of the Apology, Socrates states he was
active for Athens in the battles of Amphipolis, Delium, and Potidaea.[34]
In the Symposium, Alcibiades describes Socrates'
valour in the battles of Potidaea and Delium, recounting
how Socrates saved his life in the former battle
(219e-221b). Socrates' exceptional service at Delium is
also mentioned in the Laches by the
General after whom the dialogue is named (181b). In the
Apology, Socrates compares his military service
to his courtroom troubles, and says anyone on the jury
who thinks he ought to retreat from philosophy must also
think soldiers should retreat when it seems likely that
they will be killed in battle.[35]
Epistates
at the trial of the six commanders
During 406,
he participated as a member of the Boule.[36]
His tribe the Antiochis held the Prytany on the
day it was debated what fate should befall the generals
of the Battle of Arginusae,
who abandoned the slain and the survivors of foundered
ships to pursue the defeated Spartan navy.[24][37][38]
According
to Xenophon, Socrates was the Epistates for the debate,[39]
but Delebecque and Hatzfeld think this is an
embellishment, because Xenophon composed the information
after Socrates' death [40]
The
generals were seen by some to have failed to uphold the
most basic of duties, and the people decided upon
capital punishment. However, when the prytany responded
by refusing to vote on the issue, the people reacted
with threats of death directed at the prytany itself.
They relented, at which point Socrates alone as
epistates blocked the vote, which had been proposed by Callixeinus.[41][42]
The reason he gave was that "in no case would he act
except in accordance with the law".[43]
The outcome
of the trial was ultimately judged to be a miscarriage
of justice, or illegal, but, actually, Socrates'
decision had no support from written statutory law,
instead being reliant on favouring a continuation of
less strict and less formal nomos law.[42][44][45]
The arrest
of Leon
Plato's Apology, parts 32c to 32d,
describes how Socrates and four others were summoned to
the Tholos,
and told by representatives of the oligarchy of the Thirty
(the oligarchy began ruling in 404 B.C.) to go to
Salamis, and from there, to return to them with Leon the Salaminian. He
was to be brought back to be subsequently executed.
However, Socrates returned home and did not go to
Salamis as he was expected to.[46][47]
Trial and death
Socrates
lived during the time of the transition from the height
of the Athenian hegemony to its decline with the
defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a
time when Athens sought to
stabilize and recover from its humiliating defeat, the
Athenian public may have been entertaining doubts about
democracy as an efficient form of government. Socrates
appears to have been a critic of democracy,[48]
and some scholars interpret his trial as an expression
of political infighting.[49]
Claiming
loyalty to his city, Socrates clashed with the current
course of Athenian politics and society.[50]
He praises Sparta, archrival to Athens, directly and
indirectly in various dialogues. One of Socrates'
purported offenses to the city was his position as a
social and moral critic. Rather than upholding a status
quo and accepting the development of what he perceived
as immorality within his region, Socrates questioned the
collective notion of "might makes right" that he felt
was common in Greece during this period. Plato refers to
Socrates as the "gadfly" of the state (as the
gadfly stings the horse into action, so Socrates stung
various Athenians), insofar as he irritated some people
with considerations of justice and the pursuit of
goodness.[51]
His attempts to improve the Athenians' sense of justice
may have been the cause of his execution.
According
to Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the
"gadfly" of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon
asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone were
wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded that no-one was
wiser. Socrates believed the Oracle's response was a
paradox, because he believed he possessed no wisdom
whatsoever. He proceeded to test the riddle by
approaching men considered wise by the people of
Athens—statesmen, poets, and artisans—in order to refute
the Oracle's pronouncement. Questioning them, however,
Socrates concluded: while each man thought he knew a
great deal and was wise, in fact they knew very little
and were not wise at all. Socrates realized the Oracle
was correct; while so-called wise men thought themselves
wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not wise
at all, which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one
since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance.
Socrates' paradoxical wisdom made the prominent
Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning
them against him and leading to accusations of
wrongdoing. Socrates defended his role as a gadfly until
the end: at his trial, when Socrates was asked to
propose his own punishment, he suggested a wage paid by
the government and free dinners for the rest of his life
instead, to finance the time he spent as Athens'
benefactor.[52]
He was, nevertheless, found guilty of both corrupting
the minds of the youth of Athens and of impiety ("not believing in the
gods of the state"),[53]
and subsequently sentenced to death by drinking a
mixture containing poison hemlock.[54][55][56][57]
Xenophon
and Plato agree that Socrates had an opportunity to
escape, as his followers were able to bribe the prison
guards. There have been several suggestions offered as
reasons why he chose to stay:
- He
believed such a flight would indicate a fear of death,
which he believed no true philosopher has.
- If he
fled Athens his teaching would fare no better in
another country, as he would continue questioning all
he met and undoubtedly incur their displeasure.
- Having
knowingly agreed to live under the city's laws, he
implicitly subjected himself to the possibility of
being accused of crimes by its citizens and judged
guilty by its jury. To do otherwise would have caused
him to break his "social contract" with
the state, and so harm the state, an unprincipled act.
- If he
escaped at the instigation of his friends, then his
friends would become liable in law.[58]
The full
reasoning behind his refusal to flee is the main subject
of the Crito.[59]
Socrates'
death is described at the end of Plato's Phaedo. Socrates turned down
Crito's pleas to attempt an escape from prison. After
drinking the poison, he was instructed to walk around
until his legs felt numb. After he lay down, the man who
administered the poison pinched his foot; Socrates could
no longer feel his legs. The numbness slowly crept up
his body until it reached his heart. Shortly before his
death, Socrates speaks his last words to Crito: "Crito,
we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don't forget
to pay the debt."
Asclepius
was the Greek god for curing illness, and it is likely
Socrates' last words meant that death is the cure—and
freedom, of the soul from the body. Additionally, in Why
Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, Robin
Waterfield adds another interpretation of Socrates' last
words. He suggests that Socrates was a voluntary
scapegoat; his death was the purifying remedy for
Athens' misfortunes. In this view, the token of
appreciation for Asclepius would represent a cure for
Athens' ailments.[51]
Philosophy
Socratic
method
Perhaps his
most important contribution to Western thought is his dialectic method of inquiry,
known as the Socratic method or method of "elenchus",
which he largely applied to the examination of key moral
concepts such as the Good and Justice. It was first described by
Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. To solve a
problem, it would be broken down into a series of
questions, the answers to which gradually distill the
answer a person would seek. The influence of this
approach is most strongly felt today in the use of the scientific method, in
which hypothesis is the first stage.
The development and practice of this method is one of
Socrates' most enduring contributions, and is a key
factor in earning his mantle as the father of political philosophy,
ethics or moral philosophy, and as
a figurehead of all the central themes in Western philosophy.
To
illustrate the use of the Socratic method, a series of questions are posed to help a
person or group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their
knowledge. The Socratic method is a negative
method of hypothesis elimination, in that
better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and
eliminating those that lead to contradictions. It was
designed to force one to examine one's own beliefs and
the validity of such beliefs.
An
alternative interpretation of the dialectic is that it
is a method for direct perception of the Form of the
Good. Philosopher Karl Popper describes the
dialectic as "the art of intellectual intuition, of
visualising the divine originals, the Forms or Ideas, of
unveiling the Great Mystery behind the common man's
everyday world of appearances."[60]
In a similar vein, French philosopher Pierre Hadot suggests that
the dialogues are a type of spiritual exercise. Hadot
writes that "in Plato's view, every dialectical
exercise, precisely because it is an exercise of pure
thought, subject to the demands of the Logos, turns the soul away from the
sensible world, and allows it to convert itself towards
the Good."[61]
Philosophical
beliefs
The beliefs
of Socrates, as distinct from those of Plato, are
difficult to discern. Little in the way of concrete
evidence exists to demarcate the two. The lengthy
presentation of ideas given in most of the dialogues may
be the ideas of Socrates himself, but which have been
subsequently deformed or changed by Plato, and some
scholars think Plato so adapted the Socratic style as to
make the literary character and the philosopher himself
impossible to distinguish. Others argue that he did have
his own theories and beliefs.[62]
There is a degree of controversy inherent in the
identifying of what these might have been, owing to the
difficulty of separating Socrates from Plato and the
difficulty of interpreting even the dramatic writings
concerning Socrates. Consequently, distinguishing the
philosophical beliefs of Socrates from those of Plato
and Xenophon has not proven easy, so it must be
remembered that what is attributed to Socrates might
actually be more the specific concerns of these two
thinkers instead.
The matter
is complicated because the historical Socrates seems to
have been notorious for asking questions but not
answering, claiming to lack wisdom concerning the
subjects about which he questioned others.[63]
If anything
in general can be said about the philosophical beliefs
of Socrates, it is that he was morally, intellectually,
and politically at odds with many of his fellow
Athenians. When he is on trial for heresy and corrupting
the minds of the youth of Athens, he uses his method of
elenchos to demonstrate to the jurors that their
moral values are wrong-headed. He tells them they are
concerned with their families, careers, and political
responsibilities when they ought to be worried about the
"welfare of their souls". Socrates' assertion that the
gods had singled him out as a divine emissary seemed to
provoke irritation, if not outright ridicule. Socrates
also questioned the Sophistic doctrine that arete
(virtue) can be taught. He liked to observe that
successful fathers (such as the prominent military
general Pericles) did not produce sons of
their own quality. Socrates argued that moral excellence
was more a matter of divine bequest than parental
nurture. This belief may have contributed to his lack of
anxiety about the future of his own sons.
Also,
according to A. A. Long, "There should be no doubt that,
despite his claim to know only that he knew nothing,
Socrates had strong beliefs about the divine", and,
citing Xenophon's Memorabilia, 1.4, 4.3,:
According
to Xenophon, he was a teleologist who held that god
arranges everything for the best.[64]
Socrates
frequently says his ideas are not his own, but his
teachers'. He mentions several influences: Prodicus the rhetor and Anaxagoras the philosopher.
Perhaps surprisingly, Socrates claims to have been
deeply influenced by two women besides his mother: he
says that Diotima (c.f. Plato's
Symposium), a
witch and priestess from Mantinea,
taught him all he knows about eros,
or love; and that Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, taught him the art of
rhetoric.[65]
John Burnet
argued that his principal teacher was the Anaxagorean Archelaus but his
ideas were as Plato described them; Eric A. Havelock, on the
other hand, considered Socrates' association with the
Anaxagoreans to be evidence of Plato's philosophical
separation from Socrates.
Socratic
paradoxes
Many of the
beliefs traditionally attributed to the historical
Socrates have been characterized as "paradoxical"
because they seem to conflict with common sense. The
following are among the so-called Socratic paradoxes:[66]
- No one
desires evil.
- No one
errs or does wrong willingly or knowingly.
- Virtue—all
virtue—is knowledge.
- Virtue
is sufficient for happiness.
The term, "Socratic
paradox" can also refer to a self-referential paradox, originating in Socrates'
utterance, "what I do not know I do not think I know",[67]
often paraphrased as "I know that I know
nothing."
Knowledge
The
statement "I know that I know
nothing" is often attributed to Socrates, based on
a statement in Plato's Apology.[68]
The conventional interpretation of this is that
Socrates' wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own
ignorance. Socrates considered virtuousness to require
or consist of phronēsis, "thought,
sense, judgement, practical wisdom, [and] prudence."[69][70]
Therefore, he believed that wrongdoing and behaviour
that was not virtuous resulted from ignorance, and that
those who did wrong knew no better.[71]
The one
thing Socrates claimed to have knowledge of was "the art
of love" (ta erôtikê). This assertion seems to be
associated with the word erôtan, which means to
ask questions. Therefore, Socrates is claiming to know
about the art of love, insofar as he knows how to ask
questions.[72][73]
The only
time he actually claimed to be wise was within Apology,
in which he says he is wise "in the limited sense of
having human wisdom".[74]
It is debatable whether Socrates believed humans (as
opposed to gods like Apollo) could actually become wise.
On the one hand, he drew a clear line between human
ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the other, Plato's Symposium
(Diotima's Speech) and Republic (Allegory of the
Cave) describe a method for ascending to wisdom.
In Plato's
Theaetetus (150a), Socrates compares his
treatment of the young people who come to him for
philosophical advice to the way midwives treat their
patients, and the way matrimonial matchmakers act. He
says that he himself is a true matchmaker (προμνηστικός
promnestikós) in that he matches the young man to
the best philosopher for his particular mind. However,
he carefully distinguishes himself from a panderer
(προᾰγωγός proagogos) or procurer. This
distinction is echoed in Xenophon's Symposium
(3.20), when Socrates jokes about his certainty of being
able to make a fortune, if he chose to practice the art
of pandering. For his part as a philosophical
interlocutor, he leads his respondent to a clearer
conception of wisdom, although he claims he is not
himself a teacher (Apology). His role, he claims,
is more properly to be understood as analogous to a midwife (μαῖα maia).[75][76]
In the Theaetetus,
Socrates explains that he is himself barren of theories,
but knows how to bring the theories of others to birth
and determine whether they are worthy or mere "wind eggs" (ἀνεμιαῖον anemiaion).
Perhaps significantly, he points out that midwives are
barren due to age, and women who have never given birth
are unable to become midwives; they would have no
experience or knowledge of birth and would be unable to
separate the worthy infants from those that should be
left on the hillside to be exposed. To judge this, the
midwife must have experience and knowledge of what she
is judging.[77][78]
Virtue
Bust of Socrates in the Palermo
Archaeological Museum.
Socrates
believed the best way for people to live was to focus on
the pursuit of virtue rather than the pursuit, for
instance, of material wealth.[79]
He always invited others to try to concentrate more on
friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates
felt this was the best way for people to grow together
as a populace.[80]
His actions lived up to this standard: in the end,
Socrates accepted his death sentence when most thought
he would simply leave Athens, as he felt he could not
run away from or go against the will of his community;
as mentioned above, his reputation for valor on the
battlefield was without reproach.
The idea
that there are certain virtues formed a common thread in
Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most
important qualities for a person to have, foremost of
which were the philosophical or intellectual virtues.
Socrates stressed that "the
unexamined life is not worth living [and] ethical
virtue is the only thing that matters."[81]
Politics
It is
argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world
only the wise man can understand",[82]
making the philosopher the only type of person suitable
to govern others. In Plato's dialogue the Republic,
Socrates openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during
his adult life. It was not only Athenian democracy:
Socrates found short of ideal any government that did
not conform to his presentation of a perfect regime led
by philosophers, and Athenian government was far from
that. It is, however, possible that the Socrates of
Plato's Republic is colored by Plato's own
views. During the last years of Socrates' life, Athens
was in continual flux due to political upheaval.
Democracy was at last overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants, led by
Plato's relative, Critias, who had once been a
student and friend of Socrates. The Tyrants ruled for
about a year before the Athenian democracy was
reinstated, at which point it declared an amnesty for all recent events.
Socrates'
opposition to democracy is often denied, and the
question is one of the biggest philosophical debates
when trying to determine exactly what Socrates believed.
The strongest argument of those who claim Socrates did
not actually believe in the idea of philosopher kings is
that the view is expressed no earlier than Plato's Republic,
which is widely considered one of Plato's "Middle"
dialogues and not representative of the historical
Socrates' views. Furthermore, according to Plato's Apology
of Socrates, an "early" dialogue, Socrates refused
to pursue conventional politics; he often stated he
could not look into other's matters or tell people how
to live their lives when he did not yet understand how
to live his own. He believed he was a philosopher
engaged in the pursuit of Truth, and did not claim to
know it fully. Socrates' acceptance of his death
sentence after his conviction can also be seen to
support this view. It is often claimed much of the
anti-democratic leanings are from Plato, who was never
able to overcome his disgust at what was done to his
teacher. In any case, it is clear Socrates thought the
rule of the Thirty Tyrants was also objectionable; when
called before them to assist in the arrest of a fellow
Athenian, Socrates refused and narrowly escaped death
before the Tyrants were overthrown. He did, however,
fulfill his duty to serve as Prytanis
when a trial of a group of Generals who presided over a
disastrous naval campaign were judged; even then, he
maintained an uncompromising attitude, being one of
those who refused to proceed in a manner not supported
by the laws, despite intense pressure.[83]
Judging by his actions, he considered the rule of the
Thirty Tyrants less legitimate than the Democratic
Senate that sentenced him to death.
Socrates'
apparent respect for democracy is one of the themes
emphasized in the 2008 play Socrates
on Trial by Andrew David Irvine.
Irvine argues that it was because of his loyalty to
Athenian democracy that Socrates was willing to accept
the verdict of his fellow citizens. As Irvine puts it,
"During a time of war and great social and intellectual
upheaval, Socrates felt compelled to express his views
openly, regardless of the consequences. As a result, he
is remembered today, not only for his sharp wit and high
ethical standards, but also for his loyalty to the view
that in a democracy the best way for a man to serve
himself, his friends, and his city—even during times of
war—is by being loyal to, and by speaking publicly
about, the truth."[84]
Covertness
In the
Dialogues of Plato, though Socrates sometimes seems to
support a mystical
side, discussing reincarnation and the mystery religions,
this is generally attributed to Plato.[85]
Regardless, this view of Socrates cannot be dismissed
out of hand, as we cannot be sure of the differences
between the views of Plato and Socrates; in addition,
there seem to be some corollaries in the works of
Xenophon. In the culmination of the philosophic path as
discussed in Plato's Symposium, one comes to the
Sea of Beauty or to the
sight of "the beautiful itself" (211C); only then can
one become wise. (In the Symposium, Socrates
credits his speech on the philosophic path to his
teacher, the priestess Diotima, who is not
even sure if Socrates is capable of reaching the highest
mysteries.) In the Meno, he refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries,
telling Meno he would understand Socrates' answers
better if only he could stay for the initiations next
week. Further confusions result from the nature of these
sources, insofar as the Platonic Dialogues are arguably
the work of an artist-philosopher, whose meaning does
not volunteer itself to the passive reader nor again the
lifelong scholar. According to Olympiodorus the
Younger in his Life of Plato,[86]
Plato himself "received instruction from the writers of
tragedy" before taking up the study of philosophy. His
works are, indeed, dialogues; Plato's choice of this,
the medium of Sophocles, Euripides, and the fictions of
theatre, may reflect the ever-interpretable nature of
his writings, as he has been called a "dramatist of
reason". What is more, the first word of nearly all
Plato's works is a significant term for that respective
dialogue, and is used with its many connotations in
mind. Finally, the Phaedrus and the Symposium
each allude to Socrates' coy delivery of philosophic
truths in conversation; the Socrates of the Phaedrus
goes so far as to demand such dissembling and mystery in
all writing. The covertness we often find in Plato,
appearing here and there couched in some enigmatic use
of symbol and/or irony, may be at odds with the
mysticism Plato's Socrates expounds in some other
dialogues. These indirect methods may fail to satisfy
some readers.
Perhaps the
most interesting facet of this is Socrates' reliance on
what the Greeks called his "daimōnic
sign", an averting (ἀποτρεπτικός apotreptikos)
inner voice Socrates heard only when he was about to
make a mistake. It was this sign that prevented
Socrates from entering into politics. In the Phaedrus,
we are told Socrates considered this to be a form of
"divine madness", the sort of insanity that is a gift from the
gods and gives us poetry, mysticism, love,
and even philosophy itself. Alternately,
the sign is often taken to be what we would call
"intuition"; however, Socrates' characterization of the
phenomenon as daimōnic may suggest that its
origin is divine, mysterious, and independent of his own
thoughts. Today, such a voice would be classified under
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders as a command
hallucination.[87]
Satirical
playwrights
He was
prominently lampooned in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds, produced when
Socrates was in his mid-forties; he said at his trial
(according to Plato) that the laughter of the theater was a
harder task to answer than the arguments of his
accusers. Søren Kierkegaard
believed this play was a more accurate representation of
Socrates than those of his students. In the play,
Socrates is ridiculed for his dirtiness, which is
associated with the Laconizing
fad; also in plays by Callias,
Eupolis, and Telecleides. Other comic poets
who lampooned Socrates include Mnesimachus
and Ameipsias. In all of these,
Socrates and the Sophists were criticized for "the
moral dangers inherent in contemporary thought and
literature".
Prose sources
Plato,
Xenophon, and Aristotle are the main sources for the
historical Socrates; however, Xenophon and Plato were
students of Socrates, and they may idealize him;
however, they wrote the only continuous descriptions of
Socrates that have come down to us in their complete
form. Aristotle refers frequently, but in passing, to
Socrates in his writings. Almost all of Plato's works
center on Socrates. However, Plato's later works appear
to be more his own philosophy put into the mouth of his
mentor.
The
Socratic dialogues
The Socratic
Dialogues are a series of dialogues written by Plato and
Xenophon in the form of discussions between Socrates and
other persons of his time, or as discussions between
Socrates' followers over his concepts. Plato's Phaedo is an example of this
latter category. Although his Apology is a
monologue delivered by Socrates, it is usually grouped
with the Dialogues.
The Apology
professes to be a record of the actual speech Socrates
delivered in his own defense at the trial. In the
Athenian jury system, an "apology" is composed of three
parts: a speech, followed by a counter-assessment, then
some final words. "Apology" is a transliteration, not a translation, of the Greek apologia,
meaning "defense"; in this sense it is not apologetic
according to our contemporary use of the term.
Plato
generally does not place his own ideas in the mouth of a
specific speaker; he lets ideas emerge via the Socratic
Method, under the guidance of Socrates. Most of
the dialogues present Socrates applying this method to
some extent, but nowhere as completely as in the Euthyphro. In this
dialogue, Socrates and Euthyphro go through
several iterations of refining the answer to Socrates'
question, "...What is the pious, and what the impious?"
In Plato's
Dialogues, learning appears as a process of remembering.
The soul, before its incarnation in the
body, was in the realm of Ideas
(very similar to the Platonic "Forms"). There, it saw
things the way they truly are, rather than the pale
shadows or copies we experience on earth. By a process
of questioning, the soul can be brought to remember the
ideas in their pure form, thus bringing wisdom.[88]
Especially
for Plato's writings referring to Socrates, it is not
always clear which ideas brought forward by Socrates (or
his friends) actually belonged to Socrates and which of
these may have been new additions or elaborations by
Plato – this is known as the Socratic
Problem. Generally, the early works of Plato are
considered to be close to the spirit of Socrates,
whereas the later works – including Phaedo and Republic –
are considered to be possibly products of Plato's
elaborations.[89]
Legacy
Immediate
influence
Immediately,
the students of Socrates set to work both on exercising
their perceptions of his teachings in politics and also
on developing many new philosophical schools of thought.
Some of Athens' controversial and anti-democratic tyrants were contemporary or
posthumous students of Socrates including Alcibiades and Critias. Critias' cousin Plato
would go on to found the Academy in 385 BC, which gained so
much renown that "Academy" became the standard word for
educational institutions in later European languages
such as English, French, and Italian.[90]
Plato's protege, another important figure of the
Classical era, Aristotle went on to tutor Alexander the Great
and also to found his own school in 335 BC—the Lyceum—whose name also now means an
educational institution.[91]
While
"Socrates dealt with moral matters and took no notice at
all of nature in general",[92]
in his Dialogues, Plato would emphasize mathematics with
metaphysical overtones mirroring that of Pythagoras – the former
who would dominate Western thought well into the Renaissance. Aristotle himself
was as much of a philosopher as he was a scientist with
extensive work in the fields of biology and physics.
Socratic
thought which challenged conventions, especially in
stressing a simplistic way of living, became divorced
from Plato's more detached and philosophical pursuits.
This idea was inherited by one of Socrates' older
students, Antisthenes, who became the
originator of another philosophy in the years after
Socrates' death: Cynicism. The idea
of asceticism being hand in hand
with an ethical life or one with piety, ignored by Plato
and Aristotle and somewhat dealt with by the Cynics,
formed the core of another philosophy in 281 BC – Stoicism when Zeno of Citium would
discover Socrates' works and then learn from Crates, a Cynic
philosopher.[93]
Later
historical influence
While some
of the later contributions of Socrates to Hellenistic
Era culture and philosophy as well as the Roman Era
have been lost to time, his teachings began a resurgence
in both medieval Europe and the Islamic
Middle East alongside those of Aristotle and
Stoicism. Socrates is mentioned in the dialogue Kuzari by Jewish philosopher and
rabbi Yehuda
Halevi in which a Jew instructs the Khazar king
about Judaism.[94]
Al-Kindi, a well-known Arabic
philosopher, introduced and tried to reconcile Socrates
and Hellenistic philosophy to an Islamic audience,[95]
referring to him by the name 'Suqrat'.
Socrates'
stature in Western philosophy returned in full force
with the Renaissance and the Age of Reason in Europe
when political theory began to resurface under those
like Locke and Hobbes.[96]
Voltaire even went so far as to
write a satirical
play about the Trial of Socrates. There
were a number of paintings about his life including Socrates
Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure
by Jean-Baptiste Regnault
and The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David in
the later 18th century.
To this
day, the Socratic
Method is still used in classroom and law school
discourse to expose underlying issues in both subject
and the speaker. He has been recognized with accolades
ranging from frequent mentions in pop culture (such as
the movie Bill
& Ted's Excellent Adventure and a Greek
rock band called Socrates Drank the
Conium) to numerous busts in academic institutions
in recognition of his contribution to education.
Over the
past century, numerous plays about Socrates have also
focused on Socrates' life and influence. One of the most
recent has been Socrates on Trial,
a play based on Aristophanes' Clouds and Plato's
Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, all
adapted for modern performance.
Criticism
Evaluation
of and reaction to Socrates has been undertaken by both
historians and philosophers from the time of his death
to the present day with a multitude of conclusions and
perspectives. Although he was not directly prosecuted
for his connection to Critias, leader of the
Spartan-backed Thirty Tyrants, and "showed
considerable personal courage in refusing to submit to
[them]", he was seen by some as a figure who mentored
oligarchs who became abusive tyrants, and undermined
Athenian democracy. The Sophistic movement that he
railed at in life survived him, but by the 3rd century
BC, was rapidly overtaken by the many philosophical
schools of thought that Socrates influenced.[97]
Socrates'
death is considered iconic and his status as a martyr of
philosophy overshadows most contemporary and posthumous
criticism. However, Xenophon mentions Socrates'
"arrogance" and that he was "an expert in the art of
pimping" or "self-presentation".[98]
Direct criticism of Socrates the man almost disappears
after this time, but there is a noticeable preference
for Plato or Aristotle over the elements of Socratic
philosophy distinct from those of his students, even
into the Middle Ages.
Some modern
scholarship holds that, with so much of his own thought
obscured and possibly altered by Plato, it is impossible
to gain a clear picture of Socrates amid all the
contradictory evidence. That both Cynicism and Stoicism, which carried heavy
influence from Socratic thought, were unlike or even
contrary to Platonism further illustrates
this. The ambiguity and lack of reliability serves as
the modern basis of criticism—that it is nearly
impossible to know the real Socrates. Some controversy
also exists about Socrates' attitude towards homosexuality[99]
and as to whether or not he believed in the Olympian
gods, was monotheistic, or held some other
religious viewpoint.[100]
However, it is still commonly taught and held with
little exception that Socrates is the progenitor of
subsequent Western philosophy, to the point that
philosophers before him are referred to as pre-Socratic.
In literature
See also
Notes
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Socrates".
Encyclopædia Britannica (11th
ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- Jones,
Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter,
eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary.
17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.
- Kofman, Sarah (1998). Socrates:
Fictions of a Philosopher. p. 34. ISBN 0-8014-3551-X.
- Roberson, C.
- Ethics
for Criminal Justice Professionals (p.24) CRC
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[Retrieved 2015-04-16]
- A. Rubel, M.
Vickers. Fear
and Loathing in Ancient Athens: Religion and
Politics During the Peloponnesian War.
Routledge, 11 Sep 2014. ISBN 1317544803
[Retrieved 2015-04-17].
- Dorion,
Louis-André. The
Rise and Fall of the Socratic Problem pp. 1-23
(The Cambridge Companion to Socrates).
Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CCOL9780521833424.001.
ISBN 9780521833424. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
- May, H. (2000). On
Socrates. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning,.
p. 20.
- catalogue
of Harvard University Press - Xenophon Volume IV[Retrieved
2015-3-26]
- Kahn, CH', Plato
and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use
of a Literary Form, Cambridge University
Press, 1998, p. xvii.
- Many other
writers added to the fashion of Socratic dialogues
(called Sőkratikoi logoi) at the time. In
addition to Plato and Xenophon, each of the
following is credited by some source as having added
to the genre: Aeschines of
Sphettus, Antisthenes, Aristippus, Bryson, Cebes,
Crito, Euclid of Megara, and
Phaedo. It is unlikely Plato was the first in this
field (Vlastos, p. 52).
-
Morrison,
D.R. The
Cambridge Companion to Socrates (p.xiv).
Cambridge University Press, 2011 ISBN
0521833426.
Retrieved 2015-04-16.
- Nails,
D. Socrates:Socrates's
strangeness. The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.).
Retrieved 2015-04-16.(ed. first source for <
ugly >)
- CH
Kahn - Plato
and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use
of a Literary Form (p.75) Cambridge University
Press, 4 Jun 1998 ISBN 0521648300
[Retrieved 2015-04-16]
- Cohen, M., Philosophical
Tales: Being an Alternative History Revealing
the Characters, the Plots, and the Hidden Scenes
That Make Up the True Story of Philosophy,
John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p. 5, ISBN
1-4051-4037-2.
- See also
R.D'A.Ward, Sokrátis : Soul Scientist,
York : Aretí Publications, 2013
- D
Nails - Agora,
Academy, and the Conduct of Philosophy (p.9)
Springer Science & Business Media, 31 Jul 1995 ISBN 0792335430
[Retrieved 2015-04-16]
- Ahbel-Rappe,
S., - Socrates:
A Guide for the Perplexed (p.2 & Note 10 on
p.157-8) A&C Black, 30 Aug 2009 [Retrieved
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Bett,
R. A
Companion to Socrates (p.299-30). John
Wiley & Sons, 11 May 2009 ISBN
1405192607.
Retrieved 2015-04-17.(ed. a translation of one
fragment reads - "But from them the sculptor,
blatherer on the lawful, turned away. Spellbinder of
the Greeks, who made them precise in language.
Sneerer trained by rhetoroticians, sub-Attic
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- CS. Celenza,
Dr.Phil. (2001), - Angelo
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[Retrieved 2015-04-17]
- Ong, pp.
78–79.
- PJ.
King - One
Hundred Philosophers (p.23) Zebra, 2006 ISBN 1770220011
[Retrieved 2015-04-16]
- G.W.F.
Hegel (trans. Frances H. Simon), Lectures
on History of Philosophy
- Nails, D - "Socrates"
- A Chronology of the historical Socrates in the
context of Athenian history and the dramatic dates
of Plato's dialogues The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.)[Retrieved 2015-04-17]
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Howatson,
M.C. (2013). The
Oxford Companion to Classical Literature
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sculptor, Socrates of Thebes, mentioned in
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2: "Elenchus", Ch.
3: "Elenchus: Direct and Indirect"
- Taylor,
C.C.W., Hare, R.M. & Barnes, J. (1998). Greek
Philosophers – Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle, Oxford University Press, NY.
- Taylor,
C.C.W. (2001). Socrates: A very short
introduction. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
- Ward,
R.D'A. (2013) Sokrátis : Soul Scientist,
York, UK : Aretí Publications.
External links
3a. Criticisms
of Socratic thought
Criticisms of Socratic thought is an article about how
philosophers and thinkers
were critical of Socratic thought.
Socrates
had detractors situated within the early Hellenistic period.[1]
Non-adherents
to Socratic thought
Peripatetics
Aristoxenus accused Socrates
of bigamy as did other Peripatetics
(Morrison); Callisthenes, Demetrius of Phalerum,
Satirus,
and Hieronymus (Long). [2][3][4]
Aristoxenus
Aristoxenus
of Tarentum, during the latter parts of the fourth
century B.C., wrote a polemic Life of Socrates.
According to Aristoxenus, Socrates was an individual
who was uneducated, ignorant (uneducated and
ignorant are perhaps the same thing in the modern
reading) and also he exhibited licentiousness,
and was "guilty of violent anger and shameful
dissoluteness", and undisciplined. [4][5][6][7]
He went
so far as to state of Socrates irascibility, to
produce within him behaviour outside of something
which was societally acceptable i.e. indecorum
(via Baron).[8]
A person
named Spintharus, who was Aristoxenus' father, or
teacher (Wehrli), apparently claimed Socrates was not
always able to control his emotions. In respect to
this as a reliable disclosure on the nature of
Socrates, he is thought at least to have at sometime
associated himself with Socrates, if this is the case,
then presumably as a student of his. [9][10][11][12]
Opinion
on Aristoxenus
Mansfield
(1994) thinks him to be "unkind", and to have written
the work to discredit Socrates' thinking. Fitton and
Bicknell consider Aristoxenus to have found some
elements of truth in his account. [13][9]
Epicurean
Criticisms
were established on the perception of differences as
to the role of the philosopher and how he should
provide lecture to pupils. Persons of this school of thought including
Epicurus and Metrodorus, Idomeneus, Zeno of Sidon and Philodemus, Diogenes of Oenoanda
all represented figures of history who were apparently
hostile to the teachings of Socrates. Colotes, who was a follower of
Epicurus during the 3rd century B.C., considered
Socrates famous claim to wisdom by
ignorance as hypocritical, Socrates as an
"imposter", and an individual who said one thing but
did another i.e. he was not true to his words
(Sedley). [3][14][15][16]
Aristophanes
His work,
The Clouds, is a critique of
Socrates.[17]
In one
view of Aristophanes, there is the
preponsity to find him derogatory and slanderous of
Socrates. (Scott).[18]
An
alternative view is of the poet in his
characterisation of Socrates in his play, is of a
person motivated not for an assassination of the
character of Socrates, but instead to constructively
criticise Socrates, and to communicate a kind of
warning to the philosopher (Benardete).[19]
Plato' Symposium treats
the criticisms of Aristophanes.[20]
Polycrates
Polycrates wrote an
oppositional work c.393 B.C. entitled The
Prosecution of Socrates or, alternatively
titled, The Accusation of Socrates. The work
is lost, and is known primarily through the later
transmission of Isocrates in his work Busiris.
The work is thought to have considered Socrates as
being anti-democratic, according to Wilson.[5][21]
Plato
Anne-Marie
Bowery thinks Plato was critical.[18][22]
Parmenides
Parmenides
criticised Socrates' doctorine of theory of forms.[23]
Callicles
In Gorgias, the
figure Callicles, is contrary to Socrates'
position.Nothing biographical is known of Callicles.[24][25]
Aristotle
He
criticised the ideas put forward by Socrates within
the Republic, which as a whole are now known as
communism. While Socrates champions unity in the city,
Aristotle thinks diversity is the correct choice.[26][27]
Nietzsche
Nietzsche
apparently rejected the ideas of Socrates to some
extent, in-as-much, he thought Socrates "a villain"
(Kaufmann), and as being dogmatic (Nehamas).[28][29]
References
- A.A.Long
(D.R. Morrison). The Cambridge Companion to
Socrates (p.368). Cambridge University
Press, 2011.
-
D.R.
Morrison (Professor of Philosophy and Classical
Studies at Rice University. He has also been a
Rockefeller Fellow at the University Center for
Human Values at Princeton University c.2011). The
Cambridge Companion to Socrates (p.368).
Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 0521833426. Retrieved 2015-04-07.
-
A.
A. Long - Irving Stone Professor of Literature
in the Department of Classics at the University
of California, Berkeley. Stoic
Studies. University of California
Press, 1996. ISBN 0520229746. Retrieved 2015-04-07.
- P
Liddel, P Low. Inscriptions
and Their Uses in Greek and Latin Literature
(p.80). Oxford University Press, 26
Sep 2013. ISBN 0199665745. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
- E.R.
Wilson. The
Death of Socrates (p.91-2). Harvard
University Press, 2007. ISBN 0674026837. Retrieved 2015-04-30.
- Xenophon (Translated by Sir William
Smith, Connop Thirlwall, George Bomford Wheeler), Raphael Kühner, Gustav Friedrich Wiggers,
Friedrich
Schleiermacher - Xenophon's
Memorabilia of Socrates: With English Notes,
Critical and Explanatory, the Prolegomena of
Kühner, Wiggers' Life of Socrates, Etc (p.374)
Harper & brothers, 1848 [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- S Gibson -
Aristoxenus
of Tarentum and the Birth of Musicology (p.126)
Routledge, 8 Apr 2014 ISBN
1135877475 [Retrieved 2015-05-01]
- C.A. Baron
- Timaeus
of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography
(p.115) Cambridge University Press, 2013 ISBN
1107000971 [Retrieved 2015-5-01]
- C.A.Huffman.
Aristoxenus
of Tarentum: Discussion (p.211, 252, 254).
Transaction Publishers, 2012. ISBN 1412843014. Retrieved 2015-04-30.(ed. p.252 accessed
2015-05-06)
-
T
Hägg. The
Art of Biography in Antiquity.
Cambridge University Press, 5 Apr 2012. ISBN 110701669X. Retrieved 2015-05-01.(ed. < father >)
- P.S.
Horky - Plato
and Pythagoreanism (p.42) Oxford University
Press, 19 Sep 2013 ISBN
0199898227 [Retrieved 2015-05-02]("the Suda identifies both Spintharus
and Mnesius as Aristoxenus father....")
- A.D.
Winspear - The
Genesis of Plato's Thought: Second Edition
(p.80) Transaction Publishers, 31 Dec 2012
(reprint) ISBN
1412844622 [Retrieved 2015-05-04]
- J
Mansfeld - Prolegomena:
Questions to Be Settled Before the Study of an
Author Or a Text (p.184) BRILL, 1994 ISBN
9004100849 [Retrieved 2015-04-01]
- M.T.Riley.
The
Epicurean Criticism of Socrates (PDF). reprinted
from PHOENIX - University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
- J
Annas - Ancient
Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction Oxford
University Press, 12 Oct 2000 ISBN
0191578304 [Retrieved 2015-05-01]
- D
Sedley - Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy: Winter 2003
(p.211) Oxford University Press, 15 Oct 2002
ISBN
0199259089 Volume 23 of Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy [Retrieved 2015-05-01]
- Four
Texts on Socrates: Plato's Euthyphro, Apology,
and Crito, and Aristophanes' Clouds (p.30)
(edited by T.G. West, G Starry West) ISBN
0801485746 [Retrieved 2015-3-31]
- GA
Scott. Plato's
Socrates as Educator (p.185,p.186 - Note.17).
SUNY Press, 19 Oct 2000. ISBN 0791447235. Retrieved 2015-04-30.
- Plato,
S Benardete - Plato's
Symposium: A Translation by Seth Benardete with
Commentaries by Allan Bloom and Seth Benardete
(p.104) University of Chicago Press, 1 Feb
2001 (reprint) ISBN
0226042758 [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- M.J.
Lutz. Socrates'
Education to Virtue: Learning the Love of
the Noble (p.57,60,61). SUNY Press,
1998. ISBN 0791436535. Retrieved 2015-04-30.
- J
Bussanich, N.D. Smith - The
Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates (p.311)
A&C Black, 3 Jan 2013 ISBN
1441112847 [Retrieved 2015-05-02](ed. <
The Accusation of Socrates >)
- Anne-Marie
Bowery - Baylor University
[Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- RJ.
Roecklein - Machiavelli
and Epicureanism: An Investigation into the
Origins of Early Modern Political Thought (p.21)
Lexington Books, 5 Oct 2012 ISBN
0739177117 [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- D
Sedley - Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy XXXI: Winter 2006
Oxford University Press, 9 Nov 2006 ISBN
0199204217 Volume 31 of Oxford Studies
in Ancient Philosophy [Retrieved
2015-04-30](< against/contrary >)
- Barney,
Rachel, "Callicles and Thrasymachus" 4.
Callicles on Natural and Conventional Justice
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
[Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- MP.
Nichols - Socrates
and the Political Community: An Ancient Debate
(p.156...) SUNY Press, 1 Jan 1987 ISBN
0887063950 [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- LG.
Rubin - Justice
V. Law in Greek Political Thought (p.48)
Rowman & Littlefield, 1 Jan 1997 ISBN
0847684237 (ed. p.48 - ".... That Aristotle
objects to Socrates' treating the city as an
organic unity is fairly obvious ...") [Retrieved
2015-04-30]
- WA
Kaufmann - Nietzsche,
Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (p.391)
Princeton University Press, 1974 ISBN
0691019835 (ed. "Nietzsche repudiated
Socrates") [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
- A Nehamas -
Nietzsche:
Life as Literature Harvard University Press,
1985 ISBN
0674624262 (p.32 -"...Nietzsche is so
suspicious of Plato and Socrates because he
believes that their approach is essentially
dogmatic") [Retrieved 2015-04-30]
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-----------------------------
4. Plato
(427—347 B.C.E.)
From Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/
Plato is one of the world's
best known and most widely read and studied
philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the
teacher of Aristotle,
and he wrote in the middle of the fourth century
B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily
by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually
the main character in many of Plato's writings, he was
also influenced by Heraclitus,
Parmenides,
and the Pythagoreans.
There are
varying degrees of controversy over which of Plato's
works are authentic, and in what order they were
written, due to their antiquity and the manner of
their preservation through time. Nonetheless, his
earliest works are generally regarded as the most
reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the
character Socrates that we know through these writings
is considered to be one of the greatest of the ancient
philosophers.
Plato's
middle to later works, including his most famous work,
the Republic, are generally regarded as
providing Plato's own philosophy, where the main
character in effect speaks for Plato himself. These
works blend ethics,
political
philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology,
and metaphysics into an interconnected and systematic
philosophy. It is most of all from Plato that we get
the theory of Forms, according to which the world we
know through the senses is only an imitation of the
pure, eternal, and unchanging world of the Forms.
Plato's works also contain the origins of the familiar
complaint that the arts work by inflaming the
passions, and are mere illusions. We also are
introduced to the ideal of "Platonic love:" Plato saw
love as motivated by a longing for the highest Form of
beauty—The Beautiful Itself, and love as the
motivational power through which the highest of
achievements are possible. Because they tended to
distract us into accepting less than our highest
potentials, however, Plato mistrusted and generally
advised against physical expressions of love.
Table of
Contents
- Biography
- Birth
- Family
- Early
Travels and the Founding of the Academy
- Later
Trips to Sicily and Death
- Influences
on Plato
- Heraclitus
- Parmenides
and Zeno
- The
Pythagoreans
- Socrates
- Plato's
Writings
- Plato's
Dialogues and the Historical Socrates
- Dating
Plato's Dialogues
- Transmission
of Plato's Works
- Other
Works Attributed to Plato
- Spuria
- Epigrams
- Dubia
- The Early
Dialogues
- Historical
Accuracy
- Plato's
Characterization of Socrates
- Ethical
Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Psychological
Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Religious
Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Methodological
and Epistemological Positions in the Early
Dialogues
- The Middle
Dialogues
- Differences
between the Early and Middle Dialogues
- The
Theory of Forms
- Immortality
and Reincarnation
- Moral
Psychology
- Critique
of the Arts
- Platonic
Love
- Late
Transitional and Late Dialogues
- Philosophical
Methodology
- Critique
of the Earlier Theory of Forms
- The
Myth of Atlantis
- The
Creation of the Universe
- The
Laws
- References
and Further Reading
- Greek
Texts
- Translations
Into English
- Plato's
Socrates and the Historical Socrates
- Socrates
and Plato's Early Period Dialogues
- General
Books on Plato
1. Biography
a. Birth
It is
widely accepted that Plato, the Athenian philosopher,
was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died at the age of eighty
or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E. These dates, however,
are not entirely certain, for according to Diogenes
Laertius (D.L.), following Apollodorus'
chronology, Plato was born the year Pericles died, was
six years younger than Isocrates, and died at the age
of eighty-four (D.L. 3.2-3.3). If Plato's date of
death is correct in Apollodorus' version, Plato would
have been born in 430 or 431. Diogenes' claim that
Plato was born the year Pericles died would put his
birth in 429. Later (at 3.6), Diogenes says that Plato
was twenty-eight when Socrates was put to death (in
399), which would, again, put his year of birth at
427. In spite of the confusion, the dates of Plato's
life we gave above, which are based upon Eratosthenes'
calculations, have traditionally been accepted as
accurate.
b. Family
Little
can be known about Plato's early life. According to
Diogenes, whose testimony is notoriously unreliable,
Plato's parents were Ariston and Perictione (or
Potone—see D. L. 3.1). Both sides of the family
claimed to trace their ancestry back to Poseidon (D.L.
3.1). Diogenes' report that Plato's birth was the
result of Ariston's rape of Perictione (D.L. 3.1) is a
good example of the unconfirmed gossip in which
Diogenes so often indulges. We can be confident that
Plato also had two older brothers, Glaucon and
Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the same parents
(see D.L. 3.4). (W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of
Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, 10 n. 4 argues
plausibly that Glaucon and Adeimantus were Plato's
older siblings.) After Ariston's death, Plato's mother
married her uncle, Pyrilampes (in Plato's
Charmides, we are told that Pyrilampes was
Charmides' uncle, and Charmides was Plato's mother's
brother), with whom she had another son, Antiphon,
Plato's half-brother (see Plato, Parmenides
126a-b).
Plato
came from one of the wealthiest and most politically
active families in Athens. Their political activities,
however, are not seen as laudable ones by historians.
One of Plato's uncles (Charmides) was a member of the
notorious "Thirty Tyrants," who overthrew the Athenian
democracy in 404 B.C.E. Charmides' own uncle, Critias,
was the leader of the Thirty. Plato's relatives were
not exclusively associated with the oligarchic faction
in Athens, however. His stepfather Pyrilampes was said
to have been a close associate of Pericles, when he
was the leader of the democratic faction.
Plato's
actual given name was apparently Aristocles, after his
grandfather. "Plato" seems to have started as a
nickname (for platos, or "broad"),
perhaps first given to him by his wrestling teacher
for his physique, or for the breadth of his style, or
even the breadth of his forehead (all given in D.L.
3.4). Although the name Aristocles was still given as
Plato's name on one of the two epitaphs on his tomb
(see D.L. 3.43), history knows him as Plato.
c. Early Travels and the Founding of
the Academy
When
Socrates died, Plato left Athens, staying first in
Megara, but then going on to several other places,
including perhaps Cyrene, Italy, Sicily, and even
Egypt. Strabo (17.29) claims that he was shown where
Plato lived when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt. Plato
occasionally mentions Egypt in his works, but not in
ways that reveal much of any consequence (see, for
examples, Phaedrus 274c-275b; Philebus
19b).
Better
evidence may be found for his visits to Italy and
Sicily, especially in the Seventh Letter.
According to the account given there, Plato first went
to Italy and Sicily when he was "about forty" (324a).
While he stayed in Syracuse, he became the instructor
to Dion, brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I.
According to doubtful stories from later antiquity,
Dionysius became annoyed with Plato at some point
during this visit, and arranged to have the
philosopher sold into slavery (Diod. 15.7; Plut.
Dion 5; D.L. 3.19-21).
In any
event, Plato returned to Athens and founded a school,
known as the Academy.
(This is where we get our word, "academic." The
Academy got its name from its location, a grove of
trees sacred to the hero Academus—or Hecademus [see
D.L. 3.7]—a mile or so outside the Athenian walls; the
site can still be visited in modern Athens, but
visitors will find it depressingly void of interesting
monuments or features.) Except for two more trips to
Sicily, the Academy seems to have been Plato's home
base for the remainder of his life.
d. Later Trips to Sicily and Death
The first
of Plato's remaining two Sicilian adventures came
after Dionysius I died and his young son, Dionysius
II, ascended to the throne. His uncle/brother-in-law
Dion persuaded the young tyrant to invite Plato to
come to help him become a philosopher-ruler of the
sort described in the Republic. Although
the philosopher (now in his sixties) was not entirely
persuaded of this possibility (Seventh Letter
328b-c), he agreed to go. This trip, like the last
one, however, did not go well at all. Within months,
the younger Dionysius had Dion sent into exile for
sedition (Seventh Letter 329c, Third
Letter 316c-d), and Plato became effectively
under house arrest as the "personal guest" of the
dictator (Seventh Letter 329c-330b).
Plato
eventually managed to gain the tyrant's permission to
return to Athens (Seventh Letter 338a), and
he and Dion were reunited at the Academy (Plut.
Dion 17). Dionysius agreed that "after the
war" (Seventh Letter 338a; perhaps the
Lucanian War in 365 B.C.E.), he would invite Plato and
Dion back to Syracuse (Third Letter
316e-317a, Seventh Letter 338a-b). Dion
and Plato stayed in Athens for the next four years (c.
365-361 B.C.E.). Dionysius then summoned Plato, but
wished for Dion to wait a while longer. Dion accepted
the condition and encouraged Plato to go immediately
anyway (Third Letter 317a-b, Seventh
Letter 338b-c), but Plato refused the
invitation, much to the consternation of both
Syracusans (Third Letter 317a,
Seventh Letter 338c). Hardly a year had
passed, however, before Dionysius sent a ship, with
one of Plato's Pythagorean friends (Archedemus, an
associate of Archytas—see Seventh Letter
339a-b and next section) on board begging Plato to
return to Syracuse. Partly because of his friend
Dion's enthusiasm for the plan, Plato departed one
more time to Syracuse. Once again, however, things in
Syracuse were not at all to Plato's liking. Dionysius
once again effectively imprisoned Plato in Syracuse,
and the latter was only able to escape again with help
from his Tarentine friends ( Seventh Letter
350a-b).
Dion
subsequently gathered an army of mercenaries and
invaded his own homeland. But his success was
short-lived: he was assassinated and Sicily was
reduced to chaos. Plato, perhaps now completely
disgusted with politics, returned to his beloved
Academy, where he lived out the last thirteen years of
his life. According to Diogenes, Plato was buried at
the school he founded (D.L. 3.41). His grave, however,
has not yet been discovered by archeological
investigations.
2. Influences on Plato
a. Heraclitus
Aristotle
and Diogenes agree that Plato had some early
association with either the philosophy of Heraclitus
of Ephesus, or with one or more of that philosopher's
followers (see Aristotle Metaph. 987a32, D.L.
3.4-3.5). The effects of this influence can perhaps be
seen in the mature Plato's conception of the sensible
world as ceaselessly changing.
b. Parmenides and Zeno
There can
be no doubt that Plato was also strongly influenced by
Parmenides
and Zeno
(both of Elea), in Plato's theory of the Forms, which
are plainly intended to satisfy the Parmenidean
requirement of metaphysical unity and stability in
knowable reality. Parmenides and Zeno also appear as
characters in his dialogue, the Parmenides.
Diogenes Laertius also notes other important
influences:
He
mixed together in his works the arguments of
Heracleitus, the Pythagoreans, and Socrates.
Regarding the sensibles, he borrows from Heraclitus;
regarding the intelligibles, from Pythagoras; and
regarding politics, from Socrates. (D.L. 3.8)
A little
later, Diogenes makes a series of comparisons intended
to show how much Plato owed to the comic poet,
Epicharmus (3.9-3.17).
c. The Pythagoreans
Diogenes
Laertius (3.6) claims that Plato visited several Pythagoreans
in Southern Italy (one of whom, Theodorus, is also
mentioned as a friend to Socrates in Plato's
Theaetetus). In the Seventh Letter,
we learn that Plato was a friend of Archytas of
Tarentum, a well-known Pythagorean statesman and
thinker (see 339d-e), and in the Phaedo,
Plato has Echecrates, another Pythagorean, in the
group around Socrates on his final day in prison.
Plato's Pythagorean influences seem especially evident
in his fascination with mathematics, and in some of
his political ideals (see Plato's
political philosophy), expressed in various ways
in several dialogues.
d. Socrates
Nonetheless,
it is plain that no influence on Plato was greater
than that of Socrates. This is evident not only in
many of the doctrines and arguments we find in Plato's
dialogues, but perhaps most obviously in Plato's
choice of Socrates as the main character in most of
his works. According to the Seventh Letter,
Plato counted Socrates "the justest man alive" (324e).
According to Diogenes Laertius, the respect was mutual
(3.5).
3. Plato's Writings
a. Plato's Dialogues and the
Historical Socrates
Supposedly
possessed of outstanding intellectual and artistic
ability even from his youth, according to Diogenes,
Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but
hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path,
and even burned a tragedy he had hoped to enter in a
dramatic competition (D.L. 3.5). Whether or not any of
these stories is true, there can be no question of
Plato's mastery of dialogue, characterization, and
dramatic context. He may, indeed, have written some
epigrams; of the surviving epigrams attributed to him
in antiquity, some may be genuine.
Plato was
not the only writer of dialogues in which Socrates
appears as a principal character and speaker. Others,
including Alexamenos of Teos (Aristotle Poetics
1447b11; De Poetis fr. 3 Ross [=Rose2
72]), Aeschines (D.L. 2.60-63, 3.36, Plato
Apology 33e), Antisthenes
(D.L. 3.35, 6; Plato, Phaedo 59b; Xenophon,
Memorabilia 2.4.5, 3.2.17), Aristippus
(D.L. 2.65-104, 3.36, Plato Phaedo 59c),
Eucleides (D.L. 2.106-112), Phaedo (D.L. 2.105; Plato,
Phaedo passim), Simon (D.L. 122-124), and
especially Xenophon (see D.L. 2.48-59, 3.34), were
also well-known "Socratics" who composed such works. A
recent study of these, by Charles H. Kahn (1996,
1-35), concludes that the very existence of the
genre—and all of the conflicting images of Socrates we
find given by the various authors—shows that we cannot
trust as historically reliable any of the accounts of
Socrates given in antiquity, including those given by
Plato.
But it is
one thing to claim that Plato was not the only one to
write Socratic dialogues, and quite another to hold
that Plato was only following the rules of some genre
of writings in his own work. Such a claim, at any
rate, is hardly established simply by the existence of
these other writers and their writings. We may still
wish to ask whether Plato's own use of Socrates as his
main character has anything at all to do with the
historical Socrates. The question has led to a number
of seemingly irresolvable scholarly disputes. At least
one important ancient source, Aristotle, suggests that
at least some of the doctrines Plato puts into the
mouth of the "Socrates" of the "early" or "Socrates"
dialogues are the very ones espoused by the historical
Socrates. Because Aristotle has no reason not to be
truthful about this issue, many scholars believe that
his testimony provides a solid basis for
distinguishing the "Socrates" of the "early" dialogues
from the character by that name in Plato's supposedly
later works, whose views and arguments Aristotle
suggests are Plato's own.
b. Dating Plato's Dialogues
One way
to approach this issue has been to find some way to
arrange the dialogues into at least relative dates. It
has frequently been assumed that if we can establish a
relative chronology for when Plato wrote each of the
dialogues, we can provide some objective test for the
claim that Plato represented Socrates more accurately
in the earlier dialogues, and less accurately in the
later dialogues.
In
antiquity, the ordering of Plato's dialogues was given
entirely along thematic lines. The best reports of
these orderings (see Diogenes Laertius' discussion at
3.56-62) included many works whose authenticity is now
either disputed or unanimously rejected. The
uncontroversial internal and external historical
evidence for a chronological ordering is relatively
slight. Aristotle (Politics 2.6.1264b24-27),
Diogenes Laertius (3.37), and Olympiodorus (Prol.
6.24) state that Plato wrote the Laws after
the Republic. Internal references in the Sophist
(217a) and the Statesman (also known as
the Politicus; 257a, 258b) show the Statesman
to come after the Sophist. The Timaeus
(17b-19b) may refer to Republic as coming
before it, and more clearly mentions the Critias
as following it (27a). Similarly, internal references
in the Sophist (216a, 217c) and the Theaetetus
(183e) may be thought to show the intended order
of three dialogues: Parmenides, Theaetetus,
and Sophist. Even so, it does not follow
that these dialogues were actually written in that
order. At Theaetetus 143c, Plato announces
through his characters that he will abandon the
somewhat cumbersome dialogue form that is employed in
his other writings. Since the form does not appear in
a number of other writings, it is reasonable to infer
that those in which it does not appear were written
after the Theaetetus.
Scholars
have sought to augment this fairly scant evidence by
employing different methods of ordering the remaining
dialogues. One such method is that of stylometry, by
which various aspects of Plato's diction in each
dialogue are measured against their uses and
frequencies in other dialogues. Originally done by
laborious study by individuals, stylometry can now be
done more efficiently with assistance by computers.
Another, even more popular, way to sort and group the
dialogues is what is called "content analysis," which
works by finding and enumerating apparent
commonalities or differences in the philosophical
style and content of the various dialogues. Neither of
these general approaches has commanded unanimous
assent among scholars, and it is unlikely that debates
about this topic can ever be put entirely to rest.
Nonetheless, most recent scholarship seems to assume
that Plato's dialogues can be sorted into different
groups, and it is not unusual for books and articles
on the philosophy of Socrates to state that by
"Socrates" they mean to refer to the character in
Plato's "early" or Socratic dialogues, as if this
Socrates was as close to the historical Socrates as we
are likely to get. (We have more to say on this
subject in the next section.) Perhaps the most
thorough examination of this sort can be found in
Gregory Vlastos's, Socrates: Ironist and Moral
Philosopher (Cambridge and Cornell, 1991,
chapters 2-4), where ten significant differences
between the "Socrates" of Plato's "early" dialogues
and the character by that name in the later dialogues
are noted. Our own view of the probable dates and
groups of dialogues, which to some extent combine the
results of stylometry and content analysis, is as
follows (all lists but the last in alphabetical
order):
Early
(All after the death of Socrates, but before Plato's
first trip to Sicily in 387 B.C.E.):
Apology,
Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias,
Hippias Major, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Lysis,
Protagoras, Republic Bk. I.
Early-Transitional
(Either at the end of the early group or at the
beginning of the middle group, c. 387-380 B.C.E.):
Cratylus,
Menexenus, Meno
Middle
(c. 380-360 B.C.E.)
Phaedo,
Republic Bks. II-X, Symposium
Late-Transitional
(Either at the end of the middle group, or the
beginning of the late group, c. 360-355 B.C.E.)
Parmenides,
Theaetetus, Phaedrus
Late
(c. 355-347 B.C.E.; possibly in chronological order)
Sophist,
Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws
c. Transmission of Plato's Works
Except
for the Timaeus, all of Plato's works were
lost to the Western world until medieval times,
preserved only by Moslem scholars in the Middle East.
In 1578 Henri Estienne (whose Latinized name was
Stephanus) published an edition of the dialogues in
which each page of the text is separated into five
sections (labeled a, b, c, d, and e). The standard
style of citation for Platonic texts includes the name
of the text, followed by Stephanus page and section
numbers (e.g. Republic 511d). Scholars
sometimes also add numbers after the Stephanus section
letters, which refer to line numbers within the
Stephanus sections in the standard Greek edition of
the dialogues, the Oxford Classical texts.
4. Other Works Attributed to Plato
a. Spuria
Several
other works, including thirteen letters and eighteen
epigrams, have been attributed to Plato. These other
works are generally called the spuria and
the dubia. The spuria were
collected among the works of Plato but suspected as
frauds even in antiquity. The dubia are
those presumed authentic in later antiquity, but which
have more recently been doubted.
Ten of
the spuria are mentioned by Diogenes
Laertius at 3.62. Five of these are no longer extant:
the Midon or Horse-breeder,
Phaeacians, Chelidon, Seventh Day, and Epimenides.
Five others do exist: the Halcyon,
Axiochus, Demodocus, Eryxias, and Sisyphus.
To the ten Diogenes Laertius lists, we may
uncontroversially add On Justice, On Virtue,
and the Definitions, which was included in
the medieval manuscripts of Plato's work, but not
mentioned in antiquity.
Works
whose authenticity was also doubted in antiquity
include the Second Alcibiades (or Alcibiades
II), Epinomis, Hipparchus, and Rival
Lovers (also known as either Rivals
or Lovers), and these are sometimes defended
as authentic today. If any are of these are authentic,
the Epinomis would be in the late group,
and the others would go with the early or early
transitional groups.
b. Epigrams
Seventeen
or eighteen epigrams (poems appropriate to funerary
monuments or other dedications) are also attributed to
Plato by various ancient authors. Most of these are
almost certainly not by Plato, but some few may be
authentic. Of the ones that could be authentic (Cooper
1997, 1742 names 1, 2, 7, and especially 3 as possibly
authentic), one (1) is a love poem dedicated to a
student of astronomy, perhaps at the Academy, another
(2) appears to be a funerary inscription for that same
student, another (3) is a funerary inscription for
Plato's Syracusan friend, Dion (in which the author
confesses that Dion "maddened my heart with erôs"),
and the last (7) is a love poem to a young woman or
girl. None appear to provide anything of great
philosophical interest.
c. Dubia
The dubia
present special risks to scholars: On the one
hand, any decision not to include them among the
authentic dialogues creates the risk of losing
valuable evidence for Plato's (or perhaps Socrates')
philosophy; on the other hand, any decision to include
them creates the risk of obfuscating the correct view
of Plato's (or Socrates') philosophy, by including
non-Platonic (or non-Socratic) elements within that
philosophy. The dubia include the First
Alcibiades (or Alcibiades I), Minos,
and Theages, all of which, if
authentic, would probably go with the early or early
transitional groups, the Cleitophon, which
might be early, early transitional, or middle, and the
letters, of which the Seventh seems the best
candidate for authenticity. Some scholars have also
suggested the possibility that the Third
may also be genuine. If any are authentic, the letters
would appear to be works of the late period, with the
possible exception of the Thirteenth Letter,
which could be from the middle period.
Nearly
all of the dialogues now accepted as genuine have been
challenged as inauthentic by some scholar or another.
In the 19th Century in particular, scholars often
considered arguments for and against the authenticity
of dialogues whose authenticity is now only rarely
doubted. Of those we listed as authentic, above (in
the early group), only the Hippias Major
continues occasionally to be listed as inauthentic.
The strongest evidence against the authenticity of the
Hippias Major is the fact that it is never
mentioned in any of the ancient sources. However,
relative to how much was actually written in
antiquity, so little now remains that our lack of
ancient references to this dialogue does not seem to
be an adequate reason to doubt its authenticity. In
style and content, it seems to most contemporary
scholars to fit well with the other Platonic
dialogues.
5. The Early Dialogues
a. Historical Accuracy
Although
no one thinks that Plato simply recorded the actual
words or speeches of Socrates verbatim, the argument
has been made that there is nothing in the speeches
Socrates makes in the Apology that he could
have not uttered at the historical trial. At any rate,
it is fairly common for scholars to treat Plato's Apology
as the most reliable of the ancient sources on
the historical Socrates. The other early dialogues are
certainly Plato's own creations. But as we have said,
most scholars treat these as representing more or less
accurately the philosophy and behavior of the
historical Socrates—even if they do not provide
literal historical records of actual Socratic
conversations. Some of the early dialogues include
anachronisms that prove their historical inaccuracy.
It is
possible, of course, that the dialogues are all wholly
Plato's inventions and have nothing at all to do with
the historical Socrates. Contemporary scholars
generally endorse one of the following four views
about the dialogues and their representation of
Socrates:
- The Unitarian
View:
This view, more popular early in the 20th Century
than it is now, holds that there is but a single
philosophy to be found in all of Plato's works (of
any period, if such periods can even be identified
reliably). There is no reason, according to the
Unitarian scholar, ever to talk about "Socratic
philosophy" (at least from anything to be found in
Plato—everything in Plato's dialogues is Platonic
philosophy, according to the Unitarian). One
recent version of this view has been argued by
Charles H. Kahn (1996). Most later, but still
ancient, interpretations of Plato were essentially
Unitarian in their approach. Aristotle, however, was
a notable exception.
- The Literary
Atomist View:
We call this approach the "literary atomist view,"
because those who propose this view treat each
dialogue as a complete literary whole, whose proper
interpretation must be achieved without reference to
any of Plato's other works. Those who endorse this
view reject completely any relevance or validity of
sorting or grouping the dialogues into groups, on
the ground that any such sorting is of no value to
the proper interpretation of any given dialogue. In
this view, too, there is no reason to make any
distinction between "Socratic philosophy" and
"Platonic philosophy." According to the literary
atomist, all philosophy to be found in the works of
Plato should be attributed only to Plato.
- The
Developmentalist View:
According to this view, the most widely held of all
of the interpretative approaches, the differences
between the early and later dialogues represent
developments in Plato's own philosophical and
literary career. These may or may not be related to
his attempting in any of the dialogues to preserve
the memory of the historical Socrates (see approach
4); such differences may only represent changes in
Plato's own philosophical views. Developmentalists
may generally identify the earlier positions or
works as "Socratic" and the later ones "Platonic,"
but may be agnostic about the relationship of the
"Socratic" views and works to the actual historical
Socrates.
- The
Historicist View:
Perhaps the most common of the Developmentalist
positions is the view that the "development"
noticeable between the early and later dialogues may
be attributed to Plato's attempt, in the early
dialogues, to represent the historical Socrates more
or less accurately. Later on, however (perhaps
because of the development of the genre of "Socratic
writings," within which other authors were making no
attempt at historical fidelity), Plato began more
freely to put his own views into the mouth of the
character, "Socrates," in his works. Plato's own
student, Aristotle, seems to have understood the
dialogues in this way.
Now, some
scholars who are skeptical about the entire program of
dating the dialogues into chronological groups, and
who are thus strictly speaking not historicists (see,
for example, Cooper 1997, xii-xvii) nonetheless accept
the view that the "early" works are "Socratic" in tone
and content. With few exceptions, however, scholars
agreed that if we are unable to distinguish any group
of dialogues as early or "Socratic," or even if we can
distinguish a separate set of "Socratic" works but
cannot identify a coherent philosophy within those
works, it makes little sense to talk about "the
philosophy of historical Socrates" at all. There is
just too little (and too little that is at all
interesting) to be found that could reliably be
attributed to Socrates from any other ancient authors.
Any serious philosophical interest in Socrates, then,
must be pursued through study of Plato's early or
"Socratic" dialogues.
b. Plato's Characterization of
Socrates
In the
dialogues generally accepted as early (or "Socratic"),
the main character is always Socrates. Socrates is
represented as extremely agile in question-and-answer,
which has come to be known as "the Socratic method of
teaching," or "the elenchus" (or elenchos,
from the Greek term for refutation), with Socrates
nearly always playing the role as questioner, for he
claimed to have no wisdom of his own to share with
others. Plato's Socrates, in this period, was adept at
reducing even the most difficult and recalcitrant
interlocutors to confusion and self-contradiction. In
the Apology, Socrates explains that the
embarrassment he has thus caused to so many of his
contemporaries is the result of a Delphic oracle given
to Socrates' friend Chaerephon (Apology
21a-23b), according to which no one was wiser than
Socrates. As a result of his attempt to discern the
true meaning of this oracle, Socrates gained a
divinely ordained mission in Athens to expose the
false conceit of wisdom. The embarrassment his
"investigations" have caused to so many of his
contemporaries—which Socrates claims was the root
cause of his being brought up on charges (Apology
23c-24b)—is thus no one's fault but his "victims," for
having chosen to live "the unexamined life" (see 38a).
The way
that Plato's represents Socrates going about his
"mission" in Athens provides a plausible explanation
both of why the Athenians would have brought him to
trial and convicted him in the troubled years after
the end of the Peloponnesian War, and also of why
Socrates was not really guilty of the charges he
faced. Even more importantly, however, Plato's early
dialogues provide intriguing arguments and refutations
of proposed philosophical positions that interest and
challenge philosophical readers. Platonic dialogues
continue to be included among the required readings in
introductory and advanced philosophy classes, not only
for their ready accessibility, but also because they
raise many of the most basic problems of philosophy.
Unlike most other philosophical works, moreover, Plato
frames the discussions he represents in dramatic
settings that make the content of these discussions
especially compelling. So, for example, in the Crito,
we find Socrates discussing the citizen's duty
to obey the laws of the state as he awaits his own
legally mandated execution in jail, condemned by what
he and Crito both agree was a terribly wrong verdict,
the result of the most egregious misapplication of the
very laws they are discussing. The dramatic features
of Plato's works have earned attention even from
literary scholars relatively uninterested in
philosophy as such. Whatever their value for
specifically historical research, therefore, Plato's
dialogues will continue to be read and debated by
students and scholars, and the Socrates we find in the
early or "Socratic" dialogues will continue to be
counted among the greatest Western philosophers.
c. Ethical Positions in the Early
Dialogues
The
philosophical positions most scholars agree can be
found directly endorsed or at least suggested in the
early or "Socratic" dialogues include the following
moral or ethical views:
- A
rejection of retaliation, or the return of harm for
harm or evil for evil (Crito 48b-c,
49c-d; Republic I.335a-e);
- The
claim that doing injustice harms one's soul, the
thing that is most precious to one, and, hence, that
it is better to suffer injustice than to do it (Crito
47d-48a; Gorgias 478c-e, 511c-512b; Republic
I.353d-354a);
- Some
form of what is called "eudaimonism," that is, that
goodness is to be understood in terms of
conduciveness to human happiness, well-being, or
flourishing, which may also be understood as "living
well," or "doing well" (Crito 48b; Euthydemus
278e, 282a; Republic I. 354a);
- The
view that only virtue is good just by itself;
anything else that is good is good only insofar as
it serves or is used for or by virtue (Apology
30b; Euthydemus 281d-e);
- The
view that there is some kind of unity among the
virtues: In some sense, all of the virtues are the
same (Protagoras 329b-333b, 361a-b);
- The
view that the citizen who has agreed to live in a
state must always obey the laws of that state, or
else persuade the state to change its laws, or leave
the state (Crito 51b-c, 52a-d).
d. Psychological Positions in the
Early Dialogues
Socrates
also appears to argue for, or directly makes a number
of related psychological views:
- All
wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone
desires only what is good (Protagoras
352a-c; Gorgias 468b; Meno
77e-78b);
- In
some sense, everyone actually believes certain moral
principles, even though some may think they do not
have such beliefs, and may disavow them in argument
(Gorgias 472b, 475e-476a).
e. Religious Positions in the Early
Dialogues
In these
dialogues, we also find Socrates represented as
holding certain religious beliefs, such as:
- The
gods are completely wise and good (Apology
28a; Euthyphro 6a, 15a; Meno
99b-100b);
- Ever
since his childhood (see Apology 31d)
Socrates has experienced a certain "divine
something" (Apology 31c-d; 40a; Euthyphro
3b; see also Phaedrus 242b), which
consists in a "voice" (Apology 31d; see
also Phaedrus 242c), or "sign" (Apology
40c, 41d; Euthydemus 272e; see
also Republic VI.496c; Phaedrus
242b) that opposes him when he is about to do
something wrong (Apology 40a, 40c);
- Various
forms of divination can allow human beings to come
to recognize the will of the gods (Apology
21a-23b, 33c);
- Poets
and rhapsodes are able to write and do the wonderful
things they write and do, not from knowledge or
expertise, but from some kind of divine inspiration.
The same canbe said of diviners and seers, although
they do seem to have some kind of expertise—perhaps
only some technique by which to put them in a state
of appropriate receptivity to the divine (Apology
22b-c; Laches 198e-199a; Ion
533d-536a, 538d-e; Meno 99c);
- No one
really knows what happens after death, but it is
reasonable to think that death is not an evil; there
may be an afterlife, in which the souls of the good
are rewarded, and the souls of the wicked are
punished (Apology 40c-41c; Crito
54b-c; Gorgias 523a-527a).
f. Methodological and Epistemological
Positions in the Early Dialogues
In
addition, Plato's Socrates in the early dialogues may
plausibly be regarded as having certain methodological
or epistemological convictions, including:
- Definitional
knowledge of ethical terms is at least a necessary
condition of reliable judging of specific instances
of the values they name (Euthyphro 4e-5d,
6e; Laches 189e-190b; Lysis
223b; Greater Hippias 304d-e; Meno
71a-b, 100b; Republic I.354b-c);
- A mere
list of examples of some ethical value—even if all
are authentic cases of that value—would never
provide an adequate analysis of what the value is,
nor would it provide an adequate definition of the
value term that refers to the value. Proper
definitions must state what is common to all
examples of the value (Euthyphro 6d-e; Meno
72c-d);
- Those
with expert knowledge or wisdom on a given subject
do not err in their judgments on that subject (Euthyphro
4e-5a; Euthydemus 279d-280b), go about
their business in their area of expertise in a
rational and regular way (Gorgias
503e-504b), and can teach and explain their subject
(Gorgias 465a, 500e-501b, 514a-b; Laches
185b, 185e, 1889e-190b); Protagoras
319b-c).
6. The Middle Dialogues
a. Differences between the
Early and Middle Dialogues
Scholarly
attempts to provide relative chronological orderings
of the early transitional and middle dialogues are
problematical because all agree that the main dialogue
of the middle period, the Republic, has
several features that make dating it precisely
especially difficult. As we have already said, many
scholars count the first book of the Republic
as among the early group of dialogues. But those who
read the entire Republic will also see that
the first book also provides a natural and effective
introduction to the remaining books of the work. A
recent study by Debra Nails ("The Dramatic Date of
Plato's Republic," The Classical Journal
93.4, 1998, 383-396) notes several anachronisms that
suggest that the process of writing (and perhaps
re-editing) the work may have continued over a very
long period. If this central work of the period is
difficult to place into a specific context, there can
be no great assurance in positioning any other works
relative to this one.
Nonetheless,
it does not take especially careful study of the
transitional and middle period dialogues to notice
clear differences in style and philosophical content
from the early dialogues. The most obvious change is
the way in which Plato seems to characterize Socrates:
In the early dialogues, we find Socrates simply asking
questions, exposing his interlocutors' confusions, all
the while professing his own inability to shed any
positive light on the subject, whereas in the middle
period dialogues, Socrates suddenly emerges as a kind
of positive expert, willing to affirm and defend his
own theories about many important subjects. In the
early dialogues, moreover, Socrates discusses mainly
ethical subjects with his interlocutors—with some
related religious, methodological, and epistemological
views scattered within the primarily ethical
discussions. In the middle period, Plato's Socrates'
interests expand outward into nearly every area of
inquiry known to humankind. The philosophical
positions Socrates advances in these dialogues are
vastly more systematical, including broad theoretical
inquiries into the connections between language and
reality (in the Cratylus), knowledge and
explanation (in the Phaedo and Republic,
Books V-VII). Unlike the Socrates of the early period,
who was the "wisest of men" only because he recognized
the full extent of his own ignorance, the Socrates of
the middle period acknowledges the possibility of
infallible human knowledge (especially in the famous
similes of light, the simile of the sun and good and
the simile of the divided line in Book VI and the
parable of the cave in Book VII of the Republic),
and this becomes possible in virtue of a special sort
of cognitive contact with the Forms or Ideas (eidê
), which exist in a supra-sensible realm
available only to thought. This theory of Forms,
introduced and explained in various contexts in each
of the middle period dialogues, is perhaps the single
best-known and most definitive aspect of what has come
to be known as Platonism.
b. The Theory of Forms
In many
of his dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible
entities he calls "Forms" (or "Ideas"). So, for
example, in the Phaedo, we are told that
particular sensible equal things—for example, equal
sticks or stones (see Phaedo 74a-75d)—are
equal because of their "participation" or "sharing" in
the character of the Form of Equality, which is
absolutely, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially
equal. Plato sometimes characterizes this
participation in the Form as a kind of imaging, or
approximation of the Form. The same may be said of the
many things that are greater or smaller and the Forms
of Great and Small (Phaedo 75c-d), or the
many tall things and the Form of Tall (Phaedo
100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of
Beauty (Phaedo 75c-d, Symposium
211e, Republic V.476c). When Plato writes
about instances of Forms "approximating" Forms, it is
easy to infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If
so, Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect
beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect justice, and so
forth. Conceiving of Forms in this way was important
to Plato because it enabled the philosopher who grasps
the entities to be best able to judge to what extent
sensible instances of the Forms are good examples of
the Forms they approximate.
Scholars
disagree about the scope of what is often called "the
theory of Forms," and question whether Plato began
holding that there are only Forms for a small range of
properties, such as tallness, equality, justice,
beauty, and so on, and then widened the scope to
include Forms corresponding to every term that can be
applied to a multiplicity of instances. In the Republic,
he writes as if there may be a great multiplicity of
Forms—for example, in Book X of that work, we find him
writing about the Form of Bed (see Republic
X.596b). He may have come to believe that for any set
of things that shares some property, there is a Form
that gives unity to the set of things (and univocity
to the term by which we refer to members of that set
of things). Knowledge involves the recognition of the
Forms (Republic V.475e-480a), and any
reliable application of this knowledge will involve
the ability compare the particular sensible
instantiations of a property to the Form.
c. Immortality and Reincarnation
In the
early transitional dialogue, the Meno,
Plato has Socrates introduce the Orphic and
Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal and existed
before our births. All knowledge, he explains, is
actually recollected from this prior existence. In
perhaps the most famous passage in this dialogue,
Socrates elicits recollection about geometry from one
of Meno's slaves (Meno 81a-86b). Socrates'
apparent interest in, and fairly sophisticated
knowledge of, mathematics appears wholly new in this
dialogue. It is an interest, however, that shows up
plainly in the middle period dialogues, especially in
the middle books of the Republic.
Several
arguments for the immortality of the soul, and the
idea that souls are reincarnated into different life
forms, are also featured in Plato's Phaedo
(which also includes the famous scene in which
Socrates drinks the hemlock and utters his last
words). Stylometry has tended to count the Phaedo
among the early dialogues, whereas analysis of
philosophical content has tended to place it at the
beginning of the middle period. Similar accounts of
the transmigration of souls may be found, with
somewhat different details, in Book X of the Republic
and in the Phaedrus, as well as in several
dialogues of the late period, including the Timaeus
and the Laws. No traces of the doctrine of
recollection, or the theory of reincarnation or
transmigration of souls, are to be found in the
dialogues we listed above as those of the early
period.
d. Moral Psychology
The moral
psychology of the middle period dialogues also seems
to be quite different from what we find in the early
period. In the early dialogues, Plato's Socrates is an
intellectualist—that is, he claims that
people always act in the way they believe is best for
them (at the time of action, at any rate). Hence, all
wrongdoing reflects some cognitive error. But in the
middle period, Plato conceives of the soul as having
(at least) three parts:
- a rational
part (the part that loves truth, which should
rule over the other parts of the soul through the
use of reason),
- a spirited
part (which loves honor and victory), and
- an appetitive
part (which desires food, drink, and sex),
and
justice will be that condition of the soul in which
each of these three parts "does its own work," and
does not interfere in the workings of the other parts
(see esp. Republic IV.435b-445b). It seems
clear from the way Plato describes what can go wrong
in a soul, however, that in this new picture of moral
psychology, the appetitive part of the soul can simply
overrule reason's judgments. One may suffer, in this
account of psychology, from what is called akrasia
or "moral weakness"—in which one finds oneself
doing something that one actually believes is not the
right thing to do (see especially Republic
IV.439e-440b). In the early period, Socrates denied
that akrasia was possible: One might
change one's mind at the last minute about what one
ought to do—and could perhaps change one's mind again
later to regret doing what one has done—but one could
never do what one actually believed was wrong, at the
time of acting.
e. Critique of the Arts
The Republic
also introduces Plato's notorious critique of the
visual and imitative arts. In the early period works,
Socrates contends that the poets lack wisdom, but he
also grants that they "say many fine things." In the Republic,
on the contrary, it seems that there is little that is
fine in poetry or any of the other fine arts. Most of
poetry and the other fine arts are to be censored out
of existence in the "noble state" (kallipolis)
Plato sketches in the Republic, as merely
imitating appearances (rather than realities), and as
arousing excessive and unnatural emotions and
appetites (see esp. Republic X.595b-608b).
f. Platonic Love
In the Symposium,
which is normally dated at the beginning of the
middle period, and in the Phaedrus, which
is dated at the end of the middle period or later yet,
Plato introduces his theory of erôs
(usually translated as "love"). Several passages and
images from these dialogues continued to show up in
Western culture—for example, the image of two lovers
as being each other's "other half," which Plato
assigns to Aristophanes in the Symposium.
Also in that dialogue, we are told of the "ladder of
love," by which the lover can ascend to direct
cognitive contact with (usually compared to a kind of
vision of) Beauty Itself. In the Phaedrus,
love is revealed to be the great "divine madness"
through which the wings of the lover's soul may
sprout, allowing the lover to take flight to all of
the highest aspirations and achievements possible for
humankind. In both of these dialogues, Plato clearly
regards actual physical or sexual contact between
lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic
expression. Because the true goal of erôs
is real beauty and real beauty is the Form of Beauty,
what Plato calls Beauty Itself, erôs finds
its fulfillment only in Platonic philosophy. Unless it
channels its power of love into "higher pursuits,"
which culminate in the knowledge of the Form of
Beauty, erôs is doomed to frustration. For
this reason, Plato thinks that most people sadly
squander the real power of love by limiting themselves
to the mere pleasures of physical beauty.
7. Late Transitional and Late Dialogues
a. Philosophical Methodology
One of
the novelties of the dialogues after those of the
middle period is the introduction of a new
philosophical method. This method was introduced
probably either late in the middle period or in the
transition to the late period, but was increasingly
important in the late period. In the early period
dialogues, as we have said, the mode of philosophizing
was refutative question-and-answer (called
elenchos or the "Socratic method"). Although
the middle period dialogues continue to show Socrates
asking questions, the questioning in these dialogues
becomes much more overtly leading and didactic. The
highest method of philosophizing discussed in the
middle period dialogues, called "dialectic," is never
very well explained (at best, it is just barely
sketched in the divided line image at the end of Book
VI of the Republic). The correct method for
doing philosophy, we are now told in the later works,
is what Plato identifies as "collection and division,"
which is perhaps first referred to at Phaedrus
265e. In this method, the philosopher collects all of
the instances of some generic category that seem to
have common characteristics, and then divides them
into specific kinds until they cannot be further
subdivided. This method is explicitly and extensively
on display in the Sophist, Statesman, and
Philebus.
b. Critique of the Earlier Theory of
Forms
One of
the most puzzling features of the late dialogues is
the strong suggestion in them that Plato has
reconsidered his theory of Forms in some way. Although
there seems still in the late dialogues to be a theory
of Forms (although the theory is, quite strikingly,
wholly unmentioned in the Theaetetus, a
later dialogue on the nature of knowledge), where it
does appear in the later dialogues, it seems in
several ways to have been modified from its conception
in the middle period works. Perhaps the most dramatic
signal of such a change in the theory appears first in
the Parmenides, which appears to subject
the middle period version of the theory to a kind of
"Socratic" refutation, only this time, the main
refuter is the older Eleatic philosopher Parmenides,
and the hapless victim of the refutation is a youthful
Socrates. The most famous (and apparently fatal) of
the arguments provided by Parmenides in this dialogue
has come to be known as the "Third Man Argument,"
which suggests that the conception of participation
(by which individual objects take on the characters of
the Forms) falls prey to an infinite regress: If
individual male things are male in virtue of
participation in the Form of Man, and the Form of Man
is itself male, then what is common to both The Form
of Man and the particular male things must be that
they all participate in some (other) Form, say, Man 2.
But then, if Man 2 is male, then what it has in common
with the other male things is participation in some
further Form, Man 3, and so on. That Plato's theory is
open to this problem gains support from the notion,
mentioned above, that Forms are exemplars. If the Form
of Man is itself a (perfect) male, then the Form
shares a property in common with the males that
participate in it. But since the Theory requires that
for any group of entities with a common property,
there is a Form to explain the commonality, it appears
that the theory does indeed give rise to the vicious
regress.
There has
been considerable controversy for many years over
whether Plato believed that the Theory of Forms was
vulnerable to the "Third Man" argument, as Aristotle
believed it was, and so uses the Parmenides
to announce his rejection of the Theory of Forms, or
instead believed that the Third Man argument can be
avoided by making adjustments to the Theory of Forms.
Of relevance to this discussion is the relative dating
of the Timaeus and the Parmenides,
since the Theory of Forms very much as it appears in
the middle period works plays a prominent role in the
Timaeus. Thus, the assignment of a later
date to the Timaeus shows that Plato did not
regard the objection to the Theory of Forms raised in
the Parmenides as in any way decisive. In
any event, it is agreed on all sides that Plato's
interest in the Theory shifted in the Sophist
and Stateman to the exploration of the
logical relations that hold between abstract entities.
In the Laws, Plato's last (and
unfinished) work, the Theory of Forms appears to have
dropped out altogether. Whatever value Plato believed
that knowledge of abstract entities has for the proper
conduct of philosophy, he no longer seems to have
believed that such knowledge is necessary for the
proper running of a political community.
c. The "Eclipse" of Socrates
In
several of the late dialogues, Socrates is even
further marginalized. He is either represented as a
mostly mute bystander (in the Sophist and
Statesman), or else absent altogether from
the cast of characters (in the Laws and
Critias). In the Theaetetus and
Philebus, however, we find Socrates in the
familiar leading role. The so-called "eclipse" of
Socrates in several of the later dialogues has been a
subject of much scholarly discussion.
d. The Myth of Atlantis
Plato's
famous myth of Atlantis is first given in the
Timaeus, which scholars now generally agree
is quite late, despite being dramatically placed on
the day after the discussion recounted in the
Republic. The myth of Atlantis is continued
in the unfinished dialogue intended to be the sequel
to the Timaeus, the Critias.
e. The Creation of the
Universe
The Timaeus
is also famous for its account of the creation of the
universe by the Demiurge. Unlike the creation by the
God of medieval theologians, Plato's Demiurge does not
create ex nihilo, but rather orders the
cosmos out of chaotic elemental matter, imitating the
eternal Forms. Plato takes the four elements, fire,
air, water, and earth (which Plato proclaims to be
composed of various aggregates of triangles), making
various compounds of these into what he calls the Body
of the Universe. Of all of Plato's works, the Timaeus
provides the most detailed conjectures in the areas we
now regard as the natural sciences: physics,
astronomy, chemistry, and biology.
f. The Laws
In the
Laws, Plato's last work, the philosopher
returns once again to the question of how a society
ought best to be organized. Unlike his earlier
treatment in the Republic, however, the
Laws appears to concern itself less with what
a best possible state might be like, and much more
squarely with the project of designing a genuinely
practicable, if admittedly not ideal, form of
government. The founders of the community sketched in
the Laws concern themselves with the
empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules to
meet the multitude of contingencies that are apt to
arise in the "real world" of human affairs. A work
enormous length and complexity, running some 345
Stephanus pages, the Laws was unfinished
at the time of Plato's death. According to Diogenes
Laertius (3.37), it was left written on wax tablets.
8. References and Further Reading
a. Greek Texts
-
Platonis Opera (in 5 volumes) - The Oxford
Classical Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press):
- Volume
I (E. A. Duke et al., eds., 1995):
Euthyphro, Apologia Socratis, Crito, Phaedo,
Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophista, Politicus.
- Volume
II (John Burnet, ed., 1901): Parmenides,
Philebus, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades I,
Alcibiades II, Hipparchus, Amatores.
- Volume
III (John Burnet, ed., 1903): Theages,
Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Euthydemus, Protagoras,
Gorgias, Meno, Hippias Maior, Hippias Minor, Io,
Menexenus.
- Volume
IV (John Burnet, ed., 1978): Clitopho,
Respublica, Timaeus, Critias.
- Volume
V (John Burnet, ed. 1907): Minos, Leges,
Epinomis, Epistulae, Definitiones, De Iusto, De
Virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, Axiochus.
- The
Oxford Classical Texts are the standard Greek
texts of Plato's works, including all of the
spuria and dubia except
for the epigrams, the Greek texts of which may
be found in Hermann Beckby (ed.),
Anthologia Graeca (Munich: Heimeran,
1957).
b. Translations into English
- Cooper,
J. M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works
(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).
- Contains
very recent translations of all of the Platonic
works, dubia, spuria, and epigrams.
Now generally regarded as the standard for
English translations.
c. Plato's Socrates and the
Historical Socrates
- Kahn,
Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Kahn's
own version of the "unitarian" reading of
Plato's dialogues. Although scholars have not
widely accepted Kahn's positions, Kahn offers
several arguments for rejecting the more
established held "developmentalist" position.
- Vlastos,
Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral
Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1991).
- Chapters
2 and 3 of this book are invariably cited as
providing the most influential recent arguments
for the "historicist" version of the
"developmentalist" position.
d. Socrates and Plato's Early Period
Dialogues
- Benson,
Hugh H. (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of
Socrates (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
- A
collection of previously published articles by
various authors on Socrates and Plato's early
dialogues.
- Brickhouse,
Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato's
Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press,
1994).
- Six
chapters, each on different topics in the study
of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Brickhouse,
Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, The
Philosophy of Socrates (Boulder: Westview,
2000).
- Seven
chapters, each on different topics in the study
of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues. Some
changes in views from those offered in their
1994 book.
- Prior,
William (ed.), Socrates: Critical Assessments
(London and New York, 1996) in four volumes:
I: The Socratic Problem and Socratic
Ignorance; II: Issues Arising from
the Trial of Socrates; III: Socratic
Method; IV: Happiness and Virtue.
- A
collection of previously published articles by
various authors on Socrates and Plato's early
dialogues.
- Santas,
Gerasimos Xenophon, Socrates: Philosophy in
Plato's Early Dialogues (Boston and London:
Routledge, 1979).
- Eight
chapters, each on different topics in the study
of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Taylor,
C. C. W. Socrates: A Very Short Introduction
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
- Very
short, indeed, but nicely written and generally
very reliable.
- Vlastos,
Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral
Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1991). (Also cited in VIII.3,
above.)
- Eight
chapters, each on different topics in the study
of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Vlastos,
Gregory, Socratic Studies (ed. Myles
Burnyeat; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994).
- Edited
and published after Vlastos's death. A
collection of Vlastos's papers on Socrates not
published in Vlastos's 1991 book.
- Vlastos,
Gregory (ed.) The Philosophy of Socrates
(South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980).
- A
collection of papers by various authors on
Socrates and Plato's early dialogues. Although
now somewhat dated, several articles in this
collection continue to be widely cited and
studied.
e. General Books on Plato
- Cherniss,
Harold, The Riddle of the Early Academy
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945).
- A
study of reports in the Early Academy, following
Plato's death, of the so-called "unwritten
doctrines" of Plato.
- Fine,
Gail (ed.), Plato I: Metaphysics and
Epistemology and Plato II: Ethics,
Politics, Religion and the Soul (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999).
- A
collection of previously published papers by
various authors, mostly on Plato's middle and
later periods.
- Grote,
George, Plato and the Other Companions of
Sokrates 2nd ed. 3 vols. (London: J.
Murray, 1867).
- 3-volume
collection with general discussion of "the
Socratics" other than Plato, as well as specific
discussions of each of Plato's works.
- Guthrie,
W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) vols. 3
(1969), 4 (1975) and 5 (1978).
- Volume
3 is on the Sophists and Socrates; volume 4 is
on Plato's early dialogues and continues with
chapters on Phaedo, Symposium, and
Phaedrus, and then a final chapter
on the Republic.
- Irwin,
Terence, Plato's Ethics (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
- Systematic
discussion of the ethical thought in Plato's
works.
- Kraut,
Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to
Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992).
- A
collection of original discussions of various
general topics about Plato and the dialogues.
- Smith,
Nicholas D. (ed.), Plato: Critical Assessments
(London and New York: Routledge, 1998) in four
volumes: I: General Issues of Interpretation;
II: Plato's Middle Period: Metaphysics
and Epistemology; III: Plato's Middle
Period: Psychology and Value Theory; IV:
Plato's Later Works.
- A
collection of previously published articles by
various authors on interpretive problems and on
Plato's middle and later periods. Plato's early
period dialogues are covered in this series by
Prior 1996 (see VIII.4).
- Vlastos,
Gregory, Platonic Studies 2nd ed.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
- A
collection of Vlastos's papers on Plato,
including some important earlier work on the
early dialogues.
- Vlastos,
Gregory, Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology
and Plato II: Ethics, Politics, and
Philosophy of Art and Religion (South Bend:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).
- A
collection of papers by various authors on
Plato's middle period and later dialogues.
Although now somewhat dated, several articles in
this collection continue to be widely cited and
studied.
Author
Information
Thomas
Brickhouse Email: brickhouse@lynchburg.edu
Lynchburg College U. S. A. and
Nicholas
D. Smith Email: ndsmith@lclark.edu
Lewis & Clark College U. S. A.
-----------------------
5. Aristotle
(384—322 BC)
From
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/aristotl/
Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek
philosophy, making contributions to logic,
metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics,
politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theatre. He
was a student of Plato who in
turn studied under Socrates. He was more
empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous
for rejecting Plato's theory of forms.
As a
prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically
transformed most, if not all, areas of knowledge he
touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas
referred to him simply as "The Philosopher." In his
lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises, of
which only 31 survive. Unfortunately for us, these works
are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts
never intended for general readership, so they do not
demonstrate his reputed polished prose style which
attracted many great followers, including the Roman Cicero.
Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human
knowledge into distinct disciplines such as mathematics,
biology, and ethics. Some of these classifications are
still used today.
As the
father of the field of logic, he was the first to
develop a formalized system for reasoning. Aristotle
observed that the validity of any argument can be
determined by its structure rather than its content. A
classic example of a valid argument is his syllogism:
All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore,
Socrates is mortal. Given the structure of this
argument, as long as the premises are true, then the
conclusion is also guaranteed to be true. Aristotle’s
brand of logic dominated this area of thought until the
rise of modern propositional
logic and predicate logic 2000 years later.
Aristotle’s
emphasis on good reasoning combined with his belief in
the scientific method forms the backdrop for most of his
work. For example, in his work in ethics and politics,
Aristotle identifies the highest good with intellectual
virtue; that is, a moral person is one who cultivates
certain virtues based on reasoning. And in his work on
psychology and the soul, Aristotle distinguishes sense
perception from reason, which unifies and interprets the
sense perceptions and is the source of all knowledge.
Aristotle
famously rejected Plato’s theory of forms, which states
that properties such as beauty are abstract universal
entities that exist independent of the objects
themselves. Instead, he argued that forms are intrinsic
to the objects and cannot exist apart from them, and so
must be studied in relation to them. However, in
discussing art, Aristotle seems to reject this, and
instead argues for idealized universal form which
artists attempt to capture in their work.
Aristotle
was the founder of the Lyceum, a
school of learning based in Athens, Greece; and he was
an inspiration for the Peripatetics,
his followers from the Lyceum.
Table of
Contents
- Life
- Writings
- Logic
- Metaphysics
- Philosophy
of Nature
- The Soul
and Psychology
- Ethics
- Politics
- Art and
Poetics
1.
Life
Aristotle
was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a now extinct Greek
colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father
Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of
Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long
association with the Macedonian Court, which
considerably influenced his life. While he was still a
boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus,
sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the
world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy
and studied under Plato,
attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In
the later years of his association with Plato and the
Academy he began to lecture on his own account,
especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of
Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle would
seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership
of the Academy. But his divergence from Plato's teaching
was too great to make this possible, and Plato's nephew
Speusippus was chosen instead. At the invitation of his
friend Hermeas, ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia,
Aristotle left for his court. He stayed three year and,
while there, married Pythias, the niece of the King. In
later life he was married a second time to a woman named
Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end
of three years Hermeas was overtaken by the Persians,
and Aristotle went to Mytilene. At the invitation of
Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year
old son Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this
for the next five years. Both Philip and Alexander
appear to have paid Aristotle high honor, and there were
stories that Aristotle was supplied by the Macedonian
court, not only with funds for teaching, but also with
thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies
in natural science. These stories are probably false and
certainly exaggerated.
Upon the
death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship and
prepared for his subsequent conquests. Aristotle's work
being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not
visited since the death of Plato. He found the Platonic
school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the
dominant philosophy of Athens. He thus set up his own
school at a place called the Lyceum. When
teaching at the Lyceum, Aristotle had a habit of walking
about as he discoursed. It was in connection with this
that his followers became known in later years as
the peripatetics, meaning "to walk about."
For the next thirteen years he devoted his energies to
his teaching and composing his philosophical treatises.
He is said to have given two kinds of lectures: the more
detailed discussions in the morning for an inner circle
of advanced students, and the popular discourses in the
evening for the general body of lovers of knowledge. At
the sudden death of Alexander in 323 BCE., the
pro-Macedonian government in Athens was overthrown, and
a general reaction occurred against anything Macedonian.
A charge of impiety was trumped up against him. To
escape prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea so that
(Aristotle says) "The Athenians might not have another
opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they had
already done in the person of Socrates." In the first
year of his residence at Chalcis he complained of a
stomach illness and died in 322 BCE.
2.
Writings
It is
reported that Aristotle's writings were held by his
student Theophrastus, who had succeeded Aristotle in
leadership of the Peripatetic School. Theophrastus's
library passed to his pupil Neleus. To protect the books
from theft, Neleus's heirs concealed them in a vault,
where they were damaged somewhat by dampness, moths and
worms. In this hiding place they were discovered about
100 BCE by Apellicon, a rich book lover, and brought to
Athens. They were later taken to Rome after the capture
of Athens by Sulla in 86 BCE. In Rome they soon
attracted the attention of scholars, and the new edition
of them gave fresh impetus to the study of Aristotle and
of philosophy in general. This collection is the basis
of the works of Aristotle that we have today. Strangely,
the list of Aristotle's works given by Diogenes
Laertius does not contain any of these treatises.
It is possible that Diogenes' list is that of forgeries
compiled at a time when the real works were lost to
sight.
The works
of Aristotle fall under three headings: (1) dialogues
and other works of a popular character; (2) collections
of facts and material from scientific treatment; and (3)
systematic works. Among his writings of a popular nature
the only one which we possess of any consequence is the
interesting tract On the Polity of the
Athenians. The works on the second group include
200 titles, most in fragments, collected by Aristotle's
school and used as research. Some may have been done at
the time of Aristotle's successor Theophrastus. Included
in this group are constitutions of 158 Greek states. The
systematic treatises of the third group are marked by a
plainness of style, with none of the golden flow of
language which the ancients praised in Aristotle. This
may be due to the fact that these works were not, in
most cases, published by Aristotle himself or during his
lifetime, but were edited after his death from
unfinished manuscripts. Until Werner Jaeger (1912) it
was assumed that Aristotle's writings presented a
systematic account of his views. Jaeger argues for an
early, middle and late period (genetic approach), where
the early period follows Plato's theory of forms and
soul, the middle rejects Plato, and the later period
(which includes most of his treatises) is more
empirically oriented. Aristotle's systematic treatises
may be grouped in several divisions:
- Logic
- Categories
(10 classifications of terms)
- On
Interpretation (propositions, truth, modality)
- Prior
Analytics (syllogistic logic)
- Posterior
Analytics (scientific method and syllogism)
- Topics
(rules for effective arguments and debate)
- On
Sophistical Refutations (informal fallacies)
- Physical
works
- Physics
(explains change, motion, void, time)
- On
the Heavens (structure of heaven, earth, elements)
- On
Generation (through combining material
constituents)
- Meteorologics
(origin of comets, weather, disasters)
- Psychological
works
- On
the Soul (explains faculties, senses, mind,
imagination)
- On
Memory, Reminiscence, Dreams, and Prophesying
- Works on
natural history
- History
of Animals (physical/mental qualities, habits)
- On
the parts of Animals
- On
the Movement of Animals
- On
the Progression of Animals
- On
the Generation of Animals
- Minor
treatises
- Problems
- Philosophical
works
- Metaphysics
(substance, cause, form, potentiality)
- Nicomachean
Ethics (soul, happiness, virtue, friendship)
- Eudemain
Ethics
- Magna
Moralia
- Politics
(best states, utopias, constitutions, revolutions)
- Rhetoric
(elements of forensic and political debate)
- Poetics
(tragedy, epic poetry)
3.
Logic
Aristotle's
writings on the general subject of logic were grouped by
the later Peripatetics under the name Organon,
or instrument. From their perspective, logic and
reasoning was the chief preparatory instrument of
scientific investigation. Aristotle himself, however,
uses the term "logic" as equivalent to verbal reasoning.
The Categories of Aristotle are
classifications of individual words (as opposed to
sentences or propositions),
and include the following ten: substance, quantity,
quality, relation, place, time, situation, condition,
action, passion. They seem to be arranged according to
the order of the questions we would ask in gaining
knowledge of an object. For example, we ask, first, what
a thing is, then how great it is, next of what kind it
is. Substance is always regarded as the most important
of these. Substances are further divided into first and
second: first substances are individual
objects; second substances are the species
in which first substances or individuals inhere.
Notions
when isolated do not in themselves express either truth
or falsehood: it is only with the combination of ideas
in a proposition that truth and falsity
are possible. The elements of such a proposition are the
noun substantive and the verb. The combination of words
gives rise to rational speech and thought, conveys a
meaning both in its parts and as a whole. Such thought
may take many forms, but logic considers only demonstrative
forms which express truth and falsehood. The truth or
falsity of propositions is determined by their agreement
or disagreement with the facts they represent. Thus
propositions are either affirmative or negative, each of
which again may be either universal or particular or
undesignated. A definition, for Aristotle is a statement
of the essential character of a subject, and involves
both the genus and the difference. To get at a true
definition we must find out those qualities within the
genus which taken separately are wider than the subject
to be defined, but taken together are precisely equal to
it. For example, "prime," "odd," and "number" are each
wider than "triplet" (that is, a collection of any three
items, such as three rocks); but taken together they are
just equal to it. The genus definition must be formed so
that no species is left out. Having determined the genus
and species, we must next find the points of similarity
in the species separately and then consider the common
characteristics of different species. Definitions may be
imperfect by (1) being obscure, (2) by being too wide,
or (3) by not stating the essential and fundamental
attributes. Obscurity may arise from the use of
equivocal expressions, of metaphorical phrases, or of
eccentric words. The heart of Aristotle's logic is the
syllogism, the classic example of which is as follows:
All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore,
Socrates is mortal. The syllogistic form of logical
argumentation dominated logic for 2,000 years until the
rise of modern propositional and predicate logic thanks
to Frege, Russell, and others.
4.
Metaphysics
Aristotle's
editors gave the name "Metaphysics" to his works
on first philosophy, either because they
went beyond or followed after
his physical investigations. Aristotle begins by
sketching the history of philosophy. For Aristotle,
philosophy arose historically after basic necessities
were secured. It grew out of a feeling of curiosity and
wonder, to which religious myth gave only provisional
satisfaction. The earliest speculators (i.e. Thales,
Anaximenes, Anaximander) were philosophers of nature.
The Pythagoreans succeeded these with mathematical
abstractions. The level of pure thought was reached
partly in the Eleatic philosophers (such as Parmenides)
and Anaxagoras, but more completely in the work of
Socrates. Socrates' contribution was the expression of
general conceptions in the form of definitions, which he
arrived at by induction and analogy. For Aristotle, the
subject of metaphysics deals with the first principles
of scientific knowledge and the ultimate conditions of
all existence. More specifically, it deals with
existence in its most fundamental state (i.e.
being as being), and the essential
attributes of existence. This can be contrasted with
mathematics which deals with existence in terms of lines
or angles, and not existence as it is in itself. In its
universal character, metaphysics superficially resembles
dialectics and sophistry. However, it differs from
dialectics which is tentative, and it differs from
sophistry which is a pretence of knowledge without the
reality.
The axioms
of science fall under the consideration of the
metaphysician insofar as they are properties ofall
existence. Aristotle argues that there are a handful of
universal truths. Against the followers of Heraclitus
and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the laws of
contradiction, and that of excluded middle. He does this
by showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to
its logical consequences, the denial of these laws would
lead to the sameness of all facts and all assertions. It
would also result in an indifference in conduct. As the
science of being as being, the leading
question of Aristotle's metaphysics is, What is meant by
the real or true substance? Plato tried to solve the
same question by positing a universal and invariable
element of knowledge and existence -- the forms -- as
the only real permanent besides the changing phenomena
of the senses. Aristotle attacks Plato's theory of the
forms on three different grounds.
First,
Aristotle argues, forms are powerless to explain changes
of things and a thing's ultimate extinction. Forms are
not causes of movement and alteration in the physical
objects of sensation. Second, forms are
equally incompetent to explain how we arrive at knowledge
of particular things. For, to have knowledge of a
particular object, it must be knowledge of the substance
which is in that things. However, the
forms place knowledge outside of particular things.
Further, to suppose that we know particular things
better by adding on their general conceptions of their
forms, is about as absurd as to imagine that we can
count numbers better by multiplying them. Finally, if
forms were needed to explain our knowledge of particular
objects, then forms must be used to explain our
knowledge of objects of art; however, Platonists do not
recognize such forms. The third ground of
attack is that the forms simply cannot explain the existence
of particular objects. Plato contends that forms do not
exist in the particular objects which
partake in the forms. However, that substance of a
particular thing cannot be separated from the thing
itself. Further, aside from the jargon of
"participation," Plato does not explain the relation
between forms and particular things. In reality, it is
merely metaphorical to describe the forms as patterns of
things; for, what is a genus to one object is a species
to a higher class, the same idea will have to be both a
form and a particular thing at the same time. Finally,
on Plato's account of the forms, we must imagine an
intermediate link between the form and the particular
object, and so on ad infinitum: there must
always be a "third man" between the individual man and
the form of man.
For
Aristotle, the form is not something outside the object,
but rather in the varied phenomena of
sense. Real substance, or true being, is not the
abstract form, but rather the concrete
individual thing. Unfortunately, Aristotle's theory of
substance is not altogether consistent with itself. In
the Categories the notion of substance
tends to be nominalistic (that is, substance is a
concept we apply to things). In theMetaphysics,
though, it frequently inclines towards realism (that is,
substance has a real existence in itself). We are also
struck by the apparent contradiction in his claims that
science deals with universal concepts, and substance is
declared to be an individual. In any case, substance is
for him a merging of matter into form. The term "matter"
is used by Aristotle in four overlapping senses. First,
it is the underlying structure of changes, particularly
changes of growth and of decay. Secondly,
it is the potential which has implicitly the capacity to
develop into reality. Thirdly, it is a
kind of stuff without specific qualities and so is
indeterminate and contingent. Fourthly, it
is identical with form when it takes on a form in its
actualized and final phase.
The
development of potentiality to actuality is one of the
most important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. It was
intended to solve the difficulties which earlier
thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of
existence and the relations of the one and many. The
actual vs. potential state of things is explained in
terms of the causes which act on things. There are four
causes:
- Material
cause, or the elements out of which an
object is created;
- Efficient
cause, or the means by which it is
created;
- Formal
cause, or the expression of what it is;
- Final
cause, or the end for which it is.
Take, for
example, a bronze statue. Its material cause is the
bronze itself. Its efficient cause is the sculptor,
insofar has he forces the bronze into shape. The formal
cause is the idea of the completed statue. The final
cause is the idea of the statue as it prompts
the sculptor to act on the bronze. The final cause tends
to be the same as the formal cause, and both of these
can be subsumed by the efficient cause. Of the four, it
is the formal and final which is the most important, and
which most truly gives the explanation of an object. The
final end (purpose, or teleology) of a thing is realized
in the full perfection of the object itself, not in our
conception of it. Final cause is thus internal to the
nature of the object itself, and not something we
subjectively impose on it.
To
Aristotle, God
is the first of all substances, the necessary first
source of movement who is himself unmoved. God is a
being with everlasting life, and perfect blessedness,
engaged in never-ending contemplation.
For a
fuller discussion, see the article Aristotle's
Metaphysics and Western
Concepts of God.
5.
Philosophy of Nature
Aristotle
sees the universe as a scale lying between the two
extremes: form without matter is on one end, and matter
without form is on the other end. The passage of matter
into form must be shown in its various stages in the
world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle's
physics, or philosophy of nature. It is important to
keep in mind that the passage from form to matter within
nature is a movement towards ends or purposes.
Everything in nature has its end and function, and
nothing is without its purpose. Everywhere we find
evidences of design and rational plan. No doctrine of
physics can ignore the fundamental notions of motion,
space, and time. Motion is the passage of matter into
form, and it is of four kinds: (1) motion which affects
the substance of a thing, particularly its beginning and
its ending; (2) motion which brings about changes in
quality; (3) motion which brings about changes in
quantity, by increasing it and decreasing it; and (4)
motion which brings about locomotion, or change of
place. Of these the last is the most fundamental and
important.
Aristotle
rejects the definition of space as the void. Empty space
is an impossibility. Hence, too, he disagrees with the
view of Plato and the Pythagoreans that the elements are
composed of geometrical figures. Space is defined as the
limit of the surrounding body towards what is
surrounded. Time
is defined as the measure of motion in regard to what is
earlier and later. It thus depends for its existence
upon motion. If there where no change in the universe,
there would be no time. Since it is the measuring or
counting of motion, it also depends for its existence on
a counting mind. If there were no mind to count, there
could be no time. As to the infinite divisibility of
space and time, and the paradoxes proposed byZeno,
Aristotle argues that space and time are potentially
divisible ad infinitum, but are not
actually so divided.
After these
preliminaries, Aristotle passes to the main subject of
physics, the scale of being. The first thing to notice
about this scale is that it is a scale of values. What
is higher on the scale of being is of more worth,
because the principle of form is more advanced in it.
Species on this scale are eternally fixed in their
place, and cannot evolve over time. The higher items on
the scale are also more organized. Further, the lower
items are inorganic and the higher are organic. The
principle which gives internal organization to the
higher or organic items on the scale of being is life,
or what he calls the soul of the organism. Even the
human soul is nothing but the organization of the body.
Plants are the lowest forms of life on the scale, and
their souls contain a nutritive element by which it
preserves itself. Animals are above plants on the scale,
and their souls contain an appetitive feature which
allows them to have sensations, desires, and thus gives
them the ability to move. The scale of being proceeds
from animals to humans. The human soul shares the
nutritive element with plants, and the appetitive
element with animals, but also has a rational element
which is distinctively our own. The details of the
appetitive and rational aspects of the soul are
described in the following two sections.
For a
fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle:
Motion and its Place in Nature.
6.
The Soul and Psychology
Soul
is defined by Aristotle as the perfect expression or
realization of a natural body. From this definition it
follows that there is a close connection between
psychological states, and physiological processes. Body
and soul are unified in the same way that wax and an
impression stamped on it are unified. Metaphysicians
before Aristotle discussed the soul abstractly without
any regard to the bodily environment; this, Aristotle
believes, was a mistake. At the same time, Aristotle
regards the soul or mind not as the product of the
physiological conditions of the body, but as the truth
of the body -- the substance in which only the bodily
conditions gain their real meaning.
The soul
manifests its activity in certain "faculties" or "parts"
which correspond with the stages of biological
development, and are the faculties of nutrition
(peculiar to plants), that of movement (peculiar to
animals), and that of reason (peculiar to humans). These
faculties resemble mathematical figures in which the
higher includes the lower, and must be understood not as
like actual physical parts, but like suchaspects
as convex and concave which we distinguish in the same
line. The mind remains throughout a unity: and it is
absurd to speak of it, as Plato did, as desiring with
one part and feeling anger with another. Sense
perception is a faculty of receiving the forms of
outward objects independently of the matter of which
they are composed, just as the wax takes on the figure
of the seal without the gold or other metal of which the
seal is composed. As the subject of impression,
perception involves a movement and a kind of qualitative
change; but perception is not merely a passive or
receptive affection. It in turn acts, and,distinguishing
between the qualities of outward things, becomes "a
movement of the soul through the medium of the body."
The objects
of the senses may be either (1) special, (such as color
is the special object of sight, and sound of hearing),
(2) common, or apprehended by several senses in
combination (such as motion or figure), or (3)
incidental or inferential (such as when from the
immediate sensation of white we come to know a person
or object which is white). There are five
special senses. Of these, touch is the must rudimentary,
hearing the most instructive, and sight the most
ennobling. The organ in these senses never acts directly
, but is affected by some medium such as air. Even
touch, which seems to act by actual contact, probably
involves some vehicle of communication. For Aristotle,
the heart is the common or central sense organ. It
recognizes the common qualities which are involved in
all particular objects of sensation. It is, first, the
sense which brings us a consciousness of sensation.
Secondly, in one act before the mind, it holds up the
objects of our knowledge and enables us to distinguish
between the reports of different senses.
Aristotle
defines the imagination as "the movement which results
upon an actual sensation." In other words, it is the
process by which an impression of the senses is pictured
and retained before the mind, and is accordingly the
basis of memory. The representative pictures which it
provides form the materials of reason. Illusions and
dreams are both alike due to an excitement in the organ
of sense similar to that which would be caused by the
actual presence of the sensible phenomenon. Memory is
defined as the permanent possession of the sensuous
picture as a copy which represents the object of which
it is a picture. Recollection, or the calling back to
mind the residue of memory, depends on the laws which
regulate the association of our ideas. We trace the
associations by starting with the thought of the object
present to us, then considering what is similar,
contrary or contiguous.
Reason is
the source of the first principles of knowledge. Reason
is opposed to the sense insofar as sensations are
restricted and individual, and thought is free and
universal. Also, while the senses deals with the
concrete and material aspect of phenomena, reason deals
with the abstract and ideal aspects. But while reason is
in itself the source of general ideas, it is so only
potentially. For, it arrives at them only by a process
of development in which it gradually clothes sense in
thought, and unifies and interprets sense-presentations.
This work of reason in thinking beings suggests the
question: How can immaterial thought come to receive
material things? It is only possible in virtue of
some community between thought and things.
Aristotle recognizes an active reason which makes
objects of thought. This is distinguished from passive
reason which receives, combines and compares the objects
of thought. Active reason makes the world intelligible,
and bestows on the materials of knowledge those ideas or
categories which make them accessible to thought. This
is just as the sun communicates to material objects that
light, without which color would be invisible, and sight
would have no object. Hence reason is the constant
support of an intelligible world. While assigning reason
to the soul of humans, Aristotle describes it as coming
from without, and almost seems to identify it with God
as the eternal and omnipresent thinker. Even in humans,
in short, reason realizes something of the essential
characteristic of absolute thought -- the unity of
thought as subject with thought as object.
7.
Ethics
Ethics, as
viewed by Aristotle, is an attempt to find out our chief
end or highest good: an end which he maintains is really
final. Though many ends of life are only means to
further ends, our aspirations and desires must have some
final object or pursuit. Such a chief end is universally
called happiness. But people mean such different things
by the expression that he finds it necessary to discuss
the nature of it for himself. For starters, happiness
must be based on human nature, and must begin from the
facts of personal experience. Thus, happiness cannot be
found in any abstract or ideal notion, like Plato's
self-existing good. It must be something practical and
human. It must then be found in the work and life which
is unique to humans. But this is neither the vegetative
life we share with plants nor the sensitive existence
which we share with animals. It follows therefore that
true happiness lies in the active life of a rational
being or in a perfect realization and outworking of the
true soul and self, continued throughout a lifetime.
Aristotle
expands his notion of happiness through an analysis of
the human soul which structures and animates a living
human organism. The parts of the soul are divided as
follows:
|
Calculative -- Intellectual
Virtue |
| Rational |
|
|
Appetitive
-- Moral Virtue |
| Irrational |
|
|
Vegetative
-- Nutritional Virtue |
The human
soul has an irrational element which is shared with the
animals, and a rational element which is distinctly
human. The most primitive irrational element is the
vegetative faculty which is responsible for nutrition
and growth. An organism which does this well may be said
to have a nutritional virtue. The second tier of the
soul is the appetitive faculty which is responsible for
our emotions and desires (such as joy, grief, hope and
fear). This faculty is both rational and irrational. It
is irrational since even animals experience desires.
However, it is also rational since humans have the
distinct ability to control these desires with the help
of reason. The human ability to properly control these
desires is called moral virtue, and is the focus of
morality. Aristotle notes that there is a purely
rational part of the soul, the calculative, which is
responsible for the human ability to contemplate, reason
logically, and formulate scientific principles. The
mastery of these abilities is called intellectual
virtue.
Aristotle
continues by making several general points about the
nature of moral virtues (i.e. desire-regulating
virtues). First, he argues that the ability to regulate
our desires is not instinctive, but learned and is the
outcome of both teaching and practice. Second, he notes
that if we regulate our desires either too much or too
little, then we create problems. As an analogy,
Aristotle comments that, either "excess or deficiency of
gymnastic exercise is fatal to strength." Third, he
argues that desire-regulating virtues are character
traits, and are not to be understood as either emotions
or mental faculties.
The core of
Aristotle's account of moral virtue is his doctrine of
the mean. According to this doctrine, moral virtues are
desire-regulating character traits which are at a mean
between more extreme character traits (or vices). For
example, in response to the natural emotion of fear, we
should develop the virtuous character trait of courage.
If we develop an excessive character trait by curbing
fear too much, then we are said to be rash, which is a
vice. If, on the other extreme, we develop a deficient
character trait by curbing fear too little, then we are
said to be cowardly, which is also a vice. The virtue of
courage, then, lies at the mean between the excessive
extreme of rashness, and the deficient extreme of
cowardice. Aristotle is quick to point out that the
virtuous mean is not a strict mathematical mean between
two extremes. For example, if eating 100 apples is too
many, and eating zero apples is too little, this does
not imply that we should eat 50 apples, which is the
mathematical mean. Instead, the mean is rationally
determined, based on the relative merits of the
situation. That is, it is "as a prudent man would
determine it." He concludes that it is difficult to live
the virtuous life primarily because it is often
difficult to find the mean between the extremes.
Most moral
virtues, and not just courage, are to be understood as
falling at the mean between two accompanying vices. His
list may be represented by the following table:
| Vice of Deficiency |
Virtuous Mean |
Vice of Excess |
| Cowardice |
Courage |
Rashness |
| Insensibility |
Temperance |
Intemperance |
| Illiberality |
Liberality |
Prodigality |
| Pettiness |
Munificence |
Vulgarity |
| Humble-mindedness |
High-mindedness |
Vaingloriness |
| Want
of Ambition |
Right
Ambition |
Over-ambition |
| Spiritlessness |
Good
Temper |
Irascibility |
| Surliness |
Friendly
Civility |
Obsequiousness |
| Ironical
Depreciation |
Sincerity |
Boastfulness |
| Boorishness |
Wittiness |
Buffoonery |
| Shamelessness |
Modesty |
Bashfulness |
| Callousness |
Just
Resentment |
Spitefulness |
The
prominent virtue of this list is high-mindedness, which,
as being a kind of ideal self-respect, is regarded as
the crown of all the other virtues, depending on them
for its existence, and itself in turn tending to
intensify their force. The list seems to be more a
deduction from the formula than a statement of the facts
on which the formula itself depends, and Aristotle
accordingly finds language frequently inadequate to
express the states of excess or defect which his theory
involves (for example in dealing with the virtue of
ambition). Throughout the list he insists on the
"autonomy of will" as indispensable to virtue: courage
for instance is only really worthy of the name when done
from a love of honor and duty: munificence again becomes
vulgarity when it is not exercised from a love of what
is right and beautiful, but for displaying wealth.
Justice is
used both in a general and in a special sense. In its
general sense it is equivalent to the observance of law.
As such it is the same thing as virtue, differing only
insofar as virtue exercises the disposition simply in
the abstract, and justice applies it in dealings with
people. Particular justice displays itself in two forms.
First, distributive justice hands out
honors and rewards according to the merits of the
recipients. Second, corrective justice
takes no account of the position of the parties
concerned, but simply secures equality between the two
by taking away from the advantage of the one and adding
it to the disadvantage of the other. Strictly speaking,
distributive and corrective justice are more than mere
retaliation and reciprocity. However, in concrete
situations of civil life, retaliation and reciprocity is
an adequate formula since such circumstances involve
money, depending on a relation between producer and
consumer. Since absolute justice is abstract in nature,
in the real world it must be supplemented with equity,
which corrects and modifies the laws of justice where it
falls short. Thus, morality requires a standard which
will not only regulate the inadequacies of absolute
justice but be also an idea of moral progress.
This idea
of morality is given by the faculty of moral insight.
The truly good person is at the same time a person of
perfect insight, and a person of perfect insight is also
perfectly good. Our idea of the ultimate end of moral
action is developed through habitual experience, and
this gradually frames itself out of particular
perceptions. It is the job of reason to apprehend and
organize these particular perceptions. However, moral
action is never the result of a mere act of the
understanding, nor is it the result of a simple desire
which views objects merely as things which produce pain
or pleasure. We start with a rational conception of what
is advantageous, but this conception is in itself
powerless without the natural impulse which will give it
strength. The will or purpose implied by morality is
thus either reason stimulated to act by desire, or
desire guided and controlled by understanding. These
factors then motivate the willful action. Freedom of the
will is a factor with both virtuous choices and vicious
choices. Actions are involuntary only when another
person forces our action, or if we are ignorant of
important details in actions. Actions are voluntary when
the originating cause of action (either virtuous or
vicious) lies in ourselves.
Moral
weakness of the will results in someone does what is
wrong, knowing that it is right, and yet follows his
desire against reason. For Aristotle, this condition is
not a myth, as Socrates supposed it was. The problem is
a matter of conflicting moral principles. Moral action
may be represented as a syllogism in which a general
principle of morality forms the first (i.e. major)
premise, while the particular application is the second
(i.e. minor) premise. The conclusion, though, which is
arrived at through speculation, is not always carried
out in practice. The moral syllogism is not simply a
matter of logic, but involves psychological drives and
desires. Desires can lead to a minor premise being
applied to one rather than another of two major premises
existing in the agent's mind. Animals, on the other
hand, cannot be called weak willed or incontinent since
such a conflict of principles is not possible with them.
Pleasure is
not to be identified with Good. Pleasure is found in the
consciousness of free spontaneous action. It is an
invisible experience, like vision, and is always present
when a perfect organ acts upon a perfect object.
Pleasures accordingly differ in kind, varying along with
the different value of the functions of which they are
the expression. They are determined ultimately by the
judgment of "the good person." Our chief end is the
perfect development of our true nature; it thus must be
particularly found in the realization of our highest
faculty, that is, reason. It is this in fact which
constitutes our personality, and we would not be
pursuing our own life, but the life of some lower being,
if we followed any other aim. Self-love accordingly may
be said to be the highest law of morals, because while
such self-love may be understood as the selfishness
which gratifies a person's lower nature, it may also be,
and is rightly, the love of that higher and rational
nature which constitutes each person's true self. Such a
life of thought is further recommended as that which is
most pleasant, most self-sufficient, most continuous,
and most consonant with our purpose. It is also that
which is most akin to the life of God: for God cannot be
conceived as practising the ordinary moral virtues and
must therefore find his happiness in contemplation.
Friendship
is an indispensable aid in framing for ourselves the
higher moral life; if not itself a virtue, it is at
least associated with virtue, and it proves itself of
service in almost all conditions of our existence. Such
results, however, are to be derived not from the worldly
friendships of utility or pleasure, but only from those
which are founded on virtue. The true friend is in fact
a second self, and the true moral value of friendship
lies in the fact that the friend presents to us a mirror
of good actions, and so intensifies our consciousness
and our appreciation of life.
For a
fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle's
Ethics.
8.
Politics
Aristotle
does not regard politics as a separate science from
ethics, but as the completion, and almost a verification
of it. The moral ideal in political administration is
only a different aspect of that which also applies to
individual happiness. Humans are by nature social
beings, and the possession of rational speech (logos) in
itself leads us to social union. The state is a
development from the family through the village
community, an offshoot of the family. Formed originally
for the satisfaction of natural wants, it exists
afterwards for moral ends and for the promotion of the
higher life. The state in fact is no mere local union
for the prevention of wrong doing, and the convenience
of exchange. It is also no mere institution for the
protection of goods and property. It is a genuine moral
organization for advancing the development of humans.
The family,
which is chronologically prior to the state, involves a
series of relations between husband and wife, parent and
child, master and slave. Aristotle regards the slave as
a piece of live property having no existence except in
relation to his master. Slavery is a natural institution
because there is a ruling and a subject class among
people related to each other as soul to body; however,
we must distinguish between those who are slaves by
nature, and those who have become slaves merely by war
and conquest. Household management involves the
acquisition of riches, but must be distinguished from
money-making for its own sake. Wealth is everything
whose value can be measured by money; but it is the use
rather than the possession of commodities which
constitutes riches.
Financial
exchange first involved bartering. However, with the
difficulties of transmission between countries widely
separated from each other, money as a currency arose. At
first it was merely a specific amount of weighted or
measured metal. Afterwards it received a stamp to mark
the amount. Demand is the real standard of value.
Currency, therefore, is merely a convention which
represents the demand; it stands between the producer
and the recipient and secures fairness. Usury is an
unnatural and reprehensible use of money.
The
communal ownership of wives and property as sketched by
Plato in the Republic rests on a false
conception of political society. For, the state is not a
homogeneous unity, as Plato believed, but rather is made
up of dissimilar elements. The classification of
constitutions is based on the fact that government may
be exercised either for the good of the governed or of
the governing, and may be either concentrated in one
person or shared by a few or by the many. There are thus
three true forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy,
and constitutional republic. The perverted forms of
these are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. The
difference between the last two is not that democracy is
a government of the many, and oligarchy of the few;
instead, democracy is the state of the poor, and
oligarchy of the rich. Considered in the abstract, these
six states stand in the following order of preference:
monarchy, aristocracy, constitutional republic,
democracy, oligarchy, tyranny. But though with a perfect
person monarchy would be the highest form of government,
the absence of such people puts it practically out of
consideration. Similarly, true aristocracy is hardly
ever found in its uncorrupted form. It is in the
constitution that the good person and the good citizen
coincide. Ideal preferences aside, then, the
constitutional republic is regarded as the best attainable
form of government, especially as it secures that
predominance of a large middle class, which is the chief
basis of permanence in any state. With the spread of
population, democracy is likely to become the general
form of government.
Which is
the best state is a question that cannot be directly
answered. Different races are suited for different forms
of government, and the question which meets the
politician is not so much what is abstractly the best
state, but what is the best state under existing
circumstances. Generally, however, the best state will
enable anyone to act in the best and live in the
happiest manner. To serve this end the ideal state
should be neither too great nor too small, but simply
self-sufficient. It should occupy a favorable position
towards land and sea and consist of citizens gifted with
the spirit of the northern nations, and the intelligence
of the Asiatic nations. It should further take
particular care to exclude from government all those
engaged in trade and commerce; "the best state will not
make the "working man" a citizen; it should provide
support religious worship; it should secure morality
through the educational influences of law and early
training. Law, for Aristotle, is the outward expression
of the moral ideal without the bias of human feeling. It
is thus no mere agreement or convention, but a moral
force coextensive with all virtue. Since it is universal
in its character, it requires modification and
adaptation to particular circumstances through equity.
Education
should be guided by legislation to make it correspond
with the results of psychological analysis, and follow
the gradual development of the bodily and mental
faculties. Children should during their earliest years
be carefully protected from all injurious associations,
and be introduced to such amusements as will prepare
them for the serious duties of life. Their literary
education should begin in their seventh year, and
continue to their twenty-first year. This period is
divided into two courses of training, one from age seven
to puberty, and the other from puberty to age
twenty-one. Such education should not be left to private
enterprise, but should be undertaken by the state. There
are four main branches of education: reading and
writing, Gymnastics, music, and painting. They should
not be studied to achieve a specific aim, but in the
liberal spirit which creates true freemen. Thus, for
example, gymnastics should not be pursued by itself
exclusively, or it will result in a harsh savage type of
character. Painting must not be studied merely to
prevent people from being cheated in pictures, but to
make them attend to physical beauty. Music must not be
studied merely for amusement, but for the moral
influence which it exerts on the feelings. Indeed all
true education is, as Plato saw, a training of our
sympathies so that we may love and hate in a right
manner.
For a
fuller discussion of these topics, see the article Aristotle's
Politics.
9.
Art and Poetics
Art is
defined by Aristotle as the realization in external form
of a true idea, and is traced back to that natural love
of imitation which characterizes humans, and to the
pleasure which we feel in recognizing likenesses. Art
however is not limited to mere copying. It idealizes
nature and completes its deficiencies: it seeks to grasp
the universal type in the individual phenomenon. The
distinction therefore between poetic art and history is
not that the one uses meter, and the other does not. The
distinction is that while history is limited to what has
actually happened, poetry depicts things in their
universal character. And, therefore, "poetry is more
philosophical and more elevated than history." Such
imitation may represent people either as better or as
worse than people usually are, or it may neither go
beyond nor fall below the average standard. Comedy is
the imitation of the worse examples of humanity,
understood however not in the sense of absolute badness,
but only in so far as what is low and ignoble enters
into what is laughable and comic.
Tragedy, on
the other hand, is the representation of a serious or
meaningful, rounded or finished, and more or less
extended or far-reaching action -- a representation
which is effected by action and not mere narration. It
is fitted by portraying events which excite fear and
pity in the mind of the observer to purify or purge
these feelings and extend and regulate their sympathy.
It is thus a homeopathic curing of the passions. Insofar
as art in general universalizes particular events,
tragedy, in depicting passionate and critical
situations, takes the observer outside the selfish and
individual standpoint, and views them in connection with
the general lot of human beings. This is similar to
Aristotle's explanation of the use of orgiastic music in
the worship of Bacchas and other deities: it affords an
outlet for religious fervor and thus steadies one's
religious sentiments.
For a
discussion of poetics and dramatic literature, see the
article Aristotle's
Poetics.
For a
discussion of Aristotle's views on biology, see the
article Aristotle's
Biology.
5a.
Peripatetic School
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aristotle's School, a painting from
the 1880s by Gustav Adolph Spangenberg
The Peripatetic
school was a school of philosophy in Ancient Greece.
Its teachings
derived from its founder, the Greek
philosopher, Aristotle, and peripatetic
is an adjective ascribed to his followers. The school
originally derived its name Peripatos (Greek: Περίπατος) from the peripatoi
(περίπατοι, "colonnades") of the Lyceum in Athens where the members met. A
similar Greek word peripatetikos (περιπατητικός)
refers to the act of walking, and as an adjective,
"peripatetic" is often used to mean itinerant, wandering,
meandering, or walking about. After Aristotle's death, a
legend arose that he was a "peripatetic" lecturer – that
he walked about as he taught – and the designation Peripatetikos
came to replace the original Peripatos.
The school dates
from around 335 BCE when Aristotle began teaching in the
Lyceum. It was an informal institution whose members
conducted philosophical and scientific inquiries.
Aristotle's successors Theophrastus and Strato continued the
tradition of exploring philosophical and scientific
theories, but after the middle of the 3rd century BCE, the
school fell into a decline, and it was not until the Roman era that
there was a revival. Later members of the school
concentrated on preserving and commenting on
Aristotle's works rather than extending them, and
the school eventually died out in the 3rd century CE.
Although the
school died out, the study of Aristotle's works continued
by scholars who were called Peripatetics through Later
Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. After the
fall of the
Western Roman Empire, the works of the Peripatetic
school were lost to the west, but in the east they were
incorporated into early Islamic
philosophy, which would play a large part in the
revival of Aristotle's doctrines in Europe in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Background
The term
"Peripatetic" is a transliteration of the ancient Greek
word περιπατητικός peripatêtikos, which
means "of walking" or "given to walking about".[1]
The Peripatetic school was actually known simply as the Peripatos.[2]
Aristotle's school came to be so named because of the peripatoi
("colonnades" or "covered walkways") of the Lyceum where the members
met.[3]
The legend that the name came from Aristotle's alleged
habit of walking while lecturing may have started with Hermippus of Smyrna.[4]
Unlike Plato, Aristotle was not a citizen of Athens and so
could not own property; he and his colleagues therefore
used the grounds of the Lyceum as a gathering place, just
as it had been used by earlier philosophers such as
Socrates.[5]
Aristotle and his colleagues first began to use the Lyceum
in this way in about 335 BCE.,[6]
after which Aristotle left Plato's
Academy and Athens, and then returned to Athens from
his travels about a dozen years later.[7]
Because of the school's association with the gymnasium, the
school also came to be referred to simply as the Lyceum.[5]
Some modern scholars argue that the school did not become
formally institutionalized until Theophrastus took it over, at
which time there was private property associated with the
school.[8]
Originally at
least, the Peripatetic gatherings were probably conducted
less formally than the term "school" suggests: there was
likely no set curriculum or requirements for students, or
even fees for membership.[9]
Aristotle did teach and lecture there, but there was also
philosophical and scientific research done in partnership
with other members of the school.[10]
It seems likely that many of the writings that have come
down to us in Aristotle's name were based on lectures he
gave at the school.[11]
Among the
members of the school in Aristotle's time were
Theophrastus, Phanias of
Eresus, Eudemus of Rhodes, Clytus
of Miletus, Aristoxenus, and Dicaearchus.[12]
Much like Plato's Academy, there were in Aristotle's
school junior and senior members, the junior members
generally serving as pupils or assistants to the senior
members who directed research and lectured.[12]
The aim of the school, at least in Aristotle's time, was
not to further a specific doctrine, but rather to explore
philosophical and scientific theories; those who ran the
school worked rather as equal partners.[12]
Sometime shortly
after Alexander's death in
June 323 BCE, Aristotle left Athens to avoid persecution
by anti-Macedonian factions in Athens due to his ties to Macedonia.[13]
After
Aristotle's death in 322 BCE, his colleague Theophrastus
succeeded him as head of the school. The most prominent
member of the school after Theophrastus was Strato of Lampsacus, who
increased the naturalistic elements of Aristotle's
philosophy and embraced a form of atheism.
Doctrines
The doctrines of
the Peripatetic school are the doctrines laid down by
Aristotle, and henceforth maintained by his followers.
Whereas Plato
had sought to explain things with his theory of Forms, Aristotle
preferred to start from the facts given by experience.
Philosophy to him meant science, and its aim was the
recognition of the "why" in all things. Hence he
endeavoured to attain to the ultimate grounds of things by
induction; that is to
say, by a posteriori
conclusions from a number of facts to a universal.[14]
Logic either deals with appearances, and is then called dialectics;
or of truth, and is then called analytics.[15]
All change or motion takes place in regard to substance, quantity, quality and place.[15]
There are three kinds of substances – those alternately in
motion and at rest, as the animals; those
perpetually in motion, as the sky; and those eternally
stationary. The last, in themselves immovable and
imperishable, are the source and origin of all motion.
Among them there must be one first being, unchangeable,
which acts without the intervention of any other being.
All that is proceeds from it; it is the most perfect
intelligence – God.[15]
The immediate action of this prime mover –
happy in the contemplation of itself – extends only to the
heavens; the other inferior spheres are moved by
other incorporeal and eternal substances, which the
popular belief adores as gods. The heavens are of a more
perfect and divine nature than other bodies. In the centre
of the universe is the Earth,
round and stationary. The stars,
like the sky, beings of a higher nature, but of grosser
matter, move by the impulse of the prime mover.[15]
For Aristotle, matter is the basis of all that
exists; it comprises the potentiality of
everything, but of itself is not actually anything.[14]
A determinate thing only comes into being when the potentiality
in matter is converted into actuality. This is
achieved by form, the idea
existent not as one outside the many, but as one in the
many, the completion of the potentiality latent in the
matter.[14]
The soul
is the principle of life in the organic body, and is
inseparable from the body. As faculties of the soul,
Aristotle enumerates the faculty of reproduction and nutrition; of sensation, memory and recollection;
the faculty of reason, or understanding; and the faculty
of desiring, which is divided into appetition and volition.[15]
By the use of reason conceptions, which are formed
in the soul by external sense-impressions, and may be true
or false, are converted into knowledge.[14]
For reason alone can attain to truth either in
understanding or action.[14]
The best and
highest goal is the happiness which originates from
virtuous actions.[15]
Aristotle did not, with Plato, regard virtue as knowledge pure and simple,
but as founded on nature, habit, and reason.[14]
Virtue consists in acting according to nature: that is, keeping the mean
between the two extremes of the too much and the too
little.[15]
Thus valor, in his view the first of
virtues, is a mean between cowardice and recklessness; temperance is the mean
in respect to sensual
enjoyments and the total avoidance of them.[15]
History of
the school
The names of the
first seven or eight scholarchs (leaders) of the
Peripatetic school are known with varying levels of
certainty. A list of names with the approximate dates they
headed the school is as follows:[16]
There are some
uncertainties in this list. It is not certain whether
Aristo of Ceos was the head of the school, but since he
was a close pupil of Lyco and the most important
Peripatetic philosopher in the time when he lived, it is
generally assumed that he was. It is not known if
Critolaus directly succeeded Aristo, or if there were any
leaders between them. Erymneus is known only from a
passing reference by Athenaeus.[17]
Other important Peripatetic philosophers who lived during
these centuries include Eudemus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus, Dicaearchus, and Clearchus of Soli.
After the time
of Strato, the Peripatetic school fell into a decline.
Lyco was famous more for his oratory than his
philosophical skills, and Aristo is perhaps best known for
his biographical studies;[18]
and although Critolaus was more philosophically active,
none of the Peripatetic philosophers in this period seem
to have contributed anything original to philosophy.[19]
The reasons for the decline of the Peripatetic school are
unclear. Undoubtably Stoicism and Epicureanism provided many
answers for those people looking for dogmatic and
comprehensive philosophical systems, and the scepticism of
the Middle Academy may have
seemed preferable to anyone who rejected dogmatism.[20]
Later tradition linked the school's decline to Neleus of Scepsis and his
descendents hiding the works of Aristotle and Theophrastus
in a cellar until their rediscovery in the 1st century
BCE, and even though this story may be doubted, it is
possible that Aristotle's works were not widely read.[21]
In 86 BCE, Athens was sacked by the Roman
general Lucius
Cornelius Sulla, all the schools of philosophy in
Athens were badly disrupted, and the Lyceum ceased to
exist as a functioning institution.[19]
Ironically, this event seems to have brought new life to
the Peripatetic school. Sulla brought the writings of
Aristotle and Theophrastus back to Rome,
where they became the basis of a new collection of
Aristotle's writings compiled by Andronicus of Rhodes
which forms the basis of the Corpus Aristotelicum
which exists today.[19]
Later Neoplatonist
writers describe Andronicus, who lived around 50 BCE, as
the eleventh scholarch of the Peripatetic school,[22]
which would imply that he had two unnamed predecessors.
There is considerable uncertainty over the issue, and
Andronicus' pupil Boethus of Sidon is also
described as the eleventh scholarch.[23]
It is quite possible that Andronicus set up a new school
where he taught Boethus.
Whereas the
earlier Peripatetics had sought to extend and develop
Aristotle's works, from the time of Andronicus the school
concentrated on preserving and defending his work.[24]
The most important figure in the Roman era is Alexander of
Aphrodisias (c. 200 CE) who commentated on
Aristotle's writings. With the rise of Neoplatonism (and Christianity) in the 3rd
century, Peripateticism as an independent philosophy came
to an end, but the Neoplatonists sought to incorporate
Aristotle's philosophy within their own system, and
produced many commentaries on Aristotle's works. In the
5th century, Olympiodorus the Elder
is sometimes described as a Peripatetic.
Influence
The last
philosophers in classical antiquity to
comment on Aristotle were Simplicius and Boethius in the 6th century. After
this, although his works were mostly lost to the west,
they were maintained in the east where they were
incorporated into early Islamic
philosophy. Some of the greatest Peripatetic
philosophers in the Islamic philosophical
tradition were Al-Kindi (Alkindus), Al-Farabi (Alpharabius), Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). By the 12th
century, Aristotle's works began being translated into Latin
during the Latin
translations of the 12th century, and gradually
arose Scholastic philosophy under
such names as Thomas Aquinas, which took
its tone and complexion from the writings of Aristotle,
the commentaries of Averroes, and The Book of Healing
of Avicenna.
See also
 |
Look up Peripatetic
in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Notes
- The
entry peripatêtikos in Liddell, Henry and Robert Scott,
A Greek-English Lexicon.
- Furley
2003, p. 1141; Lynch
1997, p. 311
- Nussbaum
2003, p. 166; Furley
2003, p. 1141; Lynch
1997, p. 311
- Furley
1970, p. 801 citing Diogenes
Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent
Philosophers 5.2. Some modern scholars discredit
the legend altogether; see p. 229 & p. 229 n. 156,
in Hegel
2006, p. 229
- Furley
2003, p. 1141
- 336 BCE: Furley
2003, p. 1141; 335 BCE: Lynch
1997, p. 311; 334 BCE: Irwin
2003
- Barnes
2000, p. 14
- Ostwald
& Lynch 1982, p. 623, citing Diogenes
Laertius, 5.39 & 5.52.
- Barnes
2000, p. 9
- Barnes
2000, pp. 7–9
- Irwin
2003
- Ostwald
& Lynch 1982, pp. 623–4
- Barnes
2000, p. 11
- "Greek
Philosophy" entry in Seyffert
1895, p. 482
- "Peripatetic
philosophy" entry in Lieber,
Wigglesworth & Bradford 1832, p. 22
- Ross
& Ackrill 1995, p. 193
- Athenaeus, v.
211e
- Sharples
2003, p. 150
- Drozdek
2007, p. 205
- Sharples
2003, p. 151
- Sharples
2003, p. 152
- Ammonius, In
de Int. 5.24
- Ammonius, In
An. Pr. 31.11
- Sharples
2003, p. 153
References
- Barnes, Jonathan
(2000), Aristotle: A Very Short Introduction,
Oxford Paperbacks, ISBN 0-19-285408-9.
- Drozdek,
Adam (2007), Greek Philosophers as Theologians:
The Divine Arche, Ashgate publishing, ISBN 0-7546-6189-X.
- Furley,
David (1970), "Peripatetic School", in Hammond, N.
G. L.; Scullard, H. H., The Oxford Classical
Dictionary (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press.
- Furley,
David (2003), "Peripatetic School", in Hornblower,
Simon; Spawforth, Antony, The Oxford Classical
Dictionary (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press,
ISBN 0-19-860641-9.
- Hegel, G. W.
F. (2006), Brown, Robert F., ed., Lectures
on the History of Philosophy 1825–1826: Greek
Philosophy 2, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-927906-3.
- Irwin, T. (2003), "Aristotle",
in Craig, Edward, Routledge Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Routledge.
- Lieber, Francis; Wigglesworth,
Edward; Bradford, T. G. (1832), Encyclopedia
Americana 10.
- Lynch, J.
(1997), "Lyceum", in Zeyl, Donald J.; Devereux,
Daniel; Mitsis, Phillip, Encyclopedia of
Classical Philosophy, Greenwood Press, ISBN 0-313-28775-9.
- Nussbaum, M. (2003),
"Aristotle", in Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth,
Antony, The Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd
ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860641-9.
- Ostwald,
M.; Lynch, J. (1982), "The Growth of Schools &
the Advance of Knowledge", in Lewis, D. M.;
Boardman, John; Hornblower, Simon; et al., The
Cambridge Ancient History Volume 6: The Fourth
Century BCE, Cambridge University Press.
- Ross,
David; Ackrill, John L. (1995), Aristotle,
Routledge, ISBN 0-415-12068-3.
- Seyffert,
Oskar (1895), A Dictionary of Classical
Antiquities.
- Sharples,
Robert W. (2003), "The Peripatetic school", in
Furley, David, From Aristotle to Augustine:
Routledge History of Philosophy, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-30874-7.
- Wehrli,
Fritz (ed.), Die Schule des Aristoteles. Texte
und Kommentare. 10 volumes and 2 Supplements. Basel
1944–1959, 2. Edition 1967–1969.
- I.
Dikaiarchos (1944); II. Aristoxenos (1945); III.
Klearchos (1948); IV. Demetrios von Phaleron
(1949); V. Straton von Lampsakos (1950); VI. Lykon
und Ariston von Keos (1952); VII: Herakleides
Pontikos (1953); VIII. Eudemos von Rhodos (1955);
IX. Phainias von Eresos, Chamaileon, Praxiphanes
(1957); X. Hieronymos von Rhodos, Kritolaos und
seine Schuler, Rückblick: Der Peripatos in
vorchlisticher Zeit; Register (1959); Supplement
I: Hermippos der Kallimacheer (1974); Supplement
II: Sotio (1978).
--------------------------
6.
StoicismStoicicm
Stoics were so named because they often taught
in stoas or colonades.
from
Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoicism/
\
Table of Contents
- General
Description
- Stoic
Logic
- Stoic
Physics
- Stoic
Ethics
1. General Description
The term
"Stoicism" derives from the Greek word "stoa," referring
to a colonnade, such as those built outside or inside
temples, around dwelling-house
s,
gymnasia, and market-places. They were also set up
separately as ornaments of the streets and open places.
The simplest form is that of a roofed colonnade, with a
wall on one side, which was often decorated with
paintings. Thus in the market-place at Athens the stoa poikile
(Painted Colonnade) was decorated with Polygnotus's
representations of the destruction of Troy, the fight of
the Athenians with the Amazons, and the battles of
Marathon and Oenoe. Zeno of Citium taught in the stoa
poikile in Athens, and his adherents accordingly
obtained the name of Stoics. Zeno was followed by
Cleanthes, and then by Chrysippus, as leaders of the
school. The school attracted many adherents, and
flourished for centuries, not only in Greece, but later
in Rome, where the most thoughtful writers, such as
Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, counted
themselves among its followers.
We know
little for certain as to what share particular Stoics,
Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, had in the formation of
the doctrines of the school, but after Chryssipus the
main lines of the doctrine were complete. The Stoic
doctrine is divided into three parts: logic, physics,
and ethics. Stoicism is essentially a system of ethics
which, however, is guided by a logic as theory of
method, and rests upon physics as foundation. Briefly,
their notion of morality is stern, involving a life in
accordance with nature and controlled by virtue. It is
an ascetic system, teaching perfect indifference (apathea) to
everything external, for nothing external could be
either good or evil. Hence to the Stoics both pain and
pleasure, poverty and riches, sickness and health, were
supposed to be equally unimportant.
2. Stoic Logic
Stoic logic
is, in all essentials, the logic of Aristotle. To this,
however, they added a theory, peculiar to themselves, of
the origin of knowledge and the criterion of truth. All
knowledge, they said, enters the mind through the
senses. The mind is a blank slate, upon which
sense-impressions are inscribed. It may have a certain
activity of its own, but this activity is confined
exclusively to materials supplied by the physical organs
of sense. This theory stands, of course, in sheer
opposition to the idealism of Plato, for whom the mind
alone was the source of knowledge, the senses being the
sources of all illusion and error. The Stoics denied the
metaphysical reality of concepts. Concepts are merely
ideas in the mind, abstracted from particulars, and have
no reality outside consciousness.
Since all
knowledge is a knowledge of sense-objects, truth is
simply the correspondence of our impressions to things.
How are we to know whether our ideas are correct copies
of things? How do we distinguish between reality and
imagination, dreams, or illusions? What is the criterion
of truth? It cannot lie in concepts, since they are of
our own making. Nothing is true save sense impressions,
and therefore the criterion of truth must lie in
sensation itself. It cannot be in thought, but must be
in feeling. Real objects, said the Stoics, produce in us
an intense feeling, or conviction, of their reality. The
strength and vividness of the image distinguish these
real perceptions from a dream or fancy. Hence the sole
criterion of truth is this striking conviction, whereby
the real forces itself upon our consciousness, and will
not be denied. There is, thus, no universally grounded
criterion of truth. It is based, not on reason, but on
feeling.
3. Stoic Physics
The
fundamental proposition of the Stoic physics is that
"nothing incorporeal exists." This materialism coheres
with the sense-impression orientation of their doctrine
of knowledge. Plato placed knowledge in thought, and
reality, therefore, in the ideal form. The Stoics,
however, place knowle
dge in
physical sensation, and reality -- what is known by the
senses -- is matter. All things, they said, even the
soul, even God himself, are material and nothing more
than material. This belief they based upon two main
considerations. Firstly, the unity of the world demands
it. The world is one, and must issue from one principle.
We must have a monism. The idealism of Plato resolved
itself into a futile struggle involving a dualism
between matter and thought. Since the gulf cannot be
bridged from the side of ideal realm of the forms, we
must take our stand on matter, and reduce mind to it.
Secondly, body and soul, God and the world, are pairs
which act and react upon one another. The body, for
example, produces thoughts (sense impressions) in the
soul, the soul produces movements in the body. This
would be impossible if both were not of the same
substance. The corporeal cannot act on the incorporeal,
nor the incorporeal on the corporeal. There is no point
of contact. Hence all must be equally corporeal.
All things
being material, what is the original kind of matter, or
stuff, out of which the world is made? The Stoics turned
to Heraclitus for an answer. Fire (logos) is
the primordial kind of being, and all things are
composed of fire. With this materialism the Stoics
combined pantheism. The primal fire is God. God is
related to the world exactly as the soul to the body.
The human soul is likewise fire, and comes from the
divine fire. It permeates and penetrates the entire
body, and, in order that its interpenetration might be
regarded as complete, the Stoics denied the
impenetrability of matter. Just as the soul-fire
permeates the whole body, so God, the primal fire,
pervades the entire world.
But in
spite of this materialism, the Stoics declared that God
is absolute reason. This is not a return to idealism,
and does not imply the incorporeality of God. For
reason, like all else, is material. It means simply that
the divine fire is a rational element. Since God is
reason, it follows that the world is governed by reason,
and this means two things. It means, firstly, that there
is purpose in the world, and therefore, order, harmony,
beauty, and design. Secondly, since reason is law as
opposed to the lawless, it means that the universe is
subject to the absolute sway of law, is governed by the
rigorous necessity of cause and effect. Hence the
individual is not free. There can be no true freedom of
the will in a world governed by necessity. We may,
without harm, say that we choose to do this or that, and
that our acts are voluntary. But such phrases merely
mean that we assent to what we do. What we do is none
the less governed by causes, and therefore by necessity.
The
world-process is circular. God
changes the fiery substance of himself first into air,
then water, then earth. So the world arises. But it will
be ended by a conflagration in which all things will
return into the primal fire. Thereafter, at a
pre-ordained time, God will again transmute himself into
a world. It follows from the law of necessity that the
course taken by this second, and every subsequent,
world, will be identical in every way with the course
taken by the first world. The process goes on for ever,
and nothing new ever happens. The history of each
successive world is the same as that of all the others
down to the minutest details.
The human
soul is part of the divine fire, and proceeds into
humans from God. Hence it is a rational soul, and this
is a point of cardinal importance in connection with the
Stoic ethics. But the soul of each individual does not
come direct from God. The divine fire was breathed into
the first man, and thereafter passed from parent to
child in the act of procreation. After death, all souls
( according to some scholars) or only the souls of the
good (according to other scholars) continue in
individual existence until the general conflagration in
which they, and all else, return to God.
4. Stoic Ethics
The Stoic
ethical teaching is based upon two principles already
developed in their physics; first, that the universe is
governed by absolute law, which admits of no exceptions;
and second, that the essential nature of humans is
reason. Both are summed up in the famous Stoic maxim,
"Live according to nature." For this maxim has two
aspects. It means, in the first place, that men should
conform themselves to nature in the wider sense, that
is, to the laws of the universe, and secondly, that they
should conform their actions to nature in the narrower
sense, to their own essential nature, reason. These two
expressions mean, for the Stoics, the same thing. For
the universe is governed not only by law, but by the law
of reason, and we, in following our own rational nature,
are ipso facto conforming ourselves to the
laws of the larger world. In a sense, of course, there
is no possibility of our disobeying the laws of nature,
for we, like all else in the world, act of necessity.
And it might be asked, what is the use of exhorting a
person to obey the laws of the universe, when, as part
of the great mechanism of the world, we cannot by any
possibility do anything else? It is not to be supposed
that a genuine solution of this difficulty is to be
found in Stoic philosophy. They urged, however, that,
though we will in any case do as the necessity of the
world compels us, it is given to us alone, not merely to
obey the law, but to assent to our own obedience, to
follow the law consciously and deliberately, as only a
rational being can.
Virtue,
then, is the life according to reason. Morality is
simply rational action. It is the universal reason which
is to govern our lives, not the caprice and self-will of
the individual. The wise man consciously subordinates
his life to the life of the whole universe, and
recognizes himself as a cog in the great machine. Now
the definition of morality as the life according to
reason is not a principle peculiar to the Stoics. Both
Plato and Aristotle taught the same. In fact, it is the
basis of every ethic to found morality upon reason, and
not upon the particular foibles, feelings, or
intuitions, of the individual self. But what was
peculiar to the Stoics was the narrow and one- sided
interpretation which they gave to this principle.
Aristotle had taught that the essential nature of humans
is reason, and that morality consists in following this,
his essential nature. But he recognized that the
passions and appetites have their place in the human
organism. He did not demand their suppression, but
merely their control by reason. But the Stoics looked
upon the passions as essentially irrational, and
demanded their complete extirpation. They envisaged life
as a battle against the passions, in which the latter
had to be completely annihilated. Hence their ethical
views end in a rigorous and unbalanced asceticism.
Aristotle,
in his broad and moderate way, though he believed virtue
alone to possess intrinsic value, yet allowed to
external goods and circumstances a place in the scheme
of life. The Stoics asserted that virtue alone is good,
vice alone evil, and that all else is absolutely
indifferent. Poverty, sickness, pain, and death, are not
evils. Riches, health, pleasure, and life, are not
goods. A person may commit suicide, for in destroying
his life he destroys nothing of value. Above all,
pleasure is not a good. One ought not to seek pleasure.
Virtue is the only happiness. And people must be
virtuous, not for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake
of duty. And since virtue alone is good, vice alone
evil, there followed the further paradox that all
virtues are equally good, and all vices equally evil.
There are no degrees.
Virtue is
founded upon reason, and so upon knowledge. Hence the
importance of science, physics, and logic, which are
valued not for themselves, but because they are the
foundations of morality. The prime virtue, and the root
of all other virtues, is therefore wisdom. The wise man
is synonymous with the good man. From the root-virtue,
wisdom, spring the four cardinal virtues: insight,
bravery, self-control, and justice. But since all
virtues have one root, those who possess wisdom possess
all virtue, and those who lack it lack all. A person is
either wholly virtuous, or wholly vicious. The world is
divided into wise and foolish people, the former
perfectly good, the latter absolutely evil. There is
nothing between the two. There is no such thing as a
gradual transition from one to th
e other.
Conversion must be instantaneous. the wise person is
perfect, has all happiness, freedom, riches, beauty.
They alone are the perfect kings, politicians, poets,
prophets, orators, critics, and physicians. The fool has
all vice, all misery, all ugliness, all poverty. And
every person is one or the other. Asked where such a
wise person was to be found, the Stoics pointed
doubtfully at Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic. The
number of the wise, they thought, is small, and is
continually growing smaller. The world, which they
painted in the blackest colors as a sea of vice and
misery, grows steadily worse.
The
similarities between Cynicism and Stoic ethics are
apparent. However, the Stoics modified and softened the
harsh outlines of Cynicism. To do this meant
inconsistency, though. It meant that they first laid
down harsh principles, and then proceeded to tone them
down, to explain them away, to admit exceptions. Such
inconsistency the Stoics accepted with their habitual
cheerfulness. This process of toning down their first
harsh utterances took place mainly in three ways. First,
they modified their principle of the complete
suppression of the passions. Since this is impossible,
and, if possible, could only lead to immovable
inactivity, they admitted that the wise person might
exhibit certain mild and rational emotions. Thus, the
roots of the passions might be found in the wise person,
though they would never be allowed to grow. In the
second place, they modified their principle that all
else, save virtue and vice, is indifferent. Such a view
is unreal, and out of accord with life. Hence the
Stoics, with a masterly disregard of consistency, stuck
to the principle, and yet declared that among things
indifferent some are preferable to others. If the wise
person has the choice between health and sickness,
health is preferable. Indifferent things were thus
divided into three classes: those to be preferred, those
to be avoided, and those which are absolutely
indifferent.
In the
third place, the Stoics toned down the principle that
people are either wholly good, or wholly evil. The
famous heroes and politicians of history, though fools,
are yet polluted with the common vices of humankind less
than others. Moreover, what were the Stoics to say about
themselves? Were they wise men or fools? They hesitated
to claim perfection, to put themselves on a level with
Socrates and Diogenes. Yet they could not bring
themselves to admit that there was no difference between
themselves and the common herd. They were "proficients,"
and, if not absolutely wise, approximated to wisdom.
--------------------
7.
Epicureanism
Epicureanism
is a system of philosophy based upon the
teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC.
Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the
steps of Democritus. His materialism led
him to a general attack on
superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom very
little is known—Epicurus believed that what he called
"pleasure" was the greatest good, but that the way to
attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain
knowledge of the workings of the world and to limit
one's desires. This would lead one to attain a state of
tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from
fear as well as an absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of
these two states constitutes happiness in its highest
form. Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism insofar as it declares
pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal, the concept that
the absence of pain and fear constitutes the greatest
pleasure, and its advocacy of a simple life, make it
very different from "hedonism" as it is colloquially
understood.
Epicureanism
was originally a challenge to Platonism, though later it
became the main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus and his
followers shunned politics. After the death of Epicurus,
his school was headed by Hermarchus; later many
Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic
era and during the Roman era (such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes, and Ercolano). Its best-known Roman
proponent was the poet Lucretius. By the end of the
Roman Empire, being opposed by philosophies (mainly
Neo-Platonism) that were now in the ascendant,
Epicureanism had all but died out, and would be
resurrected in the 17th century by the atomist Pierre Gassendi, who
adapted it to the Christian doctrine.
Some
writings by Epicurus have survived. Some scholars
consider the epic poem On
the Nature of Things by Lucretius to present in one
unified work the core arguments and theories of
Epicureanism. Many of the papyrus scrolls unearthed at
the Villa of the Papyri at
Herculaneum are Epicurean
texts. At least some are thought to have belonged to the
Epicurean Philodemus.
History
The school
of Epicurus, called "The Garden,"
was based in Epicurus' home and garden. It had a small
but devoted following in his lifetime. Its members
included Hermarchus, Idomeneus, Colotes, Polyaenus, and Metrodorus.
Epicurus emphasized friendship as an important
ingredient of happiness, and the school seems to have
been a moderately ascetic community which rejected the
political limelight of Athenian philosophy. They were
fairly cosmopolitan by Athenian standards, including
women and slaves. Some members were also vegetarians as Epicurus did
not eat meat, although no prohibition against eating
meat was made.[1][2]
The
school's popularity grew and it became, along with Stoicism and Skepticism, one of the three
dominant schools of Hellenistic Philosophy, lasting
strongly through the later Roman Empire.[3]
Another major source of information is the Roman
politician and philosopher Cicero, although he was highly
critical, denouncing the Epicureans as unbridled hedonists, devoid of a sense of
virtue and duty, and guilty of withdrawing from public
life. Another ancient source is Diogenes of Oenoanda,
who composed a large inscription at Oenoanda in Lycia.
A library
in the Villa of the Papyri,
in Herculaneum, was perhaps owned
by Julius Caesar's
father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. The scrolls which the library consisted
of were preserved albeit in carbonized form by the
eruption of Vesuvius in
79 AD. Several of these Herculaneum papyri
which are unrolled and deciphered were found to contain
a large number of works by Philodemus, a late Hellenistic
Epicurean, and Epicurus himself, attesting to the
school's enduring popularity. The task of unrolling and
deciphering the over 1800 charred papyrus scrolls continues today.
With the
dominance of the Neo-Platonism and Peripatetic
School philosophy (and later Christianity),
Epicureanism declined. By the late third century AD,
there was very little trace of its existence.[4]
The early
Christian writer Lactantius criticizes Epicurus
at several points throughout his Divine Institutes.
In Dante's Divine
Comedy, the Epicureans are depicted as heretics suffering in the sixth
circle of hell. In fact, Epicurus appears to
represent the ultimate heresy. The word for a heretic in the Talmudic literature is "Apiqoros"
(אפיקורוס).
By the 16th
century, the works of Diogenes
Laertius were being printed in Europe. In the 17th
century the French Franciscan priest, scientist and
philosopher Pierre Gassendi wrote two
books forcefully reviving Epicureanism. Shortly
thereafter, and clearly influenced by Gassendi, Walter Charleton
published several works on Epicureanism in English.
Attacks by Christians continued, most forcefully by the
Cambridge Platonists.
In the Modern Age,
scientists adopted atomist theories, while materialist philosophers
embraced Epicurus' hedonist ethics and restated his
objections to natural teleology.
Religion
Epicureanism
emphasizes the neutrality of the gods, that they do not
interfere with human lives. It states that gods, matter,
and souls are all made up of atoms.
Souls are made from atoms, and gods possess souls, but
their souls adhere to their bodies without escaping.
Humans have the same kind of souls, but the forces
binding human atoms together do not hold the soul
forever. The Epicureans also used the atomist
theories of Democritus and Leucippus to assert that man has
free will. They held that all thoughts are merely atoms
swerving randomly.
The Riddle
of Epicurus, or Problem of evil, is
a famous argument against the existence of an
all-powerful and providential God or gods. As recorded
by Lactantius:
God
either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or
can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor
can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and
cannot, then he is weak – and this does not apply to
god. If he can but does not want to, then he is
spiteful – which is equally foreign to god's nature.
If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and
spiteful, and so not a god. If he wants to and can,
which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then
do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate
them?
— Lactantius, De Ira Deorum[5]
This type
of trilemma argument (God is
omnipotent, God is good, but Evil exists) was one
favoured by the ancient Greek skeptics, and
this argument may have been wrongly attributed to
Epicurus by Lactantius, who, from his Christian perspective, regarded
Epicurus as an atheist.[6]
According to Reinhold F. Glei, it is
settled that the argument of theodicy is from an
academical source which is not only not Epicurean, but
even anti-Epicurean.[7]
The earliest extant version of this trilemma
appears in the writings of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus.[8]
Epicurus'
view was that there were gods, but that they were
neither willing nor able to prevent evil. This was not
because they were malevolent, but because they lived in
a perfect state of ataraxia, a state everyone
should strive to emulate; it is not the gods who are
upset by evils, but people.[6]
Epicurus conceived the gods as blissful and immortal yet
material beings made of atoms inhabiting the metakosmia: empty spaces
between worlds in the vastness of infinite space. In
spite of his recognition of the gods, the practical
effect of this materialistic explanation of the gods'
existence and their complete non-intervention in human
affairs renders his philosophy akin in divine effects to
the attitude of Deism.
In Dante's
Divine Comedy, the
flaming tombs of the Epicureans are located within the
sixth circle of hell (Inferno, Canto X). They are
the first heretics seen and appear to represent the
ultimate, if not quintessential, heresy.[9]
Similarly, according to Jewish Mishnah, Epicureans (apiqorsim,
people who share the beliefs of the movement) are among
the people who do not have a share of the
"World-to-Come" (afterlife or the world of the Messianic
era).
Parallels
may be drawn to Buddhism, which similarly
emphasizes a lack of divine interference and aspects of
its atomism. Buddhism also resembles
Epicureanism in its temperateness, including the belief
that great excess leads to great dissatisfaction.
Philosophy
The
philosophy originated by Epicurus flourished for seven
centuries. It propounded an ethic of individual pleasure as the sole or chief
good in life. Hence, Epicurus advocated living in such a
way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure
possible during one's lifetime, yet doing so moderately
in order to avoid the suffering incurred by
overindulgence in such pleasure. The emphasis was placed
on pleasures of the mind rather than on physical
pleasures. Therefore, according to Epicurus, with whom a
person eats is of greater importance than what is eaten.
Unnecessary and, especially, artificially produced
desires were to be suppressed. Since learning, culture, and civilization as well
as social and political involvements could give rise to
desires that are difficult to satisfy and thus result in
disturbing one's peace of mind, they were discouraged.
Knowledge was sought only to rid oneself of religious
fears and superstitions, the two primary fears to be
eliminated being fear of the gods and of death. Viewing
marriage and what attends it as a threat to one's peace
of mind, Epicurus lived a celibate life but did not
impose this restriction on his followers.
The
philosophy was characterized by an absence of divine
principle. Lawbreaking was counseled against because of
both the shame associated with detection and the
punishment it might bring. Living in fear of being found
out or punished would take away from pleasure, and this
made even secret wrongdoing inadvisable. To the
Epicureans, virtue in itself had no value and was
beneficial only when it served as a means to gain
happiness. Reciprocity was recommended, not because it
was divinely ordered or innately noble, but because it
was personally beneficial. Friendships rested on the
same mutual basis, that is, the pleasure resulting to
the possessors. Epicurus laid great emphasis on
developing friendships as the basis of a satisfying
life.
of all
the things which wisdom has contrived which contribute
to a blessed life, none is more important, more
fruitful, than friendship
While the
pursuit of pleasure formed the focal point of the
philosophy, this was largely directed to the "static
pleasures" of minimizing pain, anxiety and suffering. In
fact, Epicurus referred to life as a "bitter gift".
When we
say . . . that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not
mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of
sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through
ignorance, prejudice or wilful misrepresentation. By
pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and
of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken
succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by
sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other
delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a
pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out
the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and
banishing those beliefs through which the greatest
tumults take possession of the soul.
— Epicurus, "Letter to
Menoeceus"[11]
The
Epicureans believed in the existence of the gods, but
believed that the gods were made of atoms just like
everything else. It was thought that the gods were too
far away from the earth to have any interest in what man
was doing; so it did not do any good to pray or to
sacrifice to them. The gods, they believed, did not
create the universe, nor did they inflict punishment or
bestow blessings on anyone, but they were supremely
happy; this was the goal to strive for during one's own
human life.
"Live
unknown was one of [key] maxims. This was
completely at odds with all previous ideas of seeking
fame and glory, or even wanting something so apparently
decent as honor."[12]
Epicureanism
rejects immortality and mysticism; it believes in the
soul, but suggests that the soul is as mortal as the
body. Epicurus rejected any possibility of an afterlife,
while still contending that one need not fear death:
"Death is nothing to us; for that which is dissolved, is
without sensation, and that which lacks sensation is
nothing to us."[13]
From this doctrine arose the Epicurean Epitaph: Non
fui, fui, non sum, non curo ("I was not; I was; I
am not; I do not care"), which is inscribed on the
gravestones of his followers and seen on many ancient
gravestones of the Roman Empire. This quotation
is often used today at humanist funerals.[14]
Ethics
Epicurus
was an early thinker to develop the notion of justice as
a social contract. He defined justice as an agreement
"neither to harm nor be harmed". The point of living in
a society with laws and punishments is to be protected
from harm so that one is free to pursue happiness.
Because of this, laws that do not contribute to
promoting human happiness are not just. He gave his own
unique version of the Ethic
of Reciprocity, which differs from other
formulations by emphasizing minimizing harm and
maximizing happiness for oneself and others:
It is
impossible to live a pleasant life without living
wisely and well and justly (agreeing "neither to harm
nor be harmed"[15]),
and it is impossible to live wisely and well and
justly without living a pleasant life.[16]
Epicureanism
incorporated a relatively full account of the social contract theory,
following after a vague description of such a society in
Plato's Republic. The social
contract theory established by Epicureanism is based on
mutual agreement, not divine decree.
The human
soul is mortal because, like everything, it is composed
of atoms, but made up the most perfect, rounded and
smooth. It disappears with the destruction of the body.
We don't have to fear death because, firstly, nothing
follows after the disappearance of the body, and,
secondly, the experience of death is not so: "the most
terrible evil, death, is nothing for us, since when we
exist, death does not exist, and when death exists, we
do not exist "(Epicurus," Letter to Menoeceus ").
Nature has
set a target of every actions of living beings
(including men) seeking pleasure, as shown by the fact
that children instinctively and animals tend to shy away
from pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are the main
reasons for each actions of living beings. Pure pleasure
is the highest good, pain the supreme evil.
The
pleasures and pains are the result of the realization or
impairment of appetites. Epicurus distinguishes three
kinds of appetites:
- Natural
and necessary: eating, drinking, sleeping; They are
easy to please.
- Natural
but not necessary: as the erotic; they are not
difficult to master and are not needed for happiness.
- Those
who are not natural nor necessary: we must reject them
completely.
Types of
pleasures: since man is composed of body and soul there
are two general types of pleasures:
- Pleasures
of the body: Although considered to be the most
important, in the background the proposal is to give
up these pleasures and seek the lack of body pain.
There are soul aches and pains of the body, but the
body is bad because the pain of the soul is directly
or indirectly related to body aches occurring in the
present or to anticipations of future pains. Epicurus
believed there was no need to fear bodily pain because
when it is intense and unbearable, it is also usually
shorter. When it lasts longer and is less intense, it
is more bearable. He also believed one should relieve
physical pain with the memory of past joys, and in
extreme cases, to suicide.
- Pleasures
of the soul: the pleasure of the soul is greater than
the pleasure of the body: pleasures of the body are
effective in the present, but those of the soul are
more durable; the pleasures of the soul, Epicurus
believed, can eliminate or reduce bodily pains or
displeasures.
Epicurean
physics
Epicurus'
philosophy of the physical world is found in his Letter
to Herodotus: Diogenes Laertius 10.34–83.
If the sum
of all matter ("the totality") was limited and existed
within an unlimited void, it would be scattered and
constantly becoming more diffuse, because the finite
collection of bodies would travel forever, having no
obstacles. Conversely, if the totality was unlimited it
could not exist within a limited void, for the unlimited
bodies would not all have a place to be in. Therefore,
either both the void and the totality must be limited or
both must be unlimited and – as is mentioned later – the
totality is unlimited (and therefore so is the void).
Forms can
change, but not their inherent qualities, for change can
only affect their shape. Some things can be changed and
some things cannot be changed because forms that are
unchangeable cannot be destroyed if certain attributes
can be removed; for attributes not only have the
intention of altering an unchangeable form, but also the
inevitable possibility of becoming—in relation to the
form's disposition to its present environment—both an
armor and a vulnerability to its stability.
Further
proof that there are unchangeable forms and their
inability to be destroyed, is the concept of the
"non-evident." A form cannot come into being from the
void—which is nothing; it would be as if all forms come
into being spontaneously, needless of reproduction. The
implied meaning of "destroying" something is to undo its
existence, to make it not there anymore, and this cannot
be so: if the void is that which does not exist, and if
this void is the implied destination of the destroyed,
then the thing in reality cannot be destroyed, for the
thing (and all things) could not have existed in the
first place (as Parmenides said, ex
nihilo nihil fit: nothing comes from
nothing). This totality of forms is eternal and
unchangeable.
Atoms move, in
the appropriate way, constantly and for all time. Forms
first come to us in images or "projections"—outlines of
their true selves. For an image to be perceived by the
human eye, the "atoms" of the image must cross a great
distance at enormous speed and must not encounter any
conflicting atoms along the way. The presence of atomic
resistance equal atomic slowness; whereas, if the path
is deficient of atomic resistance, the traversal rate is
much faster (and clearer). Because of resistance, forms
must be unlimited (unchangeable and able to grasp any
point within the void) because, if they weren't, a
form's image would not come from a single place, but
fragmented and from several places. This confirms that a
single form cannot be at multiple places at the same
time.
Epicurus
for the most part follows Democritean atomism but
differs in proclaiming the clinamen (swerve or
declination). Imagining atoms to be moving under an
external force, Epicurus conceives an occasional atom
"swerving" for reasons peculiar to itself, i.e. not by
external compulsion but by "free will". In this, his
view absolutely opposes Democritean determinism as well
as developed Stoicism. Otherwise he conceives of atoms
as does Democritus – in that they have position, number,
and shape. To Democritus' differentiating criteria,
Epicurus adds "weight", but maintains Democritus' view
that atoms are necessarily indivisible and hence possess
no demonstrable internal space.
And the
senses warrant us other means of perception: hearing and
smelling. As in the same way an image traverses through
the air, the atoms of sound and smell traverse the same
way. This perceptive experience is itself the flow of
the moving atoms; and like the changeable and
unchangeable forms, the form from which the flow
traverses is shed and shattered into even smaller atoms,
atoms of which still represent the original form, but
they are slightly disconnected and of diverse
magnitudes. This flow, like that of an echo,
reverberates (off one's senses) and goes back to its
start; meaning, one's sensory perception happens in the
coming, going, or arch, of the flow; and when the flow
retreats back to its starting position, the atomic image
is back together again: thus when one smells something
one has the ability to see it too [because atoms reach
the one who smells or sees from the object.]
And this
leads to the question of how atomic speed and motion
works. Epicurus says that there are two kinds of motion:
the straight motion and the curved motion, and its
motion traverse as fast as the speed of thought.
Epicurus
proposed the idea of 'the space between worlds' (metakosmia) the
relatively empty spaces in the infinite void where
worlds had not been formed by the joining together of
the atoms through
their endless motion.
Epistemology
Epicurean epistemology has three
criteria of truth: sensations (aisthêsis),
preconceptions (prolepsis), and feelings (pathê).
Prolepsis is sometimes translated as "basic
grasp" but could also be described as "universal ideas":
concepts that are understood by all. An example of prolepsis
is the word "man" because every person has a
preconceived notion of what a man is. Sensations or
sense perception is knowledge that is received from the
senses alone. Much like modern science, Epicurean
philosophy posits that empiricism can be used to sort
truth from falsehood. Feelings are more related to
ethics than Epicurean physical
theory. Feelings merely tell the individual what
brings about pleasure and what brings about pain. This
is important for the Epicurean because these are the
basis for the entire Epicurean ethical doctrine.
According
to Epicurus, the basic means for our understanding of
things are the "sensations" (aestheses),
"concepts" (prolepsis), "emotions" (pathe),
and the "focusing of thought into an impression" (phantastikes
epiboles tes dianoias).
Epicureans
reject dialectic as confusing (parelkousa)
because for the physical philosophers it is sufficient
to use the correct words which refer to the concepts of
the world. Epicurus then, in his work On the Canon,
says that the criteria of truth are the senses, the
preconceptions and the feelings. Epicureans add to these
the focusing of thought into an impression. He himself
is referring to those in his Epitome to
Herodotus and in Principal Doctrines.[17]
The senses
are the first criterion of truth, since they create the
first impressions and testify the existence of the
external world. Sensory input is neither subjective nor
deceitful, but the misunderstanding comes when the mind
adds to or subtracts something from these impressions
through our preconceived notions. Therefore, our sensory
input alone cannot lead us to inaccuracy, only the
concepts and opinions that come from our interpretations
of our sensory input can. Therefore, our sensory data is
the only truly accurate thing which we have to rely for
our understanding of the world around us.
And
whatever image we receive by direct understanding by
our mind or through our sensory organs of the shape or
the essential properties that are the true form of the
solid object, since it is created by the constant
repetition of the image or the impression it has left
behind. There is always inaccuracy and error involved
in bringing into a judgment an element that is
additional to sensory impressions, either to confirm
[what we sensed] or deny it.
— Letter to Herodotus,
50
Epicurus
said that all the tangible things are real and each
impression comes from existing objects and is
determined by the object that causes the sensations.
Therefore
all the impressions are real, while the preconceived
notions are not real and can be modified.
— Sextus Empiricus, To
Rationals, 7.206–45
If you
battle with all your sensations, you will be unable to
form a standard for judging which of them are
incorrect.
— Principal Doctrines,
23
The concepts
are the categories which have formed mentally according
to our sensory input, for example the concepts "man",
"warm", and "sweet", etc. These concepts are directly
related to memory and can be recalled at any time, only
by the use of the respective word. (Compare the anthropological Sapir–Whorf hypothesis).
Epicurus also calls them "the meanings that underlie the
words" (hypotetagmena tois phthongois: semantic
substance of the words) in his letter to Herodotus. The
feelings or emotions (pathe) are
related to the senses and the concepts. They are the
inner impulses that make us feel like or dislike about
certain external objects, which we perceive through the
senses, and are associated with the preconceptions that
are recalled.
In this
moment that the word "man" is spoken, immediately due
to the concept [or category of the idea] an image is
projected in the mind which is related to the sensory
input data.
— Diogenes Laertius, Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, X, 33
First of
all Herodotus, we must understand the meanings that
underlie the words, so that by referring to them, we
may be able to reach judgments about our opinions,
matters of inquiry, or problems and leave everything
undecided as we can argue endlessly or use words that
have no clearly defined meaning.
— Letter to Herodotus,
37
Apart from
these there is the assumption (hypolepsis),
which is either the hypothesis or the opinion about
something (matter or action), and which can be correct
or incorrect. The assumptions are created by our
sensations, concepts and emotions. Since they are
produced automatically without any rational analysis and
verification (see the modern idea of the subconscious) of whether they
are correct or not, they need to be confirmed (epimarteresis:
confirmation), a process which must follow each
assumption.
For
beliefs they [the Epicureans] use the word hypolepsis
which they claim can be correct or incorrect.
— Diogenes Laertius, Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, X, 34
Referring
to the "focusing of thought into an impression" or else
"intuitive understandings of the mind", they are the
impressions made on the mind that come from our
sensations, concepts and emotions and form the basis of
our assumptions and beliefs. All this unity (sensation –
concept or category – emotion – focusing of thought into
an impression) leads to the formation of a certain
assumption or belief (hypolepsis). (Compare the
modern anthropological concept of a
"world view".) Following the
lead of Aristotle, Epicurus also refers
to impressions in the form of mental images which are
projected on the mind. The "correct use of impressions"
was something adopted later by the Stoics.
Our
assumptions and beliefs have to be 'confirmed', which
actually proves if our opinions are either accurate or
inaccurate. This verification and confirmation (epimarteresis)
can only be done by means of the "evident reason"
(henargeia), which means what is self-evident and
obvious through our sensory input.
An example
is when we see somebody approaching us, first through
the sense of eyesight, we perceive that an object is
coming closer to us, then through our preconceptions we
understand that it is a human being, afterwards through
that assumption we can recognize that he is someone we
know, for example Theaetetus. This assumption is
associated with pleasant or unpleasant emotions
accompanied by the respective mental images and
impressions (the focusing of our thoughts into an
impression), which are related to our feelings toward
each other. When he gets close to us, we can confirm
(verify) that he is Socrates and not Theaetetus through
the proof of our eyesight. Therefore, we have to use the
same method to understand everything, even things which
are not observable and obvious (adela, imperceptible),
that is to say the confirmation through the evident
reason (henargeia). In the same way we have to
reduce (reductionism) each assumption
and belief to something that can be proved through the
self-evident reason (empirically verified). Verification
theory and reductionism have been
adopted, as we know, by the modern philosophy of science.
In this way, one can get rid of the incorrect
assumptions and beliefs (biases)
and finally settle on the real (confirmed) facts.
Consequently
the confirmation and lack of disagreement is the
criterion of accuracy of something, while
non-confirmation and disagreement is the criterion of
its inaccuracy. The basis and foundation of
[understanding] everything are the obvious and
self-evident [facts].
— Sextus Empiricus, To
Rationals, 7.211–6
All the
above-mentioned criteria of knowledge form the basic
principles of the [scientific] method, that Epicurus
followed in order to find the truth. He described this
method in his work On the Canon or On the
Criteria.
If you
reject any sensation and you do not distinguish
between the opinion based on what awaits confirmation
and evidence already available based on the senses,
the feelings and every intuitive faculty of the mind,
you will send the remaining sensations into a turmoil
with your foolish opinions, thus getting rid of every
standard for judging. And if among the perceptions
based on beliefs are things that are verified and
things that are not, you are guaranteed to be in error
since you have kept everything that leads to
uncertainty concerning the correct and incorrect.[18]
(Based on
excerpt from Epicurus' Gnoseology Handbook of Greek
Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis and
Fragments, Nikolaos Bakalis, Trafford Publishing
2005, ISBN 1-4120-4843-5)
Tetrapharmakos
Main article: Tetrapharmakos
Part of Herculaneum Papyrus 1005
(P.Herc.1005), col. 5. Contains Epicurean
tetrapharmakos from Philodemus' Adversus Sophistas.
Tetrapharmakos,
or "The four-part cure", is Epicurus' basic guideline as
to how to live the happiest possible life. This poetic
doctrine was handed down by an anonymous Epicurean who
summed up Epicurus' philosophy on happiness in four
simple lines:
Don't
fear god,
Don't worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
Notable
Epicureans
One of the
earliest Roman writers espousing
Epicureanism was Amafinius. Other adherents to
the teachings of Epicurus included the poet Horace, whose famous statement Carpe
Diem ("Seize the Day") illustrates the philosophy,
as well as Lucretius, as he showed in his De
Rerum Natura. The poet Virgil was another prominent
Epicurean (see Lucretius for further details).
The Epicurean philosopher Philodemus
of Gadara, until the 18th century only known as a
poet of minor importance, rose to prominence as most of
his work along with other Epicurean material was
discovered in the Villa of the Papyri.
Julius Caesar leaned
considerably toward Epicureanism, which e.g. led to his
plea against the death sentence during the trial against
Catiline, during the Catiline conspiracy where he
spoke out against the Stoic Cato.[19]
In modern
times Thomas Jefferson referred
to himself as an Epicurean.[20]
Other modern-day Epicureans were Gassendi, Walter Charleton, François Bernier, Saint-Evremond,
Ninon de l'Enclos, Denis Diderot, Frances Wright and Jeremy Bentham. Christopher Hitchens
referred to himself as an Epicurean.[21]
In France, where perfumer/restaurateur Gérald Ghislain
refers to himself as an Epicurean,[22]
Michel Onfray is developing
a post-modern
approach to Epicureanism.[23]
In his recent book titled The Swerve,
Stephen Greenblatt
identified himself as strongly sympathetic to
Epicureanism and Lucretius.
Modern
usage and misconceptions
In modern
popular usage, an epicurean is a connoisseur of the arts
of life and the refinements of sensual pleasures;
epicureanism implies a love or knowledgeable enjoyment
especially of good food and drink—see the definition of
gourmet at Wiktionary.
Because
Epicureanism posits that pleasure is the ultimate good
(telos), it has been commonly misunderstood since
ancient times as a doctrine that advocates the partaking
in fleeting pleasures such as constant partying, sexual
excess and decadent food. This is not the case. Epicurus
regarded ataraxia (tranquility,
freedom from fear) and aponia (absence of pain) as
the height of happiness. He also considered prudence an
important virtue and perceived excess and overindulgence
to be contrary to the attainment of ataraxia and aponia.[11]
See also
Notes
- The
Hidden History of Greco-Roman Vegetarianism
- The
Philosophy of Vegetarianism – Daniel A. Dombrowski
- Erlend D. MacGillivray "The
Popularity of Epicureanism in Late-Republic Roman
Society" The Ancient World, XLIII (2012) 151–72.
- Michael Frede, Epilogue, The
Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy pp.
795–96;
- Lactantius, De Ira Deorum,
13.19 (Epicurus,
Frag. 374, Usener). David Hume paraphrased this
passage in his Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion: "EPICURUS's
old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to
prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is
he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is
he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"
- Mark Joseph Larrimore,
(2001), The Problem of Evil, pp. xix-xxi.
Wiley-Blackwell
- Reinhold F. Glei, Et
invidus et inbecillus. Das angebliche
Epikurfragment bei Laktanz, De ira dei 13,20–21,
in: Vigiliae Christianae 42 (1988), pp.
47–58
- Sextus Empiricus, Outlines
of Pyrrhonism, 175: "those who firmly maintain
that god exists will be forced into impiety; for if
they say that he [god] takes care of everything,
they will be saying that god is the cause of evils,
while if they say that he takes care of some things
only or even nothing, they will be forced to say
that he is either malevolent or weak"
- Trans. Robert Pinsky, The
Inferno of Dante, p. 320 n. 11.
- On Goals, 1.65
- Epicurus, "Letter to
Menoeceus", contained in Diogenes Laertius, Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, Book X
- The Story of Philosophy:
The Essential Guide to the History of Western
Philosophy. Bryan Magee. DK Publishing, Inc.
1998.
- Russell, Bertrand. A
History of Western Philosophy, pp.
239–40
- Epicurus
(c 341–270 BC) British
Humanist Association
- Tim O'Keefe, Epicurus
on Freedom, Cambridge University Press,
2005, p. 134
- Epicurus
Principal Doctrines tranls. by Robert
Drew Hicks (1925)
- Diogenes Laertius, Lives
of Eminent Philosophers, X, 31.
- Principal Doctrines,
24.
- Cf. Sallust, The War With
Catiline, Caesar's speech: 51.29
& Cato's reply: 52.13).
- Letter
to William Short, 11 Oct. 1819 in The Writings
of Thomas Jefferson : 1816–1826 by Thomas
Jefferson, Paul Leicester Ford, G.P. Putnam's Sons,
1899
- Townhall.com::Talk
Radio Online::Radio Show
- Anon., Gérald
Ghislain—Creator of The Scent of Departure.
IdeaMensch, July 14, 2011.
- Michel Onfray, La
puissance d'exister: Manifeste hédoniste, Grasset,
2006
Further
reading
- Dane
R. Gordon and David B. Suits, Epicurus. His
Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance,
Rochester, N.Y.: RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press,
2003.
- Holmes,
Brooke & Shearin, W. H. Dynamic Reading:
Studies in the Reception of Epicureanism,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- Jones,
Howard. The Epicurean Tradition, New York:
Routledge, 1989.
- Neven
Leddy and Avi S. Lifschitz, Epicurus in the
Enlightenment, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation,
2009.
- Long, A.A. & Sedley, D.N. The
Hellenistic Philosophers Volume 1, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1987. (ISBN
0-521-27556-3)
- Long,
Roderick (2008). "Epicureanism".
In Hamowy, Ronald. The
Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand
Oaks, CA: SAGE; Cato Institute.
p. 153. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4.
LCCN 2008009151.
OCLC 750831024.
- Martin
Ferguson Smith (ed.), Diogenes of Oinoanda.
The Epicurean inscription, edited with
introduction, translation, and notes, Naples:
Bibliopolis, 1993.
- Martin
Ferguson Smith, Supplement to Diogenes of
Oinoanda. The Epicurean Inscription, Naples:
Bibliopolis, 2003.
- Warren,
James (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to
Epicureanism, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009.
- Wilson,
Catherine. Epicureanism at the Origins of
Modernity, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008.
- Zeller, Eduard;
Reichel, Oswald J., The
Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics,
Longmans, Green, and Co., 1892
External links
----------------------
8.
Ancient Greek Skepticism
from
Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/skepanci/
Although all skeptics in some way cast doubt on our
ability to gain knowledge of the world, the term "skeptic"
actually covers a wide range of attitudes and positions.
There are skeptical elements in the views of many Greek
philosophers, but the term "ancient skeptic" is generally
applied either to a member of Plato's Academy during its
skeptical period (c. 273 B.C.E to 1st century B.C.E.) or
to a follower of Pyrrho
(c. 365 to 270 B.C.E.). Pyrrhonian skepticism flourished
from Aenesidemus' revival (1st century B.C.E.) to Sextus
Empiricus, who lived sometime in the 2nd or 3rd centuries
C.E. Thus the two main varieties of ancient skepticism:
Academic and Pyrrhonian.
The term
"skeptic" derives from a Greek noun, skepsis, which
means examination, inquiry, consideration. What leads
most skeptics to begin to examine and then eventually to
be at a loss as to what one should believe, if anything,
is the fact of widespread and seemingly endless
disagreement regarding issues of fundamental importance.
Many of the arguments of the ancient skeptics were
developed in response to the positive views of their
contemporaries, especially the Stoics and
Epicureans,
but these arguments have been highly influential for
subsequent philosophers and will continue to be of great
interest as long as there is widespread disagreement
regarding important philosophical issues.
Nearly
every variety of ancient skepticism includes a thesis
about our epistemic limitations and a thesis about
suspending judgment. The two most frequently made
objections to skepticism target these theses. The first
is that the skeptic's commitment to our epistemic
limitations is inconsistent. He cannot consistently
claim to know, for example, that knowledge is not
possible; neither can he consistently claim that we
should suspend judgment regarding all matters insofar as
this claim is itself a judgment. Either such claims will
refute themselves, since they fall under their own
scope, or the skeptic will have to make an apparently
arbitrary exemption. The second sort of objection is
that the alleged epistemic limitations and/or the
suggestion that we should suspend judgment would make
life unlivable. For, the business of day-to-day life
requires that we make choices and this requires making
judgments. Similarly, one might point out that our
apparent success in interacting with the world and each
other entails that we must know some things. Some
responses by ancient skeptics to these objections are
considered in the following discussion.
(Hankinson
[1995] is a comprehensive and detailed examination of
ancient skeptical views. See Schmitt [1972] and Popkin
[1979] for discussion of the historical impact of
ancient skepticism, beginning with its rediscovery in
the 16th Century, and Fogelin [1994] for an assessment
of Pyrrhonian skepticism in light of contemporary
epistemology. The differences between ancient and modern
forms of skepticism has been a controversial topic in
recent years-see especially, Annas [1986], [1996],
Burnyeat [1984], and Bett [1993].)
Table of
Contents
- Academic
vs. Pyrrhonian Skepticism
- Academic
Skepticism
- Arcesilaus
- Platonic Innovator
- Attack on the Stoics
- On Suspending Judgment
- Dialectical
Interpretation
- Practical Criterion: to
Eulogon
- Carneades
- Socratic Dialectic
- On Ethical Theory
- On the Stoic Sage
- On Epistemology
- Practical Criterion: to
Pithanon
- Dialectical Skeptic or
Fallibilist?
- Philo
and Antiochus
- Cicero
- Pyrrhonian
Skepticism
- Pyrrho
and Timon
- Aenesidemus
- Revival of Pyrrhonism
- The Ten Modes
- Tranquility
- Sextus
Empiricus
- General Account of
Skepticism
- The Path to Skepticism
- The Modes of Agrippa
- Skepticism vs.
Relativism
- The Skeptical Life
- Skepticism
and the Examined Life
- Greek and
Latin Texts, Commentaries, and Translations
- References
and Further Reading
1.
Academic vs. Pyrrhonian Skepticism
The
distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian skepticism
continues to be a controversial topic. In the Second
Century C.E., the Roman author Aulus Gellius already
refers to this as an old question treated by many Greek
writers (Attic Nights 11.5.6, see Striker
[1981/1996]). The biggest obstacle to correctly making
this distinction is that it is misleading to describe
Academic and Pyrrhonian skepticism as distinctly unified
views in the first place since different Academics and
Pyrrhonists seem to have understood their skepticisms in
different ways. So even though the terms Academic and
Pyrrhonian are appropriate insofar as there are clear
lines of transmission and development of skeptical views
that unify each, we should not expect to find a simple
account of the distinction between the two.
2.
Academic Skepticism
a. Arcesilaus
Following
Plato's death in 347 B.C.E., his nephew Speusippus
became head of the Academy. Next in line were
Xenocrates, Polemo and Crates. The efforts of the
Academics during this period were largely directed
towards developing an orthodox Platonic metaphysics.
When Crates died (c. 272 B.C.E.) Arcesilaus of Pitane
(c. 318 to 243 B.C.E.) became the sixth head of the
Academy. Another member of the Academy, Socratides, who
was apparently in line for the position, stepped down in
favor of Arcesilaus (Diogenes
Laertius [DL] 4.32); so it seems he was held in
high regard by his predecessors, at least at the time of
his appointment. (See Long [1986] for discussion of the
life of Arcesilaus.)
i. Platonic Innovator
According
to Diogenes Laertius, Arcesilaus was "the first to argue
on both sides of a question, and the first to meddle
with the traditional Platonic system [or: discourse, logos]
and by means of question and answer, to make it more of
a debating contest" (4.28, translation after R.D.
Hicks).
Diogenes is
certainly wrong about Arcesilaus being the first to
argue on both sides of a question. This was a long
standing practice in Greek rhetoric commonly attributed
to the Sophists. But Arcesilaus was responsible
for turning Plato's Academy to a form of skepticism.
This transition was probably supported by an innovative
reading of Plato's books, which he possessed and held in
high regard (DL
4.31).
Diogenes'
remark that Arcesilaus "meddled" with Plato's system and
made it more of a debating contest indicates a critical
attitude towards his innovations. Diogenes (or his
source) apparently thought that Arcesilaus betrayed the
spirit of Platonic philosophy by turning it to
skepticism.
Cicero, on
the other hand, in an approving tone, reports that
Arcesilaus revived the practice of Socrates,
which he takes to be the same as Plato's.
"[Socrates]
was in the habit of drawing forth the opinions of those
with whom he was arguing, in order to state his own view
as a response to their answers. This practice was not
kept up by his successors; but Arcesilaus revived it and
prescribed that those who wanted to listen to him should
not ask him questions but state their own opinions. When
they had done so, he argued against them. But his
listeners, so far as they could, would defend their own
opinion" (de Finibus 2.2, translated by Long
and Sedley, 68J, see also de Natura Deorum 1.11).
Arcesilaus
had (selectively) derived the lesson from Plato's
dialogues that nothing can be known with certainty,
either by the senses or by the mind (de Oratore
3.67, on the topic of Plato and Socrates as
proto-skeptics, see Annas [1992], Shields [1994] and
Woodruff [1986]). He even refused to accept this
conclusion; thus he did not claim to know that nothing
could be known (Academica 45).
ii. Attack on the Stoics
In general,
the Stoics
were the ideal target for the skeptics; for, their
confidence in the areas of metaphysics, ethics and
epistemology was supported by an elaborate and
sophisticated set of arguments. And, the stronger the
justification of some theory, the more impressive is its
skeptical refutation. They were also an attractive
target due to their prominence in the Hellenistic world.
Arcesilaus especially targeted the founder of Stoicism,
Zeno, for refutation. Zeno confidently claimed not only
that knowledge is possible but that he had a correct
account of what knowledge is, and he was willing to
teach this to others. The foundation of this account is
the notion of katalêpsis: a mental grasping
of a sense impression that guarantees the truth of what
is grasped. If one assents to the proposition associated
with a kataleptic impression, i.e. if one experiences
katalepsis, then the associated proposition cannot fail
to be true. The Stoic sage, as the perfection and
fulfillment of human nature, is the one who assents only
to kataleptic impressions and thus is infallible.
Arcesilaus
argued against the possibility of there being any
sense-impressions which we could not be mistaken about.
In doing so, he paved the way for future Academic
attacks on Stoicism. To summarize the attack: for any
sense-impression S, received by some observer A, of some
existing object O, and which is a precise representation
of O, we can imagine circumstances in which there is
another sense-impression S', which comes either (i) from
something other than O, or (ii) from something
non-existent, and which is such that S' is
indistinguishable from S to A. The first possibility (i)
is illustrated by cases of indistinguishable twins,
eggs, statues or imprints in wax made by the same ring (Lucullus
84-87). The second possibility (ii) is illustrated
by the illusions of dreams and madness (Lucullus 88-91).
On the strength of these examples, Arcesilaus apparently
concluded that we may, in principle, be deceived about
any sense-impression, and consequently that the Stoic
account of empirical knowledge fails. For the Stoics
were thorough-going empiricists and believed that
sense-impressions lie at the foundation of all of our
knowledge. So if we could not be certain of ever having
grasped any sense-impression, then we cannot be certain
of any of the more complex impressions of the world,
including what strikes us as valuable. Thus, along with
the failure to establish the possibility of katalepsis
goes the failure to establish the possibility of Stoic
wisdom (see Hankinson [1995], Annas [1990] and Frede
[1983/1987] for detailed discussions of this
epistemological debate).
iii. On Suspending Judgment
In response
to this lack of knowledge (whether limited to the Stoic
variety or knowledge in general), Arcesilaus claimed
that we should suspend judgment. By arguing for and
against every position that came up in discussion he
presented equally weighty reasons on both sides of the
issue and made it easier to accept neither side (Academica
45). Diogenes counts the suspension of judgment as
another of Arcesilaus' innovations (DL 4.28) and refers
to this as the reason he never wrote any books (4.32).
Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism
[generally referred to by the initials of the title in
Greek, PH] 1.232) and Plutarch (Adversus Colotes
1120C) also attribute the suspension of judgment about
everything to him.
Determining
precisely what cognitive attitude Arcesilaus intended by
"suspending judgment" is difficult, primarily because we
only have second and third hand reports of his views (if
indeed he endorsed any views, see Dialectical
Interpretation below). To suspend judgment seems to mean
not to accept a proposition as true, i.e. not to believe
it. It follows that if one suspends judgment regarding
p, then he should neither believe that p nor should he
believe that not-p (for this will commit him to the
truth of not-p). But if believing p just means believing
that p is true, then suspending judgment regarding
everything is the same as not believing anything. If
Arcesilaus endorsed this, then he could not consistently
believe either that nothing can be known or that one
should consequently suspend judgment.
iv. Dialectical Interpretation
One way
around this problem is to adopt the dialectical
interpretation (advanced by Couissin [1929]). According
to this interpretation, Arcesilaus merely showed the
Stoics that they didn't have an adequate
account of knowledge, not that knowledge in general is
impossible. In other words, knowledge will only turn out
to be impossible if we define it as the Stoics do.
Furthermore, he did not show that everyone should
suspend judgment, but rather only those who accept
certain Stoic premises. In particular, he argued that if
we accept the Stoic view that the Sage never errs, and
since katalepsis is not possible, then the Sage (and the
rest of us insofar as we emulate the Sage) should never
give our assent to anything. Thus the only way to
achieve sagehood, i.e. to consistently avoid error, is
to suspend judgment regarding everything and never risk
being wrong (Lucullus 66-67, 76-78, see also
Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians
[generally referred to by the initial M, for the name of
the larger work from which it comes,Adversus
Mathematikos] 7.150-57). But the dialectical
Arcesilaus himself neither agrees nor disagrees with
this.
v. Practical Criterion: to
Eulogon
The biggest
obstacle to the dialectical interpretation is
Arcesilaus' practical criterion, to eulogon.
Arcesilaus presented this criterion in response to the Stoic
objection that if we were to suspend judgment regarding
everything, then we would not be able to continue to
engage in day to day activities. For, theStoics
thought, any deliberate action presupposes some assent,
which is to say that belief is necessary for action.
Thus if we eliminate belief we will eliminate action
(Plutarch, Adversus Colotes 1122A-F, LS 69A).
Sextus
remarks that
inasmuch
as it was necessary . . . to investigate also the
conduct of life, which cannot, naturally, be directed
without a criterion, upon which happiness-that is, the
end of life-depends for its assurance, Arcesilaus
asserts that he who suspends judgment about everything
will regulate his inclinations and aversion and his
actions in general by the rule of "the reasonable [to
eulogon]," and by proceeding in accordance with
this criterion he will act rightly; for happiness is
attained by means of wisdom, and wisdom consists in
right actions, and the right action is that which,
when performed, possesses a reasonable justification.
He, therefore, who attends to "the reasonable" will
act rightly and be happy (M 7.158, translated
by Bury).
There is a
good deal of Stoic technical terminology in this
passage, including the term eulogon itself,
and this may seem to support the dialectical
interpretation. On this view, Arcesilaus is simply
showing the Stoics both that their account of knowledge
is not necessary for virtue, and that they nonetheless
already have a perfectly acceptable epistemic
substitute, to eulogon (see Striker
[1980/1996]). But this raises the question, why would
Arcesilaus make such a gift to his Stoic adversaries? It
would be as if, Maconi's words, "Arcesilaus first
knocked his opponent to the ground and then gave him a
hand up again" (1988: 248). Such generosity would seem
to be incompatible with the purely dialectical purpose
of refutation. Similarly, if he had been arguing
dialectically all along, there seems to be no good
reason for him to respond to Stoic objections, for he
was not presenting his own views in the first place. On
the other hand, the proponent of the dialectical view
could maintain that Arcesilaus has not done any favors
to the Stoics by giving them the gift of to
eulogon; rather, this "gift" may still be seen
as a refutation of the Stoic view that a robust
knowledge is necessary for virtue.
An
alternative to the dialectical view is to interpret to
eulogon as Arcesilaus' own considered opinion
regarding how one may live well in the absence of
certainty. This view then encounters the earlier
difficulty of explaining how it is consistent for
Arcesilaus to endorse suspending judgment on all matters
while at the same time believing that one may attain
wisdom and happiness by adhering to his practical
criterion.
b. Carneades
Arcesilaus
was succeeded by Lacydes (c. 243 B.C.E.), and then
Evander and Hegesinus in turn took over as heads of the
Academy. Following Hegesinus, Carneades of Cyrene (c.
213 to 129 B.C.E.), perhaps the most illustrious of the
skeptical Academics, took charge. Rather than merely
responding to the dogmatic positions that were currently
held as Arcesilaus did, Carneades developed a wider
array of skeptical arguments against any possible
dogmatic position, including some that were not being
defended. He also elaborated a more detailed practical
criterion, to pithanon. As was the case with
Arcesilaus, he left nothing in writing, except for a few
letters, which are no longer extant (DL 4.65).
i. Socratic Dialectic
Carneades
employed the same dialectical strategies as Arcesilaus (Academica
45, Lucullus 16), and similarly found his
inspiration and model in Plato's Socrates. The Socratic
practice which Carneades employed, according to Cicero,
was to try to conceal his own private opinion, relieve
others from deception and in every discussion to look
for the most probable solution (Tusculan Disputations
5.11, see also de Natura Deorum 1.11).
In 155
B.C.E., nearly one hundred years after Arcesilaus' death
in 243, Carneades is reported to have gone as an
Athenian ambassador to Rome. There he presented
arguments one day in favor of justice and the next he
presented arguments against it. He did this not because
he thought that justice should be disparaged but rather
to show its defenders that they had no conclusive
support for their view (Lactantius, LS 68M). Similarly,
we find Carneades arguing against the Stoic conception
of the gods, not in order to show that they do not
exist, but rather to show that the Stoics had not firmly
established anything regarding the divine (de Natura
Deorum 3.43-44, see also 1.4). It seems then that
Carneades was motivated primarily by the Socratic goal
of relieving others of the false pretense to knowledge
or wisdom and that he pursued this goal dialectically by
arguing both for and against philosophical positions.
ii. On Ethical Theory
But whereas
Arcesilaus seemed to limit his targets to positions
actually held by his interlocutors, Carneades
generalized his skeptical attack, at least in ethics and
epistemology. The main task of Hellenistic ethics was to
determine the summum bonum, the goal at which
all of our actions must aim if we are to live good,
happy lives. Carneades listed all of the defensible
candidates, including some that had not actually been
defended, in order to argue for and against each one and
show that no one in fact knows what the summum bonum
is, if indeed there is one (de Finibus
5.16-21). He may have even intended the stronger
conclusion that it is not possible to acquire knowledge
of the summum bonum,assuming his list was
exhaustive of all the serious candidates.
iii. On the Stoic Sage
As with
Arcesilaus, Carneades also focused much of his skeptical
energy on the Stoics, particularly the views of the
scholarch Chrysippus (DL 4.62). The Stoics had developed
a detailed view of wisdom as life in accordance with
nature. The Stoic sage never errs, he never incorrectly
values the goods of fortune, he never suffers from
pathological emotions, and he always remains tranquil.
His happiness is completely inviolable since everything
he does and everything he experiences is precisely as it
should be; and crucially, he knows this to be true. Even
though the Stoics were extremely reluctant to admit that
anyone had so far achieved this extraordinary virtue,
they nonetheless insisted that it was a real possibility
(Luc.145, Tusc. 2.51, Seneca Ep.
42.1, M 9.133, DL 7.91).
As a
dialectician, Carneades carefully examined this
conception of the sage. Sometimes he argued, contrary to
the Stoic view, that the sage would in fact assent to
non-kataleptic impressions and thus that he was liable
to error (Luc. 67); for he might form opinions even in
the absence of katalepsis (Luc. 78). But he also
apparently argued against the view that the sage will
hold mere opinions in the absence of katalepsis (Luc.
112). Presumably he didn't himself endorse either
position since the issue that had to be decided first
was whether katalepsis was even possible. In other
words, if certainty is possible, then of
course the sage should not settle for mere opinion. But
if it is not possible, then perhaps he will be entitled
to hold mere opinions, provided they are thoroughly
examined and considered.
iv. On Epistemology
Just as
Carneades generalized his skeptical attack on ethical
theories, he also argued against all of his
predecessors' epistemological theories (M 7.159).
The main task of Hellenistic epistemology was to
determine the criterion (standard, measure or test) of
truth. If the criterion of truth is taken to be a sort
of sense-impression, as in the Stoic theory, then we
will not be able to discover any such impression that
could not in principle appear true to the most expertly
trained and sensitive perceiver and yet still be false (M
7.161-65, see Arcesilaus' "Attack
on the Stoics" above). But if we can discover no
criterial sense-impression, then neither will the
faculty of reason alone be able to provide us with a
criterion, insofar as we accept the empiricist view
(common among Hellenistic philosophers) that nothing can
be judged by the mind that hasn't first entered by the
senses.
We have no
evidence to suggest that Carneades also argued against a
rationalist, or a priori approach to the
criterion.
v. Practical Criterion: to
Pithanon
According
to Sextus, after arguing against all the available
epistemological theories, Carneades himself needed to
advance a criterion for the conduct of life and the
attainment of happiness (M 7.166). Sextus does not tell
us why it was necessary for Carneades to do so, but it
was probably for the same reason that Arcesilaus had
presented his practical criterion-namely, in response to
the objection that if there were no epistemic grounds on
which to prefer one impression over another then,
despite all appearances, we cannot rationally govern our
choices. Thus, Carneades expounded his practical
criterion, to pithanon.
First he
noted that every sense impression exists in two distinct
relations: one relative to the object from which it
comes, the "impressor", and the other relative to the
perceiver. The first relation determines what we
ordinarily think of as truth: does the impression
correspond to its object or not? The second relation
determines plausibility: is the impression convincing to
the perceiver or not? Rather than relying on the first
relation, Carneades adopted the convincing impression [pithanê
phantasia] as the criterion of truth, even though
there will be occasions on which it fails to accurately
represent its object. Yet, he apparently thought that
these occasions are rare and so they do not provide a
good reason for distrusting the convincing impressions.
For such impressions are reliable for the most part, and
in actual practice, life is regulated by what holds for
the most part (M 7.166-75, LS 69D).
Sextus also
reports the refinements Carneades made to his criterion.
If we are considering whether we should accept some
impression as true, we presumably have already found it
to be convincing, but we should also consider how well
it coheres with other relevant impressions and then
thoroughly examine it further as if we were
cross-examining a witness. The amount of examination
that a convincing impression requires is a function of
its importance to us. In insignificant matters we make
use of the merely convincing impression, but in weighty
matters, especially those having to do with happiness,
we should only rely on the convincing impressions that
have been thoroughly explored (M 7.176-84).
Cicero
translates Carneades' pithanon with the Latin
terms probabile and veri simile, and
he claims that this criterion is to be employed both in
everyday life and in the Academic dialectical practice
of arguing for and against philosophical views (Luc.
32, see also Contr.Ac. 2.26, and Glucker
[1995]). The novel feature of this criterion is that it
does not guarantee that whatever is in accordance with
it is true. But if it is to play the dialectical role
explicitly specified by Cicero and suggested by Sextus'
report, then it must have some connection with truth.
This is especially clear in the case of
sense-impressions: the benefit of thoroughly examining
sense-impressions is that we may rule out the deceptive
ones and accept the accurate ones. And we may make a
similar case, as Cicero does, for the dialectical
examination of philosophical views. A major difficulty
in interpreting Carneades' pithanon in this
way is that it requires some explanation for how we are
able to identify what resembles the truth (veri
simile) without being able to identify the truth
itself (Luc. 32-33).
vi. Dialectical Skeptic or
Fallibilist?
Even if the
fallibilist interpretation of Carneades' criterion is
correct, it remains a further issue whether he actually
endorsed his criterion himself, or whether he merely
developed it dialectically as a possible view. Indeed,
even Carneades' student Clitomachus was unable to
determine what, if anything, Carneades endorsed (Luc.
139, see also Striker [1980/1996]). A number of
difficulties arise if he did endorse his criterion.
First, Carneades argued that there is absolutely no
criterion of truth (M 7.159) and that would
presumably include to pithanon. Second,
Clitomachus claims that Carneades endured a nearly
Herculean labor "when he cast assent out of our minds,
like a wild and savage beast, that is mere opinion and
thoughtlessness" (Luc. 108). Thus it would
seem to be inconsistent for him to accept a moderate,
fallible form of assent if it leads to holding opinions.
We may more
simply deal with Carneades' criterion by noting that
sometimes he argued so zealously in support of some view
that people reasonably, but incorrectly, assumed that he
accepted it himself (Luc.78, Fin. 5.20).
Thus we may say that Carneades only advanced views
dialectically but remained uncommitted to any of them.
His criterion in this case would be the disappointing
consequence of Stoic epistemological
commitments-disappointing (as in the case with the
dialectical reading of Arcesilaus'eulogon)
because the Stoics believed these same commitments led
to a much more robust criterion.
On the
other hand, Cicero endorses a fallibilist interpretation
of to pithanon which he seems to think was
also endorsed by Carneades himself. This interpretation
was developed by another of Carneades' students,
Metrodorus, and by Cicero's teacher, Philo. We also have
evidence that Carneades made an important distinction
between assent and approval that he may have appealed to
in this context (Luc. 104, see Bett [1990]). He limits
assent to the mental event of taking a proposition to be
true and adopts the term "approval" for the more modest
mental event of taking a proposition to be convincing
but without making any commitment to its truth. If this
distinction is viable it would allow Carneades to
approve of his epistemological criterion without
committing himself at any deeper theoretical level. In
other words Carneades could appeal to his criterion for
his very adoption of that criterion: it is pithanon
but not certain that to pithanon is the
criterion for determining what we should approve of.
Cicero claims that Carneades made just this sort of move
in the case of his rejection of the possibility of Stoic
katalepsis: it isprobabile (= pithanon), but
not certain, that katalepsis is not possible (Luc. 110,
see Thorsrud [2002]).
c. Philo and Antiochus
According
to Sextus Empiricus, most people divide the Academy into
three periods: the first, the so-called Old Academy, is
Plato's; the second is the Middle Academy of Arcesilaus;
and the third is the New Academy of Carneades. But, he
remarks, some also add a fourth Academy, that of Philo,
and a fifth Academy, Antiochus' (PH 1.220).
Philo was head of the Academy from about 110 to 79
B.C.E. His interpretation of Academic skepticism as a
mitigated form that permits tentative approval of the
view that survives the most dialectical scrutiny is
recorded and examined in Cicero's Academica, and
in the earlier version of this dialogue, the Lucullus.
The Lucullus is just one of the two books
that constituted the earlier version. The second book,
now lost was called Catulus, after one of the
main speakers. Cicero later revised these books,
dividing them into four; but only part of the first of
those four, what is usually referred to as the Academica
posteriora, has survived. Nevertheless, we have
enough of these books to get a pretty good sense of the
whole work (see Griffin [1997], Mansfeld [1997]).
Philo
apparently claimed that some sense-impressions very well
may be true but that we nonetheless have no reliable way
to determine which ones these are (Luc. 111,
see also 34). Similarly, Sextus attributes to Philo the
view that "as far the Stoic standard (i.e. apprehensive
appearance [= kataleptic impression]) is concerned,
objects are inapprehensible, but as far as the nature of
the objects themselves is concerned they are
apprehensible" (PH 1.235, translated by Annas
and Barnes). He may have made these remarks in order to
underwrite the Academic practice of accepting certain
views as resembling the truth; for there must be some
truth in the first place-even if we don't have access to
it-in order for something to resemble it.
Under the
pressure of Stoic objections to his fallibilist
epistemology Philo apparently made some controversial
innovations in Academic philosophy. Cicero refers to
these innovations but doesn't discuss them in any detail
(Luc. 11-12), nor did he accept them himself,
preferring Philo's earlier view of the Academy and the
dialectical practices of Carneades. Philo's innovation
may have been to commit himself to the metaphysical
claim that some impressions are indeed true by providing
arguments to that effect. So rather than rely on the
likelihood that some impressions are true he may have
sought to establish this more firmly. He then may have
lowered the standard for knowledge by giving up the
internalist requirement that one be able to identify
which impressions are true and adopted instead the
externalist position that just having true impressions,
as long as they have the right causal history, is enough
for one to have knowledge (see Hankinson [1997] for this
interpretation, see also Tarrant [1985] and Brittain
[2001]).
After
Philo, Antiochus (c. 130 to c. 68 B.C.E.) led the
Academy decidedly back to a form of dogmatism. He
claimed that the Stoics and Peripatetics had more
accurately understood Plato and thus he sought to revive
these views, including primarily Stoic epistemology and
ethics, in his Academy (Cicero examines Antiochus' views
in de Finibus 5. Glucker [1978] is a
groundbreaking study of Antiochus.).
d. Cicero
Cicero was
a lifelong student and practitioner of Academic
philosophy and his philosophical dialogues are among the
richest sources of information about the skeptical
Academy. Although he claims to be a mere reporter of
other philosophers' views (Att. 12.52.3), he
went to some trouble in arranging these views in
dialogue form and most importantly in supplying his own
words to express them. In some cases he coined the words
he needed thereby teaching philosophy to speak Latin.
His philosophical coinages-e.g.essentia, qualitas,
beatitudo-have left a lasting imprint on Western
philosophy.
He is
generally not considered to be an original thinker but
it is difficult to determine the extent to which this is
true since practically none of the books he relied on
have survived and so we do not know how much, or
whether, he modified the views he presented.
Nevertheless, despite questions of originality, his
dialogues express a humane and intelligent view of life.
Plutarch, in his biography, claims that Cicero often
asked his friends to call him a philosopher because he
had chosen philosophy as his work, but merely used
oratory to achieve his political ends (Life of
Cicero 32.6, Colish [1985] is a comprehensive
survey of Cicero's philosophical dialogues, so too
MacKendrick [1989], and see Powell [1995] for more
recent essays on Cicero's philosophy).
3.
Pyrrhonian Skepticism
Pyrrho of
Elis (c. 360 to c. 270 BCE), the founder of Pyrrhonian
skepticism, is a shadowy figure who wrote nothing
himself. What little we know of him comes, for the most
part, from fragments of his pupil Timon's poems and from
Diogenes Laertius' biography (9.61-108) which is based
on a book by Antigonus of Carystus, an associate of Timon. There
seem to have been no more disciples of Pyrrho after
Timon, but much later in the 1st Century B.C.E.,
Aenesidemus proposed a skeptical view that he claimed to
be Pyrrhonian. Later still in the 2nd Century C.E.,
Sextus Empiricus recorded a battery of skeptical
arguments aimed at all contemporary philosophical views.
As with Aenesidemus, Sextus claimed Pyrrho as the
founder, or at least inspiration, for the skepticism he
reports. The content of these skeptical views, the
nature of Pyrrho's influence, and the relations between
succeeding stages of Pyrrhonism are controversial
topics.
a. Pyrrho and Timon
The
anecdotal evidence for Pyrrho tends to be sensational.
Diogenes reports, for example, that Pyrrho mistrusted
his senses to such an extent that he would have fallen
off cliffs or been run over by carts and savaged by dogs
had his friends not followed close by (9.62). He was
allegedly indifferent to certain norms of social
behavior, taking animals to market, washing a pig and
even cleaning the house himself (9.66). For the most
part we find his indifference presented as a positive
characteristic. For example, while on a ship in the
midst of a terrible storm he was able to maintain a
state of tranquility (9.68). Similarly, Timon presents
Pyrrho as having reached a godlike state of calm, having
escaped servitude to mere opinion (9.64-5, see also the
fragments of Timon's prose works, as recorded by
Aristocles, LS 2A and 2B). He was also held in such high
regard by his native city that he was appointed as high
priest and for his sake they made all philosophers
exempt from taxation (9.64). We also find a tantalizing
report of a journey to India where Pyrrho mingled with,
and presumably learned from, certain naked sophists and
magi (9.61, the connection with Indian Buddhism is
explored by Flintoff [1980]).
Generally,
the anecdotal evidence in Diogenes, and elsewhere, is
unreliable, or at least highly suspect. Such reports are
more likely colorful inventions of later authors
attributed to Pyrrho to illustrate, or caricature, some
part of his philosophical view. Nevertheless, he is
consistently portrayed as being remarkably calm due to
his lack of opinion, so we may cautiously accept such
accounts.
The most
important testimony to the nature of Pyrrho's skepticism
comes from Aristocles, a Peripatetic philosopher of the
2nd Century C.E.:
It is
supremely necessary to investigate our own capacity
for knowledge. For if we are so constituted that we
know nothing, there is no need to continue enquiry
into other things. Among the ancients too there have
been people who made this pronouncement, and Aristotle
has argued against them. Pyrrho of Elis was also a
powerful spokesman of such a position. He himself has
left nothing in writing, but his pupil Timon says that
whoever wants to be happy must consider these three
questions: first, how are things by nature? Secondly,
what attitude should we adopt towards them? Thirdly,
what will be the outcome for those who have this
attitude? According to Timon, Pyrrho declared that [1]
things are equally indifferent, unmeasurable and
inarbitrable. For this reason [2] neither our
sensations nor our opinions tell us truths or
falsehoods. Therefore, for this reason we should not
put our trust in them one bit, but we should be
unopinionated, uncommitted and unwavering, saying
concerning each individual thing that it no more is
than is not, or it both is and is not, or it neither
is nor is not. [3] The outcome for those who actually
adopt this attitude, says Timon, will be first
speechlessness, and then freedom from disturbance . .
. (Aristocles apudEusebius, Praeparatio
evangelica 14.18.1-5, translated by Long and
Sedley, 1F).
Let us
consider Pyrrho's questions and answers in order. First,
what are things like by nature? This sounds like a
straightforward metaphysical question about the way the
world is, independent of our perceptions. If so, we
should expect Pyrrho's answer, [1] that things are
equally indifferent, unmeasurable and inarbitrable, to
be a metaphysical statement. But this will lead to
difficulties, for how can Pyrrho arrive at the
apparently definite proclamation that things are
indefinite? That is, doesn't his metaphysical statement
refute itself by implicitly telling us that things are
decidedly indeterminate? If we take this view we may
defend Pyrrho by allowing his claim to be exempt from
its own scope-so we can determine only this much: every
property of every thing is indeterminate (see Bett
[2000] for this defense). Alternatively, we may allow
Pyrrho to embrace the apparent inconsistency and assert
that his claim is itself neither true nor false, but is
inarbitrable. The former option seems preferable insofar
as the latter leaves Pyrrho with no definite assertion
whatsoever and it thus becomes unclear how he could draw
the inferences he does from [1] to [2].
On the
other hand, we may seek to avoid these difficulties by
interpreting Pyrrho's first answer as epistemological.
After all, the predicates he uses suggest an
epistemological claim is being made. And further,
Aristocles introduces this passage by noting that we
must investigate our capacity for knowledge and he
claims that Pyrrho was a spokesman for the view that we
know nothing. Bett [2000] argues against the
epistemological reading on the grounds that it doesn't
make good sense of the passage as it stands. For if we
assume the epistemological reading of [1], that we are
unable to determine the natures of things, then it would
be pointless to infer from that that [2] our senses lie.
It would make much more sense to reverse the inference:
one might reasonably argue that our senses lie and thus
we are unable to determine the natures of things. Some
have proposed emending the text from "for this reason (dia
touto)" to "on account of the fact that (dia
to)" to capture this reversal of the inference.
But if we read the text as it stands, we may still
explain Aristocles' epistemological focus by pointing
out that if [1] things are indeterminate, then the
epistemological skepticism will be a consequence: things
are indeterminable.
Second, in
what way ought we to be disposed towards things? Since
things are indeterminate (assuming the metaphysical
reading) then no assertion will be true, but neither
will any assertion be false. So we should not have any
opinion about the truth or falsity of any statement
(with the exception perhaps of these meta-level
skeptical assertions). Instead, we should only say and
think that something no more is than is not, or both is
and is not, or neither is nor is not, because in fact
that's the way things are. So for example, having
accepted [1] (and assuming the predicative reading of
"is" in [2]), I will no longer believe that this book is
red, but neither will I believe that it is not red. The
book is no more red than not-red, or similarly, it is as
much red as not-red.
Third, what
will be the result for those who are so disposed? The
first result is speechlessness (literally, not saying
anything)-but this is odd given that we are encouraged
to adopt a form of speech in [2]. Perhaps speechlessness
follows after initially saying only that
things are no more this than that, etc.; then finally,
freedom from disturbance follows. Presumably, the
recognition that things are no more to be sought after
than not sought after is instrumental in producing
tranquility, for if nothing is intrinsically good or
bad, we have no reason to ever be distressed, or to be
exuberantly joyful. But then it seems we would not be
able to even choose one thing over another. Pyrrho's
tranquility thus begins to look like a kind of paralysis
and this is probably what prompted some of the
sensational anecdotes.
Diogenes
notes, however, that according to Aenesidemus, Pyrrho
exercised foresight in his day-to-day activities, and
that he lived to be ninety (9.62). So it seems his
tranquility did not paralyze him after all. This may be
either because Pyrrho (or Timon) was disingenuous about
what he was up to intellectually, or more charitably
because he followed appearances (9.106) without ever
committing himself to the truth or falsity of what
appeared. (See "Sextus on the skeptical life" below for
further discussion).
b. Aenesidemus
We know
practically nothing about Aenesidemus except that he
lived sometime in the 1st Century B.C.E., and that he
dedicated one of his written works to a Lucius Tubero, a
friend of Cicero's who was also a member of the Academy.
This has led most scholars to suppose that Aenesidemus
was a member of the Academy, probably during the period
of Philo's leadership, and that his revival of
Pyrrhonian skepticism was probably a reaction to Philo's
tendency towards fallibilism. Although this is
plausible, it makes the fact that Cicero never mentions
him quite puzzling.
i. Revival of Pyrrhonism
Aenesidemus'
Pyrrhonian Discourses (Pyrrhoneia), like the
rest of his works, have not survived, but they are
summarized by a ninth century Byzantine patriarch,
Photius, who is remarkable in his own right. In his Bibliothêkê
(Bib.), he summarized 280 books, including the
Pyrrhoneia, apparently from memory. It is clear
from his summary that he thinks very little of
Aenesidemus' work. This is due to his view that
Aenesidemus' skepticism makes no contribution to
Christian dogma and drives from our minds the
instinctive tenets of faith (Bib. 170b39-40).
Nevertheless, a comparison of his summaries with the
original texts that have survived reveal that Photius is
a generally reliable source (Wilson [1994]). So despite
his assessment of Aenesidemus' skepticism, the consensus
is that he provides an accurate summary of thePyrrhoneia.
The proper interpretation of that summary, however,
is disputed.
Aenesidemus
was a member of Plato's Academy, apparently during the
period of Philo's leadership. Growing dissatisfied with
what he considered the dogmatism of the Academy, he
sought to revitalize skepticism by moving back to a
purer form inspired by Pyrrho. His specific complaint
against his contemporary Academics was that they
confidently affirm some things, even Stoic beliefs, and
unambiguously deny other things. In other words, the
Academics, in Aenesidemus' view, were insufficiently
impressed by our epistemic limitations.
His
alternative was to "determine nothing," not even the
claim that he determines nothing. Instead, the
Pyrrhonist says that things are no more one way than
another. This form of speech is ambiguous (in a positive
sense, from Aenesidemus' perspective) since it neither
denies nor asserts anything unconditionally. In other
words, the Pyrrhonist will only assert that some
property belongs to some object relative to some
observer or relative to some set of circumstances. Thus,
he will conditionally affirm some things but he will
absolutely deny that any property belongs to anything in
every possible circumstance. This seems to be what
Aenesidemus meant by "determining nothing," for his
relativized assertions say nothing definite about the
nature of the object in question. Such
statements take the form: it is not the case that X is
by nature F. This is a simple denial that X is always
and invariably F, though of course X may be F in some
cases. But such statements are importantly different
from those of the form: X is by nature not-F. For these
sorts of statements affirm that X is invariably not-F
and that there can be no cases of X that exhibit the
property F. The only acceptable form of expression for
Aenesidemus then seems to be statements that may
sometimes be false (See Woddruff [1988] for this
interpretation, also Bett 2000).
ii. The Ten Modes
The kinds
of conclusion that Aenesidemus countenanced as a
Pyrrhonist can more clearly be seen by considering the
kinds of arguments he advanced to reach them. He
apparently produced a set of skeptical argument forms,
or modes, for the purpose of refuting dogmatic claims
regarding the natures of things. Sextus Empiricus
discusses one such group, the Ten Modes, in some detail
(PH 1.35-163, M 7.345, see also
Diogenes Laertius' account of the Ten Modes at 9.79-88,
and the partial account in Philo of Alexandria, On
Drunkenness 169-205, and see Annas and Barnes
[1985] for detailed and critical discussion of all ten
modes).
The first
mode is designed to show that it is not reasonable to
suppose that the way the world appears to us humans is
more accurate than the incompatible ways it appears to
other animals. This will force us to suspend judgment on
the question of how these things are by nature, in and
of themselves, insofar as we have no rational grounds on
which to prefer our appearances and insofar as we are
not willing to accept that something can have
incompatible properties by nature. If, for example,
manure appears repulsive to humans and delightful to
dogs, we are unable to say that it really is, in its
nature, either repulsive or delightful, or both
repulsive and delightful. It is no more delightful than
not-delightful, and no more repulsive than
not-repulsive, (again, in its nature).
Just as the
world appears in incompatible ways to members of
different species, so too does it appear incompatibly to
members of the same species. Thus, the second mode
targets the endless disagreements among dogmatists. But
once again, we will find no rational ground to prefer
our own view of things, for if an interested party makes
himself judge, we should be suspicious of the judgment
he reaches, and not accept it.
The third
mode continues the line of reasoning developed in the
first two. Just as the world appears in incompatible
ways to different people, it also appears incompatibly
to the different senses of one and the same person. So,
for example, painted objects seem to have spatial
dimensions that are not revealed to our sense of touch.
Similarly, perfume is pleasant to the nose but
disgusting to the tongue. Thus, perfume is no more
pleasant than not-pleasant.
The fourth
mode shows that differences in the emotional or physical
state of the perceiver affects his perception of the
world. Being in love, calm and warm, one will experience
the cold wind that comes in with his beloved quite
differently than if he is angry and cold. We are unable
to adjudicate between these incompatible experiences of
the cold wind because we have no rational grounds on
which to prefer our experience in one set of
circumstances to our experience in another. One might
say that we should give preference to the experiences of
those who are healthy, sane and calm as that is our
natural state. But in response, we may employ the second
mode to challenge the notion of a single, healthy
condition that is universally applicable.
The fifth
mode shows that differences in location and position of
an observed object relative to the observer will greatly
affect the way the object appears. Here we find the oar
that appears bent in water, the round tower that appears
square from a distance, and the pigeon's neck that
changes color as the pigeon moves. These features are
independent of the observer in a way that the first four
modes are not. But similar to the first four, in each
case we are left without any rational grounds on which
to prefer some particular location or position over
another. Why should we suppose, for example, that the
pigeon's neck is really green rather than blue? And if
we should propose some proof, or theory, in support of
it being really blue, we will have to face the skeptic's
demand for further justification of that theory, which
will set off an infinite regress.
The sixth
mode claims that nothing can be experienced in its
simple purity but is always experienced as mixed
together with other things, either internally in its
composition or externally in the medium in which it is
perceived. This being the case, we are unable to ever
experience the nature of things, and thus are unable to
ever say what that nature is.
The seventh
mode appeals to the way different effects are produced
by altering the quantity and proportions of things. For
example, too much wine is debilitating but the right
amount is fortifying. Similarly, a pile of sand appears
smooth, but individual grains appear rough. Thus, we are
led to conclude that wine is no more debilitating than
fortifying and sand is no more smooth than rough, in
their natures.
The eighth
mode, from relativity, is a paradigm for the whole set
of modes. It seeks to show, in general, that something
appears to have the property F only relative to certain
features of the perceiving subject or relative to
certain features of the object. And, once again, insofar
as we are unable to prefer one set of circumstances to
another with respect to the nature of the object, we
must suspend judgment about those natures.
The ninth
modes points out that the frequency of encountering a
thing affects the way that thing appears to us. If we
see something that we believe to be rare it will appear
more valuable. And when we encounter some beautiful
thing for the first time it will seem more beautiful or
striking than it appears after we become familiar with
it. Thus, we must conclude, for example, that a diamond
is no more valuable than worthless.
Finally,
the tenth mode, which bears on ethics, appeals to
differences in customs and law, and in general, to
differences in the ways we evaluate the world. For some,
homosexuality is acceptable and good, and to others it
is unacceptable and bad. In and of itself, homosexuality
is neither good nor bad, but only relative to some way
of evaluating the world. And again, since we are unable
to prefer one set of values to another, we are led to
the conclusion that we must suspend judgment, this time
with respect to the intrinsic value of things.
In each of
these modes, Aenesidemus seems to be advancing a sort of
relativism: we may only say that some object X has
property F relative to some observer or set of
circumstances, and not absolutely. Thus his skepticism
is directed exclusively at a version of Essentialism; in
this case, the view that some object has property F in
any and every circumstance. A further question is
whether Aenesidemus intends his attack on Essentialism
to be ontological or epistemological. If it is
epistemological, then he is claiming that we simply
cannot know what the nature or essence of some thing is,
or even whether it has one. This seems most likely to
have been Aenesidemus' position since Photius' summary
begins with the remark that the overall aim of the Pyrrhoneia
is to show that there is no firm basis for
cognition. Similarly, the modes seem to be exclusively
epistemological insofar as they compel us to suspend
judgment; they are clearly designed to force the
recognition that no perspective can be rationally
preferred to any other with respect to real natures, or
essences. By contrast, the ontological view that there
are no essences, is not compatible with suspending
judgment on the question.
iii. Tranquility
We do not
have enough evidence to determine precisely why
Aenesidemus found inspiration in Pyrrho. One important
point, however, is that they both promote a connection
between tranquility and an acceptance of our epistemic
limitations (see Bett [2000] for an elaboration of this
view). Diogenes Laertius attributes the view to both
Anesidemus and the followers of Timon that as a result
of suspending judgment, freedom from disturbance (ataraxia)
will follow as a shadow (DL 9.107-8). Similarly, Photius
reports Aenesidemus' view that those who follow the
philosophy of Pyrrho will be happy, whereas by contrast,
the dogmatists will wear themselves out in futile and
ceaseless theorizing (Bib. 169b12-30, LS 71C).
Although there seem to be important differences in what
Pyrrho and Aenesidemus understood by our epistemic
limitations, they both promoted tranquility as the goal,
or at least end product. In general terms the idea is
clear enough: the way to a happy, tranquil existence is
to live in accordance with how things seem, including
especially our evaluative impressions of the world.
Rather than trying to uncover some hidden reality, we
should accept our limitations, operate in accordance
with custom and habit, and not be disturbed by what we
cannot know (see Striker [1990/1996]).
c. Sextus Empiricus
We know
very little about Sextus Empiricus, aside from the fact
that he was a physician. He may have been alive as early
as the 2nd Century C.E. or as late as the 3rd Century
C.E. We cannot be certain as to where he lived, or where
he practiced medicine, or where he taught, if indeed he
did teach. In addition to his philosophical books, he
also wrote some medical treatises (referred to at M
7.202, 1.61) which are no longer extant.
There are
three philosophical works that have survived. Two of
these works are grouped together under the general
heading, Adversus Mathematikos-which may be
translated as Against the Learned, or Against the
Professors, i.e. those who profess to know something
worth teaching. This grouping is potentially misleading
as the first group of six books (chapters, by current
standards) are complete and form a self-contained whole.
In fact Sextus refers to them with the title Skeptical
Treatises. Each of these books target some
specific subject in which people profess to be experts,
thus: grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, astrology
and music. These are referred to as M 1
through 6, respectively.
There are
five additional books in the second set grouped under
the heading Adversus Mathematikos:two books
containing arguments against the Logicians (M 7, 8), two
books against the Physicists (M 9, 10), and
one book against the Ethicists (M 11). This set of books
is apparently incomplete since the opening of M 7
refers back to a general outline of skepticism that is
in none of the extant books of M.
The third
work is the Outlines of Pyrrhonism, in three
books. The first book provides an outline summary of
Pyrrhonian skepticism and would correspond to the
missing portion of M. Books 2 and 3 provide
arguments against the Logicians, Physicists and
Ethicists, corresponding to M 7 through 11.
The discussion in PH tends to be much more
concise and carefully worded, though there is greater
detail and development of many of the same arguments in
M. The nature of the relation between these
three works is much disputed, especially since the view
presented in PH seems to be incompatible with
large portions of M (see Bett [1997]).
The
following discussion is limited to the views presented
in PH.
i. General Account of Skepticism
Sextus
begins his overview of Pyrrhonian skepticism by
distinguishing three fundamental types of philosopher:
dogmatists, who believe they have discovered the truth;
Academics (negative dogmatists), who believe the truth
cannot be discovered; and skeptics, who continue to
investigate, believing neither that anyone has so far
discovered the truth nor that it is impossible to do so.
Although his characterization of Academics is probably
polemical and unfair, the general distinctions he makes
are important.
Sextus
understands the skeptic, at least nominally as Pyrrho
and Aenesidemus do, as one who by suspending judgment
determines nothing, and enjoys tranquility as a result.
But, as we will see, his conception of suspending
judgment is considerably different from his
predecessors'.
ii. The Path to Skepticism
According
to Sextus, one does not start out as a skeptic, but
rather stumbles on to it. Initially, one becomes
troubled by the kinds of disagreements focused on in
Aenesidemus' modes and seeks to determine which
appearances accurately represent the world and which
explanations accurately reveal the causal histories of
events. The motivation for figuring things out, Sextus
asserts, is to become tranquil, i.e. to remove the
disturbance that results from confronting incompatible
views of the world. As the proto-skeptic attempts to
sort out the evidence and discover the privileged
perspectiveor the correct theory, he finds that for each
account that purports to establish something true about
the world there is another, equally convincing account,
that purports to establish an opposed and incompatible
view of the same thing. Being faced with this
equipollence, he is unable to assent to either of the
opposed accounts and thereby suspends judgment. This, of
course, is not what he set out to do. But by virtue of
his intellectual integrity, he is simply not able to
arrive at a conclusion and so he finds himself without
any definite view. What he also finds is that the
tranquility that he originally thought would come only
by arriving at the truth, follows upon his suspended
judgment as a shadow follows a body.
Sextus
provides a vivid story to illustrate this process. A
certain painter, Apelles, was trying to represent foam
on the mouth of the horse he was painting. But each time
he applied the paint he failed to get the desired
effect. Growing frustrated, he flung the sponge, on
which he had been wiping off the paint, at the picture,
inadvertently producing the effect he had been
struggling to achieve (PH 1.28-29). The
analogous point in the case of seeking the truth is that
the desired tranquility only comes indirectly, not by
giving up the pursuit of truth, but rather by giving up
the expectation that we must acquire truth to get
tranquility. It is a strikingly Zen-like point: one
cannot intentionally acquire a peaceful, tranquil state
but must let it happen as a result of giving up the
struggle. But again, giving up the struggle for the
skeptic does not mean giving up the pursuit of truth.
The skeptic continues to investigate in order to protect
himself against the deceptions and seductions of reason
that lead to our holding definite views.
Arriving at
definite views is not merely a matter of intellectual
dishonesty, Sextus thinks; more importantly, it is the
main source of all psychological disturbance. For those
who believe that things are good or bad by nature, are
perpetually troubled. When they lack what they believe
to be good their lives must seem seriously deficient if
not outright miserable, and they struggle as much as
possible to acquire those things. But when they finally
have what they believe to be good, they spend untold
effort in maintaining and preserving those things and
live in fear of losing them (PH 1.27).
Sextus'
diagnosis is not limited to evaluative beliefs, however.
This is clear by virtue of the fact that he provides
extensive arguments against physical and logical
(broadly speaking, scientific and epistemological)
theories also. How, then, do such beliefs contribute to
the psychological disturbances that Sextus seeks to
eliminate? The most plausible reply is that any such
belief that we find Sextus arguing against in PH
is one that will inevitably contribute to one's
evaluations of the world and thus will contribute to the
intense strivings that characterize disturbance. An
examination of a sample of the logical and physical
theses that Sextus' discusses bears this out. Many of
these beliefs played foundational roles in the Epicurean
or Stoic systems, and thus were employed to establish
ethical and evaluative beliefs. Believing that the
physical world is composed of invisible atoms, for
example, would not, by itself, produce any disturbance
since we must draw inferences from this belief in order
for it to have any significance for us with respect to
choice and avoidance. So it is more appropriate to look
past the disturbance that may be produced by individual,
isolated beliefs, and consider instead the effect of
accepting a system of interrelated, mutually supporting
dogmatic claims.
iii. The Modes of Agrippa
As a
supplement to the Ten Modes of Aenesidemus (as well as
his Eight Modes aimed at causal explanations, see PH
1.180-85, and Hankinson [1998]), Sextus offers a set of
Five Modes (PH 1.164-77) and Two Modes (PH
1.178-79) employed by "more recent skeptics." We may
gather from Diogenes (9.88) that the more recent skeptic
referred to is Agrippa. It is important to point out
that Sextus merely reports these modes, he does not
endorse them at a theoretical level. That is, he does
not claim that they possess any sort of logical
standing, e.g. that they are guaranteed to reveal a flaw
in dogmatic positions, or that they represent some ideal
form of reasoning. Instead, we should think of these
modes as part of the general account of skepticism, with
which the skeptic's practice coheres (PH
1.16-17). In other words, these modes simply describe
the way Sextus and his fellow skeptics behave
dialectically.
Agrippa's
Five Modes relies on the prevalence of dispute and
repeats the main theme of Aenesidemus' Modes: we are
frequently faced with dissenting opinions regarding the
same matter and yet we have no adequate grounds on which
to prefer one view over another. Should a dogmatist
offer an account of such grounds, the skeptic may then
request further justification, thereby setting off an
infinite regress. And presumably, we should not be
willing to accept an explanation that is never complete,
i.e. one that requires further explaining itself. Should
the dogmatist try to put a stop to the regress by means
of a hypothesis, the skeptic will refuse to accept the
claim without proof, perhaps citing alternative,
incompatible hypotheses. And finally, the skeptic will
refuse to allow the dogmatist to support his explanation
by what he is supposed to be explaining, disallowing any
circular reasoning. And of course the skeptic may also
avail himself of the observation that what is being
explained only appears as it does relative to some
relevant conditions, and thus, contrary to the
dogmatist's presumption, there is no one thing to be
explained in the first place (see Barnes [1990]).
iv. Skepticism vs. Relativism
Sextus
employs these skeptical modes towards quite a different
goal from Aenesidemus'. Aenesidemus, as we have seen,
countenances relativistic assertions of the form, X is
no more F than not F. This is to say that although X is
not really, in its nature, F, it is still genuinely F in
some particular circumstance. And it is acceptable for
the Aenesidemean skeptic to believe that this is the
case. But for Sextus, the skeptical refrain, "I
determine nothing" excludes relativistic beliefs as
well. It is not acceptable for Sextus to believe that X
is F, even with relativistic disclaimers. Instead,
Sextus would have us refrain from believing even that X
is no more F than not-F. Thus, suspension of judgment
extends farther for Sextus than it does for Aenesidemus.
v. The Skeptical Life
So,
skepticism is an ability to discover opposed arguments
of equal persuasive force, the practice of which leads
first to suspension of judgment and afterwards,
fortuitously, to tranquility. This makes Sextus' version
of Pyrrhonian skepticism dramatically different from
other Western philosophical positions, for it is a
practice or activity rather than a set of doctrines.
Indeed, insofar as the skeptic is supposed to live
without belief (adoxastôs), he could not
consistently endorse any philosophical doctrine. But how
is it possible to live without beliefs?
The short
answer is that one may simply follow appearances and
withhold judgment as to whether the world really is as
it appears. This seems plausible with respect to
physical perceptions, but appearances for Sextus include
evaluations, and this creates a complication. For how
can the skeptic say "this appears good (or bad) to me,
but I don't believe that it is really good or bad"? It
seems that there is no difference between evaluative
appearances and evaluative beliefs.
One
possible response to this problem is to say that Sextus
only targets sophisticated, philosophical theories about
value, or about physics or logic, but allows everyday
attitudes and beliefs to stand. On this view, skepticism
is a therapy designed to cure the disease of academics
and theoreticians. But it seems that Sextus intends his
philosophical therapy to be quite widely applicable. The
skeptical life, as he presents it, is an achievement and
not merely the recovering of a native innocence lost to
philosophical speculation. (See Burnyeat and Frede
[1997], Brennan [1999] for the debate regarding what the
skeptic is supposed to suspend judgment about.)
Any answer
to the question about how the skeptic may live without
beliefs will depend on what sort of beliefs we think the
skeptic avoids. Nevertheless, an elaboration on living
in accordance with appearances comes in the form of the
fourfold observances. Rather than investigate the best
way to live or even what to do in some particular
circumstance, Sextus remarks that the skeptic will guide
his actions by (1) nature, (2) necessitation by
feelings, (3) laws and customs, and (4) kinds of
expertise (PH 1.23-24). Nature provides us with
the capacity for perception and thought, and we may use
these capacities insofar as they don't lead us to
dogmatic belief. Similarly, hunger and thirst will drive
us towards food and drink without our having to form any
explicit beliefs regarding those physical sensations.
One need not accept any nutritional theories to
adequately and appropriately respond to hunger and
thirst. Laws and customs will inform us of the
appropriate evaluations of things. We need not actually
believe that the gods exist and that they are benevolent
to take part in religious ceremonies or even to act in a
manner that is (or at least appears) pious. But note
that the skeptic will neither believe that the gods
exist nor that they do not exist-he is neither a theist
nor an atheist, but agnostic in a very robust sense. And
finally, the skeptic may practice some trade or
profession without accepting any theories regarding his
practice. For example, a carpenter need not have any
theoretical or geometrical views about doors in order to
be skillful at hanging them. Similarly, a doctor need
not accept any physiological theories to successfully
heal his patients. The further question, recalling the
dispute explored in Burnyeat and Frede [1997], is
whether the skeptic merely avoids sophisticated,
theoretical beliefs in employing these observances, or
whether he avoids all beliefs whatsoever.
4.
Skepticism and the Examined Life
A unifying
feature of the varieties of ancient skepticism is that
they are all concerned with promoting, in some manner of
speaking, the benefits of recognizing our epistemic
limitations. Thus, ancient skeptics nearly always have
something to say about how one may live, and indeed live
well, in the absence of knowledge.
The
fallibilism that developed in Plato's Academy should be
seen in this light. Rather than forego the potential
benefits of an examination aimed at acquiring better
beliefs, the later Academics opted for a less ambitious
criterion, one that would give them merely reliable
beliefs. Nonetheless, they maintained a thoroughly
skeptical attitude towards the possibility of attaining
certainty, but without claiming to have conclusively
ruled it out.
The more
radical skepticism that we find in Sextus' Outlines
of Pyrrhonism suggests a move in a different
direction. Rather than explain how or why we should
trust the skeptical employment of reason, Sextus avoids
the problem altogether by, in effect, refusing to
answer. Instead, he would suggest that we consider the
reasons in support of some particular answer and the
reasons opposed in accordance with the skeptical ability
so that we may regain tranquility.
5.
Greek and Latin Texts, Commentaries, and Translations
General:
- Long and
Sedley, eds. (1987), The Hellenistic
Philosophers, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), is a good place to start. These volumes
contain selections from the primary sources grouped by
topic. See volume 1, sections 68-72 and the following
commentaries (pp. 438-488) for readings on Academic
and Pyrrhonian skepticism, and sections 1-3 with
commentaries (pp. 13-24) for readings on Pyrrho.
Volume 2 contains the original Greek and Latin texts
corresponding to the translations in volume 1.
- Inwood
and Gerson, eds. (1988), Hellenistic Philosophy:
Introductory Readings, Indianapolis: Hackett),
also contains translated selections from the primary
sources for Academic and Pyrrhonian skepticism.
- Annas
and Barnes, eds. (1985), The Modes Of Scepticism,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), is a
very useful arrangement and translation of the texts
that discuss the different varieties of Pyrrhonian
argumentation.
For the
Greek edition of Photius' summary of Aenesidemus,
see R. Henry, ed. (1962), Photius:
Bibliothêque, Tome III, (Paris). For a very
readable translation, informative introduction and
notes, see N.G. Wilson (1994), Photius: The
Bibliotheca, (London: Duckworth).
There have
been some recently updated and much improved
translations and commentaries on Sextus
Empiricus.
- Annas,
J. and J. Barnes (1994), Sextus Empiricus:
Outlines of Scepticism, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
- Bett, R.
(1997), Sextus Empiricus: Against the Ethicists
(Adversus Mathematikos XI),(Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
- Blank,
D. (1998), Sextus Empiricus: Against the
Grammarians (Adversus Mathematikos I),(Oxford:
Oxford University Press).
- Greaves,
D.D. (1986), Sextus Empiricus: Against the
Musicians (Adversus Mathematikos VI), (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press).
- Mates,
B. (1996), The Skeptic Way: Sextus Empiricus's
Outlines of Pyrrhonism, Translated with
Introduction and Commentary, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
Many of the
primary texts can be found in the Loeb series, which
contains facing pages of text in the original language
and translation. Among the most important are (all
published by Harvard University Press):
- Bury,
R.G. (1933), trans., Sextus Empiricus: Outlines
of Pyrrhonism.
- Bury,
R.G. (1935), trans., Sextus Empiricus: Against
the Logicians
- Bury,
R.G. (1936), trans., Sextus Empiricus: Against
the Physicists, Against the Ethicists.
- Bury,
R.G. (1949), trans., Sextus Empiricus: Against
the Professors. Hicks, R.D. (1925), trans.,Diogenes
Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers, vols.
1 and 2.
- Rackham,
H. (1933), trans., Cicero: De Natura Deorum,
Academica.
- Rackham,
H. (1914), trans., Cicero: De Finibus Bonorum et
Malorum.
6.
References and Further Reading
- Annas,
J., (1996), "Scepticism, Old and New," in M. Frede and
G. Striker, eds., Rationality in Greek Thought,
(Oxford: Clarendon).
- Annas,
J. (1993), The Morality of Happiness, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press).
- Annas,
J. (1992), "Plato the Sceptic," in J. Klagge and N.
Smith, eds., Oxford Studies in Ancient
Philosophy, Supp. Vol., 43-72.
- Annas,
J. (1990), "Stoic Epistemology," in S. Everson, ed., Epistemology,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
- Annas,
J. (1986), "Doing Without Objective Values: Ancient
and Modern Strategies," in M. Schofield, et. al.,
eds., Norms of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press).
- Barnes,
J. (1990), The Toils of Scepticism, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
- Bett, R.
(2000), Pyrrho, his antecedents, and his legacy,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
- Bett, R.
(1990), "Carneades' Distinction Between Approval and
Assent," Monist 73.1: 3-20.
- Bett, R.
(1993), "Scepticism and Everyday Attitudes in Ancient
and Modern Philosophy," Metaphilosophy24.4:
363-81.
- Bett, R.
(1989), "Carneades' pithanon: A Reappraisal
of its Role and Status," Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 7: 59-94.
- Brennan,
T. (1999), Ethics and Epistemology in Sextus
Empiricus, (New York: Garland).
- Brittain,
C. (2001), Philo of Larissa, (Oxford:
Oxford University Press).
- Burnyeat,
M. (1984), "The Sceptic in his Place and Time," in
Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner, eds.,Philosophy in
History, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 225-54, reprinted in Burnyeat and Frede, eds.
(1997).
- Burnyeat,
M. and M. Frede, Eds. (1997), The Original
Sceptics: A Controversy, (Indianapolis:
Hackett).
- Burnyeat,
M., Ed. (1983), The Skeptical Tradition, (Berkeley:
University of California Press).
- Colish,
M. (1985), The Stoic Tradition From Antiquity to
the Early Middle Ages, vol. 1, (Leiden:
Brill).
- Couissin,
P. (1929), "Le Stoicisme de la nouvelle Academie," Revue
d'historie de la philosophie 3: 241-76, tr. by
Jennifer Barnes and M. Burnyeat as "The Stoicism of
the New Academy," in M. Burnyeat, Ed. (1983) 31-63.
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E. (1980), "Pyrrho and India," Phronesis 25:
88-108.
- Fogelin,
R. (1994), Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge
and Justification, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press).
- Frede,
D. (1996) "How Sceptical Were the Academic Sceptics?,"
in R.H. Popkin, ed., Scepticism in the History of
Philosophy: A Pan-American Dialogue, 1-26,
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic).
- Frede,
M. (1987), Essays in Ancient Philosophy, (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press).
- Frede,
M. (1983/1987), "Stoics and Skeptics on Clear and
Distinct Impressions" in M. Burnyeat, ed., (1983),
reprinted in Frede (1987), 151-78.
- Griffin,
M. (1997), "The Composition of the Academica: Motives
and Versions" in Inwood and Mansfeld, eds. (1997),
1-35.
- Glucker,
J. (1995), "Probabile, Veri Simile, and
Related Terms," in J.G.F. Powell, ed., Cicero the
Philosopher: Twelve Papers, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
- Glucker,
J. (1978), Antiochus and the Late Academy, (Gottingen:
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht).
- Hankinson,
R.J. (1998), Cause and Explanation in Ancient
Greek Thought, (Oxford: Oxford University
Press).
- Hankinson,
R.J. (1997), "Natural Criteria and the Transparency of
Judgement: Antiochus, Philo and Galen on
Epistemological Justification," in B. Inwood and J.
Mansfeld, Eds. (1997), 161-216.
- Hankinson,
R.J. (1995), The Sceptics, (London:
Routledge).
- Inwood,
B., and J. Mansfeld, Eds. (1997), Assent and
Argument: Studies in Cicero's Academic Books, (Leiden:
Brill).
- Long,
A.A. (1974), Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics,
Epicureans and Sceptics, (Berkeley: University
of California Press).
- Long,
A.A. (1986), "Diogenes Laertius' Life of Arcesilaus,"
Elenchos 7: 432-49.
- Long,
A.A. (1988), "Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy," Classical
Quarterly 38: 150-71.
- MacKendrick,
P. (1989), The Philosophical Books of Cicero, (New
York: St. Martin's Press).
- Maconi,
H. (1988), "Nova non philosophandi philosophia: A
review of Anna Maria Ioppolo,Opinione e Scienza,"
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 6:
231-253.
- Mansfeld,
J. (1997), "Philo and Antiochus in the Lost Catulus,"
Mnemosyne 50.1: 45-74.
- Popkin,
R. (1979), The History of Scepticism from Erasmus
to Spinoza, (Berkeley: University of
California Press).
- Powell,
J.G.F. (1995), Cicero the Philosopher: Twelve
Papers, (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
- Schmitt,
C. (1972), Cicero Scepticus, (The Hague:
Nijhoff).
- Shields,
C. (1994), "Socrates Among the Sceptics," in P. Vander
Waerdt, Ed. (1994), The Socratic Movement, (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press).
- Sihvola,
J., ed. (2000), Ancient Scepticism and the
Sceptical Tradition, (Helsinki : Philosophical
Society of Finland).
- Striker,
G. (1996), Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and
Ethics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
- Striker,
G. (1990/1996), "Ataraxia: Happiness as
Tranquility" Monist 73: 97-110, repr. in Striker
(1996), 183-195.
- Striker,
G. (1981/1996), "Uber den Unterschied zwischen den
Pyrrhoneern und den Akademikern,"Phronesis
26: 153-71, repr. and transl. by M.M. Lee as "On the
Difference Between the Pyrrhonists and the Academics"
in Striker (1996), 135-49.
- Striker,
G. (1980/1996), "Sceptical Strategies," in M.
Schofield, M. Burnyeat, and J. Barnes, Eds. (1980),Doubt
and Dogmatism, 54-83, repr. in Striker (1996),
92-115.
- Tarrant,
H. (1985), Scepticism or Platonism: the
Philosophy of the 4th Academy, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press).
- Thorsrud,
H. (2002), "Cicero on His Academic Predecessors: the
Fallibilism of Arcesilaus and Carneades," Journal
of the History of Philosophy 40: 1-18.
- Woodruff
, P. (1988), "Aporetic Pyrrhonism," Oxford
Studies in Ancient Philosophy 6: 139-68.
- Woodruff
, P. (1986), "The Skeptical Side of Plato's Method," Revue
International de Philosophie 156-57: 22-37.
Author
Information
Harald
Thorsrud Email: hthorsrud@agnesscott.edu
New Mexico State University U. S. A.
---------------------
9. Neoplatonism
from Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy http://www.iep.utm.edu/neoplato/
Neo-platonism (or
Neoplatonism) is a modern term used to designate the
period of Platonic philosophy beginning with the work
of Plotinus
and ending with the closing of the Platonic Academy by
the Emperor Justinian in 529 C.E. This brand of
Platonism, which is often described as 'mystical' or
religious in nature, developed outside the mainstream
of Academic Platonism. The origins of Neoplatonism can
be traced back to the era of Hellenistic syncretism
which spawned such movements and schools of thought as
Gnosticism
and the Hermetic tradition. A major factor in this
syncretism, and one which had an immense influence on
the development of Platonic thought, was the
introduction of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek
intellectual circles via the translation known as the
Septuagint. The encounter between the
creation narrative of Genesis and the cosmology of
Plato's Timaeus set in motion a long
tradition of cosmological theorizing that finally
culminated in the grand schema of Plotinus' Enneads.
Plotinus' two major successors, Porphyry and
Iamblichus, each developed, in their own way, certain
isolated aspects of Plotinus' thought, but neither of
them developed a rigorous philosophy to match that of
their master. It was Proclus who, shortly before the
closing of the Academy, bequeathed a systematic
Platonic philosophy upon the world that in certain
ways approached the sophistication of Plotinus.
Finally, in the work of the so-called
Pseudo-Dionysius, we find a grand synthesis of
Platonic philosophy and Christian theology that was to
exercise an immense influence on mediaeval mysticism
and Renaissance
Humanism.
Table of
Contents
- What
is Neoplatonism?
-
Plotinian Neoplatonism
-
Contemplation and Creation
-
Nature and Personality
-
Salvation and the Cosmic Process
-
Plotinus' Last Words
-
The Achievement of Plotinus
-
The Plotinian Synthesis
-
Porphyry and Iamblichus
-
The Nature of the Soul
-
The (re)turn to Astrology
-
The Quest for Transcendence
-
Theurgy and the Distrust of Dialectic
-
Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius
-
Being -- Becoming -- Being
-
The God Beyond Being
- Appendix:
The Renaissance Platonists
- References
and Further Reading
1. What is Neoplatonism?
The term
'Neoplatonism' is a modern construction. Plotinus,
who is often considered the 'founder' of Neoplatonism,
would not have considered himself a "new" Platonist in
any sense, but simply an expositor of the doctrines of
Plato.
That this required him to formulate an entirely new
philosophical system would not have been viewed by him
as a problem, for it was, in his eyes, precisely what
the Platonic doctrine required. In a sense, this is
true, for as early as the Old Academy we find Plato's
successors struggling with the proper interpretation
of his thought, and arriving at strikingly different
conclusions. Also, in the Hellenistic era, certain
Platonic ideas were taken up by thinkers of various
loyalties -- Jewish, Gnostic, Christian -- and worked
up into new forms of expression that varied quite
considerably from what Plato actually wrote in his Dialogues.
Should this lead us to the conclusion that these
thinkers were any less 'loyal' to Plato than were the
members of the Academy (in its various forms
throughout the centuries preceding Plotinus)? No; for
the multiple and often contradictory uses made of
Platonic ideas is a testament to the universality of
Plato's thought -- that is, its ability to admit of a
wide variety of interpretations and applications. In
this sense, Neo-Platonism may be said to
have begun immediately after Plato's death, when new
approaches to his philosophy were being broached.
Indeed, we already see a hint, in the doctrines of
Xenocrates (the second head of the Old Academy) of a
type of salvation theory involving the unification of
the two parts of the human soul -- the "Olympian" or
heavenly, and the "Titanic" or earthly (Dillon 1977,
p. 27). If we accept Frederick Copleston's description
of Neoplatonism as "the intellectualist reply to the
... yearning for personal salvation" (Copleston 1962,
p. 216) we can already locate the beginning of this
reply as far back as the Old Academy, and Neoplatonism
would then not have begun with Plotinus. However, it
is not clear that Xenocrates' idea of salvation
involved the individual; it is quite possible that he
was referring to a unified human nature in an abstract
sense. In any case, the early Hermetic-Gnostic
tradition is certainly to an extent Platonic, and
later Gnosticism
and Christian Logos theology markedly so. If
an intellectual reply to a general yearning for
personal salvation is what characterizes Neoplatonism,
then the highly intellectual Gnostics and Christians
of the Late Hellenistic era must be given the title of
Neoplatonists. However, if we are to be rigorous and
define Neoplatonism as the synthesis of various more
or less 'Platonistic' ideas into a grand expression of
Platonic philosophy, then Plotinus must be considered
the founder of Neoplatonism. Yet we must not forget
that these Platonizing Christian, Gnostic, Jewish, and
other 'pagan' thinkers provided the necessary
speculative material to make this synthesis possible.
2. Plotinian Neoplatonism
The great
third century thinker and 'founder' of Neoplatonism, Plotinus,
is responsible for the grand synthesis of progressive
Christian and Gnostic
ideas with the traditional Platonic philosophy. He
answered the challenge of accounting for the emergence
of a seemingly inferior and flawed cosmos from the
perfect mind of the divinity by declaring outright
that all objective existence is but the external
self-expression of an inherently contemplative deity
known as the One (to hen), or the Good (ta
kalon). Plotinus compares the expression of the
superior godhead with the self-expression of the
individual soul, which proceeds from the perfect
conception of a Form (eidos), to the always
flawed expression of this Form in the manner of a
materially derived 'personality' that risks succumbing
to the demands of divisive discursivity, and so
becomes something less than divine. This diminution of
the divine essence in temporality is but a necessary
moment of the complete expression of the One. By
elevating the experience of the individual soul to the
status of an actualization of a divine Form, Plotinus
succeeded, also, in preserving, if not the autonomy,
at least the dignity and ontological necessity of personality.
The Cosmos, according to Plotinus, is not a created
order, planned by a deity on whom we can pass the
charge of begetting evil; for the Cosmos is the
self-expression of the Soul, which corresponds,
roughly, to Philo's
logos prophorikos, the logos endiathetos
of which is the Intelligence (nous). Rather,
the Cosmos, in Plotinian terms, is to be understood as
the concrete result or 'product' of the Soul's
experience of its own Mind (nous). Ideally,
this concrete expression should serve the Soul as a
reference-point for its own self-conscious existence;
however, the Soul all too easily falls into the error
of valuing the expression over the principle (arkhê),
which is the contemplation of the divine Forms. This
error gives rise to evil, which is the purely
subjective relation of the Soul (now divided) to the
manifold and concrete forms of its expressive act.
When the Soul, in the form of individual existents,
becomes thus preoccupied with its experience, Nature
comes into being, and the Cosmos takes on concrete
form as the locus of personality.
a. Contemplation and Creation
Hearkening
back, whether consciously or not, to the doctrine of
Speusippus (Plato's successor in the Academy) that the
One is utterly transcendent and "beyond being," and
that the Dyad is the true first principle (Dillon
1977, p. 12), Plotinus declares that the One is "alone
with itself" and ineffable (cf. Enneads
VI.9.6 and V.2.1). The One does not act to produce a
cosmos or a spiritual order, but simply generates from
itself, effortlessly, a power (dunamis) which
is at once the Intellect (nous) and the
object of contemplation (theôria) of this
Intellect. While Plotinus suggests that the One
subsists by thinking itself as itself, the Intellect
subsists through thinking itself as other,
and therefore becomes divided within itself: this act
of division within the Intellect is the production of
Being, which is the very principle of expression or
discursivity (Ennead V.1.7). For this reason,
the Intellect stands as Plotinus' sole First
Principle. At this point, the thinking or
contemplation of the Intellect is divided up and
ordered into thoughts, each of them subsisting in and
for themselves, as autonomous reflections of the dunamis
of the One. These are the Forms (eidê), and
out of their inert unity there arises the Soul, whose
task it is to think these Forms discursively and
creatively, and to thereby produce or create a
concrete, living expression of the divine Intellect.
This activity of the Soul results in the production of
numerous individual souls: living actualizations of
the possibilities inherent in the Forms. Whereas the
Intellect became divided within itself through
contemplation, the Soul becomes divided outside of
itself, through action (which is still contemplation,
according to Plotinus, albeit the lowest type; cf. Ennead
III.8.4), and this division constitutes the Cosmos,
which is the expressive or creative act of the Soul,
also referred to as Nature. When the individual soul
reflects upon Nature as its own act, this soul is
capable of attaining insight (gnôsis) into
the essence of Intellect; however, when the soul views
nature as something objective and external -- that is,
as something to be experienced or undergone, while
forgetting that the soul itself is the creator of this
Nature -- evil and suffering ensue. Let us now examine
the manner in which Plotinus explains Nature as the
locus of personality.
b. Nature and Personality
Contemplation,
at the level of the Soul, is for Plotinus a two-way
street. The Soul both contemplates, passively, the
Intellect, and reflects upon its own contemplative act
by producing Nature and the Cosmos. The individual
souls that become immersed in Nature, as moments of
the Soul's eternal act, will, ideally, gain a complete
knowledge of the Soul in its unity, and even of the
Intellect, by reflecting upon the concrete results of
the Soul's act -- that is, upon the externalized,
sensible entities that comprise the physical Cosmos.
This reflection, if carried by the individual soul
with a memory of its provenance always in the
foreground, will lead to a just governing of the
physical Cosmos, which will make of it a perfect
material image of the Intellectual Cosmos, i.e., the
realm of the Forms (cf. Enneads IV.3.7 and
IV.8.6). However, things don't always turn out so
well, for individual souls often "go lower than is
needful ... in order to light the lower regions, but
it is not good for them to go so far" (Ennead
IV.3.17, tr. O'Brien 1964). For when the soul extends
itself ever farther into the indeterminacy of
materiality, it gradually loses memory of its divine
origin, and comes to identify itself more and more
with its surroundings -- that is to say: the soul
identifies itself with the results of the
Soul's act, and forgets that it is, as part of this
Soul, itself an agent of the act. This is tantamount
to a relinquishing, by the soul, of its divine nature.
When the soul has thus abandoned itself, it begins to
accrue many alien encrustations, if you will, that
make of it something less than divine. These
encrustations are the 'accidents' (in the Aristotelian
sense) of personality. And yet the soul is never
completely lost, for, as Plotinus insists, the soul
need simply "think upon essential being" in order to
return to itself, and continue to exist authentically
as a governor of the Cosmos (Ennead
IV.8.4-6). The memory of the personality that this
wandering soul possessed must be forgotten in order
for it to return completely to its divine nature; for
if it were remembered, we would have to say,
contradictorily, that the soul holds a memory of what
occurred during its state of forgetfulness! So in a
sense, Plotinus holds that individual personalities
are not maintained at the level of Soul. However, if
we understand personality as more than just a
particular attitude attached to a concrete mode of
existence, and rather view it as the sum total of
experiences reflected upon in intellect, then souls
most certainly retain their personalities, even at the
highest level, for they persist as thoughts within the
divine Mind (cp. Ennead IV.8.5). The
personality that one acquires in action (the lowest
type of contemplation) is indeed forgotten and
dissolved, but the 'personality' or persistence
in intellect that one achieves through virtuous
acts most definitely endures (Ennead
IV.3.32).
c. Salvation and the Cosmic Process
Plotinus,
like his older contemporary, the Christian philosopher
Origen of
Alexandria, views the descent of the soul into the
material realm as a necessary moment in the unfolding
of the divine Intellect, or God. For this reason, the
descent itself is not an evil, for it is a reflection
of God's essence. Both Origen and Plotinus place the
blame for experiencing this descent as an evil
squarely upon the individual soul. Of course, these
thinkers held, respectively, quite different views as
to why and how the soul experiences the descent as an
evil; but they held one thing in common: that the
rational soul will naturally choose the Good, and that
any failure to do so is the result of forgetfulness or
acquired ignorance. But whence this failure? Origen
gave what, to Plotinus' mind, must have been a quite
unsatisfactory answer: that souls pre-existed as
spiritual beings, and when they desired to create or
'beget' independently of God, they all fell into
error, and languished there until the coming of Logos
Incarnate. This view has more than a little Gnostic
flavor to it, which would have sat ill with Plotinus,
who was a great opponent of Gnosticism.
The fall of the soul Plotinus refers, quite simply, to
the tension between pure contemplation and divisive
action -- a tension that constitutes the natural mode
of existence of the soul (cf. Ennead
IV.8.6-7). Plotinus tells us that a thought is only
completed or fully comprehended after it has been
expressed, for only then can the thought be said to
have passed from potentiality to actuality (Ennead
IV.3.30). The question of whether Plotinus places
more value on the potential or the actual is really of
no consequence, for in the Plotinian plêrôma
every potentiality generates an activity, and every
activity becomes itself a potential for new activity
(cf. Ennead III.8.8); and since the One,
which is the goal or object of desire of all
existents, is neither potentiality nor actuality, but
"beyond being" (epekeina ousias), it is
impossible to say whether the striving of existents,
in Plotinus' schema, will result in full and complete
actualization, or in a repose of potentiality that
will make them like their source. "Likeness to God as
far as possible," for Plotinus, is really likeness to
oneself -- authentic existence. Plotinus
leaves it up to the individual to determine what this
means.
i. Plotinus' Last Words
In his
biography of Plotinus, Porphyry records the last words
of his teacher to his students as follows: "Strive to
bring back the god in yourselves to the God in the
All" (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 2, my
translation). After uttering these words, Plotinus,
one of the greatest philosophers the world has ever
known, passed away. The simplicity of this final
statement seems to be at odds with the intellectual
rigors of Plotinus' treatises, which challenge -- and
more often than not vanquish -- just about every
prominent philosophical view of the era. But this is
only if we take this remark in a mystical or ecstatic
religious sense. Plotinus demanded the utmost level of
intellectual clarity in dealing with the problem of
humankind's relation to the highest principle of
existence. Striving for or desiring salvation was not,
for Plotinus, an excuse for simply abandoning oneself
to faith or prayer or unreflective religious rituals;
rather, salvation was to be achieved through the
practice of philosophical investigation, of dialectic.
The fact that Plotinus, at the end of his life, had
arrived at this very simple formulation, serves to
show that his dialectical quest was successful. In his
last treatise, "On the Primal Good" (Ennead
I.7), Plotinus is able to assert, in the same breath,
that both life and death are good. He says this
because life is the moment in which the soul expresses
itself and revels in the autonomy of the creative act.
However, this life, since it is characterized by
action, eventually leads to exhaustion, and the
desire, not for autonomous action, but for reposeful
contemplation -- of a fulfillment that is purely
intellectual and eternal. Death is the relief of this
exhaustion, and the return to a state of contemplative
repose. Is this return to the Intellect a return to
potentiality? It is hard to say. Perhaps it is a
synthesis of potentiality and actuality: the moment at
which the soul is both one and many, both human and
divine. This would constitute Plotinian salvation --
the fulfillment of the exhortation of the dying sage.
d. The Achievement of Plotinus
In the
last analysis, what stands as the most important and
impressive accomplishment of Plotinus is the manner in
which he synthesized the pure, 'semi-mythical'
expression of Plato with the logical rigors of the
Peripatetic and Stoic schools, yet without losing
sight of philosophy's most important task: of
rendering the human experience in intelligible and
analyzable terms. That Plotinus' thought had to take
the 'detour' through such wildly mystical and
speculative paths as Gnosticism
and Christian salvation theology is only proof of his
clear-sightedness, thoroughness, and admirable
humanism. For all of his dialectical difficulties and
perambulations, Plotinus' sole concern is with the
well-being (eudaimonia) of the human soul.
This is, of course, to be understood as an
intellectual, as opposed to a merely physical or even
emotional well-being, for Plotinus was not concerned
with the temporary or the temporal. The striving of
the human mind for a mode of existence more suited to
its intuited potential than the ephemeral
possibilities of this material realm, while admittedly
a striving born of temporality, is nonetheless
directed toward atemporal and divine perfection. This
is a striving or desire rendered all the more poignant
and worthy of philosophy precisely because it is born
in the depths of existential angst, and not in the
primitive ecstasies of unreflective ritual. As the
last true representative of the Greek philosophical
spirit, Plotinus is Apollonian, not Dionysian. His
concern is with the intellectual beautification of the
human soul, and for this reason his notion of
salvation does not, like Origen's,
imply an eternal state of objective contemplation of
the divinity -- for Plotinus, the separation between
human and god breaks down, so that when the perfected
soul contemplates itself, it is also contemplating the
Supreme.
i. The Plotinian Synthesis
Plotinus
was faced with the task of defending the true Platonic
philosophy, as he understood it, against the inroads
being made, in his time, most of all by Gnostics, but
also by orthodox Christianity. Instead of launching an
all-out attack on these new ideas, Plotinus took what
was best from them, in his eyes, and brought these
ideas into concert with his own brand of Platonism.
For this reason, we are sometimes surprised to see
Plotinus, in one treatise, speaking of the cosmos as a
realm of forgetfulness and error, while in another,
speaking of the cosmos as the most perfect expression
of the godhead. Once we realize the extent to which
certain Gnostic sects went in order to brand this
world as a product of an evil and malignant Demiurge,
to whom we owe absolutely no allegiance, it becomes
clear that Plotinus was simply trying to temper the
extreme form of an idea which he himself shared,
though in a less radical sense. The feeling of being
thrown into a hostile and alien world is a
philosophically valid position from which to begin a
critique and investigation of human existence; indeed,
modern existentialist philosophers have often started
from this same premise. However, Plotinus realized
that it is not the nature of the human soul to simply
escape from a realm of active engagement with external
reality (the cosmos) to a passive receptance of divine
form (within the plêrôma). The Soul, as
Plotinus understands it, is an essentially creative
being, and one which understands existence on its own
terms. One of the beauties of Plotinus' system is that
everything he says concerning the nature of the Cosmos
(spiritual and physical) can equally be held of the
Soul. Now while it would be false to charge Plotinus
with solipsism (or even narcissism, as one prominent
commentator has done; cf. Julia Kristeva in Hadot
1993, p. 11), it would be correct to say that the
entire Cosmos is an analogue of the experience of the
Soul, which results in the attainment of full
self-consciousness. The form of Plotinus' system is
the very form by which the Soul naturally comes to
know itself in relation to its acts; and the
expression of the Soul will always, therefore, be a
philosophical expression. When we speak of the
Plotinian synthesis, then, what we are speaking of is
a natural dialectic of the Soul, which takes its own
expressions into account, no matter how faulty or
incomplete they may appear in retrospect, and weaves
them into a cosmic tapestry of noetic images.
3. Porphyry and Iamblichus
Porphyry
of Tyre (ca. 233-305 CE) is the most famous
pupil of Plotinus. In addition to writing an
introductory summary of his master's theories (the
treatise entitled Launching-Points to the Realm
of Mind), Porphyry also composed the famous Isagoge,
an introduction to the Categories of
Aristotle, which came to exercise an immense influence
on Mediaeval Scholasticism. The extent of Porphyry's
investigative interests exceeded that of his teacher,
and his so-called "scientific" works, which survive to
this day, include a treatise on music (On Prosody),
and two studies of the astronomical and astrological
theories of Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 70-140 CE), On
the Harmonics, and an Introduction
to The Astronomy of Ptolemy. He wrote
biographies of Pythagoras and Plotinus, and edited and
compiled the latter's essays into six books, each
containing nine treatises, giving them the title Enneads.
Unlike Plotinus, Porphyry was interested primarily in
the practical aspect of salvific striving, and the
manner in which the soul could most effectively bring
about its transference to ever higher realms of
existence. This led Porphyry to develop a doctrine of
ascent to the Intellect by way of the exercise of
virtue (aretê) in the form of 'good works'.
This doctrine may owe its genesis to Porphyry's
supposed early adherence to Christianity, as attested
by the historian Socrates, and suggested by St.
Augustine (cf. Copleston 1962, p. 218). If Porphyry
had, at some point, been a Christian, this would
account for his belief in the soul's objective
relation to the divine Mind -- an idea shared by
Origen, whom Porphyry knew as a youth (cf. Eusebius, The
History of the Church, p. 195) -- and would
explain his quite un-Plotinian belief in a gradual
progress toward perfection, as opposed to the 'instant
salvation' proposed by Plotinus (cf. Ennead
IV.8.4).
Iamblichus
of Apamea (d. ca. 330 CE) was a student of
Porphyry. He departed from his teacher on more than a
few points, most notably in his insistence on demoting
Plotinus' One (which Porphyry left unscathed, as it
were) to the level of kosmos noêtos, which
according to Iamblichus generates the intellectual
realm (kosmos noêros). In this regard,
Iamblichus can be said to have either severely
misunderstood, or neglected to even attempt to
understand, Plotinus on the important doctrine of
contemplation (see
above). This view led Iamblichus to posit a
Supreme One even higher than the One of Plotinus,
which generates the Intellectual Cosmos, and yet
remains beyond all predication and determinacy.
Iamblichus also made a tripartite division of Soul,
positing a cosmic or All-Soul, and two lesser souls,
corresponding to the rational and irrational
faculties, respectively. This somewhat gratuitous
skewing of the Plotinian noetic realm also led
Iamblichus to posit an array of intermediate spiritual
beings between the lower souls and the intelligible
realm -- daemons, the souls of heroes, and
angels of all sorts. By placing so much distance
between the earthly soul and the intelligible realm,
Iamblichus made it difficult for the would-be
philosopher to gain an intuitive knowledge of the
higher Soul, although he insisted that everyone
possesses such knowledge, coupled with an innate
desire for the Good. In place of the vivid dialectic
of Plotinus, Iamblichus established the practice of
theurgy (theourgia), which he insists does
not draw the gods down to man, but rather renders
humankind, "who through generation are born subject to
passion, pure and unchangeable" (On the Mysteries
I.12.42; in Fowden 1986, p. 133). Whereas "likeness to
God" had meant, for Plotinus, a recollection and
perfection of one's own divine nature (which is, in
the last analysis, identical to nous; cf. Ennead
III.4), for Iamblichus the relation of humankind to
the divine is one of subordinate to superior, and so
the pagan religious piety that Plotinus had scorned --
"Let the gods come to me, and not I to them," he had
once said (cf. Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 10)
-- returns to philosophy with a vengeance. Iamblichus
is best known for his lengthy treatise On the
Mysteries. Like Porphyry, he also wrote a
biography of Pythagoras.
a. The Nature of the Soul
In his
introduction to the philosophy of Plotinus, entitled Launching-Points
to the Realm of Mind, Porphyry remarks that the
inclination of the incorporeal Soul toward
corporeality "constitutes a second nature [the
irrational soul], which unites with the body" (Launching-Points
18 [1]). This remark is supposedly a commentary on Ennead
IV.2, where Plotinus discusses the relation of the
individual soul to the All-Soul. While it is true that
Plotinus often speaks of the individual soul as being
independent of the highest Soul, he does this for
illustrative purposes, in order to show how far into
forgetfulness the soul that has become enamored of its
act may fall. Yet Plotinus insists time and again that
the individual soul and the All-Soul are one (cf. esp.
Ennead IV.1), and that Nature is the Soul's
expressive act (see
above). Irrationality does not constitute, for
Plotinus, a "second nature," but is merely a flawed
exercise of rationality -- that is, doxa untempered
by epistêmê -- on the part of the
individual soul. Furthermore, the individual soul,
which comes to unite with corporeality, governs and
controls the body, making possible discursive
knowledge as well as sense-perception. Uncontrolled pathos
is what Plotinus calls irrationality; the soul brings
aisthêsis (perceptive judgment) to
corporeality, and so prevents it from sinking into
irrational passivity. So what led Porphyry to make
such an interpretative error, if error it was? It is
quite possible that Porphyry had arrived at his own
conclusions about the Soul, and tried to square his
own theory with what Plotinus actually taught. One
clue to the reason for the 'misunderstanding' may
possibly lie in Porphyry's early involvement with
Christianity. While Porphyry himself never tells us
that he had been a Christian, Augustine speaks of him
as if he were an apostate, and the historian Socrates
states outright that Porphyry had once been of the
Christian faith, telling us that he left the fold in
disgust after being assaulted by a rowdy band of
Christians in Caesarea (Copleston 1962, p. 218). In
any case, it is certain that he was acquainted with
Plotinus' older contemporary, the Christian Origen,
and that he had been exposed to Christian doctrine.
Indeed, his own spirited attack on Christianity
("Fifteen Arguments Against the Christians," now
preserved only in fragments) shows him to have
possessed a wide knowledge of Holy Scripture,
remarkable for a 'pagan' philosopher of that era.
Porphyry's exposure to Christian doctrine, then, would
have left him with a view of salvation quite different
from that of Plotinus, who seems never to have paid
Christianity much mind. The best evidence we have for
this explanation is Porphyry's own theory of salvation
-- and it is remarkably similar to what we find in
Origen! Porphyry's salvation theory is dependent, like
Origen's, on a notion of the soul's objective relation
to God, and its consequent striving, not to actualize
its own divine potentiality, but to attain a level of
virtue that makes it capable of partaking fully of the
divine essence. This is accomplished through the
exercise of virtue, which sets the soul on a gradual
course of progress toward the highest Good. Beginning
with simple 'practical virtues' (politikai arêtai)
the soul gradually rises to higher levels, eventually
attaining what Porphyry calls the paradeigmatikai
arêtai or 'exemplary virtues' which make of
the soul a living expression of the divine Mind (cf.
Porphyry, Letter to Marcella 29). Note that
Porphyry stops the soul's ascent at nous,
and presumably holds that the 'saved' soul will
eternally contemplate the infinite power of the One.
If Porphyry's concern had been with the preservation
of personality, then this explanation makes some
sense. However, it is more likely that the true reason
for Porphyry's rejection of the radically 'hubristic'
theory (at least to pietistic pagans) of the nature of
the individual soul held by Plotinus was a result of
his intention to restore dignity to the traditional
religion of the Greeks (which had come under attack
not only by Plotinus, but by Christians as well).
Evidence of such a program resides in Porphyry's
allegorical interpretations of Homer and traditional
cultic practice, as well as his possibly apologetic
work on Philosophy from Oracles (now lost).
Compared to Plotinus, then, Porphyry was quite the
conservative, concerned as he was with maintaining the
ancient view of humankind's relatively humble position
in the cosmic hierarchy, over against Plotinus' view
that the soul is a god, owing little more than a
passing nod to its 'noble brethren' in the heavens.
i. The (re)turn to Astrology
One of
the results of Porphyry's conservative position toward
traditional religious practice and belief was the
'return' to the doctrine that the stars and planets
are capable of affecting and ordering human life.
Plotinus argued that since the individual soul is one
with the All-Soul, it is in essence a co-creator of
the Cosmos, and therefore not really subject to the
laws governing the Cosmos -- for the soul is the
source and agent of those laws! Therefore, a belief in
astrology
was, for Plotinus, absurd, since if the soul turned to
beings dependent upon its own law -- i.e., the stars
and planets -- in order to know itself, then it would
only end up knowing aspects of its own act, and would
never return to itself in full self-consciousness.
Furthermore, as we have seen, Plotinian salvation was
instantly available to the soul, if only it would turn
its mind to "essential being" (see
above); because of this, Plotinus saw no reason
to bring the stars and planets into the picture. For
Porphyry, however, who believed that the soul must
gradually work toward salvation, a knowledge of the
operations of the heavenly bodies and their relation
to humankind would have been an important tool in
gaining ever higher levels of virtue. In fact,
Porphyry seems to have held the view that the soul
receives certain "powers" from each of the planets --
right judgment from Saturn, proper exercise of the
will from Jupiter, impulse from Mars, opinion and
imagination from the Sun, and (what else?) sensuous
desire from Venus; from the Moon the soul receives the
power of physical production (cf. Hegel, p. 430) --
and that these powers enable to the soul to know
things both earthly and heavenly. This theoretical
knowledge of the powers of the planets, then, would
have made the more practical knowledge of astrology
quite useful and meaningful for an individual soul
seeking to know itself as such. The usefulness of
astrology for Porphyry, in this regard, probably
resided in its ability to permit an individual,
through an analysis of his birth chart, to know which
planet -- and therefore which "power" -- exercised the
dominant influence on his life. In keeping with the
ancient Greek doctrine of the "golden mean," the task
of the individual would then be to work to bring to
the fore those other "powers" -- each present to a
lesser degree in the soul, but still active -- and
thereby achieve a balance or sôphrosunê that
would render the soul more capable of sharing in the
divine Mind. The art of astrology, it must be
remembered, was in wide practice in the Hellenistic
world, and Plotinus' rejection of it was an exception
that was by no means the rule. Plotinus' views on
astrology apparently found few adherents, even among
Platonists, for we see not only Porphyry, but also (to
an extent) Iamblichus and even Proclus declaring its
value -- the latter being responsible for a paraphrase
of Claudius Ptolemy's astrological compendium known as
the Tetrabiblos or sometimes simply as The
Astronomy. In addition to penning a commentary
on Ptolemy's tome, Porphyry also wrote his own Introduction
to Astronomy (by which is apparently meant
"Astrology," the modern distinction not holding in
Hellenistic times). Unfortunately, this work no longer
survives intact.
(For more
on this topic, see Hellenistic
Astrology.)
b. The Quest for Transcendence
The
philosophy of Plotinus was highly discursive, meaning
that it operated on the assumption that the highest
meaning, the most profound truth (even a so-called
mystical truth) is translatable, necessarily, into
language; and furthermore, that any and every
experience only attains its full value as meaning
when it has reached expression in the form of
language. This idea, of course, placed the One always
beyond the discursive understanding of the human soul,
since the One was proclaimed, by Plotinus, to be not
only beyond discursive knowledge, but also the very
source and possibility of such knowledge.
According to Plotinus, then, any time the individual
soul expresses a certain truth in language, this very
act is representative of the power of the One. This
notion of the simultaneous intimate proximity of the
One to the soul, and, paradoxically, its extreme
transcendence and ineffability, is possible only
within the confines of a purely subjective and
introspective philosophy like that of Plotinus; and
since such a philosophy, by its very nature, cannot
appeal to common, external perceptions, it is destined
to remain the sole provenance of the sensitive and
enlightened few. Porphyry did not want to admit this,
and so he found himself seeking, as St. Augustine
tells us, "a universal way (universalem viam)
for the liberation of the soul" (City of God
10.32, in Fowden, p. 132), believing, as he did, that
no such way had yet been discovered by or within
philosophy. This did not imply, for Porphyry, a
wholesale rejection of the Plotinian dialectic in
favor of a more esoteric process of salvation; but it
did lead Porphyry (see
above) to look to astrology as a means of
orienting the soul toward its place in the cosmos, and
thereby allowing it to achieve the desired salvation
in the most efficacious manner possible. Iamblichus,
on the other hand, rejected even Porphyry's approach,
in favor of a path toward the divinity that is more
worthy of priests (hieratikoi) than
philosophers; for Iamblichus believed that not only
the One, but all the gods and demi-gods, exceed and
transcend the individual soul, making it necessary for
the soul seeking salvation to call upon the superior
beings to aid it in its progress. This is
accomplished, Iamblichus tells us, by "the perfective
operation of unspeakable acts (erga)
correctly performed ... acts which are beyond all
understanding (huper pasan noêsin)" and which
are "intelligible only to the gods" (On the
Mysteries II.11.96-7, in Fowden, p. 132). These
ritualistic acts, and the 'logic' underlying them,
Iamblichus terms "theurgy" (theourgia). These
theurgic acts are necessary, for Iamblichus, because
he is convinced that philosophy, which is based solely
upon thought (ennoia) -- and thought, we must
remember, is always an accomplishment of the
individual mind, and hence discursive -- is unable to
reach that which is beyond thought. The
practice of theurgy, then, becomes a way for the soul
to experience the presence of the divinity, instead of
merely thinking or conceptualizing the godhead.
Porphyry took issue with this view, in his Letter
to Anebo, which is really a criticism of the
ideas of his pupil, Iamblichus, where he stated that,
since theurgy is a physical process, it cannot
possibly translate into a spiritual effect.
Iamblichus' On the Mysteries was written as
a reply to Porphyry's criticisms, but the defense of
the pupil did not succeed in vanquishing the
persistent attacks of the master. While both Porphyry
and Iamblichus recognized, to a lesser and greater
extent, respectively, the limitations of the Plotinian
dialectic, Porphyry held firm to the idea that since
the divinity is immaterial it can only be grasped in a
noetic fashion -- i.e., discursively (and even
astrology, in spite of its mediative capacity, is
still an intellectual exercise, open to dialectic and
narratization); Iamblichus, adhering roughly to the
same view, nevertheless argued that the human soul
must not think god on its own terms, but must allow
itself to be transformed by the penetrating essence of
god, of which the soul partakes through rituals
intended to transform the particularized, fragmented
soul into a being that is "pure and unchangeable" (cf.
On the Mysteries I.12.42; Fowden, p. 133).
i. Theurgy and the Distrust of
Dialectic
According
to the schema of Plotinian dialectic, the 'stance' of
the individual soul is the sole source of truth
certainty, being a judging faculty dependent always
upon the higher Soul. From the perspective of one who
believes that the soul is immersed in Nature, instead
of recognizing, as Plotinus did, the soul's status as
an intimate governor of Nature (which is the Soul's
own act), dialectic may very well appear as a
solipsistic (and therefore faulty) attempt on the part
of an individual mind to know its reality by imposing
conceptual structures and strictures upon the
phenomena that constitute this reality. Iamblichus
believed that since every individual soul is immersed
in the 'bodily element,' no soul is capable of
understanding the divine nature through the pure
exercise of human reason -- for reason itself, at the
level of the human soul-body composite, is tainted by
the changeable nature of matter, and therefore
incapable of rising to that perfect knowledge that is
beyond all change (cp. Plato, Phaedrus
247e). Dialectic, then, as the soul's attempt to know
reality, is seen by Iamblichus as an attempt by an
already fallen being to lead itself up out of the very
locus of its own forgetfulness. Now Iamblichus does
not completely reject dialectical reason; he simply
requests that it be tempered by an appeal to
intermediate divinities, who will aid the fallen soul
in its ascent back towards the Supreme Good. The
practice of ritualistic theurgy is the medium by which
the fallen soul ascends to a point at which it becomes
capable of engaging in a meaningful dialectic with the
divinity. This dependence upon higher powers
nevertheless negates the soul's own innate ability to
think itself as god, and so we may say that
Iamblichus' ideas represent a decisive break with the
philosophy of Plotinus.
4. Proclus and Pseudo-Dionysius
Proclus
(410-485 CE) is, next to Plotinus, the most
accomplished and rigorous of the Neoplatonists. Born
in Constantinople, he studied philosophy in Athens,
and through diligent effort rose to the rank of head
teacher or 'scholarch' of that great school. In
addition to his accomplishments in philosophy, Proclus
was also a religious universalist, who had himself
initiated into all the mystery religions being
practiced during his time. This was doubtless due to
the influence of Iamblichus, whom Proclus held in high
esteem (cf. Proclus, Theology of Plato III;
in Hegel, p. 432). The philosophical expression of
Proclus is more precise and logically ordered than
that of Plotinus. Indeed, Proclus posits the Intellect
(nous) as the culmination of the productive
act (paragein) of the One; this is in
opposition to Plotinus, who described the Intellect as
proceeding directly from the One, thereby placing Mind
before Thought, and so making thought the process by
which the Intellect becomes alienated from itself,
thus requiring the salvific act in order to attain the
fulfillment of Being, which is, for Plotinus, the
return of Intellect to itself. Proclus understands the
movement of existence as a tripartite progression
beginning with an abstract unity, passing into a
multiplicity that is identified with Life, and
returning again to a unity that is no longer merely
abstract, but now actualized as an eternal
manifestation of the godhead. What constituted, for
Plotinus, the salvific drama of human existence is,
for Proclus, simply the logical, natural order of
things. However, by thus removing the yearning for
salvation from human existence, as something to be
accomplished, positively, Proclus is ignoring or
overly intellectualizing, if you will, an existential
aspect of human existence that is as real as it is
powerful. Plotinus recognized the importance of the
salvific drive for the realization of true philosophy,
making philosophy a means to an end; Proclus utilizes
philosophy, rather, more in the manner of a useful,
descriptive language by which a thinker may describe
the essential realities of a merely contingent
existence. In this sense, Proclus is more faithful to
the 'letter' of Plato's Dialogues; but for
this same reason he fails to rise to the 'spirit' of
the Platonic philosophy. Proclus' major works include
commentaries on Plato's Timaeus, Republic,
Parmenides, Alcibiades I, and the Cratylus.
He also wrote treatises on the Theology of Plato,
On Providence, and On the Subsistence of
Evil. His most important work is undoubtedly
the Elements of Theology, which contains the
clearest exposition of his ideas.
a. Being -- Becoming -- Being
We found,
in Plotinus, an explanation and expression of a cosmos
that involved a gradual development from all but
static unity toward eventual alienation -- a
moment at which the active soul must make the profound
decision to renounce autonomous existence and re-merge
with the source of all Being, or else remain forever
in the darkness of forgetfulness and error. Salvation,
for Plotinus, was relatively easy to accomplish, but
never guaranteed. For Proclus, on the other hand, the
arkhê or 'ruling beginning' of all Life is the
'One-in-itself' (to auto hen), or that which
is responsible for the ordering of all existents,
insofar as existence is, in the last analysis, the
sovereign act or expression of this primordial unity
or monad. The expression of this One is
perfectly balanced, being a trinity containing, as
distinct expressions, each moment of self-realization
of this One; and each of these moments, according to
Proclus, have the structure of yet another trinity.
The first trinity corresponds to the limit,
which is the guide and reference-point of all further
manifestations; the second to the unlimited,
which is also Life or the productive power (dunamis);
and the third, finally, to the 'mixture' (mikton,
diakosmos), which is the self-reflective moment
of return during which the soul realizes
itself as a thinking -- i.e., living --
entity. Thought is, therefore, the culmination of Life
and the fulfillment of Being. Thought is also the
reason (logos) that binds these triadic
unities together in a grand harmonious plêrôma,
if you will. Being, for Proclus, is that divine
self-presence, "shut up without development and
maintained in strict isolation" (Hegel, p. 446) which
is the object of Life's thinking; this 'object' gives
rise to that thinking which leads, eventually, to
understanding (nous), which is the thought of
being, and appears (ekphanôs), always, as
'being's begetter'. When the circle is completed, and
reflected upon, logically, we are met with the
following onto-cosmological schema: thought (noêtos,
also known as 'Being') giving rise to its "negative"
which is thinking (Hegel, p. 393) and the thought 'it
is' (noêtos kai noêros), produces its own
precise reflection -- 'pure thinking' -- and this
reflection is the very manifestation (phanerôsis)
of the deity within the fluctuating arena of
individual souls. Being is eternal and static
precisely because it always returns to itself as Being;
and 'Becoming'is the conceptual term for this process,
which involves the cyclical play between that which is
and is not, at any given time. "[T]he thought of every
man is identical with the existence of every man, and
each is both the thought and the existence" (Proclus,
Platonic Theology III., in Hegel, p. 449).
The autonomous drive toward dissolution, which is so
germane to the soul as such, is wiped away
by Proclus, for his dialectic is impeccably clean.
However, he does not account for the yearning for the
infinite (as does Plotinus) and the consequent
existential desire for productive power falls on its
face before the supreme god of autonomous creation --
which draws all existents into its primeval web of
dissolution.
b. The God Beyond Being
Very
little is known about the life of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius.
For many centuries, the writings of this mystical
philosopher were believed to have been from the pen of
none other Dionysius, the disciple of St. Paul. Later
scholarship has shed considerable doubt on this claim,
and most modern scholars believe this author to have
been active during the late fifth century CE. Indeed,
the earliest reference to the Dionysian Corpus that we
possess is from 533 CE. There is no mention of this
author's work before this date. Careful study of the
Pseudo-Dionysian writings has uncovered many parallels
between the theurgical doctrines of Iamblichus, and
the triadic metaphysical schema of Proclus. Yet what
we witness in these writings is the attempt by a
thinker who is at once religiously sensitive and
philosophically engaged to bring the highly developed
Platonism of his time into line with a Christian
theological tradition that was apparently persisting
on the fringes of orthodoxy. To this extent, we may
refer to the Pseudo-Dionysius as a 'decadent,' for he
(or she?) was writing at a time when the heyday of
Platonism had attained the status of a palaios
logos ('ancient teaching') to be, not merely
commented upon, but savored as an aesthetic
monument to an era already long past. It is important
to note, in this regard, that the writings of
Pseudo-Dionysius do not contain any theoretical
arguments or dialectical moments, but simply many
subtle variations on the apophatic/kataphatic theology
for which our writer is renowned. Indeed, he writes as
if his readers already know, and are merely
in need of clarification. His message is quite simple,
and is manifestly distilled from the often cumbersome
doctrines of earlier thinkers (especially Iamblichus
and Proclus). Pseudo-Dionysius professes a God who is
beyond all distinctions, and who even transcends the
means utilized by human beings to reach Him. For
Pseudo-Dionysius, the Holy Trinity (which is probably
analogous to Proclus' highest trinity, see
above) serves as a "guide" to the human being
who seeks not only to know but to unite with
"him who is beyond all being and knowledge"
(Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical
Theology 997A-1000A, tr. C. Luibheid 1987). In
the expression of the Pseudo-Dionysius the yearning
for the infinite reaches a poetical form that at once
fulfills and exceeds philosophy.
5. Appendix:`The Renaissance Platonists
After the
closing of the Neoplatonic Academy in Athens by the
Emperor Justinian in 529 CE, Platonism ceased to be a
living philosophy. Due to the efforts of the Christian
philosopher Boethius (480-525 CE), who
translated Porphyry's Isagoge, and composed
numerous original works as well, the Middle Ages
received a faint glimmer of the ancient glories of the
Platonic philosophy. St. Augustine,
also, was responsible for imparting a sense of
Neoplatonic doctrine to the Latin West, but this was
by way of commentary and critique, and not in any way
a systematic exposition of the philosophy. Generally
speaking, it is safe to say that the European Middle
Ages remained in the grip of Aristotelianism until the
early Renaissance, when certain brilliant Italian
thinkers began to rediscover, translate, and expound
upon the original texts of Platonism. Chief among
these thinkers were Marsilio
Ficino (1433-1492) and Pico della Mirandola
(1463-1494). Ficino produced fine Latin translations
of Plato's Dialogues, the Enneads
of Plotinus, and numerous works by Porphyry,
Iamblichus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius,
and many others. In addition to his scholarly ability,
Ficino was also a fine commentator and philosopher in
his own right. His brilliant essay on Five
Questions Concerning The Mind is a concise
summary of general Neoplatonic doctrine, based upon
Ficino's own view that the lot of the human soul is to
inquire into its own nature, and that since this
inquiry causes the human soul to experience misery,
the soul must do everything it can to transcend the
physical body and live a life worthy of the blessed
angels (cf. Cassirer, et. al. (ed) 1948, p. 211-212).
Giovanni Pico, the Count of Mirandola, was a colorful
figure who lived a short life, fraught with strife. He
roused the ire of the papacy by composing a voluminous
work defending nine-hundred theses drawn from his vast
reading of the Ancients; thirteen of these theses were
deemed heretical by the papacy, and yet Pico refused
to change or withdraw a single one. Like his friend
Ficino, Pico was a devotee of ancient wisdom, drawing
not only upon the Platonic canon, but also upon the
Pre-Socratic literature and the Hermetic Corpus,
especially the Poimandres. Pico's most
famous work is the Oration on the Dignity of Man,
in which he eloquently states his learned view that
humankind was created by God "as a creature of
indeterminate nature," possessed of the unique ability
to ascend or descend on the scale of Being through the
autonomous exercise of free will (Oration 3,
in Cassirer, et. al. (ed) 1948, p. 224). Pico's view
of free will was quite different from that expressed
by Plotinus, and indeed most other Neoplatonists, and
it came as no surprise when Pico composed a treatise On
Being and the One which ended on Aristotelian
terms, declaring the One to be coincident with or
persisting amidst Being -- a wholly un-Platonic
doctrine. With Ficino, then, we may say that Platonism
achieved a brief moment of archaic glory, while with
Pico, it was plunged once again into the quagmire of
self-referential empiricism.
6. References and Further Reading
- Cassirer,
Ernst; Kristeller, Paul Oskar; Randall, John Herman
Jr. (editors) The Renaissance Philosophy of Man
(University of Chicago Press 1948).
- Cooper,
John M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works
(Hackett Publishing 1997).
- Copleston
S.J., Frederick, A History of Philosophy (vol.
I, part II): Greece and Rome (Image Books
1962).
- Dillon,
John (1977), The Middle Platonists
(Cornell University Press).
- Eusebius
(tr. G.A. Williamson 1965), The History of the
Church (Penguin Books).
- Fowden,
Garth, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical
Approach To The Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge
University Press 1986).
- Hadot,
Pierre (tr. M. Chase), Plotinus, or The
Simplicity of Vision (University of Chicago
Press 1993).
- Hegel,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (tr. E.S. Haldane and
Frances H. Simson), Lectures on the History of
Philosophy (vol. II): Plato And The
Platonists (Bison Books 1995).
- Jaeger,
Werner, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia
(Harvard University Press 1961).
- Layton,
Bentley (1987), The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday:
The Anchor Bible Reference Library).
- O'Brien
S.J., Elmer (1964), The Essential Plotinus:
Representative Treatises From The
Enneads (Hackett Publishing).
- Origen
of Alexandria, Commentary on John, tr.
in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol.
X. (Eerdmans 1979, reprint).
- Origen
of Alexandria, On First Principles [De
Principiis], tr. in The Ante-Nicene Fathers,
vol. IV. (Eerdmans 1979, reprint).
- Philo
of Alexandria (tr. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker), On
the Creation of the World [De Opificio
Mundi], in vol. 1 of The Loeb Classical Library
edition of Philo (Harvard University Press 1929).
- Plotinus
(tr. A.H. Armstrong), The Enneads, in
seven volumes (Loeb Classical Library: Harvard
University Press 1966).
- Porphyry
(tr. K. Guthrie), Launching-Points to the Realm
of Mind [Pros ta noeta aphorismoi] (Phanes
Press 1988).
- Porphyry
(tr. A. Zimmern), Porphyry's Letter to His Wife
Marcella Concerning the Life of Philosophy and the
Ascent to the Gods (Phanes Press 1986).
- Porphyry
(tr. A.H. Armstrong), Life of Plotinus [Vita
Plotini], in volume one of the Loeb Classical
Library edition of Plotinus (Harvard University
Press 1966).
- Proclus
(tr. T. Taylor), Lost Fragments of Proclus
(Wizards Bookshelf 1988).
- Proclus
(tr. T. Taylor), Ten Doubts Concerning
Providence, and On the Subsistence of
Evil (Ares Publishers 1980).
- Pseudo-Dionysius
(tr. C. Luibheid 1987), Pseudo-Dionysius: The
Complete Works (Paulist Press).
Author
Information
Edward
Moore Email: patristics@gmail.com
St. Elias School of Orthodox Theology U.
S. A.
--------------
10. Islamic Neoplatonism
Arabic manuscript depicting
"Sughrat" (Socrates) teaching his pupils. 13th
century. Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul.
Neoplatonism
in Islamic philosophy
from
Islamic Philosophy Online http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H003.htm
Islamic Neoplatonism developed in a milieu already
saturated with the thought of Plotinus and Aristotle.
The former studied in Alexandria, and the Alexandrine
philosophical syllabus included such figures as
Porphyry of Tyre and Proclus. Associated with these
scholars were two major channels of Islamic
Neoplatonism, the so-called Theology
of Aristotle and the Liber de Causis (Book
of Causes). Other cities beloved of the
philosophers at the time of the rise of Islam in the
first century AH [= after hijra - tkw] (seventh
century AD)
included Gondeshapur and Harran.
Islamic Neoplatonism stressed one aspect of the
Qur'anic God, the transcendent, and ignored another,
the creative. For the Neoplatonists, all things
emanated from the deity. Islamic philosophers were
imbued to a greater or lesser degree with either
Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism or, as was often the
case, with both. Al-Kindi, the father of Islamic
philosophy, has a Neoplatonic aspect, but the doctrine
reaches its intellectual fruition in the complex
emanationist hierarchies developed by al-Farabi and
Ibn Sina. Their views are later developed (or
metamorphosed) by later thinkers into an emanative
hierarchy of lights, as with Shihab al-Din
al-Suhrawardi, or the doctrine of the Unity of Being
espoused by Ibn al-'Arabi. While al-Ghazali and Ibn
Rushd both vigorously opposed Neoplatonic views, the
latter attacked the former for his general opposition
to the philosophers.
Neoplatonism itself had a major impact on that
sectarian grouping of Muslims known as the Isma'ilis,
and became the substratum for its theology.
Historically, Neoplatonism in Islam achieved its
climax with the Fatimid Isma'ili conquest of Egypt
towards the end of the fourth century ah
(tenth century ad).
While Neoplatonism later declined in philosophical
importance in the face of rampant Aristotelianism and
Hanbalism, it may be said to have bequeathed an
important religious, historical and cultural legacy to
the Islamic world, which in the Isma'ili movement
endures to this day.
- Milieu
and sources
- The
God of Islamic Neoplatonism
- Reaction
and counter-reaction
- The
influence and legacy of Islamic Neoplatonism
1. Milieu and sources
Islamic
Neoplatonism developed in a milieu which was familiar
with the doctrines and teachings of Plotinus.
The city of Alexandria, into which the Arab armies of
Islam marched in ad
642, had down the centuries been home to many
philosophies and philosophers: Plotinus himself, the
founding father of Neoplatonism, studied in Alexandria
for eleven years under the scholar Ammonius Hierocles.
The Alexandrian philosophical syllabus was imbued with
Neoplatonism and coated with Aristotelianism. The works
of important Neoplatonists such as Porphyry
and Proclus
were studied there. Two works, whose exact authorship is
unclear but which became associated with Porphyry and
Proclus respectively, were the famous Theology
of Aristotle and the work which became Latinized
as the Liber de causis (see Liber
de causis). Both these works, regardless of their
actual authorship, were major channels of Islamic
Neoplatonism. The Theology
of Aristotle, despite its name, had nothing to do
with Aristotle but summarized, with some additions,
Books IV-VI of Plotinus' Enneads. The Liber
de causis (Book of Causes) had its basis in the Elements
of Theology by Proclus. The Neoplatonic themes in
both the Theologia and the Liber are not
difficult to identify, ranging from the key doctrine of
emanation through references to the hypostases such as
the Universal Intellect and Universal Soul (Theology
of Aristotle) or the Procline hypostases of the
One, Existence, Intellect and Soul (Liber de causis),
to the sublime attributes of the One (see Neoplatonism).
However,
Alexandria was not the only major city in the Middle
East to foster the rise of Neoplatonism before the rise
of Islam. Another was Gondeshapur, a great centre of
Greek Byzantine learning, especially in the fields of
philosophy and medicine, where Aramaic rather than
Persian appears to have been the dominant language. This
city, built by Shapur I in the mid-third century ad, acted as a magnet to
many Middle Eastern intellectuals in both the
pre-Islamic and Islamic periods. The great father of the
Arabic translation movement, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, studied
there; earlier, Nestorian scholars had fled to that city
after the Council of Ephesus in ad
431. These scholars knew the work of Aristotle, but they
had also studied Porphyry and so were familiar with the
teachings of Neoplatonism. The closeness of Gondeshapur
to what became Baghdad meant that the former city was
able to infiltrate the latter, when it became an Islamic
seat, with a variety of Greek elements.
Then there
was Harran in northern Syria, a city which was home to
the star-loving Sabaeans, a pagan sect whose
transcendent theology was imbued with Neoplatonic
elements. In the third century ah
(ninth century ad)
Harran was visited by refugee scholars from the schools
of Alexandria; in the following century these scholars
moved from Harran to Baghdad, bringing to that last city
elements, both Aristotelian and Neoplatonic, from the
rich philosophical heritage of both Alexandria and
Harran. Of course, cities such as Alexandria,
Gondeshapur and Harran were not the only sources of
Neoplatonic thought, but their examples serve to
illustrate the ease with which the expanding
Arab-Islamic Empire came into contact with Greek
thought, especially in its Aristotelian and Neoplatonic
incarnations. And it was between the latter that the
pendulum of Islamic philosophy frequently swung in the
writings of the individual Islamic philosophers, when
they were not actually mixing the two in a glorious
intellectual syncretism as happened with the thought of
the Ikhwan al-Safa' (see Ikhwan
al-Safa').
2. The God of Islamic Neoplatonism
The
description of God in the Qur'an is by and large fairly
clear, though it did give rise to complexities of
interpretation in Islamic theology centring on such
matters as anthropomorphism, God's omnipotence and man's
free will, and the attributes of God. The Qur'anic God,
however, is both transcendent and immanent. There is
none like him but he is also closer to man than man's
jugular vein. He intervenes in human history to reveal
himself to man, for example in the revelations of the
Qur'an, and sends angels to fight for his prophet
Muhammad, as at the Battle of Badr in ad
624. Here he is often like the God beloved of today's
process theologians (see Process
theism). Above all, however, the Qur'anic God is
one who creates ex nihilo. There is no concept
of Neoplatonic emanation in the Qur'an. In contrast, for
Aristotle, God is the Unmoved First Mover. The emphasis
in Aristotelian theology is much more on God's movement
rather than on his creation, which is limited in any
case to his production of form in prime matter which has
existed eternally. With the Neoplatonists, the emphasis
moves from the concept of creation to that of eternal
emanation: God or the One or the Good - however he is to
be characterized - does not create ex nihilo but
'engages' in eternal emanation of all that is below him.
Thus in the
Middle East at the time of the rise and spread of Islam
there were at least three different 'theologies' vying
for space, emphasising different qualities of their
deity. There is the Qur'anic God as creator ex
nihilo; there is the Aristotelian God as first
Mover; and there is the Neoplatonic God as eternal
emanator. The debate which was engendered about the
relationship between God and the rest of observable and
intangible reality and phenomena became a fundamental
characteristic of the writings of the Islamic
philosophers. The Qur'anic God was linked to his
creation by the sheer power of creativity, the
Aristotelian God was linked - much less feelingly - with
that which moved, while the Neoplatonic God bridged, or
attempted to bridge, the huge gulf between transcendence
and corporeal reality by the device of emanation. A
brief survey of the thought of some individual Islamic
philosophers will serve to illustrate how the debate
featured in their writings, and thus in the general
development of Islamic philosophy.
Abu Yusuf
ibn Ishaq al-Kindi
is universally acknowledged by scholars of Islamic
philosophy as the 'Father of Islamic Philosophy'.
Al-Kindi's God has four faces or aspects. Doctrinally,
he is classically rooted in and derived from the Qur'an,
and bears such epithets as 'creator' and 'active'. God
has an essential unity which does not derive from
anything else. He also has Aristotelian aspects - he is,
for example, unmoved - but of course al-Kindi's deity is
much more than a mere Mover. God's attributes are also
discussed by al-Kindi in Mu'tazilite terms and al-Kindi
espouses a Mu'tazilite antipathy towards
anthropomorphism (see Ash'ariyya
and Mu'tazila §4). Finally, we can detect a
Neoplatonic influence on al-Kindi's thought. He was the
first major Islamic philosopher to reflect significant
aspects of the Neoplatonic tradition, and is a bridge to
the thought of philosophers such as al-Farabi and Ibn
Sina.
It is with
these latter two philosophers that Islamic Neoplatonism
reaches its apotheosis, where such fundamental
Neoplatonic concepts as hierarchy and emanation are
fully developed and integrated into a metaphysics of
being. Al-Farabi
is rightly regarded as the father and founder of Islamic
Neoplatonism, while Ibn Sina, though less original, is
often considered to be Islam's greatest Neoplatonic
philosopher. While the deity that he portrays certainly
has other aspects, it is the Neoplatonic aspects which
draw our attention. Like al-Farabi, Ibn Sina has a
complex scheme of emanation with ten intellects
emanating from the Necessary Being. Again as with
al-Farabi, emanation constitutes a bridge between the
unknowable God of Neoplatonism and earthbound humanity.
However, the theological terminology deployed in Ibn
Sina's thought is perhaps less negative than that of
al-Farabi; this is particularly true of the mystical
dimension of Ibn Sina's thinking.
Neoplatonism
in Islam may be said to have reached its furthest limits
of development in the thought of Isma'ili theologians
such as Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani on the one hand, and
that of Shihab al-Din Yahya al-Suhrawardi
and Muhyi al-Din Ibn
al-'Arabi on the other. Al-Kirmani espouses a
Farabian elaboration of God and ten intellects in his
Neoplatonic emanationist hierarchy. Al-Suhrawardi, 'the
Master of Illumination' (shaykh al-ishraq), as he
became known, established an extraordinary complex
Neoplatonic hierarchy of lights in which the divine and
quasi-divine are seen all in terms of light. God is the
Light of Lights (nur al-anwar), and from him
emanates the First Light from which emanates the Second
Light and so on; but bound into the whole system is a
complex three-tier system of Angelic Lights. Because of
the doctrine of emanation, the lights (or intellects)
have an ontological or noetic precedence, the one over
the other, but not a temporal precedence. By contrast,
Ibn al-'Arabi employs Neoplatonic terminology to bolster
his doctrine of the Unity of Being (wahdat al-wujud).
The circularity of his thought, however, precludes the
elaboration of a classical system of emanation following
Plotinian, or even Farabian, lines. It may be argued
that the terms 'theophanies' or 'manifestations' (tajalliyat)
of the divinity, rather than 'emanations', are a more
accurate rendering of his thought.
3. Reaction and counter-reaction
The
reaction and counter-reaction to the infiltration of
Neoplatonism into Islamic thought and philosophy may
usefully be studied in the writings of the great Abu
Hamid al-Ghazali, Sunni theologian and mystic, on the
one hand and those of Islam's most notable Aristotelian,
Abu'l Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd, also known as Averroes,
on the other. In his Tahafut
al-falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers), al-Ghazali
(§3) attacked both the Neoplatonists and
Aristotle. He rebutted, for example, the idea that the
world was eternal, and tried to show mathematically that
the thesis of the Neoplatonists was illogical. He
believed that the Neoplatonists had failed to prove that
God was One, and attacked their beliefs about a variety
of other fundamental and crucial points such as divine
knowledge and the question of the immutability of God.
The two principal philosophers whose views al-Ghazali
attacked were al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. As al-Ghazali
himself put it:
However,
the most faithful - as Aristotle's translators - and
the most original - as his commentators - among the
philosophizing Muslims are al-Farabi Abu Nasr, and Ibn
Sina. Therefore, we will confine our attention to what
these two have taken to be the authentic expression of
the views of their mis-leaders.... Therefore, let it
be known that we propose to concentrate on the
refutation of philosophical thought as it emerges from
the writings of these two persons.
In all,
al-Ghazali itemized twenty particular problems 'in whose
discussion in this book we will expose the contradiction
involved in the philosopher's theories'.
If
al-Ghazali represents Islamic theology's most biting
attack on philosophy and severest reaction to
Neoplatonism in Islam, Ibn
Rushd represents the counter-reaction. This is not
to say that the latter wholeheartedly espoused the views
of the Neoplatonists: indeed, very far from it. In his Tahafut
al-tahafut (Incoherence of the Incoherence),
referring to the incoherence of al-Ghazali's Tahafut
al-falasifa, Ibn Rushd wrote a work which Fakhry
has described as 'the product of Ibn Rushd's maturest
thought [which] constitutes a systematic rebuttal of
al-Ghazali's critique of Greco-Arab philosophy' (Fakhry
1983: 276). Al-Ghazali is accused of
misunderstanding, and it is clear that Ibn Rushd is
concerned to defend the merits of philosophy as a mode
of non-heretical thought while at the same time not
accepting the theses of the Neoplatonist philosophers.
Despite his intention in the Tahafut
al-tahafut of defending the philosophical targets
of al-Ghazali's wrath, Ibn Rushd, as Bello points out,
'more often than not...does not, in fact, defend
al-Farabi and Ibn Sina.... Instead, he shows to what
extent they have departed from the authentic
Aristotelian philosophical doctrines, and sometimes
joins his voice with that of Ghazali in convicting them
of heresy' (Bello
1989: 15). Thus Ibn Rushd, despite his defence of
philosophy and philosophers, is more than happy to
declare open war on Neoplatonism.
4. The influence and legacy of Islamic Neoplatonism
While it is
certainly untrue to say that Islamic philosophy came to
a sudden end with the death of Ibn Rushd, we can say
that his death in ah
595/ad 1198 marks the
approaching end of the great debates about Neoplatonism
in Islamic thought. By then the kind of peripateticism
espoused by Ibn Rushd may be said to have at least
revived, if not definitely triumphed over, other forms
of philosophy. The death of Ibn al-'Arabi in ah 638/ad
1240 marks that triumph, for the latter's doctrine of wahdat
al-wujud was perpetuated by only a few faithful
disciples. Furthermore, other movements had arisen in
competition with Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism, such
as the literalism of the Spanish Muslim Ibn
Hazm, and the Hanbalism of Ibn
Taymiyya. Neoplatonism as a radical system of
philosophical thought with a controversial theological
agenda was enshrined in the writings of such thinkers as
the Ikhwan
al-Safa', but generally speaking its greatest
surviving influence was, and is, on the theology of the
Isma'ili sect in Islam, one of the three great divisions
of Shi'ism. This sect achieved its political apotheosis
with the coming to power of the Fatimid Isma'ili dynasty
in North Africa and Egypt in the fourth and fifth
centuries ah (tenth
and eleventh centuries ad).
The Mosque-University of al-Azhar was a beacon of
Isma'ili (and thus Neoplatonic) thought before the
Ayyubids took possession of Egypt and returned it to the
Sunni fold. Today, Neoplatonism in Islam survives
principally as the philosophical substratum which
underpins the theology of the Isma'ilis, a group which,
though itself split over issues of leadership,
nonetheless holds many theological and philosophical
points in common.
If we
examine the impact of Neoplatonism on Islamic thought
generally, it is clear that this philosophy served to
emphasize that transcendent aspect of God which is to be
found clearly in the Qur'an, sometimes at the expense of
the immanent. The impact of Neoplatonism on the course
of Islamic history itself has been considerable in some
regions. Among many examples we may note that the
Fatimid dynasty came to power in Egypt and ruled there
from ah 297-567 (ad 969-1171); the Isma'ili
Assassins flourished at the Castle of Alamut from ah 483-654 (ad 1090-1256); and a
Nizari Isma'ili imamate later moved from Persia to
India. Theologically then, it is clear that a body of
doctrines, so many of which seemed at odds with
mainstream Islamic teaching, served at times to
highlight the Qur'anic emphasis on transcendence and was
actually absorbed by one, albeit heterodox, sect to
become the foundation for that sect; while historically,
Neoplatonism from its mainly theoretical Middle Eastern
origins in Alexandria, Harran, Gondeshapur and elsewhere
became sufficiently powerful to 'hijack' an entire
dynasty, the Fatimid.
We may
extrapolate from all this, then, the paradigm of an
'alien' cult which becomes 'Middle-Easternized' and
'Islamicized' and which acts on occasion as theological
stimulus, irritant, gadfly or foundation, and in so
doing ultimately inserts itself from a variety of
perspectives into the broad and multivalent fabric of
Islam. Alternatively, we may choose to examine the
phenomenon of Neoplatonism rather more closely, assess
its emphasis on order, structure, emanation, hierarchy,
transcendence, intellect and soul, and extrapolate a
rather different paradigm, perhaps more akin to that
preferred by the Isma'ilis. According to this view,
Neoplatonism would not be regarded as a foreign or
invasive growth within the body politic of Islam but
rather as something which, despite its emphasis on
emanation rather than creatio ex nihilo and
other real differences from mainstream Islamic theology,
addressed an aspect or aspects of Islam which had been
neglected or overlaid by other matters in the
development of that faith. It is useful perhaps to
ponder Lenn and Madeleine Goodman's observation:
'Emanation was perfected by the neo-Platonists, quite
consciously as an alternative to creation because the
learned neo-Platonic philosophers did not choose to
redescend into the anthropomorphic cosmogenies from
which Aristotle had rescued them with great difficulty
only a few centuries earlier' (Goodman
and Goodman 1983: 31).
See
also: Aristotelianism
in Islamic philosophy; al-Farabi;
al-Ghazali;
Greek
philosophy: impact on Islamic philosophy; Ibn
Rushd; Ibn
Sina; Illuminationist
philosophy; Neoplatonism
IAN
RICHARD NETTON
Copyright © 1998, Routledge.
References
and further reading
* Bello, I.A. (1989) The
Medieval Islamic Controversy Between Philosophy and
Orthodoxy, Islamic Philosophy and Theology
Texts and Studies vol. III, Leiden: Brill. (Deals with
the conflict between al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd with
special reference to ijma' and ta'wil.)
* Fakhry, M. (1983) A
History of Islamic Philosophy, 2nd edn, London:
Longmans; New York: Columbia University Press. (A
superb introduction to the whole field.)
* al-Ghazali (1058-1111) Tahafut
al-falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers),
English trans. S.A. Kamali, Lahore: Pakistan
Philosophical Congress, 1963. (A translation of
al-Ghazali's attack on the philosophers.)
* Goodman, L.E. and Goodman,
M.J. (1983) 'Creation and Evolution: Another
Round in an Ancient Struggle', Zygon
18 (1): 3-43. (A fascinating and thought-provoking
article.)
Henry, P. and Schwyzer,
H.R. (eds) (1959) Plotini Opera, vol. 2,
Paris: Desclée de Brouwer; Brussels: L'Édition
Universelle. (Contains G. Lewis' English translation
of the Theology of Aristotle.)
* Ibn Rushd (c.1180)
Tahafut al-tahafut (Incoherence of the
Incoherence), trans. and intro. S. Van Den
Bergh, Averroes' Tahafut al-Tahafut (The
Incoherence of the Incoherence), 'E.J.W. Gibb
Memorial' new series XIX, London: Luzac, 1978. (Ibn
Rushd's famous response to al-Ghazali.)
Leaman, O. (1988) Averroes
and his Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press;
2nd edn, Richmond: Curzon, 1997. (An introduction to
the philosophy of Ibn Rushd arranged according to
metaphysics, practical philosophy, and reason,
religion and language.)
Nanji, A. (1996) 'Isma'ili
Philosophy', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History
of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch.
9, 144-54. (Examination of Isma'ili philosophy
including the influence of Neoplatonism.)
Netton, I.R. (1989) Allah
Transcendent: Studies in the Structure and Semiotics
of Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Cosmology,
London and New York: Routledge. (Contains major
chapters on al-Farabi and Ibn Sina.)
Shayegan, Y. (1996) 'The
Transmission of Greek Philosophy into the Islamic
World', in S.H. Nasr and O. Leaman (eds) History
of Islamic Philosophy, London: Routledge, ch.
6, 98-104. (Detailed account of how the transmission
took place, paying particular attention to the Persian
background.)
------------------
11. Neoplatonism
and Christianity
Image from http://against-postmodern.org/section-i-christianity-and-neoplatonism
Neoplatonism and
Christianity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism_and_Christianity
Neoplatonism was a major
influence on Christian theology
throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages in the West due
to St. Augustine of Hippo,
who was influenced by the early Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, and the
works of the Christian writer Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite,
who was influenced by later Neoplatonists, such as Proclus and Damascius.
Late antiquity
Certain
central tenets of Neoplatonism served as a philosophical
interim for the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo on
his journey from dualistic Manichaeism to Christianity.
As a Manichee, Augustine had held that evil has
substantial being and that God is made of matter; when
he became a Neoplatonist, he changed his views on these
things. As a Neoplatonist, and later a Christian,
Augustine believed that evil is a privation of good and
that God is not material. Perhaps more importantly, the
emphasis on mystical contemplation as a means to
directly encounter God or the One, found in the writings
of Plotinus and Porphyry, deeply affected Augustine. He
reports at least two mystical experiences
in his Confessions which clearly follow the Neoplatonic
model. According to his own account of his important
discovery of 'the books of the Platonists' in Confessions
Book 7, Augustine owes his conception of both God and
the human soul as incorporeal substance to Neoplatonism.
When
writing his treatise 'On True Religion' several years
after his 387 baptism, Augustine's Christianity was still
tempered by Neoplatonism, but he eventually decided to
abandon Neoplatonism altogether in favor of a
Christianity based on his own reading of Scripture.
Many other
Christians were influenced by Neoplatonism, especially
in their identifying the Neoplatonic One, or God, with Yahweh. The most influential of
these would be Origen, who potentially took
classes from Ammonius Saccas (but this
is not certain because there may have been a different
philosopher, now called Origen the pagan, at the
same time), and the late 5th century author known as Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite.
Neoplatonism
also had links with Gnosticism, which Plotinus
rebuked in his ninth tractate of the second Enneads: "Against Those That
Affirm The Creator of The Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself
to Be Evil" (generally known as "Against The Gnostics").
Due to
their belief being grounded in Platonic thought, the
Neoplatonists rejected Gnosticism's vilification of
Plato's demiurge, the creator of the
material world or cosmos discussed in the Timaeus. Although
Neoplatonism has been referred to as orthodox Platonic
philosophy by scholars like Professor John
D. Turner, this reference may be due in part to
Plotinus' attempt to refute certain interpretations of
Platonic philosophy, through his Enneads. Plotinus believed the
followers of gnosticism had corrupted the original
teachings of Plato.
Despite the
influence this philosophy had on Christianity, Justinian I would hurt later
Neoplatonism by ordering the closure of the refounded Academy of Athens in 529.[1]
Middle Ages
Pseudo-Dionysius
proved significant for both the Byzantine
and Roman
branches of Christianity. His works were translated into
Latin by John Scotus Eriugena
in the 9th century.
Neo-Platonism in
Orthodox theology
From the
days of the Early Church until the present, the Orthodox
Church has made positive selective use of ancient Greek
philosophy, particularly Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and
the Stoics.[2]
For example, the term ‘logos’ (Greek Λόγος ) originated
with Heraclitus and meant reason or thought. In the
Christian context, Logos takes on a deeper meaning and
becomes a name for the second person of the Trinity. The
writer and theologian Gregory Palamas gives four
distinct meanings for the term ‘logos’.[3]
The most important principle to keep in mind is that
early Christianity developed in a Greek milieu and a
common vocabulary was used in philosophical, spiritual
and theological writing. However, the meanings of words
sometimes evolved along different lines. In other cases,
philosophical ideas and concepts were sometimes adapted
and changed by Christian writers. Any exegetical
endeavor trying to unravel the influence of Neo-Platonic
thought on Christian theology needs to keep these
principles in mind. One should also note that philosophy
was used quite differently in the Eastern and Western
theological traditions.
The
writings attributed to Dionysius the Areopagite are
among the most enigmatic works of late antiquity.
Byzantine scholars such as Gregory Palamas cited
Dionysius especially in matters of Mystical Theology
such as theoria, the divine energies and the
unknowability of God.[4]
At present, modern theologians and philosophers[5]
are still debating whether Dionysius was a Neo-Platonist
with Christian influences or a Christian writer with
Neo-Platonic influences. Among Orthodox scholars, the
later view seems to be shared by such writers as Andrew
Louth[6]
and Vladimir Lossky.[7]
However, other Orthodox scholars such as John Meyendorff
believe that the Neo-Platonism of Dionysius exerted both
positive and negative influences on Orthodox theology.[8]
Meyendorff maintains that Dionysius has led to some
confusion in the areas of liturgical and ecclesiological
formulations.
Renaissance
Marsilio Ficino, who
translated Plotinus, Proclus, as well as Plato's
complete works into Latin, was the central figure of a
major Neoplatonist revival in the Renaissance. His
friend, Giovanni Pico
della Mirandola was also a major figure in this
movement. Both were students of Jewish mystical Kabbalah, which was heavily
influenced by Neoplatonism. Renewed interest in
Plotinian philosophy contributed to the rational
theology and philosophy of the "Cambridge
Platonist" circle (B. Whichcote, R. Cudworth, J.
Smith, H. More, etc.). Renaissance Neoplatonism also
overlapped with or graded into various forms of Christian esotericism.
Christoplatonism
Christoplatonism
is a term used to refer to a dualism opined by Plato, which
influenced the Church, which holds spirit is good but matter is evil.[9]
According to author Randy Alcorn,
Christoplatonism directly "contradicts the Biblical
record of God calling everything He created good."[9]
See also
References
- See Rainer
Thiel, Simplikios und das Ende der
neuplatonischen Schule in Athen, and a
review by Gerald Bechtle, University of Berne,
Switzerland, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
2000.04.19. Online version retrieved June 15,
2007.
- Constantine
Cavarnos, Orthodoxy and Philosophy, The Institute
for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2003 pages
- Gregory
Palamas, ‘The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters’, in
The Philokalia, The Complete Text Volume 4,
translated by Palmer, Sherrand and Ware, published
1995 Faber and Faber. pages 360-361
- Gregory
Palamas, The Triads, edited by John Meyendorff,
Paulist Press 1983.
- Sarah Coakley
and Charles M. Stang, Re-thinking Dionysius the
Areopagite, John Wiley and Sons, 2009
- Andrew Louth,
Denys the Areopagite, Continuum Books, 1989, Pages
20-21
- Vladimir
Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church,
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, page 29
- John
Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, Historical Trends
and Doctrinal Themes, Fordham University Press,
1974, pages 27-28)
- Robin
Russell (6 April 2009). "Heavenly
minded: It’s time to get our eschatology right,
say scholars, authors". UM Portal. Retrieved 10 March 2011.
Greek
philosophers—who believed that spirit is good
but matter is evil—also influenced the church,
says Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven (Tyndale,
2004). He coined the term “Christoplatonism” to
describe that kind of dualism, which directly
contradicts the biblical record of God calling
everything he created “good.”
Literature
- Gerard
O'Daly, Platonism Pagan and Christian: Studies
in Plotinus and Augustine, Variorum Collected
Studies Series 719 (2001), ISBN
978-0-86078-857-7.
External links
--------------------------------------------------
12.
List of important Ancient Greek Philosophers
from http://www.greek-islands.us/ancient-greece/greek-philosophers/
Thales (Miletus)
He
was an important man! He predicted the solar
eclipse of 28th May 585 remembered because of a
battle taking place that day and he also did
geometrical research which resulted in him
measuring the pyramids, quite an important task.
Thales
also researched physical phenomena for which he
tried to give logical explanations. Although he
was basing this research in a single element,
water, which was rather unfortunate, his
initiative gave a boost to the beginning of
philosophy and science. He died after 547.
Pythagoras
(Samos)
Pythagoras
of Samos (c.570-c.480) was also a philosopher who
tried to find the true causes of things. He
traveled a lot, first Egypt where he studied and
then to India where he visited the Indian Brahmans
since he believed in reincarnation. Then he moved
to southern Italy where he founded a community of
philosophers. According to his belief, our world
is governed by numbers and this is the only way
for harmony to exist.
Heracletus
Unfortunately
a large part of Heracletus work was lost so we
don’t have a complete idea of his thoughts
although we do know that he thought of speech as
the basic principle of the universe along with
fire. Heracletus was born in Ephesus and he was a
rich man.
Parmenides
(Elea)
Parmenides
lived in Italy and although he was intrigued by
the immense variety of phenomena he thought that
the endless variety and eternal changes were just
an illusion. This idea was proven as one of the
most influential in western culture.
Demokritos
(Abdera)
Demokritos
was the one to state that matter is made of atoms
giving this way an answer to the issue brought up
from Parmenides about change. Atoms were always
moving and clustering in various, temporary
combinations and this was evidence that things
change.
Socrates
(Athens)
The
famous Athenian philosopher Socrates (469-399) had
a great interest in ethics. It was his axiom that
no one would knowingly do a bad thing. So
knowledge was important, because it resulted in
good behavior. If we are to believe his student
Plato, Socrates was always asking people about
what they knew and invariably they had to admit
that they did not really understand what was meant
by words like courage, friendship or even love.
Socrates was heavily criticized. When his pupil
Alkiviades committed treason, Socrates was in a
very bad position and he was forced to drink
poison after a charge that he had corrupted youth.
Among his students were Antisthenes, Plato and
Xenophon.
Antisthenes
(Athens)
An
Athenian and a pupil of Socrates, Antisthenes
became the most important Athenian philosopher
after the death of his teacher. Like Socrates, he
was trying to find the meaning of words but he was
convinced that it was not possible to establish
really good definitions (a conflict reason with
Plato). He only partially believed that someone
who knew what was good, would not do a bad thing
and he also added that people also have to be
strong enough to pursue what’s good. He wanted his
students to refrain from luxury and he recommended
physical training of all kinds. His most famous
pupil was Diogenes of Sinope.
Plato
Although
he was a student of Socrates, Plato, was also
inspired by Parmenides. Plato accepted the world
of the phenomena as a mere shadow of the real
world of ideas. When we observe a horse, we
recognize what it is because our soul remembers
the idea of the horse from the time before our
birth. In Plato's political philosophy, only wise
men who understand the dual nature of reality are
fit to rule the country. He made three voyages to
Syracuse to establish his ideal state, both times
without lasting results. Plato's hypothesis that
our soul was once in a better place and now lives
in a fallen world made it easy to combine Platonic
philosophy and Christianity, which accounts for
the popularity of Platonism during the antiquity.
Diogenes
(Sinope)
Diogenes
was a student of Antisthenes and together they are
the founders of Cynicism. The essential point in
this view is that man suffers from too much
civilization. We are happiest when our life is
simple, which means that we have to live in
accordance with nature just like animals. Human
culture, however, is dominated by things that
prevent simplicity such as money and our longing
for status. Like his master, Diogenes refrained
from luxury and often ridiculed civilized life.
His philosophy gained some popularity because he
focused upon personal integrity.
Aristotle
(Stagira)
He
was Plato's most famous student, a Macedonian
scientist who studied biology and founded a school
in Athens. Most of his writings are lost but his
lecture notes which were rediscovered in the first
century BC are still available. During the last
decades, scholars have started to re-examine the
fragments of the lost works, which have led to
important changes in our understanding of
Aristotle's philosophy. What is generally thought
is that Aristotle replaced his master's
speculations with a more down-to-earth philosophy.
His main works are Prior Analytics(in which he
described the rules of logic), Physics, the Animal
History, Rhetorics, Poetics, Metaphysics,
Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, all classic
books.
Pyrrho (Elis)
Unlike
the other philosophers who thought of rational
thinking as the way to truth Pyrrho of Elis had
his doubts about the quest of knowledge. He stated
that we can not fully comprehend nature, we do not
know for certain whether a statement is true or
false so we are unable to build an ethical system
on such a weak basis. The philosopher also thought
that even though we had no moral absolutes, we
should live by time-honored traditions. Pyrrho' s
view is called Skepticism and may be compared to
the postmodern philosophy of the 1980's.
Epikouros
(Samos)
Epikouros
(342-271) thought that people are happier when
they are free from the pains of life and a
virtuous life is the best way to reach this goal,
that we are unable to understand the gods who may
or may not have created this world and who aren’t
really interested in mankind and finally that we
could not know anything about life after death. In
antiquity, Epicurism was the most popular of all
philosophical schools.
Zeno (Citium)
After
the conquests of Alexander, the world was larger
than ever and the city-state had ceased to be an
important political unit. Like Diogenes of Sinope
and Epicurus, Zeno of Citium (336-264 BCE) ignored
traditional values like prestige and honor, and
focused on man's inner peace which was reached
when a person accepted life as it was, knowing
that the world was rationally organized by speech.
A man's mind should control his emotions and body,
so that one could live according to the rational
principles of the world. It has often been said
that Zeno's ideas combine Greek philosophy with
Semitic mysticism, but except for his descent from
a Phoenician town in Cyprus and an interest in
(Babylonian) astronomy, there is not much proof of
that. This philosophy, called Stoicism, became
very influential.
Cleanthes
Zeno
of Citium was succeeded as head of the Stoic
school in Athens by Cleanthes. His contributions
to the development of philosophy can especially be
found in the field of logic, where he studied
paradoxes and the way an argument should be
created. He also reflected upon the use of
allegoresis, which is a way to read a text
metaphorically and find hidden meanings (or create
them). From this point on, philosophers started to
use the epics of Homer and the tragedies of
Euripides as if they were philosophical treatises.
Finally, Chrysippus was the man who concluded that
if the rational principle of the universe, speech,
was divine, the world could be defined as a
manifestation of God.
Posidonius
(Apamea)
His
works were lost but his books are often quoted by
other authors. As a philosopher, he was not an
innovator, but applied the theory to science and
scholarship. For example, his Histories were a
philosophical continuation of the World History of
Polybius from Megalopolis. Among his other
publications were treatises in which the Stoic
world view was applied to everyday subjects such
as anger, virtue and consolation. Being more
interested in educating the masses than in
theoretical purity, he often borrowed ideas from
other schools.
Apollonius
(Tyana)
The
charismatic teacher and miracle worker Apollonius
lived in the first century AD. He was born in
Tyana and gave a new interpretation to
Pythagoreanism, which was essentially a
combination of practice and mysticism. In his
books on astrology and sacrifices he demanded
bloodless offerings to God who expects needs
nothing. This brought Apollonius into conflict
with the religious establishment but he was
recognized as a great sage and received divine
honors in the third century.
Plutarch
(Chaeronea)
The
Delphian oracle priest Plutarch of Chaeronea was
immensely popular because he was able to explain
philosophical discussions to a general audience.
Among his moral treatises are treatises like
checking anger, the useful art of listening, the
fascinating how to know whether one progresses to
virtue, and the charming advice to bride and
groom. Plutarch also wrote double biographies, in
which he usually compared a Greek to a Roman (i.
e. Alexander and Julius Caesar). The result is not
only an entertaining biography, but also a better
understanding of a morally exemplary person that
the reader can use for his own progress to virtue.
Epictetus (Phrygia)
He
became a slave of emperor Nero's courtier
Epaphroditus. When he was old and therefore
useless he was freed so in order to make a living
he started teaching the Stoic philosophy first at
Rome and then in western Greece. Because of the
fact that Epictetus was able to explain Stoicism
in a systematic way he had many students from the
rich senatorial order which ruled the Roman
empire. Among these men were the future emperor
Hadrian and the historian Arrian of Nicomedia, who
published several of his conversations. Epictetus
wrote a Handbook, probably the most popular book
on philosophy that was ever written.
Plotinus
It
was not uncommon for philosophers of one school to
borrow concepts and ideas from other branches of
philosophy. Slowly the schools were merging, and a
new synthesis (called Neo-Platonism) was created
by Plotinus (205-270). Like Plato, he accepted
that our world was a mere shadow of the world of
ideas, which was in turn a shadow of an even
higher world, which was again a shadow of God. In
other words, the world has four levels of reality.
God was the highest level, and then there were the
levels of the intellect, the soul, and matter.
According to Plotinus, the wise man would try to
free his soul from matter and unite it to God.
Plotinus achieved this mystical unity several
times. His philosophy was adopted by the fathers
of the church Ambrose and Augustine.
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