Lecture 29, Philosophical Developments, Part Two

Socrates, 470-399, relatively poor, served with distinction in the hoplite phalanx. He had a pottery kiln and a small farm, but he abandoned his trade in pursuit of "truth."

Socrates emphasized ethics and the dialectic. He was the greatest arguer of his day. He accepted and practiced the official religion of the state while claiming that the gods were enlightened, that is, that they knew everything. He heard an inner voice. He taught that the world was made for humans and that humans were well designed. This proves the handiwork of a great designer.

He sought wisdom through scientific, rational inquiry. With Socrates true knowledge was not simply the source but the substance of virtue. He sought a kind of truth that determined the conduct of men. What is piety? What is impiety? What is beauty? What is ugly? What is noble? What is base? Just/unjust? Brave/cowardly? Etc. Socrates' method of research was to employ his ability as the most formidable reasoner of his age. He would single people out of the crowd in the agora and lure them into debate. He engaged in inductive reasoning (from the particular to the general) and universal definitions, the very foundations of knowledge.

While professing ignorance in all things, he tried to construct a body of ethical science that might serve as a guide to himself and to others. In questioning all things he stood on sophistic ground; but he stressed reason rather than the senses as the universal and eternal element in humankind.

Since an intellectual education could increase a man's power to do evil, Socrates tried first to instruct his associates in self-control and to inspire in them a wise spirit in their relations with the gods. What he taught was as much religious as it was philosophical.

Ultimately, by challenging the status quo and encouraging his students to think for themselves, his loyalty to Athens became questioned, particularly during the dark days at the end of the Peloponnesian War. Most of his followers were wealthy young aristocrats whose ambitions were more political than philosophical. Many of these hated the democracy of Athens and were prepared to use any means to bring it down. Examples include Alcibiades and Critias, one of the 30 Tyrants who engaged in purges of the democracy at the end of the war. When the democracy was restored in 399, Socrates was tried and condemned to death for denying the established gods and for corrupting the youth.

Plato, 428-347, a student of Socrates, devised a comprehensive system of ethics, dialectic, physics, and a theory of ideas. He was the first to place political ideas in their full philosophical context. He wrote 26 dialogues all in the voice of his teacher Socrates. Plato was a noble Athenian expecting to pursue a political career, but deterred by the excesses of the 30 Tyrants and the execution of Socrates. He founded his school at the gymnasium of the Academy outside Athens, the first great university of the ancient world. The Academy continued as a place of learning until it was closed by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the 6th century AD.

To Plato knowledge was a body of true and unchanging wisdom open only to a few philosophers whose training, character, and intellect allowed them to see reality. Only these people were qualified to rule. They themselves would prefer the life of true contemplation, but would accept their responsibility and take their turn as philosopher kings. Each person should do only that one thing to which his nature is best suited.

Plato taught that Ideals equaled abstract forms and that the world of sensation was part illusion. Plato expounded on the existence of ideal truths or forms. To Plato an ideal form of beauty exists apart; things that are called beautiful are so only because they partake of some essential element or quality of the truth or ideal form of beauty. The same goes for wisdom, restraint, courage, justice. All such forms were the expression, the logos, of an infinite divine wisdom, the nous. Plato's divine intellect nearly took on the appearance of a monotheistic deity. Plato's vision was highly spiritual and metaphysical. He believed in the immortality of the soul. Plato had a profound influence on later schools of philosophy.

Plato's texts are the first evidence we have of a comprehensive philosophical system -- one that argues for positions in all of the branches of philosophy (in the modern sense of the term), including:

Ø Metaphysics:  a view of the nature of reality as a whole

Ø Epistemology:  the nature and means of human knowledge

Ø Ethics: explanation of the nature of right and wrong, morality and immorality

Ø Aesthetics:  the nature and use of art in human life

Ø Politics:  the ethical organization of society

Aristotle, 384-322, student of Plato, tutor to Alexander the Great of Macedonia. Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy for 20 years after coming to Athens at age 17.  Aristotle's father had been the physician of Amyntas II, Philip the Great's father.  Aristotle became the tutor of Alexander the Great for 2-3 years beginning in 343/2.  It is reported that Alexander would later send biological specimens from the East back to his old teacher.

Aristotle was a pioneer and innovator in numerous fields of knowledge. He is credited with organizing and forming bodies of knowledge into specific disciplines:  zoology, botany, biology, psychology, physics, astronomy, logic, ethics, literary criticism, and more.  Aristotle was less inclined to the metaphysical inquiries of Plato, more interested in organizing knowledge, such as it was. He possessed a keen ability to analyze and to classify things with exhaustive thoroughness. Aristotle founded a second university across town at the gymnasium of the Lyceum and engaged his students to collect data on all sciences, ethics, and government. He was the first to collect, to order, and to analyze data, forming bodies of knowledge into the disciplines that are still used today. He wrote on a wide range of subjects - logic, physics, astronomy, biology, ethics, rhetoric, literary criticism, politics. He began with empirical observations, collecting data, then applied reason to discover inconsistencies or difficulties.

PHILOSPHICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HELLENISTIC ERA

The application of reasoning and scientific pursuit had profound effect on intellectuals in later eras. During the Hellenistic era the Museum (Temple of the Muses) in Alexandria became a magnet for scientific inquiry. King Ptolemy of Egypt encouraged many of the leading intellectuals and scientists to migrate to Alexandria to conduct research there. These men were awarded a stipend and were given access to the great library of more than one million volumes that were amassed by Ptolemy at the Museum. These also taught courses for tuition to supplement their income. The Hellenistic era at Alexandria became an era of great scientific breakthroughs as a result – Eratosthenes and Archimedes being two of the famous scientists to work there.

Philosophically, likewise, the precedents of Socrates and Plato found resonance in the new age. The traditional question, how to live a just life in an unjust world, found even greater urgency in an era when leading minds found employment with Macedonian dynasts and Roman emperors. How did one justify working for a murderous tyrant such as a Caligula, for example? Increasingly philosophers examined the question concerning the role of the individual in a society in which individual effort seemed so pointless. Hellenistic philosophers emphasized private virtues and self discipline rather than participation in public life. This was best expressed by three schools of thought--Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Cynicism.

Zeno the Stoic (390-310) and Stoicism. Zeno came to Athens from Cyprus and founded a school of Stoic philosophy. He taught the existence of the divine intellect and divine law and that it was possible for humans to link with it. To Zeno the laws of the universe bound all humans as brothers; in essence, all men were equal. The universe existed in the form of some huge clock or machine with millions of interconnected gears, some large some small, but each one important to the maintenance of the universe as a whole. In the same manner all humans have a purpose, be they slaves or kings. The key was to pursue moral positivism and activism. One had to accept one's fate and be the best that one could be. If one is a slave, don't question why one is a slave. It is not one's purpose to question the workings of the universe. One had to accept one's fate and be the best slave possible. The same was true for kings, only theirs was a far more responsible duty. Be the wisest, most enlightened king possible, Plato's Philosopher King.

Stoics taught to accept one's fate and to bear it with equanimity. Don't get too excited when good things happen to one, and don't get depressed when things go wrong. Pursue equanimity, the Golden Mean. Recognize the brotherhood of men, that all humans are created equal. Show compassion for slaves and social inferiors because they all have purpose in the universe. To a large degree Stoic notions of human equality were a reflection of Greek intellectuals living in non-Greek places such as Alexandria and Antioch and having to come to terms with native cultures. In any event, Stoic philosophy was extremely popular with the Roman aristocracy because it espoused an activist way of approaching public life. Politics could be explained as a duty of an enlightened person.

Epicurus (342-268) and Epicureanism. Epicurus took the opposite track in his dealing with the role of human existence. However much the world may have been designed as a machine by the divine intellect, Epicurus argued that the gods had abandoned human kind eons ago and harbored no interest in human affairs. Epicurus taught lessons of right conduct, serenity of mind, and moderation in all things. He argued that a wise person must seek pleasure, with pleasure equaling absence of pain. In essence, his message was to avoid pain. Pain was the result of any pursuit that led one to conflict, such as politics, business, warfare. Making profit or seeking political office brought far more pain than they were worth. Instead, an enlightened man would avoid these pursuits and "contemplate his own garden". Withdraw from society and spend one's life usefully by contemplating the existence of the divine intellect and the harmony of nature. Become enlightened. One can see how Epicureans took a distinctly contrasting point of view to the Stoics. Among the intellectuals to espouse Epicurean attitudes were the Roman poet Lucretius whose treatise, On the Nature of Things, survives as the most complete treatment of Epicurus' philosophy. Julius Caesar, and Cicero's good friend and correspondent, T. Pomponius Atticus, were also Epicureans.

Diogenes (c.412-323) and the Cynic School, Diongenes was a contemporary of Alexander the Great who ultimately settled in Corinth and became something of a curiosity and a tourist attraction. Diogenes doubted the possibility of the human intellect ever acquiring true knowledge. And he saw no sense in trying to save a world sunk in hopeless ignorance. He argued that an enlightened person should not worry about wealth or power; he should find peace of mind by withdrawing from worldly concern. The only thing that mattered was virtue, and virtue was impossible when pursuing material or social pursuits such as building wealth or seeking political office. Cynics went about dressed in rags, living off hand-outs from sympathetic people, much like itinerant Buddhist monks in India, and conceivably were influenced by the same. Diogenes himself lived reportedly in an overturned barrel in the agora of Corinth, eating whatever scraps of food people placed in the dish that he left out in front. Hence, his school became known as the "dog" school (kunos), because he ate from a “dog bowl.” But he observed the Corinthian people and commented on the failings of society with razor like keenness. Cynics traveled about and offered up important social criticism, lending the public another way of looking at things.

All three schools of Greek philosophy had their limitations -- only aristocrats could find real purpose as Stoics (slaves would hardly have cared), one had to be wealthy to enjoy the leisure time to "cultivate one's own garden" like the Epicureans. And one had to abandon all material pleasures to be a Cynic (who at least accepted female philosophers into their midst, in part because by their way of thinking it hardly mattered). Instead, the masses of the Greco-Roman era found meaning in emerging mystery cults from non-Greek regions of the eastern Mediterranean world. The cult of Isis found huge followings in places such as Athens and Rome, offering ceremonial purification from earthly sins, the comfort of a personal loving goddess, and the promise of immortality. Likewise the cult of Mithras with its high asceticism, and notions of attaining virtue in the cosmic combat between the forces of good and evil found tremendous appeal among warriors such as the Cilician Pirates, and from these the Roman legions of the empire. The message of these cults was not so much an attempt to reform the world as it was to help the initiates to forget their miseries by giving them hope of compensation for present sufferings in a future life.

It is important to recognize the strains of these various world views in the teachings of Jesus Christ (c. 6 BC - 30 AD). As a rabbi, Jesus was trained in Hebraic law and the belief in one all-knowing, infinitely just god. As a rabbi, however, he clearly studied broadly and was versed in the vernacular language of philosophical and spiritual ideas that prevailed in his time. Like the mystery cults he offered hope to the downtrodden by offering them promise of a better existence in the next life. And like the Platonic schools he insisted that the existence of god can and ultimately must be proven through reason, that the process of enlightenment was never-ending, and that the need for reflection and contemplation were crucial to one's spiritual development. Because the teachings of Christianity operated on so many levels, it offered broad appeal to people at all levels of society and became the dominant way of thinking in the Mediterranean world by the 4th-5th centuries AD.