Dr Menahem Luz,
Presocratic Philosophers
Summary 1 pt. 1 (Introduction)

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Contents

Introduction

Why Study Greek Philosophy?

Originality of Greek Science and Philosophy

Scope of Greek Philosophy

Influence of Greek Philosophy on Ourselves

Historical Background

The philosophical schools of the Greeks

1. The archaic period of Presocratic Philosophy.
2. Classical Philosophy
3. Hellenistic Philosophy
4. Roman Period
5. Neoplatonism

Bibliography

Reading matter for the course.

Further material on this section

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Why Study Greek Philosophy?

The philosophy of the Greeks is contextually as well as historically prior.

• It is contextually prior because the philosophical context of Western and Judeo-Arabic thought cannot be understood without first studying Greek philosophy. For example modern philosophical texts make frequent reference to Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave', his concept of the soul as charioteer - to Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the tortoise and Aristotle's concepts of energy and potentiality. In doing this, they do not only make historical references - but more importantly, contextual ones. because they rebuild and refashion these concepts as modern ideas and as part of a modern debate. One cannot even begin to understand these modern arguments critically without first having studied the ancient arguments in their own context.

  • A specific examples of those is Hegel's use of Aristotle's theory of thesis and antithesis. In this Hegels' use of a synthesis that evolves from the first two concepts is new, but must be explained by his Greek predecessors.

  • Nietzsche also built much of his philosophy on his reinterpretation of the Greeks as laying the basis of Science in the pre-Platonic period, 'the tragic age of Greece', only to decline (in his opinion) during the post-Platonic period. To understand any of these writers one has to understand how they revised the thought of Plato and Socrates.

  The ancients are also historically prior to modern thought in a fundamental way. They are the earliest complete philosophical systems as we understand it today. Although ancient Indian and Chinese texts sometimes examined philosophical issues similar to those of the Greeks - in that they raised questions of ethics, theology, and the meaning of reality- yet they lacked the systematization of all human knowledge and science that characterizes the Greeks. It is by studying Greek philosophy that we can examine both the historical basis of our own thought - and gain access to a people living in a historically prior, pre-technological age who examined ideas still of interest to us today.
  Because the Greeks were pre-technological, we can gain through them new insights into our own world. In spite of their belonging to that age - or perhaps because of it - much of our attitude to the relationship of the ruler and the ruled is still shaped by our understanding of the Athenian democracy and Plato's criticism.
  Because the Greeks lived prior to Judeo-Christian morals and concepts, we can look anew at our own modes of thought. Greek attitudes to sexual mores and their meaning in philosophy still arouses debate today.

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The Originality of Greek Science and Philosophy

The Greeks themselves looked back to Phoenicia, Egypt and Babylon as sources of their own science. In the last ten years there has been much political and social argument raised by the Afro-centric movement in America over the originality of the Greeks. However the question is not what details the Greeks borrowed from their neighbours, but how they universalized specific technical problems into sciences like arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and harmonics. Egyptian and Babylonian 'Wisdom Literature' (books of proverbs, moral advice and tales) existed before the Greeks. However, these contained no systematic ethical theories as did those of Plato and Aristotle - but instead, based the criterion for morality on God rather than on Man. This may be exemplified by the following:

Although the Greeks may have learned the art of writing from Phoenician commerce, they universalized the use of the alphabet to make it a vehicle for such different learning as literature, mathematics and philosophical dialogue.

Although Pythagoras may have learned about a few specific arithmetical puzzles from Egyptian land-surveys, that were specific instances of Pythagoras' theorem, he universalized the concept of the mathematical relationship of the sides of a right-angled triangle to apply to every triangle of that sort. Similar was his work on the roots of square numbers.

Although the philosopher Thales may have learned about specific astronomical calculations from Babylon for his alleged prediction of a solar eclipse, Greek astronomers went much further than the Babylonians in postulating mathematical models for the movement of the stars - rather than the oriental astrological ones.
On Thales, see class booklet: tadpis p 6-7).

The Greeks turned all these subjects into universal sciences, categorizing them as branches of wisdom and philosophy.

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Scope of Greek Philosophy

Greek philosophy is much broader in scope than modern. At the beginning of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant bemoans that only metaphysics has been left philosophy while all the other former branches of philosophy have been taken over by the exact sciences. In our own time, this is even more so - since psychology, political science and the social sciences have taken over much of what the Greeks once studied as part of philosophy and ethics.
Ethics, logic, metaphysics and problems that are universal to all the particular sciences (like time and place) are still discussed in modern philosophy. Nonetheless, ancient Greek philosophy was even broader in scope than that covering what we research in the biological as well as the exact sciences.
Aristotle called all sciences epistemai and they included both natural philosophy (the philosophy of all nature) as well as theoretical philosophy (the philosophy of Metaphysics). Modern concepts as theoretical or exact sciences as opposed to practical ones are derived from Aristotle's approach to science. For Aristotle, everything that can be known and understood should be studied in philosophy. He himself wrote on the study of the heavens, meteorology, biology, anatomy, drama, history, politics, rhetoric -- as well as moral philosophy, logic, and the science of being (ontology). Plato invited mathematicians and astronomers to teach at the Academy. Aristotle's pupils studied not only ethics but also the history of medicine. Thus, only Greek philosophy left us a truly universal range of problems relating to all aspects of thought.

Some Greeks like Plato would try to unify and decompartmentalize philosophical branches treating them as leading to a single transcendental goal. Others, like Aristotle tried to compartmentalize ethics and the sciences each with its own subject but still part of a general philosophy that ranged from logical analysis to cognitive theory, from the ontological and metaphysical relation between the substance of objects and their attributes.

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Influence of Greek Philosophy on Our Thought

To understand how our own philosophical thought evolved, we have to start with the Greeks. They are historically and contextually prior to our own modes of thought. They set out the manner in which the questions that we ask today are still presented: questions like 'What is the essence of reality','What is the meaning of being?'. Let us take a few basic examples of how an understanding of Greek thought and language help us to understand our own:

The scientific term Cosmos may be difficult to distinguish from the concept universe. If we glance at the ancient meaning of Cosmos we find that it had not one but a number of different meanings all of which contribute to our modern concept:

1. an arrangement - hence an ordered line of soldiers, or a system, hence Pythagoras' use of the word to express an ordered universe similar to the use of kosmos today;
2. a beautiful arrangement, one that has all the beauty of aesthetic order, hence our own word cosmetic .

From this simple terminological example, we see that, underlying our own concept of Kosmos is an assumption that we may have often felt without being consciously aware of it. The arrangement of the universe involves an appreciation of the Kosmos not only on a logical and scientific level, but also on an aesthetic one.

The word eidos or idea : - means in Homer a visual "form", "shape" and "appearance" in its literal physical sense, but later was applied to generalized conceptual figures:

1. both to geometrical shapes in sand and then the concept of a particular shape
2. in medicine Hippocrates uses eidos to describe the general form of an illness as opposed to the symptoms of patients
3. Thus we find in Plato that the Idea or Form came to mean a conceptual form that was transcendent to the particulars and idealized them. It is only in Aristotle that we find something approaching the modern terms of Form as a specific conceptual idea of material objects.

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The philosophical schools of the Greeks

Please consult the class booklet (tadpis) p.2

According to ancient tradition, Greek philosophy began in 585 B.C. with the eclipse allegedly predicted by Thales and ended in AD 529 with the Emperor Justinian's closure of the philosophical schools". Nonetheless, philosophy began even before Thales and continued after Justinian.

Within this long period of more than 1000 years, it is convenient to divide Greek philosophy into 5 periods that correspond to the general cultural and social history of Greece:

1. Presocratic Philosophy.
2. Philosophy of the Classical Period
3. Hellenistic Philosophy
4. The Roman Period
5. Neoplatonism

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The archaic period of Presocratic Philosophy.

The philosophical period from the life time of Thales (585 B.C) until that of Socrates (born 469) is sometimes known as the Presocratic period. Although some individual Presocratic thinkers were Socrates' own contemporaries or actually lived later than he, nonetheless, their thinking and methods mark them as distinct if not prior to that of Socrates' moral dialectic.

The earliest Presocratic philosophers worked principally in the Greek colonies of Ionia (today the Aegean coast of modern Turkey).
Press to see map of Presocratic thinkers and other writers of Ionia and the Islands.
They lived during the late archaic and early classical periods from the end of the 7th to the 5th century BC. At this period, the area of Ionia and the neighbouring islands were centres of much scientific research and literary activity:

• Ionia and the islands were the homes of Homer and other epic poets who worked between the 8th-7th century B.C. The neighbouring island of Lesbos was the home of the great social and lyric poets Alcaeus (about 620 BC) and Sappho (born about 630 BC) who established a style of personal erotic poetry in Greece
• In the south Aegean, Greek Medical science was active in the island of Cos where Hippocrates taught (460-377 BC) as well as on mainland Cnidus
• Engineers and Mathematicians were active in the island of Samos where Pythagoras was born (560-480 BC) -- although he emigrated to southern Italy
• To the south of Ionia, was born the first true historian and ethnographer, Herodotus of Halicarnassus (480-420 BC).

The first three Presocratic philosophers all worked in the Ionian city of Miletus - and are thus sometimes called Milesian philosophers. According to Aristotle, they tried to give an account of the material cause of nature -- and thus he calls them the physiologists -- i.e. those who gave an account of the physis or nature of things. Traditionally, they are thought to have sought a single material cause to explain change in the kosmos and in the substance of objects. They are thus often called Ionian monists -- from the word monos (single). They included

• Thales (585 BC)
• Anaximandros (611-546 BC)
• Anaximenes (546 BC)

  Cf. tadpisp 5-10

By contrast, Heraclitus (c. 480 BC) from Ionian Ephesus gave a pluralistic and not a single (monist) explanation for change.

In the 6th century B.C., new more conceptual explanations of reality were offered in the Greek colonies of Italy and Sicily.

Press to see map of Western Greek thinkers Southern Italy and Sicily.

• Pythagoras (560-480 BC) sought a formal, mathematical explanation of the world as a plurality of numbers. Later his pupils, the Pythagoreans, were expelled from South Italy and moved to Greece (see map) where they developed a theory of the harmony of the universe.
• In the town of Elea in central Italy, Parmenides (515-450 BC) and his pupil, Zeno, founded the Eleatic school of monism. They explained reality in purely non-sensible rational terms as a single (monistic) whole that does not change in spite of appearances - hence Parmenides and Zeno are called Eleatic monists, (as opposed to the earlier Inonian monists who explained a changing world by one single unchanging cause -- or the pluarlists who explained reality by a plurality of causes)
• In Sicily, Empedocles (484-424 BC©Ýgave a mixed material and conceptual account of reality as a plurality based not only on the four sensible elements (fire, water, earth and air) but also on two conceptual forces of conjunction and disjunction
• Back in Greece, Democritus (460-c.370 BC) offered an atomic explanation of reality. The basis of reality is not the traditional 4 elements, nor a mathematical structure but an atomic (indivisible) element scattered infinitely throughout the vacuum of space.

These are only a few examples of the teachers and schools of philosophy during the Presocratic period.

Philosophy of the Classical Period

During the classical 5th century, interest largely moved away from nature to ethics and morality. There were two camps:

1. The Sophists were a group of Greek thinkers of multi-origins who preached a revolution in ethics and morality but also were interested in psychological and social problems. They included:
   • Protagoras (490-c.420 BC) who believed thatÝman is the measure of all things -- thus making all law and justice merely interechangable convention.
   • Gorgias (483-376 BC) who believed that there is no truth outside of persuasion and that justice should be based on what is politically necessary and expedient.

2. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) on the other hand sought unversal truths, what is justice, what is piety, etc although he himself did not succeed in discovering any of them.

   In the 4th century, two thinkers combined his interest in universal concepts of morality with a general theory of reality and cognition.

   • Socrates' pupil, Plato (429-347 BC) turned Socrates' universal truths into an ontological cause to explain reality. He founded a school in the gymansium of the Academy and in subsequent ages his pupils were known as Academics.
   • Aristotle (384-322) offered more analytical and systematic philosophy that often criticised the work of his predecessors. He founded a school in the gymnasium of the LyceumÝbut his pupils were known as Peripatetics, that is someone who teaches in a covered walk way (peripatos).

Hellenistic Philosophy

Following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., a new Hellenistic period began, when the independent Greek cities lost their independence and were swallowed up in large empires. New philosophical schools arose to deal with new problems concerned with individuality and the search for happiness.
Press to see map of Hellenistic thinkers.


The new social and political situation that marked the end of the free citizen and his involvement in the state gave birth to new philosophical thought: Stoa, Epicurus, Scepticism, and the Cynic Diogenes, each of whom tried to point the way to a happiness that was independent of the interference in the state.

1. Cynicism was founded by Diogenes (412-323 BC) of Sinope on the Black Sea, who came to Athens at the end of the 4th cent. BC. Diogenes lived a life in pursuit of nature - renouncing all personal property but the very minimum. Property perverts the human soul and causes distress when lost. Even accepting citizenship or taking part in politics could bring distress and contradicts the principle of a return to nature. Hence his philosophy was suited for an age when citizens had lost their personal freedom and did not know on what to rely. Diogenes preached cosmopolitism -- the true philosopher is a citizen of the world (kosmo-polites). Give up all material goods, home, family and friends -- and a certain happiness will follow.
   His philosophy is called Cynic from the Greek kynikos = dog-like, since Diogenes slept on the ground and performed all his needs like dogs in the open. His moto was that society needs to change its (moral and ethical) currency - one need abolish our accepted coin.
2. The Stoa was fonded by Zeno of Citium (334-262 BC) in Cyprus, who also came to Athens but at the beginning of the 3rd century BC. He taught in the Painted Stoa of Athens -- hence his school is called Stoic. While accepting much of Diogenes' philosophy, that virtue lies in a return to nature, Zeno realised that the use of commodities does not negate virtue in itself. One may use goods as long as one is not enslaved to them. One may even engage in politics as long as one acted honourably. The Stoa developed a much more sophisticated philosophy than the Cynics -- Stoic inferential logic was once considered an alternative to Aristotelian. Their cosmological theory spoke of the harmony of the universe in which the philosopher is at one with the kosmos -- each citizen of the universe is small link in a vast chain -- if even one link changes, the whole harmony is changed. However, the universe is also guided by the Laws of Reason so that there is no escaping its motion and vey little chance of free will. Our freedom consists in adapting ourselves to the Reason of the Universe and accepting our fate. This too was a philosophy of adaptatin to the needs of an age where personal freedom was lost.
3. Towards the end of the fourth century B.C.,Epicurus (the origin of the word 'Apikoros') (341-270 BC) moved to Athens where he taught in a secluded Garden (kepos=pardes). He was a philosopher who was desparaged by religion but admired by men of reason. He taught that man was controled by two sole urges: the urge to avoid pain and the urge to pursue pleasure. Hence his philosophy is a type of hedonism (hedone=pleasure).
   He said that to avoid mental pain, we must understand the logic of the cosmos. As a follower of the PreSocratic Democritus, Epicurus' philosophy is also an atomic theory. If we grasp that our soul is a mere combination of atoms and that there is no sensation after death, there will be no dread of cessation or of punishments in Hell. If we grap that the cosmos is but a chance collection of atoms, then we will have no fear of super-natural causes. Only thus can man succeed in ridding himself of superstition - as the belief in omnipotent powers or divine providence. In this way we can avoid pain and mental distress and enjoy the mind's true pleasures. Much of his philosophy survives in the poem On the Nature of the Universe by the Roman poet Lucretius (94-50 BC), as well as in Cicero's philosophical dialogues (both translated into Hebrew)
4. Scepticism was founded by Pyrrhon, in the 3rd century BC, but its best proponents were Plato's successors at the Academy: Arcesilaus and Carneades. They taught that nothing is known for certain, since for every argument a counter argument can be raised. In fact, if man refrains from making any decision he will not be disappointed. With this philosophy, the Sceptics spent most of their time working on arguments to counter the Stoa and the Epicureans.

   The Roman Period

   The Hellenistic period ends with the conquest of Greece by Rome in the 1st century B.C. when more popular rather than professional philosophical works were written by authors of a cosmopolitan origin. A few famous examples

   • Cicero (106-43 BC) was a Roman Republican politician who also wrote on Stoicism, Scepticism and Epicureanism Epictetus (50-138 A.D.) was a slave who taught Stoic philosophy in Greek at Rome
   • Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.), ruler of the Roman empire who wrote Stoic philosophy in Greek in his personal diary.

   Neoplatonism

   Neoplatonism is the last great pagan philosophy. As such it directly influenced Judaism (kabbala), Islam and Christianity.

   It was founded by Plotinus (205-270 AD) of Egypt who taught Greek philosophy at Rome. His teaching was a synthesis of Plato, and Aristotle and was taught at Athens until the 6th century AD.

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   Bibilography

   Reading matter for this course
   Required reading

   Tadpis

   A selection of fragments of the Presocratics and the Sophists in Hebrew trans. using the class booklet (tadpis).
   The booklet should be printed off the computer in the reserved room (ÌȯÂӘݯ“Á) opposite the main library
   The class booklet is registered in the reserved room computer as
   IMAGE 750971
   under the Hebrew name of this course: "™È•ÂÂÈ” ”ÈÙÂÒÂÏÈÙ” ™Â“Ï™ÝÊÂÏÝÌÁ•Ó"
   If you have a Hebew font, read also details in:
   hebrew menu
   As well as the handout of class requirements (Ò·ÏÈÒ)

   English readers may otherwise use:
   J. Barnes, Early Greek Philosophy (Penguin, 1987)

   Aristotle Metaphysics A caps. 2-7

   The Hebrew translation used in class will be:
   ”È•˜ ”¯Â“”ÓÝ'ý ¯ÙÒ ”—ÈÒÈÙËÓÝ,ÂËÒȯý
   ,Ò•’ýÓ '–” ,·Â—È•Ï—˜-™Â¯ .È"Á '¯™ Ý
   Ê-·ÝÌÈ—¯Ù
   English readers may otherwise use any good translation of Aristotle, e.g.:
   Aristotle's Metaphysics book 1 (R. Hope, Aristotle Metaphysics (Ann Arbor)

   a selection of early dialogues of Plato

   The Hebrew translation used in class will be:
   Ý-:(ԗ˜ Œ–”)Ý'ý ͯΠÔÂËÏÙý È·™ÎÝ ,Ò·ÈÏ .’.ÈÝ
   Ý for details of this year's selection see: handout of class requirements (Ò·ÏÈÒ)
   English readers may otherwise use any good translation of Plato, e.g.:
   W.H.D. Rouse, Great Dialogues of Plato (Mentor): Protagoras, Apology, Charmides, Euthyphro, Meno

   For discussions of the above (non-required):

   • see english menu
   • or see hebrew syllabus

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   Further material on this section

   W.K.C. Guthrie,A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge vol 1) chapter 1 pp. 1-25
   G.S. Kirk - J.E. Raven - M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (Cambridge), pp. 1-6

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