Discussions
Map compliments of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. See https://oxfordre.com/classics/page/maps/maps-of-the-ancient-world.
Studies
The Presocratics
The philosophers before Socrates focused on how the world arose and how it works. They wrote speculatively about nature and the cosmos. Some challenged the possibility of science. And some emphasized practical studies about how people can get along or get ahead in the world. Their speculations led to advances in scientific knowledge.
Socrates
Socrates turned away from cosmology, and while he was fascinated with efforts of the Sophists to pursue on practical subjects, he himself insisted that what we should concern ourselves with was not our own success but what is right and wrong, good an evil. He turned philosophy towards ethics and moral theory.
Plato
A follower of Socrates, Plato wished to put the study of ethics on a firm foundation by developing a science of reality, or metaphysics, a science of knowledge, or epistemology, and studies of political science, education, aesthetics, and, eventually, natural science. He saw the world of experience as subject to an ideal realm.
Aristotle
A student of Plato, Aristotle never accepted his mentor's focus on the ideal realities of another world. He saw the ground of reality as concrete physical objects, from which ideal or universal entities were but abstractions. He developed a powerful account of science, and divided knowledge into most of the departmental studies that make up the modern curriculum.
Early Science
Early Greek science was deeply influenced by most of the early thinkers. The Presocratics believed in making and testing hypotheses. They invented concepts such as those of sources, principles, elements, compounds, atoms and empty space. Aristotle formalized logic and also took over the concept of a logic of scientific discovery and proof from Plato.
Recent Discussions
20.5 Problems for Plato’s Forms
Socrates has portrayed sensible objects as “partaking” of Forms, suggesting some kind of metaphorical connection between them, like taking a bite out of a Form. But what exactly does this mean? Parmenides asks him if an object that participates in a Form gets the whole of the Form or only a part of it. Probably the whole. But then how will there be anything left over for other objects to participate in? Socrates suggests it is like the case of a day, which many people experience at the same time.
20.4 Parmenides Comes to Town
In perhaps Plato’s most unusual, and certainly his most technical, dialogue, he presents a scene in which Parmenides, the great philosopher from Elea in Italy, visits Athens in company with his famous disciple, Zeno at the time of the Great Panathenaea Festival. Plato offers an elaborate account of how the story was preserved by Antiphon, who was Plato’s half-brother, introduced to the narrator by Plato’s brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus.[6] In the story, Parmenides is about 65 years of age, Zeno about 40, and Socrates quite young (no age is given).[7]
20.3 Aristotle on Words and Things
Aristotle started out by distinguishing between words and things.[5] He now connects them. We may use combinations of words to express connections of things. For instance, ‘Socrates is pale’ expresses a condition of Socrates. Further, ‘Socrates is a man’ explains what kind of thing he is. But notice, as Aristotle does, the difference in these two kinds of statements. The former describes a temporary condition of the subject; the latter tells what kind of thing he necessarily is. Call the first kind of assertion “accidental predication”; call the second “essential
20.2 A World of Particulars
Where Aristotle saw problems in Plato’s theory, he was not shy to point them out. Quickly he seems to have elaborated his own theory of basic realities, his ontology, in contrast to Plato’s Theory of Forms. In his treatise The Categories, Aristotle offered an elegant and attractive theory to rival Plato’s. It was a short treatise, but dense, not at all reader-friendly like Plato’s best dialogues. Almost unintelligible on a first reading, it nonetheless introduced startling new conceptions with new vocabulary that would become Aristotle’s trademark jargon. It was undeniably
20.1 The Freshman from Hell
When Plato returned to the Academy from Syracuse, there was a hint of rebellion in the air. A new student had appeared while Plato was away, a stranger from the north: Aristotle of Stagira. The son of a physician, with ties to the royal house of Macedonia, he was a child prodigy.[1] He had strong opinions, and a commitment to the here-and-now rather than the distant World of Forms. He quickly began working out an alternative account of reality and knowledge, based on the immediate environment and one’s experience of
19.4 Dion and Plato
Plato duly returned to Athens to resume his life in the ivory tower of the Academy. He did, however, invite Dion, now permanently exiled from his home country, to join him in the Academy, which the expatriate now did.[15] Dion did not remain sedentary, but traveled widely, making friends and influencing people.[16] Inevitably, however, some of the plots and intrigues that proliferated in the court of Syracuse followed Dion to Athens, and the Academy became less of an ivory tower than it had been. For if there was one person
19.3 Palace Intrigues
All was not well in the court of Dionysius the Younger. The young tyrant showed himself to be fond of Plato and eager to learn from him. This worried the other advisors of the tyrant who, used to having influence with Dionysius’ father, were afraid of being replaced by the illustrious foreigner from Athens. They coalesced around Philistus and began to challenge and criticize Plato and his advocate, Dion. The party of Philistus managed to intercept a letter Dion had written to the king of Carthage, the sworn enemy
19.2 Man of the Hour
Afire with the zeal of a protégé whose time has come, Dion, disciple of Plato, wrote to his mentor that now was the time to put his theories to the test. The tyrant of Sicily was dead and his son and heir was young and pliable. “What greater opportunity can we expect,” wrote Dion to Plato, “than that now offered by divine providence?”[6] Syracuse ruled the central Mediterranean; Dionysius Junior was young, enthusiastic about philosophy, and teachable. Now was the time to share the Platonic gospel with the new ruler
19.1 The Golden Opportunity
We know from Plato’s Seventh Letter as well as from his extensive writings on political science (including the Republic, Statesman, and Laws) that he was always fascinated by politics and dreamed of founding an ideal, or at least a new and improved, kind of state. When he was about sixty years old, a golden opportunity presented itself. The most powerful man in the Greek world was Dionysius, tyrant ruler of the city of Syracuse on the east coast of the island of Sicily. He had taken the reins of
18.7 The Method of Collection and Division
In the Phaedrus Plato speaks about a new method, or at least speaks in a new way about an old method, that he and presumably his master Socrates, had been practicing in their philosophical inquiries. It is known as the Method of Collection and Division.[21] If you want to understand something you are studying, you will need to define it, Socrates always insists. But as readers of Socratic dialogues should know, defining a subject is not at all easy. Socrates typically seems to test proffered definitions by seeing if they
18.6 Organic Unity
Plato’s Socrates goes through a review of a string of handbooks of oratory written by sophists and rhetoricians of his time, textbooks which offer advice on how to craft and deliver a rousing speech.[16] In the end, he delivers his scathing judgment on the whole genre: Is it possible for an expert who doesn’t know what each entity is to lead an audience step by stepfrom one position to the opposite one through similarities, or to escape being led by another in the same way? (Not at all.) Then the
18.5 Plato on Writing
Amid the discussion of the art of speaking, Plato has Socrates relate a story about the origins of writing. Once upon a time in Egypt, the god Theuth (or Thoth), who was a great inventor, invented a writing system. He explained his invention to the pharaoh, Thamus, who expressed his concern that the practice of reading and writing would have unfortunate effects. Once people have learned to read and write, they will no longer have to rely on memory. They will simply write things down without fully understanding them. Writing