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
Being 3.2.3: Platonic Souls
Besides transcendental Forms and sensible objects, there is one other basic building block for Plato: souls. Souls are discussed at length in Plato’s Phaedo, the dialogue in which Plato introduces his new theory of reality. The central concern of the dialogue is to argue for the immortality of soul. In a dramatic way. For the Phaedo portrays the death of Plato’s hero, Socrates, in the prison of Athens, after he has been condemned to death. Socrates’ young friends Simmias and Cebes are not convinced that the soul is immortal. With
Being 3.2.2: Plato’s sensible Objects
Plato gets excited about his transcendent Forms. They are pure and perfect, subsisting in a realm beyond time and space, the world of Forms. They give character and meaning to our changeable world, providing whatever stability and order is found in it. Our ability to grasp and even to encounter Forms directly allows us to have a godlike understanding of our world, and allows us to approach the supernatural. A few devoted and very gifted individuals can ascend to the world of Forms to experience them directly and to be
Being 3.2: Platonic Forms
Early in his dialogue Phaedo, Plato has Socrates say to Simmias, Do we say there is such a thing as the Just itself, or not? Indeed we do, by Zeus (replies Simmias). And the Beautiful and the Good? Certainly. And have you ever seen any such things with your eyes? In no way, he said. Have you grasped them with any other of the bodily senses? I mean concerning all those things, such as Size, Health, Strength, and everything else that each thing happens
Being 3.1: Plato’s Beings
Plato spent perhaps his first ten years as a young adult with his mentor, Socrates, during the last ten years of Socrates’ life. There is no question that Socrates was Plato’s inspiration and ideal. Plato made him the protagonist and leader of most of his dialogues. In Plato’s later dialogues Socrates sometimes becomes a listener, and even disappears in the late Laws. But Socrates is always the model philosopher, the voice in Plato’s head, asking the compelling questions, teaching not by lecturing but by prodding his interlocutors and, by extension,
The Birth and Evolution of Early Greek Philosophy
How did early Greek philosophy evolve? And how does it differ from later Greek philosophy? Roughly, early Greek philosophy is co-extensive with what is commonly called Presocratic philosophy. That is, there was a kind of philosophizing that went on before Socrates, but which is noticeably different from the kind of philosophizing Socrates did, and which was so influential that it changed the course of philosophy forever after. The recognition, for better or for worse, of a Presocratic phases of philosophy, belongs to the nineteenth century, when scholars like Hermann Diels
Being 2.2.4: the Riddle of Socrates
We have met Socrates as he inquired into the nature of piety with Euthyphro (2.2.2). Euthyphro offered several promising definitions of the virtue, only to have them all refuted by Socrates. In the end, Euthyphro suddenly remembered a prior appointment and hurried off into literary oblivion, while Socrates was left pondering the same question. Many of the Plato’s Socratic dialogues follow this format, leading to aporia, a dead end or philosophical impasse. Yet Socrates, undaunted, continues his quixotic quest for enlightenment in the realm of moral philosophy. So what are
Being 2.2.3: The Real Socrates
We need to talk about two versions of Socrates: the historical figure named Socrates, and the literary persona of the same name who appears in Plato’s early dialogues. Are they similar, or, to be more precise, is the second a reasonable imitation of the first? As we have noted, Plato does a marvelous job of breathing life into the literary persona, down to the level of endowing him with the physical traits and personality quirks of the man. But it is evident that the historical Socrates was an enigma even
Being 2.2.2: Socratic Questions
If we focus on Socrates’ method as portrayed in Plato’s early dialogues, we see Socrates seeking wisdom from the people he talks to, his “interlocutors,” in philosophical parlance. These are sometimes self-appointed experts, but they may also be just ordinary people, sometimes even teenagers at the gymnasium. He typically presents himself as unable to attain wisdom himself, and seeks for help from an interlocutor. Socrates almost always narrows the discussion to a question for a definition, usually of some desirable virtue, suggesting that until they can define the virtue, they
Being 2.2: The Rise of Socrates
2.2.1 The Street Philosopher and his Disciples The heyday of the sophists was the second half of the fifth century BCE. During the same period, another thinker rose to prominence, one who, like the sophists, was concerned not with the origin and functioning of the cosmos but with the human world and human welfare. Yet he was in many ways the complete antithesis of the sophists. Whereas they promoted themselves, touted their professional successes, and advertised their educational skills, attracting large crowds and amassing wealth for themselves, Socrates went about
Being 2.1.3: The Legacy of the Sophists
So what did the sophists contribute to the intellectual world of what is sometimes called the Greek Enlightenment? They clearly were men of the hour, who offered something that a great many ambitious young men were after: education in practical matters relating to politics and business. In the mid-fifth century BC, democracy had emerged as an exciting new political experiment. Athens in particular, led by reformers such as Pericles, was opening the door to ordinary citizens to fill more, and eventually all, the positions of government. In Athens and other
Being 2.1.2.2: Is Everything Relative?
Perhaps the most striking, and most influential, approach of the sophists was their exploitation of the notion that things are relative. Plato has the sophist Protagoras, when he is asked whether good things are beneficial to humans, launch into a diatribe: I know plenty of things—foods, drinks, drugs, and many others—which are harmful to men, and others which are beneficial, and others again which, so far as men are concerned, are neither, but are harmful or beneficial to horses, and others only to cattle or dogs. Some have no effect
Being 2.1.2: Teachings of the Sophists
The sophists brought new energy and excitement to the intellectual scene in Greece in the mid-fifth century BCE. But did they introduce an intellectual revolution? There is a temptation to treat them as offering an intellectual revolution, revealing the naivete of traditional conceptions which based knowledge on ancient myths and inherited ways of thinking. They did indeed tend to emphasize new ways of thinking, and they did promise to give their students the tools to challenge inherited customs and to overthrow traditions. But at the same time that they offered