Imagine a time when there was no internet; when there were no mass media of any kind; no universities; not even any secondary schools; no libraries; no books; no large cities. There was no mathematical knowledge greater than counting; no natural science; no literacy; no history; no geography; no social studies. How was knowledge passed on? How was wisdom shared?
Presumably by word of mouth, usually one-on-one. From parent to child, from master to apprentice, from mentor to learner. The one body of knowledge that existed in ancient Greece was a cycle of epic poems recited at gatherings, especially those dealing with the Trojan War, in which heroic deeds of legendary heroes were recounted in an oral tradition. The experience was part adventure story, part religious education, part entertainment, part acculturation. What was known of how the world worked, of geography, cosmography, ethnography, and history was transmitted in the poetry of bards, whose stories told of the dazzling world of bronze age civilization and its larger-than-life figures.
In the eighth century BC the Greek alphabet was invented, adapted from the Phoenician alphabet. In fact, the Phoenician writing system was an “abjad,” a system of letters containing only consonants (which was adequate for representing the sounds of Semitic languages). The Greeks could use the consonants that corresponded to consonants in their own language. They were left with some letters that did not correspond. They used some of these to represent vowels in their own language, thus creating the first real alphabet. Writing systems using ideographs (symbols for words) like Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters, needed hundreds of characters; writing systems using marks for syllables, such as cuneiform writing, needed dozens. Mastering such systems took years. The phonetic alphabet, by contrast, needed only twenty-odd letters and could be learned by a child.
In the sixth century BC, the first philosophers (as we would call them; the term had not yet been invented), or at least the first all-purpose intellectuals, appeared in Miletus, a Greek colony on the Aegean coast of Anatolia (modern Turkey), in what was known as the land of Ionia. Later philosophers speak of the “school” of Miletus. Thales, the first philosopher, presumably taught Anaximander and Anaximenes, the second and third in the line. But it is doubtful there was anything like a school.[1] Thales was the mentor who had two disciples—or perhaps one disciple who later had his own disciple. It is doubtful that Thales left any writings. But both Anaximander and Anaximenes each left a book of their teachings, at a time when prose treatises were an anomaly, beginning a long tradition of sharing ideas in writing.
In the mid sixth century BC Pythagoras traveled from his native Samos to Croton, a Greek colony in southern Italy, where he became the leader of a cult. But he did not write anything, or at least not as a religious leader.[2] His teaching were passed on orally, and he was reputed to have been a great mathematician and scientist; but that claim is doubtful. Contemporary sources know him mainly as a religious leader who believed in reincarnation.[3]
Xenophanes fled from his city in Ionia and became a wandering minstrel in southern Italy, teaching philosophy in poems he composed. Heraclitus, from Ephesus in Ionia, wrote a book of philosophy full of paradoxical sayings; he seems to have been a solitary figure with no followers.
A “school” of philosophy arose in Elea in southern Italy, where Xenophanes had visited and composed a poem celebrating the city’s founding. Parmenides wrote a book of philosophy in epic meter; his students Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos became well known also. But Melissus returned to his native island to live. So it is not clear whether there was a continuing school in Elea. Empedocles of Acragas (modern Agrigento) in Sicily attracted followers, but he may have been more of a guru than a teacher. Democritus the atomist and Protagoras the sophist both came from Abdera in northern Greece. But was there a genuine school there?
As far as we can tell, the ancient “schools” of philosophy were not institutions, but just famous figures who attracted a few followers. These figures and their followers were wealthy gentlemen of leisure who could devote their lives to study instead of working for a living. Alcmaeon, a philosopher from Croton in the early fifth century, begins his book as follows: “Alcmaeon, son of Peirithus, said this to Brontinus, Leon, and Bathyllus: ‘Concerning the unseen as concerning mortal things, only the gods have certain knowledge; men must draw inferences from events.’”[4] The implication is that his audience consisted of three disciples, who might, ideally, share his ideas with their future followers.
As far as we can tell, the “schools” of the early Greek thinkers were synonymous with the presence of the master. When he flourished the school flourished; when he died, the school died.[5]
[1] “It is probable that the earliest school of philosophy, that at Miletus which produced Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, was organized into some sort of corporation. Of the details of the organization we know nothing. It is, indeed, only a guess, though a likely one, that it was organized at all” (Field 1967: 30). The guess referred to seems to me unlikely, given that there were no antecedents and not established patterns of adult education.
[2] On the basis of Heraclitus B129 (and compare B40), Rossetti (2023: 141-2) sees Pythagoras as having published Ionian-style studies in Samos, but retreating to oral teaching when he moved to Croton in Italy.
[3] E.g. Xenophanes B7.
[4] Alcmaeon B1.
[5] The one possible exception is the “school” or tradition of atomism, which persisted at least through a series of different masters. Where it began is unclear, since Leucippus was said to have originated in different cities (Elea, Abdera, or Miletus: Diogenes Laertius 9.30 = 67A1), and to have been a student of either Zeno or Parmenides (A1, A4). Leucippus’ student Democritus seems to have had a school in Abdera, but to have been unknown in Athens (Diogenes Laertius 9.36 = 68A1). And there was some kind of tradition extending to Epicurus (who claims, however, to have been self-taught: Diogenes Laertius 10.13 = 67A2). But there is a fair amount of inconsistency between reports of the transmission of atomist theory; the theory of atomism may have been passed along from school to school.