THE GREEK PHILOSOPHY

PRE-SOCRATICS
THE CLASSIC PERIOD
THE ROMAN PERIOD

appearance of philosophical thinking) – V century BC
The philosophers are

called PRE-SOCRATICS
The representatives: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea

– from the cosmogonic problems to the study of the

man and the problems of his existence
The representatives: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus.

centuries
There are several schools:
- epicurean (Epicurus)
- skeptics

(Pyrrho)
- stoics (Cicero, Seneca)

for his knowledge of astronomy after predicting the eclipse of

the sun that occurred on May 28, 585 bc.
the original principle of all things is water, from which everything proceeds and into which everything is again resolved.
Before Thales, explanations of the universe were mythological, and his concentration on the basic physical substance of the world marks the birth of scientific thought.

concerning the cosmos and the origins of life.

He conceived

of the universe as a number of concentric cylinders, of which the outermost is the sun, the middle is the moon, and the innermost is the stars. Within these cylinders is the earth, unsupported and drum-shaped.

The origin of the universe as the result of the separation of opposites from the primordial material. Hot moved outward, separating from cold, and then dry from wet. Further, Anaximander held that all things eventually return to the element from which they originated.

everything else can be reduced. To explain how solid objects

are formed from air, he introduced the notions of condensation and rarefaction.
These processes, he claimed, make air, in itself invisible, visible as water, fire, and solid matter. He thought that air becomes warmer and turns to fire when it is rarefied and that it becomes colder and turns solid when it is condensed.

and that the entire world is in a constant state

of change.
Heraclitus added to the “being” of his predecessors the concept of “becoming,” or flux, which he took to be a basic reality underlying all things, even the most apparently stable. In ethics he introduced a new social emphasis, holding virtue to consist in a subordination of the individual to the laws of a universal, reasonable harmony.

dress and possessions, and the habit of frequent self-examination were

prescribed. The Pythagoreans believed in immortality and in the transmigration of souls.
He cultivated the concept of number, which became for him the ultimate principle of all proportion, order, and harmony in the universe.

the Eleatic school.
Parmenides held that the phenomena of nature

are only apparent and due to human error; they seem to exist, but have no real existence. He also held that reality, True Being, is not known to the senses but is to be found only in reason.
Parmenides' theory that Being cannot arise from Nonbeing, and that Being neither arises nor passes away, was applied to matter by his successors, who made it the foundation of their materialistic explanations of the universe.

teachers who provided instruction in several higher branches of learning

for a fee.

the Sophists popularized the ideas of various early philosophers; most of them concluded that truth and morality were essentially matters of opinion. Thus, in their own teaching, they tended to emphasize forms of persuasive expression, such as the art of rhetoric, which provided pupils with skills useful for achieving success in life, particularly public life.

support Athenian democracy in which all men could take part
Plato

wanted to make philosopher’s education more formal
Founded the Academy, which in Plato’s lifetime became most important site for Greek philosophers to do their work

Plato
One of Socrates’ students, became great philosopher in own right
Left behind great number of writings that record ideas on wide variety of topics, from nature of truth to ideal form of government
The Republic argues that government should be led by philosophers

Academy
More concerned with nature of world that surrounded him
Tried to

apply philosophical principles to every kind of knowledge

Inferring New Facts
Aristotle also helped develop field of logic, process of making inferences
Example: birds have feathers, lay eggs; owls have feathers, lay eggs; therefore, owl must be a type of bird

Emphasis on Reason and Logic
Emphasis on reason, logic
Reason, clear and ordered thinking; use reason to learn about world
Observe carefully, think rationally about what one has seen

Aristotle

THE BEST, I.E. WISE AND ABLE TO LEARN THE ART

OF GOVERNING
HE CRITISIZED THE GREEK DEMOCRACY

composed of minute, invisible, particles of pure matter (atoma), which

move about eternally in infinite empty space (kenon).
Although atoms are made up of precisely the same matter, they differ in shape, size, weight, sequence, and position. The creation of worlds as the natural consequence of the ceaseless whirling motion of atoms in space. Atoms collide and spin, forming larger aggregations of matter.

means “love of knowledge.”
Chief among his ideas was the

theory of forms, which proposed that objects in the physical world merely resemble perfect forms in the ideal world, and that only these perfect forms can be the object of true knowledge.
The goal of the philosopher, according to Plato, is to know the perfect forms and to instruct others in that knowledge.

which are known to us from birth even though we

need “gadflies” such as Socrates to help us remember what we know.
His method of inquiry is to ask questions that stimulate the memory.

Aristotle holds his hand flat, to show that the objects of human knowledge are things in this world, which can only be known through sense experience.

His method of inquiry is to abstract ideas from empirical observations.

in Stagira.
Father was physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia.

Plato from the age of 18 to 37.
Eventually he classified

the branches of knowledge into categories, including: physics, psychology, poetics, logic, and rhetoric.

over 40, Aristotle returned to his home, Stagira, and he

became tutor to the king’s son, soon to become Alexander the Great. Alexander, through military campaigns, would later expand the empire of Greece to cover all of the Mideast reaching all the way to India.

its center. The central region is made up of four

elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
The heavens, therefore, must be made of a fifth, and different element, which he called Ether.
In reasoning, the basic links are syllogisms: pairs of propositions that, taken together, give a new conclusion. For example, “All humans are mortal” and “All Greeks are humans” yield the valid conclusion “All Greeks are mortal.”

supreme good and main goal of life.
Intellectual pleasures are

preferred to sensual ones, which tend to disturb peace of mind.
True happiness, Epicurus taught, is the serenity resulting from the conquest of fear of the gods, of death, and of the afterlife.
The ultimate aim of all Epicurean speculation about nature is to rid people of such fears.

Stoicism.
Good lies not in external objects, but in the

state of the soul itself, in the wisdom and restraint by which a person is delivered from the passions and desires that perturb the ordinary life. The four cardinal virtues of the Stoic philosophy are wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance, a classification derived from the teachings of Plato.

is the measure of all things”
and “Nothing is; or

if anything is, it cannot be known.”
THEY declared that all statements concerning reality are false and that, even if true, their truth can never be proved.
THEY taught that human beings can know only their perceptions of things, not the things themselves.