History of Western Philosophy

2 Greek Philosophy

2.1 RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Two aspects of Greek religion are selected for their significance:

Anthropomorphic religion of the gods of Olympus made familiar by the Homeric epicsGods exhibit, on a most majestic scale, human passions and concern for the affairs of human beings. The Homeric conception of the Gods as subject to fate may have contributed to the attitude of mind that produced the first Greek philosophy: the Milesian natural philosophy of the sixth century BCE Religious revival of sixth century BCE associated with mystery cults. Mystery cults local forms of gods: symbolizing individualismthe Dionysian cults join with the Orphic:

doctrine of the immortal soul and its transmigrationperhaps incline toward philosophy especially metaphysics and especially to religiously oriented philosophies of Pythagoreans, of Parmenides and of Heraclitus.

2.2 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: ORIGINS

2.2.1 Early Greek philosophy

2.2.1.1 Problem of Substance [Metaphysics] and The Philosophy of Nature

Thales c. [624-550 BCE]: water is original stuff [possible observation: nourishment, heat, seed, contain moisture], out of water everything comes but Thales does not indicate how Anaximander c. [611-547 BCE]: the essence or principle of things is the infinite a mixture, intermediate between observable elements, from which things arise by separation; moisture leads to living thingsAll animals and humans were originally a fish. All return to the primal mass to be produced anew

Cosmology: physical: sphere of fire leads to eternal motion: separation: hot, cold leads to hot, surrounds cold on a sphere of flame: heat: cold leads to moisture leads to air: fire leads to rings with holes: heavenly bodies: sun [farthest], moon, planets Anaximines [588-524 BCE]: first principle is definite: air; it is infinite. From air all things arise by rarefaction and condensation a scientific observation

These three philosophers Thales, Anaximander and Anaximines, of Miletus, represent advance from qualitative-subjective to quantitative-scientific explanation of modes of emergence of being from a primary substance Pythagorean School: Pythagoras of Samos [c. 575-500 BCE]. The Pythagorean School was concerned less with substance than with the form and relation of things. Numbers are the principles of things number mysticism.

Origin, in astronomy, of the dual: systematic, fixed stellar system and chaotic, dynamic terrestrial world. Ethics, too, rooted in number-mysticism

2.2.1.2 Problem of change

arises from the intuition that something from nothing is impossible Problem of Change:

Qualitative Theories of Change: Empedocles [495-435 BCE] and Anaxogoras [500-428 BCE]. Quantitative theories: Atomism: transition from teleology to mechanism: Leucippus and Democritus [460-370 BCE].

Metaphysics, cosmology, psychology, theory of knowledge, theology and ethics Heraclitus [535-475 BCE] born Ephesus: [^1] Fire and universal flux, [^2] opposites and their union, [^3] harmony and the law Eleatic School: Xenophanes [570-480 BCE] Colophon, precursor, first basis of skepticism in Greek thought, Parmenides founder of philosophy of permanence change is relative: combination and separation [becoming]paradoxes of being and nonbeing, Zeno [of the paradoxes] [490-430 BCE] and Melisus of Samos are defenders of the doctrine Democritus: same concept in atomic form. Metaphysics, ontology: space: nonbeing exists; motion in space: atomic. Psychology, theory of knowledge: information from object to sentient: propagation of actions through toms in air, soul atoms: the finest in-between body atoms

2.2.2 Age of sophists

The development of Greek thought led to a spirit of free inquiry in poetry: Aeschylus [525-456 BCE], Sophocles [490=405 BCE], Euripedes [480-406 BCE]; history: Thucydides [b. 471 BCE]; medicine: Hippocrates [b. 460 BCE]. The construction of philosophical systems ceases temporarily; the existing schools continue to be taught and some turn attention to natural-scientific investigation The resulting individualism made an invaluable contribution to Greek thought but led, finally, to an exaggerated intellectual and ethical subjectivism. The Sophists who were originally well-regarded came gradually to be a term of reproach partly owing to the radicalism of the later schools: their subjectivism, relativism and nihilism.

For Protagoras, all opinions are true [though some "better"]; for Gorgias none are true [there is nothing; even if there were something we could not know it; if we could know it we could not communicate it]. "Sophists exaggerated the differences in human judgments and ignored the common elements; laid too much stress on the illusoriness of the senses Nevertheless, their criticisms of knowledge made necessary a profounder study of the nature of knowledge."

2.2.3 Socrates and the Socratic schools

Socrates [469-399 BCE], Xenophon: "The Socratic problem was to meet the challenge of sophistry, which, in undermining knowledge, threatened the foundations of morality and state." Socratic method: includes the elements: [^1] skeptical, [^2] conventional, [^3] conceptual or definitional, [^4] empirical or inductive, [^5] deductive a "dialectical" process for improving understanding of a subject The treatment to this point has been more detailed since [^1] I am relatively ignorant of it, and [^2] a detailed study of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle a natural study of the tree supreme Greek philosophers is left for later Ethics: knowledge is the highest good. Knowledge is virtue

2.3 GREEK PHILOSOPHY: THE AGE OF GREAT SYSTEMS

2.3.1 Plato [427-347 BCE]

The method of Socrates suggested: a system of thought to be worked out. Plato's system incorporates and transforms the doctrines of his predecessorsThe problems suggested are the intimate ones: meaning of human life, human knowledge, human conduct, human institutions which depend for an adequate answer upon the study, also, of their interrelations and their place as parts of the larger Ontological Question [and indeed are not comprehensible without an ontology at least "an implicit" one]. Plato developed such a system

The division of philosophy into [^1] logic or dialectic [including theory of knowledge], [^2] metaphysics [including physics and psychology], and [^3]ethicsis implied in Plato's work

Dialectic and Theory of Knowledge: Plato recognizes the importance of the problem of knowledge Sense perception, opinion cannot lead to genuine knowledge Eros, the love of truth, is necessary for advanceit arouses the contemplation of beautiful ideasdialectic is the art of thinking in concepts: the essential object of thought.

Ideas do not have origin in experiencewe approach the world with ideals: truth, beauty, the good; in addition to the value-concepts. Plato also came to regard mathematical concepts and certain logical notions, or categories, such as being and nonbeing, identity and difference, unity and plurality, as inborn, or a priori.

Therefore, conceptual knowledge is the only genuine knowledge

What guarantee, then, is there of the truth of conceptual knowledge? [Plato's answer is based on the metaphysics of certain of his predecessors, especially Parmenides: thought and being are identical; Parmenides speaks of or indicates the world of logical thought as true, and the world of sense perception as illusion.]

For Plato, knowledge is correspondence of thought and reality [or being] knowledge must have an object. If the concept is to have value as knowledge, something real must correspond to it realities must exist corresponding to all our universal ideas: there must be, for instance, pure absolute beauty corresponding to the concept of beautyconceptual knowledge presupposes the reality of a corresponding ideal or abstract objectsOr, in contrast to the transient world of the senses, which is mere appearance, illusion: true being is unchangeable, eternal. Conceptual thought alone can grasp eternal and changeless being: it knows that which is, that which persists, that which remains one and the same in all diversity, namely the essential forms of things

2.3.1.1 Plato's theory of knowledge:

Conjecture Mere sense impression Guess [opinion]

Belief Sensible objects Sense perception [opinion]

Understanding Mathematical and other Hypothesis [and education]

Rational [insight] Forms or ideas Dialectic

Hierarchy of the Sciences: Arithmetic; geometry; astronomy; harmonies; dialectic the coping stone of the sciences

Dialectic knowledge considers forms as constituting a systematic unity as related to the form of the Good; rests on categorical first principles not hypothesis

2.3.1.2 Doctrine of ideas: [Plato's most original philosophical achievement.]

According to Plato, universals exist. Corresponding to the concept of horse, as example, there is a universal or ideal entity; it is the idea that is known in conceptual knowledge, reason.

The variety of ideas or forms is endless: there are ideas of things, relations, qualities, actions and values[these are some classes of ideas]: of tables and chairs; of smallness, greatness, likeness; of colors and tones; of health, rest and motion; of beauty, truth and goodnessThe ideas or archetypes constitute a well-ordered world or rational cosmos; arranged in a connected, organic unity, a logical order subsumed under the highest idea: the Good.

The Good, the supreme idea, the logos or cosmic purpose, the unity of pluralities, the source of all ideasis also the truly real. The function of philosophy, by exercise of reason, is to understand this inner, interconnected order of the universe and to conceive its essence by logical thought/

Outline of the doctrine: [^1] The forms, or ideas defined as objects corresponding to abstract concepts are real entities. The Platonic form is the reification or entificiation of the Socratic concept; [^2] there are a variety of forms; [^3] they belong to a realm of abstract entities, a "heaven of ideas", separate from their concrete exemplification in time and space [the Platonic dualism]; [^4] form is archetype, particular: copy; form is superior: forms are real, particulars mere appearances; [^5] the forms are neither mental they exist independently of any knowing mind, even God's nor physical: yet real; [forms are non-temporal and non-spatial: eternal and immutable]; [^7] they are logically connected in a "communicative" hierarchy in which the supreme form is the Good; [^8] forms are apprehended by reason, not sense; [^9] the relation between a particular and a form which it exemplifies is "participation"; all particulars with a common predicate participate in the corresponding form; a particular may participate simultaneously in a plurality of forms or successively [in change] in a succession of forms.

2.3.1.3 Philosophy of nature

Matter [the second principle, diametrically opposed to the idea] is the raw material upon which the idea is impressed. Dualism. Matter is perishable, imperfect, unreal, nonbeing.

2.3.1.4 Cosmology

The Demiurge or Creator [more an architect than a creator] fashions the world out of matter in the patterns of the ideal worldThe four factors in creation enumerated in Timmaeus are [^1] the Demiurge or God: the active principle or dynamic cause of the world; [^2] the pattern as archetype of the world; [^3] the receptacle: the locus and matrix of creation; matter; brute fact; source of indeterminacy and evil; and [^4] the form of the Good Plato's cosmology, garbed in myth: an attempt to identify the causes in [and creation of] the actual world [interpretation]

The influence of Plato's doctrine of ideas, and cosmology is enormous upon Aristotle: the four causes of Aristotle are the four factors in Plato's cosmology and in Christian [medieval] thought[argument from design]

2.3.1.5 Psychology

"Faculty" psychology: [^1] rational faculty [mind], [^2] spirited faculty [emotionsit is doubtful that Plato considered will and free choice], [^3] appetitive faculty: desire, motivation.