Chapter 3

GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Modified: 2025-02-03 7:22 pm CST

Chapter 3 now includes what used to be chapters 3 and 4 in my original text. That is why it is so long. The reviewers believed the original text spent too much time on philosophy. For these reasons Test 2 will only include this chapter.

ZEITGEIST

• A Short History of Ancient Greece (p. 55)

• The modern country of Greece sits at the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe. Ancient Greece, Magna Graecia in Latin, however, comprised a larger area and included Ionia (Anatolia or modern Turkey), the island of Crete, and parts of the Italian peninsula.
• The geography is dominated by the Aegean Sea, thousands of islands, and a relative shortage of habitable places caused by a mountainous interior.
• The region is in one of Morris’s (2010) “lucky latitudes” that band between 20° and 35° north in the Old World that is favorable for farming.
• Around 4,000 years ago Minoan civilization, developed on the island of Crete.
  • It was non-Greek
  • peaceful
  • highly organized.
• It was replaced by the Mycenaean culture, warlike Greeks from the mainland.
  • Mycenaean civilization collapsed around 3,200 years ago
  • Plunging Greece into its Dark Age,
  • Lasted nearly 500 years
  • Saw the loss of writing
  • Diminution of culture and artifacts
• Archaic Period (about 2,800 years ago)
• City-states developed then and
• Athens and Sparta
  • Athens, and many other city-states, eventually created democratic systems of government
    • Male citizens, but not females, foreigners, or slaves, could participate
  • Sparta,
    • Became thoroughly militarized
      • Required compulsory military training and service for male citizens aged of 7 to 60
• Renewed prosperity promoted colonization from Greece’s Aegean heartland back to Ionia, Italy, Sicily, and North Africa leading to what was later called in Latin, Magna Graecia, or Greater Greece.
• Classical Period (2,500 years ago).
  • Greek city-states united twice to war successfully against the Persians
  • Also warrred later among themselves.
    • The Peloponnesian War, ended Athenian democracy and left Sparta ascendant.
    • Phillip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great, greatly expanded Greek influence throughout the ancient world.
    • Alexander created a short-lived empire that stretched from Egypt to India (see Figure 3.2).
    • Spread Greek ideas and ways of thinking over a wide area, a process called Hellenization (Hellas is the Greek word for Greece).
  • The first philosophers worked to disentangle reality itself from the supernatural contexts created by the older Greek myths and they provided accounts about the world and its workings that only relied on observable facts,
  • Alexandria, became the intellectual center of the world for hundreds of years.
  • Alexander spread the Greek ideas far and wide
  • That created a sociocultural amalgam from the many intellectual traditions
    • The world’s first experiment in multiculturalism or cosmopolitanism
    • Cosmopolitanism eventually spread throughout the Roman world via Cynicism, Stoicism, and Christianity.

PREVIEW (p. 58)

• Animistic thinking continues in the minds of modern children but has been replaced by materialism
• Rationalism retains a prominent place in philosophy and psychology.
• The conflict over the reliability of sensory data continues.
• The mind continues to be a focus of study for philosophers and scientists
• Love and strife remain as central issues in psychology, sociology, and political science.
• The discovery of the void or nothingness was groundbreaking.
  • Long before Seinfeld, too! (Video is long, FYI)
• Atomism is central to modern physics and chemistry.
• Relativism has mostly displaced absolutist ways of thinking
• Modern science is anything but nihilistic
• The modern world has become more and more cosmopolitan thanks to electronic media.
• Law schools still use the Socratic Method.
• The public still debates relativism and absolutism.
• Plato’s idealism is still invoked as an explanatory device.
• The observation of nature has become a scientific enterprise.
• Cause and effect are analyzed daily in courtrooms and laboratories.
• Inductive, deductive, and propositional logic are thoroughly entrenched in many aspects of modern life.
• Avoiding determinism and dogmatism are still concerns for thinkers today.

So, if you wonder why we spend time covering the topics above it is because these ancient ideas are still with us.

cosmopolitanism the view that all peoples in the world belong to a single community.

Hellenization the spread of Greek ideas about the structure and origin of the natural world and the search for lawful causation within it.

• Review so far:
• Greek geography: Mountains prevented easy overland travel
• Seafaring: a necessity
• Linear A and Linear B: A form of Greek
  • only Linear B translated to date
• Mycenean: Warlike mainland Greeks
• Greece's Dark Age: 500 years
• Classical Period (2,500 years ago)
  • Athens and Sparta: Metaphors to this very day
    • Athens: birth of democracy
    • Sparta: militaristic state
      • spoiler alert: Sparta beats Athens (see below)
  • Alexander the Great (Hellenization):
    • He and his father, Phillip, conquered and united Greece
    • Alexander spread Greek ideas far and wide
      • spoiler alert: Macedon conquers Greece (see below)
  • Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
    • The big three of philosophy
• INTRODUCTION (p.58)
  • Philosophy (Socratic vs Pre-Socratic)-Search for natural explanations (natural philosophy, the grandfather of science)
    • Very limited number of primary documents available
      • All of them could easily fit in one of the large classrooms in Peace Hall!
    • Commentaries are secondary
      • These are documents that refer to other lost documents that have not survived
      • That is the only way that we know of some of those lost documents
    • "Pre-Socratic" oversimplifies early history
      • Some "pre-Socratic" philosophers were contemporaries of Socrates
    • Much of what we know about early philosophy comes from Plato and Aristotle, but they may have been biased

MILESIAN PHILOSOPHERS (Magna Graecia) (p. 59)

• Milesia is located in modern Turkey
• philosophos-lover of wise things
• Studied:
  • physical sciences
  • psychological topics
  • theology
  • ethics
  • epistemology-study of knowledge
  • metaphysics-study of first principles, Barnes (1995b) describes metaphysics by saying it is, “The science of first principles, the study of being qua being, theology, the investigation into substance” (p. 69).
    • First principles:
      • Thales-water
        • because the sea was everywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean
      • Anaximander-aperion
        • the first principle had to be something other, something limitless and primordial, the aperion, the reputed source of the four elements. The aperion implied a kind of physical infinity, balancing out the tendency of the other elements to destroy each other. Furthermore, the aperion powered nature’s cycles: day vs. night and the seasons.
      • Anaximenes-air
        • He argued that air could be transformed into the remaining three elements through compression or expansion. When air was compressed, it turned first into water and then into earth. When air was allowed to expand quickly, it turned into fire.
• Thales (p. 59)
  • One of the "seven sages"
  • Aristotle mentions him, but no writings by Thales survive
  • Astronomer: studied solstices, equinoxes, and eclipses
  • Recommended Ursa Minor to navigators
  • Geometer, learned in Egypt, proof of triangles within semicircles
  • Water was central to his philosophy
    • Greek geography
    • Nile
    • Aristotle
  • Animist: the belief that all things are alive or contain some kind of life force
    • Magnetism (lodestones)
    • Static electricity
  • First Philosopher (Russell, 1945)
• Anaximander (p. 60)
  • Two 35 word fragments survive
  • Gnomon (part of the sundial)
    • You can be a human gnomon by standing in front of Harton Theatre at the Smith sundial
  • Geographer
    • World map
    • See Then and Now below
  • Early model of the universe
    • Earth a cylinder floating in space
    • Stars, moon, and sun revolved around earth (see diagram)
  • Aperion-first substance (invisible, infinite, but physical)
    • Not water (one of four basic Greek elements)
    • Precursor to the elements
    • Infinite, invisible, yet physical
• Anaximenes (p. 62)
  • Only one fragment survives
  • Arche-air was the first substance
  • The remaining Greek elements (water, earth, fire) could be derived from air
    • When compressed, air turned first into water and then into earth
    • When quickly expanded it turned into fire
  • Physical continuity (a new idea)
    • All of the elements were related
  • Summary
    • Good potential as physical theory
    • Avoided positiong invisible substance (e.g., the aperion)
• Summary of Milesian Philosophy
  • First philosophers
  • Origin of the universe?
    • Science is still searching for the arche
  • Long-standing questions
    • Is universe eternal?
    • Did universe have a beginning?
    • What happened before the beginning?
  • Read this! (Not on the test, BUT it shows how philosophy's basic questions remain yet unanswered.)
    Let me know if you cannot access it. (It should work the first time you access it, free trial.)

EARLY GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHY: (Nature + Mathematics) (p. 63)

• Pythagoras (p.63)
  • Visited Egypt
  • Probably brought theorem to Greece (not really his, most likely) a² + b² = c²
  • Mathematics not likely his major skill
  • Cult leader
    • No beans
    • no breaking of bread
    • no eating animal hearts
    • no walking on highways
  • Reincarnation-transmigration of souls (mocked my Xenophanes)
  • Afterlife
    • eternal souls
    • life after death
• Xenophanes (p. 64)
  • Born in Colophon (near Miletus)
  • Traveled widely: Sicily, Magna Graecia
  • Knew Pythagoras
  • Wrote in verse and little of his original work survives
  • Gods of horses and cows
    • if horses and cattle could draw or sculpt, they would create gods in their own images
  • He believed in higher, unknowable god. One that did not look like humans
  • Demythologizer, searched for natural explanations
    • Rainbow
    • Clouds
  • Was a bridge between older Greek thought and more naturalistic account of universe
• Heraclitus (p. 65)
  • From Ephesus (also near Miletus)
  • Complex philsophy, difficult to understand
  • Targeted criticism of nearly every contemporary philosophy (but never the Milesians)
  • Acute observer of contradictions
    • "It is not possible to step into the same river twice." Do you get it?
    • I always look at the Red River when whe cross it near Garland City on the way to Texarkana. Sometimes it is bank full and other time it is very low and the sandbars are visible. But. regardless, it is always the Red River.
  • Examined role of change
  • Cosmologist who made Greek element of fire primary
  • The nature of change (e.g., rivers)
  • Contradictions and Opposites
    • Roads (traveler determines)
      • FYI, in El Dorado US 82 is often called the "Magnolia Highway" but in Magnolia, it is often called the El Dorado Highway. Very Heraclitan...(and a test question!)
    • Rivers (water, but never the same)
      • Speaking of the Red River, the water under the bridge at Garland now won't be there when I cross the bridge later, will it? No, that water will be on its way to Shreveport/Bossier.
    • Opposites are unified wholes
      • life and death
        • you can't have one without the other
      • day and night
        • confusing sometimes, just what is a day? Is a day the same as a night and a day?
        • what about "this week" or "next week?"
          • scientists must disambiguate such terms
            • "We will meet next in 48 hours."
              
    • Senses and mind must work together
      • When both work together many things seem clearer
    • Cosmologist-fire is original element, can change into water and then into earth
• IDEA: materialism-the universe, including mental events, can only be explained through the action of physical matter. (Are you a materialist?)
  • Eleatic Philosophy-embraced the idea of rationalism
• IDEA: rationalism-the universe, including physical events, can only be explained through the action of human thought.
• (Note: We will be discussing both of these -isms throughout the course.)

ELEATIC PHILOSOPHY (p. 66)

• Elea (Velia) is in Magna Graecia
• Rejection of materialism
• Founding of rationalism
  • Senses could not be trusted
  • Universes was constant and abstract
• Parmenides (p.66)
  • Founder of rationalistic school of philosophy
  • Wrote On Nature, (only 150 lines of poem survive). Argued:
    • reason is supreme
    • universe is unperishing, unmoving, bounded
  • Rational and monistic philosophy governed by reason
  • The universe is: constant, singular, stationary, perfect
  • Older philosophers were wrong because:
    • The senses cannot be trusted
    • They assumed universe changed
  • Parminedes failed to provide mechanism for his views
• Zeno of Elea (p. 67)
  • Others wrote of his work (Plato, Aristotle)
  • Wanted to support Parmenides' ideas on oneness and constancy
  • Paradoxes
    • Ten survive
    • Achilles and the tortoise
    • At the start of the race, the tortoise will be ahead of Achilles.
      • When Achilles reaches the point where the tortoise began the race, the tortoise will no longer be there.
      • Then, when Achilles reaches the point where the tortoise did start from, the tortoise will have moved on.
      • Again (and again, and again…), Zeno argues that the tortoise will always be in front of Achilles, even though Achilles succeeds in reducing the distance between them.
      • Finally, Zeno concludes that Achilles can never catch the tortoise.
      • This is also on test!
    • Half the distance in football
      • Think of a penalty in football
      • Let's start at 10 yd line
      • Penalty is 15 yds, so it's assessed half the distance
      • Now ball is at 5 yd line, and other penalty is assessed
      • Now ball is at 2.5 yd line
      • Keep assessing penalties and the ball will NEVER reach the goal line, right?
      • Be sure you understand the real absurdity of this position along with the mathematical idea that the goal line will never be reached.
    • Reductio ad absurdum
      • Reductio ad absurdum is the technical name for this type of argument
      • Of course, the official COULD step over the goal line but the logical rule prevents it
  • NOTE: here's an example where the logic and the real world do not match up
  • Need to rethink the physical world because of conflict between it and logic
  • Important for later thinkers (Newton, Leibniz)
    • Alert: Don't confuse with Zeno of Citium (see below)
• Melissus (p. 68)
  • Follower of Parmenides
  • Supported the idea that sensory data could not be trusted
  • Introduced the void (i.e., nothingness)
    • This is an important point, "nothing" as a concept
• Summary of Eleatic Philosophy (p. 68)
  • Senses cannot be trusted
  • Reason reigns supreme
  • What to do about dreams and hallucinations
  • Set the stage for later Greek philosophy (i.e., conflict between Plato and Aristotle)
• LATER GREEK PHILOSOPHERS (p.69)
• Empedocles (p. 69)
  • Born in Sicily (Magna Graecia)
  • Supposedly jumped into Mt. Etna
  • Formalized the four Greek elements: Fire, Water, Earth, Air (None are elements in the modern sense)
    • Elements were changeless, compounds were temporary
    • Compounds were temporary (did not violate Parmenides' principles)
    • Love and Strife-forces (think of movies: chick flicks, action adventure, date)
  • Cosmogeny (how universe developed)
    • Love at first, a perfect universe
    • Strife took over, and continues to do so
    • Zoogeny-natural world develops (almost Darwinian)
    • One of first to discuss perception (a concept central to psychology)
  • Moral philosophy too (Later we'll see moral philosophy again)
    • For now, think of ethics and determining right from wrong
  • Earlier, Aphrodite ruled and all was peaceful
  • Later, strife led to blood sacrifices, conflict, and meat eating (do you think about the cow?)
  • Tried to reconcile Milesian and Eleatic approaches
• Anaxagoras (p. 69)
  • From Ionia (modern Turkey)
  • First philosopher to live in Athens, Pericles (see below) was his student
  • "Everything in everything" (ratio of elements was the key)
  • Introduced Mind into his cosmology
    • a substance
    • but not in everything
    • set matter in motion, created earth, moon
    • explained stars, eclipses
  • Materialistic explanations, but:
    • earth was flat, motionless, and suspended by air
  • Banished from Athens for not believing in the gods (This will be a recurring theme.)
  • Tried to walk the tightrope between the Milesians and Parmenides
• Democritus (p.70)
  • From Thrace and student of Leucippus
  • They created atomic theory
    • atoms were invisible and eternal
    • atoms were unlike modern idea
    • atoms varied in size, had hooks to form compounds
    • atoms in constant motion; repelled and attracted each other
    • empty space needed for atoms to move around
    • atoms created the visible world
  • Perception
    • Eidola-ribbons of atoms (responsible for perception)
    • their action was lawful
    • but, perception could be inaccurate
  • Early anthropology
    • No Golden Age (idea many early Greek philosophers held, Eden is a Christian example)
    • Progressive account of human history (e.g., a kind of anthropology)

SOPHISM (p. 72)

• Sophism represented a switch to new style of philosophy based upon arguing successfully. Greek democracy required citizens to defend themselves from lawsuits. Thus, citizens needed to communicate their cases successfully.
  • Protagoras (p. 72)
    • Rhetoric
      • Necessary because there were no lawyers
      • Protagoras and others taught rhetoric
      • Plato and Aristotle condemned that practice
    • Stickler for precise use of language
      • "Man is the measure of all things."
    • Relativism
      • "I'm hot." "I'm cold..."
        • This is the psychology of individual differences, you and I might be in the same 68 degree room and one of us might think the room hot and the other think the room cold
      • Threat to Eleatic philosophy
        • Language became the goal of philosophy not the pursuit of truth
    • Skeptical
      • About the gods themselves
    • Philosophy retreated from its search for truth
• IDEA: relativism-truths or moral values depend on how individuals or cultures view them or upon differences imposed by situations
• Gorgias (p. 73)
  • From Sicily
  • Ambassador to Athens
  • Excellent orator, could win from Pro or Con side
    • e.g., Helen of Troy (who Greeks blamed for Trojan War)
      • He could convince you that Helen was guilty or innocent of starting the Trojan War
    • Flowery speeches
  • Parodied Parmenides
    • to refute him
    • to promote Nihilism
  • Changed course of philosophy
    • away from search for universal truths
    • toward the study of humans and their words
    • Plato and dialogue Gorgias
      • Plato so disliked Gorgias and his methods that he wrote a dialogue, Gorgias, depicting an imaginary conversation between Gorgias and Socrates. In that dialogue, Plato overstated his case against Gorgias’s rhetorical methods (Woodruff, 1999).
• IDEA: nihilism-the belief that nothing that exists can be known or communicated.
  • BTW, if you are a nihilist, then drop your courses and leave college because you believe that both are worthless.
• PERICLES AND THE GOLDEN AGE (p. 73)
  • Historical high point of Athens (448 to 429 BCE)
  • Persian Wars
    • Important point in world history
    • Saved Greek civilization
  • The Assembly
    • All adult males (up to 5,000 at once)
  • Boule 500 who set agenda
  • Juries from 101 to 1,001 citizens, verdicts final, but...
  • Role of women
    • Excluded from public life (Aspasia, Pericles mistress, was an exception)
    • could control but no sell property
    • ride "Greek style"
      • On our honeymoon in 1988 we visited an old friend in Vermont. Jim's heritage is Greek. We decided to tour some of the covered bridges in the area. Jim asked if we wanted to ride "Greek style." We asked what that meant and he said, "men in the front and women in the back." We declined and rode "American style" instead.
  • Slaves
    • Common and affordable, so most Athenians owned at least one
    • Had no rights
    • Could be used for: sex, beaten, or killed
  • Metics
    • Metics were people who lived in Athens but who were not citizens
    • Metics were excluded from public life (Aristotle was a metic)
  • Peloponnesian War vs Sparta (431 to 404 BCE)
    • Loss by Athens ended the Golden Age
  • Athens's Decline
    • Bad times for Athens
    • "may you live in interesting times" is a Chinese curse
    • Socrates condemned to death (see below)
    • Plato leaves public life (see below)
  • Alexander the Great
    • Macedonian
    • Unites Greece under Macedon by force of arms
    • Conquers "world"
    • Spreads Greek ideas widely (Hellenization)
  • Hellenization
    • Hellenization
      • Spread of Greek ideas
    • Cosmopolitanism: the view that all peoples in the world belong to a single community.
      • Magnolia vs New York City
        • Near the end of the 20th century I was in New York City interviewing for a two-year position at the American University of Cairo (where, btw, my parents met during World War II). While walking the streets near my hotel in Manhattan I heard a wide variety of languages just in the course of a few city blocks. Imagine hearing so many languages while walking around the Magnolia Square. So, hearing many languages in while walking a few blocks is one way to tell if you are in a cosmopolitan environment. BTW, I was offered the job but did not take it.
  • End of the Golden Age
    • Athens lost the Peloponnesian Wars
    • Democracy replaced by the Thirty Tyrants
    • Juries abolished
    • Only a few could bear arms
    • Tyrants deposed but Athenian freedom short lived
    • Phillip II of Macedon takes over and unifies Greece
      

GREEK PHILOSOPHY'S BIG THREE (p. 75)

• Socrates (p. 75)
  • Athenian
  • Stone mason (like his father), quit after marrying Xanthipe
  • Hoplite
    • Athenian foot soldier
    • Saved Alcebiades' life
  • Active in the Assembly
    • Celebrebity status (Aristophanes)
    • Saved by general amnesty
    • Accused of "impiety" and corruption of Athenian youth (males)
  • Trial and execution
    • Chose to drink hemlock instead of asking for exile
      • David's Death of Socrates
    • Revealed to others the dangers of politics
    • Caused Plato to leave public life
  • Socratic Method
    • Series of questions (one-on-one)
    • Student gradually realize the truth
    • Used today in Law Schools (scene from The Paperchase) (another scene defines the Socratic Method)
  • Gadfly
    • Stinging Athenians
    • Breeding more gadflies (his students)
    • Think of John Lewis's "good trouble"
  • Sayings
    • Know thyself
    • An unexamined life is not worth living
    • If I know anything, it is that I know nothing
  • Philosophy
    • Human problems
      • virtue
        • What is virtue? Who has it?
      • self-examination (i.e., introspection)
        • Later we'll see that the first psychologists used introspection too
    • Against the Sophists
      • Against their relativism
    • Believed that Absolutes (e.g.,beauty, truth) exist
  • Other ancient schools of philosophy named him, not Plato, as their founder
• Plato (p. 77)

Whitehead (1978) probably overstated Plato’s eventual contribution to philosophy when he wrote (p. 39), “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”

• Early life: wrestler, poet, politician
• One of Socrates' pupils (one of his gadflies)
• Profoundly affected by Socrates' death
  • Fled Athens
• Founded the Academy (387 BCE to 529 CE, one way to define period before the Middle Ages)
• Dialogues (with Socrates as literary character)
  • Early dialogues were Socratic in content
  • Later dialogues reflect Plato's original thought
  • His dialogues, moreso than other ancient texts, have largely been preserved
• Oral tradition
  • In his dialogue, Phaedrus, Plato argues that words have pernicious effects on thought
    • "Writing, Phaedrus, has this strange quality, and is very like painting; for the creatures of painting stand like living beings, but if one asks them a question, they preserve a solemn silence. And so it is with written words; you might think they spoke as if they had intelligence, but if you question them, wishing to know about their sayings, they always say only one and the same thing. And every word, when once it is written, is bandied about, alike among those who understand and those who have no interest in it, and it knows not to whom to speak or not to speak; when ill-treated or unjustly reviled it always needs its father to help it; for it has no power to protect or help itself."
  • He and his students, likely, discussed the dialogues
• Philosophy
  • Search for absolute truths
    • Against the Sophists and their relativism
    • Truths lay in the mind
    • Philosophers should introspect to undertand and communicate those truhs
    • Spoiler Alert: That is not how Aristotle approached philosophy (see below)
  • The Forms
    • Goodness, Beauty, Equality, Unity, Sameness, Difference, Change, Changelessness
    • Goodness was the most important
    • Forms were ideal
      • That meant they only existed in the philosopher's mind
    • Allegory of the cave Video (from the Republic)
      • The prisoners are like ordinary people, they cannot perceive the forms that philosophers can "see" inside their minds
      • Notice how the old issue of the static vs dynamic universe made is made moot by Plato (e.g., Milesians vs Eleatics)
      • It also answered the relativist objections of Sophists (e.g., forms such as beauty did exist, but not in the real world)
        • So for most the shadows were the real world because, not being philosophers, they could not introspect to see the ideal forms
        • The allegory is a analogy of real world vs ideal world (but not for Plato and others like him)
  • Knowledge already exists (e.g., The Meno)
    • By engaging a slave in a Socratic dialogue Plato demonstrated that the slave's knowledge of Pythagorean Theorem was innate
    • Socrates' method brought it out (in other words, the knowledge was already there; Plato revealed it)
  • Plato expanded the reach of philosophy to include:
    • metaphysics (the study of first principles, in other words the most basic questions of all)
    • epistemology (how do we know things, today we depend more on science to answer such questions)
    • political theory
    • language
    • art
    • mathematics
    • science
    • religion

IDEA: idealism-the belief that reality exists within an abstract and non-physical realm accessible only through introspective analysis.

• Souls:
  • Pythagorean concept
  • Plato divided the soul into three parts:
    • rational
      • truths of philosophy
      • most important part
    • appetitive
      • searching and satisfying motivation (hunger, thirst...)
      • sometimes the appetitive could overwhelm the rational
        • Langewiesche-Sahara, thirst in three part article worth your read
        • in Part III he writes about a family stuck in the Sahara:
          • "After the radiator coolant was gone, the Belgians started sipping gasoline. You would too. Call it petroposia: Saharans have recommended it to me as a way of staying off battery acid. The woman wrote that it seemed to help. They drank their urine. She reported [in a posthumous note] that it was difficult at first, but that afterward it wasn't so bad."
      • all of this to say that you can become so thirsty that you will drink liquids you know you should not drink. Or, Platonically, your appetitive soul has overcome your rational soul
    • passionate
      • emotional behaviors-love, rage
      • can also override rational part
        • crime of passion or murder 2
        • working to better the world, not to make money
    • Social behavior-philosopher kings (The Republic)
      • "Unless either philosophers become kings in their countries or those who are now called kings and rulers come to be sufficiently inspired with a genuine desire for wisdom; unless, that is to say, political power and philosophy meet together, while the many natures who now go their several ways in the one or the other direction are forcibly debarred from doing so, there can be no rest from trouble, for states, nor yet as I believe for all mankind."
      • Political Scientist?
        • Totalitarian
    • Spoiler alert: Aristotle has a different view (see below)
    • Religion
      • Early Christianity deeply influenced by Plato: Neo-Platonism (see chapter 4)
    • Plato transformed philosophy into its modern form
• Aristotle (p. 80)
  • Plato's most famous student
  • Macedonian (metic)
  • Biologist
    • Classified animals and plants (and see Border with Biology, below)
  • The Lyceum
    • Founded his own school after not being named head of Plato's Academy
    • The University of Mississippi named it's first building their Lyceum
      • Ole Miss first building historical marker
  • Aristotle's Lyceum more like a modern university than Plato's Academy
    • Wider range of subjects and more in depth
  • Writings may be his lecture notes (terse)
    • Aristotle's surviving documents are not as detailed as Plato's
      • Presumably his more detailed writings have been lost
  • First Library
    • Unlike Plato, Aristotle's Lyceum had a library
    • After Aristotle died his library was lost for 200 years
  • Aristotle's goal was to understand nature first
    • School of Athens (detail) Raphael
    • Note the symbolism of Aristotle pointing down and Plato pointing up
  • Experience combined with intellect was key
    • Ideal cat existed, but no one could imagine it
    • Instead, the concept of "cat" develops with experience (i.e., induction)
      • Cats
        • once you see a few thousand you know what a cat should look like
          • induction
          • interestingly, modern machine learning is similar
            • Video: teaching a computer to recognize difference between a cat and a cat carrying prey.
  • Knowledge: Productive, and Theoretical (e.g., politics, arts, psychology)
    • Practical
      • Ethics and politics
        • true happiness was the guide
      • Moral behavior was learned
        • happiness came from moderation
    • Productive
      • Arts (in Poetics)
        • Drama, poetry, painting sculpture
        • All were better when closer to reality
          • Aristotle would not approve of modern art, most likely
    • Theoretical
      • Biology
      • Psychology
        • De Anima covered: (anima is Latin for "soul" or "mind")
          • memory
          • learning
          • sleep and dreams
          • sensation and perception
          • motivation
          • only humans possessed rational thought, he wrote
      • Physics
        • Lasted into the 17th century
        • Church codified it
        • Problems (none of these are true)
          • earth center of universe

    

    • heavy objects fall faster
    • arrows travel in straight lines
    • Spoiler alert: the church burns Bruno and condemns Galileo for going against Aristotle's physics
    • Metaphysics
      • Definition:
        • "after" physics on bookshelf (where name comes from, should be before)
        • science of first principles
        • theology
          • good example of metaphysics
        • investigation into substance
        • being qua being (see video)
          • What is existence? What, other than ourselves, also exists?
          • What is the relationship between existence and change? How can they be reconciled?
          • Can we understand the universe?
          • What does it mean to be a human? (human qua human)
      • Categories
        • substance
        • quality
        • quantity
        • relation
        • place
        • time
        • position
        • state
        • action
        • affection
        • Aristotle’s ten categories were also metaphysical, meaning they could be used to describe anything. Those categories were: substance, quality, quantity, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and affection.
        • Read this sentence: “One (quantity) real (substance), white (quality), horse was standing behind another grey horse (relation), in the barn (place), yesterday (time), near the trough (position), saddled (state), drinking water (action), and enjoying it (affection).”
    • Analysis of Greek constitutions and styles of government (unlike Plato's approach and see: Border with Social Science)

Border with Social Science (p. 82)

• Aristotle on Politics
• Aristotle and Plato differed on the nature of the ideal form of government.
• In place of Plato’s single totalitarian republic, Aristotle described of six types of governments: monarchies, aristocracies, constitutional republics, democracies, oligarchies, and tyrannies.
• He thought that constitutional republics were the best possible form of government.
• Again, the two philosophers differed on how to approach knowledge. Plato conceived of his ideal state by looking inside his own mind whereas Aristotle and his students analyzed of 158 Grecian constitutions (only the Athenian one is known); they collected data. thus they were empiricists, early political scientists.

Border with Biology (p. 82)

• The Founding of Biology
  • About 25% of Aristotle’s known works deal with biological topics.
  • Aristotle wrote a number of works dealing with animals including History of Animals, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals.
  • His biological writings were highly cross-referenced.
  • Unlike Plato and Socrates, Aristotle believed that studying animals and plants systematically was an important part in the quest for knowledge.
  • After his death, the study of biology lost most of its early momentum and was not regained until the 16th century (Lennox, 2006).
  • Albert the Great revived the study of the natural world (see chapter 4) and biology progressed quickly from then on.
  • Paradoxically, much of that progress in biology only occurred after biologists corrected long-standing and deeply seated misconceptions about nature inherited from Aristotle and other ancient sources.

• Categorization (he loved it)
  • Cause and Effect
    • Material causes (the BRONZE statue)
    • Formal causes (the skill of the sculptor in forming the bronze into a statue)
    • Efficient causes (HOW the bronze was actually made into a statue)
    • Final causes (the GOAL, the statue itself)
  • Teleology-explaining something by appealing to its final use as the reason for its creation
    • This equipment was made to teach you the history of psychology. True or False?
    • Look, it is teaching you the history of psychology; that proves the point.
    • WRONG. There was an efficient cause at work here. Profit.
    • Science denies final causes and promotes efficient causes.
  • Logic
    • Inductive
      • The sun will rise tomorrow. (Because it rose yesterday, the day before, and the day before that...
      • Only ONE contradiction renders induction as false
    • Deductive
      • Aristotle's singular contribution
      • Syllogisms
        • Major premise (All men are mortal.)
        • Minor premise (Socrates is a man.)
        • Conclusion (Socrates is mortal.)
    • Video on the difference of the two types
  • Unmoved Mover-Aristotle's physics required an entity which was constant
  • Not an experimenter (experiments come later in history)
    • Cannot call him a psychologist because of his methodology
    • Final causes, too, is a big problem

CYNICS (p. 86)

• Cynics (word comes from Greek for "dog")
  • Dogs have no shame, they eat and defecate in public
  • Owes debt to Sophism
    • Question authority
  • Pursuit of virtue
  • Indifference to popular opinion
  • Simple, austere life
  • Living in harmony with nature
  • Avoid wealth, fame, and power
  • Counterexample to others (e.g., money does not buy happiness)
  • Requires a society willing to tolerate such a lifestyle
    • Cynicism could not exist in a dictorship or repressive society
  • IDEA: asceticism-the pursuit of a life of personal denial and personal austerity.
  • Antisthenes (p. 86)
    • Student Gorgias and Socrates
    • One of those present when Socrates drank hemlock
    • Pursuit of virtue
    • Street, cloak, wallet, and staff
      • That combination became the Cynic's uniform
    • Against Plato's ideas (horsehood)
      • he could understand what a horse was but could not understand "horsehood"
  • Diogenes of Sinope (p. 87)
    • Walking the streets of Athens with a lamp looking for an honest person
    • Lived in a barrel with minimal possessions
      • argued that humans had lost sight of nature
      • claimed to be happy despite his asceticism (or maybe because of it)
    • Declared himself a cosmopolitan (refused Athenian citizenship!)
    • Defining characteristics (Branham & Goulet-Gazé, 1996)
      • nature is an ethical model for human behavior,
      • Greek society’s fundamental values are false,
      • happiness comes from ascetism,
      • freedom and self-sufficiency are life’s paramount values,
      • and real freedom only comes from questioning the status quo.
        • Alexander and Diogenes
          • Their exchange:
            • According to Diogenes Laertius in his life of Diogenes (at 6.60), Alexander stood over the philosopher and said, “I am Alexander the great king.” To which Diogenes responded, “I am Diogenes the dog.” When Alexander asked what he had done to be called a dog, he said, “I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.”
          • Later, Alexander asked what he could do for him and Diogenes asked him to move because he was blocking the sun
        • Disagreed with Plato's forms, cup but not "cupness" and table but not "tableness"
          • He disagreed with the Academy's definition of man (featherless biped)
            • they changed it to "featherless biped with fingernails"
        • Archetypal Cynic, widely admired, inspired others to adtopt Cynicism
        • Corinth honored him with a monument (pillar topped by a dog's head)
        • Diogenes(Video)
  • Crates (p. 88)
    • Wealthy but disposed himself his wealth
    • May have been Diogenes' student
      • Became a Cynic
      • Adopted Cynic lifestyle and props (cloak, wallet, staff)
    • Athenians listened to his counsel
    • Zeno of Citium (founder of Stoicism, and see below) was his student
    • Late in life he married Hipparchia
  • Hipparchia (p. 88)
    • Met Crates via her brother Metrocles
    • Fell in love with Crates and married him
      • Her parents disapproved
        • they relented after she threatened suicide
      • Marriage rare among Cynics
        • Hipparchia pushed the Greek social envelope
          • she wore the Cynic's uniform
          • ate with her husband in public (see below)
          • made love in public
        • Rare woman philosopher
          • Argued philosophy with men
    • Lived the Cynic life
    • There were other female philosophers (but lost to history)

STOICS: (Video) dominant philosophy of ancient world (p. 89)

• Grew out from Cynicism
• More acceptable than Cynicism
• Spoke from Stoa at the marketplace
  • that's where the word "stoic" originated
• Involved the gods (they interacted with humans)
• Believed in a rational universe
• Zeno of Citium was first Stoic
• But, embraced the world (unlike the Cynics)
• Dominant philosophy of the Roman Empire
• What most consider paganism to be
• Everything happened for a reason (even if reason could not be found)
• stoical : "enduring pain and hardship without showing one's feelings or complaining." (Oxford)

IDEA: paganism-originally a Latin term for country dweller (paganus), it eventually denoted those opposed to Christianity, and later to Islam. Here, it is used as a catchall phrase for classic Greek philosophy or for polytheism.

• Zeno of Citium: video (p. 89)
  • Shipwrecked
  • Studied with Crates, Polemo, and Stilpo
  • Started Stoicism on the stoa
  • Ethics, physics, and logic are the three parts of Stoicism
  • Pleasure not equal to happiness
  • The gods interacted with humans and their affairs
  • Well trained stoic sages could trust their senses
  • Cleanthes' cyclical model of universe eventually rejected and Aristotle's adopted
    • in other words, no cyclical destruction of world by fire
  • Respected as founder
• Chrysippus (p. 90)
  • Came to Athens from Crete
  • Studied under Cleanthes and later became head of Stoics after Cleanthes' death
  • His writings defined Stoicism
    • Prolific writer but nothing he wrote survives
  • Propositional logic
    • Major advance in logic
    • Propositions are irreducible statements
      • Biden is the 46th president
      • 3 x 7 = 21
    • Use: and, or, if...then
      • Modern logic uses (computers too)
        • To enroll in this course:
          • you must be a major AND have taken PSYC 2003
          • you must be a major OR have taken PSYC 2003
          • See the difference?
  • Avoid determinism by forcing assent
    • Determinism means that the past fixes the future (bad for philosophy)
    • Chrysippus made humans assent to their fates
    • Fate involved
      • Cleanthes' dog
        • A dog tied to a cart. Once the cart began to move the dog, too, had to move either by walking or being dragged. The dog was fated to move, but could choose how deal with fate
        • Try thinking of a similar example
      • Fate could not cause events
      • But, humans could accept or even love their fates
        • Amor fati: Video
          • So, here you are having to learn the @#%& in this course. You could say, "I hate this" or you could say "This is inevitable, I should embrace it." In other words, it's your fate, take hold of it.

IDEA: determinism-the belief that all present or future events are consequences of past events.

• Stoicism was fully fleshed out by Cicero, Epictecus, Lucretius, and Marcus Aurelius.
• Stoicism was more acceptable to the general public than was Cynicism
• Stoics embraced the world while at the same time accepting fate
• No idea of charity or change
• PAGANISM or the philosophy against which Christianity would fight (Py

• 1998 Novel by Tom Wolfe uses Stoicism as a plot device. Renewed interest in that philosophy.
  • Tom Wolfe’s novel, Man in Full (1998), featured Epictetus’s Stoicism and led to a revival of that ancient philosophy with increased book sales of ancient Stoic authors and to people admiring Epictetus’ advice for living (New York Times, 1999).
    • The main character, Conrad Hensley, loses his job, his wife, and ends up in prison.
    • Wolfe characterizes those as fate.
    • In jail, fate intervenes again when he receives, by mistake, a copy of Epictecus’s Meditations.
    • Later, freed by an earthquake (fate again), he begins new life in Atlanta as a practical nurse to a down and out, severely depressed, and suicidal real estate mogul.
    • Henley teaches him that that wealth is not the measure of a man and that virtue is its own reward.

Skeptics (p. 92)

• Response against Stoicism
• Skeptics did not share Stoic's confidence in accepting sensory information
  • Vivid events such as dreams and hallucinations were problematic
• Two main Skeptic Schools
  • Pyrrhonistsm (Pyrrho) and Academics (philosophers at Plato's Academy)
• Were anti-dogmatic

IDEA-dogmatism-excessively positive belief in the truth of one's convictions.

• Pyrrho: video (p. 92)
  • Admired for his lifestyle
  • Visited India (met "naked wise men")
    • Introduced the quadrilemma to Greece from India
      • Quadrilemmas, unlike dilemmas, offer four potential choices instead of two and were commonly used in India to discuss metaphysical issues
      • Did not gain wide acceptatance
  • His philosophy did not take off until 200 years after his death
  • Against dogmatism
• dogmatism excessively positive belief in the truth of one’s convictions
• Believed other philosophies were too willing to accept explanations of natural phenomena
• Their constant arguing was evidence, he said
• People should remain calm:
  • Once caught in a storm at sea, he soothed his fellow passengers by pointing out how a pig on board was calmly eating
• Against Stoicism
  • Philosophers should suspend belief
  • Philosophers should continue to investigate and not come to premature conclusions
  • Philosophers should continue to investigate life
• Not skeptical about everyday phenomena
  • Typical attack by others agains Skepticism: disbelieve perception, not true
• Philosophy should pursue a tranquil life
  • Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times." What's the blessing?
    • "May you live in dull times." Does not describe 2020, does it?

EPICUREANS (Video, p. 93)

• Now for something completely different
• Atomists
• Materialists
• Sought tranquility (ataraxia)
• Retreat from world
  • Monasticism will be similar in Christian Era
• Allowed women and slaves to participate
• Did not believe in afterlife
  • Posited a soul atom
  • But souls did not survive even though their atoms did (recycled)
• "epicurean" now means seeker of pleasure (especially culinary) and avoider of pain

IDEA: Hedonism-the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

• Garden at Samos
• Sensation and Perception (must be analyzed)
  • Trusted sensations
  • Must interpret perceptionss
  • The Tower example (p. 94)
    • "Percepts awaiting verification"
    • There, Strodach's (1963) Roman had to change his perception of what he though was a tower. When the mists cleared and he walked closer he changed his perception, he was looking at the pier of ruined aqueduct.

• Here's another example (above) of "percept awaiting verification." I was driving on US 371 one night and found myself behind a truck (a). My first thought was, "What an unusual rear door that truck has." Soon, I was able to pass the truck and saw that my original perception was wrong (b). The flatbed trailer had a tower on it. Can you see how I had to correct and verify my original perception?
• The Swerve
• Needed to explain chance and unexpected events
• The atoms "swerved" randomly and changed reality
• Thus, unpredictable outcomes sometimes happened.
  • LSU vs Florida 2020 interception
    • the swerve definitely at work there!
• Retreated from Athenian life and ideals
• Fame, power, and money were dangerous and should be avoided
• The gods existed but did not care to interact with humans
• Later Christian writers vilified Epicurus and followers (godless libertines)
• Epicurus and Skinner (Neuringer & Englert, 2017)
  • “Both considered human beings to be part of the natural world and both attempted to specify the natural laws relating individuals to their environments. Their common quest was to figure out (and teach) people how to live happy and successful lives.”

SUMMARY (p. 95)

• Philosophy flourished in ancient Greece. The earliest philosophers, the Milesians, attempted to explain the workings of the natural world.
• Following them, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus wrestled with fundamental questions about the soul, gods, and relativism.
• The Eleatics, led by Parmenides, sought to place philosophy outside of the vagaries of observational data. Thus, they created a system that emphasized constancy and changelessness. Zeno of Elea wrote about paradoxes that arose between ideal thought and reality.
• Later philosophers attempted to reconcile the physical with the ideal, especially with regard to the four elements.
• Democritus anticipated modern science when he proposed his version of atomism. Following them came sophists and nihilists. The former emphasized language and rhetoric while the latter saw philosophy as a waste of time.
  
• All of the philosophies that followed shared a concern over attaining happiness and living a virtuous life, albeit differently. After Socrates, all philosophies sought to explain happiness in absolute terms rather than in relative ones.
• Socrates explicitly linked happiness and virtue.
• Plato, too, was deeply troubled by the moral relativism of the Sophists, disagreeing with their “might is right” point of view. Happiness must be a product of reason, he maintained.
• For Aristotle, teaching and learning were paramount in achieving happiness and virtue; neither came naturally to society. He believed philosophers had to serve as role models and demonstrate that living an ethical life and striving for moderation in all things was best.
  
• The Cynics had much in common with Socrates; they believed that society spent far too much time in the pursuit of power, wealth, and fame. They literally took their protests to the streets by living unconventionally and arguing that they were happier and more virtuous in their poverty and shamelessness than the public at large was with their riches and conventionality. They voluntarily disposed of their possessions and shunned luxury.
• The Stoics were nowhere near as willing to sacrifice the comforts of civilization. They believed that the world was a lawful place, even if only very few could comprehend its laws. For them, the best approach to living happily was to accept things as they were. Whatever happened did so for a reason, to accept their fates, and to live a life of moderation.
  
• The Skeptics had a very different approach to the attainment of happiness. They were unwilling to accept sensory data at face value. Plus, the inability of other philosophies to agree on the simplest of matters convinced them that such arguments were fruitless and a waste of time. They believed the search for happiness and virtue was still ongoing and until that search was complete, tranquility was the key to happiness.
  
• The Epicureans were very different in many respects from their contemporaries. They retreated from the world, refusing to participate in politics and the pursuit of wealth and power. For them happiness was the absence of pain, and the best way to achieve that was to exile themselves to Epicurus’s Garden.
  
• The big picture is complicated by the conflict between the secular Greek philosophies and the faith-based doctrines of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam covered in the next chapter. Also, events such as the closing of Plato’s Academy, the fall of the Roman Empire, and the Europe’s descent into the Medieval period. That, compounded by the temporary “loss” of Greek works for nearly 1,000 years eventually led to compromises between philosophy and faith followed, in Europe at least, by a very gradual movement to separate an emerging new philosophy from Christian and Islamic teachings.

GLOSSARY

cosmopolitanism: the view that all peoples in the world belong to a single community.
Hellenization: the spread of Greek ideas about the structure and origin of the natural world and the search for lawful causation within it.
animism: the belief that physical objects are alive or they contain some type of life force.
materialism: the belief that everything in the universe must consist of matter, including minds and mental states.
rationalism: the universe, including physical events, can only be explained through the action of human thought.
relativism: the belief that no universal values exist and that instead values vary by individuals, groups, or historical era.
nihilism: the belief that nothing that exists can be known or communicated.
idealism: the belief that reality lies within an abstract and nonphysical realm accessible only through introspective analysis.
teleology: explaining something by appealing to its final use as the reason for its creation.
asceticism: the pursuit of a life of self-denial and personal austerity.
determinism: the belief that all present or future events are the consequence of past events.
dogmatism: excessively positive belief in the truth of one’s convictions.
hedonism: the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

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