History / Evolution of Civilization
10-GREEK PHILOSOPHY
Prof.Dr. Halit Hami ÖZ
Kafkas Üniversitesi/Kafkas University
Kars,Turkey
hamioz@yahoo.com
GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Now many would say "Philosophy? What use is
that? It leads to nothing but confusion."

The Greeks themselves didn't always trust philosophy.

They ended up putting to death one of the most
important philosophers, Socrates--forcing him to
drink hemlock.

And if you can understand why they did this--well,
you are well on your way toward understanding what
philosophy is and why it is important.
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GREEK PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is important in part because it lies at the heart of all other
academic disciplines.

The world "philosophy" itself comes from Greek words which mean love
of wisdom.Your professors, for the most part, are all Ph.D.'s: doctors of
philosophy. Why are chemists, sociologists, biologists, psychologists, and
historians Ph.D.'s?

Well, hopefully it's because they are lovers of wisdom. But also, the Ph.D.
designation is a recognition of the fact that, at the basis of each academic
field, there are certain philosophical questions, and that any true "expert"
in that field has to have a mastery of the philosophical basis of that field.

The Greeks themselves divided philosophy up into three major areas of
concern: ontology, epistemology, and ethics.

Every academic discipline looks deeply at one or more of these areas.
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Major divisions of philsophy: ontology, epistemology, ethics

"Ontology" comes from the Greek word
"ontos," being.

Questions about "what is" and how "what is"
came into existence in the first place are
ontological questions.

The physical sciences in particularly are all
investigations into ontology and ontological
questions, but ontology deals with questions
also in the realm of metaphysics, questions
that move beyond just the physical world.
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Major divisions of philsophy: ontology, epistemology, ethics

"Epistemology" deals with the nature of knowledge.

How can we know for certain the things we claim to know?

How do we go about acquiring knowlege/certainty?

All academic disciplines rest on an epistemology particular
to that discipline.

The various scientific methods, the historical method, the
methods of the social scientists, etc. are all based on an
epistemology appropriate to that particular field
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Major divisions of philsophy: ontology, epistemology, ethics

Ethical questions deal with the proper relationship of human beings one to another--areas
obviously core to the study of humanities and the social sciences.

But aren't these religious questions?

Of course they are, and for much of the earliest phase of human history, religious answers
sufficed.

The various cultures had their religious/mythological explanations for the world and for
our place it in.

But just as the people of ancient Israel began breaking away from the old mythological
explanations of the world around us, many of the Greeks, too, began to find the old
mythological explanations insufficient.

Particularly this was true for the Greeks of Ionia, the islands and city-states on the west
coast of present day Turkey.
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The birth of philsophy: Thales and the Pre-Socratic philosphers

Because of extensive involvement in trade, the Greeks of Ionia
came into contact with all sorts of non-Greek peoples--people
who had never heard of the traditional Greek gods.

This cast doubt on the traditional Greek mythological picture of
the world.

To be sure, the Greeks could simply assume that the non-Greeks
believed in the same gods they did, but called them by different
names.

However, the myths of the Greeks just weren't easily compatible
with the myths of many of those they met.

This seems to have been what set them to looking for nonmythological explanations, and toward the first real philosophy.
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The birth of philsophy: Thales and the Pre-Socratic philosphers

The first of the Greek philosophers was Thales of Miletus (c. 600 BC).

According to Aristotle, Thales said that water was the source of all things.

Obviously, this was a step toward answering fundamental ontolgoical
questions:

Where do all things come from?

What are things made of?

Thales begins, not with myths, but with an analysis of what the Greeks
called "physis," nature--the physical world.

Thales is in a sense then our first physicist--and, with the birth of
philosophy, we have, immediately, the birth of another important academic
discipline, physics.
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The birth of philsophy: Thales and the Pre-Socratic philosphers

Later Greek philosophers found Thales answer less than completely satisfactory.

One speculated that air, not water, was the source of all things.

Another said earth was the source of all things. Another, fire. By the time of Aristotle, the
Greeks seemed to have settled on the idea that there was not just one, but four different
fundamental constituents of the universe: earth, air, fire, and water, the four elements.

Now notice that, while today we list more than 100 elements on the periodic table, the
Greeks had started us in the right direction more than 2000 years ago.
At the same time, one of the Greeks, a man named Democritus, came up with the idea
that there was something even more fundamental than the elements: invisible, indivsable
particles that he called "atoms" (from the Greek "a," not, and "tome," cut = uncuttable).
While today physicists posit particles even more fundamental than what we call atoms
(what they call quarks), note that Democritus still has come up with an idea fundamental
to physics and to a discipline that wouldn't really get started until the 18th century AD-chemistry.


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The birth of philsophy: Thales and the Pre-Socratic philosphers

The early Greek philosphers also investigated
another important ontological question: the nature of
change--coming up with two very different theories.

One philosopher, Parmenides, said that *nothing*
changed.

While things appeared to change, change involved
logical contradictions and had to be an illusion.

He and his followers investigated all sorts of
paradoxes of motion including what's called Zeno's
paradox (nicely summarized here.)
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The birth of philsophy: Thales and the Pre-Socratic philosphers
Another philospher, Heraclitus, dealt with change very differently.
 Heraclitus said *everything* changed constantly: you can't step into the
same river twice. But this souldn't worry us.


Hot things cool off, cold things warm up, etc. As things change, they are
moving toward a natural balance: "things find repose in change," said
Heraclitus: obviously, taking an approach very much like that of the Taoists.


But notice that we are running into a potential problem here.
While philosophers like Heraclitus and Parmenides were asking good
questions, philosophy wasn't yet leading to solid, universally agreed upon
answers.

And, for a time, the influential teachers of the Greek intellectual elite
began moving away from true philsophy toward what we call Sophism.
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Sophism

The Sophists were professional teachers who claimed to be able to
teach their students the art of persuasion: essentially, how to win
frends and influence people.

The parents of well-born young men, or the young men themselves
(particularly in Athens), were willing to pay high sums for what
promised to be a very valuable skill.

While the term "Sophist" comes from the same root (sophia) as
philosophy, the sophists weren't interested in truth: they didn't
exactly believe in truth.

"Man is the measure of all things," said one famous Sophist. Truth is
relative--whatever you can persuade others to believe, well, that's
the truth--until they are persuaded to believe something else
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Sophism

Now one ought to be getting a sense of de ja vu here because the modern academic
world has drifted toward sophism once again.

Once again, we've got paid teachers, not searching for truth, but training students how to
win friends and influence people--how to get a better career.

It's a rare student (and a rare professor) who sees college as a place to search for truth.

Now, of course, career preparation is well and good: but when accompanied by the notion
that truth and morality are relative--changing according to the winds of popular opinion-the underlying foundation of academic study is in real trouble.

And had the sophistic attitude remained unchallenged in Greece, Greek progress in
philosophy would have come to a screeching halt.
The man who, more than any other, prevented the complete triumph of the Sophist
understanding of the world and "saved" philosophy, was Socrates.

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Socrates

Socrates in commonly considered one of the greatest teachers who ever
lived--the greatest, of course, being Jesus of Nazareth.

But while commonly regarded as a great teacher, Socrates never wrote a
book or published an article.

He never had a paid teaching position.

He never took a dime for his teacing.

And, if he were brought back to life today, he couldn't get a job teaching at
Harvard, Stanford, or NSU.

He lacked the appropriate certification!

There is certainly something wrong with a system that would hire Art
Marmorstein and not Socrates or Jesus!
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Socrates

Socrates was important for lots of different things. First of
all, he was important for his method, a method we call
"dialectic" (through words, dialogue) or "elenchus"
refutation.

Essentially, Socrates would ask for a definition of an
important idea (bravery, beauty, piety, justice, etc.).

He would then ask questions that would show weaknesses in
the definition.

Then there would be a new definition, and, again, a series of
questions showing why that definition would show up.

The result of all this is sometimes frustrating.
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Socrates

Now, at first it might seem that Socrates is moving in the Sophist direction: there is no
truth.

But what's really happening here is that Socrates insists that there are two kinds of
truths.

Some can be learned easily, just by definition.

When did Constantinople fall to the Turks? 1453. An easy enough thing to learn. But
other truths don't work this way.

One cannot learn what justice is just by having a definition.

And the same things goes for any of the "higher" truths.

But by looking at things from one perspective, and then another, and then another, one
gradually gets a better and better understanding of what that thing is all about.
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Socrates

Socrates was also important for his answer to the "right makes right"
philosophy that had begun to dominate Athens and went hand in hand with
the Sophist world view.

Socrates explains that, whenever we harm another human being, we put a
blot on our soul.

Now the Greek word we translate as "soul" is "psyche," a word we also
translate as "mind."

When one harms another person, violating what we call the Golden Rule,
one is violating, not just a moral principle, but a logical principle as well.

And what this means is, that, when we harm another, we end up not being
able to think clearly anymore, and, especially, we don't think clearly in that
area in which we have done the harm.
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Socrates

Take, for instance, that lowest of all types of human being, the seducer, the
kind of man who gets a woman in bed by telling her he loves her when all
he really wants is a night's fun.

One thinks that it is the woman who is hurt most in such a situation.

But, Socrates would argue, the man has hurt himself even more.

He has put a blot on his soul, that is, on his mind. He will not be able to
think clearly--and, particlarly, he will not be able to think clearly about the
relationship between men and women.

And he will end up...well, he'll end up as people always do when they insist
that black is white, night is day, evil is good: making self-destructive
mistake after mistake--and, really, no true human being at all.
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Socrates

Socrates is also important for his personal example.

Put on trial for corrupting the youth and for
blaspheming the traditional gods, Socrates uses his
defense, not to try to escape punishment, but as an
opportunity to teach.

He accepts an unjust death sentence rather than
compromise the truth in any way.

Some Christians would later see in Socrates a
"Christian before Christ," and his example was
important to some of the early martyrs.
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Socrates

The mark of a truly great teacher is not so
much what they can achieve themselves, as
what they inspire their students to create,
and in this area, Socrates must rank among
the greatest teachers of all time.

He had many fine students like Xenophon,
one of the finest of Greek writers [though
he also had students like Alcibiades and
Critias, important figures in Greek history,
but not nearly such a credit to their
teacher!].
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Plato

Of all Socrates' students, the most famous a man by the name of Plato. Well, actually, he
wasn't named Plato: that's just what we call him.

Plato is a nickname, probably having nothing to do with philosophy.

In his younger days, Plato was a wrestler--and built like a wrestler--bulging muscles
everywhere, with particularly broad shoulders.

It was this wrestler's build that gave him his nickname, "Plato," a Greek word probably
best translated as "hunk" or "hulk."

Not the kind of thing you usually associate with a philosopher, perhaps.

Nevertheless, Plato was not only a philosopher, but perhaps the greatest of all
philosophers.

One modern philosopher said that all subsequent philosophy was nothing more than
footnotes to Plato! Among Plato's contributions are the following:
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Plato

1. Preserving the teaching of Socrates. While we have other sources for
Socrates (particularly Xenophon's Memorabilia and Apology) most of what
we know about Socrates we get from plato.

2. Carrying Socrates teachings ethical teachings much farther.

While Socrates was concerned with individual morality, Plato explores the
broader question of what constitutes a just society.

One sees this most clearly in Plato's Republic, a dialogue exploring the
question, "What is justice?"

The Republic is the first great political utopia, a work describing an
imaginary ideal society.

It is a book frequently assigned in political philosophy classes, and
extremely important as a foundational work of political science.
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Plato

3. Carrying further Socrates religious ideas.

While Socrates emphasized an inner divine voice as an important guide to conduct, Plato
suggests that we also ought to conduct ourselves rightly because, in the end, there will be
a day of judgment.

Not only that, we ought to concentrate, not primarily on this physical world, but on the
"real" world: the real world being the world of the mind/soul.

The physical world is transient and changing: the real world is the world of eternal and
unchanging ideas (sometimes called forms).

Even more important is the cource of these ideas/forms: the form of the infinite, i.e., God.

Note how similar some of this is to Christian teachings. Plato's ideas in some ways
provided a philsophical background very conducive to the spread of Christianity four
centuries later.
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Plato

4. Plato's other important contribution:

the establishing of a school, the Academy,
a school witch attracted and inspired the
best minds from Greek speaking world
for nearly 1000 years.

Among those who studied at the
academy, a philsopher every bit as
influential as Plato himself, Aristotle.
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ARISTOTLE

Aristotle left his mark on virtually every field of
thought: biology, political science, physics, literary
criticism, etc.

Aristotle was so impressive that, in later centuries
people were reluctant to challenge his teachings, and,
eventually this led to some stagnation--but this hardly
Aristotle's fault!

Behind Aristotle's great achievements was an
immensely attractive and consistent philophy, derived
partly from the teachings of Socrates and Plato, but
with a far greater emphasis on the material world and
life in the material world.
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ARISTOTLE

Aristotle believed that the hunger for knowledge was perhaps the
greatest of all motivating forces, "All men by nature desire
knowledge."

Lots of teachers wouldn't agree.


Would we do without eyes?
Without ears?
Without taste?
Touch?

These are important to us because they give us knowledge.

Further, said Aristotle, our whole purpose in life is to acquire
knowledge. How did he come to this conclusion?


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ARISTOTLE

All things, said Aristotle, have a "telos," and end or purpose.

Often, one can tell what that purpose is by looking at that
makes that thing unique.

Human beings are unique in our ability to reasons, and so,
said Aristotle, that must be our purpose.

Aristotle himself was certainly hungry for knowlege about all
sorts of things.

He was the great collector and classifier of antiquity, typically
approaching a subject by gathering as much information as he
could and then classifying and analyzing that information.
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ARISTOTLE

His "Poetics" collects various forms of
literature: epic poetry, tragedy, and comedy.

He describes the basic characteristics of
each genre--and paves the way for literary
critics for the next 24 centuries!

In botany and zoology likewise he leaves a
lasting mark by collecting and analyzing all
the plant and animal specimens he can find.
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ARISTOTLE

In political science, he concentrates, not on an
imaginary society, but on real societies, looking at
the way government is structured in Athens,
Thebes, Sparta, Corinth, etch.

He classifies this different types of governement
and the potential strengths and weaknesses of
each.

His "Politics" is, like Plato's "Republic," one of the
foundational works of political science, a book
that has lasting influence today.
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ARISTOTLE

Aristotle eventually broke away from the Academy and established
his own school (the Lyceum).

For almost 1000 years, this school would be a rival to the Academy
in attracting great minds from all over the Greek-speaking world.

for the Greek philosophers the most important aspect of
philosophy was the practical, how we should live our day to day
lives, and above all, how we can be happy. Aristotle no exception.

His philosophy stressed moderation: "The Golden Mean is
best." "Nothing to excess."

Now this moderation wasn't exactly like what we typically think of
as moderation today. Probably the best way to think of this is as
self control.
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ARISTOTLE

Aristotle's philosophy was pretty allencompassing.

It had a lot to say about ontological questions like
the nature of this world and things in it, but
plenty of advice for leading a happy life as well.

But happiness is elusive, particularly in hard times,
and, as times got progressively tough in the
Greek-speaking world, later Greek philosophers
developed some philosophical ideas particularly
suited to hard-times: that is, to most times in
human history! One such: Diogenes.
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DIOGENES

Diogenes was an advocate of a philosophy
called Cynicism. Cynic comes from kunos,
the Greek word for dog.

You want to be happy?

Look at dogs.

Dogs are happy--and if you want to be happy,
you should live like a dog.
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DIOGENES

1. Dogs don't worry about material possessions: they're right!

Diogenes practiced what he preached.

He had only a pouch, a cup, and a staff.

One day he saw a boy cupping his hands to drink water. Diogenes
shouted out, "Fool!"

Who was the fool? He was! He didn't need the cup--and so he
threw it away.

2. Dogs don't worry about mortgages. Diogenes himself llived in
public buildings and slept in tub--pretty much living the lifestyle
many of our homeless do today.
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DIOGENES

3. Dogs don't worry about their dignity.

Throw a scrap of food on the ground, they'll go for it. Food's food!

Diogenes would hang around rich men's banquet tables, begging for
food like a dog.

The rich men had great fun treating him like a dog.

Cute, they though, until he acted like a dog in one more way....lifing
up his robe and spraying the assembled banqueters when he felt
the need to relieve himself.

Why? Because....
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DIOGENES

4. Dogs don't worry about other dogs dignity either.

When Philip of Macedom came to Athens, he came across the very odd-looking Diogenes
and asked, "Who are you?"

"A spy on your greed," said Diogenes.

Later, Alexander deliberately sought out Diogenes to ask if there was anything he could do
for him.

Diogenes said, "As a matter of fact, yes.You can move aside.You are standing between me
and the sun, and I like the sun's rays on my arms."

Alexander said, "Don't you fear me?"

Diogenes asked, "Are you a good force or an evil force?'" Alexander replied, " A good
force." "Who fears what;'s good," said Diogenes. Alexander was impressed. "If I were
not Alexander, I would be Diogenes."
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DIOGENES

5. Dogs can take disappointment.

If you kick a dog, it yelps then comes right back
with a stupid grin.

Diogenes said we too would be happier if we
learned how to bear up under disappointments.

His friends one day found him begging at a statue
of Zeus. "What are you doing?" they asked.

"Getting used to disappointment."
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DIOGENES

6. Dogs don't expect too much. We use the word "cynic" today for someone who takes
a dim view of their fellow men. Diogenes was a cynic in this sense as well.

He once lit a lantern in broad daylight, and went through the streetes of Athens obviously
looking for something. What?

"An honest man," said Diogenes. What he's actually looking for here is a true man: a man
worthy of being called a man. Plenty of males, perhaps: but no true men. Why?

Because people don't work at it. People work hard to be good athletes, said Diogenes,
but no one works hard at becoming a good man.

Further, people don't care about what's really important. One day no one was listening to
what Diogenes was saying. He started whistling and attracted a fairly large crowd: and
then he launched into a diatribe against them, lambasting them for paying no attention to
him when he was talking about important things, and paying lots of attention to his
absolutely worthless whistling.
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DIOGENES

Now you would think Athenians would hate Diogenes more than
they hate Socrates. Not so!

They were proud of their dog-philospher. When vandals broke his
tub, the people of Athens took up a collection--and bought him a
new tub!

Why did Diogenes get away with his criticisms?

Partly, it's because Diogenes diffused some of the harsh things he
had to say with humor.

One example. He saw a prostitute's son throwing rocks at crowd.
Instead of yelling at the boy, he took him asside and simply
said, "Careful, son. Don't hit your father." Then there's my
favorite Diogenes line:
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DIOGENES

Asked why people give money to beggars but not to
philosophers, Diogenes said,

"People are afraid they might become beggars some
day, but nobody is afraid they might become a
philosopher!"

Diogenes philosophy the kind of thing that can help
you bear up under even the most difficult
circumstances.

But the Greeks had even better philosophies for
helping people cope with difficult times.
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STOICS (founded by Zeno, c. 314--not to be confused with
Zeno of Elea above. This is Zeno of Citium)

The Stoics believed that the universe went through alternate cycles of
creations and destruction, and that all things repeated themselves.

Our actions were not one-time affairs, but had echos through eternity.

As a result, it was important to get things right.

The Stoics emphasized high ethical standards, and the idea that we ought
to treat all mankind as brothers.

These ideas, like those of Plato, helped prepare the way for the very similar
teachings of Christianity, and they were important in the multi-cultural
society developing as a result of the conquests of Alexander the Great.
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STOICS

The Stoics were strong believers in fate: that all things were following a predetermined
pattern.

Since external events are beyond our control, what we must do in order to by happy is
simply adjust our attitudes toward those external events.

The trick to life is not to get what you want, but to learn to want what you get.

The ultimate goal: to face exteral events with "apatheia" (a=no, pathos=feeling). No
matter what evil comes your way, learn to bear up.

We still talk about a person who can bear pain and suffering as Stoical. Mr. Spock and the
Vulcans, would be idea Stoics.

But perhaps the best comparison is with the Buddhists who adopted a very similar
philsophy.

Also into the culivation of apatheia, the Epicureans.
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
y121.htm
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EPICUREANS (Founded by Epicurus 342-270)

Epicurus taught that one key to a happy life was
to eliminate negative emotions, particularly one of
the worst negatives, fear.

Fear is exceedingly unpleasant, and learning to live
a life without fear is important.

So start with what is for many the greatest fear of
all: death.

If you can handle that, you can handle anything.
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
y121.htm
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EPICUREANS

Epicurus had a clever way for handling the fear of death.

He returned to Democritus' idea of atoms.

All there is, said Epicurus, is atoms and void.

When you are born, your atoms come together. When you
die, your atoms come apart. What's the big deal?

Further, you won't even know it when you're dead. You
won't be there anymore.

A typical Epicurean epitaph: "I was not, I was, I am not. I
don't care."
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
y121.htm
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EPICUREANS

So, if we don't have to worry about what comes after death, we can
concentrate on the here and now.

So what do we with our lives?

We should seek pleasure, which Epicurus considered greatest
good.

But while seeking pleasure, we also need to avoid pain.

The problem is, that most pleasures involve some pain, maybe even
quite a bit of pain.

And so the Epicureans launched a quest for the pleasure without
pain. What might it be?
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
y121.htm
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EPICUREANS

Drinking? Hardly. There may be some pleasure to it, but then
there's the horrible hangover in the morning and the conseuqences
of all the stupid things you might have done while drunk.

That can't be the pleasure we're seeking. Too much pain.

Food? Well, that's more promising, but eating too has it's price.

Indigestion from overeating.

Too many excess pounds if you make a pig of yourself too often.

No, the table has its pleasures, but that's still not the pleasure we
are seeking.
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
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EPICUREANS

Sex? No--that doesn't work either. The relationship issues are way too complicated and
way too potentially painful for this to be the pleasure without pain we are seeking.

So can one find any pleasure without pain? Yes!!! The Epicureans found one!!! What is
it?

The pleasure of learning!

The pleasure your wonderful professors provide for you day after day! You can learn and
learn and learn and learn--lots of pleasure, and no pain.

As you read this, I am giving you what Epicurus said is the greatest of pleasures.

And if you're not getting that--well, at least you're getting an ideal chance to practice that
Stoic philosophy--learning to bear up even under the most difficult of circumstances.
http://www3.northern.edu/marmorsa/histor
y121.htm
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