Greek Philosophy: An Introduction Lecturer: Wu Shiyu Website Timeline Greek Philosophy (585 B.C.-323 B.C.) ?? Timeline Greek Philosophy (585 B.C.-323 B.C.) Myth (poetry) Story telling CHAOS (Nothingness) Minoan civilization( BC) Mycenacan civilization( BC) The Dark Age ( BC) Greek Archaic Age( BC) ( Renaissance ) Greek Golden Age( BC (Golden Age) Homeric Age Creation of Myths Greek Philosophy Course Overview Three questions: What are we going to study? Why should we study ancient Greek philosophy? How will we study it? Subject Matter Four periods Greek Philosophy (585 B.C.-322 B.C.) Pre-Socrates Thales (585 B.C.) Socrates ( B.C.) Plato ( B.C.) Aristotle (384322B.C.) Anaximander Anaximenes Xenophanes Pythagoras Heraclitus ( B.C.) Parmenides ( B.C.) 2. Subject Matter (Question 1) Four distinctive periods: The Pre-Socratics: Thales of M (585 B.C.) Socrates: 469399 BC. Plato: 429347BC. Aristotle: 384322BC. The earliest period of western philosophy. 3. Why Study? (Question 2) (1) Monumental influences Plato, Aristotle, subsequent western philosophy PlatoAristotle (2) Philosophically interesting, provocative, valuable. 4. Interesting, Provocative, Valuable Philosophy=love (philia) of wisdom (sophia) ? 5. What is wisdom? The Ability to answer fundamental or the perennial questions. Examples Question 1: Is anything stable and in our experience, is there anything permanent, or is reality always changing? Or is everything in flux? Is it flowing? Examples Question 2: Are human beings capable of understanding reality as it is in itself? Or is reality always seen from a human perspective, which distorts it? Must reality remain a mystery? Examples Questions 3: Are ethical values, values like justice and courage, relative or are they absolute? (Relativist and Absolutist: stealing) Examples Question 4: What sort of political community is most just? What about democracy?democracy Along with the question of democracy come two other questions basic in western tradition: the question of freedom and question of equality. 1. Is it freedom the highest value? We often associate freedom with democracy. 2. Are all human beings to be counted as equal? Question 5: What is the proper and best relationship that a human being can take to the natural world? Man is the measure of all things. -----Protagoras (Greek sophist) 6. (Question 3) Approached dialectically. They engage in a dialogue.dialogue These thinkers acknowledge and are dependent on their predecessors, but criticize and move beyond them. 7. ( P Terms) Being (arch ): The principle (origin) of all things The origin of all things in becoming Becoming one and many Logos ( ) Logos: A rational explanation. (Heraclitus) Suffix of many English wordsmany English words Pre-Socrates: Quest for Being (the arch) and Becoming Pre-Socrates The Milesian School Thales ( B.C.), Anaximander ( B.C.), and Anaximenes ( B.C. ). Began their quest for being (the arch): How the world is originated? Look for a unifying element What is there behind all the constant change? Come up with their own theory. Thales ( ) Date: B.C. from Miletus; The founder of philosophy The first to give logos of nature (Aristotle). Water is the arch. Water is what is unchanging in a world of changing Thales ( B.C.) One of the Seven Wise Men One of the Seven Wise Men ( B.C.) Thales of Miletus ( B.C.) Thales of Miletus Empiricist Relies on experience of the world in order to gain knowledge. Rationalist: Relies on pure reason alone in order to achieve knowledge Anaximander Anaximander ( ) ( B.C.) Anaximander ( ) Student of Thales ( B.C.) Agreed with Thales: The world has an origin (arch). Disagreed: The arch is not in ordinary, limited, determinate substance like water. The arch: The indefinite, to apeiron. To apeiron : The indefinite, or the indeterminate. Anaximander Anaximenes( ) Anaximenes( ) Anaximenes( ) Anaximenes: Student of Anaximander, Agreed: There is a rational arch of the world There was a problem with Thales view. Disagreed: No different from Hesiod CHAOS. The arch was air. With air, Anaximenes attempted to solve the problem of Being and Becoming, of the One and the Many. Summary Spirit of free inquiry, challenge the traditional and established ideas, and also present their own. Using his reasoning capacity, senses, mind. The battle that Plato 200 years later would describe as the old battle between philosophy and poetry. ( ) A kind of crisis has been developing in the sixth century, in the ancient Greek philosophy: The Relationship between Being and Becoming.. Two of the greatest and most radical solutions to the problem of Being and Becoming: Parmenides Heraclitus and Parmenides Heraclitus Heraclitus and Parmenides Heraclitus and Parmenides Two of the greatest and most radical solutions to the problem of Being and Becoming. Heraclitus: The Obscure ( B.C.) Heraclitus: The Obscure ( B.C.) 1. Heraclitus: The Obscure In Ephesus, near Miletus ( B.C.)Ephesus Some 100 fragments or aphorisms Lonely life he led The riddling nature of his philosophy Contempt for humankind Heraclitus ( B.C.) ?? 2. Heraclitus Writing Heraclitus writes: short, aphoristic saying.(?) A short saying: provoke thought You cant step into the same river twice. His favorite image: river River stands for becoming (reality itself) Flowing, in constant motion As we step into it, it changes 3. Heraclitus Logos Everything flows" Change being central to the universe. Then: If nothing stable, how possible to give a logos? Heraclitus: The Logos is common. What sort of logos could this possibly be? 4. More fragments "The road up and the road down, are one and the same. The same thing is both living and dead. "Changing, it rests. S is both p and not p. Heraclitus contradicts himself. Sounds irrational. This is his strength, not a weakness. Rational and expressive. Nothing stable, permanent, endures; Everything flows Then: Everything in a process of moving from P to Not P Take the river as an example. We step and we do not step into the same rivers. The river is both it and is not itself. 5. A Relativist If nothing is permanent, then nothing is absolute. Values would also be in flux (Stealing). The sea is purest and most polluted water. Pigs rejoice in mud more than pure water; Asses would choose rubbish rather gold. The sense of relativism. 6. Milesian or Anti-Milesian? The cosmos was always and is and shall be an ever living fire. War is the father of all and the king of all. A lifetime is a child playing, the kingdom belogs to A child. Fire, war, and Play have in common (?) 7. Influences of Heraclitus The real power of Heraclitus logos: It is a logos which: contradicts itself, moves, plays. The German philosopher: Nietzsche The German thinker: Martin Heidegger 20th century thinkers. Nietzsche: courage and honesty face reality Christianity God escapism Naming Language The name misleading Why his language short. (language misleading) Conclusion: The Weeping Philosopher "Among the wise, instead of anger, Heraclitus was overtaken by tears, Democritus by laughter." Heraclitus: eliminate being Being and Becoming Reactions to Heraclitus Now anyone confronting Heraclitus have two reactions: (1) beautifully expressive and compelling, (2)wait! A philosopher shouldn't speak this way. a philosopher shouldn't contradict himself. This stuff of Heraclitus is merely a pure nonsense. The latter is Parmenides. Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor Questions to Consider 1. What do you make of Heraclituss way of writing? Are his paradoxical statements offensive to you, or do you find them intellectually attractive? 2. Of all Heraclituss fragments, which do you find to be most expressive of his philosophical position? Questions to discuss arch 1. Do you think that the world has an arch ? If so, does it seem more plausible to you that it is determinate or indeterminate? arch? 2. What might be some contemprary candidates for the arch? 3. The contemporary world is often described as the age of the computer. Are we living in Pythagorean times? 4. Do you think there are aspects of life that cannot be reduced to numbers? What might these be? Biology=a logos of life; Biology=a logos of life; Psychology= the logos of the soul or mind Psychology= the logos of the soul or mind The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. ---Alfred North Whitehead He was simply known as the philosopher. His writings became the organizing principle of European universities, and they still shape these institution today. Tell me these things, Olympian Muses, From the beginning, and tell which of them came first. In the beginning there was only Chaos, But then Gaia, the Earth, came into being, . Hesiods Theogony Rule by opinion (doxa) Not rule by wisdom Perverted form of government (Plato) Democracy allows for philosophy (criticism of democracy itself) Dialectic from the Greek dialegesthai, to converse. Look in the eye and communicate spoon-feeding teaching method, dialogue -- questions and answers In the give and take of conversationconversation Of those who first pursued philosophy, the majority believed that the only principles of all things are principles in the forms of matter. For that out of which all existing things are composed and that out of which they originally come into being, that into which they finally perish, the substance persisting, but changing in all of its attributes. Quoting from Aristotle Thank You!