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Greek Philosophy
What is Philosophy?
• “love of wisdom”
• Study of the fundamental nature of knowledge,
reality and existence
• Greeks invented philosophy as a formal, systemic
way of thinking
• Before, all attributed to the gods
• Greeks didn’t turn to their dieties to explain the
origin of everything. STILL HAD RELIGION
3 Big Questions
• What is the world made of? (now,
natural science)
• How can we know? (epistemology)
• What should we do? How should we
behave? (morals)
Wisdom vs. Knowledge
• Wisdom = a way of thinking (“wise
person”)
• Knowledge = the accumulation of
information
• Greeks built into Western civilization a
tradition of CRITIQUE
PreSocratic Greeks
• Materialists - explained all natural phenomena
in terms of one or more of the earth’s elements
(water, earth, air and fire)
• Thales – first Western philosopher
• Water alone, not the gods, responsible for all
changes in nature
• First time attributed events to nature, not gods
• Thales started Greek free discussion of ideas in
public areas such as the agora, no longer limited
to an educated elite or the priests.
• Pythagoras
- Universe is harmonious
- All things can be placed in sequence,
ordered and counted.
- Discovered musical scale’s numerical
ratio of frequencies (octaves)
- Pythagorean theorem in geometry:
ratio of sides of a right triangle
• Protagoras – Sophist who taught reasoning
to wealthy families
- “Man is the measure of all things.”
- people see themselves as the standard of
beauty, or judge other things in relation to
themselves
- “sophists” = skilled debaters can defeat
rational arguments – PLATO DISAGREED,
SAYING THERE IS OBJECTIVE REALITY
The Big Three
• Socrates, his pupil Plato and then Aristotle
• Socrates
- wrote nothing
- executed for corrupting the youth
- “Socratic Dialogue” - way of questioning to
show that he and others didn’t really know
anything
• Plato
- dedicated his life to defending his master’s
teachings
- What is the nature of knowledge & what
means do we have of obtaining it?
- What is morality & the best way to live?
- Used dialogues, like Socrates
- Allegory or Myth of the Cave: we see only
copies of reality
Philosopher outside Cave in Sunlight
• “shoes”
- What is a shoe?
- “shoe-ness”
• What is love?
- I love my children.
- football, a juicy hamburger, studying
Greek philosophy, justice
- Are these all the same?
• Aristotle
- based his ideas on close observation
and thought, not on pure thought
- a rival school of philosophy to Plato
- no “shoe-ness” for Aristotle, just
concrete actual shoes that you could
see and touch.
• Happiness is ultimate goal of human life.
• Humans are political as well as rational
beings.
• A political community is essential for a fully
human life and happiness.
Legacy
• Aristotle is a philosophical basis for
Christian theology.
• Thomas Aquinas based much of his
doctrine on Aristotle – remains offiical
philosophical poistion of Roman
Catholic Church
Raphael “The School of Athens”
• Plato points up, the mind
• Aristotle points down and out: reality is
here, among us, not in the mind
• Basis of Western intellectual tradition
• Video