Lecture 1 – Introduction
Lecture 2 – The Miletian Philosophers
Lecture 3 – Ionian-Italian Migrant Philosophers
Lecture 4 – The Italian Philosophers
Lecture 5 – The Revival of Natural Philosophy
Lecture 6 – Italian Philosophers (continued)
Lecture 7 – Athenian Philosophies – Socrates
Lecture 8 – Socrates and Apology
Lecture 9 – The Athenian Philosophers
Lecture 10 – Plato
Lecture 11 – Aristotles Ethics
Lecture 12 – Aristotles Physics and Psychology
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE ANCIENT CLASSICAL PERIOD (600 B.C.-600 A.D.)
under revision during Fall, 1999 © by Eiichi Shimomissé
PART I (CLASSICAL GREEK PHILOSOPHY)
INTRODUCTION
Where does the necessity lie for the philosophers to inquire history?
Is there such a “thing” as history? If it does, then,
“What is history anyway?”
What kind of meaning does history have for us to do philosophy?
Is there one single history of humankind or are there as many histories as the “historians” who “tell” the “stories that reveals facts themselves happened in the past”?
Is a Universal History of the entire humankind possible? Or can there be only as many histories of people as there are races and/or nations?
Are there real events in the past called “historical events” which are indeed accessible to us as reality or mere information (sometimes vicarious)?
In the latter cases, are we simply capable of making mere happy guesses about them rather than have any knowledge of a historical event?
Is the history nothing but a narration of a historian by means of his creative imagination?
Let us answer first of all the question of why we have needs to inquire the history of philosophy. Before we study the History of Greek Philosophy, we may have to investigate and possibly answer those basic questions in philosophy of history. However, on the other hand, we are not able to make inquiries into those questions without our actually doing historical research by ourselves. In other words, we truly attain an understanding of the Philosophy of History by making an inquiry into the history of philosophy. Here we are involved in a apparent vicious circle. In a sense, this may be what Hegel wanted to contend when he wrote the philosophy of history.
Often we talk about history as if it were a series of “events” that happened in the past. Needless to say, it is of cardinal importance to ascertain the date of an “historical” event and truthfully describe it, as we can infer with certainty how it must have happened and what were causes for the event and what kind of effects it left in the succeeding period. Needless to say, this alone, of course, does not constitute history as a scientific discipline. But, then, what distinguishes one past event as historical from the other non-historical event, both of which did happen in the past? For mere events that happened in the past do not qualify as historical events. The fact that Socrates, for instance, got up at 8.30 am on July 3, 543 B.C. could be a real event which indeed happened, but in itself it does not belong to history. as the event indeed is a portion of the “past reality,” and yet it is not “important” enough to be viewed as “historical”. Then, what would constitute this “historical importance?” History indeed presupposes that there are narrators and listeners and that narrators tell some knowledge of importance and relevance to listerners.
For example, following the tradition, we start the History of Greek Philosophy with Thales from Miletus. Why do we have to begin with Thales? Before we argue about the legitimacy of this convention, we have to comprehend why and how this traditional convention was established.
It has been the tradition in Western philosophy that we begin the history of Western philosophy with Thales of Miletus, in Ionia in Asia Minor, probably because, besides Thales’ being called one of the Seven Wise men (Sophistai), Aristotle considered Thales as the founder of Greek philosophy and started the historical account of Greek philosophy with Thales in his Metaphysics. We are well aware that Thales was born in Miletus and was called one of the Seven Wisest Men (ha sophistai) in ancient Greece together with Solon, who, founding the Athenian Constitution, probably deserves the name of the greatest Athenian politician besides Pericles, and others. We know also that Thales excelled in mathematics and astronomy, and predicted a total solar eclipse which was visible in Asia Minor.
Needless to say, before Thales, there must have been others who predicted many solar eclipses and they likely lived in Persia (Asia Minor, Egypt and the other Middle East). However, according to the documents preserved in Western Civilization, no one mentioned nor remembered who predicted a solar eclipse prior to Thales. Or very likely we may have lost the record of such names when the then greatest library in Alexandria was destroyed, or even we have not discovered a tablet about it in the Ancient Babylonian Culture.
Fortunately Aristotle’s Metaphysics has survived, thanks to the Arabic Aristotelian scholars of the Middle Ages, and from the other historical documents together with the current astronomical knowledge, we are able to logically conclude that Thales did indeed predict a solar eclipse which occurred in Asia Minor near Miletus.
It must be called to your attention that, although we shall elaborate on it more, when we later discussed how to ascertain the date of the solar eclipse supposedly predicted by Thales, the fact of his prediction itself was of no historical importance. This bears a significance as long as Thales is considered the Father of the History of Western Philosophy in order to establish the date of his life and activities.
Then we must ask ourselves what makes Thales the father of the History of Greek Philosophy?
To be sure, Aristotle stated it. But there must be some good reasons for his calling Thales the Father of Greek Philosophy. Thales was supposed to be the first to inquire into the principle of all beings in nature and among the natural substances such as the Greek four traditional elements (water, fire, earth and air).
First of all, Thales was supposed to be the first human-being (at least in the West) who did pursue knowledge for its own sake, and not for its usefulness for something else such as for making money or for winning a fight or battle or for obtaining fame, although according to his anecdote, Thales was well aware that he could make money with his wisdom. Why it is so important to pursue the intrinsic knowledge is to be more fully discussed. Thales did search knowledge solely for the sake of the pure joy of pursuit of knowledge of its own.
For Aristotle, this is understood naturalistically in that Thales as well as all humans are born with the capacity and tendency to pursue knowledge. Needless to say, however, this does not have to be naturalistically justified. Thales did search knowledge solely for the sake of the pure joy of pursuit of knowledge of its own. For Aristotle, this is understood naturalistically in that Thales as well as all humans are born with the capacity and tendency to pursue knowledge. Needless to say, this does not have to be naturalistically justified.
Secondly, Thales was supposed to be the first human who “wondered” why being exists and nonbeing does not.
Thirdly, Thales searched the principle (hé arché) of all beings, which is to be distinguished from the (temporal) origin (hé arché) of all beings (the universe – ho kosmos). This principle from which all beings come into existence and to which all beings perish is beyond time, thus the change in all things is now understood as the perpetual cycle between the principle and all things.
As a questioning search, philosophy has been characterized as the inquiry into knowledge for its own sake. Aristotle defined this also as the essential characteristic of philosophy. (The theology of Middle Ages made philosophy ancilla theologiae=the-maid-for-theology, philosophy was the mother of all sciences and still is. This must be also elaborated later in an appropriate context.) And since then, we have followed Aristotle’s way of construing what constitutes philosophy.
Is this somewhat arbitrary? Probably “yes” in the sense that Aristotle accidentally formulated the basic notion of what philosophy should be. However, some one else who might come after him could have conceived of philosophy otherwise, but no one did until 15th Century in Europe. Despite the absence of the awareness of his philosophy for almost two thousand years in the Western world, meantime the Arabs had been fascinated with Aristotle’s philosophy and copied his works, translated them into Arabic, studied them, and wrote commentaries on them.
On the other hand, it is not arbitrary, because all of the post-Aristotelian scholars decided to believe that Aristotle legitimately chose and correctly made Thales the Father of the History of Greek Philosophy, and in consequence, we have never raised a doubt about it, nor seriously questioned it nor denied it, but rather gladly accepted the Aristotelian characterization of the nature of philosophy and of science in general.
Thus, between Thales and Aristotle, all “historical phenomena” which cannot be “squeezed” into the above characteristics of philosophy have not been considered as parts of the History of Greek Philosophy for a long time. Later we shall have an opportunity to focus our attention on this question and thematically deal with it such a way that we will attempt to reinterpret the history of Greek Philosophy, which will differ greatly from the traditional history of Greek Philosophy. (To elaborate further)
The Characteristics of Our Approach to History of Philosophy
History is not a mere “enumerative” narration and description of a series of events that are supposed to have happened. Nor it is a product of our free imagination about the things of the past either. Unlike the majority of past historians, we defy the narrow conception of history as it has been predominantly construed as political history. The division of historical period is thus in general not determined by means of the alteration of the political leadership, for example. For each domain of historical reality has its own rhythm of development and its own value and principle of the division of the periods Needless to say, there are exceptions to this general rule. For example, through Alexander the Great, the Hellenic Greek culture came to its end and the Hellenistic, new cultures began, as the basis of the former, the polis (h polis‹the city state‹), was destroyed by his campaign.).
Instead of the division of period according to Political History, we must search for other criterion for this task of the historian. Is there any universal criterion which “determines” (covers) the entire history of a certain culture including such phases as its history of fine arts, that of music, that of decorative arts, that of architecture? Approach without preconceived ideas to historical “facts” themselves is not only possible, but must be there. It is a principle by means of which we can talk about birth, adolescence, peak, decline. We must be able to discern qualitative variety and variations through a certain period. If it is possible to do so, then it must also possible to distinguish one “style” from a new “style” which descriptively reveal the end of one period and the beginning of the next.
There must always be a theme, a value or significance or a style (e.g., in the case of the history of arts , of music, of architecture,or of fashion). Or if you want to, it may be called a logic, as Hegel preferred. What is important is not an event or an affair in isolation, but a development and alteration of a certain theme or value. A history must be, for instance, the history of a certain period, in which a particular theme or value was born, grew, attained its peak and decayed. Of course, this process of development of a certain period should not be strictly modeled after the pattern of a biological organism and its life. However, whenever we attempt to observe, there is the movement with alteration of a certain theme or significance or style in a historical sequence. History must not describe an event in isolation, but should be able to delineate a temporal change in the theme in a given period, whether it may be a very slow process or an abrupt occasion. The historical reality is also in a given temporal and spatial horizon and finds itself, so we assume, in continuity. Even if there seems to exist an abrupt discontinuity from a preceding period to the next, that abrupt change itself is in a relationship with many variables.
In the History of Greek Philosophy, too, we pursue a theme of the period, follow the development of questioning itself and try to comprehend, for example, why Aristotle exerted himself to philosophize the way he did in terms of the question, of the method and approach, of the dominant themes of his inquiry and of his philosophical answers to the questions Aristotle passionately raised for himself. It is not a book in isolation, not his “realism” in isolation, not his epistemology in solution, but Aristotle is an organic whole in the context of the historical reality with its perspective which he was alive and philosophized in.
The Division of the Periods in the History of Greek Philosophy
and The Philosophical Development in the Classical Period.
According to our tradition, we call the period of approximately 1000 years from 600 B.C. to 600 A.D. the Classical Period of the History of Western Philosophy. The specific date with which we begin our Greek History of Philosophy is the date Thales is supposed to have predicted the total solar eclipse which took place in Asia Minor at the midst of the battle between Media and Lydia, i.e., May 28, 585 B.C. This is the only date which we could rigorously ascertain about Thales. The basic features characterizing the Greek Philosophy in terms of the methods, of the attitude, the questions, and answers and the use of Hellenistic Greek as the language seems to have persisted until 529 A.D. when the Roman Emperor, Justinianus, forbade teaching philosophy at Academy in Athens, so Damascus and Simplicius and the other five philosophers are supposed to have fled to Persia, where they did not stay very long.
Needless to say, philosophy, love of wisdom, will never die out simply by legal order. Nevertheless, in the so-called Western world (which, due to the Euro-centrism, excludes the World of Arabic Civilizations) the political situations were such that the West Roman Empire was destroyed in 476 A.D. and that culturally the West went into the so-called “Dark Ages.” This requires a little elaboration, but in this context we merely state that the basic characteristics of philosophical inquiry seem to have been greatly altered around this period of time in the Western World. We merely mention that the philosophical research flourished in the Arabic cultural sphere, where the Classical Traditions were well inherited and preserved as well as developed further for a long period of time and gave birth to an original, new philosophico-religious tradition of its own.
This classical period between 585 B.C. and 529 A.D. is further subdivided into two portions by the year of Aristotle’s death in 322 B.C.
Why is Aristotle’s death so important? Roughly around that period, the Greek Civilization experienced an abrupt metamorphosis in its nature. As we know Aristotle tutored the young prince of Macedonia called Alexander and while Aristotle was the teacher and Alexander the Great was his student, they were contemporaries. We also are well aware that Alexander the Great changed the socio-cultural basis of the Greek civilization almost totally by unifying Greece, conquering the “world.” In other words, his political activities affected the Way of Life, not to mention the world view, of all Greeks including philosophy, religion, theatre, literature, fine arts and music, etc.
Prior to Alexander the Great’s establishment of the empire, every Greek’s way of life and his/her outlook on life was identified with that of her/his polis (city state) and his/her being and meaning of life was found in the identity of and rooted in that of her/his own polis.
The polis is the Greek name for a city state, which was the unit and basis of the socio-political as well as cultural and religious life in any of the Ancient civilizations whether it was middle East or Far East. To be human at that time, therefore, meant no more and no less than to be a citizen of that city state.
The Greeks used to call themselves either mortal humans (hoi anthropoi thnétoi) or free humans (hoi anthropoi eleutheroi). While being mortal is in distinction from the immortality of the Divine Beings and were constantly made aware of the finitude of their being, and being free means to be a citizen in opposition to being a slave (an exception will be a guest to the city state or an honorary citizen like the most prominent sophist, Protagoras in Athens).
To the Hellenic Greeks, thus, freedom had a very positive, was immediately felt quality. Since the polis, the city state, must have been so small that one should have an overview of the entire territory from the top of its acropolis, the fortress, every citizen knew every other citizen since his/her ancestors of many generations. In those Ancient Greek city states, political affairs, religious matters, and military duties and responsibilities, to the citizen of the polis, were not separate or were things to be kept separate, but they were one and the same. The activities involving them were both the privilege and responsibility for being a citizen, namely synonymous with a free human.
For example, for Aristotle or the earlier Greek philosophers, ethics is not an independent philosophical discipline like today to inquire into how a human as an individual ought to act and develop one’s desirable character. On the contrary, ethics was considered a branch of politics and it was the discipline to study the personal characters suitable to be a citizen of the polis.
Therefore, when Aristotle said that the human is a political animal (to zõn politikon), he meant that for us to be human above all we ought to be a citizen of a given polis.
Contrary to this Hellenic period of the classic Greek civilization, the Hellenistic period came after that as a consequence of Alexander the Great’s Panhellenization. The old Greek culture now spread all over the world and people accepted the Greek culture as the highest so that they were eager to imitate it.
The Greek language became the international language like today’s English. Of course, in its process, the classical Greek deteriorated into the so-called Hellenistic Greek through simplification in many aspects. Thus, New Testament was written in this Hellenistic Greek. A foreigner was able to converse with each other in this Hellenistic Greek in the domain of the Mediterranean.
The Greek arts, the Greek theatre, Greek philosophy were accepted all over as something to admire, something to learn, something to recreate, etc. In this way the diversification and popularization of the classic Greek arts and culture took place. This popularized phase of the culture is distinctly different from the primordial, pure stage of the culture. Phideus’ sculptures are distinctly different from e.g., Raocõn.
Even the so-called Graeco-Roman Age was politically controlled by the Romans and yet culturally, the Roman civilization may also be viewed as an extension of Hellenism. Indeed, even Caesar and Cleopatra spoke love in the Hellenistic Greek. This was the international, most civilized language of the time in the Mediterranean World.
Thus, the History of the Ancient Western Philosophy may be divided as followed:
1. 585 B.C.-322 B.C. The Classic Period
a. Ionian Philosophies
(Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes)
b. Ionian-Italian Migrant Philosophies
(Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heracleitus)
c. Italian Philosophies
(Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus)
d. Revival of the Natural Philosophies
(Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus-Democritus)
e. Athenian Philosophies
(The Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
2. 322 B.C.-529 A.D. The Period of Hellenism
a. Philosophies of Hellenism till 146 B.C.
b. Graeco-Roman Philosophies till 529 A.D.
The Etymological Exploration of Historia
In the common English usage, history means
1) a story of the things past,
2) a humanistic discipline inquiring into the things in the past and attempting to describe them as accurately as possible.
The word “history” originated from the Greek transitive verb historein and this primarily meant 1) to “learn by inquiry”, i.e., inquisitive learning. Although this meaning of history has been totally forgotten, it may be necessary to remind ourselves of this primary meaning of the term in order to pursue our historical study here.
Secondly, “history” meant not merely just 2) to “narrate”, but to “narrate what we learned by inquiry.”
Thirdly, “history” meant 3) to “narrate” a story or an epic tale.
Fourthly, 4) to “narrate the events of the past” or “the historical events.”
As obvious from the above, history is indeed an inquisitive pursuit of knowledge and not a kind of narration of the Homeric epic or the Hesiodic theogonia, which are retelling of what had been transmitted as “myth.”
If indeed history presupposes such a philosophical attitude of “questioning search”, it intends to learn the historical fact by inquiry and then to describe it in the context of a historical development in such a way that its significance shall be revealed and its meaning to us will be properly disclosed.
German has a linguistic distinction to characterize these two phases of a historical study. The fact that happened and its scientific ascertainment of its facticity is called die Geschichte, while its descriptive aspect is called die Historie, following the Greek tradition.
Let us see how this inquisitive learning in philosophy of the past will be pursued by means of a concrete example. Our first question is:
How can we ascertain such a historical event as a philosopher’s life and his thought, particularly in the case where we do not possess the so called “historical record”, i.e., the written data?
To increase and expand our knowledge what we normally do is to logically infer from what is known already that which is to be yet known, i.e., the unknown. There are manly different methods of inference using different rules and operations. Deduction and induction (an empirical generalization) are two representatives of such.
The propositions about the known, i.e, about what is already known (as being true), is called the premiss(es), whereas the proposition of the unknown, i.e., of what is yet to be known or proven to be true, is called the conclusion. The process of inference (which is not psychological, but purely logical) is called an argument in logic. And an argument is said to be valid, unless the true premiss(es) implies(y) the false conclusion. Needless to say, one of the most important tasks of logic is to investigate and establish the method of ascertaining the validity of an argument.
Today, it is rather easy to find out my birth date and place for example, while it may not be so easy to do so, say, even for Socrates. Thus for the History of Greek Philosophy, it is very important to identify even one possible date about the philosophers we deal with, particularly about those philosophers who are called the pre-Socratic philosophers. Because we are very much interested in finding out how certain thought of a philosopher may influence some other philosophers, it is essential to ascertain at least the relative dates among those philosophers.
As an example the following process of the historical investigation will illuminate how historians of Greek Philosophy arrived at the date of Thales, i.e., 585 B.C.
Herodotus mentioned in his Historia, Book 1, 74,
Suddenly a total solar eclipse took place in the midst of the battle between Lydia and Media. Thales of Miletus had predicted that that solar eclipse would occur at that time and at that place.
Today on the basis of the current astronomical knowledge we can calculate the dates of the total solar eclipses which could be seen in the backcountry of Asia Minor where that battle took place. They were:
September 30, 610 B.C.
June 21, 597 B.C.
May 28, 585 B.C.
Thus, it seems certain that one of these three was the eclipse that Thales predicted.
In his Historia naturalis Plinius referred to Thales and stated,
…it was the fourth year during the 48th panathénaia (the Greek year which refers to the four year period between the Olympic Games).
We also know from our other historical investigations that the first Olympic Games took place in 776 B.C. Thus the 48th Olympic
Games took place approximately 588 B.C., for the Ancient Greek calendar started in July and ended in June.
On the basis of the above mentioned data, we are able to infer that the solar eclipse Thales had predicted occurred on May 28, 585 B.C. Since we have no knowledge of any other dates concerning Thales, we consider this as his “acmé” (the height of his activities, i.e., between 45-55 years of age).
THE MILETIAN PHILOSOPHERS
Thales (585 B.C.)
Anaximander (549 B.C.)
Anaximenes (546 B.C.)
Thales was considered as the founder of the Western philosophy. Those three philosophers not only came from the same city which is located in Asia Minor, but also they shared a common characteristic of searching the principle of the universe in Nature (in a material substance, i.e., one be an important exception (although it is possible that the direction in which Anaximander started philosophizing anticipated the later Greek philosophy). Particularly the relationship of Anaximander with his teacher, Thales, had a deciding influence in molding the Western philosophy in distinction from myth and mythology. This problem will be discussed the relationship between the attitude of Logos and that of Mythos.
Thales (585 B.C.)
Thales was known in his days and thereafter as one of the seven wisest men (‘oi sophistai = men of wisdom) of his days together with Solon, the great Athenian politician, who drafted the Constitution of Athens. The current meaning of “sophist” derived from Plato’s extensive use of the term, which is quite derragatory, as Plato considered his contemporary group of people calling themselves as “sophists” as first professional teachers of knowledge (in reality they did not recognize the existence of knowledge in general, but the mere rhetorical technique to make an argument to appear stronger, while it is invalid. Falsely Socrates was accused of being a sophist.)
According to Herodotus I 170 in Diels-Kranz, This philosopher from Miletus was a “Phoenician by ultimate descent…, although Herodotus implied further that almost all Miletians are racial mixtures of Greek and Carian. Further to see the elaborated by Diogenes Laertius I, 22.
Now Thales, as Herodotus and Douris and Democritus say, was the son of Examynes as father and Cleobuliné as mother, from the descendants of Theleus, who are Phoenician nobles from the line of Cadmus and Agenor… And he[Agenor] was enrolled as a citizen in Miletus when he came with Neileos, when the latter was exiled from Phoenicia.
However, it was generally contended by European classic philologists that Thales was a pure Greek.
Kirk and Raven, the translators of Diels Kranz, the Presocratic Philosophers for example, being Eurocentric and thus rather skeptical about the greater Egyptian heritages, only acknowledges possibly Thales’s visits to Egypt and do not see the undeniable significant cultural influences.
It was the custom to credit the sixth -century sages (notably, for example, Solon) with visits to Egypt, the traditional fountain-head of Greek science.Thales the earliest known Greek geometer had a special reason for being associated with the home of land (gh-)- measurement (metria‹gewmetrias ….however, that he spent a considerable time there is unique and not persuasive.
It is also interesting to note that of course, Homer’s reference to the Okeanos (Oceanus), which also seems to trace back to the Egyptian’s understanding of Nile (and possible Tigris Euphrates in Mesopotamia). Plutarch de Ls. et Osir. 34, 364D states, “They think that Homer also, like Thales, made water principle and birth of all things through learning from the Egyptians.” According to Herodotus II, 107, “It seems to me that geometry was discovered from this source (sc. Re measurement of holdings after the Nile’s flood) and so came to Greece.”
Thus, Thales’ visit to Egypt, whether once or many times, while his stay was longer or shorter, must be fact and to not acknowledge of the Persian and Egyptian influences is self-deceptive. Astronomy, Geometry, technical knowledge in civil engineering (e.g., Thales was supposed to divert a portion of a river such that the original flow became shallower for the military to cross it.) and even this thought about water as the principle and genesis of the universe.
Thus, perhaps not all of Thales’ knowledge and learning were obviously of purely Greek origins although his “wisdom” in approach could very well be his own. In fact it is more natural and correct to consider that Thales’ major portion of learning and profound knowledge must derive from Egypt, Persia, the Babylonian-Mesopotamian heritages, which had been of a much higher civilization at that time.
In order to understand, we may have to remind ourselves of the regularity of historical development between two distinct cultures.
Culture always flows from the higher to the lower just like water. This can be easily comprehended if we ask ourselves why the historical development of the Greek civilization started with Asia Minor’s Greek colonies rather than anywhere else. They are neighbors west to Persia whose cultural origins went back to the Babylonian Mesopotamian civilizations. The naive ethno centric contention that everything important originates in the West is no more than a prejudice.
If, for example, we globally look at the history of the humankind, the height of civilization was in the Near, Middle East and North Africa (and Greece) in the Prehistoric and Ancient ages: It was in the Far East (=China and her sister civilizations like Korea and Japan) in the Middle ages, then there was the period of the highest culture in the Middle and South America, and it was clearly in the West in the contemporary periods since Renaissance.
In his Metaphysics, Aristotle chose Thales as the founder of the Western philoso
IONIAN-ITALIAN MIGRANT PHILOSOPHERS
Xenophanes of Colophon (540 B.C.)
Pythagoras of Samos (532 B.C.)
Heracleitus of Ephesus (504/1 B.C.)
On The Common Characteristics of the Migrant Philosophers
Why do we put these three philosophers together and call them the Ionian-Italian migrant philosophers? Many certainly wonder about this. For this division of period and our way of putting Xenophanes, Pythagoras and Heracleitus together into a group is quite unusual, as I am clearly aware of, from the normal way of the description of the History of Ancient Greek Philosophy. In regard to this division of period, I am strongly inspired by and deeply indebted to the late Professor Michitaro Tanaka, my Greek philosophy Teacher at Kyoto University.
As the division of the historical period it makes a much better sense to group them in this way than any currently or traditionally used the historical division and this view is indeed closer to the fact as well as why they shared the same philosophical interests and concerns as well as the same approach.
Miletus fell to the Persians in 494 B.C.
Indeed, earlier, Lydia, the city state, which was located immediately East to Miletus (city state) was already destroyed by Media’s invasion in 565 B.C.
Thus, the Asia Minor fell completely to the hands of Persia.
As a result, many of the Greek intellectuals, engineers, craftsmen, artists, poets and lawyers (and politicians) who had been active before in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, (just as in any other case of war,) endeavored themselves or were forced to evade the catastrophes of the war, evacuate from their home lands to take refuge first to the Greek mainland city states (because geographically they were closer to Asia Minor) and then Greek colonies in the Southern Italy, which were rather recently founded and yet, they ultimately welcomed those refugees before those in Greek Mainland. The city states on the Greek mainland were at that time interested in the military power, business and wealth and were indeed very little concerned about cultures and intellectual pursuits as well as arts. They failed to provide those intellectual refugees their permanent home there until much later times. In contrast, the colony city states in Southern Italy were more recently founded and had a greater need for those intellectuals and, thus they welcomed those war-refugees from the Asia Minor. As clearly the historical political developments in the Greek ekumené revealed, therefore, the center stage of philosophy, too, was forced to move from Asia Minor to the Southern Italy.
The activities of these three philosophers represent therefore this cultural transition and transference from Asia Minor to Southern Italy.
This cultural transference by war (first by Medians, and second by the other Persians), namely this self evident cultural migration of the skilled laborers, has never been well and duly recognized in the History of Greek Philosophy. We should not overlook, but emphasize the fact that those Italian colonies were indeed able to prosper thanks to the massive migration of those carriers of culture such as philosophers, scientists, craftsmen, artists, poets, engineers and politicians (lawyers), etc.
Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Heracleitus were born in Asia Minor, in these various city states as indicated above.
However, we are not so quite sure about Heracleitus’ migration to Southern Italy at all and yet he shares the common characteristics with Pythagoras and Xenophanes. In fact, we know even today very little about Heracleitus’s life and activities besides fragments we possess right now. (Further we hardly know, thus, whether Heracleitus returned to Ephesus after its liberation from Persia by the Persian War or did he migrate at all but stayed at home, of which we have no “hard” evidence nor written data to substantiate this or that.)
Pythagoras’ date, 532 B.C., is based upon Porphyrius’ Life of Pythagoras. Porphyrius stated in it that Pythagoras left Samos, his native island and migrated to Croton in Southern Italy, when Polycrates established his dictatorship in Samos. The year in which Polycrates began his absolute monarchy was around 532 B.C. Therefore, this 532 B.C. became Pythago
THE ITALIAN PHILOSOPHERS.
Parmenides of Elea 504/500 B.C. (Elea in Italy)
Zeno of Elea 464/460 B.C. (Elea in Italy)
Melissus of Samos 441 B.C. (Samos in Asia Minor, the same as Pythagoras)
General Remarks of the Italian School
Parmenides, who must be a great genius, was the founder of this school. As we already know from the previous lectures, Xenophanes migrated from the Asia Minor to the newly found city state, Elea, in the Southern coast of South Italy, as we have the record to tell us that Xenophanes wrote his celebration poem with 2000 words at the occasion of the city’s founding (540 B.C.).
Parmenides was supposed to be born in Eelea and more likely than he studies philosophy under Xenophanes. Therefore, the so-called Italian School was founded by Parmenides and possibly was originated by Xenophanes.
Zeno has been known to us through his many paradoxes, by which Zeno attempted to defend the position of Parmenides, his teacher.
Melissus who came from Samos, the same city state as Pythagoras, was also a younger desciple, who studied under Parmenides in Elea. He was a Navy General and fought with his rather inferior navy battle ships (in both number and size) the famous navy battle against the “undefeatable” Athenian navy in 441 B.C.
It is often said that this so-called Eleatic philosophy was founded by Xenophanes, who was associated with the founding of Elea itself (See the above). Copleston takes the same view about the Eleatic school.
Aristotle also said that Parmenides was Xenophanes’ disciple. These dates, except Melissus whose sea battle with the Athenian navy was recorded independently, are based on Xenophanes’ date of his poem to celebrate the founding of Elea in 540 B.C. We subtracted 40 years from it for Parmenides and further 20 (altogether 60) years for Zeno, for we have no clue for the dating of the Eleatic philosophers. However, in conjunction with Melissus’s acmé, they are not that far way from the truth. Nevertheless, many recently argue against these dates regarding their exactitude.
For example, Plato’s later dialogues, Parmenides, is often quoted as being not consistent with the above datings. In Parmenides, Plato portrays that Socrates who was at about 20 years of age met Parmenides, when Parmenides and Zeno visited Athens for the first time. Plato describes that Parmenides who looked like God with white beard was 65 years of age, while Zeno was 40 years old. Although Socrates’ first encounter with Parmenides and Zeno in this dialogue particularly regarding its exact content may very well be a product of Plato’s creative imagination, the relative ages of these three philosophers could very well be correct. When Socrates was 20 years old, that is 450 B.C., thus Zeno’s acme is then 450 B.C. and in consequence Parmenides’ is 475 B.C.
Further, from these datings if they were correct, we may bring down the date of Heracleitus’ acme to 475 B.C., too.(See the section on Heracleitus in the Ionian-Italian Migrant Philosophers.)
Melissus was born in Samos, the same birth place as Pythagoras. No doubt, therefore, Melissus grew up with the Pythagorean philosophy, together with the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophies, and yet it is interesting that he came all the way from the Asia Minor to Elea in Southern Italy to study under Parmenides. This may indicate that the Eleatic school of philosophy was quite widely known in the Magna Graeca (Great Greece) because of its originality and its revolutionary content.
At that time communication networks must work quite well, since it is said that Parmenides had been influenced by the philosophy of Samos through Xenophanes and Ameinias and yet Parmenides’ philosophy was re-exported back to Samos by Melissus. It also indicates that around the time when Melissus wanted to further his study in philosophy, Parmenides and the Eleatic School was so widely known that Melissus was able to choose Parmenides as his teacher by going all the way from Samos, Asia Minor, to the west side of Southern Italy.
Melissus was the Admiral of Samos’ navy and revolted against Athens. Pericles lead the unbeatable Athenian Navy and tried to attack the Samosian Navy. Nevertheless, because of a still unknown reason, Pericles withdrew a portion of his ships, the circumstance of which favored Melissus and he won the ship battle with the Athenians. This was so unusual that it was recorded in history.
On the one hand, the Eleatic philosophy seems so abstract that it may appear obsolete in the practical matter, Melissus mastered it well. On the other, Melissus showed himself as a man of practical affairs in that he was politically active, was further a Navy Admiral and won the battle against the world-well known strong Athenian navy. This is an impressive event. Therefore, philosophy was often considered as not being practical, and yet it is, once applied to a particular situation by a given philosopher, indeed very useful and effective. Knowledge is Power!
It is quite possible for us to pherhaps trace the Eleatic, Italian School of Thought back to Xenophanes: Indeed, Xenophanes said:
God is one, and cannot be compared even to the greatest of the mortal humans regarding his figure, shape and thought.
God hears the whole, sees the whole and thinks the whole.
God moves all things simply by thought and without effort.
God resides in the same place and is not worth moving.
What Xenophanes called “‘o °ns”‹ho theos‹, i.e. God, without doubt did not take too much to develop into what Parmenides called “to eon”‹to eon‹, i. e. Being, the genuine reality. Take for example,
1) The distinction between the phenomena= the many ‹ta polla‹(ta polla), which are experienced by us, and the genuine reality= the One‹to ¢en‹(to hen)=God, and
3) The denail of change ‹h kinhsis‹(he kinésis) for reality = God and Being‹akinhton, while the phenomena, the many, are known by our senses and are indeed in change. The latter are phenomena, which merely appear and are distinct from God as the genuine reality.
2) The contrast between sense (perception)‹h aisqhsis‹(he aisthesis) and reason‹h nous‹(he nous): The former is the cogntive organ of the many–the phenomena, while the latter is the cognitive organ for the One‹God and Being.
There is, however, the genuis’ discovery. The irreconcilable contrast and difference between sense(-perception)‹h aisqhsis‹(he aisthesis) and Reason‹h nous‹(he nous) were well articulated.
The mtaphysical question of the One-the Many was now construed by Parmenides as the opposition between sense or opinion (mundane knowledge) and true knowledge of reason: The former is the cogntive organ of the many–the phenomena, while the latter is the cognitive organ for the One.
On the other hand, according to Diogenes Laertius and others, Parmenides was said to be converted to the comtemplative life not by Xenophanes, but by Ameinias, the Phythagorean, who is otherwise totally unkown to us. What does this signify? How can we understand the influences Parmenides had received and the development of Parmenides made in his thought?
Let us examine Parmenides’ revolutionary turn in the history of Western philosophy.
PARMENIDES of Elea (500 B.C.)
Life
We have four references about Parmenides’ biography, but as far as the identifiable date is concerned, it is not so quite unambiguous.
According to Diogenes Laertius IX, 21-3 (DK28 a 1:Kirk & Raven 287):
Parmenides, the son of Pyres, was a pupil of Xenophanes …Though a pupil of Xenophanes, he did not follow him. He associated also, as Sotion recorded, with the Pythagorean Ameinias, son of Diochaitas, a poor but noble man, whom he preferred to follow (philosophically). When Ameinias died, Parmenides, who came of a distuighished family and was rich, built a shrine to him. It was by Ameinias rather than Xenophanes that he was converted to the contemplative life ‹eis ‘hsuciau proetprapah‹…He is said also to have legislated for the citizens of Elea, as Speusippus records in his owrk On Philosophers.
1) By this description by Diogenes Laertius, we know that, although Parmenides might start his learning of philosophy (love of wisdom=pursuit of knowledge) with Xenophanes, interestingly his philosophical eye-opening experience must have occured with his assoication with Ameinias, the otherwise unkown Pythagorean.
2) As to his own philosophical investigation, however, Parmenides was supposed to follow more Ameinias, the otherwise totally unknown Pythagorean, than Xenophanes.
This relationship of Parmenides to Xenophanes and Ameinias in philosophical thought and possibly method as well as the way of life should be more investigated in details and we shall do so in the section of Parmenides’ philosophy.
3) Parmenides apparently came from a rather wealthy and distinguished family in Elea.
4) Parmenides not only engaged in philosophical inquiry, but also was active in politics (as a very respectable, significant legislator).
As to 2) and 4) Parmenides’ being a Pythagorean, Strabo 6, p. 252 Cas. (DK 28a12) collaborates:
…Elea… whence Parmenides and Zeno came, both Pythagoreans, I believe that through their agency the city was well governed as it has had been even earlier.
In this respect of Parmenides’ involvement in politics, Plutarch adv. Colot. 32, 112A. States:
Parmenides set his own state in order with much admirable laws that the government yearly swears its citizens to abide by the laws of Parmenides.
As to the testimony that Parmenides was a Pythagorean, it is not completely inconceivable, as geographically Elea was located very closely to Croton and Metapontium where the Pythagoreans were strongly active, but also it seems evidenced by his own experience in his own poem (cf. The According to the Pythagoreans, the concept of limit or determinate, i.e., peiras‹peiras‹ was indeed the top of the two fundamental principles of 10 contraries (Aristotle, Metaphysics A5,985b23).
peras‹peras‹ (limit or determinate) kai (and) apeiron ‹apeiron‹(unlimited or determinate)
peritton‹peritton‹(odd) kai (and) aption‹aption‹ (even)
‘en‹hen ‹(one) kai (and) plhqos‹pléthos‹ (plurality, manyness)
dexion ‹dexion‹(right) kai (and) aristeron‹aristeron‹ (left)
arren‹arren‹ (male) kai (and) qhlu‹thély‹ (female)
hremoun‹héremoun‹ (resting) kai (and) kinoumenon‹kinoumenon (moving)
euqu‹euthy (straight) kai(and) kampulon‹kampylon‹(curved)
fws‹phós‹(light) kai (and) skotos‹skotos‹(dark)
agaqon (agathon‹(good) kai (and) kakon‹kakon‹(bad)
tetragwuon‹tetragónon‹(square) kai (and) ¢eteroumhkes‹heteromékes‹(oblong)
Besides “peiras”‹”peiras”‹(“limit” or “determinate”), Parmenides’ to eon‹to eon‹(Being) is said to be “to ¢en”‹to hen‹(“One)” which is the third from the top, left side of the Opposite above) is stressed by Parmenides to be “akinhton”‹akinéton‹(motionless), “en tautw menon¾æen tautw menon”‹(“resting in the same place”), which are also appear on the left side of Pythgoreans’ 10 Opposites. Kiek & Raven consider that these features of Being must have been influenced by Ameinias. This question is more philosophical than historical, so we shall pick them up more carefully in his philosophy.
According to Diogenes Laertius ix, 23 (DK28A1), Parmenides’ acmé must be around 500 B.C.:
Parmenides flourished in the sixty -ninth Olympic Games.
The most detailed account of Parmenides is given as the quotation from Antiphon: 127A
According to Antiphon’s account, Pythodorus said that Parmenides and Zeno once came to Athens for the Great Panathenaia. Parmenides was wel adavnce in years- about sixty-five–and very grey, but a fine-looking man. Zeno was then nearly forty, and tall and handsome; he was said to have been Parmenides’ favorite. The y were staying at Pythodorus’ house outside the city-wall in the Ceramicus. To there went Socrates, and several others with him, in the hope of hearing Zeno”s treatisie; for this was the first time Parmenides and Zeno had brought it to Anthens. Socartea was still very young at that time.
We also know from Xenophon as well Plato, Socrates died 399 B.C. Thus, he was born in 470/469 B.C. Should we assume “sfocra neon”‹”sphodra neon”‹(“very young”) could be under 25, the meeting should take place around 450-455 B.C. Thiis makes Parmenides birth at about 515-510 B.C. The problem of this data has some problem. 1) This diialogue is one of Plato’s later works, 2) When Socrates appears in Plato’s dialogue, the place and the time are usually common knowledge among Plato’s friends and followers. Thus, 3) When it is likely a fiction, Plato makes a special device that it derives from the secondary or even more remote sournce.
Parmenides’ and Zeno’s visit to Athens was not only told by Pythodorus, who used to live suberb of Athens and that Pythodorus’s story about their visit is ultimately introduced by Antiphon! This is one of Plato’s typical device to make sure that Plato is not responsible for the accuracy of the account for the story. Therefore, it is more likely a fiction than a actual fact which occurred.
On the other hand, Dogenes’s account mentioned above must have come from Apollodorus, whose data of Parminedes is more likely based on the founding of Elea (540 B.C.), in which Parmenides was supposed to be born. Since Zeno was said to be born, when Parmenides “flourished” Plato’s account, as attractive as it may sound, is to be rejected and Parmenides’ acmé should be around 500 B.C.
Philosophy
Parmenides wrote his philosophical thought exclusively in hexameter verse (this tradition could trace back to Xenophanes and was followed by Empedocles, the earliest Revivalist Natural Philosopher). With the exception of the allegory of the poem (and perhaps also certain passages in the ‘Way of Seeming,’ in which divine gifueres were introduced), his sujbect-matter is of the most prosaic a it is about the metaphsical question and the presentation of his logical arguements. According to Kirk & Raven, Parmenides’ “diction (being far from being poetical) is often exceedingly obscure!”
Simplicius, who knew that at his days, the manuscripts are rarely available, transcribed the large section of Parmenides’ The Way of Truth” from Sextus Empiricus and preserved the writing of this great, unchallengeable mind in his Commentaries on Aristotle.
It is worth noting that Parmenides’s writings among those of the Pre-Socratic philosophers’ have been available to us as the largest in quantity and almost complete. This is on the one hand due to Parmenides’ ingenious philosophical insight, which irrevocably gave the philosophers of the time such a shocking impact that the fragments which we possess must come from the much later sources (mainly Simplicius‹through Sextus Empiricus) were very well preserved and reliable. It is on the other hand due to the fact that the power of logic hitherto unkown which is revealed in Parmenides’ argument.
Through Parmenides’ philosophically profound, undeniable influences on the philosophers (particularly Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Leucippus and Democritus) and their way of doing philosophy (whom I call the “revivalists of natural philosophy”), we are able to guess what a great shock it was to those who simply assumed, by following Thales and Anaximenes, reality is in change and it is the many rather than one.
According to Diels, one of the editor’s Die Vorsokratiker (edited by Diels and Kranz and translated into English by Kirk and Raven) Almost 90% of one of his philosophical poem written with the hexameter verse called, The Way of Truth,” is preserved. Particularly this Way of Truth clearly reveals Parmenides’ essential thought.
The power of logic explicitly used by Parmenides was indeed an eye-opening experience to many philosophers and sophists. Instead of trusting senses, Parmenides showed how inevitable it was for the philosopher to have the courage to go beyond and sometimes against sense experience and rather follow the rational reasoning.
The Miletian (Ionian) philosophers sought the principle‹’h arch‹(hé arché) of the universe in the concrete material substance which is perceivable by the senses (e.g., Thales’ Water or Anaximenes’ Air). It is a material substance (“hé ousia” [substance] is “that which becomes the subject of a proposition and does not become the predicate”(the opposite to to ¢uporhmenon‹substratum‹the basic conception of this hypochémenon came from Anaximandros’ “to apeiron”‹”to apeiron”‹(Indeterminte). Should we pursue the direction of substance as “substratum”, then Aristotle’s definition of “substance” will be “the being which exists by itself and does not need anything else for its existence”‹the Cartesian definition.)
First of all, such a principle as water or air is a material substance or matter and is primarily referred to by the subject term of the judgement (i.e., something definite and particular) with its unique properties (particular qualities).
Secondly, it is by our sense experience that such a material substance is given, i.e., is known. Experience by sense as the means and source of knowing (such a material principle) is by nature not infallible, therefore is finite, and uncertain. Thus experience is not certain as a way of knowing. In other words, experience can not validate the reality of its object at all.
Parmenides and the philosophers of the Eleatic school sought the knowledge which is infallible, necessary, indubitable and universally valid. If they were alive in the post Renaissance like Descartes, they would have searched this apodeicticity in the way or kind of knowing itself. Parmenides however sought in the special kind or the unique way of Being which should provide such apodeictic knowledge. If we may say in the Aristotelian fashion, Parmenides and his school looked for the immutable, self-identical principle not in a material substance as a substratum(the subject of the proposition), but in the predicate of the judgement. It is not just a predicate, but the widest, the most encompassing, the most fundamental predicate of all, namely “Being”(to eon).
As quoted in the footnote 4, the beginning of The Way of Truth clearly indicates that, in the spirit of the Migrant Philosophers such as Xenophanes, Pythagoras and Heracleitus, Parmenides was well aware that there exists the unbridgeable deep abyss between the opinions or seemings of the mortal and the genuine truth which philosophy as the pursuit of knowledge aims at. This also discloses that Parmenides has to describe the genuine philosophical approach to the Way of Truth via the Goddess and her divine power of prophesy, although his argument is a validly logical, for the Truth is always hidden to the blind eye of the mortal and is never understood by any other than reason or thought (=nous).
Come now, and I will tell thee‹and do thou hearken and carry my word away‹the only way of enquiry that can be known of (by reason=nous): the one way, that it is and cannot not-be, is the path of Persuasion, for it attends upon Truth; the other , that it is-not and needs must not-be, that I tell thee is a path altogether unthinkable. For thou couldst not know that which is-not nor utter it; for to be‹to eon‹ (i.e., what exists and is real) and to think‹to noein‹ (i.e., what is known by reason=nous ) are one and the same.
Thus when we make a subject out of this Being, its predicate of the proposition is none but Being itself: Being is Being. This is tautologous and is apodeictically true, i.e., absolutely necessarily and universally true. On the other hand, nothing (=Non-being, to mé eon‹to mh eon) does not exist. This, too, is apodeictically true. For anything exists (i.e., is) at all, it must not come into Being, nor perish into Non-being. It must have existed and exist and will exist, is absolutely immutable and no change whether this is locomotion or alteration. It is also true that ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing, nothing comes into Being).
Being exists;
Non-being does not (exists).
These two are the self evident, thus absolutely indubitably true axioms.
From these two axioms, several propositions(theorems) derive immediately:
1) Being is one and self identical with itself (in Oness or unity, therefore, not many).
For if many Beings should exist, then Non-being must also exist between these many Beings. This is contradictory to the basic axioms.
2) Being is qualitatively one and the same everywhere(neither dense nor thin, too).
For if it were, there must be Non-being mixed with Being, which is contradictory to the
basic axioms.
3) No alternation, nor locomotion, i.e., no change, does not exist.
For if change should exist, it presupposes that Non-being exists, which is contradictory to the axioms.
Therefore, our universe as reality is one, self same, thus does not change.
Furthermore, ontologically this Being as being perfect which is spherical, Being is a sphere in shape.
4) This Being cannot be known by our experience, but only by reason (to noein‹to noein‹ or hé noésis‹’h nohsis‹) alone. Thus what really exists is authentically known (by reason), and what is authentically known (by Reason) is the real Being.
Therefore, according to Parmenides:
Being (To Eon) is Rational (=known by Reason‹Noésis‹) and what is Rational (=known by Reason‹Noésis‹) is Being (To Eon).
This thesis of identity of Being and knowledge became one of the most important principles that the philosopher must to attack to solve. Probably the most successful attempt to solve this question to our satisfaction was later made by Hegel in his dialectic thinking at the culmination of the Western Philosophy. In case of Hegel, the formulation was:
Was vernunftig ist wirklich, und was wirklich ist vernunftig.
(What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.)
What we know through our sense experience is thus to be viewed by Parmenides as a Mere Illusion or opinion.
Our common sense purports what is known through the senses is real. Against this conception of Reality known by sense experience, for the first time in the history of the Western philosophy, Parmenides was supposed (We pointed out the possibility of Heracleitus to have done this earlier) to make an attempt to transcend the mundane, empirical phenomena to the ultimate Reality. This ultimate Reality can be known only through reason‹to noein‹, unmixed with the senses or experience, i.e., by means of pure intuitive reason alone.
To briefly elaborate this identity of Being and Thought:
Only that which is known by Pure Thought, or is grasped by Reason‹’h nous‹, does genuinely and immutably exists. In other words, it is impossible for us to think of that which is not (=Non being), but we can only think and comprehend by Reason or Thought that which is (=Being) alone.
Thus Being, according to Parmenides, is the sole Reality which is one, continuous, indivisible, qualitatively equal, of no generation nor corruption, no locomotion, no condensation, no rarefication. This Being is logical and solely comprehensible by Reason. While our senses are fallible and correspond to the opinion(he doxa), our Reason being infallible correlates itself to genuine Knowledge(epistémé).
In consequence, to Parmenides, who might be concerned about the radical nature of his own thought, Being (to eon) is not an object of our mundane experience, but is transcendent from it. Therefore, Parmenides must have only Goddess reveal and prophesize this Reality as Truth in the form of poetry (although it is not uncommon to express philosophical thought in verse rather than in prose at that time).
…The only “mythos”following the Way to tell is that Being is; and on this Way are full many signs that Being does not come into being and is imperishable, for it is the whole, immovable and not unaccomplished. It was not, nor shall it be, since it is always now, all at once, one, contiuous….
Zeno of Elea (464/460 B.C.)
Like Parmenides, Zeno was supposed to be born in Elea, when Parmenides was at his acmé. Zeno followed Parmenides and he was the favorite disciple of Parmeniides.
Zeno are well known for his invention of dialectic (hé dialektiké techné) and many paradoxes which have his name on.
He was remembered as the master of dispute to demonstrate that, once we accepted the assumptions of our common sense, we inevitably had to accept the logical consequences of the absurdity and contradiction in common sense in order to show that Parmenides’ Being (to eon) is the genuine reality. We know very little of his life. As the most faithful student of Parmenides, Zeno accompanied Parmenides everywhere and travelled many city states. However, it must be more likely that through his effective argumentation, Zeno contributed to make clear the unfeasibility of Ionian natural philosophy, which presupposed the motion of generation and corruption (condensation and rarefication) and “one and many”.
Zeno attempted to show the contradictions and inconsistencies in our common sense knowledge.According to our common sense, the world of experience be the sole reality. By demonstrating our common sense knowledge as paradoxical, Zeno exerted himself in proving that Parmenides’ Being is the only genuine Reality. Zeno not only was responsible for devising the so called “indirect proof”, but also he has been universally considered as the founder of the “dialectic”.
For example, in stead of arguing that Being is one, Zeno argued that, if Being were many, as our common sense dictates, many contradictions would logically follow, e.g. the existence of Non being, or the non-existence of motion from that premiss, for example. The latter cannot be, therefore, Being (=Reality) must be one. Or e.g., if we agree that Being (=Reality) is many, then we must conclude from this that Being is both finite and infinite at the same time. For in order to distinguish one Being from the other Being, there must be another Being in-between and ad infinitum.
Aristotle held that Zeno was the inventor of dialectics. What does this mean? Zeno formulates the proposition (B) which is the negation of (A) to be demonstrated to be true. Then he tries to draw a logical consequence (C) from (B) which turns out to be self contradictory (always false). Thus since (C) as self contradictory resulted from the premiss (B), in order for (C) to be true, (B), the opposite of (A, i.e.in stead of (B), that is (A) and not (B), but the negation of B), must be postulated as its premiss as true. This sense of dialectic must be clearly different from the dialectic which was employed by Socrates.
Zeno consciously employed the logical method for demonstration of the point at stake, which Parmenides implicitly conceived of. By means of Zeno’s endeavor, logic became a conscious, deliberate activity of perusing truth and knowledge.
For example, Aristotle reproduced Zeno’s argument for the impossibility of motion in his Physics 6-9:
In order to go from A to B, one has to go through infinite numbers of the intermediaries, i.e., within a ceratin finite time, we have to go through a infinite number of points. This is impossible.
An argument that Achilles with twice the speed can never pass the tortoise. The argument of the standstill of a flying arrow. These are only two of the paradoxes resulted from the assumption of the infinite divisibility of a finite line and the specialization of time.
In the history of philosophy, there is always a leap in the development of thinking and this is considered as one of the prime examples for this. Although the Eleatic thinking was not perfect, it was a courageous leap to go and follow from the apodeictic true axioms wherever the arguments might lead, even far beyond the limit of human experience and how contrary the conclusion of the arguments may be to experience.
However, this was at the same time the beginning of the human overconfidence in the European Reason. In the History of the Western Philosophy, we must wait for Nietzsche until this dominance of and blind trust in Reason was critically confronted.
While Zeno negatively denies the mundane doxa (opinion) of the mortal beings that is solely based on our experience, Melissus positively affirms Being itself.
Melissus of Samos (441 B.C.)
Melissus developed Parmenides’ thought a step further from the proposition, “Being is, while Non-being is not.” In stead of following his detailed arguments, here we will attempt to comprehend how Parmenides’ and Melissus’ thoughts differ.
One of Parmenides’ descriptions of Being states that Being is finite (i.e., not indeterminate). According to Parmenides, that Being is atelés (without-telos=infinite, limitless) means that Being is incomplete (atelés means purposeless or endless) and something lacking. Thus Being is shaped as spherical, thus limited, and qualitatively equal everywhere, and is finite.
Against Parmenides’ thesis that Being (to eon) is finite, Melissus held that Being is infinite. For since there is no generation, nor corruption possible for Being, Being must have neither the For if Being is finite at least in the temporal sense, Being must have the beginning and the end in time. This, according to Melissus, does not make sense. Therefore,Being must be infinite at least in the temporal sense, i.e., at least temporally infinite, thus timeless.
The second point Melissus added to Parmenides’ thought was that, in addition to Non-being, there exists no “void” (to kenón), while Parmenides had implicitly considered Non-being be void. From this, it must be more rigorously concluded that there is no motion (whether it is locomotion, or condensation, or rarefication).
Thirdly, Melissus was also to have said that Being does not suffer pain, or enjoys pleasure, for, according to Melissus, nothing can be added or subtracted from Being.
The most important contribution by the Eleatic School to the history of the Western philosophy is the clear establishment of the superiority of Reason (ho nous) both as the principle of Being and of cognition at the same time, while Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus made knowledge of sense experience not only inferior (to that of Reason) but not even worth the name of knowledge at all, because sense experience provides us mere illusion, not truth. This was the explicit beginning of the long tradition of Rationalism in Western philosophy.
It is also worth noting that, according to the Eleatic philosophy, truth is for most parts covered up by illusion, prejudices and pre-conceived ideas. In order to “uncover” truth, we must free ourselves from our common sense and its conviction. Thus it was established that common sense is not conducive to philosophical inquires, but rather something which is to be critically questioned and from which we must liberate ourselves in order to pursue philosophy and philosophical knowledge.
The Eleatic philosophy established the two value logic which even absolved dialectic until the end of German Idealism.
The Eleatic philosophy further demonstrated that we as a philosopher must have the courage and trust in logical inference whatever its consequence may be, as long as we start with truth as premisses.
The Eleatic philosophers had a very clear conception of Being, which is not material, but an abstract concept derived from the “predicate term concepts.”
Many of the prominent historians of the Western philosophy in the past contend that Parmenides’ Being is material and consider him a materialist, who holds that the ultimate Being is matter or material substance. This contention is not only wrong, but also is utterly misleading and misses the most important contribution of Parmenides’ philosophical endeavor to the history of the Western philosophy. Parmenides was well aware of how unconventional and anti-common sense belief his philosophical wisdom was. As mentioned previously, that was why Parmenides had to use epic, not prose, to express his philosophical ideas and felt even the necessity to have the Goddess speak about his philosophical ideas as her prophecies.
It is as erroneous to call Parmenides a materialist as Anaximander. It is wrong to underestimate such great geniuses’ contributions which were way ahead of their times.
The Being as an entity, that which is, and the Being which as a principle makes an entity exist are not yet articulated at the time of the Eleatic School.
THE REVIVALS OF THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
Empedocles of Akragas (443-444 B.C.)
Anaxagoras of Klazomené (500-424 B.C)
The Atomists
‹Leucippus of Abdera, Elea (430 B.C.) & Democritus of Abdera (420 B.C.)‹
As you can easily see from the above discussions of the Italian philosophy, early Greek Natural philosophies, particularly like those of Miletian philosophies and even the Pythagoreans (not Pythagoras himself apparently), were greatly challenged by the Eleatic philosophy and had to abandon one of the most fundamental principles in understanding the universe, and develop a possible alternative way of understanding it.
How were they challenged? Parmenides’ philosophy emphatically asserted that Non-being does not (exist), and it clearly showed that change be utterly impossible in Reality. As long as we accept the Parmenidean apodeictic principles: Being exists, while Non-being does not (exist), any ontological doctrine which purports that Being is one and many at the same time, and they change into one another is logically untenable but also really unthinkable. The Eleatic philosophy threatened the foundation of the Ionian natural philosophy, because the reality the Ionian philosophy talked about must be explained by the principle of the changes, i.e., condensation and rarefication. In other words, the basic approach of Ionian natural philosophies was to establish one principle of nature (e.g. water, air ) and explain multitude of phenomena of reality by means of this principle’s change (either condensation or rarefication).
As long as the genuine reality consists in either one or more than one principle of matter, the new natural philosophers had to accept the Eleatic challenge such that one matter does not change into another and that there cannot exist two Beings, as it implies the existence of Non-being.
Thus, they accepted in a sense and tried to meet the challenge of the Eleatic School and they, too, took change as unacceptable. Namely, they refused to comprehend the change in the sense of the metamorphosis of one material thing into another, or its condensation or rarefication. Thus, they who were challenged by the Eleatic School attempted to explain the phenomena of multiplicity and those of change in nature by means of mixture and separation, while they held that the basic natural elements were unchanging.
In stead, for example, Empedocles held that the ultimate reality are the four roots (stoicheiai) of nature, namely earth, water, air and fire, which never change into one another: Anaxagoras held that everything is in everything, while the atomists held that nature consists of an infinite number of the ultimately indivisible entities (atoma) which cannot be known by our senses. The change and variety of nature is now explained by the principle of mixture and separation.
Because of this, those natural philosophers were forced to make a distinction between the world of sense experience and the world of reason and held the latter to be the true reality. The opposition between senses and reason as the epistemological faculties was sharpened and in the cognition of nature, the antagonism between nomos and physis became more eminent.
Empedocles of Ekragas (445/4 B.C.)
Empedocles’ Life and Accomplishments
Empedocles was born in Ekragas (today’s Agrigentum in Sicily). We possesses a record, which states that Empedocles visited Thurioi, that was built by the great Athenian Admiral an
THE ITALIAN PHILOSOPHERS.
Parmenides of Elea 504/500 B.C.
Zeno of Elea 464/460 B.C.
Melissus of Samos 441 B.C. (Samos in Asia Minor, the same as Pythagoras)
Those philosophers were active in the City State of Elea in Southern Italy. Both Parmenides and Zeno were supposed to be born in Elea, too.
Elea was established in 540 B.C. for whose founding, Xenophanes wrote a poem of two thousand words to celebrate it.
It is said that this so-called Eleatic philosophy was founded by Xenophanes, who was associated with the founding of Elea itself (See the above). Copleston takes the same view about the Eleatic school.
Aristotle also said that Parmenides was Xenophanes’ disciple. These dates, except Melissus whose sea battle with the Athenian navy was recorded independently, are based on Xenophanes’ date of his poem to celebrate the founding of Elea in 540 B.C. We subtracted 40 years from it for Parmenides and further 20 (altogether 60) years for Zeno, for we have no clue for the dating of the Eleatic philosophers. However, in conjunction with Melissus’s acmé, they are not that far way from the truth. Nevertheless, many recently argue against these dates regarding their exactitude.
For example, Plato’s later dialogues, Parmenides, is often quoted as being not consistent with the above datings. In Parmenides, Plato portrays that Socrates who was at about 20 years of age met Parmenides, when Parmenides and Zeno visited Athens for the first time. Plato describes that Parmenides who looked like God with white beard was 65 years of age, while Zeno was 40 years old. Although Socrates’ first encounter with Parmenides and Zeno in this dialogue particularly regarding its exact content may very well be a product of Plato’s creative imagination, the relative ages of these three philosophers could very well be correct. When Socrates was 20 years old, that is 450 B.C., thus Zeno’s acme is then 450 B.C. and in consequence Parmenides’ is 475 B.C.
Further, from these datings if they were correct, we may bring down the date of Heracleitus’ acme to 475 B.C., too.(See the section on Heracleitus in the Ionian-Italian Migrant Philosophers.)
Melissus was born in Samos, the same birth place as Pythagoras. No doubt, therefore, Melissus grew up with the Pythagorean philosophy, together with the tradition of the Ionian natural philosophies, and yet it is interesting that he came all the way from the Asia Minor to Elea in Southern Italy to study under Parmenides. This may indicate that the Eleatic school of philosophy was quite widely known in the Magna Graeca because of its originality and its revolutionary content.
At that time communication networks must work quite well, since it is said that Parmenides had been influenced by the philosophy of Samos through Xenophanes and Ameinias and yet Parmenides’ philosophy was reexported back to Samos by Melissus. It also indicates that around the time when Melissus wanted to further his study in philosophy, Parmenides and the Eleatic School was so widely known that Melissus was able to choose Parmenides as his teacher by going all the way from Samos, Asia Minor, to the west side of Southern Italy.
Melissus was the Admiral of Samos’ navy and revolted against Athens. Pericles lead the unbeatable Athenian Navy and tried to attack the Samosian Navy. Nevertheless, because of a still unknown reason, Pericles withdrew a portion of his ships, the circumstance of which favored Melissus and he won the ship battle with the Athenians. This was so unusual that it was recorded in history.
On the one hand, the Eleatic philosophy seems so abstract that it may appear obsolete in the practical matter, Melissus mastered it well. On the other, Melissus showed himself as a man of practical affairs in that he was politically active, was further a Navy Admiral and won the battle against the world-well known strong Athenian navy. This is an impressive event. Therefore, philosophy was often considered as not being practical, and yet it is, once applied to a particular situation by a given philosopher, indeed very useful and effective. Knowledge is Power!
Parmenides of Elea (500 B.C.)
The Miletian (Ionian) philosophers sought the principle of the universe in the concrete material substance which is perceivable by the senses (e.g., Water or Air). It is a material substance (“hé ousia” [substance] is “that which becomes the subject of a proposition and does not become the predicate”(Aristotle’s definition of “substance”based on the structure of language = “the being which exists by itself and does not need anything else for its existence”‹the ontological, Cartesian definition.)
First of all, such a principle as water or air is a material substance(=substratum) and is primarily referred by the subject term of the judgement (i.e., something definite and particular) with its unique properties (particular qualities).
Secondly, it is by our sense experience that such a material substance is given, i.e., is known. Experience as the means and source of knowing (such a material principle) is by nature not infallible, therefore is finite, and uncertain. Thus experience is not certain as a way of knowing. In other words, experience can not validate the reality of its object at all.
The philosophers of the Eleatic school sought the knowledge which is infallible, necessary, indubitable and universally valid. If they were alive in the post Renaissance like Descartes, they would have searched this apodeicticity in the way or kind of knowing itself. Parmenides however sought in the special kind or the unique way of Being which should provide such apodeictic knowledge. If we may say in the Aristotelian fashion, Parmenides and his school looked for the immutable, self-identical principle not in a material substance as a substratum(the subject of the proposition), but in the predicate of the judgement. It is not just a predicate, but the widest, the most encompassing, the most fundamental predicate of all, namely “Being”(to eon).
Thus when we make a subject out of this Being, its predicate of the proposition is none but Being itself: Being is Being. This is tautologous and is apodeictically true, i.e., absolutely necessarily and universally true. On the other hand, nothing (=Non-being, to mé on) does not exist. This, too, is apodeictically true. For anything exists (i.e., is) at all, it must not come into Being, nor perish into Non-being. It must have existed and exist and will exist, is absolutely immutable and no change whether this is locomotion or alteration. It is also true that ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing nothing comes into Being).
Being exists;
Non-being does not (exists).
These two are the self evident, thus absolutely indubitably true axioms.
From these two axioms, several propositions(theorems) derive immediately:
1) Being is one and self identical with itself (in unity, therefore, not many).
For if many Beings should exist, then Non-being must also exist between these many Beings. This is contradictory to the basic axioms.
2) Being is qualitatively one and the same everywhere(neither dense nor thin, too).
For if it were, there must be Non-being mixed with Being, which is contradictory to the
basic axioms.
3) No alternation, nor locomotion, i.e., no change, does not exist.
For if change should exist, it presupposes that Non-being exists, which is contradictory to the axioms.
Therefore, our universe as reality is one, self same, thus does not change.
Furthermore, Being as being perfect which is spherical, Being is a sphere in shape.
This Being cannot be known by our experience, but only by reason (to noein or hé noesis) alone. Thus what really Is is authentically known (by reason), and what is authentically known (by Reason or Thought) is Being.
Therefore, according to Parmenides:
Being (To Eon) is Rational (=known by Reason‹Noésis‹) and what is Rational (=known by Reason‹Noésis‹) is Being (To Eon).
This thesis of identity of Being and knowledge became one of the most important principles that the philosopher must to attack to solve. Probably the most successful attempt to solve this question to our satisfaction was later made by Hegel in his dialectic thinking at the culmination of the Western Philosophy. In case of Hegel, the formulation was:
Was vernunftig ist wirklich, und was wirklich ist vernunftig.
(What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.)
What we know through our sense experience is thus to be viewed by Parmenides as a Mere Illusion.
Our common sense purports what is known through the senses is real. Against this conception of Reality known by sense experience, for the first time in the history of the Western philosophy, Parmenides was supposed (We pointed out the possibility of Heracleitus to have done this earlier) to make an attempt to transcend beyond the empirical phenomena to the ultimate Reality. This ultimate Reality can be known only through reason, unmixed with the senses or experience, i.e., by means of pure Thought alone.
To briefly elaborate this identity of Being and Thought:
Only that which is known by Pure Thought, or is grasped by Reason, does genuinely and immutably exists. In other words, it is impossible for us to think of that which is not (=Non-being), but we can only think and comprehend by Reason or Thought that which is (=Being) alone.
Thus Being, according to Parmenides, is the sole Reality which is one, continuous, indivisible, qualitatively equal, of no generation nor corruption, no locomotion, no condensation, no rarefication. This Being is logical and solely comprehensible by Reason. While our senses are fallible and correspond to the opinion(he doxa), our Reason being infallible correlates itself to genuine Knowledge(epistémé).
In consequence, to Parmenides, who might be concerned about the radical nature of his own thought, Being (to eon) is not an object of our mundane experience, but is transcendent from it. Therefore, Parmenides must have only Goddess reveal and prophesize this Reality as Truth in the form of poetry (although it is not uncommon to express philosophical thought in verse rather than in prose at that time).
Zeno of Elea (464/460 B.C.)
Zeno are well known for his invention of dialectic (hé dialektiké techné) and many paradoxes which have his name on. He was remembered as the master of dispute to demonstrate that, once we accepted the assumptions of our common sense, we inevitably had to accept the logical consequences of the absurdity and contradiction in common sense in order to show that Parmenides’ Being (to eon) is the genuine reality. We know very little of his life. As the most faithful student of Parmenides, Zeno accompanied Parmenides everywhere and travelled many city states. However, it must be more likely that through his effective argumentation, Zeno contributed to make clear the unfeasibility of Ionian natural philosophy, which presupposed the motion of generation and corruption (condensation and rarefication) and “one and many”.
Zeno attempted to show the contradictions and inconsistencies in our common sense knowledge.According to our common sense, the world of experience be the sole reality. By demonstrating our common sense knowledge as paradoxical, Zeno exerted himself in proving that Parmenides’ Being is the only genuine Reality. Zeno not only was responsible for devising the socalled “indirect proof”, but also he has been universally considered as the founder of the “dialectic”.
For example, in stead of arguing that Being is one, Zeno argued that, if Being were many, as our common sense dictates, many contradictions would logically follow, e.g. the existence of Non-being, or the non-existence of motion from that premiss, for example. The latter cannot be, therefore, Being (=Reality) must be one. Or e.g., if we agree that Being (=Reality) is many, then we must conclude from this that Being is both finite and infinite at the same time. For in order to distinguish one Being from the other Being, there must be another Being inbetween and ad infinitum.
Aristotle held that Zeno was the inventor of dialectics. What does this mean? Zeno formulates the proposition (B) which is the negation of (A) to be demonstrated to be true. Then he tries to draw a consequence(C) from (B) which turns out to be self contradictory. Thus since (C) as self contradictory resulted from the premiss (B), in order for (C) to be true, (A) in stead of (B),i.e., the negation of (A), must be postulated as its premiss.
Zeno consciously employed the logical method for demonstration of the point at stake, which Parmenides implicitly conceived of. By means of Zeno’s endeavor, logic became a conscious, deliberate activity of perusing truth and knowledge.
For example, Aristotle reproduced Zeno’s argument for the impossibility of motion in his Physics 6-9:
In order to go from A to B, one has to go through infinite numbers of the intermediaries, i.e., within a ceratin finite time, we have to go through a infinite number of points. This is impossible.
An argument that Achilles with twice the speed can never pass the tortoise. The argument of the standstill of a flying arrow. These are only two of the paradoxes resulted from the assumption of the infinite divisibility of a finite line and the specialization of time.
In the history of philosophy, there is always a leap in the development of thinking and this is considered as one of the prime examples for this. Although the Eleatic thinking was not perfect, it was a courageous leap to go and follow from the apodeictic true axioms wherever the arguments might lead, even far beyond the limit of human experience and how contrary the conclusion of the arguments may be to experience.
However, this was at the same time the beginning of the human overconfidence in the European Reason. In the History of the Western Philosophy, we must wait for Nietzsche until this dominance of and blind trust in Reason was critically confronted.
While Zeno negatively denies the mundane doxa (opinion) of the mortal beings that is solely based on our experience, Melissus positively affirms Being itself.
Melissus of Samos (441 B.C.)
Melissus developed Parmenides’ thought a step further from the proposition, “Being is, while Non-being is not.” In stead of following his detailed arguments, here we will attempt to comprehend how Parmenides’ and Melissus’ thoughts differ.
One of Parmenides’ descriptions of Being states that Being is finite (i.e., not indeterminate). According to Parmenides, that Being is atelés (infinite, limitless) means that Being is incomplete (atelés means purposeless or endless) and something lacking. Thus Being is shaped as spherical, thus limited, and qualitatively equal everywhere, and is finite.
Against Parmenides’ thesis that Being (to eon) is finite, Melissus held that Being is infinite. For since there is no generation, nor corruption possible for Being, Being must have neither the For if Being is finite at least in the temporal sense, Being must have the beginning and the end in time. This, according to Melissus, does not make sense. Therefore,Being must be infinite at least in the temporal sense, i.e., at least temporally infinite, thus timeless.
The second point Melissus added to Parmenides’ thought was that, in addition to Nonbeing, there exists no “void” (to kenon), while Parmenides had implicitly considered Non-being be void. From this, it must be more rigorously concluded that there is no motion (whether it is locomotion, or condensation, or rarefication).
Thirdly, Melissus was also to have said that Being does not suffer pain, or enjoys pleasure, for, according to Melissus, nothing can be added or subtracted from Being.
The most important contribution by the Eleatic School to the history of the Western philosophy is the clear establishment of the superiority of Reason (ho nous) both as the principle of Being and of cognition at the same time, while Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus made knowledge of sense experience not only inferior (to that of Reason) but not even worth the name of knowledge at all, because sense experience provides us mere illusion, not truth. This was the explicit beginning of the long tradition of Rationalism in Western philosophy.
It is also worth noting that, according to the Eleatic philosophy, truth is for most parts covered up by illusion, prejudices and pre-conceived ideas. In order to “uncover” truth, we must free ourselves from our common sense and its conviction. Thus it was established that common sense is not conducive to philosophical inquires, but rather something which is to be critically questioned and from which we must liberate ourselves in order to pursue philosophy and philosophical knowledge.
The Eleatic philosophy established the two value logic which even absolved dialectic until the end of German Idealism.
The Eleatic philosophy further demonstrated that we as a philosopher must have the courage and trust in logical inference whatever its consequence may be, as long as we start with truth as premisses.
The Eleatic philosophers had a very clear conception of Being, which is not material, but an abstract concept derived from the “predicate term concepts.”
Many of the prominent historians of the Western philosophy in the past contend that Parmenides’ Being is material and consider him a materialist, who holds that the ultimate Being is matter or material substance. This contention is not only wrong, but also is utterly misleading and misses the most important contribution of Parmenides’ philosophical endeavor to the history of the Western philosophy. Parmenides was well aware of how unconventional and anti-common sense belief his philosophical wisdom was. As mentioned previously, that was why Parmenides had to use epic, not prose, to express his philosophical ideas and felt even the necessity to have the Goddess speak about his philosophical ideas as her prophecies.
It is as erroneous to call Parmenides a materialist as Anaximander. It is wrong to underestimate such great geniuses’ contributions which were way ahead of their times.
The Being as an entity, that which is, and the Being which as a principle makes an entity exist are not yet articulated at the time of the Eleatic School.
Socrates (469/68 – 400/399 B.C.)
Life and Personality
Socrates was born in Athens as a son of Sophronicus who was supposed to be a stone mason, while his mother Phénarété was a midwife according to Plato’s Theaetetus. In stead of succeeding his father’s trade, Socrates became a philosopher. Socrates, being extremely philosophically inclined, i.e., he was deeply in search of wisdom (love of wisdom = philo-sophia) throughout his entire life. According to Plato, Socrates thought that he inherited his mother’s profession of midwifery and he thought that the philosopher could be only a midwife for wisdom. For, as according to Socrates, philosophy, Love of Wisdom, cannot equip the philosopher with knowledge or wisdom, nor the philosopher can teach his students by providing them with wisdom and knowledge, as philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge which is only possible by being aware of one’s lack of knowledge and wisdom. Thus, Socrates characterized the role of a philosopher as the midwife of wisdom and knowledge, namely the philosopher can only help the youth and others assisting them to have their own philosophy born and develop, and not impart any knowledge or skills to others like in the other scientific disciplines or arts.
Socrates must have come from a rather well-to-do family because he served as a fully armed hoplite, and he must have been left sufficient inheritance to enable him to serve in the military. Socrates indulged himself in philosophical inquiry.
Socrates, unlike other philosophers, did not leave even a single book.
The sources of Socrates’ image and accomplishments are 1) Plato, a great philosopher and Socrates’ student, 2) Xenophon, a famous Athenian historian, and 3) Aristophanes, a famous Athenian comedy playwright.
The overwhelming majority of information about Socrates, particularly in regard to his accomplishments as a philosopher, came from Plato’s early Dialogues. It is generally believed that the Socrates portrayed in Plato’s early dialogues was a very accurate reproduction of the real Socrates himself, for at that time, people who read those Dialogues by Plato knew Socrates very well and they could even point out that some of Plato’s descriptions of Socrates were incorrect. So we can assume that the picture we have through Plato’s early Dialogues are of accuracy (concerning the groupings of Plato’s Dialogues will de discussed more in detail in Plato’s Section).
Why didn’t Socrates write? It is probably because he had to be very busy with doing philosophy rather than writing it. In stead of claiming to be a teacher, Socrates exercised a decided influence on the further development of the Western philosophy by means of his way of life and his personality.
What kind of person was Socrates? What kind of character had he?.
Socrates’ physical features were not very attractive with his snob-nose, the bald-head and chubbiness as a big belly was sticking out. Aristophanes in his “Clouds” described that Socrates strutted like a waterfowl and ridiculed his habit of rolling his eyes. He always wore old, washed out clothes, although they were clean. Socrates had a habit of going bare foot whether it was the military campaign or in the winter. Socrates never travelled outside Athens except leaving it for military duties and loved this city state.
According to Plato’s Symposium, for example, being drunk, Alcibiades, a former Socrates follower and the leader of the anti-democratic army coup d’etat, described Socrates was extremely attractive not because of his physical appearance, but for his spirit.
When Alcibiades was a beautiful young boy, he was, thus, passionately in love with Socrates and attempted very hard to seduce Socrates with all his charms in vain. According to Alcibiades, Socrates was so unique and incomparable, while even the excellent politician and competent general Rasides may be compared to Achilles in Homer, and Pericles may be “equated” to Nester.
Both Xenophon wrote Memorabilia de Socrates and Plato wrote Apology (Defense), we know quite well how he was formally tried and sentenced to death penalty. In some sceneries before his death, Socrates was well portrayed in Plato’s Crito. Plato was careful enough to mention at the prologue that Plato was absent from Socrates’ death scene.
Since Socrates died in 399 B.C. which we know for certain, and since he said that he was sixty years old at that time of the trial, we gather from these two facts that Socrates was born in 461/460 B..C.
Philosophy
Besides his intellectual and personal charm, Socrates possessed an unusual “spiritual revelation” (daimonion sémeinon). For example, on his way to Agathon’s house for the celebration of the victory of his speech in Plato’s Symposium, Socrates was described that he suddenly stopped to walk, fell in a deep thought for hours and not answering even if others tired to talk to him. Socrates had thus a unique ability of spiritual concentration. Once he fell in this pensive concentration, Socrates had a habit of losing contact with his surrounding world. An episode about this was quite famous, as Socrates, standing at a military post, started thinking of something in the morning and continued thinking until next morning, when Socrates as a soldier went out to Potidaia.
It was also reported that Socrates had a special spiritual power. Socrates often dreamed a premonitional dream and was able to make divination. Thus Socrates usually believed in what he dreamed of. It was reported that Socrates often became self-ecstatic: When Crito asked Socrates, in Plato’s Crito, if he had to drink the hemlock tomorrow, Socrates replied that his dream told him that it would be the day after tomorrow. That became true because the return of the ships delayed. Also while Socrates was imprisoned, he dreamed of being told to do “mousiké,” but he thought first philosophy was the greatest mousiké, then later he reconsidered the meaning of the dream and wrote a poem.
To dream of something and act upon it with belief in it was nothing but the so-called to receive and have faith in “daimonion sémainon.” This phenomenon, according to Socrates in Apology, occurred already when he was a small child, whenever he tried or intended to do something wrong, the voice of demon or spirit told him not to do so and never said what he should do. This voice of daimonion (spirit) intercepts something even trivial according to Socrates. For example, at the gymnastic hall, Socrates talked to a youth and finished the discussion and wanted to go home, then he heard the voice of Demon not to go home. While he was waiting there, a friend came by accidentally, whom he had not seen and wanted to see for a long time.
Thus, we may say that, on the one hand, Socrates possessed a mystical, non-rational character. On the other hand, Socrates apparently did not make out of this voice of Demon a religion and was quite “scientific” and “rationalistic” in personality and his pursuit of knowledge. Strangely the both elements were harmonized and well synthesized in him.
The best example may be found in his interpretation of and search for the meaning of the oracle of Delphi stated in Apology. Socrates’ friend Chaerephon went to the Shrine of Delphi (= the Shrine of Apollo) and asked the priestesses if there were anyone else wiser than Socrates. The answer was “No!”
On the one hand, Socrates, without questioning, believed in this oracle. This attitude reveals his religious faith or his belief in the supernatural (from a narrow rationalistic point of view).
On the other hand, Socrates acted very rationally and attempted very hard to confirm this oracle by questioning the politicians, the wise men (=sophists), the poets, the craftsmen, whereby Socrates came to the conclusion that the wisdom which is allowed to the human beings (= the knowledge that we know that we don’t know) means so minimal in comparison to the divine wisdom, which Apollo wanted Socrates to demonstrate.
Here we see in Socrates the synthesis of his non-rational, mystical character of believing in the oracle and the voice of Demon and yet attempted to rationally and philosophically search for and confirm the truth of the oracle.
Although the formal accusation of Meletus, Anytus and Lycon was that Socrates corrupted the Athenian youth and did not believe in the gods that Athens as the polis did believe in, the real motive of the democratic politicians to try Socrates was to be found entirely somewhere else.
Socrates was closely associated with the politicians of the Oligarchy (the thirty). He was a good friend of Critias for example, who was the leader of the oligarchic thirty. Socrates was also a good friend of Alcibiades who became the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C. ), the prolonged difficult war between the Greek powers, Sparta and Athens. After the Peloponnesian War, those aristocratic politicians whom Socrates was associated with lost the power due to the democratic coup d’etat taken place in 404 B.C. This coup d’etat was supported by Sparta (the enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War) and was lead by Anytos (one of Socrates’ accusers) and Thrasyboulos. Among the Spartan politicians, there were opposing two opinions about how to rule the post-coup d’etat Athens and about the fates of those aristocratic ruling politicians. And yet the overwhelming majority of the people in Sparta were of the opinion that those oligarchic thirty were to be given their amnesty after the success of the democratic coup d’etat.. They imposed the condition of amnesty to the Athenian Oligarchic aristocrats for supporting the Democrats of Athens, once the coup d’etat was successful.
Although Critias died at the coup d’etat, the thirty and their associates could not be prosecuted by the new Democratic government due to this amnesty agreement with Sparta (the backer of the coup).Those Democrats were afraid that Socrates was very influential among those aristocratic politicians and that his critical spirit to speak out the truth would be highly detrimental to the newly established, still shaky Democratic government. The Democrats thus could not prosecute Socrates for the political reason as he was also covered by that amnesty. Therefore, they chose a radical fanatic poet, called Meletus, as the main accuser of Socrates with the above mentioned formal accusation. One of the difficulties of Socrates’ defense consisted in this historical political background. It was certain that those who supported the accusation of Socrates were fully politically motivated, i.e., they were the Democratic government supporters.
We need to look into Plato’s Apology more closely in order to understand Socrates as a man and a philosopher in his mature period.
Apology of Socrates
The trial against Socrates took place in Athens in 400/399 B.C. It was customary to have 501 jurors (and no judge in the modern sense). It was the accused’s responsibility to defend himself against the accusation. He was also allowed to cross examine the accusers. The decision of sentencing the accused was made by the majority votes of those 501 jurors.
Socrates started his defense with the declaration that he would speak the truth. Truth itself and nothing else will make his defense. It is quite ironical that while the trial was attempted by the political motivation, Socrates tried to defend himself by having the truth speak itself.
First Socrates tried to divide the accusers into two groups, the new accusers and the old ones. The latter was, according Socrates, the prejudices about Socrates implanted in the minds of the jurors by many when the jurors were quite young. Believing that it would be more difficult to remove such prejudices, Socrates first attempted to refute the old preconceived ideas about Socrates.
According to Socrates, the old accusations (prejudices) about him were that Socrates was thought of being a criminal, indulging in the investigation of things on the Earth and in the Heaven and a clever speaker, making a weaker argument stronger and teaching the same to others (p. 425). In short, Socrates was considered as one of the sophists. Plato’s consistent efforts throughout the Dialogue were directed to repudiate this misconceptions of Socrates’ being a sophist. On the outset, Socrates declared that he was not interested in eloquence, i.e., winning an argument by making his argument appear stronger, but was always and solely interested in truth and the whole truth = knowledge. Socrates never claimed to possess “wisdom” to give away or impart to others, nor to be a teacher of such “wisdom.” Socrates said
It was a grand thing for anyone to be able to educate people as Gorgias of Leontini, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis do.” (p. 425/6)
As we have seen in the previous Section, Gorgias, Prodicus and Hippias are well known sophists who claimed that they were teachers of “wisdom.”
For his philosophical inquiry, never had Socrates charged money to those young people who were observing and listening his pursuit.
Socrates tried to show how and why he got such a bad name. He said:
A sort of wisdom has got me this name, gentlemen, and nothing else. Wisdom! What wisdom? Perhaps the only wisdom that man can have. (p. 426)
Chaerephon, an old friend of his, went to the Shrine of Delphi and asked the oracle if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was that no one was wiser. Socrates had faith in the oracle, but he was not convinced so that he went around and cross examined many people who both himself and others thought that he was wise. The sophists, the politicians, the poets and the craftsmen who thought of being wise were shown that they were not wise.
Socrates was wiser than others in
…the fact is that neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know when he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do: so I am wiser than he is by only this trifle, that what I do not know I don’t think I do. (p. 427)
This awareness of one’s own ignorance was generalized as the interpretation of the oracle as follows.
…The truth really is, gentlemen, that the god in fact is wise, and in this oracle he means hat human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and it appears that he does not say his of Socrates, but simply adds may name to take me as an example, as if he were to say that his one of yo human beings is wisest, who like Socrates knows that he is in truth worth nothing as regards wisdom.
This is what I still, even now, go about searching and investigating in the god’s way, if even I think one of our people, or a foreigner, is wise. (p. 429)
Socrates contended that this activities were so busy that he could not even hold a public office or private business worth mentioning. Those cross examined were angry at Socrates and did not understand what he did or taught, so they said that Socrates is a blackguard and corrupts the young; and repeated the stock charges against all philosophers, “underground lore and up in the air lore, atheists, making the weaker argument the stronger.” (P. 429)
The new accusers were Anytos, Meletus and Lycon. Anytos on behalf of the politician, Meletus on behalf of the poets, and Lycon on behalf of the sophists presented the official accusation:
Socrates is a criminal, who corrupts the young and does not believe in the gods whom the state believes in, but other new spiritual things instead. (p. 430)
Meletus being an eccentric poet, was chosen as the main accuser and Socrates cross examined him next.
Socrates asked Meletus if it be important that the younger generation should be as good as possible. And if so, we make them better?
Meletus answered first: “The Laws.”
Socrates asked again who do know the laws.
Meletus answered: “The Jury.” “The Councilors.” and finally “All the citizens of Athens, while Socrates alone corrupts them!”
I . Here Socrates starts attacking Meletus’a assumption by generalizing Meletus’s answer of “educating the youth (by the majority) to the art (hé techné) in general:
1) Educating the youth is an art just like the horse training which is an art.
2) The art in general can only be mastered and exercised by a few specialists in it, not the majority.
I am not asking everybody (=the majority) to train a horse, but only a few specialists in that art called “horse-training.” (For example, when you got really sick in stomach, you are not asking everybody for an advice for cure, but a specialist called a physician.)
3) Therefore, Not everybody in Athens are good and concerned educators of the youth, but a few specialists, i.e., Socrates in this context.
II. Socrates demonstrates secondly that no one knowingly wants to be harmed.
1) People get harmed by associating themselves with the bad people, while they get good with the good people.
2) No wants knowingly to get harmed.
3) By saying that I, Socrates, corrupts the youth, you contend that I, Socrates, did harm to those associates, which implies that I am knowingly making a risk of getting some evil from them.
4) (3) contradicts (2).
5) Since (2) is true, (3) is necessarily false.
6) Therefore, either I, Socrates did not corrupt the youth, or if I, Socrates, did corrupt the youth, then I did so unintentionally.
7) In the latter case (in the Greek law), Socrates is free of charge.
8) Therefore, Meletus was false in either case.
III. According to the indictment, Socrates corrupted the youth by teaching them not believing in the gods that Athens believed in. Namely, his impiety.
1) Socrates made Meletus commits a more universal statement that Socrates does not believe in any god at all and teach it to the youth. = Socrates is an atheist.
2) Meletus even states that Socrates believes that the sun is a stone and the moon is an earth, which was held by Anaxagoras, the highly admired philosopher, (and probably by the very young Socrates).
3) I, Socrates, believes in the voice of Demon (Spirit).
4) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in Demon.
5) This Demon whose voice Socrates listens, believes and follows is a god himself or the son of a god.
6) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in the god, therefore, I am not an unbeliever, i.e., an atheist.
IV. Socrates now contends that whether or not he would be ashamed of his running a risk of his death is irrelevant to his concern. What concerns him is whether or not he does right, i.e., whether it is what a good man does or what a bad man does.
1) Just as Socrates stayed at the post in Poteidaia and Amphipolis and Delion (the battleground of the Peloponnessos War) by the captains regardless of the threat of death, Socrates believes that God posted him with the duty to be a philosopher (lover of wisdom) to test himself and others (to be a questioner and critic), so Socrates should not and does not fear death at all to stay with this Divine duty.
2) As the indictment said, should I, Socrates, did not believe in God, because Socrates disbelieved the oracle, feared death and thought that he be wise while he was not wise at all.
3) For to fear death is only to think you are wise when you are not, i.e., it is to think you know what you don’t know. For no one knows what death is at all, but many fear death.
4) Even if all of the jury decided to let Socrates free only on the condition that he will no longer spend time in this search or in philosophy, Socrates would not accept this offer.
5) For Socrates fears the god rather than you, the jury.
6) As long as he breathes and remains able to do it, Socrates will never cease to be a philosopher, exhorting you, and showing what is in him to any one of you, the jury, he may meet, by speaking to him in my usual way.
And then Socrates appeals to the Athenians:
You are an Athenian, a citizen of this great polis (city state), so famous for wisdom and strength, and you take every care to be as well off as possible in money, reputation and place‹then are you not ashamed not to take every care and thought for understanding, for truth, and for the soul, so that it may be perfect? (p. 43529E)
…if I think some does not possess virtue but only says so, I will show that he sets very little value on things most precious, and sets more value on meaner things, and I will put him to shame. This I will do for every I meet, young or old, native or foreigner…. For this is what god commands me, make no mistake, and I think there is no greater good for you in the city in any way than my service to God. (p.436)
All I do is to go about and try to persuade you, both young and old, not to care for your bodies or your monies first, and to care more exceedingly for the soul, to make it as good as possible;
and I tell you that virtue comes not form money, but form virtue comes both money and all other good things for humankind, both in private and in public. (p.436)
Socrates further appeals to the Athenians that Socrates’ loss from Athens will be greater, for he was sent to Athens by God to fulfill the above duties. The evidence for this is the fact that Socrates has neglected all his own interests, that he has been content with the neglect of his domestic affairs all those years, while Socrates was attending the interests of the Athenians. (p. 437)
The reason why Socrates remains as a private person is because, if he had not been so, he would have been killed long time ago, as he solely considered the justice and law rather than fear of prison and death (example of Salamis). (p.437-38)
Socrates has been always on the side of right, either has he claim to be able to teach and has taught at all, nor received fees for conversing with others.
People enjoyed spending their time with Socrates, because he has been pursuing the socalled Socratic mission by the command of god. (p.439) Indeed if he should have corrupted the youth, their relatives and friends would come now and would accuse Socrates. (In this context, Plato names himself as an attendant of this trial.)
Socrates would not commit a fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam by bringing his children (one a young man, the other still children) with his age and with his fame. Besides, making a judgment is not to do a favor, but decide what is justice. (p. 441)
The court votes and finds him guilty: 281 found him guilty, while 221 found innocent. ( 35-A?)
The accuses is now to propose his alternative penalty to death penalty by the indictment.
Socrates says that as he has done so much for the state and for the others, he may deserve some rewards and asks:
Then what is suitable for a poor benefactor, who craves to have leisure for your encouragement? …Nothing is suitable than boarding such a man free in the town hall (far more than the winner of Olympic Games).
Socrates has to be 1) in prison until he pays the fine, or 2) to be fined, but he has no money to pay. 3) An exile is not his choice, because Socrates, being unable to disobey God, would continue his Divine mission and soon or later, he would be tried again.
4) Finally he proposes one mina of sliver.
The court condemns Socrates to death. (37C)
Socrates must prefer to die after such a defence than to live by the other sort, For
The difficult thing is not to escape death, but to escape wickedness…
By putting Socrates to death, the Athenians are making a big mistake, for no one will reproach them, when their life was wrong.
Socrates talks about the voice of Demon checking him from doing even to a trivial thing and Socrates did not hear the voice this morning when he left his home to come to the court. So death is not an evil thing.
According to Socrates, death may be one of the following two alternatives:
a) a migration of the soul from here to another world, where death is like a sleep in eternity. Death must be a wonderful thing.
b) a migration of the soul from here to another world, and if what people say is true, you will meet all the dead of the past such as Orpheus, Musaios, Hesiod and Homer to discuss virtues and cross examine them. That will be happier.
However, Socrates contends:
No evil can happen to a good man either living or dead… (41D)
As the last words, Socrates appeals the Athenians:
Punish my sons, gentlemen, when they grow up; give them this same pain I have you, if you think they care for money or anything else before virtue; and if they have the reputation of being something when they are nothing, reproach them, as I reproach you, that they do no take care for what they should, and think they are something when they are worth nothing. And if you do this, we shall have been justly dealt wit by you, both I and my sons. (End of Apology)
___________________________________
APOLOGY OF SOCRATES
The trial against Socrates took place in Athens in 400/399 B.C. It was customary to have 501 jurors (and no judge in the modern sense). It was the accused’s responsibility to defend himself against the accusation. He was also allowed to cross examine the accusers. The decision of sentencing the accused was made by the majority votes of those 501 jurors.
Socrates started his defense with the declaration that he would speak the truth. Truth itself and nothing else will make his defense. It is quite ironical that while the trial was attempted by the political motivation, Socrates tried to defend himself by having the truth speak itself.
First Socrates tried to divide the accusers into two groups, the new accusers and the old ones. The latter was, according Socrates, the prejudices about Socrates implanted in the minds of the jurors by many when the jurors were quite young. Believing that it would be more difficult to remove such prejudices, Socrates first attempted to refute the old preconceived ideas about Socrates.
According to Socrates, the old accusations (prejudices) about him were that Socrates was thought of being a criminal, indulging in the investigation of things on the Earth and in the Heaven and a clever speaker, making a weaker argument stronger and teaching the same to others (p. 425). In short, Socrates was considered as one of the sophists. Plato’s consistent efforts throughout the Dialogue were directed to repudiate this misconceptions of Socrates’ being a sophist. On the outset, Socrates declared that he was not interested in eloquence, i.e., winning an argument by making his argument appear stronger, but was always and solely interested in truth and the whole truth = knowledge. Socrates never claimed to possess “wisdom” to give away or impart to others, nor to be a teacher of such “wisdom.” Socrates said
It was a grand thing for anyone to be able to educate people as Gorgias of Leontini, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis do.” (p. 425/6)
As we have seen in the previous Section, Gorgias, Prodicus and Hippias are well known sophists who claimed that they were teachers of “wisdom.”
For his philosophical inquiry, never had Socrates charged money to those young people who were observing and listening his pursuit.
Socrates tried to show how and why he got such a bad name. He said:
A sort of wisdom has got me this name, gentlemen, and nothing else. Wisdom! What wisdom? Perhaps the only wisdom that man can have. (p. 426)
Chaerephon, an old friend of his, went to the Shrine of Delphi and asked the oracle if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was that no one was wiser. Socrates had faith in the oracle, but he was not convinced so that he went around and cross examined many people who both himself and others thought that he was wise. The sophists, the politicians, the poets and the craftsmen who thought of being wise were shown that they were not wise.
Socrates was wiser than others in
…the fact is that neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know when he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do: so I am wiser than he is by only this trifle, that what I do not know I don’t think I do. (p. 427)
This awareness of one’s own ignorance was generalized as the interpretation of the oracle as follows.
…The truth really is, gentlemen, that the god in fact is wise, and in this oracle he means hat human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and it appears that he does not say his of Socrates, but simply adds may name to take me as an example, as if he were to say that his one of yo human beings is wisest, who like Socrates knows that he is in truth worth nothing as regards wisdom.
This is what I still, even now, go about searching and investigating in the god’s way, if even I think one of our people, or a foreigner, is wise. (p. 429)
Socrates contended that this activities were so busy that he could not even hold a public office or private business worth mentioning. Those cross examined were angry at Socrates and did not understand what he did or taught, so they said that Socrates is a blackguard and corrupts the young; and repeated the stock charges against all philosophers, “underground lore and up in the air lore, atheists, making the weaker argument the stronger.” (P. 429)
The new accusers were Anytos, Meletus and Lycon. Anytos on behalf of the politician, Meletus on behalf of the poets, and Lycon on behalf of the sophists presented the official accusation:
Socrates is a criminal, who corrupts the young and does not believe in the gods whom the state believes in, but other new spiritual things instead. (p. 430)
Meletus being an eccentric poet, was chosen as the main accuser and Socrates cross examined him next.
Socrates asked Meletus if it be important that the younger generation should be as good as possible. And if so, who do make them better?
Meletus answered first: “The Laws.”
Socrates asked again who do know the laws.
Meletus answered: “The Jury.” “The Councilors.” and
finally “All the citizens of Athens, while Socrates alone corrupts them!”
I . Here Socrates starts attacking Meletus’a assumption by generalizing Meletus’s answer of “educating the youth (by the majority) to the art (hé techné) in general:
1) Educating the youth is an art just like the horse training which is an art.
2) The art in general can only be mastered and exercised by a few specialists in it, not the majority.
I am not asking everybody (=the majority) to train a horse, but only a few specialists in that art called “horse-training.” (For example, when you got really sick in stomach, you are not asking everybody for an advice for cure, but a specialist called a physician.)
3) Therefore, Not everybody in Athens are good and concerned educators of the youth, but a few specialists, i.e., Socrates in this context.
II. Socrates demonstrates secondly that no one knowingly wants to be harmed.
1) People get harmed by associating themselves with the bad people, while they get good with the good people.
2) No wants knowingly to get harmed.
3) By saying that I, Socrates, corrupts the youth, you contend that I, Socrates, did harm to those associates, which implies that I am knowingly making a risk of getting some evil from them.
4) (3) contradicts (2).
5) Since (2) is true, (3) is necessarily false.
6) Therefore, either I, Socrates did not corrupt the youth, or if I, Socrates, did corrupt the youth, then I did so unintentionally.
7) In the latter case (in the Greek law), Socrates is free of charge.
8) Therefore, Meletus was false in either case.
III. According to the indictment, Socrates corrupted the youth by teaching them not believing in the gods that Athens believed in. Namely, his impiety.
1) Socrates made Meletus commits a more universal statement that Socrates does not believe in any god at all and teach it to the youth. = Socrates is an atheist.
2) Meletus even states that Socrates believes that the sun is a stone and the moon is an earth, which was held by Anaxagoras, the highly admired philosopher, (and probably by the very young Socrates).
3) I, Socrates, believes in the voice of Demon (Spirit).
4) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in Demon.
5) This Demon whose voice Socrates listens, believes and follows is a god himself or the son of a god.
6) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in the god, therefore, I am not an unbeliever, i.e., an atheist.
IV. Socrates now contends that whether or not he would be ashamed of his running a risk of his death is irrelevant to his concern. What concerns him is whether or not he does right, i.e., whether it is what a good man does or what a bad man does.
1) Just as Socrates stayed at the post in Poteidaia and Amphipolis and Delion (the battleground of the Peloponnessos War) by the captains regardless of the threat of death, Socrates believes that God posted him with the duty to be a philosopher (lover of wisdom) to test himself and others (to be a questioner and critic), so Socrates should not and does not fear death at all to stay with this Divine duty.
2) As the indictment said, should I, Socrates, did not believe in God, because Socrates disbelieved the oracle, feared death and thought that he be wise while he was not wise at all.
3) For to fear death is only to think you are wise when you are not, i.e., it is to think you know what you don’t know. For no one knows what death is at all, but many fear death.
4) Even if all of the jury decided to let Socrates free only on the condition that he will no longer spend time in this search or in philosophy, Socrates would not accept this offer.
5) For Socrates fears the god rather than you, the jury.
6) As long as he breathes and remains able to do it, Socrates will never cease to be a philosopher, exhorting you, and showing what is in him to any one of you, the jury, he may meet, by speaking to him in my usual way.
And then Socrates appeals to the Athenians:
You are an Athenian, a citizen of this great polis (city state), so famous for wisdom and strength, and you take every care to be as well off as possible in money, reputation and place‹then are you not ashamed not to take every care and thought for understanding, for truth, and for the soul, so that it may be perfect? (p. 43529E)
…if I think some does not possess virtue but only says so, I will show that he sets very little value on things most precious, and sets more value on meaner things, and I will put him to shame. This I will do for every I meet, young or old, native or foreigner…. For this is what god commands me, make no mistake, and I think there is no greater good for you in the city in any way than my service to God. (p.436)
All I do is to go about and try to persuade you, both young and old, not to care for your bodies or your monies first, and to care more exceedingly for the soul, to make it as good as possible;
and I tell you that virtue comes not form money, but form virtue comes both money and all other good things for humankind, both in private and in public. (p.436)
Socrates further appeals to the Athenians that Socrates’ loss from Athens will be greater, for he was sent to Athens by God to fulfill the above duties. The evidence for this is the fact that Socrates has neglected all his own interests, that he has been content with the neglect of his domestic affairs all those years, while Socrates was attending the interests of the Athenians. (p. 437)
The reason why Socrates remains as a private person is because, if he had not been so, he would have been killed long time ago, as he solely considered the justice and law rather than fear of prison and death (example of Salamis). (p.437-38)
Socrates has been always on the side of right, either has he claim to be able to teach and has taught at all, nor received fees for conversing with others.
People enjoyed spending their time with Socrates, because he has been pursuing the so-called Socratic mission by the command of god. (p.439) Indeed if he should have corrupted the youth, their relatives and friends would come now and would accuse Socrates. (In this context, Plato names himself as an attendant of this trial.)
Socrates would not commit a fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam by bringing his children (one a young man, the other still children) with his age and with his fame. Besides, making a judgment is not to do a favor, but decide what is justice. (p. 441)
The court votes and finds him guilty: 281 found him guilty, while 221 found innocent. ( 35-A?)
The accuses is now to propose his alternative penalty to death penalty by the indictment.
Socrates says that as he has done so much for the state and for the others, he may deserve some rewards and asks:
Then what is suitable for a poor benefactor, who craves to have leisure for your encouragement? …Nothing is suitable than boarding such a man free in the town hall (far more than the winner of Olympic Games).
Socrates has to be
1) in prison until he pays the fine, or
2) to be fined, but he has no money to pay.
3) An exile is not his choice, because Socrates, being unable to disobey God, would continue his Divine mission and soon or later, he would be tried again.
4) Finally he proposes one mina of sliver.
The court condemns Socrates to death. (37C)
Socrates must prefer to die after such a defence than to live by the other sort, For
The difficult thing is not to escape death, but to escape wickedness…
By putting Socrates to death, the Athenians are making a big mistake, for no one will reproach them, when their life was wrong.
Socrates talks about the voice of Demon checking him from doing even to a trivial thing and Socrates did not hear the voice this morning when he left his home to come to the court. So death is not an evil thing.
According to Socrates, death may be one of the following two alternatives:
a) a migration of the soul from here to another world, where death is like a sleep in eternity. Death must be a wonderful thing.
b) a migration of the soul from here to another world, and if what people say is true, you will meet all the dead of the past such as Orpheus, Musaios, Hesiod and Homer to discuss virtues and cross examine them. That will be happier.
However, Socrates contends:
No evil can happen to a good man either living or dead… (41D)
As the last words, Socrates appeals the Athenians:
Punish my sons, gentlemen, when they grow up; give them this same pain I have you, if you think they care for money or anything else before virtue; and if they have the reputation of being something when they are nothing, reproach them, as I reproach you, that they do no take care for what they should, and think they are something when they are worth nothing. And if you do this, we shall have been justly dealt wit by you, both I and my sons. (End of Apology)
Socrates did not write even a single work. And yet, many, many people, like we ourselves who read, for example, Socrates’ Apology, are moved and inspired by this image of Socrates, his devotion to philosophy and his firm belief in the power of philosophy.
Why is this so?
We may answer this question perhaps in two ways:
The one is the fact that Plato experienced Socrates’ death described in his Apology at his age of 19. He was so deeply moved by Socrates that he decided to become a philosopher rather than a politician which he thought that it would be a natural calling for him. Thus, Plato even reproduced Socrates’ defense to show others how he was drawn to continue the mission of this master. Plato’s entire life was determined by the inspiration by Socrates.
The other is the greatness of Socrates himself as a man and his total devotion to philosophy as well as his endeavor in midwifery of wisdom for others. His strong inspiration and love for wisdom and moral uprightness, his selfless dedication to the cause of how to improve ourselves, how we can be better human beings, his skillfulness of searching and insight into truth, and his great compassion to be a Gadfly of the state definitely impress us.
Although the sophists were the one who impressed the general populace with the power of knowledge, Socrates articulated the right knowledge from the wrong ones and disclosed that the human beings themselves, their virtues and their right conducts are the crucial in leading a better life, leading a happy life. Socrates was the one, too, who advocated that the morally good life the cause of happiness. Moralists of the so-called Small Socratic Schools followed closely what Socrates tried to accomplish. And yet, at the same time, they were responding to the need of the individual who searches for the principle by which they are able to lead a good life. In stead of asking what is the good which makes us happy, they asked what happiness (e.g., sensuous pleasure and avoidance of pain, or the serenity of our soul) brings about our good life. This is the beginning of the moral philosophy for the individual.
0 Ηý CRITO
The dialogue is the famous prison scene in which Socrates drank he hemlock.
This is the dialogue between Socrates and Crito. This is a summary of the dialogue:
Socrates was supposed to drink the hemlock the day after when the ship would come back from Delos. (No prosecution was made during the absence of the sacred ship.)\
Socrates,disagree with Crito, by saying, “…good luck come wiTh her (the ship from Delos): If that is God’s will, so be it.
However, I do not think she will come on this day now beginning, but tomorrow. I infer this from a dream I had this very night just past, a little whILe aGo.
(In the dream), I (Socrates) thought a woman came to me, handsome and well grown, and dressed in white; she called to me and said, “Socrates,”
on THE third day you’ll reach fertile Phthia~!”
Crito laments that he will lose the most precious friend, if Socrates died.
If I could say his life and did not save it, Crito said,
“What can be a worse reputation than to be thought to care more for money than friends?”
Then, Socrates asks Crito,.
“Bless you, what matters it to us what the many think?”
To this, Crito said, “….we are bound also to care what the many think; even as what is happening now shows clearly that the many can work mischief‹not trifles, but almost the greatest mischief possible, if one gets a bad name among them.
43 c Socrates,”…I only wish the many could do the greatest mischief, so that they could also do the greatest good! That would be well indeed. As it is, they can do neither; for they cannot make a man either wise or foolish; they do things quite at random.
Crito says, “it is all right to risk his and freinds’ life and even money.
And ask Socrates to dispute with Crito whether or not Socrates should escape following the arrangment of Crito and his friends.”
Socrates says, ” Yes, I am anxious about that, and many other things, too.
Crito, “Do not be afraid about that, after all, it is not great sum they want in order to save your life and get you out of this.
Those informers are very cheap. There are also foreigners who would like to rescue you, including Simmias the Theban; Cebes and others.
Then again, Socrates, I do not think you are undertaking a right thing by throwing yourself away when you can be free.
What is the good of taking pains to do for yourself exactly what your eniemies would like to do…”
Crito also said that Socrates would be choosing an easier way by drinking the hemlock.
Socrates contends:
“My dearest Crtion, your anxiety would be precious if there were any right in it; otherwise, the geret it is, so much the harder to bear. Then we must examine wheether we ought tod it or not; for my way is and always has been to obey no one and onting, except the reasoning which seems to be best when I draw my conclusions….”
“Let us first take up what you said about opinions, and ask wheth it was always right or not‹that we must attend to some opinions, but not to all? Or was it right befroe I was condemned to death, but now it becomes clear taht we talked for the sake of talking, and it was realy a game of nonsense?\waht I deisre is, Criton, to examine along wit you whether it will prove to be different nwo that I am iin thsi case, or the same; and then we will say good-bye to it, or else obey it.
This is very much waht used to be said, I think, by those who believed they had something serious to say,,,,
Socrates, Don’t we believe it was right enought osay that we must not rrespect all the opinions of men, but only some?
To respect the good opinons, and ot the bad?
The good ones are those of the wise, the bad ones those of the foolish?
Here Socrates makes an empirical genearlization by using the examples of working athletic listening to all others or only to the trainer or the physician=one?
The working athele must fear the blame and welcome the priase of the one, and not of the many others.
Socrates thus tried to show:
it is not the opinions of the majority, which
we are concerned with, but a few or even one who possesses the knowledge (technee in this sense, =art) and can tell us which is right or wrong.
This may also construed more generally as follows, according to Socrates,
what makes our life worth living is not the opnion of the many, but the search for truth and truth itself.
Thus, what is true belongs to the beautiful, just, and virturous.
1) we pursue the true, the just, the beautiful and the virtuous to make our life worth living.
2) it is right to keep a promise or commitment. To break it is wrong.
3) Socrates made a contract and kept the promise to be a good citizen, and he cannot break the promise, which is morally wrong.
4) since the state and the Laws have been given him the birth, educated him and nurished him. It is wrong that, because, (some people feel that) Socrates was not correctly or rightly treated by the state,
you cannot and should not do evil in response to this incorrect, or the injust treatment of him.
He maintained that when the human-being knows what is right and what is wrong, he could not help but do the right thing.
To do the wrong to the good man cannot harm that man either. Only the ignorant can do evils.
__________________________
APOLOGY OF SOCRATES
The trial against Socrates took place in Athens in 400/399 B.C. It was customary to have 501 jurors (and no judge in the modern sense). It was the accused’s responsibility to defend himself against the accusation. He was also allowed to cross examine the accusers. The decision of sentencing the accused was made by the majority votes of those 501 jurors.
Socrates started his defense with the declaration that he would speak the truth. Truth itself and nothing else will make his defense. It is quite ironical that while the trial was attempted by the political motivation, Socrates tried to defend himself by having the truth speak itself.
First Socrates tried to divide the accusers into two groups, the new accusers and the old ones. The latter was, according Socrates, the prejudices about Socrates implanted in the minds of the jurors by many when the jurors were quite young. Believing that it would be more difficult to remove such prejudices, Socrates first attempted to refute the old preconceived ideas about Socrates.
According to Socrates, the old accusations (prejudices) about him were that Socrates was thought of being a criminal, indulging in the investigation of things on the Earth and in the Heaven and a clever speaker, making a weaker argument stronger and teaching the same to others (p. 425). In short, Socrates was considered as one of the sophists. Plato’s consistent efforts throughout the Dialogue were directed to repudiate this misconceptions of Socrates’ being a sophist. On the outset, Socrates declared that he was not interested in eloquence, i.e., winning an argument by making his argument appear stronger, but was always and solely interested in truth and the whole truth = knowledge. Socrates never claimed to possess “wisdom” to give away or impart to others, nor to be a teacher of such “wisdom.” Socrates said
It was a grand thing for anyone to be able to educate people as Gorgias of Leontini, and Prodicus of Ceos, and Hippias of Elis do.” (p. 425/6)
As we have seen in the previous Section, Gorgias, Prodicus and Hippias are well known sophists who claimed that they were teachers of “wisdom.”
For his philosophical inquiry, never had Socrates charged money to those young people who were observing and listening his pursuit.
Socrates tried to show how and why he got such a bad name. He said:
A sort of wisdom has got me this name, gentlemen, and nothing else. Wisdom! What wisdom? Perhaps the only wisdom that man can have. (p. 426)
Chaerephon, an old friend of his, went to the Shrine of Delphi and asked the oracle if anyone was wiser than Socrates was. The answer was that no one was wiser. Socrates had faith in the oracle, but he was not convinced so that he went around and cross examined many people who both himself and others thought that he was wise. The sophists, the politicians, the poets and the craftsmen who thought of being wise were shown that they were not wise.
Socrates was wiser than others in
…the fact is that neither of us knows anything beautiful and good, but he thinks he does know when he doesn’t, and I don’t know and don’t think I do: so I am wiser than he is by only this trifle, that what I do not know I don’t think I do. (p. 427)
This awareness of one’s own ignorance was generalized as the interpretation of the oracle as follows.
…The truth really is, gentlemen, that the god in fact is wise, and in this oracle he means hat human wisdom is worth little or nothing, and it appears that he does not say his of Socrates, but simply adds may name to take me as an example, as if he were to say that his one of yo human beings is wisest, who like Socrates knows that he is in truth worth nothing as regards wisdom.
This is what I still, even now, go about searching and investigating in the god’s way, if even I think one of our people, or a foreigner, is wise. (p. 429)
Socrates contended that this activities were so busy that he could not even hold a public office or private business worth mentioning. Those cross examined were angry at Socrates and did not understand what he did or taught, so they said that Socrates is a blackguard and corrupts the young; and repeated the stock charges against all philosophers, “underground lore and up in the air lore, atheists, making the weaker argument the stronger.” (P. 429)
The new accusers were Anytos, Meletus and Lycon. Anytos on behalf of the politician, Meletus on behalf of the poets, and Lycon on behalf of the sophists presented the official accusation:
Socrates is a criminal, who corrupts the young and does not believe in the gods whom the state believes in, but other new spiritual things instead. (p. 430)
Meletus being an eccentric poet, was chosen as the main accuser and Socrates cross examined him next.
Socrates asked Meletus if it be important that the younger generation should be as good as possible. And if so, who do make them better?
Meletus answered first: “The Laws.”
Socrates asked again who do know the laws.
Meletus answered: “The Jury.” “The Councilors.” and
finally “All the citizens of Athens, while Socrates alone corrupts them!”
I . Here Socrates starts attacking Meletus’a assumption by generalizing Meletus’s answer of “educating the youth (by the majority) to the art (hé techné) in general:
1) Educating the youth is an art just like the horse training which is an art.
2) The art in general can only be mastered and exercised by a few specialists in it, not the majority.
I am not asking everybody (=the majority) to train a horse, but only a few specialists in that art called “horse-training.” (For example, when you got really sick in stomach, you are not asking everybody for an advice for cure, but a specialist called a physician.)
3) Therefore, Not everybody in Athens are good and concerned educators of the youth, but a few specialists, i.e., Socrates in this context.
II. Socrates demonstrates secondly that no one knowingly wants to be harmed.
1) People get harmed by associating themselves with the bad people, while they get good with the good people.
2) No wants knowingly to get harmed.
3) By saying that I, Socrates, corrupts the youth, you contend that I, Socrates, did harm to those associates, which implies that I am knowingly making a risk of getting some evil from them.
4) (3) contradicts (2).
5) Since (2) is true, (3) is necessarily false.
6) Therefore, either I, Socrates did not corrupt the youth, or if I, Socrates, did corrupt the youth, then I did so unintentionally.
7) In the latter case (in the Greek law), Socrates is free of charge.
8) Therefore, Meletus was false in either case.
III. According to the indictment, Socrates corrupted the youth by teaching them not believing in the gods that Athens believed in. Namely, his impiety.
1) Socrates made Meletus commits a more universal statement that Socrates does not believe in any god at all and teach it to the youth. = Socrates is an atheist.
2) Meletus even states that Socrates believes that the sun is a stone and the moon is an earth, which was held by Anaxagoras, the highly admired philosopher, (and probably by the very young Socrates).
3) I, Socrates, believes in the voice of Demon (Spirit).
4) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in Demon.
5) This Demon whose voice Socrates listens, believes and follows is a god himself or the son of a god.
6) Therefore, I, Socrates, believes in the god, therefore, I am not an unbeliever, i.e., an atheist.
IV. Socrates now contends that whether or not he would be ashamed of his running a risk of his death is irrelevant to his concern. What concerns him is whether or not he does right, i.e., whether it is what a good man does or what a bad man does.
1) Just as Socrates stayed at the post in Poteidaia and Amphipolis and Delion (the battleground of the Peloponnessos War) by the captains regardless of the threat of death, Socrates believes that God posted him with the duty to be a philosopher (lover of wisdom) to test himself and others (to be a questioner and critic), so Socrates should not and does not fear death at all to stay with this Divine duty.
2) As the indictment said, should I, Socrates, did not believe in God, because Socrates disbelieved the oracle, feared death and thought that he be wise while he was not wise at all.
3) For to fear death is only to think you are wise when you are not, i.e., it is to think you know what you don’t know. For no one knows what death is at all, but many fear death.
4) Even if all of the jury decided to let Socrates free only on the condition that he will no longer spend time in this search or in philosophy, Socrates would not accept this offer.
5) For Socrates fears the god rather than you, the jury.
6) As long as he breathes and remains able to do it, Socrates will never cease to be a philosopher, exhorting you, and showing what is in him to any one of you, the jury, he may meet, by speaking to him in my usual way.
And then Socrates appeals to the Athenians:
You are an Athenian, a citizen of this great polis (city state), so famous for wisdom and strength, and you take every care to be as well off as possible in money, reputation and place‹then are you not ashamed not to take every care and thought for understanding, for truth, and for the soul, so that it may be perfect? (p. 43529E)
…if I think some does not possess virtue but only says so, I will show that he sets very little value on things most precious, and sets more value on meaner things, and I will put him to shame. This I will do for every I meet, young or old, native or foreigner…. For this is what god commands me, make no mistake, and I think there is no greater good for you in the city in any way than my service to God. (p.436)
All I do is to go about and try to persuade you, both young and old, not to care for your bodies or your monies first, and to care more exceedingly for the soul, to make it as good as possible;
and I tell you that virtue comes not form money, but form virtue comes both money and all other good things for humankind, both in private and in public. (p.436)
Socrates further appeals to the Athenians that Socrates’ loss from Athens will be greater, for he was sent to Athens by God to fulfill the above duties. The evidence for this is the fact that Socrates has neglected all his own interests, that he has been content with the neglect of his domestic affairs all those years, while Socrates was attending the interests of the Athenians. (p. 437)
The reason why Socrates remains as a private person is because, if he had not been so, he would have been killed long time ago, as he solely considered the justice and law rather than fear of prison and death (example of Salamis). (p.437-38)
Socrates has been always on the side of right, either has he claim to be able to teach and has taught at all, nor received fees for conversing with others.
People enjoyed spending their time with Socrates, because he has been pursuing the so-called Socratic mission by the command of god. (p.439) Indeed if he should have corrupted the youth, their relatives and friends would come now and would accuse Socrates. (In this context, Plato names himself as an attendant of this trial.)
Socrates would not commit a fallacy of argumentum ad misericordiam by bringing his children (one a young man, the other still children) with his age and with his fame. Besides, making a judgment is not to do a favor, but decide what is justice. (p. 441)
The court votes and finds him guilty: 281 found him guilty, while 221 found innocent. ( 35-A?)
The accuses is now to propose his alternative penalty to death penalty by the indictment.
Socrates says that as he has done so much for the state and for the others, he may deserve some rewards and asks:
Then what is suitable for a poor benefactor, who craves to have leisure for your encouragement? …Nothing is suitable than boarding such a man free in the town hall (far more than the winner of Olympic Games).
Socrates has to be
1) in prison until he pays the fine, or
2) to be fined, but he has no money to pay.
3) An exile is not his choice, because Socrates, being unable to disobey God, would continue his Divine mission and soon or later, he would be tried again.
4) Finally he proposes one mina of sliver.
The court condemns Socrates to death. (37C)
Socrates must prefer to die after such a defence than to live by the other sort, For
The difficult thing is not to escape death, but to escape wickedness…
By putting Socrates to death, the Athenians are making a big mistake, for no one will reproach them, when their life was wrong.
Socrates talks about the voice of Demon checking him from doing even to a trivial thing and Socrates did not hear the voice this morning when he left his home to come to the court. So death is not an evil thing.
According to Socrates, death may be one of the following two alternatives:
a) a migration of the soul from here to another world, where death is like a sleep in eternity. Death must be a wonderful thing.
b) a migration of the soul from here to another world, and if what people say is true, you will meet all the dead of the past such as Orpheus, Musaios, Hesiod and Homer to discuss virtues and cross examine them. That will be happier.
However, Socrates contends:
No evil can happen to a good man either living or dead… (41D)
As the last words, Socrates appeals the Athenians:
Punish my sons, gentlemen, when they grow up; give them this same pain I have you, if you think they care for money or anything else before virtue; and if they have the reputation of being something when they are nothing, reproach them, as I reproach you, that they do no take care for what they should, and think they are something when they are worth nothing. And if you do this, we shall have been justly dealt wit by you, both I and my sons. (End of Apology)
Socrates did not write even a single work. And yet, many, many people, like we ourselves who read, for example, Socrates’ Apology, are moved and inspired by this image of Socrates, his devotion to philosophy and his firm belief in the power of philosophy.
Why is this so?
We may answer this question perhaps in two ways:
The one is the fact that Plato experienced Socrates’ death described in his Apology at his age of 19. He was so deeply moved by Socrates that he decided to become a philosopher rather than a politician which he thought that it would be a natural calling for him. Thus, Plato even reproduced Socrates’ defense to show others how he was drawn to continue the mission of this master. Plato’s entire life was determined by the inspiration by Socrates.
The other is the greatness of Socrates himself as a man and his total devotion to philosophy as well as his endeavor in midwifery of wisdom for others. His strong inspiration and love for wisdom and moral uprightness, his selfless dedication to the cause of how to improve ourselves, how we can be better human beings, his skillfulness of searching and insight into truth, and his great compassion to be a Gadfly of the state definitely impress us.
Although the sophists were the one who impressed the general populace with the power of “knowledge,” Socrates articulated the right knowledge from the wrong ones (the mere skill of persuasion) and disclosed that the human beings themselves, their virtues and their right conducts are the crucial in leading a better life, leading a happy life. Socrates was the one, too, who advocated that the morally good life the cause of happiness. Moralists of the so-called Small Socratic Schools followed closely what Socrates tried to accomplish. And yet, at the same time, they were responding to the need of the individual who searches for the principle by which they are able to lead a good life. In stead of asking what is the good which makes us happy, they asked what happiness (e.g., sensuous pleasure and avoidance of pain, or the serenity of our soul) brings about our good life. This is the beginning of the moral philosophy for the individual.
THE ATHENIAN PHILOSOPHERS
The history of Greek philosophy started from Ionia in the Asia Minor, which was the closest to and was most easily influenced by Persia (the cultural inheritance of the Mesopotamia). Due to Persian military expansions, the Ionian intellectuals and “technocrats” had to take the refuge to the rest of Magna Graeca, mainly to Southern Italy. As a result of this cultural transference, there were created the so-called migrant philosophers who brought the cultural heritage of the Asia Minor to Italy. As a result, the stage of philosophy was moved from Asia Minor to Southern Italy. In Italy, not only the Eleatic logic and metaphysics were developed, but also many attempts were made to revive the philosophy of nature in the face of the challenges of the Eleatic philosophy. Then the Greek Federation fought a war against Persia who further intended to expand its territories and the Greek won the Persian War (490-480 B.C). The Athenian Navy played the crucial role in the Sea Battle, which lead the Persian Defeat and, thus, this victory of the Persian War by the Greek Federation lead by Athens made Athens the socio-political center of Magna Graeca as the most powerful city state. Pericles, being both the military leader and the politically most powerful, saw that Athens had deficiencies in the cultural aspects as a powerful city state. Thanks to Pericles’ cultural policies, now Athens quickly emerged as the center of Greek culture, too. Not only Pericles invited such “philosophers” as Anaxagoras and Protagoras, many intellectuals who were philosophically inclined to pursue knowledge and share its results with the others gathered in Athens. As a result, many great philosophers were born in Athens. Before we discuss Socrates and Plato as the native Athenian philosophers, we must study the sophists, who appeared as a special professionals, as the transitory philosophers, the bridge between the revivalists of the philosophy of nature and Socrates and Plato.
The Sophists
Through this geo-political transition of culture to Athens, the central question of the problems of philosophy was no longer sought in Heaven and Earth, in nature and its principles (Anaxagoras was still preoccupied with this philosophy of nature in Athens).
They were now concerned about the Human beings Themselves.
In order that such a radical shift of questions in philosophy was possible, some cultural, psychological and philosophical preparations had to be done in ahead.
1) The problem of human-being oneself and of the society as well as the politics became more serious questions tot the consciousness of the people rather than those of the heaven and nature. Why? Because what had been previously taken for granted as self-evident was no longer acceptable as true, but on the contrary, everything which was taken for granted in humanity and society had become questionable.
2) After the Persian War (490-480 B.C.) Athens became the leader of Pan-Graeca civilization.
Furthermore, the Athenians were basically very political people. They were thus more concerned about politics and human-being oneself.
3) The Athenians were originally very practical people, being good at making money, skillful in engineering, well equipped with navigational talents and excellent in military affairs. To them, philosophy, the search for knowledge for its own sake, appeared as idle talks and totally useless in our human existence. That was why they hated Anaxagoras, who appeared to the Athenians wasting time for idle talks. At that time, they did not appreciate knowledge itself for its own sake and its pursuit.
As a result of the victory of the Persian War, Athens and the Athenians (aristocrats, of course) suddenly became very wealthy and now had a lot of leisure. Then, the Athenians started appreciating arts, theatres, poetry, music and philosophy. That is why it is often said, “To philosophize, leisure is necessary!”
Furthermore, the abundance of wealth and the cultural maturity brought forth the crushes between the values of the elders and those of the youngers, which lead to relativism of values and culture.
Thus, the mental preparation for and attitude towards such questions about the human affairs had been already prepared and made them to eagerly raise such questions.
4) Thanks to the economic prosperity and the military strength of Athens, many excellent men of letters, arts and sciences, as well as every phase of advanced civilization were welcomed and gathered in Athens.
They were poets, performers, sculptors, painters, architects, scientists, political advisors and philosophers and lawyers.
Among them, there were educators and self-claiming teachers and political consultants at the same time as well.
The so-called “sophists” were some of those intellectuals who claimed themselves to have special talents, knowledge and skills (all of which thy called “wisdom”) as well as abilities (virtues) and they claimed that they were able to educate the youth with such special knowledge and skills to smart out in politics. That was why they were called sophists (=wise men).
What did the sophist (ho sophistés) mean?
1) According to the dictionary, the sophist is an Ancient Greek teacher of rhetoric or capricious or fallacious reasoner.
This definition was mainly due to Plato’s one sided conception of the sophist. It is indeed negative allegations probably due to his strong resentment caused by the fact that Socrates, Plato’s beloved teacher, was alleged to be a sophist and was prosecuted by a death sentence.
The earlier sophists such as Protagoras, Gorgias (whom Plato viciously accused in Gorgias, however), Hippias, Prodicus, Callicles, Antiphon, Critias were supposedly different. They gave an important impact to the Athenians and the other city states in Greece both intellectually and culturally.
Sophia purports first of all wisdom.
Sophizein means , as the intransitive verb, the state in which wisdom is active, and
this sophizein later became to be used as the transitive verb, it signifies to make one’s wisdom work, to assist someone’s wisdom to work better, to teach!
Hé sophistés means:
1) A wise human-being.
Aeschylus called Prometheus in his play Prometheus hé sophistés in the sense that Prometheus as a wise human-being and a teacher taught men many things including the use of fire.
Therefore, the term in itself had no negative connotation. And it was further used to call such people (the Seven Wise men) as Solon, the Athenian great politician who created the Athenian Constitution, or as Thales, the founder of the Ionian natural philosophy.
Herodotus in his Historia thus called Solon and Pythagoras as sophistai.
2) A teacher of rhetoric.
As clearly seen from the above, in itself the word, “hé sophistés”, never signified the negative meaning. Therefore, in Athens, people called Protagoras, Gorgias or Hippias or Prodicus sophists and admired them.
As stated earlier, it was Plato that started using the “sophists” in the negative sense, and yet he also sometimes called a mathematician hé sophistés in Cratylos and Hadés hé sophistés in Meno. The difference consists in the fact that while the sophists in the former sense referred a professionals with the claim of special knowledge and skills (in fact they denied knowledge and its pursuit meaningless), the latter as a common noun referred to a wise person.
In the latter sense, in the school of Isocrates, for example, Lycias called Socrates and his followers sophists.
3) According to Plato, the sophists are those who prey the sons of the wealthy with the claim of producing, wholesaling and retailing “knowledge” and skills which are supposed to be nutrition of mind and are in reality nothing but appearances and possess no substance. They were all relativists and claimed that there is no universal truth and knowledge, so it was meaningless to pursue knowledge. What they called “knowledge” was the skill of rhetoric in the sense of the art of persuasion in political debates and by teaching them, the sophists earned high fees. The so-called sophists are those who themselves do not know what they are.
4) Besides Plato, Xenophon in his Kynegetikos (Hunting) describes the sophist as a human-being who exerts himself to deceive others, writes books to his own benefit and love no one else. Since there is no genuine sophist (wise human-being) on earth, according Xenophon, some people do not want to be called sophists (wise men).
5) Aristotle in his Sophistici elenchi, following Plato’s negative definition of the sophist, said that one is called a sophist, if he earns money with the pretentious knowledge which does not actually exist.
6) In the later period, the term, the sophist, refers to a particular kind of professionals (e.g. Plato’s Gorgias).
When Socrates stayed overnight at one of his friends’ house, a young human-being came to him and told him that Gorgias had came to Athens and asked Socrates to introduce him to Gorgias, for he was called a sophist just like a physician and a carpenter is called so. The young human-being told Socrates that, by learning from Gorgias, he would become a great human-being.
Here appeared Gorgias as a well known educator of the youth.
According to one of his fragments,Protagoras declared himself:
“I am a sophist and my profession is to teach men how to govern the house, the government, how to improve the political affairs of the state and to better the art of argument and to instruct the youth how to become a significant, influential human-being…
“It (the knowledge Protagoras would teach them) is hé politiké techné (political science), that is, it makes the citizen become an excellent politician.”
Protagoras claimed that the ideal of educating a human-being is to make a human being a good citizen and an excellent politician capable of handling the political affairs of the state better. He promised to make a citizen an able and eloquent speaker, a competent politician by influencing other citizens and make him capable of assuming a significant position of the government.
Till then (Protagoras’ time), the general education of the youth in Athens was either the training for a trade (professional education) or the moral, religious training of the children by the elders of the clan. The sophists did promise or claim a higher level of education than those above two and declared that their job was a further development of Homer and other poets (cf. Werner Jaeger, Paideia).
Although the educational ideal advocated by the sophists seemed high and good, their paedagogical methods were not well thought out or even not highly developed. On the contrary, they took their profession as the means of obtaining wealth and attaining a influential position with the then famous politicians.
The sophists were not native Athenians. They were foreigners (except Antiphon of Athens) and they used to give a lecture on or several examples of eloquence.
According to Socrates (= Plato), the sophist revealed only the finished shoes, and never how to make the shoes!
Positive Aspects of Sophists
Against those negative aspects of being a sophist in the 5th and 4th Century B.C., we should not overlook the many invaluable, positive aspects and contributions that the sophists accomplished for the further development of the Western philosophies.
1) The quest for and inquiry into Human-being Himself.
The early sophists initiated the shift of the philosophical questions from those of nature to those of human-being himself. Considering the further development of the Athenian philosophies from Socrates through Plato to Aristotle, it is the greatest contribution of the sophists of all is that they accomplished the preparation for the rise of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies and philosophical inquires into human beings and their society.
2) The Lawyer.
Needless to remind ourselves of Protagoras’ drafting the constitution of Thurioi, many sophists appeared as lawyers and served as lawyers. They helped drafting laws, acting legal advisors. Sometimes they even appeared as defense lawyers. They were well acquainted with different legal systems among different civilizations. They contributed to the understanding of the nature of law as well.
3) The cultural anthropologist.
By traveling widely, almost all sophists were well acquainted with various cultures not only among Magna Graeca, but also other civilizations than Greek in terms of legal systems, political structures, languages, mores, customs, etc. This awareness of pluralism of the culture made them cultural relativists and those of values.
4) The linguist.
They were able to speak several languages and were interested in the inquiry into the grammar and the linguistic structure.
5) The logician and rhetorician.
Apart from Parmenides and Zeno, they were the intellectuals who were interested in logic and contributed to the development of logic and as well as the art of eloquentia (speech) as rhetoric, which were further developed decisively by Aristotle.
6) The diplomat.
As well exemplified by the role of Gorgias, who came to Athens from Leontini to secure military supports, many sophists were either themselves diplomats or advisors for the diplomat, as they were well acquainted with various cultures and had mastered the art of persuasion.
7) The politician.
Again Gorgias was an example. However, more those who were taught by the sophists and mastered the skills of eloquentia were very successful in obtaining high positions in politics. They were remembered more primarily as politicians than as sophists, however.
8) The political consultant.
Many self-claimed sophists were active as political consultants, advising influential politicians, giving advice, helping making legislation, conceiving political plots.
9) The paedagogist or educator.
The sophists were the first professionals who claimed themselves as educators. Education means to mold the youth into a certain trait both in character and skills by giving special training. No civilization has ever neglected education, for the human beings want to transmit the value of the existing society to the next generation. However, here the sophists appeared as the first self-claimed educator for the youth. They claimed that they could make the youth better (superior politicians and influential persons) by teaching them the art of persuasion (eloquentia). This skills were far short of fulfilling the task of moral education, but it is very important that they presented themselves as educators as professionals for the first time.
10) The sociologist.
Sophists were well travelled and well acquainted with various societies. Thus, their knowledge about the societies, social structures and its conventions was the first which could claim the beginning of the sociology.
11) The relativistic philosopher
in ethics and
in epistemology (theory of knowledge).
Although Plato would never approve to call sophists philosophers, but they were indeed philosophers with relativistic thoughts in ethics and epistemology. Through their investigations about the moralities of different cultures, they advocated that there was no absolute moral duties, but the moral principles were only conducive to a given culture or society, thus, they were relative. Just as many matter of taste were relative, so they argued, even such matters as moral laws (e.g. Thou shall not lie) and as the meaning of life were all relative. The efforts by Socrates and Plato were answers to those relativism of values which they felt they must overcome.
In epistemology, also, they took a relativistic view. Namely, according to almost all the sophists, knowledge and truth is neither absolute nor objective, but merely subjective and relative to the culture, society and person. Therefore, it is non-sense to pursue knowledge for its own sake, since there is no such a thing. In stead of absolute truth and objective knowledge, they believed that what we could call “knowledge” is only the skills of persuade the majority, convince them with what they advocate. This presented a serious challenge to the traditional philosophy, the pursuit of (objective) knowledge for its own sake. Socrates and Plato tried to fight against this relativism.
Although their accomplishments seem negative in general, as mentioned above, we must emphasize, they prepared for the re-birth of the philosophy by Socrates (and Plato) and fulfilled the
needs of the society at the time of Greece.
PLATON (428/7 -348/7 B.C.)
Life
Plato has been considered as one of the greatest philosophers not only in the History of Ancient Greek philosophy, but also throughout the history of humankind. It is very difficult to state in short why Plato was so great, but at least we could even infer this from the fact how much influences Plato exercised throughout the history of Western philosophy. It is impossible for us to even speak and think how reality really is without using the basic concepts and thoughts of Plato’s philosophy. Our thinking has been greatly molded by Plato’s metaphysics and his ethical and political doctrine. How much one might detest Plato’s political theory of the ideal state as a totalitarian, we are not able to talk about any political system or political philosophy today without reference to Plato.
Platõn was nickname, meaning a wide shouldered. Apparently so was he. His real name was supposed to be Aristoclés. Like Socrates, Plato was a native Athenian and was born in Athens around 428/7 B.C. His family was one of the most distinguished aristocratic families in Athens. His father was Ariston. His mother’s side was more prominent. His mother, Perictioné, was Chalmidés’s sister and Critias’ niece (see above in The Section of Sophists‹Relativism and The Section of Socrates), both of whom were members of the Oligarchy of 404/3 B.C. and Critias was the leader of the Oligarchy and had to die through the Democratic coup d’etat supported by Sparta. They were the élites of all the Athenian élites. Plato had three siblings. His sister was Potoné, two brothers, Adeimantos and Glaucon, played their conversant roles in Plato’s great Dialogue, Republic (hé politeia). After Plato’s father Ariston died, his mother, Perictioné, re-married Pyrilampés, also a distinguished Athenian and dear friend of Periclés, the great Athenian General and politician. Plato’s half brother, Antiphon, appears in one of Plato’s later Dialogues, called, Parmenides. Because Plato was apparently brought up in this aristocratic families and was very likely trained in the tradition of Periclean regime, it was natural that Plato, as a youngster, as well as his relatives expected that he become a politician. Also Plato never lost interest in an ideal form of the city state, so he wrote Republic and even went to Syracuse twice at his very old age in order to actualize his ideal of politics.
It was at nineteen/twenty years of age that Plato himself had to witness that Socrates was accused, indicted and had to drink the hemlock to die in 399 B.C. by the hand of the Democrats. (Diogenes Laërtius reported that Plato got acquainted with Socrates when he was 20 years old, but Athens was such a small city state, at whose agora (market place) Socrates discussed and cross examined Athenians as well as foreigners. It is also reported that Charmides, Plato’s uncle already knew Socrates in 431 B.C.)
Many scholars argue that Plato’s poor evaluation of and even his disdain against democracy derived from Plato’s love for Socrates and his psychological shock at this prosecution of Socrates. However, this must be simply one of the many reasons. The other was definitely his upbringing as an Athenian aristocrat in association with the relatives of Critias and Charmides with his admiration for the great aristocratic politicians. It was also told that during Peloponnessan War, Plato fought against Sparta at Arginusae in 406 B.C. , which lead Plato disliked Democracy because Sparta supported the Democratic coup d’etat. At any rate, it is quite obvious from Plato’s discussion on Democracy in Republic that he had quite negative opinions, it be one of the deteriorating forms of government without a good leader (for it was natural, as the démos (masses) were considered to be ignorant and lack of knowledge and skill of governing), and next to the tyranny.
Before Plato studied with Socrates, it was said that he studied with Cratylus, the Heracleitian philosopher. This may be evidenced by his thought that the world of senses is in the constant flux, although Heracleitus’ thought, just as the Eleatic philosophy, may very well be known to the Athenian youth without such a specific scholar as Cratylus.
Plato was also well acquainted with Parmenides’ philosophy and Zeno’s arguments either through their writings or oral traditions, but it is also possible, but highly unlikely, that Socrates who was portrayed as encountering Parmenides and Zeno at his youth as described in Plato’s Parmenides mediated the Eleatic philosophy to Plato. In either case, Plato was supposed to learn that the true knowledge of reality is only through non-sensory, hypersensory cognition of Reason.
We are no so sure exactly what kind philosophical ideas Plato learned from Socrates, but if the early Dialogues were evidence for it, Plato learned from Socrates the attitude, the approach, and the devotion to how to do philosophy. It is also certain that Plato learned from Socrates that knowledge is the power.
As mentioned before, Plato was at Socrates’ trial, according to Apology of Socrates, and he was supposed to be one of Socrates’ friends who tried to urge Socrates to raise his proposed fine from one to thirty minae, and yet, according to Plato’s Dialogue Crito, Plato was not there at the scene of Socrates’ taking the hemlock due to his illness, as Plato made an excuse at its prologue. Upon Socrates’ death, Plato went to Megara and was associated with Euclid, the mathematician and philosopher. Further Plato was supposed to undertake a long journey to Cyrene, Italy and even to Egypt. This may be substantiated by the fact that Plato knew the Egyptian mathematics and the children’s games. It is said that if Plato did go to Egypt, it was around 395 B.C. and had already returned by the beginning of Corinthian wars.
When Plato was around 40 years old, according to his epistolé (letter), he visited Italy and sicily, where he met some of the Pythagorean philosophers. At the time, Plato was invited to Dionysius I, Tyrant of Syracuse, where Dion, his brother in law, became an ardent believer of Plato’s philosophy, particularly of the political thoughts. Plato made Dionysius very angry for some reason, the latter gave Plato in charge of Polis, a Spartan envoy, who was supposed to sell him as a slave. Polis did sell Plato as a slave at Aegina. However, Plato met an acquaintance from
Cyrene, who bought him free and sent him back to Athens.
Upon his return to Athens, Plato was to found his Academy near the sanctuary of the Academus. At the gate of the Academy, it was supposed to be written, “No one allows to enter this gate without the knowledge of mathematics!” It was indeed the first Western “University” where Plato, other scholars and some students pursue “mousiké,” the study of mathematics, logic, other natural sciences and (primary) philosophy for their own sake (and not for their usefulness), and worshipped the Mouses. There, Plato was to educate the youth to become the real politicians. Just like Aristotle’s lectures at Lyceum, Plato was supposed to deliver lectures and students took notes. However, those notes were never published. The so-called Dialogues of Plato were all written to the general public and not for such exclusive audience as the members of Academy.
Since Dion of Syracuse was so impressed with Plato as a teacher and political advisor, he urged Plato to come back to Syracuse to help him to educate his nephew, Dionysius II, and thereby actualize the ideal state. Thus, Plato undertook the second journey to Syracuse in 367 B.C. Plato was about the same age (60/61 years old) as Socrates had been tried. Plato tried to teach Dionysius II at the age of thirty geometry and arithmetic, etc., but soon he became too jealous of Dion, his uncle and Plato’s student, so Dion could not stay in Syracuse and had to leave Syracuse, while Plato, despite his ardent endeavors, was unsuccessful and had to leave for Athens, although Plato was supposed to continue to instruct Dion by correspondence. This may be the first correspondence course ever taught in the Western civilization. Finally, Dion resided in Athens. In 361 B.C., Plato made his third trip to Syracuse with the ardent request by Dionysius II who supposedly wanted to continue studying philosophy. The hope that he could reconcile the relationship between Dionysius II and his uncle, Dion, became in vain, as Dionysius II seized Dion’s property and permanently purged his uncle. Plato went back to Athens with disappointment. Till his death in 348/7 B.C. Plato continued to teach at his Academy. No one mentioned about his wife, nor Plato himself talked about his family and his inheritance was given to his nephew, we assumed that Plato was never married.
Plato’s Works
The opera omnia Platonis, thirty five Dialogues and Epistlés, his letters, which were transmitted to us Plato’s opera were due to Aristophanes of Byzantium at 3rd Century B.C. (the first editor of his complete works was Thrasyllus around the beginning of the Christian era said so, and Ficinus who was the founder of Florence’s Plato’s Academy and the first serious and systematic translator and commentator of his works also believed so). Of course, some of them were questioned their authenticity in the Ancient Times. Already Athenaeus (228 B.C.) attributed Alcibiades II to Xenophon. Proclus even did not accept Epinomis and All Epistles, Laws and Republic.
1) However, the following opera have been ascertained by the recent scientific research as rejected its authenticity:
Alcibiades II, Hipparchus, Amatores or Rivales, Theages, Clitophon, Minus.
2) The authenticity of the following opera are still in dispute:
Alcibiades I, Ion, Menexenus, Hippias Maior, Epinomis, Epistles.
Thus, twenty four are accepted as authentic, while six of 1) are generally considered as pseudo-Platonic, and six of 2) are considered to be genuine until proven otherwise.
It is extremely important to ascertain the chronology of Platonis opera, as Plato’s philosophical development is evidenced by it. In order to ascertain the relative order of Plato’s writing, the following methods have been applied:
a) In order to establish the relative temporal order of the Dialogues, we can exploit all the references which were made from one Dialogue to the other. The former is, it can normally assumed safely, later than the latter. For example, Politicus made a reference to Sophistes, thus the latter is earlier, while the former is later. The same may be established between Republic and Timaeus. However, in this case, we do not take into consideration that there are many editions of the same Dialogue. Say, Apology may be rewritten several times, and through these revisions, it may be possible some additions were made although there were no essential change in Plato’s philosophical thought. Therefore, we must be very careful to use this.
b) There were references made in the Dialogues to historical incidents, whose dates are known to us. Apology, Phaedo and Crito all have a reference to the Death of Socrates, so they were written after 399 B.C. And yet, there is no way of knowing the relative dates among those Dialogues. Gorgias contains a reply to a speech by Polycrates against Socrates (393/392 B.C), the Dialogue Gorgias was composed between 393 and 389, according to Copleston.
c) This method was used by Dittenberger for the first time to ascertain the relative dates of Platonis opera and it is linguistic. A certain expression Plato used a lot in earlier periods, while in his later periods its occurrence diminished such as TI MHN. The later the Dialogues get, the more often Plato use ET MHN and tt MHN. The linguistic method to examine the style was very powerful method to ascertain the chronology.
d) The testimonies of the Ancient interpreters and people like Diogenes Laërtius sometimes serves the purpose to support some chronological order.
e) The significance of Socrates in the Dialogues changes. Sometimes even Socrates does not appear at all. So we may assume that Crito is earlier, while Parmenides is later for example. The so-called Burnett-Taylor theory maintained the Socrates in Plato’s dialogues are all Socratic, which is quite noble, but in actuality it is untenable.
We are accustomed to divide Platonis opera (The Complete Works of Plato) into four main groups in terms of the relative chronological order.
I. Early Dialogues
Apology
Crito
Euthypron
Laches
Ion
Protagoras
Charmides
Lysis
Book I of Republic (The discussion between Thrasymachus and Socrates on Justice)
II. Middle Period Dialogues
Gorgias
Meno
Euthydemus
Hippias
Hippias II
Cratylus
Menexenus
III. The Mature Period Dialogues
Symposium
Phaedo
Republic (Plato tried to specify the criteria for an Ideal City State in Bk II-X)
Phaedrus
IV. Later Dialogues
Theatetus
Parmenides
Sophists
Politicus
Philebus
Timaeus
Critias
Laws
Apostles
PHILOSOPHY
Plato’s philosophical thoughts which are transmitted to us present themselves as complex and difficult to construe as a consistent system of thought. First of all, the situation is manifold: Not only because Plato’s thought evolved from the early stage through the middle one to the later attainment, but also, due to the devises he used in order to express his philosophical ideas, Plato used the form of dialogue and it is not so easy to interpret what Socrates said and what Plato thought through the mouth of Socrates. Besides, Plato=Socrates narrates a myth or a story that he once heard, which Plato used as the method to distance himself from the fact including the real Socrates. Sometimes, Plato heard from e.g. Diotima who further told a story. What we have inherited as Plato’s writings are all written in the form of dialogue, which was supposed to be written for the general public and not for his students and colleagues at Academy, who were trained in mathematics and philosophy much better. It further makes it difficult to understand that Plato’s thoughts have been transferred to the present day of the Western Civilization in various ways through its history.
The problem of a uniformal interpretation of Plato’s philosophy has been made also more difficult not only because an apparent changes of Plato’s thoughts exist, but also by the fact that Aristotle, who is almost equally great and possibly more influential than Plato, particularly during the Middle Ages due to the nature of Aristotle’s philosophy based upon a similar metaphysical foundation to that of our common sense, happened to be Plato’s best student. Although Aristotle made a considerable effort to distinguish his thought from Plato’s by pointing out the faults of Plato’s thoughts viewed from Aristotle’s perspective, a great many elements of Aristotle’s philosophy must have inherited from Plato’s thoughts which were presented and discussed within Academy. The aspect of this problem shall be discussed in the context of Aristotle’s philosophy.
Before getting into Plato’s philosophy in detail, we must first examine what kind of significance Plato has in the historical perspective. What a great genius Plato may be, his philosophy cannot come into existence out of vacuum. On the contrary, Plato’s predecessors were the Eleatics (Parmenides and Zeno), the Revivalists of the Natural Philosophy (e.g. Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus), and even the Miletian-Italian Immigrant philosophers (Pythagoras and Herakleitus and Xenophanes) as well as his immediate teacher, Socrates.
Plato were well versed with Pythagorean philosophy and its arithmetics as well as Euclidean geometry. Plato no doubt was well acquainted with the Heracleitian philosophy of «c cu«c 8i (Everything in flux). Without reference to his Dialogue titled Parmenides, Plato was confronted by Parmenides with the Eleatic Philosophy to comprehend reality. Probably, Empedocles and Leucippus are common-sense knowledge to Plato, too. Socrates=Plato extensively discussed Anaxagoras in Phaedo and said that when Socrates was young, he studied Anaxagoras’ philosophy extensively. No doubt, Plato must have studied Anaxagoras, too, otherwise he could not have written that portion of Phaedo as good as it is.
Without the specific reference to such dialogues as Protagoras, Gorgias and the Book I of Republic (which was supposed to be originally called Thrasymachus), Hippias and The Sophist, we are made aware of how much Plato knew about the sophists and their activities (and also how much energy Plato poured to criticize the Sophistic approaches).
In the above mentioned, though Plato’s understanding of his predecessors’ thoughts were not quite so systematic, all those converged and provided Plato and his philosophy with indispensable elements for a further development of the history of philosophy. Of course, some of them may be positively, the other, negatively, and yet this was historically the first event in which a philosopher not only inherited the questions of the past philosophy, but also accepted so many influences and made them integrated into one’s philosophical ideas.
Now what was the central problem of Plato’s philosophy?
Being a student of Socrates, Plato’s central question was about the human-being itself, too,
and not the philosophy of nature. At the time of Plato’s activities, unlike in the Hellenic period, how decadent it might have become, the human-being was human only as a citizen of a polis (city state). Socrates’ question was not just what makes the human being human. It was the paedagoical question of
How and why is the human-being to be “good”human?
How could the human-being become better as a human-being?
This was answered in Socratic mission by devoting oneself to the search for wisdom (to the search for knowledge, justice, temperance, courage and other virtues of the soul). Indeed, wisdom was considered by Plato and Socrates the most central virtue which everything worthwhile derives from and depends upon.
How was this pursuit of wisdom accomplished?
Following Socrates, Plato attempted to search for reality as it really was in that which becomes the predicate and not the subject of a proposition (that is exactly the opposite to Aristotle’s search for substance). According to Plato, the early Socrates in the Platonic dialogues, i.e., the real Socrates himself, searched for the essence or the genuine being (ousia) of that which becomes the predicate and not the subject of a proposition. He asks the question in the form of “cH lacHl?” (What is it?) When Socrates tells his opponent, “I am asking you to answer and show me, not this courageous act of Heracles, or that courageous deed of Antigone, but courage itself or the essence of courage, the real courage by which a particular action is courageous.” There are millions of beautiful things, such as a beautiful bird, a beautiful house, a beautiful young woman, a beautiful briefcase, etc., but they are mutable and not universally valid due to the origin of their knowledge (sense experience, aisthesis). Thus they provides us no genuine knowledge of say, the beauty itself. According to Plato, there must be something (which may be called “cause” or “principle.”) which is shared by those things and yet something absolutely beautiful itself which neither diminishes nor increases and is in itself unchanging and everlasting as well as universally being so.
This assumption became already a firm conviction in the mind of Socrates, although Socrates apparently did not find the answer to his own question and left it to Plato to solve. Socrates’ significance is that he was so close to the answer itself, but did not know how to describe it as the genuine reality. Nor Socrates would not establish such a metaphysical beings and their system called the world of Idea.
What Plato, together with Socrates, looked for was the Beauty itself, the essence of Beauty which is one, while beautiful thins are many. In stead of the concrete, particular things, which become the subject of a proposition, Plato searched the Universal, or the essence of reality in itself which can be predicated of those concrete, particular things which are its subjects. Indeed, a particular, individual person becomes beautiful and later perhaps becomes no longer beautiful. Thus, the predicate of this person is ugly in stead of being beautiful.
However, in this search for the Universal or the Ideal Essence by Plato, it became more and more obvious that these Ideals and Forms are not only those of “things” (which would create more problems to the later Plato, e.g. the Idea of nail, the Idea of hair, the Idea of mud, etc. cf. Parmenides), but they are rather Values themselves as Ideals. We do not have to point out such examples as those Plato uses in his dialogues: e.g., Good in itself, Beauty in itself, Justice in itself and Courage in itself.
Even the essence, “wisdom,” was viewed more often as a Value or an Ideal rather than an actual, concretely possessed knowledge. Therefore, in Plato’s thought at the middle period, there is an unbridgeable cleft between the Wisdom as a Value or an absolute Ideal and the actual wisdom which seemed to be possessed by Pericles or other politicians or philosophers, for example. The essence of value is unattainable or non-graspable unless he/she “dies” and is completely freed from the body and sensuous desires (in Apology, Phaedo and Symposium). Besides this essence of a value cannot be given as a form, as Aristotle contended. On the contrary, neither is it possible to intellectually grasp the form of a thing, but to Plato, an essence of thing as a value (e.g. Beauty itself) is to be recognized by supersensory, intellectual intuition (nohsis), not by such a logical procedure as a dialectic in itself. Indeed, dialectic is an essential portion of discovery and revelation of an essence as a value in order to take a correct steps to the point. At this point itself, the dialectic must be silent and the nohsis (intellectual intuition) must take over its task of revelation of truth.
Thus, it is rather primitive an attempt, for example, to discover an inconsistency in Plato’s conception about wisdom or to develop a coherent theory in Plato’s philosophy. Indeed, we have been so brain-washed by Aristotle who went right back basically to the comprehension of being as a “thing” in the model of a living organism or nature of the Pre-Socratic philosophy. Aristotle was not able to see how hard Socrates as well as Plato exerted themselves to clearly evidence the essence of beauty, that of justice, even that of usefulness of medicine. To Aristotle, such questions were already solved (and even wrongly solved). They were no longer thematic questions of Aristotle. To him, Socrates was the inventor of mere “inductive argument. No more dialectics.
Furthermore, today in particular ,we still naively have no doubt about the all-mightiness and unlimited validity of natural scientific explanations and about the so-called Contemporary scientific value-free approach as the sole means to comprehend being. Therefore, we often forget Plato’s great uniqueness in and profound contribution to the insight into his ontology based upon Value rather than the mere “thingness” of being in the history of Western philosophy. Aristotle never understood this accomplishment of Socrates and Plato.
The concrete, particular thing changes, and nothing of this kind remains the same. In this sense, Plato inherited Heracleitus’ insight into the reality such that Plato saw that everything in the sense world is in constant change.
On the other hand, Plato could not help but notice that this Beauty itself which is not only immutable and eternal in distinction from those concrete, particular beautiful people or things must exist. Plato calls Justice Itself, Good Itself, and Beauty Itself as Ideas or Forms. Probably the early Plato who was exposed to Pythagorean philosophy and saw in it an excellent model of, and a parallel to, this in mathematics. The number three may be represented by three apples, three books, or three persons, but the number three itself is quite different from those particular, concrete objects and retains its identity and constancy. (Aristotle on the contrary, held that the number is an abstraction from concrete, particular individual things.) To Plato, however, this number is not abstracted from those three things, but those three things are three by virtue of the number three. In this sense, Pythagoreanism exercised a great influence on Plato’s thought (Incidentally, the number is known to us through understanding clcumlc and is considered otologically as an intermediary between the Ideas and the concrete, particulars, although the number is far more close to the Ideas in fact. See Book VII of Republic). Furthermore, Plato follows Parmenides’ path of Rationalism in that, not the senses, but Reason alone, can grasp this Beauty Itself, Justice Itself and Good Itself. Once again after Parmenides, Plato calls this world of Ideas the genuine reality in distinction from the world of appearance which is a mere illusion. Since in the phenomenal world, everything is in constant change, so argues Plato following Heracleitus, there cannot be knowledge. For any object in the world of appearance, being the mixture of being and non-being, change is inevitable. Therefore, Plato calls our information about the phenomenal world opinions, while he reserved the name of knowledge only for the Ideas, because the Idea alone is unchanging, eternal, thus real in the genuine sense.
In a sense, Plato exerted himself most intensively to argue against the sophists and their philosophical ideas. In order to justify the love of wisdom (= i OlmÁmOlc), the search for knowledge and values, as long as it is meaningful, the object of the search and its knowledge cannot be relative, nor subjective. If it were relative, every person has to become indeed the “measure of all things.” What is perceived by each is true and value to each. Thus, first of all, we are not able to explain or understand the phenomenon of being false. Secondly, there is no universal truth, there is no absolute truth different from each individual’s opinion. According to the sophists, truth is reducible to an opinion of each individual. This threatens the very foundation of philosophy itself, i.e., the learning and the search for knowledge as such.What was the most challenging task to Plato was to positively (unlike Socrates who negatively tried to demonstrate that knowledge cannot be opinions) justify the absolute objectivity of truth and knowledge so that all the serious philosophers’ endeavor is not meaningless, but significant. In this sense, Plato owes a great deal to the sophists, however negative sense it may be. In order to accomplish this task, Plato had to “postulate” the world of Ideas or Forms as the genuine reality.
When knowledge was threatened by the sophistic argument and their relativism, Plato had to stand up, defend and philosophically justify the objectivity (universal validity and necessity) of knowledge and values by means of the reality of the immutable, eternal Ideas. Here knowledge and values were indeed no longer unquestionable, but rather highly questionable to the contemporary of Plato.
Plato’s defense for the objectivity of knowledge was attempted by establishing an ontology which meets the Parmenidian criteria for truth of the identity of knowing and being. In order to do so, the reality cannot be searched among the phenomenal world, but must be searched beyond the world of appearance. What is discovered was no other than the world of Ideas. While René Descartes attempted to demonstrate the apodeictic knowledge of oneself to secure a new vista of knowledge, Plato exerts himself to reveal for truth and genuine knowledge the existence of the world of Ideas and Ideals, without which no objective truth is considered as possible at all.
By the following way, we may be able to answer to the question of “What kind of place has Plato and his philosophy occupy in the history of Western philosophy and its civilization?”
Namely, Plato stood in the face of the sophistic relativism, skepticism and even nihilism of truth and knowledge as well as morality and values. It was the crisis of philosophy and culture. This new trends threatened the society, the religion, the politics, the morality and the pursuit of knowledge from their foundation. Plato was to overcome this nihilism, skepticism and relativism so that our speech, our utterance, our judgment are not mere murmurs, but are meaningful and either true or false. When we say that justice is virtue, while injustice is vice, this utterances are indeed meaningful and the distinction is actual. The genuine distinction between a truth and an opinion must be drown so that it is not non-sense to say that I know that I do not know.
This task of overcoming the sophistry was further succeeded by Aristotle, but in a different way, which we are not going to discuss here.
Metaphysics or Ontology: The Doctrine of Forms
Plato’s starting point was Socrates’ question: cH lacHl? (What is it?) In the agora (market place) of Athens, Socrates asked his cross-examined to try to have him see courage as such rather than a concrete, particular courageous act or a concrete, particular courageous person. In stead of the socalled denotational definition, Socrates demanded a connotation definition of courage itself. As far as we can see, the so-called early Dialogues, neither Socrates, nor his cross-examined, were able to give the answer to Socrates’ question in and quest for the essence of things as a form of connotation definition. It may be probably why Socrates kept saying, too, that he was aware that he did not possess wisdom or knowledge. Plato perhaps asked himself how truth, knowledge, values and morality are possible as something objective and real, not merely subjective and relative. This was indeed an epistemological question (as the case of Immanuel Kant), but this condition for the possibility of our knowledge and values was not provided by Plato as the groundwork of epistemology within itself, but exclusively as metaphysics or ontology. As mentioned above, the meaningfulness of the pursuit of knowledge (=love of wisdom lmÁmOlc) is only possible when knowledge is neither subjective, nor relative. Plato was well aware that he could not seek the knowledge in the world of appearance, as this world of appearance known to us by senses is the mixture of being and non-being, thus it is in constant flux. Nothing in the phenomenal world is abiding and immutable, so if our “knowledge” is limited to the object of this world of appearance, there would possibly be no knowledge in the strict, objective sense. Should it also mutable itself or in its object, it is not worth the name of knowledge at all. (Yesterday’s truth may be today’s falsehood.) Plato readily accepted the world of appearance as fluid and in constant change, for not only it was a matter of actual experience, but also there was a strong influence from Heracleitus.
Instead of the way of knowing (as the case of Descartes and Kant, for example, in the Contemporary periods), Plato’s search was directed to the way of being as reality, which is to be different from the mutability and transiency of the being of the world of appearance. Knowledge and values are to be “anchored” on the immutable, incorruptible, unchanging being, so that knowledge (and values) are knowledge (and value) of reality, namely the knowledge with its objectivity (i.e., the universal validity and necessity). It is indeed self-contradictory to say that knowledge is not the knowledge of reality.
On the one hand, following the tradition of the Eleatic philosophy (Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus), Plato held the “knowledge” of the world of appearance to be mere cm c (opinion) and sought knowledge and values in the realm of real beings («m mu«s muE beyond our senses. This genuine reality («m mu«s mu) is to secure the objectivity of knowledge, thus knowledge itself.
On the other hand, in response to the challenges from Parmenides and his followers who held the genuine reality to be the Being, the Atomists (Leucippus and Democritus) sought the genuine reality in the ultimately indivisible matter called «m c«mOmu (atom) which is also unknowable by our senses.
Being well aware of those Revivalists’ approach (Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Leucippus and Democritus), Plato rejected such materialism (the ontology which attempts to explain the reality (all the things) by, thus reduce it to, matter) as the Atomists’ theory. Instead Plato tried to see the genuine reality in that which is to be grasped by the definition of a predicate term, namely what Socrates beheld as the object of the ultimate definition, i.e., as the answer to his question of “TI EaTIN.” This object of the ultimate definition was called Idea (IDEA) or Form (lHmda).
As stated before, according to Plato, the world of appearance is, just like the world of Heracleitus, in perpetual flux, and due to this essential character, everything in the world of appearance is a mixture of being and non-being, fails to constitute the genuine reality and cannot offer the basis for the universal, necessary knowledge. Of the object of the world of appearance, it is called opinion instead of knowledge. What we opines is, for example, a beautiful woman, and not beauty as such. Anything that we perceive by our senses, thus, always possesses at least a character (e.g., courageous) for which we have the name (courage cuc8lmÁ). Since an entity in the world of appearance is in itself incessant changing, the essence or nature of this object (in regard to its attribute or character) cannot be found in this change or nor in non-being, on the contrary, it must be sought in its true essence, its true being. This is the reality according to Plato. It is goodness as such rather than some particular thing being good or a concrete act which may be called good. Not a just judgement, but justice itself is a true being and it is called by Plato a Form or Idea. These Forms or Ideas which are nothing but the essences of things both in thingness and value, for which we possess names. Therefore, what are referred to by names, that which are stated primarily by predicate terms rather than by subject terms of a proposition (that which correspond to the true answer to the Socratic question of cH lacHl) constitute the genuine reality, the true being.
In Republic, for example, it is assumed that whenever a plurality of individuals have a common name (which refers to a common characteristic), they have also a corresponding idea or form. This is the universal, the common nature or quality which is grasped in the concept, e.g. beauty itself, as we saw above. Namely there are many beautiful things, while we form one universal concept of beauty itself Plato considered that this universal beauty for instance is not a mere meaning, nor a subjective concept, but an objective universal essence of beauty as genuinely real being. What is the essential characteristic (e.g. beauty) of a particular, concrete thing in the world of appearance is beauty itself «m ecmu c «m e¢c «m, while that concrete, particular beautiful thing are called by Plato in Republic its shadows. They are shadows because otologically they are mixtures of being and non-being, and because epistemologically they are not objects of our reason for genuine knowledge. By virtue of participation in this beauty itself, the beautiful things in the world of appearance become and are beautiful.
Without such an objective essence of beauty in itself, there is no way in which we are able to have the genuine knowledge of universal beauty as such, in consequence, the beautiful things either.
Since this beauty as the Ideal Value (Being at the same time) cannot be known through senses by which we perceive and “know” beautiful things, how is it possible for us to have the knowledge of those Ideas? Plato contended that there is no way we learn or acquire the knowledge of e.g. this universal essence of beauty. Ideas such as an essence of beauty must be known or grasped only through the intuitive grasp of reason. However, as long as we are imprisoned in our body and using our senses, we can only seek and love the knowledge of Ideas and will never be able to possess the wisdom. Because it cannot be acquired, the prima facie learning or acquiring of such an essence is according to Plato nothing else than cucOuiÁlÁ (recollection) of what we had known before in previous lives and had forgotten. In order to guarantee this a priori knowledge of such an essence, Plato argues in Phaedo that we must have reborn or that we had lived many lives previously in which we already possessed the knowledge. This is Plato’s famous theory of recollection cucOuiÁlÁ together with the doctrine of reincarnation.
Together with these ontological doctrines associated with the theory of Forms, Plato apparently inherited the doctrine from the Pythagoreans that our body is the prison for our soul, while philosophy is the preparation for the purification of our soul from its being mixed with the body (while the Pythagoreans further held that the purification of the soul through mousiké will break the chain of karma).
Now question is concerned about the world of Ideas or Forms as the genuine reality and how it is related to the world of appearance:
l) Plato clearly not only presupposes, but is firmly convinced that there is an ontological sphere of Ideas completely apart from and independent of the world of appearance. However, these Ideas are Ideals, perfect Values and criteria of reality and truth for the world of appearance known to us by the perception.
2) Aristotle asserted and criticized that Plato alienated and separated the world of Ideas from the world of appearance.
3) In Timaeus, Plato stated, though it was a myth, that the Creator or the Demiourgos made things of this phenomenal world according to the model of the Forms. This implies that the forms or Ideas exist apart, not only from the sensible things that were modelled after the Ideas, but also from Creator, who takes the Forms as His model. The r8c or mcmril the receptical, was already conceived here which will be molded into matter in Aristotle’s philosophy.
4) In Phaedo, Plato maintains that we shall never obtain the knowledge of Ideas as long as we are imprisoned in the body and disturbed by our senses.
5) In Symposium, Socrates had been supposed to have a discourse with Diotima, a Prophetess, concerning the soul’ s ascent to true Beauty «m mu«Á ecmu under the impulse of Eros m 8Á. ‘d 8Á or Love is stipulated as the means or inbetween between Plenty m8mÁ and Poverty i8lcI Love is itself neither good nor bad, neither beautiful nor ugly, but it lacks beauty and wisdom and yet it knows that it lacks them and is in pursuit of them. Thus, the eros or Love is used in order to construe philo-sophia.
However, it is important to note that in Symposium Plato talks about desires in general l« Olc, philosophy, love of wisdom OlmÁmOlcl is nothing to do with sensory epitymia (desire), but Eros in philosophy is placed in a higher plateau.
6) In Republic it is clearly shown that the true philosopher seeks to know the essential nature of each things. He is not concerned to “know,” for example, a multiplicity of beautiful things or a multiplicity of good things, but rather to discern the essence of beauty and the essence of goodness, which are embodied in varying degrees in concrete, particular beautiful things, and concrete particular good things in the phenomenal world. Non-philosophers, who are almost completely occupied with the multiplicity of appearances with sensory pleasures so that they do not attend to the essential nature and cannot distinguish, e.g. the essence of beauty from the many beautiful phenomena. Non-philosophers only have the opinion cm c and could not even glimpse into scientific knowledge.
7) In the Phaedrus Plato speaks of the soul who beholds “real existence, colorless, formless and intangible in sensory perception, and knowable only to the intelligence” i cr8Oc«mÁ « ecl cÁriOc«lmÁ ¨c«l umm), and which sees distinctly “absolute justice, and absolute temperance, and absolute knowledge itself …which exist as real and essential being” («iu u « m Á«lu mu mu«Á lÁ«iOu m Ácu).
8) At the beginning of Parmenides, on of Plato’s later dialogues, the question is raised by the godlike 70 year old Parmenides with white beard: What Ideas is the young 19 year old Socrates prepared to admit? In reply to Parmenides, Socrates admits that there are Ideas of “likeness, and of the one and many,” and also of “the just and the beautiful and the good,” etc. In answer to a further question, Socrates says that he is often undecided, whether he should or should not include Ideas of man, fur, water, etc. While, in answer to the question whether he admits Ideas of hair, mud, dirt, etc., Socrates’ answer was “Certainly not.”
9) In Sophist, also one of the later dialogues, the object before the interlocutors is to define the Sophist. They are aware of a notion, what the Sophist is, but they wish to define the Sophist’s essence in a clear mtmÁ (words) to capture the Sophist.
In Theaetetus, another later dialogue, Socrates rejected the suggestion that knowledge is a true opinion ci¨i cm c or an opinion with an “account” mtmÁ While in this dialogue, discussions were concerned about particular sensible objects, in Sophist, discussions turn to class-concepts. The answer apparently given to the problem of the Theaetetus is that knowledge consists in apprehending the class-concept by means of genus and difference, i.e., by definition.
10) In Sophist, Plato clearly indicates that the whole complex of Forms, the hierarchy of genera and species, are “comprised” in an all-permeating Form, the Idea of Being (It was the Good «m ctc¨mu in Republic, and he certainly believes that in tracing the structure of the hierarchy of Forms by means of analytical understanding clcl8iÁlÁ, he was detecting, not merely the logical structure of Forms, but also the structure of ontological Forms which are the Real. But whether successful or not in Plato’s division of the genera and species, was it of any help for him to overcome i r8lÁOmÁ (the separation), the separation between the particulars and the infinite species? In the Sophist, Plato showed how divisions are to be continued until the c«mOmu lcmÁ (the no longer divisible form) is reached.In the apprehension of those «c c«mOc lcl (the no longer divisible forms), cm c (opinion) and i clÁ¨iÁlÁ (sense-perception) are involved, though it is themtmÁ alone that determines the “undetermined” plurality. Philebus assumes the same, namely we must be able to bring the division to an end by setting a limit to the unlimited and comprehending sense-particulars in the lowest class, so far as they can be comprehended. For Plato, the sense-particulars as such are the unlimited and the undetermined! They are limited and determined only in so far they are classified among the c«mOc lcl (the no longer divisible forms) and it is not possible to be subsume under them, if they were true objects at all. In other words, they ar not fully real. In pursuing the ccl8iÁlÁ as far as the atomon eidos Plato was able to comprehend all Reality. Therefore, Plato said,
But the form of the infinite must not be brought near to the many until one has observed its full number, the number between the one and the infinite; when this has been learned, each several individual thing may be forgotten and dismissed into the infinite.
Despite the fact that Plato may have considered to have solved the problem of the r8lÁOmÁ (separation), it remained to bee shown how the concrete, particular things in the world of appearance come into existence at all. It may well be acceptable that the whole hierarchy of Forms with its complex structure comprised in the all-embracing One, the Idea of Being or that of the Good which is the ultimate and self-explanatory principle, the Real and the Absolute. It should nevertheless be necessary to demonstrate what makes the world of appearance be as it is, although this world of appearance, being not fully being, is not simply non-being either. In Timaeus, one of Plato’s later dialogues, Plato’s attempt to answer this question is revealed. There, Plato carefully told us as a myth, the Demiourgos miOlm 8tms is describing as conferring geometrical shapes upon the primary qualities within the mcmri (Receptacle) or r8c (Place), and so introducing the order into disorder, taking the “intelligible realm” of Forms as his model or ideal in creating the universe. However, it is often pointed out that the work of the Demiurge, the creation of the world of appearance, should be considered rather as an analysis, by which it would articulate the structure of the material world from the work of the rational cause, i.e., would distinguish the ‘primary’ chaos from the world of Ideas as the Cause. This however does not necessarily imply that the chaos was ever actual. Thus the chaos is primordial in the logical sense. If so, we must conclude, the mcmri or non-intelligible part (=Aristotle’s matter) of the world of appearance is merely assumed and not explained.
11) Plato’s theory of Forms in itself was a great accomplishment in comparison to the Pre-Socratic and Sophistic philosophies. Needless to say, influences from Parmenides, Pythagoras to Herakleitus (and even some of Sophists’ conceptions about our sensible world and logical investigations) were obvious in Plato’s developing his Idealism.
Plato’s Epistemology
Plato’s theory of knowledge was developed with the profound conviction that knowledge is, neither subjective, nor relative, but primarily objective, i.e., related to reality which is being, therefore, knowledge is universally valid and necessary, as Socrates was convinced. Facing the challenges of the sophists, who do not recognize the objective knowledge, but assert that knowledge is no more than a mere opinion and that the truth is the truth of the beholder (ref. Protagoras’ “The human is the measure of all things…” and Gorgias’ “Nothing exists. If anything exists, it cannot be knowable. Even if it is knowable, it is uncommunicable.”).
Plato not only believed in, but also must demonstrate the meaningfulness of the Socratic mission to pursue knowledge and wisdom, but also to urge other to do so. For the general understanding of the intellectuals of his time was that the sophists’ contention be right and that the only knowledge we may pursue be the art of persuasion (hé rhétoriké). Therefore, the truth, according to the sophists, is demonstrated by winning an argument and depends upon if one is capable of induce others to also accept the contention, and there is no such a thing as an objective truth nor ignorance. For everybody is equally wise! Plato’s endeavor was his attempt to redeem Socrates and his Mission by demonstrating that the sophists were radically wrong and that there must be the objective truth and wisdom.
As stated above, Plato’s epistemology is grounded on the basis of his ontology. In other words, it is determined by and parallel to his ontological structure he envisioned (cf. Republic, Book VII).
According to Plato, what we call “knowledge” in our common sense may be divided into two groups in accordance with the four different object domains of information. Those four domains of “objects” or “entities” are hierarchical in terms of “reality” such that 1) lemuis (semblances or mere images) ‹a portrait or a sculpture or an image mirroring on the serene surface of water‹ is the lowest, then 2) cm c (opinion or “information” about sensible objects) for the second, 3) Oc¨iOc«lec (numbers and geometrical figures) for the third, 4) umi«c (Ideas or Forms) for the highest.
In parallel to these distinctions, our cognitive faculty is divided into four faculties:
1) lecÁlc (likening), 2) lÁ«ls (belief), 3) clc8iÁlÁ (understanding), 4) umiÁls (Reason), and the ascendance of value is in this order. Since Plato allows the name of reality only to mathématika and noéta, while doxa are considered as copies of the reality (a beautiful flower in distinction from beauty itself, for example) and eikones or images are copies of copies, the name of knowledge is strictly reserved by Plato for umiÁls (Reason). In the domains of Eikones and Doxa, illusions, errors and falsities are possible, while Oc¨iOc«lec and umi«c do not allow any falsehood, an error or an illusion. They are a priori knowledge.
Then, how the Noeta and the Mathématika differs? According to Plato, Noéta are known by dialectics which do not make any assumption or premiss, but goes back, step by step, to the most basic principle, while Mathématika are known, though a priori and necessary, on the basis of the premisses, assumptions (axioms). Philosophy, therefore, are presuppositionless!
According to Plato, i clce«lei «rui (dialectics) is the method of philosophical inquiry that alone can reach the genuine reality, namely Ideas of Forms such as Beauty itself, Good itself, and Justice itself, etc. Between two independent minds (or so imagined at least even within one mind), a discourse or clcmtms takes place such that the one proposes an understanding of something (e.g. justice) by word (mtmÁ), then the other critically examines this and proposes another solution to substitute by eliminating the fault of the first one. This process will be repeated many times until they come to grasp the object of their understanding itself. However, as Socrates portrayed in Plato’s early dialogues, it is not only not easy, but also not possible for an object of inquiry to be grasped by logos particularly when the object is more fundamental (such as being «m mu, good «m ctc¨mu). Plato believes that in such a case, we must intellectually intuit (umlu) the Form or Idea at last. It is a matter of controversy whether or not this intuition be included in dialectics. However, we take such a stand that since dialectics deals with the object solely by words in the double sense (dia-legein and using logos to grasp the object), this intuition, the immediate grasp of the object by noésis is distinct and separate from the process of dialectics. They constitute, however, a whole in the sense that both of them are functions of reason.
lÁ¨iOi
(knowledge)
umiÁls umi«c
(reason) (Ideas or Forms)
clcumlc Oc¨iOc«lec
(understanding) (numbers)
lÁ«ls ` cm c
(belief) (opinion)
lecÁlc lemuis
(liken) (semblance)
As Heracleitus maintained that everything is in constant change, Plato, too, held that the sensible world, i.e., the world of appearance (which we normally consider to be the reality) is in constant flux. Thus the ontological status of the sensible things (the things in the phenomenal world) was, according to Plato, not being, but it is becoming, i.e., the mixtures of being and non-being. Or sometimes Plato called it the shadow of reality, i.e., the shadow of true being, as he tried to illustrate the sensible things by means of the Allegory of Cave in Book VII of the Republic. Since sense perception is exclusively related to the sensible thing which lacks the true being, but something like a being, our senses cannot provide us with knowledge at all, but what we have through senses is mere images (eikones) or doxa (opinion).
Therefore, ignorance, according to Plato, is related to non-being, while knowledge is related to the true being, the reality, which must be not only unchanging, but also does not allow any error. Thus what we normally consider as being real, the object of our sense perception, cannot be so. Plato names the information of the sensible thing through our perception primarily a doxa or an opinion. Needless to say, this opinion cannot be called knowledge in the true sense because its object is not a being, but a mere shadow or a mixture of being and non-being. Of the sensible thing, can we learn and obtain a true opinion, and yet the object of doxa is a sensible thing, and we may also make a mistake. So we cannot call a true opinion knowledge at all.
The true being, being the object of knowledge, however, is independent of our sense experience and can only be known by reason um Ál so knowledge, then, is something which can not be ‘learned’ by empirical generalization nor can be acquired through common sense. On the contrary, due to its immutability and absolute nature, it must be ‘remembered’ by us. This is called Plato’s recollection theory.
The object of our knowledge is called an Idea or Form, by means of which the sensible thing can exist and be named, so through the Idea or Form alone, we are able to recognize the sensible things. What we experience through our sense perception is, for example, Isabella, a beautiful young woman and not beauty itself. She is indeed beautiful because she participates in the beauty itself and as long as she does so, she is and remains beautiful. And Isabella is called “beautiful.” However, as time goes on, she becomes older and no longer beautiful, as she no longer participates in the Idea of beauty «m ecmu. If we think that we recognize the beauty which she has in her is the beauty itself «m ecmu c «m e¢c «m, then we are making a mistake, for she will sometime become no longer beautiful and will turn into ugliness (if not, at least not beauty). Such a mutable thing as a young woman and its quality possessed by her cannot be the object of our knowledge. Something mutable is not a real being, but a kind of mixture of being and nonbeing (by virtue of which change is possible). The object of our knowledge is the true being «m mu«Á mu which is something immutable and is in itself (unlike a beautiful thing that is not being in itself, but a being in other), that is, the beauty as such «m ecmu c «m e¢c «m, the goodness as such «m ctc¨mu c «m e¢c «m, the honesty as such «m ci¨ «lemu c «m e¢c «m, etc. In other words, it is the Form, and there are as many Forms as are positively valued such as beauty, courage, grace. gentleness, harmony, and happiness. The Ideas are not only those values, but also essences of things such as being human, being a house, being a polis, etc. However, these essences of things are to be Ideals of those things, so to know those Ideals means to know the criteria for those things at the same time. That is why Plato was able to talk about the Ideal city state in distinction to other actual city states in terms of its political form. Thus, Plato maintains that knowledge can be knowledge of Ideas, and nothing else.The question of the theory of Ideas was extensively discussed in the section of Metaphysics and it is probably not necessary to repeat it here.
Plato’s theory of Knowledge may be well disclosed in a negative way in Theaetetus, one of his later dialogues, in which Plato attempted to show that what is generally considered as knowledge, such as a perception, an opinion and a true judgement, cannot be knowledge at all, as long as “knowledge” is considered to be related to the object of the phenomenal world. However, in Theaetetus, Plato did not show positively what knowledge as such is and yet he demonstrates there that the theory of knowledge is meaningless, unless falsity can be accounted for. In Protagoras’ theory of the human being to be the measure of all thing, falsity can have no place at all.
As we saw above, it is better discussed in Phaedo and Republic.
Aristotle’s Ethics
Because the true human life is only possible in the city state as a citizen, Aristotle considers that ethics is a branch of politics, for the former is the investigation of the characters for the human happiness that is only possible in the way of the city state. Therefore, it is necessary to understand Aristotle’s insights into ethical questions from this perspective. Despite the special nature of ethical inquires, Aristotle at the out set of the Ethics describes the good of the state as “greater and more perfect” than that of the individual, and the latter as merely something with which we may have to put up if we cannot attain the former.
Aristotle begins his Nicomachean Ethics with the following words which reveals his basic assumption about the nature of human decisions and activities;
“Every art and every inquiry, every action and choice, seems to aim at some good;
whence the good has rightly been defined as that which all things aim.”
Aristotle’s ethics is here again definitely naturalistic (i.e., determined by the nature of the human and in accordance with nature) and teleological (i.e., the morality is not determined by the motive but by the aim and the good that the aim would actualize though our action. Morality depends upon how much the will and the action will bring about certain goods.)
For Aristotle, morality consists in doing certain actions, not because we see them to be right in themselves, but because we see them to be such that they will bring us nearer to the “good for the human.” This teleological position is not consistent with Aristotle’s own distinction between action or conduct which is valuable in itself and the production of the goods which derives values from the (instrumental) work of the action.
The end at which a particular action aims may be merely instrumental, so each action must have an ultimate end which is valuable in itself, and Aristotle infers that the ultimate end of all actions must be the same. The science which investigates this end is supposed to be political science, it is harder to determine what this ultimate end is.
In this inquiry, our approach is not deductive (unlike logic and mathematics) but inductive. Ethics reasons not from but to the first principles. We must start with what is familiar to us and work back from them to the underlying reasons; and “to give the necessary knowledge of the facts a good upbringing is necessary.”
Aristotle accepts from the view of “the many” that the ultimate end of human life is happiness ( = well-being of the soul chapt. 7). The corresponding adjective of originally meant “watched over by a good genius or spirit,” but its general usage is a good fortune with a special reference to material prosperity. Therefore, the English translation “happiness” which means a state of feeling, “differing from pleasure only by its suggestion of permanence, depth, and serenity,” according to David Ross.
Just as today, the notion of happiness as the ultimate end of our life varies depending upon people’s opinions. Aristotle examines and proceeds from the notion of happiness with more generality and more popularity to the highest and most uniquely human intrinsic happiness. Some say that it is pleasure. Others will identify it with wealth. Others, honor. We even may change our opinion at a different time of our life. Some ill people may say that it is health.
Pleasure is rather the end for slaves than freemen, while honor cannot be the end f life, for it depends on the giver and is not really our own decision. Honor seems to e aimed at assuring us of our virtue; so maybe moral virtue is the end of life. But Aristotle denies it by saying that moral virtue may be in inactivity and misery. Aristotle insists that is a kind of activity, which in itself is not a pleasure, although it naturally accompanies “pleasures,” and further excludes misery.
If happiness is an activity peculiar to the human, it is neither the activity of growth or reproduction, nor of sensation, since these are shared by other beings below the human.
The activity uniquely human is, according to Aristotle, the activity of reason or that in accordance with reason. This is indeed an activity of virtue, which does not limit itself to moral virtues, but also intellectual ones. The happiness as the ultimate end of morality does not consist in virtue as such, but rather in activity according to virtue or in virtuous activity. Moreover, Aristotle contends, happiness must manifest itself over an entire life rather than merely a brief period.
Aristotle does not exclude for example pleasure, wealth or honor, etc. generally considered as happiness from the happiness, as they often by nature accompany his stipulated happiness as the activity of virtue.
This Aristotle goes on to consider,
1) the general nature of good character and good action, then
2) the leading moral virtues, the virtues of that part of man which can follow the plan laid down by reason, then
3) the virtue of intellect. At the end of Nichomachean Ethics he examines the ideal life, or the ideal of life of activity accordance with virtue, which life will bed the truly happy life for the human.
Aristotle observes that all of us possess the good character by nature in the form of potency, but it has to be fully developed to a actuality by practice, just as we swim better by swimming for example. So what we have to do is to do virtuous acts and develop a habit of doing so without any thematic consciousness. In stead of telling a child not to tell a lie, it is of cardinal importance to practice telling truth all the time. Thus, by creating disposition by repeated practice as an education, we are able to do a good act which flows from this good disposition.
What virtue is and how virtue is related to vice is the next question Aristotle deals with. According to Aristotle, it is a common characteristic of all good actions that they have a certain order or proportion, and virtue (= !«) is a means (= «) between two extremes ( = !), the extremes being vices, one being a vice through excess, the other being a vice through defect. It is through excess or defect that it is in regard to either an action or feeling.
Aristotle says that in regard to the feeling of confidence the excess of this feeling constitutes rashness–a least when the feeling issues in action, and it is with human actions that ethics are concerned–while the defect is cowardice. Thus, there is a mean between rashness on the one and cowardice on the other hand; this means is courage and is the virtue in respect to he feeling of confidence.
Another example Aristotle tells us is that if we take the action of giving of money, excess in regard to this action is prodigality–and this is a vice–while defect in regard to this action is illiberality. The virtue liberality is the means between the two vices. Thus, Aristotle defines the virtue as
“a disposition to choose, consisting essentially in a mean relatively to us determined by a rule, i.e., the rule by which a practically wise man would determine it.”
Virtue, then, is a disposition to choose according to a rule, namely, the rule by which a truly virtuous man possessed of moral insight would choose. Being reaffirming our common sense wisdom, Aristotle considers the possession of the competent excellence in the human to see what is the right thing to do in the given circumstances, as essential to the truly virtuous man, and he attaches more value to the moral judgments of the enlightened conscience than to any a priori and merely theoretical conclusion.
It is often pointed out, however, that Aristotle’s treatment of the virtues betrays the fact that he was under the influence of the predominantly aesthetic attitude of the Greek towards human conduct, a fact that appears in a clear light in his treatment of the “great-souled” man.
Now, the precondition of moral action is Freedom, since it is only for voluntary actions that a man incurs responsibility and ascribes moral worth. This has been the assumption of moral and legal philosophy. If one is physically forced to act or due to an ignorance, that person cannot be morally responsible for his act.
For example, Aristotle tells us, fear may lesson the voluntary character of an action, but an action such a throwing the cargo overboard in a storm, though not a sane person wold not do in ordinary circumstances, is yet voluntary.
As to the action due to ignorance, Aristotle distinguish the act in ignorance and the act from or through ignorance. The former is the case of an action by the influence of alcohol or temporary insanity due to outrage. The latter is on the contrary the case in which an action is said to be done involuntarily if it is subsequently regretted by the agent. This raises some dispute.
Against Socratic thesis (= knowledge is a power) that no one does act wrongly against knowledge, Aristotle professedly rejects and yet actually follows Socrates in principle and entertains the view that the human who does a wrong act does not know at the moment of action that the act is wrong. And he would not allow the possibility in which a person may do deliberately what knows to be wrong,a nd moreover, what he knows to be wrong at the moment that the does it. It may due to the lack of concept of duty that Aristotle never considers the proper meaning of right action.
From today’s point of view, Aristotle lacks, just like Plato, the notion of will in the contemporary sense. In his way of saying the same, Aristotle uses the word !! (preferential choice) which is to be discerned from either desire by itself or reason by itself, when he says of choice as “reasonable desire” or “desireful reason.” In fact Aristotle states that the !! has to do not with ends, but with means.
Aristotle’s analysis of the moral process is as follows:
1) The agent desires an end,
2) The agent deliberates, seeing that B is the means to A, C the means to B, and so on, until
3) he perceives that some particular means near to the end or remote from it, as the case may be, is something that the can do here and now.
4) The agent chooses this means that presents itself to him a practicable hic et nunc, and
5) he does the at in question.
Thus, a person might desires happiness (in fact, he always does, according to Aristotle). Then he sees that health is a means to happiness, and that exercise is a means to health, and so on.
Thus, he perceives that to go for a walk is something that he can do here and now. He chooses this act and that he can does it, i.e., takes the walk. This analysis may be a very good statement of the way in which we fix on actions in view of an end; the difficulty is to allow for nay real moral obligation or conflict take place in Aristotle’s system, at least if considered in itself.
Further, from the doctrine that virtuous activity is voluntary and in accordance with choice, it seems to follow that virtue and vice are in our power, and that Socrates’ doctrine could not hold to be true.
It is important to note that Aristotle’s treatment of the moral virtues is often enlightening and reveals his common-sense moderation and clear judgment. It is also very practical to instill certain moral virtues.
In Book V of his Ethics, Aristotle treats of justice. Under Justice he treats 1) what is lawful, 2) what is fair and equal. The first justice is universal and equivalent to obedience to law, but since Aristotle envisages the law of the city state–ideally, at least–as extending over the whole of lie and enforcing virtuous actions in the sense of materially virtuous actions, universal justice is more or less coterminous with virtue, looked at in its social aspect.
The “particular justice” is divided into 1) distributive justice, whereby the state divides goods among its citizens according to geometrical proportions, i.e., according to merit, and 2) remedial justice. This latter is subdivided into two types, a) that dealing with voluntary transactions (civil law), and b) that dealing with involuntary transactions (criminal law). Remedial justice proceeds according to arithmetical proportion. Further to these two divisions of particular justice, Aristotle adds commercial or commutative justice.
According to Aristotle, justice is a mean between acting unjustly and being unjustly treated. However, this is hardly acceptable as a practical notion. This seems to be Aristotle’s attempt to bring justice in line of other virtues.
Aristotle draws an interesting distinction between various types of action that are materially unjust, pointing out that to do action which results in damage to another, when the damage was neither foreseen nor intended–and still more if the damage would not ordinarily result from that action–is very different form doing an action which would naturally result in damage to another, particularly if that damage was foreseen and intended.
Discussing intellectual virtues Aristotle divides them according to the two rational faculties, 1) the scientific faculty « «, by which we contemplate objects that are necessary and admit of o contingency, and 2) the calculative faculty–t
« «, or faculty of opinion, which is concerned with objects that are contingent. The former as a intellectual virtue is related to knowledge or science (= epistémé), “the disposition by virtue of which we demonstrate,” and which as regard to proof, and vous or intuitive reason, whereby we grasp a universal truth after experience of a certain number of particular instances and then see this truth or principle to be self-evident.
The union of nous and epistémé is theoretical wisdom or sophia, and it deals with the highest objects, including the objects of metaphysics and those of mathematics and natural sciences.
The contemplation of these objects belongs to the ideal life for the human, that is supposed to constitute the highest kind of happiness allowed to the mortal human.
“Wisdom or philosophy may be defined as the combination of intuitive reason and science, or as scientific knowledge of the most precious things, with the crown of perfection, so to speak, upon it.”
According to Aristotle, knowledge is dignified by its object and it would be absurd to call political science the highest type of knowledge, unless the humans were the highest of all beings that Aristotle did not believe.
“There are other things in the universe of a nature far more divine than his, as, for example, the starry heavens of which the universe is built. From all of which it is clear that wisdom is a combination of science and the speculative reason, directed to the noblest objects in creation.”
The virtues of to logistikon (the calculative faculty) are techné (arts), “the disposition by which we make things by the aid of a true rule.”
Practical wisdom or ! (sometimes translated into prudence), “the true disposition towards action, by the aid of a rule, with regard to things good or bad for men.” Hé phronésis is subdivided according to the objects with which it is concerned:
1) As concerned with the individual’s good, it is ! in the narrow sense
(= prudence).
2) As concerned with the family, with household management, it is called economics (hé oikonomia).
3) As concerned with the city state, it is called political science i the wider sense. This latter, politics in a wide sense, is again subdivided into
3-1) the architectonic or legislative faculty, politics in the narrower sense, and
3-2) the subordinate or administrative faculty. The last again subdivides into
3-2-1) Deliberative and
3-2-2) Judicial.
Despite these divisions, it is the same virtue that is called practical wisdom in connection with the individual and politics in connection with the good of the state.
According to Aristotle, practical wisdom is concerned with the practical syllogism, e.g. A is the end, B is the means, therefore B should be done.
However, Aristotle recognizes that some people may have a knowledge of the right action to do from their experience of life, although they have not got a clear idea of the general principles. thus, it is more important to know the conclusion alone rather than the major premiss.
Concerning Socratic view that all virtue is a form of prudence, Aristotle holds that Socrates was partly right and partly wrong.
“He (Socrates) was wrong in holding that all virtue is a form of prudence, but right in holding that no virtue can exist without prudence.”
Socrates holds that all the virtues were forms of reason (as being forms of knowledge), but Aristotle declares that the truth is rather that they are all reasonable.
“Virtue is not only the right and reasonable attitude, but the attitude which leads to right and reasonable choice, and right and reasonable choice in these matter is what we mean by prudence.”
Therefore, prudence is necessary for the truly virtuous man, 1) as being “the excellence of an essential part of our nature,” and 2) inasmuch as “there can be no right choice without both prudence and virtue, seeing that the latter secures the choice of the right end, and the former the choice of the right means to its attainment.” However, prudence or phronésis is to be distinguished from cleverness or deinotés. While cleverness is, according to Aristotle, the faculty by which a human is enabled to find the right means to any particular end,
prudence presupposes moral virtue. Thus, as rephrased, prudence is cleverness as dealing with the means that lead to the attainment of the true end of the human, what is best for the human, because moral virtue allows us to choose the right end.
Aristotle further maintains that prudence, as a reasonable disposition, is necessary in order to have a moral virtue in the full sense, although it is possible to have “natural” virtues in isolation (e.g. courage without gentleness). “Given the single virtue of prudence, all the virtues necessarily follow from it.”
In Euidemian Ethics, Aristotle states that for Socrates all the virtues were forms of knowledge, so that to know what justice is, for example, and to be just would come simultaneously, just as we are geometers from the moment we have learned geometry, but it is necessary to distinguish between theoretical science and practical science, and in our practical science.
“We do not wish to know what bravery is but to be brave, nor what justice is but to be just.”
In Magna Moralia, Aristotle observes,
“any one who knows the essence of justice is not forthwith just.”
In Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle sees the parallel between those who think they will perform good by mere theoretical knowledge and the patients who listen attentively and comprehend what the doctor says, but does not carry out his orders.
Aristotle considers that pleasure as such is the lowest good in certain sense. Many people of low birth mistakes that pleasure alone is good that they desire, but, as we have seen the higher goods than pleasure in the above, pleasure cannot be the good, because pleasure is the natural accompaniment of an unimpeded activity (a essential characteristic of happiness), and it is this activity that everyone should aim at, not the accompanying pleasure. Further, Aristotle believes that sometimes we should even choose certain activity although it is not accompanied by pleasure. Aristotle yet acknowledges that pleasure is something positive, and it s effect is perfect the exercise of a faculty. Pleasure differs specifically according to the character of the activities to which they are attached, and the good man must be our standard as to what is truly pleasant and unpleasant to desire.
In Book VIII and IX Aristotle discusses friendship. He sees friendship is motivated basically by egoism (one loves himself). First, he distinguishes two meanings of “self-loving”, 1) desire for themselves, namely some people seek as much as possible of self money, honor or pleasure of the body, while 2) desire of one’s own excellence, namely good men, are anxious to excel in virtue and noble actions. The former is to blame, while the latter is not.
Thus, Aristotle says that the self love cannot be construed solely as egoistic narcism, but on the contrary that a person’s relations t his friend are the same as his relations to himself, since the friend is his second self. Take for example,
“Men wish well to their fiends for their sake.”
“Friendship consists in loving rather than in being loved.”
Aristotle divides friendship into three groups;
1) friendships of utility, in which men do not love their friends for what hey are in themselves, but only for the advantage which they receive from them. This type of friendship is on the lowest level, although it is necessary for men, because men are not self-sufficient.
2) Friendship of pleasure. They are founded o the natural delight that men take in the society of their fellow-men, and are characteristic of the young, for “young people live by feeling, and have a main eye to their own pleasure and to the present moment.”
Both friendships of utility and pleasure are unstable and do not last long at all.
3) Friendships of the good. This type of friendship is perfect friendship and endures as long as both retain their character–“and virtue is a lasting thing.”
“If happiness is activity in accordance with virtue, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest virtue, and his will be that of the best thing in us.”
By so declaring, Aristotle concludes that the faculty the exercise of which constitutes perfect and highest happiness is the contemplative faculty, the faculty of intellectual or philosophical activity. Thus linked to philosophical pursuit of intellect (nous), the highest happiness resides in the activity of nous (to theoorésai). He bases his conclusion on the following contentions,
1) reason is the highest faculty of the humanity
2) reason’s activity lasts longest, longer than any physical or bodily activities
3) Pleasure is one of the element of happiness and philosophical contemplation is accompanied by pleasure
4) Philosophers are more self sufficient than any other.
5) Philosophy or philosophical contemplation is pursued for its own sake
6) Happiness implies leisure. “Practical virtues find the field of their exercise in war or politics, which cannot be said to be leisurely employments, least of all war.”
This is the happiness that the human of high birth and of well educated not only should pursue but also pursue in reality.
Aristotle’s Physics and Psychology
Physics
According to Aristotle nature is the totality of object which are “material” and subject to movement. Aristotle never officially defines nature, this totality consists of substances which are capable of initiating change and of bringing it to an end as well as which have an inner tendency to change. Thus it is obvious that to Aristotle, nature is something dead or unmovable. On the contrary it is essentially characterized by motion and change. This however must be qualified by the doctrine that the passage of lifeless bodies from a st ate of rest to a state of movement must be initiated by an external agent.
Movement or change in the wider sense is divided into
1) generatio (gignésthai or coming-to-be) and corruptio (passing-away) on the one hand,and
2) hé kinésis (motion or movement in the narrower sense) on the other.
This kinésis is to bed divided into the three kinds—
2-1) qualitative change (hé kinésis kata to poion or hé kinésis kata pathos) = hé alloioosis,
2-2) quantitative change (hé kinésis kata poson or hé kinésis kata megethos) = hé syxésis and
2-3) locomotio (hé kinésis kata pou or kata topon) = the local change or hé phora.
The conditions of locomotion and of all motion of a physical substance, are Time and Place.
It is proved, according to Aristotle, that ho topos or place exists,
1)by the fact of displacement, e.g., by the fact that where there is water, there may come to be air; and
2) by the fact that the four elements have their natural places. The fire is the highest, the next is air, and then water, the lowest is the earth. These distinctions are not to us, but by themselves.
Thus place exists. Aristotle defines place as the limit within which a body is, a limit considered as immobile (ho topos = to tou periechontos peras akinéton).
Once we accept this Aristotelian definition of place, there would not be empty place, nor any place outside the universe or world, for place is the inner limit of the containing body.
Therefore, Everything in the physical universe is in a place, while the universe itself is not. Since motion occurs through change of place, the universe itself cannot move forwards, but only by turning.
Aristotle contends that a body can only be moved by a present mover in contact with the moved. the original mover (= the unmoved mover) communicates to the medium, e.g. air or water, not only motion but also the power of moving. The first particles of air moved move other particles and the projectiles. This power decreases in accordance with the distance, which Aristotle did not know or did not believe inertia at least.
Aristotle considers that time cannot be simply identified with movement or change. For movements are many, while time is one. Aristotle’s definition of time in the narrower sense is closed associated with motion. “The arithmetic (numerable) time is the movement according to ‘prior’ and ‘ posterior’.” (ho chronos arithmos esti kinéseoos kata to proteron kai hysteron.) Thus, Copleston for example, interprets that “unless we are aware of change, we are also not aware of time.” This arithmos (numerable) should be understood as those which are numbered, numberable aspects of change. Time is a continuum, as movement is, but it does not consist of discrete points (this was against Eleatic Zeno’s argument of infinite divisibility of motion).
In other words, only things which are in motion or at rest in such a way that they are capable of motion, are in time.
Therefore, according to Aristotle, what is immobile or eternal is not in time. Movement can be and is eternal, while it is not immobile. (From this it seems to follow that time is eternal, in the sense that it never first began and will never end.) Although time is that in movement which is counted, What Aristotle means is that when one is conscious of time, one is recognizing manyness of phases. Thus, David Ross interprets Aristotle’s time to be the aspect of element of change or motion, which makes it possible for the mind to recognize a plurality of phases (Physics p. 65).
For the standard of measurement for time, it is not a straight line, but the movement in a circle is named for its uniformity and naturalness by Aristotle. He means that naturalness comes from the motion of the rotating the heavenly spheres. Thus the motion of the sun is justified.
Now if the nature of time is considered as the above by Aristotle, can time exist without the mind which counts? The answer seems to be ‘No!” although there would be the substratum of time!
Since time or duration is countable, the “nows” within duration are brought into actual existence b y a mind which distinguishes the “nows” there.
To the question of whether infinite is possible in nature, Aristotle says,
1) an infinite body is impossible, since very body is bounded by a surface, and no body which is bounded by a surface can b e infinite. Furthermore, since an infinite body is to be either simple or composite in order to exist, he says that it is neither simple nor composite, so it does not exist.
2) In actuality whether it is a body or number, Aristotle denies the existence of infinite, but potentially infinite exists because space is infinitely divisible.
Aristotle holds that all natural motion is directed towards an end. And this teleology is inherent in nature. This is understood as the development from a state of potency to that of actuality, the embodiment of form in matter. In Aristotle, the teleological view of nature prevails over the mechanical. However, the teleology is not all-pervasive, because sometimes matter obstructs the action of teleology. For example, physical handicapped are born. Thus, the contingency exists in nature, which Aristotle calls to automaton or the fortuitous, which is “by nature”, but not “according to nature”. What is fortuitous is distinguished by Aristotle from the luck or hé tyché, whose result is desirable.
Aristotle maintains that the universe consists of two distinct worlds–1) the superlunary and 2) the sublunary. In the former are the stars, which are imperishable and undergo no change other than that of locomotion. Their motion is not rectilinear but circular, Aristotle concludes that the stars are composed not of the four elements, but of a different material element, that is aether.
The earth, spherical in shape, is at rest in the center of the universe, and round it lie the layers, concentric and spherical, of water, air and fire or the warm (hypekkauma). Beyond these lie the heavenly spheres, and on its outermost the fixed stars are, and they owe their motion to the prime mover or the unmoved mover, God. The numbers of those spheres are, accepting Calippus, thirty three and they explain the motions of the planets. Aristotle believes that there are twenty-two spheres moving backward. the latter and the former counteract each other to balance the universe.
The concrete particular things in this world come into being and pass away, but species and genera are eternal, according to Aristotle.
He holds an evolutionary theory concerning the structure of the universe, a theory of the scale of being, in which form is ever more predominant as the scale is ascended. At the bottom of the scale comes inorganic matter, and above this organic matter, the plants being less perfect than the animals. Nevertheless, even the plants possess the soul, which is the principle of life.
Psychology or On the Soul
Aristotle defines the soul or hé psyché as “the entelechy of a natural body endowed with the capacity of life” or as “the first entelechy of a natural organic body (psyché estin entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou dynamei zoon echontos toiouton de, ho an hé organikon or entelecheia hé prooté soomatos physikou organikou). Being the actuality or entelechy of the body, the soul is at the same time form, principle of movement, and end. The body is for the soul, and every organ has its purpose, that purpose being an activity.
The composite substance is a natural body endowed with life, the principle of this life being called the soul. The body cannot be the soul, for the body is not life but what has life. The body then is matter to the soul, while the soul is as form or actuality to the body. the soul is the entelechy or act of the body that possesses life in potency–“potentiality of life.”
Thus the soul as the principle of living body is a) the source of motion,b) its final cause, c) the real substance (i.e., the formal cause) of animated bodies.
Aristotle distinguishes different types of the soul, whereby the higher presupposes the lower.
1) The lowest form of soul is nutritive or vegetative soul, to threptikon, which exercises the activities of assimilation and reproduction. It found not only in plants, but also in animals; yet it can exist b y itself (without the other type of soul), as it does in plants.
2) Animal soul. Because the nutrition is necessary for the preservation of life, Aristotle reveals the necessity of touch in order to find the food, and the taste to articulate the food from the rest. The other senses are not necessary for the animal, Aristotle argues, they serve the well-being of the animal.
2-1) Sensation or sensitive soul (h € € QQ œ€«€), which the animal, endowed with the power of motion, must have (while the plants do not have as they draw nourishment automatically). The sensitive soul exercises three powers of a) sense-perception (to aisqhtkon‹to aisthétikon), b) desire (to prektikon) or desiring soul and c) locomotion (to kinétikon kata topon) or locomotive soul.
2-2) Imagination (phantasma) or imaginative soul which follows the sensitive soul.
2-3) Memory is the further development of this.
3) Human soul. The human soul unites in itself the powers of the lower souls (to threptikon, to aisthétikon, to orektikon, to kinétikon kata topon ) but has a peculiar advantage in the possession of nous or Reason (which is sometimes translated into intellect) or to dianoétikon (the discriminating or analytic soul).
This human soul is active in two ways:
3-1) The power of scientific or theoretical Reason (hé dianoia theoorétiké = to epistémonikon). The theoretical reason has truth as its object, truth for its own sake.
3-2) The power of deliberation (dianoia praktiké). This deliberative soul has truth not for its own sake, but for practical and prudential purposes.
All the powers of the soul, with the exception of nous or Reason, are inseparable from the body and perishable: Nous or Reason, however, pre-exists before the body and is immortal.
This nous or Reason entering into the body, requires a potential principle–a tabula rasa (a blank tablet), on which it may imprint forms; and so we have the distinction between the nous poiétikos (the active Reason) and the nous pathétikos (passive Reason). Aristotle himself speaks of to poioun.
The active Reason or intellect abstracts forms form the images or phantasmata, which, when received in the passive intellect, are actual concepts. Only the active Reason or intellect is immortal!
There is no such a problem as the mind-body problem for Aristotle, for the soul as the form or entelechy of the body is united to the body to form a substance. Unlike Plato’s notion that the soul is captured and imprisoned in the body, Aristotle considers that it is good for the soul to be in the body.
There is a question of the principium individuationis, i.e., that which makes a concrete, particular substance to be a particular individual. Is the soul after death, i.e., the “liberated” soul is no longer a individual soul, but a person is an individual as long as one is alive, i.e., as a combination of the soul and the body. For matter is the principle of individuation.
Finally Aristotle doctrine of the active Reason or intellect purports,
“This nous is separable and impassible and unmixed, being essentially an actuality. For the active is always of higher value than the passive, and the orginative principle than the matter. Actual knowledge is identical with its object; potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but in general it is not temporally prior; but nous does at one time function and at another not. When it has been separated it is that only which it is in essence, and this alone is immortal and eternal. we do not remember, however, because active reason is impassible, but the passive reason is perishable, and without the active reason nothing thinks.”
Logic
It gives a strange impression that, allthough Aristotle worked intensely and made many invaluatgle contributions to logic, he did not classify Logic under the Theoretical Sciences. According to Aristotle, logic is not a “substantive” science, but a part of general education or culture which every youth should undergo before any study of sciences.
The term Logic does not originated from Aristotle and was not known to him, but Aristotle used the term Analytics instead. Many people believe that Logic could go back to even the time of Cicero. Even in that time, logic did not mean what we understand today under logic, but rather dialectic. Alexander was supposed to be responsible to use ÿQ€ in the sense of logic.
Analytics primarily refers to the analysis of syllogism in regard to its method of ascertaining its validity and invalidity. (To be continued)
Aesthetics
To be continued.