Ancient Greece Archaic period 800 BC 500 BC

Ancient Greece Archaic period: 800 BC – 500 BC (Homer, Hesiod, beginning of Greek literature, emergence of early city-states) Classic period: 500 BC – 323 BC (Athenian democracy, Delian League, Athenian colonialism, rise of Philosophy, Hippocrates, Sophists vs. Plato, ends with conquest by Macedonia: Hellenistic Period).

The Rise of Philosophy • Using Logos (natural explanations, reason, observation) to understand humanity and the world, rather than Mythos (supernatural explanations, myths, spirits, superstition. ) Beginning of the critical approach to understand nature and humanity, rather than a dogmatic or mythological approach. • Big questions: what was the physis or arche – the fundamental substance of the universe? What provided reliable knowledge: the mind (reason) or the senses (perception)? • Greek cosmology: an ordered, understandable universe, governed by natural laws, not a mysterious universe subject to the whims of gods.

Thales of Miletus (625 -547 BC). • The physis or arche: the original substance from which all other matter is derived. All life depends on water, water can take many forms (liquid, steam, mist, ice) and is constantly forming and reforming in the environment. Knowledge is achieved through criticism, not dogma.

Anaximander (610 -546 BC, also from Miletus) • Claimed water could not be arche, because it was already a compound substance and was not capable of becoming anything (dust? ). Arche had to be fundamental and capable of becoming anything. He called it “the boundless, ” or Apeiron generated opposites (hot-cold, wetdry, ). When matter was destroyed it returned to aperion. • Was first to make possible reference to (something like) an evolutionary process for the origin of humans. • “in water the first animal arose covered with spiny skin and with the lapse of time some crawled onto dry land…” On Nature

Heraclitus 540 -480 Ephesus • (As is represented by Plato): argued that no single substance can be the origin of all things because all things are in a constant state of change. Change is the only universal property of the all things. Nothing “is, ” everything is “becoming. ” The arche needs to “be, ” since there is no “being” only “becoming; ” arche cannot be a substance. All life exists as movement between opposites: light-dark, hot-cold, night-day, life-death, etc. If nothing “is” what can we truly know? I only know something as a point in constant motion, at the time I think I know something it has already “moved” or changed. Therefore nothing can truly be known. This places knowledge derived through empiricism in great peril. Only things that can be known are either: (1) not directly available to the senses (math), or (2) mental (ideas).

Parmenides (born around 510 in Elea, southern Italy). • All change is illusion. Thus, senses provide only illusory information cannot be foundation for true knowledge. Non-existence is incoherent, anything that “is not” can only be understood in terms of “is. ” My dog no longer “is” which only make sense by making reference to what it was when it was “is. ” No longer barking, slobbering, chasing cats, etc. “Less is” creates the same problem, so nothing that makes any sense to us can exist in flux between “is” and “is not. ” Therefore change is an illusion. What one thinks of and speaks of are the permanent states of being available to the mind, not senses.

Zeno’s (495 -430) paradoxes • Student of Parmenides. Sought to elucidate his mentor’s conclusion that all change is illusion using paradoxes.

Pythagoras 580 -500 Born in Samos, southern Greece • founded a school/community half academic/half mystic-religious in Kroton, southern Italy. Believed mathematics to be at the foundation of the universe. Mathematical truths were invariant, fundamental, and beautiful. Ex: a constant ratio of lyre strings produced pleasing harmonies, spirals of pinecones always occur in Fibonacci sequence, sum of two consecutive values = third value, etc. Balance or correct proportions were essential to health (strict dietary rules), moral behavior, devaluing of sense experience for rational contemplation. Dualistic universe, sense/empirical world vs. mental/mathematical world.

Empedocles 490 -430 from Acagras in Sicily • argued for four fundamental elements in the universe (rather than one arche or physis): earth, fire, air, and water. Humans combo of all: earth/body, water/fluids, air/breath, and fire/reason. Two forces in universe: love and strife. Love attractive force, brings things together. Strife repulsive force, tears things apart. Universe is constantly cycling between these forces. Bizarre theory of evolution emerges from this process where by odd, random combinations of bodies and creatures can arise but only some are likely to survive. Eidola theory of perception: objects give off tiny copies of themselves (eidola) when are absorbed into the body through the pores and attach themselves to similar structures (combos of four basic elements) in blood.

Anaxagoras 500 -428 from Clazomenae • mentor to famous Athenian politician Pericles • All in all – all matter in the universe is a mixture of all types of matter but in different proportions. What dominates in the mixture accounts for our perception. Fire is not just fire, but fire and all other matter in universe (water, bread, hair, meat, wood, etc), but fire dominates. Mind, however, is pure and accounts for life.

Democritus 460 -370 from Abdera • all things are made of tiny, indivisible elements called atoms. Number, shape, size, arrangement of atoms accounts for differences in objects. Atoms follow natural laws, thus all things can be understood by studying their elemental parts and functioning of those parts. His view was deterministic (everything follows predictable laws), elemental (organization and complexity is understood or analyzed by breaking into interacting parts), reductionistic (activity at one higher level can be understood by processes at lower level). Human behavior is determined by natural laws (deterministic), can be analyzed in terms of s-r or perceptioninterpretation-action (elementalism) and reduced to neurochemical signals in brain (reductionism).

Democritus 460 -370 from Abdera • Atomic theory of perception: objects gave off atoms (not copies ala Empedocles), received through senses (not pores), and sent to brain, not heart, atoms in brain attempt organize themselves in a manner matching the atoms of the object, match may not be perfect. Completely naturalistic view of universe and humanity. No supernatural soul, no life after death, only scattering of atoms.

The challenge of the Sophists • professional teachers of rhetoric; argued that all truth is circumstantially and culturally constructed. Sophists were particular targets of scorn for Socrates and especially Plato.

Protagoras: (485 -410) from Abdera, Thrace • “Man is the measure of all things. ” • Truth is what we decide it is based on our subjective perception, experience, culture, and effective argumentation. Since there is no objective truth, the best one can do is learn to convince others of the soundness of one’s subjective truth, thus, the necessity of clever, persuasive argumentation (and for Sophists who teach such skills!). Moral relativism, epistemological subjectivism

Gorgias: 485 -380 From Sicily • • Even more extreme than Protagoras Since what is true for one may be false for another, and there is no objective way of deciding, then everything is both equally true and false. Unbridgeable gap between sense experience and our understanding and description of the physical world beyond that experience. Words we use to describe what we think we experience have only subjective meaning. Nihilism: it is impossible to truly know anything; Solipsism: only thing known is subjective, personal. “nothing exists, if it did it could not be known, if known it could not be shared. ” Response to the Sophists: Socrates and Plato

Socrates: Athenian. 470 -399 • • • Stone-mason by trade “The unexamined life is not worth living” Socratic method (dialectic) to achieve wisdom. Mainly concerned with morality. Pose a definition “what is virtue? ” “What is justice? ” etc. Criticize definition. Provide examples. Look for commonalities across examples. What do all virtuous people have in common (every) that only virtuous people possess (only). Propose new definition, criticize, etc. Continue until you arrive at inductive definition, which describes the essence (unchanging nature at the core of something). Knowledge made people moral. People are immoral (selfish, unjust, cruel, etc. ) out of ignorance. The wise man is the moral man. https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=ui 6 g 3 DTqg. SI

Plato 427 -347 • student of Socrates • from prominent Athenian family • Three strong influences: Parmenides (distrust of senses, objective truth exists can only be found through reason), Pythagoras (two worlds, sense world, illusory; world of mathematical ideas/forms, real, unchanging, perfect); Socrates (dialectical method is means of finding truth, essence, Form). Rationalism over empiricism, mind over senses.

Plato 427 -347 Dialectical method shows that knowledge is “extracted” from people, cannot be from experience since experience is imperfect, yet we understand perfections. Must be inborn (nativist) but lost because of interaction with body. Knowledge as “reminiscence. ”

Plato 427 -347 • • Tripartite soul: appetitive soul: animal desires (hunger, pleasure, sex, shelter, etc. ); spirited soul: glory, status, achievement, power, etc. , Rational soul: wisdom, morality, virtue, beauty, etc. Alfred North Whitehead, prominent early 20 th century mathematician and philosopher; “history of Western Philosophy is simply footnotes to Plato. ” In his huge corpus of dialogues, Plato asked all the questions – What is beauty, truth, justice, goodness, etc. – not that he answered of them definitely, but he started the search

Aristotle: (384 -322) from Stagira, Macedonia • • • Traveled to Athens, studied under Plato Mentor to Alexander the Great. Took a more empirical approach compared to Plato, a reliable understanding of concepts (truth, beauty, etc. ) and nature (humans, animals, plants) could be obtained by careful study of examples. Thus, essences do not exist apart from nature (as Plato believed) but were embodied within nature. How to study nature: Four causes (or explanations) Material: of what is it made, statue is made of marble Formal: what form does the material take, statue of Alexander the Great Efficient: force that acted on matter to create the form, energy, skill exerted by sculptor (note: science primarily deals with efficient causes, what force acts on X to produce Y) Final: purpose of the object under study, statue was made to celebrate Alexander Teleological approach: everything in nature has a purpose or function Entelechy: specific purpose inherent to a particular thing

Aristotle: (384 -322) from Stagira, Macedonia • • • Unmoved mover: the ultimate or original cause of nature. Aristotle’s God. Both “first cause” and attractive force that explains present movement of all things 3 types of soul, soul accounts for life Vegetative: growth, generation, plants have this Sensitive: perception, response, memory, animals have this, not plants Rational: cognition, reason. Humans have this Non-dualistic approach, soul is not trapped within body as some other philosophers (Plato, Pythagoras, Parmenides, etc) had argued. Soul is embodied, body is ensouled.

Aristotle: (384 -322) from Stagira, Macedonia Sense and reason: Information comes in through five senses, combined in common sense: cry (audition), smell (olfaction), movement (vision) all come from baby. Passive reason: allows for the use of common sense in everyday functioning Active reason: allows for abstraction of general principles, deriving essences, immortal but impersonal Memory: Remembering: cued retrieval; Recall: active, uncued search Laws of association: Contiguity: temporal association Similarity: semantic or perceptual association Contrast: opposite meaning Frequency: stronger association for objects or events that often cooccur. Imagination is the persistence of images taken in through senses. These are less reliable then original sensations since they are no longer ‘tied’ to the external event or object. This accounts for dreams, which are even more far removed from original event and not governed by reason.

Aristotle: (384 -322) from Stagira, Macedonia • Postulated an early form of ‘drive reduction’ theory of motivation, satisfaction of appetites, avoidance of pain, seeking of pleasure. Argued for golden mean as basis for virtuous, moral, happy life. • Steer a course between extremes of emotion: courage is right balance of cowardice and recklessness; temperance is correct balance of abstinence and selfindulgence, etc.

Greek Medicine • • • Temple medicine: Ritualized, secretive, divine (Asclepius and Hygeia), diet, message, rest, rituals, prayer. Effective in so far as natural healing and placebo effects can (and do) heal. Natural Approach: Alcmaeon & Hippocrates (500; 460 -377 respectively): promoted natural approach to illness and healing. Largely involved aiding body’s natural healing processes, not much different from temple medicine but without the secrecy and superstition. Holistic approach: know patient, know patient’s history, importance of physicianpatient relationship. Balance based on four humors (black, yellow bile, blood and water) was critical. Mind/body healing; placebo effects, promotion of natural healing