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Greek Philosophers Biographies Part 1 in English
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2015-12-20 : the website is under construction. THE PROVERBS ARE O.K., but It will take me a few hours to re-insert the images of the greek philosophers, which for some reason were lost, after my last revision, which i have done a few days ago. so until i remove the sign 'website - under - construction' ... you can study the proverbs with safety !. Please stay on Alert !.
( English ) This Webpage Is Last Updated On 2016 January 31, 21:30 GMT hour. I do not have a computer. In order to access the Internet, I visit often ( once a week ) an Internet Cafe. Next Update will be done on 2016 February 29 in the afternoon !, GOD helping!
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I wanted to get the most broad foundation for a lifelong education that I could find, and that was studying Latin and the classics. Meaning Roman and Greek history and philosophy and ancient civilizations.
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The Greek philosophers were among the most influential people in history because they invented both philosophy and science. By asking questions about themselves and the world around them, these philosophers helped create modern civilization.
Interestingly enough, the Greek philosophers thought of themselves as scientists rather than thinkers. They called themselves seekers and lovers of wisdom and often studied a wide variety of subjects, including history, physics, law, sociology, politics, mathematics, and biology. The famous philosophers were also teachers, educating wealthy children and operating schools as well as thinkers.
Author Birth - Death
ELEATIC - Melissus of Samos
ELEATIC - Parmenides of Elea
PRE-SOCRATIC - Pherecydes of Syros
GREAT GREECE ( GREEK SPEAKING LOWER ITALY ) ( MAGNA GRAECIA ) - PYTHAGOREANS - Philolaus of Croton
11 PLATONISM - Plato 427 BC - 347 BC
12 MIDDLE-PLATONISM - Plutarch 46 - 120
13 PRE-SOCRATIC - SOPHISTS - Protagoras 481 BC - 411 BC
08 PYRRHONIAN SKEPTICISM - Pyrrho (c. 360-270 BCE)
01 GREAT GREECE ( GREEK SPEAKING LOWER ITALY ) ( MAGNA GRAECIA ) - PYTHAGOREANS - Pythagoras of Samos (570-495 BCE)
14 SOCRATISM - Socrates 469 BC - 399 BC
15 SEVEN (7) ANCIENT SAGES - Thales of Melitus 624 BC - 546 BC
16 PERIPATETIC - Theophrastus of Eresos 370 BC - 285 BC
17 ELEATIC - IONIANS - Xenophanes of Colophon 570 BC - 480 BC
02 ELEATIC - Zeno of Elea (c. 490-430 BCE)
18 STOICISM - Zeno of Citium 335 BC - 264 BC
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ELEATIC - Melissus of Samos
Life and Work
Melissus of Samos (fl. 5th c. BC), after Parmenides and Zeno, is the third important thinker of the Eleatic movement. Except of a philosopher, he was a naval commander, famous for his victories especially against the Athenians in 441 BC. He wrote one philosophical book in prose from which only ten fragment survive, thanks to Simplicius
Theory of Being
Melissus was a follower of Parmenides’ thought but not in all its details. On the one hand, Melissus agrees with Parmenides’ main arguments on the indestructibility, immobility, indivisibility, oneness, completeness, changelessness and perfection of Being. On the other, he adopts a different viewpoint on the Parmenidean timelessness and finitude of Being. Melissus understood non-being in terms of spatial emptiness. Since non-being is impossible as an enclosing limit, then Being is limitless. Thus, while Parmenides’ Being is timeless in finitude, Melissus’ Being is everlasting in infinitum.
Senses and Body
Melissus refutes the reliability of sense-perception. Since our senses record constant change and change is impossible then the sensible observations and data are untrustworthy or even illusionary. More extremely Melissus denies the existence of body. Space is full, homogenous and without parts. Since there is no space to differentiate a distinct unity then the body cannot have a distinct character. So body cannot have a distinct existence within unlimited extension.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissus_of_Samos
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ELEATIC - Parmenides of Elea
Parmenides. Detail from The School of Athens by Raphael.
Life and Work
Parmenides (b. c. 515 BC) flourished in the Greek colony of Elea in southern Italy. He is the founder of the Eleatic School which includes important philosophers such as Zeno and Melissus. He composed a book On Nature written in Homeric hexameter. His poem was divided in three sections: (1) Prologue; (2) The Way of Truth; (3) The Way of Human Opinion.
The Nature of Being
Whereas the Ionian hylozoists searched for the material originative source of cosmos, Parmenides posed a different kind of question: what is the nature of Being? The true ‘signs’ or predicates of Being (‘what there is’) are stated at the eighth survived fragment of his poem. Being is:
•ungenerated
•indestructible
•unique
•unmoved
•one and complete
•unchanged
•timeless
•continuous
Being and Non-Being
Parmenides’ arguments for these predicates are the following:
1.non-being must be rejected, for there is no temporality nor generation or destruction for Being;
2.Being is undivided, outside any internal differentiation or contradiction;
3.Being is unchangeable, immobile and complete, recognised only by thinking;
4.Being is equal to itself from every direction, outside any spatial application, equally balanced and uniformly complete at every side like the bulk of a well-rounded sphere.
So the only reasonable conclusion that remains for Being is an unqualified is.
Thinking and Being
The next question that arises in Parmenides’ thought is how Being can be recognized and understood. Since it is impossible to recognise what is not and what can be thought needs necessarily to be then it follows that everything which can be thought presupposes necessarily that something has firstly to be in order to be recognised. That means that only essential being can be apprehended by reason and thinking and not non-being. Parmenides concludes that the same thing is for thinking and for being. Hence since what can be thought is the same as the object of the thought and there is nothing else apart from what there is, then the conclusion which arises is that it is impossible to find thinking without being.
Opinion and Cosmology
Parmenides’ arguments for Being are exposed in the second part of him poem about the Way of Truth. In the third part of his poem on the Way of Opinion (doxa) he criticizes humans for being mislead by their senses. Humans erroneously regard cosmos as not that of ‘one Being’ but that of ‘many beings’, opposition and plurality. Parmenides’ position is clearly directed against the Ionian thinkers and particularly the ever-flowing Becoming of Heraclitus. For Parmenides, Heraclitean Becoming must be rejected and replaced by an unqualified Being. In his cosmology the only acceptable factors that constitute every single entity is ‘fire’ and ‘night’. His position on this distinction remains not clear in the survived fragments.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parmenides
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PRE-SOCRATIC - Pherecydes of Syros
Pherecydes flourished around the sixth century BC. He is the most important forerunner of the Presocratic thought. Pherecydes’ Heptamychia is the first prose style work in Greek literature and includes the first attempt in Greek thought to rationalize Greek mythology. According to some ancient sources Pherecydes was the teacher of Pythagoras.As Diogenes Laertius testifies (Vitae Philosophorum I.119) Pherecydes died and was buried by Pythagoras in Delos. For Pherecydes, in the beginning of cosmos three primary and eternal principles existed: Zeus, Time and Earth. Pherecydes is the first ancient author to introduce the everlastingness of time (chronos). Chronos is the everlasting procreative cosmogonical principle, personified as one of the three primal everlasting principles that initially began the generation of Cosmos: Zas/Zeus, Chronos/Time and Chthonie/Earth. The self-creative nature of Pherecydes’ time eliminates ex nihilo creation. The universe cannot result from non-being, but only from some basic procreative and self-creative everlasting principles. The early Presocratics were influenced by his radical thought especially on the following fields:
•The denial of ex nihilo creation
•The self-creation of cosmos
•The eternal nature of the first principles
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pherecydes_of_Syros
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GREAT GREECE ( GREEK SPEAKING LOWER ITALY ) ( MAGNA GRAECIA ) - PYTHAGOREANS - Philolaus of Croton
Philolaus (c. 475 BC) systematized the number theory of Pythagoras. He stressed the importance of numerical groupings and the divine properties of number. He conceived number ‘one’ or the Monad as ‘the first principle of all things’. The Monad is the unified principle in the center of the sphere identified with the central fire: the hearth. It is noteworthy that Philolaus’ theory of the central fire is of great significance since it removes for the first time the earth form the center of the universe.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philolaus
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11 PLATONISM - Plato
Πλάτων
Plato: copy of portrait bust by Silanion
Plato from The School of Athens by Raphael, 1509
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand. Plato holds his Timaeus and gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Forms
Plato in his academy, drawing after a painting by Swedish painter Carl Johan Wahlbom
Volume 3, pages 32–33, of the 1578 Stephanus edition of Plato, showing a passage of Timaeus with the Latin translation and notes of Jean de Serres
Plato's Symposium (Anselm Feuerbach, 1873)
"The safest general characterisation of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato." (Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, 1929).
First page of the Euthyphro, from the Clarke Plato (Codex Oxoniensis Clarkianus 39), 895 AD. The text is Greek minuscule.
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Classical Greek philosophy - Plato
Plato was an Athenian of the generation after Socrates. Ancient tradition ascribes thirty-six dialogues and thirteen letters to him, although of these only twenty-four of the dialogues are now universally recognized as authentic; most modern scholars believe that at least twenty-eight dialogues and two of the letters were in fact written by Plato, although all of the thirty-six dialogues have some defenders. A further nine dialogues are ascribed to Plato but were considered spurious even in antiquity.
Plato's dialogues feature Socrates, although not always as the leader of the conversation. (One dialogue, the Laws, instead contains an "Athenian Stranger.") Along with Xenophon, Plato is the primary source of information about Socrates' life and beliefs and it is not always easy to distinguish between the two. While the Socrates presented in the dialogues is often taken to be Plato's mouthpiece, Socrates' reputation for irony, his caginess regarding his own opinions in the dialogues, and his occasional absence from or minor role in the conversation serve to conceal Plato's doctrines. Much of what is said about his doctrines is derived from what Aristotle reports about them.
The political doctrine ascribed to Plato is derived from the Republic, the Laws, and the Statesman. The first of these contains the suggestion that there will not be justice in cities unless they are ruled by philosopher kings; those responsible for enforcing the laws are compelled to hold their women, children, and property in common; and the individual is taught to pursue the common good through noble lies; the Republic says that such a city is likely impossible, however, generally assuming that philosophers would refuse to rule and the people would refuse to compel them to do so.
Whereas the Republic is premised on a distinction between the sort of knowledge possessed by the philosopher and that possessed by the king or political man, Socrates explores only the character of the philosopher; in the Statesman, on the other hand, a participant referred to as the Eleatic Stranger discusses the sort of knowledge possessed by the political man, while Socrates listens quietly. Although rule by a wise man would be preferable to rule by law, the wise cannot help but be judged by the unwise, and so in practice, rule by law is deemed necessary.
Both the Republic and the Statesman reveal the limitations of politics, raising the question of what political order would be best given those constraints; that question is addressed in the Laws, a dialogue that does not take place in Athens and from which Socrates is absent. The character of the society described there is eminently conservative, a corrected or liberalized timocracy on the Spartan or Cretan model or that of pre-democratic Athens.
Plato's dialogues also have metaphysical themes, the most famous of which is his theory of forms. It holds that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through our physical senses, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality.
Plato often uses long-form analogies (usually allegories) to explain his ideas; the most famous is perhaps the Allegory of the Cave. It likens most humans to people tied up in a cave, who look only at shadows on the walls and have no other conception of reality. If they turned around, they would see what is casting the shadows (and thereby gain a further dimension to their reality). If some left the cave, they would see the outside world illuminated by the sun (representing the ultimate form of goodness and truth). If these travelers then re-entered the cave, the people inside (who are still only familiar with the shadows) would not be equipped to believe reports of this 'outside world'. This story explains the theory of forms with their different levels of reality, and advances the view that philosopher-kings are wisest while most humans are ignorant. One student of Plato (who would become another of the most influential philosophers of all time) stressed the implication that understanding relies upon first-hand observation:
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Laws are made to instruct the good, and in the hope that there may be no need of them; also to control the bad, whose hardness of heart will not be hindered from crime.
Plato is regarded as the father of political science and the founder of one of the world's first known institutions of higher learning, the Academy in Athens. The Academy created formal philosophy by teaching students the Socratic Method. Plato wrote widely on many subjects, including philosophy, ethics, religion, and mathematics. He created an influential school of philosophy called Platonism, which influenced Christianity. Plato wrote one of the first and most influential works on politics, The Republic, which described an ideal or Utopian society. Like his mentor Socrates, Plato was a critic of democracy.
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Plato the Metaphysic Philosopher
Plato (428-358 BC) is one of the three most famous Athenian philosophers. Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle, Plato is the most vague of the classical thinkers. His theories were much innovative for his time. Plato introduced a new political system, where philosophers, as the holders of real truth and knowledge, would rule. An opponent of democracy, Plato thinks that ruling a state must not be based on persuasion but on wisdom. Giving his theories a metaphysical aspect, Plato believed that two parallel worlds exist, the real world and the world we live in, which is a reflection of the real world.
Plato (428-348 BC) was a Classical Greek philosopher and founder of the Academy of Athens, the first university of the western world. Along with his teacher Socrates and his student Aristotle, Plato is considered to have set the grounds for Western philosophy and to have influences the thinking of many modern philosophers.
Life and education
The son of two wealthy and prominent members of the Athenian society, Ariston and Perictione, Plato was born around 428 BC and died around 348 BC. He belonged to the prominent, oligarchic class and it is said that his mother originated from Solon, the famous Athenian lawmaker and lyric poet. Moreover, two of Plato's uncles were members of the Thirty Tyrants, the brief oligarchic regime established in Athens after the end of the Peloponnesian War (404-403 BC). As a child, Plato received good education. A Hellenistic legend says that his original name was Aristocles after his grandfather, but he got the nickname Plato from his wrestling coach, due to his broad ("platys" in Greek) and strong figure. From an early age, he showed a special interest in philosophy and became a follower of Socrates, the famous Athenian thinker who would stroll around the town and ask people questions, trying to find the right answer out of them. A fact that marked the life of Plato was the trial and sentence to death of Socrates, his beloved mentor, in 399 BC. That time, he lost his belief in the Athenian society and disappointed as he was, Plato left his homeland to travel all around the world. He traveled in Italy, Sicily, Egypt and Libya. There, he met new people and civilizations, while he had the chance to discuss with famous personalities of his time.
The Academy
When Plato returned to Athens, at the age of forty, he established a school on a plot of land that belonged to some man named Academus, which is why the school was called Academy. The Academy of Plato is one of the earliest upscale institutions in the western world and young Athenians would learn philosophy, mathematics, music, art astronomy and other subjects there. One of the first students of the Academy was Aristotle, the third most famous of the Athenian philosophers. The Academy of Plato worked for almost 900 years, until it was closed by Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 529 BC for spreading pagan, anti-Christian ideas.
The Dialogues of Plato
The works of Plato have the form of dialogues/discourses. Scholars divide his works in three categories: the early, middle and late works. His most famous dialogues are the Apology of Socrates, where Plato describes the trial of his mentor and the last days in prison; Republic, where he suggests a new form of government and political system; Timaeus and Critias, where he discusses the origins of language and knowledge; and Protagoras, referring to the ideas of this famous Sophist philosopher. The central character in all the Dialogues of Plato is his teacher Socrates, who discusses with other people a certain issue. Scientists, however, haven't concluded whether the ideas expressed in these dialogues were indeed the teachings of Socrates, or whether they were ideas of Plato that he put in the mouth of Socrates to give them more credibility.
The Ideal State
In his Republic, Plato describes the ideal state, according to him. Disappointed by all the political systems that Athens had used till that time, including democracy and oligarchy, Plato suggested his own system. He divided the society in three categories: the Philosopher Rulers or Kings, the Warriors or Guardians and the Workers. He divided the society in these categories in comparison to the categories of the soul. The philosopher-rulers correspond to the reasonable part of the soul and they are the elite of every society. Intelligent, rational, self-controlled and wise, the philosophers have conquered the Knowledge and therefore, they must rule the state. The Guardians represent the spiritual part of the soul. Adventurous and brave in nature, these people should guard the well-being of the state. The lower social category was the Workers, in whose soul the "appetite" element dominates. These people occupy manual professions, so they can be laborers, merchants, farmers, carpenters or do any other manual work. According to Plato, a state must not base on rhetoric and persuasion, as happens in democracy, but on reason and wisdom. As philosophers are the few enlightened people of every society, they must govern all the others because they have conquered the "real truth". Therefore, Plato rejects all kinds of existing political systems and introduces his own.
The Ideal Education
A very important issue for the Ideal Society of Plato is the education of the youth. He suggests that all children must seperate from parents since their birth and that public institutions must take care of their education. Children do not need to know their parents, brothers or relatives, but consider the broader society as their family. The public institutions must be governed by the philosophers who will provide children all the opportunities to "remember" the real knowledge.
Knowledge
Knowledge, for Plato, is not a matter of learning or observation, but a matter of recollection. He believes that there are two parallel worlds: the real world and the world we live in, which is a reflection of the real world. People on earth do not see the real sight of the objects, but their shadow. To explain this theory, Plato used the allegory of the cave.
The Allegory of the Cave
Imagine, says Plato, that the real world is like some people inside a cave. These people are chained and made to look at a wall since their childhood. Behind these people, there is the entrance of the cave and outside the entrance, there is the real world. Between these chained people and the real world, there is a big fire. Therefore, the chained people can't see the real world, but only their shadows/ representations as reflected by the big fire on the wall. Wouldn't they believe that these shadows are the real world, for they have seen only that? Imagine now, he continues, that someone manages to unchain himself and turn the head towards the outside world. He sees the truth, he gets to know the real side of things, but when he tells the other people, they don't believe him. This unchained man, for Plato, is the philosopher. That is why, Plato thinks that knowledge is all about recollection: we all have seen the truth in another parallel world, but only a few get to remember it. Such interesting metaphysical beliefs were innovative for the ancient world and they influenced a lot modern philosophical thinking. Although a lot of these ideas were questioned even by his student Aristotle, a defender of reason instead of passion, Plato is considered as a greatly-inspiring philosopher, even in our days.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
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12 MIDDLE-PLATONISM - Plutarch
Πλούταρχος
Plutarch's bust at Chaeronea, his home town.
Parallel Lives, Amyot translation, 1565
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch
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13 PRE-SOCRATIC - SOPHISTS - Protagoras of Abdera
Democritus (center) and Protagoras (right) 17th century painting by Salvator Rosa in Hermitage Museum
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protagoras
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08 PYRRHONIAN SKEPTICISM - Pyrrho (c. 360-270 BCE)
Σκεπτικισμός - Πύρρων
By suspending judgment, by confining oneself to phenomena or objects as they appear, and by asserting nothing definite as to how they really are, one can escape the perplexities of life and attain an imperturbable peace of mind.
Pyrrho was known as the first skeptical philosopher because he believed that humans can never know the truth; instead, they can only grasp the appearance of things. Pyrrho rejected education and regarded knowledge as impossible because everything is unmeasurable. Among other things, Pyrrho believed that people were incapable of telling the truth. There are no known writings of Pyrrho, but he inspired a school of philosophy called Pyrrhonism or skepticism that taught happiness could achieved by rejecting the search for knowledge.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrho
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01 GREAT GREECE ( GREEK SPEAKING LOWER ITALY ) ( MAGNA GRAECIA ) - Ionians - Pythagoras of Samos (570-495 BCE)
Bust of Pythagoras of Samos in the Capitoline Museums, Rome.
Bust of Pythagoras, Vatican
A scene at the Chartres Cathedral shows a philosopher, on one of the archivolts over the right door of the west portal at Chartres, which has been attributed to depict Pythagoras.
Croton on the southern coast of Magna Graecia (Southern Italy), to which Pythagoras ventured after feeling overburdened in Samos.
Excerpt from Philolaus Pythagoras book, (Sir William Smith, 1870)
The Pythagorean theorem: The sum of the areas of the two squares on the legs (a and b) equals the area of the square on the hypotenuse (c).
Medieval woodcut showing Pythagoras with bells and other instruments in Pythagorean tuning
Pythagoras, the man in the center with the book, teaching music, in The School of Athens by Raphael
Pythagoreans celebrate sunrise, painting by Fyodor Bronnikov(1827–1902)
Pythagoras, depicted as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Pythagoras, depicted on a 3rd-century coin
As long as man continues to be the ruthless destroyer of lower living beings he will never know health or peace, for as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other.
Pythagoras is a famous mathematician who is credited with inventing the Pythagorean Theorem, one of the key computations in geometry. He was also one of the first people to express musical notes through mathematics. Some sources indicate that Pythagoras was the first person to call himself a philosopher and to organize a school of philosophy. He was also a mystic and a religious thinker who founded a sect called the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans were reputedly vegetarians and pacifists who believed in reincarnation. Little is known of Pythagoras, but some legends indicate that he was the first to teach that the Earth was round.
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Life
Pythagoras (c. 580-500 BC) is one of the most important and enigmatic Presocratic figures. He was born in Samos and traveled for many years in Egypt and the Orient. Due to Samos’ tyrannical rule, Pythagoras migrated to southern Italy about 532 BC and established the Thiasos, a religious and philosophical academy-brotherhood at Croton with ethical and political aims.
Pythagoras was influenced by oriental thought and especially oriental mysticism. He wrote nothing but most of his radical thinking survived in the writings of his students Philolaus, Archytas and Alcmaeon. Pythagoras’ ideas was also influential in Plato and later Platonism. Important stories about his life and activities, but dubious most of them, are presented in the Neoplatonic biographies of Porphyry and Iamblichus.
Philosophy
Pythagoras was a great mathematician. He seems to discover (1) the incommensurability of the side and diagonal of a square, and (2) the Pythagorean theorem for right triangles. On this basis, for Pythagoras cosmos is ordered according to hidden mathematical relations. The power of number has a functional significance, both ontological and cosmological, in the objective world. Number is the wisest and eternal principle in the natural world. It can be observed in the harmony of the world and the musical harmony of the heavenly spheres. Music is the best manifestation of the mathematical cosmos
Testimonies For Testimonies about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans
See Arthur Fairbanks translations at
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/presoc/pythagor.htm#commentary3
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagoras
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14 SOCRATISM - Socrates
Σωκράτης
A bust of Socrates in the Louvre
Socrates Tears Alcibiades from the Embrace of Sensual Pleasure by Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1791)
Socrates and Alcibiades, by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Carnelian gem imprint representing Socrates, Rome, 1st century BC-1st century AD.
The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787)
Socrates prepares to take hemlock: ‘For the ancients, suicide was not a simple solipsistic escape for the weak of character.
Statue of Socrates in front of the Academy of Athens (modern)
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Classical Greek philosophy - Socrates
Socrates, born in Athens in the 5th century BCE, marks a watershed in ancient Greek philosophy. Athens was a center of learning, with sophists and philosophers traveling from across Greece to teach rhetoric, astronomy, cosmology, geometry, and the like. The great statesman Pericles was closely associated with this new learning and a friend of Anaxagoras, however, and his political opponents struck at him by taking advantage of a conservative reaction against the philosophers; it became a crime to investigate the things above the heavens or below the earth, subjects considered impious. Anaxagoras is said to have been charged and to have fled into exile when Socrates was about twenty years of age. There is a story that Protagoras, too, was forced to flee and that the Athenians burned his books. Socrates, however, is the only subject recorded as charged under this law, convicted, and sentenced to death in 399 BCE (see Trial of Socrates). In the version of his defense speech presented by Plato, he claims that it is the envy he arouses on account of his being a philosopher that will convict him.
While philosophy was an established pursuit prior to Socrates, Cicero credits him as "the first who brought philosophy down from the heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it into families, and obliged it to examine into life and morals, and good and evil." By this account he would be considered the founder of political philosophy. The reasons for this turn toward political and ethical subjects remain the object of much study.
The fact that many conversations involving Socrates (as recounted by Plato and Xenophon) end without having reached a firm conclusion, or aporetically, has stimulated debate over the meaning of the Socratic method. Socrates is said to have pursued this probing question-and-answer style of examination on a number of topics, usually attempting to arrive at a defensible and attractive definition of a virtue.
While Socrates' recorded conversations rarely provide a definite answer to the question under examination, several maxims or paradoxes for which he has become known recur. Socrates taught that no one desires what is bad, and so if anyone does something that truly is bad, it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance; consequently, all virtue is knowledge. He frequently remarks on his own ignorance (claiming that he does not know what courage is, for example). Plato presents him as distinguishing himself from the common run of mankind by the fact that, while they know nothing noble and good, they do not know that they do not know, whereas Socrates knows and acknowledges that he knows nothing noble and good.
Numerous subsequent philosophical movements were inspired by Socrates or his younger associates. Plato casts Socrates as the main interlocutor in his dialogues, deriving from them the basis of Platonism (and by extension, Neoplatonism). Plato's student Aristotle in turn criticized and built upon the doctrines he ascribed to Socrates and Plato, forming the foundation of Aristotelianism. Antisthenes founded the school that would come to be known as Cynicism and accused Plato of distorting Socrates' teachings. Zeno of Citium in turn adapted the ethics of Cynicism to articulate Stoicism. Epicurus studied with Platonic and Stoic teachers before renouncing all previous philosophers (including Democritus, on whose atomism the Epicurean philosophy relies). The philosophic movements that were to dominate the intellectual life of the Roman empire were thus born in this febrile period following Socrates' activity, and either directly or indirectly influenced by him. They were also absorbed by the expanding Muslim world in the 7th through 10th centuries CE, from which they returned to the West as foundations of Medieval philosophy and the Renaissance, as discussed below.
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The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Even though he was one of the most important Greek philosophers, Socrates was not a teacher and he never wrote down his teachings; instead, he was a master stonemason and social critic. Socrates became famous for encouraging people to critically question everything. Socrates' greatest contribution to philosophy was the Socratic Method in which discussion, argument, and dialogue are used to discern the truth. The method is usually regarded as a set of questions that are tests of logic. Socrates' most famous student was Plato. Socrates eventually gave his life for liberty. He was tried and convicted for criticizing the government and religion. Socrates then chose death by suicide over exile from his homeland of Athens.
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Socrates the Enigmatic Philosopher
Socrates is considered today as the founder of Western philosophy. His notions of ethics, virtue and truth passed through centuries. Although we have no manuscipts of Socrates himself, his life and ideology are vividly presented in the works of Plato and Xenophon, his direct students, while some accounts are also found in Aristotle and Aristophanes. Socrates believed that the real truth is hidden in every man and all he has to do is to discover it. Because of his philosophical teachings, he was accused of corrupting the youth and was sentenced to death by the Athenian politicians. He died in prison drinking poison.
Socrates (469-399 BC) is considered as the original founder of Western Philosophy. He was the man to develop the notion of ethics the most till his time and to introduce a new method of pedagogy, where the student actually finds the truth himself through a series of questions. The surprising thing is that we actually have no writings of Socrates and the only descriptions we have of him and his philosophy is through the manuscripts of his famous students, the philosopher Plato, the historian Xenophon and of the comedy writer Aristophanes, who actually mocks Socrates in one of his plays, The Clouds.
Personal life
The father of Socrates was Sophroniscus and his mother was Phaenarete, a midwife by profession. In fact, Socrates used frequently the profession of his mother to describe his teaching methods: as a midwife is helping a woman give birth to her child, so was Socrates helping people to give birth to the truth, which is hidden inside everyone of us. The figure of Socrates was unattractive: he is said to have been short, fat, with a malformed face. However, he got married to a girl much younger than him, Xanthippe, and had three sons. According to some historical accounts, he earned his living orating philosophy to his students whereas others mention that he followed the footsteps of his father, a stone sculpture. Some believe that the figurines of the Three Graces that once adorned the Acropolis were actually his work. Apart from that, Socrates was also a brave soldier and fought in the battles of Potidaea, Amphipolis and Delium.
Historical context
The time Socrates was born, Athens was living the golden years under the ruling of Pericles, a charismatic politician who gave emphasis on culture and arts and who made the town the strongest naval power of that time. However, as Socrates was growing old, the decline was starting for Athens, with the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC, the final defeat of Athens in 404 BC and the fall of the Athenian democracy. The social decline thus led to a moral decline in the society of the city-state. Therefore, the concept of moral virtues and ethics that Socrates was teaching was not made understood by many of its citizens.
The philosophy of Socrates
Socrates believed that every man hides a set of truths in his heart and he tried to make each one reveal these truths. His whole philosophical ideology circulated around some basic principles. First of all, he believed that nobody likes to do immoral actions and if one acts immorally, this is because he doesn't know the moral thing. Moreover, he believed that righteousness leads to knowledge and also that righteousness is the only bringer of happiness in people and in society. The inclination of Socrates to moral virtues, his explicit thoughts about honesty and justice and moreover his belief in doing good actions made him become an unfavourable figure to all the politicians of his time. At this point, the people of Athens were quite taken aback after their defeat in the Peloponnesian War. They started to doubt the effect of the reign of democracy in their country.
The trail and death
Seeing this, the politicians blamed Socrates for corrupting the minds of the young boys with such thoughts. Moreover, they also accused that it was him who taught them to disregard the Athenian Gods and who filled their minds with ideas of listening to an inner voice called daemonion. The Athenian politicians were also infuriated for one more thing: in public discussions, Socrates was mocking their knowledge and would make them look unintelligent to people. Socrates believed that no man in wise, if he doesn't acknowledge his unawareness of the truth. He frequently said for himself I know one thing, that I know nothing, claiming his lack of knowledge. In 399 BC, Socrates was put to trial under the accusation of corrupting the young Athenians. In his defense, he compared himself to an annoying stable fly which disturbs people from their inactivity and forces them to turn their head towards the truth. When he was asked to propose a punishment for himself, he ironically answered that the Athenian state should pay him and give him free diners for his lifetime, as long as he is a benefactor to the people. Socrates was eventually found guilty and was sentenced to death by drinking the poison hemlock. Although his students had prepared everything for him to escape prison and death, Socrates refused. He believed that the time had come for him to die. After all, if he escaped, he would be proved disobedient to the rules of the state, so he would harm his own city. He also stressed that the fear of death doesn't indicate any true philosopher, as death actually frees the immortal soul from the mortal body. Socrates is probably the philosopher with the greatest influence ever. Plato and Aristotle, the other famous philosophers of classical Athens, were actually his students and on their work the whole Western philosophy was based. His busts can be seen in most philosophical universities, as a tribute to this great thinker.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
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15 SEVEN (7) ANCIENT SAGES - Thales of Miletus
Thales of Miletus
Thales (Electricity), sculpture from "The Progress of Railroading" (1908), main facade of Union Station (Washington, DC)
Thales, Nuremberg Chronicle.
Thales' Theorem:
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Life and Work
Thales of Miletus (fl. c. 585 BC) is regarded as the father of philosophy. He is also considered the founder of Milesian school and one of the seven sages. Only few fragmentary sources survive from Thales’ work. Some ancient authors ascribe to him, without serious justification, a work with the name Nautical Star-guide while according to some others he wrote only two works: On the Solstice and On the Equinox.
Astronomy and Mathematics
Thales was also a great astronomer and mathematician. It is significant that he foretold the eclipse of the sun in 585 BC. Thales was an avid traveler. Herodotus provides important evidence for Thales’ activities as statesman and engineer. He seem to measure the pyramids of Egypt by their shadow, having observed the time when our shadow is equal to his height. As a mathematician, Thales is famous for his theorems, three of which are attributed to him by Proclus: circle bisected by diameter; angles at base of isosceles triangle are equal vertically opposed angles are equal.
The Water
Thales was the first Greek philosopher to speculate about the primary material element or source (arche) of all beings and cosmic phenomena, which he identified as water (hydor). The importance of water in life and nature was probably the principal reason that made Thales came to this conclusion. According to another viewpoint, Thales probably follows the traditional Homeric world-image and more precisely that of Oceanos; the river source of all mortal and immortal life. On this basis, Thales states that the earth floats on water like a raft.
Pantheism
Thales’ monistic view of water leads him to animistic pantheism. Since water is the divine source of all living things and so all animate and inanimate things can be alive, then the whole world is full of gods. This conclusion leads Thales to suggest that the real substance of soul and nature is water since water’s power is fundamentally kinetic.
Testimonies
Aristotle Metaphysics 983b6
... for there must be some natural substance, either one or more than one, from which the other things come-into-being, while it is preserved. Over the number, however, and the form of this kind of principle they do not all agree; but Thales, the founder of this type of philosophy, says that it is water...
Aristotle De Anima IIa7
And some say that it [soul] is intermingled in the universe, for which reason, perhaps, Thales also thought that all things all full of gods.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thales
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16 PERIPATETIC - Theophrastus of Eresos
Statue of Theophrastus, Orto botanico di Palermo
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Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Strato of Lampsacus. Part of a fresco in the portico of the University of Athens painted by Carl Rahl, c. 1888.
Theophrastus, depicted as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle
The bust inscribed "Θεόφραστος Μελάντα Ἐρέσιος (Theophrastos Melanta Eresios)"
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
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17 ELEATIC - IONIANS - Xenophanes of Colophon
Xenophanes, 17th-century engraving
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Life and Work
Xenophanes (c.570-c.475 BC) was born in Colophon, an Ionian Greek city of Asia Minor. He emigrated in western Greece and he activated as a poet in Sicily and southern Italy. For this reason he was probably related to the Pythagorean School. He wrote especially didactic poetry and ‘Lampoons’ (Silloi): satirical poems in hexameters. Some verses of these poems survive from his work.
Religion Criticism
Xenophanes is well-known for his criticism of the traditional view-image of the Gods. In his poems he clearly attacks the Homeric and Hesiodic anthropomorphic descriptions of the divine deities. The image of the Gods is relative to the region and the culture which is expressed (black gods for the Africans, white gods for the Greeks). Such portrayals should be denied because of their subjectivity.
Single God
For Xenophanes there is one single god beyond any human or physical description. It is the greatest among the Gods without organs or body. This God is motionless, intelligent, with complete perception of the world, activating everything just by the sheer power of thought. It is this Xenophanes’ account of God that probably affects the Eleatic conception of the oneness and immobility of Being.
Cosmology
Xenophanes asserts that all natural phenomena are not divine deities but formations of material substances (the rainbow is not Iris but a special cloud formation). Earth stretch down ad infinitum and the horizontal border between air and earth is the only visible one. More significantly he distinguishes between divine knowledge and human opinion. Divine knowledge is the only true knowledge, while human opinion is totally subjective and probable. Xenophanes is aware that even his own views are only an assumption.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes
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02 ELEATIC - Zeno of Elea (c. 490-430 BCE)
Zeno shows the Doors to Truth and Falsity (Veritas et Falsitas). Fresco in the Library of El Escorial, Madrid.
In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
Little is known of Zeno's life because the only information we have about him comes from other famous Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle regarded Zeno as the inventor of the dialectic or dialectical method of argument, which is considered one of the key methodologies in Western and Islamic philosophy. He was also regarded as the inventor of rhetoric and the father of debate. Zeno is famous for his paradoxes and for attempting to kill a tyrant named Demylus but failed. Demylus then might have murdered Zeno.
Zeno's paradoxes
Achilles and the tortoise
The dichotomy
The arrow
The moving rows
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Life and Work
Zeno (b. c. 490 BC) was a pupil of Parmenides. Plato in his dialogue Parmenides testifies their relationship. Aristotle names Zeno as the inventor of dialectic. He wrote a book in which he denies physical motion as well as the unreality of the pluralistic world. His paradoxes of motion had a great influence in the history and philosophy of mathematics.
Denial of Motion and Plurality
Zeno’s well known hypothesis is that of the denial of motion and plurality. His arguments aim to support Parmenides’ position on the oneness and unity of Being. For Zeno, if reality is successively divided into parts then you will divide it ad infinitum. Zeno’s arguments are presented in the form of paradoxes:
1.The Racetrack or Dichotomy Paradox
Suppose a runner has to travel form the start point A to the finish point B. But firstly he has to travel to the midpoint C and thence to B. But if D is the midpoint of AC, he must first travel to D and so on ad infinitum. So since in finite time it is impossible to accomplish an infinite number of movements then the runner is not able to finish his distance.
2.The Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise
Achilles runs a race with a tortoise. Tortoise takes a lead. But while Achilles can run much faster than the tortoise, Achilles cannot touch it. How? When Achilles has reached the tortoise’s starting-point the tortoise is n/10 meters ahead. When Achilles has reached that point is n/100 ahead and so on ad infinitum.
3.The Stadium or Moving Blocks Paradox
Suppose three equal groups A, B, C of width l, with A and C moving past B in opposite direction at the same speed. While group A takes time t to traverse width B, it takes t/2 to traverse width C. This leads to the absurd paradox that half time equals its double.
4.The Arrow Paradox The Arrow Paradox
Suppose that time consists of moments or instances. A flying arrow at any instant of time occupies a space equal to itself. So at any instant of time, like in a photograph, the arrow would be at rest. Therefore if at any instant of time the arrow has no motion, temporal locomotion is impossible since time is composed of freezing instances in succession.
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Elea
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18 STOICISM - Zeno of Citium
Fate is the endless chain of causation, whereby things are; the reason or formula by which the world goes on.
Zeno of Citium was the founder of one of the most influential schools of Greek and Roman philosophy: the Stoics. Zeno's major belief was logic, which he believed existed to help people avoid deception. He was also deeply interested in ethics. The purpose of ethics was to achieve happiness by living according to nature, Zeno believed. Zeno's most interesting belief was his physics or theology: he believed that the universe itself was god and conforming to its will was the ultimate goal of human life. Zeno also believed that human beings lacked free will; instead, the universe directed their behavior.
Zeno of Citium
Modern bust of Zeno in Athens
Zeno, portrayed as a medieval scholar in the Nuremberg Chronicle
Zeno, thought happiness was a "good flow of life."
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for more information, please visit the Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia in the following web page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Citium
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