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Greek Philosophy

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Reality was number. Democritus & Leucippus. Little of their work survives ... Philosopher Kings. Men of Silver Auxilliaries (Honor) Men of Bronze Populace ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Greek Philosophy


1
Greek Philosophy
2
The Pre-Socratics
  • They were the first to investigate nature in a
    systematic way
  • What is it and where did it come from?
  • Of what is it made?
  • Does it have a purpose and, if so, what?
  • What is change?
  • Use your mind and your senses

3
The Ionians
  • Greek in speech and culture
  • Heavily engaged in commerce and colonization
  • They interacted with all of the great
    civilizations
  • Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian?
  • They were at the crossroads of ideas
    new and old

4
Why then, why there?
  • Wealth allows time for leisure
  • They were worldly and practical
  • The Greek alphabet came into use around 800 BCE
  • Widespread prose writing by 600 BCE
  • The Greeks were argumentative
  • Their Religion was not one of Authority

5
Thales of Miletus
  • One of the Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece
  • An excellent mathematician
  • Studied astronomy
  • Predicted a solar eclipse
  • Believed that water was the
  • first principle

6
The Four Elements
  • Earth, Water, Air, and Fire
  • Everything was made up of a combination of the
    elements in different proportions
  • They exhibited different properties
  • Hot cold, wet dry
  • They had no tools to work with other than their
    minds
  • Solid, liquid, gas, and catalyst

7
Pythagoras (c. 570 500 BCE)
  • Instrumental in the development of Geometry
  • Pythagorean Theorem
  • Harmony ratios
  • Increase knowledge through the use of deductive
    reasoning
  • Reality was number

8
Democritus Leucippus
  • Little of their work survives
  • The Christian church opposed it
  • Too materialistic
  • Developed the
  • Atomic Theory
  • of matter atom uncuttable

9
Socrates (469 399 BCE)
  • His contributions to Western thought
  • An insatiable search for the truth by reason
  • Goodness and knowledge are one and the same
  • Life must be lived in a virtuous manner to be
    happy
  • The goal was to become skilled in the art of
    living

10
The Gadfly of Athens
  • A man of singular character and intelligence
  • Felt a passion for intellectual honesty and
    moral integrity
  • He questioned tirelessly in an effort to
    distinguish between opinion and truth
  • The unexamined life is not worth living

11
The Socratic Method
  • The proper way to learn anything is through
    conversation (Dialogue)
  • Socrates did not trust the written word it was
    to easy for it to be misunderstood
  • The give and take of knowledge was called the
    dialectic
  • The key to any useful and fruitful dialogue was
    careful listening

12
The Death of Socrates
13
Plato (c. 427 347 BCE)
  • Member of an aristocratic family
  • Student of Socrates
  • Founder of the Academy
  • Opposed to democracy
  • Wrote in dialogue form
  • Preoccupied with the role of reason

14
The Academy
15
The Dialogues
  • Theaetetus What is knowledge?
  • Protagoras Can virtue be taught?
  • Laches What is courage?
  • Symposium What is love?
  • Crito Acceptance of the law
  • Euthyphro What is piety
  • Timaeus Origins of the universe
  • Menos Knowledge as recollection

16
Theory of the Forms
  • What is the Good, the True, the Beautiful?
  • This knowledge is in the soul
  • It has always been there from the beginning
  • What goes through change is not real
  • Only what is permanent is truly real
  • Every part of nature reflects the Forms
  • The sum of all of the Forms is the Good
  • The Good God

17
The Republic
18
What is Justice?
  • Tell the truth and repay debts
  • Help friends hurt enemies
  • It is useful for business
  • Might makes right
  • Justice is foolishness
  • The Myth of Gyges
  • Justice must be good for its own sake

19
The Perfect State
  • Men of Gold Guardians (Intellect)
  • Philosopher Kings
  • Men of Silver Auxilliaries (Honor)
  • Men of Bronze Populace (Appetites)

20
What does it require?
  • Meritocracy
  • Eugenics
  • Specialization
  • Education
  • The Three great waves
  • Women Guardians
  • No property for the Guardians
  • Wives and children in common

21
Aristotle (384 322 BCE)
  • Born in Thrace
  • Son of a physician
  • Sent to Athens to study under Plato
  • Moved to Macedonia to tutor Alexander
  • Returned to Athens and founded the Lyceum

22
The Philosopher
  • Spent 20 years with Plato and, while heavily
    influenced by him, disagreed with much that he
    taught
  • His school emphasized the natural sciences,
    biology, zoology, botany, and physiology
  • It is estimated he wrote 1 ½ million words of
    which only ¼ survive
  • His main contributions came in logic and biology

23
The Master of those who know
  • Aristotle is known to have written about
  • Ethics, political science, rhetoric, poetry,
    constitutional history, theology, zoology,
    meteorology, astronomy, physics, chemistry,
    scientific method, anatomy, mathematics,
    language, formal logic, sociology, psychology,
    comparative politics, literary criticism
    (economics mechanics?)

24
All men, by nature, desire to know
  • The goal of life is Eudaimonia
  • What is Eudaimonia?
  • The possession of all of the virtues
  • What are the virtues?
  • All of the varieties of excellence
  • What are the vices?
  • The extremes of feeling or action

25
Eudaimonia
  • Man must combine the intellectual virtues with
    the moral ones
  • Together they produce right action
  • They are acquired and reinforced through
    practice. They become habits
  • Apply the concept of the golden mean
  • Not always the middle but the most appropriate
    under the circumstances

26
Aristotelianism
  • During the Middle Ages Aristotles thought will
    come to dominate in Europe
  • Unfortunately much of it will be misinterpreted
  • Aristotles intellectual dynamism will become
    static
  • The church will use it for their own purposes
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