Golden Age of Athens

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Golden Age of Athens

• The Birth of the Thinking World
• 480 430 BC

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Delian League

• Alliance of 140 Greek city-states
• Purpose
• To ward off future Persian attacks
• Athens began to use its powerful navy to control
  the other city-states
• In effect, the Delian League became an Athenian
  Empire

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Pericles

• Leader of Athens through a great part of the
  Golden Age
• Great talent for oratory
• Did not try to dazzle the audience but worked to
  reason with them
• Dominated Athenian life for 32 years
• 461 429 BC
• This period is often called the Age of Pericles

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Three Goals of Pericles

• Strengthen Athenian democracy
• Most public officials were now paid salaries
• To build a commercial empire
• Increased the power of the navy which safeguarded
  commerce
• Glorify Athens
• Used money gained from the Delian League to
  beautify Athens

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Acropolis
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Acropolis Map
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Parthenon - Then
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Parthenon-Now
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Drama

• Two great dramatists
• Aeschylus
• Sophocles
• Oedipus
• Tragedy
• Had to portray people of character, whose
  strengths led to their downfalls
• Comedy

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Greek Philosophy

• The Big Three

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Socrates

• The Father of Philosophy

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Socrates

• Socrates set the standard for all subsequent
  Western philosophy
• Use of critical reasoning
• Unwavering commitment to truth
• The vivid example of his own life
• He left no writings
• We are dependent upon contemporary writers for
  our information about his life and work
• Aristophanes
• Xenophon
• Dedicated his life to an investigation of the
  development of moral character
• Retired from active life to work as a stonemason
  and to raise his children with his wife

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Socrates

• After inheriting a modest fortune from his
  father, Socrates used his financial independence
  to give full-time attention to inventing the
  practice of philosophical dialogue
• For the rest of his life, Socrates devoted
  himself to free-wheeling discussion with the
  aristocratic young citizens of Athens
• Insistently questioning their unwarranted
  confidence in the truth of popular opinions, even
  though he often offered them no clear alternative
  teaching

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Socrates

• Socrates pointedly declined to accept payment for
  his work with students
• But many of them were fanatically loyal to him
• Their parents were often displeased with his
  influence on their offspring
• An Athenian jury found him guilty of corrupting
  the youth and interfering with the religion of
  the city
• They sentenced him to death in 399 BCE
• Socrates drank hemlock and died in the company of
  his friends and disciples

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Philosophy of Socrates

• Best source of information about Socrates's
  philosophical views
• the early dialogues of his student Plato
• Socratic dialogues
• extended conversations with students, statesmen,
  and friends
• aim at understanding and achieving virtue, aretê
• Vital steps toward our acquisition of genuine
  knowledge
• Destroying the illusion that we already
  comprehend the world perfectly
• Honestly accepting the fact of our own ignorance
• Discovering universal definitions of the key
  concepts governing human life

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Philosophy of Socrates

• Socrates refuted the superficial notion of piety
  as doing whatever is pleasing to the gods
• Efforts to define morality by reference to any
  external authority, he argued, inevitably founder
  in a significant logical dilemma about the origin
  of the good
• During his imprisonment
• Responded to friendly efforts to secure his
  escape by seriously debating whether or not it
  would be right for him to do so
• Concluded that an individual citizen can never be
  justified in refusing to obey the laws of the
  state

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Philosophy of Socrates

• Tries to determine whether or not virtue can be
  taught
• Led to a careful investigation of the nature of
  virtue itself
• His direct answer is that virtue is unteachable
• Socrates argues here that knowledge and virtue
  are so closely related that no human agent ever
  knowingly does evil
• We all invariably do what we believe to be best
• Improper conduct can only be a product of our
  ignorance rather than a symptom of weakness of
  the will

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Plato

• Source of Understanding

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Plato

• Son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents
• Began his philosophical career as a student of
  Socrates
• When Socrates died
• Plato traveled to Egypt and Italy
• Spent several years advising the ruling family of
  Syracuse
• Returned to Athens
• Established his own school of philosophy at the
  Academy
• Attempted to pass on the heritage of a Socratic
  style of thinking and to guide their progress
  through mathematical learning to the achievement
  of abstract philosophical truth

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Platonic Philosophy

• Plato tried to convey the spirit of Socrates'
  teaching by presenting accurate reports of
  Socrates' conversations
• Early dialogues are typically devoted to
  investigation of a single issue, about which a
  conclusive result is rarely achieved

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Platonic Philosophy

• Later dialogues of Plato develop, express, and
  defend his own, more firmly established,
  conclusions
• Claims to demonstrate the immortality of the
  human soul
• Discusses the virtues of justice, wisdom,
  courage, and moderation
• Reviews various forms of government
• Says that only philosophers are fit to rule
• Shows that justice is better than injustice

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Aristotle

• The Founder of Science

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Aristotle

• Aristotle was the most notable product of the
  educational program devised by Plato
• Spent twenty years of his life studying at the
  Academy
• When Plato died, Aristotle returned to his native
  Macedonia
• Participated in the education of Alexander the
  Great
• He came back to Athens in 335 and established his
  own school at the Lyceum
• Spent most of the rest of his life engaged there
  in research, teaching, and writing
• His students acquired the name "peripatetics"
  from the master's habit of strolling about as he
  taught

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Aristotle

• Surviving works of Aristotle probably represent
  only a fragment of the whole
• Include his investigations of an amazing range of
  subjects
• Logic
• Philosophy
• Ethics
• Physics
• Biology
• Psychology
• Politics
• Rhetoric

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Aristotles Philosophy

• Aim of Aristotle's logical treatises
• To develop a universal method of reasoning by
  means of which it would be possible to learn
  everything there is to know about reality
• Developed a scheme for the description of
  particular things in terms of their properties,
  states, and activities
• Developed syllogisms

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Aristotles Philosophy

• Aristotle rejected the Platonic theory of forms
• Defended his own vision of ultimate reality,
  including the eternal existence of substance
• Explains the use of sensation and reason to
  achieve genuine knowledge
• Aristotle made several efforts to explain how
  moral conduct contributes to the good life for
  humans
• He considered the natural desire to achieve
  happiness
• Described the operation of human volition and
  moral deliberation
• Developed a theory of each virtue as the mean
  between vicious extremes
• Aristotle's view is that the lives of individual
  human beings are invariably linked together in a
  social context