Talking Points

Journal 13

The Greek Philosophers

The emergence of the sophist

  • Writers and Speakers were drawn to Athens that was spending a lot of their money gained from economic profits on cultural achievements.
  • The profits of the empire indirectly subsidized festivals and supported the arts and sciences.
  • Traveling teachers called “sophists” (wise men) provided instruction in logic and public speaking to pupils that could afford their fees.
  • The new discipline of rhetoric – the construction of persuasive and attractive arguments – gave those with a quick wit an advantage in politics and the courts.
  • Sophists began to be viewed as those that would cleverly manipulate people and reality.

Socrates

  • Socrates (470-399 BC.) was brought to trial.
  • He was a sculptor by trade, had a rather large following of young men that would listen to deflate those that thought themselves wise.
  • He once said that he knew one more thing than anyone else; that he knew nothing.
  • “Knowledge is necessary to become virtuous and virtue is necessary to obtain happiness” Virtue – good qualities inherent in a person.
  • “What is the way we ought to live?” –
  • “The unexamined life is not worth living”
  • At his trial he easily defended himself and dispose of the charges that he was corrupting the youth and neglecting the gods.
  • He was being held responsible for the actions of several aristocratic students who tried to overthrow the Athenian Democracy.
  • He was being blamed for ideas perpetuated by other Sophists, which were widely believed to be contrary to religious beliefs and undermined authority.
  • The vote to find Socrates guilty was close, but his lack of remorse – He said that he should be rewarded by the state – sealed his fate. He was forced to drink hemlock.
  • His disciples regarded his execution as martyrdom.
  • Plato and many other young men withdrew from public life and dedicated themselves to knowledge and truth.
  • This period encompasses the last state in Greece of the transition from orality to literacy. Socrates wrote nothing, but rather preferred to talk with people of the street.
  • He used the “Socratic Method” of question and answer to reach a deeper understanding of the value of justice, excellence and wisdom.

Plato (428-347 BC)

  • Socrates disciple Plato gained much of his knowledge from books and wrote down his thoughts.
  • Plato created the Academy, a school where young men could pursue a course of higher education.
  • Idealism – truth is in ideas. The republic is the ideal state.
  • Get rid of private property…family (everyone’s son is everyone’s son.)
  • Sees that human selfishness is the problem. The goal is unity.
  • He refused to write down the most advanced stages of his philosophical and spiritual training that took place at the Academy, because he felt that that should be reserved for the “initiates” that completed the earlier stages of training.
  • Plato’s most famous work was “The Republic”, where he set forth his vision of a perfectly governed society. It was not a democracy. In his vision all citizens naturally fell into three groups; farmers and artisans, warriors, and the ruling class.
  • The person with the greatest intellect from the ruling class would be chosen as the philosopher-king.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

  • Was a pupil at Plato’s Academy.
  • Realist – sensory experience more important than idealism.
  • Human selfishness is who we are.
  • Designing a government that understands this. If we get rid of property and family than we are not taking advantage of selfishness.
  • Idea of polity - Rich and poor must work together
  • He was chosen by the King Phillip of Macedonia to be the tutor of Alexander the Great. This lasted three years – the King called him back to Macedonia.
  • He founded he own school called the Lyceum.
  • He lectured and wrote about politics, logic, physics, poetry, ethics, astronomy, and psychology.
  • He views are widely known as empiricism.