Chapter 2
The Early Greek Philosophers
Updated: 2010-02-03
Chapter Outline
- The World of Precivilized Humans (p. 24)
- Early Greek Religion (p. 25)
- The First Philosophers (p. 26)
- Thales
- Anaximander
- Heraclitus
- Parmenides
- Pythagoras
- Empedocles
- Democritus
- Early Greek Medicine (p. 32)
- The Relativity of Truth (p. 34)
- Protagoras
- Gorgias
- Xenophanes
- Socrates
- Plato (p. 37)
- Aristotle (p. 40)
- The Importance of Early Greek Philosophy (p. 47)
Lecture Outlines
- Sagan's Calendar Analogy
- Tools
- Early hominins
- The Road to Civilization
- Ancient Greece
- Philosophy: Reason vs. Sensation
- Natural vs. supernatural explanations
- Crititical method (Thales)
- crucial to further development
- forshadows Hegel's dialectic
- Change: a constant (Heraclitus)
- The problem of measuring things that are not constant
- change as the only constant
- continuua
- "No man steps into the same river twice."
- Empiricism and Rationalism: The first time through
- becoming vs. being :: empiricism vs. rationalism
- Pre-Platonic Thought
- The primacy of reason (Parmenides and Zeno of Elea)
- Reality not seen by senses
- Zeno's paradox
- Pythagorean dualism and the ideal vs. the real
- A compromise
- Two realities--ideal and real (Dualistic)
- Influenced Plato
- Early physical theory: Four elements and two causes
(Empedocles)
- earth, fire, air, water = elements
- love, strife = causal powers
- eidola theory of perception
- Atomism and reductionism (Democritus)
- First definition of atom
- Materialism
- Elementism and reductionism
- Five senses
- Atomic disintegration at death
- Greek Medicine
- Temple Medicine vs. Naturalistic Medicine
- Natural equilibria (Alcmaeon)
- Health = equilibrium
- Physician's job is to restore equilibrium
- Dissection and brain
- Hippocrates and the four humors
- No supernatural causes of illness
- elements and humors associated
- earth--black bile
- air--yellow bile
- fire--blood
- water--phlegm
- persistence of humor terms in vocabulary
- melancholic, choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic
- Sophism
- The relativity of truth
- Many truths vs. one truth
- Rhetoric, logic, and communication
- How can we know? (Instead of what is there to know?)
- Protagoras, Gorgias (nihilism and solipcism), &
Xenophanes (religion)
- Truth depends on the perceiver
- Six Billion truths?
- The first social construction of reality?
- Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
- Socrates (469-399)
- Inductive method
- i.e., What makes a chair a chair?
- Search for essence (What is truth?)
- Looked for a complete definition
- Socratic method (dialogues)
- Hemlock
- Plato (427-347)
- Socrates's student, founded the Academy of Athens after
Socrates's death
- Forms (from essences)
- Forms existed in the abstract world
- Understanding forms is highest kind of thinking
- Allegory of the cave
- Soul, reason, and innate knowledge
(reminiscence/introspection)
- Rationalist (knowledge of forms is innate)
- Knowledge of forms comes from introspection
- Three part soul: rational, courageous, appetitive
- Conflict of rational thought and bodily needs
- Specialization of human labor
- Influence on Christianity (Neo-Platonism)
- Platonic philosophy plus Christian mysticism was long
lasting
- Not overturned until Renaissance
- Aristotle (384-322)
- Plato's student
- Alexander's tutor
- The Lyceum (first university?)
- Direct examination of nature (not search for ideal)
- Study nature not introspection
- De-emphasis of mathematics
- De Anima (First psychology)
- first physiological psychologist
- Hippocratic model
- Final causes and entelechy (his faults to moderns)
- material, formal, efficient, and final causes
- entelechy--built-in purposes
- scala naturae
- unmoved mover
- Hierarchical souls
- vegative, sensitive, rational
- Specific topics
- Sensation
- Common sense and reason
- hierarchy: active and passive reason, common
sense, sensation
- Memory and Recall
- Imagination and Dreaming
- natural explanation of dreams
- Motivations and Happiness
- Emotions
- The Decline of the Golden Age: From Alexander to the Roman
Empire
- Alexander and the Successors (Seleucids, Ptolemys, and
others)
- Alexander's empire was divided after his death
- Ongoing wars and shifting alliances ensued
- Rome's Western view
- Rome had traditionally looked west (Gaul, Britain)
- Roman administration was local (hire the strong man)
- Roman culture was Greek already (Greek used more than
Latin)
- Rome's eventual takeover of the East
- As the Successors bickered a power vacuum was created
- Rome eventually took over the East (Egypt, the Holy
Land)
- High point of Roman Empire
- Greek thinking, Roman power and administration
- Rome's takeover spread Greek ideas East and West
- Roman culture copied nearly all of Greek culture
- had effect of "freezing" Greek culture in its classic
age
- The Hellenization of the "world"
- Hellenization is the spread of Greek ideas
- polis
- gymnasium
- stadium
- agora
- Christianity spread because of Hellenization
Graphics
URLs
Plato
Aristotle
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