Ancient Greek Philosophy (2024)

The Ancient Greeks, Part One:

The Presocratics

Dr. C. George Boeree

"Know thyself."
-- inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi

Psyche, from the Greek psu-khê, possibly derived from aword meaning "warm blooded:" Life, soul, ghost, departed spirit,conscious self, personality, butterfly or moth. Some words withsimilar meanings:Thymos, meaning breath, life, soul, temper, courage, will;Pneuma, meaning breath, mind, spirit, or angel; Noös,meaning mind, reason, intellect, or the meaning of a word; Logos, meaning word, speech, idea,or reason.

Psychology: Reasoningabout the soul. Probably coined by the German philosopher andreformation theologian Philipp Melanchthon in the mid 16thcentury. First used to mean "study of the mind" in ChristianWolff's PsychologiaEmpirica (1732) and Psychologia Rationalis (1734).

The Greeks

Western intellectual history always begins with the ancientGreeks.This is not to say that no one had any deep thoughts prior to theancientGreeks, or that the philosophies of ancient India and China (andelsewhere)were in any way inferior. In fact, philosophies from all over theworld eventually came to influence western thought, but only muchlater.But it was the Greeks that educated the Romans and, after a long darkage,it was the records of these same Greeks, kept and studied by the Moslemand Jewish scholars as well as Christian monks, that educated Europeonce again.

We might also ask, why the Greeks in the first place? Why notthe Phoenicians, or the Carthaginians, or the Persians, or theEtruscans?There are a variety of possible reasons.

One has to do with the ability to read and write, which in turn hasto do with the alphabet. It is when ideas get recorded that theyenter intellectual history. Buddhism, for example, although a verysophisticatedphilosophy, was an oral tradition for hundreds of years until committedto writing, since the Brahmi alphabet was late in coming. It wasonly then that Buddhism spread throughout Asia.

The alphabet was invented by the Semites of the Mediterraneancoast,including the Hebrews and the Phoenicians, who used simple drawings torepresent consonants instead of words. The Phoenicians apparentlypassed it on to the Greeks. The Greeks improved on theidea by inventing vowels, using some extra letters their language hadnouse for.

(Click heretosee how the alphabetdeveloped)

Prior to the invention of the alphabet, reading and writing was thedomain of specialized scribes, concerned mostly with keeping governmentrecords. Even in the case of the Phoenicians, writing was more atoolof the merchant class, to keep track of trade, than a means ofrecordingideas. In Greece, at least in certain city-states, reading andwritingwas something “everyone” did.

By everyone, of course, I mean upper class males. Women,peasants,and slaves were discouraged from picking up the skill, as they would beand still are in many places around the world. If you wonderwhereall the women philosophers are, well, there were very few indeed!The poet Sappho of Lesbos is the closest we get to a female philosopheron recordin the ancient world.

(Click here toseetwo of Sappho's poems)

Still, the alphabet does not explain everything. Another thingthat made the Greeks a bit more likely to start the intellectual ballrollingwas the fact that they got into overseas trading early. Theirlandand climate was okay for agriculture, but not great, so the idea oftradingfor what you can’t grow or make yourself came naturally. Plus,Greeceis practically all coastline and islands, so seafaring came equallynaturally.

What sea trading gives you is contact with a great variety ofcivilizations,including their religions and philosophies and sciences. Thisgetspeople to thinking: If this one says x, and that one saysy,and the third one says z, what then is the truth? Traders areusuallyskeptics.

Still, the Phoenicians (and their cousins, the Carthaginians) hadthealphabet first, and were excellent sea traders as well. Whyweren’tthey the founders of western intellectual history? Perhaps it hadto do with centralization. The Phoenicians had an authoritariangovernmentcontrolled by the most powerful merchants. The Carthaginians hadthe same. Perhaps being surrounded by powerful authoritarianempiresforced them to adopt that style of government to survive.

The Greeks, on the other hand, were divided into many smallcity-states,each unique, each fiercely independent, always bickering and oftenfighting.It may seem disadvantageous, but when it comes to ideas, diversity andeven conflict can be invigorating! Consider that when Greece wasfinally united under Macedonian rule, the flurry of intellectualactivityslowed. And when the Romans took over, it practically died.

The Basics

The ancient Greek philosophers gave us the basic categories ofphilosophy,beginning with metaphysics. Metaphysics is the part ofphilosophythat asks questions such as “What is the world made of?" and"Whatis the ultimate substance of all reality?”

In fact, the ancient Greeks were among the first to suggest thatthereis a “true” reality (noumenon) under the “apparent” reality(phenomenon),an “unseen real” beneath the “unreal seen.” The question is, whatis this true reality? Is it matter and energy, i.e. somethingphysical?This is called materialism. Or something more spiritualormental, such as ideas or ideals? This is called idealism.Materialism and idealism constitute the two extreme answers.Later,we will explore some other possibilities.

A second aspect of philosophy is epistemology.Epistemologyis the philosophy of knowledge: How do we know what is true orfalse,what is real or not? Can we know anything for certain, or is itultimatelyhopeless?

Again, the Greeks outlined two opposing approaches to the problem ofknowledge. One is called empiricism, which says that allknowledgecomes through the senses. The other is called rationalism,which says that knowledge is a matter of reason, thought. Thereareother answers in epistemology as well. In fact, empiricism andrationalismhave never been entirely exclusive.

The third aspect of philosophy that we will be concerned with is ethics.Ethics is the philosophical understanding of good and bad, right andwrong.It is often called morality, and most consider the two wordssynonymous.After all, ethics comes from ethos,which is Greek for customs, andmoralitycomes from mores, which isLatin for customs!

As we shall see, ethics is the most difficult of the three aspectsofphilosophy. For the present, we might want to differentiate theextremesof hedonism and cynicism. Hedonism says that goodandbad come down to what I like and what I don’t like, what gives mepleasureand what gives me pain. Cynicism says that world is essentiallyevil,and we can only work at distancing ourselves from it and moving towardsthe ultimate good, which is God.

There are many other aspects of philosophy -- logic, for example,andesthetics, the study of beauty. But metaphysics, epistemology,andethics are sufficient for now.

The Ionians

Greek philosophy didn’t begin inGreece (as we knowit); Itbeganon the western coast of what is now Turkey, an area known then asIonia.In Ionia’s richest city, Miletus, was a man of Phoenician descentcalledThales(624-546). He studied in Egypt and other parts of the near east,and learned geometry and astronomy.

His answer to the great question of what the universe is made of waswater. Inasmuch as water is a simple molecule, found in gaseous,liquid, and solid forms, and found just about everywhere, especiallylife,this is hardly a bad answer! It makes Thales not only the nominalfirst philosopher, but the first materialist as well. Sinceultimatenature was known in Greek as physis,he could also be considered thefirstphysicist (or, as the Greeks would say, physiologist).

We should note, however, that he also believed that the wholeuniverseof material things is alive, and that animals, plants, and even metalshave souls -- an idea called panpsychism.

His most famous student was Anaximander(611-549),also ofMiletus.He is probably best known as having drawn the first known map of theinhabitedworld, which probably looked something like this:

Anaximander added an evolutionary aspect to Thales’materialism:The universe begins as an unformed, infinite mass, which develops overtime into the many-faceted world we see around us. But, he warns,the world will eventually return to the unformed mass!

Further, the earth began as fluid, some of which dries to becomeearthand some of which evaporates to become atmosphere. Life alsobegan inthe sea, only gradually becoming animals of the land and birds of theair.

LikeThales, Heracl*tus (540-475) was an Ionian,fromEphesus,a little north of Miletus. And, like Thales, he was searching forthe ultimate substance that unifies all reality. He decided onfire,or energy -- again, not a bad guess at all.

The multiplicity of reality comes out of fire by condensation,becominghumid air, then water, and finally earth. But this is balanced byrarefaction, and the earth liquifies, then evaporates, and finallyreturnsto pure energy.

Taking fire as his ultimate substance led to a more dynamic view ofreality. Change, for Heracl*tus, is the only constant.“Pantarhei, ouden menei” -- all things flow, nothing abides -- is hismostfamoussaying. He is also known for the saying that we cannot step intothe same river twice, because new water is constantly flowing onto us.

Fire is also associated in his theory with mind or spirit.And,just like any other fire, he points out that our individualityeventuallydies. There is no personal immortality. Only God -- thedivine fire-- is eternal.

In many ways, Heracl*tus reminds me of a Greek Taoist. Hebelievedthat, although ultimate reality is One, the world we know is made of updualities, with each pole requiring the existence of itsopposite:Up requires down, white requires black, good requires bad, and so on.

And he sees these oppositions as being the source of harmony,pointingout that, unless you stretch your harp strings in two opposingdirections,you cannot play music.

And, again like the Taoists, he believed that the best way to liveone’slife is in harmony with nature. But he died alone, at the age of70, due to his intense dislike for human company!

The Greeks of Italy

Another Ionian was Pythagoras (582-500). Aftertravellingeverywhere from Gaul (modern day France) to Egypt and India, he settleddown in Crotona, a sea port of southern Italy. Southern Italy wasthe greatest settlement of Greeks outside of Greece, to the point thatthe Romans referred to the area as Magna Grecia (“greater Greece”).There,he set up his famous school.

His school was more like a large commune, and his philosophy morelikea religion. Because they believed in reincarnation, all of hisfollowerswere vegetarians. They avoided wine, swearing by the gods, sexualmisconduct, excesses and frivolity. For the first five years, anewpupil took a vow of silence. Women were treated as equals -- atruerarity in the ancient world!

His philosophy was rooted in mathematics, which meant geometry totheancient Greeks. Pythagoras is credited with a number of geometricproofs, most notably the Pythagorean theorem: The sum of thesquaresof the two sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of thehypotenuse.He discovered the mathematical basis of music, and saw the samepatternsin the movements of the planets. He was the first person to realize thatthe earth, moon, and planets are all spheres (hence, the "music of thespheres!"). He saw the elegant lawfulness of geometry as thefoundationof the entire universe.

So, rather than look for an understanding of the universe in themovementof matter and energy, he looked for laws of nature, the form ratherthanthe material. But, since these laws exist only in the mind asideas,we call Pythagoras an idealist.

Although his life remains mysterious, his school lasted 300 years,andhad a profound influence on all who followed, most particularly Plato.

In Elea, another Greek seaport in the south of Italy lived Xenophanes(570-475). He is best known for his denial of the existence oftheGreek gods.

“Mortals fancy that gods are born, and wear clothes, andhavevoice and form like themselves. Yet if oxen and lions had hands,and could paint and fashion images as men do, they would make thepicturesand images of their gods in their own likenesses; horses would makethemlike horses, oxen like oxen. Ethiopians make their gods black andsnub-nosed; Thracians give theirs blue eyes and red hair.” (fromDiogenesLaertes “Xenophanes,” iii.)

Parmenides (540-470) ofElea, was a disciple ofXenophanes,andwould have a particularly potent influence on Plato. He extendedXenophanes’ concept of the one God by saying “Hen ta panta,” all thingsare One. Ultimate reality is constant. What we believe to be aworldof things and motion and change is just an illusion.

One of Parmenides’ disciples was Zeno of Elea (490-430, nottobe confused with Zeno of Citium, whom we will look at in a laterchapter). Zeno wrote a book of famous paradoxes,including the story of Achilles and the tortoise: Let’s give thetortoise a head start. By the time Achilles gets to where thetortoisestarted, the tortoise will have moved a little further. By thetimeAchilles gets to where the tortoise had moved, the tortoise will havemoveda little further still, and so on. Hence, Achilles can nevercatchup with the tortoise. The point of the story, and all thestories,is that motion is an illusion.

In making his point, he invented the form of dialectic argumentknown as"reduction to absurdity." Note, however, that his arguments don’thold up in the long run, because he mistakenly takes motion, time, andspace as made up of an infinite number of points, rather than beingcontinuous.

The Abderans

Leucippus (fl. c. 440) was from Miletus in Ionia, home ofThalesand Anaximander. He studied with Zeno at Elea, then startedteachingin Abdera, an Ionian Greek colony on the southern shore of Thrace(northeasternGreece).

Although only one sentence of his actual teachings remains,Leucippuswill always be remembered as the man who invented the ideas of theatom,empty space, and cause-and-effect. Even the soul, he said, ismadeup of atoms!

Itwas Leucippus’ student, Democritus (460-370) of Abdera, whowouldtake these ideas and develop them into a full-bodied philosophy. Hetravelledextensively, wrote books on every subject, and was considered the equalof the great Plato and Aristotle. But he never founded a school,and so his ideas never had quite the same impact as Plato’s andAristotle’son later civilization.

Democritus was quite skeptical of sense data, and introduced theideaof secondary qualities: Things like color and sound and taste aremore in your mind than in the thing itself. Further, he said thatsensations are a matter of atoms falling on the sense organs, and thatall the senses are essentially forms of touch.

He also introduced the idea that we identify qualities by convention-- i.e. we call sweet things “sweet,” and that is what leads us togroupthem together, not some quality of the things themselves. This iscalled nominalism, from the Latin word for name. This way ofthinking doesn't show up again till thelate Middle Ages.

The soul or mind, he said, is composed of small, smooth, roundatoms,a lot like fire or energy atoms, and can be found throughout the bodiesof both humans and animals, and even the rest of the world.

Happiness comes from acquiring knowledge and ultimatelywisdom.Sensual pleasure is way too short-lived and fickle to depend on.Instead, the wise man or woman should seek peace of mind (ataraxia)throughcheerfulness, moderation, and orderly living. His moral theory isbased on the sense of integrity: “A man should feel more shame in doingevil before himself than before all the world.”

Democritus did not believe in gods nor an afterlife. In fact, heformedan atheist organization called the Kakodaimonistai-- “the devilsclub.”He is sometimes called the laughing philosopher, because he found lifemuch more cheerful without what he considered to be the depressingsuperstitionsof religion.

He took Leucippus’ materialism very seriously, noting that mattercannever be created nor destroyed, that there were an infinity of worldslikeour own, and that there was no such thing as chance -- onlycausation.It would be many centuries before these ideas would again becomepopular.

A little older than Democrates was Protagoras(480-411),alsoof Abdera. He is the most famous of the group of philosophersknownas the sophists. Theword comes from the Greek sophistai,whichmeansteachers of wisdom -- i.e. professors. Because some of theseprofessorstaught little more than how to win arguments in court, and did so forexorbitantfees, the name has become somewhat derogatory. Sophistry nowmeansargument for argument’s sake, or for the sake of personal gain.Butthen, it is also the root of the word sophisticated!

Protagoras, although his teaching fees were in fact high, was aseriousphilosopher. He can be credited with founding the science ofgrammar,being the first to distinguish the various conjugations of verbs anddeclensionsof nouns. He was also a major contributor to logic and was usingthe Socratic method (teaching by question and answer) before Socrates.

He was a skeptic, andbelieved that there were no ultimate truths,thattruth is a relative, subjective thing. “Man is the measure of allthings,” is his most famous quote, meaning that things are what we saythey are.

Applying this skepticism to the gods, he scared the Athenianpowers-that-be,and he was ordered to leave Athens. Apparently, he drowned on hisway to Sicily.

Into this idea-rich environment would come the three Athenians thatwould come to dominate philosophy for the next 2000 years:Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

© Copyright C. George Boeree 2000