GREEK PHILOSOPHY   
Western civilization begins with the ancient Greeks
•	Essential mystery is why there.
•	Centered in Athens during the period from 450_300 BC.
–	A city of about 250,000 people
•	excluding slaves
•	even fewer citizens restricted to propertied males
•	About the size of Corpus Christi.  
–	Produced great art, music, literature, as well as philosophy. 
–	The beginnings of empirical science. 
–	Great playwrights and early historians who were also observant psychologists.
Many explanations offered for this great period.
–	climate  
–	slavery and existence of leisure  
–	crossroads of ancient world with opportunities to view many  customs  
–	absence of a priest class which pronounced revealed truths. 
Greek psychology and thought
•	Self_confident and fearless
–	Many anxieties about present life
–	Few about higher mysteries.
Positive features
•	Almost no questions they were afraid to raise
•	Cared much about the truth
•	Emphasis on what might be called a grounded community is also appealing
–	.Politics and morality were dependent on participation in the polis
–	But also truth had a social dimension
Negative features
•	Arrogance about the rightness of their own culture that is sometimes disturbing
•	.Unpleasantness surrounding their need to excel and at the same time their desire to put down anyone who did – Achilles
Greek history gives some clues  
•	.Before 500 or so was a basically rude and uncultivated society as illustrated in Homeric stories
•	Persian Wars (510-450).  
–	Each of several city states previously powerful.  
–	United Greeks in an effort to beat off foreigners, barbarians
–	Victory at Marathon gave Greeks a heady self-confidence
Athenian hegemony (480-430)
•	Great period of Greek democracy.
–	Time of Pericles 
–	And most great artistic and intellectual achievements
Peloponnesian Wars (431-404)
•	Sparta and other states rebelled against Athenian domination
•	This led to brief dictatorship of 30 men including two uncles of Plato.  
•	Followed by a rather tired and ultimately incompetent democracy
–	Most famous for having sentenced Socrates to death.  
–	Thus both Plato and the early Aristotle grew up while Athenian society in decay.   
Hellenistic Period
•	Phillip II of Macedonia
•	Son Alexander who ruled from 337 to 323 
–	Conquered all of Greece
–	Subsequently much of the then known world
•	Hellenistic period which began about 340 was important for several reasons.
–	Greeks traveled throughout Asia  
–	Also political attention was focused on large scale government rather than the city state.  
Four periods of Greek philosophy  
•	The Pre-Socratics  
•	Socrates & Plato (died in 347)
•	Aristotle (died in 322)  
•	Hellenistic
The Pre-Socratics – 4 basic questions
•	Ontology – what is the world composed of
•	Nature of reality
•	Perception of reality
•	The nature of humans
Ontology – basic substances
•	Elements
•	Thales
–	earth
–	fire
–	air
–	Water
Reality 
•	Is the world every-changing or is there a permanent underlying reality?
•	The closely related problem of perception
–	If reality is stable must account for how we understand it given obvious change
–	If  change then how perceive stability
Change is fundamental
•	Hraclitus (flourished around 500)
•	Sophists.
–	Protagoras (~500-~430) saw humans as the measure of all things and by this he meant that reality was to be measured in terms of visible reality.  
–	Truth could be taught fairly as contingent and situational
–	Bad press from Plato
•	They were probably good everyday psychologists
Reality is stabe and unchanging
•	Parmenides (~515-~440)
•	.Pythagoras (6th century)
–	Fundamental reality was found in mathematics
–	And in the kinds of harmony found in music
–	Also seems to have believed in souls living after death.  
–	Cult
Socrates (469-399)
•	Most of what we know comes from Plato
•	A teacher with young disciples.
•	Hated the Sophists for their teaching of easy virtue.  
•	His death in 399
–	Major  event for Plato and strengthened his distaste for Athenian democracy. 
–	Controversy about his death and the causes
•	Accused of corrupting the young
•	Probable that he did try to convince young men to devote themselves to the life of the mind
Socrates’ influence
•	Reasonable people can also disagree about his personality and intellect
•	Often treated as a virtual saint
•	But negative features
–	No sense of humor
–	Hypocrisy about knowing truth
•	Important intellectual virtues
–	An openness to inquiry about all manner of topics
–	And the use of dialogue and conversation as a method of gaining truth.
Plato's (429 –347)background
•	Came from wealthy classes and elitist
•	Stability crucial
–	Generally viewed the Fascist Sparta with greater favor because it provided for stability. 
–	Whole philosophy was an attempt to look for stability both politically as well as in terms of knowledge.
–	Whole philosophy was based on ethical principles and this accounts for his anti-empirical bias. 
Plato’s theory of knowledge 
•	Most basic principle was that everyday sensation was one of appearances
•	Fundamental reality lay beneath such appearances. 
•	The search for truth is difficult 
–	Misled by appearances
–	And emotions  
•	Reason required years of proper training  
•	Social and political support – The Republic 
•	Philosopher kings
Plato's rationalism
•	Reality lies beyond experience.
–	In order to know something correctly we first have to have an idea of what it is. 
–	Truth comes from reasoning from experience but the basic process is reasoning not experiencing.
–	This is called rationalism.  
Plato’s nativism
•	Basic ideas are inborn
•	Thus his theory is nativistic
•	We can come to know these ideas through a process of recollection but this process requires much training
Plato’s idealism
•	These ideas have a more fundamental reality than everyday objects
•	This is called idealism (idea not ideal)
Plato’s Forms
•	Forms are ideal representations of objects and ideas
•	Much controversy about the nature of the forms
–	A prototype view of concepts – an ideal abstraction that did not necessarily have any concrete existence
–	Seemed to argue that these Forms were independent of individual minds.
•	The correct set of issues
–	How can we have general knowledge
–	Independent of experience
Plato’s ethical theory 
•	Bad behavior stems from ignorance -- the person who knows will willingly do the right thing.  
•	Ethical behavior results when a man is guided by intellect and animated by passion.   
•	All the parts of the soul, the intellect and the passions must exist in perfect harmony  
Legacy of Plato is huge
•	Whitehead’s famous comment
–	Did he merely anticipate ideas that would have been discovered in about the form he did later?
–	Or did his thought really change the ways we think?
•	Influenced early Christianity
–	His ethical theory
–	Doctrine that the soul lives after death.  
•	Influence was largely indirect and his major direct influence came again after about 1300 or 1400.
–	Helped to jump start the Renaissance
–	Also important as a foundation of early science
Aristotle (383-323)
•	Student of Plato but significant differences
–	Far more impressed by biological nature
–	Less concerned with values and teaching virtue
–	More process oriented
–	More trusting of sense data
•	Differences with Plato usually over-emphasized
 Aristotle’s biological basis 
•	Almost always Aristotle turns to biology
•	The study of lower animals to parse apart what is human 
•	Evolutionary ideas
•	But recognized that perception cannot be explained cleanly in terms of mechanical and material forces
–	Earlier thinkers, including Plato, had tended to think of perception as involving something material leaving the object and entering the eye
–	For Aristotle our images need explaining at a psychological level as well.
Aristotle’s de-emphasis of values
•	With Plato one always has the sense that "facts" are used to support an existing value position 
•	With Aristotle there is a sense of greater freedom
–	Greater intellectual curiosity – knowledge for its own sake
–	Emphasis on  what the world is really like rather than what it ought to be like – less interest in trying to change people
Aristotle’s process emphasis
•	Aristotle's theory is also deeply concerned with process whereas Plato's philosophy is highly static
–	For Plato truth is eternal and never changing.  
–	For Aristotle change is crucial
•	 Aristotle saw human life as well as the physical universe as one of constant evolution toward a defined end  
Aristotle’s empiricism I
•	Never rejected completely the idealism of Plato
•	But made larger space for sensory data --classified as the founder of empiricism. 
•	Much more concerned with how senses and intellect work.
•	The soul or mind have different emphases for the two
–	For Plato the soul has higher and lower elements and at least part of the soul does live on after death
–	For Aristotle the soul is not so sharply graded and it tends to be treated as a life force rather than as something that transcends life
Aristotle’s empiricism II
•	First to study human motivation and emotion systematically
–	For Plato right conduct was dictated by the understanding
–	But Aristotle understood that knowledge is not sufficient – must also look to emotions and motivation.
•	Still Aristotle probably always thought of himself as a Platonist.
–	Historically have tended to underscore their differences
–	Their works were essentially lost for over 1000 years and they were rediscovered at different times -- they were, thus, seen by Medieval and Renaissance thinkers in quite different ways.
•	)And ironically those works best known to these re-discoverers were their least characteristic works.
Aristotle's theory of knowledge
•	Sense data are important 
•	But he also recognized with Plato that the senses provided an inferior kind of knowledge.
–	If all one accumulated through sight and hearing was a set of discrete, concrete ideas and images then we would not be inclined to say that the person knew very much.  
–	So he accepted the Platonic notion that ultimate knowledge lay in knowing universal principles and ideas – essences
Universal and abstract ideas   
•	Plato had argued that they were present at birth  
•	But Aristotle could not accept the implications of this which made sensations worthless.  
–	This general knowledge must be based in experience.  
–	Classic problem of how a person could ever come to the general ideas
•	General ideas are not present at birth (Plato)
•	The potential to experience them must be if they are stimulated through experience – categories
Aristotle's four kinds of causes.
•	Material cause refers to the substance of which something is composed.  
•	Formal cause refers to the essence or form of the thing  
•	Efficient cause is the mechanism by which the form is achieved.  
•	Final cause is the end toward which a thing strives, the goal.
Essences as final causes
•	The underlying reality is the essence
–	So the essence of an acorn is an oak tree
–	Essence of humans is what I am able to achieve if I fully actualized all my abilities
–	Lends itself well to a Christian notion of essence as salvation and doing God’s will
•	Exercised great influence for many centuries 
–	Medieval schoolmen – de-emphasis on observation 
–	Now largely rejected.  
•	However, at the psychological level we may identify final causes with intentions.
Aristotle’s theory of the soul I
•	Before Plato (Homer)
–	Soul was life force that departs the body when we die – what makes living things different from inanimate objects
•	For Plato the soul takes on the functions of perceiving, desiring, and  believing – the mind
•	Aristotle
–	.Essence of the soul is giving life, but identified with self-directed motion – telos
•	Animals can behave in ways to achieve goals
•	Humans and some animals this telos is governed by reason
Aristotle’s theory of the soul II
•	The soul is not a thing in the way that the body is
•	Rather it is a way of giving form to body through action
–	Just as a sculptor gives form to marble though his active sculpting, the mind sculpts behavior 
–	Matter, including the body and its behavioral capabilities, exist as potentialities and must be given their final form through active reason.
•	Dualism 
Aristotle’s theory of reason
•	Argued that the essence of understanding is categorization or classification
–	Science as classification
–	(and understanding final causes
•	Reason was integrally linked to behavior
–	Two kinds of reason
•	Practical
•	Theoretical
–	Logical syllogism was the main method used by reason to guide behavior – if…then
Aristotle's ethical theory 
•	Identified and classified several emotions or passions although he did not reject them as had Plato.  
•	Morality -- having the right habits or dispositions
–	Moral person has the correct final causes or intentions
–	Largely created through training – habit. 
•	.Moral dispositions represented a mean between extremes – golden mean
–	One should be brave rather than timid or foolhardy
–	Emphasis on virtue as moderate passion and  a harmony between knowledge and action – Platonic   
Aristotle’s more specific contributions 
•	He wrote on nearly every topic one could discuss
•	To understand his psychology one has to travel widely
–	Physics (and metaphysics) important for understanding his theory of causation and the material world
–	Books on logic (Prior and Posterior Analytics) -- important for understanding how we reason and the basis for categorization
–	Works on ethics and politics -- crucial for understanding the ends of human psychology
–	Applied works (Rhetoric) -- crucial for insights into how the mind works in everyday situations. 
Aristotle’s influence
•	Immense and all pervasive
•	Formed a basis of Scholastic thought of the Middle Ages 
–	Misused as religious emphasis
–	Hence his emphasis on observation downplayed
•	As The Philosopher became a kind of intellectual punching bag for the rise of psychology in the 17th century.    
•	Important for science and emphasis on observation
Hellenistic Thought
•	Main problem was new social and political order
•	City state less important – larger political forms
–	Community
–	Political and ethical allegiances
•	How to deal with social chaos
•	Two major groups of philosophers
–	Epicureans
–	Stoics
Epicureans -- Epicureus (341– 270)
•	The basis of his philosophy was the materialism of Democritus. 
–	People as material objects and the soul less important. 
–	Removed God as a cause from human behavior 
–	Distrusted abstract reason and math as being too far removed from the senses
•	As material objects we are moved by rewards and punishments – hedonism
–	Goal of human conduct was the seeking of pleasure and the avoiding of pain.  
–	Easier to find happiness by avoiding pain than by seeking pleasure --a philosophy of resignation  
The Stoics I
•	Founded by Zeno (336- 265), Cleanthes (331 to 232) and systematized by Chrysippus (281-208).
•	Emphasized the importance of sense data and the concrete over the abstract
•	Recognized the importance of avoiding pain as a means to happiness.
–	The source of both pleasure and pain was emotion and much pain results from inappropriate emotions. 
–	Elaborate classification -- influential in the Medieval and Renaissance  periods__Dante for example.
–	Happiness could be achieved best through lowered of emotional involvement and  detachment  
Stoics II
•	A higher ordering principle to life
–	Humans had limited freedom for free choice
–	Emphasis on resignation to one's fate
–	Important element in early Christianity.  
•	Common sense – all people experience the same emotions and reasons   
•	Brotherhood of humans
–	We are all pawns in the great cosmic life
–	We are in a sense brothers
–	Fit the requirement of empire
–	Important element in early Christianity.  
Later influence
•	Epicureanism and Stoicism became highly similar
•	Both had great influence in Rome. In effect they became the state philosophies of ancient Rome
–	Cicero
–	Marcus Aurelius. 
•	They had enormous impact in the Renaissance and later
–	Emphasis on differences 
–	Epicurean and materialism
–	Stoicism as antidote to materialism