EL3

• Sophists

  • Men trained in Philosophy set themselves up as teachers of various fields.
  • Basic premise was that men were capable of self-improvement through education and it would make them more successful.
  • Offered idea of human progress through one’s own efforts.
  • Became very popular and were concentrated in Athens.
• Socrates

  • Lived during the Golden age of Athens, began adult life as stone mason.
  • Devoted life to finding out what was the right way to conduct one’s life.
  • Introduced the dialectal method of reasoning known as elenchus (the Socratic method)
• Plato

  • Born in 427 BCE, four years after the commencement of the Peloponnesian War.
  • 23: democracy in Athens was defeated.
  • 28: execution of Socrates, his friend and teacher
  • Established The Academy at Athens
  • Wrote The Republic after Socrates’ execution.
  • Insisted on the existence of a higher world of reality.
  • The good, beautiful, and true are objective ideals of real existence.
  • The true world over false world.
• True World (Plato)

  • World of ideas (or forms)
  • Independent from the world of things
  • Unchanging, eternal, absolute, and universal standards of beauty, justice, and truth
  • Live according to these standards in order to live the good life.
• Aristotle

  • Born in the year 384 BCE at Stagira (Macedonia)
  • Plato’s most famous student at the Academy.
  • Son of Nicomachus, a Macedonian royal physician.
  • Established the Lyceum in Athens (counterpart of Plato’s academy)
  • Studied 158 political systems of Greek city-states.
  • Believed knowledge of ethics was possible and that it had to be based on reason.
  • The good life meant making intelligent decisions when confronted with specific problems.
• Doctrine of the Mean: Happiness of life is possible only if the mean is achieved.
• Eudaimonia (good soul): pursuit of good living through excellence.
• CYNICISM

  • Purpose of life is to live a life in virtue of agreement with nature (only the bare necessities required for existence).
  • Rejecting all conventional desires for health, wealth, power, and fame, and living a life free from all possessions and property.
• SKEPTICISM

  • One should refrain from making truth claims and avoid the postulation of final truths.
  • Often used to cover the position that there is no such thing as certainty in human knowledge.
• Gorgias, the earliest Skeptic, claimed that nothings exists; or, if something does, then it cannot be known; or if something does exist and can be known, it cannot be communicated.
• EPICUREANISM

  • System of Philosophy based on the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus.
  • Teaches that happiness is to seek modest pleasures in order to attain a state of tranquility, freedom from fear, and the absence of bodily pain.
  • State of tranquility could be obtained through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limiting of desires
  • Simple pleasures: abstaining from bodily desires
• Neoplatonism

  • Simply Platonists, their beliefs demonstrate significant differences from those of Plato.
  • Teaches the existence of an ineffable and transcendent one, from which emanates the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings.
  • Believed that as human beings as we are, with our bodies, part of the material world; we are living organisms that can place ourselves in opposition to the needs and concerns of the body and reflect upon our own condition.
• • The Egyptian Philosopher Plotinus (along with his lesser-known teacher, Ammonius Saccas), is widely considered founder of the Neoplatonism.
• STOICISM

  • Developed by Zeno of Citium around 300 BCE as a refinement of Cynicism, which teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions.
  • Does not seek to extinguish emotions completely, but rather seeks to transform them enabling them to develop clear judgment, inner calm, and freedom from suffering.
  • A way of life, involving constant training and practice, incorporates practice of logic, Socratic method, and self-dialogue.
• The term stoic was taken from the stoa poikile (meaning painted porch or colonnade) where Zeno of Citium used to teach.