Western History

• GREEK PHILOSOPHY: PRECURSOR OF ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
• Pre-Socratic Philosophy


  • Began with the mythical and poetical tradition of Homer and Hesiod
  • Ideas from Greek philosophy were conceived and developed in mythical form by Homer (ca. 800 B.C.) and Hesiod (776 B.C.)
  • Myth helped philosophers form their view of reality
  • Aristotle considered them as forerunners of philosophy and called them primitive theologians
• Greeks moved to a more scientific and nature-based philosophy


  • Philosophy introduced ideas of a more conceptual and less imaginative nature
  • Transition was gradual. For example, Plato and Empedocles used both myth and philosophy
• Central Question


  What evidence does one have to support a view of reality, and what view does this evidence support?
• Rejection of the mythical God from the universe
• The philosophic spirit


  • Reason
  • Empirical Evidence
  • Cosmology
  • Implicit metaphysics
• Reason


  • The philosophic spirit was rational in objective and approach
  • It recognized that reality contained the principles or causes of a rational order and that these could be discovered by human reason
  • Implied a new sense of truth and a preoccupation in the study of existence for its own sake
• Empirical Evidence


  • Rigorous demands for evidence led to more proper empirical approach involving sense observation of physical change and regularity
  • Investigate order in nature and search for its basic principles
• Cosmology


  • Investigating principles of the sensible, changing nature
  • Early Greek philosophers first philosophized about Nature or physis, seeking the principles that ruled the physical world and made its processes intelligible
• Implicit Metaphysics


  • In their concern for the physical, they implicitly oriented their thought toward the metaphysical domain
  • Term physis signified the fundamental reality and process from which everything originated and in terms of which everything was united i.e. ultimate principle
  • Oriented toward an explicit scientific elaboration
  • The first Greek philosophers were not formally metaphysicians like Plato and Aristotle who made explicit distinctions between the spiritual and material and then set forth principles to explain all levels of reality
  • Transcendent (beyond the appearance of senses) and metaphysical (attained the meta-empirical substrate of reality)
  • Gave unity of vision and profundity of thought concerning the ultimate meaning of reality
• Pre-Socratic Philosophers


  • Thales
  • Anaximender
  • Anaximenes
  • Pythagoras
  • Heraclitus
  • Parmenides
  • Zeno
  • Empedocles
  • Anaxagoras
  • The Atomists
• Milesians


  • They engaged in physical investigation of the principle and process of changing world
  • They agreed on three general points: matter, oneness and dynamic i.e. one vital material principle
  • 1) Thales (ca. 640-562 B.C): water is the primordial principle
  • 2) Anaximender (ca. 610-546 B.C): Indeterminate or Unlimited i.e. Apeiron (opposites; qualitative particularity)
  • 3) Anaximenes (ca. 588-524 B.C): air is the primordial principle; breath of life
• Pythagoras (569/568-494/493 B.C)


  • Mathematical enquiry. Pythagoreans were the first Greeks to render the world intelligible in mathematical concepts
  • They sought the principles of the formal structure of reality in order to achieve a deeper explanation of the unity and order in the world than that provided by the material cause of the Milesians
  • Their main interest: the ethical problem of leading a good life
  • Duality between limited and unlimited (odd and even, one and plurality, good and bad)
  • Mathematical entities (measure, order, proportion etc) are the intrinsic principles of reality
  • Mathematico-ethical framework: ethical opposites good and evil are determined by opposites limited and unlimited. Good associated with limit i.e. fixity, completeness, harmony. Evil with unlimited
  • Virtue is a mathematical expression in which the limit principle dominates
  • Thus, the study of mathematics leads man to the knowledge of a better life
• Heraclitus (ca. 500 B.C.) and Parmenides (ca. 485 B.C.)

  • They introduced metaphysical wisdom
  • They recognized the problem of being (unity, permanence) and becoming (plurality, change)
• Heraclitus


  • His most fundamental doctrine is divine Logos
  • Behind orderly change in universe, there is an all-ruling Logos or Reason to which all things are subject
  • Logos is the principle of unity. It is the one cause that underlies and includes all the opposites manifested by sensible objects
  • Reality therefore is unity in plurality and plurality in unity
  • Because conflict of opposites is essential to things, there is continual tension and a process of becoming, so that "all things are in motion and nothing at rest"
• Parmenides


  • He concentrated on being
  • Since being is always what it is or self-identical throughout its entire reality, it is absolutely one, immutable, eternal, homogeneous, continuous and indivisible
  • Being is absolutely one. Because being alone is, and nonbeing is not, it is absolutely impossible for a plurality of things to exist beyond or within being, which always remain undivided in itself
  • The proposition "being becomes" is self-contradictory. It implies the origin of being either from nonbeing, that is, from unreality, in which case the being originated would also be unreal, or from being, that is, from what already is, in which case there would be no real becoming. As both alternatives are unacceptable, being suffers no change
• Zeno (ca. 464-460 B.C.)


  • Indirectly defended the Parmenides' unity of being by refuting the possibility of plurality
  • Because of his skill in argument and because he began formally the method of reasoning from hypothetically assumed premises to contradictory conclusions, he is called the discoverer of dialectic
• Empedocles, Anaxagoras and the Atomists


  • Reconciliation of being and becoming, unity and plurality
  • Their general theme: there is a plurality of existing beings which in themselves are unified and unchangeable, but which by addition of motion and combinations achieve change and variety
  • They returned to physical investigation, but not purely as that of the Milesians since they retained metaphysical concepts derived from Heraclitus and especially Parmenides
• Empedocles (444 B.C.)


  • First to develop a physical theory; fire, air, earth and water as four roots of all things, each real in the sense of being
  • Like being, these elements are eternal, homogeneous and unchangeable but unlike it they are divisible and moves locally
  • Compliance with Parmenides' theory that nonexistence has no place in any account of reality, the four beings by occupying the whole of space leave no room in the universe for the void
  • Motion is possible through displacement of parts of matter that crowd and displace each other
  • Hence his theory reconciles Milesian idea of primal source of all becoming and Parmenides' concept of being
  • The principles of motion are love and strife
  • The corruption of one thing and the coming into existence of another is in reality the dissolution of one temporary combination of these indestructible roots by the power of strife, and the establishment of another combination by the activity of love; there is no becoming or perishing of being
  • Moral significance of his theory of nature: the cosmic forces of love and strife also govern the destiny of the soul, with love accounting for good and strife for evil
• Anaxagoras (ca. 534-462 B.C. or 500-428 B.C.)


  • Things seen are "a sight of the unseen"
  • He divided being into an infinite number of 'seeds', infinitely divisible and small and like Parmenides' being, eternal, unchangeable and homogeneous
  • These simple principles were called by Aristotle 'homoeomers' (like things) because, however far they are divided they always separate into parts qualitatively the same as their wholes
  • He reified Parmenides world of appearances by endowing it with being now concretized as seeds
  • He envisioned a supreme physical principle transcending and unifying all beings and all becoming. This was the being of beings, the being behind all becoming—Mind
  • For the first time there was a sharp dualism between Mind and other things
  • Mind became a distinct, independent physical cause on which the whole construction of the world was based
• Atomists


  • Last cosmologists to speculate on the physical universe
  • Members of a movement initiated by Leucippus (ca. 430 B.C.) and Democritus (ca. 494-404 B.C.)
  • They conceived being as atoms, indivisible particles
• Leucippus (ca. 430 B.C.)


  • The atom is a purely physical unit, one and impenetrable
  • The indivisibility of the atom derives from its absolute compactness, continuity and smallness
  • By virtue of its indivisibility the atom is a Parmenidean being in miniature. As such it is that which really and always is; it is eternal and unchangeable, because it is a complete or limited whole; it is solid and without void, thus admitting no coming-to-be or ceasing to-be by an intrinsic union or separation of parts
• Democritus (ca. 494-404 B.C.)


  • He applied Leucippeus' atomism to anthropology, epistemology and ethics
  • "man is a universe in little [microcosm]" combining body-atoms and soul-atoms
• Socrates (470-399 B.C.)


  • He shifted the concerns of philosophy from nature to the study of man
  • Greeks then preferred to reflect on their situation rather than speculate on incomprehensible universe
  • Antithetical cosmological theories led to their doubt in ability of man to attain certain knowledge
  • For Socrates, the Athenians was in a state of moral crisis
  • Sophistic education which disregards the truth
  • Sophists: Protagoras (ca. 490-420 B.C.) and Gorgias of Leontini (ca 480-372 B.C.)
  • Diffusion of conflicting ideas
  • Ethical questions: truth and goodness or virtue
  • Socratic wisdom was Ethos, a philosophy of life directed toward moral excellence
• Absolute values as opposed to the Sophists' relativism

  • Socrates: religious, moral and political human experiences are founded on nature (physis) and are constant, for example, the soul and the good
  • Knowledge is search for the universal; beyond individual experiences there are common realities such as goodness and justice which are universally true
  • Among universal concepts there are moral constants such as justice and piety which are valid and beneficial for all men
  • Sophists: religious, moral and political human experiences are founded on convention (nomos) and are relative
  • Truth dependent on individual perceiver therefore is no more than personal opinion
  • Moral values are relative to each man or state and are products of convention which are man-made
• Socrates


  • He cared about the improvement of the soul; perfection of the soul is the key to philosophy
  • Human soul: divine element which makes man like the gods, and is the seat of intellectual and moral powers that can govern man and know what is true and good. Hence to serve the soul—the throne of the highest human values—is to serve God
  • Socratic method: 1. examination; 2. exhortation (advice). "The unexamined life is not worth living"
  • Process: from negative (scientific doubt out of intellectual humility) to positive (elicit from the other a confession of ignorance which is the beginning of wisdom)
• Ethical constants


  • He conceived the Good as perfective of the soul's powers, both rational and moral
  • Three basic propositions of the spiritual life: 1. Virtue is knowledge. Man is morally good only to the extent that he possesses a true intellectual knowledge of good and its manifestations. The wise man knows and does what is right
  • 2. No one does wrong intentionally. 'Intentionally' implying both knowledge and will. One who is clouded by mere opinion and motivated by desire for apparent goods does not deliberately act wrongly
  • 3. He conceived true virtue as indivisible. A man who possesses virtue as a whole enjoys in some part all its necessary manifestations, e.g. Justice and piety
• His death: proof of his pure philosophy
• His philosophy: to know the Good and to be good
• In 399 B.C. he was brought to trial by the leaders. The charges were: i) impious service of divinities different from the gods of the state; ii) scandalous corruption of the youth
• Although lack of evidence, he was condemned to death by a majority
• He declined offer to escape in order to prove his divine mission and his respect for the law
• He drank the poison and crowned his philosophy of life with death
• Plato


  • Integration of all concerns of human thought into a coherent knowledge
  • The world of ideas as the most real
  • Theory of knowledge: allegory of the cave, divided Lines and doctrine of Forms
  • Political Philosophy: the need for a wise ruler (Philosopher King)
  • Academy: the first university in Western Europe
• Aristotle


  • Began as a student of Plato and member of the Academy
  • Critical of his master's ideas, created his own school, Lyceum (Peripatetic school)
  • Systematic philosophy: The invention of Logic, Categories and the starting point of reasoning, syllogism
  • Scientific: Interest in empirical data – becoming rather than being
• Aristotle


  • Metaphysics defined: the study of being and its principles and causes – the First Philosophy – knowledge of true realities
  • Matter and form, the four causes, unmoved mover
  • Psychology of man
  • Ethics: happiness as the end, virtue as golden mean
• When analysing markets, a range of assumptions are made about the rationality of economic agents involved in the transactions
• The Wealth of Nations was written

  1776
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Rational agents will select the choice which presents the highest benefits