Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th
century BC and continued throughout the Hellenistic
period and the period in which Ancient Greece
was part of the Roman Empire. Philosophy was
used to make sense out of the world in a non-religious
way. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects,
including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics,
ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric and aesthetics.Many
philosophers around the world agree that Greek
philosophy has influenced much of Western
culture since its inception. Alfred North
Whitehead once noted: "The safest general
characterization of the European philosophical
tradition is that it consists of a series
of footnotes to Plato". Clear, unbroken lines
of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic
philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy,
the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment.Some
claim that Greek philosophy was in turn influenced
by the older wisdom literature and mythological
cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, though
this is debated. Martin Litchfield West gives
qualified assent to this view by stating that
"contact with oriental cosmology and theology
helped to liberate the early Greek philosophers'
imagination; it certainly gave them many suggestive
ideas. But they taught themselves to reason.
Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek
creation".Subsequent philosophic tradition
was so influenced by Socrates as presented
by Plato that it is conventional to refer
to philosophy developed prior to Socrates
as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following
this, up to and after the wars of Alexander
the Great, are those of "classical Greek"
and "Hellenistic" philosophy.
== Pre-Socratic philosophy ==
The convention of terming those philosophers
who were active prior to Socrates the pre-Socratics
gained currency with the 1903 publication
of Hermann Diels' Fragmente der Vorsokratiker,
although the term did not originate with him.
The term is considered philosophically useful
because what came to be known as the "Athenian
school" (composed of Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle) signaled a profound shift in the
subject matter and methods of philosophy;
Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis that this shift
began with Plato rather than with Socrates
(hence his nomenclature of "pre-Platonic philosophy")
has not prevented the predominance of the
"pre-Socratic" distinction.The pre-Socratics
were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology
and mathematics. They were distinguished from
"non-philosophers" insofar as they rejected
mythological explanations in favor of reasoned
discourse.
=== Milesian school ===
Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as
the first philosopher, held that all things
arise from a single material substance, water.
It is not because he gave a cosmogony that
John Burnet calls him the "first man of science,"
but because he gave a naturalistic explanation
of the cosmos and supported it with reasons.
According to tradition, Thales was able to
predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians
how to measure the height of the pyramids.Thales
inspired the Milesian school of philosophy
and was followed by Anaximander, who argued
that the substratum or arche could not be
water or any of the classical elements but
was instead something "unlimited" or "indefinite"
(in Greek, the apeiron). He began from the
observation that the world seems to consist
of opposites (e.g., hot and cold), yet a thing
can become its opposite (e.g., a hot thing
cold). Therefore, they cannot truly be opposites
but rather must both be manifestations of
some underlying unity that is neither. This
underlying unity (substratum, arche) could
not be any of the classical elements, since
they were one extreme or another. For example,
water is wet, the opposite of dry, while fire
is dry, the opposite of wet. This initial
state is ageless and imperishable, and everything
returns to it according to necessity Anaximenes
in turn held that the arche was air, although
John Burnet argues that by this he meant that
it was a transparent mist, the aether. Despite
their varied answers, the Milesian school
was searching for a natural substance that
would remain unchanged despite appearing in
different forms, and thus represents one of
the first scientific attempts to answer the
question that would lead to the development
of modern atomic theory; "the Milesians,"
says Burnet, "asked for the φύσις of
all things."
=== Xenophanes ===
Xenophanes was born in Ionia, where the Milesian
school was at its most powerful, and may have
picked up some of the Milesians' cosmological
theories as a result. What is known is that
he argued that each of the phenomena had a
natural rather than divine explanation in
a manner reminiscent of Anaximander's theories
and that there was only one god, the world
as a whole, and that he ridiculed the anthropomorphism
of the Greek religion by claiming that cattle
would claim that the gods looked like cattle,
horses like horses, and lions like lions,
just as the Ethiopians claimed that the gods
were snubnosed and black and the Thracians
claimed they were pale and red-haired.Burnet
says that Xenophanes was not, however, a scientific
man, with many of his "naturalistic" explanations
having no further support than that they render
the Homeric gods superfluous or foolish. He
has been claimed as an influence on Eleatic
philosophy, although that is disputed, and
a precursor to Epicurus, a representative
of a total break between science and religion.
=== Pythagoreanism ===
Pythagoras lived at roughly the same time
that Xenophanes did and, in contrast to the
latter, the school that he founded sought
to reconcile religious belief and reason.
Little is known about his life with any reliability,
however, and no writings of his survive, so
it is possible that he was simply a mystic
whose successors introduced rationalism into
Pythagoreanism, that he was simply a rationalist
whose successors are responsible for the mysticism
in Pythagoreanism, or that he was actually
the author of the doctrine; there is no way
to know for certain.Pythagoras is said to
have been a disciple of Anaximander and to
have imbibed the cosmological concerns of
the Ionians, including the idea that the cosmos
is constructed of spheres, the importance
of the infinite, and that air or aether is
the arche of everything. Pythagoreanism also
incorporated ascetic ideals, emphasizing purgation,
metempsychosis, and consequently a respect
for all animal life; much was made of the
correspondence between mathematics and the
cosmos in a musical harmony. Pythagoras believed
that behind the appearance of things, there
was the permanent principle of mathematics,
and that the forms were based on a transcendental
mathematical relation.
=== Heraclitus ===
Heraclitus must have lived after Xenophanes
and Pythagoras, as he condemns them along
with Homer as proving that much learning cannot
teach a man to think; since Parmenides refers
to him in the past tense, this would place
him in the 5th century BCE. Contrary to the
Milesian school, which posits one stable element
as the arche, Heraclitus taught that panta
rhei ("everything flows"), the closest element
to this eternal flux being fire. All things
come to pass in accordance with Logos, which
must be considered as "plan" or "formula",
and "the Logos is common". He also posited
a unity of opposites, expressed through dialectic,
which structured this flux, such as that seeming
opposites in fact are manifestations of a
common substrate to good and evil itself.Heraclitus
called the oppositional processes ἔρις
(eris), "strife", and hypothesized that the
apparently stable state of δίκη (dikê),
or "justice", is the harmonic unity of these
opposites.
=== Eleatic philosophy ===
Parmenides of Elea cast his philosophy against
those who held "it is and is not the same,
and all things travel in opposite directions,"—presumably
referring to Heraclitus and those who followed
him. Whereas the doctrines of the Milesian
school, in suggesting that the substratum
could appear in a variety of different guises,
implied that everything that exists is corpuscular,
Parmenides argued that the first principle
of being was One, indivisible, and unchanging.
Being, he argued, by definition implies eternality,
while only that which is can be thought; a
thing which is, moreover, cannot be more or
less, and so the rarefaction and condensation
of the Milesians is impossible regarding Being;
lastly, as movement requires that something
exist apart from the thing moving (viz. the
space into which it moves), the One or Being
cannot move, since this would require that
"space" both exist and not exist. While this
doctrine is at odds with ordinary sensory
experience, where things do indeed change
and move, the Eleatic school followed Parmenides
in denying that sense phenomena revealed the
world as it actually was; instead, the only
thing with Being was thought, or the question
of whether something exists or not is one
of whether it can be thought.In support of
this, Parmenides' pupil Zeno of Elea attempted
to prove that the concept of motion was absurd
and as such motion did not exist. He also
attacked the subsequent development of pluralism,
arguing that it was incompatible with Being.
His arguments are known as Zeno's paradoxes.
=== Pluralism and atomism ===
The power of Parmenides' logic was such that
some subsequent philosophers abandoned the
monism of the Milesians, Xenophanes, Heraclitus,
and Parmenides, where one thing was the arche,
and adopted pluralism, such as Empedocles
and Anaxagoras. There were, they said, multiple
elements which were not reducible to one another
and these were set in motion by love and strife
(as in Empedocles) or by Mind (as in Anaxagoras).
Agreeing with Parmenides that there is no
coming into being or passing away, genesis
or decay, they said that things appear to
come into being and pass away because the
elements out of which they are composed assemble
or disassemble while themselves being unchanging.Leucippus
also proposed an ontological pluralism with
a cosmogony based on two main elements: the
vacuum and atoms. These, by means of their
inherent movement, are crossing the void and
creating the real material bodies. His theories
were not well known by the time of Plato,
however, and they were ultimately incorporated
into the work of his student, Democritus.
=== Sophistry ===
Sophistry arose from the juxtaposition of
physis (nature) and nomos (law). John Burnet
posits its origin in the scientific progress
of the previous centuries which suggested
that Being was radically different from what
was experienced by the senses and, if comprehensible
at all, was not comprehensible in terms of
order; the world in which men lived, on the
other hand, was one of law and order, albeit
of humankind's own making. At the same time,
nature was constant, while what was by law
differed from one place to another and could
be changed.
The first man to call himself a sophist, according
to Plato, was Protagoras, whom he presents
as teaching that all virtue is conventional.
It was Protagoras who claimed that "man is
the measure of all things, of the things that
are, that they are, and of the things that
are not, that they are not," which Plato interprets
as a radical perspectivism, where some things
seem to be one way for one person (and so
actually are that way) and another way for
another person (and so actually are that way
as well); the conclusion being that one cannot
look to nature for guidance regarding how
to live one's life.Protagoras and subsequent
sophists tended to teach rhetoric as their
primary vocation. Prodicus, Gorgias, Hippias,
and Thrasymachus appear in various dialogues,
sometimes explicitly teaching that while nature
provides no ethical guidance, the guidance
that the laws provide is worthless, or that
nature favors those who act against the laws.
== Classical Greek philosophy ==
=== 
Socrates ===
Socrates, born in Athens in the 5th century
BCE, marks a watershed in ancient Greek philosophy.
Athens was a center of learning, with sophists
and philosophers traveling from across Greece
to teach rhetoric, astronomy, cosmology, geometry,
and the like. The great statesman Pericles
was closely associated with this new learning
and a friend of Anaxagoras, however, and his
political opponents struck at him by taking
advantage of a conservative reaction against
the philosophers; it became a crime to investigate
the things above the heavens or below the
earth, subjects considered impious. Anaxagoras
is said to have been charged and to have fled
into exile when Socrates was about twenty
years of age. There is a story that Protagoras,
too, was forced to flee and that the Athenians
burned his books. Socrates, however, is the
only subject recorded as charged under this
law, convicted, and sentenced to death in
399 BCE (see Trial of Socrates). In the version
of his defense speech presented by Plato,
he claims that it is the envy he arouses on
account of his being a philosopher that will
convict him.
While philosophy was an established pursuit
prior to Socrates, Cicero credits him as "the
first who brought philosophy down from the
heavens, placed it in cities, introduced it
into families, and obliged it to examine into
life and morals, and good and evil." By this
account he would be considered the founder
of political philosophy. The reasons for this
turn toward political and ethical subjects
remain the object of much study.The fact that
many conversations involving Socrates (as
recounted by Plato and Xenophon) end without
having reached a firm conclusion, or aporetically,
has stimulated debate over the meaning of
the Socratic method. Socrates is said to have
pursued this probing question-and-answer style
of examination on a number of topics, usually
attempting to arrive at a defensible and attractive
definition of a virtue.
While Socrates' recorded conversations rarely
provide a definite answer to the question
under examination, several maxims or paradoxes
for which he has become known recur. Socrates
taught that no one desires what is bad, and
so if anyone does something that truly is
bad, it must be unwillingly or out of ignorance;
consequently, all virtue is knowledge. He
frequently remarks on his own ignorance (claiming
that he does not know what courage is, for
example). Plato presents him as distinguishing
himself from the common run of mankind by
the fact that, while they know nothing noble
and good, they do not know that they do not
know, whereas Socrates knows and acknowledges
that he knows nothing noble and good.Numerous
subsequent philosophical movements were inspired
by Socrates or his younger associates. Plato
casts Socrates as the main interlocutor in
his dialogues, deriving from them the basis
of Platonism (and by extension, Neoplatonism).
Plato's student Aristotle in turn criticized
and built upon the doctrines he ascribed to
Socrates and Plato, forming the foundation
of Aristotelianism. Antisthenes founded the
school that would come to be known as Cynicism
and accused Plato of distorting Socrates'
teachings. Zeno of Citium in turn adapted
the ethics of Cynicism to articulate Stoicism.
Epicurus studied with Platonic and Stoic teachers
before renouncing all previous philosophers
(including Democritus, on whose atomism the
Epicurean philosophy relies). The philosophic
movements that were to dominate the intellectual
life of the Roman empire were thus born in
this febrile period following Socrates' activity,
and either directly or indirectly influenced
by him. They were also absorbed by the expanding
Muslim world in the 7th through 10th centuries
AD, from which they returned to the West as
foundations of Medieval philosophy and the
Renaissance, as discussed below.
=== Plato ===
Plato was an Athenian of the generation after
Socrates. Ancient tradition ascribes thirty-six
dialogues and thirteen letters to him, although
of these only twenty-four of the dialogues
are now universally recognized as authentic;
most modern scholars believe that at least
twenty-eight dialogues and two of the letters
were in fact written by Plato, although all
of the thirty-six dialogues have some defenders.
A further nine dialogues are ascribed to Plato
but were considered spurious even in antiquity.Plato's
dialogues feature Socrates, although not always
as the leader of the conversation. (One dialogue,
the Laws, instead contains an "Athenian Stranger.")
Along with Xenophon, Plato is the primary
source of information about Socrates' life
and beliefs and it is not always easy to distinguish
between the two. While the Socrates presented
in the dialogues is often taken to be Plato's
mouthpiece, Socrates' reputation for irony,
his caginess regarding his own opinions in
the dialogues, and his occasional absence
from or minor role in the conversation serve
to conceal Plato's doctrines. Much of what
is said about his doctrines is derived from
what Aristotle reports about them.
The political doctrine ascribed to Plato is
derived from the Republic, the Laws, and the
Statesman. The first of these contains the
suggestion that there will not be justice
in cities unless they are ruled by philosopher
kings; those responsible for enforcing the
laws are compelled to hold their women, children,
and property in common; and the individual
is taught to pursue the common good through
noble lies; the Republic says that such a
city is likely impossible, however, generally
assuming that philosophers would refuse to
rule and the people would refuse to compel
them to do so.Whereas the Republic is premised
on a distinction between the sort of knowledge
possessed by the philosopher and that possessed
by the king or political man, Socrates explores
only the character of the philosopher; in
the Statesman, on the other hand, a participant
referred to as the Eleatic Stranger discusses
the sort of knowledge possessed by the political
man, while Socrates listens quietly. Although
rule by a wise man would be preferable to
rule by law, the wise cannot help but be judged
by the unwise, and so in practice, rule by
law is deemed necessary.
Both the Republic and the Statesman reveal
the limitations of politics, raising the question
of what political order would be best given
those constraints; that question is addressed
in the Laws, a dialogue that does not take
place in Athens and from which Socrates is
absent. The character of the society described
there is eminently conservative, a corrected
or liberalized timocracy on the Spartan or
Cretan model or that of pre-democratic Athens.Plato's
dialogues also have metaphysical themes, the
most famous of which is his theory of forms.
It holds that non-material abstract (but substantial)
forms (or ideas), and not the material world
of change known to us through our physical
senses, possess the highest and most fundamental
kind of reality.
Plato often uses long-form analogies (usually
allegories) to explain his ideas; the most
famous is perhaps the Allegory of the Cave.
It likens most humans to people tied up in
a cave, who look only at shadows on the walls
and have no other conception of reality. If
they turned around, they would see what is
casting the shadows (and thereby gain a further
dimension to their reality). If some left
the cave, they would see the outside world
illuminated by the sun (representing the ultimate
form of goodness and truth). If these travelers
then re-entered the cave, the people inside
(who are still only familiar with the shadows)
would not be equipped to believe reports of
this 'outside world'. This story explains
the theory of forms with their different levels
of reality, and advances the view that philosopher-kings
are wisest while most humans are ignorant.
One student of Plato (who would become another
of the most influential philosophers of all
time) stressed the implication that understanding
relies upon first-hand observation.
=== Aristotle ===
Aristotle moved to Athens from his native
Stageira in 367 BCE and began to study philosophy
(perhaps even rhetoric, under Isocrates),
eventually enrolling at Plato's Academy. He
left Athens approximately twenty years later
to study botany and zoology, became a tutor
of Alexander the Great, and ultimately returned
to Athens a decade later to establish his
own school: the Lyceum. At least twenty-nine
of his treatises have survived, known as the
corpus Aristotelicum, and address a variety
of subjects including logic, physics, optics,
metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric, politics, poetry,
botany, and zoology.
Aristotle is often portrayed as disagreeing
with his teacher Plato (e.g., in Raphael's
School of Athens). He criticizes the regimes
described in Plato's Republic and Laws, and
refers to the theory of forms as "empty words
and poetic metaphors." He is generally presented
as giving greater weight to empirical observation
and practical concerns.
Aristotle's fame was not great during the
Hellenistic period, when Stoic logic was in
vogue, but later peripatetic commentators
popularized his work, which eventually contributed
heavily to Islamic, Jewish, and medieval Christian
philosophy. His influence was such that Avicenna
referred to him simply as "the Master"; Maimonides,
Alfarabi, Averroes, and Aquinas as "the Philosopher."
== Hellenistic philosophy ==
During the Hellenistic and Roman periods,
many different schools of thought developed
in the Hellenistic world and then the Greco-Roman
world. There were Greeks, Romans, Egyptians,
Syrians and Arabs who contributed to the development
of Hellenistic philosophy. Elements of Persian
philosophy and Indian philosophy also had
an influence. The most notable schools of
Hellenistic philosophy were:
Neoplatonism: Plotinus (Egyptian), Ammonius
Saccas, Porphyry (Syrian), Zethos (Arab),
Iamblichus (Syrian), Proclus
Academic Skepticism: Arcesilaus, Carneades,
Cicero (Roman)
Pyrrhonian Skepticism: Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus
Cynicism: Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope,
Crates of Thebes (taught Zeno of Citium, founder
of Stoicism)
Stoicism: Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, Chrysippus,
Crates of Mallus (brought Stoicism to Rome
c. 170 BCE), Panaetius, Posidonius, Seneca
(Roman), Epictetus (Greek/Roman), Marcus Aurelius
(Roman)
Epicureanism: Epicurus (Greek) and Lucretius
(Roman)
Eclecticism: Cicero (Roman)The spread of Christianity
throughout the Roman world, followed by the
spread of Islam, ushered in the end of Hellenistic
philosophy and the beginnings of Medieval
philosophy, which was dominated by the three
Abrahamic traditions: Jewish philosophy, Christian
philosophy, and early Islamic philosophy.
== Transmission of Greek philosophy under
Byzantium and Islam ==
During the Middle Ages, Greek ideas were largely
forgotten in Western Europe due to the Migration
Period, which resulted into decline in literacy.
In the Byzantine Empire Greek ideas were preserved
and studied, and not long after the first
major expansion of Islam, however, the Abbasid
caliphs authorized the gathering of Greek
manuscripts and hired translators to increase
their prestige. Islamic philosophers such
as Al-Kindi (Alkindus), Al-Farabi (Alpharabius),
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
reinterpreted these works, and during the
High Middle Ages Greek philosophy re-entered
the West through translations from Arabic
to Latin and also from the Byzantine Empire.
The re-introduction of these philosophies,
accompanied by the new Arabic commentaries,
had a great influence on Medieval philosophers
such as Thomas Aquinas. Although we are fortunate
to have some figures who preserved these valuable
texts, the general trend in Islam was to dispose
of books that conflicted with the teachings
of Mohammad. This can be seen in events such
as the burning of the Al-hakam II library
in Córdoba by Al-Mansur Ibn and Abi Aamir
in 976.
== See also ==
Ancient philosophy
Byzantine philosophy
Dehellenization
English words of Greek origin
International scientific vocabulary
List of ancient Greek philosophers
Translingualism
Transliteration of Greek into English
== Notes ==
== References ==
Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008).
From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6.
Nikolaos Bakalis (2005). Handbook of Greek
Philosophy: From Thales to the Stoics Analysis
and Fragments, Trafford Publishing ISBN 1-4120-4843-5
John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 1930.
Charles Freeman (1996). Egypt, Greece and
Rome. Oxford University Press.
William Keith Chambers Guthrie, A History
of Greek Philosophy: Volume 1, The Earlier
Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, 1962.
Søren Kierkegaard, On the Concept of Irony
with Continual Reference to Socrates, 1841.
A. A. Long. Hellenistic Philosophy. University
of California, 1992. (2nd Ed.)
Martin Litchfield West, Early Greek Philosophy
and the Orient, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1971.
Martin Litchfield West, The East Face of Helicon:
West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and
Myth, Oxford [England] ; New York: Clarendon
Press, 1997.
== Further reading ==
Clark, Stephen. 2012. Ancient Mediterranean
Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Bloomsbury.
Curd, Patricia, and D. W. Graham, eds. 2008.
The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy.
New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Gaca, Kathy L. 2003. The Making of Fornication:
Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek
Philosophy and Early Christianity. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Garani, Myrto and David Konstan eds. 2014.
The Philosophizing Muse: The Influence of
Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry. Pierides,
3. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing.
Gill, Mary Louise, and Pierre Pellegrin. 2009.
A Companion to Ancient Greek Philosophy. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Hankinson, R.J. 1999. Cause and Explanation
in Ancient Greek Thought. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Hughes, Bettany. 2010. The Hemlock Cup: Socrates,
Athens and the Search for the Good Life. London:
Jonathan Cape.
Kahn, C. H. 1994. Anaximander and the Origins
of Greek Cosmology. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett
Luchte, James. 2011. Early Greek Thought:
Before the Dawn. New York: Continuum.
Martín-Velasco, María José and María José
García Blanco eds. 2016. Greek Philosophy
and Mystery Cults. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.
Nightingale, Andrea W. 2004. Spectacles of
Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria
in its Cultural Context. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
Univ. Press.
O’Grady, Patricia. 2002. Thales of Miletus.
Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
Preus, Anthony. 2010. The A to Z of Ancient
Greek Philosophy. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.
Reid, Heather L. 2011. Athletics and Philosophy
in the Ancient World: Contests of Virtue.
Ethics and Sport. London; New York: Routledge.
Wolfsdorf, David. 2013. Pleasure in Ancient
Greek Philosophy. Key Themes in Ancient Philosophy.
Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University
Press.
== External links ==
Media related to Ancient Greek philosophers
at Wikimedia Commons
Ancient Greek Philosophy, entry in the Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Ancient Greek Philosophers, Worldhistorycharts.com
The Impact of Greek Culture on Normative Judaism
from the Hellenistic Period through the Middle
Ages c. 330 BCE- 1250 CE
Orphic Platonism
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
