{"id":2183,"date":"2026-07-31T17:46:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/classics-courses-syllabi\/greek-philosophy-lecture\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T17:46:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T17:46:10","slug":"greek-philosophy-lecture","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/classics-courses-syllabi\/greek-philosophy-lecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Background Lecture on Greek Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dr. Siegel’s
\n Background Lecture
\n for
\n Platonic Philosophy<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Philosophy as we know it was born in the\n 7e BC in Greece. The word philosophy<\/b> is composed of two Greek words, philos<\/b>\n (love of) and sophos<\/b> (wisdom). So to the Greeks, philosophy<\/b> simply meant the\n “pursuit of knowledge or wisdom” and they embraced the pursuit of all kinds of\n knowledge later divided into separate and distinct avenues of inquiry: natural science\n (such as biology, chemistry, geology), social science (sociology, political science) and\n metaphysics (consideration of metaphysical questions concerning the meaning of life,\n man\u2019s place in the universe, or the existence of God).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Pre-Socratics<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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These were the first Greek philosophers,\n “natural philosophers” called cosmologists<\/b> (cosmos<\/b> in Greek means\n “order” and “universe” at the same time because the Greeks saw the\n universe as being a perfectly orderly construction ruled by the principles of mathematics;\n its opposite, of course, is chaos<\/b>) Cosmologists<\/b> inquired about the nature of\n the universe as well as man\u2019s place in it. They rejected the old explanatory (or aetiological<\/b>)\n myths concerning why the world is the way it is and sought to explain the workings of the\n universe by material processes alone. For example, they rejected the old theories\n attributing natural processes to supernatural causes much like when we mature we no longer\n believe that “thunder is just God bowling.”) Cosmologists<\/b> began with the\n basic question “what is the world made of.” Here are some of their conclusions:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Thales (7th c. BC) \u2013 concluded that\n the basic element was water<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Anaximander (c.610-540’s BC) \u2013 found fossilized shells and fish in the\n mountains and concluded that life began in the oceans. First theory of evolution.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Anaximenes (590’s-c.525) – claimed that\n air was the primary element in order to explain how the spirit gets trapped in the body.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Their inquiries eventually led them to\n consider such basic questions as “what is the nature of the soul”? The\n pre-Socratic philosophers were united in their belief that the individual soul\n corresponded directly with the orderly construction of the universe and that the same laws\n applied to weather patterns, for example, as well as to the workings of the soul:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Pythagoras (c. 531) \u2013 came up with\n the idea that the soul is an immortal construct and that after death, souls migrated into\n new bodies. Pythagoras also ascribed the workings of the universe to mathematical\n principles, and his interest in numeric relationships led him to discover the 8-note\n scale.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Heraclitus (6th century) \u2013 concluded\n that the human soul is made of the same elements as the universe, and we must be aware\n that we are a part of a higher unity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This interest in the soul is the basis\n for Plato’s writing, for it is the soul that allows us to understand principles not\n visible in our physical world. But more on that later. 5e BC philosophers\n disagreed on the exact nature of the universe, but agreed that we could “know”\n it if we figured out the puzzle:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Empedocles \u2013 agreed with Parmenides\n that the universe is permanent and everlasting and agreed with Heraclitus that we perceive\n the world through our senses (Heraclitus); he identified four primary elements of which\n all matter is composed: fire, air, water and earth.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Leucippus and Democritus: offer a rival\n theory – that all matter is composed of indivisible, tiny pellets of matter, which they\n called atoms<\/b> (literally, “without parts”).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Anaxagoras: expanded Parmenides’ ideas,\n but he was expelled from Periclean Athens for asserting that the sun was not a divinity\n but only a white-hot stone somewhat larger than the Peloponnesus.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sophists<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sophists were philosophers who turned\n their attention away from investigation of the natural world and adopted a much more\n practical approach to the use of philosophy. Sophists traveled wherever they could find a\n client, and they earned their living by teaching such arts as rhetoric and argumentation,\n skills that people eagerly paid to learn and use (and often abuse).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Protagoras (481-411 BC), earliest of the\n Sophists: credited with saying “man is the measure of all things.” Protagoras\n will be expelled from Athens in 415 BC.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sophists pointed out that while physis<\/b>\n (nature) is controlled by an unchanging set of laws that remain the same wherever you go, nomos<\/b>\n (custom, or man-made law) is arbitrary and changes from state to state. This empowered men\n to think that they could shape the world and be masters of their own fates. Originally,\n the goal of sophistry was defined as “teaching excellence or virtue (arete<\/b>)”\n primarily through public speaking (the way any Greek of the 5th century made his way). But\n sophistry became known as unscrupulous teaching that leads to unscrupulous behavior. If\n there was no objective way to measure arete<\/b>, or “excellence,” then how\n was one supposed to know what really was “good” and what really was\n “bad?” Did “goodness” really exist or was everything relative? Some\n sophists came to the conclusion that you could successfully argue anything two ways, that\n the logic of such arguments could lead you to outrageous conclusions, and that the\n stronger argument, whether right or wrong, should win.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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An example of a sophistic argument is that\n you can just as easily prove that a shipwreck is good as you can prove it is bad. A\n shipwreck is certainly bad if you are on the ship, if people die, if goods are\n irretrievably lost. But a shipwreck is certainly good for the shipbuilder who gets the\n contract to replace it! This kind of “moral relativism” left everyone\n confused\u2026if something is good in this case, but bad in that case\u2026then how can\n anyone ever be sure what is good and what is bad? Socrates\u2019 philosophy offers a\n solution to this problem of “moral relativism.”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The Periclean Age playwright Aristophanes<\/b>\n even wrote a harsh comedy in which he mercilessly mocks the concept of sophistry as\n embodied in its greatest proponenrt (says he), Socrates. In the play, Socrates runs a\n school attended by people who wish to learn how to abuse the art of rhetoric in order to\n accomplish unscrupulous goals, such as weaseling out of legitimate obligations or debts.\n In th play, a man sends his son to learn the art of “Unjust Logic.” We recall\n that all Athenians depended on their communication skills to advance in Athenian society\n \u2013 you acted as your own lawyer, for example, and needed to have a quick wit and\n tongue to match. So sophistic skills were a hot commodity: but concern over which argument\n was more just became replaced with concern over which argument would win<\/i>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Socrates (469-399 BC)<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In fact, Socrates was unfairly\n caricatured by Aristophanes (see notes on the Apology<\/i>) and spent his life trying to\n convince people that such people only showed their lack of understanding about the real\n workings of the universe and their lack of wisdom about the meaning of life. Of course,\n Socrates never wrote anything, but his student Plato preserved his ideas.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Platonic Ideas or Forms<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Platonic metaphysics is founded on the\n idea that everything that we can perceive with our senses is guided by an underlying\n principle which we cannot perceive directly, but only as seen through the dirty and\n smudged filter of our physical world. These principles are called Forms<\/b> or Ideas<\/b>.\n But Plato was not concerned with the laws of the natural world like the older cosmologists\n \u2013 Plato understood this concept as applying to abstract principles which guide our\n lives. To Plato, abstract concepts such as Virtue or Justice were just as real as the law\n of gravity is to us \u2013 you can\u2019t see gravity, you can\u2019t hold gravity, but it\n is an undisputed fact that gravity exists. Ditto Justice.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Realm of Ideas<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n But the problem remains that we can\u2019t see or hold Virtue of Justice. In fact,\n everything that we can<\/i> perceive in this world, everything from a chair to\n “courage”, is but a pale imitation of its real existence\u2026somewhere else.\n This “somewhere else” Plato called the Realm of Ideas.<\/b> Everything we see\n is a manifestation of a principle that is real but not present in this reality.\n “Justice,” for example, is real; but how can we ever know it if we can\u2019t\n perceive it with our senses?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The sad fact is that what we know\n (perceive with our senses) is only a derivation, not the real McCoy. But interestingly,\n while we cannot see the Form<\/b> of Courage, for example, directly, we do know it when\n we see it. A courageous act is seen to be courageous when it manifests the principle of\n Courage and therefore reveals the essesntial quality of Courage that marks all things\n Courageous. Think of it this way: if the perform<\/b>ance of an act reveals the\n principle or form <\/b>that guides it, them a witness to that perform<\/b>ance becomes\n inform<\/b>ed! He has gained knowledge of a universal, unchanging truth as manifested in\n the imperfect, human world.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Try to come up with a working definition\n of “courage.” You won\u2019t be able to do so without resorting to using other\n abstract terms in your definition. Or the definition you come up with will not work all\n the time and thus must be rejected. You might be able to argue that a particular act would\n be considered courageous in one instance, but not in another. This argument that “it\n depends on the circumstances” is called “moral relativism.” This is the\n reason that Socrates tells Crito (in the Crito<\/i>) that the opinions of others have no\n bearing on what is just or unjust, good or evil, for Truth concerning these concepts\n exists and cannot be argued.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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So how do we access this Realm of the\n Ideas where all the answers are?<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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And wouldn\u2019t it be nice if, since\n these answers really exist, we couldn\u2019t all just tap into the Realm of Ideas and find\n out what truly is Just and what is not. It would sure save a lot of trouble. Well, we can.\n We can tap into the immortal, never-changing universe where these eternal principles\n reside by using our soul, the bridge between “immutable realities” and the\n “material world.” Through the immortal, never-changing part of ourselves \u2013\n our soul \u2013 we can reach upwards and grasp the unchanging principles by which the\n universe is governed. Everything has its purpose and the well-being of the individual soul\n – at its greatest and best – is the natural end (TELOS) of all movement and endeavor. And\n that is why Socrates says that “the primary business of life is the care and tending\n of the soul,” so we can develop the ability to tap into the Realm. How do we\n cultivate the soul? By living a life of constant inquiry and examination, by experiencing\n and contemplating.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Plato has Socrates address this issue in\n the Apology. <\/i>Although he never explicitly mentions the Realm of Ideas, it helps to\n understand the underlying philosophy. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain Socrates\u2019\n confidence in knowing how to tell the difference between Justice and Injustice. Socrates\n acknowledges that Agathon, The Ultimate Form of Goodness – is the defining form,\n suggesting that the plan of the universe is a morally directed one. But like with any\n other form, we cannot become GOOD of JUST\u2013 but we can know it when we see it, and we\n can do our best to manifest it – PerFORM it \u2013 through our actions.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Socrates\u2019 primary tenets all draw\n from this theory:<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“An unexamined life is not worth\n living.”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“An evil man can’t hurt a good\n man”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“No man commits evil\n intentionally\u2026he is just uninformed as to the Good”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“The care and tending of the soul is\n the major business is life”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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“Nothing can harm a good man either\n in life or after death and his fortunes are not a matter of indifference to the\n gods.”<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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top<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2167,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2183","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2183\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/drjclassics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}