Professor David Roochnik
Boston University
585BC – 325BC
presocratics
Socrates 469-399 (70)
Plato 429-347 (82)
Aristotle 348-322 (62)
dialectical (dialegesthai, “to converse”)
Goal
(1) explain the historical influence of the Greeks on subsequent developments in Western philosophy
(2) examine the philosophical value of their work.
Lecture 1
Philosophy means “love [philia] of wisdom [sophia]”
What is wisdom? (she) a preliminary answer: being able to answer the “perennial” or “fundamental” questions
dialectically (dialegesthai “to converse”)
1. I seek wisdom and I believe through your teaching I will gain understanding and knowledge. With this knowledge, I will be one step closer to find her and deciphering her enigmas. No.
2. democracy – (p165) demos, the people + kratein, to rule
1. Government by the people
psychology – (p512) psyche, soul, mind + logos, word, reasoning
1. the science dealing with the mind
physics – (p479) physis, nature
1 the science dealing with the properties, changes, interactions of matter and energy
myth – (p421) mythos
1. a traditional story serving to explain some phenomenon, custom
autonomy – (p41) autos, self + nomos, law
2. existing or functioning independently
political – (p491)
1 of, concerned with, or engaged in government, polities
Lecture 2
Homer 750 BC (poet)
Odyssey
Iliad
muthos (myth or story)
Hesiod 700 BC (shepherd)
Theogony
Tell me these things, Olympian Muses,
From the beginning, and tell which of them came first,
In the beginning there was only Chaos, the Abyss.
But the Gaia, the Earth, came into being,
Her broad bosom the ever-firm foundation of all,
and Tartaros, dim in the underground depths,
and Eros, loveliest of all Immortals
logos (reason & speech\word) rational speech
Biology – rational account, of life
Eros (love, sexual desire)
chaos (abyss, gap, emptiness)
Thales 585 BC (the founder) [water] (empiricist)
natural philosophy
phusis (nature) physics
phusiologoi (those who offer a logos of phusis)
[arche] (origin, beginning, source, first principle, ruling principle)
empirical observation + rational thought
being and becoming, the one and the many
1. a story that explains that which can not be explained. The Bible. Yes, but I think that kind of life would be empty and not worth living.
2. Simular in the fact it all came from nothing. But the Genesis story does not build a family tree of creation.
3. His style of rationalization by physical observation It was an inductive process that resembled a deductive solution
Lecture 3
3 phusiologoi | philosophers of miletus
Thales founder of the Milesian school
1. Anaximandor 610 – 540 (rationalist) [to apeiron, “the indefinite”, “the unlimited”, “the infinite”]
2. Anaximenes 550 [air]
3. Xenophanes 570 [god] (god is one) Being and Becoming, of the One and the Many
Pythagoras 570-500 [kosmos] (pythagorean theorem)
kosmos – an orderly whole, and its order is derived from a mathematical structure (a2 + b2 = c2)
1. Yes, I would think it would be indeterminate. The only box I would put it in is the one of an abstract term like arche or God.
2. God, energy, or string theory
3. Not yet. Once people are forced to have their physical entity connected to the master psyche.
4. The concepts we call emotion, soul, spirit, any of the metaphysical aspects of life
Lecture 4
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Lecture 5
Parmenides 515 – 440 (extrem rationalists)
[denies becoming (doxa)]
3 “ways of Inquiry” 3 basic intellectual options
1. way of truth (aletheis) | Being is
2. way of Non-Being (nothingness) | Being is
3. way of Appearance (doxa) | Being and non-Being are
2. non-Being is impossible to think, for thinging is Being
#3 “for the same thing is for thinking and for being”
doxa – “appearance”, “the way things seem to be”, “belief”, and “opion”.
3. essence of doxa is the delief in multiplicity and change. Becoming requires changing fom non-Being to Being, but non-Being is unintelligible.
#7 “not let habit born from much experience compel you… to direct your sightless eye… but judge by reason (logos)”
Habit and experience gives us doxa
1. There is only one true path of thinking: that Being is and that it is not possible for it not to be.
Being is eternal, one, and indivisible – this is the notion of a pure rationalist.
Eternal – orelse it came or would become non_being one & indivisible – division means one part of Being would not be another and Being can not “not be”
doxa A. Heraclitus affirms the flux of experience (E)
aletheia B. Parmenides denies the truth of doxa (R)
#1 Yes. Scientists now days relie more on the data that is provide by their intranent then on their own senses. Since a human sences are compairabe limited to the spectum of reality that we now know exist.
#2. I find thous to be interesting words from a man who spent the last ten years of his live clinically insane, but none the less I agree that Parmenides would not be someone you would consider a close friend. I would presum he looked at people; then graded and classified them in somekind of selfdesigned hierarcy.
Lecture 6
Leucippus was the originator of atomic theory
Democritus of Abdera 460 [reality is quantitative]
Atomism Theory had 2 components: atoms (atomos) & void
atomos – uncuttable, indivisible
infinite number, differ in shape and size, move through the void, combine to form objects
17th century (corpuscular philosophy)
maintains that reality and appearence are difference
Empedocles 490 – 430 (pluralist) [chance]
2 components: roots & forces
Roots (4) [combine and separate to form sensible objects
fire – air – water – earth
Cosmic Forces (2)
love > attracts > roots combine
strife > repel > roots disperse
Anaxagotas of clazomanae 500 – 430 (pluralist)
2 components: seeds & mind
seed – elemental particles
mind – universal force (animating principle of living things)
#1. All three combine feing and becoming into to a single theory. Each one believes there are building blocks (atoms, roots, & seeds) one believes they combined via random chance while the other two believe in some kind of cosmic force is at play.
#2 Since atoms only have the properties of size and shape they can only have quantitative values and not qualitive values like sweetness. Democritus believed the doxa of sweetness is a human “convention” agreement of what the exsperence of those atoms combineding is like.
Lecture 7
Sophists – itinerant (walking) professors
Gorgias of Leontini 483 – 736
Hippias of Elis 485 – 415
Prodicus of Ceos 470 – 400
Protagoras 485 – 415 (humanist) (R)
#1 “Human being is the measure of all things – of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not”
Thought Kosmos and arche were unknowable
Humans = “measure”, of all reality
Relativism – view that whenther something is true or false, good or bad, dependson the person or group who holds that truth or value.
Absolutism – vies that a truth or a value is independent of who holds that truth or value.
Absolutist delieves that something can be true or good in and of itself.
Rhetoric – art of persuasion, art of speaking well
Rhetoric and relativism go hand in glove
– relativism denises absolute truth or values
– if there are no absolutes, then truth and values come from human agreement or convention
#3″there are two opposing argnments (logoi)
#4 “to make the weaker argument the stronger”
Contemporary Sophist = Post Modernists
#1 I fall more on the absoluist side of the fench but being more of an absobutisl doesn’t mean beartless it means somethings in life need a finitire answer, or else the creature called man will run wide like it did in German in the 1930’s.
#2 If truths and values are determined by whose who can exspress their views the strongest. Then those with the best rhetric skills shape the sacity and those that are the best teachers of rhetoric shape the argument.
Lecture 8
Socrates of Athens 469 – 399 (ugly – smelly – bum)
Executed for corrupting the youth
Never wrote a word because
1) fare from enhancing our memory, only weakens it
2) written work is outside us. The work circulates in the world, fixed and indiscriminate, always subject to misinterpretation by different people
“what is it?”
“what is the best life for a human being?”
what is justice?
what is courage?
5th Century Athens
480 & 490 Persian War
478 Delian League
Perides (Parthenon) 450 – 429
431 Peloponnesian War (Athens vs Sparta)
404 Athens defeat (thirty tyrants)
403 democracy restored in Athens
399 Socrate executed
#1 Have to read Essential Reading
#2 I believe courage is doing what is “right” even when fear is in the marrow of your bones. Justice is not a question I feel is easily answered. It is one that may have an answer in the world of relativism.
Lecture 9
Plato of Athens 429 – 348 (not a student of Socrates)
Parents: Ariston & Perictione
from distinguished and wealthy Athenian families
Corpus – body, complete work
twenty-five dialogues (Platonic dialogue)
wrote on every possible philosophical subject
E- The Apology – Crito, Euthyphro
M – Meno – Republic
L – The Sophist – The Statesman – Parmenides
never expressed his own views in his own voice
#1 Yes, mostly in personal life choices, especially the ones that have had the strongest impact on my journey Some times in business decisions and hobbies when I want to improve.
Lecture 10
Book 1 of the Republic
Sophist: Thrasymachus – Taught rhetoric in Athens from 430-400. (analyzed the role of emotion in persuasion.
Basic position: justice is the advantage of the strong
Example: in Hitler Germany, whatever was advantageous to the Nazis would have been just.
A. Socrates asks Thrasymachus a question.
1. Do you think it is just to bey all laws? (Yes)
2. When the ruling body or ruler is creating its laws, does it sometimes make mistakes? (Yes)
3. When the ruler makes a mistake, it creates a law that is actually to his disadvantage.
(Because it is just to obey all laws, sometimes it is just to obey laws that are disadvantageous for the ruling body.)
Contradiction: S is P & not P
S = Justice is advantage and not advantage
Elenchus – refutation (philosophical argument, logos)
Relies on one single point must people are willing to grant: people make mistakes
Plato believes the human soul wants knowledge
Relativism requires one to give up the desire for knowledge. Plato asks the reader if they want knowledge, then focuses them to look inside themselves. They then becoming philosophers.
#1 Need Essential reading materials
Lecture 11
Self-reference argument (there are no truths” or “all truths are relative”)
Theaetetus
Protagoras (relativist)
1. If all truth is relative, if there is no absolute truth, then no one is really wiser than anyone else.
2. Protagotas think he is wise and charges a large sum to study with him.
3. By his own reckoning, he is no wiser than anyone else.
4. Thus, he has no right to teach or charge tuition.
Heraclitus (found of relativism)
everything flows, no stable reality whatsoever
1. If nothing is stable, then words have no stable meaning.
2. If words have no stable meaning, then there can be no true statement.]3. Heraclitus believes, “nothing is stable” is a true statement.
4. If nothing is stable, then the very sentence “nothing is stable” is not stable and, hence, has no meaning
Plato believes Protagoras and Heraclitus are practitioner’s of muthos (myth, storytelling), not logos (rational account, reason, rationality)
#1 Yes. Since truth is relative to the community consenses, then if the community agrees that nothing is stale, for all time, but for this moment the statement is true. It may not have been true yesterday or it may not be true tomorrow, but at this moment in time, we say it is true, therefore it is true.
#2 Plato. I have never really been one that bends to the wind of change but more of one rooted in historical truths.
Lecture 12 (Platonic Forms)
eidos – Form: is what numerous particular things have in common (beautiful things – fac, painting, sunset all have in common “beauty itself” or “the Form of Beauty”.) [physical?] (idea)
Can aretê (virtue, excellence) be taught? aretê (ê = ê)
Socrates won’t answer a quality “like” question until he gets a definition “is” first
What is aretê itself?
He wants to know what all the particular instances have in common. (the Form of virtue)
“Even if they are many and various, all of [the virtuews] have one and the same form which makes them virtues”.
aporia – lack of a way out, perplexity, or impasse
Mends Paradox
1. 2 responses to “what is it?”
1) I know the answer
2) I don’t know the answer
2. If I know, I can not learn, because I already know. If I do not know, I can do learn, because I cannot recognize the right answer.
3. Therefore there is no such thing as learning.
#1 A fair question is one that the asker is willing to answer. I think there are certain “what is it” questions that are valid, but to hold the belief “all things” must be defined to be identified works only in the world of the physical; what about the world of the non-physical like the spiritual. What is the Form of the spiritual world? What about “things” that are internally felt and externally shown. I do not need to define good or right, I can feel and know it when I see it. Relativists are the ones that need to be told love is good murder is bad.
Lecture 13 (Recollection)
Phaedo
In measuring sensible objects, such as sticks, equality is never exact or perfect.
idea of perfect equality = “the equal itself”
ordinary intellectual activites invoke standards and ideas that are perfect
Experience is always imperfect
Therefore, the Idea of perfect equality (Form), of “the equal itself,” can not come from experience
“the equal itself” must be prior to experience
Recollection – human ability to use a priori Forms
a priori – that which is prior to, but determinative of, experience
soul is immortal
knowledge of the Forms before we were born reincarnated
Kant
DNA
#1 Review equal its self more
#2 Yes. We, todate have determined that physical and psychological traits are passed on through DNA which would lead us to the belief that other traits and characteristics can and may be passed on. If you and the variable of the spirit and/or soul then you can logically increase the probability of some kind of preprogramming and knowledge.
Lecture 14
Forms > Being (Parmenidean)
Sensible reality > Becoming (Heraclitean)
Psychê – Soul
soul is like “harmony” produced by the strings of a lyre (body) although it is not exactly a material thing, it is produced by, and inseparable from, material things. (This view of the human mind is commonly held among contemporary neurologist: the human mind/consciousness is a byproduct of a material entity the brain (Epiphenomenlism)
Why am I sitting here now?
Presocratics – strictly physical or mechanistic you are sitting here now because your bones and sinews moved in a certain fashion
Socrates – he is sitting here now because he thinks it is good to do so.
Value – laden nature of human experience
Presocratics look at a thing
Socratics is concerned with talking about things, not things themselves.
“Idea of the Good” = archeê
It is what man seeks, without it, nothing has value
#1 Yes. I believe that consciousness is more than just an electric signal firing through synapses in the brain. If it was just a mechanical process why are we unable to make ages think, act, or talk like a man? My view closely resembles those put forward in the Phaedo.
Lecture 15
Parable of the Cave.
They see the sun and realize that it is the source of light and life (Idea of the Good)
Those with wisdom (philosophers) whether they are male or female, should rule. Wisdom is gained by studying the Idea of the Good.
Democracy is bad because it is ruled by opinion or doxa. All citizens, those who are knowledgeable and those who are ignorant, get to vote.
Paradoxically, what is best about a democracy is that it allows criticism of democracy.
It is more important that people be educated well than that they be allowed freedom.
Knowledge should be authoritative
Everything from private possessions to sexual relations is governed by the rulers (philosopher Kings)
#1 Through a democracy those that are “ignorant” have the ability to be educated, this can not and is actually forbidden in Plato’s world. Also by allowing the freedoms of a democracy all voices and ideas have a chance of being heard thus allowing for new forms of ideas concepts, & forms to be discovered and discussed. Finally, what of war in Plato’s world, why would a silver or bronze fight when they have no say or power.
#2 My view has changed over the years on censorship. I am open to debate on the items that are to be censored and disclaimers if needed on other items in the hands of young impressionable minds I strongly support censorship.
Lecture 16
Presocratics > Scients
1. Evolutionary Biology
2. Neuroscience
Neither con provide a sufficient account of the value-laden nature of human experience
Sophits > Postmodernist
There is no independent Truth
What counts is not the Truth, but who wins the argument
Simply put, Platonic philosophy can’t be argued without begging the question (my game my rules)
The dialogue, for Plato, is perennial. The dialogue itself is the final answer.
#1Yes. To stop fighting is to concede that Nazi German was an acceptable display of human values.
#2 No. Again I go to my comment on having ages/apes walk, talk, and act like a man If it is only a matter of electricity and chemistry why are humans the only animals that have the ability to express reason. While is his is refined, mine contains the knowledge of the 21st century.
Lecture 17
Aristotle 384-322 (the Philosopher)
son of the court physician of Macedonia
@ 17 enters the Academy (Plato’s School)
Tutored Alexander (the Great) 343-342
Founded Lyceum 335
Dies in 322 one year after Alexander
Corpus – whole world, from the sky to earth
logic
ethics
physics
metaphysics
biology
astronomy
meteorology
mathematics
psychology
zoology
rhetoric
aesthetics
politics
Theoria – to look at, to view, to behold
Theoretical treatise, the author reports on what they “see”
“The reason is that sight, more than any of the other senses, gives us knowledge of things.”
believed in the objective, non-relative Truth “all human beings by nature desire to know
faith in doxa (appearance, opinion)
phenomena (phainomena) – the way thins appear
perception is the ultimate source of knowledge
endoxa (reputable opinions)
The world lets itself be seen by, it shows itself to, the discerning “eye” of the philosopher.
The modern universe is not discoverable by the “naked eye” but by the telescope or the microscope
Aristotle understands far better than modern science what it is like to be a human being on earth, seeing the world through the “naked eye”.
#1 An idea of how something works or why something is the way it is. His definition relies more on using the sense of sight. A theory in his case would revolve around the physical observation of the phenomena through the sense of sight or the naked eye.
Lecture 18
natural being as that which has “within itself a principle (archê) of motion and rest
Another way of speaking about nature is in terms of its shape or form.
The nature of a bed is not wood
1. Wood (matter) is only potentially a bed
2. An actual bed has the form of a bed
the form is the nature more than the matter is
substance becomes visible by having a form
actuality and potentiality = form and matter
motion is the actualization of potentiality
eidos – species
the biological world is divided into species & genera
Forms
Platonic
mainly of values
universal
adjectives
Aristotelian
hylomorphism (matter + form)
not
noun
#1 Need essential reading
#2 Depends on if you believe in evolutionary biology. I have yet to see any proof of man’s evolution since Homer. So once I “see” the evidence we can come back to this question.
Lecture 19
4 causes
cause – answer to a question
1. material – of what is it constituted?
2. efficient – what moves it?
3. formal – what is it?
4. final – what is its purpose/goal (telos)
Presocratics
Thales – water material cause
Anaxagoras – mind – efficient cause
Plato – Form – formal
Aristotle – teleological – final
Teleological View of Nature
means that natural entities, not just human beings, have purposes (teet for sake of chewing) – nature does nothing pointlessly
Spinoza 1632AD – 1677AD
1) Human beings, do thing purposively, with an end in view
2) Human beings are ignorant of real causes in the physical world.
3) Human beings project purpose onto nature
4) Final causes are human fabrications (superstitions)
5) Nature proceed from necessity
6) Purpose of modern science is to discover laws that govern natural motion.
A. Modern physics (quantitative) language (mathematics)
B. Aristotelian physics (qualitative) language (ordinary)
Determinist view – front teeth are useful for chewing is really just an accident that happened to enhance the prospects for survival of the animal with teeth “come to be as they do either always or usually”
bee -> pollen
The primary purpose of Aristotelian theoria is to articulate human experience
Edmund Husserl (The Crisis of European Science)
– modern science, which is essentially mathematical in character, is fundamentally limited.
– fantastic at understanding how things work and how they move, it can not explain how human beings experience the world
– cannot explain what things mean (phenomenology)
#1 Non-sympathetic, I believe HB’s do things with an end in mind, like a baby crying when it needs to be changed or feed. I agree that humans, like scientists, are ignorant in many matters and that “we” project a purpose on nature, but, even a fool is right sometimes, and just because you make a projection, does not automatically make it wrong. I ask a simple question, “Do humans need bees?” What about “Does nature need bees?” My projection of a bee’s purpose is supported by the wonderful taste of honey and the effect that cross pollenation has on nature. Just because we cannot logos the “why” doesn’t mean the “it” doesn’t exist, it just means we can not “see” it yet.
Lecture 20 soul (psyche)
soul – the Form of a natural body that is potentially alive. (soul is the activity of the body, the actuality of the body)
soul = life
form -> actuality
matter -> potentiality
“If the eye were an animal, sight would be its soul.”
Plants have souls.
nutritive soul – nourish and reproduce
3 components
1. That which is nourished, the body
2. That by which the body is nourished, the food
3. that which actually nourishes, the nutritive soul (activity)
1. That which sees, the eye
2. That by which the eye sees, the visible object
3. seeing (activity)
Hierarchy
Plant -> Animals
underdeveloped oat tree -> fully developed oak tree (telos)
#1 The Aristotelian concept of the soul is more of the action something does to reach telos, where the Judeo-Christian soul is a metaphysical part of a human being that is immortal.
#2 A nutritionist may say no, but I think it does a fairly good accounting of the process when taking into account the time period.
Lecture 21
orderly cosmos – all things – proper places
earth -> moon -> sun -> planets -> stars
(sublunar) earth – air – fire – water
_ plants -> animals -> humans(logos) -> God
There is movement, there must be original source
Movement is eternal, Time is eternal
original source is eternal
original source cannot be moved
Thero is one, primary, the unmoved mover
Movement – is the actualization of a potentiality
pure actuality – no matter – it is the final cause
original source is God
God has no morals not generous or loving or just.
God is pure thinking, which is the highest activity, and it thinks only of itself (God thinks about God – Thought thinking itself)
#1 Not sure about this question. If nothing else it should be used in a muthos
#2 Aristotl’s God is a god of pure logic. One of mathematics, its only purpose to think and calculate itself. Unlike the unfeeling and uncaring god of Aristotle, the God of the three core religions is the God of the people, it loves cares, and punishes its children. There is a parent-child relationship with trust, love, and friendship. Both are eternal both are singular.
Lecture 22
polis – city (human final cause)
Human hierarchy
1. House Hold (family)
A. Man & Women (reproduction)
B. Master-Slave (flourish)
i. Master – rational foresight
ii. Slave – weak reasoning (strong body)
iii. natural Slave – significantly inferior intelligence
2. Village
3. Polis (city) [telos] “for sake of living well”
Human beings are “by nature a political animal”
Aristotle’s Argument
1. “nature does nothing pointlessly”
2. “a Human being is the only animal with rational discourse. (logos)
3. The purpose of rational discourse is to articulate what is good and bad, just and unjust, beneficial and harmful.
4. Therefore, the human being is by nature political.
#1 I agree that some human beings are born with certain mental and or physical gifts. My reasoning may be the same, but how I act on that knowledge is vastly different. Aristotle’s reasoning could be used to justify the 1930 cleansing in Germany, it also supports the notion of a class system. I find it sad that both Plato & Aristotle, both men are of “family standing” and support the belief of a class system on the back of a man, [who was the sone of a midwife and stone mason] who was an ugly, smelly, bum.
#2 Without his belief that nature does nothing by chance, he would not search for the telos for man. Being he is a philosopher by default his search is for wisdom, but the knowledge of wisdom is not an end it is no telos. He still needs action with the wisdom to find and end. This leads him to determine that through logos in communion with other men he finds telos.
Lecture 23
the ultimate purpose to human existence = the highest good
the highest good = happiness (eudaimonia) flourishing
What is the ‘proper function [ergon] (work) of a human being?
The virtue or excellence (arete) of something depends on its “function”
A. The function of a carpenter is to build houses.
B. The function of an eye is to see.
C. The function of a human being is rational activity
Human excellence or virtue is the actualization of our potential to be rational.
Happiness = activity (energeia) of the soul according to virtue or excellence.
technical rationality: a carpenter thinks about building a house
ethical rationality: a person wonders how best to help a friend in need – judgment – sizing things up (practical wisdom)
#1 Yes, Without a purpose we will just float through life, never really touching the ground seeing the clouds, or smelling the flowers. I also believe the highest good is not happiness but love, and this love comes in many shapes and sizes.
#2 Happiness is a sense of being or a state of mind. It can be created from within with the thought of a happy memory or it can be felt and transferred from watching a dog run, a hug from a friend, or simply listing to the ocean.
Lecture 24
The theoretical (the philosophical) life, the life spent studying the world, is the best life of all.
1. Least need for external goods.
2. Most pleasant
3. Most like that led by God. By theorizing, we actualize what is most divine in us.
4. Paradoxically, the best human life is that spent trying to be the least human.
#1 Yes, and yes. He and my fellow brother and sister philosophers, currently know and unknown will fill me with logos I seek in order to help the modern scientist find their way back to humanity and remember what it is like to be a human being on this planet they call Earth and we call home. To remind them that fire is pulled up to the heavens because that is its natural place.
