The Greek Philosophers

The founders of Western Thought

(The Original Dead White Males)
 Who Were the Sophists?
• In the modern definition, a sophism is a
confusing or illogical argument used for
deceiving someone.
• But in Ancient Greece, the sophists were a
group of teachers of philosophy and rhetoric.
• The Greek words sophos or sophia had the
meaning of "wise" or "wisdom" since the time
of the poet Homer, and originally connoted
anyone with expertise in a specific domain of
knowledge or craft.
• Gradually the word came to denote
general wisdom and especially
wisdom about human affairs (in, for
example, politics, ethics, or
household management).
 Socrates
(470-399 BC)
• The earliest Greek philosopher widely
recognized.
• Living in Athens Greece, Socrates' way of life,
character, and thought exerted a profound
influence on ancient and modern philosophy.
• Not how does the world work but how does
one live a moral life?
• Greek philosopher whose way of life,
character, and thought exerted a profound
influence on ancient and modern philosophy.
• Socrates was a widely recognized and
controversial figure in his native
Athens, so much so that he was
frequently mocked in the plays of
comic dramatists.
• (The Clouds of Aristophanes author of
Lysastrata, produced in 423, is the
best-known example.)
• Although Socrates himself wrote
nothing, he is depicted in conversation
in compositions by a small circle of his
admirers—Plato and Xenophon first
among them.
 The Socratic Method
1. The method is skeptical.
1. It begins with Socrates' real or
professed ignorance of the truth of the
matter under discussion.
2. This is the Socratic irony which
seemed to some of his listeners an
insincere pretense, but which was
undoubtedly an expression of
Socrates' genuine intellectual humility.
3. This skepticism Socrates shared with
the Sophists and, in his adoption of it, he
may very well have been influenced by
them. But whereas the Sophistic
skepticism was definitive and final, the
Socratic is tentative and provisional;
Socrates' doubt and assumed ignorance is
an indispensable first step in the pursuit
of knowledge.
2. It is conversational.
1. It employs the dialogue not only as a
didactic device, but as a technique for
the actual discovery of opinions
amongst men, there are truths upon
which all men can agree,
2. Socrates proceeds to unfold such
truths by discussion or by question
and answer.
3. Beginning with a popular or hastily formed
conception proposed by one of the members of
the company or taken from the poets or some
other traditional source, Socrates subjects this
notion to severe criticism, as a result of which
a more adequate conception emerges.
4. His method, in this aspect, is often
described as the “maieutic method.” It is the
art of intellectual midwifery, which brings
other men's ideas to birth. It is also known as
the dialectical method or the method of
elenchus.
3. It is conceptual or definitional
1. The Socratic Method sets as the goal of
knowledge the acquisition of concepts, such as
the ethical concepts of justice, piety, wisdom,
courage and the like.
2. Socrates tacitly assumes that truth is embodied in
correct definition.
3. Precise definition of terms is held to be the first
step in the problem solving process.
4. The Socratic method is empirical or inductive
1. This means that in that the proposed definitions
are criticized by reference to particular instances.
2. Socrates always tested definitions by recourse to
common experience and to general usages.
5. The method is deductive
1. This means that a given
definition is tested by drawing
out its implications, by
deducing its consequences.
2. This involves the three part
arguments called sylagisms.
3. The definitional method of
Socrates is a real contribution
to the logic of philosophical
inquiry.
4. It inspired the dialectical
method of Plato and exerted a
not inconsiderable influence on
the logic Aristotle.
 Pythagoras
(570 BCE - 495 BCE)
• A mathematician and
scientist, he was credited
with formulating the
pythagorean theorem. His
work earned him many
followers, and he
established a community
of learners who were
devoted to the study of
religion and philosophy.
• No books or writings by
Pythagoras have survived. He
probably taught by speaking to
his followers, although in the
centuries after his death, several
forgeries were discovered.
 Heraclitus
(535 BCE - 475 BCE)

• He proposed that everything that

exists is based on a higher order or
plan which he called logos. For him,
change is a permanent aspect of the
human condition as he was credited
with the saying, “No man ever steps
in the same river twice.”
• His utterance that "all things come to
be in accordance with this logos,"
(literally, "word," "reason," or
"account") has been the subject of
many interpretations. Logos became
a technical term in philosophy,
beginning with Heraclitus, who used
the term for a principle of order and
knowledge.
 Plato
(428/427 BC – 348/347 BC)

• Plato, with his mentor, Socrates,

and his student, Aristotle, helped to
lay the foundations of Western
• philosophy.

• He was originally a student of

Socrates, and was as much influenced
by his thinking as by what he saw
as his teacher's unjust death.
•Plato was also a mathematician, writer of
philosophical dialogues, and founder of the
Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher
learning in the western world.
• Plato's sophistication as a w riter can be
witnessed by reading his Socratic dialogues.
Some of the dialogues, letters, and other works
that are ascribed to him are considered spurious.
• Although there is little question that Plato
lectured at the Academy that he founded, the
pedagogical function of his dialogues, if any, is
not known with certainty.
• The dialogues since Plato's time have been used
to teach a range of subjects, mostly including
philosophy, logic, rhetoric, mathematics, and
other subjects about which he wrote.
Plato (left) and
Aristotle (right), a
detail of The School of
Athens, a fresco by
Raphael. Aristotle
gestures to the earth,
representing his belief
in knowledge through
empirical observation
and experience, while
holding a copy of his
Nicomachean Ethics
in his hand, whilst
Plato gestures to the
heavens, representing
his belief in The
Forms
 The Cynics
Diogenes searches for a
human being. Painting
attributed to J. H. W.
Tischbein (c. 1780)

• They were an influential group of

philosophers from the ancient school
of Cynicism.
• Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to
live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature.
• This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth,
power, health, and fame, and by living a life free from
all possessions. As reasoning creatures, people could
gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a
way which was natural for humans.
• They believed that the world belonged
equally to everyone, and that suffering
was caused by false judgments of what
wa s va lua ble a nd by the worthle ss
customs and conventions which
surrounded society.
• Ma ny of t h e se t h ou g ht s w e r e l a t e r
absorbed into Stoicism.
Diogenes of Sinope
• Defied all
convention lived in a
tub—lived life as an
exemplum.
• Cynic actually
means “dog” which
was a nickname
given to him by
Plato
• When Plato defined “man” as a hairless biped,
Diogenes tossed in a plucked chicken and said
here is Plato’s man!”
 Democritus
(460 BCE - 370 BCE)

• He devoted himself to the study of

the causes of natural phenomena.
He was among the first to propose
that matter is composed of tinny
particles called atoms.
• Democritus was an ancient Greek natural
philosopher. He was best known for the development
of the most accurate early atomic theory of the
universe. He is also known as ‘the Laughing
Philosopher’ as he was often cheerful while at work.
It is believed that Democritus was born around 460
BCE in Abdera, Thrace.

• He studied under Leucippus in Thrace. They both

believed that all matter is made up of tiny,
indestructible units which they called atoms. His
work was more scientific than philosophic. This is
why he and his work went largely unnoticed in
Greece.
Aristotle
(384-322 BC)

• He was the first to create a

comprehensive system of Western
philosophy, encompassing morality
and aesthetics, logic and science,
politics and metaphysics.
• Aristotle's views on the physical
sciences profoundly shaped medieval
scholarship, and their influence
extended well into the Renaissance,
although they were ultimately
replaced by modern physics.
• In the biological sciences, some of
his observations were only confirmed
to be accurate in the nineteenth
century.
• His works contain the earliest
known formal study of logic,
which were incorporated in
the late nineteenth century
into modern formal logic.
• All aspects of Aristotle's
philosophy continue to be the
object of active academic
study today.
• Though Aristotle wrote many elegant
treatises and dialogues (Cicero described
his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is
thought that the majority of his writings
are now lost and only about one third of
the original works have survived.
• In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a
profound influence on philosophical and
theological thinking in the Islamic and
Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and
it continues to influence Christian
theology, especially Eastern Orthodox
theology, and the scholastic tradition of
the Roman Catholic Church.
 Diogenes of Sinope
(412 BCE - 323 BCE)

• Diogenes, also known as Diogenes the

Cynic or Diogenes of Sinope, was a Greek
philosopher and one of the founders of
Cynic philosophy. He was born in Sinope,
an Ionian colony on the Black Sea coast of
Anatolia in 412 or 404 BC and died at
Corinth in 323 BC. Diogenes was a
controversial figure.
• Some of Diogenes’ behavior was less endearing.
He regularly provoked irritation among the
Athenian public by urinating on people who
annoyed him and defecating in public places such
as theaters and markets. Plato once referred to
Diogenes as ‘Socrates gone mad’, a label which
has stuck with the Cynic philosopher ever since.
However, this has led many people to dismiss
Diogenes and the Cynics as oddballs without any
real philosophical ideas. This couldn’t be further
from the truth. In fact, Cynicism explores very
serious questions surrounding human nature,
custom, happiness and shame.
Epicurus
(341 BCE - 270 BCE)

• He believed that philosophy could enable

man to live a life of happiness. His views
gave rise to Epicureanism - a school of
philosophy which believes that wisdom
and simple living will result in a life free of
fear and pain.
• Epicurus helped in the development of science
and the scientific method because he said that
nothing should be believed except what we can
test through direct observation and logical
deduction. His ideas about nature and physics
hinted at scientific concepts developed in
modern times.
• author of an ethical philosophy of simple
pleasure, friendship, and retirement. He
founded schools of philosophy that survived
directly from the 4th century bc until the 4th
century ad