 Chapter 4 of History of Philosophy These are separated from the earlier Ionian philosophers, not merely in point of time, but also in respect to doctrine. The difference consists chiefly in the tendency which the later Ionians manifest to depart from the monistic dynamism of the early physicists and adopt a dualistic mechanical concept of the universe. Heraclitus, who is in ultimate analysis a dynamist, marks the beginning of the change which after the more or less hesitating utterances of impetacles appears successively in the mechanism of the atomists and in the openly pronounced dualism of Anaxagoras. Heraclitus is therefore the connecting link between earlier and later Ionian philosophy. Heraclitus, Life Heraclitus surnamed the obscure, Haskatenus, an account of the mist of oracular expressions in which purposely, according to some writers, prevailed his teachings, was born in Ephesus about the year 530 BC. He composed a work peri-thusseos consisting of three parts, the first of which was peri-tupontos, the second lagas, politicus, and the third lagas, theologicus. Of the fragments which have come down to us, very few can be assigned to the second of these parts, and fewer still to the third. The existing fragments offer considerable difficulty in the matter of arrangement and interpretation, a difficulty which is increased by the fact that many of our secondary authorities are untrustworthy. The doctrines of Heraclitus resemble the fundamental tenets of the Stoics, and here, as elsewhere, the Stoic historians are inclined to exaggerate such resemblances. On this account, even for modern scholars, Heraclitus is still the obscure. Sources Besides the fragments above mentioned, we have as sources of information the writings of Plato and Aristotle who give a tolerably complete account of the teachings of Heraclitus. Doctrines Doctrine of Universal Change Heraclitus places himself in direct opposition to the a-li-atic teaching and to the data of common, unre-flecting consciousness. The mass of men, and here he includes not merely Pythagoras and Xenophonies, but also Homer and Hesiod, associating them with the common herd, seeing nothing but sense-forms. They fail to comprehend the all-discerning reason, which should follow reason alone, much learning does not teach the mind. Now the first lesson which reason teaches us is that there is nothing permanent in the world around us. The senses, when they attribute to things of permanence which things do not possess, are deceived and thus give rise to the greatest of all errors, the belief in immobility. The truth is that all things change, Panthezorai. Everything is involved in the stream of change. From life comes death, from death comes life. Old age succeeds youth. Sleep changes into wakefulness, and wakefulness into sleep, and a word nothing is, all is, becoming. Both Plato and Aristotle set down the doctrine of the universality of change as being the most characteristic of the teachings of Heraclitus. No moreover expressly mentions the Heraclitian comparison of the stream in which wave succeeds wave. But it is remarkable that the expression, all things are flowing, which so conveniently sums up the doctrine of universal change, cannot be proved to be a quotation from the work of Heraclitus. DOCTRON OF FIRE Another source of error is this, that the poets and sages knew no more than the common herd does about the divine all-controlling fire. By fire, however, Heraclitus met invisible warm matter rather than the fire which is the result of combustion. It is endowed with life, or at least the power of becoming. Quote, all things are exchanged for fire, and fire for all things, just as wares are exchanged for gold and gold for wares." It is therefore what Aristotle would call the material as well as the efficient cause of all things. And here Heraclitus shows himself the lineal descendant of the earlier Ionians. Moreover, since all things proceed from fire according to fixed law, fire is styled Zeus, Deity, Lagos, Justice. This account would, however, be incomplete without some mention of the force which is postulated by Heraclitus as co-eternal with fire. Quote, strife is the father of all, and king of all, and some he may gods and some men. Opposed to strife, which gave rise to things by separation, is harmony, which guides them back to the fire whence they came. These expressions, however, while they speak the language of dualism, are not to be understood as more than mere figures of speech, for fire and fire alone is the cause of all change. Origin of the World The world was produced by the transformations of the primitive fire. There is a cycle of changes by which fire through a process of condensation, or rather of quenching, a benus thigh, becomes water and earth. This is the downward way, and there is a cycle of changes by which through a process of rarefication, or kindling, a pest thigh, earth goes back to water and water to fire. This is the upward way. Now the one is precisely the inverse of the other, others are no cuto mia. Thus did the world originate, and thus does it constantly tend to return whence it came. Concorde is ever undoing the work of strife, and one day strife will overcome. But then the deity, as it were in sport, will construct a new world in which strife and concorde will once more be at play. Doctrine of Opposites From this continual change comes the doctrine of opposites. There is a constant sway, like the bending and relaxing of a bow, in which all things pass successively through their opposites. Heat becomes cold, dryness becomes moisture, etc. To produce the new, light must be coupled with unlike, high and low. The accordant with the discordant are joined, that out of one may come all, and out of all one. On account of this doctrine Heraclitus is censured by Aristotle and his commentators for denying the principle of contradiction. Hegelians, on the other hand, credit Heraclitus with being the first to recognize the unity of opposites, the identity of being and not being. The truth is that Heraclitus deserves neither the blame of the Aristotelians, nor the praise of the Hegelians. He does not affirm opposite predicates of the same subject, at the same time, and subcond them respectu. Moreover his is a physical, not a logical theory, and to maintain the unity of opposites in the concrete is not the same as to hold the identity of being and not being in the abstract. Anthropological doctrines. Man, body and soul originated from fire. The body is of itself rigid and lifeless, an object of a version when the soul has departed from it. The soul, on the other hand, is divine fire preserved in its purest form. Quote, the driest soul is wisest and best. If the soul fire is quenched by moisture reason is lost. Like everything else in nature, the soul is constantly changing. It is fed by fire or warm matter which enters its breath or is received through the senses. Notwithstanding this view, Heraclitus in several of the fragments speaks of future reward and of the fate of the soul in Hades. Heraclitus distrusted sense knowledge. Eyes and ears, he said, are bad witness to men if they have souls that understand not their language. Rational knowledge is alone trustworthy. Heraclitus, however, did not nor did any of the pre-Socratic philosophers attempt to determine the conditions of rational knowledge. That task was first undertaken by Socrates. Ethical doctrines. Heraclitus did not undertake a systematic treatment of ethical questions. Nevertheless, he prepared the way for stoicism by teaching that immutable reason is the law of the moral as well as of the physical world. Men should defend law as they would a fortress. We must subject ourselves to universal order if we wish to be truly happy. Quote, the character of a man is his guardian divinity. Unquote, this is the doctrine of contentment or equanimity in a bestasus, in which, according to the Heraclitians, Heraclitus placed the supreme happiness of man. Historical position. Even in ancient times Heraclitus was regarded as one of the greatest physicists. He was deservedly styled aphusicus. For while others among the philosophers of nature excelled him in particular points of doctrine, he had the peculiar merit of having established a universal point of view for the study of nature as a whole. He was the first to call attention to the transitoriness of the individual and the permanence of the law which governs individual changes, thus formulating the problem to which Plato and Aristotle afterwards addressed themselves as to the permanent question of metaphysics. The naive conception of the universe has evolved, according to the earlier Ionians, from one substance, by a process which may be witnessed in a water tank, now gives place to the notion of a world ruled in its origin and in all its processes by an all-pervading Lagos. Moreover, though Heraclitus formulated no system of epistemology, his distrust of the senses and his advocacy of rational knowledge showed that philosophy had begun to emerge from the state of primitive innocence. It was this germ of criticism which was developed into full-grown skepticism by Cretolus. While along another line of development it led to the critical philosophy of the Sophists and to the Socratic doctrine of the concept. Heraclitus and the Aliatics were, so to speak, at opposite poles of thought. In the doctrines of Empedocles and the Atomus we can perceive the direct influence of the Aliatic school. Empedocles. Life. Empedocles, who is the most typical representative of the later Ionian school, holds a middle course between the monism of Parmenides and the extreme pan-metabolism of Heraclitus. He was born at Agragentum in Sicily about the year 490 BC. According to Aristotle he lived 60 years. The tradition which represents Empedocles is traveling through Sicily in southern Italy and claiming divine honors wherever he went is only too abundantly proved by fragments of his sacred poems. The story, however, that he committed suicide by leaping into the crater of Etna, is a malicious invention. It is always mentioned with a hostile purpose, and usually in order to counteract some tale told by his adherents and admirers. Sources. Empedocles, who was a poet as well as a philosopher, composed two poetico-philosophical treatises, the one metaphysical, Peri-Thusseus, and the other theological, Gotharmoy, of the five thousand verses which these poems contained, only about 450 have come down to us. On account of the language and imagery which Empedocles employs, he is styled by Aristotle the first rhetorician. Doctrines. Metaphysics. Empedocles, like Parmenides, begins with a denial of becoming. Becoming in the strict sense of qualitative change of an original substance is unthinkable. Yet with Heraclitus he holds that particular things arise, change, decay, and perish. He reconciles the two positions by teaching that generation is not the cold mingling, while decay is the separation of primitive substances which themselves remain unchanged. The primitive substances are four, fire, air, earth, and water. These afterwards came to be known as the four elements. Empedocles calls them roots. Tessarotone pantone, ripsomata. The word elements, stoisea, was first used by Plato. The mythological names which Empedocles applied to these radical principles of being have no particular philosophical value. They may be regarded as the accidents of poetical composition. The elements are underrides, imperishable, homogeneous. Definite substances are produced when the elements are combined in certain proportions. Now the moving cause, the force, which produces these combinations, is not inherent in the elements themselves. It is distinct from them. Here we have the first word of mechanism in Greek philosophy. It is true Empedocles speaks of this force as love and hatred, but the phraseology merely proves that the idea of force is not yet clear to the Greek mind. Empedocles does not define the difference between force and matter on the one hand and between force and person on the other. Moreover to deny that Empedocles was a dualist, to explain that by love and hatred he meant merely a poetical description of the conditions of mixture and separation, and not the true causes of these processes, would imply that Aristotle and all our other authorities misunderstood the whole doctrine of Empedocles. Cosmological doctrines. The four elements were originally combined in a sphere, euthymonus datus theos, where love reigned supreme. Gradually hatred began to exert its centrifugal influence. Love, however, united the elements once more to form those things which were made, and so the world was given over to love and hatred, and through the endless pulsation of periodic changes. Biological doctrines. Empedocles seems to have devoted special attention to the study of living organisms. Plants first sprang from the earth before it was illumined by the sun, and then came animals which were evolved out of all sorts of monstrous combinations of organisms by a kind of survival of the fit, for those only survived which were capable of subsisting. In this theory Empedocles expressly includes man. The cause of growth in animals and plants is fire striving upwards, impelled by the desire to reach its like. The fire which is the sky. Blood is the seat of the soul because in blood the elements are best united. It is by reason of the movement of the blood that inspiration and respiration take place through the pores which are closely packed together all over the body. Psychological doctrines. Since knowledge is explained by the doctrine of emanations and pores, like is known by like. That is, things are known to us by means of like elements in us. Earth by earth, water by water, etc. In the case of sight there is an emanation from the eye itself which goes out to meet the emanation from the object. Thought and intelligence are ascribed to all things, no distinction being made between corporeal and incorporeal. Thought therefore like all other vital activities depends on the mixture of four elements. Yet Empedocles seems to contrast the untrustworthiness of sense knowledge with knowledge acquired by reflection or rather with knowledge acquired by all the powers of the mind. He did not conceive the soul as composed of elements. He did not consider it as an entity apart from the body. He merely explained its activities by the constitution of the body. In his sacred poem, however, he adopted the doctrine of trans-migration, borrowing it from Pythagorean and Norfolk tradition without making it a part of his scientific theories. Quote, once ere now I was a youth and a maiden, a shrub, a bird, and a fish that swims in silence in the sea. Unquote. Concerning gods. Empedocles sometimes speaks as if he held the common polytheistic belief. Sometimes on the contrary, as in verse 345 to 350, he describes the deity almost in the words of Xenophonies. Quote, he is sacred and unutterable mind, flashing through the whole world with rapid thoughts. Unquote. Still, Empedocles apparently found no means of introducing this concept of the deity into his account of the origin of the universe. Historical position. While Empedocles holds a recognized place among the Greek poets, and while Plato and Aristotle appear to rank him highly as a philosopher, yet scholars are not agreed as to his precise place in the history of pre-sacratic speculation. Richard classes him with the Aleatics. Others count him among the disciples of Pythagoras, while others again place him among the Ionians on account of the similarity of his doctrines to those of Heraclitus and the early physicists. The truth, as Ellar says, seems to be that there is in the philosophy of Empedocles an admixture of all these influences. Aleatic, denial of becoming, untrustworthiness of the senses, the Thagyrian, doctrine of transmigration, and Ioni, the four elements and love and hatred, these being an adaptation of Heraclitian ideas. It would be a mistake, however, to underestimate the originality of Empedocles as a philosopher. It was he who introduced the notion of element, fixed the number of elements, and prepared the way for the atomistic mechanism of Lysippus. The defects, however, of his metaphysical system are many. Chief among them being, as Aristotle remarked, the omission of the idea of an intelligent ruler under whose action natural processes would be regular instead of fortuitous. Anaxagoras. Life. Anaxagoras was born at Clasamine about 500 B.C. Aristotle says that he was prior to Empedocles in point of age, but subsequent to him in respect to doctrine. From his native city he went to Athens, where he was for many years the friend of Pericles, and where he counted among his disciples the dramatis Euripides. When shortly after the outbreak of the Polypenesian War, Pericles was attacked. Anaxagoras was tried on the charge of impiety, but escaped from prison and returning to his native Ionia, settled in Lamsacus, where he died about the year 430 B.C. Sources. Diogenes Leartius says that Anaxagoras wrote a work which, like most of the ancient philosophical treatises, was entitled Peretus Aeus. Of this work Plato speaks in the Apology. In the sixth century of our era Simplicius could still procure a copy, and it is to him that we owe such fragments as have come down to us. These fragments were edited by Shabak in 1827 and by Shorn in 1829. They are printed by Moulach. Doctrines. Starting point. Like Impedocles Anaxagoras starts with the denial of becoming, and like Impedocles also he is chiefly concerned to explain in accordance with this denial the plurality and change which exist. He differs however from Impedocles, both in his doctrine of primitive substances and in his doctrine of the cosmic force which formed the universe. Doctrine of Primitive Substances. Anaxagoras maintained that all things were formed out of an agglomerate of substances in which bodies of determinate quality, gold, flesh, bones, etc., were co-mingled in infinitely small particles to form the germs of all things. This agglomerate was called by Aristotle Ta Omoyomere. It was called by Anaxagoras seeds, Spermata, and things, Zremata. So complete was the mixture, and so small were the particles of individual substances composing it, that at the beginning no substance could be perceived in its individual nature and qualities, and accordingly the mixture as a whole might be said to be qualitatively indeterminate, though definite qualities were really present in it. Yet, minute as were the primitive particles, they were divisible. Thus the agglomerate, on the one hand, reminds us of the hape-ron of Anaxamander, and on the other hand bears a certain analogy to the atomistic concept of matter. Mind, nus, is the moving power which formed the world from the primitive mass of seeds. Anaxagoras is the first to introduce into philosophy the idea of the supersensible, for which reason Aristotle describes him as standing out, quote, like a sober man from the crowd of random talkers who preceded him, unquote. Mind is distinguished from other things because, one, it is simple. Everything else is mangled of all things. Mind alone is unmixed. It is, quote, the thinnest of all things and the purest, unquote. Two, it is self-rune, autocratis. Three, it has all knowledge about everything. Four, it has supreme power over all things. However, as Plato and Aristotle point out, Anaxagoras did not work out his theory of mind in the details of the cosmic processes. He did not formulate the idea of design, nor did he apply the principle of design to particular cases. Mind was for him merely a world-forming force. There is, moreover, a certain vagueness attaching to the idea of nus. Without entering into the details of the question of interpretation, we may conclude that although Anaxagoras certainly meant by the nus, something incorporeal, he could not avoid speaking of it in terms which taken literally imply corporeal nature, for it is the fate of new ideas to suffer from imperfect expression until philosophical terminology has adjusted itself to the new conditions which they create. Cosmology. Mind therefore first imparted to matter a circular motion separating air from which came water, earth, and stone, and whatever is cold, dark, and dense, and ether from which came whatever is warm, light, and rare. Throughout this account of the processes of things, Anaxagoras considers the material cause only, thereby deserving Aristotle's reproach that he used the nus merely as a deus echmachina. Psychology. Like is not known by like, but rather by unlike. And in this Anaxagoras is directly opposed to impetacles. The senses are weak, but not deceitful. The faculty of true knowledge is nus, the principle of understanding, which is also an intrinsic psychic principle, the soul. Plutarch's statement that Anaxagoras represented the soul as perishing after its separation from the body is, to say the least, unreliable. From the foregoing it is evident that Anaxagoras was not a skeptic. The reason which he alleges for the untrustworthiness of the senses is that they see only part of what is in the object. The intellect which is unmixed is capable of seeing the everything which is in everything. Historical position. The special importance of the philosophy of Anaxagoras is due to his doctrine of immaterial mind. This doctrine implies the most pronounced dualism. It contains in germ the telelogical concept which was evolved by Socrates and perfected by Plato and Aristotle. It was only natural that these philosophers, who approached metaphysical problems with minds already accustomed to the idea of the immaterial, should blame Anaxagoras for not having made better use of that idea. But we must not underrate the service which Anaxagoras rendered to Greek philosophy by his doctrine of immaterial intellect. Diogenes of Apollonia and Archelaus of Athens, who are sometimes included among the later Ionian philosophers, exhibit a tendency towards a return to the hyelozooism of the first philosophers. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of the History of Philosophy This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson. History of Philosophy by William Turner. Chapter 5 The Atomists The Atomists represent the last face of Ionian speculation concerning nature. They accept the dualistic ideas which characterize the later Ionian philosophy, but by their substitution of necessity for intelligent force, they abandon all that dualistic philosophy had to bequeath to them, and fall lower than the level which the early hyelozoas had reached. It was at Miletus that the Ionian philosophy first appeared, and it was Miletus that produced Lusippus, the founder of Atomism, who virtually brings the first period of Greek philosophy to a close. So little is known of Lusippus that his very existence has been questioned. His opinions, too, have been so imperfectly transmitted to us that it is usual to speak of the tenets of the Atomists without distinguishing how much we owe to Lusippus, who by Aristotle and Theophrastus is regarded as the founder of the system, and how much we owe to Democritus, who was the ablest and best known expounder of Atomistic philosophy. DEMOCRITUS LIFE DEMOCRITUS of Abder was born about the year 460 BC. It was said, though it is by no means certain, that he received instruction from the Magi and other Oriental teachers. It is undoubtedly true that at a later time he was regarded as a sorcerer and magician, a fact which may account for the legend of his early training. He was probably a disciple of Lusippus. There is no historical foundation for the widespread belief that he laughed at everything. SOURCES If, as is probable, Lusippus committed his doctrines to writing, no trustworthy fragment of his works has reached us. From the titles and fragments of the works of Democritus, it is evident that the latter covered in his written treatises a large variety of subjects. The most celebrated of these treatises was entitled MAGISDAI COSMOS. MULAC, Fragmenta I, 340, following. Publishes fragments of this and other Democritian writings. Aristotle in the Metaphysics and elsewhere gives an adequate account of the doctrines of Lusippus and Democritus. DOCTRINES GENERAL STANDPOINT One of the reasons which led to iliatics to deny plurality in becoming was that these are now inconceivable without void, and void is unthinkable. Now the atomists concede that without void there is no motion, but they maintain that void exists and that in it exists an infinite number of indivisible bodies, atomoi, which constitute the plenum. Aristotle is therefore justified in saying that according to Lusippus and Democritus the elements are foal, playrace, and the void canon. The foal corresponds to iliatic being and the void to not being, but the latter is as real as the former. On the combination and separation of atoms depend becoming and decay. THE ATOMS The atoms infinite in number and indivisible differ in shape, order, and position. They differ moreover in quantity or magnitude, for they are not mere mathematical points, their indivisibility being due to the fact that they contain no void. They have, as we would say, the same specific gravity, but because of their different sizes they differ in weight. The motion by which the atoms are brought together is not caused by a vital principle inherent in them, hylozoism, nor by love and hatred, nor by any incorporeal agency, but by natural necessity, by virtue of which atoms of equal weight come together. It is therefore incorrect to say that the atomists explain the motion of the atoms by attributing it to chance. Aristotle gave occasion to this misunderstanding by identifying automaton and touquet, though it is Cicero who is accountable for giving the misapprehension the wide circulation which it obtained. The atomistic explanation was therefore that atoms of different weights fell with unequal velocities in the primitive void, the heavier atoms consequently impinged on the lighter ones, imparting to them a whirling motion, divay. The atomists, as Aristotle remarks, did not advert to the fact that in vacuo all bodies fall with equal velocity. Nowhere in the cosmological scheme of the atomists is there place for mind or design. It is utter materialism and causalism, if by causalism is meant the exclusion of intelligent purpose. Anthropology Plants and animals sprang from the moist earth. Nimmocritus, according to our authorities, devoted special attention to the study of man, who he believes is even on account of his bodily structure alone deserving of admiration. He not only describes as minutely as he can the bodily organization of man, but departing from his mechanical concept of nature takes pains to throw the utility and adaptation of every part of the human body. But overall, and permeating all, is the soul. Now the soul for the atomists could be nothing but corporeal. It is composed of the finest atoms perfectly smooth and round, like the atoms of fire. Dimmocritus, accordingly, does not deny a distinction between soul and body. He teaches that the soul is the noblest part of man. Man's crowning glory is moral excellence. He is said to have reckoned the human soul among the divinities. And yet for Dimmocritus, as for every materialist, the soul is but a finer kind of matter. Indeed, according to Aristotle, the atomists identified soul atoms with the atoms of fire which are floating in the air. The atomist's theory of cognition was, of course, determined by their view of the nature of the soul. They were obliged to start out with the postulate that all cognitive processes are corporeal processes. And since the action of body upon body is conditioned by contact, they were obliged to conclude that all senses are mere modifications of the sense of touch. The contact, which is a necessary condition of all sense knowledge, is affected by means of emanations. Aporoi, the term is Aristotle's, or Images, idola decela. These are material casts or shells given off from the surface of the object. They produce in the medium the impressions which enter the pores of the senses. They are practically the same as the Epicurean effluxes, which Lucretia describes. Que quasi membrane sumo decopore terrum, the repte volitant ultra se troque per oras. Thought cannot differ essentially from sense knowledge. They are both changes at a raw assace of the soul's substance occasioned by material impressions. Logically, therefore, democratists should have attached the same value to thought as to sense knowledge. And since sense knowledge is obscure, scotan, he should have concluded that no knowledge is satisfactory. He saves himself, however, from absolute scepticism, although at the expense of logical consistency. For he maintains that thought, by revealing the existence of invisible atoms, shows us the true nature of things. The doctrine which Aristotle attributes to democratists is his opinion as to what democratists should have taught, rather than an account of what he actually did teach. Ethics Although most of the extant fragments, which contain democratist ethical teachings, are merely isolated axioms without any scientific connection, yet our secondary authorities attribute to him a theory of happiness which is really the beginning of the science of ethics among the Greeks. From what democratists says of the superior ority of the soul over the body, of thought over sense, it is natural to expect that he should place man's supreme happiness in a right disposition of mind and not in the goods of the external world. Happiness, he says, and unhappiness do not dwell in herds nor in gold. The soul is the abode of the divinity. Happiness is no external thing, but in cheerfulness and well-being, in right disposition an unalterable peace of mind. The word which is here rendered cheerful, euthymia, is interpreted by Seneca and other Stoics as tranquility. Democratist, however, was more akin to the Epicurians than to the Stoics, and it is probable that by euthymia he meant delight or good cheer. There is in the moral maxims of Democratist a note of pessimism. Happiness, he believes, is difficult of attainment, while misery seeks man unsought. Historical Position The atomistic movement is recognized as an attempt to reconcile the conclusions of the Aliadics with the facts of experience. It is not easy, however, to determine with accuracy how far the atomists were influenced by their predecessors and contemporaries. Even if the dates of Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Impedocles, and Eusepus were known more definitely than they are, it would still be a matter of no small difficulty to show in what degree each philosopher depended on and in turn influenced the thought and writings of the others. One thing is certain. It was atomism which more than any of the other pre-Socratic systems prepared the way for Sophism and the consequent contempt of all knowledge. In the first place, atomistic philosophy was materialistic, and materialism ends where the highest problems of philosophy began. Moreover, the armor of the atomist offered several vulnerable points to the shafts of Sophism. He fallaciously concluded that atoms are uncaused because they are eternal, and what is worse, he inconsistently maintained the difference in value between sense, knowledge, and thought. The Sophists might well argue, as indeed some of them did argue, that if the senses are not to be trusted, reason also is untrustworthy, for the soul according to the atomists is like the senses corporeal. Thus did atomistic philosophy prepare the way for Sophism. Sophistic philosophy, which constituted so important a crisis in the history of Greek thought and civilization, was germinally contained in the preceding systems. Atomistic materialism culminated in the Sophism of Protagoras. The doctrines of Heraclitus paved the way to skepticism, as was demonstrated by Cretolus, the teacher of Plato, and Gorgias the Sophist merely carried to excess the dialectic method introduced by Zeno the Aliatic. All these schools, atomistic, Heraclitian, Aliatic, had, as has been said, attacked by the aid of specious fallacies the trustworthiness of common consciousness, so that until Socrates appeared on the scene to determine the conditions of scientific knowledge no positive development of philosophy was possible. Meantime there was nothing left but to deny the possibility of attaining knowledge, and that is what the Sophists did. They are the first skeptics of Greece. There was then an inevitable tendency on the part of the prevalent philosophy to culminate in skepticism. Besides, the social and political conditions of the time contributed to the same result by unsettling the moral and religious ideals which the Athenian had hitherto held as matters of tradition. The Persian wars and the military achievements of subsequent years brought about an upheaval in the social and political conditions of Athens. Old ideas were being adjusted to new circumstances. The scope of education was being widened. In a word, the whole epoch was penetrated with a spirit of revolution and progress, and none of the existing forces could hold that spirit in checks. We must take into account also the development of poetry and especially of the drama. The whole action of the drama says Zeller, comic as well as tragic, is based, at this time, on the collision of duties and rights, on a dialectic of moral relations and duties. The period was one of revolution and readjustment. History of the Sophists The word Sophists, it emologically considered, denotes a wise man. In the earlier pre-Socratic period it meant one who made wisdom or the teaching of wisdom his profession. Later on, the abuse of dialectic disputation, of which the Sophists were guilty, caused the name Sophism to become synonymous with fallacy. The Sophists flourished from about 450 BC to 400 BC. Not that Sophism as a profession disappeared altogether at the latter date, but after the appearance of Socrates as a teacher, the importance of the Sophists dwindled into insignificance. The first Sophists are represented as going about from city to city, gathering around them the young men, and are partying to them, in consideration of certain fees, the instruction requisite for the conduct of public affairs. In the instruction which they gave, they set no value upon objective truth. Indeed, the ideal at which they aimed was the art of making the worst seem the better cause, and vice versa. Readiness of exposition and presentation of arguments in a specious manner were all that they pretended to teach. Such is the history of the school in general. The chief Sophists are protagonists of Abdera, the individualist, Gorgias of Lientini, the nihilist, Hippias of Elis, the polymathist, and Prodicus of Seos, the moralist. Sources It is difficult, as Plato points out, to define accurately the nature of the Sophists. The Sophists left no fixed theorems equally acknowledged by all the school. They were characterized more by their mode of thought than by any fixed content of thought. Besides, Plato, Aristotle, and all our other authorities are so avowedly hostile to the Sophists, and raise so unreasonable objections to Sophism, as when they accuse the Sophists of bartering the mere semblance of knowledge for gold, that we must weigh and examine their every statement before we can admit it as evidence. Doctrines Protagoras of Abdera, born about 480 BC, composed many works of which, however, only a few fragments have survived. Plato traces the opinions of Protagoras to the influence of Heraclitus. Nothing is, all is, becoming. But even this becoming is relative, as the eye does not see, except while it is being acted upon, so the object is not colored, except while it acts upon the eye. The theme, therefore, becomes in and for itself, but only for the Percipient Subject. Hence, as the object presents itself differently to different subjects, there is no objective truth. Man is the measure of all things. Plato apparently reports these as the very words of Protagoras. Phezigarpu Pantan, Krematan Metron, Anthropan Ainay Tanmen, Antan Hasesti, Tandeme Antan Hasuk Estan. Goat and others doubt whether the above is really the line of thought followed out by Protagoras himself. In both Plato and Aristotle we find illusions to the employment by Protagoras of the dialectic introduced by Zeno. Moreover, if we are to make the argument valid, we must, before we conclude that all knowledge is relative, introduce the atomistic principle that all knowledge is conditioned by physical alterations. The relativity of knowledge, as it was professed by Protagoras, is a denial of all objective truth and a reduction of knowledge to individual opinion. It follows from this that a proposition and its opposite are equally true if they appear to different persons to be true. In this way did Protagoras lay the foundation of the heuristic method, the method of dispute, which is associated with the name Sophist, and which was carried to such extremes by the Sophists of later times. Of the gods, said Protagoras, I can know nothing, neither that they are nor that they are not. There is much to prevent our attaining this knowledge, the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of human life. These are the famous words with which, according to Diogenes, Protagoras began the treatise that was made the basis of a charge of impiety, and led ultimately to his expulsion from Athens. They contain a profession of agnosticism. Perhaps the context, if we possessed it, would show whether Protagoras went further and really professed atheism, the crime of which he was accused. Gorgis of Leontini, a contemporary Protagoras, composed a treatise on nature or the non-existing, which is preserved by Sextus Empiricus. We possess, as secondary authority, a portion of the pseudo-irrist etelian treatise, concernines and offices, etc. As it was the aim of Protagoras to show that everything is equally true, it may be said that Gorgias drove to show that everything is equally false. The latter proves by the use of dialectical reasoning that one, nothing exists. Two, even if it existed, it could not be known. And three, even if knowledge were possible, it could not be communicated. Hippias of Ellis, a younger contemporary of Protagoras, was preeminent even among the Sophists for the vanity with which he paraded his proficiency in rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, and archaeology. He boasted that he could say something new on any topic, however often it might have been discussed. Plato attributes to him the saying that law is a tyrant of men, since it prescribes many things contrary to nature. This was probably met as a bold paradox, one of the many devices by which the Sophists attracted the admiration of the Athenians. Podicus of Seos was also a contemporary of Protagoras. Such was the esteem in which he was held by Socrates that the latter often called himself his pupil, and did not hesitate to direct young men to him for instruction. Prodacus is best known by his moral discourses in which he shows the excellence of virtue and the misery of a life given over to pleasure. The most celebrated of these discourses is entitled Hercules at the Crossroads. The choice of a career, the employment of wealth, the unreasonableness of the fear of death, are some of the subjects on which he delivered exhortations. In spite of all this, Prodacus as a Sophist could not consistently avoid moral skepticism. If there is no truth, there is no law. If that is true, which seems to be true, then that is good, which seems to be good. He did not accordingly attempt to define virtue or moral good. He merely drew pictures of the ethical ideals exhorting rather than teaching. The first to attempt a systematic treatment of ethical problems was he who first strove to fix the conditions of scientific knowledge through concepts, Socrates with whom the circuit period of Greek philosophy begins. Historical position Sophistic philosophy was the outcome of the complex influences which shaped the social, political, philosophical, and religious conditions of Athens during the latter half of the fifth century before Christ. It was the philosophy which suited that age. Pericles found pleasure in the society of Sophists. Euripides esteemed them. Thucydides sought instruction from them and Socrates sent them pupils. Yet Sophism did not constitute an advance in philosophical thought. It is true that it directed attention to the subjective element in human knowledge. In fact it made the subjective element everything in knowledge. It reduced truth to the level of opinion and made man the major of all things. And herein laid the essential error of Sophism, initiating the whole system. Sophism was not the beginning of an error in philosophy. It was more properly the ending of the era which preceded Socrates. The onward movement of thought was not resumed until Socrates showed that knowledge is as far from being wholly subjective as it is from being wholly objective. It is Socrates therefore who inaugurates the new era. Retrospect Greek philosophy exhibits in its historical development a rhythm of movement which is perfect in the simplicity of the formula by which it is expressed. Objective subjective Objective subjective Presocratic philosophy was objective. The philosophy of Socrates and the Socratic schools was partly objective. Partly subjective while the philosophy of later times was almost entirely subjective. By the objectivity of presocratic philosophy is meant that, one, it concerned itself almost exclusively with the problems of the physical world, paying little attention to the study of man, his origin, dignity, and destiny. Two, it did not busy itself with the problems of epistemology. At first all sense presentations were taken without question or criticism as true presentations of reality and even when the leatics distinguished between reason and sense, they did not go any farther towards determining the conditions of rational knowledge. Three, ethics was not studied scientifically. Compared with cosmogony, cosmology, and metaphysics, it did not receive proportionate attention. Briefly the philosophy agreed before the time of Socrates, possessed all the naivete that was to be expected in the first speculative attempts of a people who never tired of nature and never looked beyond nature for their ideals. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of History of Philosophy This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Larry Wilson History of Philosophy by William Turner Second Period Socrates and the Socratic Schools In this second period of its history, Greek philosophy reaches its highest development. It is a comparatively short period, being comprised within the lifespans of those three men who so dominated the philosophic thought with their age, that their names, rather than the names of the schools or cities, are used to mark off the three subdivisions into which the study of the period naturally falls. We shall therefore consider one, Socrates and the imperfectly Socratic Schools. Two, Plato and the Academics. Three, Aristotle and the Peripatetics. The problem with which this period had to deal had already been formulated by the Sophists, how to save the intellectual and moral life of the nation, which was threatened by materialism and skepticism. Socrates answered by determining the conditions of intellectual knowledge and by laying deep in scientific foundation of ethics. Plato, with keener insight and more comprehensive understanding, developed the Socratic doctrine of concepts into a system of metaphysics gigantic in his proportions, but lacking in that solidity of foundation which characterized the Aristotelian structure. Aristotle carried the Socratic idea to its highest perfection and by prosecuting a vigorous and systematic study of nature, supplied what was defective in Plato's metaphysical scheme. The central problem was always the same. The answer was also the same, though in different degrees of organic development. Concept, idea, essence. The view adopted was neither entirely subjective nor entirely objective. The concept doctrine, which was the first and simplest answer, being the typical formula for the union of subject and object, of self and not self. Socrates. Life. The story of Socrates' life, as far as it is known, is soon told. He was born at Athens in the year 469 B.C. He was the son of Sofraniscus, a sculptor, and Athenarete, a midwife. Of his early years little is recorded. We are told that he was trained in the profession of his father. For education we must suppose that he received merely the usual course of instruction in music, geometry, and gymnastics. So that when he calls himself a pupil of Rhodaikus and Espacia, he is to be understood as speaking of friends from whom he learned by personal intercourse, rather than of teachers in the stricter sense of the word. Indeed, in Xenophon's symposium, he styles himself a self-taught philosopher. Artugas states Philosophias. It is therefore impossible to say from what source he derived his knowledge of the doctrines of Parmenides, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists. The gods had revealed to Socrates that Athens was to be the scene of his labours, and that his special mission in life was the moral and intellectual improvement of himself and others. Accordingly, after some years spent in his father's workshop, he devoted himself to this mission with all the enthusiasm of an unusually ardent nature. From a sculptor of the statues he became a teacher who strove to shape the souls of men. So devoted was he to the task of teaching the Athenians that he never became a candidate for public office, and with the exception of the military campaigns, which led him as far as Potodaea and Delium, and a public festival which required his presence outside the city, nothing could induce him to go beyond the walls of Athens. In fulfilling his task as teacher, he did not imitate the Sophists who were at that time the recognized public teachers in Greece. He would neither accept remuneration for his lessons nor would he give a systematic course of instruction, preferring to hold familiar converse with his pupils and professing a willingness to learn as well as to teach. He taught in the marketplace, in the gymnasium, in the workshop, wherever he found men willing to listen. And once he had secured in Athens, he held it with that extraordinary eloquence which is so graphically described in the symposium of Plato. He discarded all the arts and heirs of the Sophists. In appearance, manners and dress, as well as in the studied plainness of his language, he stood in sharp contrast to the elegance and foppishness of his rivals. Yet by what seems to us a singular instance of vindictive misrepresentation, he was held up to scorn by Aristophanes in the clouds as a Sophist, a teacher of what was merely a semblance of wisdom, and as a vain pompous and overbearing man. Socrates' private means must have been scanty, and the mere mention of his wife, Zanathippe, recalls the misery and degradation which must have been his lot in domestic life. The narrative of his trial, condemnation and death, is one of the most dramatic in all literature. The closing scene, as described in the Phaedo, is unequal for pathos and sublimity by any other page that even Plato wrote. His death occurred in the year 399 B.C. Character The personality of Socrates has impressed itself more deeply on the history of philosophy than has that of any other philosopher. The picture which Xenophon draws of him is almost ideally perfect. Quote, No one ever heard or saw anything wrong in Socrates, so pious was he that he never did anything without first consulting the gods, so just that he never injured any one in the least. So master of himself that he never preferred pleasure to goodness, so sensible that he never erred in his choice between what was better and what was worse. In a word he was of all men the best and happiest. Unquote Plato's account agrees with this. Socrates, however, Saint Socrates as he is sometimes called, was not without his traducers. There was in his character a certain incongruity an atomia, his admirers called it, an inconsistency between the external and the internal man, together with a certain uncouthness of speech and manner which was entirely ungreek. These peculiarities while they endeared him to his friends made him many enemies and established a tradition that in later times developed into a tissue of accusations of which coarseness, arrogance, profligacy and impiety are but a few. Although it is true that these charges are devoid of even the slightest foundation we must remember that in the age of Pericles the Athenians were by no means a race of superior beings and even Socrates despite his higher moral ideals did not rise far above his contemporaries in point of moral conduct. The Socratic Divinity Socrates, as is well known often spoke of a divine sign or a heavenly voice which in the great crises of his life communicated to him advice and guidance from above. Many are the suggestions as to what he meant by such illusions. Luz reminds us that while Socrates, Plato and Xenophon never speak of genius or a demon they frequently make mention of a demonic something, Damion T. But Cicero translates divine him quantum. Socrates was a profoundly religious man and it is quite natural that he should designate as divine the voice of conscience or as Hermann suggests the inner voice of individual tact which restrained him not merely from what was morally wrong but also as in the case of his refusal to defend himself from whatever was unwise or impudent. This voice was probably nothing more than a vague feeling for which he himself could not account. A warning coming from unexplored depths of his own inner consciousness. Sources Socrates so far as we know never wrote anything. It is certain that he committed none of his doctrines to writing. We are obliged therefore to rely for our knowledge of his teaching on the accounts given by Plato and Xenophon. Aristotle also speaks of the doctrines of Socrates but he tells us nothing which may not be found in the writings of the two disciples who stood in so close personal relation with their master. It has been said that Plato and Xenophon present different views of Socrates and to a certain extent the statement is correct. But the views which they present are pictures which supplement rather than contradict each other. Xenophon wrote his memorabilia as a defense of Socrates. Being of a practical turn of mind and wholly unable to appreciate the speculative side of Socrates' teaching, he attached undue importance to the ethical doctrines of his master. Plato with deeper insight into the philosophical phase of Socrates' mind draws a picture of the sage which fills in and perfects the sketch left us by Xenophon. It is well to remember, moreover, that the doctrines of Socrates were of necessity difficult to describe. The teaching of one who never wrote even an essay on philosophy must necessarily be lacking in the compactness and conciseness which are possible only in the written word. Socrates' Philosophy General Character of Socrates' Teaching The Ionians and Iliadics had shown by their failure to account for things as they are that no value is to be attached either to sense perception or to metaphysical knowledge arising from the notions of being, becoming, the one, the many, etc. This was as clear to Socrates as it had been to the Sophists. But whereas the Sophists had forthwith giving up the search after truth, Socrates insisted that by reflecting on our own mental constitution we may learn to determine the conditions of knowledge to form concepts as they ought to be formed and by this means place the principles of conduct as well as the principles of knowledge on a solid scientific foundation. Know thyself, nothi seitan. This is the sum of all philosophy from the consideration of the objective world, nature, we must turn to the study of the subjective, self. Thus philosophy from heaven descended to the low-roofed house of man. Socratic Method The first lesson which self-knowledge teaches is our own ignorance. If therefore we are to arrive at a knowledge through concepts that is at a knowledge of things not in their surface qualities but in their unalterable natures we must have recourse to the dialogue. In other words we must converse in order to learn. Thus love of knowledge and the impulse to friendship are the same and the blending of these two is what constitutes the peculiarity of the Socratic eras. The Socratic Dialogue involves two processes the one negative and the other positive. One, the negative stage. Socrates approached this interlocutor as if seeking for knowledge. Assuming a humble attitude he asked a question about some commonplace thing. From the answer he drew material for another question. Until at last by dint of questioning he extorted from his victim a confession of ignorance. By reason of the pretend deference which during the process of interrogation Socrates paid to the superior intelligence of his pupil the process came to be known as Socratic irony. Two, the positive stage. Socrates now proceeded by another series of questions to add together as we say particular instances until finally the pupil was made to arrive inductively at a concept that is at an idea of the unalterable nature of the subject discussed. In the memorabilia we find examples of the use of this inductive process which Socrates himself named Mayutic in reference to the profession of his mother because its object was to bring into life the truth already existing in the mind of the pupil. The whole method is heuristic or a method of finding. It is an inductive process resulting in a definition. Two things says Aristotle are justly ascribed to Socrates induction and definition and the importance of the introduction of these processes cannot be overestimated. For the knowledge of things in their changeable qualities Socrates would have a substitute the knowledge of things in their unalterable natures or essences. Presocratic philosophers had indeed hinted at a distinction between sense knowledge and rational knowledge or had even gone so far as to insist that such a distinction must be recognized as the beginning of philosophy. Nevertheless men continued to appeal to the senses to rely on sense impressions or at most to group sense impressions in composite images. Such as the poet and rhetorician employ. It was Socrates who by his heuristic method first showed that sense impressions and all and critical generalizations need to be tested and controlled by criticism because they are incomplete and exhibit merely what is accidental in the object. It was he too who by the same method first showed that if our sense impressions are grouped not according to the exigencies of poetry and rhetoric but according to the requirements of logic if they are articulated into a concept representing the unalterable nature of the object human knowledge will be built on a lasting foundation. Contents of Socratic teaching Socrates applied his heuristic method to the questions of man's dignity and destiny. One physical questions were not discussed by Socrates for this statement we have the ex-testimony Xenophon and Aristotle and yet as we shall see Socrates studied adaptation and nature. The truth seems to be that he was opposed not so much to physical studies as to the way in which physical questions were being and had been discussed. It must however be added that whatever interest Socrates took in such matters was always subservient to his interest in man. 2. Theology As far as we can gather from our authorities Socrates seemed to have adopted from Anaxagoras the notion of an intelligent cause, noose, but going farther than Anaxagoras had gone he proved the existence of God from the fact that there is adaptation in living organisms. In the course of his argument he formulated a principle which has served as major premise in every teleological argument since his time. Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence. We find moreover traces of the argument from efficient cause. If man possesses intelligence he from whom the universe proceeds must also possess intelligence. Nevertheless Socrates accepted the current mythology at least so far as external worship is concerned advising in a well-known passage that in this matter each one should conform to the custom of his own city. 3. Immortality Although Plato represents Socrates as considering dilemmatically either death ends all things or it does not there can be no doubt as to Socrates' belief in the immortality of the human soul. It may be that he thought the dialectical proof of the doctrine to be beyond the power of the human mind but the depth of his personal conviction cannot for a moment be questioned. 4. Ethics If Socrates taught men how to think it was with the ultimate intention of teaching him how to live. All his philosophy culminates in his ethical doctrine. In fact he was the first not only to establish a scientific connection between speculation and ethical philosophy but also to give an analysis of happiness and virtue which was capable of further systematic development. The supreme good of man is happiness and by happiness Socrates met not a mere euduchsia which depends on external conditions and accidents of fortune but an eupaxia a well-being which is conditioned by good action. To attain this man must become godlike in his independence of all external needs. He must become abstentious for moderation is the cornerstone of all virtue. Yet Socrates as is evident from the dialogues of Plato did not carry this doctrine of moderation to the degree of asceticism. More important even the moderation is the cultivation of the mind. To be happy one must build his happiness not on his perishable things of the external world but on the enduring goods which are within us on a mind free from care and devoted to the acquisition of knowledge. For knowledge is virtue. This is perhaps the most characteristic of all Socrates' ethical doctrines the identification of speculative insight with moral excellence. No man intentionally does wrong he says for that would be intentionally to make himself unhappy. Knowledge is therefore the only virtue and ignorance is the only vice. Yet when Socrates comes to speak of particular instances of virtue he leaves the high level of virtue knowledge and his sins to commonplace utilitarianism or customary morality. In the dialogues of Xenophon he almost always bases his moral precepts on the motive of utility. We should endure privations because the hearty man is more healthy. We should be modest because the punishment of the boastful is swift insurer and so with the other virtues. This inconsistency is a defect which marries all the beauty of the Socratic system of ethics. Historical position The philosophy of Socrates is best judged in the light of the influence which it exercised upon the Platonic and Aristotelian systems of thought. His pupils Plato and Aristotle are the best proofs of Socrates titled to a place among the world's greatest teachers. Looking at his philosophy as a body of doctrine we find that it contains one a reform in philosophic method the foundation of induction to the first systematic inquiry into the conditions of knowledge the foundation of epistemology three the first system of ethics the foundation of moral science Important as were these contributions to philosophy more important was the influence which Socrates exerted by his life and character he appeared in an age that was tired of vain speculation and pretended wisdom among a people then as always more apt to be impressed with concrete presentation than with abstract reasoning and by his many virtues as well as by his whole sold devotion to truth he convinced his contemporaries that knowledge is attainable and that a higher and nobler life may be reached through a systematic study of the human mind by living the life of an ideal philosopher he taught his countrymen to respect philosophy and to devote themselves to the pursuit of wisdom End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of the history of philosophy This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Larry Wilson History of Philosophy by William Turner Greek Philosophy Chapter 8 The Imperfectly Socratic Schools Among those who felt the influence of the Socratic teaching there were some who failed to appreciate the full meaning of the doctrine of the master and merely applied his moral precepts to practical questions of these the best known is Xenophon There were two Plato and Aristotle who penetrated the speculative depths the Socrates thought and developed his teaching into a broader and more comprehensive Socratic philosophy There were still others who addressing themselves to one or the other point of the teaching of Socrates developed that point in conjunction with some elements borrowed from the pre-socratic schools These latter are known as the Imperfectly Socratic Philosophers The following is the conspectus of the Imperfectly Socratic Schools showing their derivation Socratic dialectics Megering or Aristic Schools Euclid Electric Elements Elian School Phaedo Eliotic Element Socratic Ethics Cynics and Tisthenes Borrowed from Gorgias Hedinus Aristipus Borrowed from Protagoras Megering School The Megering School to which Euclid and Stilpole belonged made Eliotic Metaphysics the basis of a development of Socratic Ethics Euclid Life Euclid of Megara, the founder of this school was a disciple of Socrates and if the story told by Galeus be true, was so devoted to his teacher that at a time when all Megarians were forbidden under pain of death to enter Athens he would often steal into the city in the obscurity of evening in order to sit for an hour and listen to the old man eloquent Sources We have no primary sources of information concerning the Megering School and our secondary sources are few and unsatisfactory Schleyer Marker, however, has shown that the philosophers alluded to in Plato's Sophisties are the Megarians If we make use of this passage of Plato we have the following points of Doctrine Doctrines The starting point The Megarians started with a Socratic doctrine of concepts If intellectual knowledge is knowledge through concepts then the concept represents that part of a thing which never changes The Development Granted now that as Parmenides taught change and becoming are inconceivable it follows that the unchangeable essences which concepts represent the bodiless forms Asomatha Aidae are the only reality and that the world of sense forms is an illusion Connected with this denial of becoming is the assertion that the actual alone is possible For this we have the expressed testimony of Aristotle The Doctrine of God The union of Socratic and Eliotic elements is further apparent in the Megheric doctrine of the Good The Good according to Socrates is the highest object of knowledge Being too as the Eliotics taught is the highest object of knowledge Euclid therefore considered himself justified in transferring to the Good all that Parmenides had said about being The Good is One Knowledge of the Good is the only virtue though called by various names Prudence, Justice, etc. The Good is Immutable It is Insight, Reason, God It alone exists Eristic Method In order to defend their views the Megarians availed themselves of the indirect method of proof following in this the example of Zeno This method consists in refuting the arguments of hypotheses of one's opponent and thus indirectly establishing one's own thesis Later, however, the followers of Euclid exceeded all precedent in their use of this method of strife and vied with the worst of the Sophists in capture's quibbling Historical Position This one-sided Socraticism takes for its starting point the Socratic dialectic of concepts which it develops in union with Eliotic doctrines by means of the method introduced by Zeno and Elia The Elian School This school founded by Phaedo the disciple of Socrates so often mentioned in the Platonic Dialogues is virtually a branch of the Megarian School It was removed from Elis to Eritrea by Menendimas died about 270 BC and was henceforth known as the Eritrean School Its doctrines are practically identical with those of Euclid The Cynics The doctrines of the Cynics were developed from Socratic Ethics which were combined with certain dialectical and rhetorical elements derived from the Eliatics and from Gorgias the Sophist Antisthenes Life Antisthenes, the first of the Cynics, was born at Athens about the year 436 BC Early in life he associated himself with the Sophists becoming according to Diogenes, laterius a disciple of Gorgias When, therefore, after the death of Socrates for whose teaching he had abandoned the company of the Sophists Antisthenes set up a school of his own He was merely returning to his old profession The school which he established met in the gymnasium of Sinosarges when, according to some writers, comes the name of the school although it is not less probable that the name was originally a nickname Cunes, given to the Cynics because of their well-known disregard for social conventionalities Indeed, it is said that Antisthenes, who happened to resemble Socrates in personal appearance, imagined that he heightened the resemblance by perverting the Socratic doctrine of moderation and abstentiousness into something bordering on a savage indifference to everything decent He must not, however, be held accountable for the extravagances of the latter Cynics Of these the best known are Diogenes of Sinope, Cretes, Mendemus, and Manipus Sources Our knowledge of the doctrines of the Cynics is derived entirely from secondary sources Chief among these are Diogenes, Lertius, Stobius, Sectus, and Pericus and some of the Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria Doctrines The Cynics were opposed to all culture except insofar as culture may be made to foster virtue They were likewise opposed to logical and physical inquiries though they themselves could not wholly avoid such questions They strove, however, to make their logic and physics subservient to the investigation concerning virtue which they consider to be the paramount problem of philosophy Logic According to Antithenes definition is the expression of the essence of a thing The only definition, however, which Antithenes admits is the setting fourth of the component parts of a thing The simple cannot be defined He opposed the Platonic theory of ideas using, it is said, the following argument O Plotone, ipon men oro ipoteta de ox oro Do which Plato is said to have answered What you say is true for you possess the eye of the body with which you see the horse but you lack the mental eye by which the concept of horse is perceived Antithenes then believed that the individual alone is real from which it follows that identical judgments alone are valid Everything should receive its own name and no other We may say man is human or the good is good but we may not say that man is good whence as Aristotle and Plato expressly tell us the cynics concluded that contradiction is impossible and that all propositions are equally true The practical import of this nominalism is seen in the use which the cynics made the dialectical method of the Sophists Ethics According to Socrates virtue is the highest good According to Antithenes virtue is the only good and vice the only evil Everything else riches honors freedom health life poverty shame slavery sickness and death is indifferent The greatest of all errors is to suppose that pleasure is good I had rather be mad and this than he said than to be glad Now the essence of virtue is self-control that is independence of all material and accidental needs Against all the needs of body and mind the cynics strove to harden themselves by renouncing not only pleasure and comfort but also family society and religion The virtuous man is truly wise He alone is godlike Wisdom is an armor which no temptation can pierce a fortress that cannot be assailed Consequently he who has once attained wisdom can never cease to be virtuous Historical position The philosophy of the cynics is a one-sided development of Socratic teaching The direction which this development took was due less to the logical exigencies of the Socratic premises from which it was deduced than to the peculiar character of the founder of the school Antisthenes was by temperament narrow-minded and obstinate impervious to culture a man of strong will but of mediocre intellectual ability He was, we are told, rebuked by Plato for his lack of polish The ostentatious asceticism which he introduced degenerated as time went on into positive indecency and it was not until stoicism appeared and absorbed what was left of the cynic school that mental culture was restored to its place in practical philosophy Sirenaic school This school is called hedonistic from the prominence which it gave to the doctrine that pleasure is the only good It is also called Sirenaic from the city of Cyrene where it first appeared Aristipus Life Aristipus to whom the fundamental doctrines of the school are traced was born at Cyrene about the year 435 BC This date, however, is by no means certain Attracted by the personal character of Socrates he went to Athens in order to become a member of the Socratic school He had previously made acquaintance with the doctrines of the Sophists through the writings of Protagoras After the death of Socrates he taught in several cities Indeed, he seems to have spent a great part of his life wandering about without any fix to bode Although it is probable that in his old age he returned to his native city and there established his school Among the disciples of Aristipus the best known are his daughter Arete and his grandson Aristipus the younger or the mother taught Sources The history of the Sirenaic philosophy like that of the teaching of the cynics is based on secondary authorities chiefly on the works of Diogenes Cicero Sextus Empiricus and Clement of Alexandria We possess none of the writings of the early Sireniacs Indeed, it is sometimes even questioned whether it was Aristipus the founder of the school or his grandson the mother taught who first reduced Sireniac doctrines to a system Doctrines The attitude of the Sireniacs towards the study of logic and physics was one of hostility They agreed with the cynics in regarding all speculation as idle unless it had reference to the study of ethics by which the happiness of man is secured But they differed from them in their attempt to define the nature of happiness For the cynic virtue is the only happiness For the Sireniac pleasure is a good in itself and virtue is good only as a means to enjoyment The central doctrine of hedonism is therefore that pleasure and pleasure alone constitutes the happiness of man For the Sireniac argued after the manner of Protagoras that is true which seems to be true We can know only the feelings or impressions which things produce upon us Of things in themselves we can know nothing The production therefore of certain feelings is all that we can accomplish by action Consequently, that is good which can produce in us the most pleasant feelings Pleasure was defined by the Sireniacs as gentle motion It is, however, at least an inaccuracy on Cicero's part when he says that by pleasure the Sireniacs understood mere bodily pleasure Aristipus explained his pleasure doctrine in terms which are descriptive of mental emotion as well as of bodily enjoyment It is true that the Sireniac spoke of pleasure as consisting in gentle motion The word emotion would perhaps convey their meaning much better than the word commonly employed On the other hand it must be admitted that according to Sireniac principles all pleasure is conditioned by bodily pleasure or at least by organic states This is implied in the theory of knowledge which the Sireniacs derived from the teaching of Protagoras We must be careful moreover to distinguish between the hedonism of Aristipus who by pleasure denoted a passing emotion and the hedonism of his later followers who understood by pleasure something akin to the Epicurean notion of a state or permanent condition of painlessness Pleasure then is the only good Knowledge, culture, and even virtue are desirable only as means by which pleasure is attained Virtue restrains us from that excess of emotion which is passion Passion being violent is painful and on that account to be avoided We should possess our pleasures without being possessed by them Exo, whose ex-Ami, as Aristipus said So too a man of sense will obey the laws of the country and conform to the usages of society because he judges that his failure to do so would result in a preponderance of pain over pleasure Diogenes Lertius gives an account of the later Sireniacs who like Theodorus and Hegesius deemed it necessary to tone down the crudities of hedonism as taught by Aristipus Theodorus maintained that man's highest happiness is a state of cheerfulness Xyra while Hegesius called the death persuader taught that the aim of man's actions should be to attain a state of indifference to all external things In this final form it was easy for hedonism to pass over into the Stoic school Historical position The development of the Sireniac philosophy like that of the cynic doctrine was due more to the personal character of the founder of the school and to the social atmosphere of the city where the school was founded than to the requirements of the Socratic system from which it arose Socrates, it is true, taught that happiness is the aim of action but the doctrine that happiness consists in momentary pleasure is so craticism woefully perverted No thyself was the gist of Socratic teaching Yes, no thyself taught Aristipus in order that thou mayest know to what extent thou canst indulge in the pleasures of life without exceeding the limit where pleasure becomes pain The application is surely more in accord with the materialistic subjectivism of the Sophus than with the Socratic principles from which the Sireniac philosophy claimed to be derived Retrospect The imperfectly Socratic schools grew up side by side without any affiliation to one another They are thus relatively independent each carrying out along its own line of development some point of Socratic teaching They are essentially incomplete because they are based on an imperfect understanding of the spirit of Socratic philosophy Still, their influence immediate immediate unsubsequent thought must not be underestimated The Magarians and their doctrine of bodyless forms foreshadowed the Platonic theory of ideas and both Antithinese and Aristipus influenced the Platonic doctrine of the highest good But important as was their immediate influence the immediate influence of these schools was still more important The age of Socrates was one that called for great constructive efforts It was an age that could appreciate Plato and Aristotle rather than Aristipus and Antisthenes Later, however, there came a time when the political condition of Greece was such that men could well be persuaded to withdraw from the world of sense from the problems of being and becoming in order to adopt a self-centralized culture as the only means of happiness It was then that the influence of the imperfectly Socratic schools was felt The Stoa adopted substantially the moral teachings of the cynics the skepticism of Pyro and the academics sprang from the doctrines of the Magarians while the School of Epicurus renewed hedonistic ethics by teaching a system identical in its principal tenets with the philosophy of the Cyreniacs There is thus no continuity of development through these intercalary schools to Plato and Aristotle Plato entering into the spirit of Socratic philosophy more fully than the imperfect disciples had done expanded the Socratic doctrine of concepts into the theory of ideas and gave to Socratic ethics a broader foundation and a more enduring consistency