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you are here: > Self > 3.
Belief systems and ME
| 3.8 |
Philosophy 500 to 400 BCE: Socrates and Plato mind
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| The mid 5th Century BCE in Greek city states saw the strange emergence of some of the very worst and at the same time highest ideas for the human spirit and behaviour. | ||||||||||
| 3.8.1 | The "professional" philosopher | |||||||||
| As anyone reading this web page might consider, it costs time and expense to clothe and feed a person. Philosophy has and continues to be a pastime normally reserved for those with wealthy patrons or wealthy families. Ancient Greece was no different, with one exception- the emergence of the "second" profession, that of the mercenary. | ||||||||||
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| During the middle of the 5th century BCE saw the emergence of a class of people representing the classical prototype of the "warrior-poet", the professional soldier. These men essentially served the trading city states of merchants and often corrupt politicians as soldiers for hire, while allowing time and sufficient funds to consider the greater questions of life. Some of these came to be known as the "Sophists". | ||||||||||
| The name is derived from the verb sophizesthai, "making a profession of being inventive and clever," who, in contrast to the philosophers that had preceded them, also asked for money for philosophical instruction. | ||||||||||
| Unlike previous philosophers, the sophists saw less value in contemplating the world outside, but rather than world within. "What is the sense of such speculations?" they asked, since men do not live in these so-called real worlds. This is the meaning of the pronouncement of Protagoras of Abdera (mid-5th century) that "Man is the measure of all things, of those which are that they are and of those which are not that they are not." For man the world is what it appears to him to be, not something else; and, though he meant man in general, he illustrated it by pointing out that even in regard to an individual man it makes no sense to tell him that it is really warm when he is shivering with cold, because for him it is cold--for him, the cold exists, is there. | ||||||||||
| This humanistic and essentially practical view of the real world by the sophists was almost certainly influenced by the fact that many killed for a living and were therefore less inclined to be found dwelling on big thoughts and big ideas than methods to achieve immediate goals. | ||||||||||
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The Sophists were not only skeptical of what had by then become a philosophical tradition but also of other traditions. On the basis of the observation that different nations have different rules of conduct even in regard to things considered most sacred--such as the relations between the sexes, marriage, and burial--they concluded that most rules of conduct are conventions. What is really important is to be successful in life and to gain influence on others. This they promised to teach. The sophist Gorgias was proud of the fact that, having no knowledge of medicine, he was more successful in persuading a patient to undergo a necessary operation than his brother, a physician, who knew when an operation was necessary. The older Sophists, however, were far from openly preaching immoralism. They, nevertheless, gradually came under suspicion because of their sly ways of arguing. |
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One of the later Sophists, however, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (late 5th century), even claimed "right is what is beneficial for the stronger or better one"; that is, for the one able to win the power to bend others to his will. Thus the sophists were responsible for laying out the framework within western thought for the purely centric and selfish view of personal power which underpins many of today's courses and self-help and personal-power courses to succeed financially. |
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| 3.8.2 | Socrates | |||||||||
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Midst the selfish "mercenary" world of the sophists, emerged a great thinker and true philosopher who is regarded as the prototype of the western notion of both the "good man martyr" and saint- Socrates. |
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| Living in the 5th Century BC, Socrates stands out against all other humanist philosophers for his strict adherence to his moral code. Throughout his life he insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was striving for it. It was claimed by his followers that he never tried to teach anything directly. Instead, Socrates was believed to have actively sought dialogue with all members of Greek society, regardless of age or status in an effort to bring into the open by his questions what he believed were the inconsistencies in their opinions and actions. | ||||||||||
| Yet the singular difference of Socrates to most philosophers before and after his time was his commitment to upholding the principles he had chosen by which to live his life. For example, after the Battle of Arginusae, Socrates found himself the president of the Athenian assembly the day a popular mob demanded the death of the military leaders. Socrates refused to participate because he considered it wrong to condemn any person without a fair trial. | ||||||||||
| On another occasion during the temporary reign over Athens of a collection of corrupt families (“the Thirty Tyrants”), they ordered Socrates to arrest a wealthy innocent citizen in order to seize his possessions. Socrates just disobeyed. | ||||||||||
| Such strict adherence to a personal moral code even in the face of possible death and torture, gave Socrates a hero status even amongst his fellow citizens and travelers during his own lifetime. | ||||||||||
| Equally, such stubbornness to values also created deep hatred amongst the politicians and power brokers of his time. In the end, it was not the tyrants and the corrupt that killed Socrates, but the democratic system itself when he refused to recant his beliefs on an unjust charge of “corrupting the youth” of Athens. | ||||||||||
| Yet it wasn't until after his death that the fame of Socrates had its full impact. In his life and death, he represented a revolution in the thinking of life and the universe, through personal discipline and inner strength. | ||||||||||
| These same qualities were exemplified by the Buddha only a couple of centuries before. However, Socrates was unique to the philosophers that had preceded him through the various Greek trading cities. Instead of intelligence and seeking to find some brand new (and often opposing view) of the universe to gain praise and fame, Socrates simply treated everyone as his equal. Instead of chaos and disorder, the answer to life by example of Socrates was to live simply, honestly and with compassion. | ||||||||||
| To preserve his legacy, several of Socrates former disciples such as Xenophon and Aeschines of Sphettus wrote works in the form of Socratic dialogues– like a transcript of a conversation. | ||||||||||
| Other former disciples such as Eucleides of Megara and Antisthenes founded schools in an attempt to physically emulate the austere like of Socrates and focus on the more theoretical aspects of Socrates' ideas as well as living the independence of the true philosopher from material wants. | ||||||||||
| One of Socrates’ disciples Diogenes of Sinope, who preached voluntary poverty to the extreme and argued freedom from all conventions, founded of the sect of the Cynics | ||||||||||
| 3.8.3 | Plato | |||||||||
| While the legacy of Socrates was followed by a great many in its literal sense (through poverty and moral fortitude), the detail underpinning the message of his life- how to put goodness into practical action- remained unclear following soon after his death. | ||||||||||
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| A disciple of Socrates, originally from one of the most wealthiest and noble Athenian families was Plato. While Plato, (like many others) initially struggled to find his way in simplicity and poverty when Socrates was alive, found his calling after his death. | ||||||||||
| Unlike several of Socrates former disciples who move on to form sects to try and emulate or reinterpret the literal method of living according to Socrates, Plato saw the real opportunity lay in detailing the supporting arguments of Socrates and how these might be incorporated into the everyday institutions of government, education, health, politics and life in general. | ||||||||||
| Of all the classes of knowledge, Plato’s greatest personal passion was politics. When in 399 democracy was restored to Athens and a written constitution introduced, he wrote of his bitter disappointment in the corruption and wasted opportunity of greedy men. Even his time in Syracuse and dialogues with the family of the ruling dictator of the time Dionysius I failed to materialize concrete effect in changing the system and approach to government. | ||||||||||
| On his return to Athens, Plato founded the Academy, an institution for the education of philosophers, and began his great philosophical discourses: | ||||||||||
| Plato believed that ruling classes must have no individual possessions and no families and lead an extremely austere life, receiving the necessities of life from the working population, which alone is permitted to own private property. | ||||||||||
| His work was and still is the prototype for justification and establishment of the oligarchy (concept of a ruling elite) as well as socialism and communism (concept of collective possessions controlled by the ruling elite). | ||||||||||
| No matter how distasteful the notion of an elite ruling over a mass doomed to be the lower classes forever, his model of organised government is represented in various hybrids from the United States of America (the remnants of the college system of election), Europe and even Communist China. | ||||||||||
| In creating Politicus and Nomoi, Plato provided the framework for two other traditional institutions of the State- religions place as the official keeper of supreme law and the judiciary- the dispensers of Gods and mans law independent of the direct influence of the elite of the state. | ||||||||||
| Once again, the work of Plato was revolutionary in carving out the philosophical framework associated with arrangement of instruments of power and the cascading precedence of prime ideas- that god(s) is the first, followed by high law, followed by the state. | ||||||||||
| In the field of theoretical philosophy, Plato's most influential contribution was his theory of Ideas, that beyond the immediate observable world lies a world of perfection. His writings on the subject have formed the foundations of a great many belief systems in modern society, including the philosophical notions of "heaven" as well as both the esoteric and theological arguments of perception and ultimate truth (good). | ||||||||||
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