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Classical (or "early") Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. In many ways it paved the way
both to modern science and to modern philosophy. Clear unbroken lines of influence lead from early Greek philosophers, through early Muslim philosophy to the Renaissance, the Enlightenment,
and the secular sciences of the modern day.
The history of philosophy in the west begins with the Greeks, and particularly with a group of philosophers commonly called the pre-Socratics. This is not
to deny the occurrence of other pre-philosophical rumblings in Egyptian, Semitic and Babylonian cultures. Certainly great
thinkers and writers existed in each of these cultures, and we have evidence that some of the earliest Greek philosophers may
have had contact with at least some of the products of Egyptian and Babylonian thought. However, the early Greek thinkers add at
least one element which differentiates their thought from all those who came before them. For the first time in history, we
discover in their writings something more than dogmatic assertions about the ordering of the world -- we find reasoned arguments
for various beliefs about the world.
As it turns out, nearly all of the various cosmologies proposed by the early Greek philosophers are profoundly and
demonstrably false, but this does not diminish their importance. For even if later philosophers summarily rejected the answers
they provided, they could not escape their questions:
- Where does everything come from?
- What is it really made out of?
- How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?
- And why can we describe them with a singular mathematics?
And the method the Greek philosophers followed in forming and transmitting their answers became just as important as the
questions they asked. The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational explanations. In other
words they depended on reason and observation to illuminate the true nature of the
would around them, and they used rational argument to advance their views to others. And though philosophers have argued at
length about the relative weights that reason and observation should have, for two and a half millennia they have basically
united in the use of the very method first used by the pre-Socratics.
Difficulties often arise in pinning down the ideas of the Pre-Socratic philosophers, and in determining the actual line of
argument they used in supporting their particular views. This problem arises not from some defect in the men themselves or in
their ideas, but simply from their separation from us in history. While most of these men produced significant texts, we have no
complete versions of any of those texts. We have only quotations by later philosophers and historians, along with the occasional
textual fragment.
Thales
Anaximander
Pythagoras
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Xenophanes
Parmenides and the other Eleatic
philosophers
Leucippus, Democritus and
the other Atomists
Protagoras and the Sophists
Socrates
Socrates (470 B.C. - 399 B.C.), an (Athenian) philosopher, became one of the
most important icons of the Western philosophical tradition. His made his most important contribution to Western thought through
his method of enquiry. See the article on him for more information.
Plato
Plato (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC), an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher,
studied under Socrates and taught Aristotle. His most famous work, The
Republic (Greek Politeia, 'city'), outlines his vision of "an ideal" state. He also wrote The Laws and many dialogues featuring Socrates as the main participant. Plato became a
pupil of Socrates in his youth, and - at least according to his own account - attended his master's trial, though not his
execution. Unlike Socrates, Plato wrote down his philosophical views and left a considerable number of manuscripts. See the
article on him for more details.
Aristotle
Aristotle, known as Aristoteles in most languages other than English
(Aristotele in Italian), (384 BC - March 7, 322 BC) has, along with Plato, the reputation of one of the two most
influential philosophers in Western thought.
Their works, although connected in many fundamental ways, differ considerably in both style and substance. Plato wrote several
dozen philsophical dialogues - arguments in the form of conversations, usually with Socrates as a participant - and a few
letters. Though the early dialogues deal mainly with methods of acquiring knowledge, and most of the last ones with justice and
practical ethics, his most famous works expressed a synoptic view of ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge, and
human life. Predominant ideas include the notion that knowledge gained
through the senses always remains confused and impure, and that the contemplative soul that turns away from the world can acquire
"true" knowledge. The soul alone can have knowledge of the Forms, the real essences
of things, of which the world we see is but an imperfect copy. Such knowledge has ethical as well as scientific import. One can
view Plato, with qualification, as an idealist and a rationalist.
Aristotle, by contrast, placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly better earn the
modern label of empiricist. Thus Aristotle set the stage for what would
eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later.
The works of Aristotle that still exist today appear in treatise form, mostly unpublished by their author. The most important
include Physics, Metaphysics, (Nicomachean) Ethics, Politics, De Anima (On the
Soul), Poetics, and many others. See the article on Aristotle for more
discussion.
Later Classical philosophers
Cicero
Zeno of Citium
Epictetus
Epicurus and Lucretius
Empedocles
The Neo-Platonists
Ammonius Saccas, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Iamblichus)
Marcus Aurelius
Schools of thought in the Hellenistic period
Cynicism
Hedonism
Eclecticism
Neo-Platonism
Skepticism
Stoicism
The spread of Christianity through the Roman world ushered in the end of
the Hellenistic philosophy and the beginnings of Mediaeval
Philosophy.
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