Greek Philosophy
Greek philosophy spans roughly 600 BCE to 600 CE, from Thales of Miletus to the closure of Plato's Academy in 529 CE by Emperor Justinian. It is conventionally divided into Pre-Socratics, Classical Greek (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and Hellenistic (Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, Cynics, Neoplatonists). Greek thinkers framed the principal questions and methods that have shaped Western philosophy.
From Greek philosophia — 'love of wisdom'. Aristotle in Metaphysics 982a defines it as 'the science of being qua being'. The Pre-Socratic project was to find arche (the first principle); Plato pursued the Forms; Aristotle systematised inquiry into logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics and politics.
Pre-Socratics (c. 600–400 BCE)
The Pre-Socratics sought the arche — the fundamental principle of reality — by rational inquiry, breaking with mythological explanation.
| Thinker | Dates (BCE) | Arche / contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Thales of Miletus | c. 624–546 | Water; founder of philosophy |
| Anaximander | c. 610–546 | Apeiron (the boundless/indefinite) |
| Anaximenes | c. 585–525 | Air |
| Pythagoras | c. 570–495 | Number; mathematical mysticism |
| Heraclitus | c. 535–475 | Fire; flux ('panta rhei' — everything flows) |
| Parmenides | c. 515–450 | Being is one, unchanging; reality is illusion of change |
| Zeno of Elea | c. 490–430 | Paradoxes defending Parmenides |
| Empedocles | c. 490–430 | Four elements + love and strife |
| Anaxagoras | c. 510–428 | Nous (mind) orders the cosmos |
| Democritus | c. 460–370 | Atomism — atoms and void |
Socrates (469–399 BCE)
Socrates left no writings; we know him through Plato, Xenophon and Aristophanes. He transformed philosophy by:
- Turning inquiry inward — from cosmos to ethics, soul and self.
- Socratic method (elenchus) — questioning to expose contradictions in interlocutors' beliefs.
- Intellectualism — virtue is knowledge; no one knowingly does evil.
- "The unexamined life is not worth living" (Apology 38a).
- Trial and execution (399 BCE) on charges of impiety and corrupting youth — Plato's Apology, Crito, Phaedo preserve his last days.
Plato (427–347 BCE)
Plato founded the Academy at Athens (c. 387 BCE) — the prototype of the university. His ~36 surviving dialogues span ethics, politics, metaphysics, epistemology and aesthetics. Major doctrines:
- Theory of Forms (Eidos) — abstract, eternal, unchanging archetypes; particulars participate in them. The Allegory of the Cave (Republic VII) dramatises ascent from sensory illusion to the Form of the Good.
- Tripartite soul — reason, spirit, appetite (Republic IV).
- Ideal state — three classes (philosopher-rulers, auxiliaries, producers); justice is each class doing its proper function.
- Recollection theory (Meno) — learning is recollection of pre-natal knowledge.
- Education — central to political philosophy.
Key dialogues: Republic (politics, justice), Phaedo (soul, immortality), Symposium (love), Phaedrus (rhetoric, soul), Theaetetus (knowledge), Sophist (being), Timaeus (cosmology), Laws (political philosophy).
- Socratic-Platonic-Aristotelian sequence forms the spine of Greek philosophy.
- Plato is idealist; Aristotle is empiricist ("Plato is my friend, but truth is a greater friend").
- The Theory of Forms is Plato's central metaphysical claim; Aristotle rejected the separation of Forms from particulars.
- Hellenistic schools focused on ethics and the question of how to live well (eudaimonia).
Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
Aristotle was Plato's student for 20 years and Alexander the Great's tutor. He founded the Lyceum (c. 335 BCE). His surviving works — collected in the Corpus Aristotelicum — span:
- Logic — Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior Analytics, Topics, Sophistical Refutations (collectively, the Organon). Established syllogism as the foundation of formal logic.
- Metaphysics — substance (ousia), four causes (material, formal, efficient, final), potentiality and actuality, the Prime Mover.
- Physics — motion, place, time, infinity.
- Ethics — Nicomachean Ethics — virtue ethics; eudaimonia as the highest good achieved through virtuous activity; doctrine of the mean (virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency).
- Politics — humans as zoon politikon (political animals); classification of constitutions; the polis as the natural community.
- Rhetoric and poetics — Poetics on tragedy and catharsis.
Hellenistic schools (c. 323–31 BCE)
After Alexander's death, philosophy fragmented into rival schools focused on how to live well amid political turmoil:
| School | Founder | Core idea |
|---|---|---|
| Cynicism | Antisthenes; Diogenes of Sinope (412–323 BCE) | Virtue through asceticism and rejection of convention |
| Epicureanism | Epicurus (341–270 BCE) | Pleasure (ataraxia — tranquility) through prudent living |
| Stoicism | Zeno of Citium (334–262 BCE) | Virtue through living according to nature/logos; emotional self-mastery |
| Scepticism | Pyrrho (c. 365–270 BCE) | Suspension of judgment (epoche); equanimity through doubt |
| Academic Scepticism | Arcesilaus, Carneades | Probabilism within Plato's Academy |
The Roman successors include Cicero (Eclectic), Lucretius (Epicurean — De Rerum Natura), Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius (Stoic — Meditations).
Neoplatonism (3rd–6th cent. CE)
Plotinus (204–270 CE), through his student Porphyry, developed Neoplatonism. The Enneads present reality as emanation from the One through Nous (Intellect) and Soul to the material world. Neoplatonism profoundly influenced Christian theology (Augustine, Confessions), Islamic philosophy (al-Farabi, Ibn Sina) and Jewish thought.
For CSS Greek philosophy, master a chronological grid: (1) Pre-Socratics (Thales 624 BCE → Democritus 460 BCE); (2) Socrates–Plato–Aristotle (469–322 BCE); (3) Hellenistic (post-323 BCE); (4) Neoplatonism (Plotinus, 3rd c. CE). For each major thinker, state main work and core thesis. Quote one or two Greek terms (arche, eudaimonia, ataraxia, ousia, eidos).
Legacy
Greek philosophy bequeathed:
- Rational inquiry as method.
- Logic as discipline (Aristotle).
- Distinction between appearance and reality (Plato), form and matter (Aristotle).
- Ethics as systematic study of the good life.
- Political philosophy with the polis as paradigm.
- Categories of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, logic.
Through Arabic translations (al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn Rushd) Greek philosophy returned to medieval Europe, fuelling the 12th-century renaissance and the scholastic synthesis of Aquinas. The Italian Renaissance and Enlightenment continued the dialogue — Descartes (Cogito), Kant (Critique of Pure Reason), Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit) and beyond all wrote in the long shadow of Athens.