Philosophy φιλοσοφία (philosophía) – “love of wisdom” (Pythagoras)

Philosophy

• Philosophy φιλοσοφία (philosophía) – “love of wisdom” (Pythagoras)

• the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, beauty, justice, validity, mind, language … Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical and systematic approach.

Branches of philosophy

• Metaphysics - the nature of being and reality (ontology, cosmology, but also mysticism, theology …).

• Epistemology - nature and scope of knowledge and believe (truth, justification ..., methodology)

• Ethics, or 'moral philosophy', concerned with questions of how persons ought to act (morality, virtue)

• Political philosophy - study of government and the relationship of individuals and communities to the society and state (justice, the good, law, property, rights obligations of the citizen).

• Aesthetic deals with beauty (art, enjoyment, sensory-emotional values).

• Logic deals with patterns of thinking that lead from true premises to true conclusions.

• Philosophy of mind deals with the nature of the mind and its relationship to the body (dualism x monism, cognitive science)

• Philosophy of language - inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language.

• Etc.

Western philosophy – historical division

• Ancient philosophy (Greece 6th ct BC – 6th AC)

• Medieval philosophy (6th AC - 14th AC), Muslim, Jewish, Christian …

• Renaissance (14th AC – 17th)

• Early modern phil. (17th – 19th)

• Nineteenth cent. phil.

• Contemporary philosophy

Eastern philosophy

• Belongs Eastern thinking to philosophy?

• No – Hegel, “Philosophy” – label only for western thinking?

• Europocentrism?

• Different nature of Eastern ph. (interconnection with mythology, religious nature) – but not of whole.

• Not one philosophy, but various philosophies

• Persian philosophy (e.g. Zoroastrianism)

• Indian philosophy (Buddhism, Hindu …)

• Chinese philosophy (Taoism, Konfucionalism …)

• Korean, Japanese, … African ….

Ancient western philosophy – temporal division

• Pre-Socratic period

• Classical periods (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)

• Hellenistic (post-Aristotelian) period

• Christian (and Neo-Platonist) philosophy

Mythological background of philosophy

• Myth – philosophy – science (August Comte) + applied science - technology

• All ethnics have their own myths.

• Traditional myths, artificial (modern) myths (fakes?) Myths and fairytales.
• Passed by word of mouth (life of myths)
• Written form (eposes) – fixation, petrification

Mythological background of philosophy

• Role of myths

• Entertainment – dramatic stories
• Formation and encourage group self consciousness, formation of tribe, ethnics, nation (justification why our tribe is super ordinate)
• Formation and consolidation of moral and social system
• (model phenomena - archetypes: gods, heroes, solutions of situations) (C. G. Jung)
• Base of religion
• From epistemological view:
• There is a (non visible, metaphysical) world that controls our visible (physical) world.

Mythological background of philosophy

• Myths in ancient Greece

• Homer`epics (9th century BC) and Homeric mythology (no moral order, gods capriciously play with human fates)
• Hesiod (8th century BC): concept of moral order that is given by chief god Zeus to humans
• Other systems: Orphism, Pythagoras sect, Empedocles …

Mythological background of philosophy

• Truth of myth – implicit expressions, metaphors, model situations

• Judgement of Paris - bone of contention – in Czech “apple of contention”
• Mythological truth and literal truth (art, literature, theatre, film, photography…)

• Truth of religion ?

• Truth of science

• Truth in philosophy

Conditions for formation of philosophy

• SCHOLE (free time, leisure)

• Developed language (abstract concepts)
• Naivety of Homeric mythology – religion (anthropomorphism)
• Exchange of ideas and cultural influences (connection with other civilisations…)
• -----------------------
• Material conditions (but cynics, Eastern sages…)
• Fine climate
• Freedom (but among philosophers there were also slaves…)

Presocratic philosophy Milesians (Milesian school)

• Thales of Miletus (about 625 - 545 BC)

• „first philosopher“ politics, astronomy, geometry…(Thales theorem, Thales circle, rangefinder, division of celestial sphere …)

• Flat Earth floating on ocean

• Solar eclipse 28. May 585 BC

• Search for ARCHE (PRINCIPIUM)

• Water (HYDOR) – why just water?

• (Magnet – soul (PSYCHE) as another principle of motion and gods)

Presocratic philosophy Milesian School

• Anaximander of Miletus (about 610 – 546 BC)

• Quadrant, GNOMON (sundial), celestial globe, map of the world

• ARCHE – APEIRON (indefinite boundless, infinity…)

• Things arise by process of separation

• „evolutionary theory“:

• IN THE BEGINNING MEN WERE BORN FROM CREATURES OF A DIFFERENT SORT, BECAUSE THE OTHER ANIMALS QUICKLY MANAGE TO FEED THEMSELVES, BUT MAN ALONE REQUIRES A LONG PERIOD OF NURSING; HENCE HAD HE BEEN LIKE THAT IN THE BEGINNING TOO, HE WOULD NEVER HAVE SURVIVED

Presocratic philosophy Milesian School

• ... THE EATRH IS IN MID-AIR , OVERPOWERED BY NOTHING, AND STAYING WHERE IT IS ON ACOUNT OF ITS SIMILAR DISTANCE FROM EVERYTHING

• Existence of antipodes

Presocratic philosophy Milesian School

• Anaximenes (about 585 – 528 BC)

• ARCHE – AER APEIROS

• AER (air, gas) – PNEUMA (SPIRIT)

• Everything is breathing (later accepted by Stoics)

• Things arise by changes of concentration of AER. (MANOSIS and PYKNOSIS)

• The change of quantity into quality

• Flat Earth floating in air (also Moon)

Heritage of Milesians

• Reductionism – complex can be reduced to simple, many to few or even one

• Monism – everything comes from one principle – but inconsistent

• All rational approach and all science is based on reduction (inner and outer reductionism)

• Basic difference to Eastern thinking – HOLISM

• Problems of HOLISM, intuition. Meditation.

• Capra, Bohr and Eastern philosophy.

• HYLOZOISM (paradox of hylozoism, modern science – „hylonekrism“)

The end of Milesians

• 547 BC - Miletus fell under Persia – the end of Milesian philosophy

• 479 BC - Miletus rebuilt

• 334 BC - captured by Alexander the Great

• 133 - part of Roman empire, Byzantine empire

• 1328 AD till now - under Turkish rule (Balat)

Presocratic philosophy Pythagoras and Pythagoreans

• Pythagoras of Samos (about 572 - 494 BC)

• Disciple of Anaximander ?

• visited Egypt (perhaps he knew read hieroglyphs),

• India (not probable)

• Rule of tyrant Polycrates,

• migration to southern Italy, Croton

• Pythagorean School

• philosopher and thaumaturgist

Pythagoras of Samos

• School of Pythagoras -

• Number or limit is the basic principle

• → mathematics and numerology

• THEORIA (theory) – originally (watching) religious festival, narrating about r.f. → looking by inner sight

• MATHEMATICA (mathematics), MATHEMA – theorem, doctrine teaching: esoteric and exoteric

• COSMOS (order, jewel) → HARMONY → UNIVERSE

• HARMONIA (harmony) – joint, fastening → principle of unification

• MUSICA (music), laws of acoustic, (P. tuning) monochorde – sound of string, musical intervals, music of spheres (we are accustomed with it), MUSIC THERAPY

• ARITHMOS and LOGOS (ratio)

• Pythagoras´ theorem and crisis of mathematics

• Irrational numbers

Pythagoras

• PSYCHE (soul) – principle of personal identity

• METEMPSYCHOSIS and problems of personal identity

• Other problems of REINKARNATION (deja vu, belief in fairness, vegetarianism, original sin, psychotherapy)

• ONCE THEY SAY THAT PYTHAGORAS WAS PASSING BY WHEN A DOG WAS BEING BEATEN AND SPOKE THIS WORD: "STOP! DON'T BEAT IT! FOR IT IS THE SOUL OF A FRIEND OF MINE – I RECOGNIZED HIM BY HIS VOICE."

Pythagoras

• Medicine – the most honourable art (TECHNE), principle of HARMONY at work

• Body as a musical instrument

• Health – harmony

• Metrology – unifying measures, units of length and weight

Same of later Pythagoreans

• Alcmaeon from Croton (5 cent. BC)

• Astronomer, physician, concept of divine or animated planets (Giordano Bruno +1600)

• Closed time – Great year, Calpa and the age of Earth

• Modern concepts of closed time

• Autopsy (nerves, brain)

• Philolaos of Croton (end of 5th cent. BC)

• The first non-geocentric system (10 planets, Anti-earth), central fire of Cosmos (nucleus of our Galaxy?)

Same of later Pythagoreans

• Archytas from Tarentum (cca 400 – 365 BC)

• Ruler of Tarentum (Tarano, Italy) friend of Plato

• Study of mathematics, acoustics (sound of moving bodies, pipes)

• Mechanical dove

• Finite universe:

• IF I AM AT THE EXTREMITY OF THE HEAVEN OF THE FIXED STARS, CAN I STRETCH OUTWARD MY HAND OR STAFF? IT IS ABSURD TO SUPPOSE THAT I COULD NOT. IF I CAN, WHAT IS OUTSIDE MUST BE EITHER BODY OR SPACE. WE MAY THEN IN THE SAME WAY GET TO THE OUTSIDE OF THAT AGAIN, AND SO ON. IF THERE IS ALWAYS A NEW PLACE TO WHICH THE STAFF MAY BE HELD OUT, THIS CLEARLY INVOLVES EXTENSION WITHOUT LIMIT.

• Numerology

• Kepler – Cosmographic mystery

• Physics and numerological from 1-st century BC to 5-th AC) – new ideas packed in the form of old time-honoured teaching

• Heritage of Pythagoreism:

• Mathematics – ARITHMOLOGY speculative approaches

Heraclitus of Ephesus

• Heraclitus of Ephesus (about 535 - 475 BC)

• noble from the Androclus family (founder of Ephesus)

• Contempt for the mass of mankind, loner, against democracy (DEMOS =people) advocated ARISTOCRACY (ARISTOS = the best)

• Treatise deposited in the temple of Artemis

• SKOTEINOS - dark

• Dynamical approach

• YOU CANNOT STEP TWICE INTO THE SAME RIVER.

• The learning of many things teaches not understanding.

• IF YOU DO NOT EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED, YOU WILL NOT FIND IT…

• NATURE LOVES TO HIDE.

• THE EYES ARE MORE EXACT WITNESSES THAN THE EARS.

• TO GOD ALL THINGS ARE FAIR AND GOOD AND RIGHT, BUT PEOPLE HOLD SOME THINGS WRONG AND SOME RIGHT.

• IT IS NOT GOOD FOR PEOPLE TO GET ALL THEY WISH TO GET.

• IT IS SICKNESS THAT MAKES HEALTH PLEASANT; EVIL, GOOD; HUNGER, PLENTY; WEARINESS, REST.

• A PERSON'S CHARACTER IS HIS FATE.

• THIS WORLD, WHICH IS THE SAME FOR ALL, NO ONE OF THE GODS OR HUMANS HAS MADE; BUT IT WAS EVER, IS NOW, AND EVER WILL BE AN EVER-LIVING FIRE, WITH MEASURES OF IT KINDLING, AND MEASURES GOING OUT.

• EPYROSIS ? Conflagration

• THE WAKING HAVE ONE COMMON WORLD, BUT THE SLEEPING TURN ASIDE EACH INTO A WORLD OF HIS OWN.

Some later reflection and similarities of Heraclitus

• Cratylus:

• YOU CANNOT STEP EVEN ONCE INTO THE SAME RIVER.

• Heraclitus and Taoism

• Laoze (Lao Tzu)
• Dynamic approach
• Stoic philosophy
• EKPYROSIS, LOGOS, PANTA REI, “Everything flows”
• Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger …

The Eleatic school

• Xenophanes of Colophone (570 - 475 BC)

• HOMER AND HESIOD HAVE ASCRIBED TO THE GODS ALL THINGS THAT ARE A SHAME AND A DISGRACE AMONG MORTALS, STEALING AND ADULTERIES AND DECEIVING OF ANOTHER

• One god (atheism, monotheism, metaphysical theology?)

• MEN MAKE GODS IN THEIR OWN IMAGE. THOSE OF THE ETHIOPIANS ARE BLACK AND SNUB-NOSED, GODS OF THE THRACIANS HAVE BLUE EYES AND RED HAIR. IF HORSES OR OXEN OR LIONS HAD HANDS AND COULD PRODUCE WORKS OF ART, THEY TOO WOULD REPRESENT THE GODS AFTER THEIR OWN FASHION.

• The One. If there had ever been a time when nothing existed, nothing could ever have existed.

The Eleatic school

• Parmenides (circa 540 - after 470 BC)

• „PERI FYSEOS“

• COME NOW, I WILL TELL YOU AND DO YOU LISTEN TO MY SAYING AND CARRY IT AWAY, THE ONLY TWO WAYS OF SEARCH THAT CAN BE THOUGHT OF.

• THE FIRST, NAMELY, THAT IT IS, AND THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT NOT TO BE, IS THE WAY OF BELIEF, FOR TRUTH IS ITS COMPANION.

• THE OTHER, NAMELY, THAT IT IS NOT, AND THAT IT MUST NEEDS NOT BE, THAT, I TELL YOU, IS A PATH THAT NONE CAN LEARN OF AT ALL.

• FOR YOU CANNOT KNOW WHAT IS NOT THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE NOR UTTER IT; FOR IT IS THE SAME THING THAT CAN BE THOUGHT (CONCEIVED) AND THAT CAN BE.

The Eleatic school

• Melissus of Samos (5th century BC)

• NOR IS ANYTHING EMPTY; FOR WHAT IS EMPTY IS NOTHING; SO NOTHING WILL NOT BE BEING OF NOTHING IS NOT BEING.

• Horror vacui, paradox of vacuum and it`s solution Descartes, Thomas Hobes and Boyles works on gas dynamics

The Eleatic school

• Epistemology: Paradox of negative concepts (myth about giant Polyphemos)

• Paradoxes of infinity

The Eleatic school

• Zeno of Elea (about 489 BC)

• Proof by contradiction

• Zeno arguments against multiplicity, and against motion. APORIA

• Bisection of line
• The flying arrow
• Achilles and the tortoise
• 1 + ½ + ¼ + … + 1/2n = 2

• Concept of infinity. Continuum. Classical (Cantor) set theory and Alternative set theory (AST, Vopěnka)

The way to materialism

• Empedocles (circa 490 - 430 BC)

• Religion of Orphic type, underworld. Poem “On Nature” (PERI PHYSEOS), and “Purifications” (KATHARMOI). Death in vulcano Etna.

• Love (PHILIA) – attraction

• Strife (NEIKOS) – separation

• NOW BY LOVE ALL COMING TOGETHER INTO ONE, NOW AGAIN EACH CARRIED APART BY THE ENMITY OF STRIFE

• roots (RIZOMATA) -- fire, air, earth, and water

• (THERE IS) ONLY A MINGLING AND INTERCHANGE OF WHAT HAS BEEN MINGLED. SUBSTANCE (PHYSIS) IS BUT A NAME GIVEN TO THESE THINGS BY MEN.

• KLEPSHYDRA – existence of air (experimental proof!)

• Questions

The way to materialism

• Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (about 500 - 428 BC)

• brought philosophy to Athens

• Sun – great stone bigger than Pelopones

• Seeds – SPERMATA

• NOUS – reason

• IN EVERYTHING THERE IS PRESENT A PORTION OF EVERYTHING EXCEPT MIND (NOUS); AND IN SOME THINGS MIND TOO IS PRESENT.

• (ANAXAGORAS) WAS THE FIRST TO ADD MIND (NOUS) TO MATTER, BEGINNING HIS BOOK, WHICH IS PLEASANTLY AND GRANDLY RITTEN, THUS: “ALL THINGS WERE TOGETHER; THEN MIND CAME AND ARRANGED THEM“

The way to materialism

• Anaxagoras – criticism:

• Plato in his dialogue “Phaedo“: PROCEEDING AND READING ON, I SEE THE MAN MAKING NO USE OF MIND (NOUS), NOR INDICATING ANY EXPLANATIONS FOR THE ORDERING OF THINGS, BUT MAKING EXPLANATIONS OF AIRS AND ETHERS AND WATERS AND MANY OTHER SUCH ABSURDITIES
• Aristotle in his book of “Metaphysics” : ANAXAGORAS USES MIND (NOUS) AS A THEATRICAL DEVICE (MECHANE) FOR HIS COSMOLOGY; AND WHENEVER HE IS PUZZLED OVER THE EXPLANATION OF WHY SOMETHING IS FROM NECESSITY, HE WHEELS IT IN; BUT IN THE CASE OF OTHER HAPPENINGS HE MAKES ANYTHING THE EXPLANATION RATHER THAN MIND.
• ANAXAGORAS ADVOCATED THE METHOD PROPER TO NATURAL SCIENCE

The way to materialism – atomism

• Leucippus (about 500 - 440 BC)

• Postulated existence of free space (voids, vacuum)

• NO THING COMES ABOUT IN VAIN, BUT EVERYTHING FOR A REASON (LOGOS) AND BY NECESSITY (ANANKE).

• Principle of causality (?).

The way to materialism – atomism

• Democritus (460-370 BC)

• MACROCOSMOS and MICROCOSMOS

• Ethical teaching of Democritus

• INSTEAD OF ENJOYING LIFE FOR WHAT IT IS, THEY HATE IT FOR WHAT IT IS NOT ... THEY WANT TO PROLONG THE LIFE THEY HATE, IN ORDER TO POSTPONE DEATH. IT WOULD BE HARD TO FIND A BETTER EXAMPLE OF MAN BEING HIS OWN WORST ENEMY THROUGH STUPID DISREGARD OF THE LIMIT.

• theory of knowledge – moving images (EIDOLA)

Presocratic philosophy Atomism

• Free space

• Atoms

• Differences between ancient and modern atoms
• Crisis of atomism

• Order of necessity ANANKE

• (The atomists say that the universe is) NEITHER ANIMATE NOR GOVERNED BY PURPOSE, BUT BY A SORT OF IRRATIONAL NATURE (PHYSIS ALOGOS).

Presocratic philosophy Atomism

• ANANKE

• Inferences of ANANKE

• No chance
• No freedom („free will“)
• No responsibility
• Fatalism

• EVERYTHING HAPPENS BY FATE, IN THE SENSE THAT FATE APPLIES THE FORCE OF NECESSITY

• (Democritus said that) HE WOULD RATHER FIND A SINGLE CAUSAL EXPLANATION (AITIOLOGIA) THAN GAIN THE KINGDOM OF PERSIA.

Presocratic philosophy Atomism

• (Absolute) determinism (Stoics, P. S. Laplace)

• AN INTELLECT WHICH AT A GIVEN INSTANT KNEW ALL THE FORCES ACTING IN NATURE, AND THE POSITION OF ALL THINGS OF WHICH THE WORLD CONSISTS - SUPPOSING THE SAID INTELLECT WERE VAST ENOUGH TO SUBJECT THESE DATA TO ANALYSIS - WOULD EMBRACE IN THE SAME FORMULA THE MOTIONS OF THE GREATEST BODIES IN THE UNIVERSE AND THOSE OF THE SLIGHTEST ATOMS; NOTHING WOULD BE UNCERTAIN FOR IT, AND THE FUTURE, LIKE THE PAST, WOULD BE PRESENT TO ITS EYES.

• Laplace demon

Presocratic philosophy Atomism

• Further history of the paradox

• Two meanings of „determination“ (passive and active mode)

• Epicurus – introduction of PARENCLISIS
• Stoics – no freedom but spontaneity (voluntarity), one LOGOS (also Boethius – there is no contradiction between foreknowledge and freedom)

• Modern history – quantum mechanics (Copenhagen interpretation) and TYCHISM

• „Free will“ antinomy (Plotinos …)

• IF I WISH, I COULD GIVE AWAY MY PROPERTY TO THE POOR, BUT I CANNOT WISH TO WISH. A. Schopenhauer

Presocratic philosophy The Sophists

• 5th cent. BC, democracy - growing demand for education. Sophists - teachers of wisdom(?) or spurious learning, ancient enlightment. Rhetorics, politics, grammar, history, physics, mathematics .

• Sophistry – the use of fallacious argument knowing them to be such

• Negative approaches (relativism, agnosticism, subjectivism, deconstruction od ethics)

• Gorgias (483 - 378 BC)

• „On Nature, or the Non-existent“: NOTHING EXISTS; IF ANYTHING EXISTED, IT COULD NOT BE KNOWN; IF ANYTHING DID EXIST, AND COULD BE KNOWN, IT COULD NOT BE COMMUNICATED.

• Agnosticism or parody on eleatism?

• Rhetoric – art of persuasion

Presocratic philosophy The Sophists

• Protagoras (480 - 411 BC) of Abdera, Pericles debated with him

• “On the Gods” (PERI THEON)
• RESPECTING THE GODS, I AM UNABLE TO KNOW WHETHER THEY EXIST OR DO NOT EXIST.
• “ On Truth” (ALETHEIA)
• MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS; OF WHAT ARE THAT (how?) THEY ARE; OF WHAT ARE NOT THAT (how?) THEY ARE NOT.
• Plato: why men and not horse or pig? (Theaithetos)

Presocratic philosophy The Sophists

• Thrasymachus (4 th century BC)

• injustice is preferred to a life of justice, unjust person superior i character and intelligence.

• Justice is pursued by simpletons and leads to weakness.

• Reduction of morality to power (nihilism towards thruth and ethics)

Presocratic philosophy The Sophists

• Sophists and atheism

• Rise of W. philosophy connected with overcoming mythology and (naive, anthropomorfic) religion.

• Diagoras - his opponent violated an oath and remain unpunished – non-existence of gods

• Critias – religion – device of rulers, instrument against breaking rules when nobody observes.

• Sophists and post-modern philosophy

• Modern science disappointed many people, the fail of communism – rejection of old values, old science, old aims, evolution, progress. The rise of negative approaches (irrationality, immorality, subjectivism)

• Negative stage – positive value – clear space from obsolete conceptual schemes. Must be followed by positive stage. In ancient Greece Socrates directed thinking in a positive way. Unraveled logical inconsistencies of Sophists,

Classical Period Socrates and Socratic schools

• Socrates (469 - 399 BC)

• Directed sophistic thinking in a positive way

• Golden age of Athens

• Aischylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Pericles, builded parthenon on Acropolis. Persia defeated, Athens was naval power

• Father sculptor (stonemason), mother midwife

• Socrates practised craft of sculptor, married Xanthyppe (famous for quarrelsomeness)

• Admolished by „divine call“ gave up occupation and devote himself to moral and intelectual reform of society

• Socrates` trial

• Athens under Pericles, Socrates could pursue his calling as a gadfly. War with Sparta, betrayal of Alcibiades, accusations of impiety, of corrupting the young, Socrates sentenced to death

• Self-knowledge is the starting point, he realised how little we know about anything

Socrates and Socratic schools

• Socratic method – dialectic method, based on dialogues

• Self-knowledge – the starting point

• Socrates did not write (Plato, Aristophanes, Xenophon)

• Negative stage (assumed ignorance, Socratic irony)

• Positive stage (“intellectual midwifery”), series of questions - the opponent acknowledges his ignorance

• knowledge through concepts

• WHATEVER EXISTS FOR A USEFUL PURPOSE

• MUST BE THE WORK OF SOME INTELLIGENCE (GOD?).

Socrates and Socratic schools

• Socratic moral paradox

• Knowledge – virtue

• Ignorance – evil

• Sin – the lack of knowledge

• If anybody does evil, he should not be punished, but instructed what not to do.

• Ethics – epistemology

• NO ONE FREELY GOES FOR BAD THING OR THING HE BELIEVES TO BE BAD…

• Aristotle ACRASIA – weakness of will, passions and instinct prevail. Humans are not rational creatures.

Socratic schools - Megarian school

• Euclid (circa 430 - 360 BC)

• Student of Socrates

• Highest goodness – highest reality

• Concepts - bodiless forms (step to Plato teaching)

• Reductio ad absurdum: attacks not the premises but the conclusion of the argument, showing the absurd consequences.

• Paradox of the liar (Epimenides):

• „All Cretans are liars.“

• self-referential semantic paradoxes

• “Homological” terms, are such which can be defined as those, which express a quality that they have (for example the word “short”, “English”). And further “heterological” words are those that do not express such a quality that they have. The problem is whether the term “heterological” is itself heterological or homological. If it is heterological it does express the quality of being heterological, so it must be homological, but if it is homological, it must be, on the contrary, heterological.

Socrates and Socratic schools Cynic school

• Athens about 400 BC to about 200 BC. Coarse and vulgar depreciation of Socrates ethics ?

• Antisthenes (about 450 BC - 360 BC)

• advocated all natural including manual work, despised culture and all „artificial comfort“

• no universal objects of knowledge:

• I SEE A HORSE BUT NOT ‘HORSENESS’

• Diogenes of Sinope

• (about 403 - 323 BC), lived in large barrel

• NOT TO HAVE ANY NEEDS IS GODLIKE

Plato and Platonism

• Plato (428/7 - 347 BC)

• Great poetic writer (unlike Socrates)

• Cratylus (descendant of Heraclitus), Socrates, Megara, three times in Sicily, Academy

• A. N. Whitehead: (overdone?)

• The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

• Democracy:

• AS IN THE CASE OF A SHIP, WHERE THE PILOT’S AUTHORITY RESTS UPON KNOWLEDGE OF NAVIGATION, SO ALSO THE SHIP OF STATE SHOULD BE PILOTED NOT BY ALL CITIZENS, LIKE IN DEMOCRACY, BUT BY ONLY ONE WHO HAS ADEQUATE KNOWLEDGE.

• Kings were philosophers and philosophers were kings.

Plato and Platonism

• Travels in Egypt, Sicily (intended to influence Dionysios of his ideal system of government), cast into prison, sold as a slave, ransomed by friends

• Academy (387 BC - 529 AD)

• “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF MATHEMATICS ENTER HERE.”

• Scientific orientation attracted the ablest thinkers

Plato

• Plato’s works

• Not written teaching?

• Series of 36 dialogues, Letters

• Socratic method of question and answer

• Plato own philosophical myths - Atlantis

Plato

• Plato own myths - Atlantis

• 200-year-old annals of Solon, who heard it from an Egyptian priests. Island located in the Ocean. Great and wonderful empire. The inhabitants possessed great wealth thanks to the natural resources, centre for trade and commerce. The island provided all kinds of herbs, fruits, and nuts. An abundance of animals, including elephants, roamed the island.

• Generations the Atlanteans lived simple, virtuous lives. But slowly they began to change. Greed and power began to corrupt them. When the chief god Zeus saw the immorality of the Atlanteans he gathered the other gods to determine a suitable punishment. Soon, in one violent tsunami surge, Atlantis was gone.

Plato and Platonism

• The allegory of the cave

• Philosophical fiction

• prisoners living in a large cave

• chained by their necks in a fixed position, so that they can look only at the wall in front of them

• Behind them a fire, farther back the entrance to the cave.

• Path, where there are persons carrying various figures

• The prisoners can observe shadows on the wall, they are not aware that the shadows are only shadows.

Plato and Platonism

Plato and Platonism

• System of philosophy

• Forms – Ideas

• various degrees of reality

• Plato’s physics

• Timaeus – view on Cosmos – teleology

• Platonic bodies

• Five “regular” solids, Platonic bodies have all their sides the same and all their vertexes are equivalent: tetrahedron cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, icosahedron. Five basic elements: fire, ground, water, air, and ether.

Plato and Platonism

• precession of the Earth’s axis

• Platonic year

• 30 000 years.

• Concepts of

• closed or cyclic time

Plato and Platonism

• Plato's ideal state

• UNLESS PHILOSOPHERS BECOME RULERS OR RULERS BECOME TRUE AND THOROUGH STUDENTS OF PHILOSOPHY, THERE SHALL BE NO END TO THE TROUBLES OF STATES AND OF HUMANITY.

• rulers (corresponding to the reasonable soul),

• producers (corresponding to desire), and finally

• warriors (corresponding to courage).

• State absolutism – totalitarianism

• No private property, family. Children belong to the state.

• Platonism and mathematics

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• Aristotle (384-322 BC)

• Stagira, Academy, Assos, Pella

• Alexander:

• THANKS TO MY FATHER I AM LIVING, THANKS TO ARISTOTLE I KNOW HOW TO LIVE.

• Athens, Lykeion (PERIPATETIC school)

• Death of Alexander

• THE ATHENIANS MIGHT NOT HAVE ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY OF SINNING AGAINST PHILOSOPHY AS THEY HAD ALREADY DONE IN THE PERSON OF SOCRATES.

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• General characterisation of Aristotle’s philosophy

• Logic

• Theoretical philosophy, including Metaphysics, Physics, Mathematics

• Practical philosophy

• Philosophy of art

• Logic (analytics)

• Founder of logic, reduction of logic to an exact science

• SYLLOGISMs - schemes of logical judgments

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• Metaphysics

• „first philosophy“, ontology

• Theory of causes:

• Material Cause

• Formal Cause

• Efficient Cause

• Final Cause

• Potentiality and Actuality (DYNAMIS, ENTELECHEIA)

• Matter and Form

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• Physics

• Four elements, ether, natural motions (up – down, circular)

• Elements, natural motions, prime matter

• First Mover, concept of infinite, mechanics

• Aristotle concept of God

• It has seemed to me unfortunate that the word “God” (which is, after all, a religious word) should have been retained by philosophers as the name for a factor in their system that no one could possibly regard as an object of worship, far less of love. (Cornford)

Aristotle and Aristotelism

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• Politics

• ZOON POLITIKON - social animal

• The best form of government is that, which best suits the character of the people.

• IT IS CLEAR THAT SOME MEN ARE BY NATURE FREE, AND OTHERS SLAVES, AND THAT FOR THESE SLAVERY IS BOTH EXPEDIENT AND RIGHT.

Aristotle and Aristotelism

• Aristotelean school and Aristotelism

• Andronicus of Rhodes - edited Aristotle's works

• Alexander from Aphrodisias (2nd century AD)

• John Philoponus (6th century)

• Avicenna and Averroes (“Commentator”)

• St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 - 1274 AD) – Christian adaptation of Aristotle`s philosophy

• Aristotle’s philosophy, and especially his logic, has been considered as a basis for modern science.

• In the middle ages, Aristotle philosophy gradually degenerated. Also Aristotle’s logic was subjected to some contempt. It was satirised by Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), who argued that in other civilisations, namely in China, the development of science had been quite possible without Aristotle.

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Epicureanism

• Epicurus (342 - 270 BC)

• Samos, Garden of Epicurus

• Physics – atomism (PARENCLISIS - CLINAMEN)

• Ethics and psychology - theory of human life, personal happiness

• HABITUATE YOURSELF TO THINK THAT DEATH IS NOTHING TO US: FOR ALL GOOD AND EVIL IS IN FEELING: NOW DEATH IS THE PRIVATION OF FEELING. … WHERE WE ARE, DEATH IS NOT; AND WHERE DEATH IS, WE ARE NOT.

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Epicureanism

• BETTER WERE IT TO ACCEPT ALL THE LEGENDS OF THE GODS THAN TO MAKE OURSELVES SLAVES TO THE FATE OF THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS.

• Theology

• GODS IN METACOSMIA

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Later Epicureanism

• Titus Lucretius Carus (about 91 – 51 BC)

• DE RERUM NATURA

• The universe of matter and space, no centre, space is without limit, matter is composed of atoms

• mind and soul of a material nature, of the finest and roundest atoms

• sense-perception: from the surface of objects thin films of matter are continually flying off

• origin of life by spontaneous generation, preservation of animal life in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest

• description of free fall (friction, resistance of enviroment)

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Stoicism

• STOA (colonnade or porch), STOA POIKILE (Painted Colonnade)

• Zeno of Citium (circa 336 – 264 BC)

• 300 BC Stoic school

• Chrysippus (280 – 205 BC)

• Logic (propositional calculus)

• AII knowledge enters the mind through the senses. Criterion of truth lie in sensation itself. Intense feeling of reality (KATALEPSIS)

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Stoicism

• Stoic ethics

• ascetic system, perfect indifference to everything external, APATHEA passions as essentially irrational

• LIVE ACCORDING TO NATURE.

• Morality is simply rational action. From the root-virtue, wisdom, spring: insight, bravery, self-control, and justice.

• Suicide

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Stoicism

• Stoic physics

• NOTHING INCORPOREAL EXISTS.

• Existence – subsistence (time, logical rules, space …)

• world issue from one principle – LOGOS – (monism). The corporeal cannot act on the incorporeal, nor the incorporeal on the corporeal. There is no point of contact. Hence all must be equally corporeal.

• All things are composed of fire (= God). (Heraclitus).

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Stoicism

• God - LOGOS is absolute reason.

• purpose in the world (order, harmony, beauty and design).

• no freedom of the will but voluntarity

• world-process is circular (circular, closed time) - EKPYROSIS

• rational soul (divine fire) from God

Philosophy of the Hellenistic period Stoicism

• Seneca (about 3 BC – 65 AD)

• Roman politician, orator and the most famous Roman Stoic.

• YOUR HAPPINESS LIES IN NO ASPIRATION FOR HAPPINESS.

• The main sources of evil are human passions.

• Epictetus (50 – 130 AD)

• God had arranged all for the happiness of man, so evil is no more than an illusion.

• Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121 - 180 AD)

• seeker after righteousness, Meditations

Scepticism

• SKEPTIKOI - seekers or inquirers, basic mood is of doubt

• We only know how things appear to us, but the same thing appears differently to different people …

• Complete suspense of judgement (EPOCHE) all systems of philosophy are equally false

• Pyrrho of Elis (about 360 - 270 BC)

• Pyrrhonism

• Timon of Athens - Academic scepticism

• Arcesilaus (ca. 315 - 241 BC) – paradox of scepticism

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Alexandria (323 BC), Ptolemy 308 BC – founder of Ptolemy dynasty (commander of Alexander army)

• Demetris Phaleron – urged for Museum (after 285 BC) - temple of the Muses, scientific institution

• Library with 700 000 books

• Septuaginta

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Euclid (ca. 330 - ca. 275 BC)

• Elements – STOCHEIA

• definitions, 5 axioms and 5 postulates, theorems (with proofs)

• The fifth postulate (the parallel postulate)

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Archimedes

• Counting sand

• 1051 – 1063 grains of sand in the Universe

• To the sphere with diameter of Pluto orbit aprox. 1051 grains of sand

Hipparchos from Nicae (2-nd cent. BC)

• Hipparchos from Nicae (2-nd cent. BC)

• geocentrism, catalogue of 850 stars

• Epicyclic theory

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Eratosthenes of Cyrene

• (about 275 - 195 BC)

• System of meridians and parallels

• star map containing 675 stars

• A new calendar system, accepted later in Rome by Caesar (Julian calendar in 46 BC,)

• one year 9 minutes longer

• 1582 Gregorian calendar

• 1752 England, rebelions (?)

• In orthodox countries till the begining of 20-th century.

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Eratosthenes sieve (identifying the prime numbers)

Alexandria and the Museum

• Aristarchos of Samos

• (3rd century BC)

• HELIOCENTRIC SYSTEM

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Claudius Ptolemy (about 85 – 165 AD)

• ALMAGEST

• Earth-centred system

• Epicycles and deferents

Science in Alexandria and the Museum

• Hypatia (355-370 - 415 AD) – lectured on Plato, Aristotle, wroute on mathematics and astronomy, commentaries to work of Ptolemy

• Astrolabe, distilation of alcohol

• Tortured to death, patriarch Cyrilos

• 643 library destroyed by Arabs

Philosophy of the Patristics 100 – 800 AD

• Early Christian writers – Church Fathers (Greek, Latin writeings)

• Theology and philosophy

• Tertullianus (Carthage cca 160 – 230)

• Roman theologian, advocate

• Christian, Montanist, his own sect

• Aggressive sarcastic style

• De Performances – should Christians attent games? – no

• Christians heve pleasures many – reconciliation with God and pardon of many sins. Tertullian closes his eyes to the spectacles of the world and appears before him spectacle of the Lord (angels, saints rising from the dead, kingdom of the just, New Jerusalem…)

Tertullianus

• Persecution of the Christians was ever present danger and Chtistians were perplexed by it.

• Was it persecution by Devil? No even such persecution comes from God: It never happens without God willing it and it is fitting for Him to do so, to the approval or condemnation of his servants.

• What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, what has the Academy to do with the Church?

Tertullianus

• Christian truth is in opposition to secular wisdom and to education as a whole. Here lies its power and victory.

• I believe it because it is impossible.

• Naïve materialism: all existing thing (incl. God and soul) of material nature.

• The term “trinity”

Augustin of Hippo (Tageste 354 – 430 AD)

• If you want to understand the catholic church, you have to understand Augustine
• H. Kung

• Monica (saint Monica), study in Carthage, hedonistic sinful life (commited thefts for fun)

• Catholic → Manichaean sect

• Teacher of rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, Milan

• Summer 386 personal crisis (mystical experience conversion to Christianity, baptized, back to Africa

• Priest in Hippo 350 sermons, bishop

• Died 75 during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals

Works of Augustine

• More than hundred titles

• Confessions - 13 autobiographical books

• Deep psychological insight into previous life

• There is no salvation outside the Church.

• 11th book about time:

• What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it, I do not know.

• God created time within the word.

The City of God (De civita dei)

• Human history as a conflict between “City of God” and City of Man (New Jerusalem and Babylon)

• People of “City of God” forgo earthly pleasures and dedicate themselves to Christian values, but inhabitants of City of Man strayed from the City of God

• In 410 Roman empire sacked by Visigots

• Conflict with Pelagius

• Celtic monk, from Britain to Rome, recognized grandeaur of Church and moral laxity.

• One could achieve grace through his own free will, criticisled Augustine doctrine of salvation depended only on God (and Church). Basis: the nature of Original Sin (St. Paul)

• Heresy – Ephesus 431 (rejected especially by Calvin)

Boethius (cca 480 – 525)

• Intermediary between ancient philosophy and Latin Middle Ages.

• “Last Romans and the first scholastic philosopher.”

• 395 Roman empire divided (E and W part)

• 476 Western part conquered by Ostrogoths (Germans). Capital Ravena, ruler Theodoric the Great

Boethius - works

• Service of emperor Theodoric, many high posts

• 523 arrested (charged of treason – plot with Byzantine Emperor) prison in Pavia, executed in 524

• Intended to translate into Latin works of Aristotle and Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy

• On Music - Musica mundana, humana, instrumentalis (incl. voice)

Boethius Consolidation of Philosophy

• Written in prison waiting for execution

• Prose and verse - dialogue between Author and Lady Philosophy

• Discussion of many old philosophical questions

• Translated to practically to all languages

• Pope Leo XIII: Boethius – st. Severinus