Note: This book was first published for the Kindle platform in 2013. It is also available on a free Wix site here: http://tomblackstone1.wixsite.com/whyweneedphilosophy. Over the next few months, I will be periodically re-publishing its chapters to the immutable Steem blockchain.
The Steem version of the Introduction and first chapter can be found here:
Eventually, the entire book will be available on Steemit. For this reason, it will still be available in the event that Amazon.com and Wordpress become unable or unwilling to carry it on their servers.
Philosophy:What It Is and Why We Need It
by Tom Blackstone
Copyright 2013 – Tom Blackstone and Benevolent Universe Publishing
Second Edition
Chapter Two: The Birth of Philosophy
Ancient Greek society began like all others, dominated entirely by religion. In the Greek religion, the Universe was governed by a multitude of gods who controlled every aspect of nature and of the lives of human beings. Sailors would often make sacrifices to Poseidon, the god of the sea, to ensure good weather on a long voyage. Lovers were said to be under the influence of Aphrodite and Ares was thought to determine the outcome of battles. All of the gods lived in a community at the peak of Mt. Olympus, the tallest mountain in Greece. They were governed by the head god, Zeus, who was also responsible for creating thunderstorms.
For thousands of years, the inhabitants of Greece understood the Universe solely through their religion, just as all civilizations in the past had done. However, at around 600bc, a new understanding of the Universe emerged which would change the world forever. This new understanding was the creation of a series of men who were regarded in Greek society as possessing wisdom far beyond that of the average person.
These men were said to engage in something called “Philosophia”, a word which combines the Greek word for love, “Philo”, with the word for wisdom, “Sophia”. Thus “philosophers” were said to be “lovers of wisdom”.
But what exactly was the “wisdom” that these men possessed and loved? Part of the answer to this question lies in the knowledge these men had of the ancient subjects of Geometry and Astronomy, subjects that had been imported into Greece from Egypt and had since been perfected over many years. But the early philosophers did more than this. These men did not merely come to understand the nature of circles, squares, and triangles, and the application of this knowledge to predicting the motions of the heavens. They went further than this, developing a view of the Universe that relied entirely on impersonal, unconscious forces to describe the world around them.
The first of these men is known to historians of philosophy by the name “Thales”, and few details of his life are known. What we do know about him, however, indicates that his speculations about the nature of the Universe had qualities which were extremely innovative and which all future philosophy would follow. Greek historians tell us that Thales became famous for predicting a solar eclipse that no one expected. However, the feat which he is most known for is his explanation that the world is made up entirely of water. This explanation is absurd from the standpoint of modern science but at that time it was far superior to any that had existed before. Thales had observed that water vapor could condense and become liquid water which could condense further and become ice. It could then melt back into water and become rarefied into air as vapor once again. It was a small step from this observation to the conclusion that maybe all substances are ultimately just different forms of water.
Thales’ explanation did not rely on the existence of gods, nor did his theory depend on an appeal to popularity. On the contrary, his idea was completely naturalistic and used a reasoning process to justify its conclusion. This reasoning process was not very sophisticated and his conclusion was wrong. However, what is significant about Thales is that he refused to blindly accept the traditional explanations offered by his society and instead relied on his own mind to understand the world around him. This principle would be the basis for all philosophy.
Thales’ theory that the world was made of water would spark a discussion that would rage for over several hundred years as philosophers searched for the “Arche”, the fundamental principle that would describe and explain the Universe.
As just a few examples of this kind of theorizing, Heraclitus believed that a force called the “Logos” controlled all things, while Phythagorus taught that numbers were the basis of reality and Democritus considered the Universe to be the product of tiny atoms floating in a void which interlocked with each other to create the substances that we see around us.
Although each of these theories differed from each other, they were united in the sense that they each implicitly assumed the Universe was the product, not of a set of conscious beings whose behavior was unpredictable, but of unconscious, natural forces that could be understood by the individual human mind.
This does not mean that these philosophers did not believe in the gods or that philosophy came to replace religion in Greek society. On the contrary, most of these philosophers did continue to believe in traditional Greek religion while simultaneously practicing philosophy, and the two world views continued to exist side by side.
Nevertheless, by implying that human beings could understand the world around them through their own minds, philosophers were subtly challenging the authority of priests and government officials, who had set themselves up as guardians of religion and morality. This caused some to question whether philosophy tends to cast doubt on religious beliefs. This issue would continue to make philosophy controversial throughout its history.
The members of this first group of early philosophers are known today as the “PreSocratics” because they came before Socrates, although they would not have used the term themselves. These philosophers are distinguished from all others by the fact that they theorized about only the physical world rather than ethical and political issues and by the lack of sophistication of their reasoning when compared to later philosophers.
After this group came Socrates, a man who would revolutionize the field of philosophy. Socrates claimed that he first came to practice philosophy after a fateful visit to the Oracle at Delphi. In ancient Greek society, the Oracle at Delphi was believed to convey messages from Apollo, the god of light. According to Socrates’ story, a friend of his once asked the Oracle at Delphi if there was any man wiser than Socrates. The Oracle replied that there was not. Socrates could not make sense of this answer because he did not believe himself to be wise. Nevertheless, he did not believe that a god would lie. Eventually, Socrates concluded that the only way to make sense of the Oracle’s statement was to say that he possessed a “kind of” wisdom. Unlike other people who thought that they were wise but who were really quite ignorant, Socrates knew that he was ignorant and did not pretend to know things that he didn’t. Thus, while he did not possess “wisdom” in the traditional sense, there was still a sense in which he was wiser than anyone else.
Socrates would go around the city of Athens engaging in arguments with the most well respected and influential people of the city. He would lead these people through a series of questions in an attempt to get them to clarify their positions on ethical and political issues. As the argument progressed, Socrates’ opponent would end up contradicting himself and would be shown to be a fool who really didn’t know what he was talking about. In this way, Socrates challenged the traditional views of the government officials in Athens. He also provided philosophers with an invaluable tool to help them in their quest to understand the Universe.
The questioning that Socrates engaged in, a practice which is often called the “Socratic Method”, gave rise to the idea that philosophers needed to have extremely good arguments to support their theories. If they did not have such arguments, then they were only claiming to possess wisdom when in fact they really knew nothing. It was no longer accepted to simply engage in speculations about the Arche, however reasonable such speculations might be. Philosophers had to justify their speculations through argument, to prove that their ideas were superior to all others, if they wanted to lay claim to true wisdom. Otherwise, they weren’t much different from the religious figures who had existed before.
Socrates also turned philosophers on to the subject of Ethics. What is “goodness”? How should human beings live their lives? These questions were just as important as the issue of the nature of the Universe, if not more so.
Socrates’ incessant arguments with well-respected members of Athenian society eventually got him into trouble. Late in his life, Socrates was charged with impiety and corrupting the youth of the city. His critics said that he did not believe in the gods and that he was a deceptive person who made false things appear to be true. They claimed that he was a threat to public order and must be prevented from teaching philosophy. At his trial, Socrates argued that he would rather die than to stop teaching philosophy because “the unexamined life is not worth living”. He was convicted by the Athenian jury and was sentenced to death. While in prison awaiting his execution, several students of Socrates tried to convince him to plan an escape and flee the city. Socrates refused, arguing that it was dishonorable to become a fugitive. When the time came for his execution, he drank the poison hemlock as ordered and his life came to an end.
This ordeal of Socrates made a tremendous impression on another philosopher who would turn out to be his greatest student: Plato. Unlike Socrates, who communicated his philosophical ideas through word of mouth alone and wrote nothing, Plato wrote a series of stories in which Socrates is the main character and is depicted arguing with various people. Many modern scholars agree that the first few dialogues Plato wrote were an accurate presentation of Socrates’ ideas. However, these same scholars believe that in later dialogues, the ideas that Socrates is depicted as advocating are actually Plato’s rather than his own. Thus, we can rely on the dialogues to understand not only the philosophy of Socrates but also of his student, Plato.
Plato had a far more expansive and systematic philosophy than his teacher. While Socrates claimed to possess no wisdom of his own and saw philosophy merely as a tool to expose the ignorance of others, Plato developed a positive system of philosophy with positions on many different issues.
The most fundamental principles of Plato’s philosophy are his concepts of the world of Ideas and of the theory of knowledge as recollection. In Plato’s view, there is a fundamental problem inherent in the idea of human knowledge. All things that exist in the world we perceive around us are particular and individual. We see this tree, that horse, that building over there. Yet we believe that we possess knowledge of entire classes of things. For example, we believe that trees possess bark, horses are living things, and buildings will protect us from the weather. But how is this knowledge possible? How do we know what things deserve to be called “horses” and what things deserve to be called “trees”, without already knowing what trees and horses are? Since we do not perceive any abstract “treeness” or “horseness” in the world around us, Plato argued, an opponent of philosophy could make a “trick argument” that concludes that knowledge is impossible.
This problem led Plato to conclude that the world we see around us cannot be the only world that exists. There must be another world beyond this one, a world that consists entirely of abstract ideas. The world of the senses is only a pale reflection of this invisible, true reality. Human beings must have existed prior to their birth in this other world, at which time they possessed all knowledge. However, they lost this knowledge when they entered the world of the senses. When human beings see a horse, it reminds them of the idea of “horseness” which exists in that other world; whereas when they see a tree it reminds them of “treeness” instead. This happens because horses participate in the idea of “horseness” while trees do not and vice-versa. Plato believed that this theory of ideas and of knowledge as recollection explains how it is possible that human beings can understand the Universe.
In modern times, Plato’s belief in the world of Ideas and his theory of knowledge as recollection is often criticized as “irrational” and “mystical” but regardless of whether we agree with Plato’s position on this issue, it should be understood that the problem he raised is a significant one and has continued to be discussed by philosophers up to the present day.
In addition to the problem of human knowledge, Plato also wrote extensively on issues of ethics and morality. In one of his greatest dialogues,”The Republic”, Plato depicts a debate between Socrates and a man named “Thrasymachus”. Thrasymachus tells Socrates that the term “Justice” simply refers to whatever action benefits the stronger men in society even when it oppresses those who are weaker. In Thrasymachus’ view, a person who believed that there is some kind of objective principle called “Justice” that benefits all men is simply naive. Human beings naturally have conflicts of interest and the only smart thing to do is to get whatever one can in the immediate moment, regardless of what harm comes to others. Socrates disagrees. Through repeated questioning, he causes Thrasymachus to contradict himself. At the end of the book, Socrates (and by implication, Plato) presents the idea that unjust actions cause the soul of a person to be in conflict with itself and, therefore, are not really in the interest of the person who engages in them.
Plato founded the first philosophical school in Athens, which he called “The Academy”. One of the students at this school would turn out to equal or even surpass Plato and become one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived. This student’s name was Aristotle.
Aristotle was converted to Platonism at an early age and studied extensively at the Academy. However, he eventually turned against Plato’s theory of the world of Ideas and knowledge as recollection. Aristotle argued that there is no reason to believe in another world beyond this one. The world that we perceive with our senses is the one that we must accept. Aristotle agreed that there must be some way for human beings to know what objects belong to which classes. However, Aristotle argued that these Ideas do not exist in another world but in this one, as “essences” that are contained within objects. Thus, we recognize a particular tree as belonging to the class “tree” because it contains a tree essence, a “treeness” so to speak, that is also contained by every other particular tree. Other objects, such as horses and buildings, do not contain this essence and therefore, we know not to place them in this category. In Aristotle’s view, this explains how human knowledge is possible without having to claim another world beyond this one.
In addition to his theory of essences, Aristotle also wrote a set of treatises on the laws of rational argument. This set of treatises is called the “Organon” and formed the original basis for the branch of philosophy known as “Logic”.
According to the Organon, an argument consists of a set of statements. One of these statements is a conclusion and the others are premises. The argument is valid if its conclusion follows from its premises. In other words, an argument is valid if its conclusion can’t be false unless at least one of its premises is false.
For example, take the following argument:
- All men are mortal.
- Socrates is a man.
- Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
This is a valid argument. A person cannot accept the first two statements (the premises) as true and not also accept the last statement (the conclusion) as true. At least, he cannot do so without being irrational.
Aristotelian logic contains many rules for determining which forms of argumentation are valid and which are not, and these rules are extremely valuable. However, philosophers throughout history have also recognized limitations to his system. For the most part, Aristotle’s Logic applies to what are called “deductive” arguments. These are arguments that begin with abstract statements and end with statements about particular things. The example given above is deductive. However, some arguments are “inductive”. They begin with statements about particular things and end with an abstract conclusion. For example, take the following argument:
- Heraclitus is mortal.
- Pythagoras is mortal.
- Socrates is mortal.
- Plato is mortal.
- There are no known cases of immortal men.
- Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that all men are mortal.
Aristotle’s system provides us with little advice on how to deal with arguments such as this one. In these cases, other rules must be used to determine the argument’s validity.
Despite this limitation, Aristotle’s Organon provided philosophers with a tremendously valuable tool to determine which philosophical theories had good arguments to support them and which did not. It would continue to do so through most of philosophy’s history.
In addition to these aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy, he also, like Plato, wrote extensively on the problems of Ethics. In his book, The Nichomachian Ethics, Aristotle argued that all human actions aim at some "telos" or goal. Certain goals are more important than others, with the ultimate goal for all human action being “eudaimonia”, a Greek word which is often translated as “happiness” but which in addition has connotations of “success” or “flourishing”. Aristotle believed that the purpose of ethics was to teach human beings how to be successful and happy. Without such teaching, human beings would still try to achieve happiness but would likely fail to do so. Aristotle advocated a system of virtues based on observing the “golden mean”, never having too much or too little of any one thing.
Aristotle founded his own school and had many students. His philosophy continued to be popular throughout the classical era of the Western world and is still influential today.
After Aristotle, additional schools of philosophy emerged in Ancient Greece, although none of them have been as influential as either Platonism or Aristotelianism . One of these schools was that of the Epicureans, who combined Democritus’ atomic theory with an ethical system that saw pleasure as the ultimate human good. Another of these schools was that of the Stoics. They believed that all human action is predetermined and that the only thing human beings can control is their own attitude towards their fate; a fate which itself cannot be changed.
By the time the golden age of Greece came to an end, philosophy schools had sprouted all over the Mediterranean and were in constant discussion with each other. Greek culture was then spread throughout the ancient world as Alexander the Great of Macedon built an empire and the world entered what historians call the “Hellenistic Age”. Much of this empire was later conquered by the Romans who in turn adopted Greek philosophy and culture for themselves. As a result, by the first two hundred years of the Common Era, philosophy was flourishing like never before throughout the ever expanding Roman Empire.
However, the prosperity which the schools of philosophy were experiencing was not to last. New ideas were arriving in the ancient world that would cause philosophy to nearly disappear from the face of the Earth.
Although Philosophy had made great inroads amongst the upper classes of Roman society, it had been unable to penetrate the minds of the vast majority of poor Roman peasants. For these people, religion still provided the sole means of explaining the Universe and the place of humans within it. In addition to the traditional Greek religion which had been imported into Rome with new names given to the old gods (Aphrodite was now “Venus”, while Ares was known as “Mars”), new religions were also developing a following. Among these new religions was a group which historians refer to as “Redeemer Cults” because of their emphasis on the idea of a god or goddess who promises to save human beings from the corruption and degradation of the material world and to release them from the pain and misery of life. One such redeemer cult was that of the sun god, “Mithra”, in whose honor December 25th was declared a national holiday. Another popular example was that of the Egyptian goddess, “Isis”.
The new religion which had the greatest impact on the world, however, was that of the growing mass of people who called themselves “Christians”. Christianity began as a small sect of Judaism which held that the Hebrew “Messiah” or “Anointed One” that had been prophesied to appear had come into existence in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus had taught his disciples that the oppression of Jews by the Romans would soon come to an end as the entire world would be swept away in a great cataclysm. God was going to create a new world in which peace and prosperity reigned and in which immoral and corrupt people would be punished for their sins. Jesus urged his followers to forsake wealth and pleasure and to live a life of self-sacrifice. He taught that the meek and the poor were loved by God and would soon be delivered from their misery if they would only refuse to give in to the temptations that existed in Roman society.
The Roman authorities, believing that Jesus was attempting to form a Jewish rebellion against the government, had him executed by crucifixion, a particularly ghastly method of death that was often used for traitors. However, Jesus’ death only made him into a martyr. His following continued.
Christianity at first had a difficult time recruiting people into its ranks. Most Jews opposed Christianity because of its message that the covenant between God and humanity was being fulfilled and that Jews no longer had to follow the letter of Jewish law in certain cases. At the same time, non-Jews tended to see Christianity as an ethnic religion that could not appeal to them.
All of this changed after the work of the apostle Paul. Paul transformed Christianity from a small sect of Judaism into a universal religion which had wide-spread popular appeal and came to rival the Mithra and Isis cults. He taught that the message of Jesus was not only for Jews but for all human beings and that Jesus was the true redeemer of humanity.
His message proclaiming the virtue of poverty and self-sacrifice spread like wildfire throughout the lower classes of the Empire and eventually came to infiltrate even the upper strata of Roman society.
This put Christianity in direct conflict with Greco-Roman philosophy.
Some Christians tried to combine Christianity with philosophy. St. Augustine, for example, believed that Platonism and Christianity had much in common and could supplement each other. Other Christians, however, were vehemently opposed to philosophy on the grounds that it leads human beings to have too much confidence in their own minds and ultimately causes them to disregard the commandments of God. In his essay, The Prescription Against Heretics, for example, the Christian Apologist Tertullian asks rhetorically “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” and goes on to argue that Philosophy is a deceptive practice that can only lead human beings astray.
In the end, it was Tertullian’s version of Christianity that came to dominate the Roman Empire. When the Emperor, Constantine, converted to Christianity, it became the official religion of Rome. Two centuries later, an edict was pronounced that all philosophy schools would be shut down by penalty of law.
Over the next few hundred years, the Roman Empire decayed under the crushing burden of heavy taxes and an authoritarian political system backed up by a priestly class which administered the Christian sacraments to the people, while rooting out any heretics who dared to question its power.
Wave after wave of barbarians attacked the Empire, which was unable to defend itself. The city of Rome itself was sacked and the continent of Europe became governed by small fiefdoms. The great commercial economy of the classical world disappeared, to be replaced by a primitive, agricultural society. The Dark Ages had begun.
Philosophy had no place in this society and was unknown even to most educated people in the medieval world. However, the search for a rational, objective view of the Universe did not die out but merely went underground. In the next chapter, we will discuss the continuation of this search as Philosophy was reborn in the High Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Images: David - The Death of Socrates, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931, public domain work of art