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Greek Philosophers

Greek Philosophers. Philosophy = love of knowledge/wisdom. Sophists. Teachers who taught the skills of rhetoric and legal argument Athens needed teachers for young men who would be joining the Assembly

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Greek Philosophers

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  1. Greek Philosophers Philosophy = love of knowledge/wisdom

  2. Sophists • Teachers who taught the skills of rhetoric and legal argument • Athens needed teachers for young men who would be joining the Assembly • These teachers (sophists as a whole) were eventually criticized for being more concerned with winning arguments than with seeking truth.

  3. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) • From the sophist movement, real philosophers emerged, paving the way for Socrates. • Socrates never wrote down his philosophy. His ideas were recorded by other people, mainly his pupil Plato. • “The unexamined life is not worth living.” • “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”

  4. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) • Socratic method—Socrates would ask a broad question and then keep asking questions to force the responder to consider all sides of the subject and defend his position without contradicting himself

  5. Socrates (469-399 B.C.) • Socrates especially wanted Athenians to consider notions of justice and right and wrong. • When accused of corrupting youth with his instructional methods, he chose to end his life with hemlock (Athens’ method of execution) rather than apologize or promise to cease his methods. He was definitely a man of conviction.

  6. Plato (429-347 B.C.) • Coming from an aristocratic family, he was sent to school to study rhetoric…and his teacher was Socrates. • Plato recorded many of Socrates’ teachings and philosophical ideas in his Dialogues, in which the debates between speakers raise philosophical points.

  7. Plato (429-347 B.C.) • The Republic—Plato’s ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings, trained at the highest levels of knowledge • The Academy—Plato’s school founded in 380 B.C. • Aristotle—Plato’s pupil

  8. Plato (429-347 B.C.) • Platonism—Transcendent Truth is the only truth. • Everything on the physical plane is a poor representation of the eternal, perfect idea which resides in the spiritual plane. • Plato used as an example the ideal of “table” versus various examples of “table” in the material world.

  9. Plato (429-347 B.C.) • Plato believed people should rely on reason—which he saw as the innate part of us that is in tune with God—to find Truth. • He believed that in the material plane, truth can be manipulated, so trying to prove something with an example doesn’t necessarily make it true. He believed that our physical perceptions can be unreliable.

  10. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) • Aristotelian philosophy is more systematic, empirical, and logical than Platonism. • While Plato can be seen as an idealist, Aristotle can be seen as a realist. • While Plato believed our physical perceptions can be unreliable, Aristotle believed we must use our physical senses to study/observe the world.

  11. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) • Poetics—Aristotle’s views on the components of effective tragedy, including catharsis, hamartia, reversal, etc.

  12. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) • Invited by King Philip II of Macedon to tutor his son Alexander the Great • Lyceum—Aristotle’s school founded in 335 B.C.

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