ANCIENT

PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by: Raizza P. Corpuz
Ancient Greek Philosophers

School of Athens - Raphael Sanzio

 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY:
BIRTH OF PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophy originated in the Greek
city states along the coast of Asia
Minor around 600 BC
– Because they were not as
bound by tradition as city-states
on mainland Greece
– Because they were also
constantly in touch with the
ancient science and speculation
of the Middle East
– They were, in short, more open
to intellectual innovation and
speculation than counterparts
on the mainland

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 Philosophical Epochs

Ancient Philosophy
• Ancient Philosophy
07/14/13 RPC 2013
 References
• The Power of Ideas, by Brooke Moor and
Kenneth Bruder; Essentials of Philosophy :
The Basic Concepts of the World's Greatest
Thinkers, by James Mannion; the series of
lectures The Great Ideas of Philosophy, by
Prof. Daniel N. Robinson from Oxford
University;

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 THE PRE-SOCRATICS
• The early Greek philosophers saw the world around them and
asked questions about it. Instead of attributing its creation to
anthropomorphic gods, they sought rational explanations.
• One idea the Pre-Socratic philosophers had was that there
was a single underlying substance that held within itself
principles of change.
• This underlying substance and its inherent principles could
become anything. In addition to looking at the building blocks
of matter, the early philosophers looked at the stars, music,
and number systems. Later philosophers focused entirely on
conduct or ethics.
• Instead of asking what made the world, they asked what was
the best way to live.
07/14/13 RPC 2013
 THE PRE-SOCRATICS
• The Western philosophical tradition began in
ancient Greece in the 6th century BCE. The
first philosophers are called “Presocratics”
which designates that they came before
Socrates.
• The Presocratics were from either the eastern
or western regions of the Greek world. Athens
— home of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle — is
in the central Greek region and was late in
joining the philosophical game.
07/14/13 RPC 2013
• The Presocratic’s most distinguishing feature
is emphasis on questions of physics; indeed,
Aristotle refers to them as “Investigators of
Nature”. Their scientific interests included
mathematics, astronomy, and biology. As the
first philosophers, though, they emphasized
the rational unity of things, and rejected
mythological explanations of the world.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 ANAXAGORAS
• He believed that the universe was originally an
undifferentiated mass until it was worked upon by
mind (nous), a spiritual component. (Anaxagoras was
the first to attach importance to the concept of
mind.) He believed there were no pure stuffs in the
universe but that everything shared a part of
everything else:
• "There is a portion of everything in everything."Into
the chaos in which the seeds of all things were
jumbled, mind inserted motion. As it gained speed, a
vortex formed and objects separated out.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 Anaximander
• Anaximander thought the principle
of all things was infinity. He also
said the moon borrowed its light
from the sun, which was made up
of fire. He made a globe and,
according to Diogenes Laertes was
the first to draw a map of the
inhabited world. Anaximander is
credited with inventing the gnomon
(pointer) on the sundial.
07/14/13 RPC 2013
• Empedocles of Acragas (c. 495-435 B.C.) was
known as a poet, statesman, and physician, as
well as philosopher. Empedocles encouraged
people to look upon him as a miracle worker.
Philosophically he believed in the four
elements.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

• Heraclitus (fl. 69th Olympiad,
504-501 B.C.) is the first
philosopher known to use the
word kosmos for world order,
which he says ever was and
ever will be, not created by
god or man. Heraclitus is
thought to have abdicated the
throne of Ephesus in favor of
his brother. He was known as
Weeping Philosopher and
Heraclitus the Obscure.
07/14/13 RPC 2013
• Parmenides (b c. 510 B.C.) was a
Greek philosopher. He argued
against the existence of a void, a
theory used by later
philosophers in the expression
"nature abhors a vacuum,"
which stimulated experiments to
disprove it. Parmenides argued
that change and motion are only
delusions.
07/14/13 RPC 2013
 The Pythagorean School

• Probably the most famous of the early Greek

philosophers that are known collectively as
the Pre-Socratics is the 6th century B.C.
philosopher Pythagoras, who may have
actually lived and may have invented the
theorem named for him -- or not.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

• Anyone who can recall math classes will
remember the first lessons of plane geometry
that usually start with the Pythagorean
theorem about right-angled triangles:
a²+b²=c². In spite of its name, the Pythagorean
theorem was not discovered by Pythagoras.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

• This shows how Pythagoras’ formulation
immediately led to a new mathematical
problem, namely that of incommensurables.
At his time the concept of irrational numbers
was not known and it is uncertain how
Pythagoras dealt with the problem.
• From Pythagoras we observe that an answer
to a problem in science may give raise to new
questions. For each door we open, we find
another closed door behind it.

07/14/13 RPC 2013

• Greek Philosophers
– Pythagoras- universe followed the same laws that
govern music & numbers
• Pythagorean Theorem- determine the length of the
sides of a triangle

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 Socrates and his Followers
WATCH A CLIP ABOUT THE ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY
Ancient Greek Philosophy.flv

07/14/13 RPC 2013

07/14/13 RPC 2013
 WHO IS SOCRATES??
Socrates - Encyclopedia channel.flv

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 WHO IS SOCRATES based on the
given CLIP?
• SOCRATIC METHOD
Dialectic Method

A MAN OF VIRTUE

DIALOGUE
QUESTION and ANSWER ?????

07/14/13 = KNOWLEDGE and VIRTUE

RPC 2013
 What’s the significance of this picture?

07/14/13 RPC 2013

• Sophists- professional teachers
– Taught students how to win arguments
– Rejected the idea of an Absolute Right & Wrong

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 “The unexamined life is not
worth living. ... Wisdom begins in
wonder. ... There is only one
good, knowledge, and one evil,
ignorance.”
(Socrates, 469 - 399 B.C.)
“The philosopher is in love with
truth, that is, not with the
changing world of sensation,
which is the object of opinion, but
with the unchanging reality
which is the object of
knowledge.”
(Plato, 429 - 347 B.C.)

07/14/13 RPC 2013

“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but
a habit. ... At his best, man is the
noblest of all animals; separated
from law and justice he is the
worst.”
(Aristotle, 384 - 322 B.C.)

07/14/13 RPC 2013

Philosopher Ideas

Pythagoras all relationships can be expressed

in numbers; Pythagorean theorem
Socrates absolute truth exists within everyone;
Socratic method
Plato government should be divided into three groups,
ruled by philosopher-kings; men and women
should have equal education and employment

Aristotle “golden mean”; use senses to make observations

like a scientist; analyzed governments and
decided that the best was a mixture of
government by a few and democracy
07/14/13 RPC 2013
 THREE TRIUMVIRATE IN ANCIENT
PHILOSOPHY

07/14/13 RPC 2013

 CONTINUATION…….

07/14/13 RPC 2013