Notes for Friday, January 14

History and Major Themes of Hellenistic Philosophy

Focus on Socrates

Xenophon - "If I don't reveal my views on justice, I do so by conduct"

-actions speak louder than words

Justice may not be something I can give a concrete definition of, but I know it exists, and I can exemplify it

The Art of Living

Justice, Virtue, and the Good always in excess, only in life can truth emerge

-not denying their existence, just that you can never perfectly contemplate them

Socrates/Alcibiades Relationship

Socrates loves Alcibiades for his mind, not his body

Alcibiades is only concerned with philosophy around Socrates

-returns to the libertine lifestyle when not around Socrates

- Socrates is erotic for the soul

- To be in love with Socrates is to be in love with love

Socrates profession of ignorance – skepticism

Conceit of knowledge is the worst kind of ignorance

Methods of Refutation – paved the way for logic and rhetoric in Hellenistic Philosophy

Irony/Deception

Socrates is being as honest as possible – the irony/deception comes from someone’s interpretation of Socrates

Minor Socratic Schools

Antisthenes – precursor of Cynicism

-contemporary of Socrates

-virtue is something practical, can be taught

-once aquired, cannot be lost, the goal life

-the sage is then self sufficient, since he has the wealth (true greatness) of all men

Cyreanic School

Aristippus (435-355 B.C.) Precursor of Epicurus

-pleasure is the goal of life (bodily gratification)

- a smooth movement, as rough movements produce pain

-scorned math because it didn't account for the good or the bad

Hegesias affirmed that pleasure is the goal of life, but it is unattainable

Megarian School

-chiefly concerned with dialectic and eristics

Paramenides - unity rather than multiplicity is the world

The Heap and the Bald Head paradoxes

Later Megarians were largely renowned for their interest in dialectic and would influence Stoic logic

Major Socratic Schools

Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lycecum, Zeno's Stoa

Like other minor schools the philosophers of the Hellenistic age considered the metaphysical and speculative developments of Plato

-searched for a middle path - understood that ethics could not be established without a metaphysics

Identities of Teaching Method

Platonism, Aristotelianism, Stoicism

Followed Socratic tradition of "molding citizens" via making them philosophers

-mastery of speech via dialectical exercises

-govern others and themselves via living dialogue between master and student

-considered dogmatic, rhetoric, aporetic