Hellenistic Thought
Cyrenaics & Epicurean
Cyrenaics
Cyrenaics are egoistic hedonists, which means they pursue individualized pleasure. In the history of ethics, they stand as the first clear cut school of thought advocating the maximum pleasure of the maximum intensity of the maximum immediacy. To get to that, one need to “know thyself”, the purpose is to understand what will give you enjoyment, so self understanding becomes an instrument for hedonistic purposes. Knowing is a matter of sense experience and its in our sense experience that we enjoy pleasure or feel pain. There is no universal law of what all people find pleasurable, it’s just the individual seeks to pleasure to maximize for herself or himself. They recognize unrestrained access produces pain the morning after and want to avoid such things. That is a description of characteristic of Aristippus of Cyrene.
Hegesius
Hegesius distinguishes themselves by being a pessimistic about life, that is, the maximum pleasure we can have is complete absence of pain. Therefore the best thing to do is to end it all. There is a whole literature on the ethics of suicide, beginning with Hegesius and more recently the French existential writer Albert Camu, in between lots of others. Frequently those who find justifications for suicide are based on hedonism.
Epicurean and Lucritius
Ataraxis means freedom from pain in the body and trouble in the soul. What they are seeking is a life of contentment that has find freedom from all that might disturb, upset, harass. Epicurean and Lucritius made a qualitative difference between pleasures. The higher quality pleasure are good company, education, living in a just society, the higher pleasures are more intrinsic pleasures. They try to ground this hedonism in a metaphysics of atomism of Democritus, who maintains that everything is composed of atoms in an empty space, everything that results results out of the chance process producing the kind of world that we live in. Democritus claims that atoms are eternal, that is, “ex nihilo nihil fit”, which means out of nothing, nothing comes. Epicureans make a distinction between primary qualities and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are spatial qualities like size, shape, density and second qualities are the ones we are aware of because of particular sense organs like color, smell, taste, sound and feeling. Primary qualities are objective and secondary qualities are subjective. Epicureans suggests how sense perception works that appears again in the theory of John Locke in the late 17th century. The secondary qualities maybe caused by physical stimuli in conjunction with the brain, the physical apparatus, but they are purely subjective and have no objective reality. Lucritius talks about how the changes appear in the physical process, when the atoms are falling vertically, an occasional atom for no known reason, will swerve off course, then it sets up a chain of reaction. There is an element nondeterminacy and unpredictability in nature and it is by virtue of that, that there is a form of freedom. Also they have a materialistic view of the soul, and being material, at death, the soul so easily escape, so there is no immortality. But it’s here he accounts for the experience of pleasure, if the atom of the soul is smooth, they will feel pain as a result of rough atoms, whereas smooth, round atom can provide soothing sensations of pleasure. And reason is simply the activity of the mind, that organizes our experience and names things. We’ll get to something very similar in 17th century, with Thomas Hobbes, political theorist, who has a materialistic view of the universe, a hedonist ethic, which was based on physiological explanation of pleasure and pain, a conception of social justice as a conventional arrangement based on social contract, in order to ensure self preservation.
Stoicism
Roots: Cynics Ethics and Heraclitus Cosmology
The main significance of cynics is their appeal back to nature, what is fitting for us by nature. Attention between nature vs custom, physis vs nomos. Aristotle’s ethics is an ethic of physis. But Cynics think the nature in Plato and Aristotle are simply Greek conventions. They really want to get back to a lifestyle that is more simple and independent, without the complexity of the social structures. The individual is self sufficient, we do not need property, governance, marriage and family. The underlying question is whether the troubles that human beings are having in this world are the products of culture or nature. Plato is saying it’s a product of human nature, that needs to be rationally controlled, whereas the cynics seems to say the it is a product of culture.
Cynic provides the moral start point of Stoic. Heraclitus metaphysic and Cynics together produced Stoic in a similar way to which Democritus and the Cyrenaics together produces Epicurean. Heraclitus was one of the double aspect thinker, there is order and change, logos that gives orders of unity and a world of changing manifestation in an ongoing process. The thing that gives order in a cyclic process of change is logos.
Ethics
The good they sought is apathia, which means freedom from passion, an emotional detachment. This can be achieved by the rational control of the passions. Stoic saw particular circumstances as part of the world order, a rational part of the rule of the law. If the adversity comes as a result as the operation of the natural law, seeing that clearly you are in a position to accept it, and to try to order your own life in harmony with nature and natural law. Similarly, moral evil is in contrary with nature.
Logos Philosophy of Nature
The term “nature” in Stoics is similar to “God”, although it is not a personal God, it’s closer to pantheism. Under the influence of Heraclitus, it is one whole with two aspects, if we think of nature as inert substratum matter, then it is something passive, on the other hand if we speak of God, that suggests something active. The active part is the focus and is spoken of as logos. The active force is the cosmic reason. And there are two aspects of nature in human beings, body and soul, one passive and the other active. The soul is the logos, and as the life force it is the material thing. That means, in reproduction, soul and body are reproduced together, which is known as Traducianism in later theological language. In biology this is known as Animalculism, which was one view of genetics.
Stoic Epistemology
The other thing in the context of logos philosophy is the bearing of logos doctrine of epistemology. The Stoics rejects any form of immaterial transcendent forms, all the exists are particulars. Knowledge derives from sense impressions of particulars, so the ordered casual processes of nature produce these impressions on consciousness which is tabula rasa, blank tablet. It differs from Plato who talks about innate knowledge, and Aristotle who talks about potential. From the impressions, we develop ideals. This is a representational theory of knowledge, that is to say, the mind is affected by outside forces that impressions develop which lead to the development of ideals and these are representations of whatever external object that produces these impressions. This becomes the standard theory of knowledge in 17th and 18th century. This raises the question that if all I know is my ideas then how there is anything out there that is like the ideas, how could we the material objects exist, that mind exist, that God exist. This kind of question is implicit in Stoic epistemology, it looks for a criterion of the truth and the criterion is the idea must have clarity and distinctiveness.
Zeno
Zeno gives emphasis on the natural law, nature in constituting the animal made near and dear to itself as if it knows what it is doing, it’s a logos nature. Pleasure is the object of the first impulse of the animals has shown that Stoics to be false because pleasure is declared to be a byproduct which never comes until nature has find them suitable for continue to existence. Nature’s rule is to follow the direction of impulse. But reason, by a way more perfect leadership has been bestowed on beings we call rational, life according to reason becomes the natural life. This is why life in agreement with nature is a virtuous life. Pleasure is an irrational elation over what seems to be choice worthy. The wise man is passionless, or apathia, because he is not prone to falling into such infirmity.
Christian Response
The early Christians were very much impressed with the Stoic ethic. There was a very wide acceptance of this way of talking about the divine logos, they recognize the Stoic logos is the logos of nature, same as the John’s logos. Tertullian adopted the Stoic view of the soul, he was attracted stoicism in response to gnosticism, which was a kind of dualism, claiming that matter is a source of evil and reason is the source of good. The Stoic is saying that reason is good but it is also material, so material ordered by reason is good. So in order to refute gnosticism, one can accept the Stoic materialism. Most Christian thinkers prefer a Platonic view in response to gnosticism, a view that introduces Stoic doctrine into Platonism. For example, the Middle Platonism combined Stoic logos doctrine with some Pythagorean and Platonism.
When Paul was in Athens, on his second missionary journey, he met with some of the Greek philosophers and we are told these were Epicureans and Stoics. In Acts 17:22 to 17:31, Paul responded to their doctrines. His strategy is to identify with fragments of truth he saw in Stoicism and Epicureanism, but to recast them into a different context. That’s precisely what Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria are going to say, when they tell us that all truth are God’s truth no matter where it’s found and the task of Christian is to regather these fragments and restore them to the body of the whole from which they have been stolen.
Skepticism
Skepticism is important in the history and it is going to recur during the Renaissance. In the epistemological vacuum, Sextus Empiricus and the other skepticism of the Hellenists loomed very large, so the philosophical starting point is how to avoid skepticism.
Skepticism has its roots in a combination of cynical attitudes towards the authorities of institutions and traditions but also in relativism of some of the Sophists. Historically, Skepticism seems to emerge in those junctures where some systematical approach is coming apart. So you get Skepticism in the classical Greek period, the Medieval period, in the conclusion of Enlightenment.
Pyrrho of Elis
He first posed the question what is the nature of things, to that his answer was: it’s unknown by virtue of inadequacy of all the human knowledge and reasoning. His second questions is what should be our attitude towards reality and his answer is to suspend judgment(apoche). It’s better to withhold judgment than to pre-judge. The third question is what is the value of skepticism, and his answer is it is a kind of quietude or a peace of mind. And they use terms like apathia and ataraxia.
From Sextus Empiricus: Skepticism is an ability, a mental attitude which opposes appearances to judgments, owing to the equipollence of the objects and reasons thus opposed we are brought firstly to a state of mental suspense and next to a state of “unperturbedness” or quietude. Skeptic claims to know what it does not know, which results in the objection to skepticism.
Carneades
Knowledge is impossible but opinion is, so Carneades introduces the notion of probability. It’s not the modern mathematical concept of probability, but more of a common sense. Probabilist admits the fallibility of the opinion that’s expressed. In modern standards, Carneades isn’t so much a skeptic as one who is willing to speak of knowledge as we do today as justified belief.
Sextus Empiricus
Roman Skeptics like Sextus Empiricus tended to classify the arguments for Skepticism into different types of arguments like modes of argument. There are five kinds of arguments, one an argument from conflicting views, which is equipollence. The second is arguments from infinite regress of premises. The third is arguments from relativity of appearance. Fourth, arguments from the over dogmaticism of their opinion and hypothesis. Fifth, arguments that points out the circularity.
There are arguments for and against Skepticism. For example, Augustine in his first philosophical writing, tries to argue that even the most complete Skeptic must know he exists in order to think he maybe wrong about something. In Latin phase: “Sifallore, suru”. He tries to find the logical truth which even the Skeptic need to admit.
The other response is trying to find the evasive first premise. That’s the way went on through the middle ages. The development of what we call today foundationalism, that we used to trace back to Descartes is only because the Skepticism in the early time had triggered approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian thought. And the thing that happen increasingly since Kant, is a rejection of the foundationalism along with a rejection of Skepticism but a third position that is a fallibilist position, that speaks of knowledge as justified belief. Knowledge becomes a certain subset of belief.
History of Ideas
There are three views in history of ideas. One is the atomic reading of the history of thought that each philosopher completely refutes the previous philosophers and history of philosophy is a series of mistakes, but it misses what is common, it’s a pessimistic view. Second one is an overly optimistic view claiming that everything emerging in one direction, a uni-linear view, this is the sort of optimism in Hegel who saw his philosophy is the philosophy to end all philosophies and all subsequent philosophies will just be footnotes to Hegel. In between is a multi-linear development, a plurality of philosophical trends in parallel with each other. Let’s say there are certain kinds of idealism, materialism and theism and each of them is multi-linear. The input that affect things in the course of history is history of science where you have successions of scientific models.
Middle Platonism
Middle Platonism emphasis on Platonism with two other strings of thought, Stoicism with emphasis of logos, and Neo-Pythagoreanism with the concept of emanation. At this junction of history there were strong tendencies towards dualism. A dualist interpretation of Plato is matter is some primal uncreated chaos into which forms comes with implications for the problem of evil. There is various kinds of gnosticism which regarded matter as evil and mind or reason is good. In Stoicism there is double aspect theory, where nature is viewed as a process of change and the other side is logos, the ordered-ness. What Middle Platonism does is to push dualism in a monistic direction. Not two ultimate reality but one inclusive reality from which variety is derived. They did it by Neo-Pythagoreanism’s emanation. There is a hierarchy of being with varying degrees of being and perfection from God to non-being, which becomes the conceptual model that governs the middle ages. It’s a hierarchy of being which has no gaps. This enables them to preserve the transcendence of God and facilitates of immanence of God. They were trying to preserve immanence by virtue of the Logos from Stoics. Logos was divine reason, some rational unchanging principle, so there are seeds of Logos in every particular thing. It is by virtue of Logos that the divine being is imminent in every natural thing. Consequently, evil can now be seen as dependent on one stage of whole hierarchy of being. There could be human beings who does not achieve the actuality, that do not conform to the Forms. Evil then is the privation of the intended Good, of the Form. Actually it sounds like pantheism because Logos permeates everything. When Christianity assimilated Middle Platonism they found that they had to make distinctions between God and creation which are not inherent in the emanation theory, but the distinction was finally made, that instead of emanation, creation ex nihalo(out of nothing). What begins to take shape on horizons now, Dualism is from gnosticism, where things formed ex materia(out of eternal matter), Pantheism where things formed ex deo(out of the substance of God) and theism with creation ex nihalo (out of nothing). Middle Platonism enabled them to affirm both the transcendence and immanence of God. God, by virtue of Logos is an immanent Form of principle within all things, but by the same token, Forms are seeds of the Logos and Logos is the emanating reason of God, then the ultimate of Forms is the reasons in the mind of God. God now is not only the formal cause but also the final cause and efficient cause for the sake of which nature exists.
The Logos then is divine. The highest emanation is known as prototheos(first god), the Logos is known as deuteres theos(second god) and the world soul. This is a pre-Christian conception of the divine trinity. If you want to overcome the gap between Plato’s Good, personifies as God and this world of time and space, the Middle Platonists saw this could be done in a deuteres theos that immanentizes the Good within nature.
Neo-Platonism
The importance of Neo-Platonism is that it provides the philosophical framework that dominated the Medieval thought until 12th century. Continue to be a powerful influence after the Reformation, both in Renaissance and Enlightenment, went for a resurgence in 19th century Europe. Neo-Platonism echoes the Middle Platonism. The top of the hierarchy is One, and below is the Nous or Intelligence and the third the World Soul. The downward movement from the One to the body is emanation and there is a parallel upward movement epistrophe which means turning back. In Plato’s divided line, the top 3 of the hierarchy are eternal and universal while the things below the line are temporal and particular.
Three Hypostasis
Plotinus calls the top three in the hierarchy three hypostasis which is the foundation of the Trinity in Christianity. The One is perfect unity, the most real and complete kind of being, of beauty itself, and is beyond definition. Because to define something is to mark it off something else, but if the One is all inclusive One, there is nothing to define it. Also, God is beyond all thought, because if God think about things, there will be things that distinct from God for God to think and God would not be the One. Moreover, if God thought just his own thought, God would be both object and subject of the thought and God would not be the One.
The Nous is the Mind flowing out of the One. This emanation is reason, thought. You can speak as if the divine being is thinking on its thought. This is the highest definable emanation of the divine being.
The World Soul is the dynamic, life giving, energizing force, that permeates finite beings, ordered them, guides them. The efficient cause of nature is the world soul, the formal cause is the Nous and the final cause and the material cause both are the One.
Temporal World
When he comes to speaking of the temporal world, the picture gets to be complex. Nous is also known as Logos and in particular we have Form. Human soul, in its pre-existence and eternal state, is free from bodily involvement, desire and concerns. On the other hand, sould that is incarnated, is feeling constantly threated, insecure by virtue of its bodily existence. And it manifest it self in giving undue attention to bodily needs. Those two ways of looking at the individual soul he sometimes speaks of as the higher and the lower soul. As if he is saying that there were two aspects of the soul in two worlds. One half of the being is drawn at what is above and the other drawn at what is below.
Problem of Evil
He addresses the problem of evil given this picture of the world. There is nothing absolutely bad since they are emanated from the One, but evil is a matter of degree, it’s relative to the position in the hierarchy. He then begins the distinction between two kinds of evil, the primary evil that arises in the process of emanation, which is also called natural evil. And human soul in particular gets a secondary kind of evil, in setting affection on things below, in following appetites rather than reason, which is moral evil.
The Good Life
Since evil consists of falling below ones pointed place, the good life is return to the One. First of all, contemplating nature, to see the order, unity and the good in nature, which leads one to contemplate Form within one’s soul, which leads, in the third place, to contemplation of Nous, and finally to Ecstatic reunion of the One. If it’s our individuality that drawn away from the One, there must be a loss of all individual self-awareness in returning to the One.