Greek Rationalism
KC 2.1 Development of Religious & Cultural Traditions
Greek Polytheism
The Greeks had many gods, and these helped unify Greek culture.
The Olympic Games every four years was a festival centered around the Temple of Zeus in Olympia.
BUT… Myths often contradicted one another or were incoherent.
SO… Greek thinkers sought other ways to order their understanding of the world.
They drew parallels between regulatory life in politics and regularity in the natural order of the universe.
Finding the Rational Order
Greek philosophers tried to explain how the world worked. They posited that everything was made of something more basic - whether it was fire, earth, water, or air. One said that everything is composed of tiny, invisible particles called atoms (Greek for indivisible). Even though they had different explanations, all of these thinkers tried to explain the world rationally without reference to their traditional gods.
Some applied this thought process to the human body, to history, to the purpose of human existence. No area of human thinking was off-limits.
Socratic Questioning
The Greeks emphasized logic and reason in argumentation. Greek intellectuals vigorously questioned everything - even authority - in an effort to find deeper truths.
Socrates was not the first Greek philosopher, but he is arguably the most influential. (Amazing since he never wrote anything down!)
Socrates opposed the Athenian style of rhetoric that had developed. Teachers, called Sophists, were charging money to teach young men how to argue their point with disregard to the truth. (They were making them into good lawyers!)
Instead, he questioned people he saw as pretenders: upstanding leaders of the community - politicians, priests, leading artists. His point was to show that people didn’t know the answer. Once they came to that realization, then he would question them further to get them come to the proper conclusion on their own.
The Trial and Apology of Socrates
(Apology means defense.)
Needless to say, Socrates publicly embarrassed a lot of important people. These leaders hated being made to look like they not only didn’t know the basic truths of their professions, but didn’t even know they didn’t know!
His goal was to bring people to the Truth. He taught that truth, beauty, and goodness were essential. If someone knows what good behavior is, then he or she will do it because it is logical. His pursuit of the Truth got him killed.
The leaders of Athens charged him three crimes:
Apology, continued
Socrates was
found guilty of
these crimes
and sentenced
to death.
He had a chance
to escape and
live, but he
refused.
Socrates did not
want disparage the law and the will of the people.
Plato
Plato was the most famous student of Socrates, and most of what historians know about Socrates comes from him.
Plato wrote many dialogues, and Socrates was often a character in these stories. Whether Socrates’ thoughts or Plato’s thoughts are the ones written down is debated by historians.
Plato wrote extensively on ethics and the good life and what a good society should look like. His Allegory of the Cave from his larger work, The Republic, attempts to show people how hard it is to find the Truth - and how rewarding.
Aristotle
Aristotle was Plato’s student, but he disagreed with his teacher on many counts. He was also the tutor of Alexander the Great, and the young conqueror sent many specimens back to Aristotle from far-flung territories.
Aristotle wrote about nearly everything from civics to physics. He thought the best government would be a mix of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. He thought good behavior must be taught, that people gain knowledge from experience (it’s not innate), and many more things.
Although many of scientific findings were incorrect, his starting point - observation - would later be instrumental in the scientific method.
The Legacy of
Greek Rationalism
Wealthy Romans sent their children to learn at Plato’s Academy. Hellenistic philosophers built on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Christian theology was couched in Platonic terms. The Byzantines studied Greek philosophers as well as Christian writings. Muslim philosophers preserved Greek knowledge in their empire.
Meanwhile, in the western half, the fallen half, of the Roman Empire, this knowledge was harder to come by for most people. A reawakening occurred in the 1100s CE as western Europe came into more direct contact with some of the other successor states of the Roman Empire.
Since then, the Greek classics, along with Roman law, Germanic custom, and Judeo-Christian heritage, has been considered a central pillar of “Western” civilization.
* Our guesses and observations are often mistaken, and that’s the only thing of which we are certain.
We make guesses about the fundamental nature of reality based on observations of that reality.
We make guesses about reality based on its fundamental nature.