We are going to begin our semester-long journey through Western culture in ancient Greece. We all know the names of philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, but my guess is that beyond name recognition, not too many people know much about what these men actually taught. And far less probably are familiar with the other philosophers of the time who also are quite important.
An Overview
Fortunately, since I am not by any stretch of the imagination an expert in ancient Greek philosophy, our overview will be fairly basic, and hopefully, easy to read and understand. So let’s start with somewhat of an overview of the period. In the Greco-Roman Age, there was a mixture of religion, politics, and philosophy that was clearly reflected throughout the culture.
- Politically in Greece, the democracy experiment under Pericles (495-429 BC) soon gave way to the 30 Tyrants and eventually Alexander the Great. Later, in Rome, the collapse of the republic gave way to the Roman Emperor. There was always a tension between democracy and dictatorship, with the dictatorship eventually winning the day.
- Philosophically, the issues centered on what is real: universals or particulars. This philosophical question impacts the very question, “What is man, and what is his relationship to the natural world and to the gods?”
- Religiously, there were various cults and formal political rites to appease the gods.
At the end of this time came the rise of Christianity, which obviously rearranged the furniture, so to speak:
- Politically, it proclaimed Jesus to be both Christ and Lord. This threatened Roman society, both its god and Caesar himself. The Christians proclaimed equality under the Lordship of Christ.
- Philosophically, the early Church Fathers used Greek Philosophy to explain the significance of Christ: the resurrection, the Spirit, the Church. The question, “What is real?” was answered with “That which is in Christ, so that God can be all in all.” In short, Christianity preached that the universals had been revealed in the particulars, so as to open the door to where particulars can be taken up into the life of the universals.
- Religiously, Christianity re-worked Jewish models from the Temple for worship.
Now, the roots of Western civilization can easily be traced back to ancient Greece. Although, as it will be seen, the Roman Empire, Second Temple Judaism, and Christianity all put their respective stamps on Western civilization, ancient Greece was where Western civilization effectively began. From its architecture and literature to its philosophy and its concept of democracy, ancient Greece’s impact on modern Western culture still affects us today.
It shouldn’t surprise us to see that within ancient Greece there was an all too familiar mixture of religion, politics, and philosophy. Right along with the worship of the Homeric gods of Greece, there was the thriving philosophical schools of thought inspired by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle that often ridiculed the very idea of the gods of Mount Olympus. While some Greek philosophers went so far as to deny the existence of the gods altogether, most seemed to hold on to a conviction of some sort of Prime Mover, or Divine Logos, who was ultimately behind creation and human existence. What is further interesting to note is that this curious interplay between belief in the gods and classical philosophy took place within a culture experienced both democracy and tyranny. Just like today, the worlds of religion, philosophy, and politics were not separate worlds at all: they were the main influencers within an ever-evolving ancient culture.
But before we get too ahead of ourselves, perhaps we should first survey the historical landscape of ancient Greece so that we can get our bearings and understand how and why so much in ancient Greece still impacts us even today. To get our minds around the contributions of ancient Greece, we first need to divide it up into three general time periods.
Archaic Greece: Of gods and goddesses (800-500 BC)
This was the time period that was heavily influenced by the writings of Homer, namely The Iliad and The Odyssey. No one knows for certain when Homer lived and wrote his epics, but most agree it was sometime between 1200-800 BC. Homer’s impact wasn’t that he just wrote some famous stories. His two major works essentially defined Greek identity and culture. The story of the Trojan War and the story of Odysseus weren’t just stories about some war, or about some general trying to get home; The Iliad and The Odyssey was the story of the Greek people: constantly fighting against the unpredictable, petty, and violent gods as they strove to live out their lives.
Given that, a few things need to be said about what Greek mythology really was saying about the gods, mankind, and the general purpose of life. The Greek (and later Roman) gods were what Francis Schaeffer called nothing more than amplified humanity. Basically, that meant the gods were just as petty, vicious, lustful, jealous, back-stabbing, hateful, and pretentious as human beings could be, but with one essential difference: they had super powers!
What this all meant was the gods were extremely dangerous if you ticked them off. But this led to another problem. Let’s say you had to kiss up to Poseidon because you had to go on an upcoming sea voyage, but at that time Poseidon was having a spat with Zeus—well then, if Zeus saw you making a sacrifice to Poseidon, he might get jealous and then do his best to make your life as miserable as possible while you were at sea. This dynamic can be seen in both of Homer’s works, The Iliad (about the Trojan War), and The Odyssey (about Odysseus’ struggle to return home after the Trojan War).
Needless to say, the Greeks were terrified of the gods. Even if they felt that they had successfully pleased one god or goddess, they could never be too sure if they had not angered another god or goddess. Imagine living in an extremely dysfunctional family in which incest, rape, beatings, manipulation, and jealousy was the norm…and oh, all the adults had guns, locked and loaded! “Dangerous” and “fearful” don’t even begin to describe that kind of reality.
Such was essentially the Greek worldview at that time. For that matter, that was the basic worldview of most ancient cultures. Life was dangerous and chaotic, and the gods of the ancient world reflected that dangerous and chaotic reality. Mankind was at the mercy of the gods, and the gods were certainly not loving, honorable, and good. They were dangerous and powerful, like a mafia boss, and they had to be paid off if you wanted to survive in their world.
The Rise of Greek Philosophy: The Dilemma of Universals vs. Particulars
While the masses were thoroughly pagan in their fear and enslavement to the gods, a revolutionary movement took place in Greece around 600 BC: the rise of Greek philosophy. “Philosophy” means “the love of wisdom,” and what we saw at this point in ancient Greece was the one of the first attempts in history to use human intellect and reason to truly understand reality as it really was. It is interesting to note that the rise of the philosophers in Greece almost coincided perfectly with the emergence of Buddha, Zoroaster, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Jewish Exile into Babylon, during which time much of the Old Testament was written down, collected, and organized.
Although many, if not most, of the Greek philosophers still believed in some sort of deity or deities, the chief characteristic of Greek philosophy was a reliance on, and belief in, the supremacy of human reason. It was rational autonomy, and not any placating of warring gods, that was the key to “the good life.” As Andrew Hoffecker in Revolutions in Worldview states, to the Greek philosophers, “…reason, not the fear of the Lord, was the beginning of wisdom; reason itself became something of a god—though they did not describe it as such—an object of ultimate allegiance, and the ultimate standard of truth and falsity, of right and wrong” (6).
The goal of the Greek philosophers was obviously to come to a rational understanding regarding the nature of reality. Very quickly, though, a fundamental problem became apparent: the relationship and difference between the inherent oneness of reality and the ever-changing aspect of reality. To put it more simply, “How does one account for the seemingly irreconcilable realities of change and permanence, and which one is the more fundamental basis of reality?” This philosophical question that began with the Greeks and has been at the core of all philosophical arguments ever since is the question regarding the relationship between universals and particulars.
In the years leading up to what is known as Classical Greece, the philosophical arguments concerning the question of change vs. permanence, can be crystallized by a reference to four early philosophers. Concerning the question as to whether there was either a material or immaterial basis to all reality, Thales of Miletus (6th Century BC), by stating that the underlying principle of all reality was water, clearly thought that the basis of all reality lied in material things. Water is a material substance, and it is in a constant state of movement and flux—hence, so too is all reality.
At the opposite end of the spectrum was Pythagoras (572-497 BC), who argued that it was numbers that were the underlying principle of all reality, and thus emphasized the unchanging, immaterial basis to reality. Say what you want, but numbers do not change—four bases on a baseball diamond will always be four bases; furthermore, numbers are not material substances. Hence, the basis for all reality lay in that which is immaterial and unchanging.
Related to these two philosophers were Heraclitus (535-475 BC) and Parmenides (515-450 BC). Heraclitus (much like Thales of Miletus) declared that permanence was an illusion. His famous saying of “You can never step in the same river twice,” emphasized that change was the universal feature of reality. Parmenides (much like Pythagoras) declared that it was rather change and diversity that was the illusion. What our senses perceive simply cannot be trusted.
These types of questions might seem somewhat pointless to some, but when you think about it, such questions open the door to contemplating what is really real—what is “reality” after all? Our senses perceive that we live in a universe that is undergoing constant change—this much is true. There’s no denying it, unless, of course, you are going to discount the very senses that allow us to perceive the universe in the first place. On the other hand, though, our minds have the ability to intellectually grasp unchanging realities as well. Numbers are always numbers, for example.
So what is the basis for understanding fundamental reality? Is it ultimately immaterial or material? Is there a unified oneness to reality, or does the truth about reality lie in diversity and constant change? With this philosophical conundrum briefly articulated, in my next post we will turn our attention to the age of Classical Greece, and to the rise of the great philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
