What did the Greeks ever do for us - Essay Example

What did the Greeks ever do for us? December 14, 2005 The dictionary typically defines philosophy as “the love of orsearch for wisdom or knowledge” or “as the theory or logical analysis of the principles underlying conduct, thought, knowledge and the nature of the universe” (Neufeldt, Goralnik, 1994, p. 1015). With such a general definition, one might begin to understand the complexities involved in studying philosophy as it seems to encompass just about all knowledge pursuits. Perhaps part of the confusion in trying to define the term can be found in the early days of the science when it applied almost universally to all avenues of knowledge in ancient Greece. The term itself derives from an ancient Greek word that translates to “love of wisdom” (Wikipedia, 2005) and it is through several early Greek thinkers that we have arrived at the perceptions we now foster. Although philosophy and its early proponents have had a huge impact on the shape of modern Western thought, for the purpose of brevity, this paper will only discuss how some of the key Greek philosophers have influenced modern conceptions of ethics and morality in a very general sense. Within this discussion, it is important to understand that the definition of ethics as it is considered by philosophers does not merely constitute a choice between right and wrong behavior. The dictionary defines the term “ethics” as “the study of standards of conduct and moral judgment” (Neufeldt, Goralnik, 1994, p. 466) and the term “morality” as “moral quality or character; rightness or wrongness, as of an action” (p. 882). Even this much of an explanation is unclear, though, as terms such as “standards of conduct,” “moral judgment” and “moral character” have yet to be defined and are potentially defined differently depending upon the answer to yet another question – what is the greatest good? Without knowing the definition of the greatest good, it is very difficult to determine with any certainty what is right and what is wrong. However, once “good” is defined, everything else becomes much easier. Right will then be identified as that thing that brings one closer to the greatest good while wrong pushes the greatest good further away. This, then, is where the philosopher steps in, helping to not only discover the best theory of right conduct and the good life (what we will call ethics), but also to help shape our understanding of the practice of right conduct and the good life (hereafter referred to as morality). (Sahakian, Sahakian, 1966, p. 31). To understand our current conception of ethics and morality, then, one must first look at how the ancient Greeks viewed the question as much of what they had to say still forms the core of our Western concept of both terms. Not much of what the very early philosophers had to say has been passed down through the ages, but surviving portions of the writings of Xenophanes show some of the earliest leanings toward the idea of a “moral, natural way of life appropriate to man” (Jaspers, 1993, p. 11), ideas that would later be developed by Socrates and his followers. Xenophanes even went so far as to publicly ridicule the popular Olympic games and mythological stories of his day because, in his mind, none of these things were useful, they “… do not enrich the treasure chambers of the state” (Jaspers, 1993, p.16), in other words, the benefit of mankind’s internal journeys. It is Socrates, though, who is generally considered to be the father of modern Western philosophy as he was among the first we know of who truly turned his attention away from contemplation of the nature of the world around him to the inner nature of humankind. As seen in the writings of Plato regarding Socrates, one of the requirements for a moral and ethical man is that they must first knows “his spiritual self as it really is, including all its shortcomings, strengths and potentialities” (Sahakian, Sahakian, 1966, p. 32). According to Socrates, it is the man who does not know himself who cannot accurately judge his own capabilities and his own unique path to the greatest good based on accurate use of his strengths and knowledge of his weaknesses. Socrates takes this another step by suggesting that knowledge of oneself will instruct from within regarding those things which are good (moral and ethical) and those things which are not. He suggests this by claiming that things that are good will make us feel happy inside while things that are bad will be immediately recognizable to the man who knows himself because these actions will cause “spiritual degradation and mental deterioration” (Sahakian, Sahakian, 1966, p. 33) that will be immediately apparent. It is this attention to the nature of the soul and the ways of protecting it that has labeled Socrates as a Christian before Christians. By arguing that there was such a thing as a soul and that its protection from the inherent damage of wrong action was the way to achieve the greatest good (i.e. reunification with God in heaven), Socrates unwittingly argued in favor of Christian ideals well before the religion became formally recognized. As Christians are now the most widespread religion on the planet, it is appropriate to say that if Socrates’ ideas are at the heart of Christianity, then his ideas are having an influence on modern thought at every moment at some point on the globe. Because he argued that the universe has a mathematical sense and therefore is meant to be understood, Socrates adhered to the belief that there is a transcendental soul that longs to find the truth. “The implication of this is that the world reveals God’s nature, and consequently that human beings have the opportunity and obligation to inquire into and understand what can be so known. The Socratic ideal of thoughtful reflection grounded in personal commitment to inquiry that is pursued as a way of life is entirely at home in the Christian context” (Calhoun, 2004, p. 3). As a significant belief system, Christianity continues to define many of our modern day ethics, including when it’s appropriate to kill, as in the convicted murderer on death row, and when it isn’t appropriate to kill, as in when the murderer killed his victim as the result of committing a crime. That there continues to be significant debate regarding whether the death penalty should be used at every looming execution, even among Christians of the same following (i.e. Methodist, Lutheran, etc.), indicates that most Christians follow the basic ideals of Socrates in depending upon inner reflection as well as outer evidence to determine the right path. Socrates’ most famous student, Plato, pulled together the ideas of his mentor and Pythagoras to combine them with his own response to what he’d seen of the world to develop his Theory of Forms, in which the ultimate goal was to progress through the levels of reality to the highest level, also known as the greatest good. According to Plato, reality is not the world of substance and things that we can see in everyday life, but is something more abstract that can only be obtained through intellectual thought. In determining the path to the greatest good, Plato differs from Socrates in the proper method of obtaining that level. Where Socrates says it is through right action, Plato says it is through correct thought (Strathern, 1996a, p. 25). In the case of humans, this perfect form is commonly identified as the soul, which, existing in the realm of ideals, begins in a perfect state and can only be harmed by the wrong actions defined by Socrates (Magee, 1998, p. 29). Further evidence of Socrates’ influence can be seen in Plato’s idea that only the unjust are unhappy, so to be happy (to achieve the greatest good), one must first be just. He attempts to define the term “justice” with an elaborate description of utopia in one of his most famous works, “The Republic.” Here, he sets forth an example of a just society in which there are no possessions, children removed from their parents soon after birth are given equal upbringing and education and all of them, boys and girls alike, are given equal opportunity to achieve the philosopher-king status based on their own unique talents, abilities and aptitude for higher thought. By imposing such a just society, Plato points out these rulers would “be above bribery; and their only ambition would be to ensure justice in the state” (Strathern, 1996a, p. 38) because they would have no possessions to protect or accumulate and would have no individual living spaces in which to inspire awe among their peers or subordinates. Out of this imaginary society, Plato also demonstrates his idea of a three-part soul that is ruled by intellect, action and appetites, all three of which must perform its proper function for the individual to reach his highest state of greatest good (pp. 46-47). This utopian society outlined in “The Republic” is most often compared with the tenets of communism, but that is not necessarily a correct assumption. Although there are several comparisons between Plato’s theories and communism, many might be surprised to learn that some of the major founding principles of democracy were also based on theories expounded by Plato. Being knowledgeable of Plato’s ideas, America’s founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both expressed the views that for the democracy to work in an ethical way, it would be necessary to listen to the warnings implicit in Plato’s writing and ensure that the citizens are sufficiently educated for the proper governing of the nation. “’Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree,’ Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1785, and Madison stated in a personal letter: ‘A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.’” (Bramann, 2004). As a consequence, many democracies also obtain their sense of business and governmental ethics from Plato’s warnings. In exploring his Theory of Forms, also known as the allegory of the cave, today’s philosophers are looking more and more into the phenomenon of the television as the common man’s primary source of information and the strong similarities implicit in the form. Plato’s most famous student Aristotle also propounded the ideas of Socrates and Plato that “education is the way forward for humanity” (Strathern, 1996b, p. 35). Unlike Socrates who saw the goal of humankind to be the pursuit of the greatest good through proper action or Plato who saw it being accomplished through highest intellect, Aristotle believed the greatest good could only be achieved through happiness, which he defined as “the purest activity of reason, which is theorizing” (pp. 35-36). To help balance outright pleasure with social responsibility, Aristotle brought forward the idea of the Golden Mean. “According to this idea, every virtue is the mean between two extremes” (p. 36). Although this thought had occurred to other philosophers before, Aristotle rejected their ideas that this mean could be mathematically deduced and applied universally. According to Aristotle, the mean varies depending on the individuals involved, the particular circumstances in which they find themselves and the current climate in which they’re operating, thereby bringing the idea of relativism into the discussion. “To kill a man on the battlefield was different from killing one on the street; and even here, if you killed him in the furtherance of a robbery it was different from doing so if he had grievously wronged you” (p. 38). Aristotle’s greatest contribution to philosophy, however, is arguably the invention of the subject of logic. Prior to Aristotle, arguments such as the following were unheard of: All humans are mortal All Greeks are human Therefore all Greeks are mortal (p. 32). Although there are some flaws inherent in the system, “in its day it represented a categorical advance in human thinking – of a magnitude that has remained unsurpassed before or since” (p. 33). It was through logic that Aristotle felt one could more accurately judge the situation in which one found oneself, therefore be better able to judge the median along which one should walk to find the path to greatest good. “The real point of everything … is what it does, what it is for” (Magee, 1998, p. 37). Only by understanding things as they are in this world, he believed, could one analyse the proper course of action. In considering the influence of Aristotle on modern thought, it is almost impossible to find a discipline of science or reason that does not bear his mark. His ideas about ethics are easily able to translate to the world of capitalism and the advent of ethics clauses within many corporations and governments. Following Aristotle’s basic premise that the pursuit of good is to pursue happiness, in a capitalist society, most would say the pursuit of happiness is equal to the pursuit of monetary gain. However, as Aristotle explained, happiness can only be achieved by finding the median between two extremes. Therefore, “the true test of virtue is how the money is made or lost. If business executives want to continue feelings great pleasure making money and do so by going to extremes, by doing something such as insider trading, then they are not acting with virtue. They are going to an extreme” (pm3500-ga, 2002). Because these three philosophers established the founding principles of not only the study of philosophy, but also of a majority of the other sciences, doctrines, and governmental policies, it is impossible to separate their influence out of the world as we know it in the twenty-first century. In instances where the knowledge of these philosophers was lost for long periods of time, it was often only with the rediscovery of their writings that the world was able to catch up on key concepts such as logic, reason, relativity and other ideas. In other cases, science is just now proving through empirical research some of the theories brought forward by these early Greeks. What did the Greeks ever do for us? They made our lives possible as we know them today. References Bramann, J. (2004). Plato: The Failure of Democracy. The Educating Rita Workbook. Available from . [Accessed December 13, 2005]. Calhoun, D. (September 10, 2004). “Follow the Argument” and Two Other Socratic Principles for the Christian Academic. Gonzaga University. Jaspers, K. (1993). The Great Philosophers. Vol. 3. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company. Magee, B. (1998). The Story of Philosophy. New York: DK Publishing. Neufeldt, V. and Guralnik, D. (eds.) (1994). Webster’s New World Dictionary. New York: Prentice Hall. p. 1015. Pm3500-ga. (July 12, 2002). What is Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue. Google Answers [online]. Available from . [Accessed on December 13, 2004]. Sahakian, W. and Sahakian, M. (1966). Ideas of the Great Philosophers. New York: Barnes and Noble Books. Strathern, P. (1996a). Plato in 90 Minutes. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Strathern, P. (1996b). Aristotle in 90 Minutes. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Wikipedia contributors. "Philosophy" [online]. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available from . [Accessed December 13, 2005]. Read More