The Late Classical Period

(Originally written November 9, 2006 in Book 11)

The Classical Mind 2nd Edition
W.T. Jones

Chapter 8 - Late Classical Period

Epicureanism

Epicurus was born circa 341 BC in Samos

He visited Athens around the death of Socrates.

He set up a school in Athens in 306 BC and was worshipped almost like a god.

He lived a simple life and was extremely friendly to everyone.

Epicurus 341 BC - 270 BC

Egocentric Hedonism

Epicurus' physics and theory of knowledge are consistent with Atomism and Democritus.

His ethics were radically different from the Atomists and Democritus.

Epicurus held that the end of life is to maximize pleasure.

While in theory it superficially looks synonymous to radical Sophism, Epicurus' lifestyle was not conducive to the Sophist notion.

Epicurus held that a simple, frugal life was more conducive to pleasure than extreme pleasure feelings like the Sophist's advocated.

He distinguishes between desires:
1) Natural and Necessary - food, sleep
2) Natural and Unnecessary - sex
3) Vain and Idle (Unnatural) - exotic food, fancy clothes

He held that necessary desires must be satisfied. Unnatural desires do not need to be satisfied ever.

Natural desires are easy to satisfy, unnatural ones are not for two reasons:
1) Objects of unnatural desires are exotic and harder to come by.
2) Unnatural desires have no limits.

Difficulties with Egocentric Hedonism

Epicurus held that his ethics of natural, necessary and vain desires were grounded in psychology.

Desires are subjective and vary from person to person so what is an objective standard for necessary.

Epicurus' virtues restend on whether or not they produced pleasure.

The problem with Epicurus' virtue is that some noble acts are painful and some acts that are pleasurable are un-virtuous by nature.

Epicurus was ambiguous in his teachings and that led to his popularity.

Repose

Repose was a necessary and natural desire for Epicurus.

Repose - (Physical) rest and relaxation
Repose - (Mental) freedom from worry

Repose was necessary for the blessed life.

Quietude was the ultimate pleasure.

Competition destroyed repose so competition was to be avoided.

Worry destroyed repose.

The two greatest worries:
1) Fear of death
2) Fear of divine intervention

Epicurus' atomism alleviated both of these groundless, superstitious fears.

Fear of death is due to ignorance of man's nature. Fear of divine intervention was ignorant of the true atomistic materialism.

Epicurus pursued knowledge because science created repose not because knowledge was a good in and of itself.

Epicureanism in Rome: Lucretius

Lucretius was the chief Roman Epicurean

Lucretius was concerned with man's irrational fear of death.

Lucretius attacked religion stating, "religion has given birth to deeds most sinful and unholy" (Jones, 323).

Lucretius suggested that fear of death may be the underlying motive for vices. He predicted some of Freudian Psychology.

Both Lucretius and Epicurus saw religion as being superstitious and disruptive of repose.

The appeal of Epicureanism

Repose appealed to the changing times of post-Alexander and the tumultuous evolution of Rome.

Stoicism

Founded by Zeno

Zeno was from Cyprus and founded a school in Athens circa 300 BC.

Zeno was inspired by the simple ethical opinions of Socrates, not the elaborate metaphysical theories of Plato.

The Cynics were followers of Socrates who shunned the amenities of life.

They focused on Socrates' indifference of circumstances and independence of Character. They ignored Socrates' claim "virtue is knowledge" but clung to his belief that no harm can befall a good man.

Poverty, pain, suffering and death come to all good men all the time, thus the Cynics held that these were not bad.

Virtue, to the Cynics, was indifference to what happened to him.

The Cynics' interpretation of Socrates was completely the opposite of the Platonic Socrates.

Zeno first was influenced by the Cynics' teachings, but their anarchist temperament caused him to shun their interpretations.

Zeno wanted to reconcile the Cynic sage ideal with he political temperament of Aristotle and Plato.

The Reconciliation process of Zeno was left for the Roman Stoics who wished to reconcile the ideal with Roman politics.

Stoics divided philosophy into three parts:
1) Logic (Theory of Knowledge)
2) Physics (including psychology)
3) Ethics

Theory of Knowledge

Stoic theory of knowledge is rooted in extreme sensationalism.

Perceptions are the basis for concepts

Stoics believed in the tabula rosa of the mind. There are no innate ideas.

Form, in the Stoics, differed from Plato and Aristotle. It is neither an independent entity (Plato) nor a component of spatiotemporal substance (Aristotle). It is merely a construct of the mind and has no existence outside of the mind.

The Stoic account of form is conceptualism. Conceptualism, despite problems, has had many adherents in the history of philosophy.

One problem is how one perception is known to be true or false. The Stoics assumed that true perceptions are known to be true because of their vividness and strength. False perceptions are hallucinations and illusions.

Aristotle argued that true perceptions were true because they were derived from real objects with a form.

Veridical perception - the transference of the object's sensible form to the percipient.

Aristotle, with vertical perception, had a criteria to distinguish true and false perceptions. But, "there is no way of applying this criterion in specific cases" (Jones, 327).

The Stoics abandoned Aristotle's criteria without realizing the problem that would follow.

Physics

Only matter is real. Nothing exists except the body.

The Stoics faced a paradoxical situation with this because not only does god and the soul have to be body, but good and bad must also be corporeal.

The Stoics identified fire with matter. This is an influence of Heraclitus.

The Stoics were content to basically follow Aristotelian physics and made no advances in the field.

Ethics

The Stoics were original in their ethical theory.

The highest good for anything was for that thing to act in accordance to its nature. They called this happiness.

Unlike Aristotle who called contemplation the highest happiness, the Stoics saw knowledge merely as a means to happiness. They valued science for its utility.

The utility of science in Stoicism is that it helps man to discover its nature (contra to the utility of science in Epicureanism, which is debunking superstition and fear).

The Stoic determinism involved (somehow) divine providence.

Matter was fire, but god was also fire in Stoicism.

The Universe is rational in Stoicism.

"The universe and man, they reasoned, stand to each other as macrocosm and microcosm" (Jones, 321).

Man's life has order, law and reason. Sure, man is a microcosm of the universe, so to0 the universe has these properties.

The "nature" (or logos or providence) of the universe was to be rational.

The old question of law vs. convention had been argued since the 5th century B.C. The Sophists maintained that the nature of the world (its order and laws) was merely a convention of man's mind. Conversely, Plato and Aristotle held that there is a nature of laws in the universe. They held morality as being in accordance with the nature of the world.

The "norm" of a thing is its nature. It is a pattern or a relationship of that thing's parts.

Everything has a nature. This was held by Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics latched onto it.

Humans have a norm and a nature. The deviation from that norm in any particular human being is what can be judged as a deviation from the good or ethical.

The Stoics' conception of nature led them to the idea of universal brotherhood of all men.

The idea of a cosmopolis or universal city was a Stoic invention. Had Plato or Aristotle not been so indoctrinated in the polis or city-state mentality they would most likely have come up with it.

The Stoics held that nature is a criterion and a universal order.

The expansion of the Roman Empire was justified by the notion of the brotherhood and by the ideal of the cosmopolis.

The Stoics maintained that there was a nature or laws that governed men that superseded the laws of any state. Thus, the laws that bound them are not issued by any state. This provided the chance for assimilation of cultures in the expanding empire.

This concept of Stoicism's natural law was absorbed by the Romans, the Christians (reinterpreting it as divine law) and the U.S. founding fathers (Bill of Rights).

The notion of duty was derived from the concept of nature. Though duty was a very old concept by the Stoics' time they gave it a primacy that it never received before.

They separated duty from advantage and spoke of man's end being happiness in negative terms.

Stoic happiness was not Platonic or Aristotelian development of a person or Sophist pleasure.

Stoic happiness was apathy, the peace of mind that comes to accept the world as the way it is. Happiness is indifference to reality.

Stoics held that only motive, not consequences had moral significance. Intention, not outcome mattered.

The stoics utterly rejected emotions.

While the Greeks had been working for centuries to control emotions and had gravitated towards moderation, temperance and the mean. The Stoics held that moderation was as bad as excess. Only apathy is good.

Virtue in Stoicism is either wholly present or wholly absent.

Virtue is obtained at a single point, after years of training. It is achieved when worldly things are put aside and the true perspective of the universe is seen.

Stoicism's extreme asceticism and narrowness are problematic.

Another problem is the rejection of the forms, but the emergence of natural laws.

Another problem is the determinism vs. choice problem. If the universe is determined can we make the choice to be in accordance with nature?

Despite these problems, the Stoic ideal of men living in one community where men act for respect of natural law, not personal gain, is still appealing today.

The Stoic notion of equality for men is another appeal for their theory. A universal state with universal citizenship was centuries ahead of its time.

The Appeal of Stoicism to Romans

Romans, rather than rejecting Stoicism, aimed to purge it of exaggerations.

Rather the apathy, Romans wanted their politicians to put aside personal gain for the well-being of Rome.

Rather than focusing on acceptance as the sole virtue/duty of man, Roman Stoics devised many natures of man and how to act in accordance to one's own nature.

Throughout Roman Stoicism, an ascetic and altruistic tone continued to dominate their views because of their insistence and focus on obligation over interest.

Roman Stoicism's ideal of courage was taking one's political duties seriously and unflinchingly.

Stoicism failed to create a consistent moral philosophy. This fact did not trouble the Stoics themselves because they are more interested with how their philosophy could be used to live in a troubled world rather than how well their philosophy could explain the world.

"Stoicism, in fact, was more a religion (doubtless a rather secular religion) than a philosophical theory" (Jones, 333). This fact came out in their usage of more emotive terminology, rather than cognitively precise meanings.