Introduction to Ancient Greek Philosophy

One approach to this answering the question "What is Greek philosophy" is to explore the etymology of the Greek word "philosophy" (philosophia). The term "philosophy" is a compound word, composed of two parts: philos (love) and sophia (wisdom), so that literally it means love of wisdom. To be a philosopher is to love wisdom.

Does an analysis of the etymology of the term "philosophy" help in understanding its meaning of the term for ancient Greeks? When one knows that it means "love of wisdom" does this explain what the ancient Greeks intended by the term "philosophy"? Unfortunately, etymology is of little use in this case. The first part of the term philosophy (philos = love) is easy to understand, denoting a "fondness for" or "attraction to." To love is to place a value on something, so that the one who loves wisdom considers it worthy of pursuit. The problem that arises, however, is defining the term "wisdom" (sophia) as ancient Greeks would have understood it. The term is not so easily explained. Nevertheless, this much seems clear: since it was something to be loved and valued, it seems that the ancient Greeks believed that wisdom did not come naturally to the human beings. Normally, the things that are commonplace and ubiquitous are taken for granted. Indeed, as will become evident, ancient Greeks assumed that wisdom was inaccessible to all but the intellectually capable and determined, so that its possession was rare and highly prized.

Defining the term "philosophy" phenomenologically is to determine its meaning by means of ascertaining the phenomenon or experience that people (in this case, ancient Greeks) are describing when they use the term. Now, one cannot assume that a term such as philosophy has the same meaning when used by all ancient Greeks. Also one should not assume that one is not doing "philosophy" if one does not use the term to describe one’s activities. Nevertheless, there was a core meaning of the term "philosophy," as used by ancient Greeks: philosophy was a knowledge of the way things really were as opposed to the way things appeared to be. Philosophy as a discipline invariably assumed that the "world" constructed uncritically and naturally from data derived from the five senses was ultimately illusory; one could call this the world of common sense. For the ancient Greek philosopher, Reality was uncommon, quite different from the world of common sense. Although it is dangerous to generalize, because there was great diversity among Greek philosophers, for the ancient Greeks the philosopher sought to know that Reality concealed and distorted by the world of common sense. This knowledge was the wisdom that philosophers loved.

Generally for the ancient Greeks, to be a philosopher was to seek and obtain an all-inclusive knowledge, which one could describe as the knowledge of Being (what is). (Being is the most abstract of all terms, for it means everything that is; as such Reality is a synonym for Being.) Thus the philosopher, as the Greeks understood it, sought to understand the Whole (another synonym for Being). The goal was to know Being in its basic structure, not in all its multifarious detail, for it was assumed that the details of one’s existence become intelligible when one understood them in relation to the Whole. To use a metaphor from the building trade, the Greek philosopher was one who sought to understand the framework in relation to which all the details of existence were set. A house is the totality of its parts, but only when organized in a certain way, since a pile of building materials is not a house. It is the framer who gives the house its basic shape or structure; all the details of a house are set in relation to the framework. By analogy, for the ancient Greeks, philosophy was the attempt at understanding the framework of Being, the basic "shape or structure" of Being, in relation to which all the details of existence were set.

It is important to note that for the ancient Greeks, philosophy as knowledge of Reality or Being affected how a person lived; in other words, philosophy had ethical implications. What a philosopher knew was not merely theoretical knowledge, unrelated to the other aspects of human existence. The ancient Greeks assumed that one ought to live one’s life in conformity to the way things really were; otherwise, one could not be happy, not to mention that fact that one would be a hypocrite. But again, how one ought to live was thought to be concealed from human beings, not being self-evident; what appeared to be a means of happiness usually was not. Only the philosopher knew how to live, because ethics has its origin in a knowledge of Reality or Being: to know the Whole is to know one’s place in relation to the Whole.

Ancient Greek philosophy opposes against mythopoeic explanation, which results when the world of common sense is extrapolated in order to ascertain the causes of phenomena that have no obvious causes. In other words, ordinary human experience is extended to explain phenomena the causes of which are not immediately or easily known (or perhaps not knowable at all). As a means of explanation, mythopoeic explanation unreflectively assumes that analogous phenomena have analogous causes, something which is true of the world of common sense; this methodological principle derives from the uncritical premise that Reality cannot be other than appearance. The result is that when a question arises about the unknown cause of some phenomenon, it is naively assumed that the unknown cause must be similar to known causes of analogous phenomena. This can even extend to what later philosophers will call first causes or principles (those things that explain everything else but are not in need of explanation). A good example of mythopoeic explanation is the tendency of Greek mythology to explain phenomena in terms of procreation. Because in the world of ordinary experience, something comes into existence through procreation, in mythopoeic thought it is assumed that other things whose origins are not immediately discernible, came into existence analogously through procreation. In other words, it is naively supposed that all things must come into being by sexual activity, even if those things are non-sentient, or even abstractions, such as night and day. Hesiod explains the beginning of life as the result of Heaven (Ouranos) choosing to have sexual relations with Earth (Gaia). (In fact, the ancient Greeks tended to relate to non-sentient beings as if they were sentient).

Mythopoeic explanation frequently has recourse to intentionality, the exercise of the will, as an explanation of phenomena. Phenomena not explainable in terms of human intentionality are attributed to the intentionality of the gods. (The gods predictably are depicted as identical to human beings in most respects, with the exception of their degree of power and the fact of their immortality.) Because it is part of human experience that intentionality is an ultimate causal agent, by analogy the mythopoeic mind explains non-human phenomena that have no obvious causes as the effects of non-human intentionality. What cannot be explained as resulting from human intentionality is explained by recourse to divine intentionality. Mythopoeic explanation sometimes results in the personfication of abstract ideas to become divine beings of sorts, because in common sense experience only persons have intentionality. In fact, some of the gods and goddesses in Greek pantheon are full or parial personifications of human experience. Agood example is that goddess as Eris (Strife): when there is strife among human beings, it is thought that Eris has made an appearance, having come for the purpose of causing social dissension. Likewise, when the level of ferocity in war increases without any obvious cause, it is said that Ares, the god of war, is now present on the battlefield. Similarly, the nine Muses, daughters of Zeus, are personifcations of human artistic experience; they are said to give inspiration to human beings, if properly motivated. Natural phenomena are also explained in a mythopoeic manner, often by recourse to divine intentionality. For example, since the natural phenomena of a thunderstorm is analogous to an outburst of anger, the former is explained as the manifestation of the anger of the sky god, Zeus. Similarly, it is assumed that there must be an intentionality behind thalassic phenomena, namely, the will of Poseidon. Even events in the human technological development were explained by means of intentionality. It was said that the god Prometheus, in defiance of Zeus gave fire and other technological advantages to human beings.

Ancient Greek philosophers began the movement away from mythopoeic explanation. Since Reality was different from the world of common sense, it was methodologically inappropriate to assume that analogous phenomena have analogous causes. In many cases, ancient Greek philosophers looked with contempt upon the depiction of the gods by the poets Homer and Hesiod. The question that needs to be asked in to what extent the ancient Greek philosophers succeeded in escaping mythopoeic explanation.

Why did the ancient Greeks find mythopoeic explanation intellectually satisfying? Do you think that you are superior to them because you do not find it intellectually satisfying? Is it possible for human beings ever to dispense with mythopoeic explanation?

Ancient Greek philosophy generally distinguished human beings from other sentient beings, in that the former had the capacity to philosophize; often they explained this by postulating that human beings possessed reason (logos), or some such expression. What they seem to have meant by this is explained by B. Lonergan, who is a modern philosopher standing within the Aristotelean and Thomist tradition (Aristotle was, of course, an ancient Greek philosopher). According to Lonergan, what the Greek philosophers meant, phenomenologically speaking, when they said that human beings possessed reason (or some similar expression) was that what distinguished a human being from another sentient being was the capacity for self-transcendence.

Transcendence denotes the state of having gone beyond. Thus, self-transcendence is the state of having gone beyond oneself. How then does one go beyond oneself? One does so whenever one goes beyond the world of pure, practical self-interest and seeks to know something for its own sake. Human beings have, according to Lonergan, the pure, unrestricted desire to know; this is a human distinctive. This pure, unrestricted desire to know drives us beyond ourselves in an effort to understand Being (what is). When all of our physical needs have been met, we do not curl up and go to sleep, as a dog does; instead we begin to ask questions. This is our uniqueness: the capacity and drive to ask questions about everything, Being (what is). This is why Lonergan writes, "Man is an animal for whom mere animality is indecent" (Insight, 187). According to Lonergan, the unrestricted desire to know will eventually lead one to ask the question about Being, so that all human beings are (potentially at least) philosophers.

The possibility of self-transcendence also means that human beings are capable of examining courses of action and choosing the one which is logically demanded by Being (the Good). Thus, the human being is intrinsically an ethical being.

Is it true that all human beings are philosophers whether they want to be or not?

There was a subversive undercurrent in Greek intellectual culture, standing in opposition to the basic assumption shared by all philosophers in spite of their diversity. These anti-philosophers viewed the goal of philosophy as illegitimate or unattainable. Either there is no Reality to know behind the world of common sense or, if there is such a Reality, it is inaccessible to human beings. The Sophists fall into the fist class of anti-philosopher, while the Skeptics fall into the second class.

Given all the different versions of Reality or Being that were produced by Greek philosophy (and those produced by philosophers from different cultures and eras), it seems prima facie that the Sophists and the Skeptics may be correct in their criticisms of philosophy. If philosophy were possible, one would expect after so many centuries of philosophical activity that there would be consensus; there is none, however, so far.

How do you account for philosophical diversity?