Classical Idealism



HUEN 3100 Dr. Fredricksmeyer

Contextualizing

Socrates, Plato, and Greek Philosophical Idealism

I. Background

theoretical thinking (based on ideas) over practical thinking (based on observation)

etymology: idea (Gk. &id, Lat. vid): mental picture of something in its perfect state

[idealism defined: idealism: tendency to want something in reality to approximate

one’s mental picture of it in its perfect state]

reasons for this tendency among many Greeks included-

upper-class disdain for practical thought/business

humanism and focus on man rather than natural world

theoretical issues such as virtue

[though interest also in physical well-being/medicine>observation]

observation (practical thinking) unreliable:

stick in water distorted

apparent change vs. permanent reality: life and death vs. spring every year

“New Learning”

anthropocentric rationalism and natural philosophy

astronomy: Thales (635-543) predicted solar eclipse of 585 BCE

physics: Democritos (460-370) atomic theory

medicine: Hippocrates (460-380) and the Hippocratic corpus

the sophists: towards moral relativism, and epistemological and linguistic nihilism

Protagoras (481-420): “man is the measure of all things”

Thrasymachus (459-400): “justice is the advantage of the

stronger”

compare with the Mytilenian Debate and Melian Dialog in Thucydides

Gorgias: “On Non-existence”

logos/ergon (compare with modern distinction between

signifier/signified)

language as indeterminate

see “deconstruction” and the Alan Sokal affair

II. Socrates (469-399)

select biography

odd appearance

perhaps a stonemason

wife Xanthippe: he was “a good-for-nothing idler”

notoriously brave (Alcibiades in the Symposium)

notoriously “wise” (the oracle’s declaration in the Apology)

associated with anti-democratic elements, including among the Thirty

Tyrants of 404

Socrates' trial and death as characterized in:

Euthyphro (the charges)

Apology (Socrates defense against the charges)

Crito (refusal to escape prison, and the social contract theory)

Phaedo (the death of Socrates by hemlock): final words to Crito, “I owe a cock to

Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?”

III. Plato (424-347):

select biography

student of Socrates (see also Xenophon and others)

wealthy family (etymology of the term “scholar”)

founded the “Academy” that operated until AD 529!

along with Aristotle, laid foundations of western philosophy (more below),

including Stoicism (see Epictetus and Stockdale)

Plato and Platonic dialogues: philosophical dialectic with characterization and humor,

many featuring Socrates the "Horsefly" (Cahill: “the Stingray”)

problems of interpretation

dating of the dialogues

voice of Socrates vs. that of Plato

recent trends in interpretation: “new Platonism”

Platonic aporia

Platonic idealism in the Republic

the Cave

Platonic theory of forms/idealism

unreliability of observation

the perfect state/utopia: social stratification

Guardians/Philosopher King (wisdom)

austerity: no money, property, family, or marriage; eugenic breeding

Soldiers (bravery)

Producers (productive-acquisitive urge)

elimination of poetry, art, music

IV. Aristotle

Plato's disciple

the Lyceum

materialism: the "form" is inherent in objects; they are informed

V. Plato's Legacy

Neo-Platonism and St. Augustine

reason and Christianity

Neo-Platonism, Humanism, and the Renaissance

Cosimo de Medici

Ficino

Neo-Platonic Academy at Florence

philosophy-

Alfred N. Whitehead: western philosophy as footnotes to Plato

recent vote of academic philosophers

Plato and Aristotle establish debate between rationalism and empiricism that continued

arguably until Kant

Christianity-

spiritual world more real than the world of matter

religion and politics: idealism to ideology-

ideology: tendency to force something to approximate one’s

mental picture of it in its perfect state

dangerous elements of The Republic

class stratification

rule by elite that is closely associated with a military

total subordination of the individual to the state

censorship

eugenics

from the Platonic forms to dystopia/ideologies:

Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies (1938)

failed utopias on the left and right-

Marxism/Stalinist Russia (left)

Maoist China (left)

Nazism (right)

part of problem: Platonic equation of knowledge and virtue (vs. Phaedra in

Euripides' Hippolytus)

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download