Socratic-Platonic Thought

 

Note: All posts are interconnected, so you are requested to read the previous posts before reading this post. 

In the last post, we discussed the pre-Socrates period, where the philosophers explored wholeness and its parts with their roles. The section discusses Socratic-Platonic thoughts focusing on individual virtues, happiness, right knowledge, etc., instead of the Universe and its constituents.

Socrates, a Greek sage and philosopher of the fifth century B.C. from Athens, was the herald of a silent revolt against the living highly based on material possessions and imbued with power and wealth along with inhumanity. The below statement given by Mumford can help us visualize the materialistic life of that period:

“The ruling classes constantly were enervated by the surfeit of goods and pleasures they had so ruthlessly monopolized for themselves. They had lapsed, too may of these insolent rulers and their agents, from a human to a distinctly simian level; like the apes, they snatched food for themselves instead of sharing it with the froup; like them too, the more powerful claimed more than their share of women: like them again, they were in a constant state of nettled aggression toward possible rivals. In short, they had alienated themselves from their distinctly human potentialities….”

 During such an era, Socrates challenged all the vanities and pomps of a materialistic worldview through his simple life and powerful teachings. He was very much concerned with the question of virtues viz. justice, piety, moderation, etc., culminating in human happiness. He believed that happiness depends not on external objects and luxurious life but on knowingly acting rightly. To achieve a good life, he believed people should focus on moral virtue rather than pursuing material wealth because virtue that consists of the right knowing always leads to the right actions. However, he did not indicate how one could obtain that virtue. According to him, one can achieve righteousness by questioning one’s moral beliefs. That’s why he was also known as a moral philosopher of that time. In his trial speech, he tries to explain the substance of his mission (Graham, 2016):

“Men of Athens, I appreciate and love you, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I draw breath and have the ability, I will not stop philosophising and exhorting you and appealing to any one of you I happen to meet, saying what I always say, “Good sir, since you are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city and the one most renowned for wisdom and power, aren’t you ashamed of yourself for devoting yourself to maximising your wealth, your reputation, and your rank, while you show no interest at all in how to improve your wisdom, your honesty, and the state of your soul.”

 The philosophy of ‘right knowledge,’ propagated by Socrates, can be understood by the writings of his students, especially Plato. He concluded that ‘right knowledge’  free from all possibilities of errors of perception and judgment could not be achieved through senses because our senses are transient, continually changing and subject to decay and death. Thus, sensual perceptions are not enough to conclude this world objectively.

 The idea of ‘Good’, wisdom etc. belong to the super-sensible world (in contrast to objects which constitute the sensible world), and in Plato’s own words;

“…. in the world of knowledge, the idea of good seen, is also inferred to be the world of knowledge, the idea of good seen, is also inferred to be the Universal author of all things beautiful and right… the immediate source of reason and truth.. and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed”.

In Plato’s philosophy, we thus find a consummation of Socratic teachings. Socrates taught that true happiness – the perfect realisation of one’s ‘being’ -  needs right action, which demands ‘right knowledge.’ This knowledge could dawn only with a clear understanding of the idea of ‘Good’, and Plato indicated that ‘divine contemplation’ of the super-sensible world would reveal the idea of ‘Good.’ The perfection of man thus necessitated a knowledge of super-sensible realities. Accordingly, in his Academy too, Plato emphasized ‘enlightening’ his students, creating a love of knowledge and wisdom rather than imparting any special skill.

  We thus find that Platonic philosophy is a complete antithesis of the materialistic worldview. Like Socrates, he mocked all attempts at finding happiness in the ‘sensible world’. He considered people who thought to become happy only from sensual pleasures as prisoners of an underground cave where one can never see anything else other than the shadows on the wall of their cave, and they assume the shadows as realities. It implies that people searching for happiness only in the domain of their sensual pleasures are unaware of their virtue and realities. True happiness lies in coming out of this ‘prison house’ of the ‘world of sight’ and willfully undertaking the prisoners’ journey out of the cave. He believed this was the real purpose of truly human life.

Thus, being practical moral philosophers, Socrates and Plato much focused on individual virtues that culminate in human happiness. They condemned happiness and values derived only from senses and advocated that ‘right knowledge’, which could not be possible with temporary senses, is required to get the virtues. Hence, the Socratic-Platonic thought was the antithesis of the materialistic worldview prevailing in the modern worldview.

 After briefly understanding Socratic-Platonic thoughts, we can now move towards ‘The Christian Worldview,’ which dominated the western world for over millennia.

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Worldviews of the Pre-Socrates Philosophers

 

Note: All posts are interconnected, so you are requested to read the previous posts before reading this post.   

The last post discussed the materialistic worldview - full of inherent contradictions and dilemmas. If you have not gone through it yet, read the previous post before reading this section, as all posts are interconnected. It is important to note here that the materialistic worldview that has influenced the globe and is being adopted worldwide, irrespective of the religion, cast, creed and even geographical area, did not even exist before the fourth century B.C. In fact, interestingly, it was quite the opposite those days. The then philosophers are known as Pre-Socrates Philosophers. It will be an exciting journey to learn about their worldviews because many of us, especially those who are born in the modern era full of materialistic happiness, may not be able to think of worldviews other than the materialistic. This section unfolds the worldviews of the Pre-Socrates Philosophers, which were not materialistic at all.

Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, who lived in Miletus city in Greek in the sixth century B.C., are considered the ancestors of philosophies in western civilization. They were curious to know about the Universe and its fundamental substances. Therefore, questions like who created the Universe, how does the Universe work? etc., were at their priority. They tried to understand the Universe from the point of view of inherent natural laws rather than any God’s action or supreme power. So, they are often called ‘naturalists’ or ‘cosmologists’.

They observed two fundamental characteristics of reality: first, everything in the world is changing with time: second, any single thing that exists is different than anything else that exists, has existed and will ever exist. They concluded that a single and permanent substance underlying all the dynamic changes occurring in the perceptible world retains its unity and fundamental identity, termed as ‘Arche’. The Milesians saw the Arche as a physical or bodily material, as opposed to the concept of an immaterial soul or pure intellect. However, at the same time, this underlying essence was regarded as alive and endowed with spirit, and it was deemed divine and imbued with intelligence. Each Milesian offered a different view about what the Arche is made of. For example, Thales proposed that Arche is made of water, which implies water is an underlying substance of everything. Empedocles (fifth century B.C.) claimed that the combination of four elements (earth, water, air, and fire (or light) is the root cause of all the manifestation in the material world. Anaximander believed Arche not to be any material substance because of its limited nature. So, he called Arche as ‘Aperion’ -something is absent of limitations or limitless- which implies all-pervading. Anaximenes proposed Arche as ‘Air’. From an atomistic perspective,         Democritus, half a century after Empedocles, visualized the material world as composed of atoms of various shapes and sizes. He believed that all the observable dynamic properties are the combinations of atoms inside the objects. Epicurus, who extended the teaching of Democritus, restated the atomic perspective and said that whatever exists results from the recombination of atoms.

There was another view about the Universe based on the analogy of ‘Microcosm’ and ‘Macrocosm’. For earlier Greek philosophers, the world was a kosmos- ultimately ordered and harmonious structure which implies that each unit of this world is in harmony placed purposefully with other parts, and the characteristics of the whole Universe reflect on its parts. Microcosm and macrocosm are two components of an ancient Greek philosophical theory that describes humans and their role in the Universe. These early thinkers considered the individual human being as a small world (mikros kosmos ), whose composition and structure matched that of the Universe, or big world (makros kosmos, or megas kosmos ). This can be understood from Philebus and Timaeus, where Plato argues that humans and the Universe both have a fundamental body and a rational soul. The human soul must derive from the Universe’s soul, just as the human body does from the Universe’s body. As a result, the cosmos is not only a well-ordered system but also an intelligent creature.

The above discussion implies that the earlier Greek philosophers used to think of inherent unity, the interconnectedness of various parts of the Universe, the proper role of various substances, orderliness and purposeful integration of all substances. They were more interested to know the inherent underlying natural laws of which the whole world is a manifestation. This kind of worldview prevailed during the pre-Socrates period when philosophers used to explore wholeness and its parts with their roles. 

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