Greek Politics and Philosophy

1. Greek Politics and Philosophy Mr. AlperHumanitiesSouth Kingstown High School

2. The Rise of Athens • Development of democratic politics: • Draco (c. 600 B.C.E.): • Athenian legislator. • Replaced oral law with written constitution. • Draco’s code was equitable but harsh. • Solon’s constitution (594 B.C.E) • more democratic • popular juries and assemblies

3. The Rise of Athens (continued) • Persian Wars (499-459 B.C.E.) • Athens helped lead Greek victory against Persian Empire. • This increased Athens’s power and prestige. • Growth of Athens: • Population c. 450 B.C.E.: 300,000 – 400,000 • 150,000 citizens • 100,000 slaves • the rest foreigners

4. The Decline of Athenian Democracy • Peloponnesian Wars, 433 – 404 B.C.E. • Athens lost to Sparta… • …followed by brief civil war, tyranny, and restoration of democracy. • Athens no longer military/political leader… • …but continued as cultural leader.

5. The Sophists • Skill in rhetoric (art of persuasion) was essential in democratic assemblies. • Rise of sophists: teachers of… • 1) rhetoric; and • 2) moral & political principles (so students would know what to say). • Sophists were skeptics: • questioned “received wisdom”; • raised questions of how we know anything.

6. Socrates (469 – 399 B.C.E.) • Native-born Athenian, war hero, and unpaid teacher of Athens’s “best and brightest.” • Shared some of the sophists’ ideas: • concerned with nature of knowledge; • religious skeptic. • Differences: • believed in a divine force that we understand through reason; • tried to establish moral principles on basis of pure reason; • emphasized leaders’ responsibility to entire polis.

7. The Death of Socrates • Critical of democracy: • Thought Athens ruled by ignorant opportunists. • Called himself “the gadfly of Athens.” • Trial and death: • Considered a troublemaker. • Condemned for “impiety” and corrupting youth. • Offered exile, he refused and was ordered to drink hemlock.

8. Plato (427 – 348 B.C.E.) • Socrates’s pupil. • Wrote dialogues featuring Socrates (only source of Socrates’s philosophy). • Socratic Method and Platonic Ideas: • We can’t say for sure where Socrates’s ideas end and Plato’s begin. • Plato differs from Socrates in form of expression: • Socrates: oral, conversational, Q&A; • Plato: treatises, in dialogue form, more aimed toward practical use.

9. Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.E.) • Student of Plato. • Differed from Plato: • Believed knowledge originates in experience. • From experience, the soul perceives universal truths. • His treatises focus on empirical (factual, scientific) inquiry rather than on metaphysical speculation. • Teacher of Alexander the Great.

10. Rationalism vs. Empiricism • Rationalism: belief that knowledge is gained mainly through— • Intuition (inborn understanding) and • Reason applied to intuition • Empiricism: belief that knowledge is gained mainly through— • Sense impressions (experience) • Reason applied to experience

11. Socrates and Plato: Aristotle: Rationalism vs. Empiricism RATIONALISTS EMPIRICIST

12. Deduction vs. Induction • Rationalism relies mostly on deductive logic: • All humans are mortal • Socrates is a human • Therefore, Socrates is mortal

13. Deduction vs. Induction • Empiricism relies more on induction: • A sampling of 6000 swans turned up 6000 white swans and 0 black swans. • Therefore, we can assume all swans are white.