西方文明的建立

Lecture Thirteen Plato and Aristotle Scope: Socrates wished to defend the existence of things to be known, the possibility of knowing them, and the capacity of humans to communicate their understandings intelligibly to one another. His greatest pupil, Plato, took as his life’s work the defense of Socrates’s teachings, but gradually, he moved far beyond his master. In doing so, he laid the foundations for the many Platonisms that have been a powerful current in Western thought ever since. Plato’s greatest pupil, Aristotle, learned much from his teacher and, like him, wished to defend the basic views of Socrates. But Aristotle’s approach was quite different from Plato’s, just as Aristotelianism differs from Platonism. By the end of this lecture, we’ll see why Raphael’s painting The School of Athens has Plato pointing up and Aristotle pointing down. Outline Socrates was smug, pompous, cantankerous, and brilliant. An Athenian jury condemned him to death for corrupting the young. His death disillusioned many of his followers, but caused one of them, Plato, to dedicate himself to defending the master’s teachings. A. Socrates wrote nothing and almost all we know, or think we know, comes from Plato’s dialogues. B. Plato clearly defended much of his teacher’s thought, but gradually, Plato’s thought became his own. C. The starting point was that there is something “out there” that we can know; that we have the tools to apprehend that something; that, having apprehended that something, we can reliably communicate about it with others. II. Plato (429—347 B.c.) was a consummate stylist, an influential teacher, and a wide-ranging thinker. He came from a wealthy and influential family and traveled widely. He devoted his adult life to philosophy, founding his school, the Academy, around 385. A. To begin with, let’s review the problems: Change appears to be a constant, and stability, elusive; the senses are flawed tools of perception; language has severe limitations as a tool of communication; laws are human contrivances, n ot eternal regulations. B. Plato addressed himself to two big questions: 1. What is the nature of knowledge and what means do we have of obtaining and holding it? 2. What is morality and what is the best form of human life? C. Plato was a prolific writer. His earliest works were in dialogue form, perhaps because this accorded with Socrates’s teaching methods. Gradually, the works became straightforward treatises. D. At least three things are controversial about Plato’s thought: 1. How much of Plato is attributable to Socrates? 2. Did he use the Socratic elenchus and essentially demonstrate what was wrong with other views, or did he advance positive doctrines of his own? 3. Did he have a coherent system of thought, or is Platonism attributable to his commentators? III. In general terms, we can understand Plato’s theories of knowledge and morality. A. In his Republic, Plato said, “We are accustomed to posit some one form concerning each set of things to which we apply the same name. 1. The “form” is the very thing to which the name is applied. 2. The form is invisible and is grasped by thought, not by the senses. Its relation to the named thing is as original to copy. 3. Such knowledge as we have of the form is true knowledge and all else is mere “opinion.” 4. In the “Myth of the Cave” from the Republic, Plato came as close as he ever did to making clear what he meant. 5. We can for purposes of discussion take two examples, a concrete one—a shoe—and an abstract one—love. 6. Plato speaks of an immortal soul. This is eternal and has knowledge of the eternal, transcendent realm that it communicates to each sentient being. B. Also in his Republic, Plato reflected on the human soul before it is imprisoned in the body, on the embodied soul, and on the kind of state that properly arrayed souls could create. 1. The soul has appetites, courage, and reason. 2. Virtue, which equates to knowledge, is a proper arrangement of these three. 3. An ideal polity, therefore, would have: farmers with all desirable possessions; soldiers without property or family (Sparta?); and philosophers who had such elevated understanding that they felt a duty, not a desire, to rule and whose desires did not attach to material things. IV. Aristotle (384—322 B.C.) came from the far north of the Greek world. His father was a doctor and had ties to the Macedonian court. At seventeen, Aristotle entered the Academy. He spent some time as tutor to Alexander the Great and lived in Ionia for a while after Plato’s death. In 335, he founded his Lyceum in Athens. A. Aristotle learned much from his master, and the differences between them should not be exaggerated. B. Aristotle was a prolific writer but also a rigorously systematic one. C. Marked by what one scholar called “inspired common sense,” Aristotle based his ideas on observation and close study, not on pure thought. 1. His earliest work was in zoology and his most durable, in biology. 2. Perhaps we see here the influence of his doctor-father. 3. But we can also see the long reach of the Ionians, beginning with Thales. D. Aristotle did not see change as illusory or as a proof of the contradictory nature of being. The fact that an acorn became an oak tree, for example, did not prove somehow that being became non-being or that being came from non-being. 1. Change is a natural process that can be explained (alternatively, there is actually no such thing as change). 2. Forms do not have existence separate from the things by which they are named. Reality is in the specific and observable. E. Aristotle had a profound love of order. 1. He classified all sciences (that is, branches of knowledge) as theoretical (those that aim at knowledge), practical (those that aim to improve conduct), and productive (those that aim at making beautiful, useful things). 2. He wrote on specific disciplines, such as logic, rhetoric, poetics, and politics. 3. He believed that the communication of what is known (or knowable) depended on careful description. Hence, his “categories”: substance, quantity, quality, relation, location, time, position, condition, action, and affection. 4. He laid down rules for syllogisms as a way of testing propositions, which in turn, helped him to discuss both knowledge and communication. He classified 256 kinds of syllogisms, with only 24 of them valid. 5. Thinkers had long understood that knowledge of being depended on causation—how things came to be. Pierre Pellegrin describes Aristotelian causation theory this way: There are four ways in which something “is said to be” responsible for something else. In one sense, the responsible element in the statue is the bronze from which it is made; in another sense, a certain numerical relation is responsible for the octave; in still another sense, the one who has promulgated a decree is responsible for it; finally, the health I would like to recover is responsible for the fact that I waste my time at sports... .There are four causes at work in nature: taken in the order of the above examples, these are the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. 6. The concepts of essence and accident, act and power, provide for his way of assessing being and (non-) change. F. Ethics for Aristotle were habits that could be inculcated by careful training from earliest youth. 1. The goal of life is happiness, which Aristotle equated with virtue. Man’s goal is to be happy, not to know what happiness is. The virtue of the shoemaker is not to understand the concept “shoe,” but to be able to make a shoe. 2. True happiness is achieved by moderation and self-control. But every person is different, and some are “high-minded.” V. Raphael’s famous painting The School of Athens has Plato and Aristotle walking side by side. A. Plato points upward. Truth, reality, and knowledge of them are not here. Now we have only vague hints or imp ressions. B. Aristotle points down (or perhaps right out in front of himself). Truth, reality, and knowledge of them are right here in this world, but we must study attentively and reason correctly. C. As Plato and Aristotle built on the foundations of Greek thought before them, so Western thought ever since has been built on these two pillars. Essential Reading: Annas, “Plato,” in Brunschwig, ed., Greek Thought, pp. 672—692. Kraut, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Pellegrin, “Aristotle,” in Brunschwig, ed., Greek Thought, pp. 554—575. Recommended Reading: Plato, The Last Days of Socrates. The Pocket Aristotle. Questions to Consider: 1. In what ways can you see Plato and Aristotle responding to the challenges thrown up by pre-Socratic philosophy? 2. What do you see as the most significant similarities and differences between Plato and Aristotle? Lecture Fourteen The Failure of the Polis and the Rise of Alexander Scope: Across the fourth century B.C., Greek writers, Plato and Aristotle prominent among them, staunchly defended the polis even as it was failing before their eyes. We’ll ask why that was the case and why they did not see alternatives—or, perhaps, in Plato’s case, what kind of an alternative he imagined. In the end, it didn’t matter because the squabbling Greeks were overwhelmed by their barbarian neighbors to the north, the Macedonians. The attacking wing of the army that doomed the Greeks in 338 was led by the eighteen-year-old Alexander. Two years later, he succeeded his father as king of Macedon— in dubious circumstances—and set out on an unprecedented campaign of conquest. When he died in 323, he had, the legend says, wept for lack of worlds to conquer. Outline The fourth century was a terribly difficult time for the Greek world, but the difficulties were not unprecedented. A. During the Persian Wars, there were quarrels over strategy and some Greek cities medized, went over to the enemy. B. During the Peloponnesian Wars, most of the Greek world was dragged into the battle. Brutality became a way of life. C. Sparta won and threw out the Athenian democracy, but the Thirty Tyrants quickly discredited themselves, and a more moderate democracy was restored. D. To finish off the war against the sea-wise Athenians, the Spartan landlubbers turned to Persia, the ancient enemy. E. For a generation, the Spartans, aided by Persia, which was really pulling the strings, dominated the Greek world. F. The Thebans then pulled together an alliance to put an end to Spartan rule and established a hegemony for about a decade. G. The Athenians now recreated a smaller version of their former empire and liberated Greece from Thebes. H. Meanwhile, to the north, the Macedonian storm cloud was gathering force. II. The Macedonians were a tough people whom the Greeks called barbarians (essentially, “babblers,” people who did not speak Greek). A. Macedon’s kings were, however, accomplished rulers. B. By conquering important silver mines, they secured access to financial resources. C. Philip 11(382—336 B.C.) was a particularly accomplished soldier, a reasonably cultivated man (he hired Aristotle to tutor his son!), and ambitious. III. Meanwhile, in the Greek world, idealized states and “Panhellenism” were taking hold. A. Aristotle called man a “political animal”: He meant a being who naturally lives in a polis. 1. But he knew perfectly well that poleis had failed badly; he and his pupils studied 158 of them. 2. He imagined an ideal state governed by an oligarchy of aristocrats, that is, “rule by a few” and “ru le by the best.” It is not so clear how this could come into being. B. Plato imagined his ideal republic where “Kings would be philosophers and philosophers would be kings.” But by the end of his life, he gave up on this ideal and settled for a very small state where a carefully chosen few saw to the implementation of the laws. C. Jsocrates (436—338 B.C.) gave rise to Panhellenism (literally, “allGreek-ism”). 1. His dream was that all of Greece would unite under Athens and Sparta to undertake a crusade against Persia. He imagined that the Greeks had once been united. 2. Then, realizing that the Greeks would not bow to one of their own, he tried to persuade people to unite under Philip of Macedon. B. Meanwhile, Demosthenes (384 —322 B.C.), Greece’s, indeed antiquity’s, greatest orator, raised his voice in defense of the autonomy of the polis. 1. But he also would have wished for a war against Persia. 2. He delivered four Philippics against Philip and saw Macedon as such a threat to Greek liberty that he actually entertained the idea of allying with the Persians against the Macedonians. E. Amidst a welter of wars, alliances, and idealistic dreaming, Philip attacked. IV. At Chaeronea in 338, Philip’s army won a decisive victory over the Greeks. A. The attackin g wing was led by Philip’s eighteen-year-old son, Alexander. B. Philip created a league with himself at its head to govern Greece. C. He began making preparations to attack Persia. This might have been his own idea, or it might have been suggested to him by the Greeks. B. In 336, Philip was murdered in a palace intrigue, the outlines of which are still not clear. E. After some work to patch up relations with his father’s supporters, Alexander became king. V. Alexander (356-323 B.C.) is an enigmatic figure: large, handsome, athletic, intelligent, charismatic, but also ruthless and immeasurably ambitious. A. He was ideologically clever. He depicted his war against Persia as a crusade to even the account for the long-ago Persian attack on Greece. 1. But he was using this as a cover for sheer imperialism. 2. He also used his campaigns as a way to distract and reward the Macedonian nobles who might have turned against him at any moment. B. Still, one should not minimize the extent of Alexander’s military achievement. 1. With a force not larger than 35,000 men, he conquered the Persian Empire and marched beyond it into central Asia and northern India. 2. His tactics and personal courage were important, but so, too, was his attention to materiel and supply lines. C. Scholars have long thought that Alexander was cosmopolitan, that he fostered a kind of multicultural world. 1. He incorporated foreigners into his command structure. 2. He married an Asian princess. 3. He promoted the study of the regions he conquered. D. Alexander died, probably of malaria, shortly before his thirty-third birthday. 1. He left no institutions in place and no plans, as far as we know. 2. The question of what he might have done had he lived longer remains open. VI. Alexander unintentionally inaugurated what we call the Hellenistic world. A. This was a period when Greek values and culture would dominate the Mediterranean basin. B. On a grand scale, this is like the other colonizing and imperializing ventures that we have encountered. C. The spreading of a culture in this way played a decisive role in pouring the foundations for a Western civilization with deep Greek roots, instead of a Greek civilization that passed into oblivion. Essential Reading: Green, Alexander of Macedon. Recommended Reading: Connor, Greek Orations. Questions to Consider: 1. Why do you suppose that people are inclined to adhere so firmly to ideas that they must know to be flawed? 2. Was Alexander “Great”? Lecture Fifteen The Hellenistic World Scope: The world after Alexander the Great is customarily called He/len istic-.—~’Greek-ish,” or “Greek-like,” to differentiate it from the Hellenic, Greek proper, world of the classical period. The Hellenistic world was prosperous and marked by the dominance of Greeks and Macedonians all over the Mediterranean world and far out into the old Persian Empire. Literature and science flourished. Greek became the common language, the koiné, of most people. New philosophies, in particular, Stoicism and Epicureanism, spread widely and attracted many followers. We’ll ask why “therapeutic” philosophies were attractive. This was a remarkably cosmopolitan time and, on the whole, a good time for women. The Hellenistic world came to an end as, one after another, the Hellenistic kingdoms were conquered by the Romans. Outline He/len istic is the name given to the period from the death of Alexander to the Roman triumph in the Mediterranean: 323—31 B.C. A. The name is meant to distinguish between Hellenic proper and Hellenic-influenced. B. Greek became the koiné; Greek art dominant in influence; Greek philosophy regnant but revised. C. This was a world of empires and kingdoms, not of poleis. II. On Alexander’s death, his leading generals carved up his vast realm. A. Antigonos—his descendants are called the Antigonids—took Macedon and the Balkans. 1. Gradually, the Greek lands broke away into a league of their own under nominal Antigonid supervision. 2. In the western Balkans, the kingdom of Epirus emerged (we will meet the inhabitants again as enemies of Rome). B. Syria, Palestine, northern Mesopotamia, and southern Anatolia fell to the Seleucids. 1. Mostly named Seleucus and Antiochus, they turn up in the last books of the Hebrew Bible: Judas Maccabeus revolted against them. 2. They shared rule in Anatolia with Pergamum. C. Egypt fell to the Ptolemies, whose last ruler was Cleopatra. B. These kingdoms warred against, and allied with, one another repeatedly, until the Romans conquered them one by one. III. It is the cultural, not the political, history of the Hellenistic world that is interesting and important. A. The Hellenistic world was one of vast wealth, easy movement of peoples, rapid cultural dissemination, and genuine cosmopolitanism. B. Developments in Alexandria are revealing. 1. The city was founded by Alexander (he founded more than twenty). 2. It had 500,000 people by 250 B.C. and a million by 50. 3. The scholars in its Museum (that is, “house of the muses,” or academy of all the branches of knowledge) were learned and professional, not great civic figures as in the polis. 4. Culture was increasingly an object of study, not a part of daily life and debate. 5. Learned, elitist scholars began to develop the idea of a literary canon, of normative texts, of critically defined tastes and standards. 6. Here, we see for the first time, the “ivory-tower intellectual.” 7. This opened the gap characterized by C. P. Snow in The Two Cultures insofar as many Alexandrians were “scientists” while philosophers worked elsewhere: hence, the division between the arts and sciences instead of the integration that had been the ideal of the Academy and Lyceum. C. The Hellenistic world was a time of important scientific breakthroughs. 1. Euclid (c. 300) formulated the rules of geometry. 2. Archimedes (287—212 B.C.) created all sorts of gadgets and advanced experimental science. 3. Aristarchus (c. 275 B.C.) formulated the heliocentric theory: the sun is at the center of the “universe.” 4. Eratosthenes (c. 225 B.C.) calculated the circumference of the earth. 5. Ptolemy (127-48 B.C.) systematized astronomical information, created a theory of the motion of the planets and the moon, and added a crucial mathematical element to astronomical theory. B. The Hellenistic world spawned new literary forms. 1. Apollonius (b. c. 295) wrote Argonautica, a work on an epic scale but not an epic; an adventure story and a love story. Jason and his argonauts go in search of the Golden Fleece, but it is the cunning of Medea, not the bumbling brutishness of Jason, that wins the prize. Jason is a hero but not like, say, Achilles. And no epic would have told a love story. This was entertainment. 2. Menander (342/341—293/289 B.C.) was th