The Greek Philosophers

Standard 10.1.2:Trace the development of the Western political rule of law and illegitimacy of tyranny, using selections from Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Politics.

Socrates

• Socrates, who lived in Athens between 469 and 399 B.C., was an important philosopher who spent much time trying to teach his students about the moral responsibility of all people.

• He believed that all wise men should be able to explain their actions and that knowledge would guide people to the morally correct choices.

• His method of teaching, the Socratic Method, is still used today and involves engaging students in questioning and dialogue to help guide them to their true beliefs.

Socrates

• The fact that Socrates encouraged the questioning of authority and that he had students who were opposed to democracy annoyed many Athenians.

• Eventually, he was brought to trial and charged with “worshiping strange gods and corrupting the youth.”

• He was sentenced to death, accepted his fate, and drank a cup of poison.

Plato

• All of what we know about Socrates comes from his student Plato (428-347 B.C.), who wrote about his execution and wrote fictional dialogues between the two them in his most famous work – Republic.

• In Republic, Plato challenges Socrates’ belief that one only has to listen to their inner voice or conscience to know what is right.

• According to Plato, people could not rely on their senses to know the truth.

Plato

• The Metaphor of the Cave– In his Republic, Plato illustrates our lack of true

perception with a famous metaphor. Imagine men sitting in a cave, facing a wall, with a fire behind them. As others carry objects through the cave, in front of the fire, the men see only vague shadows of the objects and therefore cannot make out the reality.

– Everything we see, Plato would argue, are like these shadows; so what we see as justice, for example, is nothing but an approximation of true justice.

Plato

• According to Plato, only those with intense philosophical training could see the truth, and it was this philosophic elite, who should run society.

• For Plato, the ideal government consisted of the following classes:– First class: the philosophically trained elite including,

perhaps, a philosopher king.– Second class: warriors to defend the state.– Third class: workers to produce the needed material

goods.

Aristotle• Aristotle departed from Plato’s theory that

there is an ideal reality that cannot be perceived by the senses. To Aristotle each object has a purpose as a part of a grand design of the universe.–According to Aristotle, “Nature does

nothing by accident.”–The task of the philosopher is to study

these individual objects to discover their purpose; then, from the conclusions he may ultimately be able to uncover a grand design.

Aristotle

• For example, Aristotle had taught that everything and every person has its own place in the scheme of things. Just as there was a fixed hierarchy of celestial bodies, there was an equally fixed hierarchy on Earth. Certain classes of men were intended to rule others.

Aristotle• In a collection of his works, Politics, Aristotle classified

three governing structures he noticed throughout Greece: monarchy, aristocracy, and moderate democracy.– He warned that monarchy could devolve into tyranny

– the abusive rule of one (a tyrant).– He warned that aristocracy could devolve into

oligarchy – the abusive rule of large landowners who only try to gain more at the expense of the people.

– He warned that moderate democracy could devolve into mob rule or anarchy.

Aristotle

• Of the three, Aristotle preferred moderate democracy – one in which the masses did not exercise too much power.–This was in keeping with his general

view that moderation was could achieve the greatest good for the individual and society.