Western Philosophy

B

Stoicism

The Stoic school, founded in Athens about 310 bc by Zeno of Citium, developed out of the earlier movement of the Cynics, who rejected social institutions and material (worldly) values. Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco-Roman world, producing such remarkable writers and personalities as the Greek slave and philosopher Epictetus in the 1st century ad and the 2nd-century Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was noted for his wisdom and nobility of character. The Stoics taught that one can achieve freedom and tranquility only by becoming insensitive to material comforts and external fortune and by dedicating oneself to a life of virtue and wisdom. They followed Heraclitus in believing the primary substance to be fire and in worshiping the Logos, which they identified with the energy, law, reason, and providence (divine guidance) found throughout nature. The Stoics argued that nature was a system designed by the divinities and believed that humans should strive to live in accordance with nature. The Stoic doctrine that each person is part of God and that all people form a universal family helped break down national, social, and racial barriers and prepare the way for the spread of Christianity. The Stoic doctrine of natural law, which makes human nature the standard for evaluating laws and social institutions, had an important influence on Roman and later Western law.

C

Skepticism

The school of Skepticism, which continued the Sophist criticisms of objective knowledge, dominated Plato’s Academy in the 3rd century bc. The Skeptics discovered, as had Zeno of Elea, that logic is a powerful critical device, capable of destroying any positive philosophical view, and they used it skillfully. Their fundamental assumption was that humanity cannot attain knowledge or wisdom concerning reality, and they therefore challenged the claims of scientists and philosophers to investigate the nature of reality. Like Socrates, the Skeptics insisted that wisdom consisted in awareness of the extent of one’s own ignorance. The Skeptics concluded that the way to happiness lies in a complete suspension of judgment. They believed that suspending judgment about the things of which one has no true knowledge creates tranquility and fulfillment. As an extreme example of this attitude, it is said that Pyrrho, one of the most noted Skeptics, refused to change direction when approaching the edge of a cliff and had to be diverted by his students to save his life.

D

Neoplatonism

During the 1st century ad the Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher Philo of Alexandria combined Greek philosophy, particularly Platonic and Pythagorean ideas, with Judaism in a comprehensive system that anticipated Neoplatonism and Jewish, Christian, and Muslim mysticism. Philo insisted that the nature of God so far transcended (surpassed) human understanding and experience as to be indescribable; he described the natural world as a series of stages of descent from God, terminating in matter as the source of evil. He advocated a religious state, or theocracy, and was one of the first to interpret the Old Testament for the Gentiles.

Neoplatonism, one of the most influential philosophical and religious schools and an important rival of Christianity, was founded in the 3rd century ad by Ammonius Saccus and his more famous disciple Plotinus. Plotinus based his ideas on the mystical and poetic writings of Plato, the Pythagoreans, and Philo. The main function of philosophy, for him, is to prepare individuals for the experience of ecstasy, in which they become one with God. God, or the One, is beyond rational understanding and is the source of all reality. The universe emanates from the One by a mysterious process of overflowing of divine energy in successive levels. The highest levels form a trinity of the One; the Logos, which contains the Platonic Forms; and the World Soul, which gives rise to human souls and natural forces. The farther things emanate from the One, according to Plotinus, the more imperfect and evil they are and the closer they approach the limit of pure matter. The highest goal of life is to purify oneself of dependence on bodily comforts and, through philosophical meditation, to prepare oneself for an ecstatic reunion with the One. Neoplatonism exerted a strong influence on medieval thought.

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IV

Medieval Philosophy

During the decline of Greco-Roman civilization, Western philosophers turned their attention from the scientific investigation of nature and the search for worldly happiness to the problem of salvation in another and better world. By the 3rd century ad, Christianity had spread to the more educated classes of the Roman Empire. The religious teachings of the Gospels were combined by the Fathers of the Church with many of the philosophical concepts of the Greek and Roman schools. Of particular importance were the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the Council of Ephesus in 431, which drew upon metaphysical ideas of Aristotle and Plotinus to establish important Christian doctrines about the divinity of Jesus and the nature of the Trinity.

A

Augustinian Philosophy

The process of reconciling the Greek emphasis on reason with the emphasis on religious emotion in the teachings of Christ and the apostles found eloquent expression in the writings of Saint Augustine during the late 4th and early 5th centuries. He developed a system of thought that, through subsequent amendments and elaborations, eventually became the authoritative doctrine of Christianity. Largely as a result of his influence, Christian thought was Platonic in spirit until the 13th century, when Aristotelian philosophy became dominant. Augustine argued that religious faith and philosophical understanding are complementary rather than opposed and that one must “believe in order to understand and understand in order to believe.” Like the Neoplatonists, he considered the soul a higher form of existence than the body and taught that knowledge consists in the contemplation of Platonic ideas as abstract notions apart from sensory experience and anything physical or material.

The Platonic philosophy was combined with the Christian concept of a personal God who created the world and predestined (determined in advance) its course, and with the doctrine of the fall of humanity, requiring the divine incarnation in Christ. Augustine attempted to provide rational understanding of the relation between divine predestination and human freedom, the existence of evil in a world created by a perfect and all-powerful God, and the nature of the Trinity. Late in his life Augustine came to a pessimistic view about original sin, grace, and predestination: the ultimate fates of humans, he decided, are predetermined by God in the sense that some people are granted divine grace to enter heaven and others are not, and human actions and choices cannot explain the fates of individuals. This view was influential throughout the Middle Ages and became even more important during the Reformation of the 16th century when it inspired the doctrine of predestination put forth by Protestant theologian John Calvin.

Augustine conceived of history as a dramatic struggle between the good in humanity, as expressed in loyalty to the “city of God,” or community of saints, and the evil in humanity, as embodied in the earthly city with its material values. His view of human life was pessimistic, asserting that happiness is impossible in the world of the living, where even with good fortune, which is rare, awareness of approaching death would mar any tendency toward satisfaction. He believed further that without the religious virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which require divine grace to be attained, a person cannot develop the natural virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. His analyses of time, memory, and inner religious experience have been a source of inspiration for metaphysical and mystical thought.

The only major contribution to Western philosophy in the three centuries following the death of Augustine in ad 430 was made by the 6th-century Roman statesman Boethius, who revived interest in Greek and Roman philosophy, particularly Aristotle’s logic and metaphysics. In the 9th century the Irish monk John Erigena developed a pantheistic interpretation of Christianity, identifying the divine Trinity with the One, Logos, and World Soul of Neoplatonism and maintaining that both faith and reason are necessary to achieve the ecstatic union with God.

Even more significant for the development of Western philosophy was the early 11th-century Muslim philosopher Avicenna. His work modifying Aristotelian metaphysics introduced a distinction important to later philosophy between essence (the fundamental qualities that make a thing what it is—the treeness of a tree, for example) and existence (being, or living reality). He also demonstrated how it is possible to combine the biblical view of God with Aristotle’s philosophical system. Avicenna’s writings on logic, mathematics, physics, and medicine remained influential for centuries.

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