From myth to logos: how philosophy began
Philosophy (Greek philo = love, sophia = wisdom) asks big questions by careful thinking: What is real? How do we know? How should we live?
Early peoples explained nature with myths: stories about gods. Around 600 BCE, in Greek trading towns of the eastern Mediterranean, some thinkers tried a new way: logos, an explanation by reason that others can check and argue about. Trade, writing, free time for some citizens and debate in the city helped this change.
The Presocratics and the search for the arche
Thinkers before Socrates are called Presocratics. They searched for the arche: the first principle, the one basic stuff or rule behind all things.
- Thales: everything comes from water (life needs it; it can be solid, liquid, gas).
- Anaximander: the boundless (apeiron); Anaximenes: air, thick or thin.
- Pythagoras: number and harmony.
- Heraclitus: everything flows; 'you cannot step into the same river twice'. Change ruled by logos; fire is its symbol.
- Parmenides: true being is one and never changes; change is an illusion of the senses. Trust reason over the senses.
- Empedocles: four elements (earth, water, air, fire) mixed by love and strife.
- Democritus (with Leucippus): everything is made of tiny, uncuttable atoms moving in empty space (the void).
The Sophists and Socrates
In democratic Athens, speaking well won votes and court cases. The Sophists (like Protagoras and Gorgias) were travelling teachers paid to teach persuasion. Protagoras said 'man is the measure of all things': truth depends on the person. This is the anthropological turn: philosophy moved from nature to human beings, laws and values.
Socrates (about 470–399 BCE) wrote nothing and took no fees. He asked people to define words like courage or justice, then showed gaps in their answers (the Socratic method). He said his wisdom was knowing that he did not know.
In 399 BCE he was charged with not honouring the city's gods and corrupting the young. In Plato's Apology (defence speech) Socrates says he was given a task to question people, compares himself to a gadfly waking a lazy horse, refuses to stop, and says 'the unexamined life is not worth living'. He was sentenced to death and drank hemlock.
Plato and Aristotle
Plato (about 427–347 BCE), Socrates' student, founded the Academy. His theory of Forms: the things we see change and are imperfect copies; the perfect, unchanging Forms (the idea of a circle, of justice, of the good) are what is truly real, known by reason. The cave story shows this. In the Republic he pictures a just city ruled by trained philosophers.
Aristotle (384–322 BCE), Plato's student and Alexander's tutor, founded the Lyceum. He said forms exist inside real things, so we learn by observing. He founded formal logic (the syllogism: all humans are mortal; Socrates is human; so Socrates is mortal), sorted animals, and wrote on ethics (virtue as the 'golden mean' between two extremes, aiming at eudaimonia, a flourishing life) and politics.
Hellenistic and Roman philosophy
- Cynics (Diogenes): live by nature, own almost nothing, ignore fame. Diogenes lived in a large jar.
- Stoics (Zeno of Citium, then the Romans Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius): the world is ruled by reason; we cannot control events but can control our judgements; virtue is the only true good; all humans share reason, so all are 'citizens of the world'.
- Epicureans (Epicurus; the Roman poet Lucretius): the aim is calm pleasure (ataraxia, freedom from worry) through simple living and friendship; the world is atoms, so do not fear gods or death.
- Sceptics (Pyrrho): hold back judgement to find peace.
Cicero (106–43 BCE) translated Greek ideas into Latin, built a Latin vocabulary for philosophy and praised it as a guide to living and to duty in public life. Through Rome these texts reached later Europe; humanists like Erasmus (around 1500) read them again. Their questions are still ours: what makes a life good, can we control our feelings, should laws follow nature?
Key formulas and definitions
- Philosophy = love of wisdom (philo + sophia)
- Mythos → logos: from stories to reasoned explanation
- Arche = first principle (water, air, fire, being, atoms)
- Socratic method = question → definition → counter-example → better definition
- Syllogism: All A are B; C is A; so C is B
- Stoic: control judgements, not events. Epicurean: ataraxia (calm)
Worked examples
1. Why is Thales called the first philosopher, even though 'water' was wrong?
He explained nature by a natural cause that people could argue about, instead of by gods. The method (logos) mattered more than the answer.
2. Compare Heraclitus and Parmenides on change.
Heraclitus: everything changes all the time; change is the law of the world. Parmenides: real being cannot change; the change our senses show is an illusion.
3. How is Democritus's atom like and unlike the modern atom?
Like: tiny particles that make up everything, moving in empty space. Unlike: his was a guess by reason, and he thought atoms could not be split; modern atoms were found by experiment and have parts.
4. Show the Socratic method on 'Courage is never running away'.
Question: is a soldier who retreats to trap the enemy a coward? No. So the definition fails. Better: courage is doing what is right even when you are afraid.
5. Use Aristotle's golden mean on courage.
Too little = cowardice; too much = rashness. Courage is the mean between them, chosen with good judgement.
6. Your bus is late. Give a Stoic and an Epicurean reply.
Stoic: the bus is not in my control; my reaction is, so I stay calm and use the time. Epicurean: avoid needless worry; enjoy a simple pleasure, like talking with a friend while waiting.
Common mistakes
- Thinking the Presocratics came after Socrates. 'Pre' means before.
- Mixing up Sophists and Socrates. Sophists took fees and taught persuasion; Socrates took no fees and looked for truth.
- Thinking Epicureans wanted wild feasting. Epicurus meant calm, simple pleasure and no pain or worry.
- Saying Plato and Aristotle agreed. Plato put real Forms beyond this world; Aristotle put form inside things and trusted observation.