Great Greek Philosophers

Socrates
- He came from Athens, Greece.
- Born 470 BCE.
- “knowledge is virtue”; to know the good is to do the good.
- He claims that he frequently receive a message from a mysterious voice which he
calls his daimon.
- He believed that no unexamined idea is worth having.
- An unexamined life is not worth living.
- “Know Thyself”
- “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”
- He devised a method to know the truth, he called this dialectic. This is done through
disciplined conversation. Socrates would act as if he knows nothing about the subject.
Then he ask questions to clarify it or to challenge the wrong claim of the person. The
conversation ends with the other person knowing what is really the truth.
- Socrates’ Moral Thought:
o Knowledge is virtue. To know the good is to do the good.
o Ignorance is a vice or evil. This is the absence of knowledge.
o We do evil because we are ignorant about it. We do it unknowingly.
o Wrongdoing is the product of ignorance because it is done with the hope that it
can do what it cannot do.
o For example: Thieves may know that stealing as such is wrong, but they steal in
the hope that it will bring them happiness.
o Things may appear to produce happiness but in reality do not.
o We can avoid this if we have knowledge.
- Socrates’ Trial and Death:
o He was accused of 1) not worshipping the gods whom the State worships, but
introducing new and unfamiliar religious practices; 2) corrupting the young.
o He died drinking the poisonous hemlock.

Plato – founded a school and called it Academy at Athens. This is the 1 st university in West
Europe.

Theory of Knowledge
Allegory of the Cave
- Prisoners were kept in a cave.
- Shadows were flashed in front of them through the opening in the cave.
- Their heads were shackled in chains that they cannot turn their heads to the entrance.
- They live in that throughout their life.
- Suppose one of them is forced to leave the cave.
 - At first he would feel pain seeing.
- Gradually he would learn that wheat they see as shadows in the cave were not really
themselves but only reflections.
- And the sun is the cause of those shadows.
- Now, he was asked to go back to the cave.
- He would lose vision at first. He may have tried to convince his fellow prisoners that
what they see are only shadows.
- They will not believe him. If only they could move, they could have killed him.

 Plato made a distinction between the visible world and the intelligible world/world of
ideas.
 Visible world = inside the cave; intelligible world = outside the cave.
 Visible world – we rely on our senses; intelligible world – we rely on our intellect
 What we see around us are only reflections of what is more real.
 [ask two students to draw a house, star, triangle]
 The various houses we see are only reflections of the true House.
 We see a variety of dogs, what makes us classify them as dogs is that we have a universal
idea of a dog.
 We can classify who is beautiful because we have a universal notion of Beauty. Even if
Angel Locsin die we still have the universal notion of beauty.
 What we see around us are only particular things that owes its existence to something
universal.
 Essence or Being of things – a person may tell what is a good deed but may not explain
the reason why. Examples: particular act – give alms, help your parents. What makes us
recognize these acts to be good is what is universal knowledge.
 For Plato, seeing things universally is true knowledge. Perfect intelligence means a
unified view of reality.

Theory of Form
 Forms are eternal patterns where the things we see are its copies.
 A beautiful person is a copy of Beauty. We can say a person is beautiful because we
know the Form of Beauty and we recognize this person to share in this Form.
 We start from a particular object or person and then move up from the visible to the
intelligible.
 These Forms are grasped by our minds and not our senses.
 Forms exist even though particular things perish.
i. before our souls were united with our bodies, our souls preexisted in spiritual realm; in
that state our souls were acquainted with the Forms.
ii. in the process of creation, God used the Forms in fashioning particular things.
 [Relation of a form to a thing
 o The form is the cause of the essence of a thing.
o A thing participates in a Form.
o A thing is an imitation or copy of a Form.
 How do we know the Forms?
o Recollection – before our souls were united with our body, our souls were
acquainted with the Forms. Education is simply recalling what the soul already
knew in the world of Forms by seeing visible things.
o Dialectic – the power of abstracting the essence of things.
o Power of desire or Love (eros) – leads people step by step from the beautiful
object to the very essence of Beauty.]

MORAL PHILOSOPHY
- The soul has three parts: reason, spirit, appetite.
o Reason – there is an awareness of goal or a value
o Spirit – drive toward the action which is neutral at first but responds to the
direction of reason.
o Appetite – the desire for the things of the body.
- The soul is the principle of life and movement. The body itself is inanimate, and,
therefore, it is moved by the principle of life, the soul.
- This could be likened to a charioteer driving two horses.
o One horse is good and has no need of whipping, it follows what the reason says.
o The other horse is bad and needs much whipping. It cannot distinguish what is
good from bad. It just goes what he thinks is pleasurable without thinking if it is
good or bad. This will lead to the world of fantasy. When this overrides reason we
experience confusion.
- Moral evil is the result of ignorance.
- Our human souls can achieve order and peace only if our rational part is in control of
our spirit and appetites.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
- The state grows out of the nature of the individual, so that the individual comes
logically prior to the state.
- A state comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing, we all have many
needs.
- There should be division of labor.
- The three classes of the state:
o Craftspeople or artisans (farmers, fishermen, etc.). Class of workers. They are the
lowest part of the society – Appetite.
o Guardians. They guard the state. – Spirit.
o Rulers – highest class. – Reason.
 - Philosopher-King
o Competence should be qualification for authority
o The ruler should be fully educated and has come to understand the difference
between the visible realm of knowledge, between appearance and reality.
 [18 yrs old – literature, music, and elementary mathematics.
 Extensive physical and military training.
 20 yrs old – a few would be selected to pursue an advanced course in
mathematics.
 30 yrs old – course in dialectic and moral philosophy
 Next 15 years would be spent in gathering practical experience
through public service.
 50 yrs old – the ablest people would reach the highest level of knowledge,
the vision of the Good, and would then be ready for the task of governing
the state.]

Aristotle
- Student of Plato
- Tutor of Alexander the Great
- Founded his own school and he named it Lyceum.
1. Metaphysics
- All men by nature desire to know.
- Being
- Central concern of metaphysics is the study of substance, the essential nature of
things.
- Essential and Accidental
o Essential – tableness. Accidental – color black, hard, etc.
- Four Causes
o Formal cause (what a thing is)
o Material cause (what is it made of)
o Efficient cause (by what a thing is made)
o Final cause (the end or purpose for which it is made
***Example: Table. Formal cause: Table; Material cause: Wood; Efficient cause:
by a carpenter; Final cause: for classroom use.
- Potentiality and Actuality
o Potentiality is the possibility. Actuality is when a potentiality is in its fullest sense
or fulfillment.
o Example: A kid – actuality. Potentiality – adult. Adult – actuality. Potentiality –
old age.
2. Ethics
- Every action is directed towards something good.
- Two Types of Ends:
o Instrumental – acts that are done as means to an end.
o Intrinsic – acts that are done for their own sake.
- What is good? A hammer is good if it does what hammers are expected to do. A
person is good if he or she is fulfilling her functions.
- Part of the soul:
o Vegetative component – main example, plants. The capacity to take in nutrition
and sustain our biological lives.
o Appetitive component – animals. The capacity to experience desires.
o Rational component – humans. The ability to think. This should be in control.
- Happiness as the end
o Every person seek pleasure, wealth and honor.
o All people will agree that Happiness is the end.
- Virtue as the Golden Mean
o The proper course of action is the middle ground or the golden mean.