ACS 220

Winter 2022
Antiquity, Abrahamic Religion

Roman heritage in Europe / North Africa / Byzantium:

● Architecture
○ Aqueducts
○ Bathing culture
● Currency systems
● Different forms of government
● Education, interest in Greek culture

Greek/Roman Tradition
● Socrates (470 BCE - 399 BC)
○ Dialectic discussion, no dogmatic theories
■ Filtering of ideas
○ Sorates did not write anything, most of what we know is based on what Plato tells us
○ 399 BC his trial and execution
● Plato (ca. 425-348 BC)
○ Follower of Socrates
○ Argues against writing things down, even though he wrote down Socrates ideas
■ Claims that writing is bad for memory
■ Written words "cannot defend themselves"
○ Strong interest in ethics and politics
○ Cave allegory
■ What’s beyond the cave = what is true reality
■ The philosopher "leaves the cave" and sees the sun, the original source of light
■ Politicians should have a philosophical background (according to Plato)
■ Hierarchy of forms:
○ Form of the good (light itself)
○ Forms such as Justice, beauty, equality, ...
○ Forms such as humanity, trinagularity, redness, ...
○ The concept of a single, highest form is attractive for monotheists.
● Aristotle (384-322 BC)
○ Student of Plato, spends for nearly 20 years at Plato's school
■ The writings we still have are lecture notes
■ Initially, only the logical works were known in the west
■ Eventually most of his works came to Europe via Spain, together with Arabic
commentaries
○ Wrote textbooks that were available in the middle ages
■ Logic, rhetoric, biology (natural sciences, living beings), considered down to
earth in a sense
● Plotinus (ca. 205-270 AD)
○ Wanted to go back to Plato, if anyone is a “good” philosopher they agreed with Plato
○ “One highest form of the good”
■ Pure good is not even “being”, it’s the highest form, it cannot be described
■ Emanation: the highest form overflows, this leads to all lower beings
■ Hierarchy of beings from pure form down to pure matter

Judaism
● Terms:
 ○ Torah: the first five books of the Bible
○ Mishnah: oral Torah, compiled by Judah ha-Nasi
○ Talmud: mishnah + commentary
○ Sephardim: Hispanic Jews
○ Ashkenazim: East/North European Jews
● Judah ha-Nasi (135-217 AD)
○ Often simply called "he rabbi", most important teacher, leader of the
Palestinian Jews
○ Editor of the Mishnah
● Maimonides (1138-1204 AD)
○ Born in Spain, goes to North Africa
○ Wrote an important Mishnah commentary, also wrote a philosophical
book
Christianity
● Jesus (4-33 AD)
○ Died for people's sins, crucified
○ Resurrected, people said they saw him to go heaven
○ Started as a rabbi
○ 12 apostles, fighting for his cause after he died
■ People expected him to establish the kingdom of God on earth, but he died
■ Instead, he is thought to have established a non-earthly kingdom (the
Church), which is is responsible for souls in the same sense in which an
earthly kingdom is responsible for bodily human beings
● St. Paul (5-65 AD)
○ Begins as a Jew and a prosecutor, Jesus comes to him in a vision, then he becomes
Christian
○ Roman/Greek education
■ Sets up Christian communities in Athens, Rome, and other major cities
○ Puts more emphasis on the afterlife, as well as moral conscious and Gods grace
● St. Augustine (354-430 AD)
○ “Explainer” of Christianity to educated Romans
■ Uses philosophical ways of thinking to explain the Trinity
■ He wanted to make things reasonable
○ Wrote “The City of God”
■ 2 different political entities: State and Church
○ He is associated with inwardness
■ Body and mind distinction, "dualism"
● Ps.-Dionysius (ca. 5th/6th c. AD)
○ One of the people who takes Plato's ideas and applies them to Christianity
● St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD)
○ Takes Aristotle’s ideas and Ps.-Dionysius ideas to bridge into Christianity
○ 1st generation of people who know all of Aristotle
○ Interested in ethics
○ Some ideas condemned after his death, later rehabilitated
○ Declared saint and doctor of the Church
Islam
● Muhammed
○ Orphan
○ Marries a wealthy older widow
○ Last True Prophet
■ Gets visions from God that begin in a cave, will become the Quran
■ Only one true God
 ○ Declaration of Faith: "There is no God except the God, and Muhammed is
the messenger of God".
○ Leads to discussions of God, Uniqueness, and Prophecy
● Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (980-1037)
○ Philosopher
■ Aristotelian inspired as well as Islam
■ Metaphysics = the study of being as such, the meaning of "to be"
● Existence: that I am
● Essence: what I am
○ Physician
■ Canon of Medicine book, used until the 18th century
● Al-Ghazali (1058-1111)
○ Rejects what is not religious enough
■ Criticizes philosophers that are incompatible with religions
○ ONe of the most important Islamic thinkers
● Averroës (Ibn Rushd) (1126-1198)
○ Located in Spain
○ Wants to go back to Aristotle, writes extensive commentaries
■ Defends the philosophers against Al-Ghazali
○ Influential in the West, but not as important in Islamic philosophy and religion