Context of the birth of philosophy :

Herodotus Histories 1 29-30

Father of history
Supposedly the first one to write history, the war between the Persians and the Greeks, attempt to control the Mediterranean, extremely
important for trading (silk trade China?), very fast to travel, everyone wanted to control it.
Persians wanted control:
1- Invading turkey, succeeded
2- Invading Greece, failed (very surprising)
In those days, the common practice was to tell poems, singing the praises of your control
Historia: inquiry
Herodotus changes the norm, decides to lead an investigation on the facts, first (alleged) account of history
Long journey, need to go to Persia and inquire in person, talk to everyone involved (turkey, Greece, all the islands, Egypt, Persia)
Finds out about the places he visits as well as interviews
His conception of what a fact is is different than ours, has some religious views (see Delphic oracle and apollo)
Foot well planted in both worlds (lol scientific method and oracle)
Solon (one of the so called Greek wise men)
The Greeks loved lists lmfaoo
Seven wise men (solon was always on it)
Called onto solon bc Athens was in civil war, needed his guidance, farmers are unhappy because they are going into debt slavery, if you don’t
have the capital to plant, you have to borrow, no banks, need to borrow from the elite of society, very high rates of interest, what you are
putting on the table if you don’t pay back what you owe within the right time frame is your body as a commodity.
One guy is a tragedy, many people is essentially a social problem, see staline, the farmers eventually revolt
Solon is asked to resolve this issue
1- You cant sell yourself into slavery anymore
2- Reorganize society in such a way that everybody has some sort of manner in which they have a say into how things are run
Solon leaves for ten years, travels, goes to the court of ?? crisus? Cresus? Very fucking rich
Miles and miles of gold lol
Rich dude asks “whos the happiest man alive” solon says someone whos not him,
Two competing views of what it is to be a successful human being.
Giving the recipe to happiness, tells him you don’t have it
Gives example of second happiest man, new descriptors of happiness
Pursuit of knowledge – philosophy
Solon has traveled a lot in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom
Ancient philosophy – important idea : what makes a human being happy
- Cresus view : power and wealth
- Solon’s view (2) answer to the quiz

Pythagoras : mathematician , was a philosopher, mathematics was really important to him

Mathematics is the key to the secrets of nature to Pythagoras
Part of the list of the 7 wisest men
Human beings can only aspire to be wise, can only love wisdom
Only god is wise

Apology 23 ab

Socrates is the wisest man in the sense that human wisdom is not much compared to what the gods know, in that sense, Socrates is the wisest
man because he knows that he knows nothing, he is aware of how little he knows and accepts it.
If knowledge were our currency, we’d be very poor

Philosophy starts at that moment

Theological revolution in Greece. What is it that defines or characterizes what the divinity is: they know. They know everything, their knowledge
is infallible.
We have a mind, a parcel of divinity, a little spec of a god. The difference between us and them is infinite. The It. If you don’t acknowledge that,
you are assigning yourself as a god.

All knowing, infallible being : divinity

Humanity : fallible, not all knowing, can aspire to know
Very different view of knowledge and religion compared to now
We now view science and knowledge and religion as entirely different ends of the spectrum in such a way that if one believes in one they could
not possibly believe in the other.

To the ancient Greeks, the two are intertwined, you want to aspire to be as close to divinity as possible through the pursuit of knowledge.

Greeks figureheads were very immoral beings.

The philosophers were changing the Homeric Gods. The way they were viewed.
Philosophers replaced these divinities, flawed, immoral being, by thinkers, rational beings.
Parcel of divinity within us through the manner in which we are “knowers” and thinkers.

Working definition of philosophy:

Given the human condition, what is worth doing for that time.
Given the amount of temporal capital, what is worth doing?

The primary question of philosophy (link between religion and philosophy) : what makes life worth living? What makes human beings lead their
lives in such a way?
Secondary questions:
Ex.: - What is a human being in the first place?
- Some sort of primate, the result of evolution
- (St Agustin ) they are creatures who were kicked out of heaven, therefore our job is to make it back to heaven , the goal and the way
is to purify your souls
- (Aristotle ) they are knowledge seekers
- (Marx) they are doers , labour?
- Depending on how you answer these questions will lead to different philosophies