Ancient philosophy

In ancient Greece, philosophers discussed and theorized about numerous ideas

like the human nature, ethics, and morality. Ancient Greek philosophy can be
categorized into three periods: the Pre-Socratic, Classical, and the Hellenistic
period.
1. Pre-Socratic period
The Pre-Socratic period of the ancient era of philosophy refers to Greek
philosophers active before Socrates. Pre-Socratic philosophers rejected old
mythological explanations. They began to wonder where everything came from
and how nature might be mathematically defined. Although the issues and
paradoxes they found were the basis for further mathematical, scientific, and
philosophic studies, they are probably more important for the questions they
asked than the answers they arrived at. They include the following major
philosophers: Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Anaximenes (Milesian School),
Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides of Elea, Zeno of Elea (Eleatic School),
Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Protagoras, Gorgias, and Democritus.

Milesian School
Thales of Miletus was the first philosopher, according to Aristotle. He was the
founder of the Milesian School of Philosophy. He also enquired into the First
Cause of Existence (or the Arche), some kind of matter from which everything
else arose and which was also the cause in its becoming. He came to the
conclusion that water was the First Cause because it took on several forms
(steam when heated, ice when frozen) and seemed to inform all the living
things.

Thales was followed by Anaximander, who claimed that the arche could not be
water or any of the classical elements, but rather something "infinite" or
"indefinite" (which is called the apeiron). He began by observing that the world
appears to be made up of opposites, but that anything can become its polar
opposite. As a result, they can't be true opposites; instead, they must both be
representations of a deeper union that is neither. Any of the classical elements
could not be the underlying unity (or arche) because they were either extremes.

Anaximenes, though, came to conclusion that the arche was actually air,
conceiving it as being modified, by thickening and thinning, into the other
classical elements: fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth.
Regardless of their differing responses, the Milesian school was looking for a
natural component that would remain unchanged even if it appeared in many
forms.

Pythagoreanism is the philosophy of Pythagoras of Samos, which created the

doctrine of metempsychosis (rebirth of the soul after death into a new body,
human or animal). Pythagoras is mostly remembered for his mathematics
breakthroughs and yet he left very little of anything written down, so our
knowledge of Pythagoras’ views is entirely derived from the reports of others.
A large number of Pythagoreans embraced and expanded his teachings. They
developed his views, claiming that everything is made up of numbers and that
everything is a mirror of analogies and geometrical relationships. Pythagoreans
proposed the study of mathematics because numbers, music, and philosophy, all
intertwined, could comfort the beauty-seeking human soul.

Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Ephesus. He had

illustrious ancestors. His early life and schooling are unknown, but he
considered himself self-taught. He is well known for his beliefs in universal flux
(continuous change), the oneness of opposites (unity of opposites), and the fact
that fire is the world's basic material. The exact meaning of these teachings is
debatable, as is the inference commonly derived from this notion that
contradictory propositions must be true in the universe as Heraclitus sees it.

Eleatic School
Parmenides created the Eleatics, a pre-Socratic school of thought. The school
discussed the potential of motion as well as other fundamental issues. The
school's work had an impact on Platonic metaphysics. 
Parmenides had his philosophy against those who held "it is and is not the same,
and all things travel in opposite directions,"- presumably referring to Heraclitus.
Whereas the Milesian school's doctrines implied that everything that exists is
corpuscular by suggesting that the substratum could appear in a variety of
forms, Parmenides argued that the first principle of being was One, indivisible,
and unchanging. He argued that because being implies eternality by definition,
the One or Being cannot move, as this would require "space" to exist and not
exist at the same time. He said that there is existence and non-existence. If we
started to think about non-existence, it becomes the existence. He also stated
that our thoughts are material and always have some meaning.

Zeno of Elea was the inventor of the dialectic. He is mostly known for his
paradoxes. In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace
with the turtle. For example, Achilles gives the turtle a 100-meter head start.
Assume that each racer begins at a constant pace, with one being faster than the
other. Achilles will have run 100 meters in a finite amount of time, bringing him
to the tortoise's starting place. The tortoise has only run a modest distance
during this period, about 2 meters. Achilles will then need additional time to run
that distance, by which time the tortoise will have progressed even further; and
then more time to reach this third point, while the turtle continues to advance.
As a result, whenever Achilles arrives at a location where the tortoise has been,
he still has a long way to go before he reaches the tortoise. This argument is
comparable to the Dichotomy, as Aristotle pointed out.
Zeno states in the arrow paradox that in order for motion to occur, an object
must change its position. He uses an arrow in flight as an example. He claims
that the arrow is neither going to where it is nor travelling away from where it is
in any given instant of time. It can't go where it isn't because there isn't enough
time for it to get there; it can't go where it is because it's already there. To put it
another way, there is no motion at any one time. Motion is impossible if
everything is immobile at all times and time is made up completely of instants.

Democritus was a Greek philosopher who is best known for his atomic
cosmology. Democritus' atomic thesis was a response to the Eleatic school,
which claimed that motion is impossible because everything is filled by What-
is. Democritus reversed the Eleatic axiom, saying that because motions exist,
What-Is-Not must also exist, resulting in the existence of void. Democritus was
a skeptic of our senses' reliability, but he was certain that motion does exist.
According to Democritus, atoms possessed some of the Eleatic What-is'
characteristics: they were homogeneous and indivisible. These traits enabled
Zeno's paradoxes to be resolved. In a purely mechanical fashion, atoms travel
inside the void, interact with one another, and generate the world we live in.

Anaxagoras included materials found in living creatures, such as flesh, bone,

bark, and leaf, in his basic substance, unlike his predecessors. He also took into
consideration biological processes, in which chemicals take on new forms. The
theory of nous (meaning "thought" or "reason") was Anaxagoras' most
innovative feature of his system. According to Anaxagoras, the ability of living
things to obtain food from their surroundings is dependent on the strength of
mind within the creatures.
 2. Classical Period
The Socratic or Classical period of the ancient era of philosophy denotes the
Greek contemporaries and near contemporaries of Socrates. With Socrates,
things take a more ethical turn. His disciple Plato, and Plato's student Aristotle,
subsequently set the tone for the remainder of philosophy's history.
This period includes: Protagoras (Sophistic School), Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
(followers of Socrates).

Sophists
Protagoras spent the majority of his time in Athens, where he had a significant
influence on current moral and political philosophy. For more than 40 years,
Protagoras lectured as a Sophist, professing to educate men "virtue" in their
daily lives. He is well known for his aphorism "Man is the measure of all
things," which is most likely a reflection of all perceptions and, according to
some, all judgments being relative to the individual. He is also known for his
agnosticism about the Gods. Protagoras' agnosticism is famously expressed in
his claim that "concerning the gods, I am not in a position to know either that
(or how) they are, or that (or how) they are not, or what they are like in
appearance; for there are many things that prevent knowledge, the obscurity of
the matter, and the brevity of human life." This appears to indicate a type of
religious agnosticism that is not entirely alien to educated Athenian thought.
Despite this, Protagoras was accused of impiety near the end of his life,
according to legend. As a result, according to legend, his books were burned
and he drowned at sea while sailing from Athens. It's likely interesting in this
context that Protagoras appears to have been the source of Aristophanes' parody
of the sophistic notion that "make the weaker argument overcome the stronger."
Socrates and the Socratic Method
Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and
thought exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy.
Socrates was a widely recognized and controversial figure in his native Athens,
so much so that he was frequently mocked in the plays of comic dramatists.
Despite the fact that Socrates never wrote anything, he is depicted in dialogue in
works by a select group of his admirers, the first of whom being Plato and
Xenophon. He is shown as a man of tremendous intelligence, honesty, self-
mastery, and persuasive skill in these writings. His life had a greater
significance because of how it ended: at the age of 70, he was taken to trial on a
charge of impiety and sentenced to death by poisoning by a jury of his peers.
Socrates used Athens as a school, asking questions of both the elite and the
common people in order to arrive at political and ethical truths. Socrates never
gave a lecture on what he knew. In fact, he claimed to be intelligent because he
recognized his own ignorance, despite the fact that he claimed to be ignorant
because he had no ideas.
He used a dialectic method — the Socratic Method — to ask his fellow
Athenians questions, forcing the audience to work through a topic to a logical
conclusion. Socrates' opponents sometimes seemed foolish because the answer
appeared so clear. His Socratic Method was praised by some and derided by
others as a result of this.
Athens was undergoing a dramatic transition from hegemony in the classical
world to collapse during Socrates' lifetime, following a catastrophic defeat by
Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. Athenians went through a period of unrest and
uncertainty about their identity and place in the world.
His most famous sayings are “I know that I know nothing” and “You must learn
yourself”.
Higher Classical period
Plato is often regarded as one of the most brilliant writers in the Western
literary tradition, as well as one of the most important philosophers in history.
An Athenian citizen of high status, he displayed in his works his absorption in
the political events and intellectual movements of his time, but the questions he
raised were so profound and the strategies he used were suggestive and
provocative that educated readers of nearly every period have been influenced
by him, and in practically every age there have been philosophers who count
themselves Platonists in some important respects.
He wasn't the first person to use the term "philosopher". But he was so self-
aware of how philosophy should be thought, and he reshaped the intellectual
currents with which he struggled, that philosophy is now a rigorous and
methodical analysis of ethical, political, metaphysical, and epistemological
concerns, armed with a specific technique. This topic is now assumed to have
been created by him. Few other authors in the history of Western philosophy
come close to matching his depth and breadth of knowledge: possibly only
Aristotle (who studied with him) comes close.
The theory of Platonic idealism holds that the material reality around us is
simply a reflection of a higher truth. Plato maintained that the abstraction is the
truth. Ideas, he believed, were more real than things. He built a vision of two
worlds: an unchanging realm of ideas and an ever-changing world of actual
objects.
A specific tree, for example, is distinct from the abstract form of Tree-ness
because it has a branch or two missing, is alive or dead, and has the initials of
two lovers carved into its bark. Each of us has an ideal tree that allows us to
recognize the imperfect reflections of trees all around us.
The divided line serves as an outline for Plato's philosophy. At the top of the
line, the form of the Good is found, directing everything underneath.
Aristotle was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist who was considered
one of the greatest thinkers in Western history. He developed a philosophical
and scientific system that served as the foundation and vehicle for Christian
Scholasticism and medieval Islamic philosophy. Aristotelian notions remained
established in Western thinking even after the intellectual revolutions of the
Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. His own work lies mainly in
Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Rhetoric and Poetics.
Researcher and professor at the time, Aristotle has systematized all knowledge
of his time. It’s his brilliant mind that has shaped the logical frameworks,
theoretical, political knowledge and that we are still appropriate today. It
remains primarily the creator of logic. Aristotle was unfamiliar with the name
"logic," but he is the author of the first systematic logical doctrine, a disciple
defining which mental operations are valid and which are not. Aristotle's logic
treatises (Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, etc.) were gathered under the
name Organon, which means "tool of mind." In this work, Aristotle's logic
concentrates on the demonstration of the syllogism from accurate premises and
materials, as well as executing scientifically rigorous experiments.
He described science as a combination of judgments and propositions,
expressing the phrase in words.
Aristotle also coined the term "science" to describe a system in which all that
comes after is known, inexorably, from initial principles. Science can be
thought of as a form of universal knowledge.
The all-encompassing For Aristotle, it meant "which applies to all instances."
Don't overlook induction if you want to go to science.
Induction is the process of applying particular cases to the universal.
Finally, Aristotle outlined the non-contradiction concept. It is the notion that the
same attribute cannot both belong and not belong to the same subject and report
at the same time, as well as the excluded middle.
 3. Hellenistic period
The two schools of thought that dominated Hellenistic philosophy were
Stoicism, as introduced by Zeno of Citium, and also the writings of Epikouros.
Stoicism, which was also greatly enriched and modified by Zeno’s successors
divided philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics. Epikouros, on the opposite
hand, placed great emphasis on the individual and therefore the attainment of
happiness. The Athenian schools of philosophy were truly cosmopolitan
institutions. Teachers and students from everywhere Greece and Rome came to
check. additionally to philosophy, students engaged in rhetoric, mathematics,
physics, botany, zoology, religion, music, politics, economics, and psychology.

Skepticism
Skepticism was the attitude of questioning knowledge claims made in a variety
of fields. Skeptics have questioned the validity of these claims, pointing out
what principles they are built on and what they actually establish. They've
questioned whether some of these beliefs necessarily true, as claimed, and
they've questioned the professed rational foundations of accepted assumptions.

Pyrrho, a Greek philosopher from Elis, was said to be the first skeptic
philosopher and the inspiration for the Pyrrhonism school.
Pyrrhonism is typically associated with extreme skepticism, or the belief that
one should delay judgment even when affirming a skeptic attitude. It is opposed
to dogmatic skepticism as well as other forms of dogmatism in this regard.
Pyrrho's and his successors' ultimate goal was to obtain ataraxia, or mental
calm, by relinquishing any endeavor to uncover an ever-elusive absolute truth in
a world where every position and every statement may be seen to be
contradictory. The more usual pursuit for final answers was thus substituted by
finding one's peace with the relative nature of the world.
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is the philosophy espoused by Epicurus. It is an ethical
framework that covers any thought or style of life that can be traced back to his
philosophical concepts. The term was used with an even more broad (and
evidently incorrect) sense in ancient polemics as the equivalent of hedonism, the
concept that pleasure or enjoyment is the chief good. Epicureanism, in popular
usage, denotes a commitment to pleasure, luxury, and high living, as well as a
certain level of style.
Epicurus believed that philosophy's mission was to assist individuals in living a
pleasant life marked by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the
absence of pain). He believed that living a self-sufficient existence surrounded
by friends was the greatest way to pursue philosophy. He stated that death
denial and the inclination for humans to presume that death will be awful and
painful are at the basis of all human neurosis, and that this creates unnecessary
worry, selfish self-protective activities, and hypocrisy. He said “It is impossible
to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly, and it is impossible
to live wisely and well and justly without living pleasantly.”

Stoicism
Stoicism is a Hellenistic philosophy school founded in Athens by Zeno of
Citium. It is a personal ethics philosophy formed by its logic system and
perspectives on the natural world. According to its teachings, the path to
eudaimonia (happiness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself,
not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or the fear of
pain, using one's mind to understand the world and contribute to nature's plan,
and working together and treating others fairly and justly.

Zeno divided philosophy into three parts, based on the ideas of the Old
Academy: logic (a broad subject that included rhetoric, grammar, and theories
of perception and thought); physics (not just science, but also the divine nature
of the universe); and ethics (the end goal of which was to achieve eudaimonia
through living in accordance with Nature).
Except for fragmentary passages preserved by later writers, none of Zeno's
original writings have survived. Zeno's Republic, written in explicit imitation
of, or opposition to, Plato's Republic, is his most famous work. Despite the fact
that it did not survive, it is better known than any of his previous works. Zeno's
ideal Stoic society was outlined in this work.

Neoplatonism
Plotinus, the school's one great philosophical and religious genius, gave
Neoplatonism its ultimate shape in the Hellenistic period, making it the last
school of Greek philosophy. The ancient philosophers who are commonly
classified as Neoplatonists, as well as Renaissance and 17th-century
philosophers whose ideas are derived from old Neoplatonism, called themselves
simple "Platonists."
There are three principles in the philosophy of Plotinus: the One, the Intellect,
and the Soul. Plotinus believed that there is a supreme, entirely transcendent
"One" that is beyond all categories of being and non-being, containing no
division, multiplicity, or distinction. His "One" "cannot be any existing object,"
he says, and "is prior to all existents." Plotinus linked the concept of 'Good' and
the principle of 'Beauty' to his "One."
The One, who is beyond all qualities including being and non-being, is the
source of the world—but not by any intentional or unintentional act of creation,
because the unchanging, immutable One cannot be said to be active. Instead,
according to Plotinus, the multitude cannot exist without the simple. The "less
perfect" must inevitably "emanate," or emerge from, the "perfect" or "more
perfect." As a result, in successive degrees of lesser and lesser perfection, all of
"creation" emanates from the One. These stages do not occur in a discrete time
frame, but rather as a continuous process.
Soul, like the third principle in the Neoplatonic system, is created by Intellect.
It's a mind, like Intellect, but it can't comprehend all of its own information. As
a result, with Soul, Time emerges as a measure of Soul's passage from one
thought object to the next. When intellect strives to grasp the One, it ends up
inventing its own content in the form of thoughts. In its return, Soul tries to
grasp Intellect, but instead produces its own secondary unfoldings of the Forms
in Intellect. Body, the corporeal world, is created by Soul.

Porphyry of Tyre was a Neoplatonic philosopher who was born in the Tyrean
city of Tyre. He edited and published The Enneads, the only compilation of
Plotinus's writings, which he had learned from. He created original works on a
wide range of subjects, including music, Homer, and vegetarianism. His
Isagoge, or Introduction, was the traditional textbook on logic. It was an
introduction to logic and philosophy. He was embroiled in a debate with early
Christians through publications such as Philosophy from Oracles and Against
the Christians.

Proclus Lycius, also known as Proclus the Successor, was a Neoplatonist

philosopher from Greece who was one of the last important classical
philosophers. He presented one of Neoplatonism's most sophisticated and
thoroughly formed systems. He was a philosopher who lived near the end of the
classical period and impacted Western medieval philosophy (Greek and Latin).