Introduction to Greek Philosophy

The Presocratics: Ionia of the seventh and sixth centuries.
Lack of distinction between philosophy and science
The Presocratics and the traditional world-view
The Presocratics and the divine

School of Miletus: what is the primary stuff of the universe?
THALES (640-562)
ANAXIMANDER
ANAXIMENES
494: Miletus was destroyed by the Persians.
HERACLITUS of Ephesus
The focus after Heraclitus shifts to the West, Italy and Sicily.
PYTHAGORAS b. 570
Pythagorean theorem
XENOPHANES
Eleatic school:
PARMENIDES
ZENO
SICILY
EMPEDOCLES ca. 450
On Nature
Purifications
The atomists:
LEUCIPPUS
DEMOCRITUS

The Sophists

Professional teachers of wisdom in the fifth century
Rhetoric: its social importance
The Clouds by Aristophanes. Strepsiades

PROTAGORAS 480-411

Issues in the debate over nomos and physis
1. Can excellence (arete) be taught?
2. The value of social progress
3. Are social distinctions between groups of people based on convention (nomos) or on nature (physis)?
The issue of slavery
The issue of male-female relations
4. Moral Relativity
Protagoras and relativism
5. Religion: Anaxagoras
The monotheists Xenophanes and Antisthenes

Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War

Herodotus: Persian wars: Greeks vs. Persians
Thucydides: Peloponnesian war: Athens vs. Sparta

Two main differences from Herodotus.
1. stronger emphasis on factual accuracy and chronology
2. exclusion all supernatural explanations

Thucydides’ method
Thucydides’ generation: intellectual trends
The Melian debate (the island of Melos wished to remain neutral)

The War took place in four main stages.
I. 431-21. Yearly invasions of Attica; plague; death of Pericles
II. 421-416: Peace of Nicias.
III. 415-413: Sicilian Expedition
Alcibiades
Syracuse
Mutilation of the herms
Nicias
IV. 413-404. War in the Hellespont. Final defeat of Athens. The Thirty Tyrants