Hellenism and

ROMEJ. Gaarder and M. Curtis

Prepared by Raizza P. Corpuz

Reflective Analysis: ½ crosswise

(paper) Answer the following

questions, to ponder:– Philosophy of life and tolerance:

1. Make a list of things we can know. Then make a list of things we can only

believe.

2. Indicate some of the factors contributing to a person’s philosophy of life.

3. What is meant by conscience? Do you think conscience is the same for

everyone?

4. What is meant by priority of values?

Conscience

is people’s ability to respond to right and wrong

everyone is endowed with this ability, conscience is innate

Socrates would have said the same.

Conscience dictates can vary a lot from one person to the next.

Philosophy is a more

important subject than

English Grammar.

It would therefore be a

sensible priority of values to

have Philosophy on the

timetable and cut down a bit

on English lessons

---Sophie’s World 106

Hellenism

– Athenian pride was humbled by defeat at Chaeronea at the hands of Greece

paid the penalty for its failure to unite, and became part of the Macedonian

Empire.

– Greece became part Philip of expanding Rome

– Greek influence remained strong and the empire tried to Hellenize itself

through Greek books and teachers.

– The possibility of a universal law emerged.

– the welfare of the individual was no longer inextricably bound up with that of

his city.

Hellenism

– This is a period, too, in which the concept of divine right,

of semi-divine kings, emerges from the influence of

Eastern despotic tradition

– the welfare of the individual was no longer inextricably

bound up with that of his city.

– Two leading philosophies developed in this period were

Epicureanism and Stoicism.

Historical Overview

– Aristotle died in the year 322 B.C.

– Alexander the Great was the King of Macedonia.

– It was Alexander who won the final, decisive victory over the Persians.

– This marked the beginning of a new epoch in the history of mankind. A civilization sprang up in which Greek culture and the Greek language played a leading role. This period, which lasted

for about 300 years, is known as Hellenism.

– Greek-dominated culture that prevailed in the

three Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Syria,

and Egypt.

– Before the Romans managed to conquer the

Hellenistic world, Rome itself was a province of

Greek culture.

– So Greek culture and Greek philosophy came to

play an important role long after the political

influence of the Greeks was a thing of the past.

Religion, Philosophy and Science

– The borders between the various countries and cultures became erased.

– New religious formations arose that could draw on the gods and the beliefs of many

of the old nations.: This is called syncretism or the fusion of creeds.

– Late Antiquity was generally characterized by religious doubts, cultural dissolution,

and pessimism.

– It was said that the world has grown old.

– Immortality of the soul and eternal life. Insight into the true nature of the universe

could be just as important for the salvation of the soul as religious rituals.

Problems raised by Socrates,

Plato and Aristotle.

– Common to them all was their desire to discover how

mankind should best live and die.

– They were concerned with ethics.

– In the new civilization (Hellenism) this became the

central philosophical project. The main emphasis was

on finding out what true happiness was and how it

could be achieved.

The Cynics: true happiness is not found in

external advantages such as material luxury,

political power, or good health

Founded by Antisthenes in Athens in 400 BC, a pupil of Socrates

Interested in his FRUGALITY

– Cynics (distrust of others’ motives (live in virtue in agreement with nature)

self control and independence

– And because happiness does not consist in benefits of this kind, it is within everyone’s reach.

– Moreover, having once been attained, it can never be lost

Diogenes a pupil of Antisthenes owned nothing but a cloak, a stick and a bread bag

- He had everything he desired

Cynical and Cynicism

– The Cynics believed that people did not need to be

concerned about their own health, even suffering and

death

– Or even tormented by concern for other people’s woes

(miseries)

– Cynical and Cynicism have come to mean a sneering

(arrogant) disbelief in human sincerity, and they imply

insensitivity to other people’s suffering.

The most useful learning is

unlearning what is not true

An investigation of the meaning of

words is the beginning of an

education

As iron is eaten by rust, so too are

those who envy eaten up by their

passion

The STOICS: individual as a central

focus, all external event were unimportant

– Founder: Zeno from Cyprus and joined the Cynics in Athens

– Stoic comes from the Greek word “stoa” for portico – ENTRANCE, DOORWAY

– Stoics, believed that everyone was a part of the same common sense – or logos

– They thought that each person was like a world in miniature, or microcosmos,

which is a reflection of the macrocosmos.

– There exists a universal rightness, the so-called natural law.

– This natural law was based on timeless human and universal reason, it did not

alter with time and place. The Stoics sided with Socrates against the Sophists.

– Natural law governed all mankind, the legal statutes of the

various states merely as incomplete imitations of the law

embedded in nature itself.

– Stoics erased the difference between the individual and the

universe, they also denied any conflict between spirit and matter.

MONISM: There is only one nature, they averred (affirmed).

– Stoics were distinctly cosmopolitan in that they were more

receptive to contemporary culture.

– They drew attention to human fellowship, they were preoccupied

with politics.

Marcus Aurelius (one of the 2

Roman Stoics)

– Roman Emperor were active statesmen

– Not concerned with political or social reform

– Humanism, a view of life that has the individual as its

central focus.

– Tranquility- good ordering of the mind

– “one thing can only conduct a man, PHILOSOPHY”

The Stoics believed that “Man must

therefore learn to accept his destiny,

Nothing happens accidentally.

Everything happens through

necessity”

– The Stoics, emphasized that all natural processes, such as sickness and death,

follow the unbreakable laws of nature.

– One must also accept the happy events of life unperturbed, they thought.

– All external events were unimportant.

“Stoic grants the highest

importance of self-preservation,

by believing that virtue and

wisdom are the necessarily

abilities to achieve satisfaction”

Cynics and Stoics: man had to

free himself from material

luxuries

Epicureans: the highest good is

pleasure the greatest evil is pain

The Epicureans: to attains the

highest possible sensory enjoyment

Aristippus, Socrates student he believed that the aim of

life :

was to attain the highest possible sensory

enjoyment.

The highest good is pleasure, he said, the greatest

evil is pain.

So he wished to develop a way of life whose aim

was to avoid pain in all forms.

Epicurus, ( 300 BC) Follower called

Epicureans (garden philosophers)

o believed that pleasure is the higher good

– Epicurus, founded a school developed the pleasure ethic of Aristippus and

combined it with the atom theory of Democritus.

– emphasized that the pleasurable results of an action must always be weighed

against its possible side effects.

– believed that a pleasurable result in the short term must be weighed against

the possibility of a greater more lasting or more intense pleasure in the long

term.

– We have the ability to make a pleasurable calculation.

– Pleasure does not necessarily mean sensual pleasure.

– The enjoyment of life required the idea of self control

temperance and serenity that desire must be curbed and

serenity will help us to endure pain in order to live a

good life it is not unimportant to overcome the fear of

death.

– Democritus believed there was no life after death

because when we die the soul atoms disperse in all

directions.

– Death does not concern us because as long as we exist

death is not here. And when it does come we no longer

exists.

Epicurus sum up his liberating

philosophy, the four medical herbs

1. The gods are not to be feared

2. Death is nothing to worry about

3. Good is easy to attain

4. The fearful is easy to endure

Thus, man should equip himself with his own philosophic medicine containing that

four ingredients. Epicureans showed little or no interest in politics in the

community. Live in seclusion was the best advise.

EPICUREAN’S motto was live

for the moment.

– Many Epicureans developed an overemphasis on self-

Indulgence

– The word Epicurean is used in a negative sense

nowadays to describe someone who lives only for

pleasure.

– Limitation of social relationships – “live unknown” –

Refusal to be involved in family or political affairs,

skepticism toward religion, which the Epicureans

considered largely superstition.

– Society was not a natural phenomenon, but rather a

deliberate vernation aimed at bringing order out of

chaos.

– Pleasure was augmented by the presence of law,

provision for punishment and preservation of order.

– Opportunity for man to make his own environment that

led Marx to choose Epicurus as one of two writers on

whom to do his doctoral dissertation.

– Man, living through reason, ought to suppress emotions

like fear, lust of anxiety, to reach the desired state of

apathia, or inner tranquility.

– Self-control of the individual, it also had far-reaching

social implications.

– Men, possessed reason, law of nature applied to all, a

universal society with cosmopolitan citizenship existed.

The natural law capable of being understood by man and

providing a basis for political organization.

Pleasure achieved through the

removal of physical pain and

mental anxiety……

Neoplatonism

– First and foremost inspired by Plato’s philosophy.

– Most important Figure Plotinus/205-270 century- who

studied philosophy in Alexandria and settled in Rome.

– Became a strong influence in mainstream Christian

theology.

– They widely believed in the division between the soul

and the body.

Plotinus believed that the world is a

span between poles.

– At one end is the divine light which he calls the one or god.

– At the other end is absolute darkness which receives non of the light from the

one. (No existence)

– Darkness actually has no existence it simply the absence of light equals NOT.

– Plotinus metaphor is the same as Plato’s myth of the cave.

– Plotinus doctrine is characterized by an experience of wholeness, everything is

one for everything is god.

Mysticism

– A mystical experience is an experience of merging with god or the cosmic spirit.

– He or she has experience being one with god or merging with him.

– The idea is that what we usually call ‘I’ is not the true eye. It means experience

an identification with a greater I.

– Some mystics call it god others calls it cosmic spirits.

– Birth of Religion in Middle Ages

(Buddhism, Catholics, Christianism, Hinduism)

End of Hellenism and Roman

Stoicism