ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY

• The first philosophers in Western history—the ancient Greeks—asked the most fundamental questions about human beings and their relationship to the world.

• More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge, fascinate, and instruct us.

ISSUES

• Is reality stable and permanent or is it always changing?

• Are ethical values like justice and courage relative?

* Are values "absolute"—simply and forever right and true?

• What is HAPPINESS?

• How shall we best live our lives?

A Hunger for Reasons, not Myths or Beliefs

PRESOCRATICS

Rejected myth and divine inspiration.

Insisted that true understanding always requires a rational explanation

(hence such English

words as "psychology" and "biology").

Concerned with issues such as:

1. Identifying the "Being": the thing that is the origin of all other things.

2. They also introduced sophistic relativism, the notion that truth, goodness & other values were relative, depending entirely on the person or group that held them.

Plato (429–347 B.C.E.) Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.).

• Plato and Aristotle were prolific authors.

• against relativism and instead were objectivists

• believed that important values were absolutely and universally true. And both left a staggering mark on history.

Aristotle was simply known as “THE PHILOSOPHER."

• He is said to be the first to view knowledge as being divided into specific disciplines such as biology or astronomy.

• one value was foremost and was contained in everything, from the tiniest organisms to

the phenomena of fire to human beings: PURPOSE

ARISTOTLE

Everything has a purpose that can be recognized and objectively defined, and

that gives meaning to life

GENERALIZATION

• Greek philosophy is ultimately not about facts or answers but about the give-and-take of ideas.

• Greek philosophy still heavily influences our view of life. We live today, at a time that is shaped by Presocratic, relativistic philosophy.

• Contemporary thinkers, and often the average person, have great difficulty finding objective truth or meaning in life.

• What have we lost in turning away from the world of Plato and Aristotle—a world where everything has a place and a purpose and life is saturated with value and meaning?

• On the other hand, what would we lose if we returned to that world?

These are a few of the many questions that will give you ample food for

thought. For the Greeks, that was the greatest feast of all.