A History of Western Philosophy

"[Expounding on Plato] The soul, being eternal, is at home in the contemplation of eternal things, that is, essences, but is lost and confused when, as in sense perception, it contemplates the world of changing things. "The soul... is dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins about her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change. ...But when returning into herself... into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness... she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom.""

"[Expounding on Plato] The philosopher will be temperate because "each pleasure and pain is a sort of nail which nails and rivets the soul to the body, until she becomes like the body, and believes that to be true which the body affirms to be true.""

"His [Socrates'] end, and his farewells, are described. His last words are: "Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt?" Men paid a cock to Asclepius when they recovered from an illness, and Socrates has recovered from life's fitful fever."

"The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages. ...He is indifferent to worldly success, so devoid of fear that he remains calm and urbane and humorous to the last moment, caring more for what he believes to be the truth than for anything else whatever. He has, however, some very grave defects. He is dishonest and sophistical in argument, and in his private thinking he uses intellect to prove conclusions that are to him agreeable, rather than in a disinterested search for knowledge. ...Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not scientific in his thinking, but was determined to prove the universe agreeable to his ethical standards. This is treachery to truth, and the worst of philosophic sins. As a man, we may believe him admitted to the communion of saints; but as a philosopher he needs a long residence in a scientific purgatory."

"Plato's cosmogony is set forth in the Timaeus, which was translated into Latin by Cicero, and was, in consequence, the only one of the dialogues that was known in the West in the Middle Ages. Both then, and earlier in Neoplatonism, it had more influence than anything else in Plato, which is curious, as it certainly contains more that is simply silly than is to be found in his other writings. As philosophy, it is unimportant, but historically it was so influential that it must be considered in some detail."

"It appears that Plato's God, unlike the Jewish and Christian God, did not create the world out of nothing, but rearranged pre-existing material."

"[Expounding on Plato] God made first the soul, then the body. The soul is compounded of the indivisible-unchangeable and the divisible-changeable, it is a third and intermediate kind of essence."

"Here follows a Pythagorean account of the planets to an explanation of time: "...he resolved to have a moving image of eternity, and when he set in order the heaven, he made this image eternal but moving according to number, while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time.""

"At the beginning Timaeus says he seeks only probability, and cannot be sure. Many details are obviously imaginative, and not meant literally."

"[Expounding on Plato] There are two kinds of causes, those that are intelligent, and those that, being moved by others, are, in turn, compelled to move others. The former are endowed with mind, and are the workers of things fair and good, while the latter produce chance effects without order or design. Both sorts ought to be studied, for the creation is mixed, being made up of necessity and mind. (It will be observed that necessity is not subject to God's power.)"

"Earth, air, fire, and water are not the first principles or letters or elements; they are not even syllables or first compounds. Fire, for instance, should not be called this, but such - that is to say, it is not a substance, but rather a state of a substance."

"This leads [ the dialogue, Timaeus ] to a somewhat curious theory of space, as something intermediate between the world of essence and the world of transient sensible things. "...And there is a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and admits not of destruction and provides a home for all created things, and is apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it must of necessity be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is neither in heaven nor on earth has no existence.""

"The true elements of the material world, Timaeus says, are not earth, air, fire, and water, but two sorts of right angled triangles, the one which is half a square and the one which is half an equilateral triangle. Originally everything was in confusion, and "the various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe." But then God fashioned them by form and number, and "made them as far as possible, the fairest and the best, out of the things which were not fair and good." The above two sorts of triangles, we are told, are the most beautiful forms, and therefore God used them in constructing matter. By means of these two triangles, it is possible to construct four of the five regular solids, and each atom of one of the four elements is a regular solid. Atoms of earth are cubes; of fire, tetrahedra; of air, octahedra; and of water, icosahedra. (I shall come to the dodecahedra [ aether ] presently.)"

"Timaeus proceeds to explain the two souls in a man, one immortal, the other mortal, one created by God, the other created by the gods. The mortal soul is "subject to terrible and irresistible affections - first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counselors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astray; these they (the gods) mingled with irrational sense and with all-daring love according to necessary laws and so framed men.""

"We are told that, since 6 is greater than 4 but less than 12, 6 is both great and small, which is a contradiction. Again, Socrates is now taller than Theaetetus, who is a youth not yet full grown; but in a few years Socrates will be shorter than Theaetetus. Therefore Socrates is both tall and short. The idea of a relational proposition seems to have puzzled Plato, as it did most of the great philosophers down to Hegel (inclusive)."

"Returning to the perception, it is regarded as due to an interaction between the object and the sense-organ, both of which, according to the doctrine of Heraclitus, are always changing, and both of which, in changing, change the percept. Socrates remarks that when he is well he finds wine sweet, but when ill, sour. Here it is a change in the percipient that causes the change in the percept."

"[Expounding on Plato] It is urged that Protagoras ought equally have admitted pigs and baboons are measures of all things, since they also are percipients. Questions are raised as to the validity of perception in dreams and madness. It is suggested that, if Protagoras is right, one man knows no more than another: not only is Protagoras as wise as the gods, but, what is more serious, he is no wiser than a fool. Further, if one man's judgements are as correct as another's, the people who judge that Protagoras is mistaken have the same reason to be thought right as he has."

"As for the argument that, if each man is the measure of all things, one man is as wise as another, Socrates suggests, on behalf of Protagoras, a very interesting answer, namely that, while one judgement cannot be truer than another, it can be better, in the sense of having better consequences. This suggests pragmatism. (It is presumably this passage that first suggested to F.C.S. Schiller his admiration of Protagoras.) ...He urges, for example, that when a doctor foretells the course of my illness, he actually knows more of my future than I do. And when men differ as to what is wise for the State to decree, the issue shows that some men had a greater knowledge as to the future than others had. Thus we cannot escape the conclusion that a wise man is a better measure of things than a fool."

"All these are objections to the doctrine that each man is the measure of all things, and only indirectly to the doctrine that "knowledge" means "perception," in so far as this doctrine leads to the other. There is, however, a direct argument, namely that memory must be allowed as well as perception. This is admitted, and to this extent the proposed definition is amended."

"[Expounding on Plato] We cannot be right in saying we are seeing a thing, for seeing is perpetually changing into not-seeing. (Compare the [highway billboard] advertisement: "The Shell, that was.") If everything is changing in every kind of way, seeing has no right to be called seeing rather than not-seeing, or perception to be called perception rather than not-perception. And then when we say "perception is knowledge," we might just as well say "perception is not-knowledge.""

"What the argument amounts to is that, whatever else may be in perpetual flux, the meanings of words must be fixed, at least for a time, since otherwise no assertion is definite, and no assertion is true rather than false. There must be something more or less constant, if discourse and knowledge is to be possible. This, I think, should be admitted. But a great deal of flux is compatible with this admission."

"We now reach Plato's final argument against the identification of knowledge with perception. He begins by pointing out that we perceive through eyes and ears, rather than with them, and he goes on to point out that some of our knowledge is not connected with any sense organ. We can know, for instance, that sounds and colors are unlike, though no organ of sense can perceive both. There is no special organ for "existence and non-existence, likeness and unlikeness, sameness and differences, and also unity and numbers in general." The same applies to honorable and dishonorable, and good and bad. "The mind contemplates some things through it own instrumentality, others through the bodily faculties." We perceive hard and soft through touch, but it is the mind that judges that they exist and that they are contraries. Only the mind can reach existence, and we cannot reach truth if we do not reach existence. It follows that we cannot know things through the senses alone, since through the senses alone we cannot know that things exist. Therefore knowledge consists in reflection, not in impressions, and perception is not knowledge, because it "has no part in apprehending the truth, since it has none in apprehending existence.""

"It is argued [by Plato] that comparison, knowledge of existence, and understanding of number, are essential to knowledge, but cannot be included in perception since they are not effected through any sense organ."

"The core of crude occurrence is merely certain patches of color. ...The precept as filled out with images of touch becomes an "object," which is supposed physical; the percept as filled out with words and memories becomes a "perception," which is part of a "subject" and is considered mental. The percept is just an occurrence, and neither true nor false; the percept as filled out with words is a judgement, and capable of truth or falsehood. This judgement I call a "judgement of perception." The proposition "knowledge is perception" must be interpreted as meaning "knowledge is judgement of perception." It is only in this form that it is grammatically capable of being correct."

"I should agree with Plato that arithmetic, and pure mathematics generally, is not derived from perception. Pure mathematics consists of tautologies, analogous to "men are men," but usually more complicated. To know that a mathematical proposition is correct, we do not have to study the world, but only the meanings of symbols; and the symbols, when we dispense with definitions (of which the purpose is merely abbreviation), are found to be such words as "or" and "not," and "all" and "some," which do not, like "Socrates," denote anything in the actual world. A mathematical equation asserts that two groups of symbols have the same meaning; and so long as we confine ourselves to pure mathematics, this meaning must he one that can be understood without knowing anything about what can be perceived. Mathematical truth, therefore, is, as Plato contends, independent of perception; but it is truth of a very peculiar sort, and is concerned only with symbols."

"Numbers are in a certain precise sense, formal. ...The relation of the symbol "two" to the meaning of a proposition in which it occurs is far more complicated than the relation of the symbol "red" to the meaning of a proposition in which it occurs. We may say, in a certain sense, that the symbol "two" means nothing, for, when it occurs in a true statement, there is no corresponding constituent in the meaning of the statement. We may continue, if we like, to say that numbers are eternal, immutable, and so on, but we must add that they are also logical fictions."

"Concerning sound and color, Plato says "both together are two, and each of them is one." ...There is here a mistake vary analogous to that concerning existence. The predicate "one" is not applicable to things, but only to unit classes. We can say "the earth has one satellite," but it is a syntactical error to say "the moon is one." For what can such an assertion mean? You may just as well say "the moon is many," since it has many parts. ...to argue "the earth has one satellite, namely the moon, therefore the moon is one" is as bad as to argue "the Apostles were twelve; Peter was an Apostle; therefore Peter was twelve.""

"The doctrine of universal flux is caricatured by Plato, and it is difficult to suppose that any one ever held it in the extreme form that he gives it. ....Logical oppositions have been invented for convenience, but continuous change requires a quantitative apparatus, the possibility of which Plato ignores. What he says on this subject, therefore, is largely beside the mark. At the same time it must be admitted that, unless words, to some extent, had fixed meanings, discourse would be impossible. Here again, however, it is easy to be too absolute. Words do change their meanings... It is necessary that the changes in the meanings of the words should be slower than the changes that the words describe; but it is not necessary that there be no changes in the meanings of words. Perhaps this does not apply to the abstract words of logic and mathematics, but these words, as we have seen, apply only to the form, not to the matter, of propositions. Here, again, we find that logic and mathematics are peculiar. Plato, under the influence of the Pythagoreans, assimilated other knowledge too much to mathematics. He shared this mistake with many of the greatest philosophers, but it was a mistake, none the less."

"Aristotle, as a philosopher, is in many ways very different from all his predecessors. He is the first to write like a professor: his treatises are systematic, his discussions are divided into heads, he is a professional teacher, not an inspired prophet. His work is critical, careful, pedestrian, without any trace of Bacchic enthusiasm. The Orphic elements in Plato are watered down in Aristotle, and mixed with a strong dose of common sense; where he is Platonic, one feels that his natural temperament has been overpowered by the teaching to which he has been subjected. He is not passionate, or in any profound sense religious. The errors of his predecessors were the glorious errors of youth attempting the impossible; his errors are those of age which cannot free itself of habitual prejudices. He is best in detail and in criticism; he fails in large construction, for lack of fundamental clarity and Titanic fire."

"I do not agree with Plato, but if anything could make me do so, it would be Aristotle's arguments against him."

"Alexander, who was not quite Greek, tried to break down this attitude of superiority. He himself married two barbarian princesses, and he compelled his leading Macedonians to marry Persian women of noble birth. ...The result of this policy was to bring into the minds of thoughtful men the conception of mankind as a whole; the old loyalty to the City State and (in a lesser degree) to the Greek race seemed no longer adequate."

"...the interaction of Greek and barbarian was reciprocal: the barbarians learned something of Greek science, while the Greeks learned much of barbarian superstition."

"From the Milesian school onwards, the Greeks who were eminent in science and philosophy and literature were associated with rich commercial cities, often surrounded by barbarian populations. This type of civilization was inaugurated not by the Greeks, but by the Phoenicians; Tyre and Sidon and Carthage depended on slaves for manual labor at home, and on hired mercenaries in the conduct of their wars. They did not depend, as modern capital cities do, upon large rural populations of the same blood and with equal political rights."

"The mathematicians and men of science connected, more or less closely, with Alexandria in the third century before Christ were as able as any of the Greeks of previous centuries, and did work of equal importance. But they were not, like their predecessors, men who took all learning as their province, and propounded universal philosophies; they were specialists in the modern sense. Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes and Apollonius, were content to be mathematicians; in philosophy they did not aspire to originality."

"A palace revolution might displace the syncophantic sage's patron; the Galatians might destroy the rich man's villa; one's city might be sacked as an incident in a dynastic war. In such circumstances it is no wonder that people took to worshiping the goddess of Fortune, or Luck. There seemed nothing rational in the ordering of human affairs. Those who obstinately insisted upon finding rationality somewhere withdrew into themselves..."

"The influence on non-Greek religion and superstition in the Hellenistic world was mainly, but not wholly, bad. This might not have been the case. Jews, Persians, and Buddhists all had religions that were very definitely superior to the popular Greek polytheism, and could even have been studied by the best philosophers. Unfortunately, it was the Babylonians, or Chaldeans, who most impressed the imagination of the Greeks. ...what was received was mainly astrology and magic."

"As we shall see, the majority of even the best philosophers fell in with the belief in astrology. It involved, since it thought the future predictable, a belief in necessity or fate, which could be set against the prevalent belief in fortune. No doubt most men believed in both, and never noticed the inconsistency."

"The general confusion was bound to bring moral decay, even more than intellectual enfeeblement. Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic every-day virtues of respectable citizens. ...fear took the place of hope; the purpose of life was rather to escape misfortune than to achieve any positive good."

"The first of these schools [ Cynics ] is derived (through its founder Diogenes) from Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates. ...He would have nothing but simple goodness. He associated with working men, and dressed as one of them. He took to open-air preaching, in a style that the uneducated could understand. All refined philosophy he held to be worthless, what could be known, could be known by the plain man. He believed in a "return to nature," and carried this belief very far. There was to be no government, no private property, no marriage, no established religion. His followers, if not himself, condemned slavery. He was not an ascetic, but he despised luxury and the pursuit of artificial pleasures of the senses."

"The fame of Antisthenes was surpassed by that of his disciple, Diogenes... He decided to live like a dog, and was therefore called a "cynic," which means "canine." He rejected all conventions - whether of religion, of manners of dress, of housing, of food, or of decency. One is told that he lived in a tub... it was a large pitcher, of the sort used in primitive times for burials. He lived like an Indian fakir, by begging. ...Everyone knows how Alexander visited him, and asked if he desired any favor; "only to stand out of my light," he replied."

"The teaching of Diogenes was by no means what we now call "cynical" - quite the contrary. He had an ardent passion for "virtue," in comparison with which he held worldly goods of no account. He sought virtue and moral freedom in liberation from desire: be indifferent to the goods that fortune has to bestow, and you will be emancipated from fear. In this respect, his doctrine... was taken up by the Stoics, but they did not follow him in rejecting the amenities of civilization. He considered that Prometheus was justly punished for bringing to man the arts that have produced the complication and artificiality of modern life. In this he resembled the Taoists and Rousseau and Tolstoy, but was more consistent than they were."

"His [Diogenes] doctrine, though he was a contemporary of Aristotle, belongs in its temper to the Hellenistic age. Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own efforts. Only subjective goods—virtue or contentment through resignation—are secure, and these alone, therefore, will be valued by the wise man... it was certainly not a doctrine calculated to promote art of science or statesmanship, or any useful activity except one of protest against powerful evil."

"It is interesting to observe what the Cynic teaching became when it was popularized. ...Popular Cynicism did not teach abstinence from the good things of the world, but only a certain indifference to them."

"What was best in the Cynic doctrine passed over into Stoicism, which was an altogether more complete and rounded philosophy."

"Skepticism, as a doctrine of the schools, was first proclaimed by Pyrrho... There was not much new in his doctrine, beyond a certain systematizing and formalizing of older doubts. Skepticism with regard to the senses had troubled Greek philosophers from a very early stage... The Sophists, notably Protagoras and Gorgias, had been led by the ambiguities and apparent contradictions of sense-perception to a subjectivism not unlike Hume's. Pyrrho seems to have added moral and logical skepticism to skepticism as to the senses. He is said to have maintained that there could never be any rational ground for preferring one course of action to another. A modern disciple would go to church on Sundays and perform the correct genuflections, but without any of the genuine religious beliefs that are suppose to inspire these actions. Ancient Skeptics went through the whole pagan ritual, and were even sometimes priests; their skepticism assured them that this behavior could not be proved wrong, and their common sense assured them that it was convenient."

"Skepticism naturally made an appeal to many unphilosophic minds. People observed the diversity of schools and the acerbity of their disputes, and decided all alike were pretending to knowledge which was in fact unattainable. Skepticism was the lazy man's consolation, since it showed the ignorant to be as wise as the reputed men of learning."

"Skepticism as a philosophy is not merely doubt, but what may be called dogmatic doubt. The man of science says "I think it is so-and-so, but I am not sure." The man of intellectual curiosity says "I don't know how it is, but I hope to find out." The philosophical Skeptic says "nobody knows and nobody ever can know." It is this element of dogmatism that makes the system vulnerable."

"Pyrrho's disciple Timon... advanced some intellectual arguments which, from the standpoint of Greek logic, were very hard to answer. The only logic admitted by the Greeks was deductive, and all deduction had to start, like Euclid, from general principles regarded as self-evident. Timon denied the possibility of finding such principles. ...nothing can be proved. This argument, as we can see, cut at the root of the Aristotelian philosophy which dominated the Middle Ages."

"A modern Skeptic would point out that the phenomenon merely occurs, and is not either valid or invalid; what is valid or invalid must be a statement, and no statement can be so closely linked to the phenomenon as to be incapable of falsehood."

"In some respects, the doctrine of Timon was very similar to that of Hume. He maintained that something which had never been observed - atoms, for instance - could not be validly inferred, but when two phenomena had been frequently observed together, one could be inferred from the other."