Words for Board: Cynics, Diogenes, Plato, Academy, Aristotle, Geocentric

This is philosophy during the Hellenistic Period–after Socrates.

There was a new school of thought called the Cynics (means "dog"). It was founded by a student of Socrates named Diogenes. It seemed to people that luck decided a lot of stuff in life. How do you escape bad luck? The cynics say you don't. There is no way to escape bad stuff. Disaster is waiting around every corner. Therefore, you learn to live without everything which could be taken away in bad times. Get rid of material needs. Reduce life to its simplest level and live with bare essentials. It's kind of like the hippy syndrome. Be free from material trappings. Diogenes himself lived in an abandoned wine vat outside of Corinth. He chose Corinth cuz it was the most worldly, materialistic city in Greece. He was a tourist attraction. He's the one who carried a lighted lamp around and would go downtown in the middle of the day and shine his lamp in people's faces. Then he'd shake his head and walk on. When asked what he was doing, he said he was looking for an honest man. It was a jab at Corinth cuz supposedly he needed a light in the middle of the day and then he still couldn't find one. (You may have seen it in cartoons.) One day, Alexander the Great took one of the tour buses out to see Diogenes. He introduced himself and offered Diogenes any favor he wanted in the world. Diogenes told him that he really liked to get his sunlight and that Alexander was standing n his way, so would he please move cuz he was casting a shadow. That's the favor he wanted from the greatest man in the world!! One of the schools in Corinth was trying to define man one day. They finally decided that man was a featherless biped (2 legs). So, Diogenes plucked a dead chicken and threw it among the group and told them he was adding another man to their group. Somebody described Diogenes as being able to "see pride through the holes in his clothes." That is that Diogenes was preaching to give up everything and be humble and bragging to everyone that he didn't need anything. But the idea is that he's bragging to everyone to be like him. Did Socrates really say the stuff that Diogenes is preaching? Well . . . what he probably said was that the simple life is best and Diogenes took him literally and ran with it.

The major student of Socrates was Plato (429-347 BC). Actually, Plato is the man's nickname and means "broad-browed." He was in Athens when Socrates was executed and left on a world tour, vowing to never return. Eventually he did, though, cuz Athens was still the big city for philosophers. He opened a school called the Academy. Students came to him instead of the old way of him trying to find students. Plato wrote about Socrates but he could have been using Socrates' name to express what he wanted to say. He wrote in a dialogue form. Socrates was supposed to have talked to his students in a question/answer type of format. (It's called the Socratic teaching method today and is supposed to make you think. Stockmyer does not use it!) What did Plato believe? He was similar to Socrates on virtue and knowledge for the good of life. But he also talked a lot about creation and good government. What does Plato say on creation? (You'll be sorry you asked.) He said there was one god in the beginning who had great thoughts on what he wanted and a bunch of raw material lying around. What gave life to the raw material was that they included in their being part of the original thoughts of the god that made them. I.e. people are raw material plus little bits and pieces of the original ideas of god. Could be similar to a soul. Brighter people have more of the bits and pieces and dumber people less. Plato's students didn't pick his idea up very well (say huh?). They asked him how he knew that was true. Plato says that your "soul" knew everything about the universe before it was born (remember it was in god's mind), but that when you were born everything was squeezed out so you had to relearn it. You're not learning something new; you're just relearning something you can't remember. (Say double huh???) For instance, if I were to take you into a room where there was something you'd never seen before and say that is a Glock and then take you to another room where there was more than one of those things, you would recognize it and you would recognize each separate thing was still the same old Glock. You grouped the similar things together rather than having to learn each separate thing. There was a pattern to match them up with. Plato says that's cuz they have a Glockness about them and you recognize them as soon as you know their names cuz you knew about them before being born.

What is really real? Plato says that some things are permanent and more real than others. A chair is only the carbon copy of the original idea of god of chairs. Chairs fall apart but the idea of a chair goes on forever. He says your senses fool you into thinking it's real and not a copy. Plato explained the idea of real with the allegory of the cave. Suppose there is a cave with benches in it. There are people on the benches facing the back wall of the cave. Suppose the people had been born on the bench and were chained down. They can only see the back wall of the cave–not each other or not behind them. Now suppose that outside the cave there is a raised area with a bonfire on it. As an animal or person walks by the fire, it casts a shadow on the back of the cave for the people to see. As things make noises outside the cave, they echo back in the cave. Now, what is real to the people on the bench? The shadows and echoes are cuz they have never had anything else. Suppose somebody (like Plato) wanders into the cave and breaks the chains of the people and turns them around and tries to explain the real world to them. They've never seen it and they're going to think he's crazy. Plato has set up something similar to our motion picture theater of today. Movies seem very real to people, especially to children who don't have any concept of realism anyway. Stockmyer had a teaching friend who taught philosophy. He would go into class with a cigarette and ask the class which was more real–the cigarette or the idea of the cigarette they had in their minds. They would say the cigarette cuz they could feel it, smell, etc. Then, he'd teach the class and through the class he'd smoke the cigarette. At the end, he'd ask which was more real–the cigarette that no longer existed or the idea of it in their minds? (NEAT! Next time you're loaded, try discussing realism with your friends. That is if you can find your hands!!) Actually ideas are just as important as raw materials we use to make things. You have to have an idea before you make something, or else you'll end up with clumps of stuff and no cohesion to it. (Remind you of some of your essay answers???)

What does Plato say on good government? Greeks realized their governments had failed cuz it had lost the wars and the world consequently. The Athenian democracy had lost the Peloponnesian War and the oligarchies were not much better. Plato says that government was rotten cuz it was similar to the people–uneducated, dumb, selfish. Government leaders elected are just like that too. How do you get good government? Plato took his wine bottle and sat out under a tree one day and thought up a plan. He said that you should set up a system so that only good, intelligent people are attracted to being in the government. There should be a state where the material goodies and higher salaries go to the people that decline to be in office. There would then be only the people that truly want to help others in the government cuz they were not getting anything out of it for themselves, except knowing that they were helping. He said the leader of the state would get absolutely nothing, therefore insuring that only the highest type of person would want to run for the job. He said there would be no good government until kings became philosophers and philosophers became kings. (He may have had himself in mind.)

There was a big student of Plato–Aristotle. He was a Macedonian who left fast cuz there was nothing up there. He came to Athens to learn from Plato. He couldn't quite see Plato's ideas on creation and they quarreled. He broke from Plato and went back to Macedonia. He tutored Alexander the Great. He wanted good government, too. He sent his students out to study 158 Greek city-states to see what worked under what circumstances. He also needed the knowledge of how people are and how they behave when. He said that men were superior and women inferior. (Before all you male chauvinist types start cheering–keep reading!) He said that slaves, children and women were inferior and would run amuck if not led by the men-types. But!!!! He only studied the Greeks and a small sample at that. So, of course, women look stupid cuz in the Greek culture they weren't allowed to do anything but have kids. He should have had a cross-cultural check. But even then he couldn't have found any basic human traits that exist everywhere. We learn our behavior from our culture. But there was a possibility of good government to Aristotle. There were 3 good forms depending on the circumstances: 1. In countries where there are backward people, there needs to be a king who cares about his people and can lead them like a father. 2. Where there are a few important, educated rich families, there should be an aristocracy where they take care of things. 3. Where there is lots of education and wealth among the people, there should be a limited popular vote. Not all of the common cruds could vote but those who qualified. But all of the forms could be corrupted. #1 could turn out to be tyranny, #2 turn into an oligarchy, and #3 into a democracy where everyone voted which would be bad news (like Athens). Our democracy works today a little better than he predicted cuz people are more educated and won't vote for stupid stuff often.

Aristotle was also a genius in other stuff. He was interested in astronomy but he didn't have a telescope (cuz it hadn't been invented yet). So his guesses are a little off. He said the world was Geocentric ("earth-centered"). The earth was the center of the universe and everything spins around it except for some fixed stars. Things stay out there cuz they are held by invisible rings. Unfortunately, Aristotle was a great man and people listened to him and believed he was right–for hundreds of years.

He was the father of biology. He dissected animals and classified them by species. He had trouble telling what the various organs do. He said the heart was the seat of your intelligence cuz it was centrally located, the body stops when it does, when you think dirty thoughts it goes faster, etc. The brain supposedly regulated the temperature of the blood. Food was cooked in the intestines. He said women have less teeth than men cuz they have smaller heads. He didn't bother to count and experiment. He just figured that women have smaller heads and therefore smaller jaws so they can't hold all the teeth that men have. (There's a trick to it–women have smaller teeth!)