[RD] Ancient Philosophy (from Thales to Socrates) discussion thread

[Angst]

@Igrok, not sure how you mean it. There aren't a million pages of "low hanging fruit" anyway ^^ A nice quote by Martin Heidegger is that "the rest of western philosophy can be seen as a series of footnotes on ancient Greek philosophy".

heidegger's attitude here exemplifies what i think is wrong with our presuppositions about the greeks and our weird modernist attitudes towards philosophy. it's definitely not footnotes and heidegger's work is not even final to thought in any way

i don't claim to be better or smarter than any of them. but there's a reason i prefer diogenes over most of 'em

 

[Birdjaguar]

[snip]

 

[Angst]

Most philosophy is intellectual masturbation by narcissists.

... kiiind of. philosophy is great, even when masturbatory, but the point is, it doesn't have to be. i'm a big fan of both the masturbatory and the ... clean. but our relation to the greeks is often something obsessively masturbatory, which is never charming

 

[Kyriakos]

heidegger's attitude here exemplifies what i think is wrong with our presuppositions about the greeks and our weird modernist attitudes towards philosophy. it's definitely not footnotes and heidegger's work is not even final to thought in any way

i don't claim to be better or smarter than any of them. but there's a reason i prefer diogenes over most of 'em

You know you can't form an argument against Heidegger without using his language. And I think you'll give up before trying
The brief quote of Aristotle in the end of the 20 pages of the first chapter of that book, was like an oasis in the worst desert.

our relation to the greeks is often something obsessively masturbatory, which is never charming

I mean, I don't mind

 

[PhroX]

Dust
Wind
Dude

 

[Kyriakos]

While humor from a positive place is fine (and welcome), I decided to make this rd to avoid some rather more vile stuff
This doesn't mean the tone is to be more austere- quite the contrary. So please take part, will to discuss and possibly learn a few things, should be always a net gain ^^

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh, I didn't take in that it was RD. I wouldn't have made my archery joke.

 

[Kyriakos]

Oh, I didn't take in that it was RD. I wouldn't have made my archery joke.

It wasn't RD back then. And it still refers to Zeno and the arrow.
Which, to refresh people's memory, is about how if an arrow was not moving in any of the distinct points of movement, then it shouldn't move in the overall movement either. This is, in other words (like Zeno's Stadium paradox), about external observers needing a reference point beyond the distinct moment in time, to tell if/what movement occurs. In the stadium paradox it is more clearly about the relativity of speed of moving chariots.

I hope you won't find the RD tag to be deterring, it really shouldn't be... If it is, though, I'd rather take it out again

 

[Angst]

You know you can't form an argument against Heidegger without using his language. And I think you'll give up before trying
The brief quote of Aristotle in the end of the 20 pages of the first chapter of that book, was like an oasis in the worst desert.



I mean, I don't mind

for this, i know you don't mind, it's just... let's connect to heidegger. i know it's appealing when someone recognized as smart says something rousing about something you like. but try to step out of your shoes here - it's really vapid, and not quotable unless you're in the ingroup of the worship

 

[Kyriakos]

for this, i know you don't mind, it's just... let's connect to heidegger. i know it's appealing when someone recognized as smart says something rousing about something you like. but try to step out of your shoes here - it's really vapid, and not quotable unless you're in the ingroup of the worship

I mean, that's the point made about Heidegger, due to how unreadable he is
Still, it doesn't make that quote wrong. If you don't like it due to Heidegger, read pretty much the same by Bertrand Russell.

Russell did produce his own summary of philosophy, in book form. But he is more remembered due to the paradox which sunk the idea of having a complete theory of sets.

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's not only Heidegger who acknowledges the importance to Western philosophy of A and P. He just put it into a witty encapsulation.

The importance is inarguable.

 

[Angst]

I mean, that's the point made about Heidegger, due to how unreadable he is
Still, it doesn't make that quote wrong. If you don't like it due to Heidegger, read pretty much the same by Bertrand Russell.

View attachment 654346

Russell did produce his own summary of philosophy, in book form. But he is more remembered due to the paradox which sunk the idea of having a complete theory of sets.

switching out the quotee isn't contrary to what i say. it's just another nice word of a quotable person: again: it's appealing when someone recognized as smart says something rousing about something you like. but try to step out of your shoes here

i'd like to outline that i do understand and agree to the importance of greek philosophy. but i don't see it as foundational or hierarchical in some cosmic order of knowledge (which incidentally a lot of the greeks would have liked). i see it as early among a bunch of traditions, loved by the christians by virtue of roman overlay. and by virtue of those christians having influenced a lot, yes. but the modernist idea of everything having sprouted from it, thinking of it as a necessary root or seed to western philosophy is a bit off as to how these things work. not because western philosophy didn't come from it; the point is i don't agree with the modernist notion. i don't agree that knowledge, particularly humanist knowledge, develops akin to something like an evolutionary tree, like a civ tech tree, that something is hierarchical and in its foundationality and parentage sometimes unquestionable. i don't agree it's the foundation of a house that the house rests on. i agree we chose some of the bricks.

modern ideas of greek philosophy is highly satinized as to the batguana things the greeks thought and said. you're well aware of this since you're so enfranchised. and the thing is that most of the things the greeks dealt with were either not that unique or have had to be ridiculously sanitized (or more accurately, fundamentally warped; again, the christians) to be useful in later philosophy. which annoys me, since there's a sheer tendency in academia, where people are basically misquoting greeks at large to gain legitimacy for their thinking. because it's greek, no? so it must always be useful.

but maybe, well, i'm probably biased. most of the stuff i've dealt with is philosophical aesthetics, and there the greek heritage and quotability is often just sheer cringe

if you want a shorthand rephrase of what i believe: it's important, really important, but not foundational. we're not footnotes of it, and it's not = western philosophy

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, I don't really read ethics philosophy, so can't help; my seminars never were on ethical philosophy either
I am interested in dialectics, and by extension (since that for a while coexisted with it as a subset, notably due to Plato) mathematics. Both were of foundational value; the former is heavily tied to formal logic, and as for the latter it took till the 19th century for math to actually produce something more intricate than in the classical/hellenistic era. Currently, it is by all means much more refined and voluminous, but the same notions are at the core.

As for modern (or more recent) dialectic philosophy=>logic, most of the main names were german or british, culminating at Godel. There is, of course, an entire field of modern philosophy given to such, termed "analytic philosophy". Though I am sure some works are more valuable than others; I had at a point read Wittgenstein, but can't say if the work had a reason to exist; seems to largely be a reflection on a very famous work by Russell.

Naturally, you can't be convinced of something's worth, from other people's words - nor should you. Anyone has to read for themselves and form a view, of whichever value it can be.

 

[Angst]

Hm, I don't really read ethics philosophy, so can't help; my seminars never were on ethical philosophy either
I am interested in dialectics, and by extension (since that for a while coexisted with it as a subset, notably due to Plato) mathematics. Both were of foundational value; the former is heavily tied to formal logic, and as for the latter it took till the 19th century for math to actually produce something more intricate than in the classical/hellenistic era. Currently, it is by all means much more refined and voluminous, but the same notions are at the core.

As for modern (or more recent) dialectic philosophy=>logic, most of the main names were german or british, culminating at Godel. There is, of course, an entire field of modern philosophy given to such, termed "analytic philosophy". Though I am sure some works are more valuable than others; I had at a point read Wittgenstein, but can't say if the work had a reason to exist; seems to largely be a reflection on a very famous work by Russell.

Naturally, you can't be convinced of something's worth, from other people's words - nor should you. Anyone has to read for themselves and form a view, of whichever value it can be.

think you misread aesthetics as ethics.

when it comes to stuff like logic and math (as with all tools of science) there's more sense to a hereditary order of knowledge. when it comes to ethics, aesthetics, politics, onthology/epistemology, etc., it's much less the case (and it's been those areas i've had a lot of qualms with the idea of greek heritage over the much better principle of greek influence)

 

[Kyriakos]

think you misread aesthetics as ethics.

No, because the three ancient categories (eg mentioned by ancient writers of the subject, like Laertius), are Ethics, Dialectics and Physics, and "ethics" includes everything vaguely sociological
Though maybe you refer to something more ethereal, like some argument about archetypes of beauty etc, but then you'd need to be specific, since I don't recall!

Fwiw, apparently ethics wasn't a major part of Greek philosophy, until the sophists and Socrates=>late 5th century.

 

[saamohod]

Since this thread is about ancient Greek philosophers, by a Greek person, a question occurred to me.
Would we be talking about Greek philosophy nowadays if the Greek nationalists (not to be confused with Nazis!) and their foreign support had lost the war for independence? Would it be called "ancient Ottoman philosophy" nowadays? Just curious. I like alternative history.

 

[Kyriakos]

Since this thread is about ancient Greek philosophers, by a Greek person, a question occurred to me.
Would we be talking about Greek philosophy nowadays if the Greek nationalists (not to be confused with Nazis!) and their foreign support had lost the war for independence? Would it be called "ancient Ottoman philosophy" nowadays? Just curious. I like alternative history.

That's easy to answer. The reason why there were so many notables in Europe/US who either fought or wanted to fight in the Greek war of Independence, was exactly due to how prominent the study of ancient Greece had been by that time.
So, yes, even if Greece never had regained independence, this wouldn't change.

Now, maybe in x years, if countries disappear and you also have a cataclysmic world war erasing most knowledge, such a misrepresentation could happen - but then again, it could happen about any other country, including the US.

 

[Gorbles]

Ah yes, complex problems of modern youth! Switching iphones on and off. Buying a good cs:go mic on ebay. Ordering food delivery online! I’m sure Aristotle would throw in the towel when confronted with such complexity. When you get the time, ask your average modern student to write a couple of pages of text. Then open Aristotle’s politics and compare, which of the two brains has better capacity to analyse and solve complex problems.

Them kids, right. Playing with their smartphones and buying gaming headsets. Them kids! Bah!

The fundamental point you were replying to is still right. There were less people in the world. Less had been discovered. This doesn't mean that Archimedes wasn't talented, visionary, or whatever (honestly? No comment. At least with Michaelangelo we have a wealth of material that set him decades or even centuries beyond his time). That doesn't mean we wouldn't be in a radically different or even worse world had he not discovered what he did, when he did.

But you can't compare that to the billions occupying the planet now, stratified by class, wealth, general inequality, targeted inequality, and so on, and so forth. Why pick someone who is by historical standards pivotal, and say "checkmate average modern students, checkmate". It's just . . . old man yelling at cloud syndrome, regardless of how old you are.

I've gotten to know people, in my relatively average life, who I would consider exceptionally intelligent. I'm talking "they'd be made a caricature in a TV show" level of intelligent. But their reach to create an impact on the level of Archimedes basically doesn't exist anymore. History won't remember any of them, or any of us, like it has remembered Archimedes. But that doesn't mean Archimedes is the title of a Daft Punk album by comparison. It means you underestimate people today, because you can't effectively compare then and now.

 

[Kyriakos]

Archimedes discovered calculus roughly 2000 years before Newton/Leibniz. So, yes, he was virtually two Milennia ahead of his time (note: it couldn't be generalized then, since there was no algebra and thus no use of focusing on non-clearly meaningful functions).
That said, he probably was the greatest genius of the ancient era anyway, so that's pretty rare.

 

[saamohod]

The reason why there were so many notables in Europe/US who either fought or wanted to fight in the Greek war of Independence, was exactly due to how prominent the study of ancient Greece had been by that time.

Those notables seem to have waited for four hundred years for the Ottomans to weaken before they could express their support. Maybe the love for ancient Greek philosophy wasn't the main cause, but the desire to deter the ever-expanding Ottomans.
Just guessing.