History of Philosophy-- according to Diogenes Laertios

Kyriakos

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(@mods: i hope this can stay here, i originally posted it in the OT but it got just one response -which wasn't on topic either- so i thought of trying here with the rest of the academic community :D )

I decided to share this article, which is hopefully to be printed next week as my 15th work in a newspaper:

"On the meaning of the term “Philosophy”

Diogenes Laertios' work, titled “Lives of those who flourished in philosophy”, begins with a quite elegant synopsis of the history of philosophy, including the use of the term itself and how it came about.
The 3rd century AD thinker is attacking the idea according to which philosophy first appeared in other peoples, and he does so by examining the various classes of “sages” that Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Celtic and other northern cultures, and India had, and correspondingly are the Magi (magicians), the Chaldeans, the Priests, the Druids, and the Gymnosophists.
Refferencing a series of sources such as Eudoxos, Eudemos, and Aristotle, he attributes to those foreign sages traits which do not mix with philosophy as the latter formed in the greek world. In Greece he names as the most archaic forefathers of the notion two figures: Mousaios of Athens – of which he informs that he is said to have created a work on Theology, and another one examining the Spherical volume – and Linos of Thebes – noting that the latter was in the habbit of beginning all his verses with the phrase “There was once a time when all things were One”, and going on to tie this archaic verse to the classical philosopher Anaxagoras and his similar premise: “All things were One at first, but Thinking caused them to be divided”.

Diogenes Laertios goes on to mention Orpheas of Thrace (and condemn him for presenting the gods as even more filled with vices than mere mortals, a position which was also used by Xenophanes when that late 6th century BC philosopher was scoffing Homer's theology), and also Zalmoxis of the Paradunabean Thrace... He clearly considers both of those figures as religious thinkers, and not actual philosophers. And this is the dismissal that he has in mind for the spiritual-oriented sages of the other cultures.
As for those foreign sages he mostly discusses Zoroaster (Zarathustra), and the theologic tradition tied to him in Persia.


In regards to the origin of the term “Philosophy” we are told that it was apparently first used with this intent by Pythagoras, and that the end behind the use was to replace the previous terms “sophos” (sage) and sophist. According to this claim the reason that Pythagoras proposed the change in terms was his view that only god is actually a sage, and therefore a human can at best strive to be a friend of wisdom, thus a philosopher.

The opening chapter of this work concludes with an important collection of lists compiled by previous sources, naming the various categories of philosophies and philosophers. One distinction was between the physical philosophers (whose subject was the external world), the ethical ones (examining how to better live one's life), and the dialectic philosophers (those involved with the process of thought itself). Another categorisation involved the location where the philosophers mostly taught, so some were academics (using an Academy) and others were stoics (giving their lectures in a Stoa of the city they were in). Another, very important, distinction, was between the Ionian and the Italian school of philosophy, with its first founders deemed to be Anaximander of Miletos and Pythagoras of Samos (who was renown for teaching in the Italian colonies).
Diogenes Laertios names also those deemed as the teachers of those two founders: Thales of Miletos for Anaximander, and Pherekydes of the island of Syros for Pythagoras."

*

You can discuss any theme tied to the brief article (something like 500 words in the original). I think it is quite interesting; Diogenes Laertios is more of a historian of philosophy, not an actual philosopher (at least one to be compared to the illustrious names he writes about), but his book is regarded as invaluable for the study of the history of this order in thinking :)

PS: bit of interesting trivia: apparently Diogenes Laertios estimates the Trojan War to have happened at around 1500 BC, going by other dates given when referring to the archaic figures of Mousaios and Linos :D
 
Liked the read, interesting.

IMO even taking into account everything we as a species have learned so far, consciousness / feelings still look pretty much like magic and for that reason I find it interesting that a mage originally was just a guy who was pondering (among other things) the nature of humans and how we can better shape our inner worlds.

Alan Moor once said that story tellers are the true magicians, for they "magically" shaped how we perceived the world. So perhaps it only makes sense that a philosopher would be religious, since as a person concerned with the nature of human kind, and hence a "mage", he will need stories to work his magic.

Greek philosophy then perhaps meant a sharp cut in that development in so far as that the subject - how to understand the world - was parted from the tool to advance such understanding (stories) - the ideal perhaps being to understand for its own sake, without the "magic".
In principle that means greater clarity of thought, which is always good. But I think this also poses the danger of a fetishization of truth for its own sake and consequently a neglect of what ultimately truly and only matters. A development which has grown in strength to this day, I'd say.

Another thing I find fascinating is this notion of all being one.
I recently read a psychology article on why we at times just "click" with people as well as environments and other things. An interesting point in it was that humans have a natural urge to feel like one with something. It gives you a splendid dopamine rush, basically we are hard-wired to get high when we feel really closely connected to something. The background is that if for instance you "feel as one" with your hunting grounds, it practically just means that you are on top of your hunting game, that you control your hunting grounds and hence will survive. In a social context, it means that you can feel secure, since you only feel as one in a social context when all parties involved are very open to each other and hence could not hid adversary intentions.


The idea popped into my head, that this is perhaps what all religion is most of all about - to try to capture this notion of oneness, to justify it, give it a tangible frame, to provide it.
 
Thanks for the post :thumbsup:

Worth noting, though, that up to the time of Aristotle greek philosophy was still focused on dialectics (which in general have no set axiomatic system where truth and lie are given), while with Aristotle this moves to 'syllogisms', his own term for it, where there are clear axiomatic bases, and inevitably true/false (and indistinct as to that) statements.

Compare to Socrates, who almost always ends up the dialogues by highlighting that any system collapses after some point, given no axiom survives a continuous search for deeper bases.
 
Note also that Plato is a big counter-example to the suggestion that Greek philosophy was about getting rid of stories. Almost all his works are stories, and they contain additional stories in the form of myths, many of which he devised himself. The later history of Platonism was basically people trying to get rid of all this narrative element and deduce Plato's "doctrines" when he arguably didn't really have any.
 
^And those dialogues are quite lively, all things considered. Despite parts of them having the formulaic and standard agreement with Socrates.
Dostoevsky had called those dialogues 'literatures' first novel'.
They also tend to include very poetic phrases, and allusions to poems...

(and they are written in an all-around more difficult (for a current greek speaker, re the ancient greek there) language to follow than Aristotle's, the latter being pretty strict and essay-styled) :)
 
Interesting stuff, thanks.
Particularly
The later history of Platonism was basically people trying to get rid of all this narrative element and deduce Plato's "doctrines" when he arguably didn't really have any.
corrects me and proves me right nicely at the same time.

Thinking about it a bit more, what also comes to my mind is the factor of monotheism, which is naturally more dogmatic than polytheism (I am just going to assume without any proper background knowledge) and may have had some considerable sway on how we deal with the concept of truth.

I mean obviously, the concept of a one truth already existed in ancient Greek times, but monotheism may have given it a whole new dimension and weight on a whole new scale?

Put lightly - perhaps the believe in the one god was somewhat the precursor to. physics.
 
Hm, I suppose it is certainly possible for a polytheist to be just as dogmatic, however, I had the vague impression that overall the reality wasn't so (which if true I'd attribute to intrinsic features, even if the phenomena was not absolute). India comes to mind with its vast inconsistent system of faith, which basically by nature does not seem to allow for monotheism-style dogmas and the role they played in their respective regions, on the whole at least. Likewise, while Rome may have had a much more consistent system of faith than India - over time at least, again the role this faith played appears to be a lot more flexible and less dogmatic, on the whole, over time.

But yes, I could certainly be wrong. And you are the theologian. Am just widely musing.
 
Another thing I find fascinating is this notion of all being one.
I recently read a psychology article on why we at times just "click" with people as well as environments and other things. An interesting point in it was that humans have a natural urge to feel like one with something. It gives you a splendid dopamine rush, basically we are hard-wired to get high when we feel really closely connected to something. The background is that if for instance you "feel as one" with your hunting grounds, it practically just means that you are on top of your hunting game, that you control your hunting grounds and hence will survive. In a social context, it means that you can feel secure, since you only feel as one in a social context when all parties involved are very open to each other and hence could not hid adversary intentions.


The idea popped into my head, that this is perhaps what all religion is most of all about - to try to capture this notion of oneness, to justify it, give it a tangible frame, to provide it.
The idea of oneness caught my eye as well. I immediately thought of the Tao Te Ching. The concept of oneness pervades that document. Whenever an idea arises independently in cultures that were not communicating with one another in the ancient world, I take notice and give it greater credence. Another idea that arose independently across the globe is reciprocity.
 
You might be interested in more about Parmenides and Oneness, from my 16th printed article on the newspaper :D (published yersterday)

It follows:

Parmenides and the thoughts of humans

It is Socrates himself who claims that the theories of Parmenides cause him to be in awe of that Elean philosopher. And he persistantly regards him as more important than the other prominent thinkers, despite the fact that not all of the Parmenidian views are accepted in the Platonic body of work.

All things are “immobile”, according to Parmenides. Moreover he claims that, in reality, all things are One. “All is One” being his famous apofthegm. This had the meaning that the multiplicity all humans observe is an illusion, termed as 'doksa' (δόξα) in Parmenides's ancient treatise with the title of “On Nature”. 'Doksa' is the thought and consequent view and any theorising which is examined or concieved by humans, and Parmenides juxtaposes 'doksa' to an eternal and unchangable “Truth”, of which he notes that only a deity can be aware.

It is very much to be expected that at the time Parmenides presented his view, in the fifth century BC, many other Greek philosophers would find such a notion to be abhorent. Afterall it is known from main ancient commentators on Greek philosophy (such as Diogenes Laertios, or even Aristotle himself) that the philosophical thinking is more clearly defined by a lack of ties to a theological backdrop. It is therefore in stark contrast to that to find Parmenides, and his teacher Xenophanes, speak of one god, a god having the form of a perfect sphere, and one who is infinite. As is to have Parmenides attribute “Truth” to that infinite and divine being, and banish all human thoughts from ever approaching even a part of the truth, as if there was an impassable moat between Truth and those human thoughts and examinations, and the Truth foverer remains the same, stable, immobile, eternally unknown to all humans...

It is categorically needed, of course, to highlight the fact this view of Parmenides is not a dogma, despite the absolute meaning he presents: It is not a dogma given that Parmenides himself – at least as Plato presents him arguing, in his dialogue with Socrates and Zeno- gives a detailed account of how he arrives at the belief that all human thoughts are false. He does that by using the “dialectic method”, which is a method of examining thought itself, manners of thought, and seeking proof when it comes to any mental examination...

And, if we aimed to reflect very briefly on the dialectics of Parmenides, we could claim that he aspires to present to us just how any term and notion we use is founded on bases which we do not actually examine to a full extent, and thus all of our thoughts are composed of terms which only to a slight and fleeting degree are known to us as precise and specific.
It is not, generally, out of a very different reason to the above that Socrates often claimed his only knowledge is that he has none.
 
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