THE STOIC PHILOSOPHY OF THE METALEXANDRIAN AGE

With the creation of the huge empire of Alexander the Great, many things changed in the political, social, psychological and philosophical life of the ancient Greeks. The small city-states of Greece ceased to exist. In those cities, citizens were accustomed to holding certain important roles for the political life of their place. Suddenly becoming citizens of a vast empire, their concerns and moods changed. At this critical juncture, the new philosophy came to play an important role in the spiritual support of individuals.

The Stoic philosophy, which was developed during the Hellenistic times and evolved until the end of the Roman times is divided into ancient, middle and new Stoa. The founder of the ancient Stoa was Zeno (333-262 BC), who was known for his simplicity and ethos. In contrast to the dualism between Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, Zeno turned to the archaic philosophy of Heraclitus. He believed that every real being, even the soul or God, is considered bodily. He also believed that matter is in constant change but the fixed base of the spirit ensures the unity of the world. In his opinion, this unity makes all beings related and this is the sympathy of everything that leads to world harmony. He also advocated that the universe was created on the basis of a certain design by a creative mind and that everything that happens in it has a purpose.

Passions, such as desire, pleasure, fear and sorrow, were attributed by Zeno to a wrong judgment. Also, according to the philosopher, scientific knowledge is necessary in order for the moral act to take place. Zeno divided people into sages and fools, considering as sages those free from passions and like God.

The most systematic of the philosophers of the ancient Stoa, however, was Chrysippus (280-210 BC). He taught that the universe ignites from time to time to become again from the beginning and in fact the same as before. He also considered the soul to be a fiery substance that is born in the blood and dies with the body. He believed that the senses, sexual ability, language and logic are parts of the soul. Finally, he stressed that the human will is free and allows the ego, after thought, to take responsibility for its actions.

An important representative of the middle Stoa was Panaitios (185 - 109 BC). He justified human passions and recognized logic as the regulator of spiritual balance. He also emphasized that the will of man cannot be changed even by God.

Panaitos considered that the superiority of man is due to his logic and distinguished in him four spiritual impulses: for knowledge, for social coexistence, for the conquest of goods and for peace of soul. According to the philosopher, wisdom, justice, bravery and self-control develop from these impulses.

Poseidonios (135-51 BC) also belonged to the Middle Stoa. In his conceptions coexisted Greek and Eastern wisdom, mysticism with rationalism, belief in both miracles and causation, theoretical and empirical thinking, personal observation and historical tradition. As a carrier of life in the organic world he considered heat, a fiery breath that is identified with speech. He also believed that the world was a huge living organism with a soul of reason. Poseidonios considered the human soul to be fiery and argued that harmony and beauty arise from the opposites of the world.

Poseidonios believed that logic distinguished man from animals and that this was the driving force behind the evolution of civilization and not necessity. From a moral point of view, the philosopher advocated that man ought in thought and action to follow his logic because only in this way can he live a life in accordance with his nature. Finally, he believed that for human happiness, in addition  to virtue, there must also be health, strength and other goods.

The representatives of the new Stoa belong to the first two Christian centuries. Their views approach Platonism, advocate man's relationship with God, and emphasize love for fellow human beings. A well known representative of the new Stoa was the slave Epictetus (50-135 AD). He believed that within man there is a space that is inaccessible to material power and to the temptation of external goods. He also believed that being indifferent to things which he can not control, someone can get rid of passions. An admirer of the Epictetus was Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD), who wrote that knowing that everything changes, one can not desire anything and be afraid of anything outside, submitting to the natural course of the world and thus cultivating his inner freedom, which is in accordance with his rational nature.

ARISTOTLE: THE MOST METHODICAL MIND OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the most methodical mind of the ancient world. In fact, he was the founder of logic, which for him was an instrument of philosophy.

Aristotle's logic was based on the assumption of the existence of categories and meanings. The former correspond to normal things and the latter to their essence. Thus the acquisition of knowledge is based on meanings, which are being conceived under conditions that are in the senses.

The philosopher also distinguished knowledge into direct and indirect. The first is acquired insightfully while the second by observation, experience and subtraction.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle did not believe that ideas pre-existed. On the contrary, he believed that the human spirit has the ability to create meanings and with them to perceive reality.

As for the above-mentioned categories of normal things, these for Aristotle were the following ten, which he explained by describing a man, Korikos:

1) Substance (human)

2) Quantity (three bars)

3) Quality (white, educated)

4) Relationship (older)

5) Place (in the market)

6) Time (yesterday)

7) Position (sitting)

8) Condition (dressed)

9) Energy (cuts)

10) Suffering (cut)

Judging the Platonic theory of ideas, Aristotle considered as its disadvantage the division of reality into tangible and conceivable. So he preferred to deal with the perceptible reality and to look for the essence of beings within the specific objects.

Aristotle, knowing the views of the prosocratic natural philosophers and conducting physiognostic and biological research himself, came to the conclusion that things are specific combinations of matter and form, which he considered to be eternal and unchanging.

Extremely interesting is Aristotle's theory of man's ability to create poetry. In fact, the philosopher distinguished poetry on two different levels: The technological level of poetry aims at the creation of objects that complement nature. The artistic level aims at the interpretation of existing objects.

In Aristotle's natural philosophy, the teleological criterion is of particular interest. According to this, nature creates beings who aim at their self-realization. This is achieved through the optimal combination of form with matter. Therefore form is the purpose of creation.

At the level of natural philosophy, Aristotle was also interested in investigating what is happening in things. He therefore dealt with concepts of physics such as mass, space, time, motion, change, infinity, emptiness and continuum. He also founded biology and other related disciplines, such as phytology, zoology, entomology, embryology, ecology and animal psychology. He also suggested species classification methods and investigated the causes of sex differentiation, hereditary and acquired traits, polygon and oligogene, polycythemia and gestational age in animals, the spread of certain species and the effect of natural environment in the ethos of animals, their mental manifestations, their habits, weather effects on them and their diseases. Many of Aristotle's discoveries in the science of biology were discovered and accepted by lots of modern scientists, many of whom were unfamiliar with the work of the ancient philosopher.

As for the place of man in the animal kingdom, the great Macedonian philosopher acknowledged with arguments the undoubted superiority of the human species over other animals, although he accepted his biological relationship with them. As characteristics of human superiority he set the upright posture, the upright gait, the construction of the hand, the articulate speech and the conscious thinking. He also observed that the unique characteristics of man that contribute to his superiority are the ability to perceive the concept of time and measure it, the ability to remember himself, the ability to think about issues that concern him, the ability to choose, his laughter and his heart beats due to mental causes. Finally, without questioning the greater physical strength of many other animals compared to man, he observed his inexhaustible spiritual power, which allows him to achieve his goals.

Aristotle was also concerned with the issue of the soul. He dealt with the soul not only from a philosophical point of view but also from a biological, epistemological and moral point of view. He even expressed the view that "The soul is the first end in itself of a physical body that has life in it." In addition, he believed that the soul is for man what it is the form for matter. Finally, the philosopher distinguished three types of soul: the vegetative (of plants), the sensitive (of animals) and the rational (of humans).

On the issue of ethics, Aristotle, disagreeing with Plato and Socrates, argued that it is not based on the knowledge of good but on the practice of good, since it leads directly to happiness.

At the level of ethical philosophy, Aristotle dealt particularly with the subject of friendship, which he researched as a moral phenomenon. Friendship is about both the relationship between the casual passengers of a ship and the relationship between members of a family or between a person and himself.

At the level of political philosophy, Aristotle argued that a human being can be morally complete only in a society or otherwise that man is a "political animal". In fact, he believed that the goals of the individual and the whole are always identical in an organized society.

At the level of political philosophy, again, Aristotle distinguished two different types of classification of the citizens of a society. He first divided them into farmers, craftsmen and merchants. His second categorization ranked them as rich, poor and middle class. The philosopher thus stated that the relations between these social groups determines the state.

Aristotle distinguished three typical types of regimes and three deviations from them. The first are the kingdom, the aristocracy and the democracy. The latter are tyranny, oligarchy and mob rule. Nevertheless, like Plato, Aristotle ultimately considered that there are essentially only two kinds of regimes: that which serves the good of society and that which serves only the good of the lords.

However, Aristotle supported the idea of a society where the middle class prevails and where everyone is equal before the law. Finally, the Macedonian philosopher was the first to support the principle of separation of powers and that of the majority.

As an epilogue it is noted that Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great.

 Finally, in modern Greece, the largest university is named after the great philosopher: It is the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

PLATO'S EXCITING THEORIES

The greatest of Socrates' disciples was Plato (427-347 BC). This philosopher believed that the soul had known the meanings of things in the period before it came on Earth. Thus all knowledge in the terrestrial world is essentially a memory of what the soul had seen before it entered the body and then forgot. So, when the soul sees in the earthly world things that resemble its formerly superhuman forms, it awakens and feels nostalgia for the eternal archetype. This state evokes true love or otherwise "Platonic love", that is, the soul's desire to know the real beings and to imitate them in the earthly world.

The conquest of knowledge, according to Plato, takes place through dialogue. Through this, the meanings and the relations between them are determined. Meanings contribute to the approach of eternal and pre-existing ideas, which are, according to the philosopher, the real beings and the cause of everything that happens in the world. In fact, the idea of ​​the good was considered by Plato as the ultimate purpose of the world.

For the soul, the philosopher formulated the following theory: The soul once inhabited the world of ideas but the laws of the earthly world forced it to enter the body and come to the earthly world. Depending on its actions on earth, the soul after the death of the body is either released immediately and returns to the divine world or enters successively into bodies of other living organisms, until it is completely cleansed of its faults and can one day return to the divine world.

According to Plato, the soul is not an idea but a relative of it. Also, the way for the soul to know the divine, the ideal is to become the same as it. In order for the soul to know the beautiful and the good, it must become beautiful and good itself. Finally, in order to know God, the soul must know the idea of ​​the good, which, as foretold, is the ultimate purpose of the world.

Plato believed, like his teacher, Socrates, that no one is bad at will but only because he does not know good. This implies that the knowledge of good leads to virtue, so virtue is instructive.

In a political level, Plato believed that the purpose of the state is the spiritual and moral promotion of its citizens, so the good politician must move towards their achievement. In the ideal city, according to the philosopher, there are three categories of citizens: Professionals, security guards and lords. The professionals form the largest team of citizens and with their work they maintain the rest. The guards protect the state in case of external and internal dangers. Finally, the lords come from the guard class, after careful selection, and aim to rule.

According to the philosopher, the guards must acquire music and gymnastics education. The first contributes to knowledge and the second to will. However, in order not to use their skills only for their own benefit and not for the common good, Plato considered that the guards should not have property but instead are required to stay in camps and be feeded there.

Finally, as far as the lords are concerned, they should have at the highest level the virtues of the guards and always act guided by the happiness of all the whole group of citizens.

 

WHAT DID SOCRATES SAY?

The theories of the sophists did bring the human soul to the center of philosophical thought, but they provoked the feeling of uncertainty in the people of their time. This is what Socrates came to face (470-399 BC).

Socrates was not a professional teacher, as the sophists were. Instead he used to develop his thoughts, through dialogue, in places like the market, workshops and gyms.

According to Aristotle, the method by which this philosopher was trying to discover truth and knowledge was as follows: He was asking his interlocutor about questions that were always concerning man and then was judging his answers by checking their validity.

Socrates was very interested in the subject of ethics, which he was considering to be based on logic and to be independent of religion and custom. Unlike the sophists who were believing in the relativity of things, Socrates was arguing for the existence of good and evil. He was believing, then, that no one chooses evil when he knows what he is doing. Thus he came to the conclusion that virtue is based on knowledge, which is instructive.

Socrates was considering the beauty of the soul to be good and beneficial for man, which, in his opinion, was surpassing other goods such as physical strength, health, external beauty, pleasure, wealth and glory.

The teaching of Socrates contributed to the internalization of man and to the projection of the imaginary world as of special value. However, his morals were not ascetic because he was not disregarding human nature.

Without the philosopher himself seeking it, his students created their own schools, based on his philosophical theories. However, each of them evolved with the personal tendencies of its own representative.

MAGICAL NORTHERN ITALY & SERENE SOUTHERN SWITZERLAND

Some time ago I made my first trip to the neighboring European country of Italy. The truth is that I did not expect as much beauty as I saw. Take a look at the  photos of my journey and you will understand what I mean. Northern Italy is just magical.

1st stop: Ancona.

One hot August morning, our ship, which had set sail from beautiful Patras, approached the Italian coast. This was the first image from the neighboring country that I saw with joy.

2nd italian place and stop: National Road Ancona - Milano.

After arriving in Ancona, we boarded the bus that started its journey to Milan. I remember the vast unstructured arable land on both sides of the road. Sometimes I saw an industrial area.

3rd stop: Milano.

Late in the afternoon we arrived in the capital of European fashion, Milan. Although it was a rainy afternoon, we went out to enjoy its center. Milan Cathedral was one of the most impressive buildings in the city.

4th stop: Como. 

Our first destination the next day was the fairytale city of Como. The buildings around the lake were beautiful.

5th stop: Lugano.

The next morning we crossed the Italian-Swiss border and found ourselves in the beautiful and quiet, lagoon city of Lugano.

6th stop: Back to Milano

In the afternoon of the same day we returned to Milan, where we continued our walks.

7th stop: San Giulio, Lago Orta.

The next morning we visited the very picturesque village of San Giulio at Lake Orta.

8th stop: Isola dei Pescatori.

Later that morning we visited the extremely picturesque island: Isola dei Pescatori, that means "The island of fishermen". It is in lake Maggiore. 

9th stop: Isola Bella, Lago Maggiore.

Οur visit to the beautiful nearby island of Isola Bella visited.

10th stop: Stresa. 

The same afternoon we visited the picturesque and flowery city of Streza.

11th stop: Sirmione: 

The next morning we visited the beautiful city where the famous Greek soprano, Maria Callas, lived with her Italian husband, Sirmione at Lake Garda.

12th stop: Venice

The enchanting Venice with its numerous canals was impossible to miss from the list of our destinations in Northern Italy.

13th stop: Cortina d' Ampezzo.

The next day we took the road to the Dolomite Alps. There we visited the beautiful mountain resort Cortina d' Ampezzo.

14th stop: Lago Misurina.

The last but fascinating Italian destination we visited, before our return to Greece, was the picturesque Lake Misourina, in a lush, enchanting landscape of the Italian Alps. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgbdTeIYV5Y

THE TURN OF SOPHISTIC THOUGHT TO MAN AND HIS SOUL

The 5th BC century was undoubtedly a time of important historical events and intellectual achievements of the Greek world. Between the Persian and the Peloponnesian War, architecture, painting, sculpture, theater, philosophy, rhetoric presented an admirable activity of a high level. The center of the cultural flourishing of the Greek world of the 5th century was the city-state of Athens and this century became known in history as the Golden Age of Pericles.

The focus of the philosophical thought of the golden age presents a significant shift. There is a decrease in its cosmological interest and a turn towards man and his soul. The philosophical movement that first dealt with these great issues was the sophistry.

The sophists were interested not only in the issues of human knowledge and practice but also in psychology, behavior, positions and relationships within society, social phenomena and culture. They were moving from city to city to teach as professionals rhetoric, dialectics, ethics, political theory, mythology, music theory, astronomy and meteorology. Their goal was to make their students as capable as possible in thinking, speaking and acting, in order to be as successful as possible in their lives and to contribute to social developments.

The father of sophistry was Protagoras (490/485 - 420/ 415 BC), who supported the uninterrupted variability of things. He believed that things can not be said to be one way or another but that they are as everyone sees them at every moment. He also argued that man can know nothing about the gods because they are invisible and human life is short.

Another extremely important sophist was Gorgias (490 / 483 - 380 / 376 BC). He opposed the Eleatic belief that facts are almost illusions and defended common sense and the daily experience of people as the only criteria for knowledge. He also argued that the human crisis is based not on objective truths but on current, unproven and often contradictory perceptions and prejudices. The denial of the absolute truth, led Gorgias to the belief that man has no knowledge but only an opinion of reality.

Gorgias was the first philosopher who strongly believed in the power of speech. So at first he turned his attention to rhetoric, which was for him a way of convincing man of what the rhetor was seeking each time. He was, therefore, the first to study the effect of speech on the human psyche. He stated that "speech can stop fear and sadness, can activate joy and can increase compassion". He argued that  speech is for the soul what drugs are for the body. He said that art, magic and religion are based on the same principle as speech, which seek to "charm" the soul and "transform" it into the state they want.

A third important sophist was Antiphon (480 BC - 410 BC). He argued that nature and law are opposite. Nature does not distinguish between Greeks and barbarians, free and slaves. For his happiness someone must give importance to natural law over man's law.

Other important representatives of sophistry were Prodicus, Thrasymachus and Kritias. The latter was the first to deal with the forms of states, the discoveries and the history of civilization. Finally, Hippias was the "encyclopedist" of sophistry. He wrote introductions to dialectics, geometry, astronomy, music, rhythm and dealt with problems of art theory, prehistory and linguistics.

The importance of sophistry was that it brought to the center of the study man, his knowledge and practice, founded dialectics and logic, initiated psychology, took an interest in social problems and studied the origin of language, art and culture in general.

THE BIRTH OF THE ATOMIC THEORY IN GREECE OF THE 5TH B.C. CENTURY

One of the most important achievements of ancient Greek thought of the 5th century BC was undoubtedly the genesis of the concept of the atom, this tiny amount of matter that has occupied scientists and philosophers for thousands of years.

The important current that first conceived this idea was the atomic philosophy. Its representatives studied with the "Dorian" Eleatan philosophers but also opposed them. They therefore accepted the doctrine of their teachers that "BEING" is unborn and incorruptible but at the same time claimed that it moves and is divided.

Atomic philosophers first acknowledged the coexistence of emptiness and non-emptiness in the universe. The existence of a vacuum is a necessary condition for the possibility of division of physical bodies. However, they rejected the view of Zeno the Eleat about the infinite division of bodies. That is, they supported the existence of finite molecules of matter, which can not be further cut and remain atoms. Thus the theory of the atom was conceived.

The most important atomic philosopher was Democritus (470/460 - 400/390 BC) from Abdera in Thrace, the most versatile and methodical mind before Aristotle. He dealt with issues of physics, epistemology, human behavior, social and political organization.

Democritus defined the atom as unborn, incorruptible, unchangeable, complete and perfect, uniformly compact, free from emptiness, simple, unified and amorphous, without fluctuations, dilutions and densities or expansions and contractions, indivisible and with definite boundaries. In his opinion, atoms were infinite in number and shapes and moved eternally into space.

An important difference between the theory of Democritus and that of the Eleats was that the former meant substance not metaphysically but materially. At the same time, he considered the phenomena of nature not as an illusion of people but as something that happens around the essence.

As for how a world is created, Democritus taught that it is composed when in a large space void many atoms collide with each other to form a vortex. In the vortex, similar atoms are attracted to each other and form known physical bodies such as fire, water, air and earth. Then the heavier materials gather in the center and create the earth while the lighter ones are pushed towards the periphery creating the celestial bodies and the meteorological phenomena. Thus infinite worlds are synthesized and decomposed. In fact, he defined as their way of destruction the fall of one world over another. Finally, he argued that in some worlds there is no sun and moon while in others there are many such celestial bodies. In addition, the philosopher believed that in many worlds there are no liquids, animals and plants.

Democritus also formulated positions in the field of biology. Thus he argued that the skills and organs of the various animals were created by chance and that only those organs that seemed necessary to preserve each species were saved. The philosopher also considered every living organism as a small world.

As for the soul, Democritus considered it as a physical body, with a composition like fire, he identified it with the mind and believed that it wears together with the body.

For knowledge, the philosopher taught that it is related to the situations that surround each person and that the truth is at the bottom, that is, in the void and in atoms. The process of knowledge was for him a natural mechanism, which in fact was based on the "dark" sense and the "genuine" intellect. For the second to exist, a necessary condition was the existence of the first, as Aristotle later believed.

Finally, a characteristic formulation of the philosopher about the importance of teaching was this: "Teaching is close to nature because it restructures human nature and thus creates a new nature."

Today, about 300 excerpts from numerous books by Democritus survive.