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.

2 CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHERS WHO COMBINED IONIAN WITH DORIC ARCHAIC THOUGHT

Archaic Ionian and Doric philosophical thought clearly laid the foundations of European philosophy. With the passage to the classical period, the Greek philosophers pondered the pre-existing opposing conceptions and formulated their own. Through their theories, then, they tried to logically marry the "immovable" of the Ionians with the "unchanging" of the Dorian philosophers.

Thus the classical era begins with two important Greek Combinatorial philosophers, Empedocles (494-434 BC) and Anaxagoras (500-428 BC).

Empedocles, therefore, taught that the universe is composed and decomposed by four unchanging "rhizomes": water, earth, air and fire. In his view, each genesis and decay is caused by mixing the four aforementioned "rhizomes" in different proportions for each morphology. This view was later accepted by the Atomic philosophers. In addition, Empedocles described the universe as immovable in its entirety according to the Eleatic model but as moving in its parts according to the Heraclitean model.

Anaxagoras' interests were a little different. He was the first to raise the issue of nutrition. He sought to explain how from the food we put in the mouth, things are formed that did not exist before, that is, flesh from non-flesh, bones from non-bones, etc. He finally came to the conclusion that matter is composed of molecules of all kinds, forms, shape, size and number. He also argued that in every physical body there are molecules of all kinds. For example, water and bread contain elements of the same nature as our body, so there are no simple elements, "rhizomes" (water, air, earth, fire). In addition, according to Anaxagoras, the amount of matter remains constant. Finally, Anaxagoras considered the Mind as a driving force for the processes of genesis, which for him was a substance completely different from the components of matter. Thus he continued the notions of the division of the concept of substance into matter and energy.

2 DORIC PHILOSOPHICAL CURRENTS THAT DIVIDED THE WORLD IN THE REAL AND THE PHENOMENON: PYTHAGORIANS AND ELEATS.

It is true that European philosophical thought was born by the Ionian materialist philosophers. But in every spiritual activity that begins to exist, there is usually continuity. Actions converging and diverging in relation to the initial course, come to contribute to its development.

In contrast, then, to the first philosophical achievements of the Ionian spirit, came the answers of the Doric one, from Greeks of Lower Italy. In fact, the aristocratic, theocratic and puritanical views that were gradually expressed, departed from the materialistic direction and led to a more transcendental, mystical view of the world.

The Orphic and Pythagorean philosophers, therefore, led by Pythagoras (570-496 BC), subjugated the physical world to a transcendental reality, projecting on the concept of the physical body metaphysical beliefs related to the soul. The Pythagoreans expressed the belief in the distinction between body and soul, between the apparent and the real.

A special feature of Pythagorean philosophy was the attachment of greater importance to numbers than to bodies in the study of the physical world, leading philosophical thought to a kind of mysticism. Essentially, the Pythagoreans deified the numbers, as shown in their following text:

"We must consider the works and the essence of the number according to the power that is in the decade. So, great is the power (of numbers) and complete and omnipotent and divine and heavenly life's and human's principle and guide etc .. And without it, everything is infinite and invisible etc .. No lie is accepted by the nature of the number, etc. "

In response to the beliefs of the Materialists and the Pythagorean philosophers came that of the Eleats, led by Parmenides (515-440 B.C ..). His point of view came in reaction to the motile universe of Heraclitus. He ruled out the beginning and the end, the birth and the death, the increase and the decay, the movement and the change, the division and the discontinuity of the Heraclitic being. This is how he explained the physical world as an apparent world.

The Pythagorean and Eleatic philosophers caused the division of the concept of the materialistic life of the Ionian philosophers into matter and energy, leading to the birth of spiritualism and materialism.