1. Presocratics Socrates and students Copyright  Polly Hoover
PHILOSOPHY
Presocratics
Socrates and students
Copyright  Polly Hoover

2. Beginning of Philosophy
How was the world created?
Who am I?
Am I happy?
How do I know anything?
What is the world made of?
Is there a divinity or divinities?
What do we mean by knowledge?

3. Hesiod, Theogony Gaia and Uranus create the world
Organized through hierarchy of gods
Human experience reflects explanation
Sexual intercourse as universal
Mythology as philosophy
~750 BCE (contemporary of “Homer”)

4. Alcman World created through organization of material Vocabulary
Metaphor
Narrative
Examples
Goal, craftsman, bronze material

5. Presocratics Materialists What material is the world made of?
Thales – water
Heraclitus – Fire (with logos)
Empedocles – Fire, air, water, earth (with Strife and Love)

6. Pythagoras Influenced Socrates and Plato Wrote nothing?
Immortality of the soul
Greek modal system in music
Pythagorean theorem
Mathematics as ‘substance’ of the world

7. Aristotle Four ‘causes’ of a thing Material – what a thing is made of
Formal – explanation of form, its essence
Efficient – primary source (cause in modern sense)
Final – purpose (the purpose of walking is health, the purpose of the acorn is an oak)
Uncaused Causer or Unmoved mover

8. Plato, Symposium Banquet for men only
Philosophical discussion among friends
Lots of wine and teasing/flirting

9. What is love? What does it mean to be a man?
How do we know that we’re in love?
Is it universal (the same for everyone) or particular (different for everyone)?
Does it matter whom you love?
What is the Western Christian view of love?

10. Guests Give Opinions Phaedrus Pausanias: 2 Eros Eryximachus:
Eros in nature
Ridicule of scientific arguments

11. Aristophanes Comic poet Three sexes Folktale and narrative
Not philosophical argument
Why?

12. Agathon
Encomium (praise-poem) of Eros

13. Socrates interrogates Agathon
Desire for something or nothing?
Desire for something we don’t have?
Eros desires beauty.
Therefore, Eros is not beautiful.
Good is beautiful.
Therefore, Eros does not have what is good.

14. Diotima
Role reversal?
Eros is intermediary between divine and human

15. Alicibiades
Praise of Socrates

16. Questions
What were the Presocratic approaches to explaining the world?
How did these differ from that of mythology?
Does Socrates include sexual desire in his meaning of love?
Is love universal or particular, according to Socrates?

17. More Questions? What does Socrates mean by happiness?
What does Plato/Socrates think is real?
Is this philosophy?
What are the differences between a philosophical argument and a mythological story?