In general, a set of dialogues called “Symposium” is a story about a group of virtuous friends who get into hilarious situations and make vulgar jokes about each other. Behind the jokes, there is sometimes an irony that points to the virtue of each character. But besides the banal self-glorification of Socrates’ friends, we are interested in the following points. Socrates here is against people using perfumes(as elsewhere in Xenophontes he was against the use of spices for food, cosmetics for women, decorating the home, etc. cf. “Domostroi”). But this in itself would not be interesting if he did not add that the natural odor of people is better, and that it differs from person to person to such an extent that one can distinguish a person’s occupation and origin by smell.
— So, perhaps, this is true for the young; but for us, who are no longer engaged in gymnastic exercises, what should we smell? — Virtue, by Zeus,” replied Socrates.
To smell virtue is indeed something new. While explaining to us where to find a “perfumer”, Socrates quotes the most “fascist” and conserative-reactionary poet of the past generations, an admirer of aristocrats, Theognides:
From the noble you will learn goodness; but if with the bad. Thou wilt lose thy former wit.
In addition, it is interesting that Xenophontes paints the founder of the school of the Cynics, Antisthenes, as the most resentful and angry student of Socrates. And, at the same time, the most serious, who promotes the theses of Kinism even in such a humorous setting that it looks quite ridiculous. He even confesses his love to Socrates, almost without irony, and the latter ignores him on purpose. Offended, he pokes fun at the teacher. Including on the subject of “bringing up women”, saying that Socrates teaches everyone this art, but his wife is grumpy. Socrates replies that:
And people who want to become good riders, as I see, take not the most humble horses, but hot ones: they think that if they can tame them, they can easily cope with all of them.
The analogies are bombastic, “a wife is like a horse to be ridden”. No less vivid are the examples with dancers, admiring whom Socrates himself wanted to become a dancer. His friends laughed at him, saying that it is not a serious matter for a “real man”, but Socrates insists that in principle dancing is not a bad thing and useful for health, so Socrates’ friends bend in this matter, although they still do not want to dance, because it is shameful. Compared to Plutarch, who condemned and ridiculed dancing without any “buts”, here Xenophontus also does not look like such a rigid conservative as we are used to seeing him.
In Xenophontes, the character of Socrates even appreciates the beauty of bodies, without censuring it as debauchery, and takes part in all elements of the feast as a very ordinary citizen (in the book “Memories of Socrates” there are even more such “controversial” moments, where Socrates is not a caricature Jesus, but a living person). He makes really ironic jokes, instead of that pseudo-irony in the spirit of “you are all so smart, and I am so stupid”, which we see in Plato. This character is much deeper, and more like a real character than the caricatured Socrates of Plato’s dialogues.
— What is this? — Socrates said. — Are you bragging like this, thinking yourself more handsome than even me? — ‘Yes, by Zeus,’ answered Critobulus, ‘or I would be uglier than all the Silenus in the Satyr dramas.
His pupils can afford various invectives, from which Socrates has to refuse or joke: “But why, Socrates, do you scare us, your friends, away from handsome men, while you yourself, by Apollo, as I once saw, leaned your head against Critobulus’ head and your naked shoulder against his naked shoulder, when you both were looking for something in the same book at the schoolmaster’s?”. But still, even with all the atypical frivolities that make Xenophon more “liberal” than Plato, his writings are full of the fattest conservatism. His heroes literally memorize Homer by heart, condemn the bourgeois way of life in general, ridicule sophists, adore aristocracy and directly push carts with approval of slavery, racism, etc. This is what Xenophontus is good for, that he combines contradictory traits.
Characters of the work, political-ideological context
This is as far as the ideological content is concerned. But other, indirect parameters, i.e. the historical characters used here, are no less important. First of all, the figure of the organizer of the feast is important — it is Callius, the richest man in Greece. The attitude of Socrates’ circle to the “richest” is a well-known thing, so Callius acts as a clown in “Symposium”. Everyone makes fun of him, giving him praise, which he does not deserve, and he does not realize. It was said that he liked to host famous sophists and spent a lot of money on them, wishing to borrow wisdom from them and to be known as a scholar. This theme is played out in the “Pyre”. For example, when Callius invited Socrates to a feast, a dialog immediately broke out between them:
Socrates: All you mock and despise us, because you gave a lot of money to Protagoras to learn wisdom from him, and Gorgias, and Prodicus, and many others; and you look at us as self-taught in philosophy. — ‘Yes,’ answered Callius, ‘I have before concealed from you that I could say many clever things, but now, if I have you, I will show you that I deserve your full attention.
Needless to say, he could learn nothing good from the sophists, except that one should despise Socrates’ party. This theme is repeated once more in the middle of the text, when Socrates proves that Antisthenes-kinicus was an excellent panderer, he says:
I know that you drew our Callius to the wise Prodicus, seeing that Callius was in love with philosophy, and Prodicus needed money; I know that you drew him to Hippias of Elida, from whom he had learned the art of remembering, and from then on he became even more in love, because he never forgets anything beautiful that he sees.
Niceratus, the chief companion of Callius, is no better. He is the son of the famous commander Nicius (a moderate democrat), a lover of Homer, who knew his poems by heart. He was executed during the reign of the “Thirty Tyrants” in 404. At the same time was executed and Autolycus, the lover of Callius, in whose honor he and arranged a feast. But Lycon, Autolycus’ father and an impoverished aristocrat, who is also present at the feast, survived the tyranny, and later, with Meletus and Anitus, was Socrates’ prosecutor in his trial. This is the democratic part of the party, most of whom suffered at the hands of Socrates’ disciple, Critias, during his tyranny.
But the future murderers of the democrats were also present at this feast. Harmidus was a relative of Plato and Critias, and an accomplice to tyranny. Originally he was rich, but at the time described, as a result of the devastation of Attica by the Spartans at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, he lost his fortune (nevertheless, he was not offended by the Spartans, he took it with understanding). He was close to Socrates, who persuaded him to take part in public affairs. He was killed in a battle with the democrats in 403, in the process of overthrowing tyranny. Socrates’ friends Hermogenes and Critobulus are also present.
Hermogenes was the half-brother of Callius, but unlike him he was poor and joined Socrates. In some sources, he is considered a disciple of Parmenides and a teacher of Plato (i.e. a link). Xenophontes’ book with reminiscences about Socrates was written according to Hermogenes’ testimonies. He was engaged in politics and after the execution of Socrates and the return of democracy. Critobulus is the son of Criton, one of Socrates’ best friends. In the dialogues he is portrayed as a man very handsome and proud of his beauty, inclined to hedonism. According to other students of Socrates, he led a bad way of life and learned nothing from Socrates (thus Socrates brought up dubious personalities not only in the person of Critias and Alkibiades, but also at least Critobulus, Aristippus and Antisthenes). However, his father, after Socrates’ death, suddenly disappeared from all radars and stopped practicing philosophy.
So all these people, in the future enemies of each other, at this time could still communicate in a close circle. These are important moments for us, because they help us to understand both the trial of Socrates and the political views of his circle.
Considering the book called “Oeconomicus”, we will focus mainly on what interests us in terms of revealing Xenophon’s ethical-political and philosophical outlook, and in addition we will consider a very atypical work “On Income”, but first — “Oeconomicus”. Philosophical elements appear here almost immediately. Speaking by the mouth of Socrates’ disciple Critobulus, we are advised to evaluate things as “gain” and “loss” through their benefit and harm, and then Xenophontes introduces a sensualistic criterion. Then he (Socrates) shows that people can be slaves of the passions, and this is worse than physical slavery and clearly harmful to the economy. But the hero, who proves himself to be an honorable man, is not afraid of this danger. Nevertheless, even though he is 100 times richer than Socrates, with his high position in Athens these funds are not enough, and he wants to learn how to better manage the household. Socrates, who has no farm and therefore has no experience, cannot ostensibly help in any way, but will still try to analyze what he has observed from others.
In essence, he advises being a diligent worker. Work harder — better results. On the other hand, we are clearly advised to moderate our consumption, so that in the end, income exceeds consumption. Simply put, almost from the very beginning, the banal “Protestant” ethic is proposed. The house should be organized strictly according to feng shui, so that all things lie in their places, you need order, discipline, strictness, Sparta. But here he introduces the family, and assigns to the husband the task of a provider, and to the wife… an expendable. And the increase in wealth depends only on the wife. If she is bad, there will be ruin, if she is good, then regardless of the level of her husband’s income, she will be able to leave a profit (it does not matter how much, the main thing is that the budget was in the plus). Thus Xenophont removes from the man all responsibility for the household and shifts it to the woman. As a compensation he only adds that in some cases the husband himself is guilty of bad education of the wife (although it is assumed that the wife is simply unlearned and stubborn), but his analogy is at the level of:
“If the sheep is bad, we usually blame the shepherd, and if the horse has faults, we blame the rider; as for the woman…”
It is clear that Xenophon’s «Oeconomicus» is a typical philistine guide in the spirit of conservatism, both ethical and economic. Further it will only be confirmed by a number of examples. For example, it says here that craftsmanship is harmful to body and soul, and in general does not befit a noble man (a false meme, which we challenged in the article “Marx does not understand the Greeks”). And here he also extols farming, the Spartan way of life and condemns the building of defensive walls that create weak and cowardly citizens.
«Shall we be ashamed to follow the example of the Persian king?He, it is said, considers one of the noblest and most necessary occupations to be agriculture and the art of war, and takes extreme care of both.»
Xenophontes (through Socrates) uses the state structure of Persia as an example of good economic management at the level of a whole country, but it can also be used by analogy from individual farms. And it is desirable to do farming literally, with your own hands, to be a strong warrior and a real man. A separate block is the instruction “how to bring up a wife properly”, which is reduced to the fact that “God has adapted: the nature of woman for domestic labor and care, and the nature of man — for external”, and to the standard kitchen-children-home, sit and stay down. However, for that time this was the norm for “liberal” thinkers as well; but in the case of Xenophonte, it complements the image of a conservative quite well. Like Prudon in “Pornocracy,” he paints a world where women and men complement each other’s shortcomings. And Xenophontes’ basic analogy for how one should act in domestic matters, just like the socialists of the future, connects with the bees in the hive.
Basically, he teaches his wife the same things that were discussed above — “Protestant” ethics, order and discipline. His house is not decorated on principle (in the dialog “Gieron” he is still fundamentally against spices for food), and his wife also does not use cosmetics and beautiful things on principle. Everything must be strict and primitive, as in Sparta, justifying it with the advantages of natural over artificial (roughly like the logic of those fighting against GMOs and for the Soviet GOST).
In addition, Xenophontus tries to describe how to conduct business in agriculture, advises to choose a slave as a manager, who should be taught everything that you know yourself, and by his good disposition almost bring him into the family circle, so that he could perfectly cope with affairs in your absence (such “liberalism” with regard to managing slaves is also found in Roman manuals on agriculture, and to some extent it applies to managed slaves as well). In principle, Xenophontus is even less strict here than the Roman Cato, which is even somewhat surprising. Contrary to all the scaremongering of Marxism, slaves here are called “human beings.” But the analogies he uses to educate women, slaves, and children (and not always with the intent to demean) are analogies to animal training. On the one hand, this is crude Spartan conservatism, but on the other hand, he is not ashamed to put man and animal on the same level, although recognizing the differences between humans. Against the background of Christian morality, even of 21st century people, this could even be seen as an unprecedented level of liberalism.
With all these means, which I myself apply, expecting to make people more obedient, I teach those whom I want to put in charge, and I also help them with this: clothes and shoes, which I have to give to the workers, I do not make all the same, but some worse, others better, so that it is possible to give to a good worker as a reward what is better, and to a bad one what is worse.It seems to me, Socrates,” he remarked, ”good workers have a feeling of disappointment when they see that the work is done by them and yet the same reward is given to those who are not willing to bear the labor or the danger at the right moment.That is why I myself by no means equalize the rewards of good workers with bad ones and praise the manager when he distributes the best things to the most deserving.
It is not a fact that we are talking about slaves here (although it is hinted at by the fact that he dresses and shoes them himself, and other fragments where “workers” need supervisors, etc.), but this is not only a bourgeois principle of competition and fair remuneration for labor, but also another example of the “liberal” ideal. And then there are purely technical sections about soil properties, fertilizers, sowing, harvesting, etc. As a result, we see not even the most rigid for antiquity guidelines on household affairs, but clearly different from the recommendations of the Sophists, who were not opponents of walls, were not enemies of craft and trade, were not supporters of aristocracy and farmers, and preached neither moderation nor accumulation of capital (see “Anonymus Iamblichi”, “Dissoi logoi” and in general our cycle on the philosophy of the Sophists).
On income, or Xenophonte as a liberal
In his work “On Revenue”, Xenophontes asks whether Athens can maintain its luxurious standard of living without plundering the subordinate cities of its “allies”, purely on its own, in a mode of autarky. And will try to prove that yes, they can. After all, Athens is in a great climate zone and most importantly, has silver mines.
One might also think that the city of Athenians is not without purpose located near the center of Hellas and even the entire universe.
As we said in the article “Marxism-Xenophonticism”, this work of Xenophon is designed to offer an ideal plan to overcome the crisis. But in reality this plan was not put into action. Therefore, Soviet reconstructions of the Athenian economy based on this work are obviously wrong. So, according to this ideal plan, Athens needed to seriously expand the rights of metics (non-citizens), keeping a special tax for them, which would have brought serious revenues. He proposes state patronage for merchants and shipbuilders. He suggests reducing bureaucracy to make business easier and make Athens an attractive center for trade. He also realizes that it takes large investments to establish large enterprises. But he believes that if the Athenians could chip in for large military campaigns, they can chip in for large businesses, so that they can receive a steady income as shareholders (as opposed to a net loss on the army). And even after that he proposes that strange utopian financial “pyramid” of buying slaves for the mines, as discussed in the article about Marx. From the above, it is clear that Xenophontus prefers to invest in business instead of subsidizing war. But he goes even further in terms of praising peace policy:
It is obvious that, for all revenues to flow in abundance, peace is necessary.But in such a case, should not the office of peace keepers be established?After all, the election of such officials would encourage all people to come to our city more willingly and in greater numbers.If anyone thinks that by constantly pursuing a peaceful policy the state will become less strong, less glorious and less influential in Hellas, I must say that he is mistaken:For it is not without reason that it is said that the happiest states are those which live longest in peace; and of all states Athens has the greatest capacity for development in times of peace.
Most of these are very liberal measures, as for a conservative, although they do concern public (not private) investment and public revenues. True here as well:
You see, in the same way, private individuals, by banding together in companies and sharing all fortunes and failures with each other, are less exposed to danger in this risky enterprise.And of course you must not be afraid that with this method of mine development the State will embarrass private individuals or, on the contrary, that private individuals will embarrass the State.
This is far from the first time that Xenophontes has written things that don’t fit the standard description of him as a hardened reactionary and fan of Sparta (though all of that is certainly true as well). Including economic issues, we have already seen in the work “Cyropaedia” how he proposed an international confederation based on economic grounds, and in the work “Hiero” he proposed to promote competition as much as possible for the effective development of the city’s economy.
After the above-mentioned five semi-mythical characters and poets of the “Cyclic” — follows the epoch of the “sages” (which, by the way, is very funny, because the word “philosopher” means a lover of wisdom, and “sage” therefore stands above “philosopher”). But the same “Cyclic” poets had other lyricist contemporaries, so before I go on to the “sages,” I will not overlook these men. Some of the early poets were direct contemporaries of the later Nine Lyrics and Seven Wise Men, but these two groups will be separated into separate sections, and we will begin with the lyricists who were contemporaries of Cyclic poets.
Lyric poetry
Of the elegiac poets known to us, Callinus of Ephesus (ca. 685-630) is considered one of the oldest. The only thing that has survived from his work is the call to defend the homeland, specifically the defense of “land, children and wife”, as well as another rather archaic in meaning poem, retold in prose by us in this way:
«You can’t escape fate, and often the fate of death befalls a man who has fled from the battlefield.No one pities the coward, no one honors him; the hero, on the contrary, is mourned by the whole nation, and during his lifetime they honor him as a deity”.
The same theme sounds no less vividly in the elegies of the Spartan poet Tirtheus (note 665-610), who encouraged the Spartan soldiers in their war with Messenia. Tirtheus ridicules cowards and fugitives in the same way; but it is interesting that when he lists heroic qualities, using the best heroes from the epic as examples, he finds them insufficient.
Pride will serve both for the city and the people He who, stepping wide, will advance to the first rank And, full of perseverance, will forget the shameful flight, and his life and his mighty soul.
To die in the first ranks for his native city — this is the supreme feat, and the main quality of the hero. The elegies of Tirtheus also contained an exposition of the foundations of the Spartan state system; they contain praise of Spartan institutions, myths sanctifying the structure of the Spartan community, and appeals to preserve the “good order”. Not surprisingly, these elegies were sung by Spartans even hundreds of years after the author’s death. Tirteus is Lycurgus in verse. But Tirteus himself did not write in the Doric language of the Spartans; he wrote in the Ionian dialect, which was the only acceptable language for the poetry of all Greeks at that time.
The poetry of Archilochus (ca. 680-630) is more personal and subjective against their background, although it is presented from the same conservative primitivism; he praises his personal life, his military adventures, and his attitude toward friends and enemies. Archilochus lived a life of war, for he lived in a time of constant warfare of his native island against the Thracian tribes, and most likely for this reason he honored Ares as his god. However, despite all this, he treats the tradition somewhat ironically. Thus, for example, Archilochus writes about his exploits in the high-pitched Homeric style, but in the same style he suddenly tells about how in his flight he had to throw his shield (an unforgivable impertinence within the framework of aristocratic ethics).
In addition, he is considered the founder of the literary iambic, which originated from folk “songs of denunciation” and within which one could pour out invective and mock one’s opponents (cf. battle rap). Archilochus even prided himself on his ability to repay evil for wrongs done to him. He can safely be called the first “battle-rap” in poetry; for example, the girl who refused to marry him, he calmly denounced with epithets whore. But what is much more interesting from the ideological point of view — Archilochus already posed the problem of the changeability of existence, in which everything depends on “fate and chance” (and where are the Gods?), at the same time, he recognizes the importance of human effort. This is already a significant worldview shift; and it is worth noting separately how much Archilochus is in tune with the philosopher Heraclitus, long before he was born.
The poet Semonides of Amorg, a contemporary of Archilochus (and with him Tirtheus and Callinus), went even further along the path of developing these conventional-progressive features. His didactic poems are dominated by pessimistic reflections on the deceitfulness of human hopes, on the threats hanging over man: old age, disease and death. In the divine management of the world he sees nothing but arbitrariness. The conclusion of all this is to enjoy the benefits of life as long as possible. Along with this, a primitive and patriarchal trolling of women can be found with him, where he categorizes female characters by comparing them to different animals, and thus deducing the very origin of women, as a human species, from different animals. Semonides therefore “went further” very conventionally, and the reasons for this are very pessimistic and “negative”. He has come to criticize tradition only because tradition is no longer good enough for his conservative spirit. But, philosophically speaking, even in this cynicism about women, one cannot help but notice that in his mind it is quite permissible for man to have descended from animals, by, we must suppose, some evolutionary change. We will not say this for sure, but there is nothing impossible in such evolutionism, because only in some 50-60 years evolutionary ideas will already be set forth in the philosophy of Anaximander of Miletus.
The motifs of pleasure are further developed in the next generation, for example in the Ionian Mimnermus (ca. 635-570), whom the Greeks considered the first poet of love. He is a contemporary of Sappho and of the early “nine,” but little is preserved of him, and we only know that he preached meditations on the transience of life and the importance of pleasure; and that legend reduces him to one of the “seven sages.” The story goes that, it is said that when Mimnermus wrote that a life of sixty years, unmarred by disease and problems, would be considered ideally lived, the sage Solon replied to him that it was better to replace sixty with eighty (certainly wise, but we would say even better with a century). We also know that Mimnerm wrote a poem about the founding of the city of Smyrna, and about the struggle of this city against the Lydian kingdom, which once again proves how easily hedonism can be combined with “high”, in this case with patriotism and historical, paramilitary themes.
The Nine Lyricists
As forerunners of the “philosophical turn”, we shall begin, perhaps, with the “lyricists”. The above-mentioned Cyclic epic, together with the classical epic, were the basis not only for painting and theater of the classical era, but also for the lyric genre of poetry, and, in principle, for all Greek art taken as a whole. Under this collective name “The Nine Lyricists”, we have reached a canon, i.e. a collection of authors recognized as the best among the lyric poets of ancient Greece, which was put forward by philologists in Hellenistic Alexandria as a worthy model for critical study. Only four of them concern the pre-philosophical era, and specifically in this article we will only touch upon them (the others for later).
The first “pre-philosophical” four contemporaries of Thales include: Alcman, Sappho, Alcaeusand Stesichorus. The remaining five include Ivicus, Anacreontes, Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides.
So far our reviews have listed about 25 names, each of which for the Greeks was on a par with Pythagoras, and in some cases could be quoted even more highly. With all this material both the “Sages” and the “Lyricists” were well acquainted; it was the intellectual foundation for all of them. Of course there were few more significant names; even in the same field of poetry, a dozen more names of importance to the Greeks could be added. On top of this could be superimposed as many as twenty names of various great politicians, whom the Greeks honored even much later, even in Plato’s time; and this is not even counting the sculptors, architects, and musicians known by name. But if from all this mass of names, which every educated Greek had to know (Thales, for example), to sift out the unimportant ones, there would still be a dozen names, from which consisted the minimum foundation of knowledge for the new generation of sages. And for the philosophical generation itself, i.e. the generation of Pythagoras, our “seven sages” and at least four of the lyricists are added to this impressive list.
All this I bring only for the modest purpose that when studying ancient philosophy and art, the reader should realize the scale. In the history of philosophy, it is customary to “start with Thales,” but in fact there is much more behind him than Homer’s mythology alone.
Alcman and Stesichorus — the foundation of future tragedians
First among the “nine” chronologically is Alcman (2nd half of the 7th century B.C.), who was almost certainly descended from slave parents; he most likely came from Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Alcman is the first poet known from surviving fragments to have written songs for chorus. But, oddly enough, he lived and worked in Sparta in the period after the 2nd Messenian War. In Sparta, where Apollo and the virgin goddess Artemis were particularly revered — maiden choirs were especially common. For them, in addition to texts, Alkman created melodies and developed dance movements. He wrote mainly paeans (hymns to the gods), proomia (introductions to epic recitations) and parthenia (songs for female chorus). It was in Sparta, where Alcman was deeply revered for several centuries, that a monument was erected to him. The text of one of his songs has come down to us; it is composed of separate parts linked by formulas that define the end of one story and the beginning of another:
Glorification of the ancient heroes of Sparta, the brothers Dioscurus, then the sons of Hippocoontes, slain by Heracles;
Reflections on the power of the gods and the frailty of human life, and the moral precepts derived therefrom;
Glorification of the chorus itself, which performed the Parthenios, its leader, and the individual members who performed the dance.
From the largest surviving passage we learn a few secondary-playing but interesting details:
«All of them, brave ones, my song will not forget.Fate and Poros (wealth) have broken those men, — the oldest among the gods.Effort is in vain.» Or another motif: “Blessed is he who spends his days with a cheerful spirit, knowing no tears”.
Of course, we have seen similar motifs before in Archilochus, Semonides, and Mimnermus (the latter, by the way, crossed paths with Alkman for forty years of his life); but still, don’t these words look like something out of post-classical antiquity? Isn’t this “decadent Hellenism”? And yet, against the background of the gods, even the greatest mortals are mere “nothing,” and this archaic thought, dominates in various formsthroughout Alkman’s writings. Man is not the center of his plots, and it is probable that nothing depends on the will of the mortal. Nor does Alckmann bypass Homer’s plots, and he certainly does not bypass the “Trojan War” with its mythological characters. Moreover, in all “nine” taken as a whole, these motifs are found more often than in the early lyricists (who, importantly, still alive caught the Cyclic poets). This is most likely due to the fact that the wretched “Alexandrian criticism” chose these authors as the “nine”, and mainly because they wrote on the motifs of Homer, the favorite of all these critics, and not because they wrote really well.
But still it is worth recognizing that although he lives in Sparta, but his worldview almost does not stand out in its conservatism from the average representations of the ancient Greek, from the same Hesiod or Cyclic poets. And of the distinctly good sides we may single out his philosophical views, the very fact of their existence. As we have already seen in the lines above, Poros (wealth) and Fate were considered to be his first gods. Why exactly Poros is not clear, because it is difficult to explain the formation of all things from it. It is true that Alkman seems to separate these personified gods and God as the absolute creator. Poros and Fate arose from something, and this something turns out to be the disordered and unprocessed matter of all things (cf. the philosopher Anaximander’s apeiron), which has the properties of copper. The gods arise out of this matter because before there arises “someone who masters” all things, a demiurge named Thetis. This creator creates the gods of the lower order. From Poros arose a god named Tecmor (and they are used synonymously in the beginning-end pair of opposites). Perhaps these two deities were also used as synonyms of the Sun and the Moon. But then according to Alcman, they were preceded by the god of darkness. We know nothing more, but it is enough to see at least ideas about matter, form and demiurge even before Thales of Miletus has appeared on light.
One particular trait of Alkman’s is noteworthy — he boasts that he can eat anything, especially “thesame as the people”; he is not ashamed of it. Interestingly, he generally emphasizes eating, drinking, and, most of all, girls and love pleasures; so it is not surprising that much space in Alcman’s poems is taken up by the god Eros. But, together with what has been said before, all this seems rather strange for a poet of Sparta. Alkman’s poetry seems to preach democratic ideals. And the weirdness doesn’t end there. Alkman is credited with a very lively and modern in its spirit and style epigram about Castor and Polydeucus. Despite the fact that these are Spartan heroes, and that he himself is a Spartan poet, Alcman seems proud to be a non-Greek tiller of the soil, and emphasizes his urban and metropolitan origins in one of the poems where he recalls Sardis as his home.
Alcman resurrects the subjects of the “hedonistic” singers of the past, and again he has glimpses of the shortness of life, the omnipotence of fate (ananke), and even passages a little strange for a Greek man, along the lines of “if only a woman were to become me!”. We even find in him the lines: “experience is the foundation of knowledge”; though, of course, here he means mere worldly experience (and we shall see a similar quotation in the maxims of Pherekides). In Alcmanus we shall also find motives of pacifism (“The iron sword is not above the beautiful playing of the kyphar”). All this modern criticism is accustomed to see as a generation of the later Hellenistic epoch. The more interesting, and even more significant in such a context, these old lyricists and sages look to us.
How such conventionally progressive motifs are combined with a pro-Spartan direction, which is a striking exception to many dozens of other cases, is a question that has yet to be resolved.
Map showing the political situation in Greece on the eve of the Classical period
Like Alcmanus, we can also find motifs of pacifism in Stesichorus of Sicily (630-556). Although he himself was not averse to writing about heroic wars, especially from the Homeric myths, in his conservative and military pathos he sometimes reaches very stoicmaxims, such as “it is useless and not at all necessary to weep for those who have died”. And let it not go beyond the old morality of the ancestors, or poetry of Tirtheus, and quite logical for a patriarchal and paramilitary worldview, and let the Stoicism itself does not claim to a high degree of intellectuality. But, nevertheless, if Stoicism is a philosophy (and it is), then finding analogies in the past can be a useful thing, especially if in the future we find Stoic references to the same Stesichorus.
So, the Byzantine collection “Suda” attributes to Stesichorus 26 books (more than all other Greek lyricists combined), in which the main place was occupied by lyrical and epic poems (in content adjacent to the epic of Homer and the Cyclics; in them Stesichorus gives the processing of old stories in new forms and new interpretation). To the Trojan cycle of Stesichorus belong: “Helen,” ‘The Destruction of Ilion,’ ‘Returns,’ and ”Oresteia.” To the Theban cycle include “Eryphila” (named after the wife of a member of Seven’s campaign against Thebes), and “Europaea”. Of other epic poems are known “Hunters of the Boar” (about the hunt for the Calydonian boar), “Geryoneida” (about the campaign of Heracles to the far west, whence he led away Geryone’s herds of bulls), “Scylla” (about Scylla, which Heracles killed on his return from Geryon), ‘Kerber’ (about Heracles’ feat with Kerber), ‘Cycnus’ (about Heracles’ duel with the son of Ares, Cycnus, who was turned into a swan).
When processing the plots found in Homer’s poems, Stesichorus sometimes gives them new versions, borrowing material partly from living folk legends, partly from lost literary texts. Thus, the myth of Orestes is developed by Stesichorus differently from the version presented in the Odyssey: in Homer’s Orestes, having killed his mother, only fulfills the duty of revenge, while in Stesichorus’s he is tormented by the torments of conscience as a mother-killer. He also has a version of the myth that Helen was carried by the gods to Egypt during the siege of Troy. Both of these versions, as well as a large degree of emotionality of poetry — formed the basis of the tragedies of Euripides. Also the love motif in Stesichorus is quite strong; suffice it to say, it is from him that the first pastoral idylls are derived.
The poetry of Stesichorus was highly valued in antiquity. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports that Stesichorus surpassed Pindar and Simonides in the significance of his plots, and in other respects combined the merits of both. And such a tragedian as Aeschylus — created his “Oresteia” under the influence of “Oresteia” Stesichorus. It was even claimed that “the soul of Homer lives in Stesichorus”. And the famous late-antique literary critic Pseudo-Longin called Stesichorus “the most Homeric” of poets, and Quintilian said that Stesichorus “raised on his lyre the weight of epic verse,” and added that “if Stesichorus under the excess of talent did not overstep the measure, he could be considered a worthy rival of Homer”. But in all these characteristics he adheres rather to the “Cyclics,” and looks like the last representative of them, though in manner of performance it is still a new lyric.
Alcaeus and Sappho — a Romance in verse.
The two central figures of lyric poetry of the pre-philosophical period are undoubtedly Alcaeus and Sappho. They lived in the same place, belonged to the same conventional political grouping and were direct contemporaries, with only a slight difference in age, and I will start, however, with the better known Sappho (c. 630 — 570 BC). She differs sharply from all her predecessors and contemporaries, and even later on few people managed to reach her level of lyricism. Against the background of other poets of her time, she stands out strongly with her more practiced style; better conveys passions and emotions, more and deeper reveals the very feeling of love. She also begins to have near-philosophical maxims reminiscent of the famous “sages”:
«Wealth alone is a bad companion without virtue around.If they are together, there is no greater bliss.» “I love luxury; splendor, beauty, like the shining of the sun, charm me…”.
Unlike most poets (who were men) Sappho writes about “typical femininity” and the experiences of a girl, so, for example, she is angry that a good guy fell for a “hillbilly” who does not even “know how to wear dresses”. There are also “philosophical” musings; apparently about what kind of guys one might like more:
«Who is beautiful — he alone pleases our sight, Whoever is good — he himself will seem beautiful”.
A Pompeian fresco, possibly depicting Sappho.
Sappho’s lyrics are based on traditional folkloric elements; they are dominated by motifs of love and separation, set against the backdrop of bright and joyful nature, babbling brooks, smoking incense in the sacred grove of the goddess. All her poems are imbued with kindness, they concern weddings, dances and other easy joys. Traditional forms of cult folklore are filled with personal experiences in Sappho, the main merit of her poems is considered intense passion, naked feeling, expressed with extreme simplicity and brightness. Love in the perception of Sappho — a terrible elemental force, «sweet and bitter monster, from which there is no defense. Sappho seeks to convey her understanding through a synthesis of inner sensation and concrete sensory perception (fire under the skin, ringing in the ears, etc.).
One of her poems reveals the essence of the provinciality of the Greeks, their sense of their periphery, their secondary status after the Ancient East, which Herodotus would later reveal perfectly. Thus, Sappho praises the very Lydian Sardes (which played a great role for Alkman), where one of her friends went to live. Her father Scamandronimus was a “new” aristocrat; being a member of a noble family, he did not farm the land, but rather was a merchant. In the middle of the 7th century BC, the royal power in Mytilene was abolished and replaced by an oligarchy of the royal Penfelid family. Soon the power of the Penfelids also fell as a result of a conspiracy, and a struggle for supremacy broke out between the leading aristocratic families. In 618 BC the power in the city was seized by a certain Melanchrus, whom the ancient authors call the first tyrant of Mytilene. Soon Melanchrus, through the combined efforts of the poet Alcaeus, his brothers, and the future tyrant of Mytilene Pittacus (by the way, included in the list of “Sages”), was overthrown and killed. The tyrant of Mytilene became their ally Myrsil, whose policy was directed against certain representatives of the old Mytilene nobility, and many aristocrats (including the families of Sappho and Alcaeus), were forced to flee the city somewhere between 604 and 594 BC. Until the death of Myrsil — Sappho was in exile and lived in Syracuse (between 594 and 579 BC), after which she was able to return to her homeland. According to legend, it was at this time that Alcaeus became infatuated with her.
Alcaeus himself (c. 625-560), a poet who was a contemporary and compatriot of Sappho and the tyrant Pittacus, was also born in Mytilene. When the royal power in Mytilene fell and the first “tyrant” of the city, Melanchrus, came to power, Alcaeus himself was about 7-13 years old, Sappho was about five years older than him. Soon after these events Alcaeus, just coming of age, entered military service; and at this time there was a war against Athens, in which Mytilene was defeated.
In the battle Pittacus, a comrade of Alcaeus, distinguished himself greatly, and in a key battle of the war Alcaeus himself escaped by throwing down his shield (if this verse is not a mere imitation of Archilochus’ verses). And when, after the participation of Alcaeus and Pittacus in the coup, a certain Myrsilus became the new tyrant of Mytilene, the position of Pittacus himself (a former ally of Alcaeus and one of the “seven sages”) changed after a while; he sided with the new tyrant and was his co-emperor for some time. When this happened, Alcaeus immediately attacked Pittacus in his poems, which in a poet may be considered the most offensive. The reply was not long in coming, and was not at all poetic, so Alcaeus had to flee from the city. He (like Sappho) was in exile at least until the death of Myrsilus (between 594 and 579 BC).
Alcaeus also has a place for Homeric myths and divine power, but this is no comparison with Stesichorus. And what distinguishes Alcaeus from his contemporaries is that he is openly opposed to the tyranny of Pittacus (which is anti-aristocratic in character), and is concretely political in his poetry.
“Our fate is in the balance: everything will be overturned upside down if he, the madman, takes power in the city…”.
or
«The predator seeks to reign, «He wants to reign, he wants to rule, «He’ll turn everything upside down «the scales are tilted.What are we sleeping?»
He also composed hymns, one of which, “To Apollo,” is dedicated to the patron god of aristocrats. Though, to be fair, in the lines about drinking, he doesn’t mind “swearing an oath to Dionysus” either. When his conspiracy against Pittacus failed and he was banished, he began a streak of “whining”.
Most of the poems of his so-called “Stasiotica” (rebellious songs) should be attributed to this period of exile, in particular the most famous ode-allegory about the “ship-state” and the no less famous “ode of arms”. While in exile, the aristocrats did not forget their intention to restore the old order in Mytilene and continued to intrigue against the city government. Finally, the party of the aristocrats gained such strength that the threat of their return to Lesbos in the form of a military invasion became real. Mytilene succumbed to fear; in 589 the city elected an esimnet, who became Pittacus; he was given a term of office of 10 years, was to strengthen the city and lead the democrats in a likely conflict with the aristocrats, whose leader was Alcaeus. About 585 B.C. (when Thales predicted the famous eclipse) Alcaeus, who had become the head of his party and was supported by the gold of the Lydians — returned to the island, but was again defeated in new clashes. Pittacus did not punish his old comrade and released Alcaeus (noting, in the words of Heraclitus, that “it is better to forgive than to avenge”), and he passed from the historical stage, living out his life in silence, according to legend, going to Egypt.
In most of his poems Alcaeus merges with the spirit of Alcman, and in some places even more radically in favor of amusement and revelry. In him one can find a strange panchline about the romance of sea travel, and an ironic attack against those who fear the sea (incidentally, Pittacus disliked the sea). And what is most interesting, this ideological defender of aristocratic valor, not only glorifies wine, but also describes in verse how he fled in battle and lost his armor and shield. What could be more shameful for an aristocratic supporter? And is his temporary victory with the help of a bribe from the Lydian king a worthy thing to mention in several different verses? Along with this, another point is interesting; it turns out that Alcaeus’ brother served in the army of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, which Alcaeus mentions in one of the verses; an aristocrat, serving as a mercenary!
Another thing is also striking, referring to the legendary king of Sparta (by the way Alcaeus also paid tribute to Castor and Polydevk), we again get an unexpected outcome for the image of Sparta’s admirers:
Thus said Aristodamus The sensible word in Sparta: «In wealth is the whole man; He who is good but miserable is nothing”.
True, despite the atypical for Sparta denial of asceticism, the motive of this saying is rather that wealth is a sign of aristocratism, and this is quite consonant with the pro-Spartan support of the “high-born”. As for the famous affair between Alcaeus and Sappho, there is little or no information about it, and his own poems are absolutely nothing, and say only that he is very embarrassed in front of her and that he is an embarrassed “hick”. So later on Sappho responds to his poems quite appropriately:
«Be thy purpose beautiful and high, Be not shameful what thou wilt say, — Ashamed, thou wouldst not lower thine eyes, Thou wouldst say what thou wilt
The beginning of an open ideological conflict
In the 580s and beyond, the poet of greatest interest to us is a younger contemporary of Epimenides and Mimnermus; Thales and Sappho — the aristocratic poet Theognides of Megara, exiled from his hometown by the radical democratic “revolution”. Among the instructions of Theognides there is, along with the traditional aphorisms about piety, reverence for parents, etc., a large number of poems on topical political themes; they represent one of the most striking examples of the aristocrat’s hatred of democracy. It is a compound of all that is most conservative of the poetry of Tirtheus, Callinus, and Alcaeus.
For Theognides, slavery exists by nature; men are divided from birth into the “good,” i.e., aristocrats, and the “mean.” “Good” are automatically inherent in all possible virtues: they are brave, straightforward, noble; ‘mean’ are inherent in all vices: baseness, rudeness, ingratitude. However, the “mean” get rich and become in power, while the “good” are ruined and therefore the “noble” gradually turns into a “low”. In relation to the “mean” for the “good” all means are allowed. Theognides is a preacher of violence and cruelty, even outright hatred of all these “freighters” and “ship’s blacks”. He wants “a strong heel tocrush the unreasonable nobility, bend it under the yoke”. But he treats the “noble” no better, because the “noble” themselves are mired in greed and money fetishism. Theognides sharply condemns the marriages of aristocrats to “inferior” people for the sake of their money. He also wholeheartedly condemned the conflicts of the various clans of the aristocracy among themselves, seeing in this the weakening of their conventional “party”.
Theognides, with his belief in the innate moral qualities of the “good” man, expectedly became one of the favorite singers of the Greek aristocracy; it preserved his poems, supplementing the collection with thematic poems by unknown authors. Theognides fit perfectly into the context of the paramilitary lyrics of Tirtheus and Callinus, which were to dominate the other authors of this new collection.
A notable contemporary of Theognides was the satirical poet Hipponactus of Ephesus (ca. 580-520). Taken together, they seem to complete the early poetic history of antiquity and echo the new, philosophical generation. By the time of Hipponactus’ death, for example, Heraclitus, though only a 20-year-old youth, was already living.
Hipponactus came from an aristocratic family; but he was banished from the city for attacking the local rulers; so he moved to Clazomenes (a town nearby, where the philosopher Anaxagoras would later be born), where he led the miserable life of a “jester and joker.” The dates of his life suggest that Hipponactus caught the capture of Clazomenes by King Croesus, as well as the fall of Croesus himself and the advent of the Persian monarchy. From the work of Hipponactus about 170 passages have survived, in which he depicts the life and life of the urban lower classes, without stopping and before frank naturalism. Other passages depict small artisans and representatives of the social bottom, spending time in the city nooks, suspicious pubs, hapless peasant or cunning artist, belonging to the same layer of “the dregs of urban society”, all of them engaged in dark deeds, often resolving disputes with the help of scolding and beatings. Hipponactus portrays himself as a half-starved ragamuffin, expressing his hostility to the aristocratic worldview. In this respect, he already reminds us of the outlines of the Cynic worldview.
Several of his poems parodying Homer and the Homeric epic are consistent with this social position. A special place is occupied here by one hexametric fragment in 4 verses, probably from a heroic-comic poem, praising in Homeric epithets the monstrous appetite of a certain Eurymedontiad. These two passages prove that Hipponactus was not alien to the literary tradition (in addition to the fact that the extant fragments of poems themselves testify to the high level of his poetic training). The image he created of a beggar-beggar is most likely a mask designed to “epathetize” his listeners.
In connection with Hipponactus (perhaps someone from his direction, but a little later) there arises a parody of a heroic epic called “The War of Mice and Frogs” (“Batrachomyomachia”), which we recommend to read in full. The subject of this parody is both the aristocratic heroics of the epic, its Olympian gods, and the traditional devices of epic style, beginning with the obligatory invocation of the Muses in the introduction. The frog king Vzdulomorda, carrying the mouse Krohobor on his back across the swamp, was frightened by a water snake, dived to the bottom and sank the mouse. Krohobor belongs to a distinguished family, has a whole pedigree. A war therefore breaks out between the mice and the frogs. Both militias are armed according to the epic pattern; namely, we are shown the gradual appearance on the stage of the armament of both sides in all sorts of detail (naturally of the “helmet — walnut shell” level). The Olympian plan, i.e. the council of the gods, is also introduced. The parody of the gods is extremely sharp and probably already ideologically connected with the philosophical criticism of mythology. Athena refuses to help the mice for reasons of extremely insignificant offense:
The peplos were chewed then, which I worked on for a long time, Soft fabric I wove on a thin base. They turned it into a sieve!And the mender, for the sin of it, has come, He’s asking for interest, which is always depressing to immortals.
And in general, the gods better not interfere:
Gods!Let’s not interfere in their fights!Let them fight themselves, Let none of us be wounded by their arrows. Their power is daring, even with immortals.
If the author is not Hipponactus himself, he is certainly one of the main inspirations for this magnificent poem.
Thus Hipponactus forms together with Theognides a kind of contrast of opposite extremes. Of course, even before the aristocrats had their ideological poetry, and a vivid expression of this political conflict was the struggle between Alcaeus and Pittacus, but until now the anti-aristocratic (i.e. in essence already democratic) side did not have consistent supporters, and the opposition had only an accidental character connected with the personality of a particular poet.
Hipponactus is a conscious opponent of aristocracy.
In the images of Theognides and Hipponactus, the conflict between the aristocracy and the people finds its extreme expression, but still in its simplest form. The “philosophical turn” that would give this conflict more gravity was just beginning to emerge. The Greeks themselves considered the beginning of this turn to be the sayings of the Seven Wise Men, among whom was the famous Thales of Miletus.
Now we know that the entire poetic culture, the Greek literary language itself, and with it the richest polities, including Miletus, the main colonial center of the Greeks, are all located on the Ionian coast. It is therefore no coincidence that this is where “philosophy begins”. However, already during the lifetime of Anaximenes, this abundance comes to an end. In 546 BC the Lydian kingdom was destroyed by the Persian king Cyrus, and his famous and sung by Greek poets capital Sardis fell. Croesus himself was most likely burned at the stake, and according to legend, already captured, he said the following words to Cyrus: “If you are victorious and your soldiers are plundering Sardis, they are plundering your property”. With this, Croesus supposedly stopped the plundering of his capital. There are also versions that Croesus was pardoned, and that he went to the court of the king as an advisor. Both versions, of course, are not very plausible, but legends about the fabulous wealth of his grandson (Pythias) — still hint that the family of the king subsequently received recognition from the new power. The Greeks of the Ionian coast also submitted to the new power.
During this period, the cultural ties of the Near East were seriously expanded. For example, before his defeat, Croesus had time to conclude treaties of alliance with Babylonia and Egypt, as well as a treaty of assistance with Sparta. Organizing an international coalition was no longer a difficult problem (although it had not been a problem long before, even in the Bronze Age); soon the ties between regions were further intensified, now by the incorporation of all the civilized regions of antiquity into the new single state. As for the Greeks, after the defeat of Croesus, the Ionian polities also became part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Even shortly before the invasion, the ruler of Miletus tried to reorganize the Ionian union, as it is believed, under the influence of his political advisor Thales, as we have already discussed before. But there was little effect, for the alliance turned out to be purely nominal, and the same Thales advised at the last moment not to oppose Persia in order to keep the city intact. “Loyalism” of Thales can also be questioned, since the last traces of Thales and Anaximander (presumably the years of their death) are almost synchronous in time with the Persian invasion. It is quite possible not only their political influence on the life of the city, but also their attempts to organize resistance, which was followed by retaliatory repression in their direction. There is, of course, no direct evidence of this. But this is roughly how the “Miletian School” left the scene.
The Ionian Union of 12 polities (14 on the map), a shaky association that existed under the protectorate of Lydia until its complete destruction by Persia
The last representative of the Miletus school, and the only philosopher who lived in the region at this time, was the already known to us “philosopher of the air” Anaximenes. For a time, however, two other significant thinkers caught this era, Pythagoras of Samos and Xenophanes of Colophon. It was they, and not Thales or Anaximander, who were destined to lay the foundation for the development of the entire further philosophical tradition. In fact, it is true that Pythagoras and Xenophanes simply continued the ideas of the Miletians, but if we compare them, then even from the scanty passages that have come down to us, we can feel a significant difference. And if we think within the framework of the old Marxist classification — then both Pythagoras and Xenophanes will appear against the background of Anaximander as “idealists” against the background of “materialist” (of course, it is very conditional). Consequently, the foundation on which the further philosophy of antiquity was built was the foundation of the victory of early idealism. On the contrary, materialist philosophy had now to rise from literally nothing, overcoming the resistance not only of mythology and religion, but also of the “philosophical canon” itself. We will try to find out what this “canon” is in this article.
Journey to the West
After the Persian conquest of Ionia, the center of ancient philosophical thought moves to “Greater Greece” (Southern Italy). This was a backward agricultural region made up of colonies and predominantly inhabited by local natives with a more rural and archaic culture. It was here that refugees from the east evacuated. Of course, even here among the new polities there are regional leaders (Croton, Tarentum, Syracuse) capable of competing with the main polities of Greece; but all these exceptions are five-minute colonies that continue to exchange grain for handicrafts from the “center”.
Just in one such center in Italy, Pythagoras (ca. 570-490 B.C.), the son of a master jeweler, founded his philosophical school. But Pythagoras would not leave the island of Samos until around 530 BC, when he must have been about 40 years old. Obviously, by this time some philosophical positions must have already formed in his mind. And since his home island was not far from Miletus, and the years of his life allow it, we can safely say that Pythagoras became personally acquainted with geometry through Thales. Besides, there is evidence from ancient authors about their personal meetings, and even about the influence of Anaximenes on the question of animating bodies. It is often admitted that the philosophy of Pythagoras was borrowed from the East, first of all from Egypt, where he was allegedly directed by Thales himself. But at that, purely biographically, the voyage to Egypt (and further to Babylon and even India) looks a bit strange, as it does not quite coincide with the dating of his life. But even a trip to India was not something impossible for that time; the only problem is that Pythagoras had a lot of time to do in Europe, and from somewhere he found more time than a man engaged in such distant expeditions could get.
But, as we see, for acquaintance with Egypt it was not necessary for him to go there physically. Thales knew eastern sciences, and transferred them to Greece. Some elements of eastern cosmogony (the theory of creation of the world) are present in Anaximander. Therefore, in any case, whether he traveled somewhere or not, his knowledge may well have had Eastern roots.
The Greek colonies in Italy
The main premise on which we base our consideration of the Pythagoreans is this: by the time Pythagoras decides to leave his homeland, the basic foundation of his knowledge is entirely “Miletian” in character. In a sense, Pythagoras continues the tradition of the Miletian school, while founding his own. He synthesizes the teachings of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes (as we will see further on with specific examples) with the philosophy of Pherecydes and the religious ideas of the Greeks and Egyptians.
Pythagoras also, like his predecessor philosophers, was interested in politics, even tried to take an active part in it. And if to generalize the political vector of Pythagoreanism — it is an extremely conservative philosophy. Pythagoras himself fled to Italy, because at that time a tyrant ruled on Samos. This can be interpreted as an example of libertinism, as a criticism of tyranny; but in the context of his era, tyrannies were a form of struggle of the townspeople against the large landed aristocracy. The protest against tyranny may indicate that Pythagoras was a supporter of the power of the aristocracy (for the same reason the philosopher Xenophanes emigrates, by the way). He realized that he had no political future in his homeland, and either he was expelled or he left there himself. Note that despite the ethical conservatism of the Miletian philosophers, politically and economically they were not opposed to tyrants; rather, even on the contrary, they catered to their rule. But as in philosophy, Pythagoras proved to be a true innovator even in political conservatism. When he arrives in Italy, he establishes there a special organization, the likes of which had never been seen before; a kind of secret political alliance. We will begin with this episode of his life, especially since he most likely based his philosophical school on the foundation of a political union.
Pythagorean brotherhood
Here it is important to emphasize once again that Miletus at that time was the largest city of the entire Greek world, the richest trade and maritime center. Of all the Greek colonies in the Black Sea — 95% belonged to this city. Against this background, Italy was an agricultural and colonial region, a backward province, at least at first. And what are the Orphic and Dionysian cults (well, let’s not forget the mysteries) but agricultural cults originating from the common people? Who is more likely to preach unity with nature — city dwellers or villagers? This is a rhetorical question, the answer to which is obvious. It should always be kept in mind that the question of the difference between the city and the countryside is a very important one, also for philosophy; it is so obvious that not only the ancient Greeks, but even the Sumerians and Egyptians did not avoid this question (see the Sumerian myth of how Enkidu became a man). As lifestyle influences one’s ideas, so too the surroundings of the sages from Miletus (i.e. the leading metropolis) and the life of Pythagoras (i.e. the rural outskirts) — left their imprints on their philosophy. Much of the strange legends about the “religion” of the Pythagoreans may well be the results of a syncretism of Eastern sciences and the common folk beliefs of the Greeks. It remains only to understand why quite educated Pythagoras became a spreader of superstition.
Early sources, including Aristotle, tell us almost nothing about Pythagoras himself, but speak a lot about the “Pythagorean way of life” and numerous Pythagoreans. Unlike the Ionian philosophers, Pythagoras managed to create a full-fledged mass school, where both men and women were admitted, perhaps even from different classes (but most likely only aristocrats). In this respect his activity can be considered as the first example of Enlightenment. Of course, Pythagoras himself acquired his education while he was living near Miletus; but one must keep in mind that to succeed among the public, one must say what the public is interested in. And if the local population of Italy is interested in religious mysticism, they will have mysticism. If they want fantastic stories, they will have stories. Pythagoras positioned himself to be a constant source of delight and shock for the public. His most famous adventure (more of them have survived, as you can read about in primary sources) was that he built himself a room underground, and ordered his mother to spread rumors that he was dead. In doing so, she was to write down on a slate everything that happened upstairs, noting the time of events, and then bring it down to him. Later he returned upstairs, looking as skinny as a skeleton, and came to the people’s assembly, where he announced that he had come straight from Hades. At the assembly he read out everything that had happened during his absence. All those present were so excited that they rushed to weep and even believed that Pythagoras was a divine being. And he himself later emphasized in various ways that his nature was different from ordinary human nature, and was somewhere between men and gods.
This calculation for the involvement of the masses could be the reason for the sectarian division of the school into several levels. Such measures are useful to separate the “mass” from the chosen sages, but at the same time not to close access to the uninitiated (otherwise it would be impossible to maintain the mass of the organization). Successful propagation requires inducing a sense of ownership in the followers, and Pythagoras did this successfully. Ancient sources report that the property of the Pythagoreans became common, and their daily routine was clearly regulated and included joint meals, walks, and study (cf. ancient Sparta). The adherents of the school swore that they would strive for the knowledge of truth, which implied, among other things, religious rites, ascetic lifestyle, and the study of philosophy. Knowledge in the community was passed on only to recognized members. Disclosure of information to the uninitiated entailed banishment. Pythagoreans used secret signs, thanks to which they could find fellow believers in different cities. Because of all this, their organization is compared to the prototype of Christian monasteries and Masonic lodges.
The symbol of Pythagorean asceticism is the cup of Pythagoras
The School of Pythagoras, founded around 525 B.C. (and destroyed 75 years later, around 450), is divided into ethical-political and scientific-philosophical communities. It is most likely that the latter is based on the foundation of the former, and that Pythagoras originally built something resembling a political party, united by ethics like a religious order. The fact that Pythagoras himself was a conservative in the field of politics, affects the positions of the whole Pythagorean union, and even the internal organization of the party. Explicit borrowings of Spartan orders, as well as a disdain for the lower classes and a love of hierarchical subordination, were dictated by this conservatism. Believing that the masses of people were too stupid — the Pythagoreans proposed, instead of the old democracy and monarchy — the rule of a group of wise men (i.e. themselves). Although in fact it was little different from aristocratic rule, Pythagoras was the first theorist of an enlightened meritocracy. And what is more important, unlike Plato, he succeeded!
The first important event for the Pythagoreans was the war between Croton and Sybaris (later known for its legends of corruption and wastefulness). After the tyrant Telis seized power in Sybaris, his opponents fled to Croton. The Crotonian council under the influence of Pythagoras refused the embassy from Sybaris to extradite the fugitives and started a war to restore order. The Crotonian army, under the command of the Pythagorean Milon, about 510 B.C. defeated the Sybarites, and their city was sacked and destroyed with the utmost cruelty. After the victory, Croton became the most powerful among the cities of southern Italy, and the other polis became its forced allies. The role of the Pythagorean Union also increased. However, the power of the secret society of Pythagoreans caused discontent. Therefore, a certain Kilon used the discontent with the authoritarian policy of the Pythagoreans and, perhaps, the unfair division of the land taken away from the Sybarites (or perhaps it was simpler, as later with the Jews — people were not satisfied with the closedness of the sect, which led to rumors about eating babies, etc. things). Together with his supporters, Kilon attacked the Pythagoreans during their convention in Crotona, burned down the meeting place and killed many of them, and many fled for their lives. According to another, less widespread version, Kilon attacked the school after it had experienced an internal split, as a result of which the “democratic opposition” won. In this case, Kilon opposed democracy. Pythagoras himself, according to some versions, at the time of the congress was already absent (which may indicate the correctness of the last version of the split), he moved to the Italian city of Metapont, where he died around 490 BC.
But this was only the beginning of the problems, because at first the Pythagoreans continued to hold good positions in most cities, and could hope for revenge even after the loss of their charismatic leader. And yet the internal crisis, splits between supporters of paternal customs and supporters of popular participation in politics — weakened the school. For reasons unknown to us, about 450 BC in Italy began mass pogroms with the subsequent expulsion of the Pythagoreans. This led to an exodus of the Pythagoreans to mainland Greece, after which their school disappeared for a while, dissolving into Platonism. Thus we can see that not only Thales and Anaximander, but also the Pythagorean school — took an active public position. Even in such early times philosophy was not a pure and abstract science of knowledge of the originals.
Acusmatics and mathematics
The purely philosophical school of the Pythagoreans was in close connection with the political school. There is no reason to believe that they were organizationally separated. We know that the philosophical school was divided into a lower and a higher level of initiation, known as akusmatics(“listeners”) and mathematicians(“disciples”). They, too, may have been closer to each other than it seems at first glance, especially if the mathematicians necessarily passed the akusmatikos stage. After Pythagoras’ death, two currents formed among his followers — the Pythagoreans proper (based on the mathematicians) and the Pythagorists (akusmatics). What Pythagorists-Akusmatics did later became the most famous part of Pythagoreanism, the so-called “Pythagorean way of life”. They built their lives with the help of “akusm” (verbal precepts), and all their teaching consisted in the repetition of Pythagoras’ sayings, which they treated as divine commandments. It was a school of worldly wisdom that was guided by aphorisms of the level of the Seven Sages, and if you think about it, even an order of magnitude worse. For example:
“You shall not rake the fire with your knife; you shall not step over the scales; when you leave, you shall not look back; you shall put your shoes on your right foot first, and mine on your left foot first.”
Since it was a mass part of the school, such “Pythagoreans” were much more common, and their extravagant behavior attracted more attention and became a kind of “meme”. Most of the legends about the Pythagoreans are connected explicitly with them. And if the akusmatics dealt with the religious and ritual aspects of the teachings, the mathematicians dealt with the studies of the four Pythagorean “math”: arithmetic, geometry, harmonic and astronomy. When we speak about Pythagorean philosophy, we always mean these last ones: i.e. the few elite of the Pythagorean club.
The akusmatics did not strive to create something new and develop the doctrine, but considered as wise those who have learned and can apply in everyday life the greatest number of sayings attributed to Pythagoras. Besides, akusmatics did not consider mathematicians as “real Pythagoreans”, but said that they originated from Hippas, who changed the original Pythagorean tradition, revealed the secrets to the uninitiated, and began teaching for a fee (i.e. instead of sectarianism Pythagorean mathematicians were engaged in what would later be called sophistry). Most likely, the principles of the Acusmatists were also accepted to varying degrees among mathematicians, especially if these are two stages of development within a school. The only question is to what extent the Pythagoreans were dogmatic and religious in each case.
This is the history of the emergence of the Pythagorean Union, their internal subordination and the political history of their rise and fall. But if the Pythagoreans were remembered by the ancient Greeks more by memes about eating beans, they entered the history of philosophy thanks to their mathematical teachings, to which we now turn.
Mathematical philosophy
If to believe the late Pythagorean Yamvlichus, Pythagoras once noticed, passing by the forge, that the coinciding blows of hammers of different weights produce different harmonic consonances. But the weight of the hammers can be measured, and thus a qualitative phenomenon (tonality of sound) is precisely determined through quantity. Hence he concluded that in general “number owns things”. Thus was born the view that the phenomena of nature can be translated into quantitative terms (or that quantitative changes pass into qualitative differences), and that these phenomena can be studied with the help of a mathematical language. This language itself was still very primitive at the time of Pythagoras, and many generations would pass before its application would begin to bear meaningful fruit. But it was thanks to Pythagoras that mathematics not only gained a new meaning for cognition of the hidden nature of things, but also received a new meaning as a discipline that exists separately from things. Thanks to this, Pythagoreans and mathematical scientists began to develop mathematics no longer as an empirical, but as an abstract science.
After the story of the hammers at the forge, Pythagoras realized the importance of number in music. Due to the close connection with music, an aristocratic aestheticism was embedded in the very foundation of Pythagorean teaching. With the help of the philosophy of numbers Pythagoras undertook to explain not only the visible world, but even abstract concepts of beauty and love. Such mathematical expressions as “harmonic mean” and “harmonic progression” still remind us of the connection he established between music and arithmetic. The Pythagoreans even believed that music could purify people’s souls. The Pythagorean doctrine of the harmony of the spheres is also peculiar: the transparent spheres to which the planets are attached (cf. Anaximander’s cosmology) are separated from each other by gaps that relate to each other as musical intervals; the individual celestial bodies sound in their motion (due to friction against the etheric wall), and if we do not distinguish their consonance, it is only because it is heard incessantly. Hence we can conclude that in his theory of cognition, Pythagoras insisted on the importance of differences/contrasts for the possibility of perception. Such aestheticism applies not only to music, but to any matter at all. In Pythagoreanism, harmony and beauty affect absolutely everything. Through these concepts, justice, equality and many other purely political concepts are also defined. An important fact is that Pythagoras was the first thinker who called himself a philosopher, that is, a “lover of wisdom” (but not a sage, because wisdom belongs to God alone). He was also the first to call the universe a cosmos, that is, a “beautiful order.” And although music and aesthetics play a significant role in terms of the form of Pythagoras’ teachings, but the core of his philosophy was pure mathematics, and the main contribution to philosophy he made in this field.
An introduction to the philosophical teachings of Pythagoras was well done for us by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, so we will cite his testimony in its entirety (important passages are highlighted):
The so-called Pythagoreans, having engaged in mathematical sciences, first moved them forward and, having been educated on them, began to consider their beginnings as the beginnings of all things. In the field of these sciences numbers occupy from nature the first place, and they saw in numbers, it seemed to them, many similarities with what exists and happens, — more than in fire, earth and water. For example, such a property of numbers is justice, and such a property of the soul and mind, another — luck, and, we can say, in each of the other cases exactly the same. Besides, they saw in numbers the properties and relations inherent in harmonic combinations. Since, therefore, everything else was explicitly likened to numbers in its whole being, and numbers occupied the first place in all nature, they assumed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things, andrecognized thewhole universe as harmony and number.
And all that they could show in numbers and harmonious combinations agreeing with the states and parts of the world and with the whole world order, they brought it together and adapted one to another; and if they lacked something or other, they endeavored to add it so that the whole structure was in perfect connection. Thus, for example, in view of the fact that the ten (decade), as it seems to them, is something perfect and contains in itself the whole nature of numbers, they count ten bodies carried in the sky, and since the visible bodies are only nine, so in the tenth place they place the opposite earth …. In any case, and at them, apparently, number is taken as the beginning and as matter for things, and as an expression for their states and properties, and the elements of number they consider even and odd, of which the first is indefinite, and the second definite; the one consists of both, it is both even and odd; the number itself is formed from the one, and the various numbers, as has been said, is the entire universe. Others of these same thinkers accept ten beginnings, going each time in the same row — limit and limitless, odd and even, one and many, right and left, male and female, resting and moving, straight and crooked, light and darkness, good and bad, quadrilateral and versatile. The Pythagoreans specified both how many opposites there are and what they are. In both cases, therefore, we learn that opposites are the beginnings of things; but how many of them — we learn from some Pythagoreans, and also — what they are. And as it is possible to reduce the beginnings accepted by Pythagoreans to the above-mentioned causes, it is not clearly dissected at them, but, apparently, they place their elements in the category of matter; for, according to them, from these elements, as from the parts inside, the essence is composed and formed.
The Pythagoreans maintain that things exist by imitation of numbers; seeing in sensuous bodies many properties which are in number, they caused things to be numbers,-only these were not numbers endowed with independent existence, but, according to them, things are composed of numbers. And why was this so? Because the properties which are inherent in numbers are given in musical harmony, in the structure of the sky, and in many other things. Meanwhile, for those who accept mathematical number alone, there is no possibility, in connection with their premises, of asserting anything of the kind… And it is clear that mathematical objects do not possess a separate existence: if they did, their properties would not be found in concrete bodies. If we take the Pythagoreans, there is no fault on them in this matter; however, since they make physical bodies out of numbers, out of things that have no gravity and lightness, such things that have gravity and lightness, one gets the impression that they are talking about another heaven and other bodies than sensuous ones.
In the above fragment, however, Aristotle has exaggerated. Yes, in the end everything does indeed come down to number, but physical processes are also explained by physical elements; and this is done in exactly the same way as with the philosophers from Miletus. If we turn away a little from the numerical dimension of Pythagoreanism, what we get next is a quite typical naturalistic system with material elements and tiny particles scattered in the void. In one of the extant retellings, Pythagoras says that there are five bodily figures, which are also called mathematical figures: from the cube arose the earth, from the pyramid — fire, from the octahedron — air, from the icosahedron — water, from the dodecahedron — the sphere of the universe (i.e. ether). Though it is clear that even Miletians operated with all elements, at least it is known that Anaximander and Anaximenes did it, but nevertheless innovations of Pythagoras here are obvious. He not only introduces the element of ether (it may be a special element for the very “sphere” on which the stars are attached), but actually concretizes apeiron. After all, mathematical numbers, from which all elements are distinguished, and now also all immaterial properties like nobility and love, are the literal analog of the “limitless” apeiron, which can now be handled with the help of the language of mathematics. Of course, mathematics has a supersensual character, and it is far from what Anaximander tried to do, but the logic here is roughly the same. It is likely that the theory of opposites was also internalized by Pythagoras through Anaximander. The idea of opposites plays a significant role in both of them, and against the background of the further development of this theory (see Heraclitus), they find much in common.
It also reminds us of the old natural philosophy that according to Pythagoras everything that happens in the world repeats itself again after certain intervals of time, and that nothing new happens at all. This idea (if we are to believe in the authenticity of the passages of the poet Orpheus) — Pythagoras directly borrowed it from Orphic mythology, although he could also have found it in Anaximander. The cyclical nature of the world may hint at some ideas about determinism, but we can only learn about this from Pythagoras’ followers, not from him himself.
But if Pythagoras simply developed the teachings of the Miletians, then why do many generations of researchers insist that he created a fundamentally new branch of philosophy? Of course, there are grounds for such an opinion. His rethinking of the role of aesthetics and mathematics alone would be enough to designate him as a separate school. But still the main feature of Pythagoras among philosophers was his mysticism, which perfectly overlaps with the classical “sectarianism” with special degrees of initiation of neophytes. Most importantly, he for the first time radically opposed soul and body, calling the latter a prison for the immortal soul. It was already pure idealism, and so mystical in nature that even allowed belief in rebirth (in particular, this is one of the reasons why the Pythagoreans practiced vegetarianism; suddenly your dead friend was incarnated in an animal?) The theory of the rebirth of the soul may also have been borrowed from the legendary Orpheus, as one of the variations of thoughts about the cyclical nature of the world. The very concept of rebirth already carries with it the idea that the soul can continue to exist after the death of the body, which means that it is independent of the body. In ancient Greece, it was this, the mystical side of Pythagoras’s teachings that caused the most discussion, and so he was associated with it in the first place. As Bertrand Russell quite rightly said about this idealism:
“With Pythagoras begins the whole conception of an eternal world accessible to the intellect and inaccessible to the senses.Had it not been for him, Christians would not have taught of Christ as the Word; had it not been for him, theologians would not have sought logical proofs of the existence of God and of immortality.”
Landscape with allegory of the four elements (1635) — author Frans Franken
But even in spite of all the innovations and this special, mystical character of his teaching, Pythagoras and his disciples did not merely attempt to give a convenient interpretation of old ideas, but also provided answers to problems unsolved by their predecessors. They clearly see these problems, and correctly establish the main ones. Their focus is still the same problem of whole and parts, of god and nature (or theology and naturophilosophy), and of those opposites which contradict each other, and which, according to Pythagoras, must at the same time end in the establishment of harmony.
«Researchers try only to indicate what the soul is like, about the body, which must receive the soul, they do not give any more explanations, as if it were possible for any soul to put on any body, as they say in the Pythagorean myths.It is the representatives of this view that say that the soul is a kind of harmony, and harmony is a mixture and combination of opposites and that the body is also made up of opposites.»
(Aristotle — “On the Soul”).
Of all the opposites, which Pythagoras puts at the basis of everything, the first pair are the limit and the limitless(apeiron). But the “limitless” cannot be a single beginning of things; otherwise nothing definite, no “limit” would be conceivable. On the other hand, the “limit” also presupposes something that is defined by it. Even here it becomes clear why it is number that is the basis of everything. For in speaking of the limit and the limit, we are already de facto engaged in counting scales. We meet these two basic principles in the Pythagorean cosmology. Here the world appears as a limited sphere, carried in the limitlessness (by the way, the Earth itself is spherical in Pythagoras). “The primordial unity, having arisen unknowingly from what,” says Aristotle, “ draws into itself the nearest parts of the limitlessness, limiting them by the force of the limit.Breathing into itself the parts of the limitless, the unity forms in itself a certain empty space or certain gaps, fragmenting the original unity into separate parts — extended units”. In order for the limitless to form a limit, it is necessary for chaotic matter to be organized into a harmonious order. Each of the worlds where instead of chaos we observe an intelligent organization of things has finally been explained. But the organization of order leads to the fact that individual objects are clearly separated from other objects, and this is only possible because of empty space. Breathing in the infinite void, the central unity gives birth to a series of celestial spheres, and sets them in motion. The doctrine that the world breathes air (or emptiness) into itself, as well as something of the doctrine of the celestial luminaries, the Pythagoreans learned from Anaximenes. The concept of emptiness was necessary to justify the motion of the elements “within something,” it also better explains the workings of contraction and expansion introduced by Anaximenes, and is necessary even at the level of geometry, as a space for the arrangement of points and lines. We have seen various hints of recognizing the void before, but never before has this issue become conceptually important. At last the void has received its full expression. Thanks to it, the picture of interaction of the elements acquires a character extremely close to the atomistic theory (each element consists not just of figures, but of tiny particles, whose figures set the “tone” of each element).
The natural philosophy of the disciples of Pythagoras
Pythagoreanism was certainly the most grandiose attempt to create a “theory of everything” that existed at the time. It is not surprising that we will find traces of Pythagorean influence throughout the history of philosophy. The Pythagorean school itself, in the broad sense of the word, lasted as long as the whole of ancient philosophy. It therefore embraces dozens of names in no way connected with Pythagoras. Here we will speak of “classical” Pythagoreanism, still bound by a direct chain of succession leading back to Pythagoras himself. And the major figures on our list are:
Hippas — Pythagorean apostate, leader of the “democratic opposition” and scientific line of Pythagoreanism. A philosopher who synthesized the views of Pythagoras and the Miletian school.
Alcmaeon — Physician-surgeon who empirically established that the brain is the center of concentration of the mind.
Philolaus — Pythagorean, systematizing the teachings of Pythagoras, Hippas and Alcmaeon, who later passed on the knowledge to Plato.
Some of what we have said above about the philosophy of Pythagoras — we learn only from the writings of his disciples. We have selected only what seems most similar to the fundamental theses of the school, without which it is impossible to imagine either the teachings of Pythagoras himself or the opinions of his disciples. We shall now set forth the specific characteristics of each of the disciples separately, and summarize the results for the Pythagorean school taken as a whole.
Hymn of the Pythagoreans to the Sun (1869) — by Fyodor Bronnikov
The Pythagorean Judas
As already mentioned, at some point Pythagoras had a “democratic” opposition within the sect. Some guy named Hippas of Metapontus (c. 530-480) violated the prohibition against non-disclosure of secrets, for which he was expelled from the elite club. Subsequently, the Pythagorean tradition used this name as a synonym for essential evil and treason. We have already mentioned this when we talked about the attitude of the Acusmatists to mathematicians as sophists who sold the wisdom of Pythagoras for money. In that case, not only “enlightenment”, but even sophistry, and the typical attitude towards it — arise within the Pythagorean union. Of course, this sounds strange, given the fact that the Pythagorean school was the largest school in Greek history, a massive school with extensive regional representation. This already automatically implies a great deal of openness. But most likely, the school admitted only people of noble origin (though not only specialized scholars), which was already a significant step forward; and Hippas brought this enlightenment trend to the next stage of development. Hippas was notorious in later centuries, but even the ancient Greeks suspected that most of Pythagoras’ achievements were actually Hippas’ discoveries, so powerful was he supposedly as a philosopher. Sometimes Hippas was even called the founder of the “mathematical” (i.e., purely scientific) branch of the school. But if this is true, then Pythagoras himself really belonged rather to the “akusmatists”, and all the best achievements of the school are the fruit of the activities of apostates.
In addition to participating in the schism and “divulging secrets” Hippas became hated also because, besides proportions and commensurability of things, he revealed to the public the doctrine of incommensurability (or even irrational numbers). The Pythagoreans carefully concealed this phenomenon in mathematics, for they saw the source of the world’s orderliness and reasonableness in numbers. Numbers consist of identical units, and the world is based on a unit. And suddenly it turns out that at least two different units, irreducible to each other, are at the basis of the world. So the irrational, the irrational now finds itself at the heart of the world. The Pythagoreans did not know what to do about this; the phenomenon of incommensurability was destroying their worldview. Therefore, after the exile, Hippas was even cursed, and according to the legend of the Pythagoreans themselves, he sank in a shipwreck, allegedly as a punishment from the gods.
Hippas is known as a democrat not only because he spread knowledge to all comers. He is also listed among the leaders in the political division of the Pythagorean community. As the later Pythagorean, Yamvlichus, writes about it:
When they initiated the schism, the other inhabitants of Croton immediately began to join the distribution.From among the most oligarchic “thousand” Hippas, Diodorus and Theagus were in favor of all citizens of Crotona to participate in public office and the national assembly, and that the archons reported in their activities to the people’s representatives, elected by lot from among all citizens.They were opposed by the Pythagoreans Alkimachus, Dinarchus, Meton and Democedes, who opposed the overthrow of the fatherly system.Those who spoke in defense of the masses won.
And so, the subsequent persecutions can be connected with the reaction of the local aristocracy against the attempts to introduce a democratic system. Perhaps the traditional Pythagoreans were able to resist at the expense of the alliance with the aristocracy, and the democrats became victims of the first wave of pogroms, as a result of which they were “expelled” from the ranks of the school, and as a result of which Hippas himself died. Otherwise, it’s hard to understand how the winner in an internal schism was suddenly victimized. Then it would appear that the conservative branch survived the first wave of pogroms, and was expelled from Italy after the second wave. It is extremely difficult to reconstruct the actual version, due to the lack of additional sources.
In his philosophy Hippas is also sharply oppositional. As if returning to the bosom of the Miletian school, he taught that the beginning of all things was elemental, and that element was fire. At the same time, he agreed that number was also at the heart of nature, conducting quantitative experiments with sound in much the same way as Pythagoras did (only instead of hammers — iron disks). Apparently, for Hippas, number is not the beginning itself, but only a manifestation of the divine nature. Mathematics is the language God used to create the visible world. Or, as Hippas himself put it, “the distinguishing tool of the creator god.” His God, then, has reason and discernment; he is a creator in the most literal sense of the word “creation.” The creator god himself, as well as the soul of all beings, and even as the material universe, are all inherently fire. In opposition to Pythagoras, Hippas teaches that the universe is one and spatially finite (which does not invalidate its emptiness or its perpetual motion). The fire of which it is composed is transformed by densification and rarefaction. This synthesis looks as if it were an answer to the teaching of Pythagoras, its inner opposition, and an attempt to pass from the speculative beginnings to the unconditional material primary basis.
Pythagorean medical school
One of Pythagoras’ most famous disciples became the founder of the first medical school in Greater Greece (the Crotonian School). He is known as Alcmaeon (ca. 515-460 BC), and is listed as one of the first serious scientists in the modern sense. But it should be noted here that there was a major medical man named Calliphon who lived in Crotona even earlier, and who after the appearance of Pythagoras became a supporter of his teachings. Apparently he was the chief priest of Croton and a man of great importance in civil affairs. He also had a son who became a major medical man, whom Herodotus later called “the most skillful physician of his time,” his name was Democedes, probably a contemporary of Alcmaeon. In his youth he came to the island of Aegina, where, thanks to his talent and diligence, he soon gained fame as a skillful physician. Leaving Aegina, he went to Athens, and then worked at the court of the Samosian tyrant Polycrates. After his overthrow was sent to Sardes, then to his court he was summoned by Darius I. Having cured the king of a disease of the legs, and the queen Atossa — from a chest disease, Demoked got into great favor with the Persian king, who generously rewarded him for curing his ailments. From there he returned to his homeland, despite Darius’ entreaties to remain with him as his life-medic. Returning to his native Croton joined the party of aristocrats. There he joined the society of Pythagoreans, married the daughter of the famous Greek athlete Milon of Croton. However, during a revolt against the Pythagorean oligarchy, Demokedes died. Demokedes, along with Alcmaeon, was at the head of the oldest flourishing medical school in Greece. But we do not know the details of the teachings of Demokedes and his father, but we do know the details of Alcmaeon’s teachings.
Alcmaeon’s theory of medicine was based on Pythagorean harmony and the theory of opposites. In the theory of opposites itself, Alcmaeon also made an important step forward. Whereas previously the set of opposites had always been limited and concretized (equally in both Anaximander and Pythagoras), he now speaks of an infinite number of very different opposites. Any idea about the simplest subject can give rise to its own antithesis. And by saying the phrase “most human things are binary ‘ — he not only took a step towards the future teaching of Heraclitus, but also opened the road towards sophistry(see ’Binary Speeches”). In the lists of philosophers who proposed different quantities of “beginnings” of things, it is said of Alcmaeon that he assumed two beginnings. What they are, we do not know, but we can assume that they could be “positive and negative”, well, or, following his theory of equilibrium, these beginnings could even be “democracy and monarchy”. The latter is of particular interest, because it allows us to conclude that, like Hippas, Alcmaeon belonged to the “democratic opposition” within the Pythagorean Union (and then he was hardly an associate of Democedes). According to his theory, human health is preserved through balance, for the domination of one opposite acts perniciously on the other, and therefore disease arises. If we believe the book “Opinions of Philosophers” (Pseudo-Plutarch), Alcmaeon called this equilibrium of the elements of the organism “democratic equality”, and called “monarchy” among them the cause of disease. It is curious to compare the theory of balance with ancient Chinese ideas about medicine, which also appealed to the balance of “yin-yang”, and made the same conclusions about the origin of diseases.
Probably in Greek philosophy he was the first to say that man differs from other animals by the fact that only he thinks, while other animals feel but do not think (even now, when we know that this is wrong, the same division is given, for we still distinguish between “thinking in general” inherent in animals and thinking specifically human). According to his views — the primordial part of the soul is in the brain. He came to this conclusion through research (the same “empiricism” as Thales’ conclusions about magnetism) on the nervous system and tracing the sensitivity of impulses from the endings and closer to the center. This is the more interesting because the influence of Egyptian medicine on Greek medicine is obvious to us; Egypt was inordinately more advanced in every respect. However, the Egyptians considered the heart to be the center of emotion, personality and intellect. For this reason, in mummification, the hearts of the dead were preserved, while the brain was scraped out and discarded as a useless organ. This example illustrates the advantages of the emerging Greek empiricism.
One might think that Alcmaeon, even more learned than any of his predecessors, a supporter of progressive views in politics and the enlightenment of the masses, should himself be less superstitious than the Pythagoreans. Except that in reality we see a metaphysician like Thales, Pythagoras, or Hippas. He holds that truth is available only to the gods, and that men are left to “the things of men,” which, as we saw above, can only be judged in two ways. He also separates the divine and human world (i.e., the whole and the parts), and logically he joins the Pythagorean dualism of body and soul. Alcmaeon’s understanding of the soul itself is typical for his time. Like his predecessors, he calls the soul self-moving by nature and possessing eternalmotion; for this reason, it is immortal and godlike. Alkmeon directly compared the properties of the soul with the properties of the “supralunar” world, because the stars also have eternal motion. And from the divine nature of the luminaries he made a typical conclusion that the gods and the luminaries are one and the same.
But still, as a physician, Alcmaeon was obliged to deal not only with philosophy, but also with natural philosophy. Not only the world above the moon, but also the world of the earth. From such reasoning, except for what has already been said about the location of the mind in our brain, he writes in a naturalistic sense about the five sense organs (we quote Theophrastus’ work “On Sensations”):
Hear, he says, with the ears, because there is a void in them: it sounds (and the sound is produced by the cavity) and the air echoes. They smell with the nose, drawing pneuma to the brain at the moment of inhalation. Tastes are distinguished by the tongue: being warm and soft, it melts food by its warmth [= mellows out its “flavor juices”], and through its porosity and tenderness absorbs them, and transmits them through the pores to the brain. The eyes see through the surrounding moisture. That the eye contains fire is evident, for when the eye is struck, fire flashes [“sparks fly”]. They see by means of the shiny and transparent body in the eye, whenever it glows, and the clearer it is, the better. All the senses are in some way attached to the brain, and are therefore injured by its concussions and displacements, as it plugs the channels through which the sensations are transmitted. About touch, however, he said nothing.
There are other descriptions of Alcmaeon’s opinions similar to this, which also include theories about the conception of a child, typologizations of animals according to the way in which offspring are born and fed, speculations about how gray hair arises, etc. But they are all described in a similar naturalistic sense. If we combine the positions of Hippas and Alcmaeon, and contrast them with Pythagoras himself, the result of consistent criticism is a de-mystified version of Heraclitus’ philosophy. This fact is extremely important for understanding the whole genesis of the history of philosophy.
This is how Pythagoras taught his followers in terms of AI.
Heirs of Pythagoras
Of the minor Pythagoreans we can mention, for example, a woman named Theano, who wrote the works: “On Pythagoras”, “On Virtue to Hippodamus of Fury”, “Women’s Exhortations”, “Utterances of the Pythagoreans” and “On Piety”. Moreover, in this last one, strangely enough, she acts as an interpreter of Pythagoreanism in the physical sense! Namely, she says:
«Many Hellenes, as I know, think, as if Pythagoras had said that everything is born of number.But this doctrine is perplexing: how is that which does not even exist thought to be generating?Meanwhile he said that everything does not arise from number, but according to number.»
It turns out that even for Theano numbers do not really exist! But she saw Pythagoras personally, and in some versions is even considered his wife and mother of the next head of the Pythagorean school — Telawg. By the way, the latter was even considered to be Empedocles’ teacher before he left the school. Various surviving letters of Theano are devoted to domestic concerns: how a woman should bring up her children, how she should treat her servants, and how she should behave virtuously towards her husband (rather primitive recommendations about the necessity of obedience). Theano’s father named Brontine, who according to some versions was her husband (rather than her father) instead of Pythagoras, is believed to be the author of some Orphic poems, among them “On Nature” and “The Veil and the Net”. Various Orphic poems have also been attributed to many other Pythagoreans, which either confirms their direct dependence on the Orphics or means that Orphism was indeed fabricated by the Pythagoreans. But more likely, of course, is the former.
It is also worth remembering the philosopher Hippon (c. 490-430 B.C.), who bore the nickname “godless”. According to one account, Hippon considered water to be the beginning of everything, according to others — water and fire, according to others — earth (note that in all versions these are not numbers); but the most authoritative version is considered to be the version with fire and water beginnings; at the same time they were considered to be synonymous with hot and cold, the struggle of which created everything in the world, which brought Hippon’s teaching closer to such philosophers as Anaximander, Anaximenes (and even Hippas, Xenophanes and Heraclitus). In this section, he complements “elemental” philosophy by standing between Thales and Heraclitus. Hippon devoted considerable attention to questions of biology and medicine, in particular to the problems of embryology, the origin of boys and girls from different kinds of sperm (in which he directly continued the themes touched upon by Alcmaeon); he tried to explain the origin of twins. He wrote also on matters of botany. Like Alcmaeon, he emphasized the significance of the number “seven” for the stages of human life (e.g. twice seven is the age of human adulthood). He identified the soul either with the brain or with water, since semen, which is accessible to our observation, is also composed of moisture, and meanwhile from it, he claimed, the soul is born. Hippon proved to be a very authoritative writer on embryology, and his opinions would long enter the canon of philosophy. In the example of Hippon we can see both the influence of Alcmaeon and that of Hippas. But still he appeared more interested in biology as a science, and did not develop the tendencies laid down into a doctrine analogous to the later philosophy of Heraclitus. He apparently tended to synthesize Pythagoreanism and the teachings of the Miletians, developing Hippas in this particular, “spontaneous” direction. Among the major Pythagorean biologists, whose opinions we will not describe in detail, there was also Menestor, and a rather original version of the argumentation in favor of emptiness (adopted by Democritus) was put forward by Xuphus.
Such a number of “apostates” from the official line of Pythagoreanism, suggests that this is nothing more than a myth, and that Pythagoreanism was originally very heterogeneous, and has much more in common with the Miletian school than it appears. Hippon thus appears to be an exceptional case, for he is the only one of the whole group of pious philosophers who is called “godless.” The reasons for this appellation are unknown, and it may well be that they have nothing to do with real atheism, but in any case this characterization is not insignificant.
A systematizer of Pythagoreanism
The most famous Pythagorean, who goes much farther back in chronology, is Philolaus (ca. 470-400 B.C.). We are already getting a little ahead of ourselves by bringing out his figure; we will refer to Philolaus later when we talk about Plato and Democritus. To realize how far ahead we are, we may note that it is from Philolaus (or from his pupil, which is more likely) that Plato buys the Pythagorean books, and begins to form his own philosophy. Almost all of what we have stated as the philosophy of Pythagoras himself was actually stated by Philolaus, and therefore we will not recount the things we have already mentioned before (such as the reasoning about the limit and the limitless, the body as the tomb of the soul, etc.). Let us assume that the main line of Pythagoreanism is borrowed by Philolaus in full, being orthodox. But of the new opinions this one stands out particularly vividly:
“In his view, everything is accomplished by necessity and according to the law of harmony.”
Philolaus turns out to be the first Pythagorean to express strict determinism (this does not mean that others did not hold the same opinion). It is true that in different forms we have seen this thesis in literally all philosophers from Miletus. Despite being considered the main source on authentic “numerical” Pythagoreanism, and being, shall we say, a Pythagorean dogmatist, Philolaus (just like Hippas and Hippon), places fire in the middle of the universe, which no longer looks like a mere coincidence. This fire was placed around the center, which he calls Hestia (the hearth) of the universe, the house of Zeus, the mother and altar of the gods, the bond and measure of nature. But he also recognizes another fire — lying above everything and encompassing the universe. Something similar was already found in the fire philosophy of Hippas, where fire appeared in different hypostases, but here, however, Anaximander’s “fire” is clearly visible. The same fire that was outside the “celestial sphere” and seeped through the openings of the firmament as the visible stars. But Philolaus’ concept is important and even original, as the first image of a cosmology where the Sun would be at the center of the world, instead of the Earth. The abundant use of metaphors with the names of the gods, which has not yet been seen in the rest of the Pythagoreans, is striking.
It is thanks to Philolaus that we still speak today of the figures of numbers (square, cube), and it was Philolaus who first clearly distinguished not only between body and soul, but also between Godand nature, in terms of the hierarchy of power and subordination between them. If later sources are to be believed, he could even distinguish between formand matter, naturally considering matter as the subordinate element and form as the higher, incorporeal, eternal and divine. Of course, all this may be a Platonic hoax rather than an original source; but we will not deny such a possibility altogether. The subject matter of Philolaus’ treatise is extensive: from ontology he passes to gnoseology, cosmology and astronomy, touches upon other exact sciences, and ends with physiology and medicine. The latter he deals with in a very generalized sense, but nevertheless, it can be considered the completion of the systematization of the entire Pythagorean heritage, including even the teachings of the oppositionalists.
Summarizing
Alcmaeon, Theano, Hippon, and Philolaus are perfectly consistent with each other, and yet none of them, as we can see, look like what the Pythagoreans must have looked like according to common patterns. They all engage in classical natural philosophy, continuing the themes begun in Ionia, but attempting to use mathematics to understand the essence of the world. Yes, this led them essentially to a conscious idealistic interpretation of the dualism of soul and body, but we can easily find all the prerequisites for this among the Miletians as well. Of course, it is their idealistic side that they are remembered as a “meme”. Besides, Philolaus, systematizing the teachings of Pythagoras, laid special emphasis on idealism, and our subsequent ideas about the school are based primarily on Philolaus’ writings.
Generally speaking, of the so-called “Dosocratics” it was Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans who were so influential that we will find their followers right up to the end of antiquity, even in the Roman Empire. But even in the early epoch the Pythagoreans were so numerous that it was impossible to do philosophy in Italy without crossing paths with them. Not only in Italy, but even in mainland Greece, their fame was immense and their influence truly omnipresent; and such traditionally hostile figures as Plato and Democritus could equally be considered half-Pythagorean. Still later, as we may have noticed, Aristotle had to argue with them. And in the course of further exposition we will constantly notice the influence of Pythagoras on almost every philosopher. Even Herodotus called Pythagoras “the greatest Hellenic sage”, and Hippocrates used Pythagorean medicines. About exclusive popularity of Pythagoras and his doctrine in ancient Hellas testify and data of numismatics. In 430-420 BC in the city of Abdera (the birthplace of Democritus and Protagoras) minted coins with the image of the philosopher and the legend “ΠΥΘΑΓΟΡΗΕ”. The case is unprecedented for this period, as it represents the first portrait on a coin, at least the first signed portrait.
If we try to outline the place of Pythagoreanism on the level of the scheme, we see how this school, trying to solve the problem of the bifurcation of the world, in fact, only aggravated this bifurcation. The pantheism of the Miletians may not have been true pantheism, but they still tried to pretend that the world was essentially one. The Pythagoreans do not even doubt that the world is dual, but they hope to patch up this problem with the doctrine of “harmony”. By introducing a colossal number of innovations, they opened the way for the creation of numerous new schools of philosophy, and armed them with the tools to discover more contradictions in the pantheistic view of the world as a whole. It was from this angle that they were perceived by all contemporaries who attempted to recover the Philosophy of the Whole. But taking into account the influence of Pythagoras himself, all these attempts were built on a pronounced idealistic basis, in contrast to the still uncertain positions of the original Miletian school. In the scheme of Hegelian triads, this looks like thesis (the uncertain idealism and pantheism of Miletus) — antithesis (the certain idealism and dualism of Pythagoras) — synthesis (the certain idealism and pantheism of Pythagoras’ critics).
The Conflict of Pindar and Simonides (taken out of the series, will post elsewhere).
As we have seen, the author of the “Telegonia”, Eugammon of Cyrene, was a contemporary of Thales, and thus a contemporary of a full-fledged philosophy, the so-called “Canon”. Some of the Cyclic poets developed at the same time as the early “Nine Lyricists” or “Seven Sages.” All of them, from Homer to Eugammon, systematized Greek mythology and religion. However, their works were disparate; they were written by different people and at different times. Moreover, if we accept that Homer did not exist as a real person, then the work of many wandering poets had to be collected, recorded and systematized into a unified whole by someone. The ancient Greeks even gave the names of these systematizers. We call the result of their work “classical theology.” In the following sections we will deal mainly with metaphysical, i.e., philosophical theology, but “classical” will always be implied somewhere in the background as the most traditional form of worldview in Greece.
The Theology of Wonderworkers
Philosophy in Crete, where all Greek civilization actually began, was represented by Epimenides (ca. 640-570), who is also sometimes listed as one of the “Seven Wise Men”. He was born in Festus, and later lived in Knossos; ancient tales portray him as a favorite of the gods and a successful soothsayer. According to Aristotle’s already rationalized interpretation, it is believed that Epimenides did not predict the future, but only clarified the dark past (i.e., he was a historian). He was considered the author of the books “Genealogy of the Curetes and Corybantes”, a large book “Theogony” (5 thousand verses), “The Construction of the Argo” and “Jason’s Voyage to Colchis (6.5 thousand verses together). In addition, he wrote a prose book “On Sacrifices”, historical and political work “On the Cretan polity” and “On Minos and Radamantes”. When the Athenians after the rebellion of Kylon wanted to cleanse themselves from “Kylon’s curse”, they invited Epimenides to offer purification sacrifices (596 BC); and then Epimenides performed the sacrifices, and as a reward took only a branch from the olive tree dedicated to Athena, after which he concluded a treaty of friendship between the Knossians and the Athenians. That is, he acted as a Cretan diplomat and politician. It is believed that he became friends with the sage Solon and influenced the reforms of the Athenian state system, and taught the citizens of Athens to be more pious and moderate in their lives, for which he was highly respected by ordinary Athenians.
In short, Empimenides fits perfectly into the context of the work of the Cyclic poets and Orphic theology. Stories of miracles are also associated with him. According to legend, Epimenides fell asleep as a young man in the enchanted cave of Zeus on Mount Ida and awoke only after 57 years (and somewhere around this time he was visited in the cave by the philosopher Pythagoras, in the process of his move to Italy). This myth formed the basis of Goethe’s “The Awakening of Epimenides”. According to another version, while in the cave, he fasted and stayed in prolonged ecstatic states, being on a special diet, which was so simple that from such food he did not even have excrement. Epimenides was therefore often cited as an exemplary ascetic. In any case, he left the cave in possession of “great wisdoms.” Among such wisdoms, Epimenides is credited with a verse on the deceitfulness of the Cretans (quoted in the New Testament from the Apostle Paul in Titus 1:12), cited long ago in logicians as an example of a vicious circle; it reads “All Cretans are liars.” Since Epimenides was himself a native of Crete, this statement becomes problematic. If we assume that the statement is true, then it follows that Epimenides, a Cretan, being a liar, told the truth, which is a contradiction. Thus we can see the rudiments of dialecticand sophistryas early as in “pre-Phalesian” literature.
It is also reported about a special cosmogonic doctrine, which terminologically and in its meaning adjoins the cosmogony of the Phoenicians; for example, according to Epimenides, the world had two beginnings — Aer and Night(which, if we believe the extant evidence, were considered important beginnings by such Phoenicians as Sanhunyaton and Mochus). And according to one version, Epimenides is also credited with the words quoted by the Apostle Paul in his speech in Athens (according to other versions, Paul quotes the philosopher Cleanthes, or the poet Pindar): “for by him we live and move and exist, just as some of your poets said, ‘we are his and his kind’.” In principle, the ideas about “air” and “night” converge perfectly with Orphic theology, represented also by Pherekides, whom we will consider a little below.
Besides Epimenides, another poet who was a little more than a generation older than him came from Crete, Phaletes of Gortyna (ca. 700-640), a contemporary of such lyricists as Tirtheus, Semonides, and Callinus. He was invited to Sparta as the founder (or reformer?) of the Hymnopedia festival, and as a teacher who prepared Spartan choirs to perform at this most important festival for the Spartans (traditional dating: 665 BC). Already at the end of antiquity, Boethius in his work “Fundamentals of Music” reports that the Spartans preserved beautiful music for a long time thanks to the activity of Phaletes, who taught their children the art of music, having been invited from Crete for a great reward. In other words, Phaletes laid the foundations of Spartan musical education, the very existence of which explains the long and stable Spartan superiority in the musical sphere throughout the Greek world. Some ancient testimonies have been preserved that Phaletes, using music, pacified the internal turmoil in Lacedaemon. These are, first of all, Fr. 85 of the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon and the Herculaneum papyrus with the text of the treatise “On Music” by the Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara; it is also mentioned in Plutarch’s “Moralia”. All this is very similar to the activities of Epimenides, which he allegedly conducted half a century later, so perhaps the myths about them simply intermingled. By the way, the already mentioned conservative poet Tirtheus lived in the same Sparta at the same time as him, which brings these early poets very close together.
Similar to Epimenides and Phaletes is also Aristeas of Prokonnese (c. 7th century BC), a traveler and “miracle worker” about whom Herodotus tells. He wrote the «Arismapic Poems”, an account of the Hyperboreans and Arimaspes in 3 books (and thus was a historian and geographer). He also rewrote Hesiod’s Theogony, in prose form. This moment is not unimportant, because it shows the freedom in dealing with the “great” authors, having almost religious significance for the ancient Greeks. In addition, prose translations always hint at the fact that the text has a wide mass reader; as we know, the aristocracy is quite comfortable with reading the verse form. The primitiveness of the Orphic and Pythagorean worldview is symbolized in some way by their belief in the existence of Abaris , another diviner and priest of Apollo. Abaris is thought to have come from Scythia, or directly from the land of the Hyperboreans. According to legend, he did without food, and flew on a magic arrow given to him by Apollo himself, which is why the Pythagoreans called Abaris “Air-breathing”. He allegedly traveled all over Greece, where he healed diseases with a word alone. He also built the temple of Kora the Savior (Persephone) andcomposed all kinds of sanctifying and purifying incantations, so that once stopped the plague raging in Sparta (this again coincides with the same stories of “purification” associated with Epimenides and Phaletes). Such an early belief in itinerant hermit miracle-workers, against the background of the primitive folk theology of the Orphics and Dionysians, makes the appearance of Jesus seven hundred years later not so surprising.
Theology in the poems of Pherekidus
Adjoining the Orphic cosmo-theogony is the worldview of Pherekides of Syros (c. 580-499). This contemporary of the philosopher Anaximander was the author of a book called Cosmogony. His home island of Syros, near Delos (the center of the Greek cult of Apollo), was in relative proximity to Athens, and judging from his years of life he may well have been personally acquainted with many of the region’s figures, such as Simonides. Authors such as Clement of Alexandria and Philo of Byblos state that “Pherekides received no instruction in philosophy from any teacher, but acquired his knowledge from the secret books of the Phoenicians.” It is stated that he then became a disciple of Pittacus and lived on Lesbos. It is also mentioned that he traveled in Hellas and Egypt. This makes him yet another Greek who was simply transferring knowledge from the East to Greek soil.
Pherekides is considered one of the first Greek prose writers (Aristeas, Epimenides and Anaximander could argue with this). Pherekides’ largest book, entitled Cosmogony, adjoins Orphism in its content and resembles the work of Epimenides. In his Cosmogony, Pherekides recognized the eternity of the initial trinity of gods: Zas(a variation of Zeus, the etheric heights of the sky), Chthonia(the maiden name of Gaea, the subterranean depths), and Chronos (time). Zas becomes Zeus as the bridegroom of Chthonia, who as Zeus’ bride takes the name of Gaea (hence another title of his work, The Confusion of the Gods). And in other words we can say that under the action of time in the marriage of earth and sky all our visible world came into being. Pherekid proclaimed the eternity of the originals of the universe. It is known that Pherekid’s work began with the words “Zas and Chronos were always, and with them Chthonia”. Therefore, in his “Metaphysics” Aristotle not in vain calls Pherekidus among those ancient poets-theologians, “whose presentation is of a mixed character, since they do not speak of everything in the form of myth.” Pherekid also distinguished between three basic elements: fire, air, water — which Chronos created from his seed, and which further break down into five parts (according to Gompertz: the spaces of stars, sun, moon, air and sea), from which supernatural beings, a new generation of gods, arise. These are the Okeanides, Ophionides, Cronides, demigod-heroes and demon-spirits. Ophionides personified the dark chthonic forces. They are led by the serpent Ophion. They oppose Zeus, who after a brutal cosmic war overthrows them into Tartarus. In this struggle Zeus was supported by the Kronids, i.e. the Titans led by Kron. Obviously, Pherekid’s conception is more reminiscent of Orpheus’ work than Hesiod’s Theogony. The Theogony of Pherekidus also shows similarities with Orphic theogonies, such as the Orphic Hymns(created parallel to the Homeric Hymns, with the same purpose and similar content, but in a particular, “Orphic” style of telling the story of the gods). Both the Pherekid and Orphic hymns depicted primordial serpents and eternal Time as a god who creates from his own seed through masturbation. Such Orphic aspects also appear in Epimenides’ Theogony. Pherekid probably influenced the early Orphicists, or perhaps he was influenced by an earlier sect of Orphic practitioners; more likely Pherekid acted as one of the first systematizers of Orphism and the classical Olympian religion into a unified whole.
Like many other of the poets and “sages” of the early period, Pherekidus is considered to be the author of “gnomes,” i.e., short sayings of wisdom, which in fact turn out to be rural sayings, and are most likely attributed to all these authors much later. Several of the most interesting ones can be distinguished from those of Pherekid:
Whoever wants to be virtuous is partly already virtuous.
Stupidity, laziness and vanity forever go hand in hand.
The best is the enemy of the good.
If poverty is the mother of crime, laziness is its grandmother.
Idleness is the mother of all vices and diseases.
Patience and labor give more than power and money.
Trusting your intuition is the first condition for great endeavors.
Instinct and reason tear the soul in different directions.
Knowledge not born of previous experience leads to mistakes and unnecessary suffering.
The diamond is polished by the diamond, and the mind is polished by the mind.
Geniuses stand on the shoulders of titans.
He who does not appreciate eternal life does not deserve it.
Pherekides was famous for predicting the fall of the city of Messenia in the war with Sparta, shipwrecks, and especially earthquakes. Allegedly, he could predict an earthquake three days before it started, by the taste of water from a deep well (it was recently discovered that before the earthquake in the underground water really changes the concentration of gases and isotopic composition of chemical elements). Interestingly, earthquakes could also predict Anaximander of Miletus, and the structure of his cosmogony, according to Damascus, reveals similarities with the cosmogony of Anaximander. Indeed, in both of them the firmament breaks up into a number of autonomous spheres. The sundial (heliotropion) supposedly made by Pherekidus, according to Diogenes of Laertes, “survived on the island of Syros” even in his time. Finally, Heracles is said to have visited him in a dream and told him to tell the Spartans not to value silver and gold, and on the same night Heracles is said to have told the king of Sparta to listen to Pherekides in a dream. However, many of these miracles were also attributed to other legendary philosophers, such as Pythagoras or Epimenides.
Pherekides was highly honored by his contemporaries (especially the Spartans) for his purity of life; and a “ήρωον” (“heroic” shrine) was erected near Magnesia in his honor. He is also known for having advanced the doctrine of metempsychos(transformations of souls). According to Cicero: «As far as is known from written tradition, Pherekides of Syros first said that the souls of men are eternal.” In connection with this teaching, he abstained from meat food, which also brings him closer to the Orphic tradition. This is why he was considered the teacher of Pythagoras, as noted by Diogenes of Laertes. It is claimed that after the death of Pittacus, Pythagoras’ uncle invited Pherekides to move to Samos and become the young man’s teacher.
There are many conflicting legends that supposedly tell of the death of Pherekides. According to one story, the Spartans killed Pherekides and skinned him as a sacrifice, and their king kept the skin out of respect for Pherekides’ wisdom. However, the same story was told about Epimenides. Claudius Elianus in his “motley tales” wrote the following about the demise of Pherekidus:
“Pherekides of Syros ended his days in terrible agony: he was infested with lice. Since it was terrible to look at him, Pherekid had to refuse to socialize with his friends; if anyone came to his house and asked how he was doing, Pherekid would stick his lice-ridden finger through the door slit and say that his whole body was like that. The Delosians say that their god, in anger at Pherekid, inflicted this affliction on him. After all, living with his disciples on Delos, he boasted of his wisdom, and especially of the fact that, never having made sacrifices, he nevertheless lived happily and carefree, no worse than people who sacrifice whole hecatombs. For these impudent speeches God punished him severely.
The bust of Pherecydes on his home island of Syros
Acusilaus and Theagenes
One of the earliest systematizers of Hesiod’s theology was the historian and compiler of speeches, Acusilaus of Argos (c. 590-525). Although he was of Dorian origin, he wrote in the Ionian dialect. He was sometimes counted among the list of the “seven sages.” He wrote the book Genealogies, a prose historical work, which, however, already in antiquity was considered by many to be not authentic; it has not survived to this day. As the author of genealogies, Acusilaus is mentioned in the Byzantine dictionary “Suda”. The source of his genealogies was, according to the “Suda”, some bronze tables, which his father found in the ground. According to Clement of Alexandria, the historical work of Acusilaus was a prose transposition of Hesiod’s verses(cf. the miracle-worker Aristeas of Prokonnesos), but Josephus Flavius notes that Acusilaus made numerous corrections to Hesiod’s genealogies. Pseudo-Apollodorus refers 9 times to the versions of Acusilaus, noting both similarities with Hesiod and divergences with him. From the theogony of Akusilai, according to Dils-Krantz, only 5 testimonies and three fragments have been preserved, which in addition contain contradictions. Thus, very little is known about the teachings of the sage. According to Eudemus of Rhodes in the transmission of Damascus, Acusilaus believed the original to be the unrecognizable Chaos, from which Ereb (male) and Night (female) emerged. From the union of Erebus and Night were born Aether, Eros and Metis, and from them — many other gods. According to Plato, Acusilaus followed Hesiod in saying that Gaia and Eros were born after Chaos. Another source states that Aksusilai called Eros the son of Night and Aether. Be that as it may, it is obvious that Acusilaus was another systematizer of Hesiod’s and Orphic theology.
Much later lived another writer and philosopher, Theagenes of Rhegium (c. 550-490), known as the first explorer and interpreter of Homer’s poetry, and the first to engage with Hellenic diction. Theagenes employed an allegorical method in explaining Homer’s poems and myths, defending his mythology against more rationalist attacks, perhaps in response to criticisms of early Greek philosophers such as Xenophanes. It has also sometimes been claimed that Pherekides of Syros anticipated Theagenes. And here is what the late antique Neopythagorean Porphyry says about it:
The account of the gods is utterly embarrassing and unseemly: the myths which he [Homer] tells of the gods are obscene. Some find justification against this charge in the manner of expression, believing that it is all told allegorically about the nature of the elements. For example, by the antitheses of the gods [the antitheses of the elements are allegorically expressed]. Thus, dry, according to them, fights with wet, hot — with cold, light — with heavy. In addition, water quenches fire, and fire dries up water. Similarly, there is an opposition [~ hostility] between all the elements of which the universe is composed, and they are partly subject to annihilation at some point, while the whole endures eternally. Their [the elements’] “battles” he [Homer] and sets forth, calling fire Apollo, Helios and Hephaestus, water Poseidon and Scamander, the moon Artemis, the air Hera, etc. In a similar way he sometimes gives names to the gods and to the states [of mind]: reason (φρόνησις) is named Athena, folly Ares, lust Aphrodite, speech Hermes, and assigns them to them. Such is this way of justifying [Homer] on the part of style; it is very ancient and originates with Theagenes of Rhegium, who was the first to write about Homer.
If indeed Theagenes reasoned about Homer in this way, then this allegorism is already entirely philosophical in character. And when Pherecydes is compared to him, this is what is meant, that even in Pherecydes simple philosophical elements and forces were hidden behind the images of the gods. And here it is really difficult to say whether Theagenes was systematizing Homer’s theology, or was turning Homer’s poetry into pure philosophy of nature. But we can clearly see that taking a step from Homer to philosophy was not at all difficult even for the ancient Greeks of the archaic epoch.
Systematizing the theology of Onomacritus
Probably shortly before the death of Theocritus, a compiler of oracle predictions named Onomacritus (c. 530-480), who lived at the court of the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus, prepared an edition of Homer’s poems, where they were first systematized and divided into “books” on the principle we still use today (so Theagenes of Rhegium probably did his research afterwards). The historian Herodotus tells us that Onomacritus was hired by Pisistratus to put together the prophecies of Museus, but Onomacritus allegedly inserted false predictions of his own composition into the text. This forgery was exposed by Las Hermiones (teacher of Pindar and opponent of Simonides), after which Onomacritus was banished from Athens by Pisistratus’ son, the tyrant Hipparchus, but he later reconciled with Pisistratus. According to the report of Pausanias Onomacritus was the first Orphic theologian and poet. His predecessors may be considered Epimenides, Abaris, and other mystics, as well as the work of Pherekides. Next to Onomacritus, Zopyrus of Heraclea, Nikias of Eleia, and the Pythagoreans Brontinus and Kerkops are mentioned in a similar role. All of them were considered to be the compilers of such mystical poems.
Onomacritus in the Orphic verses [believed the beginning of all things] to be fire, water, and earth.
It is true that the fact that he was engaged in publishing a corpus of Homer’s works makes him something more than just another systematizer of Orphic theology. He may be considered a systematizer of all Greek theology in general.
In later times of Hellenistic Greece and Rome, the works of Orpheus, Museus and Linus were considered to have been created by the hand of Onomacritus (well and prolific Onomacritus in this case, whose works are searched for by the score of dozens, and the sources show that these three authors also refer to each other, which required an elaborate hoax). Therefore, there is a high probability that Orpheus and Linus are a solid modernization. At least, for the sake of saving the honor of Parmenides, any researcher will defend this point of view to the last, and otherwise most of the major philosophers of pre-Socratics will turn out to be banal relayers of Orphism ideas, and it will devalue the whole “breakthrough” of future philosophers. Yes, of course, the stories about the “seventh day” look too much like Christianity, and all the above about Linus looks like a retelling of Parmenides or Empedocles — and one can decide that the author of the forgery knew Christianity and early Greek philosophy.
So it is officially believed that the “Orpheus” available to us, as well as the familiar to us “Homer” — is a generation of the era of Pisistratus, i.e. contemporaries of Heraclitus and Parmenides. Hence the great number of similarities. There is also an interesting testimony that “Heraclitus and Linus defined the great year as 10,800 years”. It is impossible to prove that Onomacritus, Zopyrus, Heraclitus and Parmenides did not use the same source. Nor is it possible to prove that philosophers copied from court theologians, or vice versa, that court theologians copied from philosophers. Therefore, we assume that a common source from the time of Homer — could well exist. We shall proceed on the presumption of confidence in the sources, and moderately admit the existence of the philosophy of Linus and Orpheus, just as in the case of Mochus of Sidon. As to what this common primary source might have been, we assume it to be the generalized philosophical views of the Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians.
In any case, Onomacritus’ writings became a boundary, a “slice” in the development of ancient Greek religion. It is quite possible that to this “slice” the philosophical concepts already known at that time were added, strengthening some aspects of the original religion. But it is highly unlikely that literally all archaic sources were written by a single deceiver. Thus, sages named Epimenides, Aristeas, Pherekides, Acusilaus, Theagenes, and Onomacritus(and maybe Zopyrus, Nicius, Brontinus, and Kerkops) became systematizers of the theology of Homer, Hesiod, and the Orphics. It is quite obvious that most of the Nine Lyricists, the Seven Sages, and the philosophers of the Canon— shared their views, though the further we go into the future, the less influence of theology and the more common are secularized views, especially among philosophers.
The title of this article was chosen for a reason; it is connected with such a scholar of the Epicurean school as Zeno of Sidon (150-75 BC). Who was this Zeno? We know that he was a man of considerable influence, and that it was under his patronage that Epicureanism became the leading doctrine in Rome. Even Cicero (in “De natura deorum”) called Zeno the wittiest of all Epicureans. According to Diogenes of Laertes, he wrote extensively; and Proclus speaks of one work in which Zeno attacked the validity of mathematical proofs and criticized Euclidean geometry. Sometimes he was even called “the leading Epicurean” (Latin: Coryphaeus Epicureorum), and Cicero declares that Zeno despised other philosophers and even called Socrates “an Attic jester (scurram Atticum).” So the recognition of wit, coupled with all this, paints us a man of great amusement and irony.
His own writings have not come down to us, but the surviving treatise of his pupil Philodemus is based on the lectures of Zeno, from whom some passages in the first book of Cicero’s De natura deorum are probably borrowed. Of his philosophy we may guess from the fragments of Philodemus entitled “On Revealed Criticism” and “On Anger,” from the titles of which the title of our own article is derived. We know that before Zeno the scholarch of the school was the “Garden Tyrant” Apollodorus, but why he received this nickname we can only guess. The scanty information does not allow us to conclude that Zeno created his philosophy in a struggle with his predecessor; he himself was most likely not against a return to the classical hypercriticism and acrimony of Epicurus. But we know for sure that already Polistratus, the third scholarch of the school, after Hermarchus (d. 250 BC) tried to carry out a reform in the school, which stated that since the main goal of Epicureanism is the state of “ataraxia” (equanimity, tranquility of the soul), then all polemics should disturb this state, and therefore it is worthwhile to simply merge with the crowd in everything and stop all bickering. The abrupt disappearance of the Epicureans from the radar of the public agenda of the time may indicate that this reform lasted until the appearance of Apollodorus (under whom Epicureanism begins to penetrate Rome). The fact that Zeno of Sidon had to theorize about the state of anger; and that when Cicero mentioned the Epicurean Albucius, emphasizing: «This is the kind of promiscuity that has blossomed in the Epicurean garden!You are in the habit of getting hot-tempered.Zeno even used to swear.And what to say about Albucius?» —suggests that this was indeed an important turn. And the fact that “Zenoeven scolded” speaks unequivocally of the way in which he could interpret criticism, and the anger it provoked.
If we consider the question of the opinion of Epicurus himself, as well as of his closest disciples (Metrodorus, Hermarchus, Polyen, and Colotus), they were all openly determined to criticize their rivals. So there is nothing surprising in such a turn even from the point of view of “dogmatics.” The only question arises as to how legitimate was Polystratus’ reform of anger? This is what we will discuss in our paper.
The central thesis of Epicureanism is that the goal of life is not just “the reduction of suffering” but pleasure. And although it is even interpreted as a result of the reduction of suffering, but still, if it were completely so, then the Cyrenaic philosophers would be right that such a blessed Epicurean sage would be no more alive than an ordinary stone. After all, both pleasure and suffering are some kind of movement in the soul (which should be understood by analogy with the movement of blood in vessels, but rather along nerves — see Lametri‘s theory of animal spirits). The absence of “bad” motion is not yet the cause of “good” motion; and pure rest is insensibility, and therefore not pleasure at all. Epicurus must have been aware of this criticism, since it arose in his youth, so that it was not for nothing that he himself emphasized not so much that he was delivered from suffering as that he received from life precisely that pleasure. Here it is also worth recalling that Epicurus quite considered pleasure in two kinds, as “passive” and “active”, and recognized in general both kinds, though with preference for the passive. But what is this active pleasure?
“Serenity [ataraxia] and the absence of suffering of the body are the pleasures of rest [passive pleasures], and joy and mirth are regarded as the pleasures of motion [active pleasures].”
So, we see — these are joy and mirth. A fairly moderate version of what might be considered active pleasures, but Epicurus in this form recognizes them too. So if anger causes a “negative” movement in the soul, how can one derive pleasure from it? This is where another of Epicurus’ theses comes partly to the rescue: ‘It is better to endure these certain sufferings in order to enjoy greater pleasures; it is useful to abstain from these certain pleasures in order not to endure greater sufferings‘.
Or more simply put, if we paraphrase it to suit our topic, «one may endure the negative aspects of anger in order to enjoy tranquility of mind afterward.Or it is useful to disturb the tranquility, so that it will not be further disturbed in the future by the unexpected discovery that you have been wrong all your life”.
Criticism of opponents allows us to realize some possible misconceptions of our own, which would inspire uncertainty in the soul, and therefore some anxiety, and therefore distance us from that very “ataraxia”. Only full knowledge of the nature of things (see our essay on Truth) is a reliable basis for peace of mind (this is the essence of the whole letter to Pythocles). It is not even the exact certainty of how a phenomenon, such as snow and hail, arises that is important, rather it is important that all “equally probable” explanations, no matter how many there are, have the same origin (the physics of atomistics). In that case, Epicurean physics will be right in its very essence, whatever the nature of the phenomena in its external manifestations actually is. A first-order truth need not establish a secondary truth; so relativity is combined with dogmatism. But the main pathos of this principled atomism was not to admit any “non-physical” explanations. By allowing the latter we open the way to superstition, and through them to all kinds of fears of the beyond, which prevents normal ataraxia (cf. — practically all Stoics except Panethius recognized astrology and the science of divination, etc.).
However, we have gotten too far off topic. The occupation with physical questions and the defense of atomistics forces one to polemize (!) with the opponents of the atomistic theory. And these questions always shift from pure physics to metaphysics and theology as well. It turns out that it is necessary to refute opponents on all fronts at once, and it means that it is necessary to possess all kinds of knowledge in order to defeat enemies comprehensively.
As one Epicurean says in Cicero — “Epicurus was not uneducated, but ignorant are those who think that even an old man should repeat as learned what a boy is ashamed not to know”. Thus, for example, Philodemus of Gadara, before denying the usefulness of the science of music (for which he could be called ignorant of music) — thoroughly goes through the work of the Stoic Diogenes of Babylonia. It is not a simple denial, but a denial already after assimilating and analyzing the views of the opponent. It was not the fault of the Epicureans that the systems of the time collapsed under the weight of their own imperfection.
In the process of covering all knowledge in all subjects, you are forced to polemicize willy-nilly against all hitherto existing schools. This is the inevitable fate of the “polymath,” of any pretender to the role of Homo Universalis. The only question is how to synthesize all this knowledge into a consistent system; otherwise, “total criticism” will end in a simple denial of the correctness of everything at all (which is what the same “polymathic” skeptics have done). But what happens if you try to combine everything? Obviously, you’ll end up with the same little-revered and internally contradictory eclecticism (which Stoicism is to some extent). But the main goal is the absence of fears and anxiety; and in order not to be afraid, one must have a firm knowledge of everything; so skeptical doubt or pseudo-scientific eclecticism will obviously not fit here. Already at the level of this attitude it becomes obvious that the Epicurean’s aim is to become smarter on the way to ataraxia. After all, the main danger to the tranquility of the soul hides in stupidity, with which even Aristippus agreed.
This is why Epicurus says that “itisbetter to be miserable with reason than to be happy without reason”.
Let’s imagine that there is both criticism and anger going on here
So, the intellectualism of Epicureanism is generally explained. Yes, the sciences are not an end in themselves, but one cannot do without them; after all, what if I am wrong, and it turns out that I am destined for the afterlife, and that this could easily be proved in my lifetime? Hence the need for polemics. But don’t other schools have the same situation, perhaps with different goals? Why is it that the same Stoicism cannot claim to be intellectualism? And why is it that, concerning our topic, polemics cannot be conducted without anger and scolding?
Answering the first question — it is enough to recall that Stoicism does not burden itself with unnecessary reflections on the nature of virtue. It is practically self-evident (and is actually drawn ready-made from society), and makes the picture of the world strictly black and white. Although to some extent this leaves the Stoic with a choice, it is not so difficult to make that choice when you already know what the obvious “evil” is. And if there is still some choice here, in general, necessity reigns over the world, and this also eliminates the need for any further reasoning. Everything that happens is right a priori. And in general, since “fate” in many respects has the features of a deity, everything is not just right, but is pre-conceived by the most perfect being (God/Reason) according to a certain plan, having assigned its goals to everything (teleology), which only need to be fulfilled in order not to violate the most perfect plan. This is how the study of physics-theology leads to the conclusion of what is “good” (yes, they do have an explanation, but it is extremely weak in its foundations). Good is everything that is necessary for God-Logos-the Whole; and he needs a priori everything that you observe. In principle, it needs even the existence of evil (see Chrysippus and Aurelius on this).
And if the society has already defined what is good and what is evil, but its members themselves constantly allow evil — then the task is simple, to try to avoid evil as much as possible. That is, to take the conditional patriarchal norms as a given, and to bring their ideas about “virtue” to the maximum limit. Of course, reasoning about the Whole and its parts requires some prudence, and of course it is still desirable to read Heraclitus and reflect on it — but in the future the Stoic will not need to burden himself with the choice. Always do the “right” thing. It would seem very simple and convenient, why not use it? But the problem is that you are just as much a member of society, a “common man”, and also constantly allowing evil, one way or another. That’s why “meditations” are so important for Stoics; you have to remind yourself of your goals every day, you have to constantly monitor yourself, etc. etc., which only proves that the Stoic himself is unable to fulfill his own requirements, and that he has a hard time putting “Stoicism” on subconscious autopilot. But that is another story altogether. For now, the central thesis is that Stoicism is “theoretically” simple, a binary opposition and primitive logic stemming from teleology.
But Epicureanism is quite another matter! It postulates indeterminism at the level of physics to further defend free will, but now at the level of our lives; and this opens up a much greater variation of choice. In addition — Epicureanism destroys the very logic of “absolute good and ‘absolute evil’ by introducing a theory of the origin of society and the state, as well as a theory of the emergence of knowledge from ‘experience’ (to argue against the skeptics, Stoia created a more elaborate sensationalism than even Epicurus, but it had no serious consequences for the Stoic view of the world, just a tool against the skeptics). In other words, “good and evil” are either subjective or socially conditioned, which does not make these views true (cf. Helvetius), and this widens the range of our choices even further. One could argue that here, too, the binary opposition (pleasure-suffering) governs choice, defining “good” and “evil”. But unlike Stoicism, it says that not all pleasure is good, and not all suffering is evil. There is no such variation in Stoicism, for vice cannot be good and virtue evil; it cannot by definition, not even in some trivial matter. What compels the Epicurean to make the “right” choice? Only the fullness of knowledge of all the nuances, not the fullness of knowledge of one trivial truth from the Logos. These are quite different levels of intellectualism, and this difference stems precisely from the degree of complexity of the basic concepts of good and evil.
The second problem was: why can’t polemics be conducted without anger and profanity?
Of course it can. But if we recall the title of Zeno-Philodemus’s work, it sounded in full as “On frank criticism”. Here it is obvious that if we try to behave courteously, the criticism will not have all frankness, its corners will be smoothed, and thus the goal (the assertion of one’s rightness and total destruction of the opponent) will not be achieved. And then why, one might ask, should we start a polemic? Ataraxia requires conviction in one’s own rightness. It is possible that frank criticism will force your opponent to answer frankly as well, and thus better show your own weaknesses. As Epicurus said, “In philosophical discussion, the victor gains more from the debate — in the respect that he multiplies knowledge.” And then what good are the smoothed corners for your own enlightenment?
Still, even if we found justifications in the spirit of “allowing evil for the greater good,” the big question remains to what extent “criticism” and anger are permissible. But to be honest, in fact, this chain of reasoning was originally constructed incorrectly, with the expectation of philistine perceptions. Frankly speaking, anger and outright criticism are not even evil! If this is just one way of learning through polemics, then what is wrong with learning?
“In all studies the fruit with labor comes at the end of them, but in philosophy pleasure runs alongside cognition: it is not after study that there is pleasure, but at the same time there is study and pleasure.”
You gain knowledge, so why this suffering, by what? The sensation of anger? But if it is rousing, what is it not the very “activity and exhilaration,” i.e., the enjoyment of motion? Why can’t defeating your opponent and his stupidity, mixed with his own serious face and conviction of the truth of his delusions — cheer you up? As Epicurus says: “One should laugh and philosophize and at the same time engage in household chores and use all other faculties and never stop uttering the verbs of true philosophy”. What could be funnier than an opponent who is angry with you, just for breaking the conventional rules of etiquette? Who is willing to accuse you of ignorance and pigheadedness for some technicalities, while hammering away at the very heart of the matter! This was also the whole controversy of the enemies of Epicureanism about the attitude to rhetoric.
Thus Plutarch complains, “They write that we should not orate.” And Quintilian says: “I am not at all surprised,concerning Epicurus, who shuns all teaching, judging from what he has written against rhetoric.” Believing that rhetoric is “sophistic science to make speeches and create evidence”, Epicurus considered oratory as a bad art (cacotechnian), valuing in it exclusively only one property (if it was caught there) — clarity. If political speeches are admissible, then here “nature itself is what directs speeches, not any art”. Therefore, polemics can and should be crude, because substance is more important than form. Nevertheless, it was for the form that Epicurus was criticized by everyone, especially by Cicero, a lover of rhetoric.
So, it’s natural to get angry when criticized openly. And to be a frank critic is pleasant and useful at the same time. So, within the framework of philosophical discussion, anger is more than permissible, especially if it is mixed with cheerful mood and laughter. In fact, it is not even anger at all, but only a “form of anger”, only “angry words”, which may not even hide the affect itself. The opponents of Epicureanism could not (and still cannot) understand this at all. In today’s youth culture it is called “doing on a whim”; and it may well be pure pleasure! Even the Stoic Seneca, in his work On Anger (which may well refer here to our Zeno) writes:
«Heraclitus whenever he left the house and saw around him so many badly living, or rather to say badly dying people, began to cry and pity all the passers-by he met, even if they were cheerful and happy … About Democritus, on the contrary, they say that he never appeared in public without a smile: to that non-serious it seemed to him everything that seriously engaged in all around.But where is the place for anger?You either have to laugh at everything or cry.»
But what is more interesting is that Democritus was the basis of the physics of Epicurus, while Heraclitus is the basis of the physics of Stoicism! And yet Seneca opts for Democritus. But maybe Epicurus’ ethics is not entirely taken from Aristippus either? After all, Democritus was as much an advocate of “tranquility of soul” as Epicurus himself; but no one deprives him of his right to laughter and contempt, not even a respected Stoic like Seneca. Whereas the acrimonious Epicurus is censured by everyone.
So “anger” in our case is not anger at all, and even if it were negative, it would be a very minor evil in the context of all that is going on. Therefore, anger and criticism are not merely not hindrances to Epicureanism, but are one of its tools on the way to achieving ataraxia, and partly (as in the case of Democritus) even the result of ataraxia! With this attitude one can challenge one’s opponents without disturbing one’s own serenity. The question of anger and criticism is so central to Epicureanism that the entire fate of the school depended on its resolution at some point. By excluding anger, as Polistratus tried to do, he excluded at the same time the very essence of Epicureanism — the craving for knowledge, the elimination of stupidity. He deprived the school of the possibility of choice, determining everything by the pre-established traditions of society, and by doing so he deprived us of much of the pleasure, which almost doomed the school to extinction and oblivion.
The Greeks themselves believed that philosophy, as well as other varieties of high culture, came from the more ancient and developed Middle East. It was considered very prestigious if you are connected with something more ancient, because as it is known “it was better before”, and veterans should be respected. The reason for this lies not only in the archaic view “ancient means good”, but also in the very genealogy of Greek civilization. The origin of philosophy in the East is by no means a mythologem of the Greeks. We already know the examples in Egypt and Babylonia; but the question of the importance of ancient Phoenicia in the genesis of Greek civilization is still very little touched upon, or rather underestimated and even depreciated, in historical science.
Of course, we know, and it is constantly said, that the Phoenicians before the Greeks monopolized navigation and began the colonization of the West; including, incidentally, the Phoenician colonization of Greece itself. We know that these colonies, as well as the “metropolis” of Phoenicia itself, were always located on the seashore and were commercial in character. All this applies equally to the Greeks, but the Phoenicians began their maritime expansion much earlier. In addition to what has already been said, the Phoenicians also had a state-city structure (by the way, this structure at an early stage of development had the cities of Babylonia, and for some time even in Egypt, and probably, in general, all over the world), again, earlier than the Greeks. Already here one would think that the influence on the Greeks must be undoubted; and as we shall see further on — it is even much deeper and stronger than it is usually considered.
Phoenician colonies in Greece during the Dark Ages
This “Phoenician question” is not emphasized much, if only because all of the above is considered to be the reason for the unique development of Greece. Considering Phoenicia itself from this point of view, as it were, forces us to conclude that the reasons for the success of the Greeks are different from the generally accepted ones. Such an approach forces us to take all the overlapping places out of the brackets of our equation. And this deprives us of most of the usual and very reasonable explanations. And then in our investigation of the “phenomenon of the Greeks” we lose the trail, we are left almost empty-handed, which is extremely inconvenient.
But one could go the other way, and insist that the Greeks’ explanations of success still work properly; in that case, the Phoenicians must have at least started down the same path that the Greeks started a little later. And if Phoenicia had rich trading and maritime polities, had alphabetic writing, etc., which is certain — where is their high culture? Where are their philosophers? Why do we know so little about the Phoenicians? I will not answer these questions, as I myself do not know the final answer to them; there is very little information about the Phoenicians.
We know that even in their heyday they were monarchical and oligarchic states with a large property stratification. The degree of their proximity to ancient civilizations, which set the tone of social life in the entire eastern region, is of no small importance in explaining the failure of the Phoenicians. Such proximity rather inhibited cultural development. We can only hope for future archaeological discoveries that we will find at least a few authentic Phoenician literary works. On the basis of what is available now, little can be said for certain. In my opinion, however, it seems to me that all evidence points to the Phoenicians having a very advanced culture (if only because of the probable influence of Minoan Crete), ahead of Egypt and Babylonia, or at least not inferior to them.
In this article I only want to briefly characterize the circumstantial evidence for Greek-Phoenician connections, without regard to exactly how advanced the culture of the Phoenicians was.
“Phoenician” myths
The most interesting for us are the legendary characters that Greek mythology itself associated with its origins. Phoenicia’s own history, religion and mythology are a second order matter, given their fragmentary nature and lack of a prescribed connection with the Greeks. The Greeks, however, see the matter this way. The king of Tyre and Sidon (the largest cities of the Phoenicians) named Agenor was the son of Libya, the daughter of the king of Egypt named Epaphus (and the son of Zeus from Io). Thus the Phoenicians are painted as “grandsons of the Egyptians and children of Africa”. Agenor’s father was the sea god Poseidon himself, from whom Livia gave birth to a second child, Agenor’s twin named Bel. Bel later became king of Egypt, like his grandfather Epaphus. The whole myth is one continuous reference, speaking of the Egyptian origin of Phoenicia and Greece. This Agenor had many children, but for Greek mythology the most famous and significant were Cadmus and Europa.
Once Zeushaving turned into a bull kidnapped Europa, who liked him, and lay with her on the island of Crete, where she remained to live further, becoming the mother of Minos, Radamanthus and Sarpedon. As a whole, her destiny has developed even well, in fact it has taken in a wife the tsar of Crete, and as there were no children from this marriage, the further governors of island became descendants of Zeus and Europe. However, Phoenician relatives knew nothing about it, so worried Agenor sent four of her brothers in search of his daughter, forbidding them to return home without their sister.
The brothers, by the way, never found her, but in the process of searching they traveled all over Greece.
After an unsuccessful search, the chief of Agenor’s sons, the Phoenician Cadmus, was forced to settle in Greece. Legend attributes to him the founding of the city of Thebes in Boeotia(where Europa was also honored). In his wanderings Cadmus also visited Rhodes, also bearing traces of Phoenician colonization, where he offered sacrifice to Athena Lindia. “The Arabs who crossed with Cadmus» settled on the island of Euboea, which is also interesting, because it is the same island from which the history of Greek colonization will begin, the location of the famous trading polities of Chalcis and Eretria.
The Greeks associated the advent of the Copper Age with the appearance of Cadmus; he is also the legendary inventor of Hellenic writing (historical fact, the Phoenicians brought the alphabet to the Greeks). Sailing from the East to Greece, he stopped on the island of Santorini (Thera, Fira) and left some of his companions there. Later, Teras (Thera) arrived on this island, after whom the island was named. This island is known today as the brightest place of preservation of cultural monuments of the Minoan civilization. It is here, on Teras, the oldest (XVIII century BC) Greek writings were found. And recently (in 2003) a letter from the king of the state of Ahhiyawa (that is, apparently, the Mycenaean power) to the king Hattusilis III (c. 1250 BC) was found. This Greek king mentions that his ancestor Cadmus had given away his daughter to the king of Assouba, and certain islands came under the control of Ahijava. The king of the Hittites responded by claiming that the islands belonged to him. This conflict over the Asia Minor coast chronologically coincides with the dating of the Trojan War. And if this is so, the Achaeans directly derived their descent from the Phoenician Cadmus.
In general, the role of the figure of Cadmus for the Greeks cannot be overestimated. Cadmus was not the only one who went in search of Europe and continued to live outside of Phoenicia. Having made sure that it was impossible to find his sister, his brothers settled in different countries, founding other royal dynasties.
The first of the brothers (Thasos) settled in Thrace, founding there the city of Thasos on the island of the same name (the colonization of this area is historically confirmed, there is also the Phoenician colony of Abdera nearby). Another brother of Cadmus, Phoenix , is the founder of “Phoenicia” (a certain united Phoenician kingdom); according to another version, he went to Africa and stayed there, which is why Africans are called Punyans (mythological explanation of the colonization of Carthage). Cilicus, in the manner of his brother Thasos, called the land he conquered Cilicia. Earlier its inhabitants were called Hypacheans. According to the later philosopher Eugemerus (a fan of “grounding” myths), this is the ruler of Cilicia, defeated by Zeus. Sometimes his children are called Phasos and Thebes (a reference to Thebes?).
So there is a brother and a sister, both Phoenicians, and both of extraordinary importance to the genealogy of the Greeks. Cadmus is the ancestor of the Achaean kings, and Thebes is one of the most important cities of antiquity. Europa is the queen of Crete, the mother of the first of the most powerful “Greek” kings. The Minoans and Mycenaeans, as we know, were in conflict; but for later Greeks, they are almost one culture, their great past, and both appear to be linked to Phoenicia.
Now, for completeness of the context, let’s go a little on the “line of Europe”. One of the sons of Zeus and Europa was Rhadamanthus, who was famous for his justice, as it was he who, according to legends, gave the Cretans laws. At some point, he probably killed his brother (Minos), for which he was banished from the state. While in exile, Rhadamanthus settled in Ocalea in Boeotia (near Thebes, which is obviously not accidental) and married Alkmena, the mother of Heracles (already the widow of Amphitryon). The name of Rhadamanthus became nominal as a strict judge. So it is not surprising that after his death he, as a reward for his justice, became, along with Minos and Eak, a judge in the afterlife (according to another version — on the “Islands of the Blessed” together with the titan Kronos). His instructions were set forth in Hesiod’s poem “Great Works” (by the way, Hesiod came from Boeotia, and Phoenician roots are not excluded). Later Hellenistic rationalization of myths already stated that there was a historical ancient Rhadamanthus, who first united the cities of Crete and civilized it, established laws, claiming that he received them from Zeus. And Minos, who ruled later, only imitated Rhadamanthus.
The story of Heracles’ mother is also not accidental, because the kings of Sparta traced their ancestry back to him, and the Spartans themselves believed that they owed their laws to Crete (so we see here a triangle of Crete-Sparta-Thebes). Later, archaeologists found recorded laws on Crete, but not from the Minoan period — and those actually turned out to be similar to the Spartan laws. The philosopher Socrates, according to Plato, considered these laws to be the best, and put Sparta and Crete on the same level in this matter. So, perhaps it is not accidental that the Spartans did not want to build walls, as it was accepted long before them in the Minoan civilization.
King Minos is the most famous of the sons of Europa — he is the legendary founder of the Minoan civilization and the father of “thalassocracy” (maritime hegemony, as Samos or Athens would later be). He is father to Androgeus, Deucalion, Glaucus, Catreus, Eurymedon, etc.
Minos drove the Carians out of the Cyclades and established colonies there, placing his sons as rulers, and succeeded in capturing Megara and extending power to the mainland. When his son Androgeus was murdered in Athens, Minos forced King Aegeus to pay tribute, 7 young men and 7 maidens every year, or every nine years. It was believed that these captives were condemned to be eaten by the Minotaur who lived in the Labyrinth. This lasted until the hero Theseus (son of King Aegeus) killed the Minotaur. Archaeology has confirmed that the palaces of the Cretans were built with a labyrinth-like layout; and not only was the Bull their religious symbol, but there were traces of ritual cannibalism of children.
Crete and the spread of its cultural and political influence.
Subsequently, the great-grandson of Europe and grandson of Minos — Idomeneus, will be one of the main allies of Agamemnon and Menelaus in the campaign against Troy, and put up one of the most significant flotillas. It turns out that even in Trojan times — Crete is one of the strongest parts of Greece. But all these ruling dynasties raise themselves to the Phoenicians, and according to mythology it was the Phoenicians who showed the Cretans the beauty of the state system, established laws (the good for which the Greeks later called even mediocre fools “Sages”), and the Greek alphabet was quite consciously raised by the Greeks themselves to the Phoenicians.
Phoenician pre-philosophy
Diogenes of Laertes has a lengthy mention that philosophy could theoretically have arisen much earlier in the East. He himself, however, does not think so, for he feels contempt for barbarians; but he says about the existence of Eastern doctrines that were older than Greek ones (not worthy of the name of philosophy, apparently), and he himself trusts this information. The general picture is approximately as follows:
“… the Persians had magicians, the Babylonians and Assyrians had Chaldeans, the Indians had Himosophists, the Celts and Gauls had the so-called Druids and Semnotheans (Aristotle [probably his student] writes about this in his book On Magic and Sotion in Book XXIII of the Successions); the Phoenician was Oh, the Thracian was Zamolxis, the Libyan was Atlanteus.”
Mochus of Sidon was an ancient Phoenician philosopher from Sidon, who lived at the end of the 2nd millennium B.C. The exact time of Moh’s life is unknown, Greek authors usually define it as “the era of the Trojan War”; but this is most likely just one of the synonyms for the phrase “long ago”. Only the recognition of Mochus as the oldest of the Phoenician sages is certain — Diogenes of Laertes calls him a proto-philosopher, placing him next to the legendary Atlantean.
Mochus was an astronomer and historian (as were members of the Greek school in Miletus), but is best known as a “physiologist,” that is, a researcher into the nature of things (the main theme of all early Greek philosophers). Moss formulated his own conception of the creation of the world, according to which the “primary elements” were Aether and Air. He also believed that, like language, which consists of letters, the world also consists of indivisible particles, thus becoming the “father” of the atomistic theory, later revised in different versions by Pythagoras and Democritus.
In addition to these achievements, Mochus is considered the founder of a philosophical school, the first in his time, which included Chalcolus and Darda, mentioned in the Bible. According to the late antique philosopher Yamvlichus, Pythagoras also communicated with representatives of the school of Mochus, which means that it continued to exist at the same time as the school in Miletus. Unless, of course, all this is not one continuous modernization of late antique authors, which is very, very likely.
Mochus is mentioned in his works by Strabo, Josephus Flavius, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes of Laertes, Tatian, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Suda; i.e., this is by no means an isolated mention, although all of them probably simply depend on the Stoic Posidonius, who first mentioned the Phoenician from the sources available to us, and he did so probably because Posidonius himself came from the same Sidon.
The “Libyan” Atlante, not a titan but the first king of Atlantis, is also associated with Phoenicia. He was the son of Poseidon and the mortal woman Cleito. Similar versions are found in the works of Eusebius and Diodorus; in these accounts Atlanteus’ father was Uranus and his mother was Gaia. His grandfather was Elium “king of Phoenicia” (this was the name by which the Phoenicians called the Most High God), who lived in Byblos with his wife Berut (a hypostasis of Baal). Here Atlanteus was raised by his sister, Basilia (the legendary first queen of Atlantis). Most of the information about the thought tradition of the Phoenicians has come down through the text of an ancient Phoenician author from Beirut named Sanhuniaton, who lived, according to Eusebius, “when Semiramis was queen of Assyria”.
Major Phoenician cities
In three books he expounded the main points of the Phoenician religion, which he drew from the columns of the sacred temples before they were perverted by the priests of later ages. The content of his work in Phoenician was transmitted in Greek by Philo of Byblos in his History of Phoenicia, fragments of which are quoted by the church historian Eusebius in his Chronicle. In particular, Eusebius cites Sanhuniaton as evidence that most pagan gods were based on real historical figures. It turns out that already in those times Phoenician historians were grounding mythology and engaging in rationalistic interpretations.
In Sankhuniaton’s account all titans, including Cronus, come from Phoenicia, and they, the titans, founded it themselves. This surprisingly lies on the Greek legends about the war of gods and titans, for then we get a version of the interpretation of the myth, where the gods (Greeks) are children of titans (Phoenicians), against whom they soon rebelled and defeated their fathers in the struggle (maybe an illustration of conflicts for colonies?). The most important thing for us is that this Phoenician writer also existed before Greek philosophy, and if Moh’s atomism can be deduced from his texts (and this is theoretically, with a stretch, possible) — then Greek philosophy loses a lot of its originality. Although it is always possible, of course, to doubt the authenticity of Sankhuniaton’s texts and all the testimonies about Moha, and to see in them the modernization of the Hellenistic era.
“These Phoenicians, who came to Hellas with Cadmus, settled in the land and brought to the Hellenes many sciences and arts and, among other things, a written language, previously, I believe, unknown to the Hellenes.” (c) Herodotus
In addition to the Phoenicians, Diogenes of Laertes mentions the sage Zamolxis, the main deity of the Thracian cult. The most characteristic elements of the cult of Zamolxis (andreon and feasts, occultation in the “underground dwelling” and epiphany after four years, the “acquisition of immortality” of the soul and the doctrine of a happy life in the afterlife) bring it closer to Greek mystery. It was from Thrace that came the Greek cults of Dionysus, associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries, so prevalent among conservative rural farmers, and generally recognized as having influenced the philosophy of Pythagoras. According to Strabo, Zamolxis himself was a slave of Pythagoras, from whom he learned “certain celestial sciences.” It was also believed that Zamolxis (like Pythagoras) traveled to Egypt, then known as the land of magicians, and learned “some things” from the Egyptians. Back in his homeland, Zamolxis managed to convince a ruler to take him on as an advisor (much like the Pythagoreans convinced rulers in Italy) because of his ability to communicate the wishes of the gods. At first Zamolxis was a priest of the most revered god of the Dacians, but later he succeeded in getting himself honored as a god (which also reminds us of Pythagoras).
In the dialog “Charmides,” Socrates describes his meeting with one of the herbalists of “the Thracian ruler Zamolxis, who possessed the skill of conferring immortality,” and reports:
«This Thracian physician narrated what he had learned from his ruler, who was a god.Zamolxis, the physician reported, taught that one should not treat the eyes without curing the head, and the head without paying attention to the body, and the body without making the soul well.Therefore, concluded the Thracian healer, the remedy for many diseases is unknown to Greek healers, because they do not pay attention to the body as a whole.»
And even this maxim strongly resembles the philosophy of Pythagoras and Pythagorean physicians such as Alcmaeon.
I will not go into more details, but it is obvious that Egypt and Babylon had a direct influence on (->) Phoenicia, which itself had an influence (->) on Greece. All early Greek wisdom is just repeating what had already existed centuries before them, there is virtually nothing new there. The first worldview revolution took place around 900-700 BC in Babylonia and Phoenicia, the Greeks had already adopted it in a ready form around 650-600 in the person of the same Thales. All Greek historians almost unanimously attribute the invention of geometry to Egyptian surveyors (from where Pythagoras’ voyage to Egypt came), but they immediately separated geometry and theoretical mathematics, and also separately distinguished astronomy.
Thus, mathematics was attributed to the Phoenicians, and astronomy to the Chaldeans (Babylon). But later Hellenistic historians considered the practical origin of all sciences to be a more reasonable explanation. Therefore, for them the development of astronomy by the Phoenicians looked much more logical, since they surpassed everyone in navigation to such an extent that they sailed at night in the open sea, and for this they needed developed astronomy (unlike mainland Babylon).
If all this is true, then the development of astronomy and mathematics (here the argument also went through the practical need of traders in bookkeeping) should coincide with the heyday of Phoenician colonization, and this is 900-700 BC, and here also lies another argument. After the Macedonian conquest of Persia — Greek scholars had access to many temple archives, and they compiled a regular calendar of lunar and solar eclipses (what so progressed Thales of Miletus). The calendar starts around 760, arguing that the Babylonians began regular accounting only from that time (in fact, such things could have been done much earlier). Thales made his eclipse prediction in 585, just a century and a half later. Also, it was Thales who was considered the founder of Greek mathematics, and it was only later that the young man Pythagoras learned from him.
But the most interesting thing is not even this, but the fact that the ancient tradition itself considered Thales a Phoenician by blood, and Pythagoras, who studied under him, was also a descendant of Phoenician merchants, and even the more generally recognized teacher of Pythagoras, the poet Pherekides, was also considered, if not a Phoenician, then a man who “got his wisdom from the secret Phoenician books”. As mentioned above, Thebes (Boeotia) was proud of its Phoenician mythological history, but it was from Boeotia that the poets Hesiod and Linus originated. Here is what Diodorus of Sicily wrote about Linus:
«It is said that Linus was the first of the Hellenes to discover the laws of rhythm and singing, as well as to apply for the first time to Hellenic speech the special scripts brought by Cadmus from Phoenicia, while establishing the name and defining the lettering for each sign.These letters are commonly called Phoenician, because the Hellenes borrowed them from the Phoenicians … Linus reached extraordinary heights in the field of poetry and melody, he had many pupils”.
The remnants of Linus’ writings fit very well into the cultural context of Thales and Pherekides, and even go beyond them, even touching on the philosophy of Parmenides. Other legendary hero-poets, Orpheus and Museus, were considered contemporaries of Linus (incidentally, this is around 900-800 BCE, just when the Phoenician cultural upheaval began), and they also have passages highly reminiscent of Parmenides’ philosophy (which greatly devalues his innovation). As mentioned above, even atomism may have been invented in Phoenicia, though this is no great tragedy for Democritus, for before him atomism was actually preached by Pythagoras as well. But as in the case of Moh of Sidon — all this can be safely denied, seeing here late antique insertions and modernization.
The other eastern influences
We have only to mention Diogenes of Laertes’ excerpts on the philosophy of Egypt, Persia and India to finish our cursory review of the pre-philosophy of the East: «The hymnosophists and druids spoke in mysterious sayings, taught to honor the gods, to do no evil and to exercise courage; the hymnosophists even despised death, as Clitarchus testifies in Book XII. Nothing special, except a slight hint at the importance of ethics and, perhaps (but not fact), a philosophical solution to the problem of death, which is considered an achievement of early Hellenism. And here we see practically Stoicism in embryo.
«The Chaldeans practiced astronomy and divination.The magi spent their time in the service of the gods, sacrifices and prayers, believing that the gods listen only to them; speculated about the essence and origin of the gods, considering fire, earth and water as gods; rejected images of the gods, especially the distinction between male and female gods.They composed works on justice, asserted that to give the dead to fire — unholy, and cohabit with mother or daughter — not unholy (so writes Sotion in Book XXIII), engaged in divination, divination and asserted that the gods are to them in person, and in general, the air is full of visions [mystical theory of Democritus], the flow or soaring of which is discernible to the keen eye.They did not wear gold and jewelry, their clothes were white, their bed served them the earth, food — vegetables, cheese and coarse bread, staff — a reed; with a reed they pierced and brought to the mouth pieces of cheese at meals.They did not practise sorcery, as Aristotle testifies in “On Magic” and Dion in Book V of the “History”; the latter adds that, judging from the name, Zoroaster was a star-worshiper, and in this Hermodorus agrees with him.Aristotle, in Book I of “On Philosophy,” holds that the Magi are more ancient than the Egyptians, that they recognize two primordials, a good demon and an evil demon, and that the former are called Zeus and Oromazd, and the latter Hades and Ahriman;Hermippus (in Book I of “On the Magi”), Eudoxus (in “A Tour of the Earth”) and Theopompus (in Book VIII of “The History of Philip”) also agree with this, and the latter adds that, according to the teachings of the Magi, people will rise from the dead, will become immortal and that only by the spells of the Magi and the creature is kept alive; the same thing is told by Eudemus of Rhodes.And Hecataeus informs us that the gods themselves, in their opinion, had a beginning.Clearchus of Sol in his book “On Education” considers the Gymnosophists to be disciples of the magicians, and others raise even the Jews to the magicians”.
Here already very striking is the knowledge of all the above-mentioned Greeks that Persian and Indian philosophy have the same roots (Vedic religion), and strangely enough, they consider the Indian offshoot as later, or less “orthodox” from the point of view of the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion. It is not difficult to see that this description alone is worth more than what the Greeks themselves enthusiastically tell us about their “seven sages.” But the Persian “magicians” are not inferior to the Egyptian priests.
«The Egyptians in their philosophy reasoned about the gods and about justice.They maintained that the beginning of all things is substance, from it are distinguished the four elements , and in completion are all kinds of living beings.They consider the sun and the moon as gods, the first under the name of Osiris, the second under the name of Isis, and the beetle, the serpent, the kite and other animals serve as allusions to them (so say Manephon in “A Brief Natural History” and Hecateus in Book I of “On Egyptian Philosophy”), to which the Egyptians and erect idols and temples, because they do not know the appearance of the god.They believe that the world is spherical, that it is born and mortal; that thestars consist of fire, and this fire, moderating, gives life to everything that is on earth; that eclipses of the moon come from the fact that the moon falls into the shadow of the earth; that the soul outlives its body and moves into others; that rain is obtained from transformed air; these and other of their doctrines about nature are reported by Hecataeus and Aristagoras.And in their concern for justice they have established laws at their place and attributed them to Hermes himself.They consider animals useful to man as gods; it is also said that they invented geometry, astronomy and arithmetic.This is what is known about the discovery of philosophy.»
So Linus, Hesiod, the philosophers of Miletus, Pherecydes and Pythagoras all belong to plus or minus one tradition, the roots of which are partly in the Phoenicians and partly in Egypt and Babylonia, if we are to believe the doxography. As time goes on, the version of eastern influence finds more and more confirmation, and hopefully all these strings will still be tied together at some point on the basis of more convincing sources than we have now.
What does all this mean?
At least, all the early Greek wisdom (the so-called pre-Socratics) — only repeats the already existing before them for centuries, there is almost nothing new. But, in any case, in defense of the Greeks we can say that their lag is minimal. And since there are no names left from the Eastern sages, nothing has changed for us in fact; our heroes are still heroes, just deprived of the title of discoverers.
Heraclitus is striking and stands somewhat apart. The East was too focused on the Whole, on unity; so were the ancient Greek sages. But Heraclitus outlined a conceptual breakthrough (although in a general sense he also shared the concept of the Whole), and in this case, Parmenides’ reaction to him is nothing more than an archaic attempt to “return to the roots”. A separate achievement is the effect of scale. The wisdom of the Near East and Greece is one, but in the East the sages perceived it as a whole, while in Greece this unified “wisdom” was broken into parts and cultivated by “schools”. As a result, there was a total concretization of essentially the same material (Empedocles, Anaxagoras). And when all this mountain of additions tried to cover again as a whole, somehow to systematize — there appeared encyclopedic doctrines (Sophists, Democritus, Aristotle), which had never existed before. Such emergence of separate schools and new systems occurred synchronously with the Greeks in India and China, but the Greeks, nevertheless, were able to go further than their competitors, and this phenomenon still requires clarification of the reasons.
The futility of trying to go further in the knowledge of physical and logical theories leads to a focus on ethics. In fact, the primacy of the Greeks in this area is also called into question. There is evidence that well-developed ethical systems could have existed in pre-Socratic times, or even earlier (if we take into account the “teachings” of the Old Kingdom, etc.). To a great extent this question also depends on the decision about the historical dating of the book of Ecclesiastes and the book of Job. But, in any case, “Eastern Ethics”, even in its most radical version, is still more conservative than Hellenistic ethics, so we can say that the Greeks are still innovators in this matter.
Besides, it is the division of the “whole” wisdom into parts, and the subsequent view of the “whole” from the parts’ side, that sets a quite unique specificity. From a purely formal point of view, even the teachings of the Stoics and Epicureans do not differ much, and sometimes even coincide verbatim. But precisely because of the different starting points, in fact, the “same thing” in its form, and subject matter, leads to quite different worldviews. Such elaborate detail and subtlety of difference clearly could not have been available to philosophers in the pre-Socratic era.
And yet, the picture of early Greek philosophy is seriously altered. It changes seriously, even if we want to consider the history of Greek philosophy in isolation from the world context, in and of itself. And this is what we will try to talk about in the following essays.
This article is a kind of bridge between the «Prephilosophy» series (the previous article in the cycle) and the «Formation of the Canon» series (the next article). In a way, it touches on both of them.
Thales, the first empiricist
“To begin philosophy with Thales” has long been a good tradition, and even in antiquity itself it was considered that Thales of Miletus was the first philosopher, and the first to reason about nature. But after excursions in history of the East and the analysis of poetic tradition, we already understand that everything is not so simple, in fact even in antiquity itself which has created habitual to us image of Thales as the first of philosophers, in cohort of philosophers many of his predecessors were included. We ourselves have seen that Thales was in the context of the activities of the “Nine Lyricists” and the “Seven Sages”, who are no longer classified as philosophers. And this ancient idea of Thales as a man equal to the “Seven” was in many respects justified, because from what we know about Thales — his level of thinking barely went beyond the simplest notions, which had already Solon or Pittacus (notions at the level of mother should be respected, honor should be cherished, friends should not be deceived, etc.). In cultural and world outlook Thales is an open conservative. But we have already considered the fables about Thales, and if we speak about him as a philosopher, the only thing in which he really made his mark as a unique personage was the creation of a special philosophical “school”; or rather a chain of succession of thinkers. This group of sages is now called by us after their place of residence: the “Milesian School”, or even more broadly, the “Ionian Philosophy”.
Certainly, all it is so, only if to consider as a fiction existence of school Mochus from Phoenician Sidon (one of applicants for udrevlenie atomistic philosophy). If Mochus existed, then Thales borrowed the concept of the philosophical school from the Phoenicians. As we shall see further, the most part of views of Thales perfectly lays down in a context of occurrence of views of Phoenicians (earlier we have already told that Thales on blood was rather Phoenician, than Greek), and ancient biographers insisted that he has transferred many knowledge from Egypt. The years of Thales’ life are known presumably (c. 630-548 BC). He is about the same age as Sappho, Alcaeus, Mimnermus, Stesichorus, Solon, Pittacus, and many others. At quite a conscious age his life must have been caught even by the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus. Therefore, we should not think that the “Milesian School” opens some fundamentally new era in Greek culture, it arises synchronously with other cultural phenomena. Up to our days almost no authentic passages have survived, where the philosophy of Thales “in the first person”. Literally few passages have survived, as presented below:
“The primary element Thales supposed to be water» (1). “The earth is held on water, like a plank or ship on the sea, surrounded on all sides by the ocean” (2). “Thales hypothesized that the soul is something that moves. Stone has a soul because it ‘moves’ iron” (3). “Thales was the first to proclaim that the nature of the soul is such that it is in perpetual motion or self-movement” (4). “According to Thales, mind is the deity of the universe, everything is animated and full of daemons” (5).
And what is important to note here is that Thales is interested in the problem of motion; and this is a very important problem in the history of philosophy. Now we are not talking about the physics of any particular motion, but about the independent motion of the whole Universe, about motion in the broadest sense, almost about “motion as such”. From this another theme inevitably develops; that since the cause of motion is the soul (it is also the cause of the will of our body, and it is the will that pushes us to motion), then it follows that since the whole universe is in motion, the soul is not only in living beings, but absolutely everywhere. This view would later be called “hylozoism”; although it is obvious that Thales was not its discoverer; it is a pre-philosophical, primitive and ancient view, observed even among Stone Age people or in the Greek Olympic religion. The main feature of Thales in this context is that he calls Mind the world god. We do not know how this relates to the rest of Thales’ ideas, but in the next generations philosophers will deal with this very thing: the harmonization of nature and Mind. The hypothetical fragments of Thales from the collections of statements of the “sages” say more about it, and we will take them into account in the further presentation.
The theme of “water” as a primary element, strange as it may seem, is not so interesting at all, and even trivial. Already if only because the ideas about philosophical elements existed both before Thales and during his life — and these ideas were already then more developed. Thoughts about the “water beginning” simply repeat mythology, both Greek and Eastern, where at the beginning of time there was no land on earth yet, and the whole world was “Chaos”, or more often “Ocean” (the ancient poets themselves, the same Homer, could consider them synonyms). The cosmogony of his contemporary Pherekid, which is considered much less philosophical and more mythological, is fuller and freer to operate with all the elements at once, and therefore Thales still looks somewhat weak even for his time. If we believe Aristotle, the other reasons for choosing the water element are also taken from everyday observations.
Dying organisms literally “dry up”;
plants need water to grow;
all food is soaked in juices;
and all living things need water;
and even the sperm of all creatures (the beginning of life) is moist.
His very life in the main commercial and maritime center of Greece simply had to inspire him with analogies to ships, and the opinion of the great role of water in the world. Such a life may well have inspired many of the astronomical and mathematical observations, for these sciences were then of an applied nature. From all that we know about Thales, he was most likely primarily an astronomer (as can be seen from the titles of his extant books, e.g. “Marine Astronomy”, ‘On the Equinox’).
So maybe the Neoplatonist Proclus was right when he reported that it was Thales who was the first Greek to start proving geometric theorems. Therein lies his main philosophical contribution. So, for example, Thales learned to determine the distance from the coast to the ship, for which he used the similarity of triangles. And according to one of the legends, being in Egypt, he amazed Pharaoh Amasis that he managed to establish exactly the height of the pyramid, having waited for the moment when the length of the shadow of a stick becomes equal to its height, after that he measured the length of the shadow of the pyramid and received its height. It is not accidental that even centuries after his death, in literary works the image of Thales was accompanied first of all by indications of astronomical interests, and his main attribute was a circlet. All this shows us that already in the time of Thales there were some rudiments of scientific, empirical, or practical approach to the matter. Here separately it is necessary to mention that according to Aristotle, except for a magnet Thales has found out attractive force of amber which is impossible to find out, without that to electrify amber by friction, for example about wool. Hence, Thales could conduct an experiment with electricity, and discover its magnetic properties. What conclusion Thales draws — we already know (motion = animatedness). But now we can assume that the action of the soul was directly connected with electricity. And it sounds already in spirit of modern images about Dr. Frankenstein. Certainly Thales hardly understood that deals exactly with electricity in our sense of this word, therefore his discovery had absolutely no value, neither theoretical, nor practical. But nevertheless we can say that we have before us the rudiments of the experimental method.
Thales’ hypothetical positions on philosophy
In the list of sayings of Thales, as a representative of the “Seven Sages”, there are philosophical lines. But they should be used very carefully, because a significant part of the heritage of the “sages” is a late antique fanfic. Here we may be interested in such statements:
The oldest of all things is god, for he is unborn. The most beautiful is the cosmos, for it is God’s creation. The greatest of all things is space, for it contains everything. Fastest of all things is thought (nous), for it runs without stopping. Strongest of all is necessity, for it overpowers all. Wisest of all is time, for it reveals all. … When asked what is difficult, Thales answered, “to know oneself.” To the question, what is deity — “that which has neither beginning nor end”. To the question whether a man can secretly commit iniquity from the gods — “not only can he do it, but he cannot even conceive of it”.
We will assume that these statements could have belonged to Thales, and if so, we learn many new details here. It turns out that Thales thinks as a strict monotheistic philosopher, and asserts that God is not born (and probably not subject to changeability), he has neither beginning, nor end, and therefore most likely he is infinite. God clearly pervades the entire universe, and it is impossible to hide even his own thoughts from him. He has strictly determinized the world, for “necessity overpowers all.” And this world created by God is in an indeterminate state, because God seems to permeate it everywhere, but he is also its creator (hence, the world, unlike God, is created, and the existence of the world is not necessary for the existence of God himself; their identity in fact turns out to be quasi-identity). In a fragment from the “Refutation of All Heresies” of the writer Hippolytus there is a statement that, according to Thales:
Everything is formed from water by its solidification as well as evaporation.Everything floats on water, from which earthquakes, whirlwinds, and star movements occur.
This makes him the first author of the notion of the transformation of the elements by changing aggregate states. But the most interesting point is the recognition that space includes the concept of space, and objects are in that space. He explicitly derives this notion as a special “reservoir” for objects, and it is possible that he already implies emptiness here. This means that emptiness is also included in the definition of the nature of God. Why all this is significant, we will see next, through the example of Thales’ disciples and followers. But again, this is the most hypothetical part of his philosophical heritage, and it should be kept in mind.
Thales as a politician
To summarize his philosophical positions — Thales does not stand out at all from the thinking context of his epoch, he stands out only as a man who first voiced these ideas on the Greek cultural field, and with a claim to philosophy as a special kind of wisdom. All the strong points of Thales’ philosophy would be developed by his followers (includingPythagoras), and what is much more interesting in his story is that this “first philosopher” immediately shattered the notion that philosophy was incompatible with politics — i.e. practical and social activity. One of the popular fables about Thales tells how he foresaw a future harvest year, so he rented oil mills while the price was low, and then collected a huge income from the sales of olive oil. The story was meant to show that a wise man, if he wished, could easily acquire wealth that he did not need, and so wise men live in poverty of their own free will (this was a response to claims that philosophy is useless). But we also see in this an example that the image of the philosopher was easily incorporated into everyday practice. Most likely, Thales was a personal advisor to the ruler of Miletus; we even have information about two of his recommendations:
In the first, he advises the 12 cities of Ionia to unite into a single federation, the center of which was to be the city of Theos. But this recommendation remained in the drafts.
The second piece of advice concerned joining the coalition against Persia during the Lydian-Persian War. Thanks to Thales, Miletus was the only one who did not fight against the Persians, thus saving itself from destruction.
Even the most famous story in Thales’ life, namely the prediction of a lunar eclipse in 585, had significance on the scale of the entire Lydian state, directly affecting its fate, i.e. this event links him to political history. His ties to seafaring, his story of the oil trade, and his service to a tyrant of Miletus (and tyrants led the fight against the landed aristocracy) make Thales an economic progressive. But his statements as one of the Seven Wise Men — show him as a domestic conservative. In the context of his time, it is still worth considering him as a progressive thinker, given that he made a great contribution to the establishment of philosophy and popularization of Eastern knowledge.
In the end, it turns out that Thales is a court counselor, astronomer, and navigator who believes in mythological ideas about souls and promotes a prototype of monotheistic religion. A conservative in socio-cultural views, but a progressive thinker overall. He is of Phoenician rather than Greek descent, and his main historical achievement and contribution was the development of geometry. All of this is somewhat different from the image that has already managed to be stereotyped.
Anaximander and his Apeiron
A disciple of Thales named Anaximander (610-546 B.C.) was also no stranger to social and political activity. It is known, for example, that he led the eviction of people to another Black Sea colony called Apollonia (today’s Sozopol in Bulgaria). But as a philosopher he is known primarily for being one of the first to write in prose, and for creating the first known map of the world; although this is more geography and literature than philosophy. At least two of the four known titles of Anaximander’s works (On Nature, Map of the Earth, Globe, On the Fixed Stars) suggest that the basis of his work, like that of Thales, was astronomy, and it is likely that it also had applications for sea travel. It is even possible that it was the fruit of their joint labors. It is believed that Anaximander wrote his works not just in prose, but in flamboyant prose, which gave away his love of all things luxurious. Thus, for example, it is said that he aspired to theatrical posture and dressed up in pompous clothes on purpose.
Anaximander World Map
Anaximander (like Thales), borrowed much from the Near East, especially in matters of cosmology and the numerical calculations that depend on it. From astronomical achievements it can already be noted that Anaximander considered the Sun and the Moon larger in size than the Earth, and had a whole theory of lunar and solar eclipses, although again, some sources attribute these achievements to Thales. But it is undoubtedly Anaximander who is credited with the creation of astronomical instruments, particularly the gnomon, as well as models of the celestial sphere (i.e., the globe). And if Thales was evaluated by descendants as a “predictor of eclipses”, then Anaximander over and above this allegedly predicted an entire earthquake.
Speaking of Anaximander’s natural philosophy in detail, he believed that «the beginning of all things is apeiron.It is neither water, nor earth, nor air.It is nothing but matter itself.» This mysterious word is translated literally as “infinite” (or “limitless”), so we can consider that Anaximander’s universe is infinite. Apeiron itself is also indestructible, eternal, not created by anyone, and, most likely, also qualityless. As Epicureans, we are attracted by the fact that such a set of characteristics makes apeiron almost a complete analog of the atomistic theory, with the only difference that apeiron was not concretized as “the smallest particle” (and can be perceived as spatially infinite “matter as such”). Perhaps this happened because Anaximander did not even imply the existence of absolute emptiness; or perhaps simply because it is extremely poorly preserved for us. At least emptiness can be easily deduced from his theory on its own, which means that it was not something impossible, especially since other parts of his philosophical system, or Thales’ possible ideas about space in the cosmos, hint at it. On the other hand, apeiron can also be considered within the framework of the continuum theory. The set of its properties is quite consistent with the ideas of God as a Whole; besides, there is a lot of evidence in favor of this version. And among the hypothetical expressions of Thales we find that God had the quality of the infinite.
What is this magic apeiron, from which everything in the world is born? One can imagine many things, but there are only a few basic versions: (1) it is a pantheistic idea of God-Nature, who, having all the attributes of divinity, “creates from himself” our visible world; (2) or, following Aristotle’s version, it is not a qualityless prime matter, but a banal “mixture” of all elements, which would later be used by such philosophers as Empedocles and Anaxagoras;(3) or, more likely, both are true, that it is both a divine nature and a “mixture of elements” that the deity has produced “in himself.” From this may arise the notion of dualism, which was expressed in the words of Anaximander “theparts change while the whole is unchanging”.The analysis of what happens in the material apeiron (in the parts) is naturphilosophy, and the analysis of what happens in the original apeiron (in the whole) is theology. At the same time, it is obvious that naturphilosophy must be subordinate to theology. One can argue about these versions, it is no longer possible to prove anything for sure. Therefore, many will insist that Anaximander is the purest materialist. However, in such a case it would be strange that his followers do not pay any attention to this and develop his ideas in a theological way (e.g.Xenophanes).
Speaking about such an important category as motion, Anaximander believed that it is eternal, and that motion is even more ancient than moisture (and perhaps this is another property of apeiron). After all, it is due to motion that one thing is born and another perishes. And moreover, from this chain of reasoning Anaximander comes to the conclusion that the opposites (parts)united in it are separated from the one (the whole), and that the birth of things is not due to changes within the four elements (i.e. not by solidification or evaporation), but by means of their separation from this one. Of the opposites, the most basic are warm and cold, wet and dry. They influence the undefined “matter/apeiron”, resulting in different elements, combinations of substances, etc. The pair of dry and cold forms earth, wet and cold forms water, wet and hot forms air, dry and hot forms fire. Yes, it is possible to assume that here there is also a change of aggregate states of each of the elements, but this change also occurs due to the action of some of the opposites. In general, all world processes, which can only be imagined, occur due to the eternal movement of opposites. And here we have before us a ready-made theory of dialectics, which explains the principle of “motion as such”; and at the same time we have before us also a theory of determinism:
«From what all things derive their birth, to what they all return, following necessity.They all punish each other in due time for injustice.»
As far as the sources allow us to judge, apeiron is in rotational motion. If this is transferred to a single solar system, we can imagine how the mass of matter, due to this vortex motion, begins to stratify, and the heaviest of the elements (earth) is in the center, and the lightest — surround it with three rings. First comes water, then air, and then, as the lightest element, fire. Somewhere between air and fire, Anaximander depicts three spheres that cover the sky like an onion. In this conception, all visible celestial objects are essentially one object, i.e., celestial fire; and the only differences are that at different locations in the different “spheres” are different sized “holes” through which this light reaches us, in case the holes from the different spheres cross each other (these representations can also be found in Eastern cosmology). In this interpretation, celestial bodies for Anaximander are not even bodies at all, but only light, and then eclipses are the result of overlapping holes.
Geology and the theory of evolution in the system of Anaximander
Of some value is also the way in which he justified the immobility of the Earth. As mentioned above, he proceeds from the fact that the Earth is at the center of the world, which is proved by the vortex motions observed empirically in water and air. He transfers these observed motions to the whole world, and it turns out that the heavy elements are pulled toward the center of the world, and the heaviest element of the four basic elements was the earth. In addition, this explains why objects in the heavens revolve around us. Based on this premise, one could already understand why the earth is immobile; the center of the world automatically implies immobility. But Anaximander put forward an additional argument. For this purpose, he invented the principle of «no more this than that” — a principle actively adopted in the future by the atomists Democritus and Epicurus. Located at the very center of a strictly symmetrical universe, the Earth has no reason to move in one direction or another: up or down, in one direction or another. All directions are equally preferable, and therefore it is unrealistic to make a choice; there is no basis for a verdict as to why one direction is better than another. Hence, the Earth is stationary. And as we can see, it does not move for reasons of logical order, and is naively endowed with its own reasoning.
If we assume here that the earth is spherical, then the universe is also a sphere (and Anaximander is known as the compiler of some kind of “sphere” that was most likely a globe of the earth). The only thing that contradicts this is the vast amount of ancient evidence that Anaximander envisioned the earth as a cylinder, or drum, with two planes. In that case, the “no more this than that” argument loses its beauty. The contradiction here is on the face of it, and which interpretation is wrong, the sphere or the drum, is unknown. It may be a contradiction of Anaximander himself. But the contradictions do not end there. Despite his tendency to reason about the universe as an unchanging whole, Anaximander argued that the worlds (which for the Greeks was synonymous with the Galaxy) are many. In Augustine we find this passage:
«And these worlds … are then destroyed and then born again, with each of them existing for the time possible for it.And Anaximander in these matters leaves nothing to the divine mind.»
While Thales says quite differently: “mind is the deity of the universe”. Perhaps in this we can see the internal divisions of our conventional “school”, which does make Anaximander a more materialist-oriented thinker. This issue would later take center stage for the next generations of philosophers. Many will fall into confusion, and assume that the world (and on the universe) = god. Which means Anaximander is saying that gods can be born and die. Cicero and many others believed so (which is already more similar to Thales’ concept, but only allows for polytheism). But this view is opposed by writers such as Aecius, who defends Anaximander, and stands on the point of the inactivity of Anaximander’s “mind”. A perfectly reasonable assumption, especially since Cicero elsewhere tries to make almost all ancient thinkers (pan-)theists. But this does not in any way cancel the fact that Anaximander could be a pantheist within the whole universe, and consider the individual worlds as its numerous parts, which can be subject to change.
Worst of all, if the world and the universe were one and the same (i.e. if the plurality of worlds were not allowed), then the argument about the vortex motion of apeiron would work quite well. But now it turns out that all the above arguments about elements concern only a single world. The nature of apeiron now becomes unknown, and in what relation to each other are the worlds, whether they also move in a circle relative to some center — it is impossible to understand. All these contradictions and confusions will be solved by subsequent generations of philosophers.
And the most original development of Thales’ ideas was a completely new idea of Anaximander about the origin of life, and, in particular, the origin of man. In his account, the earth was originally completely covered with water, but the “heavenly fire” evaporated some of the moisture, lowered the sea level, and thus the earth emerged, and the vapor itself became the personification of the “element of air”, which also set in motion (air = motion = soul) the celestial objects. Here the transformations of the elements, beginning with water, come full circle. Thunder, lightning and storms were explained with the help of physics, where no mythological allegories with Zeus’ feathers were allowed, and stars were simply manifestations of a single fire. In such a scheme of spontaneous transformations, life originates somewhere on the boundary between earth and water (in a swamp). But even here Anaximander allows another contradiction, because in this case life arises only after the earth has emerged from under the water. But in separate passages he says that since originally there was no land, the first creatures were exclusively sea-dwellers, who only later had to adapt to life on land. And so even the first humans were fish. It turns out that life arises before the earth rose out of the water. So Anaximander has the first systematic ideas about the evolution of species. From the presentation of the elemental “cycle” of transformations it becomes clear to us why the philosopher represented consciousness, the human soul, in a very ordinary way, as a “water-like essence” (the element in its very essence represents movement).
Anaximenes and meteorology
The importance and further influence of Anaximander on posterity was enormous, far surpassing that of his teacher Thales, for two succeeding generations of philosophers drew from Anaximander. Alas, but the preservation of his works is too low, and this influence can be understood only indirectly, comparing the available passages with later authors. Still, we see that Anaximander’s system already contains all the later problematics, while he has these problematics relatively uncontradictorily united, and in his “apeiron” he was already one step away from atomism. The worse all this affects the evaluation of the subsequent representative of the “Milesian School”, who bears the name Anaximenes (approx. 585/560 — 525/502 B.C.), who already looks mediocre and weak against the background. Most likely he still caught the living Anaximander and even was directly trained by him. All sources agree that the main difference between the two is that Anaximander’s apeiron acquired qualitative certainty as the element of air. And that all further arguments almost completely duplicate Anaximander, including even the idea of cosmic spheres and the nature of stars. There is no way we can agree with this. Therefore, having depicted all the similarities, we will emphasize the more important, the differences.
In general, Anaximenes reduced all causes to the limitless(apeiron) air. The reasons why he did this can be different. For example, speaking about the question of motion, Anaximenes directly continued the logic of his predecessors, following Anaximander he recognizes air as a kind of allegory of motion, and from him he borrows the thesis that motion is more important and older than all other origins. But if so, then motion = air, and so it is the first element, which by its property is infinite. This reasoning may directly stem from a consistent reading of Anaximander. Besides, air could have been chosen because of a more universal and convenient explanation of phenomena of a complex order, the same questions of animation of bodies, their movement (there is no need to invent how the soul and movement arose, if these are already properties of air, which is the basis of everything). It is not clear, of course, why he did not like Anaximander’s universalism, but going back to the elements, the choice of air seems a very logical step.
«Just as our soul, being air, binds each one of us together, so breath and air encompass the whole of creation.»
Speaking of the cosmos, here Anaximenes also has a few refinements to Anaximander’s system. For example, there is only one cosmic sphere (not three), and it is an ice wall with fire leaves attached to it (not holes drilled in it). Like our earth itself, the cosmic objects are flat like leaves, which is what allows them to float in the air. If the principle remains the same (flat circles on an invisible sphere far above), the explanation is already somewhat different. In addition, Anaximenes stated that the Sun and Moon are of a special nature; that they are burning blocks of earth that are lower than the sphere of stars (according to Anaximander it is the stars that are on a lower tier). So it can be said that Anaximenes was more accurate in his teaching. This can be suspected even in terms of the stylistics of their writings. Readers complained that, unlike the “pretentious” Anaximander, he wrote very dry prose without artistic embellishments.
However, despite all this “scientificity”, according to Anaximenes, air is a god(Aecius, who had already defended Anaximander’s atheism before, calls to understand also under this “god” — the forces pervading the elements and bodies). The fact that air pervades the whole world and animates it, quite logically leads to the conclusion that it is God, in this we can see a clear borrowing of Thales’ ideas. As we said above, it is quite possible that apeiron was a god for Anaximander. Following his predecessors, Anaximenes considers motion as eternal; thanks to it all things turn into each other. But he entered the history of philosophy by the fact that, unlike his predecessors, the element of air is distinguished by the density or rarefaction of its essence. At rarefaction fire is born, and at densification — wind, then fog, water, earth, stone. And from this everything else already arises. From the degree of “thickening” its substance can change several times in succession, but at all stages it is the same substance. Even in the form of earth, air remains air. This is not a cycle of transformations of the four elements, but as if to postulate air as some special element standing above and including them all. It is also the first detailed expression of the idea of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative differences.
“Out of air, when it is condensed, fog is formed, and when still more condensed, water is formed; still more condensed, air becomes earth, and the greatest condensation turns it into stones.”
Of course, we observe the transition of aggregate states even in Thales (not to mention Anaximander, where this view is also present). His predecessors, too, used opposites to explain such transitions. One significant difference here is that Anaximenes does not want to recognize “dry and wet” or “warm and cold” as substantively important elements from which the elements are generated. It seems absurd to him, because it should be just the opposite, such properties are consequences of material elements, not their cause (of course, if apeiron was a qualityless matter, then it also had consequences of the material substrate, but Anaximenes has already rejected pure apeiron). In this respect Anaximenes is even more materialistic than his predecessors. His pair of opposites concerns the properties of matter itself, not the effect we evaluate with the senses.
Here we may suspect that Anaximander also knew this, for he believed that the earth is heavier than fire; Anaximenes literally explains why this is so. Therefore, either Anaximander could also have used a similar explanation, or he proceeded from trivial obviousness without offering an explanation. In the latter case, Anaximenes made a significant addition explaining the difference in the weight of the four elements. More importantly, in order for the density of matter to change, we must allow for its porosity, some semblance of “emptiness,” the displacement of which increases the density. Although it is impossible to prove this with precision, Anaximenes is at least in extreme proximity to the discovery of elementary particles and the void. Certainly such detail helps to interpret meteorological phenomena more correctly. Anaximenes himself is considered primarily a meteorologist. That is, he explained all the phenomena of nature; not only thunder, lightning and hail, but also, for example, the phenomenon of rainbows and the causes of earthquakes.
So, speaking about the “secondary character” of Anaximenes, we cannot condemn the pupil of Thales and Anaximander for a huge number of borrowings, for he was their pupil. This is not surprising at all, especially since he introduced a number of innovations. What is surprising here is that he even needed to return to the level of Thales’ ideas, choosing one of the four elements as the central one, and talking about “divine Providence”. And yet, with that said, it is believed that it was Anaximenes who directly influenced philosophers such as Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and even the atomists. Therefore, it cannot be said that he was secondary within the Milesian school.
The Milesian school taken as a whole
Since we are already talking about the “Milesian” school, it is worth remembering about Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 535-476 BC), who was even scolded by Heraclitus in his time, accusing him of stupidity along with Xenophanes and Pythagoras. This Hecataeus was an active politician who participated in the Ionian revolt against the Persians, and was also almost the same age as Parmenides. The sphere of his professional activity was history and geography (he improved the map of the world created by Anaximander); and until the appearance of Herodotus’ “History”, it was Hecataeus who was considered the best of the authors on this subject. Like the rest of his contemporaries, including Heraclitus, he was most likely extremely arrogant, since the phrase: “I write this as it seems to me true, for the accounts of the Hellenes are manifold and ridiculous, as it seems to me”. That said, almost all of his writings are heavily influenced by mythology; he even engaged in a critical evaluation of mythology, attempting to “ground” that very mythology.
If the myth says that King Egypt and 50 of his sons came to Argos, Hecateus says: “Egypt himself did not come to Argos, but only his sons, who, as Hesiod composed, were fifty, but as I think, there were not even twenty”; and when it was necessary to explain what Cerberus was, he decided that it was a snake, and also began to diminish the scale of mythological pathos: “I think that this snake was not so big and not huge, but [just] scarier than other snakes, and therefore Eurystheus ordered [to bring her], thinking that it is not possible to approach it”.Skepticism as a methodological principle is evident throughout. Not so big, not so much, etc. If someone would say that the pyramids in Egypt are huge, here too, Hecateus would probably say that they are not so huge since ordinary people were able to build them. The subject of geography, the occupation of politics, the scientific approach to business — all this we have already seen above, and it is possible that Hecateus did not pass by the philosophers of his city, and is also worthy to be considered part of the “Milesian school” of philosophy. In addition to Hecataeus, the life of Cadmus of Miletus, another historian-logographer, who, like Anaximander, was regarded as the progenitor of literary prose, was around the same time. He wrote “The Founding of Miletus and All Ionia” in 4 books, and because of his name was later considered the man who adapted the Phoenician alphabet to Greek (the mythology of a hero named Cadmus is known to speak of this). But because of the connection with the mythological character, there are reasons to doubt that Cadmus existed at all. The noble families of Miletus often painted themselves as descendants of the Phoenician Cadmus, and this character may simply be an attempt to justify that “that” Cadmus was a resident of this city.
Besides Cadmus, one more woman can be attributed to the “Milesian” school, in connection with which there are also few convincing arguments, but nevertheless, it is worth to mention it so that the article about the “Milesian” school would be as exhaustive as possible. Cleobulina of Rhodes, daughter of the tyrant of Rhodes Cleobulus, one of the “Seven Sages”, became famous as a poetess and compiler of riddles. In some sources (Plutarch) she is considered to be a “companion” of Thales, which means that it can also be considered that she was significantly influenced by Milesian philosophy. Plutarch even wrote that Thales characterized her as a woman with the mind of a statesman. But Laertes generally claimed that she was the mother of Thales, which is not at all plausible, but at least confirms that her name was perceived as part of the story of Thales.
All distinctions made by us between Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes can be made only on the basis of very scarce extant materials. Most likely, all philosophers of this school complement each other, and everything that Thales and Anaximander knew was also present in some form in Anaximenes (even if it is not directly in the fragments that have survived). Conversely, something of Anaximander’s ideas may have been shared by Thales. It is just that all this cannot be learned directly from the sources. If we consider the “Milesian School” taken as a whole, several common points can be traced here:
Recognition of the elements as the beginning, which ideally, with maximum abstraction, reaches apeiron.
The soul is the cause of motion, and it is almost the universal God Himself. Everything in the world is animated, because the whole world is in motion (and the whole world is in motion, because everything is animated).
Motion (= soul?) is the result of various opposites making the transition from one to another, and this motion is eternal. Contradictions are distinguished from unity, for in reality the world in the Whole is one.
In addition to the unity of opposites, Anaximander has the idea of “Whole and parts” where all changes occur in the parts. In other words, in spite of all this struggle of opposites within the universe, it still remains “as a whole” the same as it was, nothing is added to it.
Here we see all the necessary ideas for an exhaustive understanding of the next generation of philosophers. For as it is said — “nothing arises from nothing”.
Researchers of ancient culture widely know that in the Epicurean school of philosophy there is practically no «logic» section. It is replaced by a certain «Canon«, which is a set of recommendations for the proper conduct of the conversation, so that no unnecessary difficulties arise (strictly speaking, logic was developed by Epicureans, especially inductive logic in the school of Philodemus of Gadara, but this does not cancel their general negative attitude to logic, as such). Epicurus, armed with the theory of the sophist Prodicus, advised a clear definition of the meaning of all words, so that no ambivalent interpretations would arise. More precisely, he advised defining the varieties of the same word according to the different contexts; each time the meaning changed, it should be spelled out. The simplest example is the notion of pleasure, which can be bodily, mental, active, and passive; or it can have related words that differ in meaning (pleasure, bliss, joy, etc.). If such a distinction is made, there will be no room for unnecessary sophisms in arguments. Conversely, if this is not done, every other disputant will try to use the same word in different contexts, deliberately creating confusion and false problems (as Cicero, Plutarch or even Aristotle often did). Basic information about this «Canon» can be found in Diogenes of Laertes and in a letter to Herodotus:
«Canonics is an approach to the subject… usually canonics is considered together with physics: canonics is the science of criteria and beginning in their very foundations… Epicureans reject dialectics (rhetoric, logic) as a superfluous science — in physics, they say, it is enough to use words corresponding to the subjects… All subjects were called by their names, which the grammarian Aristophanes considered a reprehensible feature of his script. His clarity was such that even in his essay «On Rhetoric» he did not think it necessary to demand anything but clarity. And in his letters he addresses not «I wish to rejoice», but «I wish well-being» or «I wish for good»» (c) Laertesian.
So, first of all… it is necessary to understand what is behind the words, so that all our opinions, investigations, perplexities could be reduced to them for discussion, so that in endless explanations they would not remain unexamined and the words would not be empty. In fact, if only we want to reduce to something our researches, perplexities, opinions, it is necessary for us at each word to see its first meaning, which does not need a proof. And then we must cling to sensations in everything, cling to the present momentum of thought or any other criterion, cling to the experiences we undergo, and this will give us the means of judging what is waiting and what is unclear. And once this is settled, we must move on to the consideration of the obscure.
(c) Letter to Herodotus
At first glance, one might say that here the Epicureans are proposing the development of a new, more complex, philosophical language that would remove all ambiguity by creating new concepts for each individual subject. However, this is not the case. On the contrary, it is a question of simplifying and rather using ordinary language. Ambiguities must be resolved, not by creating new terminology (for this is absurd, making language more complicated will only create more problems of understanding), but by first grasping all possible ambiguities, to avoid incorrect syllogisms and sophisms. By the way, of all antique schools the Stoics were the most prominent in creating a new philosophical language («Newspeak»). Already from here it is almost obvious that because of the principal inter-school conflict, the Epicurean position had to be at least somehow different. And this is indirectly confirmed by the complaints of famous Roman rhetors that the language of Epicurus and his followers was crude and simple, and that in matters of rhetoric the Epicureans were in principle ignorant.
A few excerpts are appropriate here. Quintilian says (II 17, 15) that he is not at all surprised about Epicurus, «who shunned all teaching, judging from what he wrote against rhetoric». Believing that rhetoric is «the sophistic science of making speeches and creating proofs» (frg. 49 Us.), Epicurus considered oratory a bad art (cacotechnian, frg. 51 Us.), and if political speech is acceptable, then here «nature itself is what guides speech, not any art» (frg. 55 Us.). Plutarch on this point says (Adv. Col. 33) that: «they write so that we do not oratory.» Moreover, the position on the simplicity and clarity of speech was so strict that Epicurus seems to have claimed the natural origin of language. This was a very precarious position, since language (like logic and mathematics) is generally regarded among empiricists as an instrument artificially created by men to facilitate communication. In the question of the origin of state and law, Epicurus stands on just this ground, defending the theory of the Social Contract (i.e. an «artificial» agreement, although «naturally» created); but in the question of language, he suddenly takes a position close to that of religious thinkers (i.e. a fundamentally «natural» origin). Of course, he means «naturalness» as a result of human interaction with the environment, which occurs as if «by itself,» in all parts of the world in the same way, and precisely because of secondary differences in climate conditions we have differences in the languages of the peoples of the world. But it is still a noticeable dissonance, because Epicureans recognized that language is not created by contracting; and this dissonance is hardly accidental. In our opinion, this is the result of a principled position on the Canon, which required special reservations about the origin of language as well.
Everything seems clear with «Canon»; there is «good» and there is «good» (e.g., good as action and good as character, or good as wealth). But why is logic itself considered superfluous and harmful? Let’s try to figure it out.
Epicurus, following the sophists, accepts the separation between «nature» and «art». Logic by its very definition is a description of the thinking process, i.e. it is an artificial construction. This thinking process itself appears before its description; this means that already on the substantive level thinking does not need «logic». Similarly, and more generally accepted, human speech does not need the rules of syntax. Converging thinking (living, real thinking) with its description on drawing paper is as silly as preferring a painted lobster to a bucket of real crayfish.
One could argue that without the creation of the science of philology, we would not have a literary language either, and then everyone would be talking at the vulgar level of the common folk. Or that the study of the laws of nature (physics/chemistry/biology) retains enormous utility, and while nature would work just as well without them, our goal is to use them non-naturally. Even more than that—we can say that these laws have always existed, just have not been discovered and described (so we go into Platonism and are already succumbing to religion). Applied to logic, this means that it can exist unnoticed by us, and in us ourselves; yes, it also retains the right to develop thinking «artificially,» the ability to go beyond its natural limits.
This all sounds good in theory. Only in practice, even after 2000 years, numerous «logicians» cannot reach a consensus on anything beyond the rules of logic themselves (but even here there is no consensus either). If everything worked as it should — people would quickly acquire an equally calibrated mind, thinking according to strict and universal rules of thought. And as a result, all human preferences and avoidances would become about the same. In practice, we do not see this, and never will (even in the separate caste of scientists). Again, in theory it all sounds so good that one can become a smart person after reading just a few textbooks on how to «think correctly. But that never happens in practice. It is an oxymoron to become intelligent by reasoning strictly according to a textbook scheme. As a rule, such schematism is considered a model of the absence of intelligence. If it were possible, the smartest creatures on earth would now be computers; but we all know that this is not the case, and that machines are devoid of intelligence.
There are only two options here:
Either logic cannot in principle be an adequate reflection of the essence of thinking (just as kinematics can never fully reflect all the nuances of motion and «merge» with real motion, and a tree drawing can never become a three-dimensional tree with bark texture), and then attempts to reshape reason by its standards = conscious dumbing down.
Either logic still hasn’t evolved enough, and when it finally does, machines (even in their current form) will quickly become the smartest creatures in the world.
In any case, modern forms of logic, as deployed, are too enormous to be used in everyday life, and the question concerns only machine consciousness. The first option promises mankind no advantages; and the second would even belittle us before our own creatures. And even with all the cumbersomeness of the modern logical apparatus, if we arm a machine with it — it (at least today) is still stupider than any human who has never held Aristotle or Frege in his hands at all. And then we either have to work with this logic, which is extremely inconvenient; or we have to work with logic in simpler, antique forms, which we are capable of using in our lives. Except that these «old logics» have invariably led, have led, and will continue to lead to empty verbiage, which in practice is still the case today.
Systematic thinking
What is offered instead? Against this easy path, which offers the hope of becoming a genius immediately after mastering a dozen basic laws and a couple of guidebooks (which should already look unreliable), is the demand for systematic thinking. For the mind, as for a parrot’s beak, it is not so important what to hone it against. To become intelligent, to think correctly, can be done in different ways. But all of them, one way or another, will require broad erudition and further systematization of the accumulated facts. The more information from different spheres of life we accumulate, the more often this information contradicts each other. The more we accumulate, the more precisely we understand which contradictions are the most absurd. This «tangle of information» to some extent «calibrates» itself. So Heraclitus was not quite right when he said that knowledge does not teach intelligence. To a certain extent, it does, although, of course, there are differences depending on the basic vector that any given philosopher arms himself with in advance, i.e. depending on his «school,» on the path chosen for further systemic formation.
«Intelligence» has always consisted in man’s being able to put together a system of views out of a «mess» of facts. As the practice of different regions of the world over thousands of years has shown, there are fewer than adozen such «systems». People invent them everywhere, just as people everywhere invent stabbing weapons and a roof over their heads. We are not surprised by the universal development of material culture, knowing that all people have the same needs and the same number of limbs. Why should we be surprised that possessors of the same tool (the brain) create the same products («systems of thought»)? A person with Heraclitus’ approach would be able to call a bearer of almost any of these thought systems «smart» (let us forget that the historical Heraclitus considered almost everyone in the world dumb). And then there is the question of the legitimacy of choosing exactly «that, and not another» system. And the main criterion of their suitability is their consistency under the pressure of more and more new facts from more and more diverse spheres of life.
Incidentally, amateur logicians themselves are also one of the «basic schools,» and they can also create their own systematic philosophy. But this does not mean that they will necessarily be less contradictory; the essence of systematic thinking is precisely that within their system — there will be fewer and fewer contradictions, regardless of the accepted basic postulates. At least this is the case in the simple, initial stages of the history of thinking; for example, in the same ancient Greece. But over time, under the pressure of new facts, all naturally educated «schools» are forced to readjust, responding to new questions. This is where all the weaknesses of each line of thought are revealed.
On Philosophy and Science
From the above, it becomes obvious that these «external» facts, which are the touchstone for philosophical systems, are themselves separate from philosophy. And then the question arises — what is philosophy itself, and what is separated from it? We share the practice developed in the course of history of distinguishing the natural sciences from philosophy (though not entirely). Positivists and Marxists usually conclude from this that only logic or dialectical logic remains in philosophy. Psychology, which is also the offspring of «mind»-has also supposedly found its own «science» (and science, as we know, is not philosophy, yep). Why, then, logic cannot become a science and thereby kill the very notion of philosophy in general is another question. Only in fact, this is a false dilemma, and the title «science» does not solve anything. At one time, communism was also called scientific, and this label can be applied to anything.
So, philosophy works with everything that does not have a strict factual explanation, as well as with the interpretation of the facts obtained. What we call science works with the facts themselves, with their extraction by means of the experimental method. Pure «theorists» within the individual sciences are, in principle, philosophers themselves, but of an extremely limited type (immersed exclusively in their scientific sphere). They are not aware of their kinship with the archetypal traditions of thought, and so they do not fully fit into the chain of professional «philosophers. They do not seek a way out of the deadlock for thought in general(and this deadlock is already in the very fact of the pluralism of systems, while the truth must be unified), but only seek a way out of the deadlocks of their individual science.
In order to get out of the crisis of the history of thought, we need to overcome pluralism, and for this purpose we need to realize it, see all schools, understand their strengths and weaknesses, take a clear position, and test it with criticism. Modern philosophical traditions either take pluralism itself as a given and do not seek any way out; or they do not recognize it at all, and call philosophy — logic and philology (the same concrete sciences as physics). At the present stage, one might even say that philosophy is in such a deep crisis that it hardly exists at all.
That philosophy is not only about reason, and that it affects the way of life, and thus the way of life itself affects reason and the way of thinking, is not the place to say here. But in brief, the basis of philosophy is ethics, the criteria of evaluation for preference and avoidance, the ways of being in society. Human character is a complex concept, and character can be changed. Determining a relatively more correct way of reasoning thus coincides with determining a relatively more correct assessment of one’s place in society and choosing the right strategy for everyday behavior. But we are talking about reasoning here, not about ethics in general, so let’s move on.
So, the most «bad» of the basic postulates create systems (of both reason and ethics) of such poor quality that they simply die under the weight of artificial crutches that have time after time saved the dead system from unsolvable contradictions. And that system is considered preferable, which at all times, in all eras, shows the best consistency with «external» phenomena. The task of correct thinking is to choose the «first among equals» system of thought, and working with it further — to strive to the status of the Universal Man to the best of one’s ability.
Homo Universalis
The question naturally arises here. What else is a «Universal Man» in an era of overabundance of information and narrow specialization in the scientific field? And with it another question — why would an epicurean with a modest goal of a happy life need all this?
The answer to this is basically one — alienation(a Marxist concept). Under conditions in which everything created by man is alienated from man, including both individual objects and concepts of thought; under conditions in which the individual man understands almost nothing of what is created by «man in general,» and when this ignorance puts the real individual man in a subordinate position relative to his own creations — no freedom, no peace of mind, no escape from fear is possible. And the main way to overcome alienation is the knowledge of the entire experience of humanity and the abolition of the strict division of labor. These tasks are partly utopian, but we shall see why only partly.
There is no need to know on which «cultural layer» of the earth Troy was found specifically from the Mycenaean era, and on which layer Troy from Roman times was found. It is enough to know that Troy existed, was described by Homer, and after that rebuilt and continued to exist. There is no need to know all the haplogroups in order to understand how paleogenetics works and why it is needed. Simply put, it is enough to have a broad erudition, even without detailed knowledge of all the minutiae, to be free of all insecurities and to earn the status of Homo Universalis. A superficial knowledge of all the sciences (it is quite achievable, to reduce each science to 2,000 page folios, and later for new generations to master it all in some 10 years) will benefit everyone. It will save all of us from professional cretinism. After all, no one demands that the modern Da Vinci is necessarily the best specialist in every field and its specialties. But to know everything in general terms is quite possible. Every person on earth (with the exception of the disabled) can know the basic principles of the bus in which you are riding, without being particularly burdened. And certainly people of science are capable of it.
And this is what Epicurus writes about in his letter to Herodotus.
Who cannot, Herodotus, carefully study all that we have written about nature and delve into our more lengthy writings, for them I have already compiled an overview of the whole subject, sufficient to keep in mind at least the most important things. I wanted it to help you on important occasions whenever you have to take up the study of nature. And those who have already succeeded in examining the whole should remember the main features of the appearance of the whole subject: the general movement of thought is often necessary to us, but the details are not so often. To these general features we have to refer constantly remembering as much as it is necessary both for the general movement of thought on the object, and for all possible accuracy of details, that is well having learnt and having remembered the most basic features. In fact, the main sign of perfect and complete knowledge is the ability to quickly use the throws of thought, [and this happens when everything] is reduced to simple foundations and words. For whoever cannot, in brief words, cover all that is studied in parts, cannot know the thickness of all that is covered. And so, since such a path is useful to all who have mastered the study of nature, I, who have devoted my constant efforts to the study of nature and achieved the world of life primarily through it, have also compiled for you the following overview, which contains the basics of all the teachings.
So the claims of the Epicureans are simple.
Knowledge, reasonableness, is necessary for «ataraxia» (peace of mind), or, similarly, to overcome alienation. True knowledge is achieved by striving for universality, and in the process of accumulating knowledge, erroneous concepts will themselves be excluded from the «system. The system is based on the theory that, other things being equal, always produces the least failures; and the original set of these theories is given to us by the history of the development of human thought itself. All of these theories arise «naturally,» but only one of them will be closest to the truth. To identify erroneous concepts, «logic» is not necessary(and it is already enough to discard it). In fact, it is either useless to people, or harmful and stultifying. But here it is important to note that when we say that logic is useless, we mean that it is useless only for the use of one’s mind. Logic is more than useful in programming and engineering; it is a tool, just as any other descriptive system of signs (mathematics, languages). All of these are useful, but they are not absolute and all-encompassing. According to the principle of universality itself, all this must be studied (at least in general terms), but one should not expect any panacea for all problems and the easiest way out. The road to correct thinking cannot be too easy, and even if logic can find its complete form, if it can be reduced to a textbook of 200 pages, even such a miracle will not make anyone smart until this «somebody» has processed the same huge body of information that we are talking about.
A private conversation with the average logician is always a conversation about words. A conversation with a person who does not understand analogies, does not understand a sentence if a mistake is made somewhere or a word is mixed up. Being a pedant, he cannot grasp the logic(here it is, the obvious (!) ambiguity of the word «logic», which would already be tripped over) of his opponent’s presentation of thought. No sane person would call such a biological machine a rational being. Much more reasonable is someone who can understand that «a snowy cold box» most likely implies a freezer or refrigerator, and can quickly obtain clarification with leading questions. But intellectuals from the world of logic are not — they will simply declare that they do not understand what is being said, and will not even try to understand. It is not enough for them to say «most likely. They want absolute accuracy. So such people have only to read David Hume and abandon cognition altogether, playing with numbers for the sake of the game itself, because at least there they will get their coveted accuracy.
In the course of our ongoing polemic with the «Stoicism and Stoics» group, a crucial question was raised about the difference between philosophical systems in their very essence. After all, from the outside it may seem that we are talking about practically the same thing, but described in different words. Russian philological scientists of the 19th century were also prone to this, and we have already given an example of them in publications of our community, and this is especially perceptible in the article of V.I. Modestov. Why does this happen, and why do people try not to notice the differences? And what are these differences, we will talk about this in the article attached below.
P.S. — Probably not the final version of it, but you have to start somewhere.
I. What is ethical philosophy
Let’s start with the most important one: with which of the sophist tricks did stoicism manage to earn most of its popularity and appeal? This trick is a kind of substitution of concepts. Stoicism’s most popular «trick» has been its system of views on ascetic «practices» of self-control. In Stoicism our attention is actually drawn to the demonstrative asceticism itself, the cultivation of qualities of moderation, restraint, equanimity, equanimity, and, shall we say, spiritual strength. The main «trick» here is that all these qualities, long before Stoicism, were inherent in every (!) philosophical system in general; and even in the non-philosophical views of various traditional societies. The image of the courageous man who overcomes difficulties and achieves his goal, trying to be «the best» in everything, and especially to fulfill his role as an exemplary father of the family — it is older than philosophy itself and is common in absolutely all continents of the planet. Even the central term in this system of views, namely «arete» (or as it is more commonly translated, virtue, valor), which is regularly used by the Stoics was used in roughly the same connotations even before the battle of Thermopylae. Take at least the ancient poet Hesiod, when he says:
«Vice is attained easily, but mastering arete is difficult.»
It is no secret that Plato and Aristotle, as well as virtually all philosophers before them, including, «even,» most of the sophists, were against vice and for virtue. Therefore, we will not argue in detail these almost self-evident things, as well as the fact that every man strives «for all that is good and against all that is bad» — we will not here. The interested reader can independently search for information on Plato’s ethical views; they are publicly available.
It is better to say that «practices of self-education» are a central part of any philosophical system, precisely because philosophy has always transcended a kind of «commonplace». Philosophers themselves have dealt with questions that seldom occupy ordinary cultivators; and in order to deal with these questions (often of no practical-material utility), one must at least indoctrinate oneself in the importance of these abstract questions. And to do this, it is always necessary to re-evaluate values, to separate all the secondary from the self-evidently important virtues; and, most difficult of all, to relate one’s views on the «important and unimportant» to those of one’s own community. The philosopher has to overcome the resistance of the «crowd,» which will remind you time and again that you are doing things that are not so important, and that your views are bizarre and harmful, corrupting society (remember, for example, the execution of Socrates). Moreover, if a philosopher has gone down the road of studying the wisdoms of various peoples of the world, that in itself already implies the study of some materials, and even a lot of materials. And this in turn implies assiduity, patience, training of memory and, most likely, even systematization of this knowledge in the head. In order not to be «like the crowd» and to defend your right to a unique system of values, you need to show your superiority in practice, to earn the «crowd» a certain share of respect, to earn the right to your «eccentricity».
For example, it is possible and even necessary to epathetize the public. What philosophers do for this is to prepare themselves for hardship; for the fact that sooner or later fate will take away your relatives, deprive you of your home after the war, etc. And here, when all fellow citizens show weak character under equal conditions, the «wise man» himself demonstratively maintains his composure. Or, like Democritus in his time, you can prove to the community that you really know a great deal, and that you are even capable of applying your erudition in practice; as, for example, the sages of various regions could be useful in farming, making calendars based on astronomical observations, and thus making the choice of appropriate times of crop rotation easier.
It is possible to provoke the public in various ways, even very provocatively, as the Cynics and Christian martyrs did. The main thing is to assert one’s right to a position. But here the question arises, why actually do it, what kind of childishness is it? Among other things, this is necessary in order to better convey the very essence of one’s own position! Without philosophical «practice,» it is harder to master «theory» itself. If you want to become a sage, be kind and apply (at least at first) this «childish» behavior and attitude to the world around you. It should help, and indeed does help, to grasp wisdom more effectively already afterwards. Practices differ from philosopher to philosopher, as do the theories themselves. But they are always the same, their main essence is — you have to learn to control yourself, so you don’t get carried away by the «flow» of public morality. If there is no control, and if the system of views does not differ from the views of the «crowd,» then what is the difference between a «sage» and a «philistine» at all? In that case, you just live your life as you see fit, go with the flow, and are nothing special.
Now we have to go back to the beginning, and remind us that the «philistine» theme has long since included conventional «manliness,» all those balanced and «wise» straw man decisions, playing one’s social role and overcoming hardships. There’s even room for emotional control, if only at the level of «boys don’t cry». What, then, is the difference between the practices of philosophers? Their main difference is that these practices are more consistently linked, and that the «wise man» demands of himself a more stable fulfillment of accepted norms. The common man often falters, which is unacceptable to the sage. So it is primarily a question of the degree of control, which the sage consciously brings to greater perfection. That is, the basic «sage» may even be considered an «ideal philistine,» in the sense that he takes the generally accepted virtues to their logical limit. In this respect, the benchmark is precisely the philosophy of the Stoics; therefore, it is closer to the worldview of the rural peasant; although the peasant himself is certainly not a Stoic.
So, the philosopher and the philistine, and thus almost anyone in the world, fight for all that is good and against all that is bad, and have similar ideas about virtues and vices. The main difference is only in the degree of their consistency, in how you yourself follow these universally recognized standards of quality. And besides, as mentioned above, the philosopher differs from the philosopher in that he makes a system out of it, proving rigorously why one vice is more acceptable than another, or why one virtue is more important than another, and why a third virtue should not be considered a virtue at all anymore. And furthermore, the philosopher can apply the virtues to atypical situations, such as writing books and studying materials, for which he needs the virtues even more often than in other cases. In short, since the philosopher engages in more activities (the same intellectual work), he also has more space for the application of virtues. And since this is the case, he often has to create a large gradation of virtues, sometimes even applying one word to different situations, and with different contents (for example, one can be a virtuous poet, i.e. a good poet, or a poet who praises the «good»).
With this we have solved, but what is the «trick» of the Stoics? All philosophers, before and after the Stoics, including even the Epicureans, are engaged in self-control, and they use certain practices-meditations for this purpose. By their very nature, all these practices are similar, and the goal is the same states. This is such a general philosophical basis that most often it is left out of the equation, without constituting the specificity of the philosophical teaching, which is usually something more important. No one brags about having received a basic school education, do they? Self-control for the philosopher is that basic education. But the Stoics began to continually emphasize this basis, and due in part to the poor preservation of Hellenistic philosophy in general (which was more grounded and focused on these very practices) — the Stoic texts on meditation are the best preserved. Now the Stoics, taking advantage of this, claim that these general practices are Stoicism per se. So if you are an enemy of the Stoics, you are an enemy of self-control. And in general, if you accept this account of us, and beyond that accept this «trick» of the Stoics, it appears that there is no philosophy at all outside of Stoicism; or the pre-Stoic philosophers who practiced meditation were «Stoics before Stoics.»
Even the fact that Epicurus himself was a very virtuous man is drawn as a contradiction in the Stoics’ account! Supposedly, Epicurus himself was almost a Stoic, but out of his stupidity he left us a system that leads to evil, while he himself did not even use this system, and he disproved it not in words, but in deeds. Although if we take into account the general philosophical character of the basic practices, there is no particular mystery about Epicurus’ virtue at all, and it would be worth considering (which the Stoics cannot do) how this relates to the system of Epicureanism, because it is clearly not a coincidental «contradiction».
And here we come to an explanation of the phenomenon which brings all philosophical schools together in the public’s perception, including the Stoics and Epicureans, and makes us ask: «What’s the difference?!» Taking as a given that «being a Stoic» = maintaining equanimity and self-control; we find quotes from Epicurus on the same subject, and realize that these are very similar things. If being a Stoic is using basic philosophical practices, then all philosophers are by definition Stoics, the differences disappear. It also adds fuel to the fire that the poorly preserved Epicurus got most of his «stoic» quotations from a source («Vatican saying») that was compiled by an unknown ancient Stoic. These were quotations collected at the end of a collection of works by Stoic authors, and were clearly chosen to strengthen Stoic philosophy. Not surprisingly, with their discovery, the number of people willing to equate the two historically antagonistic systems also increased.
As we have already discussed, general philosophical practices are indeed common to all philosophers; for this reason they are common. The Stoics usurped them, making them synonymous with their own philosophy. If, however, we take these practices back out of the brackets in order to better see precisely the specificity of each of the teachings, differences will obviously have to appear here. This is what we should turn to now.
II. Key Differences
In addition to the practices themselves, the Stoics and Epicureans have a certain similarity even in terminology, which is due to the context in which these philosophical schools emerged. After all, they emerged at the same time, and used approximately the same philosophical jargon, which was formed before their own emergence. At the same time, initially they even had a common enemy, the school of skeptics, from whom some of the definitions were borrowed.
Ataraxia and apathy
Behind these general definitions are the main differences; the first thing they have in common is the main goal — eudemonia, which can be translated into Russian as «well-being,» «prosperity,» «good life,» or «happiness. A goal that has really stood since at least the time of Democritus (where the term occurs); although it is clear from the etymology that this goal has existed since Paleolithic times. This notion is directly related to some permanent state of the sage, which in our schools has somewhat different names. For the Epicureans it is the state of «ataraxia,» and for the Stoics it is the state of «apathy» (though they too sometimes use the term «ataraxia,» which was first used generally by the skeptics).
Ataraxia (ἀταραξία) of the Epicureans, which from the ancient Greek translates as equanimity or serenity, implies the absence of mental and physical pain. It is a life without fears, and especially without fears of the supernatural. This is why the naturalistic physics of atomism was so important to the Epicureans, ruling out the possibility of divine Providence, life after death, ghosts and curses, and all kinds of non-contact magic and conspiracies. No witch doctor can curse you, no god can decide your fate at his whim. No mistake in choosing a religion will lead to eternal afterlife, etc. One gains responsibility for one’s life and peace of mind from knowing that only a real, physical, or social force can affect that life. No fears, there is the self-control of the philosopher = no heartache = ataraxia achieved. In the presence of fears, even self-control does not solve the main problem, for although mental pain will be suppressed, it will still be felt. Otherwise, the principle is really simple. Every time you should roughly calculate (the so-called «hedonistic calculation») whether a pleasure you’ve had will be followed by mental or physical pain. This is already a reason to think about giving up such pleasure. But more importantly, will the pain outweigh the pleasure? If so, then giving up such pleasure is beyond question. This is how the state of ataraxia is maintained by the Epicureans. Avoid all suffering, and, if possible, find some moderate pleasure that is not fraught with serious consequences.
Stoic apathy, opposed on the opposite side, is translated from ancient Greek as «impassivity,» «equanimity,» and «indifference. The term came into Stoicism from the philosophy of the Cynics and the Megarics, where it was a much stricter requirement almost to «be as stone. But while the Megarics and probably the Skeptics interpreted apathy as almost complete «insensibility,» the Stoics already interpreted it as a positive ability to overcome affects (above all the four main «passions»: sadness, fear, lust and pleasure) arising from a mistaken assessment of «external» things. It is broadly similar to ataraxia, but with a number of differences. Both of these states are attained by ascesis, exercises in philosophy, and exercises in virtue; both allow one to «look from the outside» at various external phenomena, and at the internal phenomena of the soul.
Nevertheless, the interpretation «in the spirit of the Megarics» has always left its mark on Stoicism as well, despite the constant desire of the Stoics to emphasize their humanity. Seneca, for example, thought it correct to translate the Greek word «apathy» as «a soul inaccessible to all suffering,» and in this respect it would seem almost synonymous with ataraxia; and even more so, for Epicureanism allows suffering for future pleasures (for example, suffering from studying the sciences so as not to work as a loader afterwards). The difference is that the Epicurean considers suffering, if it is already here and now, objective and inevitable. You can work with it, you can suppress it, you can overcome it, but it already exists as a fact, and you cannot argue with it. This is why suffering should be avoided. Stoics, on the other hand, take their apathy to the point where they proudly proclaim the absence of suffering in any case; that is, there is no point in avoiding working as a loader, studying science and going to university — a true Stoic will not suffer behind a chair or at a construction site. The absence of suffering is not a motivation; a stoic supposedly never feels anything of the kind anyway. This is the difference; «apathy» is more ultimative, taking the idea of self-control to an extreme and grotesque level. And although the Stoics insist that it is more of an «even emotional background,» which is only necessary to avoid going to extremes in affect—that very even background, if you look closely, is the demand for insensibility, in the crudest sense of the word. Stoicism leaves room for two interpretations, and constantly mixes them together.
But in a moderate interpretation, the stoic sage certainly experiences emotions, he is a man after all; but he does not experience too strong emotions (i.e., affects).
If we talk about the already announced goal of «ataraxia,» that is, the absence of fear of the supernatural in the sense that we abolish the supernatural altogether; then Stoic «apathy» does not lead to such freedom for man at all. The Stoics fully recognize the Gods/God as the real creative force in the world; and all the problems and uncertainties associated with such views (something the Epicureans feared) — the Stoics neutralize by postulating their own nothingness. If God willed it, who am I to go against it? If the general commanded it, who am I to arise? Especially since in the strictly deterministic world of the Stoics, the very order of the general was predetermined by divine will, which means that any «earthly» problem was sent by God to trial, and to oppose fate is to blaspheme; one can read about this especially abundantly in Marcus Aurelius. It is «apathy» in the worst sense of the word that should have helped the Stoic to treat everything with indifference. Whole nations dying? They always have. Did your child die in the war? Everyone dies sooner or later, it’s inevitable, there’s nothing to be sad about. Have you become someone’s slave? Well, we’re all slaves to fate. What’s all our wailing worth against the backdrop of an infinite universe? We are nothing, nothing, and against the backdrop of eternal time, our life is even shorter than a moment. Life, in fact, loses all value in itself. And all this is not an epicurean fiction, but an almost literal retelling of stoic maxims. For example, the famous legend of the stoic Epictetus, who was a slave:
One day, when the master in anger began to beat the slave, Epictetus nonchalantly said: «You will break my leg,» and when he did break his leg, he added coolly: «Didn’t I say you would?» Epaphroditus was surprised at the patience of his slave and ashamed of his cruelty, and Epictetus was left lame for life. (Orig., Contra Celsum, VII, 53).
One can debate at length whether it is good to be moderate and belittle oneself by being actually better than one says one is. Whether this is also a virtue, etc., but the fact is that this approach of constant self-deprecation leads to a transition from the «good» version of stoic apathy (which exists in fact only for excuses), to the worst and most utterly insensitive of its variations. One is brought up in the framework of the stoic ethic as a nobody, and this cannot but affect him.
Virtue and Pleasure
But ataraxia and apathy are only the means to the chief key to the good life. For the Epicureans it is pleasure and prudence, but for the Stoics it is virtue («arete»).
As Epicurus says in a letter to Menekei, «Prudence is dearer even than philosophy. From prudence came all the other virtues». In fact, it puts pleasure in relation to virtue itself, and vice versa. But it would be better to talk about what is more in the ear, and what in fact is the «final goal,» i.e. the principle of pleasure. For the Epicureans, it has an essential systemic function; human sensations, as practice shows, except in rare pathologies, are objective, at least as far as the most basic things are concerned. For example, almost anyone can be pricked with a needle and feel the pain of the prick. The epicurean theory of cognition itself is based on sensualism(there is nothing in the mind that is not given by the senses); where by the senses is meant the study of the world by sight, hearing, taste, smell and tactility.
The funny thing is that sensualism is also a Stoic theory of knowledge, and Stoic sensationalism itself has come down to us in a much more systematic account. But while for Epicureanism it is the foundation of all philosophy, for the Stoics sensationalism played the role of a pure tool for arguing with the skeptics when it became important for the Stoics to prove the reality of the existing world.
So, it turns out that without sensations one cannot know the world, and without them the mind cannot arise. This means that at birth a human being deals only with sensations. Initially an infant cannot yet be considered reasonable, it does not possess meaningful ideas. And what do all the «five senses» bring us, again at the most fundamental level? They bring sensations of pleasure and suffering. Heat can be pleasant, or it can leave burns, etc. Therefore, from birth it is the sensual feelings that are the most fundamental things for humans; in particular, their pleasantness or unpleasantness, which make us treat different things with caution, or, on the contrary, seek them out for ourselves. This is also what sentient animals do; but the fact remains that the principle of pleasure is a fundamental principle of human nature. It makes no sense to come to an infant and read to him Letters to Lucilius in order to make him a perfect sage. Even further on, when reason already gradually emerges (as a derivative of sensual cognition), does sensual experience lose its importance among adults? Isn’t the principle for prioritizing among them still the same pleasure and suffering? Suppose not for the wise man; but is the «philistine» deprived of reason, and not a human being? This is why Epicurus says that: «pleasure is both the beginning and the end of blissful life; we have known it as the first good akin to us, with it we begin all preference and avoidance, and to it we return, using undergoing as the measure of all good.»
Ultimately epicureanism states that virtues of the highest order, whether risking one’s life or sacrificing for eternal glory, or martyrdom to spread one’s religion, or exploits in war to defend one’s homeland, are also done for pleasure, just that these pleasures are different, called different words (such as self satisfaction, happiness, etc.), but the point remains the same. If a person didn’t think of his sacrifice as an admirable act, he wouldn’t have done it. People try to be ascetic only because they take pleasure in the fact that they can do things unavailable to others. They are content to conform to their ideals; and for the sake of that contentment they do things. In other words, as Epicurus says: «The beginning of all these things and the greatest of the goods is reason; it is more precious than even philosophy itself, and from it came all the other virtues. It teaches that one cannot live sweetly without living reasonably, well and righteously, and [one cannot live reasonably, well and righteously] without living sweetly: for all virtues are akin to the sweet life, and the sweet life is inseparable from them».
Epicureanism thus simply postulates the importance of pleasure as a statement of fact. That it is the ultimate goal means only that it is the most fundamental principle explaining all ethics; a comparison with atomistics is appropriate in this respect, where «atoms» are the smallest particles of matter, to which all the diversity of things are ultimately reduced. This does not mean that all things are equally preferable, that there is no difference between water from a spring and water from a puddle, since they are equally composed of atoms. Similarly, stating that pleasure is fundamental to living beings does not mean that the goal of an Epicurean’s life is to chase pleasure. All criticism of Epicureanism comes not only from a lack of understanding, but also from an unwillingness to understand; from a reverent fear mixed with disgust at the vicious term «pleasure».
This is all about pleasure. As for the other key to the blessed life, i.e., «virtue,» Epicureanism considers it secondary and derived from pleasure, just as knowledge is derived from sensual experience. But the Stoics do not consider it necessary to examine where the concept of «virtue» comes from; they do not answer to the end whether it is already innate in children (although they try to prove this) or is acquired through experience. They simply state the fact that «in my community this is the way it is, and therefore virtuous». In part they find «virtue» in the abstract analysis of morality. Having already acquired reason (unknown from where, but rather innate), the Stoic creates a strict division of all phenomena into «good» and «bad,» and demands that in all things one always act «well. Where does this moral assessment come from? According to the Stoic, from pure reason; but, in fact, from the customs of a particular community. Stoicism simply ignores the arguments of the Sophists and Epicureans that notions of morality vary from people to people; that the very categories of «good» and «evil» can change places depending on the particular situation, and that sometimes there really can be a lie for good. The Stoic will not divide the kinds of «pleasures,» for him all pleasures are pleasures in one way or another. And all bad words are in one way or another «bad. Hence, concludes the Stoic, pleasure is bad and reason is good. Nothing else interests him. The Stoic paints a caricatured black-and-white world for ease of perception.
And they are not even interested in the fact that if Fate has determined you to be an immoral «animal,» then obeying Fate and qualitatively following this role is already virtuous according to their own definition! After all, how else can stoicism justify the necessity of evil? Only by saying that from the point of view of God-Logos, evil does not exist, and that extremes are necessary for motion within the Whole-Logos, and motion is necessary for its life, just as blood circulation is necessary for preserving human life. If we disrupt the movement within the Logos, i.e. try to fix Destiny and create a utopia without bad people and without wars, the Logos will die, and with it all of us, the cells of its organism. In fact, of course, it will be possible to declare postfactum that the construction of utopia was also the Logos’ goal, otherwise it would not have materialized in a deterministic world. But the very reasoning of the Stoics to justify an evil that is already here and now sounds like this. There is no point in resenting evil because it is good for the Logos; and in resenting good for him, you are acting unkindly. So the classic Stoic argument is framed in such a way that it must recognize the necessity of the existence of a «virtuous corrupter,» which is necessary so that «virtuous sages» can arise in his background (incidentally, also a thought from Marcus Aurelius about the fundamental necessity of evil).
Here another problem is revealed. A stoic might say that one cannot consider an «animal» person virtuous because he had the inner freedom to become a better person. This is an important point for Stoicism, for if Destiny decides everything, then what is the coolness of the fact that you have become a stoic sage? Partly because of this natural vanity, and partly to spread their philosophy, the Stoics decided to grant free will to the mind, so that all your achievements on the path of virtue would not seem like nonsense. But in doing so, the Stoics completely destroy the entire logic of justifying evil in the world; they ruin the very basis for their «apathy,» which is supported precisely by the idea of the necessity of evil for the Logos, and the relativity of that evil. Why do the Stoics challenge the status quo granted them by the Logos from above? Why lead people out of their delusions and into the path of wisdom? Why do they care about it? Won’t the corrupters continue to exist from ages past? Why then write treatises against pleasure? Such contradictions in Stoicism number in the dozens.
But we have strayed too far from the subject. So how do the Stoics themselves see the situation, and why is it that «virtue» is the ultimate goal of life, and thus the thing to pursue? The most obvious one is because, by doing good deeds, we are happy (for our goal is «eudemonia,» as we remember from the beginning). Thus, Stoicism simply takes Epicurus’ position, and merges with him on this question without his noticing it. Where does virtue come from? It comes from the understanding that one must be «for all that is good, against all that is bad.» And what is good and bad, where did their understanding come from? As we’ve seen, it’s complicated there. But more simply, the Stoics simply give in to valiant images from their own culture, wherever they were born. The funny thing is that even a universal ethic of «goodness in general» can only be built on an epicurean basis, allowing for the principle of empathy, and representing the pain of others. It turns out that killing is fundamentally bad and is «evil» because all living beings fear pain and do not want to be killed. The golden rule of ethics — «Do not do to others what you would not want done to you» — is actually based on Epicurean ethics, and is built on individualism. The Stoics have a problem even here. For the Logos, everything is good, individual murders are good; the whole (society, the state) is more important than the parts (individuals), so one cannot rebel against state tyranny; but suddenly one can (!) if power is immoral, and tyranny is such by definition of types of power, and as a rule, historical tyrannies were anti-aristocratic regimes.
Determinism and Freedom
The problem and conflict between the two schools, which we have already partly discussed earlier, lies in the relationship to freedom and determinism. Stoicism tries in a specific way to defend free will (to become Stoic), while generally recognizing the world as strictly deterministic. This stems in part from the quite theological division of the essence of man, and indeed of the whole world, into the soul and the body. Although in strictly canonical Stoic dogma, as in Epicurean dogma, everything in the world is corporeal, including souls and Gods, the Stoics regularly incorporated the typical notion of the immaterial soul. And over time, especially during the so-called «Middle Stoic» era and among the Roman Stoics, the materialistic version of Stoicism weakened and weakened with each generation until Stoicism finally merged with the Neoplatonists. There was no other way out of the situation, for in the name of classical «materialism» as understood by the New Age, one would have had to sacrifice free will. And this would have led, but from a very different entrance, into the same building of individualist nihilism. For, immediately, we would have to state that since everything is determinedly deterministic, we should not consider criminals as criminals, and we should give man the freedom of his «natural» impulses, of his «natural» qualities. And there it is very close to hedonistic motives, which cannot be condemned a priori if they do no harm to society as a whole. This option was by no means allowed by the Stoics, so the contradiction could only be resolved by recognizing classical «dualism» and eliminating the Stoic version of materialism. It was necessary to drag into the theory a special soul, free from the mortal shell of the body.
But at the same time Stoicism itself would be eliminated (which happened in practice), since strict determinism was one of the school’s most «trademarks. With the recognition of dualism in the name of justification of free will, thanks to mystical notions about the properties of the soul, Stoicism dissolved into Platonic-Christian doctrines. But in Stoicism itself, the sequence of finding happiness through the notion of determinism looks something like this: (1) gaining reason, (2) recognizing patterns in the world and determinism, (3) finding one’s place in the world, virtue, (4) happiness.
Epicureanism, where the postulation of the free will of man, while simultaneously denying strict determinism, is a very different matter. And, most importantly, this free will was not based on «dualism,» this theory did not require any metaphysical entities at all (unless we count atoms themselves as such).
But it is better to give the floor to Epicurus at this point, for he says: «Who do you think is higher than a man […] who laughs at fate, which is called by someone the ruler of everything, [and instead claims that other things happen by inevitability,] other things by chance, and other things depend on us — for it is clear that inevitability is irresponsible, chance is wrong, and that which depends on us is not subject to anything else and is therefore subject to both censure and praise. Indeed, it is better to believe in fables about the gods than to submit to a fate invented by physicists; fables give hope to propitiate the gods by reverence, while fate contains inexorable inevitability. In the same way, chance is to him neither a god nor a crowd, because the actions of a god are not disorderly; nor an unreasonable cause, because he does not think that chance gives man the good and evil that determine his blissful life, but that chance only brings forth the beginnings of greater goods or evils. That is why the wise man thinks that it is better to be unhappy with reason than to be happy without reason: it is always better that a well conceived thing should not owe its success to chance».
In his exposition, «inevitability» is allowed, just as causality is allowed (the Stoics often claim it is not), but it is not fundamental. At the most basic level, Epicurus endowed his atoms with the property of deviating from a straight line, which does not at all invalidate causality, if only at the level of macroobjects. But not everything in the world is strictly inevitable, and this causality cannot be taken down to the very first principles, because at this level we find just randomness. But then we see that the sage of Epicurus must not rely on chance, which does not suit him just as well as determinism. Everything must rely on reason, which is what gives people true freedom of choice. And even «it is better to be miserable with reason than to be happy without reason,» he says. So Epicurus correlates free will with cause and effect, defending it without the assumption of supernatural entities. This is how he differs from the Christians, and from the Stoics. The scheme goes like this: (1) acquiring reason, (2) freedom (both from fears and freedom of choice), (3) right choice, virtue, (4) pleasure.
It looks extremely similar; it all begins with reason and ends with happiness. The only difference is the attitude to freedom, but even here we can say that the Stoics (like the Marxists, they are eerily similar in everything) postulate «freedom as a deliberate necessity. The Epicureans, on the other hand, postulate simply «conscious freedom. Both schools believe that reason liberates them, but only one of them does not limit action to a contrived scheme. He who believes that he knows his Destiny in advance restricts himself a priori to following the «right role,» and in this case there is little freedom to speak of.
The difference in approach
All this mess in Stoic philosophy is created only because the Stoics took a complex concept («virtue«) as the foundation of their doctrine; they took a product of the long development of human culture, which itself often changes in the course of the development of societies. In their system of views, «virtue» and «reason» are magic words and wands. But the concrete application of virtue depends on a mass of factors. As for the Epicureans, their ethics are built on a more fundamental basis, given to us by nature, and very simple and self-evident in its essence («pleasure«); which does not even need to be conceptualized, and which is directly felt by almost everyone. Is there room in the Epicurean system for all the stoic virtues? Yes, there is, but the Epicurean simply does not delude himself about the nature of these virtues. Here is the key difference! Yes, a «cynical» attitude toward what society considers to be good deeds does make it less likely that those deeds are actually done, makes it less likely that one wants to do all those things gratuitously, etc. But for Epicureanism, the most important thing has always been that very «prudence«; or, to put it another way, «sanity,» which in the words of Epicurus is «dearer even than philosophy.» It can also be called «free-thinking,» as the Early Modern Epicureans did, implying the same struggle with various «chimeras,» along the lines of the afterlife and divine providence, coupled with a belief in fortune-tellers, which the Stoics of all generations loved so much. The Epicureans always preferred freedom in all its manifestations, and always put it in direct connection with the acquisition of reason. So even Stoics’ favorite «reason» also finds a place in Epicureanism, and what a place! «It is better to be miserable with reason than to be happy without reason» — this is Epicurus’ view.
Someone deceives himself (a Stoic) and creates «chimeras» out of those words that are considered «good,» he tries in awe to banish from decent society all «bad» words. And while composing a system of views out of «all that is good» and against «all that is bad,» in reality he creates not the ideal system he is looking for, but a poorly working eclecticism, the whole essence of which consists in the words: «try, endure and achieve the best you can». It is no coincidence that Stoicism in the twenty-first century has entered into a strong alliance with literature for motivation and success in business. In our age, and in our society, the image of the rich man in a suit with «principles and strong character» is considered the best. Therefore, in our age, and in our society — stoicism creates literature to deify this image. Well, someone (the Epicurean) does not base his views on chimeras, does not treat words with such strict seriousness, is not afraid of «bad» words, and does not fall on his knees before «good» words, but treats it with genuine sublimity, as if from the outside. And in analyzing different societies in different eras, such a person will not be able to praise the ideals of his society as the best for all time.
Being Epicurean implies a certain measure of intelligence; whereas being Stoic implies only praising the good word «reason» (which the Stoic himself barely possesses) by drawing a black and white world time and again. In such a person’s mind, if the Epicurean does not praise reason, but extols sensationalism as a basic principle, then the Epicurean has no reason. After all, it is important to keep saying the magic spell so that it begins to work on you. In other words, Stoicism, like all other kinds of moralizing saintly philosophy, is a specific «kargo-cult».
III. Secondary differences
After dealing with the similarities in all the philosophical schools and the basic differences in their ethics, which concern mainly the critical (Epicureans) and uncritical (Stoics) attitude to the place in which you live; to the belief in everything supernatural that the Stoics have and the Epicureans do not, and to the critical (Epicureans) and uncritical (Stoics) attitude to mere words (although, ridiculous even, the Stoics were famous philologists, and invented from scratch many new philosophical terms) — let us move on to the secondary but more striking differences in ethical systems.
Since the Stoic worldview, by its very nature, is extremely conservative and quite primitive, it is clear from this that the external behavior of a Stoic will in fact be very vulnerable to «sarcastic» words; very deliberately noble in behavior (well, in ideas about the «nobility» of the aristocracy of past centuries); and emphatically reserved and contemptuous toward «bad» interlocutors, or business-like neutral toward «good». At least, philosophy itself will incline him to this, while human nature (which no Stoic can defeat) will still make Stoics more human than they themselves would like. This is the first, still «intelligent» version of the Stoic. The second version, rarer but a little closer to the original doctrine, is the rough warrior who is ready to smash the enemies of the state and hone his character on the battlefield, or as a prominent politician. Such a man will extol the lives of his ancestors, who lived under harsher conditions, tell stories of Spartan boys, praise hard work on the land, which ennobles, etc., he will teach respect for elders, and demand of the younger generation good physical fitness and the other outward attributes of a «real man«. Previously, this second version was more characteristic of Stoicism, but thanks to the epochal changes of the 20th and 21st centuries, we now live in a time of peace, with a great number of technical innovations greatly changing all walks of life; so we can see only the «intellectual» version of Stoics (ordinary men, though they look like Stoics, are not aware of themselves as such, and therefore are not systematic philosophers, and thus are not Stoic philosophers).
On the contrary, the Epicurean worldview borders on nihilism in its denial of the foundations of society. Although this is not entirely true, and it is unlikely that the Epicurean can be considered even slightly dangerous to the state, but, as in the case of sophists or skeptics, a certain correlation is nevertheless to be found here. People with this attitude are usually more protestant, they do not like pretentious intellectualism, and so can afford vulgar speech (see the whining about this from Cicero, on Titus Albutius). They are disgusted by the decrepit values and coarseness of the «real man,» so Epicureanism can be called even more «pampered» and «squishy,» at least such very people are more likely to embrace Epicurean philosophy. Epicureanism is therefore almost by definition «intelligent«; only in this milieu can it be taken seriously. The «plebeian version» of Epicureanism is hedonistic; one might even say that intelligent Epicureans are always «nihilists in theory,» but in practice are ordinary neutral philosophers; whereas hedonistic Epicureans are more often «nihilists in practice,» and the philosophical part interests them only as a screen, a beautiful justification for their «practice,» and in everything else that does not concern justification of their hedonism, their theoretical outlook may be quite ordinary.
But usually a hedonist does not look for philosophical grounds for his behavior, just as a «real man» from the village, who went through the army and became the head of a family, will intuitively resemble a Stoic, but will not look for any grounds in Stoicism, because for this you still need to be interested in reading ancient literature, which is not particularly common in a non-intellectual environment. There are rare exceptions to this; for example, the situation was quite different during the mass popularity of philosophy, as it was in ancient Rome. At that time, «bourgeois stoics» and «bourgeois Epicureans» could appear, with their inherent radical militarism and hedonism. Even now, they appear, but already within the narrower limits of «popular philosophy». But if we limit ourselves to the «elitist versions» in both currents, the Epicurean and the Stoic would both be philosophers from an intellectual milieu. Only the Epicurean is a learned merrymaker and trickster; whereas the Stoic is a learned snob-elitist, who, purely for the sake of form, will make himself look good by pretending to deny his exclusivity. He will even humiliate himself before True Wisdom, who is supposedly beyond his reach, in order to show his meekness, and thereby try, on the contrary, to exalt himself as much as possible.
In addition to all this, to better understand the differences, we can also keep in mind the generational conflict of fathers and children, where obviously the «fathers» are the Stoics, who have realized with age that their grandfathers did everything right; and the Epicureans are «children» who disagree with their fathers. While this analogy is unprofitable, it is obviously only an analogy, and Stoics and Epicureans are people of the same age category; but an Epicurean will never mutter in the kitchen that «it used to be better,» and therein lies their considerable difference.
Whereas the Stoics will try their best to squeeze out all the masculinity of which they are capable; the Epicureans, on the other hand, let their feelings and everything «human» run wild, accepting it all as their nature. In this perspective, we can identify another unprofitable, and already gendered, analogy in which the Stoics are «manly,» while the Epicureans are «feminine».
This is why the very conflict of schools is inexhaustible; this is why Hellenistic philosophy is eternally relevant. These philosophical schools first set forth «eternal» human types at the level of a systematized philosophical ethic. So as long as types exist, they will find «their» philosophy in one of these ancient archetypes. And as long as these worldview archetypes exist, there will be a conflict of philosophical schools of Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, Cynics, and Platonists. Even if Stoicism gets rid of its internal contradictions, it will still struggle with Epicurus, because no «real man» would want the society in which he lives to suddenly become «feminine. Without sugarcoating it, this is the most fundamental difference between the schools.
But like everything in the world, aesthetics and ethics have an objective («true») gradation of quality. We still do not have an objective theory of aesthetics, we still do not have an objective theory of ethics. But in a perfect world, only one of all types will get the full victory (of course, layering on the best of the losers, but we are interested in the basis). Why do Epicureans consciously choose philosophy for nihilists, hiljals, children, and women? In the black-and-white world of philistines (and elite philistines, i.e., Stoics) it seems kind of crazy to choose the «bad» from the two extremes in every case, and even consciously. But it is the study of the history of philosophy, and of history in general, that, other things being equal, at all times the philosophy of Epicurus created the conditions for the progress of human society by advocating freedom of thought. And this cannot fail to appeal to all truly intelligent philosophers. Of all the ancients, only Epicurus looks like a man of the present day who happened to be in the past. Only he, and his followers, today can genuinely empathize if your primary value is not «courage» but indeed «reason. This is why Epicureans have always been, are and will always emerge, and they will always rebel against «all that is good» as it is understood by primitive lovers of brute force or corporate conformist bureaucrats.
Results
In this essay we have shown that Stoicism has brazenly usurped what does not belong exclusively to it; namely, general philosophical practices for self-control and «self-education». We have shown that Stoicism is a refinement of commonplace conceptions of «virtue» to its ultimate perfection. That Stoicism as a whole does not at all understand the principles of Epicureanism, and is even quite within Epicurean discourse itself, both in theory and in practice. Discovered that Epicureanism itself is no stranger to the «virtues,» it simply does not engage in further additional idealization of them; Epicurus cynically declares that the source of virtues and vices is one and the same. It is genuine reasonableness that enables us to become virtuous, whereas in the Stoics’ reverential reverence and fear of terminology and higher powers, reasonableness is not to be found. It is genuine freedom that allows us to make the right choice, not the complex system of «awareness» determinism, which leaves the chance to realize our depraved fate and should, in a good way, make Stoicism an openly elitist philosophy for a select few.
We should not think that only stupidity and the inability to read are the main distinctive qualities of Stoicism. As we have already pointed out, the most fundamental reason for the conflict of schools is the very human «types» who find for themselves the corresponding ideology and philosophy. In this respect, if we take the two schools and draw character dualities here, Stoicism wins on the outside, for Stoics did nothing but cultivate generally accepted-good qualities. The Stoics turn out to be honest citizens, strong and courageous fathers of the family; while the Epicureans turn out to be nihilistic tricksters, bodily very weak, and still «children» and «women» by nature. But the next time you complain about the negative aspects of patriarchal society, the next time you resent street «cattle,» the next time you regret another war that has broken out; talk to the Stoics about real male values! And you will immediately become convinced that stoicism, for all its external «beauty,» often leads to incredibly harmful consequences that epicureism, even in its caricatured «theoretical» version from the Stoics, has yet to reach.
