Overview: The Birth of Western Philosophy

Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates (1787)

"Ancient philosophy" is the name given to that period of (Western) philosophy beginning (roughly) in 600 B.C. and ending (roughly) in 300 A.D. The subject of philosophy was essentially invented at this time. That is, there is no philosophy before Ancient Philosophy.

(There is a book about the elaborate cosmologies and myths and theogonies (e.g., Hesiod's Theogony in the 8th century B.C.) of the period preceding this period, entitled Before Philosophy (1949)).

All of the major fields of philosophy -- metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, aesthetics, philosophy of religion -- were initiated during this extremely fertile period of nine hundred years. Some of these ancient philosophers are household names, such as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

(After (roughly) 300 A.D. the language of philosophy changed from Ancient Greek to Latin, and the tenets of Christianity became important for philosophy. This inaugurated a new period of philosophy, known as Early Mediaeval Philosophy. The most important philosophers from this period are Augustine and Boethius.)

All of the philosophers in this period between 600 B.C. and 300 A.D. wrote and taught in Ancient Greek (of which there were, strictly speaking, four dialects, stemming from different regions of Ancient Greece -- the Aeolic, the Arcadic, the Doric and the Ionic, the last of which includes the Attic dialect, used in mainland Greece, and in particular, in Athens). The geographical region in which they were born and where they lived comprises modern day Greece (including Crete), Western Asia Minor, Italy (including Sicily), and Northern Africa (see Map 1, Map 2, Map 3, Map 4, and Map 5).

This course is not concerned with the entire period of Ancient Philosophy, but with the first 300 years or so of Ancient Philosophy (see Time Line 1).

The very first philosophers are given the name 'Pre-Socratics' or 'Presocratics', for the simple reason that the majority of them lived and wrote before Socrates (some were his contemporaries, however). Of course, this label is unfair to them, since they were not simply preparing the way for a later philosopher. However, only fragments of their writings survive. In some cases, indeed, there are only sentences quoted or paraphrased in the writings of later philosophers. This makes it quite difficult to give them their due as philosophers. (In the case of Socrates, however, we have Plato's texts in their entirety, reporting, we believe, Socrates's positions and arguments). The Pre-Socratics are normally studied first, but they are often much more difficult to understand than those philosophers who followed them.

In the case of the Pre-Socratic philosophers their novelty was twofold. First of all, they abandoned the personification found in the mythologies and theogonies that preceded them (e.g., the sky as the male god Ouranos, the earth as a female god Gaia), and the anthropomorphism that accompanies this. They also abandoned the allegorical mode of expression. Their accounts of the world and its nature are more naturalistic, even scientific, and less symbolic. Many of them were also the first empirical scientists, for this period is also considered to be the dawn of science. In the case of some Pre-Socratic philosophers it is difficult to distinguish between what is philosophy and what is empirical science.

However, they did more than simply avoid telling elaborate stories in favor of providing more naturalistic and literal accounts of the origin and nature of the world. They also supported their accounts with arguments, arguments that others could follow and see as supporting their accounts.

They did not merely make pronouncements ex cathedra or 'argue from authority'. They did not argue in the following way: P is true because (a) it says so in this sacred text, or (b) because this person says so, or (c) because that is the custom. Rather, they supported their accounts with arguments that appealed to universal experience or to conceptual claims that they considered to be self-evident. This gave others the opportunity to reject these arguments and to offer counter-arguments for alternative accounts. And so philosophy bred more philosophy, and continues to do so today.