Philosophy was not a defined activity as such, but impassioned discussion of what it meant to live a ‘good life’ was intrinsic to intellectual life. Athens retained the cultural lure it had enjoyed in previous centuries and Plato’s Academic and Aristotle’s Lyceum continued in business. New ideas grabbed the imagination of those who loved argument. Individuals set off down new pathways of debate, schools were formed by inspiring teachers, and students would wander from one to another in search of enlightenment. (For a clear overview see A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics, 2nd edition, London, 1986. On Stoicism, both Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties and Fate, Oxford and New York, 2005, and William Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, New York and Oxford, 2008, both aim to find the relevance of ancient Stoicism for today.)
The two major figures of Hellenistic philosophy, Epicurus and Zeno, came from Samos and Cyprus respectively but it was to Athens that they were drawn to teach.
Both tried to find a meaning for the individual in an age of angst. For Epicurus, who lived in Athens from 307 until his death in 271, the world was one in which the gods had little or no influence. He followed the materialist philosopher Democritus (see p. 198) in believing that the world was composed of atoms and that those making up each individual dissolved when that individual died and then regrouped to make up other objects. All that could be known must be based on observation and experience of this world. The only purpose of this life is to ensure survival in this world through pleasure.
By this Epicurus did not mean a frenzied search for sensual enjoyment but rather peace of mind and freedom from pain. ‘There is no use in philosophy if it does not expel the suffering of the soul,’ as Epicurus put it. In order to achieve this it was important to escape from any fear of death and to concentrate on the pleasures of everyday living, chief amongst which Epicurus numbered friendship and rational thought. ‘The pleasant life is produced not by a string of drinking bouts and revelries, nor by the enjoyment of boys and women, nor by fish and the other items on an expensive menu, but by sober reasoning.’ A retreat from the hectic, competitive life of the Greek world marked a major reversal of traditional Greek values where a man was judged by the success of his public life, and Epicureanism was never completely respectable. However, it proved popular in the last years of republican Rome and has not lost its impact today. A recent Italian edition of Epicurus sold a million copies.
The founder of the Stoics, Zeno (c.333-262 Bc), taught from the colonnades of the Stoa Poikile along the northern side of the Agora of Athens. However, his ideas are best represented, and developed, in the works of his follower Chrysippus (c.279-206 Bc) who became leader of the Stoic school in about 230. Intellectually restless and endlessly fertile, Chrysippus probed every aspect of Stoic philosophy—one later admirer claimed to have a library of 700 of his texts. He recognized the deeper philosophical problems Stoicism presented, the nature of the relationship between all material objects, the driving force of events (logos, the force of reason, God, in effect), the place of fate, the extent to which free will exists.
Like the Epicureans, the Stoics accepted that the world was made entirely of matter and knowledge of it could be gained through direct observation and reason. Unlike the Epicureans, however, for whom the world was continually changing as atoms rearranged themselves into new forms, the Stoics saw the world as a single enduring entity, a cosmos that moved forward in time under its own purpose, an evolution towards a state of ultimate goodness. Human beings were an intrinsic part of the unfolding cosmos, not separate from it. It was important to come to terms with the fact that one was part of a greater whole and also had a personal responsibility for making a contribution towards the unfolding of the future. On the one hand the Stoic learnt to accept pain and pleasure with indifference, as nothing could be done to avoid them; on the other there was a duty to live a virtuous life in accordance with one’s true nature as a human being. The mature Stoic was thoughtful about his own role in society and often felt duty bound to take on public responsibilities. Stoicism was to be particularly influential in Rome, and was one of the Greek philosophical traditions that fed into early Christianity.
The Cyrenian philosopher Carneades (214-129 Bc) was another newcomer to Athens, and eventually became head of Plato’s Academy. He became obsessed with the problems of finding secure knowledge and so is counted among the Sceptics, a school founded by Pyrrho of Elis (C.360-C.270). Pyrrho had travelled east with Alexander and absorbed eastern philosophy. The Sceptics saw the difficulties in saying anything of certainty about the natural world. Reasoning could be faulty and the senses misleading. Carneades paid a famous visit to Rome in 155 BC as part of an embassy pleading for relief from a fine the Romans had imposed on Athens. He infuriated his listeners by arguing for the concept of justice one day and then refuting his own arguments the next. This was, of course, the weakness of Scepticism. While it sharpened intellectual debate, the end result was to leave the philosopher inert and devoid of any beliefs. In practice the Sceptics accepted that they had to live by convention but they left an important legacy which was revived in the sixteenth century with the rise of new approaches to scientific thought.
World History
