HISTORY OF WISDOM
BOOK ONE
Ancient Greek Philosophy
By Franz J. T. Lee
PANDEMONIUM BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS.
Merida, Venezuela, 2002.
© 2002
Franz J. T. Lee All Rights Reserved.
CHAPTER VI
SOPHISM: Praktiké-Theoretiké, Práxis-Theoría
Towards the Sophists, the Professors of Wisdom
There exists an immense, quintexistential difference between sophistry and sophism, between a lecturer or a professor per se and a professor of philosophy in spe; but, still wider is the transcendental gap, if it concerns a true, real philosopher in res. Furthermore, a mainly descriptive, encyclopaedic, global text-book delineating the "history of philosophy", for conscientious students, is a "good" thing, nonetheless, it is another case to write the "Phenomenology of the Mind", to rewrite it, revise it over and over again, that is, if a self-thinking philosopher -- liberated from all the "rights" and "wrongs" of academic "correctness" -- her/himself illuminates the transhistory of human wisdom. The most difficult thing for a philosopher is to think, is to philosophize. The most arduous thing for a reader, via language, is to study philosophic works, when, like in Ancient Sparta, (s)he never ever was taught to think, to reason; in Ancient Periclean Athens, that had produced only two philosophers of high class, Socrates and Plato -- and worse, giving him the benefit of doubt, it is not even scientifically certain that Socrates really ever had lived --, this ontic democratic gift, endowed by Minerva, was mainly reserved for double-standard male "citizens" and their admirable, precious "sweetwomen".
Nowadays, in this information age of intellectual inflation, where every nincompoop, foot-baller, film star, president or CEO has a "philosophy"; more than ever before, very seldom a professor of philosophy is a philosopher in veritas -- just imagine a shoe-maker who never by himself has produced a single shoe, but who gives artisanal classes in professional shoe-making, and we have hundreds of thousands of such professional entrepeneur-professors, whose manuals sell like hot do'nuts -- simply because it is imperative for controlled intellectual labour production, for socialization and education, that (s)he does not have an independent philosophy of her/his own.
Very few still know what is philosophy, who is a philosopher. As we have seen already, ab ovo, a philosopher is a praxical thinker, a thinking praxician, a theoretical teacher, a social historian, a lover of truth, knowledge, wisdom and emancipation, favourably endowed with philía and sophía, thus, a philósophos par excellence, all in one, and one in all. What (s)he does, thinks and says is not petrified in putrefied, empiricist, positivist "facts"; they all always renew themselves, because the philosopher, her/his natural environment, her/his social panorama and her/his patrian-historic context always change, are in motion, are all transhistorically inter-twined, inter-related.
Many excellent patrian philosophers, like Aristotle or Kant, preferred to teach their own philosophy only to those few pupils who had a real interest in thinking and thought at all. Hegel complained that none of his pupils, except one, had understood his philosophy, and that this one, Schopenhauer, had completely misunderstood him. Without knowing the philosophy and logical method of any transhistoric thinker, for example, of Hegel, it is completely impossible to understand any of his works. Similarly, if one cannot think, does not think, never ever has learned to think, then it is completely nonsensical to read Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, Avicenna, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel or Bloch. Imagine how many thousands of millions of philosophy (or social science) students are really completely overtaxed and overstrained in all global universities, not even to mention those in or coming from the so-called "under-developed" countries, who, for example, are still enjoying Bantu Education or are being taught Bantu Philosophy or Negritude.
In that case, it is far more practical to read Fukuyama, the Holy Bible, the Koran, the horoscope, the daily newspaper, or the eminent works of any official, popular, world-renowned, erudite, modern demagogue, ideologue or think-tank, who, as pragmatists, positivists or empiricists, always have the social order and privilege to affirm and confirm the reigning global system and to "inform" the "demos" about the status quo, about the establishment, about the world order. In this case, one simply agrees with everything, says: Yes and Amen. The exceptions that prove the "golden" rule are precisely the philosophers that we are talking about here. Nonetheless, in the good, old "Presocratic" days, nearly all professors of philosophy, even most Sophists, were still philosophers themselves. Now, as usual, we will continue to express plain praxical things in a simple, concrete way, complex theoretical thoughts in a complicated ontic manner, and opaque emancipatory processes in their corresponding vague, crimson-gold, fiery, auroralike contours. Mixing up these methods will just lead to scientific confusion and philosophic frustration.
To understand philosophy you must be able to think, to theorize, to
philosophize, that is, you must be a philosopher yourself, no matter on
which degree of intellectual reflection you may find yourself, that is,
on which degree of real, true thinking you are desperately struggling along.
Of course, thinking and thought are real nightmares for factory-made morons
or zombies -- although they could never be blamed for their blissful ignorance
--, that never would ever know what really happened to them on earth.
And, surely, as many magnificent thinkers like Proudhon, Weitling, Einstein
or Bloch could witness, kindergarten, schools and universities are not
exactly the most appropriate social institutions to teach one how to think,
how to reason, how to excel, how to emancipate oneself. You may enter with
a healthy, young mind and with fiery stamina, but, generally, you may graduate
summa
cum laude, but remain maimed, damaged, brainless and spineless for
the rest of your life.
Ancient Greek Education
Knowledge about everyday life in Ancient Greece cannot be acquired by just studying the complex writings of the early philosophers; au contraire, most citizens were mainly occupied with more down-to-earth issues and problems; they communicated with less awesome gods, who were endowed with typical human vices, emotions, joys and sorrows. These divinities presented aspects of the physical surroundings, the sun, moon, stars and the sea. Not having been dominated by a ruling priesthood, the common folks simply sought for solace in ordinary, everyday things. They did not bother about searching for the arché or even for the Ark of Noah. Hence, the aim of official education, like elsewhere in Hellas, was to prepare the child for future adult activities in her/his specific city-state.
Just like America is the best for all true Americans, so Athens was the "aristos" for its polis-citizens; however, elsewhere, the other poleis highly admired Sparta, simply because, like Corporate America, Sparta was tough, strong, bellicose and belligerent, a real typical authoritarian military-state, like the majority of ruling states that were born in patrian history; it educated soldier-citizens, and thus produced the appropriate teachers, who had to create a well-drilled, highly-disciplined marching "Prussian" army. In self-denial, every citizen, male or female, had to have "flex appeal", had to do regularly her/his daily physical exercises, was required to have a perfect, muscular body. On the other hand, also like in contemporary America, in the supposedly "democratic" Athens, the goal of education was to produce citizens well-trained in the arts, sciences and humanities of both peace and war. In this case, really "war was the father of all things".
Already then, the fascist law -- only the fittest survive -- ruled in Sparta; whenever a baby was born, the soldiers came to check its "fitness"; if it was weak or sickly, then, they simply grabbed it away from its mother, dropped it somewhere on a hillside to die; some lucky, weak ones were taken to be trained as helots or slaves. Really, ab ovo, sonorous "Western Civilization" cared about life, cared for human life; and then, cynically the eminent, idealist philosophers in their classic works would permanently speak highly about human morals and virtues. Of course, in Sparta, the strong babies, especially the boys, -- at the age of seven -- were assigned to some local fraternity to be equally and freely trained for their future master or servant roles in society. In education, the arts, literature, reading or writing were not imperative, only warfare mattered; however, for military reasons, music and dancing were fostered. The youngsters were taught all the tricks and vices of politics, how to become perfect statesmen, for example, they were taught how to tell lies to the masses, how to steal food as long as they did not get caught stealing. Only in Sparta, girls also received a similar military training; they learned to run, throw the javelin and discus, even to wrestle and to be able to strangle a bull. At 20, male youths joined the state militia, where they served until the age of 60. Around the age of 20, Spartan males had to pass a military and leadership fitness test to become ruling class citizens; those who failed fell into the perioikos, into the business, property-owning middle class; void of political rights and citizenship.
In Athens exactly the opposite happened; for boys and girls things happened more in a "go-lucky" style. There, generally girls, the later house-wives, received domestic education; as explained in the previous chapter, the most educated women, who received special education, were the hetaerae, the courtesans, the concubines of the upper class sexmaniacs, of the wealthy "great men". The boys did some military training, but also learned to play the lyre, to sing, to read and write; however, literature, especially studying the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod, was at the centre of their schooling. The wealthy ones received education under the tutelage of philosopher-teachers. Until 390 B. C., in a modern sense, there were practically no schools for higher education in Hellas; these came into existence around the time of Plato, Isocrates and Aristotle. And therewith, we arrive at the epoch of the philosophy teachers, of the era of Sophism.
In any case, in the superstructure, in education, labour, that is, physical, manual slave labour, was not reflected philosophically; at best, labourers or workers -- the slaves, who bore the brunt of Periclean wealth -- appeared as "speaking-tools" (Aristotle). However, especially in Athens, in the wealthy, slave-owning, democratic and aristocratic ruling upper classes, although not yet fully developed, and not yet considered as a quintessential philosophic concept, nonetheless, already the spores of future intellectual labour were already falling in fertile, patrian soil, in primitive Hellenic mainland and Croesusean colonial accumulation of capital.
Sophists: Teachers of Philosophy
Sophism gradually moved away from scientific-philosophic explanations
of the world out-of-itself; its exponents concentrated themselves
more in the realm of thinking, of thought itself, in noeín,
nóesis
and
nóema.
Thus a detrimental, alienating gulf between scientific praxis and
philosophic theory progressively deepened; which at the same time reflected
a crass contradiction between physical and intellectual labour -- the modern
fatherland, the "Home, Sweet Home", the Heimat, the Patria, was
in the making, in production. Within sophía, and therewith
within philosophía, a dangerous contradiction developed,
which even split up thinking and thought themselves. Later we will note,
how science itself within philosophy was ripped apart by Plato and Aristotle
into
praktiké and theoretiké, and "Western"
man was destined to lead a formal-logical, schizophrenic, dualistic life
-- thus acquiring the two Goethean conflicting souls in his breast --:
a bíos praktikós and a bíos theoretikós.
Below, we will deal with the prominent figures of Sophism; as far as
the fragmentary historical data allow us to elucidate the essence of this
philosophic movement. In any case, as indicated in the previous chapter,
in the Periclean Age, novarum rerum cupidus, inquisitive eros,
was
in the air; and the upper and middle classes of Hellenic Society, especially
the youth, were yearning for paideía (education).
Sophistaí - Professors of Wisdom
Gorgias (or Georgias) of Leontinoi
Gorgias of Leontinoi (485 - 375 B. C.) was a pupil of the ancient Greek hylozoist, Empedocles (with whom we will deal in the next chapter); as wandering Sophist teacher, he gave various philosophic speeches in numerous Greek poleis. Very early he learned, in contradistinction to "crime", that "education" pays, pays very well. In a wealthy society, this was no problem at all; what was truly problematic was to be a poor helot, slaving for his master. Gorgias' favourite place of oratory remained Olympia itself; he was financially so successful, that with his grand remuneration he could erect a gorgeous, gold statue of himself in Delphi. Even this is not unusual; till today, "great men", also "professors" erect their "historic" Taj Mahal while still alive.
Professor Gorgias taught sophía as a famous sophistes,
but this did not imply
that he was a „wise man“ like Thales, or even like the „wisest“ of
them all, Socrates. As paedagoge, he inculcated the minds of the
aristocratic and democratic youth with that what they wanted to hear, to
know; of course, only of those youngsters whose rich parents could afford
to pay for an expensive education with the appropriate slave-owning ruling
class bias. As we have seen before, in Gorgias’ own youth, Athenian democracy
was still flourishing, and for its intellectual, creative and artistic
production
(yes, production - the process of labour, of work) the „Golden Age" necessitated
excellent Sophist teachers.
However, Gorgias was not only a sophos, he was also a philósophos,
and a tremendous one for all that. Very freely, he developed the art
of contradiction-making; the dialektiké; also, he introduced
cadence into
prose for the first time. The creme de la creme flooded
towards his classes, bringing with them their gold and silver coins, and
soon he advanced as a prominent wealthy agogós (leader) of
the Hellenic youth, and had no fear to
be accused -- by the polis-guardians of "correct" paideía
-- of asebeia, as had been the case of rebellious thinkers like
Anaxagoras, Socrates, some hetaira, like Phryne, Protagoras or even
Aristotle.
As mentioned elsewhere already, as philosopher, Gorgias developed his
own
ontology of Nothing, of which two versions are preserved. Its essence
is contained in the threefold Negation of Being; it
cannot be, it cannot be known, it cannot be mediated. Although
he was attacked by
all ancient and modern philosophers - idealists and materialists alike
- including the Marxist philosopher, Ernst Bloch, as a "nihilist", yet,
this was the first, if not only, serious philosophic attempt to surpass,
to transcend the formal-logical barriers of a single, universal arché.
Antisthenes
Because of its "nihilistic" world out-look,
Gorgean Sophism had
a decisive influence on Cynicism, especially by way of a
devoted disciple, Antisthenes (440
– 366 B. C.) who, in his
mechanical naturalism, had taught that only individuals exist;
in other words, that only non-relationality
"exists" in earthly human
life and production. It logically follows that an individual is a one,
an
atom, is not related to any other thing, it is in-itself, not
in-and-for-itself.
But he identified this One, this Individual, this Being, with a material
corporeal body and sustained that only a thing, identified, for example,
by the sense of touch, is an étymon, a real phenomenon.
Lykophron
Lykophron continued the "nihilism"
of his teacher, of Gorgias – about his personal life practically nothing
is known. We learn from Plato, that, in
364 B. C., he had visited the Court of Dionysus II in Syracuse. The
Gorgean Negation of Being he drove to such an extreme, that he refused
to use the verb „to be“ in his works (Frag. 2,
Diels, p. 127). He should have used "to be"
for Cosmos, for Essence, "to
exist" for Einai, for Existence, and
"to excel", for Gorgias' Nothing,
for Transcendence -- however, he was already on the transhistoric road
to challenge the petrified concepts of patrian philosophy.
Prodicus of Keos
Prodicus of Keos (465 - 399? B.
C.) was a contemporary of
Protagoras, Democritus and Socrates. According to Plato (in
Menon, Protagoras and Charmides),
he was the teacher of
Socrates, a Sophist, and was engaged in Hellenic ta politiká,
acting as political adviser on Greek diplomatic missions. He
became famous as a „professor of synonyms", and he defined the
sophistaí as „hybrid forms between philosophers and politicians“
(Frag. 6). Those were the days when a
politician, at least, still
had a sound, true philosophic training.
Thrasymachus of Chalkedon
Another later Sophist, contemporary of Socrates, was Thrasymachus
of Chalkedon (second half of the 5th Century
B. C.). In 427 B. C., however, unfortunately, in his Daitaleis,
Aristophanes
began to ridicule him, to slander Sophism. Philosophically, Thrasymachus
definitely introduced the concept of Power into State affairs:
„Justice is nothing else than the advantage of
the powerful“
(Frag. 6a, Diels, p. 130).
Now we understand what Bush meant with the "infinite justice" of the present, powerful United States of America. One should just read one's classics consciously and conscientiously to understand any seemingly new concept of the "Information Age". Know thy Machiavelli, Hobbes, Orwell and Huxley, and there is nothing exceptionally more that ye needest to know about Globalization. There is nothing obsolete about these authors, au contraire, transhistorically, like it was the case of Plato and Aristotle, their starry hour is coming now. This is also the very reason why this "History of Wisdom" is being written now.
Q.E.D., Thrasymachus anticipated the Machiavellian principle: Might
is
Right.
Hence „right“ (Law),
the US "Patriot Act", is the advantage of the
mightiful, of Corporate America; of course, teaching the ancient Greek
upper class youth, this dialektiké turned out to be nothing
less than ruling, slave-owning, democratic class ideology: in other
words, the powerful Sophist was the one who masters the art of being mighty
in rhetorics and demagoguery. This was already a sure symptom of how far
away sophistry had deviated and degenerated from original sophía
and philosophía, that were rooted in feminine, natural mythology;
the perverted, social cancer was already taking its toll. It was
also an indicator of what Hellenic pedagogics, the paideía
of the ancient Greek pais (child) really meant; also of what the
cradle of Western education would eventually produce.
Hippias of Elia
Hippias of Elia was another contemporary
of Prodicus - a political
adviser in state affairs of his home-polis. As far as academic
pomp and money-accumulation were concerned, he drove Sophist education
to
another extreme, to produce wandering, "well-educated", encyclopaedic
entrepeneurs with their corresponding followers, intellectual student-zombies,
who knew everything, and left and right "disagreed" with everybody else,
who did not belong to their eminent, erudite, academically "correct" clan.
Hippias himself was well-versed in Ancient Greek arts and sciences.
He conscientiously studied Orpheus, Musaios, Hesiod, Homer and non-Hellenic
works, and boasted that out of this enkýkios paideía,
„I have extracted
the best and most relevant“, and
that he would soon publish „ a new, omniscient
work (Frag. 6, Diels, p. 131);
unfortunately for mankind, this book
is lost, and we do not have any extant fragments of his héterodóxa.
Antiphon of Athens
Another contemporary of Hippias was his colleague, Antiphon of Athens,
and, "believe" it or not, he was mainly a pre-Freudian dream-interpreter.
This ancient psychologist, however, emphasized an existing contradiction
between nómos (law, custom) and anánke, in
the phýsis, in matter, in the Cosmos.
This he expounded in a large fragment (See: Diels, Frag.
44, pp. 133 - 135).
He argued that only the laws of the phýsis, of Nature,
exist; that human or divine morals are simply fake, are only ethical inhibitions.
Of course, ruling class ideology was not exactly fascinated by such "reactionary"
views.
Thus, according to him, all social, national and legal barriers should
fall before the laws of the phýsis, of Nature. Besides,
he wrote two books concerning this objective truth, of which some fragments
are preserved. In them, he contrasts sense-perception and cognitive-perception,
which
reminds us of Heracleitus’ doctrine of the lógos, of
Objective Truth.
Critias of Athens
Critias of Athens (460 - 403 B. C.), born of wealthy aristocratic
parentage, and whose cousin was Plato’s mother, had a direct
lineage to the “wise man“ of Athens, to Solon. Here we see that
philosophy had become very aristocratic, very upper class; at least,
it still was the "queen" of sciences. Critias was an extreme critical
opponent of Athenian democracy and very Spartanic in his political
outlook.
Fragment 25 (Diels, pp. 143 - 144) contains
the essence of his
Sophist doctrine; it is an extant part of his satire on Sisyphus.
From it, we can gather that he was an arch-conservative,
aristocratic statesman, but also a well-cultured writer, who saw
sophistic education as a means to achieve political power. Here we
note the goal of upper class education, and why the dregs and drones
of society receive a special education for powerless, castrated
barbarism. In short, Critias was a „layman among philosophers“, but,
at the same time, a „philosopher among laymen“. His anti-poor attitude,
his abhorrence for the masses, for the lower classes, is at
best expressed by himself: „Not to live is
better than to live in
misery“, (Frag.
23, Diels, P. 143). Similarly, our modern CEO's -- our Bill
Gates -- would rather prefer to die, to commit hara-kiri, than
to live in the favelas, barrios and ghettoes of this world; to avoid that,
that's why we have
a Third Millennium of permanent "New Wars". Nevertheless, he still
had fiery lightning, he anticipated Ludwig Feuerbach, and like Epicurus
later, he attacked religion, which according to him inculcates fear into
men, to keep them law-abiding. Truly, from everybody one could learn something!
Protagoras of Abdera
Finally, let us consider the leader of the Sophist movement,
Protagoras of Abdera (483 - 411? B. C.). From Democritus’ place
of birth, he directed the great sceptic movement, which followed
the great hylozoistic philosophic systems of the Greek colonial
world, especially those which originated in Miletus, Ephesus,
Elea and Abdera.
As we will see later, he formed the direct contradiction to
Democritus, the ancient atomist. In 444 - 443 B. C., he prepared
a
code of laws for the city of Thurii. While engaged in his perpetual
lecturing tours, several times he visited Athens, the seat of Hellenic
arts. Of special philosophic interest to us is the heathen philosophic
homocentrism which he has introduced in Greek philosophy.
Protagoras’ homo-mensura statement is well-known in
philosophic circles: omnium rerum homo mensura
est - man
is
the measure of all things(Frag.
1, Diels, p. 122). But, take note,
especially the spiritually and religiously inclined, Protagoras was
a Greek pagan, an atheist: „whether there
are gods, and what they
are, I cannot say“ (Frag.
4). Obviously, the dialectics in his
homo-mensura statement denied absolute truth, consequently, later
he was aggressively attacked by his idealist opponents, especially
by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Moreover, he directly referred to dialectics in things and in their
subject matter:
„Concerning anything, there are two directly
opposed opinions“,
and, it is important „to make the weaker opinion
to the stronger one.“
(Fragments 6a/6b).
Those that abhor dialectics, and who declare it as Marxist "gibberish"
should really study the ancient philosophers of the cradle of Western Civilization;
only then they could replace their arrogance and ignorance with knowledge
and wisdom.
However, ever since, in spite of Protagoras' contribution to ancient
dialectical materialism, in Sophism and Socratism, hylozoism was cooling
down; therafter, thinking about the arché or about its material
ousía
(Essence) or to tí en eínai
(Essence a n d Existence) played second fiddle in post-hylozoism
-- except, of course, in ancient Greek atomism, from Leucippus
to Democritus, and further to Epicurus and Lucretius;
and, surely, except in
Aristotle’s "leftist" doctrine of Form-Substance.
Lógos as Objective Truth
Heracleitus: Concerning Práxis
a n d Theoría
Before terminating this chapter, let us return to Heracleitus’ conception
of
universal lógos, to see what is scientific práxis
a n d philosophic theoría.
The concept lógos had acquired various connotations in the scientific
endeavours of Ancient Greece. Originally, it was based on legein,
and meant „the spoken word“, on that what
is actually stated. Idealism, ideology, as we will see later, took over
this concept from grammar and concentrated on the „judgement“,
which the spoken word suggests. (See: Plato, Soph., 261, C ff.).
Of course, we can imagine who became the Judge of that "what was
actually spoken or stated" -- nowadays it is either the Supreme Court of
Justice or CNN. Consequently, the Platonic Dialogues are also
called Sokratikoí logoí.
However, Heracleitus (in Fragments 1 - 4)
had elevated lógos to
the universal subject, to the cosmic psyché, which
is the arché in
macrocosmic fiery dimensions.
(For further information see: Sextus Empiricus,
Adversus mathematicos, VII, 132, i - iv; Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium,
IX, 9, 3, i - iii)
This single, universal principle, in short, Objective Truth, because
it is
omnipresent, is empirically accessible; in other words, it is
within the reach of human sense-perception and cognition.
(Fragments 5 - 7; See: Hippolytus, Refutatio
..., IX, 9, 5 et 10, 1;
Polybius, XII, 27, 1; Clemens, Stromateis,
V, 148, 6..)
However, Man cannot perceive objective truth directly through his senses
alone, he needs a psyché, an intelligence, which
has to penetrate
and interpenetrate things, in order to encounter their lógos.
(Frag. 9 - 15, Also see: Philo, Quaestiones
in Genesin, IV, 1; De
Somniis, 1,6; Themistius, Orationes, V, 69
B; Julianus, Orationes,
VII, 216 C.)
Thus, although Heracleitus gave sense perception
and human experience preference over mythological
superstitions and beliefs, nevertheless, he did not neglect human
cognitive endeavour (theoría) in
its capacity to understand
objective, fluent Truth and its relation to social affairs (práxis).
(Frag. 12 - 15, See: Plutarchus, Coriolanus,
38; De Pythiae
Oraculis, 404 D, et al.; Adversus Colotem,
1118 C; Plotinus,
V, 9, 5.)
Thus, Heracleitus, as we have noted earlier, attacked Homer,
Hesiod, Hecateus, Pythagoras and Xenophanes, for not having
comprehended the lógos in Things and in the „everlasting
Fire“, in the Cosmos.
(See: Fragments 16 - 22, but, also 8 -9, and
13 -
14; Diogenes Laertius, IX, 1; VIII, 6; Athenaeus,
XIII, 610 B;
Philodemus, Rhetorica, I, coll. 57 et 62;
Scholium in Euripidis,
Hecubam, 131; Plutarchus, An seni sit res
Publica gerenda,
787 C.)
Therefore, they only have developed dóxa and fantasía
of
things and processes. (See: Aristotle, De anima,
III, 3, 427 b 14.)
The Heracleitean lógos, in the field of logics, as dialectics,
is
universally (not multi-versally) valid; in the ontological realm,
anticipating Aristotle’s hýle, the Fire-lógos
is the substratum of Being-Becoming; in social práxis-theoría,
it is, gnotologically, the
sine qua non for true cognition and operation in universal-historical
reality; and, finally, ethically, the lógos is the guide
for correct, moral,
social actions. (See: M. Marcovich, Heraclitus, Talleres Grapicos
Universitarios, Merida, Venezuela, 1968, p. 39.) Socrates and
the
„post-Socratic“ idealists would change the hylozoistic
lógos into idealist
Divine Truth, but, within Heracleitean ancient materialism it certainly
did not
have counter-panvitalistic and contra-panpsychic elements. For Heracleitus,
the lógos, the objective Truth, Reason, was in the arché,
in the pánta rhei of Matter itself. That later the lógos
was converted into bourgeois Reason, into Capital, that was not intended
by the early patrian philosopher, Heracleitus.
Summing Up: The Perspective Terrain
From Ionian naturalism, to Eleatic static monism, to
Heracleitean primitive dialectical materialism, to Pythagorean
Odd-Regular number harmony and Sophist ideology, did the ancient
philosophic spectrum of patrian intellectual evolution span.
In the coming chapters, we will note how ancient Greek
Thought developed and deepened itself with Empedoclean and
Anaxagorean crypto-atomism, but, at the same time, it
conceptualized itself in Socratism and Platonism.
Diverse philosophic opinions - dóxa, orthódóxa,
héterodóxa
-
generated dilemmas, trilemmas and polylemmas. All these
resulted in multifarious cosmovisions about Being, Not-Being,
Becoming, Being-Becoming, Becoming-Being, Being-At-Rest,
Nothing, etc. However, all these seemingly chaotic tendencies
became more and more concentrated, became crystallized and
clarified under the socio-economic pressures of the forward march
of wealth and capital accumulation. Consequently, philosophy itself
became consolidated into major intellectual streams..
In the slave-owning superstructure, which had its own dynamics and synergism,
but also its own dynamism and syncretism, philosophic thought tried to
approximate and synchronise itself to the multiplex forms and
multiveloce movements of human production, developing from
the ancient Greek poleis to Hellenism; from Athenian metropolitanism
and Macedonian cosmopolitanism to Pan Hellenism, and further to Alexandrian
world imperialism. Certainly, these did not imply, that ancient Greek social
consciousness, as reflected in the compendious ensemble of
mythology, hylozoism and primitive idealism, increasingly, was
approximating antiquous social reality, or vice versa. In fact, in
a
transhistorical sense, this subjective-objective dialectical process
was
still in its revolutionary capitalist infancy.
Within this tremendous, intellectual exodus of the ruling classes from
ancient Dark Age ignorance and mental slavery, materialist philosophic
aporias developed, which essentially questioned the scientific validity
of generally accepted sense-perception, common sense, absolute truths and
the various ethical tenets of ruling class ideologies. To defend the status
quo, the hen kai pan, conservatism, reaction and obscurantism,
even dialectics was
confronted with dialectics. However, Zeno’s dialectical Eleatism,
at least, warned us that dialectics, and the dialectical method,
are themselves valid for ever-changing Truth; permanently, it is pertinent
to verify, validate, revise and enrich philosophy by elucidating, eliciting
and elating its own affirmations, negations, syntheses and transtheses.
Consequently, ancient Greek Thought not only generated its negations
- nihilism, scepticism, cynicism, agnosticism, idealism, etc. --, but,
as a total, patrian-real, concrete process, also its affirmations -- naturalism,
panvitalism,
atheism, hylozoism, etc. --, with their respective multidimensional,
multidynamical syntheses.
Later, Alexander the Great would carry this Greek human philosophic
ingenuitas
to its real birthplace, to the banks of the Nile and the Indus, to the
eternally snow-capped Himalayas. Item, the universal principle, the arché,
changed its essential-substantial contents from water and air, from earth
and fire, to apeiron, arithmós and nous, to
idéa, quinta essentia, lógos,
hýle
and morphé. It became spherical and triangular, ideal and
numerical, gained a form and a substratum. Matter or substance mysteriously
disappeared
from the realm of sense-perception, and philosophic nous began
to search for its ousía, the essence of subjective and
objective
reality. With Socrates, the conceptualization and universalization
of patrian human knowledge would begin. Aristotle would commence to
develop categories, predicaments or universals, to give hýle
expression, to give the Subject a Predicate.
In the following chapters, we will pursue the materialist trails of
ancient Greek crypto- and mechanical atomism, which will lead
from Empedocles and Anaxagoras towards Leucippus, Democritus,
Epicurus and Lucretius.
Thereafter, we will expound ancient idealism with all its
metaphysics, theology, spiritualism, metempsychosis,
anamnesis, hylomantism, hylotheism, and even hyloatheism. All
these, in the emancipatory service to comprehend History, to
learn to act, to think, to excel, to know the History of Wisdom.
NEXT CHAPTER: EMPEDOCLES: GOD-MAN, OBJECT-SUBJECT