ETHEICS

PRESENTATION

IMPORTANT FIVE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

GROUP MEMBERS: HAMID RAZA MUNEEB MUGHAL DANISH SHAHID ARBAZ YOUSAF ARSLAN INAYAT HAFIZ HASSAN IDREES MUTEEB ZULFIQAR AHMED BILAL DANIYAL Wajih HAMZA SHAHID

OSAMA RIAZ AMIR QURESHI Asim Rauf

CONTENTS:

Introduction. Socrates. Plato. Pythagoras. Aristotle. Empedocles.

Introduction: Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th

century BCE and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric, and aesthetics.

Socrates

Brief Introduction:

He was born in 470/469 BC  in Alopeke, and belonged to the tribe Antiochis.

He is considered to be the father of western philosophy.

He also served for military and participated in Peloponnesian war.

He was died in 399BC.

Trial of Socrates:

 Socrates stood before a jury of 500 of his fellow Athenians accused of "refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state" and of "corrupting the youth." If found guilty; his penalty could be death.  Socrates was found guilty by a vote of 280 to 220 and jury proposed death penalty for him.

Philosophy:  Socrates questioned the Sophistic doctrine that virtue can

be taught. He liked to observe that successful fathers did not produce

sons of their own quality. Socrates argued that moral excellence was more a matter

of divine bequest than parental nurture.  According to A. A. Long, "There should be no doubt that,

despite his claim to know only that he knew nothing, Socrates had strong beliefs about the divine", 

Knowledge is a matter of recollection and not of learning, observation or study.

According to Xenophon, he was a teleologist who held that god arranges everything for the best.

No one desires evil. No one errs or does wrong willingly or knowingly. Virtue is sufficient for happiness. Virtue is knowledge.

Plato

Brief introduction

He was born in 428/427 or 424/423 BC and he belonged to an aristocratic and influential family. 

He was the founder of  Academy in Athens. Plato must have been instructed in grammar,

music, and gymnastics by the most distinguished teachers of his time.

He was died in 348/347 BC .

Death

A variety of sources have given accounts of Plato's death. One story, based on a mutilated manuscript, suggests Plato died in his bed, whilst a young Thracian girl played the flute to him. Another tradition suggests Plato died at a wedding feast.

According to Tertullian, Plato simply died in his sleep.

Philosophy

Every individual should devote his life to what is best fitted for him to do.

Poor leadership will lead to wrong decisions. Intellectual aristocracy is the rule of intellectual

elite. An individual who should be endowed with

superior intelligence and possessed impeccable integrity.

Pythagoras

Brief Introduction

Pythagoras whose dates are commonly given as 569–475 BC.

He used algebraic methods to construct Pythagorean triples.

About Pythagoras

Pythagoras was an extremely important mathematician in history.

He is called the first pure mathematician by many.

Unfortunately, we know relatively little about his mathematical achievements.

Philosophy of Pythagoras

Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons.

Every man has been made by God in order to acquire knowledge and contemplate.

Geometry is knowledge of the eternally existent.

Number is the within of all things. Ultimate reality is mathematical numbers. There is geometry in the humming of the

strings. Time is the soul of this world.

Aristotle

Introduction

Aristotle whose dates are commonly given as 384-322 BC.

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosopher, making contribution to logic, metaphysics, mathematics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance and theater.

About Aristotle

He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates. He was more empirically-minded than Plato or Socrates and is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of forms.

Philosophy

Aristotle’s writings on the general subject of logic were grouped by the later Peripatetics under the name Organon, or instrument. From their perspective, logic and reasoning was the chief preparatory instrument of scientific investigation. Aristotle himself, however, uses the term “logic” as equivalent to verbal reasoning.

Philosophy of Nature by Aristotle

Aristotle sees the universe as a scale lying between the two extremes: form without matter is on one end, and matter without form is on the other end. The passage of matter into form must be shown in its various stages in the world of nature. To do this is the object of Aristotle’s physics, or philosophy of nature. It is important to keep in mind that the passage from form to matter within nature is a movement

towards ends or purposes. Everything in nature has its end and function, and nothing is without its purpose. Everywhere we find evidences of design and rational plan.

Emplidocles

He was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum a Greek city in Sicily.

Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements.

He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the elements. These physical speculations were part of a history of the universe which also dealt with the origin and development of life.

Influenced by the Pythagoreans, he supported the doctrine of reincarnation. Empedocles is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to record his ideas in verse. Some of his work survives, more than in the case of any other Pre-Socratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments.

The four elements

Empedocles established four ultimate elements which make all the structures in the world

1. Fire 

2. Air

3. water

4. Earth

Empedocles called these four elements "roots", which he also identified with the mythical names of 

1. Zeus

2.  Hera

3.  Nestis

4. Aidoneus 

According to Thales “Water is the Ultimate stuff from which our universe is originated”

Anaximenes said “Air is the source of this Universe”

Heraclitus said "Fire is ultimate Substance Everything is in Change”

which seems to have been first used by Plato According to the different proportions in which these four indestructible and unchangeable elements are combined with each other the difference of the structure is produced. It is in the aggregation and segregation of elements thus arising, that Empedocles, like the atomists, found the real process which corresponds to what is popularly termed growth, increase or decrease. Nothing new comes or can come into being; the only change that can occur is a change in the juxtaposition of element with element. This theory of the four elements became the standard dogma for the next two thousand years

Perception and knowledge

Empedocles is credited with the first comprehensive theory of light and vision. He put forward the idea that we see objects because light streams out of our eyes and touches them. While flawed in hindsight, this became the fundamental basis on which later Greek philosophers and mathematicians, such as Euclid, would construct some of the most important theories on light, vision and optics.