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Ancient Philosophy, 625 B. C.–476 A. D.
Mediæval Philosophy, 476 A. D.–1453 A. D.
Modern Philosophy, 1453 A. D.–the present time.
These are the three general periods into which the history of philosophy naturally falls. The two dates that form the dividing lines between these three periods are 476, the fall of old Rome, and 1453, the fall of new Rome (Constantinople). From this it will be seen that 1000 years of mediæval life lie between antiquity on the one side and 450 years of modern times on the other. Whatever value may be put upon the respective intellectual products of these three periods, it is important to note the great difference in their time-lengths. It is 2500 years since philosophical reflection began in Europe. Only 450 of these years belong to modern times. In other words, after the European man grew to reflective manhood, two fifths of his life belong to what is known as ancient civilization, two fifths to mediæval, and only one fifth to modern civilization.
=The Real Differences of the Three General Periods.= The differences between these three periods of the reflective life of the European have been very real. They are not to be explained by merely political shiftings or economic changes; nor are they fully expressed as differences in literary or artistic productions. Their differences lie deeper, for they are differences of mental attitude. The history of philosophy is more profound, more difficult, and more human than any other history, because it is the record of human points of view. A good deal of sympathetic appreciation is demanded if the student takes on the attitude of mind of ancient and mediæval times. One cannot expect to be possessed of such appreciation until one has traversed the history of thought through its entire length.
The history of philosophy is an organic development from an objective to a subjective view of life, with a traditional middle period in which subjective and objective mingle. Ancient thought is properly called objective, the mediæval traditional, the modern subjective. Can we briefly suggest what these abstract terms mean? By the objectivity of ancient thought is meant that the ancient, in making his reflections upon life, starts from the universe as a whole. From this outer point of view he tries to see the interconnections between things. Nature is reality; men and gods are a part of nature. Man’s mental processes even are a part of the totality of things. Even ethically man is not an independent individual, but the member of a state. When the ancient came to make distinctions between mind and matter, he did not think of man as the knower in antithesis to matter as the object known, but he thought of mind and matter as parts of one cosmos. The antithesis in ancient thought is rather between appearances and essence, between non-realities and realities with differing emphasis. The ancient attempts speculatively to reconstruct his world, but it is always from the point of view of the world.
By the traditionalism of mediæval thought is meant that men are controlled in their thinking by a set of authoritative doctrines from the past. In the Middle Ages, as the mediæval period is called, the independent thinking of antiquity had ceased. Men reflected and reflected deeply, but they were constrained by a set of religious traditions. Authority was placed above them and censored their thinking. The objective Christian church and its authority took the place of the objective Greek cosmos. That church had certain infallible dogma, and thinking was allowed only in so far as it clarified dogma.
On the other hand, when we say that modern thought is subjective, we refer to an entire change in the centre of intellectual gravity. The starting-point is not the world, but the individual. The universe is set over against mind (dualism), or is the creation of mind (idealism). In any case the modern man looks upon the universe as his servant, the standard of truth to be found in himself and not in something external. The subject as knower is now placed in antithesis to the object as known, and the object is not independent of the human thinking process. Reality is man rather than the cosmos. The political state is justifiable so long as it enforces the rights of the individual; religious authority is the expression of the individual conscience; physical nature is a human interpretation.[1]
Plato, Dante, and Goethe are good representatives of these three different historical periods of the human mind. How can they be understood without a philosophical appreciation of the periods in which they lived?
=Table of the Subdivisions of the Three General Periods of Philosophy=
┌ ┌ │ │ Cosmological, 625–480 (to │ Greek, 625–322 │ Persian Wars). │ B. C. (to │ │ death of ┤ Anthropological, 480–399 (to │ Aristotle). │ death of Socrates). │ │ Systematic, 399–322 (to death │ │ of Aristotle). │ └ 1. Ancient 625 ┤ ┌ B. C.–476 A. D. │ Hellenic-Roman │ │ 322 B. C.–476 │ Ethical, 322 B. C.–1 A. D. │ A. D. (from │ (to beginning of Christian │ death of ┤ era). │ Aristotle to │ │ fall of old │ Religious, 100 B. C.–476 A. D. │ Rome). │ └ └ ┌ │ Early Mediæval, 476–1000 (from the fall of old │ Rome to the beginnings of modern Europe). │ 2. Mediæval ┤ Transitional Mediæval (1000–1200), (from 476–1453 │ beginnings of modern Europe to Crusades). │ │ Classic Mediæval, 1200–1453 (from the Crusades │ to the fall of new Rome or Constantinople). └ ┌ ┌ │ Renaissance, │ │ 1453–1690 │ Humanistic, 1453–1600. │ (to Locke’s │ │ Essay and ┤ │ the English │ Natural Science, 1600–1690. │ Revolution). │ 3. Modern │ └ 1453–modern ┤ times │ Enlightenment, 1690–1781 (from Locke’s Essay to │ Kant’s Critique). │ │ German Idealism, 1781–1831 (from Kant’s Critique │ to the death of Hegel). │ │ Evolution, 1820 to the present time. └
=The Divisions of Ancient Philosophy.= The history of ancient philosophy falls naturally into two large divisions: pure Greek philosophy and Hellenic-Roman philosophy (or Greek philosophy in the Roman world). The date, 322 B. C., the death of Aristotle, which marks the line between these two periods, is one of the milestones of history. Alexander the Great had died in 323 B. C. The coincidence of the deaths of Aristotle and Alexander not only suggests their intimate relations as teacher and pupil during their lives, but it throws into contrast Greek civilization before and after them. Before Aristotle and Alexander culture was the product entirely of the pure Greek spirit; after them ancient culture was the complex product of many factors――of Greek and Roman civilizations, and many Oriental religions, including Christianity. Before Aristotle and Alexander, ancient culture was characterized by a love of knowledge for its own sake, by freedom from ulterior ends either of service or of use; after these great makers of history, culture became attenuated to work in the special sciences and enslaved to practical questions. Before Aristotle and Alexander, the Greek city-states had arisen to political power; after Aristotle and Alexander, Greece declined politically and was absorbed into the Roman empire.
=The Literary Sources of Ancient Philosophy.[2]= The literary sources of ancient philosophy are three: (1) the primary sources, or original writings; (2) the secondary sources, or reports of the original writers obtained indirectly, or through other writers; (3) the interpretations of reliable modern historians of philosophy. The specialist in philosophy will, of course, go to the first two sources for his information. Other students will find many accurate modern histories of ancient philosophy. The student should have at hand the translations of the histories of Zeller, Windelband, Weber, Eucken, Ueberweg; those of the Englishmen, Burnet and Fairbanks; of the Americans, Rogers and Turner.
“The writings of the early Greek philosophers of the pre-Socratic period exist now only in fragments. The complete works of Plato are still extant; so also are the most important works of Aristotle, and certain others which belong to the Stoic, Epicurean, Skeptic, and neo-Platonic schools. We possess the principal works of most of the philosophers of the Christian period in sufficient completeness.”[3] The secondary sources include quotations and comments upon earlier philosophers found in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Skeptics, neo-Platonists, and the so-called doxographers. Doxography――the commentating upon and collating of the works of former times――developed enormously in Alexandria, Pergamos, and Rhodes just after Aristotle. The founder of this work was Theophrastus, who was a disciple of Aristotle and his successor in the Lyceum. Among the important doxographers were Plutarch, Stobæus, and Aetios.
=The Environment of the Early Greek.= The biologist seeks to explain a living creature by its previous environment and inherited instincts. So if we know the environment and inherited instincts of the early Greek, we shall be able to understand better firstly, why European philosophy began with the Greeks and not with some other people; and secondly, why Greek philosophy took certain lines that it did take.
(1). His Geographical Environment. The Greece into which philosophy was born was much larger than the Greece of to-day. Ancient Greece consisted of all the coasts and islands which were washed by the Mediterranean Sea from Asia Minor to Sicily and southern Italy, and from Cyrene to Thrace. The motherland, the peninsula of Greece, at first played an insignificant rôle. The leadership was in the hands of the Ionians, who had colonized the coasts of Asia Minor. In the seventh century B. C., when the first Greek philosophy appears, these Ionians commanded the world’s commerce among the three continents. Over the coasts of the entire Mediterranean they had extended their trade and established their colonies. Miletus became the wealthiest of these colonies and the cradle of Greek science. Its wealth afforded leisure to its people and therefore the opportunity for reflection.
(2). His Political Environment. An understanding of the Greek political world, in which its first philosophy appeared, requires an historical explanation of its rise. It takes us back four centuries to the age of the Epic (1000–750 B. C.). During more than two centuries of the age of the Epic two changes occurred which were to influence future Greek civilization: (1) The oligarchy which had supplanted the ancient patriarchal monarchy became firmly established; and (2) the Epic was formed. The importance of the Epic of Homer lies not so much in the fact that a great poem was constructed, as that it was the formulation of the Greek religion, the Greek æsthetic polytheism. Its writing indicates that the earlier unorganized, primitive, and savage forms of religion had given way, among the ruling classes at least, to an æsthetic polytheism, which in a general way was fixed by the Epic itself.
The period of more than a century, from 750 to 625 B. C., lying between the age of the Epic and Greek philosophy, may be called an age of political disturbances. The oligarchy had become oppressive to the rich and poor alike. There had grown up in Greece, especially in the colonies, a class of citizens who had become wealthy through commerce. The result of the misgovernment by the oligarchy was that (1) migrations took place, and (2) many revolutions occurred. This was particularly true of the colonies where the proletariat was powerful and the cities were full of adventurers. Plutocracy was at war with aristocracy, and this was the opportunity for bold men. These political troubles took form from 650 B. C. on, and the history of the Greek cities consists of the endeavor to establish popular government. About the time of the first Greek philosophers there arose here and there from the ruins of these civil struggles the so-called tyrants, of whom Thrasybulus at Miletus, Pittacus at Lesbos, Periander at Corinth, and Pisistratus at Athens are examples. The courts of these tyrants became centres of intellectual life. They patronized poets, writers, and artists. The universalism of the Epic had vanished, and in its place came the individualism of the lyric and the satire. In many places the aristocrat went into gloomy retirement, and often cultivated poetry, science, and philosophy.
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