THE GREEKS: THE MINDS OF MEN

This handout consists of notes about the video as relevant to the course Introduction to Philosophy. Admittedly, there are some areas that are dragged out a bit and not so significant; please be patient with these sections.

The video is from a 4-part series The Greeks. A 1988 production, its sexist language is characteristic of that period. Nonetheless, its content is valuable.

This program presents a detailed look at the life and teachings of Socrates and his pupil Plato, and at the world of the two founding fathers of history - Herodotus, the first Greek historian, and Thucydides, the first to write a thorough and fair account of his own times. Their work exemplifies the vital curiosity of the Greeks about the nature of man, and his place in the world around him. from the video jacket

I.	Orientation to the Program
	Topics include the origin and purpose of life, a quest that began with the Greeks 2500 years ago. Their quest and ideas emerge from their curiosity, a striking quality of these people. Ideas formed then led to both scientific materialism and influences on Christian thought.

II.	Geography and Historical Sketch

III.

The Greeks worshiped the same gods, which were made like human beings, though super human, more powerful, quarrelsome, greedy and unpredictable. The Greeks generally welcomed change, but not change just for the sake of change. Their questions included: What is human nature? What is good and bad? What is the mind, body and soul? They celebrated the joy of being alive - and Greek.

IV.

Many of their religious beliefs were based on the writings of Hesiod and Homer, but not as a Bible. They tended to believe in whatever fit a particular circumstance. There was no standard for orthodoxy. Therefore, they were free to talk about creation, etc. as things and substances. For example, they asked - regardless of what Hesiod and Homer might have implied - how did things begin? Not with gods, but in terms of the nature of things. They pursued such topics as speculative science, instead of as religious myth. A

V.

Very few Greeks were philosophers; most were farmers. The Clouds of the dramatist Aristophanes poked fun at Socrates who is made to represent all that was new and disturbing in contemporary Greek thought. Aristophanes was a conservative and did not welcome the probing mind of Socrates. The Clouds shows that philosophical speculation was of some interest to the general public in Athens, even if only as a butt of jokes.

VI.

Socrates (see page 12 in Living Issues in Philosophy) is portrayed in Plato's dialogue Meno (pronounced meano) as believing in an immortal soul which holds all knowledge. The reasoning process indicates to Socrates that the young boy has all knowledge in his soul and simply needs - though the dialectic - to recall what he already knows innately. The commentator notes that Socrates takes too much for granted and ignores other possible explanations for the boy's conclusions.

VII.	The Greeks accepted a multiplicity of views, and most believed in gods.

VIII.

Democritus - a contemporary of Socrates - discarded providential explanations of reality and proposed the first atomic theory - based on speculation.

IX.	About 300 B.C. Greek philosophical thinking had developed two strains of thought. The Stoics appealed to eternal divine principle (religious), and Epicurus proposed that the universe is morally neutral and is inquired about in a rational, not a religious, manner.

X.	From the Greeks we inherit the benefits of logic and philosophical method as well as an appreciation of what has already been done by a given time. Thereby, we are given pictures of the past, including varying versions of what happened.