Note: This lesson combines “Ancient Greece: The Birth of Philosophy” and “The Life and Death of Socrates”. The online presentation will be recorded.

In the first week of our 10-week history of philosophy course, we explore the reasons behind the origins of philosophy in Ancient Greece, as well as the metaphysical theories put forward by Thales, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Pythagoras. These earliest thinkers in human history were particularly interested in two subjects: conceptual unity and metaphysical change.

Thales famously held “All things are water.” Although this is now know to be untrue literally, it represents the first attempt at grasping the fabric of reality, and for subsuming an unlimited set of sensory, perceptual-level information under a single concept.

Heraclitus, on the contrary, concluded that the only truly persistent thing in the universe was not any physical matter, but the notion of change - “everything flows and nothing abides”, “the only constant is change”, “a man cannot step into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.” This contrasts with the mysticism of Pythagoras, who held that all the world is ultimately numerical.

We then turn to Socrates.

Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC) implored us to question everything. His famous dictum “I know that I know nothing”, however, far from endorsing the modern kind of hopeless skepticism, calls each individual to reason and think for themselves. He was among the first to hold explicitly the view that tradition, religion and authority did not necessarily hold all the right answers - even if they acted as if they did.

Through the writings of his student, Plato, Socrates is shown debating his contemporaries on timeless matters of justice, virtue, morality and politics. To Socrates, nothing was immune to rational scrutiny. We will also explore the circumstances which led Socrates to be executed for his convictions (the first and most famous example of the contempt for philosophy by a society’s ruling class).

The following week, we cover Plato, whose totalitarian vision was largely inspired by the personal trauma of witnessing the injustice committed against his beloved teacher.