The Philosophical Revolution in Ancient Greece

The Philosophical Revolution in Ancient Greece was divided into two parts: Pre-Socratic philosophy and Classical Greek philosophy. During these two centuries, Greek philosophy underwent a significant change. Philosophers such as Xenophanes and Parmenides, among others, lived during the pre-Socratic era. Their mission was to unlock the mysteries of the natural world, reduce the complexity of phenomena to a few manageable concepts, and gain a better understanding of their surroundings. Socrates and Plato were part of the Classical Greek Philosophy era. Unlike their contemporaries, they investigated life and rituals, as well as excellent and harmful activities. This paper will address the four foremost philosophers' aims and perspectives during the intellectual revolution in Ancient Greece.
Xenophanes was a Greek philosopher and poet. Therefore, his philosophical ideas were mostly lifted from his literary work as a poet. He proposed about the right way of life; he was, therefore, an advocate of social coherence (McKirahan 58). Further, Xenophanes had a reputation of challenging religious tradition for rational considerations. According to him, the divine is eternal, it was not born, and it will not die (McKirahan 60). It is interesting to note that; Xenophanes did not question the presence of the divine in the universe, only the way it was conceived. As a result, his goal was to change the way the Greek people viewed their gods as divine and what is a reality.
To support his course, he held the opinion that “God is not immoral or responsible for evil, is eternal, self-sufficient, independent, master of everything, and unmoving, unlike the Greek gods” (McKirahan 60). Like other philosophers, he believed that facts and evidence were necessary to support one's thesis or reality (McKirahan 60).
Another important philosopher in the Pre-Socratic period was Parmenides. He had a unique role in early Greek philosophy since his opinions marked a turning point in the thoughts history. For this purpose, like his predecessors, he pushed the limits of his thinking beyond what they had done. In fact, like Xenophanes, he used poems to express his philosophical views and to critic others. However, his approach was different since he was the first to make a systematic use of another form of rational thought. His opinion entailed the systematic use of argument in particular deductive argument to prove his point (McKirahan 150).
According to him, ideas are only as good as the arguments used to support them. He was also among the first people to undertake analyses of the explicit philosophy of the concepts of change, being and coming to be, motion, space and time. It is evident that his goal was to make Greek philosophy more systematic (McKirahan 173). Where else it is arguable whether the Pre-Socratic philosophers delved into the physical world rather than the social one; they played an important role in the revolution of Greek Philosophy. Credit is given to them for their contribution to philosophy especially in regards to their views that certain opinions of the universe needed to be supported by facts and evidence. That changed the dimensions of Greek philosophy.
It is imperative to note that, the Pre-Socratic philosophers are mainly remembered for their attempts to comprehend the physical world how it functions, how it came to be the way it is, what it is made of. After Xenophanes and Parmenides Greek philosophers they were forced to take up problems of logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. Absent from this list are moral, political, and social philosophy.
After the Pre-Socratic period enters the Classical Greek philosophy. The most notable philosophers in this period were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. According to Cicero Pre-Socratic philosophers investigated the sizes of the stars, their distances and paths, and all heavenly matters. Therefore their opinions were limited to those things that were amusing to them; various authors have contradicted that assertion claiming that they also held philosophical views on religion, politics and social lives of the Greeks (McKirahan 23). Cicero views were that; Socrates was first to call down philosophy from the sky, he established it in the cities, and even brought it into homes (McKirahan 24). Moreover, he compelled it to investigate life and customs and things that are good and evil (McKirahan 365).
Socrates opinions, as well as that of all later Greek philosophers, were strongly influenced by the work of the early pioneers in the field (the Pre-Socrates). Therefore, the theories, arguments, and concepts of the early Greek philosophers were also important and interesting in their right since they influenced the Classical Greek Philosophers. On the one hand, Socrates contribution to the Philosophical revolution was that everything is always changing. To him, all the things are in process of becoming. Plato, on the other hand, shared that opinion with Socrates and believed that to be true to sense objects, but not of the real knowledge objects (Russell 120).
Plato and Aristotle were among the most influential of the entire ancient, modern, medieval philosophers; between the two, it was Plato that had the greatest effect on subsequent ages (Russell 104). Plato was Socrates’ student, whom he respected so much and with lots of affection. He wrote extensively about him in his book the Republic. Something interesting about Plato is that he was one of the Philosophers who were highly involved in the Greek political and social shakeup. In his work, he displayed his absorption in the political events and intellectual movements of his time (McKirahan 7). Plato’s views were that conflicting interests of different parts of society could be harmonized. According to him, the good and moral incorporated together with the political order could lead to a unified society which allowed prosperity in it (Russell 105). His views were that it was achievable without inconveniencing other members of the society.
In conclusion, it is evident that most of the Pre-Socratic philosophers were concerned with things which Classical Greek Philosophers found to be more scientific than philosophical. However, Pre-Socratic philosophers were fundamental in providing new direction to ways of thought found much earlier in Greece. They are appreciated for providing new kind of answers to philosophical questions that were asked in their present and long before. Those who followed them, the Classical Greek Philosophers, widened the scope of philosophy by incorporating moral, political, and social philosophy. The form of expressing philosophical views changed as time passed in Ancient Greece, from Xenophanes use of poems to Plato use of actual philosophical writing. Describing an ideal philosopher, Plato’s views were that one needs to be a guardian who in the quest for knowledge must get into the cave and live as if he had never seen the truth before (Russell 130).
Works Cited
McKirahan, Richard D. Philosophy before Socrates: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary: An Introduction with Texts and Commentary. Hackett Publishing, 2011.
Russell, Bertrand. "History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day." Simon and Schuster, 1945.