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Stoicism (Sophists): *
The link between Socrates & the Stoics.
Antisthenes (446-366 BC) is regarded as the founder of the Cynics school. He was initially a pupil of the Sophist Gorgias. He later became a disciple of Socrates, walking daily from Peiraeus to Athens, persuading his friends to accompany him. He was present at Socrates's death & never forgave his master's persecutors; he may have been instrumental in procuring their punishment. He developed the ethical side of Socrates' teachings, advocating an ascetic life lived in accordance with virtue. After the passing of Socrates he lectured at the Cynosarges, a gymnasium for the use of Athenians born of foreign mothers, near the temple of Heracles. Here he founded his own school, attracting the poorer classes by the simplicity of his life & teaching. He wore a cloak and carried a staff and a wallet; this costume became the uniform of his followers. Antisthenes’ rigorous ascetic lifestyle & philosophy inspired Diogenes, who followed him as the leader of the Cynic school. Crates of Thebes (365-285 BC) was the third leader of the Cynic school. Like Diogenes he renounced wealth to live in poverty. He lived a very unconventional lifestyle, in particular his views on sex and female equality. He was the teacher of Zeno of Citium in the last years of the century & was the biggest influence on Zeno in his development of Stoic philosophy. Zeno always regarded Crates with the greatest respect, and some of the surviving accounts of Crates have come down to us via Zeno. The Cynic strain to be found in early Stoicism (such as Zeno's own radical views on sexual equality stated in his Republic) can be linked directly to Crates' influence on him.
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In footnote 2 Spengler infers that Socrates was a Sophist. Plato & Aristotle attacked the Sophists, their character & moral intention. Crudely put they claimed the Sophists sold the arts of deception to their students. In this way Plato & Aristotle were able to enhance their “philosophy” as against the mere chicanery of the others. However it is objectively difficult to distinguish between Socrates, his students, and the Sophists. Socrates, using rhetoric, tried to do this at his trial (according to Plato), and failed. Plato, also a teacher, had no need to charge fees as he came from a well to do aristocratic family. Aristotle, is open to charges of being a Sophist himself as he took a form of payment from the Macedonians for teaching Alexander. It makes sense to see Socrates, Plato & Aristotle as part of a common wave of education, a new 5th century rationality. Collectively they can be called Sophists. Socrates certainly shared the Sophist disbelief in the traditional divinities, the Olympian Gods, the Gods of the city. This is a charge brought by Aristophanes who depicts Socrates of making fun of the gods of Athens and giving naturalistic explanations of phenomena Athenians viewed as divinely directed. Socrates said on many occasions that the gods do not lie or do other wicked things, whereas the Olympian gods of the poets & the city were quarrelsome and vindictive.
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English sensualism: *
The 2 giants of English empiricism (or sensualism) are Locke and Hume.
Locke (1632–1704).
His Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) argued that at birth, the mind was a blank slate (without pre-existing concepts);knowledge is determined only by experience derived from sense perception. All knowledge is a posteriori, or based upon experience. This notion, also called empiricism (used by natural scientists) posits that knowledge is based on experience, is tentative and probabilistic, subject to continued revision and falsification. Scientific method is guided by empirical research, including experiments and validated measurement tools.
Hume (1711–1776).
A central doctrine of Hume's philosophy, (Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-40) is that mind consists of perceptions which have 2 categories: "impressions and ideas." (feeling & thinking). Ideas are faint impressions (the impression being much stronger or forceful, such as pain or pleasure); impressions are the original form of all our ideas, all ideas are ultimately copied from some original impression, whether derived from passion or sensation.
David Hartley (1705-57)
Like Locke, he asserted that, prior to sensation, the human mind is a blank slate. By a growth from simple sensations, those states of consciousness (mental images, complex ideas & concepts) which appear most remote from sensation come into being. He further elaborated this in the law of contiguity, synchronous and successive by which he explained both memory & emotion, reasoning, voluntary & involuntary action. He is the founder of the Associationist school of psychology.