西方哲学概论080610.doc

The History of Western Thought: An Introduction

Week 1
Objectives: (1) an overall introduction to this course: references, the definition of philosophy, the relation of philosophy to the history of philosophy, (2) the division of the history of Western philosophy; (3) The origin of Greek civilization: Part One.

Part One: Introduction
1. Some readings in Western philosophy
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy, and its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945.
Thilly, Frank. A History of Philosophy. 3rd ed. Revised by Ledger Wood. New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1957.
Samuel Enoch Stumpf & James Fierer. A History of Philosophy---Socrates to Sartre and Beyond.McGraw-Hill, 2003.

2. What is “Philosophy”? What is the relation between philosophy and the history of philosophy?
Philosophy, eastern or western, means a general understanding of the universe around us and of the place we have in it. In China, philosophy is usually classified into three main areas: Marxist philosophy, Chinese philosophy and western philosophy. As students of English, an elementary knowledge of western philosophy is indispensable if one intends to go further in his or her study and research. I indorse Russell’s definition of philosophy: Philosophy … is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge … belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land（无人区）, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy.

As to the relation between philosophy and social life, we maintain that the former is subject to the latter. In other words, philosophy is an integral part of social and political life. This viewpoint is in conformity with historical materialism of Marxism. For example, the great age of the scholastic philosophy was an outcome of the reforms of the 11th century, and these, in turn, were a reaction against previous corruption. Some figures in history are not philosophers in the academic sense of the word, but they produced so great influences that it is impossible for us to ignore them if we are to study the past of philosophy. Rousseau and Byron are two cases in point. We cannot understand the development of philosophy after them if we know little or nothing about their thoughts.

The relation of philosophy to its history is not only interesting but also illuminating. Why the history of philosophy? Hegel says that philosophy is nothing but its history. That is to say, history shows how philosophy came to be what it is. The same is true to any person. To know someone is to know his past. But history has differences in time. We have ancient history, modern history and contemporary history. One may ask: What is the use of learning ancient Greek philosophy? Well, the answer lies in the fact that the problems ancient Greeks once faced face us now. For example, they were perplexed for quite a long time with the issues of individual freedom and social cohesion, and the same is true to us. Another example, they could not ease the tension between passion and intellect, and the same is true to us. History is not something that has passed for ever. We are humans in history. Therefore learning history is learning the present situation of the universe and of our life.

3. Division of the history of Western philosophy
Western philosophy is broadly divided into four periods:
Ancient Greek philosophy (5th B.C-3rd A.D.).Socrates, Plato,Aristotle…
Medieval philosophy (4th-13th). Augustine, Aquinas.
Modern philosophy (14th-18th). Francis Bacon, John Locke, Rene Descartes, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel.
Contemporary philosophy (the philosophy after Hegel, 18th-now). Marx, Sartre, Husserl, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Russell, Popper…

Different periods had different questions to answer and had contributed different answers. Let’s see a few examples. In the time of Plato, the question of truth is closely concerned with democracy. In the time of Augustine, philosophers were no longer interested in the life of this world, because it was too bleak a picture to look at. Man’s eye turned to the kingdom of heaven for hope and consolation. But in modern times, his attention was directed from heaven back to earth, and secularization took the place of heaven. As a development of modern thought, contemporary philosophy turned back to examine itself, hoping to found philosophy on a basis as firm as that of science.

We shall pay more attention to modern philosophy than to ancient philosophy, and shall stop with Hegel. Contemporary philosophy is something that is taking shape, therefore very difficult to understand if one knows little about its past.

4. The origin of Greek philosophy
Generally speaking, Greek philosophy and Greek civilization are the same thing in ancient times. “Philo-” means “love”, and “-sophy” wisdom. Philosophy means the love of wisdom. According to the latest research, Greek philosophy mainly has six sources. First, the ancient religion of Egypt. In ancient times, Egyptians believed that there was a divine king who owned all the land. But their religion was polytheistic, with a supreme god to whom the king had a specially intimate relation. What is remarkable is that they were preoccupied with death, and believed that the souls of the dead descend into the underworld, where they are judged by Osiris according to the manner of their life on earth. They thought that the soul would ultimately return to the body, and this led to mummification and to the construction of splendid tombs. The pyramids were built by various kings at the end of the 4th millennium B.C. and the beginning of the 3rd. This conception of immortality of the soul was later assimilated by Greek philosophers.

Second, the ancient religion of Babylonia. Like other ancient religions, the religion of Babylonia was originally fertility cult. The earth was female, the sun male. The bull was usually regarded as an embodiment of male fertility, and bull-gods were common. Ishtar was supreme among female divinities. Throughout western Asia, the Great Mother was worshipped under various names. When Greek colonists in Asia Minor founded temples to her, they named her Artemis and took over the existing cult. This is the origin of “Diana of the Ephesians.” Christianity transferred her into the Virgin Mary. Through association with government, the gods also became associated with law and morality. The oldest legal code still known is that of Hammurabi, king of Babylon, about 2100 B.C.; this code was asserted by the king to have been delivered to him by Marduk. The union of religion and state took shape ever since. Finally, unlike that of Egypt, Babylonian religion was more concerned with prosperity in this world than with happiness in the next. Magic, divination and astrology were more developed there than elsewhere. It was chiefly through Babylon that these arts of knowing the world acquired their hold on later antiquity, especially on the Greeks. This is a necessary prelude to the making of science. As a matter of fact, they have divided the day into 24 hours, and the circle 360 degrees. This knowledge was acquired by the first Greek philosopher Thales.

Third, the Minoan-Mycenaean culture. From 2500-1400 B.C. an artistically advanced culture, called the Minoan, existed in Crete. What survives of Cretan art gives an impression of cheerfulness and almost decadent luxury, very different from the terrifying gloom of Egyptian temples. According to latest excavations, it is evident that very considerable commerce between Egypt and Crete was carried on by Cretan sailors; this commerce reached its maximum about 1500 B.C. About 1600 B.C., the Minoan culture spread to the mainland of Greece, where it survived through gradual stages of degeneration until about 900 B.C. This mainland civilization is called the Mycenaean. Seen through a haze of legend, this civilization is that which is depicted by in Homer. It seems probable that they were conquerors who spoke Greek.

Fourth, the acquisition of the art of writing. The Greeks did not know how to write until about the 10th century B.C. They learnt the art from the Phoenicians. Like the other inhabitants of Syria, Phoenicians were exposed to both Egyptian and Babylonian influences. They held the supremacy in maritime commerce until the rise of the Greek cities of Ionia, Italy and Sicily. At first, the Egyptians used a pure picture writing; gradually the pictures were conventionalized and came to represent syllables and single letters. This last step was not taken with any completeness by the Egyptians, but by the Phoenicians, who gave the alphabet all its advantages. The Greeks, borrowing from the Phoenicians, altered the alphabet to suit their language, and made the important innovation of adding vowels instead of having only consonants. This acquisition of writing method undoubtedly hastened the rise of Greek civilization.

Fifth, Homer as the first notable product of Hellenic civilization. Everything about him is conjectural, but the best opinion seems to be that he was a series of poets rather than an individual. The Homeric poems, in their present form, were brought to Athens by Peisistratus, who reigned from 560-527 B.C. From his time onward, the Athenian youth learnt Homer by heart, and this was the most important part of their education. In some parts of Greece, notably in Sparta, Homer had not the same prestige until a later date. The Homeric poems represent the point of view of a civilized aristocracy, which ignores as plebian various superstitions that are still rampant among the populace. Guided by anthropology, modern writers have come to the conclusion that Homer, so far from being primitive, was an expurgator, a kind of 18th-century rationalizer of ancient myths, holding up an upper-class ideal of urbane enlightenment. The Olympian Gods, who represent religion in Homer, were not the only objects of worship among the Greeks. There were other darker and more savage elements in popular religion, which were kept at bay by the Greek intellect at its best, but lay in wait to pounce in moments of weakness and terror. In Homer, the gods are completely human, differing from men only in being immortal and possessed of superhuman powers. There was nothing to say about them in morality. But they were greatly concerned with Fate or Necessity or Destiny, to whom even Zeus is subject. This is a feature common to all Greek thought, and perhaps Greek science derived its belief in natural law from this conception. The Homeric gods were gods of a conquering aristocracy, not the useful fertility gods of those who actually tilled the soil. Sometime during the sixth century B.C. the Homeric poems became fixed in their present form. It was also during this time that Greek science and philosophy began. At the same time events of fundamental importance were happening in other parts of the world. Confucius, Buddha, and Zoroaster, probably belong to the same century.

Week 2
Objectives: (1) The origin of Greek civilization: Part Two; (2) the beginning of the Greek-Roman philosophy.

Sixth, the worship of Dionysus. The name Dionysus should not sound strange to one who has read or heard of Nietzsche. Dionysus is usually considered as the somewhat disreputable god of wine and drunkenness. His worship arose a profound mysticism, which greatly influenced many philosophers, and even had a part in shaping Christian theology. Dionysus or Bacchus was originally a Thracian god. The Thracians were very much less civilized than the Greeks, who regarded them as barbarians. Bacchus was a god of fertility. When the Thracians discovered how to make beer, they thought intoxication divine, and gave honor to Bacchus. We do not know when the worship of Bacchus migrated from Thrace to Greece, but the cult met with hostility by the orthodox, since it contained many barbaric elements, such as tearing wild animals to pieces and eating the whole of them raw. It had a curious element of feminism. Respectable matrons and maids, in large companies, would spend whole nights on the bare hills, in dances which stimulated ecstasy. Husbands found the practice annoying, but did not dare to oppose religion. The success of Bacchus in Greece is not surprising. The Greeks were quickly civilized, but some of them developed a love of the primitive, and a hankering after a more instinctive and passionate way of life than that sanctioned by current morals. To the man or woman who, by compulsion, is more civilized in behavior than in feeling, rationality is irksome and virtue is felt as a burden and a slavery. This leads to a reaction in thought, in feeling and in conduct. The civilized man is distinguished from the savage mainly by “prudence” or “forethought”. He is willing to endure present pains for the sake of future pleasures, even if the future pleasures are rather distant. Civilization checks impulse not only through forethought, but also through law, custom, and religion. Prudence may incur the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Bacchus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of everyday preoccupations. Without passion, life would be uninteresting; with it, it is dangerous. Prudence versus passion is a conflict that runs through history. It is not a conflict in which we ought to side wholly with either party.

The religion of Bacchus is believed to have been reformed by Orpheus, who substituted mental for physical intoxication. The teaching of Orpheus is well-known. The Orphics believed that in the transmigration of souls; they taught that the soul hereafter might achieve eternal bliss or suffer eternal or temporary torment according to its way of life here on earth. They aimed at becoming “pure”, partly by ceremonies of purification, partly by avoiding certain kinds of contamination. Man is believed to be partly of earth and partly of heaven. By a pure life the heavenly part will be increased and the earthly part diminished. In the end he may become one with Bacchus, and is called “a Bacchus.” The Orphics were an ascetic sect; wine, to them, was only a symbol, as later in the Christian sacrament. They believed they might acquire mystic knowledge not obtainable by ordinary means. This mystic element entered into Greek philosophy with Pythagoras, who was a reformer of Orphis