Hellenistic Schools of Philosophy

Walking Visit to Athens in late 3^rd Century BCE

West of walls of city, road to Diplon Gate: Academy, Garden

In Agora, Stoa

East of walls of city, Lyceum

Philosophies attributed back to Founders.

What is the highest good? What leads to Eudaemonia, Happiness?

Aristotelian Lyeum Balanced Life of virtue, pleasure, material goods, friendship; therefore aristocrats are better equipped for attaining the highest good.

Golden Mean-courage between recklessness and cowardice. Sexism in golden mean as

different standards of virtue for male and female

Epicurean Garden Highest good is Pleasure. What kind of pleasures are best? Alternative portraits of Epicurus.

Stoic School Highest good is Virtue. Conform human will to universal natural moral law. Slaves and Aristocrats equally capable of attaining highest good.

Middle Academy of Carneades Academic skeptics say “I do not know.” Too hard to attain knowledge of Plato’s forms. One cannot know universal natural moral law. Carneades teaches probabilism—cast all in doubt, accept likely view tentatively.

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Academy, founded by Plato, 387 BCE and continues until Justinian closes it in 529 CE

Republic (Allegory of the Cave on reality of Forms or Ideas; Tripartite Psyche: reason=Philosopher Kings, spirit = Guardians, appetites= Workers).

Crito (on obeying unjust law or decree)

Academy Sceptical under Carneades 213-129 BCE (influences Cicero 106-43 BCE)

Plato’s Apology (Socrates speech at his trial on role as gadfly), dialectical method

Academy Neoplatonistic under Plotinus (205-270 CE)

influences mysticism of Augustine

Lyceum, founded by Aristotle, 335 BCE

Politics (6 forms of government; deliberative faculty in men, women and slaves), Nicomachean Ethics (golden mean); also wrote biological works such as On the Generation of Animals

Most influential school on Thomas Aquinas and 13^th century universities

The Garden, founded by Epicurus, ca. 306 BCE

Fragments of Epicurus

Lucretius, On the Nature of Things

The Stoa, founded by Zeno, ca. 304 BCE

Chryssipus (280-207 BCE)

Influenced Romans Cicero and Seneca