An introductory study of pre-Socratic and classical philosophy which seeks to rehabilitate those schools which were shunned in the Scholastic period. Sophism is a legitimate pursuit of wisdom, but more importantly the ‘suppression’ of the Sceptics and Epicureans retarded Western science, for the Scholastics were overly concerned to accommodate Plato and Aristotle. Gottlieb’s explication is conventional: science had to jettison faith before moving ahead.

The Greeks appreciated intellectual order. For the Pythagoreans, maths was key to the order and beauty of the universe. Parmenides was the first to ask how the individual (i.e., the subject) processed mind, language, and the objective world; from him sprang the contrasting of reason and the senses; after his paradoxes, epistemology required reworking. For Parmenides there could be no discussion of what is not, which opened the way to non-mathematical disciplines using deduction as well as logic ab absurdum. (Hegel suggested Parmenides revealed the ‘transitory has no truth’, meaning anything that changes cannot be real.) Empedocles came closest to premodern physics with his dichotomy of love and strife. Like many of the best of the early Greeks, his accounts were a mix of astute observation and imaginative extrapolation, the latter drawing on metaphors and analogies not experimentation. (In a characteristic aside, Gottlieb notes Aristotle disliked Empedocles’ theory of the random, for nature was purposeful; natural selection the was consequently ‘stamped out’ until Darwin.) Democritus’ ancient atomism was the ‘crowning achievement’ in philosophy before Plato. It was, however, opposed by early Christians for explaining all in terms of mechanics, and for rejecting life after death. Along with Leucippus, Democritus evinced ‘premature modernity’ in seeing a vast, impersonal universe unconcerned with human telos. Gottlieb again: we are ‘rapidly filling in details’ of the cosmological trajectory without the first mover (Darwin having provided impetus), but the author does not address the origin of matter. Separately, Democritus asserted virtue is self-interested.

The Sophists sought to take over from poets and playwrights as educators. They were searching for truth, demanding to know reasons for moral ends, and comfortable with irresolvable complexities – making them relativists, following Protagoras. (Modern relativism derives from Kant, who thought man could know universal truths because human minds are the same in crucial respects; but if they are not then there are many truths.) ‘The victory goes to the best speaker’ is not cynical but only normative; but what of ‘making the weaker argument the stronger’?; Adamson and Leroy would not agree. Plato’s interest in separating Socratic philosophy from Sophistry was driven by class interest (i.e., Sophists sought payment) as well as self-defense in a turbulent era, Gottlieb says.
For Socrates, the most important thing is tending to the welfare of the soul, which benefits when we do right, and suffers when we do wrong. One must be wise enough to anticipate consequences and so do right; it is a craft of using all subordinate virtues (e.g., honesty, frugality, etc.). The real figure, not the Platonic edition, sought understanding of how to live virtuously, principally through courage, moderation, piety, wisdom, and justice. Where Socrates saw defining these virtues as means to the end, Plato saw the end in itself, the eternal form, and Aristotle accused Socrates of conflating theoretical and practical questions: we don’t wish to know what bravery is but to be brave, nor what justice is but to be just, the same as we wish to be healthy not to know what health is. The Platonic forms are like Parmenides’ One albeit more closely related to physical world. The forms are the north star to common sense. The tyrant’s core problem is an ill-balanced soul, unguided by reason. The happiest man (in the Republic) is reasonable, not distracted; is a master craftsman.

Aristotle’s view of technology is entirely unlike Bacon in that knowledge of nature is desirable in itself, not a means to utility. Having no means of measurement, his physics couldn’t be extended, whereas dissection advanced biology, so he tended to deal in absolutes (i.e., heavy-light) not degrees; but he was perceptive about such concepts as time, space, infinity. In effect, his conception of science assumed all the data has been gathered, so the question was how to organize findings into axioms. In actuality he knew it was not so but medieval scholars didn’t and skipped further research to concentrate on syllogisms. The first questions of ethics are ‘what is the good for man’, ‘what is the aim of humanity’. We inquire not to know what is excellence but to become good. Ethics is the prologue to politics: ethics studies the best people’s characters and actions, whereas politic studies the laws and constitutions that promote excellence.

The succeeding Hellenistic schools of thought (Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics) followed Socrates in seeking a practical relevance of philosophy: change your priorities, change your life. Epicureans thought the world is completely unplanned; Stoics that it is rationally organized to the last detail; Skeptics would not endorse but merely point out alternatives, asking what do the experts really know if they are always changing their views. Epicureanism is the main ancestor of utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill. Lucretius, a materialist (atomist), held random behavior is not the key to freedom of will, for there is no agency.

A long chapter covering late antiquity through the 17th century holds Scholastic thought mainly adapted the ‘big three’ to the Christian era, retarding science and thus philosophy by making these disciplines beholden to Christianity. Gottlieb’s view is entirely contrary to Rubenstein; Leroy’s is the better survey. Ockham thought essence was not the purpose of science because it’s misleading: God is not obliged to take notice. Catholic thinkers made use of Skepticism because it validated the status quo (i.e., lack of change). All the best thinkers of the 17th century struggled with the implications of the new scientific method, and here was science’s chance to break free: if matter is in flux and perceptions are subjective, once Newton’s clockmaker is discounted, how much truth is there in the empirical senses? For Gottlieb, the ancients do not supply a way to arrest the regression to nihilism.

NB: Aristotle quoted the Sophist Gorgias as saying: kill the opponent’s earnest argument with jest, and playful argument with seriousness.