I know he’s a boring choice, and also probably wrong about a lot of things (though that claim is complicated by the difficulty in figuring out what he really believed anyway), but Plato was by far the most effective and influential early advocate of an attitude of questioning everything and figuring things out for yourself. As such, I think he deserves more credit than anyone else for most of subsequent Western philosophy.
Hmm. At first, I was inclined to agree with you. But the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Plato and Aristotle may have had a net negative effect on humanity, if only because they were too awesome. Placing philosophy’s heavyweights right at the start of its history might well have discouraged a lot of philosophical diversity, particularly since it occurred at a time when antiquity was so central to authority. This is more the case for Aristotle, since he expressed less confusion and unclarity in his arguments. But unclarity can also have a stultifying effect, as shown by Christianity and, more generally, Neoplatonism.
If there weren’t a lot of other philosophers at the time (including three other schools independent of Plato/Aristotle that were also founded by students of Socrates), I’d be more inclined to agree. But it’s not clear to me that the course of philosophical history needed someone as amazing as Plato or as Aristotle, at that point in time. A slower development might have been healthier.
But given that philosophy just didn’t really emerge elsewhere, it seems like it’s a pretty contingent fact about human beings. If it weren’t for Plato and Aristotle, there just might never have been anything like it at all. And then what the hell would we do with our time?
Major philosophical traditions seem to have arisen independently three times: In Greece (following Thales and Anaximander), in India (following the Upanishads and Śramaṇa), and in China (following the Confucian texts). That’s a pretty high success rate for large, long-lasting literary civilizations. It also suggests a selection effect; philosophy-like things probably arise frequently and just aren’t recorded as well in most cultures.
‘Philosophy’, though, is probably too coarse a category for us here. More interesting would be ‘philosophy vibrant and robust enough to survive sophism’, since sophists did a lot to weaken early Chinese and Indian thought as forerunners to science and rationalism.
And, as I noted, Plato and Aristotle founded Western philosophy about as much as Ronald Reagan invented liberal democracy. In both cases, the ‘founder’ in question appears some 200 years late.
That’s a pretty high success rate for large, long-lasting literary civilizations.
Sorry, ‘emergence’ was probably the wrong word. ‘Persistence’ or ‘development’ is probably more to the point. The Chinese got unlucky with that madman of an emperor, but in any case I don’t think anything coming from either the Indian or the Chinese tradition can really be compared to the European/Greek tradition after Aristotle. I’m not extremely confident in that judgement. My exposure to Indian and Chinese philosophy is not trivial, but obviously not extensive. I’d be pretty surprised to find that there’s something in the Chinese or Indian tradition, at any period, that’s anywhere in the ballpark of Kant, or even an early medieval commentary on Aristotle.
philosophy-like things probably arise frequently and just aren’t recorded as well in most cultures.
Maybe. I expect there’s going to be a close enough relationship between literacy and philosophy that this isn’t a safe claim.
since sophists did a lot to weaken early Chinese and Indian thought as forerunners to science and rationalism.
Can you elaborate on that?
And, as I noted, Plato and Aristotle founded Western philosophy about as much as Ronald Reagan invented liberal democracy. In both cases, the ‘founder’ in question appears some 200 years late.
Maybe we disagree about Ronald Reagan, but it seems to me that Plato and Aristotle marked a radical upswing in sophistication. And both did found philosophy in many ways: everything that preceded them was comparatively narrow in scope, and generally lacked any systematic or thoughtful approach to ethics, logic, epistemology, etc.
I know he’s a boring choice, and also probably wrong about a lot of things (though that claim is complicated by the difficulty in figuring out what he really believed anyway), but Plato was by far the most effective and influential early advocate of an attitude of questioning everything and figuring things out for yourself. As such, I think he deserves more credit than anyone else for most of subsequent Western philosophy.
Hmm. At first, I was inclined to agree with you. But the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Plato and Aristotle may have had a net negative effect on humanity, if only because they were too awesome. Placing philosophy’s heavyweights right at the start of its history might well have discouraged a lot of philosophical diversity, particularly since it occurred at a time when antiquity was so central to authority. This is more the case for Aristotle, since he expressed less confusion and unclarity in his arguments. But unclarity can also have a stultifying effect, as shown by Christianity and, more generally, Neoplatonism.
If there weren’t a lot of other philosophers at the time (including three other schools independent of Plato/Aristotle that were also founded by students of Socrates), I’d be more inclined to agree. But it’s not clear to me that the course of philosophical history needed someone as amazing as Plato or as Aristotle, at that point in time. A slower development might have been healthier.
But given that philosophy just didn’t really emerge elsewhere, it seems like it’s a pretty contingent fact about human beings. If it weren’t for Plato and Aristotle, there just might never have been anything like it at all. And then what the hell would we do with our time?
Major philosophical traditions seem to have arisen independently three times: In Greece (following Thales and Anaximander), in India (following the Upanishads and Śramaṇa), and in China (following the Confucian texts). That’s a pretty high success rate for large, long-lasting literary civilizations. It also suggests a selection effect; philosophy-like things probably arise frequently and just aren’t recorded as well in most cultures.
‘Philosophy’, though, is probably too coarse a category for us here. More interesting would be ‘philosophy vibrant and robust enough to survive sophism’, since sophists did a lot to weaken early Chinese and Indian thought as forerunners to science and rationalism.
And, as I noted, Plato and Aristotle founded Western philosophy about as much as Ronald Reagan invented liberal democracy. In both cases, the ‘founder’ in question appears some 200 years late.
Sorry, ‘emergence’ was probably the wrong word. ‘Persistence’ or ‘development’ is probably more to the point. The Chinese got unlucky with that madman of an emperor, but in any case I don’t think anything coming from either the Indian or the Chinese tradition can really be compared to the European/Greek tradition after Aristotle. I’m not extremely confident in that judgement. My exposure to Indian and Chinese philosophy is not trivial, but obviously not extensive. I’d be pretty surprised to find that there’s something in the Chinese or Indian tradition, at any period, that’s anywhere in the ballpark of Kant, or even an early medieval commentary on Aristotle.
Maybe. I expect there’s going to be a close enough relationship between literacy and philosophy that this isn’t a safe claim.
Can you elaborate on that?
Maybe we disagree about Ronald Reagan, but it seems to me that Plato and Aristotle marked a radical upswing in sophistication. And both did found philosophy in many ways: everything that preceded them was comparatively narrow in scope, and generally lacked any systematic or thoughtful approach to ethics, logic, epistemology, etc.