25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Greatest Greeks Did Not Set Up Schools
Now the wisdom of the Greeks was professorial and much given to disputations, a kind of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition of truth. Thus that name of Sophists, which by those who would be thought philosophers was in contempt cast back upon and so transferred to the ancient rhetoricians, Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Polus, does indeed suit the entire class: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their successors Chrysippus, Carneades, and the rest. There was this difference ...They were too busy doing science to produce useful knowledge than to waste time profiting on their ideas.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Greatest Greek Minds Did Not Prosthletize
Now the wisdom of the Greeks was professorial and much given to disputations, a kind of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition of truth. Thus that name of Sophists, which by those who would be thought philosophers was in contempt cast back upon and so transferred to the ancient rhetoricians, Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Polus, does indeed suit the entire class: Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, Theophrastus, and their successors Chrysippus, Carneades, and the rest. There was this difference ...They observed quietly and documented their observations and their truth survives the ages more concretely than the rhetoric of Plato or Aristotle.
25 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The Platonic School Believed Nothing Was Knowable
A caution must also be given to the understanding against the intemperance which systems of philosophy manifest in giving or withholding assent, because intemperance of this kind seems to establish idols and in some sort to perpetuate them, leaving no way open to reach and dislodge them. This excess is of two kinds: the first being manifest in those who are ready in deciding, and render sciences dogmatic and magisterial; the other in those who deny that we can know anything, and so introduce...They believed science and nature were simply shadows, mere reflections of a reality we could never hope to truly know.