Early appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or free-thinkers in Greece.
Amidst the epic and lyric poets of Greece, with their varied productive impulse — as well as amidst the Gnomic philosophers, the best of whom were also poets — there are not a few manifestations of such freely judging individuality. Xenophanes the philosopher, who wrote in poetry, censured severely several of the current narratives about the Gods and Pindar, though in more respectful terms, does the like. So too, the theories about the Kosmos, propounded by various philosophers, Thales, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, &c., were each of them the free offspring of an individual mind. But these were counter-affirmations: novel theories, departing from the common belief, yet accompanied by little or no debate, or attack, or defence: indeed the proverbial obscurity of Herakleitus, and the recluse mysticism of the Pythagoreans, almost excluded discussion. These philosophers (to use the phrase of Aristotle[75]) had no concern with Dialectic: which last commenced in the fifth century B.C., with the Athenian drama and dikastery, and was enlisted in the service of philosophy by Zeno the Eleate and Sokrates.
[75] Aristot. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 32. Eusebius, having set forth the dissentient and discordant opinions of the various Hellenic philosophers, triumphantly contrasts with them the steady adherence of Jews and Christians to one body of truth, handed down by an uniform tradition from father to son, from the first generation of man — ἀπὸ πρώτης ἀνθρωπογονίας. (Præp. Ev. xiv. 3.)
Cicero, in the treatise (not preserved) entitled Hortensius — set forth, at some length, an attack and a defence of philosophy; the former he assigned to Hortensius, the latter he undertook in his own name. One of the arguments urged by Hortensius against philosophy, to prove that it was not “vera sapientia,” was, that it was both a human invention and a recent novelty, not handed down by tradition a principio, therefore not natural to man. “Quæ si secundum hominis naturam est, cum homine ipso cœperit necesse est; si vero non est, nec capere quidem illam posset humana natura. Ubi apud antiquiores latuit amor iste investigandæ veritatis?” (Lactantius, Inst. Divin. iii. 16.) The loss of this Ciceronian pleading (Philosophy versus Consecrated Tradition) is much to be deplored. Lactantius and Augustin seem to have used it largely.
The Hermotimus of Lucian, manifesting all his lively Sokratic acuteness, is a dialogue intended to expose the worthlessness of all speculative philosophy. The respondent Hermotimus happens to be a Stoic, but the assailant expressly declares (c. 85) that the arguments would be equally valid against Platonists or Aristotelians. Hermotimus is advised to desist from philosophy, to renounce inquiry, to employ himself in some of the necessary affairs of life, and to acquiesce in the common received opinions, which would carry him smoothly along the remainder of his life (ἀξιῶ πράττειν τι τῶν ἀναγκαίων, καὶ ὅ σε παραπέμψει ἐς τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ βίου, τὰ κοινὰ ταῦτα φρονοῦντα, c. 72). Among the worthless philosophical speculations Lucian ranks geometry: the geometrical definitions (point and line) he declares to be nonsensical and inadmissible (c. 74).
Rise of Dialectic — Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery.
Both the drama and the dikastery recognise two or more different ways of looking at a question, and require that no conclusion shall be pronounced until opposing disputants have been heard and compared. The Eumenides plead against Apollo, Prometheus against the mandates and dispositions of Zeus, in spite of the superior dignity as well as power with which Zeus is invested: every Athenian citizen, in his character of dikast, took an oath to hear both the litigant parties alike, and to decide upon the pleadings and evidence according to law. Zeno, in his debates with the anti-Parmenidean philosophers, did not trouble himself to parry their thrusts. He assumed the aggressive, impugned the theories of his opponents, and exposed the contradictions in which they involved themselves. The dialectic process, in which there are (at the least) two opposite points of view both represented — the negative and the affirmative — became both prevalent and interesting.
Application of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social topics by Sokrates.
I have in a former [chapter] explained the dialectic of Zeno, as it bore upon the theories of the anti-Parmenidean philosophers. Still more important was the proceeding of Sokrates, when he applied the like scrutiny to ethical, social, political, religious topics. He did not come forward with any counter-theories: he declared expressly that he had none to propose, and that he was ignorant. He put questions to those who on their side professed to know, and he invited answers from them. His mission, as he himself described it, was, to scrutinise and expose false pretensions to knowledge. Without such scrutiny, he declares life itself to be not worth having. He impugned the common and traditional creed, not in the name of any competing doctrine, but by putting questions on the familiar terms in which it was confidently enunciated, and by making its defenders contradict themselves and feel the shame of their own contradictions. The persons who held it were shown to be incapable of defending it, when tested by an acute cross-examiner; and their supposed knowledge, gathered up insensibly from the tradition around them, deserved the language which Bacon applies to the science of his day, conducting indirectly to the necessity of that remedial course which Bacon recommends. “Nemo adhuc tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi proposuerit, theorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia rursus applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus quas primo hausimus notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries.”[76]
[76] Bacon, Nov. Org. Aph. 97. I have already cited this passage in a note on the 68th chapter of my ‘History of Greece,’ pp. 612-613; in which note I have also alluded to other striking passages of Bacon, indicating the confusion, inconsistencies, and misapprehensions of the “intellectus sibi permissus”. In that note, and in the text of the chapter, I have endeavoured to illustrate the same view of the Sokratic procedure as that which is here taken.