A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

1. The Ethical Period, 322 B. C.–1 A. D., had its origin in the Greek culture that was superimposed upon Roman civilization. This epoch is notable for the rise and controversies of the four celebrated philosophical Schools of Athens; the introduction of the teaching of these Schools into Roman society; and the final merging and reconciliation of these Schools in Eclecticism and Skepticism.

2. The Religious Period, 100 B. C.–476 A. D., arose out of the Oriental religions that swept into Rome before the beginning of this era. They were modified by their Roman environment, and intellectualized and systematized by Hellenic culture. Neo-Pythagoreanism,the Alexandrian-Judaic theosophies in the first part, Christianity and neo-Platonism in the second part of this period, are the most important philosophical results.

Note three things. (1) The spiritual life of Rome during these 800 years has its origin in imported foreign movements. The source of the ethical movement is Greek, that of the religious movement is Oriental. (2) The two movements overlap. Indeed, each from its beginning to its end covers about 600 years. More precisely the ethical movement did not disappear until about 200 A. D.; the religious movement began about 200 B. C. Ethical considerations dominate the first and religious impulses the second period. (3) The century and a half from 150 B. C. to 1 A. D. is a period of transition. It is the time when the emphasis changes from ethics to religion. It is a period of unsettled conditions both politically and intellectually. Politically it is the time of the Civil wars and the formation of the empire. Intellectually it is the time of Eclecticism and Skepticism.

The Undercurrent of Skepticism in the Hellenic-Roman Period. If we go beneath the surface of the chronological divisions of this period, which have been given above, we shall find their significance in the undercurrent of Skepticism, which runs from the beginning to the end of the period, and includes both its ethical and religious phases. “Skepticism” is a word with a history of its own, but, as philosophically used, it means the disbelief in the possibility of true knowledge. Skepticism was the fundamental frame of mind that gradually grew to conscious expression in the entire ancient world, although it was entirely at variancewith the spirit of the Greek culture that had been superimposed upon that world. As an undercurrent—a widespread feeling—Skepticism pervaded the whole period, while at different times and places it appeared distinctly on the surface. These were 800 years of lack of confidence in the power of the human reason, but the really negative character of the time is often concealed by dogmatic teachings of the philosophical Schools. Dogmatic Skepticism does not appear except with reference to the positive teachings of the Schools, and then it appears conspicuously. The successive stages of Skepticism can have their clear outline, therefore, only after the positive philosophical teachings, contemporary with it and opposed by it, have been understood. This is the reason for treating the Skeptics after and not before the Schools. The reader will, however, lose the whole meaning of the Hellenic-Roman Period if he does not see that it is fundamentally Skeptical; that in the Ethical Division the Schools furnished the occasion of its appearance, and that in the Religious Division religious faith rose because Skepticism had taken possession of the field of knowledge. The ethical Schools stood as the last representatives of the old Greek rationalism of the Systematic Period, but even they yielded to the Skeptical spirit of the time. Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism seek the same end,—the withdrawal of the individual from the world and his exaltation above his environment. All three valued science only so far as it would help ethical conduct. Skepticism alone was avowedly antagonistic to intellectual ideals. The strength of Skepticism appears more evident when we look at its growth during this period. At the end of the Ethical Period the Schools weakenedand we find a century and a half (150 B. C.–1 A. D.) of Skepticism and Eclecticism. There then followed at the beginning of this era the Religious Period. Man then turned to religion because he was profoundly skeptical of the trustworthiness of the reason—he felt that it was so untrustworthy as to be unable to furnish him even a true theory of moral conduct.

The Skeptical undercurrent of the Hellenic-Roman Period was the concentration of all the negative results of the Greek Sophists. It therefore had more than one point of departure,—the philosophies of Protagoras, of the Megarian, Cynic, and Cyrenaic Schools. This Sophistic undercurrent fed popular thought during the days of Plato and Aristotle. It took its formal beginning contemporary with the rise of the Stoic and Epicurean Schools; and in Athens, Alexandria, and Rome there rose to the surface the problem of the possibility of human knowledge. Formally it modified its sweeping negations, when it came in contact with the pressing needs of morality and of spiritual retirement, but it was ever present as the significant attitude of the time. While the nature of the Skeptical teaching stood in the way of its formation into a School, the doctrine itself, nevertheless, developed into a system and had its historical growth and culmination. Weber points out that the first appearance of Skepticism marks in Greece the inauguration of the age of reason and its reappearance marks the decline of the age of reason.

The Fundamental Problem of the Hellenic-Roman Period. The fundamental attitude of this period being Skepticism, the fundamental problem presented to it was therefore a practical one. While at heart the age doubted the validity of the human reason, it was consciouslyengaged in solving a very practical problem. The period had an external side that was positive. No age can be merely skeptical, especially for so long a time as 800 years. To doubt the power of the human reason is usually the occasion of shunting human energies along other lines. The form of the practical problem of this time was, What is the highest wisdom for practical life? This is consonant with the skeptical attitude of the Greek as indicated by these two facts: (1) he had no longer an interest in speculation except as it afforded a basis for practical wisdom, and (2) he had no longer an interest in special sciences except as they yielded practical results. To be sure, it will be found that theories took to themselves airs of great importance during this period and that empirical sciences made rapid advances; but it will also be found that they were always in the service of practical living. The Wise Man of this age is he who has a scientific doctrine of the purposes and ends of human life.

For with his entrance into world-wide relations in the Ethical Period the Athenian found himself confronted with a very different situation from that which had engaged him during the age of Pericles. His national existence had gone and could no longer arouse his devotion, and with it his ideal of a national life had crumbled to pieces. His epic polytheism had become a dim thing of the distant past, and there was no longer any external Greek institution to awaken his slumbering energies. He might, of course, go into retirement and engage in speculative inquiry, except that this was an age of pressing need. He was forced to be awake and to adjust himself as an individual to the many other peoples mixing and mingling in one common civilization.His relations were enlarged, but his interests were circumscribed. His philosophy was focused to one fundamental problem, What, after all, is the object of human life, and what can give happiness to the individual amid the turmoil of the time? Philosophic studies were narrowed to ethics, logic, and physics in their practical bearing. How much narrower, then, the scope of the intellectual life of this time than that of those men of retired leisure, Plato and Aristotle!

Nor is the fundamental problem different when in the second part of this period we enter the great sweep of the religious current. The rise of religious ideals and the shift from ethics to religion was only the presentation of the practical problem of living with a different emphasis. Man was now in the dazzling glory of the empire, but that empire was unable to compensate the individual for the loss of his political importance. Rome had given to its conquered peoples an organized legal unity, but no spiritual ideal. It had none to offer. The individual was the least important factor in the organization. The present life offered little hope to the individual, except in the light of a future life. Practical wisdom thus became that which took account of the rewards and punishments that would come in the life beyond.

The Hellenic-Roman Period is kaleidoscopic and bewildering in its shiftings; but amid them all is this one conscious problem: “Show us the man who is sure of his happiness, whatever the accidents of the world may bring to him.”

The Centres of Hellenism.