Founders and Schools of Hellenistic Philosophy:
– Socrates influenced schools like Cynicism, Cyrenaicism, and Platonism.
– Plato taught Aristotle who founded the Peripatetic school.
– Epicurus emphasized using philosophy to alleviate human suffering.
– Cynic, Cyrenaic, and Megarian schools continued into the Hellenistic period.
– Dialectical school focused on paradoxes, dialectic, and propositional logic.
– Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Citium, emphasized living in accordance with Nature and self-control.
Key Philosophical Concepts in Stoicism:
– Stoic logic, developed by Chrysippus, included syllogistic reasoning and the belief in material beings.
– Stoic physics proposed a universe beginning and ending in a divine artisan-fire.
– Stoic Passions emphasized wisdom, self-control, and the elimination of incorrect judgments leading to passions.
Epicureanism and Its Philosophical Tenets:
– Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus, centered on pleasure as the chief good in life.
– Epicurean physics posited atoms and void, with swerve accounting for free will.
– Truth of Sense-Perception in Epicureanism was based on empiricism and the correction of judgments through sensory information.
Skepticism and its Variants in Hellenistic Philosophy:
– Greek philosophical skepticism, founded by Pyrrho of Elis, emphasized suspension of judgment and questioning true knowledge.
– Academic skepticism, Middle Academy, and New Academy all explored doubts about human capacity for knowledge and the denial of certainty in perceptions.
Later Developments in Hellenistic Philosophy:
– Middle Platonism fused Platonism with Peripatetic and Stoic dogmas, viewing the physical world as a living, ensouled being.
– Hellenistic Judaism aimed to integrate Jewish tradition within Hellenistic culture, with figures like Philo of Alexandria playing a prominent role.
– Neopythagoreanism revived Pythagorean views and gained recognition in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.
Hellenistic philosophy is Ancient Greek philosophy corresponding to the Hellenistic period in Ancient Greece, from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The dominant schools of this period were the Stoics, the Epicureans and the Skeptics.
