Greek philosophy
Philosophy in the Greek world from the Presocratics of Ionia to Plato, Aristotle and their schools.
Category: Knowledge
- c. 585 BCEThales and the eclipse of 585 BCE (traditional)
Herodotus says Thales of Miletus predicted the eclipse that halted a battle between Lydians and Medes in 585 BCE. Many scholars reject the story. Aristotle calls Thales the first natural philosopher and says he held that everything comes from water.
- c. 550 BCEAnaximander writes on nature
Around 550 BCE Anaximander of Miletus is credited with the first Greek prose work on nature, of which one fragment survives. He proposes the apeiron, an unlimited source of all things, and is said to have published the first world map.
- c. 530 BCEPythagoras settles in Croton
About 530 BCE Pythagoras of Samos moves to Croton in southern Italy and founds a communal, ascetic school. He left no writings, and all biographies are centuries later; the theorem that bears his name is not clearly his.
- c. 500 BCEHeraclitus of Ephesus
Around 500 BCE, Heraclitus of Ephesus teaches that everything changes and that opposites are united. Tradition places him in 504-501 BCE. His book is lost, and over a hundred fragments survive in quotations.
- c. 456 BCEAnaxagoras brings philosophy to Athens
Around 456 BCE, or perhaps earlier, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae settles in Athens and becomes a friend of Pericles. He teaches that mind (nous) set the world in order, and leaves Athens for Lampsacus around 434.
- c. 428 BCEPlato is born
Plato is born in Athens in about 428-427 BCE, though sources put it anywhere between 428 and 423. A follower of Socrates, he writes philosophical dialogues and founds the Academy.
- c. 400 BCEDemocritus and atomism
Democritus of Abdera, building on Leucippus, teaches around 400 BCE that atoms and void are the only true realities. None of his works survive; we know him through fragments and reports, many from Aristotle.
- 384 BCEAristotle is born
Aristotle is born at Stagira in 384 BCE, the son of a physician to the Macedonian king. At about 17 he joins Plato's Academy in Athens and stays about twenty years.
- c. 383 BCEPlato founds the Academy
Around 383 BCE Plato founds the Academy in Athens, sometimes dated about 387, a school that lasts for centuries. The order of his dialogues cannot be fixed exactly. He visits Syracuse three times, in the 380s, 366 and 361.
- 343 BCEAristotle tutors Alexander
About 343-342 BCE Aristotle goes to Macedon to teach the young Alexander. The two later become estranged. Claims that Aristotle had a hand in Alexander's death rest on weak evidence.
- 335 BCEAristotle founds the Lyceum
Back in Athens about 335 BCE, Aristotle founds the Lyceum, where the Peripatetic school grows. Of his works about a third survive, mostly lecture notes: the Organon, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, Politics and Poetics.
- 322 BCEAristotle dies at Chalcis
In 322 BCE, charged with impiety after Alexander's death, Aristotle leaves Athens and dies that year at Chalcis in Euboea. His logic remains dominant until the 19th century.
- 322 BCETheophrastus succeeds Aristotle at the Lyceum
Aristotle's will names Theophrastus his successor and leaves him his library and the originals of his works. Theophrastus leads the Peripatetic school for some 35 years. A well-known tale that the books lay in a cellar in Scepsis is plausible but not established.
- c. 306 BCEEpicurus founds the Garden
About 306 BCE Epicurus, back in Athens, founds his school, the Garden. He teaches that the goal of life is freedom from pain and disturbance, that the world is atoms in void, and that the gods do not meddle in human affairs. He dies in 270.
- c. 300 BCEZeno of Citium founds Stoicism
About 300 BCE Zeno of Citium begins teaching in Athens at the Stoa Poikile, a painted colonnade, from which Stoicism takes its name. Cleanthes and Chrysippus carry the school on; Chrysippus is said to have written over 300 books on logic.
- c. 60 BCEAndronicus of Rhodes edits Aristotle
About 60 BCE Andronicus of Rhodes, reported as the eleventh head of the Peripatetic school, publishes a new edition of Aristotle and Theophrastus, according to Plutarch. It drew on a library Sulla took to Rome. Its arrangement may underlie modern editions.
- c. 200Alexander of Aphrodisias heads the Peripatetic school at Athens
About 200 CE Alexander of Aphrodisias heads the Peripatetic school at Athens and dedicates On Fate to Septimius Severus and Caracalla (198-209). His commentaries on Aristotle are later translated into Arabic and quoted by Maimonides. Pomponazzi revives his view of the soul.
- c. 280Porphyry writes the Isagoge
Porphyry (c. 234-c. 305), writes the Isagoge (date unknown), an introduction to logic often read as a guide to Aristotle's Categories. It sorts predicates into genus, species, difference, property and accident. Latin and Arabic versions make it a standard textbook.
- c. 510Boethius translates Aristotle's logic into Latin
Before his execution around 524, Boethius plans to translate all of Aristotle and Plato into Latin. He completes Aristotle's logical works and Porphyry's Isagoge, with commentaries. They are the only large part of Aristotle in Latin Christendom until the 12th century.
- c. 750Baghdad translates Greek philosophy into Arabic
From the mid-8th to the late 10th century the Abbasids sponsor translation of Greek science and philosophy at Baghdad, often via Syriac. Al-Mansur is credited with the House of Wisdom and al-Ma'mun with its peak. Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his circle are the main translators.
- c. 833Al-Kindi works Aristotle into Arabic philosophy
Al-Kindi (c. 801-873) oversees translations at Baghdad under al-Ma'mun and al-Mu'tasim. In On First Philosophy, dedicated to al-Mu'tasim, he blends Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ideas into an Islamic framework. Much standard Arabic philosophical vocabulary traces to him.
- c. 950Al-Farabi, "the Second Teacher", dies
Al-Farabi (c. 870-950), who works at Baghdad and Aleppo, is called the Second Teacher, after Aristotle. He writes commentaries on Aristotle's logic, De Interpretatione, Poetics and Nicomachean Ethics, and shapes Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides. He dies at Damascus.
- 1027Avicenna publishes the Book of Healing
Begun in 1014 and published in 1027, Avicenna's Book of Healing is an encyclopedia in four parts: logic, natural sciences, mathematics and metaphysics. A partial Latin version, Sufficientia, appears some fifty years later and influences Albertus Magnus and Aquinas.
- 1095Al-Ghazali writes The Incoherence of the Philosophers
In 1095, as a professor at Baghdad, al-Ghazali attacks Avicenna and al-Farabi for following Greek philosophy against Islam. Of its 20 points, 17 are called heretical and three disbelief: the world's eternity, God knowing only universals, and denial of bodily resurrection.
- c. 1126Toledo becomes a translation centre
After Toledo falls in 1085, Archbishop Raymond (1126-51) starts translation work there. Gerard of Cremona arrives in 1167 and renders Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Physics; Michael Scot translates Averroes and the History of Animals (1220). Jews and Mozarabs help.
- c. 1130A Byzantine circle writes new Aristotle commentaries
A circle around Anna Komnene in Constantinople, including Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesus, writes extended commentaries on neglected works of Aristotle, among them the Nicomachean Ethics (completed 1138 or later). Robert Grosseteste later translates the Ethics set.
- 1169Averroes begins his commentaries on Aristotle
In 1169 Ibn Tufayl introduces Averroes (1126-1198) to the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf, who asks him to explain Aristotle. His commentaries follow. In the Latin West he becomes known as "the Commentator". He is also appointed qadi of Seville that year.
- 1178Averroes answers al-Ghazali
In 1178 Averroes writes On the Harmony of Religions and Philosophy, arguing that Islam and philosophy are compatible. In 1180 his Incoherence of the Incoherence answers al-Ghazali, defending the philosophers passage by passage as a dialogue.
- c. 1190Maimonides writes the Guide for the Perplexed
Maimonides (d. 1204) composes the Guide c. 1185-1190, seeking to reconcile Aristotelianism and science with the Torah. It is highly controversial in his day; French rabbis burn copies at Montpellier.
- 1195Averroes is condemned and his books burned
In 1195 a tribunal at Córdoba condemns Averroes's teachings, orders his works burned and banishes him to Lucena. He is later recalled to Marrakesh and restored to favour, and dies there in 1198.
- 1210Paris bans Aristotle's natural philosophy
In 1210 a provincial synod at Sens, with the Bishop of Paris, forbids reading Aristotle's natural philosophy and its commentaries at Paris, in public or private, on pain of excommunication. The ban is local and binds only the Arts faculty; theologians may still read them.
- c. 1215Aristotle enters the Paris arts course
Robert de Courçon's 1215 statutes for Paris require Aristotle's logic and make the Ethics optional, while metaphysics and natural philosophy stay barred. By about 1254-55 the arts masters are to lecture on the New Logic, Ethics, Metaphysics and natural works.
- c. 1260William of Moerbeke translates Aristotle from the Greek
William of Moerbeke (d. c. 1286) translates much of Aristotle directly from Greek, including On the Parts of Animals (1260), the Politics (c. 1260) and On the Soul (1267). Much earlier Latin Aristotle came via Arabic. An Aquinas request is assumed, not documented.
- 1265Aquinas joins Aristotle to Christian doctrine
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274), who studied under Albertus Magnus, seeks to combine Aristotelian philosophy with Christian principles. He writes the unfinished Summa Theologiae (1265-74) and, in Paris (1268-72), On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists.
- March 7, 1277Tempier condemns 219 propositions at Paris
On 7 March 1277 Bishop Étienne Tempier condemns 219 propositions, mainly from Aristotle and Averroes, after a narrower 1270 ban on 13. Twenty are Thomistic, which hurts Aquinas's reputation for years; the condemnation is later partly annulled as far as it touched him.
- c. 1308Dante meets Aristotle in Limbo
In Inferno IV, written about 1306-1310, Dante places Aristotle in Limbo among the virtuous pagans, with Socrates and Plato beside him, and calls him "the master of those who know". Avicenna and Averroes are also there.
- January 1417Poggio Bracciolini finds Lucretius' De rerum natura
The humanist Poggio Bracciolini discovers a manuscript of Lucretius' poem De rerum natura in a German monastery, probably Fulda. Poggio never named the place, and the find became a landmark of Renaissance manuscript hunting.
- c. 1462Cosimo de' Medici sets Marsilio Ficino to translate Plato
Cosimo de' Medici gives Marsilio Ficino Greek manuscripts of Plato, and Ficino begins translating the whole corpus into Latin (published 1484). His circle is later called the Platonic Academy, though the name is debated.
- 1495Aldus prints Aristotle in Greek
The Aldine Press issues the first printed Greek edition of Aristotle in five volumes: the Organon first, dated 1 November 1495, and the rest by 1498. It includes works of Theophrastus and ancient commentators. Sources differ on when volumes two to five appeared.
- 1516Pomponazzi argues from Aristotle against the soul's immortality
Pietro Pomponazzi's On the Immortality of the Soul (1516), following Alexander of Aphrodisias, holds that Aristotle's soul cannot exist apart from the body. The Venetian Senate orders it burned in 1517; Leo X's admonition is revoked in 1518 after Bembo intervenes.
- c. 1591The Coimbra Jesuits publish commentaries on Aristotle
From 1591 the Jesuits of Coimbra, under Pedro da Fonseca ("the Aristotle of Portugal"), publish commentaries on Aristotle drawn from their lectures, partly to counter pirated copies. Widely used in the 17th century, they may have influenced Descartes and Leibniz.
- 1599The Jesuit Ratio Studiorum prescribes Aristotle
The Jesuits issue their final Ratio Studiorum in 1599 (the text is dated 1598). It prescribes Aristotle as the standard author for philosophy, physics and mathematics, and Aquinas for theology, in a school network that reaches 444 schools within a century.