A person doesn’t need to consider a school of thought if:

•          Life is great.
•          There is no reason to think about how to deal with ethical problems or an afterlife. 
•          A person is too young to question the belief system that parents and teachers force-feed them.

Doctors are constantly handling problems for themselves and their patients.  Scripture passages, ethics guides, and evidence-based guidelines do not always provide direction on how to handle life’s problems.  No one school of thought is clearly superior in addressing life's problems.  Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many.   

Religious schools of thought pose challenges:

• It can be difficult to know where practical advice crosses over into superstition and mysticism.
• Most of today’s dominant religious schools of thought have changed greatly from their original forms.
• Many have collapsed in unison with the cultures that used them:
• Egyptian
• Assyrian
• Persian
• Mayan
• Aztec
• etc.
• It is difficult to take seriously a school of thought that is controlled by a person who wears a funny hat.
• In times of distress, it can feel inadequate to be only able to say/think that God will make things o.k. in the end.

Many people don’t ascribe to a consistent or clearly defined school of thought and instead:

• use whatever sources are immediately available at the time.
• think that following their jurisdiction’s laws and the Golden Rule serve adequately as a school of thought.

It is good to be data driven and consider a school of thought based on the latest research.  Of course, a person should be careful to verify that the research is legitimate and the findings are repeatable.  Furthermore, a good scientist knows that science per se cannot address certain issues in epistemology, ontology, and ethics and can address even less about deontology, axiology, and soteriology. 

Ancient Eastern schools of thought (Laoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) remain very much alive.  They are practiced by people you will meet as patients and co-workers. Some of their tenets have been adopted into western medicine as pain and psychiatric disorder therapy options, particularly:

• meditation,
• mindfulness,
• letting go of causes of unease, and
• focusing one’s effort on helping one’s community.

Ancient Western (Greek) schools of thought have largely become extinct.  However, many American religious leaders, philosophers, ethicists, and psychologists selectively adopt practices from one or more of these schools (often without knowing it). 

Not all the information below will be practical.  But it:

1. will assist with understanding similarities and differences in the schools and
2. I think you’ll find at least somewhat interesting. 

For example:

• In ancient Greek culture/society, the average person was a polytheist who passed down legends to their children about how the greatest gods won their positions against other gods by manipulation or strength.  However, the listed ancient Greek philosophers did not believe that. Based on logic (and not the Old Testament), they believed that there was some kind of unnamed highest god that wasn’t the same as the legendary gods.  In other words, Socrates’ and Plato’s theology was closer to modern academic theologians than that of their own culture.   
• Nearly all the listed school originators emphasized virtue ethics, which is still one of the three dominant forms of ethics today.  It wasn’t until the 19th century that virtue ethics was challenged by deontology and consequentialism in secular ethics. (… Buddhist thought is arguably closer to deontology, although it does not exclude virtue ethics.) 

I encourage you to compare the schools of thought: 

• Can you see how the lifestyle recommendations of the cynics, Epicureans, and stoics overlap those of Yeshua and Siddhartha?
• Do you find it ironic that modern Western people often stray from those recommendations?

Depending on how you define the word “major,” there are between 2 – 6 major Greek schools.

Why do you think it is difficult to find people who advertise(d) themselves as hedonists or cynics?

Mnemonic of the 6 Greek schools (listed in historical order):

The cynics reject the PAEs* of skeptics.

*peas

Thales and Xenophanes

Thales and Xenophanes are listed here only to give historical reference points for the transition in history when early Western (i.e. Greek) philosophers began depending on reason and not traditional religion. These guys did not really have schools.   Their hometowns were very close together (modern Turkey west coast very close to Ephesus and not that far from Colossae and Troy).

Thales of Miletus 624 – 546 BCE

• is considered the first Greek natural scientist. He was a mathematician, engineer, astronomer, and earth scientist, as well as an itinerant (like a lot of other sages).
• is the only philosopher or scientist Plato included in his list of the “7 Sages of Greece” – the men he gave credit for leading Greece to its eventual ‘golden age’ (500 – 300 BCE), which wasn’t all that golden if you were to ask Socrates or a bunch of other people listed here.
• talked little about theology. No writing indicates he talked about ethics or wisdom.
• inspired future philosophers to not justify epistemology and ethics based on religion or legends.

 

Xenophanes of Colophon 570 - 475 BCE 

• was an itinerant satirical poet who challenged the traditional notion of god(s).

• reportedly (… I have not read the primary sources on this yet myself) argued for the presence of a supreme God that:
• is abstract = bears no resemblance to human nature/has no physical body or mind (… like Augustine’s view of the Creator).
• is unchanging, immobile, and without beginning or end = is always present (… like Augustine’s view of the Creator).
• comprehends all things (… like pretty much all theists’ view).
• is one = lacks internal hierarchy, e.g. no father, son, etc. (… like Jews’ and Muslims’ view).
• is whole with and controls the universe while not being contained within it (… like most panentheists’ view).
• does not intervene in human affairs (… like deists’ view).

• wrote about natural science (… nothing worth noting here other than that he was aware of fossils and, based on their existence, correctly concluded that water levels had changed in the past).

Laoism aka Taoism aka Zhuangziism

Lao Zi, aka Lao Tzu, 6^th century BCE (a mostly legendary author)

The ethics of Lao-ism come from two books published anonymously and which are dated by historians to after his death:

The Tao Te Ching has 81 chapters of prose and poetic advice. It emphasizes:

• There exists a natural order/law derived from a divine source called Tao. Tao is capitalized because it refers to an Ultimate Divinity (… just as people capitalize Creator/Great Spirit/YHWH, even though these entities differ somewhat in concept).
• People’s purpose is to become and remain ‘right with’ that order.
• People should:
• not react and instead should allow/accept (… what a Western person might call being consciously “passive”).
• live in the moment.
• be simple, humble, self-aware, compassionate with themselves, and patient with others.

The Zhuangzi is a book of stories (like Aesop’s fables or Job/Ruth/Daniel) that emphasize mostly the same points as above but with different ways of saying them:

• Since the world constantly changes, it is better to accept than to fight change.
• People should free themselves from worldly things, including politics and social obligations.

A later BCE book that is important to Chinese philosophy, the Guanzi, combines Laoism with Legalism and Confucianism.

Confucianism

Kong Qiu 551 – 479 BCE

• taught individual students as an itinerant exiled legal administrator after abandoning his wife.

Like Laoism, Confucianism emphasizes the greatest good as ‘being right with the laws of the higher power,’ which it calls Tian, translated as heaven or ‘the God of heaven’ depending on whether a person does not believe or does believe in God per se.

The 4 most important ways to achieve rightness (aka the “constants”) are to act with:

ren:       compassion/humaneness/benevolence.

yi:          justice/righteousness.

li:           propriety in behavior and ritual.

zhi:        wisdom/knowledge.

(Some people during the Han dynasty added a 5^th way, xin: sincerity/faithfulness.)

The ‘constants’ are accompanied by the 4 ‘virtues’:

yi:          (as above).

jie:         continence.

zhong:  loyalty.

xiao:     filial piety.

Traditional Chinese worldviews acknowledge a divine force that is not the creator God and (like Buddhists) traditionally believe in a heaven with no personal God. 

They usually accept the notion of divinities/spirits but do not equate these with the divine force.

How are these views like the Greek philosophers’ views, especially Aristotelianism?

Chinese philosophies describe many dichotomies and focus on achieving the better of two. 

Some people assert that Confucianism and Laoism are both middle ways between opposite dichotomies.

Buddhism

Siddhartha Gautama 5th century BCE

• was a semi-legendary itinerant man, traditionally held to be a prince who voluntarily became a pauper.

The ethics of Buddhism (“enlightenment”) emphasize:

-   “4 noble truths”:

1.   Not being at ease/suffering (dukkha) is a natural thing that affects everyone.

2.   The cause (samudaya) of dukkha is thirsting / desiring (tanha) things that cannot or should not be sought after.

3.   The way to cease or end samudaya is to eradicate tanha by letting go of it (nirodha).

4.   There is a particular path (marga) to achieving nirodha that includes additional principles.

-   an 8-to-10-part path (marga) to achieving enlightenment.

1.      right view

2.      right resolve

3.      right speech

4.      right conduct

5.      right livelihood

6.      right effort

7.      right mindfulness

8.      right meditation

9.      (right knowledge or insight)

10.  (right liberation)

-   3 or 4 “marks of existence”

1.      dukkha

2.      impermanence of all things in this world (anicca)

3.      impermanence of oneself / one’s humanness (anatta)

4.      There is an eventual peace (nirvana) that some consciousnesses can reach.

Whereas some Buddhists favor there being one ‘consciousness,’ others accept individual/discrete ‘consciousnesses.’  Either way, the traditional Buddhist belief is that a ‘consciousness’ is different than a ‘soul’ and that human souls or other types of ‘souls’ do not exist.

How does Buddhism correspond to deontology more closely than it does to virtue ethics and the other worldviews described in this summary?

What do Buddhism, the Chinese schools of thought, teachings of Jesus, cynicism, Epicureanism, and stoicism all have in common with respect to (1) how to handle suffering and (2) what to emphasize in ones’ lifestyle choices (in contrast, say, to Aristotelianism)? 

cynicism

Antisthenes 445 – 360 BCE (a student of Socrates)

(However, the most famous proponent of cynicism is Diogenes of Sinope 412 – 323 BCE.)

• taught at the Cynosarges (Google the etymology) and was a ‘straight’ philosopher/logistician (i.e., not a combined philosopher-scientist as described below).

• advised living to fulfill natural needs (e.g., Maslow’s hierarchy levels 1-3) only.

• rejected (1) luxury (2) involving oneself with social structures that restrict freedom.
• E.g., it is better to be a subsistence farmer (or some job where you can do whatever you want whenever you want) than a king (where you would actually be trapped by rules and expectations of others… the Princess Ariel / Princess Jasmine / Prince Simba dilemma).

The ethics of cynicism:

• select the greatest good as achieving virtue (… compare with Platonism and stoicism below).

• recommend obtaining virtue at the exclusion of sensual/physical pleasure if necessary.
• Sensual/physical pleasure is considered as usually being a roadblock to virtue.
• I.e., Antisthenes and other hard-core cynics take the stance that there is a dichotomy between virtue and sensual/physical pleasure.

• reject worldliness in any form: wealth, power, conformity, social recognition, or social responsibility.

How is cynicism like and unlike:

-   Buddhism?

-   Monasticism?

-   Puritanism?

hedonism

(= pleasurism --> The Greek word for pleasure is hedonai.)

Aristippus of Cyrene 435 – 356 BCE

Hedonism may best be understood from one of its opponents, Epicurus (discussed below), who defined two types of pleasures:

-   “static pleasure,” which achieves absence of pain/fear.

-   “moving pleasure,” which achieves desires/enhanced sensations (via possessions, food, sex, power, etc.).

As with most dichotomies there can be overlap, so taken too strictly, this is a ‘false dichotomy.’

The ethics of hedonism emphasize the greatest good as achieving pleasure of any type (… be they static or moving).

Hedonism does not judge as better/worse whether one’s desires are egocentric (e.g., fulfilling a drug addiction), altruistic (e.g., saving the poor), or otherwise ‘noble.’

Platonism

Plato 427 – 347 BCE (a student of Socrates)

• taught at the Academy (Google its etymology) and was a mathematician (a geometrician).

• taught an epistemology that the things most knowable to be real/true are the things that everyone can abstract from logic, e.g., a triangle has 3 perfectly straight sides.
• Such things (or forms) last forever and are true always. Therefore, they are more real than material things or even a particular human, which disintegrate or only exists sometimes.
• The real things are what matter and what we should seek/pursue with our limited time.

• described souls (his description was adopted in part by people of Abrahamic religions).

• described an eternal, unchanging, indivisible, perfect force of goodness in the universe (who was not a personal God).

The ethics of Platonism:

• emphasize seeking truth, wisdom, virtue for virtue’s own sake, and trying to understand God.

• do not clearly address what is the greatest good that people should seek other than truth itself.

 

• are largely compatible/complementary with Abrahamic religion.  They inspired early Christian writers in their descriptions of God and how God affects human lives (most famously Augustine).

Can you name any Christian tenets that trace largely to Plato? What about:

-         the relationship between the body and the soul.

-         how reason affects translating Biblical stories (particularly from the Old Testament).

-         God’s properties and how God interacts with the universe.

-         how a person can achieve a relationship with God.

-         what the role of goodness is in human life?

Aristotelianism

Aristotle 384 – 322 BCE

• taught at the Lyceum (Google its etymology) and was a biologist.

• unlike the other Greeks on this list, only achieved a worldwide impact after his writings were translated into Latin, e.g., philosophers of late Middle Age Christianity and the Enlightenment.

• argued against Plato’s epistemology of ‘abstraction,’ instead emphasizing what is most real is directly observable –> something is real because it can be proven through an experiment, not through a mathematical proof. 
• Despite this emphasis, he still attempted to explain non-observable things, such as souls.

• published the first ever ethics ‘textbook,' which contains both unique thoughts and thoughts about virtue in line with other ancient philosophers.

The ethics of Aristotelianism:

• argue that the greatest good in life means achieving a “good spirit,” which he thought
• could be achieved generally if a person
• does what they naturally love doing.
• has adequate control and influence in their life.
• is relatively free from illness/hardship.
• could best be achieved by being a successful public administrator or ruler (… he himself never wanted to be that, although he served as a tutor to a “great” one).

• emphasize finding a middle ground (golden mean) between extremes (like Plato and who else above?).

• summarized all the virtues commonly debated in his day and list 4 as the most important (… what Middle Age Christian philosophers accepted as the 4 secular cardinal virtues):
• justice,
• prudence,
• temperance, and
• fortitude.

Which one of Aristotle’s four virtues is the only one that Confucius did not select?

Which two that Confucius selected do Aristotle and most other Western philosophers not consider?

How are all of them different than the three that Paul of Tarsus emphasized?

Epicureanism

Epicurus 341 – 270 BCE

• taught at the Kepos (Garden) as a philosopher and metaphysician.

• argued for strategies to (1) avoid pain (2) achieve natural/necessary ‘static’ pleasures, and (3) relieve urges to achieve ‘moving’ pleasures (see above). These strategies included:
• having a strong set of friends (via communal living, like a fraternity or monastery),
• living self-sufficiently,
• living simply, and
• avoiding involvement with affairs outside one’s own small community.

• did not believe in an afterlife.

The ethics of Epicureanism emphasize:

• the greatest good as having freedom from both pain (aponia) and fear (ataraxia). 

• avoiding vanity (power, wealth, fame).

• social equality (e.g., no sexism, racism, or slaves) in one’s own community but not an attempt to make social equality happen at a societal level via political involvement.

What features of Epicureanism overlap with examples set by Yeshua?  What features differ?

stoicism

Zeno of Citium 334 – 262 BCE

• taught at the Stoa (porch of a building at the Athenian marketplace) and was a ‘businessman who had previously lost his business’ in a storm.

• emphasized recognizing which things in life a person can control vs. which they cannot control.

• emphasized application of epistemology for practical everyday living (utility).
• Stoicism dominated other schools of thought because Greco-Romans saw its tenets were useful for daily life without necessitating deviating too much from cultural norms… just like people today avidly read self-help books and the Old Testament wisdom books.
• However, classic stoicism still emphasizes achieving virtues as much or more than outcomes per se, unlike modern utilitarianism.

The ethics of Stoicism:

• emphasize as the greatest good as having virtue for virtue’s sake (… like Epicureanism, but they don’t agree on how to achieve it).

• discuss how to maintain control of one’s emotions and choose to be at peace despite whatever hardships occur.

• emphasize doing what is in your control and avoiding worrying about or trying to accomplish what is not in your control.

• advise aligning one’s will to ‘Nature’ (like what other school of thought described above?).

• advise avoiding pursuing things that seem to bring immediate happiness but do not bring lasting happiness (is this like other schools?).

Because there were so many stoics (and Platonists), it is difficult to distinguish between what the original philosophy was and what it became over time (… unless you are a well-read historian).

Many of Zeno’s followers believed there was no need to worry about an afterlife.  Like Epicurus, many believed there was in fact no afterlife.

Could this be why:

• Christians preferred Platonists instead?  
• Jews preferred Pharisees to Sadducees?

skepticism

‘Skeptic’ comes from the Greek verb skeptesthai which means “to consider” or “to look.”

Pyrrho of Elis 360 – 270 BCE

Aenesidemus c. 100 BCE and Sextus Empiricus c. 250 CE tried reviving it.

• taught individual students and was a painter/soldier/priest.
• had an epistemology that primarily cautioned about being too certain what was knowable (not much of an epistemology at all…)

The ethics of skepticism advise people to:

• seek as the greatest good ataraxia (freedom from disturbance) by ignoring/not judging things that seem at first to be troubling.
• be slow to judge people and things.
• be indifferent to what people say.

What does skepticism have in common with:

-         the Chinese schools of thought?

-         Epicureanism?

-         stoicism?

What about skepticism fits well with a modern scientific mindset?

What is problematic about using it as a primary school of thought?