Science and learning in antiquity

The general tendency of ancient Greek and Roman thought has been to associate philosophy with the practice of good life and the ability to pursue such a life, although we have seen Aristotle instead relating the highest philosophy to theoretical knowledge of certain key elements of the world. Still, philosophy of the ancients was not completely separate from the questions of science, or learning in general, and for instance, early Stoics thought that full knowledge of the world and its ways was at least a necessary precondition of perfectly good life. Thus, it is justifiable to investigate Greek science and learning to shed some light on the ancient philosophy.

By far the most developed science of ancient times was mathematics. We often hear of the external form of Euclidean mathematics, which supposedly derives everything from self-evident axioms and definition through incontestable demonstrations. All of this sounds like Greek mathematics would have been quite formal and removed from ordinary experience. Yet, when we look at e.g. Euclid's Elements, we quickly find that Greek mathematics was quite heavily linked to experience. Just think about some key proofs at the beginning of the first book: Euclid asks us to move one triangle on top of another triangle and thus to conclude that the two triangles coincide. This is a primary manner in which the similar magnitude of areas is seen – through quite concrete experiment. In fact, many of the more complex proofs dealing with areas work by cutting compared areas to pieces that we could then know to be similar by relying on some previous propositions – and ultimately on direct observation. This is in fact the manner in which Euclid proves the most famous theory of elementary geometry, the Pythagorean formula.

Although Euclid called his book Elements, an average modern reader would probably find only the first book filled with recognisable questions of elementary geometry: when are triangles similar, what is the sum of the angles in a triangle, how are the angles generated by parallel line related etc.? The second book already opens up avenues unfamiliar from geometry. The book apparently deals with rectangles, but the true topic of the book are certain equations of algebra. Ancient mathematicians had as yet no way to express complex calculations in any other way than through geometric means – squaring through actual squares, multiplication through rectangles. Thus, a simple task of squaring the sum of two magnitudes was represented as a square made out of a line combined of two smaller lines – and the result was then shown to consist of two smaller squares, with sides equal to the smaller lines, together with two rectangles formed by same two lines.

The need to express such equations explains also certain uses of circle by ancient mathematicians. Circle was, of course, important because it provided a way to copy a length of one line to another place. It was also a source for more intricate tools. At the very end of the third book of Elements, Euclid proves that no matter what sort of lines you draw, from a spot outside the circle, towards the circle and cutting it in two places, the rectangle formed by the first line between the spot and the first cutting place and the second line between the two cutting places is always of the same size – and if the line merely touches the circle, the square formed by the line between the spot and the touching place equals all these rectangles. This at first somewhat uninteresting result works in many proofs as a convenient trick e.g. to express some multiples as squares.

The fourth book of Elements continues the study of circles, and its topic is especially drawing figures of certain shape within and around circles. While at first this might seem rather unimportant pursuit, fit only for decorative purposes, it is actually of utmost importance at least in two cases. Firstly, it gives a convenient manner to divide the circumference of circle to equal parts – something which is especially useful for astronomical purposes. Secondly, it can be used to estimate the area of circle. The latter case deserves a more thorough explanation.

Elements is not precisely meant to provide for exact formulas for measurement. Instead, it gives exact means for measuring relations between different geometrical objects. In fact, the fifth book contains a theory of ratios between different magnitudes – that is, it tells us when a pair of number is related exactly in the same manner as another pair and when the pair has a larger or smaller ratio than the other pair. This is convenient in case of estimating magnitude of figures that one cannot express through simple algebraic means. For instance, in the sixth book Euclid can show that two circles have the exactly same ratio as squares on their diameters. Here Euclid is helped by what is called a method of exhaustion. By drawing polygons within and around the circles, he points out that their ratios provide limits between which the ratios of the circles must fall – and because every other ratio exceeds limits given by some of these polygons, the only alternative is the one already mentioned.

Elements is then a book on two-dimensional geometry, but it is also a book on arithmetics – or at least for certain arithmetical principles. Euclid doesn't go so far as to do exact calculations, but we do know from other sources that actual counting at antiquity was rather cumbersome. Instead, in the seventh, eighth and ninth book of Elements Euclid explicates such trivialities as ”odd times even is even”, but also goes through very intricate truths about number, for instance, that there is no highest prime number.

This theory of numbers provides also a ground for Euclid's theory of rational and irrational quantities, which is developed in the tenth book. The notion of ratios provides again a starting point: we just choose some magnitude as rational and then all magnitudes of same type that have the same ratio to the rational magnitude as a number has to another number are rational, while other magnitudes of same type are irrational. Since it is especially geometric magnitudes, or lines and areas, Euclid deals with, he makes the somewhat confusing choice that even all lines with rational squares should be called rational. Going through various relations between lines and areas, Euclid provided a crude classification of all irrationals, only to conclude that his classification fails to account for all irrationals.

The final three books of Elements extend the geometrical account to three-dimensional cases. What is most intriguing is perhaps the manner in which Euclid defines the various three-dimensional shapes through a method for their construction, for instance, when a circle is thought as moving around one of its diameters, a sphere is formed. The actual propositions of the last books are mostly rather uninspiring: we are shown in a similar manner to two-dimensional cases what are the relations of e.g. pyramids and rectangular solids with same bases and same height and we see that relations of cones and cylinders can then be determined through the method of exhaustion. The final book still closes with a true high note, when Euclid shows how to inscribe all the five Platonic shapes into balls and demonstrates that the sides of these shapes must be certain irrationals.

All the things in the two-dimensional part of Elements are accomplished through circles and straight line. In later mathematics, this was made a sort of virtue, but it seems clear that at least not all ancient mathematicians did not put as strict limits to mathematics. This is shown even by Euclid's three-dimensional mathematics and its method of constructing three-dimensional shapes, but even more clearly by the ancient treatises of various types of curves, most interesting of which are possibly the conic sections, which get their names from being generated by planes cutting the cones in different angles. The use of conic section is, once again, not arbitrary, but important e.g. for expressing relations between one- and two-dimensional magnitudes.

Another interesting point in ancient mathematics is Arhcimedes' account of how to calculate various curvilinear areas and volumes. On some level, not much has changed from Euclidean account of finding relations that hold e.g. between circles. In many cases Archimedes even uses the same method of exhaustion Euclid had applied. For instance, when trying to determine the segment of a parabola, Archimedes shows that we can limit the area of the segment through sums of triangles, and by making the triangles smaller and smaller the limits become closer and closer to a certain area. But Archimedes had also another type of proof for such theories – he showed that when put to a lever the segment could be balanced with a triangle of a certain area, which was then equal to the segment. In other words, Archimedes used mechanical principles to determine an answer to a mathematical problem. As he himself testifies, this mostly just helped him to discover the areas, but he didn't accept it as a proper proof, which could be determined only through mathematical means.

Although Archimedes did use then mechanics as a tool in mathematics, more familiar is his application of mathematics in mechanics. There was considerable interest on mechanical questions even before Archimedes, as shown by a work on mechanical problems, attributed to Aristotle, but in a sense, in Archimedes the ancient tradition of mechanics culminated. Especially important in this context is the notion of a centre of gravity, that is, a place to which we can think that the whole weight of a body is concentrated. Through this notion Archimedes can prove a number of important mechanical principles, such as the lever law – the longer the stick the more weight you can lift. Note how close to practice the Archimedean practice of mechanics is – it is all about making machines, like levers and pulleys.

Even more important field of application for mathematics was the study of stars and their comings and goings. Here especially the study of circles and angles was of primary importance. Earth and the universe were pictured as a sphere within a sphere. By carefully noting the distances between places, measuring differences of shadows and the places of stars in the sky, one could get a reasonable model of the place of the Earth in relation to the universe. Then by following the changes in the positions of the stars, and especially of the strangest of these, that is, planets, and by assuming that the movements of all heavenly objects must be somehow based on circles, Ptolemy constructed a reasonably accurate model of planetary movement.

Ancient thinkers were not satisfied with mere modelling of planetary movement, but they also tried to explain this phenomenon. The basic notions were simplistically mechanical or then compared the movement of stars to movements of animal things. Whatever the case, the stars themselves and their movement was supposed to have an effect on Earthly things through their pressure on Earth's atmosphere. Such influences were also felt to be a justification for attempts to predict key events in human life.

In addition to these astrological considerations, study of stars was quite useful in making maps – one can use the positions of stars in the night sky for approximating one's position on the globe. Here ancient mathematical learning came in contact with ancient empirical knowledge. One cannot say that Greeks and Romans would not have appreciated empirical learning. Quite the contrary, as Strabo's geographical writings and Pliny's collection of all sorts of interesting factoids show.

What was lacking was such technological advances like telescope and microscope, which have allowed us to see farther and in more detail. Also, the lack of trustworthy and fast communications often made it impossible to verify the facts collected, which makes these empirical compilations into an often tantalising mix of truths and fairy tales. One can see that there was e.g. great technological expertise on various special subjects, such as metallurgy, but this expertise was dispersed to many different individuals – while one person could know everything of, say, gold and its behaviour, he might have no idea about forging iron.

While ancient culture did have empirically discovered information on many questions of nature, the role of theoretical foundation of such information was rather ambiguous, reflecting the conflicts between various philosophical schools. The complex interactions between theory and empiria and many viewpoints on these interactions can be well exemplified through the difference of ancient schools of medicine. We have methodists, who were affiliated with the Pyrrhonic school and who accepted only some rules of thumb that had appeared to work in previous occasions. We have empiricists, who accepted immediate appearances and experiences as a tool for suggesting treatment, but who denied the possibility of any knowledge on the hidden causes of various diseases. And there were various rationalist schools, who attempted to justify their procedures through some theoretical framework, although what was a correct theory of human body was a point hotly debated.

Probably the most famous of these researchers of medicine was Galen, whose position was somewhere between empirical and rational schools. Galen despised methodists, whom he thought as mere bunglers and frauds. He was quite sympathetic of empiricists and admitted that in many cases empirical observations were enough for discovering a good treatment. He endorsed the rationalist ideal of a science of medicine based on certain foundations, but only if the foundations were correct. His preferred theory of human body was quite Aristotelian: the constituents of human body were characterised by four qualities (hotness, dryness, coldness and wetness), and if some quality took a too forceful position in some part of the body, causing imbalance and disharmony, a proper treatment was to apply opposed quality.

While Galenian medicine thus offered a comprehensive account of the biological make-up of human body, rhetoric was at least advertised as a comprehensive account of the cultural side of human beings. On the superficial level, the topic of the rhetoric is much more restricted – the production of speeches, and especially of speeches meant to be used in a court setting. Thus, the central aim of ancient rhetoric was to show how to invent good arguments for one's position, how to arrange these arguments into a coherent whole, how to express this whole in a good style, how to memorise the written speech and how to present it in a compelling manner.

Yet, writers like Cicero and Quintilian were eager to suggest that rhetoric was something more, namely the lost half of philosophy. That is, they pictured a time, when philosophical study of truths and especially of truths concerning good human life and rhetorical expertise of expressing those truths were an undivided unity. A conclusion they both draw was that a good rhetorician should also be a good person and know all the intricacies of human life.

An important part in rhetoric, Quintilian suggested was then the education of a future rhetoric. As it should be evident from his wide definition of rhetoric, Quntilian plans a careful curriculum for his imaginary students who wish to learn ,not just the tricks of the trade, but also the rudiments for becoming an ideal speaker. It appears that an ideal speaker should learn as much a possible from every topic – even if her skills are to be used in the courthouse, it is a definite possibility that some case would require expertise knowledge of some special topic. In addition to specialised knowledge, the rhetorician-to-be should also learn history, since past events often play part in modern cases. A special place in the curriculum is given to literature, which at the same time teaches the students the basics of good language, but also suggests various examples of human behaviour.

Quintilian's school of rhetoric incorporates then two important pieces of humanist learning: history and literature, both of which were important fields of study in antiquity. Study of history in ancient Greece and Rome was in a sense something quite different from academic history of our time. The ancient historians had progressed not much beyond mere chronicling of events. Often their standards of criticism were quite suspect. As a case in point, we might raise the historian of philosophy, Diogenes Laërtius, whose work is at worst a rambling collection of anecdotes from the lives of philosophers, without a proper explanation of their philosophies. The main historical guide line of Diogenes is the notion of one philosopher being a student of another, which allows him to create two lines of thinkers, but fails in explaining how the ideas of earlier philosophers led to ideas of future philosophers.

As for study of different types of literature, a scholarly criticism was quite developed. As an example, we might pick out the investigation of works of Aristotle, ancient commentaries on which could have filled libraries. An important example of this tradition is Alexander of Aphrodisias, who apparently set out to explain all of Aristotle's extant works, although only a handful of his commentaries have been passed down to us. And explain he does. Following through Aristotle's account of different types of deductions, Alexander goes carefully through every reasoning and every example Aristotle uses, expanding Aristotle's sometimes rather summarised sentences.

In some cases, Alexander picks on details that Aristotle probably did not mean as important. Why did Aristotle choose to present the three different figures of syllogisms in a certain order, Alexander asks. Pretty clearly the first figure is most important, because it is the only one allowing us to prove universal and affirmative propositions, required in scientific reasoning. Alexander takes this line of thought further and suggests that second figure, leading only to negative conclusions, is second best, because it can be used in philosophical debates, meant for refuting the ideas of opponents – and the third figure is then worst, leading only to particular conclusions and thus useful only in sophistical reasoning, in which propositions applying merely for particular cases are deceptively presented as holding in general.

At times, Alexander defends Aristotle against later critics. For instance, some Stoics had claimed that Aristotle went wrong in assuming that one cannot deduce impossibilities out of possibilities, because a possible statement ”Dion is dead” implied a statement ”he is dead” (”he” referring to Dion), but since the Greek term for ”he” could be used only of living persons, the implied statement was always an impossibility. Alexander noted that, if Stoics were correct in their grammar, then the first statement simply did not imply the latter. Furthermore, he pointed out that since Stoics believed in eternal recurrence of all things, death was always only a temporary state and one could refer to a dead person with a pronoun.

Alexander also opposed Stoics on their understanding of negation. Stoics had suggested that ”Socrates is not white” is not the negation of ”Socrates is white”, because both of these presuppose that Socrates exist, while ”It is not so that Socrates is white” does not, making it the sought-out negation. Alexander pointed out that a proper name did not necessarily refer to an existing entity, like in a sentence ”My future son will be called Eric”, which made Stoic assumption doubtful.

At other times, Alexander tried to show that certain innovations of later logicians were already accounted for by Aristotle. Thus, he attempts to show that a deduction consisting of nothing else but conditionals (”if A then B, if B then C, thus, if A then C”) must still follow syllogistic rules, because the premisses must have been ultimately deduced syllogistically.

Sometimes Alexander went clearly too far in his attempt to speak for Aristotle. A good example is latter's attempt to add necessity and possibility in his logic. Aristotle's efforts become quickly a hopeless muddle, when he distinguished many different meanings of possibility or contingency and then himself confused these various meanings from time to time. Alexander's valiant effort to make sense out of it manages just to muddle the issue even further.

Philosophy translated

All the philosophers thus far have spoken and written in Greek, even if they lived far away from Greek mainland. Philosophy, as we have faced it – this strange mix of a search for meaningful life and an investigation of truth – has been a unique part of Greek culture. This changed, when philosophical schools started to translate their theories to Rome.

At first, philosophy did not fair well in these new surroundings. There is a well known story of a group of philosophical ambassadors arriving in Rome. Carneades the Academic was one member of this group, and upon the day of their arrival, he made a touching speech about the usefulness of military prowess – a topic close to the heart of Romans. True to his habit of not asserting anything, Carneades made another speech the following day and this time insulted military prowess as the ultimate evil. Needless to say, Roman authorities were not pleased and banned the arrival of philosophers to Rome.

It is not certain how fabulous the story is, but it probably reflects a real tendency in Roman society. Greeks in general were considered effeminate and thus suspicious in the eyes of the masculine culture of Romans. Philosophy was considered nothing more than a further evidence of the perversity of Greeks – who on earth would spend considerable time in thinking such frivolities?

Of course, as time went by, Romans started to warm up to Greek learning. Thus, in few generations we find representatives of major philosophical schools using Latin in their writings. Even such highly infamous school as Epicureanism had its Roman follower, Lucretius. Basic opinions of Lucretius remained same as those of Epicurus, but some interesting differences of emphasis had occurred. While Epicurus himself was against too flowery teaching, Lucretius used his poetic skills for teaching philosophy. Indeed, he concentrated on the most epic theme in Epicurean philosophy, that is, physics or the study of the world and its birth, instead of the usual emphasis on ethical matters.

Lucretius spins a dramatic tale starting from the idea of atoms of different shapes flying around, all in straight line in infinite space. Suddenly, an atom changes its course, due to no reason at all, and bounces on other atoms, thus creating aggregates of atoms, like the elements or earth, water, air and fire. At first the elements are completely mixed, but the heavy earth finally takes up the middle point and the lighter elements are left to the outer remnants. Thus was finally born the world we know, and one day it will be destroyed, when the fight of the elements is finally canceled.

Spirit animating animals and humans is also in Epicurean theory an element consisting of atoms, and furthermore, such that can live only within a body – no afterlife in Epicurean philosophy, but then again, there's also nothing to worry about, no eternal pain after death. True, people do get visions of tormented souls, but these are just freak combinations of atoms striking our mind. In the beginning of the world, the earth itself had enough power to create combinations of spirit and other matter or living beings, but in time its power diminished and only those animals that could have offspring remained. For humans, this meant the beginning of a long progress towards civilization, through inventions like agriculture, metallurgy and social life. But far more important Lucretius considers the discoveries of Epicurus, who showed that many events apparently caused by gods were actually natural occurrences and hence no reason to fear divine wrath.

But it is not Lucretius one should take as the most important link between Greek and Latin philosophy. Instead, this epithet should be bestowed on Marcus Tullius Cicero, who actually began his career as an orator and a statesman in Roman republic and took to philosophy only later in his life, when he was effectively prevented from taking part in state life by machinations of Julius Caesar and his followers. His first literary works concerned rhetoric, a topic he had plenty of personal experience with, and therefore it is no wonder that he took a considerably more positive view of it than many earlier philosophers – rhetoric was a good instrument, if the user just was an upright citizen. Indeed, Cicero was of the opinion that originally rhetoric or oratory formed a complete whole with philosophy, as a general capacity to know how to live and to present one's wisdom to fellow citizens. Later philosophers had isolated some topics for pure research and ignored the need for defending them, and some (Epicureans) had even tried to escape the duty to serve others of their communities in their search for personal peace and contentment. True, philosophers like Stoics might have better arguments, but they lacked the means of making the crowd convinced – a criteria that was essential for evaluating the success of one's speech.

In comparison with philosophers, Cicero thought that orators had nothing to be shamed of. He even suggested that an ideal speaker, like the famous Greek orator, Demosthenes, should know of all sorts of things and be highly civilized. He should be well versed with logic and ethics (for instance, he should know that there are basically two sources of a decent human life: cultivation of one's intellectual capacities and harmonisation of desires under the guidance of intellect). Cicero still admitted that real speakers were often far from this ideal, but maintained that even they had to have some inkling of certain tricks of trade, like some basic human psychology and capacity of finding convincing arguments, even if rhetoric is more dependent on one having the capacities of a potential speaker. Furthermore, Cicero was convinced that oratory as a whole had developed in the sense that best speakers of earlier ages were mere babblers in comparison with best speakers of Cicero's day.

Cicero was in fact convinced that even in philosophy caring about the affairs of community is far more appropriate than losing oneself to the study of the wonders of nature. Indeed, he himself was highly interested of the question of the shape of an ideal community. Cicero basically accepted the Aristotelian idea of three paradigmatic forms of community: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Of these, democracy does retain the liberty of every citizen, but often leads to a state of anarchy, when no one has a clear governing position, while monarchy and aristocracy are more efficient, but are in danger of being corrupted into tyrannies and oligarchies, just like happened with Roman monarchy. True solution would be a balanced community, with elements of all forms of government, which Cicero felt was embodied in republican Rome, in which consuls retained some of the monarchic power, while patrician senate and plebeian tribunal expressed aristocratic and democratic elements.

Quite traditionally, Cicero held that a balanced community – and indeed, any community, if it was to be community and not just an enslavement of people – would have to be based on justice, that is, on the principle that everyone was due to what she deserved. While Greek philosophers had to apply this principle in affairs of one city, Cicero as a citizen of an empire had to consider what justice means in international affairs. True to the mores of his time, Cicero could defend aggression of a state over another with the Aristotelian notion that some people just were more natural to rule, while the fate of others was to be ruled. Cicero also had to face the problem of different mores in different cultures, so obvious in an international empire like Rome – if different cultures thought different things good and evil, how could we defend justice as the guiding principle of all communities? Cicero's answer was that deep down all people must agree on some basic values, such as justice, because they were based on the nature of things and not on arbitrary cultural habits.

Just like Greek philosophers before him, Cicero was also certain that the good of a community relied not only on the structure of the society, but also on harmonising the actions of the community members. This harmonising then requires that the members have a state of mind geared towards community life, instead of just caring for themselves. As an incentive towards such a mindset, Cicero uses Plato's trick of suggesting a reward in the afterlife for all those who have lived well – a reason not to be intimidated of death nor of old age. Even if death were a mere annihilation of life and so all sensation, it would be nothing to be afraid of, since it would mean deliverance from all pain and would resemble deep sleep. But, Cicero argues, since human body appears to contain a divine element, as evidenced by the mental powers of human beings, this spark must not be hindered by the death of body. Instead, as it is made of finer elements than the coarse body, it will get to fly away from the insignificant speck that Earth is to the beauty of heavenly spheres. Thus, Cicero is willing to incorporate religious rituals to state life and so gain divine justification to it.

Cicero is also insistent that the harmony of the state is dependent especially on the state of its nobles – on the one hand, it's important that there is a class that has the means to understand the affairs of state better than the common people, on the other hand, this class should also work for the common good instead of their own advancement. Cicero especially emphasises the role of past great men of Rome as examples of good life. These past heroes knew that true worth of human life lies not in riches, but more in one's capacity to control oneself – riches and earthly goods are something that comes and goes and a person controlled by a desire for them is never satisfied, while a self-controlled person can never become unhappy, because of his ability to adjust to all circumstances. He would never be anxious or depressed about anything, because he would understand how small and meaningless all the seeming troubles of life are.

These statements of what good life is sound like they could have come out of the mouth of a Stoic. Indeed, like Stoics, Cicero was critical of the Epicurean philosophy. Epicurean physics Cicero despised completely. Atoms changing the direction of their movement just by accidence and complete worlds coming to be through pure chance were just too unbelievable doctrines in his eyes. And images of things far away floating around, pinging our bodies and causing us imagine things not actually present sounds convincing at first, but then you'd have to accept the existence of all sorts of fables, like centaurs and dragons.

Epicurean idea of gods Cicero thought especially ridiculous. Epicureans thought a god should be human in shape, because that was the only suitable form for reasoning, but this just made human ignorance into a general principle – and in any case, how could a thing in human form be anything but mortal? Furthermore, Epicureans thought that gods would do nothing and care for nothing and still be happy, but Cicero insisted that only an active life would be a happy life. Even worse, idea of such indifferent gods would mean end to all religion, because no one would feel any need to worship such gods. In any case, Cicero thought that it would have been easier if Epicureans had just denied the existence of gods altogether, since they just appeared to accept them because of common opinion.

Cicero had learned from Epicurean teachers and so knew more of their ethics than just the usual caricature – he was aware that Epicureans did not search for mere temporary delights of flesh, but like other major schools of philosophy, recommended a life of moderation, because only such promised stable pleasures. Yet, Cicero thought, Epicurus was trying to play with two sets of cards at the same time: on the one hand, he spoke of pleasure to entice people wanting to spend their life full of a variety of pleasant sensations, on the other hand, he acted as if greatest pleasure was just a life without pain in order to sound more respectable in philosophical circles. Epicurus even says that traditional virtues are good for pleasures (for instance, courage makes us feel less pain in adverse circumstances), but Cicero thinks this view distorts the true purpose of virtues, which are meant to serve the whole community, not just an individual. Indeed, a true Epicurean would be a complete egoist, and because Epicurus himself valued his friends, he must have been inconsistent.

Even though Cicero did agree with Stoics that Epicureans were a really bad school of philosophy and even used their terminology in a Latinized form, he still was no straightforward Stoic, but appropriated features of many philosophies into his worldview. Indeed, he didn't have a high opinion of Stoic logic or Stoic ideas of the natural world, thinking that Stoics had merely copied the ideas of their predecessors and in some cases had even regressed. At some point, Cicero especially criticized their ethics, which attempted to state paradoxical conclusions, such as the indifference of all except virtuous behaviour, but had to admit, like Platonists and Aristotelians had done earlier, that even Stoics thought it preferable to be healthy and of good means – in effect Cicero accused Stoics of using terminological quibbles to distinguish themselves from more adequate philosophers.

Cicero was especially interested of the New Academy, and like them, accepted that humans can usually achieve only probability, not true knowledge – at least if knowledge is defined in the manner Stoics had. The basis of all knowledge should be perceptions that accurately portray things they appear to present, Stoics say, but there is no way to discern such true perceptions from mere appearances, which might look essentially same as true perceptions. This doesn't mean that one should be completely blind about how to conduct one's live, Cicero says, because probability is enough for a decent life – indeed, even Stoics must admit that most people must do with mere probability, because knowledge is so rare.

Still, even in case of conduct Cicero finds at first that opinions of Plato and Aristotle were far more probable than Stoicism – Plato and Aristotle at least straightforwardly admitted that material things are goods and part of a happy life, they just weren't as good as mental fortitude. Stoics announced that pain was no evil, but such a statement would not help anything when one was actually feeling it. Far better in Cicero's opinion was to teach one to tolerate pain, just like a manly man can do – and if pain turns too strong to bear, there's always the possibility to escape to the netherworld. And while Stoics were satisfied to say that wise men never felt any distress, because they saw how unreasonable it is, this helps in no manner anyone wallowing in grief who does not fulfill the ideal of Stoic sage – instead, they should be led to reflect on the cause of their grief and note themselves its insignificance.

Yet, Cicero wouldn't have been a true Academician, if he couldn't have seen the other side of the debate also. While Aristotle was to be recommended for realizing the importance of sensuous goods and pains, Cicero was highly critical of his idea of best life being a sort of mean between two extremes. If someone was, say, even the slightest bit agitated out of anger, he might well be overwhelmed, if the emotion rose to a higher degree. Far better it would be, Cicero thought, to follow the Stoic ideal, in which all emotions should fall under perfect control of a person. Indeed, if even Epicureans, who laid all happiness in pleasure, said that a true philosopher was always happy and not shaken by anything, shouldn't disciples of Socrates be equally capable?

Similarly ambivalent was Cicero's attitude towards Stoic doctrine of gods. He did find appealing the idea of gods governing the world and taking care of human affairs. Yet, he found some severe inconsistencies in the Stoic teachings, arising mostly from their attempt, on the one hand, to base their notions of gods in clear reasoning, and on the other hand, to accommodate common notions of divinities. Even this dual attempt itself seems rather suspect in Cicero's eyes, since to rely on the ideas of common people e.g. in matters of divine existence appears so unphilosophical. Furthermore, to allow at least some gods of tradition into a philosophical system opens up a can of worms. Where to stop? Why accept only these gods and not all of those lesser demons? And why just Greek and Latin gods and not also gods of other people? In addition, as Greco-Roman religion had no accepted consensus on the different origin stories and genealogies of the gods, one could not form a consistent pantheon around them.

Even if Stoics would disentangle their view of gods from the common conceptions, it would face grave difficulties. Stoics thought that the ultimate god must be the whole world itself, since there can not be anything greater than world – world must, for instance, live and think, because it contains parts that live and think. Yet, Cicero noted, this type of reasoning is just false. A city or a nation is clearly greater than the individuals that constitute it, but still we do not admit that cities or nations would live or think. Cicero also noted that how hard it was to believe that this Stoic world god controlled all its parts perfectly and that it had arranged all the parts of the world and even human affairs as well as it could be. World god had given reason to humans, but these then went on to use it for all sorts of evil deeds – why not make humans good at the same time?

Cicero was particularly critical of the Stoic acceptance of divination. Firstly, Cicero thought that divination was either impossible or futile. Either there are things that happen by chance and then divination cannot happen, or then all events occur with utmost necessity and then it makes no sense to e.g. know of any future dangers, since one cannot avoid them in any manner. Furthermore, Cicero found all alleged instances of divination rather unconvincing. True, sometimes diviners and fortune tellers did make correct predictions, but at least as often they were completely wrong. One couldn't argue for divination from the acceptance of predictions of doctors, which also might go wrong sometimes, because doctors could rely on their knowledge of natural processes, while diviners could not really explain the mechanism by which the divination was supposed to work. Indeed, one could often hear one diviner interpreting some dream or other sign in a completely opposite way as another diviner – so flimsy is the connection between the supposed sign from gods and its meaning. One might even ask if it is unbecoming to gods to present their messages so unclearly.

In fact, Cicero was rather skeptical of the whole Stoic notion of an unyielding fate controlling everything that happens in the world. Clear problem such a fatalism was, because it appeared to cancel all possibility of humans freely choosing their actions. Cicero then suggested that one might instead accept the possibility of free actions and hence deny outright fatalism.

Cicero did not remain satisfied with mere criticism of famous schools of philosophy, but also developed his own stance on how one should live, in his last published book on duties. The first and foremost question in Cicero's eyes is what makes human life, not just distinct from, but also better than mere animal life. Cicero suggests rather traditionally that it is the human desire to know things that separates us from beasts and that should therefore be cultivated in greatest measure.

Yet, Cicero was no advocate of the ideal of a hermit philosopher, as we have clearly seen in his appraisal of community life. Indeed, as human community is based on such matters like communication, it is something that prominently separates us from beasts. Cicero thinks that nature has given for human beings an instinct to contact their fellows and make bonds with them, and this instinct should be followed – one should communicate with one's relatives, but also with friends and generally everyone in our community. Thus, people who shy away from communal life, because of their own interests, fail to do what they should, and even worse are people, like Caesar, who work actively against common interest, because of their own ambitions.

Respect for the communal life gives then various particular rules for people to follow, such as: we should respect the rights of other people for their own property, but we should also be willing to part of our own property for the benefit of others in our community. Yet, Cicero is not willing to give any definite rules, since in some cases we must break rules in order to avoid greater evil, just as when we must break a promise if obeying it would actually do more harm.

Furthermore, even though we should try to advance the interests of our own community, we should still also not do anything immoral against other communities, such as starting an unprovoked war against them. Indeed, one should show respect even to one's enemies and to one's servants and slaves, if one is to be a truly good person, Cicero continues.

Like many thinkers before him, Cicero considered masculine ideal of brave and unrelenting warrior, who despises all hardships and pains, to be worthy of following, although, again just like many previous thinkers, he would consider it a good thing only in service of the community. Furthermore, Cicero would note that such a courageous and stolid attitude could be shown even at times of peace, especially in political arena.

Search for knowledge, acknowledgment of the importance of social relations and a manly behaviour are for Cicero important ingredients of good human life, but in addition, one must also show a certain finesse in behaviour that is not easy to put in definite rules. One important element in Cicero's ideal is self-control – one should not be carried away by pleasures of senses or mind, whether it be wine or good humour, and especially one should shy away from things considered indecent by the community. Then again, this behavioural finesse requires also a possession of a clear character that one must follow – one must be oneself and act according to one's station in life. Here belong questions like what it is proper for one to wear and what kind of professions one should pursue. In these questions the social relations are also important, since one learns these unspoken rules of conduct by observing the behaviour of one's fellow citizens and especially of those considered to be especially good examples.

In addition to the question of how one should live one's life, Cicero also considers the question what is of benefit to a person. He suggests that while many things do help us, like the inanimate and animate goods of nature, it is especially other human beings who are of use to us, especially as many of the goods of nature must be first cultivated by humans. Of course, humans can also be of the greatest disadvantage to one another, but this just means that we should spend most of our time to get others co-operate with us. Indeed, in this sense the most advantageous way of life is just the one described above, in which one tries to live in service of one's community.

True to this opinion, Cicero did not allow any real conflict exist between the demands of how one should live and demands of what is truly advantageous: he thus finally accepts the Stoic position. One must think of one's friends, before trying to gain more wealth or power to oneself, and one must think of one's community, before helping one's friends. This still does not mean that one's duty would be always straightforward. For instance, we usually must keep our promises, but there appears to be cases where promises must be broken, such as when someone's life depends on it – here, one duty is cancelled by a higher duty. Cicero even notes that commitments to one's community might be overridden, if the community at stake uses perverted means to improve its positions, such as when it wages an unjust war against an innocent opponent. Thus, Cicero overcomes the restricted patriotism of a Roman gentleman and achieves a more cosmopolitan stand toward questions of politics.

Against dogmas

Until now, the philosophers we have studied have tried to establish their opinions as more or less certain truths, in other words, they have held on to some dogmas they have believed in. We have also seen philosophers attacking opinions of other philosophers and trying to find weaknesses in them. Yet, the end of such arguments has always been establishing the truth of one's own opinions. Still, one might suppose that some philosophers would merely argue against opinions of others and delight in finding holes in theories and still not teach any credo of their own.

We find such an attitude in some Greek physicians. Medicine in general had had a sort of rivalry with philosophy: both physicians and philosophers were sure they could improve people's lives. Of course, some physicians endorsed philosophical theories of the constitution of humans and based their practice on them. Yet, others of the so-called empirical school thought such theories were always untrustworthy, and instead, based their practice on immediate observations: if this substance appears to make this patient feel better, we should probably make him take it more.

In philosophy, the first clear sign of such a dominant use of criticism had been Socrates' habit of questioning his fellow citizens, although even he was probably trying to get them admit some moral truths. Use of Socratic dialogue was continued in Plato's school, although more as a method for educating young students, while Plato and his immediate followers undoubtedly held on to some dogmas. Still, in course of time, the Socratic method actually overthrew Platonic dogma from its place of honour in Platonic Academy.

The beginner of this trend was Arcesilaus, who was fond of showing that no dogma of other philosophical schools was more believable than a contrary dogma: indeed, he apparently taught that no assertion was to be believed. His opponents and especially Stoics doubted that such a life would be even possible, because believing something was so ingrained in human mind. Arcesilaus answered that one might still use what is reasonable as guidance in life.

An even later teacher of Academy, Carneades, countered the Stoic doubt that instead of firm assertion one could base one's life on plausibilities. Thus, one need not believe in a single sensation, but if it happens to cohere with many other sensations, it might still be recommendable to live as if this sensation was really true. If we ignore external appearances, Carneades' view was actually not that far from official Stoic doctrine: in place of firm truth one could just put high probability. It is therefore not that surprising that later Academicians moved closer to the position of Stoics.

The true embodiment of the critical attitude was the Sceptic or Pyrrhonian school, named after its founder. Pyrrho was famous of doubting everything, even what he saw in front of him, and his opponents told stories of Pyrrho being saved by his followers from dangers he just couldn't accept as true. Pyrrho had only few followers, most notable of them being Timon, famous for poems making fun of all the other philosophers. Later, Pyrrhonian school became to have some affinities with the empirical school of medicine, as evidenced by the name and the testimony of Pyrrhonian with most surviving writings, Sextus Empiricus.

Pyrrhonians shared some methodological points with Academy of Arcesilaus and Carneades. Most importantly, both schools showed that every belief could be countered by another plausible belief. Thus, what one sensed could be countered by other sensations – like tower could seem round and angular from different directions – or by theories – like white could be said to actually be multi-coloured, and similarly theories could be countered by sensations or by other theories.

While Academics were quick to conclude that no assertions should be believed in, Pyrrhonians thought this was contradictory, because it would mean believing in this demand of non-belief. Instead, Pyrrhonians couldn't even decide whether something should be believed in or not.

Seemingly out of all options, Pyrrhonians explained that in addition to conscious choice of holding on to some assertion, people were forced to choose things according to what things seemed to be: thus, when I feel hungry, I am forced to find food, although there might be no guarantee that I am actually in need of nourishment. Similarly, Pyrrhonians suggested, when two opinions appear to be equally plausible, we are forced to suspend our beliefs concerning them altogether. Still, the possibility that either one of the opinions was the correct one still remains.

Just like Academics, Pyrrhonians faced the problem how one could live in such a state of non-belief. While Carneades had relied on the notion of plausibility, Pyrrhonians thought that it was enough to rely on what thing appeared to be and what these appearances forced us to do, just like in the case of hunger and accompanying desire for eating.

Pyrrhonian Aenesidemus was famous for inventing general argument schemes by which all sorts of opinions could be attacked. His general method was to note that we could always view things only from some perspective or context and by changing this context the opinions would also have to change. This relativity or perspectiveness could be caused by the peculiar nature of the one holding the opinion. Thus, different animals sense and think of things differently, and we have no right to hold one species to have a more perfect view of the world than others. Even if we could somehow hold humans as the species with best cognitive apparatus, humans themselves would still have different constitutions and would view things differently. Even if we then could pick out some person as truly wise, she would still feel things differently with different senses: something that would look pleasant could taste horrible. Furthermore, she would see things differently under different conditions, e.g. as young she hears things that she couldn't hear while old.

In addition to the person holding opinion, the things that the opinion should be about cause also differences of opinions when they are changed. Thus, quantity of things affects how we view it: drinking a glass of water is refreshing, drinking whole ocean is deadly. A peculiar case is formed by laws and customs, which differ from place to place and engender different views about the good life.

Finally, the variablity of perspectives could also be caused by the interaction between those who investigated things and those who are being investigated. Thus, even the relative locations of the observer and the observed could make a great difference, because things look different from different angles and distances or when observed in water and out of water. Furthermore, if something is novel to the observer, it will seem more or less different from what a familiar object feels like.

An even simpler and more effective set of arguments was invented by a later Pyrrhonian, Agrippa. His starting point is familiar: there are many contradicting opinions and they all seem to be just a matter of perspective. It is when someone attempts to present an opinion as something more than mere opinion that Agrippa's arguments really begin. If something is just supposed as convincing in itself, then the opponent has an equal right to suppose her option. If then one attempts to base this supposition on something, it will have to be based on something similar or something different. If you base it on something similar, you face the same questions again and at most you can set up a never-ending search for foundation. If you base it on something different, you still have to find some base for this new supposition and you then also have the same two choices: basing it on something similar falls again to the problem of never-ending search, while always trying to base suppositions on something different will eventually go through all possible options and create a loop that itself is not based on anything. The end of the story is that nothing can be supposed without begging the question.

Pyrrhonians also insisted that there appeared to be nothing that could be taught. Either we would be taught all the things that do not exist – but this is absurd – or then we would be taught all the things that exist – but this is equally impossible, because we couldn't start anywhere, if everything had to be taught to us. Furthermore, what was taught isn't corporeal, because bodies are not thoughts, while it is uncertain if there are any incorporeal things.

Then again, Pyrrhonians continued, it was doubtful that there were any experts good enough to teach anything – and non-experts clearly aren't able to teach anything. Furthermore, even learning appeared to be impossible: experts couldn't learn anything anymore, while non-experts couldn't even recognise when they have learned something.

Finally, Pyrrhonians stated that there was no proper method to teach anything. If you just showed things to a pupil, he would just pick up what evidently appeared to him and not learn anything new. Speech, on the other hand, couldn't be used to teach anything, because one would already have to know what the words meant, if he was to learn anything – and if she knew what they meant, then she wouldn't need anyone to teach them more.

Armed with such strong arguments, Pyrrhonians could have just rested on their laurels and declared all attempts to find knowledge futile. Instead, they went to quite some length in order to discredit even individual disciplines. They began with the traditional Greek elementary studies, in order to show that knowledge could not be found even in such elementary topics.

First of the elementary studies skeptics rejected was the learning of grammar and classic literature. Sextus noted that learning grammar was not altogether useless, because reading and writing were important for surviving in the real life. It is the supposedly expert part of it, dealing with intricacies of language that is both useless and doubtful. An expert of language begins by defining its elements or individual sounds, but it is problematic to even decide what is an individual sound. Is a long vowel a separate sound from a short vowel or just two vowels put together? Is a differently pronounced s a new sound or a combination of s with some other sound? Written language is of no help here, because it is far from being consistent and in some cases it accepts such as different elements and uses a different letter for them, but in other cases it uses a combination of several letters.

Combining sounds into syllables and words is also problematic, because it is sometimes difficult to distinguish combinations of several syllables or words from a single syllable or word. Even more inconsistencies are produced by grammatical genera of words, especially if they are defined as masculine or feminine. If the experts of language try to make the linguistic inconsistencies disappear by making all conjugations and such bound to a rule, the problem is which rule one should follow in unclear cases. The only sufficient criterion appears to be the actual language use of different people, but this requires no expertise and would also mean acceptance of all inconsistencies. If the experts would want to revert to some original state of language, they couldn't explain what was better in such archaic forms – if they were natural, everyone would use them.

The teachers of grammar also boasted of knowledge of myths and ancient poets, but this did not impress skeptics. Because myths and poems are so variable and have different version, there can be no systematic discipline studying them. Furthermore, trying to find great wisdom in such works of art is futile, because these works are so inconsistent in their teachings: should we follow the advice of one character or of another?

After grammar, it was rhetoric that faced the skeptic attack. Sextus ridiculed teachers of fine speeches who rarely made speeches themselves, and noted that floral expressions of famous orators rarely received any sympathies from listeners and judges of court anymore and thus failed to convince or impress, which supposedly was the major achievement of this art. In addition, he noted that a community would not benefit from people who could lull others with pretty words, thus making the status of rhetoric as a useful art suspect.

Even mathematical arts weren't left in peace, at least if they passed the limits of what was required in everyday life. Pyrrhonians criticized the notion of points as dimensionless entities, out of which were generated breadthless lines, depthless planes and finally normal bodies. All that we see, they say, has some dimensions, has breadth and even depth, so we truly have no reason to suppose the existence of such non-entities like points, lines and planes. Furthermore, even if such incorporeal entities existed, it would be mysterious how they could produce corporeal bodies or even limit them.

Equally suspect in Pyrrhonians' opinions was the attempt to base arithmetic on the philosophical notion of One as something that made all things into unities. Was this One itself a unity? Wouldn't it then make all the unities into just one entity, thus making it impossible to count anything. And if it was more like a material that could be divided and attached to each unity separately, how could we speak of the One as a unified entity?

It was not practical land measuring and counting that Pyrrhonians criticized, but theories supposedly meant as their foundations. Similarly, they were not antagonistic towards empirical study of stars and their movements, but towards the attempt to read people's destinies from the position of the stars at the time of their conception or birth. Pyrrhonians noted that even if stars do influence human lives, such studies would have to be of utmost accuracy, because clearly there have been persons born very close and very near one another and still with quite remote destinies. Then again, such accuracy is impossible to maintain, because it is too difficult to determine the exact point at which a child has been born or conceived.

The final part of traditional Greek education or music was also argued against by Pyrrhonians. While music was usually hailed as necessary for cultivating human character, Pyrrhonians noted that in many cases music appeared to have quite the opposite effect and that its apparent good consequences were caused by its capacity to captivate its listeners. Furthermore, musical education appeared useless to Pyrrhonians, because even small babies could appreciate good music. Finally, Pyrrhonians attacked the whole notions of a systematic study of music, because it consisted of fleeting melodies, which had no stable structure to be investigated.

Pyrrhonians continued on to argue against the more refined philosophical disciplines. In the order of presentation, they mostly followed Stoics, probably because it was the most famed school at the time. Thus, like Stoics, they began with logic, but instead of showing how one can find what is true, they presented arguments against the possibility to find truth. The other schools had supposed there had to be some group of entities that were able to decide what is true or not: most of them had supposed this group contained at least some humans. Now, Pyrrhonians noted that even recognising someone as a human would require a commonly accepted definition of humanity, which no one had yet given. Indeed, because no one had satisfyingly discerned the generally supposed constituent aspects of humans, that is, material bodies and mental life, there was no reason to assume a combination of these aspects was any more understandable.

Even if we could discern humans from other entities, Pyrrhonians continued, we still could not accept that humans would be able to know the truth, unless someone who knew truth confirmed it – thus, another regress was generated. Further problems were created by the diversity of human opinions – surely not humans with all their disputes could all be truth recognisers.

If humans or at least some of them were still accepted as capable of knowing the truth, Pyrrhonians could always move on to study the tools by which a human being knows something. Of these tools, sensations clearly contradict themselves from time to time, while intellect is somewhat fuzzy entity, of which nothing much is known for certain – and even we just accepted it, as it is, different people would appear to have been lead to different opinions by their intellects. The only option would then be to let senses and intellect cooperate, but even this cooperation would be useless, because neither could be used as a final standard in cases where the senses and intellect disagreed.

Finally, Pyrrhonians doubted the veracity of the idea that what appeared to us human beings through either senses or intellect could be used in discerning truth. Indeed, they said, it is unclear what these appearances are and how they are produced, so there is nothing to indicate that they have any connection with truth. Indeed, it appears that appearances tell more of the internal states of human beings than of any external objects. We couldn't even say that appearances are similar to the objects, because we cannot have any direct view of the objects. And in fact, while appearances contradict one another, there is no standard for deciding which of them are true.

Pyrrhonians went even further and even suspected the very existence of truths. Truths appeared to be something beyond mere perception, because truth is not a thing that we could literally see. Truth also doesn't appear to be a linguistic attribute of statements, because statements as temporal processes come and go and then truth would also vanish after the statement has been uttered. Then again, if truth was just something in our thoughts, then no things we perceive would be true, which would appear strange.

Even more problems arose from the attempts to know something mediately, through signs or symbols, just like fire might be recognised through rising smoke. Sign apparently must then be immediately apparent and clear – otherwise we couldn't know of it – while that which is known through a sign must be hidden and unclear – otherwise there wouldn't be any need to use sign. Problem is, we couldn't know that A is a sign of B, because we wouldn't be aware of the B at all. Furthermore, it is problematic whether knowing something as a sign requires only perception or also thought. If it would require mere perception, it would be unclear how people conceive different causes for certain signs, for instance, two doctors who make different diagnose from same symptoms. Then again, it cannot require thinking, because even dogs can use signs like smells for information gathering.

An important subspecies of sign use that Pyrrhonians also attacked was demonstrations, which derived formerly unknown truths from known truths. Their main point was that all apparently valid conclusions were either useless or inconclusive. Consider, for instance, a proof of the form ”A, if A then B, thus B”. Here the statement ”if A, then B” is actually quite problematic. You cannot really know it is true, unless you have gone through all known cases where the statement A holds. But if you have done this, then you already know directly that B is also true at this time, so the whole deduction is pointless. If, on the other hand, you don't know whether ”if A then B” is true, you cannot prove B through this argument. Weaker inductive proofs fare even worse, because one could not generalise from a single observation. Indeed, Pyrrhonians noted that logicians were not even better in choosing what arguments to follow than real experts: for instance, a doctor might know instinctually that certain prescription was not made right, while logician would have nothing to add to this.

Pyrrhonians also spoke against the need to define things precisely. Indeed, because definitions couldn't be made infinitely big, there should be some ultimate undefined terms, thus showing that skill of defining things is not always useful. Indeed, many definitions made things even more obscure by replacing fairly well known terms with further murkiness. Finally, Pyrrhonians ridiculed the division of classes – if we cannot even know what these classes are, we cannot really say the division is complete.

In physical matters Pyrrhonians could easily refer to the variety of opinions held by different schools, yet, they took pains in finding arguments against certain common opinions. Thus, when Stoics tried to argue that physical matters could be explained by active causes interacting with passive materials, Pyrrhonians raised doubts against both of them. The ultimate active cause was often said to be some god or gods, but Pyrrhonians could also easily bring forward philosophers doubting and even ridiculing the idea of the existence of gods. For instance, god would have to be either motionless and even incapable of motion – rather pathetic god – or else it would love and thus be susceptible to corruption. This point resembles a basic contradiction in the very notion of divinity: gods were thought to be good and powerful, but still they either couldn't manage or wouldn't want to relief the world of all the suffering. Paradoxically, Pyrrhonians thought that this lack of definite conclusion was actually best thing that happened from a religious viewpoint. If no conclusion was certain, then one should just continue following traditional worship just in case. Those who wanted to prove the existence of gods, on the other hand, made religion susceptible to ridicule by blasphemous counterarguments.

In addition to gods, all active causes are actually suspect, Pyrrhonians suggested. Firstly, we couldn't even conceive what causes are, because knowing a cause would presuppose knowing its effects, which would then presuppose knowing their cause. Even if one could know what causes are, she would have to give a cause that would guarantee that there are causes: this would lead to a never-ending series of causes. Finally, it is actually in most cases even impossible to distinguish between the active and the passive components of causal relation. For instance, when sun, say, dries a piece of clay, sun is not the only active thing, because the clay itself is acting to allow the drying – if it would be snow, the result would be quite the contrary, that is, a wet spot.

Furthermore, Pyrrhonians thought the very process of causation to be dubious. Presumably causes either added something to things or took away from them. Now, such an interaction would in most likelihood occur either between two bodies or two non-bodily limits of things, like lines, because it would be difficult to say how e.g. lines could add anything to bodies. Line then apparently could in a sense take away something from another line, for instance, when one line cut another in two. Then again, the very notion of such splitting of lines was very awkward. If a line could be cut in two, then its parts would have to have been joined by a point, which the cutting line would then go through. But where would this middle point then belong? It could not belong to both parts, or they would still be joined, but if it belonged to either, the line would not be cut evenly, and if it belonged to neither, the line would have been cut into three parts. Similar problems would be faced with combining lines and other limits of bodies.

The notion of bodies interacting with one another is equally difficult, Pyrrhonians continued. Suppose a smaller body is added to another. If the smaller body truly changed the essence of the larger body, it would make this other body similar to itself – namely, smaller. Addition would then actually diminish a thing, which would be absurd. If the smaller body, on the contrary, would not affect the essence of the other body, it would not really add anything to the other body, but would only come in close contact with it.

In addition to causes, the very things that causes act on are suspect, Pyrrhonians continue. Most of the philosophical schools assume that there are material objects or bodies that can be described through geometrical means. Yet, in order to account for three-dimensional bodies geometrically, one must regard them as formed from two-dimensional surfaces and finally from one-dimensional lines – problem is that we can see no such two- or one-dimensional things flying around anywhere. Furthermore, it is a mystery how concrete bodies can be thought about reliably. If we could do it, such thoughts would have to be based on prior perceptions of bodies, but it seems that we perceive only fragments of these bodies – we see colours, we smell certain odours, but our perceptions do not tell us that these colours and odours go together. Because we cannot directly perceive all such properties as belonging to one thing, we cannot even think about such belonging.

This still leaves the possibility that there could be incorporeal substances that could be affected by some causes. Problem is that we seem to be unable to define incorporeal substances without any reference to the corporeal substances, which were already deemed problematic. In addition, incorporeal substances cannot be perceived to exist, because they cannot exert any influence on our sense organs. Furthermore, their existence cannot even be argued for, because arguments definitely are not corporeal, so we would have to decide first whether there are incorporeal things, before we could just assume the existence of incorporeal substances.

In addition to the general attack against incorporeal substances, Pyrrhonians also went against some particular types of such substances, such as place and time. Of these two, place cannot be material, because then it would repel bodies, but it cannot also be a void, because then it would vanish, whenever occupied by a body. Time, on the other hand, consists of a part that is not yet, a part that is yet to come and of a fleeting limit between the two – how could it exist? But if place and time do not exist, how could there be any motion, or indeed, change in general and thus anything for physics to study? Then again, motion and change are so natural concepts that defending them requires just reference to common experiences. Because there are good reasons both for accepting them and for disregarding them, Pyrrhonians concluded that we should just refrain to say anything about them.

After physics, Pyrrhonians set their sights on ethical questions. Here they could easily refer to the various opinions and customs in different cultures and with different thinkers, so that any supposed taboo was practiced or at least allowed by some people: for instance, some of the early Stoics had seen nothing bad in eating human flesh. Hence, Pyrrhonists concluded, nothing was naturally good or bad, for otherwise everyone would think it good or bad.

Furthermore, Pyrrhonists denied that anyone could really be an expert of how to live. This couldn't be a natural trick, because then everyone would know it by instinct and need no philosophers to guide them, but learning how to live was as impossible as learning in general. Furthermore, philosophers are often in awe of the idea of a truly good person, but Pyrrhonians noted that such people are usually like nothing when compared with even better persons. Finally, supposed experts of good life lived actually rather poor lives full of all sorts of hardship.

In fact, skeptics appeared to live much calmer lives than their dogmatic fellows, Pyrrhonians thought. Latter had all sorts of beliefs about what is good and what is bad and then spent all their life craving for what is good and fearing for what is bad, thus making their life full of woe and misery. Pyrrhonians, on the other hand, had no opinions about the matter and were thus hurt only by such unavoidable physical feelings like hunger.

Progress in philosophy

We no longer believe in any clear pattern in the philosophy of history – we do not see it as an inevitable progression, where the ideas of one philosopher lead naturally to its overcoming by the next philosopher and finally perhaps to some Philosophy itself where all the problems of previous millenia have been solved. Science may go forward, but philosophy seems like a mere endless bickering over the very same questions as before.

The era of ancient philosophy I have studied in the previous texts was earlier taken as a clear example of such inevitable progression. Thus, we see Hegel putting all the pre-Socratics in a neat order, where every link adds some important philosophical concept to the development, placing Socrates in the middle with his addition of ethics and method of discussion and topping it all with the works of Plato and Aristotle encompassing all that has gone before.

Such tales of progression could be easily criticized: for instance, there's no clear line of influence leading from one pre-Socratic to another, because their live overlapped with one another and some of them lived indeed even to the times of Socrates. Furthermore, it is not clear that anyone living at the time of Plato and Aristotle would have considered their philosophy to be the ultimate solution to all the questions of previous philosophers. Indeed, there were many philosophical schools, like Cynics, that Hegel places before Plato and Aristotle, which were still live and well and would have contested Hegel's reasoning. It is only the later times that raised the status of the two masters – and it's impossible to tell, how justified this raising is, because we have no full works of their contemporary rivals.

Still, we might discern at least some lines of influence leading up to Plato and Aristotle – although they were not the only ends of these lines. I remarked already at the beginning of my studies that the Ionians begun by stating theories based on studies of nature: theories concerning the constitution of world, its generation and possible future destruction and the constitution of the worldly things. Such studies were probably continued by a number of persons, although such empirical studies were not part of any profession in those days. We can discern features of such studies in some of the pre-Socratics and especially in stories recounting their lives. Plato confronted such empirical information in his Timaeus, alhtough he was clearly skeptical of its certainty. Finally Aristotle collected lot of this ”empirical science” and probably made also personal contributions, especially in his studies of animals. Because works of Aristotle were the first extant works containing this empirical treasure trove, he was often considered to have actually started many of the empirical sciences.

It is much harder to determine whether there were any development of religious type. I have suggested that several of the pre-Socratics were actively interested of religious issues: certainly Pythagoras and Xenophanes, possibly even Heracleitus – we may perhaps discern some religious strands even in Parmenidian idea of the unity behind everything. Most influential religious notion was still the idea of world as on the whole good and wisely governed: Anaxagoras thought there was a reason governing everything and Plato based his whole philosophy on supreme idea of goodness. Even Aristotle held on to this idea, when he noted that all existing things tried to imitate, as best as they could, the perfect being or God living in eternal bliss.

Empirical findings and religious ideas seem somewhat extrinsic to philosophy itself, but there were already a number of essentially philosophical questions. The eldest of these was probably the Parmenidian challenge: can we allow the existence of motion and multiplicity? This question was probably discussed by Empedocles, Anaxagoras and atomists, and it was definitely on the agenda of Plato and Aristotle. The common assumption of all these philosophers was that Eleatic school was wrong and there really was motion and multiplicity, and even the basic answer was same – there is some stability, but this still allows for the variability of some issues.

Study of nature began with Ionians, interest in religious issues originated with Pythagorians and metaphysical questions started with Eleatics. It was common in ancient times to ascribe the invention of ethics to Socrates, which is true only partially. Certainly there were people interested in the Socratic question: how should we live well, both individually and collectively? Indeed, the seven wise men of Greek history were supposedly wise just because they knew answers to these questions. In imitation of these wise men, sophists named themselves also ”wise men”, but at least some of them appeared to understood the required wisdom in the sense of a capacity to find means for required goals.

Socrates noted that before determining means, one should at first determine what one should aim at and take as one's goal. Furthermore, he took as his explicit task to find out what goals really deserved to be goals, while as far as we know, his predecessors in ethical issues were content just to proclaim what is good. Just like after Parmenidian establishment of metaphysics, no single line of development captivated the mind's of people. Still, the question itself connected various ethical doctrines, and it became in some circles the most important question of them all. Indeed, Plato at least begun by trying to find solutions for moral problems, even if answering these problems meant discussing also metaphysics. Aristotle forms an interesting exception, as ethics forms with him only a secondary topic and the true wisdom is to be found in a mystical contemplation of the origin and archetype of goodness.

The one thing were there has been evident development is methodology. Unfortunately, most of the earliest philosophers left no record as to how they arrived to theories they presented. Still, we might find interest in arguments at least starting from the Eleatic school. By the time of sophists, such argumentation had been dressed in ornate decoration and flowery rhetoric – the development of rhetoric was probably influenced by a need to master public speeches in city councils and courts. While rhetorical speeches tried to convince passive listeners, Socrates raised the listener into a bit more active role by making him a partner in discussion, although the true control was still in the hands of the clever interrogator. Plato generalized then this style of arguing into a proper methodology for seeking truth. He also distinguished this dialectical method clearly from mere rhetoric: it had more in common with mathematical argumentation than convincing people in courts. Aristotle then completed this development by noting that certain figures of argumentation or syllogisms worked always so that one had no choice but to accept their conclusion if one just accepted their premisses  He could thus envision the possibility of presenting human knowledge in a style, where statements expressing the essence of something led to further truths through valid deductions.

Ideas reconsidered

In the previous text we saw how Plato developed his mature views on ideas and on the ideal life of human beings. Yet, Plato's views were not fixed for eternity, because he found later on reasons for re-evaluating some central tenets of his work. These novel lines of thought required also a change in the form of presenting them, Plato seems to have thought. Thus, the central character and the hero of earlier dialogues, Socrates, hides often into a background in the later dialogues and sometimes even loses a battle of wits: a subtle hint of Plato's that he did not ascribe to all of the beliefs he used to have.

One obvious change in Plato's later thought is a growing concern for justifying that his methods truly resulted in knowledge. In many of the earlier dialogues Socrates tried to discover definition for some general concepts like courage or justice. A mere example of courage did not suffice for a proper definition, because such examples revealed not all possible instances of courage: only by knowing a definition of courage did one gain a capacity to truly recognise courage in all possible cases. Now, one particular concept Plato had not tackled was knowledge itself. Socrates in his dialogues had perhaps claimed to have particular instances of knowledge in his possession, but one could ask how Plato could justify that these were true cases of knowledge, if he did not even know what it required to know something

Knowing definition of knowledge was thus important for justifying the possibility to complete Plato's agenda. It is then no wonder that in dialogue Theatetus we find Socrates considering pros and cons of various definitions of knowledge. The first assumption Plato suggests is that we know something when we see, hear or in general perceive it: indeed, seeing, hearing etc. seem to be our main sources of information. Now, the problem in this definition is that people can have different perceptions of same things: wind that feels cold to one man might be warm according to another man. Thus, if we accepted perception as the criterion of knowledge, then everyone would have their own criterion of knowledge and indeed would be always correct in everything: this is the sort of relativism that some sophists endorsed. Then nothing would have any stable essence, but things would change from one context and observer to another: what is cold for me might as well be hot for you.

It is expected that Plato did not accept this definition. This definition would make opinions of every person equally valuable and would thus undermine the possibility of there being experts who knew more of some issue than others. Furthermore, the whole idea of everything changing according to the context would quickly destroy all stability from the world: we couldn't even say that different persons perceived same things in different manners, because the assumption of same things underlying different observations would be too substantial. Finally, this definition does not even correspond to the common manner of using the word ”knowledge”: otherwise I would lose knowledge of a thing at once when I stopped looking at it.

The next definition Plato proposes supposes that knowledge is something stored in our mind in form of images: experience of things leaves traces in our mind, like impressions in a piece of wax or like birds flying in aviary. This suggestion would make it possible to use knowledge of a thing even when we did not perceive it: we would just have to drag it from our memory. The trouble is how to account for occasions when we have false beliefs: we might have false thoughts flying in our head in addition to true thoughts. The problem is actually solved in a later dialogue Sophist, where Plato has noticed that our mind does not store just images, but also opinions in the form of statements. Statements always speak of something – this something is usually designated by a noun – and they say something of this issue - in verbs and adjectives. Such statements can then be obviously wrong: we could have said something of an issue, although the issue should not be characterised in that manner.

Although the problem of false opinions would have been solved thus, the idea of mere true opinions as knowledge would not be sufficient. Even a clever rhetorician could put thoughts and even correct thoughts in our head, but even after listening to her we wouldn't necessarily have true knowledge instead of mere opinions.

Knowledge is thus not completely characterised by being a true belief: something more must be added to the definition. Plato considers several emendations without finding a suitable answer. Clearly a mere ability to state one's thoughts verbally does not yet make them knowledge, because we can as well state mere opinions. A plausible suggestion according to Plato is that knowledge requires a capacity to tell what a thing consists of: e.g. we know a machine, when we can tell how it has been constructed. More generally we know something when we can define it, that is, when we can explain it through simpler terms: e.g. triangle is a figure consisting of three straight lines. The problem is that we couldn't then know anything of the final pieces of analysis, because they wouldn't consist of anything: knowledge would be based on unknowledge. Plato finally suggests that perhaps a mere capacity to recognise something would be sufficient to make our thoughts of something knowledge: indeed, we do say that we know a person, if we can recognise her among a crowd. Then again, even this suggestion seems insufficient, because we appear to need such capacity of recognition even for having thoughts: I cannot think Mark, if I can't separate him from other persons

Although Theatetus thus ends with a negative conclusion, the investigation was not in vain. It appears that at least the knowledge of complex or analysable entities involves essentially the capacity to define or analyse them. Hence, Plato suggests in his later dialogues a more systematic manner of defining things, while in earlier dialogues he had merely just tested any definitions that happened to be available. This new method works by making constant divisions: for instance, all living things are either plants or animals and humans belong to the latter kind etc. This method is still not a sure way to make correct definitions – these definitions need still to be tested – but at least it results in more correct definitions than a mere haphazard invention. Thus, in later dialogues Plato defines in this way sophist as a sort of imitator, who fakes knowledge, although he does not have actual knowledge; similarly, a statesman is defined as a sort of herdsman of humans who uses the talents of other professionals to care for the best of society. This method was clearly of great importance to Plato's pupils also. Indeed, Plato's successor, his relative Speusippus, equated knowledge of a thing with the capacity to place it in its proper place in a classification of all things: thus, knowledge of something presupposed for Speusippus a knowledge of everything.

In Theatetus Plato criticised his old enemies, the sophists, and especially Protagoras, who had insisted that anyone's opinion must be as good as any other's. In addition to sophists, Plato had now gained some new enemies, who paradoxically had been his allies against sophists. The Megaran school tried to unite Socrates' method of teaching with Parmenides' idea of the world: they tried to show through arguments that world was an unchanging unity. Unlike sophists, Megarans admitted that we could know something, and like Plato, they admitted that the true knowledge was to be found beyond what was revealed by senses. But unlike Plato, they supposed that the object of this knowledge was the unified world instead of a plurality of ideas: in eyes of Megarans these ideas would have been mere delusion as well as sensuous appearances.

Plato felt the pressure of the Megarans apparently quite overwhelming: in his dialogue Parmenides the idol of Megarans, Parmenides, is even able to dismiss the theory of ideas that young Socrates suggests to him: it might well be that the criticism of Parmenides in the dialogues originated in the Megaran school. Parmenides of the dialogue makes fun of Socrates by asking him whether such things as mud have also an ideal model. But his criticism does not limit to such cheap jokes. Parmenides questions the very relation ideas are supposed to have to the things we normally perceive. Idea of beautiful should be something that makes the beautiful things beautiful. How does it do this? Suppose the idea of beautiful is like a chemical component added to a thing to make it beautiful: then we actually don't have one idea of beautiful, but a quantity of it, divided among many things. Plato, on the other hand, upholds the idea to be a unity. Indeed, the idea of beautiful was assumed just because there were many beautiful things and some unified thing was needed to account for what makes these many things beautiful: idea of beautiful was like a model of beauty which other beautiful things resembled. Parmenides cleverly notes that one would then have to assume an unlimited number of ideas of beautiful: the first idea of beautiful together with other beautiful things form yet another plurality of beauty, which would then require yet another ideal model of beauty to account for what makes them all beautiful. Socrates of the dialogue makes the final suggestion that the ideal of beauty couldn't be compared with beautiful things, because it would be infinitely more beautiful than mere sensuous things can be. This suggestion solves the problem of infinity of ideas of beauty, but makes the assumption of the idea somewhat superfluous: the ideal beauty would then be something that god perhaps might know, but it would have nothing to do with earthly beauty, which it wouldn't even resemble.

The criticism of Parmenides makes Plato's theory of ideas suspect, but the dialogue does not stop here: Plato goes on to show that the very assumption of Parmenides and Megarans leads to equally great problems. If we suppose the existence of One – that is, of the original unified reality – we have two choices to make. The first option is to take the route of Parmenides and Megarans and avoid saying anything negative of it. Then we end up with saying nothing of it, because from every positive statement follows something negative: if we can say even that the One exists, then we can also say that it does not fail to exist. Furthermore, if we cannot say anything of the One, we cannot even say anything of its relation to the things we sense: thus, we cannot say anything of the sensuous things, because they wouldn't be even unified without some relation to the One.

The second option is to admit that we can say something of One, at least that it exists. Then we must assume that something has made it to exist or at least makes it possible for us to say that it exists. This source of existence could then be separated from One and together they would form a pair: we could then suppose another source that would make the source of being and the One into pair. Clearly we could go on finding ever new sources of triplets, quartets etc.; in fact, these sources would be Platonian ideas of numbers. The One would then be just one of the ideas, that is, it would be the source of making all unified: thus, it would make organised wholes from what we can sense and would hence allow us to speak of the world of senses.

Plato notes that these two options are actually not completely exclusive. We could also suppose that the One had been at first devoid of existence and thus beyond all discussion. Then the assumed source of being would have made the One come into being – created it, in religious terms. After this the One would have continued by making the sense world evermore unified. As this assumption supposes that One would be temporal, it would be equally tough to accept for Parmenides and Megarians.

The outcome of the Parmenides has thus far been that both Plato and Megarans have apparently been contradicted. It might thus seem that the common opponent of both – that is, sophists – would have beaten the game: there would be nothing beyond the perceptions. But at the end of the dialogue Plato points out once again that sophistic solution won't do: a sophist must also face his own dilemma. Suppose that sophist says that neither Platonic ideas nor Parmenidean One exist. Then he also has two choices. He might firstly mean that e.g. One does not exist in the perceived world, that is, that perceptions consist only of parts that do not form true wholes. Then the One would still exist beyond the perceived world: a result not satisfactory for the sophist. The other option would be that the One and the ideas would truly not exist and would even be beyond meaningful discussion. The problem is that then everything would be beyond meaningful discussion, because nothing would be unified and thus a possible subject of discussion.

Plato's battles with other philosophical schools have thus far ended with no clear resolution, but in Sophist Plato thinks that he can win both sophists and Megarans. There is not just instable motion and not just immobile stability in the world, but both: if neither would exist, there would be no possibility of thought. In other words, there is something that makes things move and something that makes things stable: these are then Platonic ideas, which are not mere components nor just ideal models, but something with the ability to make others resemble them. Furthermore, the ideas of motion and stability are not completely separate, but can mingle and affect one another. Neither of the two is a source of being and therefore a third idea is needed to make the other ideas exist. In addition to these three ideas Plato assumes then at least the ideas of similarity and dissimilarity: one is something that makes things share some characteristics, while the other separates all things. Through this new scheme Plato solves the old Parmenidian problem how one can speak of something that differs from being. Plato notes that the words being and non-being are ambiguous. There is firstly the source of being and beyond that other beings: all of them are beings or exist, but the source of being exists in a more essential manner, because without it nothing would exist. Other beings would then be non-beings in the sense that they differ from the source, although in another sense they of course exist.

The metaphysical question about the source of being was an issue that was much thought by Plato's successors. Plato was convinced that the source of being could be said to exist, and indeed, that it primarily deserved to be called existing: in any case, we could make meaningful statements of this source. Plato's successor Speusippos, on the other hand, noted that such a source would not really explain anything. That is, if a source or cause of something would just be a thing of similar sort, nothing would be explained: if you explained the existence of fishes by saying that they had came out of other fishes, you would not have explained anything, but only transferred the problem to further and further fishes. The true source of existence, according to Speusippos, should then be something beyond existence and being and therefore also beyond meaningful conversation, Thus, when Plato, for instance, says that the source of being is good or aims for some purpose, Speusippos denies this, because such descriptions as good can be used only of the existing things.

Another problematic that Plato's successors talked a lot was the relationship of this source of being to other things and especially Platonic ideas. Plato suggested a sort of hierarchy, where the source of being together with a source of multiplicity constructed first ideas or ideal models of everything, then numbers and finally other things. Now, Plato’s successor Speusippos noted that the realm of ideas would be a mere useless addition without any purpose. For instance, if we already know ordinary numbers that can be added together and separated from one another, there would be no reason to speak also of a realm of ideal and changeless numbers that could not be added etc. The successor of Speusippos, Xenocrates, tried to mediate between the two older philosophers by equating numbers with Platonic ideas: like in the ideas of so-called Pythagoreans, numbers played also the role of metaphysical forces.

If we now move on from the pure theory of ideas, we see that Plato is anxious to show how the physical world could be explained on the basis of his theory and how the findings of contemporary science could be reconciled with his own thoughts. Plato acknowledges that his account of knowledge could not admit any true science of physical world: the world is too variable to be a true object of knowledge. Yet, at least a probable account of the structure of the world could be given. Because the theory of world is of lower level than true philosophical knowledge, Plato presents this theory in a form of a mere myth or story of the birth of the world.

The physical world would by itself consist of a mere chaotic variety of ever fleeting shapes and an empty, unchanging ”place” or receptacle in which these shapes appear. The current order of the world should then come from another source that Plato calls demiurge. It is unclear whether this demiurge is a mere mythical name to some idea – to some source of order or stability – or whether it is a distinct, godlike entity shaping the chaos by using ideas as models. In any case, the true source of the stability of the world must be either immediately or mediately in the world of ideas.

The first task in the stabilisation of the world would be the shaping of chaotic mass into specific matters. Plato tells colourfully how demiurge shapes matter into triangles and then combines these triangles into four different shapes corresponding to the Empedoclean elements: earth, fire, air and water. He then continues by suggesting how other substances, like snow, oil or salt, have been produced from these four basic elements. When we abstract from the mythical aspect of the story, Plato is essentially recounting the chemistry of his own time and adding a geometrical description of its basic elements.

Plato was also interested to incorporate the astronomy of his times into his account of creation. Hence, the demiurge is told to shape the four elements into a form of a rotating ball. The newly-born cosmos is given to an entity that is formed from both the source of stability and the source of motion and so shares characteristics with both of them: this entity or psyche is what makes the cosmos into a living creature. The cosmos is then tinted with an outpouring from the source of difference – so that it does not repeat the same pattern too often – and with an outpouring from the source of sameness – so that it will finally end up in its development into its original starting position. The cosmos is then filled with bodies made of fire – the planets – that follow the rotation of the cosmos with strict mathematical rules. The planets are also endowed with psyches of their own, which correspond then to the gods of the Greek tradition.

After this stage in the creation myth, the demiurge has the chance to rest on its laurels, while the gods then get the task of creating an image of the cosmos within cosmos. Thus, they produce ball-shaped objects, to which the demiurge adds a psyche of their own – it is not clear whether these ”smaller psyches” are meant to be parts of the world psyche or independent entities. Because such balls would have difficulties in moving, the gods fashion a support for the ball or head: the body. The description of the body and its interactions with the environment follow the medicine of Plato's time. Furthermore, Plato gives a sort of mythical explanation of his theory of the three parts of human psyche. The highest or the reasoning part has already been created by the demiurge and placed in the head. Now, the gods imitate this creation of demiurge and place another psyche within human body: this psyche is then divided into two parts, one of which resides in the heart and unites lower with the higher psyche, while the other part lives in abdomen and is more concerned of the body and its wants. The two parts of the lower psyche are essentially connected with the body and die with it, while the reasoning psyche has a higher origin, according to Plato, and therefore can outlive its body. The psyches then move from one body to another, and while the first body created by the gods is supposedly male human, the womankind and animals are produced as living quarters for humans who have paid more respect to body and its wishes than to their own psyche.

Plato’s affair with natural philosophy was temporary, but his interest in human behaviour continued even in his older age. Just like he had to defend his theory of ideas against new opponents – Megarans – so did his idea of a proper human behaviour face new opponents. While earlier Plato was satisfied to show that mere pleasures without reason could not fill one’s life with meaning – after all, how could one even know how one is feeling good without reason – in his later dialogue Philebus he also goes against the idea that human beings could live a good life completely without pleasures, as Cynics had suggested. Plato agreed with Cynics, when they said that some pleasures were intrinsically related to pains – no satisfaction from food without hunger. Yet, human beings cannot be completely free of such pleasures and pains: we are no gods, we must eat to survive. Furthermore, Plato suggested that some pleasures are without pain, like the joy of seeing beautiful colours or hearing beautiful sounds. Although pleasures thus are an element of good life, Plato still thought that they were far from being the most important element: much more important is to measure pleasure in right amounts, without detriment to health of body and psyche, and this could be done only with the guidance of reason.

Plato’s theory of ideal state had to face other challenges. It had become evident to Plato in his futile attempts to educate a tyrant into a philosopher that his utopia was more difficult to actualise than he had thought. It may have occurred to him that his ideal state was completely impossible, a fantasy without any basis in reality. Plato did try to justify this ideal through another myth: he suggested that in times long gone his hometown Athens had been a Platonic state and that it had been capable of withstanding the might of a much larger empire of Atlantis. This sort of myth was not, of course, sufficient as a true proof, and so Plato was forced to consider whether there might be a more viable sort of society, which would still be better than any current state was.

An ideal Platonic state should be based on one class of people being capable of governing the whole state: a great number of guidelines is not needed by such state, because the governors should know perfectly well what the citizens truly need. A second best state, on the other hand, cannot rely on the wisdom of governors, therefore, it must at least have good laws to govern it. In other words, this state must not be a tyranny where all power has been given to one person, because such a state would be too reliant on the nature of that one person. People desire to be free, and even slaves are ruled best when they are handled fairly. On the other hand, state should not be a completely unruly democracy, where everything was decided by the irrational decisions of the crowd. Instead, the people of this state should freely subject themselves to some rules or laws guiding them. The officials who take care that people follow laws are only partly chosen by the desire of the populace and a more important element in their choice should be according to Plato a careful testing of their virtuousness: the officials should not work for gaining money and they should have no servants, but they should instead circulate in the country and live through their own means.

In a good and possible state, state officials should not then use laws for their own purposes, but should serve laws. Thus, Plato does not wish to speak of a democracy or aristocracy, but suggests that a good state is always a theocracy, because laws are supposed to be immortal like gods. Laws are still not tyrants that merely oppress people to follow them with punishments, that is, a good society is not totalitarian. Plato admits that laws cannot be decided completely beforehand and that some laws can be regulated only when people of city state have experienced what customs work best: laws might even change, although Plato thinks that this should happen rarely. Furthermore, Plato would like every law to argue for its own existence and explain why it is good to do as it suggests: for instance, a law upholding marriage and allotting fees for unmarried people would be justified by the need to continue the human race. Plato still recognises a limit beyond which law cannot anymore decree anything, even for the benefit of the people, because too much regulation in small details would be felt as too restricting and even ridiculous. Plato suggests that in these cases there could still be laws for giving merit to persons who do satisfy even those small details: such persons would then serve as examples of exceptionally praiseworthy conduct for others to emulate.

The laws are not meant to be mere external restrictions for herding the citizens, but they must also contain guides for training them to live a good life: this was also an important task of the governors in ideal state. In the ideal state it was of utmost importance to educate the wisdom of the governors-to-be, but in this second best state it is the other parts of good life that receive obviously more attention. Once again training is to be given to both sexes, because gifts of a person should not go to waste because of wrong sex. Plato notes that in many states people were educated merely for brave action in warfare through battle training, gymnastics, hunting etc. Plato also endorses such exercises that make people lose their fear of pain and train them to defend their city and suggests competitions in which people can show their skills in arts of warfare.

Yet, a mere education of courage is not enough for Plato, who wants to train citizens also to live a good life at times of peace and to be capable of battling against the lures of pleasures: he thus suggests e.g. a controlled drinking of wine as a good way to practise one’s independency from pleasures. Music is once again an important element for Plato’s idea of education of proper behaviour, and he even goes so far as to suggest that wine should be given to old men, who would thus be more eager to sing for others. All forms of music are not to be encouraged, Plato thinks, but only those that guide people best to a good life: poems, songs, dances and plays should extol the benefits of living modestly and avoiding excess pleasures. Like in skills of body, competitions are to be held in musical arts. Mathematics and astronomy is also to be taught to all citizens, although only the basics, because no awareness of the more refined aspects of them is required for everyday use.

Luxury is once again in Plato’s eyes a chief reason for ruin of states. Luxury and need for it, on the other hand, arise according to Plato from foreign trade. Hence, Plato ordains that a good state should be self-sufficient, with no need to import goods from other states, but also not too productive, so that it would not export goods in change of currency. Unlike in Plato’s ideal society, every citizen can have private property, as long as he does not become too rich or too poor. Plato also accepts the general use of money, but only such that can be used within the state: the possession of gold and silver required in foreign trade should be carefully regulated. He also sanctions trading and money lending and even suggests that these usually disrespected professions would be more respected if the traders and moneylenders would just be good men – although at the same time Plato states that no good man would ever want to take up such professions.

Plato thought that state should try to turn all necessary desires of human body into customs useful for the people and the community. Thus, the desire to eat and drink was to be made into a vehicle for making the community growing closer through the custom of shared dinners. Similarly the sex drive should be geared towards reproducing good and balanced children. Although Plato does now allow marriages, he would still want to regulate who is to marry whom: at least officials of community should try to convince persons with compatible characters to marry one another. Plato’s attitudes towards relationships between same sex appear to have become more intolerant in his later years, as he clearly says that society should condemn – if not through laws, then at least through customs – sex between people of same sex: only intercourse geared towards reproduction is commendable. Similar intolerance Plato shows towards madmen and beggars, the appearance of which if a sign of something being wrong in the society: Plato's solution is to fight the signs instead of the problems and lock madmen away from public life and banish beggars from the society.

One particular problematic occurring in the second best society, but not apparently in the best society is the need for correcting people’s behaviour: in the best society, Plato thinks, such correctives would not be needed, because everyone would act correctly and crime would not exist. Even in the second best society, Plato believes, there should be no punishments as such, because no one truly wants to do bad things. One may do bad things accidentally, like when a careless boxer strikes his opponent too hard: in such cases the damages should be repaired, but no punishment is needed. On the other hand, one may do bad thing because of ignorance or desire for pleasures: in such cases we should not punish the criminal, but to educate him, because the criminal is not in complete control of himself (to tell the truth, Plato envisioned such educative correctives to resemble what we usually call punishments). Between complete accidences and crimes of ignorance or desire lie bad deeds made because of sudden madness or loss of temper: because here the bad deed is between two extremes, the reaction to it should also be between the extremes of mere indemnity and corrective.

Plato advocates also for a state religion. Like all the commands of state, even this religion should be at first justified. Thus, the governors of the state must argue that there are entities that can regulate their own actions and that therefore are the ultimate causes for the order of the world. The governors should also explain to people that gods do care for the good of people and that their mind cannot be changed through sacrifices and other gifts. The goodness of gods is seen from the fact that they gave order to the world: Plato presents these entities or gods as battling against chaotic forces, but it is unclear whether these forces are meant as true satanic entities of whether Plato is merely using poetic language to describe unordered matter. As good and just, gods will reward good and punish wicked. Wicked people might fare apparently good and good people apparently bad, but then it is a question of mere apparent goodness and badness. Although the state religion can thus be justified, Plato also suggests that citizens who reject these dogmas must be punished for their actions: no freedom of belief is allowed, and those who cannot understand why gods are to be respected, are to be either forced to surrender or banished altogether.

Plato's new society appears even more regulated, and this regulation will not happen by itself. Thus, Plato suggests that the society should have a secret group taking care that the society stays in the right path. This secret group should consist of the best people of the society. Thus, the secret group works like philosophers in the ideal state, and indeed, one of the issues discussed in the nightly meetings of this group is the development of the philosophy and other sciences: although the guardians of the society are not philosophers, they should at least try to become wiser.