Greek Philosophy
Discover Greek philosophy — the tradition of rational inquiry from Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle that laid the foundations of Western thought and science.
Greek philosophy represents one of the most remarkable intellectual achievements in human history — the systematic attempt to understand the world through reason rather than myth, tradition, or divine revelation. Beginning with the Pre-Socratics in the 6th century BCE and reaching its peak with Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in the 5th and 4th centuries, Greek philosophy asked questions that remain at the heart of intellectual life today.
The Pre-Socratics — Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides — made the revolutionary move of seeking natural rather than supernatural explanations for the world. Socrates shifted philosophy's focus to ethics and human affairs, developing the dialectical method of questioning that bears his name. Plato built on Socrates' work to construct a comprehensive philosophical system encompassing metaphysics (the Theory of Forms), epistemology, ethics, political theory, and aesthetics. Aristotle, Plato's student, systematized virtually every field of knowledge then available — logic, physics, biology, ethics, politics, poetics — creating an intellectual framework that dominated Western and Islamic thought for two millennia.
The Greek philosophical tradition also produced the Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics, and Cynics — schools of thought that offered practical guidance for living well in an uncertain world. These traditions experienced a remarkable revival in recent years, as modern readers discover their relevance to contemporary questions about happiness, meaning, and how to face adversity.