1. Hellenism refers to the period following the conquests of Alexander the Great when Greek culture spread widely. Major philosophies that developed during this time included Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Neoplatonism. 2. The Stoics believed that virtue was the only true good and that people should accept external events, like sickness and death, which follow natural laws. The Epicureans aimed to attain the highest possible sensory pleasure and avoid pain. 3. Neoplatonism revived Plato's philosophy and emphasized dividing the soul from the body. Plotinus believed the world spans between the divine light of God and absolute darkness, with mysticism involving merging with the divine.

1. Hellenism and
ROME
J. Gaarder and M. Curtis
Prepared by Raizza P. Corpuz

2. Reflective Analysis: ½ crosswise
(paper) Answer the following
questions, to ponder:
– Philosophy of life and tolerance:
1. Make a list of things we can know. Then make a list of things we can only
believe.
2. Indicate some of the factors contributing to a person’s philosophy of life.
3. What is meant by conscience? Do you think conscience is the same for
everyone?
4. What is meant by priority of values?

3. Conscience
is people’s ability to respond to right and wrong
everyone is endowed with this ability, conscience is
innate
Socrates would have said the same.
Conscience dictates can vary a lot from one person
to the next.

4. Philosophy is a more
important subject than
English Grammar.
It would therefore be a
sensible priority of values to
have Philosophy on the
timetable and cut down a bit
on English lessons
---Sophie’s World 106

5. Hellenism
– Athenian pride was humbled by defeat at Chaeronea at the hands of Greece
paid the penalty for its failure to unite, and became part of the Macedonian
Empire.
– Greece became part Philip of expanding Rome
– Greek influence remained strong and the empire tried to Hellenize itself
through Greek books and teachers.
– The possibility of a universal law emerged.
– the welfare of the individual was no longer inextricably bound up with that of
his city.

6. Hellenism
– This is a period, too, in which the concept of divine right,
of semi-divine kings, emerges from the influence of
Eastern despotic tradition
– the welfare of the individual was no longer inextricably
bound up with that of his city.
– Two leading philosophies developed in this period were
Epicureanism and Stoicism.

7. Historical Overview
– Aristotle died in the year 322 B.C.
– Alexander the Great was the King of Macedonia.
– It was Alexander who won the final, decisive victory over the Persians.
– This marked the beginning of a new epoch in the
history of mankind. A civilization sprang up in
which Greek culture and the Greek language
played a leading role. This period, which lasted
for about 300 years, is known as Hellenism.

8. – Greek-dominated culture that prevailed in the
three Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedonia, Syria,
and Egypt.
– Before the Romans managed to conquer the
Hellenistic world, Rome itself was a province of
Greek culture.
– So Greek culture and Greek philosophy came to
play an important role long after the political
influence of the Greeks was a thing of the past.

9. Religion, Philosophy and Science
– The borders between the various countries and cultures became erased.
– New religious formations arose that could draw on the gods and the beliefs of many
of the old nations.: This is called syncretism or the fusion of creeds.
– Late Antiquity was generally characterized by religious doubts, cultural dissolution,
and pessimism.
– It was said that the world has grown old.
– Immortality of the soul and eternal life. Insight into the true nature of the universe
could be just as important for the salvation of the soul as religious rituals.

10. Problems raised by Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle.
– Common to them all was their desire to discover how
mankind should best live and die.
– They were concerned with ethics.
– In the new civilization (Hellenism) this became the
central philosophical project. The main emphasis was
on finding out what true happiness was and how it
could be achieved.

11. The Cynics: true happiness is not found in
external advantages such as material luxury,
political power, or good health
 Founded by Antisthenes in Athens in 400 BC, a pupil of Socrates
Interested in his FRUGALITY
– Cynics (distrust of others’ motives (live in virtue in agreement with nature)
self control and independence
– And because happiness does not consist in benefits of this kind, it is within
everyone’s reach.
– Moreover, having once been attained, it can never be lost
 Diogenes a pupil of Antisthenes owned nothing but a cloak, a stick and a bread
bag
- He had everything he desired

12. Cynical and Cynicism
– The Cynics believed that people did not need to be
concerned about their own health, even suffering and
death
– Or even tormented by concern for other people’s woes
(miseries)
– Cynical and Cynicism have come to mean a sneering
(arrogant) disbelief in human sincerity, and they imply
insensitivity to other people’s suffering.

13. The most useful learning is
unlearning what is not true
An investigation of the meaning of
words is the beginning of an
education
As iron is eaten by rust, so too are
those who envy eaten up by their
passion

14. The STOICS: individual as a central
focus, all external event were unimportant
– Founder: Zeno from Cyprus and joined the Cynics in Athens
– Stoic comes from the Greek word “stoa” for portico – ENTRANCE, DOORWAY
– Stoics, believed that everyone was a part of the same common sense – or logos
– They thought that each person was like a world in miniature, or microcosmos,
which is a reflection of the macrocosmos.
– There exists a universal rightness, the so-called natural law.
– This natural law was based on timeless human and universal reason, it did not
alter with time and place. The Stoics sided with Socrates against the Sophists.

15. – Natural law governed all mankind, the legal statutes of the
various states merely as incomplete imitations of the law
embedded in nature itself.
– Stoics erased the difference between the individual and the
universe, they also denied any conflict between spirit and matter.
MONISM: There is only one nature, they averred (affirmed).
– Stoics were distinctly cosmopolitan in that they were more
receptive to contemporary culture.
– They drew attention to human fellowship, they were preoccupied
with politics.

16. Marcus Aurelius (one of the 2
Roman Stoics)
– Roman Emperor were active statesmen
– Not concerned with political or social reform
– Humanism, a view of life that has the individual as its
central focus.
– Tranquility- good ordering of the mind
– “one thing can only conduct a man, PHILOSOPHY”

17. The Stoics believed that “Man must
therefore learn to accept his destiny,
Nothing happens accidentally.
Everything happens through
necessity”
– The Stoics, emphasized that all natural processes, such as sickness and death,
follow the unbreakable laws of nature.
– One must also accept the happy events of life unperturbed, they thought.
– All external events were unimportant.

18. “Stoic grants the highest
importance of self-preservation,
by believing that virtue and
wisdom are the necessarily
abilities to achieve satisfaction”

19. Cynics and Stoics: man had to
free himself from material
luxuries
Epicureans: the highest good is
pleasure the greatest evil is pain

20. The Epicureans: to attains the
highest possible sensory enjoyment
Aristippus, Socrates student he believed that the aim of
life :
was to attain the highest possible sensory
enjoyment.
The highest good is pleasure, he said, the greatest
evil is pain.
So he wished to develop a way of life whose aim
was to avoid pain in all forms.

21. Epicurus, ( 300 BC) Follower called
Epicureans (garden philosophers)
o believed that pleasure is the higher good
– Epicurus, founded a school developed the pleasure ethic of Aristippus and
combined it with the atom theory of Democritus.
– emphasized that the pleasurable results of an action must always be weighed
against its possible side effects.
– believed that a pleasurable result in the short term must be weighed against
the possibility of a greater more lasting or more intense pleasure in the long
term.
– We have the ability to make a pleasurable calculation.
– Pleasure does not necessarily mean sensual pleasure.

22. – The enjoyment of life required the idea of self control
temperance and serenity that desire must be curbed and
serenity will help us to endure pain in order to live a
good life it is not unimportant to overcome the fear of
death.
– Democritus believed there was no life after death
because when we die the soul atoms disperse in all
directions.
– Death does not concern us because as long as we exist
death is not here. And when it does come we no longer
exists.

23. Epicurus sum up his liberating
philosophy, the four medical herbs
1. The gods are not to be feared
2. Death is nothing to worry about
3. Good is easy to attain
4. The fearful is easy to endure
Thus, man should equip himself with his own philosophic medicine containing that
four ingredients. Epicureans showed little or no interest in politics in the
community. Live in seclusion was the best advise.

24. EPICUREAN’S motto was live
for the moment.
– Many Epicureans developed an overemphasis on self-
Indulgence
– The word Epicurean is used in a negative sense
nowadays to describe someone who lives only for
pleasure.

25. – Limitation of social relationships – “live unknown” –
Refusal to be involved in family or political affairs,
skepticism toward religion, which the Epicureans
considered largely superstition.
– Society was not a natural phenomenon, but rather a
deliberate vernation aimed at bringing order out of
chaos.
– Pleasure was augmented by the presence of law,
provision for punishment and preservation of order.
– Opportunity for man to make his own environment that
led Marx to choose Epicurus as one of two writers on
whom to do his doctoral dissertation.

26. – Man, living through reason, ought to suppress emotions
like fear, lust of anxiety, to reach the desired state of
apathia, or inner tranquility.
– Self-control of the individual, it also had far-reaching
social implications.
– Men, possessed reason, law of nature applied to all, a
universal society with cosmopolitan citizenship existed.
The natural law capable of being understood by man and
providing a basis for political organization.

27. Pleasure achieved through the
removal of physical pain and
mental anxiety……

28. Neoplatonism
– First and foremost inspired by Plato’s philosophy.
– Most important Figure Plotinus/205-270 century- who
studied philosophy in Alexandria and settled in Rome.
– Became a strong influence in mainstream Christian
theology.
– They widely believed in the division between the soul
and the body.

29. Plotinus believed that the world is a
span between poles.
– At one end is the divine light which he calls the one or god.
– At the other end is absolute darkness which receives non of the light from the
one. (No existence)
– Darkness actually has no existence it simply the absence of light equals NOT.
– Plotinus metaphor is the same as Plato’s myth of the cave.
– Plotinus doctrine is characterized by an experience of wholeness, everything is
one for everything is god.

30. Mysticism
– A mystical experience is an experience of merging with god or the cosmic spirit.
– He or she has experience being one with god or merging with him.
– The idea is that what we usually call ‘I’ is not the true eye. It means experience
an identification with a greater I.
– Some mystics call it god others calls it cosmic spirits.
– Birth of Religion in Middle Ages
(Buddhism, Catholics, Christianism, Hinduism)

31. End of Hellenism and Roman
Stoicism