208 pages may be a little too short to summarise all Classical philosophy and one reading is certainly too hasty to grasp it. Instead, this is better described (I think) as a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation on major themes addressed by the ancients. This includes the expected topics - concerning ethics, morality, the meaning of life, how we know and what we can believe. For myself a number of features stood out, as follows.

The opening challenge of the history is to attack and undermine the myth of a distinct and uniquely Greek philosophy emerging as it were by virgin birth in an island of reason surrounded by a sea of barbarian ignorance and primitive mysticism. It is not enough even to list off the sources of Greek thought in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt or India, as though there was an evolutionary progression from the early efforts of those predecessors and the pinnacles of Greek synthesis and creativity. Quite simply, Greek philosophy always was and it remained entirely a part of a widespread conversation between cultures that, while retaining their diverse characters, were never isolated from each other. This is why the book’s title is “Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy” rather than Greek.

It is also wrong to accept the propositions that Christian suppression terminated rational Greek philosophy, or that barbarian invasions terminated educated thought and debate with the fall of the Roman Empire. He points out that the Vandals, the Visigoths, and other barbarian peoples were in fact already fully converted to Christianity when they engaged with the declining empire. He observes that, had the emperor Julian [“the apostate”] or some other force rescued paganism from the Christians, it is absurd to imagine that this would have resulted in a world ruled by scientific and rational thought rather than religion.

In any case, Greek philosophy always was essentially religious. “The fate of Anaxagoras (imprisoned, threatened with death and finally dismissed from Athens) fits similar stories about the anger felt by established or conventional thinkers at the attempt to dethrone Zeus ... This seems to suggest, to moderns, that philosophers were secular scientists, at odds with a superstition. This theme reappears in discussing later centuries: it is supposed, for example, that a Christian mob murdered Hypatia, in 415 AD, because she was a rationalist (and a woman). The truth is otherwise: few moderns who now mourn Hypatia endorse her probable beliefs, which were mostly Pythagorean. The violence of Alexandrian – or more broadly Egyptian - mobs was a familiar theme and Hypatia, sadly, paid a price...” [p91]

“At any rate, anyone supposing that the Christian Churches have made life worse than it was in heathen times and places should read more history!”[p180]

“However important their disagreements, Philo of Alexandria (Jewish), John Evangelist and Clement (Christian), and Plotinus (pagan) shared a world. The grand deductive structure created by the pagan Platonist Proclus was mirrored in the work of the Christian ps-Dionysius a few years later, and in later Christian and Islamic texts.” [p181]

The book stands on its own merits but it can also be asked – why is it written in this way at this time? Without knowing the author at all, I have several guesses to offer. Bear in mind these are my reflections and not those of the author. One is simply that scholarship has altered our perception of the history of this (very lengthy) period, for example concerning the “Fall of the Roman Empire”, which is true but that seems too detached and “academic” a line of enquiry. One, I hope, is the need to confront and rebut the escalating appeals to “Western” superiority over alternative cultures – not distant ones, but particularly Islam, which of course is as integral to the “Western” tradition as any other strand of thought, certainly Christianity or Judaism, but also “Greek” philosophy. Another is to acknowledge that the simplistic expectation that Science and Reason would make religion irrelevant, or that the two fields of thought are incompatible and mutually destructive, has lost its appeal to those – religious or not - dissatisfied with the resulting dialogue of the deaf. Whatever the motivation for the book, I hold to the view that history is always the history of the present moment, and works best when it is most relevant. In that respect, for my money, this book is terrific.

For some reason when people think of Plato and government we seem to automatically jump to the though 'gee, what a wonderful idea' as if a Platonic government would actually be a good thing. The question that I raise is what if it isn't? What if this form of government that Plato outlines actually isn't all that good, or moreso what if it doesn't work. In a way it is a bit like the western reaction to Buddhism. For some reason the young and hip seem to love Buddhism, believing that it is the one religion that you can do whatever you like, but as long as you treat other people okay then everything will be all right. However, when they delve into it (such as offering to volunteer at the Tiger Temple in Thailand) they pretty quickly discover that Buddhism is not all that it is cracked up to be – what no sex!?! No alcohol !?! Okay, I've known Buddhists that have breached both of those restrictions – at the same time – however they probably fall into the category of 'nominal'.

 

As for Plato we seem to have this idea that because he is this really famous, and apparently really smart, philosopher then any form of government that he comes up with has to be good, and has to work. Well, my argument is what if it turns out that this wonderful form of government sort of turns out to look a little like this:

 

 

 

The thing is that the more I think about Plato's political theories the more I realise that the freedoms that we enjoy under our modern democracies will be basically non-existent. For instance, you know how when you are in school you get to choose what you want to study at University, or even if you go to university – well, that won't happen in Plato's realm – your career path will be chosen right from the word go, and if you don't like it then tough, deal with it because the state that Plato envisages is a perfect, and efficient, state, which basically means that human free will sort of takes a back seat because free will is actually the thing that causes half the problems that we face today. Oh, and you know that idea that is known as the family - well we have none of that in Plato's realm because families are bad since they work to undermine the perfect nature of the society (or was that 1984: I don't know, but I recently saw it in London, and this book was so long and, well, dull that I may have got the two mixed up).

 

Another interesting thing about Plato's state is that it happens to be communist – it is against the law to have excess wealth, and if you have excess wealth well, at best it simply gets confiscated, at worse you are severely punished. Oh, and don't think that you can get around it by hiding it in another form of currency because he has that area covered as well. Oh, and let us talk about punishment because in Plato's mind nobody does wrong willingly – the only reason they do bad things is because they don't actually realise that they are doing bad things – even though we have free will this free will isn't actually free because we only do things out of ignorance, and if we weren't ignorant then we wouldn't do these things. However, Plato seems to acknowledge that people will do bad things even if they are told that they are bad. Well, it seems that in Plato's mind they have some sort of inherent defect so we might as well kill them. Yep, you heard me right, Plato is a big fan of the death penalty – if you are criminal then, well, there is no way that you are going to change so off with your head (or whatever way they decided that they will kill you).

 

Another rather interesting thing that I noticed in this particular edition was that the editor, and I assume translator, had a go at us moderns because we look down on slavery, and because we look down on slavery then we consider the ancient Greeks to be somewhat barbaric. Well, it is probably a good thing that we consider slavery to be barbaric because as far as I am concerned we really shouldn't be owning people and forcing people to do things against their will. However, those who look down on the Greeks because of slavery really don't understand the world in which we live – we have a form of slavery – it is called employment. Okay, we can leave our job whenever we like, but when we have a mortgage, and countless other debts, then the ability to walk away from our job really doesn't exist. While our employer may not be the slave master, the banks certainly are because if you don't pay back those debts they will let you know about it.

 

Which brings me to an interesting point about bankers – being a Christian I have heard how a number of people have given up a promising career in banking to become ministers of religion. Most of the time I just let it go over my head however I suddenly realised that banking is hardly what you would call an ethical profession. Okay, there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with banking, just as there is nothing intrinsically wrong with law, accounting, or even politics. However, I would hardly call the lot who brought about the global financial crisis paragons of virtue. Moreso, I have never heard anybody say that somebody has given up a promising career in plumbing to become a minister of religion (despite the fact that you can make some pretty decent money as a plumber) even though plumbing is actually a lot more honest than banking. Okay, there was one minister that I knew indicated that he didn't leave the legal profession for some holy and righteous reason, but rather because his conscience really couldn't handle the rubbish that he had to deal with. Actually, the more I think about it – bankers, fund managers, and lawyers as ministers of religions – I think I'd rather go with the plumber.

 

As for this book, well all I can say is don't bother – it really isn't all that great. In fact it is sort of half philosophy half idealistic legal text. In fact the translator writes it as if it were a piece of legislation, or at least the parts appeared to have been like that rather confusing stuff that politicians get paid ridiculous amounts of money to argue over. Sure, Plato may have some good ideas, however what I discovered was that these good ideas were few and far between and in reality were buried deep within what appears to be little more than a totalitarian state. Sure, Plato says that the military (otherwise known as the Guardians) and the rulers were to behave in a certain way but seriously, these are humans that we are talking about – as the saying goes power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. As for the Greeks being less sophisticated that we are – all I can say is that I don't think so – apparently our lust for technology and luxuries have pushed us past the point of no return – we have destroyed our environment and the global financial crises has resulted in a greater discrepancy between the haves and and the have nots that it feels as if we are returning to the middle ages, that is if we don't nuke ourselves over Syria first.

 

 

Well, here I am, once again sitting in the passenger seat of my Dad's car on our final trek to Melbourne, and since I have been reading, sleeping, or driving for most of the day, I might as well fix up a couple of my reviews while I am sitting here (and since I have a smartphone, and my Dad has this adapter that allows me to plug my laptop into the cigarette lighter, I might as well make use of it – such are the benefits of having an electronic engineer as a father).

 

 

Lucretius (I wonder if there is a connection with Star Trek) wrote this treatise on the natural world some time during the 2nd century BC. The period is important because it gives us an idea of the background in which the text was written. In a way it is probably one of the last ancient texts that have a scientific feel to it since most later philosophical texts (unless they dealt with medicine) focused mainly on ethics (with maybe the exception of Ptolemy), as opposed to scientific explanation (though there are probably a lot that have been lost). It wasn't until the renaissance that people began to once again question the nature of the world in which they lived.

 

 

The reason behind this is probably two-fold. Firstly, there was no need for industrial development namely because the culture was a slave based culture. Who needed machines when you had slaves to do all of the menial tasks. This can actually be seen in the United States in the lead up to the civil war, as well as in England, because in the North, where slavery was illegal, there was a lot of industrial development, while in the South, where slavery was legal, the society was still very much an agrarian society. The second reason was simply that nobody saw a need to actually question the world around them. As far as anybody was concerned, if something happened, then it was because the gods had willed it to happen, and there was no need to venture beyond that (and even then, to suggest that the gods didn't exist, even in Rome, was nothing short of blasphemous).

 

 

Lucretius wrote at an interesting time: it was after the decline of the Greek culture and during the rise of the Roman culture. Lucian wrote in Latin, but at this time Latin was still a very basic language, used mostly for trade and war. However the Greeks had already had a developed language that was being used much more culturally, which suggests that what Lucretius began was the slow morphing of the Latin language, as well as the Roman culture, into the culture that ended up producing the greats such as Cicero and Tacitus, among many others.

 

 

Lucretius was not the first to write a treatise that was enquiring into the nature of the world. This had been begun centuries early, almost as early as the Seven Sages of antiquity. There were sages like Democritus who developed the idea of the atom, Aristotle who wrote treatises on zoology, and even Plato dabbled in writing a scientific treatise (not that there was a distinct field of study at the time because back then everything was philosophy). The person, however, who influenced Lucretius the most was a guy named Epicurus.

 

 

Now, during this period there were three popular philosophies: the Epicurians, the Stoics, and the Cynics. I will describe these philosophies in a nutshell: Epicurians pretty much believe 'if it feels good, do it'; Stoics believe 'no pain, no gain'; and Cynics believes 'life sucks, and then you die'. Okay, that is probably being very basic description of each of these philosophies, but that is how I remember them. Mind you, we get the term stoic from the stoic philosophers, and the word cynic from the cynic philosophers.

 

 

It is interesting to see how Lucretius understands the universe, and in a way there is a lot of what we understand in his ideas: such as the idea of the atom, that everything is made up of atoms, that there is space between the atoms which determines the hardness of the objects. We also know that Lucretius comes to his understandings through observation, something that is done very much today, however there is no well defined scientific method in the way that he performs his enquiries. Another aspect that we see is the idea of the vacuum, which Lucretius suggests is the space between the atoms. However his understanding of a vacuum is different to our understanding because he does not necessarily see the air as molacules. Because he can see anything (despite being able to feel wind, which demonstrates, at least to me, that there is something there) then he assumes that there is nothing there. Further there is no concept that nature abhors a vacuum.

 

 

Lucretius seems to see everything in the form of atoms, though this is not unusual today in modern physics where certain elements have both wave and particle like properties, however we must remember that much of what Lucretius was writing about was little more than educated guesses. Basically he had come up with a theory, based on observation, and used this basis to try to explain everything. Light (and darkness) are particles that hit the eyes, which allows us to see. Sound is also made up of particles, however we note that he does not seem to understand the concept of waveforms. By saying this I refer to where he tries to understand why one can hear sound through solid objects. We know this because the sound hits the object causing the object to vibrate, which then causes the air behind the object to also vibrate and thus continue the sound wave. We also notice, interestingly, that his concept of colour comes, once again, from particles. An object has a certain colour because the particles on that object also have that colour.

 

 

It is ideas like this that makes a typical modern like me baulk, namely because even though I may have only completed year 12 physics, I still remember quite a lot of it, and as such know that what he is suggesting is basically wrong. I know that an object has a certain colour because the object absorbs that particular part of the colour spectrum. However, Lucretius was not working from much because there was not all that much before him. In a way Lucretius is no different from the early scientists of the modern era in that much of what he was writing about were educated guesses, and it was only after further study and experimentation that we have come to understand that the beliefs of those that came before us were, well, wrong. Once again I point to the idea of light travelling as a wave. Many of us who do not understand, or have not been taught, advanced Physics believe that is the case, but those of us who know advanced Physics know that light can also travel as a particle (it's called a photon).

 

 

The funny thing that I have noticed is how much of our science is still actually based on the findings of Lucretius. The wave particle duality of light aside, we still understand sight as working on the basis of things striking the retina in our eyes. Lucretius had an understanding that the eyes were more than simply windows, or doors, that allowed the brain to see out (namely because he points out that if you remove the eyes then, well, you can't see) but rather an integral part of how we see. The same goes with the idea of smell, that we smell things because particles drift into our nose which causes the nerves in our nose to react to the particle. While Lucretius may not have had a full understanding of the nervous system, he still understands the reactions and senses that are caused when the body feels pain.

 

 

As for religion, I was going to suggest that Lucertius is a 'functional Athiest' namely that while he believed in the gods, he does not believe that they have any power or control over the way the universe functions. However I thought about this for a bit and realised that it is not that he is an Atheist, but more of what one would consider an ancient version of a Deist. The reason I say that is because he still believed in the polytheistic religion of the time, but responded in the same way to the gods that a modern Deist would respond to Christianity, namely that while God may exist, he has little or no influence, or care, over the operation of the universe in which we live.

 

 

This brings me onto Lucretius' idea of the soul. He believes in the soul but not in its immortality. In fact he goes to great pains to demonstrate that before birth the soul, and the mind, of that particular individual, does not exist, and as such, after death the soul ceases to exist as well. Lucretius has no interest or time for theories and ideas relating to the afterlife (which is probably why he holds to the Epicurian idea of if it feels good, do it). In fact, he seems to think that the whole idea of the afterlife, and in particular Hades, is absurd (and spares no haste in pointing that out). As such, Lucretius does not believe in reincarnation either, so it is clear that his ideas are purely materialistic, in much the same way that modern materialism holds their beliefs.

 

 

It is interesting to compare some of Lucretius' thoughts to the what modern evolutionists accept today. One of the things that I noted was Lucretius' ideas of the origins of various parts of the body, such as the limbs. The modern belief is that a need arose therefore the body adapted an organ to meet that need. However Lucretius holds the opposite view in that the organ exists prior to the need arising, and when the need became apparent, the body was able to meet that need with the limb. As such it appears that Lucretius is not an evolutionist (and the evolutionists claim that it is the Christians that are backward). Further, Lucretius believes in a young Earth, but his argument in this regard is incredibly flawed. His argument is that because there is no recorded history dating back before the Theban and Trojan wars then, ergo, there must not have been anything, therefore the Earth is young. Obviously he is not an anthropologist (nor has he read Herodotus, which I would find very surprising from such a learned person). Mind you, similar flawed reasonings (and educated guesses) are still made today in relation to the arguments verses the young Earth and old Earth theories. As for me, I find both postulations (namely, the Bible says the Earth is 6000 years old, therefore it must be so, to which I respond by saying, no it doesn't; and it is the best theory we have, so we might as well stick to it, to which I respond, but what if it is wrong) have their flaws.

 

Mind you, Lucretius' section of cosmology seems to read more like an evolutionist's, in that it is suggested that he may have come up with something similar to the big bang theory thousands of years before modern science had postulated it. It seems that he believes, just as the modern cosmologist believes, that the universe began as a chaotic mess and that it was only through the collision of particles (which is the word that I feel obliged to use, because that is what I understand Lucretius' atom to be, though it is interesting that in the modern world we seem to continue to break this building block into smaller and smaller things – these days we have quarks, which are sub-subatomic particles). However, I also notice that Lucretius believes that the Earth is stationary and that the stars, sun, and moon, move around the Earth. In reponse to that, I wonder why the Catholic Church branded Galileo as a heretic when their ideas were actually taken from the pagans. Also, finally, it is interesting to see how he describes that lightning is caused by the collision of particles in the clouds (which themselves are made up of particles) and points to the sparks that are created when certain rocks are smashed together. Once again, it goes to show how many of Lucretius' theories came about through observation and educated guessing, which in many ways is how modern scientists come up with their theories.

 

Sometimes I wonder if people give this book five stars because it is either a) written by Plato, or b) if you don't give it five stars then you are afraid that people will think that you are some semi-literate mindless cretin whose reading capacity tends to extend little beyond the Harry Potter and Twilight Series. Yes, I realise that I have given it five stars, but I have given it five stars because I actually enjoyed the argument that this book outlines. Basically it is a very logical argument that examines the nature of the human soul and of justice and the structure of the argument is of the sort that you could only expect to see from a master. Mind you, some of the points that Plato makes, such as physicians role being only to maintain the health of society and not to heal or care for the sick or injured (thus simply letting them die) would be repugnant not only to us (to an extent) but also to the people of his day. However it is the way that the argument flows, and the way that Plato explores concepts that are relevant even to us today that makes me think highly of this work of literature.

 

First of all, let us consider the context of the book. This was written after the death of Socrates which meant that the democratic model that Athens had been based upon had failed, and this it was quite clear to Plato and his contemporaries that democracy had failed. As such, when writing about the perfect society, one could not write about a democracy, and if one did, one needed to outline how the previous experiment failed and how it could be improved. This is the case today with socialists examining how the Russian experiment failed, but seeking to build upon its ideals to create a government that will avoid those mistakes. However, in Plato's mind, this could not happen simply because he knew that the basic foundations of the democratic state could not support a functioning ideal government. The main reason for that is that, like our democratic system, the power brokers not only tended to be rich, but also very well spoken, meaning that the populace could easily be swayed and end up supporting the power-brokers flawed, and in many cases self-centered, policies.

 

However, while many consider that the Republic is about an idea of how to construct a perfect state, the treatise itself goes far beyond that because what it is actually looking at is the idea of perfect justice. Near the end of the treatise Plato once again outlines his theory of forms, which is that everything in this world his a pale reflection of the object's perfect form. For instance, all tables that we see are a reflection of a perfect table, and as tables can only be created by people who make tables, and because all table makers are different, it is thus impossible to create the perfect form of a table. However to help us understand this concept further, Plato brings out the idea of art. A painting of a table is a mere reflection of the table that is painted, and every painting of that table will be different and no painter is able to paint that table as it truly is – the painter is basically restrained by the medium of which the painter creates the table. The same goes with poetry, because the poet is only able to create a pale reflection of the event that the poet is writing the poem about, and no poet, through the medium of poetry, is able to create a perfect reflection of that event.

 

 

Thus, what Plato is doing is he is applying his theory to that of government. Thus every government is a reflection of the perfect government, and no government can replicate the perfect form of government. Further still, being a philosopher, Plato is restrained from being able to describe exactly what that perfect government is because he is restrained by the medium of which is uses to outline what he believes the perfect form of government is. That, by the way, is very important - what he believes the perfect form of government to be. The major restraint that Plato faces in outlining the perfect form is that it is his opinion, and his opinion is quite possibly wrong.

 

 

However, let us consider what this government is. First of all, it is not a democracy, and has no democratic institutions. The government is a oligarchic state which is ruled by philosophers, with the philosopher king at the top of the chain. It is also a very stratified form of government, with three castes, namely the ruling caste, the warrior caste (known as the Guardians), and the working caste. We must remember also that there is no room for anybody who cannot fit into any of these castes, thus the sick, injured, or disabled, have no part in this society because they are not able to fulfil any meaningful role within the state. However your caste his not determined by your birth, which means that just because you are born to working class parents does not mean you are automatically a part of the working class, and as such, just because you are born among the ruling class does not mean you are automatically members of the ruling class.

 

 

A few further points that I note is that Plato endorses religion in his state, but this is not surprising considering the Greeks were very religious people. However, Plato does not see a need to comment on religion, and while it is the case that there were philosophers who were atheists, Plato, nor his teacher Socrates, were one of them. Plato also does not support the idea of family, and actually believes that it should be abolished (though he does support monogamous marriage). I suspect that is this because the family unit tends to be a very tight unit, and if allowed in such a stratified society, having a family unit would mean that the idea of a person being a member of a specific class based on skill would fall apart as the members of a family in a specific class would not allow their children to fall down to a lower class.

 

 

Plato also believes in the abolition of wealth and property, which means that his state is a socialist state. Once again this is not surprising considering that most dictatorships tend to have the wealth concentrated at the top, with the rulers effectively being the progenitors of a kelptocracy. However, it is also the case in the democracies where wealth creates privilege, and privilege creates power. Just as it is today, the wealthy of fifth century Athens were able to buy the best minds to write their arguments and promote their policies to the detriment of the poorer classes. A democracy could quite well also be considered a form of kleptocracy.

 

Finally, Plato advocates censorship, particularly in education. He indicates that there are some things that should not be taught to our young for fear that our young may not understand what is being taught. This is very much the case today because there is a form of censorship that is basically accepted, and that is the rating systems for our movies, and now for our computer games. One cannot release a movie in an advanced democracy without getting the approval of the ratings agency. Further, studios will purposely self censor a movie so that it will receive a certain rating so that more people will go and see it and will be willing to see it.