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Xenocrates
Xenocrates (; el, Ξενοκράτης; c. 396/5314/3 BC) of Chalcedon was a Greek philosopher, mathematician, and leader ( scholarch) of the Platonic Academy from 339/8 to 314/3 BC. His teachings followed those of Plato, which he attempted to define more closely, often with mathematical elements. He distinguished three forms of being: the sensible, the intelligible, and a third compounded of the two, to which correspond respectively, sense, intellect and opinion. He considered unity and duality to be gods which rule the universe, and the soul a self-moving number. God pervades all things, and there are daemonical powers, intermediate between the divine and the mortal, which consist in conditions of the soul. He held that mathematical objects and the Platonic Ideas are identical, unlike Plato who distinguished them. In ethics, he taught that virtue produces happiness, but external goods can minister to it and enable it to effect its purpose. Life Xenocrates was a nativ ...
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Polemon (scholarch)
Polemon ( grc-gre, Πολέμων, ''gen''.: Πολέμωνος; d. 270/269 BC) of Athens was an eminent Greek Platonist philosopher and Plato's third successor as scholarch (i.e., head of the Academy) from 314/313 to 270/269 BC. A pupil of Xenocrates, he believed that philosophy should be practiced rather than just studied, and he placed the highest good in living according to nature. Life Polemon was the son of Philostratus, a man of wealth and political distinction. In his youth, he was relatively irresponsible, but one day, when he was about thirty, on his bursting into the school of Xenocrates, at the head of a band of revelers, his attention was drawn to the sayings of Xenocrates, who continued on calmly in spite of the interruption; it just so happened that Xenocrates was discussing temperance. Polemon immediately tore off his garland and remained an attentive listener, and from that day he adopted a modest and restrained course of life, and continued to frequent the school ...
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Xenocrates (other)
Xenocrates is a Chalcedon (4th century BC) philosopher. Xenocrates or Xenokrates is also the name of: *Xenokrates of Sicyon (3rd century BC), writer and sculptor *Xenocrates of Aphrodisias Xenocrates ( el, Ξενοκράτης; fl. 1st century) a Greek physician of Aphrodisias in Cilicia, who must have lived about the middle of the 1st century, as he was probably a contemporary of Andromachus the Younger. Galen says that he lived i ...
(1st century AD), physician {{hndis ...
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Speusippus
Speusippus (; grc-gre, Σπεύσιππος; c. 408 – 339/8 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher. Speusippus was Plato's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, c. 348 BC, Speusippus inherited the Academy, near age 60, and remained its head for the next eight years. However, following a stroke, he passed the chair to Xenocrates. Although the successor to Plato in the Academy, Speusippus frequently diverged from Plato's teachings. He rejected Plato's Theory of Forms, and whereas Plato had identified the Good with the ultimate ''principle'', Speusippus maintained that the Good was merely secondary. He also argued that it is impossible to have satisfactory knowledge of any thing without knowing all the differences by which it is separated from everything else. The standard edition of the surviving fragments and testimonies is Leonardo Tarán's ''Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary'' (1982). Life Speusippus wa ...
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Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning on the European continent. Along with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato is a central figure in the history of Ancient Greek philosophy and the Western and Middle Eastern philosophies descended from it. He has also shaped religion and spirituality. The so-called neoplatonism of his interpreter Plotinus greatly influenced both Christianity (through Church Fathers such as Augustine) and Islamic philosophy (through e.g. Al-Farabi). In modern times, Friedrich Nietzsche diagnosed Western culture as growing in the shadow of Plato (famously calling Christianity "Platonism for the masses"), while Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tra ...
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Crantor
Crantor ( el, Κράντωρ, ''gen''.: Κράντορος; died 276/5 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scholarch (leader) of the Old Academy, probably born around the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli in Cilicia (modern-day Turkey). Life Crantor moved to Athens in order to study philosophy, where he became a pupil of Xenocrates and a friend of Polemon, and one of the most distinguished supporters of the philosophy of the older Academy. As Xenocrates died 314/3 BC, Crantor must have come to Athens prior to that year, although the date of his birth is not known. He died before Polemon and Crates. Dropsy was the cause of his death. He left his fortune, which amounted to twelve talents, to Arcesilaus who succeeded him as scholarch of the Academy. Writings Crantor was the first of Plato's followers who wrote commentaries on the works of his master. He also made some attempts at poetry; and Diogenes Laërtius relates, that, after sealing up a collection of his poems, he ...
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Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at least affirms the existence of abstract objects, which are asserted to exist in a third realm distinct from both the sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of nominalism." Philosophers who affirm the existence of abstract objects are sometimes called platonists; those who deny their existence are sometimes called nominalists. The terms "platonism" and "nominalism" have established senses in the history of philosophy, where they denote positions that have little to do with the modern notion of an abstract object. In this connection, it is essential to bear in mind that modern platonists (with a small 'p') need not accept any of the doctrines of Plato, just as modern nominalists need not acce ...
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Scholarch
A scholarch ( grc, σχολάρχης, ''scholarchēs'') was the head of a school in ancient Greece. The term is especially remembered for its use to mean the heads of schools of philosophy, such as the Platonic Academy in ancient Athens. Its first scholarch was Plato himself, the founder and proprietor. He held the position for forty years, appointing his nephew Speusippus as his successor. The members of the Academy elected later scholarchs. The Greek word is a produced compound of scholē (σχολή), 'school', and archē (ἀρχή), 'ruler'. The Romans did not Latinize the word, perhaps because they had no corresponding ''archon''. They used the Latin word ''scholasticus'' (savant) instead, which was always used for headmasters. Usage in Latin and English English does not use either of those two words for the name of the ancient office, but prefers scholiarch, a word that is not generally listed in the dictionary, because it is considered an error. If it were a produced wor ...
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Platonic Academy
The Academy ( Ancient Greek: Ἀκαδημία) was founded by Plato in c. 387 BC in Athens. Aristotle studied there for twenty years (367–347 BC) before founding his own school, the Lyceum. The Academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC. The Platonic Academy was destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC. Site The ''Akademia'' was a school outside the city walls of ancient Athens. It was located in or beside a grove of olive trees dedicated to the goddess Athena, which was on the site even before Cimon enclosed the precincts with a wall. The archaic name for the site was ''Ἑκαδήμεια'' (''Hekademia''), which by classical times evolved into Ἀκαδημία (''Akademia''), which was explained, at least as early as the beginning of the 6th century BC, by linking it to "Akademos", a legendary Athenian hero. The site of the Academy was sacred to A ...
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Xenophanes
Xenophanes of Colophon (; grc, Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος ; c. 570 – c. 478 BC) was a Greek philosopher, theologian, poet, and critic of Homer from Ionia who travelled throughout the Greek-speaking world in early Classical Antiquity. As a poet, Xenophanes was known for his critical style, writing poems that are considered among the first satires. He also composed elegiac couplets that criticised his society's traditional values of wealth, excesses, and athletic victories. He also criticised Homer and the other poets in his works for representing the gods as foolish or morally weak. His poems have not survived intact; only fragments of some of his work survives in quotations by later philosophers and literary critics. Xenophanes is seen as one of the most important pre-Socratic philosophers. A highly original thinker, Xenophanes sought explanations for physical phenomena such as clouds or rainbows without references to divine or mythological explanation ...
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Chalcedon
Chalcedon ( or ; , sometimes transliterated as ''Chalkedon'') was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari (modern Üsküdar) and it is now a district of the city of Istanbul named Kadıköy. The name ''Chalcedon'' is a variant of Calchedon, found on all the coins of the town as well as in manuscripts of Herodotus's ''Histories'', Xenophon's ''Hellenica'', Arrian's '' Anabasis'', and other works. Except for the Maiden's Tower, almost no above-ground vestiges of the ancient city survive in Kadıköy today; artifacts uncovered at Altıyol and other excavation sites are on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. The site of Chalcedon is located on a small peninsula on the north coast of the Sea of Marmara, near the mouth of the Bosphorus. A stream, called the Chalcis or Chalcedon in antiquity William Smith, LLD, ed. (1854). ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography''"Chalcedon" and now known ...
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Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BC, based on and around the teachings and beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras established the first Pythagorean community in the ancient Greek colony of Kroton, in modern Calabria (Italy). Early Pythagorean communities spread throughout Magna Graecia. Pythagoras' death and disputes about his teachings led to the development of two philosophical traditions within Pythagoreanism. The ''akousmatikoi'' were superseded in the 4th century BC as a significant mendicant school of philosophy by the Cynics. The ''mathēmatikoi'' philosophers were absorbed into the Platonic school in the 4th century BC. Following political instability in Magna Graecia, some Pythagorean philosophers fled to mainland Greece while others regrouped in Rhegium. By about 400 BC the majority of Pythagorean philosophers had left Italy. Pythagorean ideas exercised a marked influence on Plato and through him, on all of Western ...
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Ancient Philosophy
This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history (). Overview Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures roughly contemporaneously. Karl Jaspers termed the intense period of philosophical development beginning around the 7th century and concluding around the 3rd century BCE an Axial Age in human thought. In Western philosophy, the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire marked the ending of Hellenistic philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of medieval philosophy, whereas in the Middle East, the spread of Islam through the Arab Empire marked the end of Old Iranian philosophy and ushered in the beginnings of early Islamic philosophy. Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy Philosophers Pre-Socratic philosophers * Milesian School : Thales (624 – c 546 BCE) : Anaximander (610 – 546 BCE) : Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 585 – c. ...
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