Speusippus (; ; c. 408 – 339/8 BC) was an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. Speusippus was

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

's nephew by his sister Potone. After Plato's death, c. 348 BC, Speusippus inherited the

Academy An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

, 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 Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...

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 was a native of

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, and the son of Eurymedon and Potone, a sister of

, he belonged to the deme of Myrrhinus. The pseudonymous '' Thirteenth Letter of Plato'' claims that Speusippus married his niece (his mother's granddaughter). We hear nothing of his life until the time when he accompanied his uncle Plato on his third journey to Syracuse (Italy), where he displayed considerable ability and prudence, especially in his amicable relations with Dion. His moral worth is recognised even by Timon, though only that he may heap the more unsparing ridicule on his intellect. The report about his sudden fits of anger, his greed, and his debauchery, are probably derived from a very impure source: Athenaeus and Diogenes Laërtius can adduce as authority for them scarcely anything more than the abuse in some spurious letters of Dionysius the Younger, who was banished by Dion, with the cooperation of Speusippus. Having been selected by Plato as his successor as the leader ('' scholarch'') of the

, he was at the head of the school for only eight years (348/7–339/8 BC). He died, it appears, of a lingering paralytic illness, presumably a

stroke Stroke is a medical condition in which poor cerebral circulation, blood flow to a part of the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: brain ischemia, ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and intracranial hemorrhage, hemor ...

. He was succeeded as the head of the school by Xenocrates.

Philosophy

Diogenes Laërtius gives us a list of some of the titles of the many dialogues and commentaries of Speusippus, which is of little help in determining their contents, and the fragments provided by other writers provide us with only a little extra.

Epistemology

Speusippus was interested in bringing together those things which were similar in their philosophical treatment, and in the derivation, and laying down, of the ideas of

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

: for he was interested in what the various sciences had in common, and how they might be connected. Thus he furthered the threefold division of philosophy into Dialectics,

Ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

, and

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

, for which Plato had laid the foundation, without losing sight of the mutual connection of these three branches of philosophy. Speusippus maintained that no one could arrive at a complete definition who did not know all the differences by which a thing which was to be defined was separated from the rest. Like Plato, Speusippus distinguished between that which is the object of

thought In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and de ...

, and that which is the object of sensuous

perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...

, between the cognition of the reason and sensuous perception. He tried, however, to show how perception can be taken up and transformed into knowledge, by the assumption of a perception, which, by participation in rational truth, raises itself to the rank of knowledge. By this he seems to have understood an immediate (in the first instance aesthetic) mode of conception; since he appealed, in support of this view, to the consideration that artistic skill has its foundation, not in sensuous activity, but in an unerring power of distinguishing between its objects, that is, in a rational perception of them.

Metaphysics

Speusippus rejected Plato's Theory of Forms; whereas Plato distinguished between ideal numbers (i.e. the Platonic Forms of numbers) and mathematical numbers, Speusippus rejected the ideal numbers, and consequently the

idea In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...

s. He tried to determine the idea of substance more distinctly by separating its types, the difference between which he considered would result from the difference between the ''principles'' (''archai'') on which they are based. Thus he distinguished substances of

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

, of size, of soul, while Plato had referred them, as separate entities, to the ideal numbers.

Speusippus made still more kinds of substance, beginning with the One, and assuming principles for each kind of substance, one for numbers, another for spatial magnitudes, and then another for the soul; and by going on in this way he multiplies the kinds of substance.

Nevertheless, Speusippus also must have recognised something common in those different kinds of substances, inasmuch as, firstly, he set out from the absolute One, and regarded it as a formal ''principle'' which they had in common, and, secondly, he appears to have assumed that multitude and multiformity was a common primary element in their composition. But it is only the difficulties which led him to make this and similar deviations from the Platonist doctrine, of which we can get any clear idea, not the way in which he thought he had avoided those difficulties by distinguishing different kinds of ''principles''. The criticism of

Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...

, directed apparently against Speusippus, shows how little satisfied he was with the modification of the original Platonist doctrine. With this deviation from Plato's doctrine is connected another which takes a wider range. As the ultimate ''principle'', Speusippus would not, with Plato, recognise the '' Good'', but, with others (who doubtless were also Platonists), going back to the older ''Theologi'', maintained that the ''principles'' of the universe were to be set down as causes of the good and perfect, but were not the good and perfect itself, which must rather be regarded as the result of generated existence, or development, just as the seeds of plants and animals are not the fully formed plants or animals themselves.

Speusippus upposesthat supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in the effects of these.

The ultimate ''principle'' he designated, like Plato, as the absolute One, but it was not to be regarded as an existing entity, since all entities can only be the result of development. When, however, with the Pythagoreans, he reckoned the ''One'' in the series of ''good'' things, he probably conceived it only in its opposition to the ''Many'', and wished to indicate that it was from the ''One'' and not from the ''Many'', that the good and perfect is to be derived. Nevertheless, Speusippus seems to have attributed vital activity to the primordial Unity, as inseparably belonging to it, probably in order to explain how it could grow, by a process of self-development, into the good, spirit, etc.; for spirit also he distinguished from the one, as well as from the good; and the good from pleasure and pain. Less worthy of notice is the attempt by Speusippus to find a more suitable expression for the material ''principle'', the indefinite duality of Plato; and his Pythagorizing mode of treating the doctrine of numbers which we can see in the extracts of his treatise on the Pythagorean numbers.

Ethics

Diogenes Laertius' list of Speusippus' works includes titles on justice, friendship, pleasure, and wealth.

Clement of Alexandria Titus Flavius Clemens, also known as Clement of Alexandria (; – ), was a Christian theology, Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. Among his pupils were Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A ...

(fr. 77 Tarán) reports that Speusippus considered happiness to be "a state that is complete in those things that are in accordance with nature, a condition desired by all human beings, while the Good aim at freedom from disturbance; and the virtues would be productive of happiness." This testimony suggests that Speusippus' ethics may have been an important background to ethical ideas of the Stoics (the will's conformity with nature) and Epicureans (compare "freedom from disturbance," ''aochlēsia'', with the notion of '' ataraxia''). Modern scholars have detected a polemic between Speusippus and Eudoxus of Cnidus concerning the good. Eudoxus also accepts that the Good will be that at which all people aim, but identifies this as pleasure, as opposed to Speusippus' exclusive focus on moral goods. Texts of Aristotle and Aulus Gellius suggest that Speusippus insisted that pleasure was not a good, but that the Good was "in between the opposites of pleasure and pain." It is possible that the dispute between Speusippus and Eudoxus influenced Plato's '' Philebus'' (esp. 53c–55a). Speusippus also seems to have developed further Plato's ideas of

justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

and of the

citizen Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality ...

, and the fundamental principles of legislation.

List of works

Diogenes Laërtius gives a selection of his works, adding that all his writings represent 43,475 lines of manuscript.Diogenes Laërtius, '' Lives of the Eminent Philosophers'', iv. 4, 5. * ''Aristippus of Cyrene''. * ''On Wealth'', one book. * ''On Pleasure'', one book. * ''On Justice.'' * ''On Philosophy.'' * ''On Friendship.'' * ''On the Gods.'' * ''The Philosopher.'' * ''A Reply to Cephalus''. * ''Cephalus''. * ''Clinomachus or Lysias''. * ''The Citizen''. * ''Of the Soul''. * ''A Reply to Gryllus''. * ''Aristippus''. * ''Criticism of the Arts'', one book for each art. * ''Memoirs'', in the form of dialogues. * ''Treatise on System'', in one book. * ''Dialogues on the Resemblances in Science'', in ten books. * ''Divisions and Hypotheses relating to the Resemblances''. * ''On Typical Genera and Species''. * ''A Reply to the Anonymous Work''. * ''Eulogy of

''. * ''Epistles to Dion, Dionysius and Philip''. * ''On Legislation''. * ''The Mathematician''. * ''Mandrobolus''. * ''

Lysias Lysias (; ; c. 445 – c. 380 BC) was a Logographer (legal), logographer (speech writer) in ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrac ...

''. * ''Definitions''. * ''Arrangements of Commentaries''.

Notes

References

* * Attribution: *

External links

* * {{Authority control 4th-century BC Athenians 4th-century BC Greek philosophers Academic philosophers Ancient Athenian philosophers Classical Greek philosophers 400s BC births 330s BC deaths

Life

Philosophy

Epistemology

Metaphysics

Ethics

List of works

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

Editions

Studies

External links