History of Human SocietyBlackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
History
History of Human Society
Blackmar, Frank W. (Frank Wilson)
Civilization; Progress; Sociology
The Stoics were a group of philosophers who placed great emphasis upon
ethics in comparison with logic and physics. They looked on the world
from the pessimistic side and made themselves happy by becoming
martyrs. They taught that suffering, the endurance of pain without
complaint, was the highest virtue. To them logic was the science of
thought and of expression, physics was the science of nature, and
ethics the science of the good. All ideas originated from sensation,
and perception was the only criterion of truth. "We know only what we
perceive (by sense); only those ideas contain certain knowledge for us
which are ideas of real objects." The soul of man was corporeal and
material, hence physics and metaphysics were almost identical. There
is much incoherency in their philosophy; it abounds in paradoxes. For
instance, it recognizes sense as the criterion and source of knowledge,
and asserts that reason is universal and knowable. Yet it asserts that
there is no rational element in sense that is universal. It confuses
individual human nature and universal nature, though its final result
was to unite both in one concept. The result of their entire
philosophy was to create confusion, although they had much influence on
the practical life.
The Sceptics doubted all knowledge obtained by the senses. There was
no criterion of truth in the intellect, consequently no knowledge. If
truth existed it was in conduct, and thus the judgment must be
suspended. They held that there was nothing that could be determined
of specific nature, nothing that could be of certainty. Eventually the
whole Greek philosophy went out in scepticism. The three schools, the
sceptic, the Epicurean, and the stoic, though widely differing in many
ways, agreed upon one thing, in basing their philosophy on
subjectivity, on mind rather than on objective nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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