Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle

Unit 1 · From Myth to Reason: The Milesians

1. From myth to reason How the Milesians replaced storytelling gods with natural explanation — and why that counts as the birth of philosophy. 7 min
2. Thales and Anaximander Water, the boundless, and the first lawlike cosmos — the two thinkers who launched natural philosophy. 8 min
3. Anaximenes and the Milesian achievement Air, condensation and rarefaction — a real mechanism for change — and why the Milesian project mattered. 7 min

Unit 2 · Being and Becoming: Heraclitus and the Eleatics

1. Heraclitus: everything flows Flux, the hidden Logos, and the unity of opposites — the philosopher of change who still insisted on an underlying order. 8 min
2. Parmenides: the way of truth The most radical argument in early philosophy — that change and plurality are illusions and only Being truly is. 9 min
3. Zeno’s paradoxes Achilles, the tortoise, and the arrow — brilliant reductio arguments defending Parmenides by making motion and plurality look absurd. 7 min
4. Pythagoras: number and harmony A rival vision of hidden reality — that the deep structure of things is mathematical — with a lasting influence on Plato. 7 min

Unit 3 · Saving the Phenomena: Pluralists and Atomists

1. The problem after Parmenides How do you rescue the obvious reality of change from Parmenides' logic? The pluralist strategy. 7 min
2. Empedocles and Anaxagoras Four roots driven by Love and Strife; and "everything in everything" ordered by Mind. 8 min
3. The Atomists: atoms and void Leucippus and Democritus give the boldest answer — indivisible atoms in empty space — and a fully mechanistic universe. 8 min

Unit 4 · The Human Turn: Sophists and Socrates

1. The Sophists Professional teachers of excellence who turned philosophy toward humanity, language, and law — and toward relativism. 8 min
2. Socrates and the elenchus The man who wrote nothing but changed everything — his method of relentless questioning and his famous ignorance. 8 min
3. Virtue is knowledge Socrates' startling ethical theses — that to know the good is to do it, and that no one errs willingly. 8 min
4. The trial and death of Socrates Charged with impiety and corrupting the youth, Socrates defends the examined life — and chooses death over exile. 9 min

Unit 5 · Plato I: Forms, Knowledge, and the Soul

1. Why Plato posited the Forms From Socrates' search for definitions to a realm of perfect, eternal Forms — Plato's answer to Heraclitus and Parmenides. 8 min
2. Knowledge, belief, and recollection Plato distinguishes knowledge from mere opinion and argues that learning is really remembering. 8 min
3. The Sun, the Line, and the Cave Plato's three great images of reality, knowledge, and education — climaxing in the Form of the Good. 9 min
4. The soul and immortality Why Plato thinks the soul is akin to the Forms — deathless, and the true self. 8 min

Unit 6 · Plato II: Justice, Soul, and the Ideal City

1. What is justice? The challenge Thrasymachus and Glaucon force the question — is justice really good for you, or just a con for the weak? 8 min
2. The tripartite soul and the just city Reason, spirit, appetite — and a city of three classes — with justice as harmony, each part doing its own work. 9 min
3. Philosopher-kings and the Good Plato's most notorious claim — that until philosophers rule, cities will never cease from evil. 8 min

Unit 7 · Aristotle I: Substance, Cause, and Nature

1. Aristotle against the Forms Plato's greatest student breaks with his teacher — the Forms, he argues, are neither necessary nor explanatory. 8 min
2. The four causes To really know a thing is to grasp its "why" in four ways — material, formal, efficient, and final. 8 min
3. Substance, form, and matter Individual substances are compounds of matter and form, and change is potentiality becoming actual. 9 min
4. The Prime Mover (and a word on logic) Aristotle argues the cosmos of change requires an unmoved, eternal source — pure actuality, thought thinking itself. 8 min

Unit 8 · Aristotle II: The Good Life and the Political Animal

1. Happiness and the human function Aristotle asks what the highest human good is, and argues it is eudaimonia — flourishing through excellent activity of reason. 8 min
2. Virtue, the mean, and weakness of will Moral virtue as a stable disposition to hit the "mean," cultivated by habit — plus Aristotle's answer to Socrates on akrasia. 9 min
3. Practical wisdom, friendship, and the political animal The virtues need practical wisdom to guide them; friendship and contemplation crown the good life; and all of it is completed in the polis. 9 min

🎓 Final exam