The Emergence of Wisdom in Ancient Greek Philosophy

The emergence of the concept of wisdom found in ancient Greek philosophy was the beginning of a completely different way of thinking about and developing an understanding of the world, life, and the human soul. After a review of the concept of wisdom in a few major pre-Socratic philosophers, this book examines the unfolding of the concept of wisdom through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. From there, the exploration moves into the Hellenistic philosophers and their respective schools developed around the Hellenistic philosophies of life. The discussion moves into the culmination of the entire ancient period of philosophy in the person of the philosopher Plotinus. Finally, the book points out the transformation of ancient philosophy into the Medieval period in which philosophy becomes theology.

Throughout this book, the three philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, stand out as pioneers in three different directions of philosophy. With Socrates we find a philosopher who essentially defined what it means to be a philosopher. His life was a dedicated striving to reach a true understanding of wisdom and virtue. Toward this goal, Socrates was urged on by his self-knowledge that he was basically ignorant.

His student Plato took this search to new heights of a conceptual reality that Socrates implied throughout his life. Plato saw philosophy as the search for the reality behind appearances, resulting in his theory of the Forms, an abstract realm of pure Ideas that represented the absolutes that his teacher Socrates was searching for.

Aristotle inaugurated the scientific direction in philosophy as he created categories for biological studies, logic for rhetoric, and empirical approaches to understanding the world and our human place in it. His philosophy included ethics as well as metaphysics, and he initiated the first systematic study of the soul.

Leone is a retired professor of Counseling and Philosophy, with graduate degrees in both. He has a

life-long draw toward ancient Greek philosophy, seeing it as the original reshaping of the western consciousness in understanding life in the world. He lives in relative seclusion in New Mexico.