Hello everyone, and welcome to section on Greek and Roman
philosophers. The Greek and Roman philosophers are really the first people
to kind of give us the background of what will ultimately become later
learning and memory, and so let’s begin with a discussion of these
philosophers, starting with Simonedes and slide two.
Simonedes is the first person to really point out the
importance of organization and memory. And the reason that he does that and
why it becomes so important occurs with this.
Simonedes was invited to a banquet with the king and other
people and, for some reason, Simonedes has to leave the room or the
building. During this time the building collapses and a major fire breaks
out and everybody dies. Simonedes is asked to help identify the people who
were there because what they don’t wanta do is bury the king in some
commoner’s grave and some commoner in the king’s grave. Simonedes is the
first person that basically shows that by using an organizational scheme,
that is, he identifies where everybody is sitting by where they were sitting
at the table, and thus, he was able to identify where the king was and other
folks. So he’s really the first person to point out the importance of
organization with memory.
The next major person to really come along that’s gonna
have a major impact on learning and philosophy is Socrates. Socrates is one
of the greatest philosophers that we know of, and he has several quotes, of
course. “One thing only I know, and that is I know nothing.” And what
Socrates contends is that philosophy begins when one learns to doubt, that
is that one’s particular beliefs one has about things and as Socrates would
say, there is no real philosophy until the mind begins to examine itself. So
know thyself is extremely important.
On slide four, you the questioning style used by Socrates
that demanded clear, accurate definitions, clear thinking and exact analysis
and is called the Socratic Method, and it is still used today; in fact, I
use it in some of my courses as well.
The next major person to come along, who’s not a huge
philosopher (in the true sense) is Hypocrites. Hypocrites as we in slide
five, is considered to be the father of medicine. And what Hypocrites did
was develop a new method of inquiry. That is, using careful observation and
the collection and interpretation of particular facts. In essence, this
method was different from the other methods where you just kind of sat
around and thought. Plus, it could be incorporated into physical, mental and
emotional reactions of individuals. It could also be used in other things.
This methodology and new change to inquire about information was a major
advance over faith, magic, superstition, and supernatural powers and on and
on.
Hypocrites also pioneered the application of systematic
observation to basically looking at human nature and experience. So in
essence what he’s doing is using observational techniques to examine the way
humans work.
Now as we can see in slide seven, Hypocrites was an
extremely knowledgeable physician for his time. He’s detailed case
histories, he’s dissected dead bodies, he used dream analysis long before
Freud, and he developed what we call the Hippocratic Oath which set high
standards for a physician, and is still used today. So Hypocrites has had a
major impact, not only in medicine but in other areas as well.
Now the next player to come along is Plato. And Plato, as
we see in slide eight, was a Nativist and what he believed was that
individuals had innate knowledge. That is, knowledge was inside of you and
all you had to do was teach individuals by using the Socratic Method. That
is, you ask the right questions and you bring out these innate ideas in you.
For Plato, everything was in there, and all you had to do was ask the right
questions.
Now Plato believed that knowledge existed in two forms.
The first form as we can see in slide nine, was the world of phenomenon and
that is kind of a sensory world. But the sensory world we have are like
shadows, that is, you can’t touch it directly, you can only observe it. The
other world that Plato identifies is the world of forms. These worlds are
basically ideas that are inherent to every person and this was unchanging.
It was known through reasoning, not through some kind of sensory experience.
Thus for Plato, as we can see in slide 10, knowledge was
really the possession of the truth, but knowledge in essence relies on
reasoning, not sensory perception, This sensory perception and reasoning was
basically involved in the brain. And for Plato, the brain was the seat of
perception that we had within us.
Now after Plato, we have a second major player and that is
Aristotle. Aristotle disagrees with Plato and he contends that all knowledge
comes from the senses and through experience. That is, when you are born,
your mind is like a blank writing tablet, what is called the Tabula Rasa.
And knowledge should be based on observations of the external world. That
is, you should look at what is going on out there to basically, develop some
kind of knowledge. Aristotle anticipates two major laws of learning that we
will use later in the course. And the first law as we see on slide 12 is the
law of contiguity. And basically the law of contiguity says this; if two
things are touching in space and time, one will bring the other to mind.
That is ultimately what we’re going to call the law of association which
will ultimately be very important for the British associationists later in
the early 20th century and in the late 19th century.
The second law that we see in slide 13 is the law of
similarity and contrast. If two things are similar, says Aristotle, one will
bring the other to mind and if two things are opposite, one will bring the
other to mind. This law will also have extreme importance for later items
within memory literature.
Finally, Aristotle also has some important things that
goes along with other philosophers of this time. The first thing he did was
he agreed with Hypocrites that mental illnesses come from physical clauses.
But he disagreed with Plato that the heart, not the brain, was the main
organ of sensory experience. In essence, the brain was basically to reduce
heat in the body and this error will last for the next 1500 years.
Well after the philosophers of the Greek empire, the next
major group of philosophers began in the Roman Empire. And this begins
starting on slide 15. You need to remember that after Rome conquered Greece,
that most of the philosophers of the time were basically Greek slaves and
other folks that basically were now under the Roman Empire. However, of all
the different philosophers and folks that were out there, the probably the
most prolific person was Galen. Galen, as we can see in slide 16, is the
most prolific and influential medical author after Hypocrites. Galen also
uses a very strong experimental approach and his writings, in essence,
become dominant, authoritative sources on just about everything including
biology, psychology and medicine and his influence continued on into the
Middle Ages. Some of Galen’s are still used today. The key for Galen, as
with a lot of the other great physicians of the time was the use of
scientific investigation. That is science is basically a way to investigate
and analyze things.
Some of the things that Galen did were:
After Galen comes a wide variety of other philosophers
that are going to have major impacts on memory and learning. One of the
first of these is Quintillion. Quintillion advocates, as we see in slide 19,
many theories that have been implemented in many schools. He argued that
basic educational methods should emphasize logical reasoning from premises
to conclusion. You also should have systematic repetition and recall of
facts. Don’t give me this new or fuzzy math, Quintillion would say.
Basically, you need to know how to do things. You should also have mastery
of the subject matter from simple to complex elements. And low and behold,
when somebody does something, give them praise for their intellectual
achievements. In addition to that, you should practice free self-expression.
Finally, what you should also do is adapt the instruction to the interests
and different capacities of the pupils that you’re working with. These were
novel concepts that also have a role in our time today and the same
arguments are being made again today.
Well, after Galen and Quintillion and others, the Roman
Empire begins to start to decline. And while the Roman Empire is declining,
there’s also a rise in a new philosophical thought that is called
Christianity. Christian models become very, very important in learning and
philosophy. One of the major persons to embrace Christianity was Augustine.
Augustine, as we see in slide 23, was a leader within the Roman Empire. He
was the Emperor and he also was a Christian. What he did was make a major
change in the philosophical thought and the methods of thinking for the
time. Augustine believed that there was a distinction between Plato’s
sensory world and the world of forms, but he also embraced Christianity.
What he did was develop a new concept called Neoplatoism to reconcile the
differences. The result was a very subtle change and this is what we see in
slide 24. Augustine distinguished between the sensory world, that is the
world that was known through the sensory organs, just like we did the last
time, but we also had the intelligible world, where unlike Plato, the
untelligible world was known through the soul. It was a very small but
important step. For Plato, the ultimate truth was found through reasoning,
but for Augustine, the ultimate truth was found through faith. This
difference would become extremely, extremely important.
As we see in slide 26, Augustine only wanted to know God
and the soul. What he used was faith to justify that belief. After Auguston,
Neoplatoism colored every aspect of mediaeval thinking and everything was
part of God’s world.
As we can see through Augustine and we get to around
475ad, Rome falls and we move into the next major phase of philosophy and
learning. That is what you call the Dark Ages or the Early Middle Ages. We
will start picking up this again in the next section. So until then, we hope
you have a good day.
Back
