Post No. 18: Gifts from Greeks, Part 2: Martin's Maxims

In Part One of this topic, I described my personal re-discovery of ancient Greek thought, and how I was surprised by how many of our Founding Fathers, such as Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, etc. were well versed in Greek and Roman ways of living and their history. In particular I described two main schools of thought, or more accurately ways of living well, that were embraced by our Founding Fathers: Stoicism and Epicureanism. This post proposes my personal synthesis of these two schools and two other schools of thought in ancient Greece. Perhaps we can refer to this synthesis as, "Martin's Maxims".

First, let's go down a mind-blowing rabbit hole. Parmenides (515 BC) reasoned that the multiplicity of what we perceive in the world is an illusion of the senses, including the ability to develop constructs of the world, especially our ability to name things. He reasoned that since humans have existence, there must be a single unity, "being", that does not have diversity and multiplicity, but is "one". This "one" cannot be described by mortals since we are deluded by our senses to see reality as diverse, multiple and subject to change over time. For this reason Parmenides is considered the father of ontology, the study of being. Ever since, philosophers have played with this head-spinning concept and have been kept quite busy. One can imagine how this concept has influenced Christian dogma developed several centuries later. Parmenides also influenced Plato and later philosophers. In Plato's imagined dialogue between Socrates and Parmenides, he argues that the "one" cannot exist since Parmenides states that it is outside of time. In his attempt to discredit Parmenides' thought, Plato writes in his imagined "Parmenidies" dialogue that, "And if a thing is not, you cannot say that it 'has' anything or that there is anything of it. Consequently it cannot have a name or be spoken of, nor can there be any knowledge or perception or opinion of it. It is not named or spoken of, not an object of opinion or of knolwedge, not perceived by any creature." Parmenides would agree that Plato describes well his position, but he would not have agreed with Plato that it discredits the idea of "being". Zeno of Elia was a young student of Parmenides and is known for his "paradoxes" that illustrate the absurdity of commonsense ideas of motion and time. His most well known paradox is of the archer who, everyone assumes, hits his target. Zeno used this paradox to show that if an arrow goes half way after each time interval, it will never get to its target. Interestingly, Zeno is credited with the idea of mathmatical "infinity", which is the basis of calculus and other mathmatical approaches.

Pyrro (circa 200 BC) was clearly influenced by Parmenidies. He supposedly traveled with Alexander the Great and studied in India among other places, giving him a broader experience than the typical Greek philosopher. The school of Pyrronism is named after him. Pyrrho reasoned that one cannot know the true nature of things. For every viewpoint one can find its opposite. The ultimate goal of Pyrro and his succesors was to find "ataraxia" or peace of mind/well-being similar to the Epcicureans. Pyrronism's practical way of living was to achieve peace of mind by abandoning any effort to find absolute truth in a relative world. Pyrrho suggested that one should suspend judgment and have an open mind about everything. Although he might have agreed with Parmenides idea of all is one, or "being", he would suggest one suspends judgment even on that assertion. He was the ultimate agnostic. He would probably have agreed with the somewhat popular statement "it is what it is" or the Zen saying "this is it", yet he would suspend judgment even on that!

So, we have explored Stoicism, Epicureanism, Parmenides' rabbit hole, and Pyrrhonism. Before I propose my own synthesis of these thinkers, I'd like to revisit the Epicurean influence on Jefferson. As you might recall from Part One of this post, Jefferson was a big proponent of Epicureanism, whose main goal was to achieve an overall sense of well-being (happiness) in life. Thus, Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence with these words, "... all men ... are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of HAPPINESS ..." Perhaps U.S. citizens are all Epicureans!

I will wrap this post up with my own personal take and synthesis from my research on these ancient Greek thinkers. It is interesing that several of these blog posts touch on similar topics, especially Post No. 1, a video on "The Essence behind It All"; Post No. 14, "Reba the Amoeba"; Post No. 7, "The Other is Good/Bad"; and Post No. 11, "The Gordian Knot: Part Two of A Person or a Self". Drum roll please ... here are Martin's Maxims:

Martin's Maxims

1. Every life form seeks the positive (well-being) if not confused.

2. Having awareness of one's thoughts and emotions allows one to steer them in the direction of well-being.

3. Approach life armed with virtue: wisdom, justice, temperance, courageous .

4. Virtue is the soothing balm that vanishes angst, and is practiced in the "now"

5. Focus on what you can control.

6. You are the captain of the ship.

7. The search for "being" or "essence" is a fool's errand.

8. Don't take yourself seriously and always have an open mind.

9. You go as you come.

10. Maxims aren't axioms; axioms aren't axioms