EPICURUS ; HEDONISM ; ETHICS, HISTORY OF.) Zeno (?336-264 B.c.) and the Stoics also attached no intrinsic importance to knowledge. They valued it only as an aid to virtue and judged truths pragmatically. Just as the Epicureans adopted the atomist philosophy instead of evolving a philosophy of their own, so the Stoics adopted, with modifications, the philosophy of Aristotle, which they changed into a pantheistic view. Substi tuting the concepts "body" and "soul" for the Aristotelian "mat ter" and "form," they conceived the universe as an organic whole, having both body (or matter) and soul (or force, or reason). All things are but parts of the one organic universe, which pursues a rational course and directs the development of all its parts. So completely rational and in conformity with universal law was the "One and All" conceived to be that no room was left for arbitrariness or caprice. It is at once God and Nature, Provi dence and Destiny. A hymn composed by the Stoic Cleanthes ( B.c.) is one of the most famous expressions of panthe ism in the history of literature. With such a conception of nature the Stoics naturally identified virtuous conduct with life accord ing to nature, and this it could only be by being in harmony with the universal reason pervading nature. Rational self-control was set up as the only good, because it makes one independent of external circumstances, free and contented. As with Epicureans so with the Stoics, one of their most celebrated members was a Ro man—the Emperor Marcus Aurelius ( I 2 I–I 8o (See STOICS; ETHICS, HISTORY OF ; LOGIC, HISTORY OF ; PANTHEISM.) Pyrrho (?36o-27o B.c.) and the Sceptics were much more interested in philosophic theory than were the Epicureans or the Stoics. They paid special attention to epistemology. But the con clusions they arrived at were not flattering to human knowledge so-called. Pyrrho was of opinion that things are too incalculable and unaccountable to warrant any conviction whatever, so that the right attitude of mind is one of sceptical neutrality. Such an attitude has its advantages, for it is conducive to peace of mind. Most troubles, he held, are disappointments resulting from rash judgments and anticipations. Those who renounce all claims to knowledge might attain to the same equanimity which the Epicureans and Stoics sought to attain with the aid of knowledge. The most important of the Sceptics was Carneades (213-129 B.C.). He carried on a systematic campaign against the dogmatic
assumptions of his predecessors and contemporaries, attacking more especially the tendency of the Stoics and others to identify cosmic regularity with a cosmic reason, the widespread habit of ascribing human attributes to God, the entirely insufficient evi dence on the strength of which God's existence was believed in. and the habit of ignoring the existence of unmerited evil in order to exonerate God from all responsibility for it. Even Hume (1711-1776) and other modern sceptics did little more than adapt the arguments of Carneades. (See SCEPTICISM.) Ethically, the three schools, Epicureans, Stoics and Sceptics, were really very similar. They all regarded peace of mind as the highest good attainable, and they all emphasized the need of emancipating oneself from the bondage of external circumstances. Philo (?25 B.C.—A.D. 5o) and the Neo-Platonists. One result of Macedonian ascendancy has already been pointed out in ex planation of the predominance of ethics in post-Aristotelian philosophy. Another effect it had was that it tended to break down national barriers. The different nationalities under Mace donian sway were thrown together, and Greek thinkers were brought into touch with the East. The cosmopolitanism of the Stoics was probably influenced by this. But Neo-Platonism is a more obvious result of the contact between East and West.
Alexandria was the great intellectual centre where East and West met together. The East needed more philosophy, the West more religion, and Neo-Platonism was an attempt to make the best of both. The philosophy which had a very marked religious side was that of Plato. The new movement, accordingly, was first regarded as a form of Platonism. Eventually, however, it was re-named Neo-Platonism. Of the early Neo-Platonists the best known is Philo Judaeus of Alexandria. He was the head of a group of cultured Jews who tried to harmonize Hebrew religion with Greek philosophy. By interpreting the Bible allegorically, Philo sought to read Platonism into Hebraism and Hebraism into Platonism. But Neo-Platonism owes its success mainly to Plotinus (A.D. 204-27o) and Proclus This school also may claim a distinguished Roman as one of its adherents ; namely, the Emperor Julian the Apostate (reigned 361-363).