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Chapter 5 of the 2011 National Electrical Code (NEC), which focuses on special occupancies, is made up of 28 Articles, all of which focus on electrical environments that are considerably more demanding than ordinary residential and commercial spaces. Many of these areas are hazardous in varying degrees, requiring exceptional wiring methods and materials.
Take a flammable liquid or gas facility as an example. Volatile fuel may mix with air in a critical proportion so that an overheated surface or a small spark caused by an arcing electrical device may instantaneously trigger a massive fireball, resulting in great loss of life and/or property. Although many may think of feed grain and flour as innocuous substances, fine dust suspended in air in critical proportions may become explosive. Some operative parameters are ambient temperature, type of fuel, proportion to an oxidizer, and overall volume of the mix.
NEC Guidance
The Code and associated documents deal with these hazards in a highly competent manner. People enter these hazardous areas every day with much less risk than they encounter driving on a public road or engaging in other everyday activities. However, it is possible for electrical professionals to accomplish this task while minimizing the cost without cutting corners or compromising safety. The preferred strategy is to mitigate risk as opposed to reducing protection. Before examining the methods for doing so, however, let's review some of the ways the Code delineates and organizes hazardous locations. The NEC recognizes three classes of hazardous areas:
- Class I locations are characterized by the presence of flammable gases, flammable liquid-produced vapors, or combustible liquid-produced vapors. If any of these are or may be present in the air (in quantities sufficient to produce explosive or ignitable mixtures), the location is considered Class I. As such, it requires specialized wiring techniques (see Art. 501) within its boundaries.
- Class II locations are characterized by the presence of combustible dust. These locations also require specialized wiring techniques (see Art. 502); however, they are generally less extreme than those needed in Class I locations. Nevertheless, huge explosions are possible due to combustible dust suspended in air in critical proportions; therefore, electricians must take great care when wiring these locations. Additional hazards accompany the presence of electrically conductive dusts, notably aluminum and magnesium. Zirconium and thorium dusts suspended in air are subject to spontaneous ignition. Conductive dusts may settle on circuit boards, bridging adjacent traces and resulting in short circuits. Another hazard associated with Group II locations occurs when dusts settle on motor housings and the like, resulting in heat buildup.
- Class III locations are characterized by the presence of easily ignitable fibers or flyings. These may be the same materials as found in Class II, but they're less finely divided. Although explosion is not a possibility, ignition may result in a rapidly spreading fire. The hazard is less than in Class II locations, but nonetheless is substantially greater than within unclassified locations. Specialized wiring techniques are also needed (see Art. 503) in these locations.
Each of the three classes contains two divisions, based on the immediacy of the hazard. Within Class I, Div. 1, for example, ignitable concentrations of flammable gases (or flammable/combustible liquid-produced vapors) can exist under normal operating conditions or because of repair/maintenance operations or leakage. Another possibility is breakdown or faulty operation of equipment or processes, resulting in the release of these substances into the air and allowing electrical equipment to become a source of ignition.
Within Class I, Div. 2 locations, the hazard, while still substantial, is somewhat less immediate. Volatile flammable gases or flammable/combustible liquid-produced vapors may be handled, produced, or used, but they will normally be confined within closed containers or closed systems. If they escape, it's typically because of accidental rupture or breakdown of the containers or systems or abnormal operation of equipment. Division 2 conditions also exist when ignitable concentrations of flammable gases or flammable/combustible liquid-produced vapors are normally prevented by positive mechanical ventilation. These could become hazardous through failure or abnormal operation of the ventilating equipment.
Another possibility is that the area in question is adjacent to a Class I, Div. 1 location - and that ignitable concentrations of these substances above their flashpoints might occasionally be communicated, unless such communication is prevented by adequate positive-pressure ventilation from a source of clean air, and effective safeguards against ventilation failure are provided.
Class II and Class III locations may also be Div. 1 or Div. 2, depending upon the immediacy of the hazard. Typically, in Div. 2 areas, the substances are present in ignitable concentrations only under abnormal circumstances and presumably for much briefer periods of time.
The zone classification system is a viable alternative to conventional hazardous location delineation, and its use is appropriate under certain circumstances. Traditionally, division classifications were used in North America while zone classifications were used elsewhere. In recent years, the NEC added Art. 505, permitting optional use of Zones 0, 1, and 2 within Class I areas and Zones 20, 21, and 22 within Class II and III areas. Use of the zone method allows designers to specify offshore equipment. The resulting installation may or may not be less expensive. Decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis.
Material Groups
Article 500 also introduces the topic of material groups, stating explicitly that various air mixtures are to be grouped for testing, approval, and area classification. This means that equipment must be approved not only for the class of location, but also for the material involved.
For example, acetylene, which is widely used in chemical processes, is easily ignited and considered a Group A material. Hydrogen is an example of a Group B gas, ethylene is Group C, and propane (see Photo 1) is Group D - all of which fall within Class I. The 2011 NEC Handbook contains an extensive multi-page list of hazardous materials with group designation and other properties, as part of its commentary, but the requirements don't end there.
Surface temperature
An additional condition is placed upon equipment contemplated for use within a hazardous area. The equipment temperature marking in Class I locations is not to exceed the ignition temperature of the specific gas or vapor to be encountered. In Class II locations, the temperature marking must not exceed the lower of either the ignition temperature of the dust encountered or 165°C (329°F). One of the problems with dust is that it may settle on potentially hot surfaces, such as motor housings. Repeated exposure to heat may cause partial carbonization, which lowers the ignition temperature.
To facilitate compliance with this Code mandate, Table 500.8(C) provides temperature class (T Code) categories for various maximum surface temperatures of heat-producing equipment, ranging from T1, with a maximum surface temperature of 450°C (842°F), to T6, with a maximum surface temperature of 85°C (185°F).
Protection Techniques
Whenever electrical equipment is installed within a hazardous area, one or more protection techniques must be employed to ensure that life and property are not endangered. The principal protection techniques include:
- Explosionproof equipment - permitted for equipment in Class I, Div. 1 or 2 locations.
- Dust ignitionproof equipment - permitted for equipment in Class II, Div. 1 or 2 locations.
- Dusttight equipment - permitted for equipment in Class II, Div. 2 or Class III, Div. 1 or 2 locations.
- Purged and pressurized equipment - permitted for equipment in any hazardous location for which it is identified.
- Intrinsic safety - permitted for equipment in any hazardous location.
- Nonincendive circuit, nonincendive equipment, nonincendive component, and hermetically sealed - permitted for equipment in Class I, Div. 2, Class II, Div. 2, or Class III, Div. 1 or 2 locations.
- Oil immersion - permitted for current-interrupting contacts in Class I, Div. 2 locations.
- Combustible gas detection system - permitted as a means of protection only in industrial establishments with restricted public access and where conditions of maintenance and supervision ensure that only qualified persons service the installation.
Any protection technique that is permitted for a Div. 1 location is also good for Div. 2 within the same class, because the hazards are the same - although not as immediate - as in a Div. 1 location. However, the same relation is not applicable among classes. A protection technique permitted for Class I, for example, is not necessarily relevant for Class II, and explosionproof enclosures permitted for Class I locations are not meaningful in Class II locations.
It is possible for a location to be simultaneously Class I and Class II or III, so care must be taken in complying with all requirements. Dual-rated equipment is useful, but it's necessary to observe material and temperature parameters in all cases.
We have seen how hazardous areas are delineated and have listed applicable protection techniques. Additionally, many other Code mandates are in place. It is necessary to consider NEC requirements on a case-by-case basis to ensure that a safe environment is maintained. Particular attention must be focused on raceway sealing so that hazardous area gases or liquids do not infiltrate non-classified areas where protection techniques are not in place. Enhanced grounding and bonding techniques are essential as well. Redundant bonding, using grounding lugs designed for the purpose, ensures that there will be no interruption in the low-impedance ground path. This technique must be continued outside the hazardous location all the way back to the service, load center, or other grounding electrode conductor connection.
Obviously, materials and labor involved in any hazardous location installation will be much more costly than the same work within a non-hazardous industrial location. There are, however, ways of greatly reducing these costs without compromising safety.
Taking Action
The first and most effective strategy is to take a hard look at the overall installation to see if it is possible to relocate part or all of the electrical equipment and circuitry that powers it outside of the hazardous area - or perhaps moving it from a Div. 1 to a Div. 2 location. It may be possible to do pre-assembly outside a hazardous area so that less equipment is required within it.
A second hazard mitigation technique is ventilation, which may be used to good effect. In a commercial garage, for example, where floor areas include pits, below-grade work areas, or subfloor work areas in lubrication or service rooms, differing classification rules apply, depending on whether ventilation is provided. The entire floor area is unclassified where there is mechanical ventilation, providing a minimum of four air changes per hour. Ventilation must provide for air exchange across the entire floor area, and exhaust air is to be taken at a point within 12 inches of the floor.
In contrast, where ventilation is not provided, the floor area up to a level of 18 inches above any unventilated pit, below-grade work area, or subfloor work area, and extending a distance of 3 feet horizontally from its edge, is Class I, Div. 2.
Similarly, areas adjacent to classified areas within commercial garages in which flammable vapors aren't likely to be released, such as stock rooms, switchboard rooms, and other similar locations, are unclassified where mechanically ventilated at a rate of four or more air changes per hour, designed with positive air pressure, or effectively cut off by walls or partitions.
A third hazard mitigation technique is to use intrinsically safe systems within a hazardous location wherever possible. To see how this works, let's look at a more conventional but far more expensive protection technique.
Explosionproof enclosures, in conjunction with properly sealed rigid or intermediate metal raceway, are acceptable as a protection technique for use in Class I, Div. 1 locations (see Photo 2). These enclosures have wide bolted flanges, threaded covers, and entries that preclude the transmission of flame or heat. The idea is that, over a period of time, flammable gas or liquid-produced vapors will infiltrate the enclosure. An arcing switch or relay will cause ignition if the flammable material exists in critical mix with air. The explosionproof enclosure ensures the resulting explosion will be contained so that ignition will not occur outside the enclosure. A system of explosionproof enclosures is highly effective if installed and maintained correctly, with proper raceway sealing and protection from physical damage.
A much less expensive and every bit as effective protection technique is available for use in all classes and divisions. Rather than relying on the brute-force approach of the explosionproof enclosure, intrinsically safe systems depend upon an entirely different approach (click here to see Fig. 1).
For fire or explosion to occur, three elements must be present simultaneously. There must be a source of ignition (such as an electrical spark), a supply of fuel (such as gasoline), and an oxidizing agent (such as the oxygen) available in the earth's atmosphere. Intrinsically safe systems protect against hazard by limiting the amount of power to a level where any spark or thermal effect is incapable of igniting the mixture of flammable or combustible material. Intrinsically safe apparatus is permitted to be installed in any hazardous location for which it is listed. General-purpose (non-explosionproof) enclosures are permitted.
Because of the low power levels necessary to ensure that ignition will not occur, it is not feasible to use intrinsically safe systems to power motors and other heavy equipment. Intrinsically safe systems are used for instrumentation, controls, and power-limited fire alarm systems. Because these items comprise a large proportion of the wiring within hazardous locations, significant cost savings are possible.
Power transfer is a function of the connected load and applied voltage. By choosing these values, it is possible for an intrinsically safe system to work as intended. However, the possibility remains that higher voltage and current levels would infiltrate the hazardous location if a power surge, misconnection, or arcing from adjacent wiring outside the hazardous location boundary should occur. One technique for preventing this eventuality is to observe required separations of intrinsically safe conductors, as outlined in Sec. 504.30.
These and other requirements are laid out within the control drawings supplied by the manufacturer, which documents, among other things, allowed interconnections between intrinsically safe apparatus and associated field wiring. These control drawings must be scrupulously followed.
An essential component is the Zener, or shunt diode barrier, which is installed on the nonhazardous location side adjacent to the boundary. This barrier provides secure isolation to ensure that unsafe current does not flow into the hazardous area, making possible ignition of the gas, vapor, dust, or other material within.
This barrier works by shunting excess voltage to ground. A Zener diode, with a specified reverse-bias breakdown voltage, is wired across the input terminals. Because this type of diode could become subject to an open-circuit fault, a second diode is provided for redundant protection. A fuse in series with one line is provided with a rating such that it will open if the power rating of the Zener diodes is exceeded. A resistor (plus a second one for redundancy) is provided so that in the event that the Zener diode enters the conduction mode, the source within the unclassified area will not be subject to a direct short circuit.
This type of barrier depends for its effectiveness upon a totally reliable ground connection. Two separate ground connections are desirable, each with a resistance of less than 1 ohm. Ground cables must be insulated and protected from physical damage. The ground electrode should be as near to the barrier as possible, preferably directly adjacent.
Because of the resistors, it is possible that the output of the barrier would not be sufficient for the application contemplated. The protection would be in place, but the barrier would not permit the system to function. Therefore, this aspect has to be considered.
Where it is not feasible to create a suitable ground, another type of barrier is available. This is the so-called "active barrier." It does not work by diverting the fault current to ground, so the dedicated ground is not required, just (as always) the required equipment grounding means.
Now that we've discussed some of the NEC 2011 hazardous location requirements, it's easy to see that there are ways to comply while reducing labor and materials costs without compromising safety. Careful planning, compliant design work, and flawless installation will ensure a safe electrical infrastructure for those whose lives depend upon it.
Herres is a licensed master electrician in Stewartstown, N.H. He can be reached at [email protected].


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Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy
The pre-Socratic philosophers
Cosmology and the metaphysics of matter
Because the earliest Greek philosophers focused their attention upon the origin and nature of the physical world, they are often called cosmologists, or naturalists. Although monistic views (which trace the origin of the world to a single substance) prevailed at first, they were soon followed by several pluralistic theories (which trace it to several ultimate substances).
Monistic cosmologies
There is a consensus, dating back at least to the 4th century bc and continuing to the present, that the first Greek philosopher was Thales of Miletus (flourished 6th century bc). In Thales' time the word philosopher ("lover of wisdom") had not yet been coined. Thales was counted, however, among the legendary Seven Wise Men (Sophoi), whose name derives from a term that then designated inventiveness and practical wisdom rather than speculative insight. Thales demonstrated these qualities by trying to give the mathematical knowledge that he derived from the Babylonians a more exact foundation and by using it for the solution of practical problems—such as the determination of the distance of a ship as seen from the shore or of the height of the Egyptian pyramids. Although he was also credited with predicting an eclipse of the Sun, it is likely that he merely gave a natural explanation of one on the basis of Babylonian astronomical knowledge.
Thales is considered the first Greek philosopher because he was the first to give a purely natural explanation of the origin of the world, free from mythological ingredients. He held that everything had come out of water—an explanation based on the discovery of fossil sea animals far inland. His tendency (and that of his immediate successors) to give nonmythological explanations was undoubtedly prompted by the fact that all of them lived on the coast of Asia Minor, surrounded by a number of nations whose civilizations were much further advanced than that of the Greeks and whose own mythological explanations varied greatly. It appeared necessary, therefore, to make a fresh start on the basis of what a person could observe and infer by looking at the world as it presented itself. This procedure naturally resulted in a tendency to make sweeping generalizations on the basis of rather restricted, though carefully checked, observations.
Thales' disciple and successor, Anaximander of Miletus (610–c. 546 bc), tried to give a more elaborate account of the origin and development of the ordered world (the cosmos). According to him, it developed out of the apeiron ("unlimited"), something both infinite and indefinite (without distinguishable qualities). Within this apeiron something arose to produce the opposites of hot and cold. These at once began to struggle with each other and produced the cosmos. The cold (and wet) partly dried up (becoming solid earth), partly remained (as water), and—by means of the hot—partly evaporated (becoming air and mist), its evaporating part (by expansion) splitting up the hot into fiery rings, which surround the whole cosmos. Because these rings are enveloped by mist, however, there remain only certain breathing holes that are visible to human beings, appearing to them as the Sun, Moon, and stars. Anaximander was the first to realize that upward and downward are not absolute but that downward means toward the middle of the Earth and upward away from it, so that the Earth had no need to be supported (as Thales had believed) by anything. Starting from Thales' observations, Anaximander tried to reconstruct the development of life in more detail. Life, being closely bound up with moisture, originated in the sea. All land animals, he held, are descendants of sea animals; because the first humans as newborn infants could not have survived without parents, Anaximander believed that they were born within an animal of another kind—specifically, a sea animal in which they were nurtured until they could fend for themselves. Gradually, however, the moisture will be partly evaporated, until in the end all things will return into the undifferentiated apeiron, "in order to pay the penalty for their injustice"—that of having struggled against one another.
Anaximander's successor, Anaximenes of Miletus (flourished c. 545 bc), taught that air was the origin of all things. His position was for a long time thought to have been a step backward because, like Thales, he placed a special kind of matter at the beginning of the development of the world. But this criticism missed the point. Neither Thales nor Anaximander appear to have specified the way in which the other things arose out of water or apeiron. Anaximenes, however, declared that the other types of matter arose out of air by condensation and rarefaction. In this way, what to Thales had been merely a beginning became a fundamental principle that remained essentially the same through all of its transmutations. Thus, the term arche, which originally simply meant "beginning," acquired the new meaning of "principle," a term that henceforth played an enormous role in philosophy down to the present. This concept of a principle that remains the same through many transmutations is, furthermore, the presupposition of the idea that nothing can come out of nothing and that all of the comings to be and passings away that human beings observe are nothing but transmutations of something that essentially remains the same eternally. In this way it also lies at the bottom of all of the conservation laws—the laws of the conservation of matter, force, and energy—that have been basic in the development of physics. Although Anaximenes of course did not realize all of the implications of his idea, its importance can hardly be exaggerated.
The first three Greek philosophers have often been called "hylozoists" because they seemed to believe in a kind of living matter (see hylozoism). But this is hardly an adequate characterization. It is, rather, characteristic of them that they did not clearly distinguish between kinds of matter, forces, and qualities, nor between physical and emotional qualities. The same entity is sometimes called "fire" and sometimes "the hot." Heat appears sometimes as a force and sometimes as a quality, and again there is no clear distinction between warm and cold as physical qualities and the warmth of love and the cold of hate. To realize these ambiguities is important to an understanding of certain later developments in Greek philosophy.
Xenophanes of Colophon (c. 560–c. 478 bc), a rhapsodist and philosophical thinker who emigrated from Asia Minor to Elea in southern Italy, was the first to articulate more clearly what was implied in Anaximenes' philosophy. He criticized the popular notions of the gods, saying that people made the gods in their own image. But, more importantly, he argued that there could be only one God, the ruler of the universe, who must be eternal. For, being the strongest of all beings, he could not have come out of something less strong, nor could he be overcome or superseded by something else, because nothing could arise that is stronger than the strongest. The argument clearly rested on the axioms that nothing can come out of nothing and that nothing that exists can vanish.
These axioms were made more explicit and carried to their logical (and extreme) conclusions by Parmenides of Elea (born c. 515 bc), the founder of the so-called school of Eleaticism, of whom Xenophanes has been regarded as the teacher and forerunner. In a philosophical poem, Parmenides insisted that "what is" cannot have come into being and cannot pass away because it would have to have come out of nothing or to become nothing, whereas nothing by its very nature does not exist. There can be no motion either, for it would have to be a motion into something that is—which is not possible since it would be blocked—or a motion into something that is not—which is equally impossible since what is not does not exist. Hence, everything is solid, immobile being. The familiar world, in which things move around, come into being, and pass away, is a world of mere belief (doxa). In a second part of the poem, however, Parmenides tried to give an analytical account of this world of belief, showing that it rested on constant distinctions between what is believed to be positive—i.e., to have real being, such as light and warmth—and what is believed to be negative—i.e., the absence of positive being, such as darkness and cold.
It is significant that Heracleitus of Ephesus (c. 540–c. 480 bc), whose philosophy was later considered to be the very opposite of Parmenides' philosophy of immobile being, came, in some fragments of his work, near to what Parmenides tried to show: the positive and the negative, he said, are merely different views of the same thing; death and life, day and night, and light and darkness are really one.
Pluralistic cosmologies
Parmenides had an enormous influence on the further development of philosophy. Most of the philosophers of the following two generations tried to find a way to reconcile his thesis that nothing comes into being nor passes away with the evidence presented to the senses. Empedocles of Acragas (c. 490–430 bc) declared that there are four material elements (he called them the roots of everything) and two forces, love and hate, that did not come into being and would never pass away, increase, or diminish. But the elements are constantly mixed with one another by love and again separated by hate. Thus, through mixture and decomposition, composite things come into being and pass away. Because Empedocles conceived of love and hate as blind forces, he had to explain how, through random motion, living beings could emerge. This he did by means of a somewhat crude anticipation of the theory of the survival of the fittest. In the process of mixture and decomposition, the limbs and parts of various animals would be formed by chance. But they could not survive on their own; they would survive only when, by chance, they had come together in such a way that they were able to support and reproduce themselves. It was in this way that the various species were produced and continued to exist.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c. 500–c. 428 bc), a pluralist, believed that because nothing can really come into being, everything must be contained in everything, but in the form of infinitely small parts. In the beginning, all of these particles had existed in an even mixture, in which nothing could be distinguished, much like the indefinite apeiron of Anaximander. But then nous, or intelligence, began at one point to set these particles into a whirling motion, foreseeing that in this way they would become separated from one another and then recombine in the most various ways so as to produce gradually the world in which human beings live. In contrast to the forces assumed by Empedocles, the nous of Anaxagoras is not blind but foresees and intends the production of the cosmos, including living and intelligent beings; however, it does not interfere with the process after having started the whirling motion. This is a strange combination of a mechanical and a nonmechanical explanation of the world.
By far of greatest importance for the later development of philosophy and physical science was an attempt by the atomists Leucippus (flourished 5th century bc) and Democritus (c. 460–c. 370 bc) to solve the Parmenidean problem. Leucippus found the solution in the assumption that, contrary to Parmenides' argument, the nothing does in a way exist—as empty space. There are, then, two fundamental principles of the physical world, empty space and filled space—the latter consisting of atoms that, in contrast to those of modern physics, are real atoms; that is, they are absolutely indivisible because nothing can penetrate to split them. On these foundations, laid by Leucippus, Democritus appears to have built a whole system, aiming at a complete explanation of the varied phenomena of the visible world by means of an analysis of its atomic structure. This system begins with elementary physical problems, such as why a hard body can be lighter than a softer one. The explanation is that the heavier body contains more atoms, which are equally distributed and of round shape; the lighter body, however, has fewer atoms, most of which have hooks by which they form rigid gratings. The system ends with educational and ethical questions. A sound and cheerful person, useful to his fellows, is literally well composed. Although destructive passions involve violent, long-distance atomic motions, education can help to contain them, creating a better composure. Democritus also developed a theory of the evolution of culture, which influenced later thinkers. Civilization, he thought, is produced by the needs of life, which compel human beings to work and to make inventions. When life becomes too easy because all needs are met, there is a danger that civilization will decay as people become unruly and negligent.
Epistemology of appearance
All of the post-Parmenidean philosophers, like Parmenides himself, presupposed that the real world is different from the one that human beings perceive. Thus arose the problems of epistemology, or theory of knowledge. According to Anaxagoras, everything is contained in everything. But this is not what people perceive. He solved this problem by postulating that, if there is a much greater amount of one kind of particle in a thing than of all other kinds, the latter are not perceived at all. The observation was then made that sometimes different persons or kinds of animals have different perceptions of the same things. He explained this phenomenon by assuming that like is perceived by like. If, therefore, in the sense organ of one person there is less of one kind of stuff than of another, that person will perceive the former less keenly than the latter. This reasoning was also used to explain why some animals see better at night and others during the day. According to Democritus, atoms have no sensible qualities, such as taste, smell, or colour, at all. Thus, he tried to reduce all of them to tactile qualities (explaining a bright white colour, for instance, as sharp atoms hitting the eye like needles), and he made a most elaborate attempt to reconstruct the atomic structure of things on the basis of their apparent sensible qualities.
Also of very great importance in the history of epistemology was Zeno of Elea (c. 495–c. 430 bc), a younger friend of Parmenides. Parmenides had, of course, been severely criticized because of the strange consequences of his doctrine: that in reality there is no motion and no plurality because there is just one solid being. To support him, however, Zeno tried to show that the assumption that there is motion and plurality leads to consequences that are no less strange. This he did by means of his famous paradoxes, saying that the flying arrow rests since it can neither move in the place in which it is nor in a place in which it is not, and that Achilles cannot outrun a turtle because, when he has reached its starting point, the turtle will have moved to a further point, and so on ad infinitum—that, in fact, he cannot even start running, for, before traversing the stretch to the starting point of the turtle, he will have to traverse half of it, and again half of that, and so on ad infinitum. All of these paradoxes are derived from the problem of the continuum. Although they have often been dismissed as logical nonsense, many attempts have also been made to dispose of them by means of mathematical theorems, such as the theory of convergent series or the theory of sets. In the end, however, the logical difficulties raised in Zeno's arguments have always come back with a vengeance, for the human mind is so constructed that it can look at a continuum in two ways that are not quite reconcilable.
Metaphysics of number
All of the philosophies mentioned so far are in various ways historically akin to one another. Toward the end of the 6th century bc, however, there arose, quite independently, another kind of philosophy, which only later entered into interrelation with the developments just mentioned: the philosophy of Pythagoras of Samos (c. 580–c. 500 bc; see also Pythagoreanism). Pythagoras traveled extensively in the Middle East and in Egypt and, after his return to Samos, emigrated to southern Italy because of his dislike of the tyranny of Polycrates (c. 535–522 bc). At Croton and Metapontum he founded a philosophical society with strict rules and soon gained considerable political influence. He appears to have brought his doctrine of the transmigration of souls from the Middle East. Much more important for the history of philosophy and science, however, was his doctrine that "all things are numbers," which means that the essence and structure of all things can be determined by finding the numerical relations they express. Originally, this, too, was a very broad generalization made on the basis of comparatively few observations: for instance, that the same harmonies can be produced with different instruments—strings, pipes, disks, etc.—by means of the same numerical ratios—1:2, 2:3, 3:4—in one-dimensional extensions; the observation that certain regularities exist in the movements of the celestial bodies; and the discovery that the form of a triangle is determined by the ratio of the lengths of its sides. But because the followers of Pythagoras tried to apply their principle everywhere with the greatest of accuracy, one of them—Hippasus of Metapontum (flourished 5th century bc)—made one of the most fundamental discoveries in the entire history of science: that the side and diagonal of simple figures such as the square and the regular pentagon are incommensurable (i.e., their quantitative relation cannot be expressed as a ratio of integers). At first sight this discovery seemed to destroy the very basis of the Pythagorean philosophy, and the school thus split into two sects, one of which engaged in rather abstruse numerical speculations, while the other succeeded in overcoming the difficulty by ingenious mathematical inventions. Pythagorean philosophy also exerted a great influence on the later development of Plato's thought.
The speculations described so far constitute, in many ways, the most important part of the history of Greek philosophy because all of the most fundamental problems of Western philosophy turned up here for the first time. One also finds here the formation of a great many concepts that have continued to dominate Western philosophy and science to the present day.
Anthropology and relativism
In the middle of the 5th century bc, Greek thinking took a somewhat different turn through the advent of the Sophists. The name is derived from the verb sophizesthai, "making a profession of being inventive and clever," and aptly described the Sophists, who, in contrast to the philosophers mentioned so far, charged fees for their instruction. Philosophically they were, in a way, the leaders of a rebellion against the preceding development, which increasingly had resulted in the belief that the real world is quite different from the phenomenal world. "What is the sense of such speculations?" they asked, since no one lives in these so-called real worlds. This is the meaning of the pronouncement of Protagoras of Abdera (c. 490–c. 420 bc) that "man is the measure of all things, of those which are that they are and of those which are not that they are not." For human beings the world is what it appears to them to be, not something else; Protagoras illustrated his point by saying that it makes no sense to tell a person that it is really warm when he is shivering with cold because for him it is cold—for him, the cold exists, is there.
His younger contemporary Gorgias of Leontini (flourished 5th century bc), famous for his treatise on the art of oratory, made fun of the philosophers in his book Peri tou mē ontos ē peri physeōs ("On That Which Is Not; or, On Nature"), in which—referring to the "truly existing world," also called "the nature of things"—he tried to prove (1) that nothing exists, (2) that if something existed, one could have no knowledge of it, and (3) that if nevertheless somebody knew something existed, he could not communicate his knowledge to others.
The Sophists were not only skeptical of what had by then become a philosophical tradition but also of other traditions. On the basis of the observation that different nations have different rules of conduct even in regard to things considered most sacred—such as the relations between the sexes, marriage, and burial—they concluded that most rules of conduct are conventions. What is really important is to be successful in life and to gain influence over others. This they promised to teach. Gorgias was proud of the fact that, having no knowledge of medicine, he was more successful in persuading a patient to undergo a necessary operation than his brother, a physician, who knew when an operation was necessary. The older Sophists, however, were far from openly preaching immoralism. They, nevertheless, gradually came under suspicion because of their sly ways of arguing. One of the later Sophists, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon (flourished 5th century bc), was bold enough to declare openly that "right is what is beneficial for the stronger or better one"—that is, for the one able to win the power to bend others to his will.
The seminal thinkers of Greek philosophy
Socrates (c. 470–399 bc) was also widely considered to be a Sophist, though he did not teach for money and his aims were entirely different from theirs. Although there is a late tradition according to which Pythagoras invented the word philosopher, it was certainly through Socrates—who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was striving for it—that the term came into general use and was later applied to all earlier serious thinkers. In fact, all of the records of Socrates' life and activity left by his numerous adherents and disciples indicate that he never tried to teach anything directly. But he constantly engaged in conversations with everybody—old and young, high and low—trying to bring into the open by his questions the inconsistencies in their opinions and actions. His whole way of life rested on two unshakable premises: (1) the principle never to do wrong nor to participate, even indirectly, in any wrongdoing and (2) the conviction that nobody who really knows what is good and right could act against it. He demonstrated his adherence to the first principle on various occasions and under different regimes. When, after the Battle of Arginusae (406 bc), the majority of the Athenian popular assembly demanded death without trial for the admirals, Socrates, who on that day happened to be president of the assembly (an office changing daily), refused to put the proposal to a vote because he believed it was wrong to condemn anyone without a fair trial. He refused even though the people threatened him, shouting that it would be terrible if the sovereign people could not do as they pleased.
When, after the overthrow of democracy in Athens in 404 bc, the so-called Thirty Tyrants, who tried to involve everybody in their wrongdoing, ordered him to arrest an innocent citizen whose money they coveted, he simply disobeyed. This he did despite the fact that such disobedience was even more dangerous than disobeying the sovereign people had been at the time of unrestricted democracy. Likewise, in the time of the democracy, he pointed out by his questions the inconsistency of allowing oneself to be swayed by the oratory of a good speaker instead of first inquiring into his capability as a statesman, whereas in private life a sensible citizen would not listen to the oratory of a quack but would try to find the best doctor. When, after the overthrow of democracy, the Thirty Tyrants had many people arbitrarily executed, Socrates asked everybody whether a man was a good shepherd who diminished the number of sheep instead of increasing it; and he did not cease his questioning when Critias, the leader of the Thirty Tyrants, warned him to take heed not to diminish the number of sheep by his own—Socrates'—person. But the most fundamental inconsistency that he tried to demonstrate everywhere was that most people by their actions show that what they consider good, wonderful, and beautiful in others—such as, for instance, doing right at great danger to oneself—they do not consider good for themselves, and what they consider good for themselves they despise and condemn in others. Although these stands won him the fervent admiration of many, especially among the youth, they also caused great resentment among leading politicians, whose inconsistencies and failings were exposed. Although Socrates had survived unharmed through the regime of the Thirty Tyrants—partly because it did not last long and partly because he was supported by some close relatives of their leader, Critias—it was under the restored democracy that he was accused of impiety and of corrupting the youth and finally condemned to death, largely also in consequence of his intransigent attitude during the trial.
After Socrates' death his influence became a dominating one through the greater part of the history of Greek and Roman philosophy down to the end of antiquity, and it has been significant ever since. Many of his adherents—Plato first among them, but also including the historian Xenophon (431–c. 350 bc)—tried to preserve his philosophical method by writing Socratic dialogues. Some founded schools or sects that perpetuated themselves over long periods of time: Eucleides of Megara (c. 430–c. 360 bc) emphasized the theoretical aspects of Socrates' thought (see Megarian school), and Antisthenes (c. 445–c. 365 bc) stressed the independence of the true philosopher from material wants. The latter, through his disciple Diogenes of Sinope (died c. 320 bc), who carried voluntary poverty to the extreme and emphasized freedom from all conventions, became the founder of the sect of the Cynics. Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435–366 bc), traditional founder of the Cyrenaic school, stressed independence from material goods in a somewhat different way, declaring that there is no reason why a philosopher should not enjoy material goods as long as he is completely indifferent to their loss. Although Aristippus renounced his son because he led a dissolute life, the school that he founded (through his daughter and his grandson) was hedonistic, holding pleasure to be the only good.
By far the most important disciple of Socrates, however, was Plato, a scion of one of the most noble Athenian families, who could trace his ancestry back to the last king of Athens and to Solon (c. 630–c. 560 bc), the great social and political reformer.
As a very young man, Plato became a fervent admirer of Socrates in spite of the latter's plebeian origins. Contrary to his master, however, who always concerned himself with the attitudes of individuals, Plato believed in the importance of political institutions. In his early youth he had observed that the Athenian masses, listening to the glorious projects of ambitious politicians, had engaged in foolhardy adventures of conquest, which led in the end to total defeat in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bc). When, in consequence of the disaster, democracy was abolished, Plato at first set great hopes in the Thirty Tyrants—especially since their leader, Critias, was a close relative. But he soon discovered that—to use his own words—the despised democracy had been gold in comparison with the new terror. When the oligarchy was overthrown and the restored democracy, in 399 bc, adopted a new law code—in fact, a kind of written constitution containing safeguards against rash political decisions—Plato again had considerable hope and was even inclined to view the execution of Socrates as an unfortunate incident rather than a logical consequence of the new regime. It was only some years later, when demagogy appeared to raise its head again, that he "despaired and was forced to say that things would not become better in politics unless the philosophers would become rulers or the rulers philosophers." He wrote a dialogue, the Gorgias, violently denouncing political oratory and propaganda, and then traveled to southern Italy in order to study political conditions there. Again, however, he found the much-vaunted dolce vita of the Greeks there, in which the rich lived in luxury exploiting the poor, much worse than in the democracy at Athens. But at Syracuse he met a young man, Dion (c. 408–354 bc)—brother-in-law of the ruling tyrant, Dionysius I (c. 430–367 bc)—who listened eagerly to his political ideas and promised to work for their realization if any occasion should arise. On his return to Athens, Plato founded the Academy, an institution for the education of philosophers, and in the following years he produced, besides other dialogues, his great work, Republic, in which he drew the outlines of an ideal state. Because it is the passions and desires of human beings that cause all disturbances in society, the state must be ruled by an elite that governs exclusively by reason and is supported by a class of warriors entirely obedient to it. Both ruling classes must have no individual possessions and no families and lead an extremely austere life, receiving the necessities of life from the working population, which alone is permitted to own private property. The elite receives a rigid education to fit it for its task. At the death of Dionysius, Dion induced Plato to come to Syracuse again to try to persuade Dionysius's successor, Dionysius II (flourished 4th century bc), to renounce his power in favour of a realization of Plato's ideals. But the attempt failed, and in his later political works, the Statesman and the Laws, Plato tried to show that only a god could be entrusted with the absolute powers of the philosopher-rulers of his republic. Human rulers must be controlled by rigid laws, he held—though all laws are inevitably imperfect because life is too varied to be governed adequately by general rules. But the Laws still placed strict restrictions on the ownership of property.
In the field of theoretical philosophy, Plato's most influential contribution was undoubtedly his theory of Forms, which he derived from Socrates' method in the following way: Socrates, in trying to bring out the inconsistencies in his interlocutors' opinions and actions, often asked what it is that makes people say that a certain thing or action is good or beautiful or pious or brave; and he asked what people are looking at when they make such statements. Plato sometimes, in his dialogues, made Socrates ask what is the eidos, or idea—i.e., the image—that a person has before him when he calls something "good." A definite answer is never given, however, because no abstract definition would be adequate, the purpose being rather to make the interlocutor aware of the fact that he somehow does look at something indefinable when making such statements.
What was at first simply a way of somehow expressing something that is difficult to express developed into a definite theory of Forms when Plato made the discovery that something similar could be observed in the field of mathematics. No two things in the visible world are perfectly equal, just as there is nothing that is perfectly good or perfectly beautiful. Yet equality is one of the most fundamental concepts not only in mathematics but also in everyday life—the foundation of all measurement. Hence, like the notion of the good and the beautiful, it appears to come from a different world, a world beyond the senses, a world that Plato then called the world of Forms. Further intimations of such a realm beyond the immediate realm of the senses may be found in the fact that, in construing a system of knowledge, people constantly prefer what is more perfect to what is less perfect—i.e., what is formed and thus recognizable to what is not, what is true to what is false, a sound logical conclusion to a logical fallacy, even an elegant scientific demonstration to a clumsy one, without considering the former as good and the latter as bad.
According to Plato, all of the things that people perceive with their senses are but very imperfect copies of the eternal Forms. The most important and fundamental Form is that of the Good. It is "beyond being and knowledge," yet it is the foundation of both. "Being" in this context does not mean existence, but something specific—a human, a lion, or a house—being recognizable by its quality or shape.
Knowledge begins with a perception of these earthly shapes, but it ascends from there to the higher realm of Forms, which is approachable to the human mind. In the famous myth of the cave in the seventh book of the Republic, Plato likened the ordinary person to a man sitting in a cave looking at a wall on which he sees nothing but the shadows of real things behind his back, and he likened the philosopher to a man who has gotten out into the open and seen the real world of the Forms. Coming back, he may be less able to distinguish the shades because he has been blinded by the light outside; but he is the only one who knows reality, and he conducts his life accordingly.
In his later dialogues, especially the Theaetetus, Plato criticized an empiricist theory of knowledge, anticipating the views of 17th-century English philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). In the Timaeus, Plato tried to construct a complete system of physics, partly employing Pythagorean ideas.
After Plato's death, the Academy continued to exist for many centuries under various heads. When Plato's nephew, Speusippus (died c. 338 bc), was elected as his successor, Plato's greatest disciple, Aristotle (384–322 bc), left for Assus, a Greek city-state in Anatolia, and then went to the island of Lesbos. But soon thereafter he was called to the Macedonian court at Pella to become the educator of the crown prince, who later became Alexander the Great (356–323 bc). After Alexander became king, Aristotle returned to Athens and opened there a school of his own, the Lyceum, whose members were known as Peripatetics.
Aristotle became a member of the Academy at the age of 17, in the year 367 bc, when the school was under the acting chairmanship of Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 395–c. 342 bc), a great mathematician and geographer (Plato was away in Sicily at the time). It is a controversial question as to how far Aristotle, during the 20 years of his membership in the Academy, developed a philosophy of his own differing from that of his master. But two things can be considered as certain: (1) that he soon raised certain objections to Plato's theory of Forms, for one of the objections attributed to him is discussed in Plato's dialogue Parmenides, which Plato must have written soon after his return from Sicily, and (2) that it was during his membership in the Academy that Aristotle began and elaborated his theoretical and formal analysis of the arguments used in various Socratic discussions—an enterprise that, when completed, resulted in the corpus of his works on logic. Aristotle rightly claimed to have invented this discipline; indeed, until rather recent times it was said that he completed it in such a way that hardly anything could be added.
Certainly quite some time before his return to Athens to open a school of his own, Aristotle declared that it is not necessary to assume the existence of a separate realm of transcendent Forms, of which the individual things that human beings perceive with their senses are but imperfect copies; that the world of perceived things is the real world; and that, in order to build up a system of knowledge about certain types or groups of things, it is necessary merely to be able to say that something is generally true of them. Thus, it would be wrong to say that, having abandoned the theory of Forms, Aristotle was left with a completely contingent world. The last chapters of his Posterior Analytics show, on the contrary, that he merely replaced Plato's transcendent Forms with something (katholou) corresponding to them that the human mind can grasp in individual things.
Aristotle retained another important element of the theory of Forms in his teleology, or doctrine of purposiveness. According to Plato, individual things are imperfect copies of perfect Forms. Aristotle pointed out, however, that all living beings develop from an imperfect state (from the seed, the semen, through the germinating plant, or embryo, to the child and young adult) to the more perfect state of the fully developed plant or the full-grown mature animal or human—after which they again decay and finally die, having reproduced. But not all individuals reach the same degree of relative perfection. Many of them die before reaching it; others are retarded or crippled or maimed in various ways in the process. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance for human beings to find out what the best conditions are for reaching the most perfect state possible. This is what the gardener tries to do for the plants; but it is even more important for humankind to do in regard to itself. The first question, then, is what kind of perfection a human being, as human, can reach. In answering this question, Aristotle observed that human beings, as social animals par excellence, can reach as individuals only some of the perfections possible for humans as such. Cats are more or less all alike in their functions; thus each can fend for itself. With bees and termites, however, it is different. They are by nature divided into worker bees, drones, and queen bees, or worker termites, soldier termites, and queens. With human beings the differentiation of functions is much more subtle and varied. People can lead satisfactory lives only on the basis of a division of labour and distribution of functions. Some individuals are born with very great talents and inclinations for special kinds of activity. They will be happy and will make their best possible contribution to the life of the community only if they are permitted to follow this inclination. Others are less one-sidedly gifted and more easily adaptable to a variety of functions. These people can be happy shifting from one activity to another. This fact represents an enormous advantage the human species has over all other animals, because it enables it to adapt to all sorts of circumstances. But the advantage is paid for by the fact that no human individual is able to develop all of the perfections that are possible for the species as a whole.
There is another possible and, in its consequences, real disadvantage to such adaptability: the other animals, tightly confined to the limits set by nature, are crippled almost exclusively by external factors, but humans, in consequence of the freedom of choice granted to them through the variety of their gifts, can and very often do cripple and harm themselves. All human activities are directed toward the end of a good and satisfactory life. But there are many subordinate aims that are sensible ends only as far as they serve a superior end. There is, for example, no sense in producing or acquiring more shoes than can possibly be worn. This is self-evident. With regard to money, however, which has become exchangeable against everything, the illusion arises that it is good to accumulate it without limit. By doing so, humans harm both the community and themselves because, by concentrating on such a narrow aim, they deprive their souls and spirits of larger and more rewarding experiences. Similarly, an individual especially gifted for large-scale planning needs power to give orders to those capable of executing his plans. Used for such purposes, power is good. But coveted for its own sake, it becomes oppressive to those subdued by it and harmful to the oppressor because he thus incurs the hatred of the oppressed. Because of their imperfections, humans are not able to engage in serious and fruitful activities without interruption. They need relaxation and play, or amusement. Because the necessities of life frequently force them to work beyond the limit within which working is pleasant, the illusion arises that a life of constant amusement would be the most pleasant and joyful. In reality nothing would be more tedious.
Aristotle's teleology seems to be based entirely on empirical observation. It has nothing to do with a belief in divine providence and is not, as some modern critics believe, at variance with the law of causality. It forms the foundation, however, of Aristotle's ethics and political theory. Aristotle was an avid collector of empirical evidence. He induced his students, for instance, to study the laws and political institutions of all known cities and nations in order to find out how they worked and at what points their initiators had been mistaken regarding the way in which they would work. In later times, Aristotle came to be considered (and by many is still considered) a dogmatic philosopher because the results of his inquiries were accepted as absolutely authoritative. In reality, however, he was one of the greatest empiricists of all times.
Disciples and commentators
After Aristotle's death his immediate disciples carried on the same kind of work, especially in the historical field: Theophrastus wrote a history of philosophy and works on botany and mineralogy, Eudemus of Rhodes (flourished before 300 bc) wrote histories of mathematics and astronomy, Meno wrote a history of medicine, and Dicaearchus of Messene (flourished c. 320 bc) wrote a history of civilization and a book on types of political constitutions. The next two generations of Peripatetics spread out in two directions: literary history, in the form of histories of poetry, epic, tragedy, and comedy, as well as biographies of famous writers, and physical science. Straton of Lampsacus (died c. 270 bc) created a new kind of physics based on experiments, and the great astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (c. 310–230 bc) invented the heliocentric system. The school then went for some time into eclipse until, in the 1st century ad, after the rediscovery of Aristotle's lecture manuscripts, there arose a great school of commentators on his works, which had an enormous influence on medieval philosophy.
Hellenistic and Roman philosophy
The period after the death of Aristotle was characterized by the decay of the Greek city-states, which then became pawns in the power game of the Hellenistic kings who succeeded Alexander. Life became troubled and insecure. It was in this environment that two dogmatic philosophical systems came into being, Stoicism and Epicureanism, which promised to give their adherents something to hold onto and to make them independent of the external world.
The Stoic system was created by a Syrian, Zeno of Citium (c. 335–c. 263 bc), who went to Athens as a merchant but lost his fortune at sea. Zeno was consoled by the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes (flourished 4th century bc), who taught him that material possessions were of no importance whatever for a person's happiness. He therefore stayed at Athens, heard the lectures of various philosophers, and—after he had elaborated his own philosophy—began to teach in a public hall, the Stoa Poikile (hence the name Stoicism).
Zeno's thought comprised, essentially, a dogmatized Socratic philosophy, with added ingredients derived from Heracleitus (c. 540–c. 480 bc). The basis of human happiness, he said, is to live "in agreement" with oneself, a statement that was later replaced by the formula "to live in agreement with nature." The only real good for a human being is the possession of virtue; everything else—wealth or poverty, health or illness, life or death—is completely indifferent. All virtues are based exclusively on right knowledge, self-control (sōphrosynē) being the knowledge of the right choice, fortitude the knowledge of what must be endured and what must not, and justice the right knowledge "in distribution." The passions, which are the cause of all evil, are the result of error in judging what is a real good and what is not. Because it is difficult to see, however, why murder, fraud, and theft should be considered evil if life and possessions are of no value, the doctrine was later modified to distinguish between "preferable things," such as having the necessities of life and health, "completely indifferent things," and "anti-preferable things," such as lacking the necessities of life or health—while insisting still that the happiness of the truly wise person could not be impaired by illness, pain, hunger, or any deprivation of external goods. In the beginning, Zeno also insisted that an individual is either completely wise, in which case he would never do anything wrong and would be completely happy, or he is a fool. Later he made the concession, however, that there are people who are not completely wise but who are progressing toward wisdom. Although these people might even have true insight, they are not certain that they have it, whereas the truly wise person is also certain of having true insight. The world is governed by divine logos—a word originally meaning "word" or "speech," then (with Heracleitus) a speech that expresses the laws of the universe, then (finally) "reason." This logos keeps the world in perfect order. Human beings can deviate from or rebel against this order, but, by doing so, they cannot disturb it but can only do harm to themselves.
Zeno's philosophy was further developed by Cleanthes (c. 331–c. 232 bc), the second head of the school, and by Chrysippus (c. 280–c. 206 bc), its third head. Chrysippus elaborated a new kind of logic, which did not receive much attention outside the Stoic school until recent times; this "propositional logic" has been hailed by some logicians as superior to the "conceptual logic" of Aristotle. Panaetius of Rhodes (c. 180–109 bc) adapted Stoic philosophy to the needs of the Roman aristocracy, whose members then governed the Western world, and made a great impression on some of the leading figures of the time, who tried to follow his moral precepts. In the following century, a time of civil war, slave rebellions, and the decay of the Roman Republic, Poseidonius of Apamea (c. 135–c. 51 bc), who was also one of the most brilliant historians of all times, taught that the Stoic takes a position above the rest of humankind, looking down on its struggles as on a spectacle. In the period of the consolidation of the empire, Stoicism became the religion of the republican opposition. The most famous Stoic was the younger Cato (95–46 bc), who committed suicide after the victory of Julius Caesar (c. 100–44 bc). It was also the guiding philosophy of Seneca the Younger (c. 4 bc–ad 65), the educator and (for a long time) the adviser of the emperor Nero (37–68), who tried to keep Nero on the path of virtue but failed and finally was forced to commit suicide on Nero's orders. Despite the oddities of Zeno's original doctrine, Stoicism gave consolation, composure, and fortitude in times of trouble to many proud individuals to the end of antiquity and beyond.
The thought of Zeno's contemporary Epicurus (341–270 bc) also constituted a philosophy of defense in a troubled world. Nevertheless, it has been considered—in many respects justly—the opposite of Zeno's thought. Whereas Zeno proclaimed that the wise person tries to learn from everybody and always acknowledges his debt to earlier thinkers, Epicurus insisted that everything he taught was original to himself, though it is obvious that his physical explanation of the universe is a simplification of Democritus's atomism. And whereas the Stoics had taught that pleasure and pain are of no importance for a person's happiness, Epicurus made pleasure the very essence of a happy life. Moreover, the Stoics from the beginning had acted as advisers of kings and statesmen. Epicurus, on the other hand, lived in the retirement of his famous garden, cultivating intimate friendships with his adherents but warning against participation in public life. The Stoics believed in divine providence; Epicurus taught that the gods pay no attention whatever to human beings. Yet despite these contrasts, the two philosophies had some essential features in common. Although Epicurus made pleasure the criterion of a good life, he was far from advocating dissolution and debauchery; he insisted that it is the simple pleasures that make a life happy. When, in his old age, he suffered terrible pain from prostatitis, he asserted that philosophizing and the memory and love of his distant friends made pleasure prevail even then. Nor was Epicurus an atheist. His Roman admirer, the poet Lucretius (flourished 1st century bc), in his poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things), praised Epicurus enthusiastically as the liberator of humankind from all religious fears; Epicurus himself affirmed that this had been one of the aims of his philosophy. But although he taught that the gods are much too superior to trouble themselves with the affairs of mortals, he said—and, as his language clearly shows, sincerely believed—that it is important for human beings to look at the gods as perfect, since only in this way could humans approach perfection. It was only in Roman times that people began to misunderstand Epicureanism, holding it to be an atheistic philosophy justifying a dissolute life, so that a person could be called "a swine from the herd of Epicurus." Seneca, however, recognized the true nature of Epicureanism; in his Epistulae morales (Moral Letters) he deliberately interspersed maxims from Epicurus through his Stoic exhortations.
There was still another Hellenistic school of philosophy, Skepticism, which was initiated by another of Zeno's contemporaries, Pyrrhon of Elis (c. 360–c. 272 bc), and was destined to become of great importance for the preservation of detailed knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy in general. Pyrrhon had come to the conviction that no one can know anything for certain, nor can he ever be certain that the things he perceives with his senses are real and not illusory. Pyrrhon is said to have carried the practical consequences of his conviction so far that, when walking in the streets, he paid no attention to vehicles and other obstacles, so that his faithful disciples always had to accompany him to see that he came to no harm. Pyrrhon's importance for the history of philosophy lies in the fact that one of the later adherents of his doctrine, Sextus Empiricus (flourished 3rd century ad), wrote a large work, Pros dogmatikous ("Against the Dogmatists"), in which he tried to refute all of the philosophers who held positive views, and in so doing he quoted extensively from their works, thus preserving much that would otherwise have been lost. It is a noteworthy fact that the British empiricists of the 18th century, such as David Hume (1711–76), as well as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), derived most of their knowledge of ancient philosophy from Sextus Empiricus.
Neo-Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism
All of the philosophical schools and sects of Athens that originated in the 4th century bc continued into late antiquity, most of them until the emperor Justinian I (ad 483–565) ordered them closed in 529 because of their pagan character. Within this period of nearly 1,000 years, only two new schools emerged, neo-Pythagoreanism and Neoplatonism; both were inspired by early Greek philosophy, though only the latter would become historically important. Neoplatonism was established by Ammonius Saccas (fl. early 3rd century ad), who had been brought up as a Christian but had abandoned his religion for the study of Plato. Because Ammonius wrote nothing, his philosophy is known only through his famous disciple, Plotinus (205–270). But Plotinus did not publish anything either. His philosophy is known through the Enneads, a collection of his writings arranged by his disciple Porphyry (234–305), who also wrote a biography of Plotinus.
Although the philosophy of Plotinus (and Ammonius) was derived from Plato, it used many philosophical terms first coined by Aristotle and adopted some elements of Stoicism as well. Yet it was essentially a new philosophy, agreeing with the religious and mystical tendencies of its time. Plotinus assumed the existence of several levels of Being, the highest of which is that of the One or the Good, which are identical but indescribable and indefinable in human language. The next lower level is that of nous, or pure intellect or reason; the third is that of the soul or souls. There then follows the world perceived by the senses. Finally, at the lowest level there is matter, which is the cause of all evil. The highest bliss available to human beings is union with the One, or the Good, which is attained by contemplation and purification. That this is not a lasting state attained once and for all—like the status of the Stoic wise man, who was supposed never to lose his wisdom—is shown by the fact that Porphyry, in his biography, said that Plotinus had experienced this supreme bliss seven times in his life, whereas he, Porphyry, had experienced it only once.
The further history of Neoplatonism is extremely complicated. While Porphyry had emphasized the ethical element in Plotinus's philosophy, his disciple in Syria, Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 250–c. 330), mingled Neoplatonism with neo-Pythagoreanism, writing on the Pythagorean way of life and on number theory. Above all, he multiplied the levels of Being, or the emanations from the One, which enabled him to incorporate the traditional Greek gods into his system. Another branch of the school was founded in Pergamum, in western Asia Minor, by Iamblichus's student Aedesius (died 355), who, with his own disciple Maximus of Ephesus (died 370), tried to revive the ancient Greek mystery religions, such as Orphism (see mystery religion). All of these developments became of great importance in the 4th century, when Emperor Julian the Apostate (c. 331–363) attempted to revive paganism. In the following century the Athenian school reached a new high point when Proclus (c. 410–485) combined the ideas of his predecessors into a comprehensive system. When Justinian closed all of the philosophical schools in Athens in 529, however, a branch continued to exist in Alexandria. The Athenian Neoplatonists found refuge at the court of the Persian king Khosrow I (died 579), and in 535 they were permitted to return to Athens. But gradually pagan philosophy as such died out, though it continued to influence the development of Christian philosophy and theology.Kurt von Fritz


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"Run for cover, everybody; get the hell out of here, on the double!" the leader of the commando unit shouted over his shoulder to the men behind him, his voice echoing eerily in the pitch-black basement. "It is a booby-trap. Watch your step for more wires as you go!"
Panting, swearing, stumbling, falling and rattling with all kinds of firearms, the other fighters rushed to hide behind walls of adjacent rooms, the beams of their flashlights making herky-jerky patterns in the darkness.
Ukraine conflict: An article in the July 16 Section A about unlikely allies in the conflict in Ukraine said that the worst day of violence in the anti-government protests was March 20. It was Feb. 20.
As the squad's explosives expert carefully cut the tiny strings connecting the booby trap inside a Russian army ammo box, Vadim Lisnichuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry unit, gently lifted the lid to find a neatly packed hand grenade.
"One more gift from our big brother up north," he joked, sweating profusely as the device planted by pro-Russia separatists was being disarmed.
Lisnichuk hasn't always been a respected combat leader. A few months ago, the 36-year-old had an advertising career in the city of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine. Then he joined the protests in Kiev's Independence Square, popularly called Maidan, that brought down the government of President Viktor Yanukovich.
"Maidan was a kind of a spiritual festival held on another planet," Lisnichuk said. "It helped us tear up our puppet strings and feel the taste of real freedom for the first time."
Armed with sticks, Molotov cocktails and homemade shields, he and thousands of other protesters fought riot police equipped with truncheons, stun grenades and high-caliber rifles in the bloody battlefield that was Maidan.
Now Lisnichuk has joined forces with the same riot police who once opposed him, becoming unlikely comrades in arms against a common enemy: the separatists who until recently made this eastern town their stronghold in their bid to break away from Ukraine and join Russia.
"Little did I know back then that it would end like this," Lisnichuk said. "But now my weapon is not a stick but a sniper's rifle and my brothers in arms are not just a motley crew of freedom lovers. We are soldiers now and we will defend our land."
For three months, Lisnichuk and his men in the special forces unit had been trying to dislodge the separatists, who had set up positions in apartments and backyards across Slovyansk, he said. During that time, 258 Ukrainian servicemen were killed, officials said Tuesday.
Finally, more than a thousand insurgents and Russian mercenaries retreated from the city this month, leaving most of their military hardware behind as Ukrainian national guard forces closed in, Lisnichuk said, as he and his men were having a smoke outside amid piles of crushed glass and other debris left by the militants' hasty exit.
Most of the city's residents initially supported the separatists, hoping that Russia might annex eastern Ukraine as it did the Crimean peninsula in March. As Lisnichuk and his team did mopping-up operations, the Russian television First Channel news program carried a gory account by an "eyewitness" about Ukrainian troops crucifying a 3-year-old boy in front of his mother in Slovyansk's central square.
"At first we were afraid to come out and meet our army boys when they came because the Russian television and the [pro-Russia] gunmen down here had warned us that security forces from Kiev would slaughter all the civilian population in town once they came," said one middle-aged woman, who refused to give her name for fear of being targeted by the separatists.
The Ukrainian forces also had to overcome distrust from within.
As heavy fighting was rolling away from Slovyansk and a national guard battalion was preparing to move toward the separatist-held regional capital, Donetsk, one of the soldiers sat on top of a small hill overlooking a golden landscape of endless fields of sunflowers surrounding the base.
Ivan Datsko, 30, a small-time trader from the western city of Lviv who had fought in Maidan, recalled the carnage at the hands of riot police snipers on March 20 in the square that left about 100 protesters dead. Several police officers were also killed that day, the worst violence of Yanukovich's rule.
"I will never forget how I crawled up along Institutskaya Street pulling the lifeless body of my friend shot by a sniper bullet," Datsko said. "It was not a battle, as we didn't have weapons; it was an execution as bullets came from the ranks of the riot police up the road."
Soon after Yanukovich fled for Russia at the end of February, pro-Russia armed groups began to seize cities and towns here in the eastern Donbass area, a confrontation that soon unfolded into a real war in the region.
Now Datsko is a member of the national guard, which makes up the bulk of the Ukrainian government forces enforcing law and order in eastern Ukraine.
"At first we were very suspicious of the riot policemen in our forces, as they seemed to be resentful toward us," Datsko said.
But his baptism by fire against the pro-Russia insurgents changed all that.
One day back in May during heavy fighting, Datsko crawled once again across a battlefield to help another injured fellow fighter — this time a former riot policeman — as another one of his former Kiev opponents emptied his gun in cover fire for Datsko, he recalled.
"A few days later, our helicopter was shot down near Slovyansk, killing our general and several former riot policemen who were on board with him," Datsko said. "That night we — former Maidan fighters and former policemen — sat together, drank some vodka to the memory of fallen comrades, embraced and swore to each other that we will avenge their deaths.
"And all the previous scores and animosity forever became a thing of the past between us."
Not everybody is euphoric about the newly formed brotherhood in arms of eastern Ukraine.
"It took me years to get military training, and these guys became soldiers overnight," said national guard Senior Lt. Pavel Fesenko, a former riot police officer.
"We were protecting law and order in Independence Square, and these guys were violating it, throwing Molotov cocktails at us, injuring and killing my comrades," he said. "I will never trust them not to do some outrageous things again sometime and expose us, the professional soldiers, to unnecessary risks."
But another member of the riot police expressed admiration for the new soldiers.
"These Maidan guys may be unruly and over-emotional sometimes, but when it comes to business they have no fear. They are born soldiers," national guard company commander Senior Lt. Serhiy Kovalenko said. "They are not yet properly trained and they need more experience. But if we can teach them a few tricks of the trade they can teach many of us a few things about patriotism.
"I know that I am OK if a former Maidan guy is watching my back in battle, and that is the main thing," he said. "We are in one boat now."
As Kovalenko spoke, his national guard base near Slovyansk was swarming with activity as the soldiers were preparing to pull out. Soldiers and officers, most of them shirtless, were reassembling and cleaning their firearms, brushing their boots, shaving their faces and heads.
A passing senior officer heard the men roaring with laughter over one soldier's off-color joke.
"Good to hear the troops in high spirits," he said as he made his way through the grounds. "Now I know we are in shape for more fighting!"
The day before, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov visited the national guard base. He praised the valor of its soldiers, awarded a few of them medals and brought 400 new NATO helmets and ballistic vests with him in a bus. He said thousands more helmets and vests would be coming.
As Avakov was making his speech, former Maidan fighters and former riot policemen stood shoulder to shoulder in the parade grounds.
"The real goals and real values they face now change their vision of the world imposed by the former regime," Avakov said after the ceremony. "What separated them back then was the values of a revolution and the sense of duty; what unites them now is Ukraine's independence."


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I installed Wubi here, but when restart the pc I got the following screen:
And this "command line" "initramfs". How do I preceed from here?
By the way, looks like my HD is raid. Not sure, because I really don't know how to check, and don't know if this changes anything for using Wubi.


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This year weíre holding a drawing to offer a special gift for one of our sponsors: a 17-ounce bag of Juan Ana medium roast ground coffee!
The rules for entering are simple:
1) Share our Facebook page with two (or more) friends who haven't yet liked our page, and invite them to like our page.
2) Email [email protected] with the names of your friends who just liked our Facebook page through your invitation. (A subject line such as "Coffee giveaway" also helps.)
Please include your name and CFCA ID (number beginning with the letters ASC) as well as your preferred method of contact if you win the coffee.
That's it! Your name will be entered into a drawing, which ends Wednesday, Dec. 7. We'll pick the winner on Thursday, Dec. 8.
The Juan Ana coffee and CFCA connection:
For coffee growers, harvest is the time of the year when most of a family's household income is generated. Of the 22 countries where CFCA works, all but Chile are major coffee producers.
An estimated 60 percent of the 88,000 families served by CFCA in Guatemala, for example, depend on coffee for their livelihood. (Here's a related story about coffee-growing families in our sponsorship program.)
The Juan Ana coffee is cultivated, roasted and packaged by members of the San Lucas Mission in Guatemala.
Many of the members of the mission and most of the coffee workers have children in the CFCA sponsorship program. (You can also order Juan Ana coffee online. Note: The coffee program is not affiliated with CFCA, and proceeds benefit the San Lucas Mission.)
Weíre looking forward to giving a bag of this exceptional coffee to our drawing winner. Good luck!
Faces of CFCA for December
In other news, the next ìFaces of CFCAî profile picture is up on our Facebook page!
From left are Maria; Becky Keels, Maria's sponsor; and Candelaria, Maria's grandmother. Becky lives in Texas and sponsored Maria after a 2009 mission awareness trip to Guatemala, where they met.
If you want your photo to be considered for the next ìFaces of CFCAî profile picture, simply email a .jpg photo file (the higher the resolution, the better) to [email protected].
Include your name and your preferred form of contact (phone, email, etc.) in case we have any questions about your submission.
Thanks so much!


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M101 SanctionPage address: https://www.mnsu.edu/shs/m101sanction.html
Marijuana 101 Sanction
Completion Instructions and Program Information
- Marijuana 101 is an intervention course used for marijuana violations. The course is designed to reduce negative consequences and is presented in a motivational interviewing style. Marijauana 101 includes the eCHECKUP TO GO brief intervention for marijuana.
Read all instructions before enrolling in Marijuana 101.
Enroll and Complete
- Enroll and complete Marijuana 101. Instructions below:
- In the left column under Course Enrollment click --Begin Enrollment--, select College.
- When directed Enter Control Number, enter code below and click Continue.
- You will receive an individual password immediately on the screen and by email.
- It takes about 3 hours to complete the course and you can log in and out as needed.
- You will receive an email 30 days after you complete the course reminding you to log in and complete the 15-minute follow-up.
- You will not receive your Certificate of Completion until you finish the course.
- Upon completion of the course, you and the Coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Sanction Education will receive a completion notification by email.
Pay the $85.00 program fee
- A $85 program fee will be posted to your student account. You may pay the fee online or at the Cashiers Office, 128 Wigley Administration Center.
Please Note:
- By enrolling online your implied consent is given allowing communication with referral staff regarding completion or failure to complete the Marijuana 101 program. No other information will be relayed to referral staff.
- Refer to your outcome letter or contact your referral staff person for questions regarding your assigned deadline.
- Failure to complete your sanction by the assigned deadline will result in a hold placed on registration and future enrollment.


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|MILF Next Door
Click here to visit site
|Short review: When the cats away, the mice will play, and theres pronouncedly a lot of playing going on from this internet-site, with gender bender scenarios. Mature ladies are more open minded, they know what feels good, in both giving and receiving, and this website will prove it. My only complaint comes in the form of their un-scheduled action of updating, they'll be recent and then just stop, with a 6 twelvemonth pattern of it.


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You see the following error code when you use Xbox 360:
This may mean that the format of the video isn't supported by Xbox 360, or that one of the streams in the video file is corrupted.
To avoid this problem, only play video formats that are supported by Xbox 360. To see which video formats are supported by Xbox 360, see the "Supported regions, formats and discs" section of Play DVDs on your Xbox 360 console.
If you keep experiencing the problem, contact Xbox Support by clicking the "Contact us" link at the bottom of this page.
Thanks for your feedback!
Provide feedback for this topic
Would you like to contact Support regarding the "Error 69-C00D36B4 occurs when you try to play a video on Xbox 360" issue you were reading about or a different issue?


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So i go away for about 5 days, when i come home i do my usual thing (ignore the family) go straight to my computer. turn it on and it starts to freak out about 30 things (lots of the nicholas cage bees) pop up saying my 2TB hard drive was full. i remember when i left i was using about 500GB. so i use windirstat to see whats taking up so much space.
After about 5 minutes of scanning it shows me a large blue box. about 700GB a single fraps video. now i wanted to see who would record that much. turns out the f9 button (default fraps record) is the same as the pause key on dota 2. not only that my younger brother left is paused to go see a movie. so i had over 3 hours of paused dota 2 game play footage taking up over a TB on my computer.
fun times
i good computer
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- / World & News
- / Countries of the World
- / Lesotho
Facts & Figures
Sovereign: King Letsie III (1996)
Prime Minister: Pakalitha Mosisili (2015)
Total area: 11,718 sq mi (30,350 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 1,942,008 (growth rate: 0.34%); birth rate: 25.92/1000; infant mortality rate: 50.48/1000; life expectancy: 52.65
Capital and largest city (2011 est.): Maseru 239,000
Monetary unit: Maluti
- Lesotho Main Page
- Thabane Appointed Prime Minister
- Thabane Flees to South Africa
Mountainous Lesotho, the size of Maryland, is surrounded by the Republic of South Africa.
Parliamentary constitutional monarchy.
Lesotho (formerly Basutoland) was constituted as a native state under British protection by a treaty signed with the native chief Moshoeshoe in 1843. It was annexed to Cape Colony in 1871, but in 1884 it was restored to direct control by the Crown. The colony of Basutoland became the independent nation of Lesotho on Oct. 4, 1966, with King Moshoeshoe II as sovereign.
In the 1970 elections, Ntsu Mokhehle, head of the Basutoland Congress Party, claimed a victory, but Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan declared a state of emergency, suspended the constitution, and arrested Mokhehle. King Moshoeshoe II was briefly exiled.
After the king refused to approve the replacement in Feb. 1990 of individuals dismissed by Justin Metsino Lekhanya, the chairman of the military council, the latter stripped the king of his executive power. Then in early March, Lekhanya sent the king into exile. In November, the king was dethroned, and his son was sworn in as King Letsie III.
Lekhanya was himself forced to resign in April 1991, and Col. Ramaema became the new chairman in May. In Jan. 1995, he abdicated in favor of his father , Moshoeshoe II. Letsie again became crown prince. In 1996, however, King Moshoeshoe died in an automobile accident, and Letsie again assumed the throne.
In fall 1998, hundreds of demonstrators protested for weeks in front of the king's palace, claiming voting fraud in the May elections that put Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili in power. They demanded that the government step down and hold new elections. Troops from South Africa and Botswana entered the country to stop the riots and put down an army mutiny. In 2002, Mosisili was reelected under a revised political system that gave opposition parties a larger role in Parliament.
Lesotho faces one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world.
Thabane Appointed Prime Minister
On June 8, 2012, Tom Thabane assumed office as prime minister. He replaced Pakalitha Mosisili.
Thabane served in Mosisili's government from 1998 to 2006 and was a member of the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party. However, in 2006, he split from the LCD and formed an opposition party, the All Basotho Convention. After the May 2012 parliamentary election, he formed a coalition with other parties and was appointed prime minister.
Thabane Flees to South Africa
On Aug. 30, 2014, Prime Minister Thabane fled Lesotho for South Africa. Thabane claimed that he left because the military was attempting a coup and planning to kill him. The military denied his claims. Deputy Prime Minister Mothetjoa Metsing took over as prime minister in Thabane's absence. With the protection of the South African police, Thabane returned to Lesotho on Sept. 3. He remained prime minister until the 2015 general election.
Lesotho held the general election on Feb. 28, 2015. No party won the majority. However, the opposition Democratic Congress party formed a coalition government. On March 17, Pakalitha Mosisili was sworn in as prime minister. Mosisili previous served as prime minister from 1998 through 2012.
See also Encyclopedia: Lesotho .
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Lesotho