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MEGARIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 77 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEGARIAN SCHOOL OF See also:

PHILOSOPHY . founded by Euclides of See also:Megara, one of the pupils of See also:Socrates. Two See also:main elements went to make up the Megarian See also:doctrine. Like the See also:Cynics and the See also:Cyrenaics, Euclides started from the Socratic principle that virtue is know-ledge. But into See also:combination with this he brought the Eleatic doctrine of Unity. Perceiving the difficulty of the Socratic dictum he endeavoured to give to the word " knowledge " a definite content by divorcing it absolutely from the See also:sphere of sense and experience, and confining it to a sort of transcendental See also:dialectic or See also:logic. The Eleatic unity is Goodness, and is beyond the sphere of sensible See also:apprehension. This goodness, therefore, alone exists; See also:matter, See also:motion, growth and decay are figments of the senses; they have no existence for See also:Reason. " Whatever is, is !" Knowledge is of ideas and is in conformity with the necessary See also:laws of thought. Hence See also:Plato in the Sophist describes the Megarians as " the See also:friends of ideas." Yet the Megarians were by no means in agreement with the Platonic See also:idealism. For they held that ideas, though eternal and immovable, have neither See also:life nor See also:action nor See also:movement. This dialectic, initiated by Euclides, became more and more opposed to the testimony of experience; in the hands of See also:Eubulides and Alexinus it degenerated into hairsplitting, mainly in the See also:form of the reductio ad absurdum. The strength of these men See also:lay in destructive See also:criticism rather than in construction: as dialecticians they were successful, but they contributed little to ethical See also:speculation.

They spent their See also:

energy in attacking Plato and See also:Aristotle, and hence earned the opprobrious epithet of Eristic. They used' their dialectic subtlety to disprove the possibility of motion and decay; unity is the negation of See also:change, increase and decrease, See also:birth and See also:death. None the less, in See also:ancient times they received See also:great respect owing to their intellectual pre-See also:eminence. See also:Cicero (Academics, ii. 42) describes their doctrine as a " nobilis disciplina," and identifies them closely with Parmenides and See also:Zeno. But their most immediate See also:influence was upon the See also:Stoics (q.v.), whose founder, Zeno; studied under See also:Stilpo. This philosopher, a See also:man of striking and attractive See also:personality, succeeded in fusing the Megarian dialectic with Cynic See also:naturalism. The result of the combination was in fact a juxtaposition rather than a See also:compound; it is manifestly impossible to find an organic connexion between a See also:practical See also:code like Cynicism and the transcendental logic of the Megarians. But it served as a powerful stimulus to Zeno, who by descent was imbued with See also:oriental See also:mysticism. For See also:bibliographical l See also:information about the Megarians, see EUCLIDES; EUBULIDES; DIODORUS CRONUS; STILPO. See also ELEATIC SCHOOL; CyNtcs; STOICS; and, for the connexion between the Megarians and the Eretrians, See also:MENEDEMUS and See also:PHAEDO. Also See also:Zeller, Socrates and the Socratic Schaols; Dyeck, De Megaricorum doctrina (See also:Bonn, 1827); See also:Mallet, Histoire de l'ecole de Megare (See also:Paris, 1845); See also:Ritter, Ober See also:die Philosophie der rmeg.

Schule; Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, i. 32; Henne, L'ecole de Megare (Paris, 1843); See also:

Gomperz, See also:Greek Thinkers (Eng. trans. 1905), ii. 170 seq.

End of Article: MEGARIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY

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