Greek Views on Human Nature

The Fall of Icarus (La caída de Ícaro, óleo sobre lienzo) by Jacob Peter Gowy, 1635.

Although ancient Greek civilization differed in many respects from that of the Hebrews, both cultures saw human nature as tragically flawed. A recurring theme in Greek myths, epic poetry, and the tragic theater was hamartia, human error or excess, and the related notion of hubris, an attitude of overly prideful behavior that caused injury and shame to oneself and others. Greek myths tell many stories of the tragic consequence of human overconfidence and overreaching. One famous story is that of the boy Icarus, whose father fashioned him wax wings only to have his son fly too closely toward the sun and then fall fatally to earth as his wings melted. Another well-known story is that of the Titan Prometheus, who steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans, thereby being punished for eternity. These stories suggest that human beings may seek God-like powers but to do so is to pay a price.

Homer in The Iliad tells the story of the mighty warrior Achilles, who seems invincible but is finally killed when a spear pierces the one small area of vulnerability on his lowly heel (where his mother, the goddess Thetis, had held him in the River Styx so that he could become immortal). This story has given us the phrase “Achilles heel,” referring to human vulnerabilities that we all possess and that can potentially destroy us.

Plato, also aware of human vulnerabilities, anticipated Freud by 2 millennia, when he described the human personality metaphorically as a charioteer and two horses, one white and one black. The passions (i.e., the black horse) are in conflict with reason (i.e., the rider), who must enlist the help of the spirit (i.e., the white horse) to tame and control unruly human desires and emotions (Olivier, 2012).

Greek Philosophy: Socrates/Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics

Although the ancient Greeks saw human nature as flawed and sometimes tragically blind and self-deluded, they also found much that was beautiful, wise, and inspiring in human life. Greek sculpture expressed the human body and character as having strength, nobility, beauty. Greek portrayals of the human body celebrated balance and perfection of the human anatomy (Macaulay, 2015).

Through the Olympic Games, Greeks expressed a keen interest in the cultivation of athletic excellence. The Olympic Games were a way for men to demonstrate their prowess in competitions with neighboring city-states. Both Socrates and Aristotle embraced the notion of Eudaimonia or “human flourishing” which comes from the practice of excellence and virtue in both body and mind (Moore, 2019).

In many ways, the ancient Greeks were early proponents of a human potential movement in which citizens were encouraged to improve themselves through literacy, lively discourse, and civic engagement. One directed these activities toward the twin goals of achieving wisdom and avoiding excess. Within this vision, the good life was obtainable through a combination of luck, moderation, and the cultivation of intelligence and virtue.

Socrates (469-399 BCE), was a Greek philosopher and a founding father of western intellectual thought. His student, Plato (428-348 BCE) established the Academy and taught Aristotle (384-322 BCE). Aristotle, who later set up his own school called the Lyceum, was purported to be the teacher of Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE).

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others were teachers in ancient Greece. It was the responsibility of young men to create arguments and present them orally at civic assemblies of Greek city-states, such as Athens.. Attending open air fora such as those provided by Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others was a way to obtain those skills. In addition, some students received private tutoring.

The writings of Plato about Socrates

School of Athens, by Raphael, 1509. Socrates and Plato are represented in the center.

Phaedo, written by Plato, was an expression of the philosophy of his teacher, Socrates. In this dialogue, Plato presented Socrates as believing that when we learn something, we are actually recollecting the knowledge we gained before we were born. His concept of “ideal forms,” which do not exist on earth but which are the basis of our thought, had a profound influence on future thinkers.

Phaedo is an early argument against the conception of the human mind as a blank slate (Plato & Gallop, 2019). Socrates/Plato’s work influenced that of John Locke (1788), who centuries later took a contrasting position that the human mind is a blank slate and that we gain all knowledge through sense experience.

The dialogues of Socrates, such as Phaedo, were masterworks of careful, critical thinking later called the Socratic method. They were models for disciplined thought for generations to follow unto this day.

Aristotle

Aristotle, as Plato’s pupil, was profoundly influenced by his ideas and methods. He set up his own school after the death of Plato called The Lyceum, where he attracted students towards different studies. Whereas Plato was a philosopher whose framework was unobtainable truths, Aristotle would today be identified with the physical and social sciences, gathering evidence of differences of plants, animals, and societies from every source he could (including from Alexander the Great, who had been his pupil). His philosophy is grounded in knowledge of human nature, rather than in divine unobtainable forms. Like the works of Plato, who reported on his teacher, Socrates, the works of Aristotle are taken from notes of his pupils, rather than from his own writing.

The Stoics

This quest for the good life was further reflected in the development of practical philosophy that advocated the application of various insights, attitudes, and practices to achieve the good life. For the Stoics, particularly associated with Zeno of Citium (300 BCE) inner peace and harmony with one’s fellow man could be achieved by cultivating reason and controlling various desires and strong emotions. Similar to the “Four Noble Truths” from Buddhism (from a totally different part of the world and with no known link to the Greeks), Stoicism held that human suffering comes from excessive and unrealistic desires that could be tamed through reason and the calming of the mind through regular meditation. Anticipating the cognitive behavioral therapies of today, the Stoics believed that mind and its perceptions controlled emotion as expressed in Epictetus’s (2018; lived c.55–c.135) maxim “Man is disturbed not by things but by the views he takes of them.”

Homer’s Odyssey

As writing developed and literature emerged, cultural myths, legends, and folktales that had long circulated orally were written down, preserving cultural learning which shaped and guided both groups and individuals. They served as explanations as to how the world came into being. They also served as guidelines for functioning successfully in society, living wisely, and prevailing against the fates and possible interventions of the gods.

Among the most common myth is the hero’s tale, a story of the journey such as the classic myth of The Odyssey by Homer. Joseph Campbell, in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1968/1949), helps us to appreciate that the story of Odysseus is but one story of many having the universal theme of a hero in search of self and home. Similar exploits and journeys have been told across time and culture in The Iliad, in the Gilgamesh epic, in the Bhagavad Gita, through the Buddha’s path to enlightenment, Lord of the Rings, Lion King, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and others.

Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey (Homer & Lawrence, 2018), written approximately in the 8th century BCE, is the hero’s tale of the Greek Odysseus, the exploits of his journey home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy and his eventual reunion with his wife Penelope. Through a series of “testings,” Odysseus is shown to truly be her husband, and Penelope demonstrates through her cleverness and cunning that she has been loyal and true to her husband during his long absence. Key moral values emerging in the poem include the nature of true hospitality, loyalty, love, and perseverance.

Odysseus and Penelope, by Johann Heirich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1802.

Homer’s plot design to have Odysseus endure a series of trials is intended to enable him to face his “flaw” of human pride and eventually prevail in the course of the many obstacles he must overcome. As he allows experience to be his teacher, he demonstrates that growth through trial is possible. Character formation forged in the crucible of conflict is “perfected” so that what emerges through trial and testing results in greater wisdom and judgment. In the case of Odysseus, it also leads to the eventual restoration of his family. Human development in the case of Odysseus is the product of the testing of the gods as well as his environment, experience, and learning.

Odysseus and Penelope play out the expected class and gender roles in their respective portrayal as husband and wife seeking reunion. Odysseus is the man of action and courage. Penelope remains in her customary domain as mistress of the home. But both prove to be capable of expanding their stereotypical roles. Just as Odysseus is too clever for the Trojans—and the suitors—so his wife Penelope is a model of cleverness and circumspection. She tries to avoid re-marriage and delays the event by a clever ruse: she agrees to marry a suitor only after she has finished weaving a death shroud for Odysseus’s father, Laertes. The suitors agree to this, but little do they know that she weaves the shroud by day, and unweaves it by night. Penelope also outsmarts the suitors by cunningly setting up a contest for marriage that only Odysseus could win. In this she proves to be equally heroic in the course of the drama as her husband. By so doing, she manifests a high degree of agency for her time and cultural position when women were not normally placed in such circumstances or expected to “save the day.” Together, both husband and wife demonstrate they are the products of their socialization and life station but are able to transcend typical gender roles to address and overcome the exigencies of their circumstances.

The Role of Greek Playwrights, Tragedy and Comedy

The Greeks’ development of an unusually curious and intellectually vigorous culture was evident in the prolific and sophisticated writings of philosophers, playwrights, and poets. Plays, sponsored by the wealthy and performed in large amphitheaters, were attended by different social classes. They served a social function of conveying messages about norms to the populous.

What does a scene filled with drunken men in goat skins singing to welcome Dionysus have to do with the likes of King Lear, The Producers, Hamilton, Death of a Salesman, Raisin in the Sun, and scores of other productions made for the stage? These latter plays and musicals find their origin in the ancient Greek theater going back to 700 BCE to festival celebrations on stage honoring the gods and goddesses of Greek culture. The City Dionysia, in reference to the drunken men, was one such creative production with its Greek chorus singing to the god of wine. Play competitions, usually between three playwrights, met at festivals in a version of “Athens Has Talent” before as many as 12,000 to 15,000 theatergoers to see who would leave with the highly regarded prize for best play (Storey & Allen, 2005).

Ancient Greek theatre (Segesta)

The Greeks loved their plays, which were more like our operas. In both their tragedies and comedies, the actors wore masks that embodied the pertinent emotions We still see these represented today in many theaters as the sad tragedian mask alongside its complementary smiling comedic mask. The actors, the music, the chorus, the heroes and heroines, the humor, in time the painted backdrop all kept the populace coming back for more. Where our well-known playwrights go by names such as William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Henrik Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Julia Donaldson, and Neil Simon, a veteran Greek theatergoer would name the best known dramatists of their culture as Aeschylus (525–456 BCE; the father of tragedy), Sophocles (497/6 BCE), Euripides (480–406 BCE), and Aristophanes (446–386 BCE; the father of comedy) (Storey & Allen, 2005).

The Greek tragedy dealt in the realm of mythology or history. It portrayed the downfall of a noble hero or heroine who perhaps blundered as a consequence of an innate flaw or human frailty, or an encounter with one of the gods appearing as a prophet, oracle, or one of the fates. They may have committed a disastrous mistake, leading to their downfall. This hero or heroine would undergo a change in circumstances, and thereby experience a revelation or insight about their dire situation before the play ends (Storey & Allen, 2005).

The popular Greek comedy was, by contrast, about common members of the populous, not the heroes and celebrates. For example, the playwright Menander (343 BCE–291 BCE) gave us the stock character of the “The Grouch,” one that continues until today. Comedies would provide theater goers with situations of mistaken identity, lusty romance, and of course humor with the chorus doing its songs and dances between acts (Storey & Allen, 2005).

These two forms of drama were very popular in their own era and also adopted by the Romans and other playwrights down to our own day. Plays were a forum for raising and discussing current issues, as well as the nature of humans and the gods. As such, ancient Greek plays were similar to contemporary movies, TV shows, soap operas, and other media that give us insight into those who are like ourselves us and those who are not.