Over 200 international philosophers braved strikes and protests, coming to Greece this month to join a forum and debate matters of the mind.
For the organizers, the event was a success, a sign that life goes on despite economic hardship and perceptions abroad that Greece is one step from anarchy.
It came as a victory at a timewhen the country’s debates are dominated by hoarse-voiced slogans. After all, Greece’s illustrious ancient thinkers built the foundations of Western scholarship, and their philosophy stands as an unquantifiable source of national wealth even during a financial crisis.
“Sometimes people think that the philosopher is up on Mount Olympus, thinking about abstract things,” said Stathis Psillos, a philosophy professor at the University of Athens. “We philosophers have somehow to stand up and say, ‘Look, OK, money, and profit, and the bailout are important. But there are people also.'”
Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and a legion of others were explored, virtue and reason, ethics and evidence, science and harmony. They also pondered financial theory — the drachma was in circulation then.
In practical terms, the intellectual superstars would scratch their heads. They lived before capitalism, bailout funds, balance sheets, and mass consumerism.
They would discover a society radically changed by education, industry and technology. And they might be surprised by the rage, not deliberation, that has gripped Athens, which has been rocked by protests and riots this week protesting wage cuts and austerity measures.
Psillos, who hosted the three-day forum of the European Philosophy of Science Association, said the “social contract,” an idea with Greek roots that groups individuals in a political union, was in “violent rupture” because the state safety net was being scaled down dramatically. The government says the cuts and tax hikes are vital to get international rescue loans that are warding off a wider European or even global crisis.
Several philosophers say Aristotle’s theories are among the most relevant to the financial chaos that has stripped many Greeks of jobs and state benefits once taken for granted.
That message, that wealth should service human needs and not fuel greed, will ring true to Greeks angry with politicians for having overspent more than they should in the past, setting the country up for its current crisis. It might even be seen as anti-capitalist — Aristotle’s ideas are said to have influenced Karl Marx.
“It’s relevant to every human situation and deeply political at the same time,” Charos said. “In tough periods, people have a kind of necessity to refind the basics of morality.”
De Boer said philosophy cannot solve conflict in a modern state such as Greece.
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