Timothy Allen

Many scholars have investigated the origins of philosophy in ancient Greece. The standard approach to this problem has been to see philosophical thinking as having evolved from some pre-existing intellectual enterprise, such as literature or technology. Scholars who approach the problem also generally identify one of the presocratics as the "first philosopher." ;No consensus has emerged regarding any of these issues. Closer examination reveals that although the enterprises in which these early contributors were engaged are interesting, they do not qualify as genuine, philosophical activity. There were isolated inquiries resembling philosophy, but no sustained philosophical activity as such. The reason for this is chiefly because the appropriate preconditions for doing philosophy were not yet present. ;What I suggest as an alternative approach to the problem is to examine the development of the conceptual space which allowed for sustained philosophical activity to emerge. ;The seer or sage, whose claim to knowledge was based on authority or tradition, was an established figure in the Greek community. What I suggest is that certain social and political developments in Greece, most notably the formation of the polis, provided the preconditions for the emergence of a new kind of wise man. The concepts of citizenship and of political equality, and with them the rights to participate in the political process and to plead one's case before the courts or the assembly, allowed for the development of a new form of intellectual enterprise: reasoned discourse or the convincing argument. ;This new kind of intellectual endeavor is first associated with the sophists, who became masters of argumentative technique. The sophists were judged by Plato, however, as being concerned only with the argument, and not with the purpose for which it was deployed. The sophists would argue equally for either side of an issue; whereas, Plato holds, rational argument should be employed only in service of the truth. ;In this way, Plato distinguished philosophy from sophistry; and his conception of philosophy, as the search for indisputable truth by means of reason and argument, became the enduring conception of philosophy. ;It is here, I conclude, that the real origin of philosophy is to be found