No Socrates

Different. Very different. Not necessarily inconceiviably different.

1) Alcibiades dies at Potidaea.

2) After the Peace of Nicias in 421, the Athenian Empire remains in an uneasy truce with the Peloponnesian League until the Persian Civil War in 400.

3) Having been originally schooled by Heraclitus, Plato ends up traveling the Eastern Mediterranean. Frustrated by the lack of true knowledge, Plato returns to Athens (after the Peace of 385) to begin a career as a dramatist. His plays are widely remembered for their insight into great questions of justice. They are most popular, however, for their memorialization of the struggles during the oligarchic coup of 399.

4) Banished from Athens, Xenophon travels to Sicily and falls in with Pythagoras. Distressed at the ethereal nature of Pythagorean theory, Xenophon begins to write long treatises on philosophy, emphasizing the necessity of evidence and reasoning from proof. His work is remembered for the Xenphonic method, also known as Xenophony, an intellectual critique characerized by aggressive and constant questioning of an opponent's thesis. Some scholars believe this a legacy of Xenophon's cavalry service. His work is the core of Mediterranean philosophy and inspired the writings of later Philipic writers after the Macedonian conquests.
 
Originally Posted by Nichomacheus
4) Banished from Athens, Xenophon travels to Sicily and falls in with Pythagoras. Distressed at the ethereal nature of Pythagorean theory, Xenophon begins to write long treatises on philosophy, emphasizing the necessity of evidence and reasoning from proof. His work is remembered for the Xenphonic method, also known as Xenophony, an intellectual critique characerized by aggressive and constant questioning of an opponent's thesis. Some scholars believe this a legacy of Xenophon's cavalry service. His work is the core of Mediterranean philosophy and inspired the writings of later Philipic writers after the Macedonian conquests.

Interesting! Without Socrates, Xenophon develops a more scientific method earlier on (if I understand what Nichomacheus is hinting at). Emphasis on the necessity of evidence and reasoning from proof? Aggressive and constant questioning of an opposing thesis? Such a method is much more empirical and skeptical in its nature. That sounds a lot like modern empirical science! A move away from the mysticism of Pythagoras (whom Xenephon disagrees with) and Plato (who IATL never delves into philosophy) and the a priori rationalism of Aristotle (who would likewise be butterflied away as a philosopher) means a greater emphasis on empiricism and skepticism. Would an earlier scientific revolution result?

Also, how would political thought be different? Presumably much more progressive!
 
Interesting! Without Socrates, Xenophon develops a more scientific method earlier on (if I understand what Nichomacheus is hinting at). Emphasis on the necessity of evidence and reasoning from proof? Aggressive and constant questioning of an opposing thesis? Such a method is much more empirical and skeptical in its nature. That sounds a lot like modern empirical science! A move away from the mysticism of Pythagoras (whom Xenephon disagrees with) and Plato (who IATL never delves into philosophy) and the a priori rationalism of Aristotle (who would likewise be butterflied away as a philosopher) means a greater emphasis on empiricism and skepticism. Would an earlier scientific revolution result?

Also, how would political thought be different? Presumably much more progressive!

Actually, I was thinking that the Xenophonic method wasn't all that different from the Socratic method, since the Socratic method entails questioning and reason. I doubt Xenophon gives this a scientific edge (OTL it took Aristotle and then the scholastics edged out empiricism in his work). He would probably use the method to discuss ethics, his primary interest OTL. Most likely, his ethics are if anything less revolutionary / provocative than Plato's. Importantly, though, Plato is side-lined as a playwright, not a philosopher.

It's unclear how much Xenophon and Plato agreed about methaphysics, but I'd guess that the former was very down to earth. If anything, Xenophon's politics are almost certain to be less progressive than Plato's / Socrates, but with unsure results. Firstly, Xenophon is normally associated with a fairly aristocratic outlook, but an Athenian aristocratic view. He stil lionized Sparta (in the Hellenica, for example), but I can't seem him holding forth on the necessity for the property-less guardians and so forth. Nor can I see him denouncing ancestral gods easily.

Since Plato has been side-lined, however, further thinkers might come along that would push greek philosophy toward a scientific empiricism. I'd imagine that if you dovetailed OTL's Aristotle (who's probably buterflied in the ATL I outlined), with TTL's Xenophon this may be the result. Even then, though, it might not be: Greek thought tends not to empirical compared to later work not because of its methods but because of its preferred subject matter, ethics, metaphysics, and theology, and because of the lingering theistic elements due to the tenor of Greek society.
 
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