In the temple, the truth came from those who knew to those who listened. In the Greek polis, it began to be said in the middle of the agora, among equals, and anyone who disagreed would respond right there. This change of address, not the simple absence of priests, is what explains why someone started asking.
What was missing in Egypt and Babylon
In Egypt and Babylon, knowledge about the world lived inside the temple, and the priest was the official guardian of the answer. This absence of a guardian among the Greeks is real and is important, but it is a negative condition: it explains why no one prohibited the question. It doesn't explain why someone actually asked. Without a place to say the answer in front of those who disagree, and without a way for that answer to be checked by those who were not there, the absence of censorship produces, at most, loose opinions coexisting without friction, and that is what happened in many places and in many centuries without anything new being born.
The polis and the agora
What was missing was a place: the polis (πόλις), the Greek city, and within it the agora (ἀγορά), the square. It's not a picturesque detail, it's the change of address of the truth. In the temple, the word goes down from the one who knows to the one who listens, in a single direction, from top to bottom. In the square, it is said in the middle, between equals, and whoever disagrees responds right there, in front of everyone.
Vernant: the word placed at the center
The historian Jean-Pierre Vernant, who dedicated much of his life to this question, calls this shift putting the word at the center.
The truth stops being a secret given away and becomes an exposed proposal.
The truth stops being a secret delivered by those who have the authority to deliver it, and becomes an exposed proposal, subject to examination by anyone present in the square. It is this exposure, not the lack of a priest, that makes the question happen.
Why the absence of a guardian is not enough
It's worth insisting on the point, because it tends to go unnoticed: not having someone to prohibit the question is different from having somewhere to ask it. An absent priest alone does not create a place for debate. The Greek square, with its demand that those who speak respond to those who disagree, was that place. The negative condition, no one to prohibit, and the positive condition, a center where the word is tested, need both, and it is the second that is usually left out of the report.
To delve deeper
Anyone who wants to follow this argument with the rigor of someone who spent his life on it will find in "The Origins of Greek Thought", by Jean-Pierre Vernant, the work that supports much of what this article summarizes: how the square and political life came before philosophy, and made it possible.
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See recommended readingsFrequently asked questions
Why was philosophy born in the square, and not in the temple?
Because in the temple the truth came from those who knew to those who listened, in one direction only; in the Greek square it began to be said in the middle, among equals, subject to the examination of anyone who disagreed right there. This change of address, more than the lack of priests, is what opened up space for the philosophical question.
Does the absence of priests alone explain the birth of philosophy?
No. It is a negative condition: it explains why no one prohibited the question, not why someone asked it. A place was also needed, the agora, where the word could be tested in front of others, and not just kept without anyone prohibiting it.
What does Jean-Pierre Vernant mean by "putting the word at the center"?
Vernant describes the change in which the truth stops being a secret handed down by an authority and becomes a proposal displayed in the middle of the square, subject to challenge by any citizen present. He develops this thesis in "The Origins of Greek Thought".
Continue into the cluster: Philosophy was not born from Greek democracy · The alphabet that made the argument checkable · Is doubting what I was taught a lack of faith? · Who was Saint Anselm of Canterbury?
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