Download Greek Golden Age and Philosophy

Golden Age of
Greek Culture
Pericles and Greek Philosophy
Persia/Greece Quiz tomorrow
HW-Study
Pericles and The Funeral Oration
• Pericles gave this speech at the funeral of Athenians
killed in battle. In this speech, Pericles praised the
Athenian form of government, stressed the rights and
duties of citizenship. It is considered one of the
earliest and greatest expressions of democratic ideals.
For our government is not copied from those of our neighbors: we are an example to them rather than
they to us. Our constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But
our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in
every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free
play to all in our public life, so we carry the same spirit into our daily relations with one another…
We are lovers of beauty without extravagance, and lovers of wisdom without unmanliness. Wealth to
us is not mere material for vainglory but an opportunity for achievement; and poverty we think it no disgrace to
acknowledge but a real degradation to make no effort to overcome. Our citizens attend both to public and private
duties, and do now allow absorption in their own various affairs to interfere with their knowledge of the city’s. We
differ from other states in regarding man who holds aloof from public life not as “quiet” but as useless; we decide
or debate, carefully and in person, all matters of policy, holding, not that words and deeds go ill together, but that
acts are foredoomed to failure when undertaken undiscussed. For we are noted for being at once adventurous in
action and more reflective beforehand. Other men are bold in ingnorance, while reflection will stop their onset.
But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet
notwithstanding go out to meet it…In a word I claim that our city as a whole is an education to Greece, and that her
members yield to none, man by man, for independence of spirit, many sidedness of attainment, and complete selfreliance in limbs and brain.
Greek Philosophy:
“Lovers of Wisdom”
• Philosophers = “lovers of wisdom”.
• Greek philosophers explored many subjects.
• Math
• Music
• Logic
Sophists in Athens
• Many Greek philosophers were interested in
ethics and morality.
• Sophists questions accepted ideas in Athens.
• They developed skills of rhetoric.
Socrates
•Stonemason and
philosopher in Athens.
•Critical of Sophists.
•He wrote no books.
•Everything we know of him
comes from his student
Plato.
•Used the Socratic Method
around the marketplace.
The Socratic Method
•Socratic Method =
process of posing a
series of questions to
people and challenge
them to examine the
implications of their
answers.
•Many felt this was a
threat to accepted
traditions.
Let’s Try It Out…
• "This table is blue.“
• "To a blind person, is this
table still blue?"
• "What makes it blue to a
blind person, and not
green, or pink, or
purple?“
• "So the table is blue only
to those who can see.“
• "If the table is in the
middle of an empty room,
where no one can see it,
is it still blue?"
Damn You Socrates!
• In this example, you might end up pointing
out the subjectivity of the perception of color
and argue (using questions, not statements)
that color only exists in a person's mind as a
result of their perception; it isn't actually a
property of the table. In other words, the
table is not blue. Your opponent's perception
of it is blue.
Not Everyone’s Biggest Fan…
• At 70, Socrates was put on trial for corrupting
cities youth.
• 501 citizens (jury) sent him to death.
• Forced to drink poison.
Plato
•Student of Socrates.
•Fled Athens for 10 years
after death.
•Returned to set up
school called the
Academy.
•He emphasized
importance of reason.
Aristotle
Plato
The Republic
• In The Republic, Plato describes ideal state.
• Hates Athenian democracy after what
happened to Socrates.
• He felt men were superior to women mentally
and physically.
• Some women were better then men.
Aristotle
•Plato’s famous
student.
•Had own ideas on
gov’t.
•Found good and bad
examples of all gov’t.
•Set up a school to
study all branches of
knowledge.