HISTORY OF

ANCIENT GREECE

UJJWAL YADAV
HISTORY
 Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, at a time when the
inhabitants of ancient Greece were struggling to repel devastating invasions from the
east.
 Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which
Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empire. 
 It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, 
mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, 
rhetoric and aesthetics.
 Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception.
 Greek philosophy was influenced to some extent by the older wisdom literature and
mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East, though the extent of this
influence is debated.
PHILOSOPHERS
 SOCRATES[469-399]
 -Believed that one arrives at the truth by questioning the
assumption on which all things are based.
 PLATO[428-347]
 -Student of Socrates
 ARISTOTLE[384-322]
 -Student of Plato
 - The philosopher by medievalists
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND
ITS ORIGINS
 Philosophy =love of wisdom
 Mesopotamians and Egyptians contemplated how the natural
world around them worked.
 Early Greeks [time of Homer] used mythological stories to
explain the natural world
 7 century BCE- Greeks looked for new, more practical
explations.
SOCRATES[469-399 BCE]
 What little we know comes from his students,Plato and
Xenophon, and his enemy.
 Human birth
 Wrote nothing down
 Founded no formal school – taught in the agora
 Believed material things would not bring happiness
 Died for his principles
SOCRATIC METHOD
 Method of elenchus [i.e. rigorous questioning technique]
 Designed to “sting” people into realizing their own ignorance
 -provoke genuine intellectual curiosity
 True knowledge gained only by constantly questioning
assumptions that underly all we do
 To achieve truth is to engage in a permanent state of critical
thinking
Socratic method example
 Q.so you think that the god know everything?
 A. Yes, because they are gods.
 Q.do some gods disagree with others?
 A. Yes, of course they do. They are always fighting.
Plato[429-347 bce]
 The “idealist” or “utopian” or “dreamer”
 Born into a wealthy family .
 Name means “high forehead”
 Student of Socrates
 Wrote 20 books ,many in the dialectic style with Socrates as
the main character.
PLATO’S IDEAS
 Idealist, believes in order and harmony, morality and self-
denial.
 Immorality of the soul
 Virtue as knowledge
 Theory of Forms- the highest function of the human soul to
achieve the vision of form of good
Famous quotes from plato
‘If particulars are to have meaning, there
must be universala’.
‘The soul of man is immortal and
imperishable’.
‘What we call learning is only a process of
recollection’.
Aristotle[384-322 bce]
 The “real” or “inspired common sense” or “the prince of those
who know”
 Studied under Plato at the Academy.
 Arthens to oprn school called the Lyceum in 355 BCE.
 Believed in the Golden mean
 i.e. all things follow the middle course, by avoiding
extreme ,one will enjoy a maximum of happiness and a
minimum of pain
 Called the “encycolpedist” as he had a profound love of order
 Numerous fields of scientific he either invented to:
 -logic, biology , zoology, psychology, chemistry, cosmology,
ethics, political theory, history of sport
Legacy of Greek
philosophers
 taught us how to think.
 Provided a great deal of insight into the natural world
 Provided a comprehensive , valid, and reliable method by
which we could test whether or not a given idea is by which
we could test whether we could test whether or not a
given idea is true.
THANK YOU