Post on 26-Dec-2015
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Great Revolutions in Thought and Religion
1000BCE – 350BCE
Comparative Essay
• Compare how political turmoil led to intellectual and cultural creativity, during the period 1000 to 350 BCE in East Asia and South Asia
The World, c. 500 BCE
Most revolutions in thought occurred near one of the four river valley societies.
Mesopotamia
Yellow River (Huang He)
Nile
Indus
The Greeks & their mates
Generalizations
• Fringe regions develop on the borders of the river basin hearths
• Thinkers, teachers, prophets emerge from a world at war
• New types of political & social organizations emerge
• Cultural ideas develop into cultural identities• “Second Generation” societies
– Built on predecessors - tended to keep many original traditions
Commonalities of GREAT Revolutions• Sanctified (Made Holy):
– Time: sacred calendar, rituals, events like marriage
– Space: shrines, pilgrimage sites– Language and literature; Sanskrit,
Tripitaka, Torah– Art: art and music used to inspire religious
feelings– Organization: membership makes you
accepted
CRISIS• Each revolution in thought occurred at a time of
crisis– Iron tools made armies more powerful– Old societies disintegrating
• China - Period of Warring States– Zhou regime fractured– Huge competing Chinese armies– Population rising
• India – Invasion!– Aryans moved into India assimilating much of native
population• Greece – Unrest/search for meaning
– Unsatisfying religion– Warring city states
New Ideas Emerge - “The Hundred Masters”
• Confucius (Kong Fuzi)- Confucianism
– Searches for clues to good governance, society– People are innately good– Government by junzi (superior man)
• Laozi - Daoism
– Follow the order of nature, do nothing
• Xunzi – Legalism
– People are innately bad– Need for strong authoritarian rule and harsh punishment
• Scholars were bureaucrats & not free thinkers as in Greece & South Asia
A person is born with a liking for
profit
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and
is not intent on arriving
Respect yourself and others will
respect you
Kong Fuzi
Laozi
Xunzi
Case Study II: South Asia
• The Vedas - collections of songs and prayers, most important is the Rig Veda
• The Vedas are a priestly perspective (priests would be interested in maintaining their own high positions in society (POV)
• Aryans spread from Indus Valley south across India to Ganges Plain
• Raj- kingdoms- emerged– Ruled by Kshatriyas– Some are oligarchies
• Aryan oral traditions is finally preserved using Sanskrit
• Written alphabet challenged power of Brahmins
Hinduism• Aryan and Dravidian beliefs fused to
create Hindu religion• Very defined social order created stability
(Castes)• Occupation defined role
– Priests and Teachers– Warriors and Nobles– Farmers, Artisans and Merchants– Landless Peasants and Serfs
• Jati - sub-castes, occupationally related• Untouchables are added later (outcastes)• Upward mobility impossible• Foreigners are absorbed into the caste
system-stability
Gender in Vedic Society
• Patriarchal
• Women have no public authority
• Women explicitly under men’s control
• Law Book of Manu -second class status of women
• Sati recommended
When translated the word Sati literally means virtuous woman. also refers to the goddess, Sati, who is the daughter of Daksha
and the wife of Shiva
"The widow of a Brahmana should either immolate herself in
the fire with the corpse of her deceased husband or observe a lifelong vow of brahmacaryam
(celibacy) from that date.“
"That women who follows her husband in death purifies three families – that of her mother, of her father and of her husband."
.
Law Book of Manu - Manusmriti
• deals with four subjects: – the origin of the world – the sources of dharma– the rules of the four social & spiritual orders– karma-yoga
Contemporary views on women• About teaching women to read and write, the Greek
playwright Menander wrote, "What a terrible thing to do! Like feeding a vile snake on more poison."
• Aristotle: "The male is by nature superior and the female inferior...the one rules and the other is ruled.“
• Manusmriti "Those who seek great prosperity and happiness should never inflict pain on women. Where women are honored, in that family great men are born, but where they are not honored, all acts are fruitless”
New Ideas Emerge
• Siddartha Gautama – Buddhism– “Four Truths”– Must follow “Noble Eightfold Path”– No place for the supernatural– Patronized by urban merchants
Better than a thousand hollow words, is one
word that brings peace.
It is better to travel well than
to arrive All living beings long to live.
No one wants to die
Non-violence is the highest religion
“Axial Age”
• Similar to Zhou dynasty and developments in South Asia
• Eastern Mediterranean becomes a hybrid society– Mixture of old & new
• Traders carry ideas– Coins, political ideas, alphabet
Legacies of the Greco-Roman World• Rationalism
– Philosophy, science and history
• Humanism– Truth, art and athletics
• Inherent Order– Natural law, physics and taxonomy
• Politics– Government, civic responsibility and democracy
Delphi
Early Philosophy (600-470 BCE)
Is the world permanent or changing?• Democritus – all physical things are
formed by combinations of tiny particles called atoms.
• Sophists – “Man is the measure of all things”
– There is no common objective reality that all persons grasp the same way.”
– Truth is relative to each individual– Pleasure is the highest good - hedonism
Socratic Philosophers (470-322 BCE)
“Truth and reality are absolute”
• Socrates – Truth is in the mind but hidden by false
impressions– You can only know the truth through inquiry– Stressed importance of honor & integrity
“The unexamined life is not worth living”
• Plato– Dualism – the world is imperfect, changeable
and different in appearance to every individual; the world we perceive is an illusion, the real world is a world of “ideal” forms.
– Philosophers will discover the perfect, eternal, real world
– Republic – society should be governed by “Philosopher kings”
There is only one
real tree.
• Aristotle– Reality = form and matter– Logic - key to truth and happiness,
by logic people can gain knowledge
– “Golden Mean” – perfection, virtuous and excellent
• between extremes, when neither adding something nor taking something away will make improvements.
– Government – rule by the middle class, devoted to general welfare of the people.
– Use senses to classify science (taxonomy)
– Develops inductive thinking- The Politics
– Wants to strengthen urban communities
OK, everyone with an
exoskeleton, over there.
The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself
Men create the gods in their own image
Nothing exists except atoms and empty space;
everything else is opinion
Thales
Democritus
Xenophanes
Xenophanes
A great city is not to be confounded with a
populous one
As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without
the lesser.
Plato Aristotle
Alexander’s conquestleads to the Hellenistic Age
Hellenistic -derived from Héllēn –Greek word for “Greek”
Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Hellenistic is not one single culture • Political expansion leads to cultural diffusion• Leads to new states leads and more warfare• Leads to stability in trading
– Growth of “Silk Road”– Use of money & common language
Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Language
– “common” Greek spoken– easier communication between Egyptians, Syrians, Judeans
• Religion– Led to worship of Greek gods– Not accepted universally
• ex. Jews in Judea rebelled vs. Hellenistic culture– Judaism Hellenism
One God Gods, Goddesses and Who Knows What!
Man in the Image of God Gods in the Image of Man
Beauty of Balance Beauty as Ideal
Influence of Hellenistic Culture• Arts
– Sculpture more realistic• Cosmopolitan Cities
– Alexandria becomes the model – huge library– Inhabitants become “cosmopolitan” – Not just citizens
of a particular polis• Becomes ultimately the culture of elites
– base of later Roman culture
Hellenistic Philosophers (340 BCE)
• Philosophy becomes accessible to a wider audience
• Affluent members of the population, including women, begin to study philosophy
• focuses on the problem of human happiness
What is the meaning of
this?
• Epicureans– knowledge originates and stops in the senses – pleasure is the only good and pain is the only
evil – man must moderate himself in reference to
these desires
Cake is yummy!
But, eating an entire
cake would make you
sick. That’s evil.
• Stoics – led by Zeno• The universe functions according to a plan of
goodness – “Natural Law”– Nature is understood through reason– All persons are inherently equal – You can live in harmony with nature but need to
control your passions (Get over it!)
• Cynics – preached a return to nature and a rejection
of society as the key to man's happiness – Did not consider themselves members of
any nations
Diogenes made his home in thestreets of Athens, made a virtueof extreme poverty.Lived in a large tub, walked the streets carrying a lamp in the daytime claiming to be looking for an honest man.
Nice tub, mate!
• Skeptics – by doubting everything, believed that they
could attain a state of perfect tranquility– Bet they didn’t even believe that!
Hellenistic Science
• Physics– Archimedes – lever and hydrostatic discoveries– Aristotle's - "Physics" and "Metaphysics”
Not heavy, not heavy, not heavy.
Hellenistic Science
• Astronomy (applying logical thinking and geometry)
– Anaxagoras - cause of eclipses– Aristarchus - the earth goes around the sun– Thales - the earth is round.
Hellenistic Science• Medicine
– You could learn to understand and treat diseases by using careful observation and logical thought.
– Hippocrates - dismissed the notion that Magic or spirits caused or cured disease.
Chant after me:
Black bile,
yellow bile,
phlegm and
blood.
Hellenistic Science• Cartography
– The earth is a sphere– Claudius Ptolemy wrote Guide to Geography
(Geographike hyphygesis)-remained an authorative reference on world geography for 1500 years.