The Greek Philosophers

✏Greeks had great confidence in the power of the human mind

✏Driven by:

✏ curiosity

✏belief in reason

✏ Philosopher-lover of wisdom

✏ Some Greek thinkers did not believe that the gods were in control

✏ They used observation and reason to find causes for what happened

✏ They studying many subjects (math, physics, music, logic and rational thinking)

✏ reason and observation =laws that governed the universe

✏ Much modern science traces its roots to the Greeks

✏ Other philosophers were interested in ethics, or moral behavior

✏ Their debates centered on questions about government

✏ Many citizens condemned these philosophers for undermining traditional values (ex. Socrates)

✏ Socrates encouraged those around him to examine their deepest beliefs and ideas

✏ Eventually this would cost him his life

✏ Most of what we know about Socrates comes from his student Plato

✏ Socrates questioned citizens about their beliefs

✏ known as the Socratic method

✏ Socrates believed it was a way to seek truth and self-knowledge

✏ To other Athenians, however, it was an annoyance and a threat to accepted traditions

✏ When he was about 70 years old, Socrates was put on trial

✏ His enemies accused him of corrupting the youth and failing to respect the Gods

✏ A jury of 501 citizens condemned him to death

✏ morally wrong to flee

✏ Socrates accepted the death penalty

✏ He drank a cup of hemlock, a deadly poison

✏ The death of Socrates shocked Plato so much that he left Athens for 10 years

✏ When he returned, he set up an academy

✏ Like Socrates, Plato emphasized the importance of reason

✏ Through rational thought, he argued, that people could discover unchanging ethical values, recognize perfect beauty and learn how to organize an ideal society

✏ In The Republic, Plato described his vision for an ideal state

✏ He rejected Athenian democracy because it condemned Socrates

✏ Instead, Plato felt that the state should regulate every aspect of its citizens’ lives

✏ He divided society into three classes:✏ workers to produce the necessities

of life,✏soldiers to defend the state✏philosophers to rule

✏ This elite class of leaders would be specially trained to ensure order and justice

✏ The wisest of them, a philosopher king, would have the ultimate authority

✏ Plato argued that every object had an ideal form

✏ The work of the Greek artists and architects reflected the same concern with form and order

✏ Plato’s most famous student

✏ He analyzed all kinds of government

✏ Like Plato, he was suspicious of democracy, which he thought could lead to mob rule

✏ In the end, he favored rule by a single strong virtuous leader