Culture in Classical Greece | Boundless World History.pdf -...

Ancient Greece and the Hellenistic World
Culture in Classical Greece
Boundless World History

Classical Greek Philosophy
The three most famous Classical Greek philosophers are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand the main philosophical beliefs of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Key Points
Socrates is best known for having pursued a probing question-and-answer
style of examination on a number of topics, usually attempting to arrive at a
defensible and attractive definition of a virtue.
In 399 BCE, Socrates was charged for his philosophical inquiries, convicted,
and sentenced to death.
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Plato was a student of Socrates, and is the author of numerous dialogues and
letters, as well as one of the primary sources available to modern scholars on
Socrates’ life.
In his defining work, The Republic , Plato reaches the conclusion that a utopian
city is likely impossible because philosophers would refuse to rule and the
people would refuse to compel them to do so.
Aristotle was a student of Plato, the tutor of Alexander the Great, and founder
of the Lyceum and Peripatetic School of philosophy in Athens. He wrote on a
number of subjects, including logic, physics, metaphysics, ethics, rhetoric,
politics, and botany.
Key Terms
allegory of the cave : A paradoxical analogy wherein Socrates argues that the
invisible world is the most intelligible, and the visible world is the least
knowable and obscure. Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people
who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank
wall upon which shadows are projected. The shadows are as close as the
prisoners get to viewing reality.
aporia : In philosophy, a paradox or state of puzzlement; in rhetoric, a useful
expression of doubt.
Socrates : A classical Greek (Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the
founders of Western philosophy. Known for a question-answer style of
examination.
Plato : The student of Socrates and author of The Republic. A philosopher and
mathematician in classical Greece.
Aristotle : The student of Plato, tutor to Alexander the Great, and founder of
the Lyceum. A Greek philosopher who wrote on a number of topics, including
logic, ethics, and metaphysics.
Classical Greece saw a flourishing of philosophers, especially in Athens during its Golden Age.
Of these philosophers, the most famous are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

Socrates
Socrates: Bust of Socrates, currently in the Louvre.
Socrates, born in Athens in the 5th century BCE, marks a watershed in ancient Greek
philosophy. Athens was a center of learning, with sophists and philosophers traveling from
across Greece to teach rhetoric, astronomy, cosmology, geometry, and the like. The great
statesman Pericles was closely associated with these new teachings, however, and his political
opponents struck at him by taking advantage of a conservative reaction against the
philosophers. It became a crime to investigate issues above the heavens or below the earth
because they were considered impious. While other philosophers, such as Anaxagoras, were