the athenian

dichoso, eunicelucido, mavic

After the subjugation of Ionian and destruction of Miletus by the Persian

Athens commanded leadership of Greek science.

The following are the famous Ancient Greek philosophers of this period and their beliefs.

Socrates was a gifted thinker of ancient Athens who helped lay the foundation of western philosophy. The methods he used and the concepts he proposed, along with his courageous defense of his ideas against his enemies, profoundly influenced the philosophical and moral tenor of western thought over the centuries.

Socrates (470-399 BC)

He was imprisoned and was found guilty of promoting dangerous ideas. He was sentenced to death and was made to drink hemlock – a poison considered as capital punishment in ancient Athens.

Socrates’ contributions• The unexamined life is not worth living. In other words, a

human being must not be complacent and self-satisfied; instead, he must be ever probing, exploring, and reconnoitering his soul in order to discover ways to improve.

• Pioneered the use of inductive reasoning to draw logical conclusions. According to Aristotle, Socrates founded the "scientific method."

• Demonstrated that wrongdoing results from ignorance. If a man lies, Socrates might have said, he does so because he does not understand the benefits of telling the truth.

Socrates’ contributions• Inspired philosophers in his own time and in later times to

pursue the truth through rigorous analysis of available, facts, opinions, and so on.

• Showed the world the meaning of integrity and moral commitment by accepting a death sentence rather than retracting his principles.

• Made clear that a human being is more than his appearance. Socrates was ugly, wore old clothes, and walked barefooted through the streets of Athens. But his mind and the words he spoke were beautiful.

Plato (427-347 BC)Plato was one of the most famous

Athenian philosophers and a pupil of Socrates; it is only through Plato’s

writings that we know the thoughts and ideas of Socrates. He served in

the army and fought in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta.

Afterwards, before he met Socrates, he received an education in

grammar, music, gymnastics and above all, philosophy. Later in life, he

enjoyed accompanying Socrates in excursions to the city's public places

to lead discussions with randomly met people.

PlatoWhen Socrates was executed in 399 B.C., Plato decided to write down his master’s philosophical beliefs. He travelled around the Mediterranean, visiting Italy and Egypt. Upon his return to Athens in 388 B.C., he founded his own Academy. Plato's most significant ideas on power hierarchy and the state are represented in such works as ‘The Republic’ and ‘Laws’. In his ‘Theory of Forms’, Plato formulated his solution to the problem of universals.

Plato’s contributions• Plato often discusses the father-son relationship and the

"question" of whether a father's interest in his sons has much to do with how well his sons turn out.

• “The wise person who accepts the power thrust upon him by the people who are wise enough to choose a good master. ”

• Celestial bodies are divine and noble and their motions are uniform and circular around the earth.

• The universe is perfect sphere.• The real world is the “world of Forms” beyond human senses and

can be understood only by using logic and not by observations and experiments. That the objects that we see, according to Plato, are not real, but literally mimic the real Forms.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)Full name:

AristotelesBorn:

384 BCStageira, Chalcidice

Died:322 BC (age 61 or 62)

Religion:Western philosophy

AristotleAristotle (Greek: Ἀριςτοτελης, Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.

His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology.

Aristotle in Biology and Medicine• Ancient greek philosopher and botanist.• Torpedo fuscomaculata & Leopard shark

Aristotle in Physics• The five elements– Fire which is hot and dry.– Earth which is cold and dry.– Air which is hot and wet.– Water which is cold and wet.– Aether which is the divine substance that makes up

the heavenly spheres and heavenly bodies (stars and planets).

Aristotle in OpticsAristotle held more accurate theories on some optical

concepts than other philosophers of his day. The earliest known written evidence of a camera obscura can be found in Aristotle's documentation of such a device in 350 BC in Problemata.

Aristotle's apparatus contained a dark chamber that had a single small hole, or aperture, to allow for sunlight to enter. Aristotle used the device to make observations of the sun and noted that no matter what shape the hole was, the sun would still be correctly displayed as a round object. In modern cameras, this is analogous to the diaphragm.

Aristotle also made the observation that when the distance between the aperture and the surface with the image increased, the image was magnified

The spheres of Eudoxus explain the motions in the heavens by means of nested spheres rotating about various axes at different rates. The earth is located at the center. (Eudoxus used 27 spheres; Aristotle used 56)

The Pythagoreans set astronomy on a quantitative path, and coincidentally imagined a cosmos which was not geocentric, with a "central fire" around which the earth, counter-earth, sun, moon, planets, and stars revolved. It should also be noted that a truly heliocentric model was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos,

The Pythagoreans set astronomy on a quantitative path, and coincidentally imagined a cosmos which was not geocentric, with a "central fire" around which the earth, counter-earth, sun, moon, planets, and stars revolved. It should also be noted that a truly heliocentric model was proposed by Aristarchus of Samos,

The Lyceum

Aristotle came back to Athens in 335 B.C., and spent the next 12 years running his own version of an academy, which was called the Lyceum, named after the place in Athens where it was located, an old temple of Apollo.

Aristotle’s preferred mode of operation was to spend a lot of time walking around talking with his colleagues, then write down his arguments. The Aristotelians are often called the Peripatetics: people who walk around.

Aristotle and the Lyceum

The Aristotelian Tradition

Plato and Aristotle brought rational inquiry into the sciences, and in to new levels. Although their approaches were quite different, both advocated systematic and rational investigation.

Plato taught that the world around us is one of illusion - that the senses could be easily deceived - and so the truth could best be discovered by applying logic and reasoning.

Aristotle, in contrast, advocated searching for the truth by first observing, and then constructing models which could explain the observations.

Leucippus & DemocritusWith the work of Leucippus

and Democritus ancient Greek philosophy reaches its zenith when the initial question of Thales after the true nature of matter culminated 180 years later in the subtle concept of atoms, which bears an amazing resemblance to the 20th century's view of chemistry.

Leucippus & Democritus

For this reason, Leucippus and Democritus have undoubtedly deserved the first price for the best guess in antiquity, as far as natural science is concerned. Unfortunately their contemporaries did not share their views with the same enthusiasm.

Leucippus & Democritus

They held that the nature of things consists of an infinite number of extremely small particles, which they called atoms. Atoms are physically, but not geometrically, indivisible.

Democritus (460 - 370 BC)

Promulgated the atomic theory, which asserted that the universe is composed of two elements: the atoms and the void in which they exist and move.

He illustrated the movement of atoms with an observation he made in nature

Leucippus (480 - about 420 BC)

A Greek philosopher who originated the atomic theory of indivisibles developed later by Democritus.

World is composed of atoms which are unchangeable, incorruptible, imuutable but collide move and combine.

Questions?

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