Philosophy - HCJ

So, after thinking I wouldn't remember ANY of what I read from Mr. Bertrand Russell's hench book about the History of Western Philosophy, I recognised (and mostly understood) what Chris was saying! Having never studied any kind of Philosophy before its all very new stuff... the focus was on European Civilisation.

• 700BC - Greek Alphabet, allowed writings from Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle etc.
• People then thought differently about the universe
• "Classical Antiquity" - earth=globe, particles made up matter, evolution, political, economic and architectural skills - ALL OF WHICH WERE ESTABLISHED BY PHILOSOPHERS
• And all of which were assumed to be discovered in 18th and 19th centuries, but how/why did the knowledge disappear until later? 
• This resulted in the collapse of Rome - meant dominant ideology was now Christianity (which meant NO SCIENCE)
• 400AD onwards - complex teachings of the Greco-Roman period were replaced by Christianity - DARK AGES

Pre Socratic Philosophers

-Thales - beleived everything was made from water. (no gods)

-Anaximander - disagreed with Thales, everything comes from a single primal substance, there are many worlds and we are justs one of them.

-Pythagoras - used maths to explain the 'order' of the world and he emphasised FORM not MATTER.

Chris highlighted in the lecture the main points from The History of Western Philosophy, whilst referencing The Iliad, The Odyssey and the much later Beowulf. The Greeks were always way more advanced in most fields during early civilisation. I found it very interesting how the Greeks knew much more in terms of logic, atoms, geometry and astronomy through a philosophical outlook compared to the power hungry Romans who knew much less. I am now much more aware of the relationship between the Greeks and the Romans and how crazily advanced the Greeks were for their time.


I'd always heard that the Greeks had a huge influence in all aspects of life, but I really never knew how much! The Greeks were amazingly good thinkers and philosophy was definitely their strong point, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were obviously the main guys, so here we go...


Socrates - 469 BC–399 BC
Socrates is a main philosopher in terms of Greek civilisation but he didn't actually write anything himself, but he had students who made his ideas known - Plato and Xenophon who both wrote about Socrates.  


Plato- 427 BC-347 BC
Plato and Aristotle are seen to be the best philosophers of ancient and modern time, ever. So Utopia came from Plato, i always thought it was some kinda Disney film..:/ basically, noone knew who their parents were and they had to call everyone older than them 'mother' or 'father' and anyone the same sort of age 'brother' or 'sister'. There could not be marriages between a 'father' and 'daughter' or 'mother' and 'son' and 'brother'/'sister' marriages were to be prevented. hmm, so who married, exactly? 
Plato learnt from Socrates, being his student and all, including the subject of ethics. Ethics at this time were completely different to what we see as ethical today, naturally. What would you say is ethical if a baby was born with a disability? throw it in a 'deep pit of water' or take care of it? I hope everyone would take care of it, but not the Greeks...oh no. This was all influenced by Sparta.


Aristotle
Aristotle came after Plato, which makes his writings an follow on from Plato's. Aristotle was the guy who 'invented' logic, it was actually adopted by the Catholic church, and the the main idea pulled from HWP is:"All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, so he is mortal."


The reading from HWP is tricky, but, after great persistence, i am beginning to remember and understand what has been said by the main philosophers.