Modern Western though has been shaped by emphasis on scientific thinking and reasoning from the time of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. The scientific revolution gave birth to a new era of thought, in which observations were made to support an idea. This involved what man could prove through sense, not religion or superstition. Notable ancient Greek historians, philosophers and scientists, such as Thucydides, Socrates, Aristotle, and Hippocrates, laid down the seeds of modern Western thought.
An ancient Greek writer who demonstrated modern scientific objectivity was Thucydides. Over time, this type of scientific objectivity has become a valuable tool of modern Western thought. The vividness and detail of Thucydides’ description of the effects of the plague is striking. A doctor today would be very impressed by the accuracy and detailed description of the plague: “Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor was there any pallor: the skin was rather reddish and livid, breaking out into small pustules and ulcers.” This precise description of the plague would be comparable to any description written today. The scientific objectivity demonstrated by the ancient Greeks had a direct influence on our medical, and non-medical, description today.
Many ancient Greeks such as Socrates used logic, another invaluable tool of modern Western thought. Socrates, by asking simple questions, was able to draw answers from people that supported his argument. By thinking a problem through, step-by-step, Socrates was able to formulate answers to a problem or question. This laid down the foundation for modern logic. “Not at all, my dear Agathon. It is truth that you find impossible to withstand; there is never the slightest difficulty in withstanding Socrates.” This shows that Socrates merely saw himself as a guide to logic.
Aristotle, one of the very first scientists, used evidence to support his claims. Today, any argument made must be supported by evidence. Any argument not supported by evidence is not accepted as fact. Aristotle’s use of evidence made his arguments strong and convincing, even if he was quite wrong. When Aristotle writes “Again, if the earth as a whole is capable of floating upon water, that must obviously be the case with any part of it. But observation shows that this is not the case. Any piece of earth goes to the bottom, the quicker the larger it is” he is able to prove his point by the use of evidence. The method in which Aristotle supported his arguments is constantly used today as it shows that the point one is arguing is true.
Socrates was wise men, who question everything, he was found to be the wise man in Athens by the oracle. Although he was consider of being the wises man alive in those days, Socrates never consider himself wise, therefore he question everything in order to learned more. Socrates lived a poor life, he used to go to the markets and preach in Athens he never harm anyone, or disobey any of the laws in Athens, yet he was found guilty of all charges and sentence to die.
When Strepsiades first arrives at the thinkery, he is met by the student who tells him the sort of things pondered in the thinkery. He told Strepsiades, “Just now Socrates was asking Chaerephon how many of its own feet a flea could leap” (Aristophanes, 144-145). Aristophanes’ goal is to mock Socrates and his followers, but he knows that a true philosopher is constantly pondering new things and questioning everything he examines. One of Socrates’ friends went to the Oracle, and “he asked if there was anyone wiser than I. The Pythia replied that no one was wiser” (Plato, 21a). Due to his knack of questioning everything, Socrates wonders what it could mean since so many people throughout Athens were considered to be wiser than he was. He tells his jury that “when I heard these things, I pondered them like this: ‘What ever is the god saying, and what riddle is he posing?’” (Plato, 21b). A philosopher believes nothing from faith, but only through reason. Therefore, Socrates had to figure out the meaning of what the Oracle said by his
It seems as though ever since the Cold War Europe is still divided amongst those same countries. Although a lot has changed since then the economic standpoint for countries whose gross domestic production rate is high still remains in countries like the Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have remained strong.
The natural end of every human life is death. Some people, for reasons that have never been fully understood, choose to end their own lives. This is called suicide, which means literally ?self-killing?. For all the uncertainty that has surrounded the phenomenon of suicide, this assessment of the problem is probably as accurate as any. The individual seemingly hopeless conflict with the world, decides to end his or her existence in what amounts to a final assault against a society that can no longer be tolerated. In so doing, the person tries to obtain a final revenge on everything and everyone that has caused their feelings of depression.
My first case against Suicide is the pain the victim leaves their family and friends in. According to the article “Rationally Speaking: The Philosophy of Suicide”, Aristotle viewed suicide as a wrongful act towards society not to the person who died because of it. He saw the person ultimately for what they were, they openly consented
In modern medicine when an ailment arises it can be quickly diagnosed, attributed to a precise bacteria, virus, or body system, and treated with medication, surgery or therapy. During the time before rational medical thought, this streamlined system of treatment was unheard of, and all complaints were attributed to the will of the multitude of commonly worshiped Greek gods (Greek Medicine 1). It was during the period of Greek rationalism that a perceptible change in thought was manifested in the attitudes towards treating disease. Ancient Greece is often associated with its many brilliant philosophers, and these great thinkers were some of the first innovators to make major developments in astrology, physics, math and even medicine. Among these academics was Hippocrates, one of the first e...
Leenaars, A. A., & Lester, D. (1992). Facts and myths of suicide in Canada and the United States. Journal of Social Psychology, 132(6), 787. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Individuals in society experience many changes that can make them feel overwhelm or feel accepted by their friends, family members and the rest of society. But there is times when people feel that they do not fit or feel welcome in their social group. Many people face their difficulties and achieve success others are do not have such luck. The individuals that are not lucky finishes their life committing suicide. Suicide is an act of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally that affects not only immediate family and friends but indicates factors in society that are influencing individuals to commit this act. Is important to understand what aspects in society are making individuals to take their own live? And if
A Triumvirate is a political alliance involving three rulers, who divide the land and power among each other. The first Triumvirate involved Pompey; who was a popular general who crushed the Spanish Revolt. The second was Crassus; he was a wealthy noble with a lot of ambition and was very ruthless. Crassus owned all the fire stations in Rome, when a person needed his services he would let the fire burn until he was paid a sum of money to his likings. Crassus was unsuccessful in his military pursuits. The third was Julius Caesar; he was also a wealthy noble. He was very popular with the lower class. For a short period Caesar was the Governor of Spain, when he returned he was thrown a Triumph. All three men wanted to run for Consul, and all were denied by the Senate. They created the Triumvirate because they all had an Anti-Senate outlook, and by forming the Triumvirates they would all be able to take turns being Consul. They were Anti-Senate because the Senate had lost control over their generals and armies, and had little support from the people.
Suicide is possibly the most personal action an individual can take upon oneself and yet it has a profound social impact. A large Hungarian population views an act of violence that one commits toward oneself as an act of bravery for freeing themselves and others around them of their misery. It’s also consider to be the least understood crime even though sociologist and psychologist are expected to know the answers to questions such as why people kill themselves but often these questions go unanswered. Emile Durkheim was instrumental in bringing a new understanding of suicide, “when in a sociological study he conceived his theory of suicide, and it 's relationship with society. Perhaps put more accurately, his theory was about society, and
About the year of 470 B.C, a man was born in Athens and his name was Socrates. He was a son of a working sculptor and a midwife. Socrates lived in the greatest and most exciting period of his country's history, when Athens developed from a mere city-state to be the head of an empire. He studied problems of Physics, Biology, and other sciences, and learned the art of making the worse argument appear the better. He could easily be involved in public decisions but he did not enjoy politics so he stuck to his interests and life that consisted the qualities of a thinker. He would constantly be thinking about the "ordinary man" and the interests of an "ordinary man". He had many companions, men of all ages and from all parts of the Greek world. This already tells us that he is very pre-occupied with how other people's minds worked and if he could figure out how to teach them rational thinking. Easily most of his ideas would come from talking to other people
Suicide has become one of the many means that problematic individuals take into consideration to exempt from an unpleasant or oppressive situation. Suicide can be generally defined as the act of causing one’s death usually out of despair. People who are likely to commit suicide are those who suffer from severe mental illnesses and are involved with alcohol and drugs. Other than that, individuals who are experiencing unemployment and divorce can also be possible victims to commit such act. Based on the study done in the year 1997, an average of fifteen-percent who are clinically depressed ended up committing suicide. Furthermore, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death in the US (“Suicide”). It is prevalent for depressed individuals to consider suicide when major issues in life do not work out well. The big question is, what makes a person thinks that ending his or her life can help oneself to escape from the reality when life has so much more to offer?
Western philosophers still tend to think that philosophy, in a sense that they can take with professional interest, does not exist in non-Western traditions. To persuade them otherwise would require them to make an effort that they prefer to evade. I attempt to begin to persuade them by closely paraphrasing a few arguments by the early Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu and a few by the Indian skeptic and mystic Shriharsha (about 1150 CE). One of Chuang Tzu's arguments has some resemblance to Plato's Third-Man argument, another with the impossibility of distinguishing between waking reality and dream, and a third with the impossibility of objective victories in debates. The skeptic Shriharsha, in a way that can be taken to parallel Wittgenstein's attack on conventional philosophy, shows that philosophical definitions cannot be rigorous enough to fulfill the task that philosophers set for them. The rest of this paper is devoted to the problem of commensurability. I contend that philosophies are either commensurable or incommensurable depending on the light in which one prefers to see them. Each way of seeing them involves a loss of a possibility that may be considered precious, but the Westerner who continues to insist on the full incommensurability of non-Western philosophies with his or her own is losing a great deal that might be intellectually helpful.
The expansion and endorsement of intellectualism by the many important forward thinking scientists created a desire for social revolution, which, in turn, created an atmosphere conducive to further intellectual study. The Scientific Revolution was, in essence, both a social and intellectual revolution. During the Scientific Revolution, scientists such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and Christiaan Huygens wrestled with questions concerning God, human intellectualism, and their scientific views of the universe, its purpose, and how it functions. Ultimately, the implications of these new scientific discoveries began to change the way people thought and behaved. People began to question the widely accepted and Roman Catholic Church endorsed Aristotelian views of the universe. This led to the questioning of the traditional views of the state and societal structure. The geocentric Ptolemaic model was no longer blindly accepted. The earth was now no longer easily explainable or thought to be the center of the universe. Beliefs that were hundreds of years old were now proven to be false.
Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were the center of everything, ultimately causing people to question theology’s role in science and sparking the idea that people were capable of reasoning for themselves.