Jillian Kurzmann's Blog 2/22/18

Jillian Kurzmann
2/22/18
Honors Western Civilization

Today in class, Kelsie brought in Red Velvet cookies. We also took more notes on Greece.

 Socrates

• Looked to science and logic (not to the Gods) for explanations of how the world worked.
• The Socratic Method fostered critical thinking.
• "The unexamined life is not worth living".
• Socrates was charged with serious crimes: impiety (disrespecting the Gods), and corrupting the youth of Athens.
• At his trial, his described himself as a stinging gadfly, and Athens as a lazy old horse.
• Did not deny what he had done; asked for free dinners.
• Found guilty by Athenian jury, and sentenced to death by hemlock poison (nasty was to go).

Plato

• Plato was a student and follower of Socrates.
• He wrote out Socrates' teaching, and described his trial in Apology.
• Republic was Socrates' discussion of justice and the ideal state- one of the most influential books on philosophy ever written. 

Aristotle

• Aristotle was a student of Plato.
• He helped foster the idea of Athens as an intellectual destination.
• His school- the Lyceum- focused on cooperative research- building on knowledge gathered from all around the world.
• He didn't invented the internet, but he did dream of having the sum of mankind's knowledge easy to access all in one place.
• He wrote extensively on such topics as: logic-physics-biology, ethics-political-rhetoric, motion-theatre-poetry, metaphysics-psychology-dreams, and on and on and on.....
• He also tutored Alexander the Great.