Talk:Greek philosophy

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The Greek culture has played a vital role in western development here in the United States. I am quite proud of my Greek heritage and recongize it's meaningful contribution to our lives today as well as modern democracy. --Anon

Archimedes ROCKS! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.80.153.82 (talk) 15:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What about modern Greek philosophy? Also someone knowledgeable could compose a list of Greek philosophers. I mean, it should be separate article from Greek philosophy. --Eleassar777 09:42, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

The introduction paragraph is surprisingly biased and indicates a sharp lack of awareness of (if not disregard for) philosophical schools that pre-date or were peers of ancient Greek civilization. Given that many of the famed Greek philosophers state they traveled to Egypt for their own educations, and that the city-states of the Fertile Crescent had their own well established intellectual traditions it's a bit rich to continue the claim of Greece's de novo and unadultered thought leadership, like "Venus Rising from the Foam." Perhaps someone who understands intellectual history can add some credible balance to this article......here's to hoping.

Why are there Roman Philosophers in this article? Bayerischermann 04:25, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Usually in history of philosophy, an ancient period includes Greek philosophy and those who followed these schools of thought, which continued throughout the Roman Empire (influence also spread into areas conquered by Alexander the Great in the middle east). Stoicism, cynicism and other Greek philosophies had numerous Roman followers. Many ancient Greek philosophical schools kept going until closed down by Christian emperors in the later Empire. I'll put in a paragraph about this unless someone objects. WhiteC 17:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Fine with me. Bayerischermann 05:32, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

About Aristotle's "De Anima". Was the book popularised in the West with that name?Because I wouldn't imagine him titling his book in latin. Perhaps a greek title would be more appropriate? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.38.140.235 (talk • contribs) 14:24, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

De Anima is definitely what it's called in English. In fact, there are quite a few Greek Works that are known by their Latin names, Plato's Republic is the other one that comes to mind. Nick 05:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

You're mixing English and Latin - De Anima is Latin and is sometimes translated in English as On the Soul, Respublica is Latin while Republic is English. You are correct, though, that the Latin name De Anima is how it was popularized in the Latin West commentator tradition. In the Byzantine East, it was known of course by the Greek title Peri psuches Zeusnoos 18:51, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Socrates taught whom? 2 Why they are more rational than other Ancients? 3 [Socrates] believed that one should "know thyself." 4 Title 5 Pre-Socratics 6 Arabic/Persian philosophy

[edit] Socrates taught whom?

9/25/05: One thing I've found that conflicts with other information I've read at Wikipedia is that Socrates taught both Aristotle and Plato. The text says, "In addition, [Socrates] also taught many famous Greek philosophers. Two of his famous pupils were Plato and Aristotle." In both the Aristotle and Plato articles, it mentions Socrates as having taught Plato, who in turn taught Aristotle. I don't want to make the change myself for fear of being wrong or missing something (I really don't know that much about any of the three), but I thought I'd point that out so someone more knowledgable can check it out. Perhaps it's saying that Socrates influenced both, but in that case maybe it could be reworded so as to be more clear... In any case, thanks for checking it out! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.97.246 (talk • contribs) 19:45, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. This article was misleading, and I corrected it. Socrates did influence Aristotle too, but only indirectly, through Plato. The articles on Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are correct here. Plato's dialogs are written as dialogs between Socrates and other characters (usually the title of each dialog comes from the person Socrates is arguing with). One problem is knowing how much of this Socrates actually said, and how much is words that Plato is putting into his mouth. WhiteC 05:14, 27 September 2005 (UTC).

[edit] Why they are more rational than other Ancients?

"It is now believed that decision making through oral debate in the polis would have developed rational thought to carefully construct arguments for and against an action, and these debates would have required calling on abstract principles such as justice, without invoking the notion of a god."

There has been some confusion in regards to above mentioned quote, taking it to imply that peoples in ancient times did not have oral debates of any kind outside the Greek world. However, it refers to "oral debate in the polis". The word polis is used to describe a citizenship or body of citizens, which is also the root of the word "politics". Conclusively, when all statements (such as references to oral debate) are read in context, not alone; the quote can be understood, that the ancient Greeks were different from others because of the democratic style politics, which they pioneered and eventually proliferated throughout Europe (directly & indirectly).

[edit] [Socrates] believed that one should "know thyself."

Is it a correct English sentenece? I think

"He taught that one should know himself." or "He taught that you should "know thyself."

would be better, but I'm not sure, because I'm not a native speaker of English. I hope that somebody could correct it.

[edit] Title

Hi — I'm wondering whether this article might better be titled "Ancient Greek philosophy" or "Classical Greek philosophy" in order to distinguish it from more recent Greek philosophy and philosophers? Sardanaphalus 03:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-Socratics

How come this article contains nothing about the pre-socratic philosophers, e.g. those of the Ionian school? Greek philosophy did not begin with Socrates and as such this seems like a major omission to me. Tsourkpk 23:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Tsourkpk

I added a little something. It's not great, but it's something. --Le vin blanc (talk) 03:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic/Persian philosophy

I have partly reverted some of the changes made by 87.239.71.35 (talk). Although he or she is quite right to point out that many of these so-called "Arabic" philosophers were in fact Persians, nevertheless to call this entire body of philosophy "Persian" is inaccurate. Both Arabs and Persians engaged in these philosophical debates which were largely conducted in Arabic (not Persian). I propose therefore to speak of Islamic philosophy. --Fabullus (talk) 08:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)