Democracy & Greece's Golden Age

Today in class we read another section about Greece in our book. The main idea of this section is cultural interaction- democratic principles and classical culture flourished during Greece's golden age.
Here are some key terms from the section:

  • direct democracy:  a form of government in which citizens rule directly and not through representatives 
  • classical art: values of harmony, order, balance, and proportion
  • tragedy: a serious drama about common themes such was love, hate, war, or betrayal
  • comedy: scenes filled with slapstick situations and crude humor
  • Peloponnesian War: war between the two city-states: Athens and Sparta
  • philosophers: great thinkers that were determined to seek the truth
  • Socrates: one of the Sophists who believed that absolute standards did not exist for truth or justice
  • Plato: a student of Socrates
  • Aristotle: a philosopher that questioned the nature of the world and of human belief, thought, and knowledge 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why the philosophers started questioning traditional beliefs

Socrates and Sophists like Protagorus would have started questioning traditional beliefs at this particular point in history for a few reasons. Socrates, first started by standing his ground about the the crime of the Athenians sailing back to Athens without picking up any of the soldiers that had fallen overboard. Socrates' view was that this crime was not bad enough for the people to be killed and that the assembly needed to calm down and he made it clear that he was going to stand his ground and vote against it because it was the wrong thing to do. Instead of listening to society these men listened to what their own reasoning said to do and not what the society was telling to to think or believe. I think that Socrates and the other philosophers knew that many of the things that the Greek society taught did not make sense and they believed that the teachings were wrong. I think that there were other people in the society that also felt that way but that many people were too afrai...
Read more

Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Today in class we talked about Plato's allegory of the Cave. We learned about the three parts of the allegory: setting the scene, the three stages of liberation, and the prisoner returns to the cave. In the first section, setting the scene, it explained that there were prisoners in a cave that had been in there since childbirth so they know no different. The prisoners are shackled up and cannot move. They are forced to stare at one wall and there are people that hold up objects which create shadows that the prisoners are forced to look at.In the second part, the three stages of liberation, one prisoner was released out of the cave and into the real world. At first it was painful for the prisoner to look at the light and they had to get accustomed to it. Then they were able to look at the sun itself and know that it had a lot of power and was in charge of the seasons and governs everything in sunlight. The prisoner also learns by what it was taught through the shadows. The last part...
Read more

test review

Today in class we reviewed and continued looking at the PowerPoint for our test on Thursday. We reviewed over the main things that will be on the test. Here are some of the main things that may be on the test: fertile valleys covered 1/4 of the peninsula only 20% was arable Greek diet: grain, grapes, olives, and fish lack of resources lead to Greek colonization temperatures in Greece were in the mid 40's in the winter and low 80's in the summer- very nice weather made outdoor and active people The Mycenaeans influence began around 2000 BCE and was located on a rocky ridge on Peloponnesus protected by a 20-foot thick wall Mycenaean kings dominated Greece from 1600-1100 BCE- controlled trade in the region in 1400 BCE the Mycenaeans invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture- cultural diffusion Dorians moved into the worn torn region Mycenae dominating from 1150-750 BCE after a mysterious sea people invade Mycenae and burned palaces Dorians were less advanced, trade-based...
Read more