Golden Age of Athens Notes

 Acropolis of Athens: Civic

and religious buildings of the Athenian city-state  The Parthenon: A great temple in Athens built and decorated during 447-432 BCE (Commissioned by Pericles and paid for with Delian League money)  Delian League: A union of

Greek city-states formed in the fifth century BCE to fight the Persians.

 Western philosophy began with the Greek thinkers of

the ancient world  Word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom”  1st to ask…What is the nature of the world? What is the nature of man?  Laid the foundation for Western intellectual history

 Socrates (470BCE-399BCE)  Socratic method: Based on cross-examination

as a way to uncover inconsistencies in the assumptions inherent in other questions  Wanted to make people examine false assumptions  Plato (427BCE-347BCE)  Socrates' death turned Plato away from

democracy  Created The Academy (a school to teach his thoughts and to make philosopher-kings)  Wrote: The Republic and expresses a belief that philosophers equipped with knowledge should be allowed to rule over the masses, who lived in ignorance (**was against democracy)

 384BCE-322BCE  Studied at Plato’s Academy  Teacher of Alexander the

Great  1 of the first empirical thinkers  Applied the scientific approach to human behavior, natural philosophy, natural science, ethics, and metaphysics

 Began “modern history” with effort to

understand and explain changes in Athenian politics and power  Herodotus: The Persian Wars  Thucydides: History of the Peloponnesian War HERODOTUS: 1st Historian

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