A Comparison Of Porphyry 's ' Pythagoras Life ' And Comments On Euclid 's Elements

Herodotus and Thucydides didn 't agree often on how history should be recorded, taught, and observed. Herodotus, in his account of the War for Greek Freedom, takes great care to include the most seemingly insignificant details of Persian, Lydian, and Greek culture--from their practices regarding death to their sexual habits to how they eat at mealtimes. Thucydides, on the other hand, tells The History of the Peloponnesian War from a bias against the clutter of religion, prophecy, culture, and humanity. As the two tell their historical accounts of two closely-connected events, their interpretations remain divided on the historical significance of the Greek oracles. However, Thucydides and Herodotus ' writing is similar in that they both

Action from necessity is a constantly recurring theme in Thucydides’ The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. A sentiment used to explain the growth of the Athenian Empire which some Athenians espoused to an assembly at Sparta best quantifies necessity, “. . . we were necessarily compelled at first to advance the hegemony to where it is—especially by fear, and then by honor, and later by benefit.” (Selected Passages 1.75.3). This claim, referred to as the Athenian Thesis, is used to advance the two following implications: all states act with the motivations of fear, honor and interest and no one can condemn a state for doing so. The Athenian Thesis influences the way many of the Athenian elite structure their patterns of reasoning in both noticeable and subtle ways.

Separated by language, history and several hundred miles of the Mediterranean Sea, two of the world's greatest cultures simultaneously matured and advanced in the centuries before the birth of Christianity. In the Aegean north, Hellenic Greeks blossomed around their crown jewel of Athens, while the eastern Holy City of Jerusalem witnessed the continued development of Hebrew tradition. Though they shared adjacent portions of the globe and of chronology, these two civilizations grew up around wholly different ideologies. The monotheistic devotion of Judaism that evolved in the Hebrew lands stood in stark contrast to the Greek worship of polytheistic Olympians, a religion that often tended more towards the rational and philosophic than

This essay attempts to explain Descartes’ epistemology of his knowledge, his “Cogito, Ergo Sum” concept (found in the Meditations), and why he used it [the cogito concept] as a foundation when building his structure of knowledge. After explaining the concept I give a brief evaluation of his success in introducing and using this cogito as a foundation. Finally, I provide reasons why I think Descartes succeeded in his epistemology.

The true essence of human nature is seen during times of great hardships as can be seen comparing Pericles' Funeral Oration and the plague in Thucydides', The History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides accounts for many different aspects of justice, power, and human nature through his text. The order, the style of his writing, choice of words, and relations of what he believes actually happened, allows the reader to make different inferences about the message he's trying to convey. The juxtaposition of the two stories portrays many different characteristics to investigate and analyze.

In “Euthyphro”, Plato dictates to readers a conversation between Socrates and Euthyphro as Euthyphro is exiting the courthouse in Athens. At this point Socrates has been trialed and charged with the crimes of impiety and corrupting the youth he taught, of which included Plato himself, who recorded all of Socrates’ conversations and later founded one of the first universities of the western world. Socrates challenged many of the ideas of his time and in doing so, gathered together as many experts on as many fields as he could find and asked them each to defend what they knew. What triggered this was the Oracle of Adelphi telling him he is the ‘wisest man’. This made very many people unhappy because he had such a strong influence over the youth he taught and lectured to,

Socrates, on his way to court, happens upon an old friend Euthyphro. Socrates was being prosecuted by a young lawyer named Meletus for corrupting the youth; while Euthyphro was in the process of trying his father for the murder of a laborer. Socrates soon begins a conversation with Euthyphro which leads into a discussion on piety and what it entails. Euthyphro cites the gods as the determiners of what is pious, which leads to the deconstruction of the definition by Socrates who proves the premises of the argument invalid.

Aristotle’s ‘function argument’ produced in the Nicomachean Ethics, is subject to harsh criticize that seemingly attacks Aristotle as a philosopher whom does not think his works thoroughly enough. The lack of blunt argument-statehood is substantial enough to and unfortunately interferes in proceeding to understanding what Aristotle has set out to demonstrate in the Nicomachean Ethics. Book 1 is merely an introduction to Eudaimonia and the Human Function. It is but a sketch, or rather an outline to what the book informs throughout. Where many believe to be the start of the Function Argument (NE1.7, 1097b30-34), Aristotle produces imagery of human-related objectives to their appropriate functions;craftsman to man and body parts to whole. This is meant to provoke the reader to critically think about their own function--as a human and Eudaimonia (note that we learn about Eudaimonia before the function argument is presented). I will defend the function argument and it’s plausibility in this essay by explaining the method utilized to build up this strong structured argument. This essay will converse with excerpts directly from Aristotle’s work, as well as

The book Euthyphro by Plato demonstrates one of the many complex ideas on ethics by the Greek philosopher, using his teacher Socrates and the theologian Euthyphro. The two intellectuals meet at the Porch of the King Archon, where both are involved in legal suits. The discussion between the two begins with Socrates informing Euthyphro of an accusation by another individual, Meletus, calling the philosopher “a poet or maker of gods” (pp. 2). After introducing the idea of piety, or holiness, Euthyphro reveals to Socrates that he is prosecuting his own father for murder. This confuses Socrates, due to the fact that Euthyphro is prosecuting his father over a murderous slave, and perceives it as impious. The philosopher praises Euthyphro as a great

If the Earth was smaller, but the distance between Alexandria and Syene remained the same, the shadow cast by the vertical pillar would be longer. Eratosthenes once measured the Earth's circumference to be approximately 250000 stadia. To get this, he measured the angle between the Sun's rays and the vertical pillar to discover that the 5000 stadia distance between the two cities covered about 1/50 the circumference of the Earth. If the planet were smaller, however, the angle between the Sun's rays would be greater, thus pushing the shadow further. For example, imagine that the new angle on this smaller planet is about 20° as opposed to 7.1°. This makes the distance between the two cities about 1/18 of the circumference of the Earth. Since

During the 17th and 18th century two philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, arose carving for themselves a trench in the philosophical world. We can see the biggest distinction between the two in their theories of how we know things exist. The traditions of Plato and Aristotle have been dubbed rationalism and empiricism respectively. Under these traditions many well known philosophers have formed their own theories of God, existence and the material world. Through these individual theories I will show how each fits into the category of either Rationalist or Imperialist. The Plutonian philosophers to be

It is the purpose of this essay to examine both Descartes’ Cogito argument and his skepticism towards small and universal elements, as well as the implications these arguments have on each other. First, I will summarize and explain the skepticism Descartes’ brings to bear on small and universal elements in his first meditation. Second, I will summarize and explain the Cogito argument, Descartes’ famous “I think, therefore I am” (it should be noted that this famous implication is not actually something ever said or written by Descartes, but instead, an implication taken from his argument for his own existence). Third, I will critique the line of reasoning underlying these arguments. Descartes attacks

With the emergence of the scientific revolution in the 17th century, views of society and nature were transformed throughout Europe. There were great developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry. The world and its views were changing, and with that change, came a new change in thought, a new change in philosophy. Apart from ancient Greek philosophy, which was centered on finding order in a vast variety of things by searching for a fundamental amalgamating principle, Descartes sought to establish order via some fundamental division. Descartes understands and expresses that what we know about our mind is more definite than what we know about the world outside our mind. Descartes’

Upon talking about the history of modern philosophy, one of the most important philosophers, who is considered as the father of the philosophy in this period, is Descartes. He was a pioneer for the movement of the new trend of philosophy and became a break between the medieval philosophy and the modern philosophy. Being educated in the environment of medieval philosophy, specifically in the school of Jesuits, Descartes received the system of scholastic philosophy as his foundation for making a new start into the history of philosophy. In his life, Descartes tried to establish a system of philosophy which was suitable to the development of society and science. To do that, he did not collapse pre-philosophical systems, but somehow he ignored their values. In his Meditations he says “Once in my life I had to raze everything to the ground and begin again from the original foundations, if I wanted to establish anything firm and lasting in the sciences.” Therefore, he just could begin a new system of philosophy which, he thought, would be a certain and firm foundation to get knowledge. However, to build up the principles for this foundation, Descartes had to use the concept of God in his arguments. The existence of God became an important means for the construction of his new philosophical system. Hence, I will emphasize on the importance of God in this paper by discovering the role of God as a means in Descartes’ main points of reasoning, particularly God with the method of

The horrendous death of the trojan priest Laocoön and his sons is a classical event associated with the final days of Troy, inspiring works in literature as well as visual arts. Book 2 of The Aeneid, by the Latin poet Virgil, and the 1st Century CE marble sculpture ‘Laocoön and Sons’ are two famed works that are inspired by the Laocoön Episode. Though both the sculpture and the text are canonical works of their own genre, the latter is more superior in terms of delivering a comprehensive narrative on the Laocoön episode. The Aeneid amplifies movements of Laocoön and the serpents using literary devices and adopts a time frame spanning from the arrival of serpents to the death of Laocoön to deliver a complete narrative, whereas the sculpture, though using dynamic movements and utilizes a single moment within the time frame of the text, fails to contain a general, uninformed viewer within the episode’s context.