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Ancient Greek Contributions

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The Ancient Greeks were known for many things. Some may know them for the olympics, mythology, the trojan horse, or togas. What may not come to mind is how much the Greeks influenced Western civilization. The Greeks had six major contributions, art, architecture, philosophy, math, science, and drama. Ancient Greeks made many influential contributions to western civilization such as in the areas of philosophy. Socrates is one of the most famous Greek philosophers. His contributions were so great he was nicknamed “The Father of Logic” and “The Father of Western Philosophy”. He believed that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Document 1). Meaning if we don’t question the world around us and even ourselves, then we are no better than animals. A huge difference between animals and humans is that humans have the ability to think beyond the animalistic way of “hunt, eat, sleep, survive”. Although those animalistic thoughts are what kept humans alive for centuries, we also have the ability to question our decisions and to choose what we want to believe. If we choose to never question anything and to just follow blindly then we are better off dead. Although, going against the crowd instead of with is what caused Socrates death. He was convicted of refusing to acknowledge the gods of the city and corrupting the cities youth. He was sentenced to drink poison. This is a good example of irony because Socrates says “The unexamined life is not worth living” yet examining life

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