Classical Knowledge

4 Key excerpts on "Classical Knowledge"

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  eBook - ePub

  A Brief History of Knowledge for Social Science Researchers

  Before Method

  • Deborah Court(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3 A historical sketch of knowledge in the Western world: the Greeks through the Middle Ages Knowledge does not actually begin somewhere. Knowledge is part of human existence; it grows and has grown in every culture, in every time. Many great histories could be written about knowledge in China and India, among Native North Americans, and among every other group of people who have ever walked the earth. Neanderthal knowledge (for instance) would be fascinating to document, though we can do this only dimly through archeological records. Written language has helped enormously in our understanding of knowledge of past cultures, as have artistic depictions of the lives of people. Our concern in this chapter is not precisely knowledge about other times and cultures. Rather, we want to see how people viewed knowledge: what counted as knowledge, what kinds of knowledge were valued, how knowledge was evaluated and investigated, and the relationship of knowledge development to the epistemological, political, religious and cultural conditions of each period that we will survey. We will not look at Asia or at aboriginal cultures. We will follow the history of knowledge in the West, a European and then also New World story, for one reason. This is the intellectual history from which the common research tradition has grown. For better or for worse (and not denying, especially in recent decades, influences from outside this historical stream), this is the intellectual tradition from which research methodologies and academic language spring. These methodologies and this language are common to researchers all over the world, shared in international academic journals and at academic conferences

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  Advanced Educational Foundations for Teachers

  The History, Philosophy, and Culture of Schooling

  • Donald K. Sharpes(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  3. Education in Classical Greece Overview We turn next to the eastern Mediterranean to examine one of the most illustrious periods in any civilization, the classical Greek, and see what Hellenic culture passed on to culture and education. In the last chapter, we learned about the survival skills, art, and religion of ancient civilizations. In chapter 3 we will examine the critical thinking skills and intellectual development in the educational curriculum of classical Greece. Subjects taught in schools today have their origins in the topics that were studied among ancient Greeks. Computer technology, typing, and modern languages may be the only curriculum subjects unknown to the Greeks. We are currently in the midst of an intellectual revolution that began in seventeenth-century Europe. The first true intellectual revolution, however, actually began in Greece in the fifth century B.C., from which American scholars adapted a curriculum and a thirst for intellectual life that endures still today. We will explore the important roles of Homeric literature, as well as the life and works of several key figures: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We will also study one of philosophy’s methodological tools, logic and the use of reason, and its application in teaching and the curriculum. We will also focus attention on such movements as transcendentalism (other worldly ideas) and democracy, and examine notable writers and philosophers. Again, the incorporation of several case studies and teaching applications will help structure and guide students in the Grecian study. What provokes an explosion, a renaissance of intellectual and artistic activity? From what assembly of geniuses does such culture flower? We may never know the answer to such questions; however, everyone agrees that in the third century B.C. such a renaissance occurred in Greece. We and all future generations must consider how a civilization begins to blossom, and how its flowering can be sustained

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  Educational Philosophy

  A History from the Ancient World to Modern America

  • Edward J. Power(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  B.C. ), sought to extend its influence to adjacent lands. The Greeks had no urgent intent to export their culture to those places subjected by Alexander's legions, because their interest was mainly commercial and political. Yet, gratuitously, parts of the classical heritage made their way into sections of Asia and Africa, and were embraced with a surprising fervor. Clever people were quick to perceive treasure in the classical inheritance. So they embraced it with a zeal illustrative of religious conversion and undertook to master the classical bounty now unexpectedly at their disposal.

  Zeal and ambition aside, the burden of absorbing a heritage for which they had little or no linguistic and cultural affinity was both huge and difficult. Before anyone could open an antique book and hope to reap the treasure in it—a treasure confidently assumed to be the highway over which the supreme ideals of the classical age would pass—it was essential to master the humble auxiliaries to language and literature. Hellenistic converts to culture had no choice but to enlist schooling in their cause. Almost at once, and fully aware of the consequence of their action, they commissioned schools as agencies for cultural transmission. But there are preliminaries to reading and understanding the classics. Before cultural heights could be scaled, Hellenistic schools had to offer competent instruction in those subjects—grammar, rhetoric, and logic—capable of bearing the weight of more advanced study of language and literature.

  Confidence in an education canalized toward citizenship was high in the classical age. Culture was something to be nurtured by the vast and various activities in the city itself. In the Hellenistic world, however, the political policy shaped by Alexander and maintained by his successors declared the people inhabitants, not citizens. And the political education promoted in a classical city-state to prepare persons for an active role in political affairs was suppressed. Moreover, cultural yearning could not be satisfied by the commerce of life in the Hellenistic municipality where none of the vestiges of the ancient city could be found. It could be satisfied only by determined effort, by going to those parts of the classical heritage most capable of preserving culture from obliteration by erosion and decay. Any share of classical culture had to be bargained for in school, and schools for the first time were equipped to transmit a precious heritage. These conditions and expectations prompted clever persons to reconsider the role of education in their lives; they were led inevitably to philosophizing about it.

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  The History of the World

  The Story of Mankind from Prehistory to the Modern Day

  • Alex Woolf(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Arcturus

    (Publisher)

  bc –ad 500 Passage contains an image

  Classical Greece: 500–435bc

  The fifth century bc witnessed a remarkable flowering of culture among the city-states of Greece, particularly Athens. For perhaps the first time in history, a social elite began to think deeply about the world around them, to experiment with new architectural, artistic and literary forms, and to consider rational explanations of nature without recourse to gods and goddesses. So much of what we take for granted in contemporary Western civilization – democracy, science, medicine, drama, philosophy – has its roots in this brief, yet extraordinary era. So revolutionary were its achievements that historians have come to view it as the start of a new chapter in human history. Thus, in 500bc , ancient history made way for the classical world.

  Culture

  Many possible reasons have been cited for the magnificent achievements of Greek – and especially Athenian – culture in the fifth century bc . Some have argued that the fiercely independent nature of the Greek city-states placed a strong emphasis on individual freedom and encouraged creative thought. Others have speculated that the emergence of democracy, and the political debate it generated, led to an insistence on rational argument and the need for proof in other areas of human activity. Certainly, the widespread use of slaves for manual work allowed a wealthy elite sufficient time to devote themselves to matters of an intellectual and artistic nature.

  Whatever the cause, the ancient Greeks were among the world’s first philosophers, scientists and physicians. They were the first to speculate deeply about the underlying nature of the universe, the nature of knowledge and reality, and the meaning of good and evil. Among the most important Greek philosophers were Socrates (c.  470–399) and Plato (428–348).

  Greek scientists believed the universe operated according to laws that they could discover using logic and reasoning. Some of their conclusions anticipated the discoveries of modern science. For example, Aristarchus of Samos (310–230) claimed that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and Democritus

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