Western Civilization

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Western Civilization

Question 1:

The roots of Western Civilization go back to the ancient Greece. The contributions of Ancient Greek are numerous in the intellectual areas like philosophy, art, math, science and architecture. The Greeks have made significant civilization in every field. All the ideas of Greek Philosophers have an influential impact on the western society. All the concepts of critical thinking, ethical standards, standards for justice and concept of democracy emerged from the Greek Civilization. The Greek philosophers have deeply enriched the western society with their wisdom and knowledge in various field. They introduced the concept of best political systems, meta physics and reliable knowledge. Greeks give a complete way of life to the western people. They introduce a proper system of government in the form of democracy and introduced lawful equality in the society.

Moreover, there are big names from the Greek Philosophy, without them the discussions of philosophy are incomplete. The ancient Greek philosophy started with Miletus and the Pre-Socratic philosophy. However, the most famous philosophers of ancient Greek are Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Most of the teachings of Western philosophy have its basis in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. When the philosophical views of these three philosophers are compared, all are easily differentiable. Though Socrates did not write anything himself, Plato narrated Socrates’ experience through the dialogues. Many of the Socrates concepts were written by other philosophers. However, all of the viewpoints of Socrates reflects the philosophy of Pythagoras. Socrates was more interested in knowledge and value theories. Plato was more anxious about ideas that’s why he is known as idealist in the current world. On the other side, Aristotle wrote about politics, metaphysics and ethical values through his observation. Unlike Plato and Socrates, he did not use reason and deduction to explain his teachings. The Crito gives an idea of social contract for the society and informs about a legal system that should be between the people and the state. There are a lot of arguments about the problems related to law and justice within a society.

The culture and philosophy of Athens emphasized on reformation of the government through the influence and rule of Solon. Solon’s political and economic reorganizations became the reason for the development Athenian institutions in later years. All of these reformations made to give a just society. Solon’s initiatives became the basis for democratic institutions of current western society. Some of the aspects of hermetic philosophy can be seen in Greek viewpoints, such as the concept of science is common in both philosophies. Philosophers from Greek also contributed in the development of science like Hermetic views. This shows a link of Greek with Hermetic philosophy.

Question 2:

Historical facts represent the proofs and realities from the past. These facts highlight the events and incidences which happened in past years. All of these facts are stored by historians and presented in a chronological order according to the year and century. Historians put an effort to discover the factors behind any event or circumstances happened in the past. They thoroughly analyze those circumstances and their influences on those events. Going through the different historical information, it is identified that most of the stories are informed in a comparative manner. Historians have compared different sources and finally, came up with the conclusions. However, sometimes historians receive much criticism for storytelling. Many of the opponents disagree with those facts for various reasons. Some think that it is impossible to get an accurate information from the history. It takes so much time to figure out the historical event and during those years much information gets lost. Story telling orally can be another reason for loss of information. It is in human being’s nature to interpret the information according to their own understanding and much alterations take place with the passage of time.

Obviously, facts exist that’s why people talk about logics and logical thinking. Facts make basis of logical thinking. Facts represent truth and reality. It is an actual and accurate thing taken from the living world. Fact is consistent. Reality never relies on other things to proof itself and so is the fact. Fact can be in any form, from a mathematics equation to a scientific argument.

Historical events have some conflicts with some historical facts. All those conflicts arise in the form of debates over an interpretation of an event happened in past. History suffers from the problem of uncertain information and at the same time, it is impossible to unearth all those events happened in the past. Therefore, those historical facts are either accepted or rejected on the basis of the conflict. The facts from history come at last and those facts seem considerable like solid material (Becker, p. 120). Although historical facts cannot provide with every little detail of a past incidence, it can be understandable that what is it communicating about. For instance, there is an example from an article about the historical facts and it informs about Caesar. It narrates the story of Caesar by saying that he crossed a small bridge (Becker, 122). In this case, the history is not taking about Caesar only. It is also discussing the army accompanied Caesar while crossing the bridge. If the historical facts cannot provide every minute details about an event, it does not mean that those facts are not true. These facts have been the basis for today’s world. All the inventions and developments are the evidence for the existence of historical events.

Works Cited

Becker, Carl L. "What are historical facts?" Western Political Quarterly 8.3 (1955): 327-340.