Ancient Greece · Part 7 · Thinkers and kings · B2–C1
Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
Part 7 of Ancient Greece: in Athens, a man who wrote nothing asked so many questions that the city put him to death. His pupil Plato founded the first academy, and Plato’s pupil Aristotle tried to understand everything from animals to politics. Philo himself is a follower of Plato. It is + adjective + to / that and the language of generalisation (tend to, on the whole, by and large), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the three philosophers every scholar in our Museum has read: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
My favourite subject. I read Plato every day; I think he and Moses would have understood each other.
Then you can explain them to me, because I have never understood a word.
Socrates would say that is the best place to start: knowing that you don’t know.
The first Greek philosophers, “lovers of wisdom”, lived in Ionia in the 6th century BCE. They asked what the world is made of: water, said Thales; fire and constant change, said Heraclitus; tiny uncuttable particles, “atoms”, said Democritus.
Socrates (469–399 BCE) turned philosophy towards how we should live. He wrote nothing; we know him through his pupils, above all Plato (about 428–348 BCE), who wrote dialogues in which Socrates is the main speaker, and founded the Academy, a school that lasted for centuries. Plato’s pupil Aristotle (384–322 BCE) taught the young Alexander of Macedon and founded his own school, the Lyceum.
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