How_Greece_Relates_to_Our_Life

Today, many things we say, do and learn, can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. The ancient Greeks made many contributions to western civilization today. The Greeks have influenced the modern world with things such as, philosophy, architecture, and math and science. One significant addition the ancient Greeks made to the modern western world, was philosophy. Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”(Doc. 1) this shows that searching for what makes life better makes life better itself. This is important because it made, and still does make people think about the meaning of life and what makes life worth living. Socrates, the founder of philosophy, said many things that make the mind think. Socrates created the Socratic method. The Socratic method is a question and answer form of teaching. He used it so that through a series of questions, you would always be lead to the correct answer. People today, still refer to Socrates and other Greek philosophers to answer some of the biggest questions in life. One of these other Greek philosophers is Aristotle. Aristotle, a student of Plato (another Greek philosopher) said, “Since human reason is the most godlike part of human nature, a life guided by human reason is superior to any other…. For man, this is the life of reason, since the faculty of reason is the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.” (Doc. 2) Aristotle believed that a life guided by reason was superior to any other. Many people today still look to Aristotle’s words for hope, and inspiration. After the death of his teacher Plato, Aristotle created a school where he taught boys. It was called the Lyceum. This school rivaled the school Plato founded called the academy. Without doubt, philosophers had a very big impact on the modern world. Another Addition the Greeks gave to modern society is architecture. Many western buildings have characteristics that can be trailed back to the Greeks. One specific characteristic is pillars (Doc. 7). Pillars are used for many famous modern buildings. These include the Lincoln memorial, the White House, most state capital buildings, and even some regular houses. This is interesting because the idea of pillars being used on important buildings represents democracy. Since the first democracy in the world was in Greece, this is the reason that many government buildings use pillars. The pillars have become a sign of democracy, and the United States is only the third democracy in the world. Greece was a direct democracy, while the United States is a Republic (a different kind of democracy). All Greek citizens, who were only free males over 18, could vote on important issues. While in America, we elect people to represent us. Another trait of Greek architecture that has been given to the western world is using marble on buildings. Using marble suggested prosperity and wealth. A lot of buildings today are made out of marble or things like marble. The Lincoln memorial is a great example of both of the Greek traits because the Lincoln memorial has pillars, and is partly constructed with marble. The link between Greek architecture and western architecture is very distinct, and hard to miss. One last example of something that the Greeks contributed to the western world is contributions made to math and science. Hippocrities stated the Hippocratic oath. It said, that he swore to help his patients to the best of his abilities and to not purposely hurt them in any way (Doc. 4). When students graduate from medical college they take this oath. This is incredible that someone could so long ago come up with something that we still use and follow today. Another contribution to our world today was Euclid’s works of modern geometry (Doc. 5) He wrote The Elements, which is considered to be the most accurate book of geometry. His works created the foundation for modern geometry, as we know it today. Without Euclid’s works, we would not know a lot of things we know today, such as the Pythagorean theorem. With out the Pythagorean theorem, we wouldn’t know how to find many important things we rely on today. It is clear that Euclid and Hippocrates contributed to modern math and science. It is evident that the Greeks have influenced our world today with philosophy, architecture, and math and science. As we can clearly see from Socrates and Aristotle, pillars and marble, and Hippocrates and Euclid, who knows where our world would be without the Greeks.