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Reference:
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The
Western Tradition Series,, Annenburg/CPB Collection, WGBH
Educational Foundation Boston, Massachusetts, Narrated by Professor Eugene
Weber, “Greek Thought”
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We have previously
presented the concept of “sophia”, or wisdom, which was so important to the
ancient Greeks.
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They had come to
believe that the wisest man was the best man, and that his wisdom could be
taught even to the poorest, even to the humblest among them. These days, of course, it’s sometimes hard
to understand why the Greeks made such a lot of fuss about things of this
nature.
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In fact, our
modern view of philosophy in general is that it is abstract and divorced from
the real world. But the Greeks had to
conquer their wisdom bit by bit; and
they found it fascinating as they ascertained it , precisely because it
helped them make better sense of the world they lived in.
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So they did the
hard work for us, and their thoughts about nature, and reality, and God, have
so profoundly influenced us, that we now take them for granted—but in ancient
Greece it was all very new.
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