Western Civilization

Today in Western Civilization we went more into the study of philosophy and what it means. The questions that people try to answer in philosophy are how should I live, how do I treat strangers, and do I owe anything about myself to animals or earth. There are certain things like climate change and do we need to try and stop it that my generation doesn't care about and it affects us more than the older generation yet it is going to affect us and not the older generation. There are also things about value theories that deals with ethics and aesthetics which is the study of looks and for things in style and design. Questions that involve aesthetics are what is beauty and does it exist like is beauty how you look or how good your senses look. Philosophy is used everyday even if we don't realize it because whenever you question something that is basically what philosophy is.

For the past few weeks in Western Civilization we have been learning about talking about philosophers but we were only talking about who the philosophers were not what they did and we started discussing what they did today and we were also shown some examples of philosophy. The biggest question that is asked in philosophy is why do you do what you do, why do you think what you think, and why do you feel what you feel. We also discussed philos versus mythos which is science versus storytelling philosophy can also be described as the love of wisdom. In ancient Greek times philosophy was the academic study of anything or the way of thinking about questions, there was a man named Plato he had a school called the academy there was also a man named Aristotle and his school was called Aristotle's Lysenin and it had many different fields of studies. Finally there were three things we learned about in the video we watched we learned about metaphysics studying the nature of reality, Epistemo...

Today in Western Civilization we learned about Philosopher Palooza which lead to science and logic for answers. We also learned about the Socratic method which forced people to think critically and back then when it rained people thought it was the Gods crying so the would sacrifice things to make the Gods happy and now they know that it's not true. Socrates was charged with serious crimes and he stood strong like a man and he didn't deny any of them. He was found guilty by the jury and he was sentenced to death by drinking some sort of poison. We also learned about Plato who was a student and he was a follower of Socrates however once Socrates was sentenced to death Plato couldn't follow him anymore and there was also a man named Aristotle who was a student of Plato he also had school that had many different people who had people from all around the world Aristotle also tutored Alexander the Great.

Today in Western Civilization we took our open note blog test and then we took notes in our notebook. The notes I have are from 477 to 431 BC Athens experienced a growth in intellectual and artistic learning there was a man named Pericles and he lede Athens during its golden age he dominated the life of Athens from 461 to 429 BC and he increased the number of public officials who got paid. At one point Athens was  one of the most democratic governments in history and this is when a direct democracy was introduced where the people could vote. The Athens had a very strong navy going into the peloponnesian war but in the end Sparta was the ones who pulled out the victory. Philosophers were also introduced who had different views on life.

Today in Western Civilization we continued to go over the material that is going to be on the test such as the greeks diet and how the geography affects the culture we also need to know where the seas are however we don't know if there's a wordbank on the test or not. We also need to know about the iliad and the odyssey the way i'm going to study for the test is during class i wrote down everything that we need to know in a seperate part of my notebook and i am going to look over them tonight and tomorrow night. We also need to know what the Homeric question is which was is Homer a real person who went on all these great adventures or was it a bunch of people who compiled all of their life experiences into one big book and Homer was also blind but it didn't matter because nobody would have been able to write anyway.

Today in Western Civilization we got our projects back and we started studying for the test that we will be having on Friday. The way that I studied for our upcoming test was I went back and read through all of the blogs that I have written so far then I went to the powerpoint and I looked at all of the slides on the powerpoint. Especially the slides on the seas because when we took the pop quiz that is what got me the most. I also payed attention to the slides talking about the geography of Greece because everything is sort of tied into the geography of Greece so if  i know the geography of Greece it will help me know all of the other things including the foods that they eat and how they live their life.

Today in Western Civilization we learned about a phalanx which is a close rank defense grouping of warriors armed with spears and shields so they would not only be able to play offense but they would also be able to play defense. Soldiers would advance slowly toward the enemy until they could make a move and this is how they performed a phalanx. We also learned about the persian war which was when the persians fought against the Greece and it was a little bit unfair because the persians had a massive empire and they were a lot more advanced and the Greeks had nothing, This was one of the first times that archers were successful in there attacks after Greece was announced victorious they formed the Delian League we also learned about Darius who was considered like a hero or the best person in this time period because he was very strong and Darius the Great lead us into a discussion about David and Goliath.

Today in Western Civilization we learned about many vocabulary words and we also learned that by 750  BC the city state or polis was the fundamental political unit in ancient Greece we also learned about an Acroplis which is when people gather to discuss something about the city or the states government. We also learned about what a tyrant was which is a single person who rules over people with a stern iron fist and by appealing to the common people for self support we also learned about a monarchy which is the same thing but the ruler is not evil and the ruler is called a king an Oligarchy is a government that is ruled by a few powerful people not just one person and during this time period it was very rare a democracy was giving the people an opportunity to have an influence on the government Helots were peasants who were forced to stay on the land that they worked Phalox were the most powerful fighting force in the ancient world and finally we learned that the Persian war was be...

Today in Western Civilization we learned about what a direct democracy was which is where the state is ruled by the citizens and the ruler is based on citizenship or a vote where the citizens get to pick the president this rule was first practiced in Athens  under Clesithenies by around 500 BCE however the exact date is unknown we also started to learn about the Gods we learned about Poseidon who is the god of the sea we learned about Aphrodite the God of love and we learned about Dionysus the god of wine who was also the son of Zeus and Zeus was the ruler of heaven Athena was a god of many things and she was the patron saint of Athens named after her Apollo was the God of music arts knowledge and healing, Demeter was the final God that we learned about he was the God of grains harvest and agriculture.We finally learned about the Spartans who were known for being tough the Spartan boys started training from seven years old the real Spartans were more fearsome then the ones is the m...

I wasn't in class because I have strep.

Mr. Schick I was not in class today because I have strep throat.