Hellenistic Individualism

The framework of the Hellenistic world can be seen during the life and reign of Alexander the Great. His role in developing the Hellenistic culture sprouts from his conquering of the Persian empire, and mixing the many cultures that were already present with Hellenic culture and ideas. This mixture of ideas moved the Hellenic’s three primary lenses of thought: humanism, idealism, and rationalism to a Hellenistic concept of three similar lenses: individualism, realism, and empiricism. This paradigm shift changed the way that the world functioned in all three of the given lenses of thought, and the reign of Alexander the Great, the Altar of Zeus at Pergamum, and portions of Aristotle’s philosophy illustrate this dramatic shift from Hellenic to …show more content…
The Hellenistic culture and thought is composed of a mixture of three separate worldview concepts that have now begun to be combined into a unified way of thought. These three separate worldviews are: Hellenic, Macedonian, and ancient near eastern. With this new combination of ideas there is a movement from the prior Hellenic understanding of humanism that is transferred to an individualistic way of life. This concept of individualism can best be defined as a turn to the singular individual rather than the corporate whole of mankind. Next, the Hellenic understanding of idealism is in part replaced by the Hellenistic understanding of realism. Realism is the placement of absolute is in the experience and the physical; unlike, the past understanding of idealism which posits absolute in an otherworldly form as seen in Platonic philosophy and Hellenic art. Finally, understanding was transferred from a Hellenic rationalism to a Hellenistic empiricism that moves the beginning step of understanding from the human mind to the human perception (Kurka “Aristotle Part 1”). This fundamental understanding of the new lenses of thought and culture can now serve as a beginning in understanding the massive change in history, art, and …show more content…
The realism that was displacing the Hellenic understanding of idealism can be brilliantly exhibited in the Altar of Zeus at Pergamum. Architecturally this altar is not too different from a Hellenic architecture, but this altar’s art was a complete shift from the past Hellenic idealism to a Hellenistic realism. The altar serves as an example of this shift by seeing that the sculptures are not only on the same level as the steps; bringing the art to the people. This movement of the sculptures breaks the past Hellenic idealism as soon as the knee of one of the sculptures touches a step in the Altar of Zeus (Messner “Hellenistic Art”). While this may seem insignificant the ramifications of allowing art to be within the everyday, real world situation and within the viewers’ experience makes the art all the more real and accessible. Now that the cities are about the individual and the art is within the real world the final shift to reaching knowledge in the here and now can be seen in Aristotle’s empirical approach to