Greek Philosophies

Have you ever thought about the history of psychology and how people first began to explain why we think and act the way we do? The Greeks first began deep thinking through reading and writing.The Philosophies that were created by theses Ancient Greeks began the discovery of how we interpret life. The Philosophers behind those ideas were very important to the history of Psychology because many of them helped influence some of the most famous Philosophers that we learn about today. How did The Ancient Greeks begin their philosophies in the first place? Reading and writing were very important to the Greeks. In the city-states that Greece was made up of, it was very popular among males in the upper class. The Greeks first used the Alphabet from …show more content…
Thales was considered the first nominal philosopher and materialist who believed that the universe was made of water, the ancient Greeks also considered him the first physics because of his ideas. Anaximander, who was a student of Thales, added to the aspect of Materialism. He believed that Earth began as a liquid and all of life began from the water. Heraclitus believed that fire and energy unifies all of reality, and “All things flow, nothing abides”(pg 5). Pythagoras was considered an idealist, his philosophy was based upon mathematics, specifically geometry. He believed that geometry was the foundation of the universe. He also founded a school that lasted around three hundred years and highly influenced the famous Plato. Xenophanes was the philosopher that denied the Greek Gods, he believed that there was one God, we now call this pantheism. A disciple for Xenophanes, who was named Parmenides, believed that “All things are one”(pg 6). The famous paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles was created by the philosopher Zeno of Elea. Zeno also believed that motion was an illusion. Another philosopher, Leucippus studied with Zeno of Elea. He is most famous for his idea of the atom. He believed that everything on earth was made up of tiny atoms, “Even the soul is made up of atoms”(pg 7). The last philosopher talked about was Democritus, one of Leucippus’ students. He developed Leucippus’ idea of atoms into a solid …show more content…
I would recommend this article to any students that are currently taking any sort of psychology class. This article surprised me in a sense. Typically when your professor tells you to write an essay on an article you dread it because most likely, the article is dull and boring. However, at least to me, the article was very interesting. The area of Psychology has always been an interest to me. Reading about the ideas behind psychology and who started the whole study was surprisingly interesting to me (a surprise because I take no interest in history). I also recognized some of the ideas that were presented in the article, like ethics, idealism, and materialism. I am looking forward to reading more articles like this in the