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Its quite difficult to rationalize and demystify the depth of Ancient Greek thought and Aristotle is probably the best embodiment of that conundrum. It would b

Its quite difficult to rationalize and demystify the depth of Ancient Greek thought and Aristotle is probably the best embodiment of that conundrum. It would be quite an educational breakthrough if we could actually feel how and why there was this peak moment in intellectual inquiry, why it did not persist, why it emerged again but only millennia afterwards and whether it may again vanish as we drift into digitally intermediated dark ages.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
It's at least partially linked to the spread of economic writing and leisure time. Socrates famously wouldn't (couldn't?) write; most of what he said we know through plato; much of the writing predating this was orally preserved and propagated. I find it hard to believe that logic hasn't been independently invented many times and places, though. The daodejing certainly implies an understanding of logic, even as it subverts it. There are logic puzzles in the odyssey and throughout folklore. And anywhere you find courts and judges you're likely to find some form of logic, and that had spread to the entirety of the mediterranean, more or less, including punic/phoenician colonies. I think it's very likely philosophy as an activity and logic itself well predate the written tradition. It's a natural response to conflict resolution in settled society at the very least, if not evolutionarily meaningful somehow.
- openrisk 2y ago
  Yes, Aristotle most certainly climbed on the shoulders of countless "giants" before him. The last rung of the ladder, his own teachers at Plato's Academy are even known. So, inate talent combined with a ready pool of prior knowledge, basic enabling information technology and favorable economic conditions certainly make all his polymathy and conceptual breakthroughs plausible. But the mystery thickens again if you consider the multiple centuries of the Hellenistic and Roman eras that did not continue the pattern, even though economic conditions and the number of educated individuals kept growing. Let alone the subsequent extremely long "dark ages" where economic conditions did deteriorate but pressumably there were enough courts and monasteries to feed a few pioneering scientists. Today we take the scientific outlook and methodology as sort of de-facto winner, but there seems to be an element of cultural choice and possibly other factors that modulate the mindshare that ends up cultivating it.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago

It's at least partially linked to the spread of economic writing and leisure time. Socrates famously wouldn't (couldn't?) write; most of what he said we know through plato; much of the writing predating this was orally preserved and propagated. I find it hard to believe that logic hasn't been independently invented many times and places, though. The daodejing certainly implies an understanding of logic, even as it subverts it. There are logic puzzles in the odyssey and throughout folklore. And anywhere you find courts and judges you're likely to find some form of logic, and that had spread to the entirety of the mediterranean, more or less, including punic/phoenician colonies. I think it's very likely philosophy as an activity and logic itself well predate the written tradition. It's a natural response to conflict resolution in settled society at the very least, if not evolutionarily meaningful somehow.

openrisk 2y ago
Yes, Aristotle most certainly climbed on the shoulders of countless "giants" before him. The last rung of the ladder, his own teachers at Plato's Academy are even known. So, inate talent combined with a ready pool of prior knowledge, basic enabling information technology and favorable economic conditions certainly make all his polymathy and conceptual breakthroughs plausible. But the mystery thickens again if you consider the multiple centuries of the Hellenistic and Roman eras that did not continue the pattern, even though economic conditions and the number of educated individuals kept growing. Let alone the subsequent extremely long "dark ages" where economic conditions did deteriorate but pressumably there were enough courts and monasteries to feed a few pioneering scientists. Today we take the scientific outlook and methodology as sort of de-facto winner, but there seems to be an element of cultural choice and possibly other factors that modulate the mindshare that ends up cultivating it.