Civilization #13: Aristotle and the Greek Legacy

Okay, so today we will finish the Greeks by discussing Aristotle, and a lot of what I will say today will be controversial, so feel free to challenge me, feel free to ask for clarification, feel free to ask any questions. So here's my argument: Aristotle is a paradox. He is one of the mysterious figures in world history. He's one of the most famous but he's one of the most mysterious. He's a paradox for three reasons.

The first reason is he is considered to be one of the greatest philosophers in human history. He's next to Plato, he's certainly as influential as Plato, but what is unique about him is we do not have anything originally written by him. We have no text that we believe was personally written by him, and that's unique in human history. We say Shakespeare was a great writer and we can prove it or show it by reading his text. We believe Aristotle is a great thinker, a great writer, but we have no evidence, no text, to show us this is the case. But we believe so. So this is the first paradox of Aristotle.

Second paradox of Aristotle is he was a very prolific writer and thinker. In fact we believe he wrote...

There's about 200 works attributed to Aristotle. What is unique about his work is the range of his thinking and his research. So he's written a book on politics: what is the best political system? He's written a book on poetics, theater, basically what makes for a good tragedy. He's written a book on ethics: what is a good life, what makes a good person? He's written a book on rhetoric: how do you convince the audience that you are correct? He's also written books on physics, he's written books on metaphysics, he's written books on biology. The range is just incredible. We have no analog in human history like him. He's completely unique in the range of his curiosity. So that's the second paradox.

The third paradox is the most problematic. We know that Aristotle studied under Plato for 20 years, and so we also believe that Aristotle was Plato's most famous student. The paradox is Aristotle's understanding of the universe is radically opposed to Plato's understanding of the universe, and that again is unique in human history. You would think the best student would carry on the master's work or at least build on it, but Aristotle, his understanding of the universe is in conflict with Plato's work. In fact you could also argue that Aristotle is negating Plato's worldview.

So let me explain how.

We know Plato, we know that for Plato there is a God and it's called the form of the good, and the form of the good is what is perfect and immutable. Now the form of the good emanates other perfections, what he calls the forms of the ideal. So these are concepts like justice and beauty and reason, and then these concepts manifest themselves in forms like a horse, or a woman, and these are the ideal, perfect, eternal manifestations. So there's only one horse, it's up in heaven, and everything else is a copy of this horse or imitation of this horse. So we live in the shadow realm, the shadow realm where everything is imitation. This is our reality, it's a shadow reality, and that's why art and poetry and theater are so bad, because they are really an imitation of an imitation. So this is Plato's hierarchy.

From this hierarchy and this worldview we can make certain extrapolations. The first extrapolation is, for Plato, what is good is if you approach or return to the form of the good. What is evil, what is bad, is if you move away from the form of the good.

So poetry is evil, mathematics is good. Now why is mathematics good? Because mathematics is what allows you to approach the form of the good.

All right, so let me give you an example of this. Let's see, there's a circle. Right now what Plato argues is, no matter how hard you try you could never, ever draw a circle in this world, because a circle has an edge, so it's literally impossible for you to create something without an edge. You're like, well, I can draw on the computer, but if you go to a microscopic level you will always find an edge. So how do you create a circle? Well, you create a circle by imagining it in your head. What you're really doing is you're imagining the circle because you're accessing the realm of the forms, you're approaching the form of the good. So it is only through a process of pure thought, pure philosophy, pure mathematics, that you can actually start to understand this world. All right, that's Plato's understanding of the world.

Aristotle has a completely different understanding. Aristotle starts with this: the God is a prime mover. So the prime mover, just imagine a big bang, right?

Something explodes, boom, it moves, and it forces other things to move as well. So what Aristotle is saying is everything is really in motion. Everything is change because it was all caused by the prime mover. And in Plato, sorry, in Aristotle's world, what is good is if the thing that changes moves towards its purpose, or the word he uses is called telos. If you're moving towards your purpose you are doing good in this world, if you're moving away from your purpose you're doing bad in this world. So the example is a soldier. The purpose of a soldier is to fight and win wars, so if you go fight and you do your best you're doing good, but if you run away from a war you're doing bad.

So this is Aristotle's worldview, and as you can see, these two worldviews cannot harmonize, they are in conflict with each other. You have either one or the other. So let me highlight the three major differences between these two worldviews. And again, I need to emphasize this: I am not an expert on Aristotle, I'm not an expert on Plato, so I am committing oversimplifications. Scholars who are experts will hear this and be outraged, but for the purpose of this class I feel these oversimplifications provide clarity.

All right, so the first oversimplification is Plato is what we call a rationalist, Aristotle is what we call an empiricist. These are two big words, but the rationalist is just someone who believes that you can access the truth through pure thought, mathematics, and an empiricist is someone who believes you can only access the truth through observation and what we call induction, inductive logic. So if I see a woman wearing a dress and I see another woman wearing a dress and a third, I'm like, okay, well from this I can logically deduce or induce that all women wear dresses, and that's what separates women from men. So for Aristotle, to seek the truth you have to observe and you have to induce. So that's the first major difference.

Second major difference is Plato is what we call a dualist and Aristotle is what we call a materialist. A dualist is someone who believes that there's a body and a soul, and if you believe there's a body and a soul you also believe the soul is more important, because the soul is eternal whereas the body will decay and die.

Aristotle, he's a materialist, so for him the focus is on the body and what happens to the body. There may be a soul, there may not be a soul, he doesn't really care, for him it doesn't really matter. What matters is what happens to the body.

The third major difference is Plato believes in the idea of immutability, or what we call eternity, for almost nothing is immutable, most things are mutable. The only thing that's really immutable is really God, but everything else is mutable, it will change over time. And so for Aristotle the concept is infinity. Things will always change, things will always move, there's no stopping movement. But for Plato things are eternal, there's a grand design, and nothing that changes really matters, it doesn't really affect the grand design, so for him it's eternity. So these are the three major differences between Plato and Aristotle.

Now what's really interesting for us is that this conflict between Plato and Aristotle is what will inform the philosophical debate for all Western civilization. So there are two major camps in Western philosophy. There is the rationalist camp, so people like Descartes, and then there are the empiricists, so people like David Hume. All right, and for most of Western history philosophers will go back and forth between these two extremes, either the Platonic ideal or the real reality.

Does that make sense? All right, is this clear? Any questions? Sure, go. Yeah, so that's a great question. For Plato, all what we, like, our lives, the reality we live in is not real, it's ephemeral, whereas the form of the good, that's what's concrete, that's what's eternal. So I mean, I understand that's counterintuitive to us, but the reason why it's counterintuitive to us is because we're mainly influenced by Aristotle. We are materialists, science is materialistic. But back then, and I would say back then in Plato's time and for most of human history, it was assumed that our world was transitory or transient or ephemeral, and it was a spirit world that was real and that was eternal. Does that make sense? Again, this is oversimplification. Like if you go to a scholar who understands it himself, he'll probably criticize me. But I'm saying that for the purpose of this class and for our understanding of Western civilization this will do. Just understand there's a major conflict between Plato and Aristotle.

This will go on for thousands of years, this will inform the debate in Western civilization. This is the fundamental debate in Western philosophy.

So let's go back to... let's summarize where we are. Aristotle is a paradox. We have nothing that he wrote originally. The range of his work is incredible, it's unique in human history. And then lastly, even though we know Aristotle studied under Plato for like 20 years, at least, Aristotle came up with a very different conceptualization of the universe. In fact it is in direct conflict with Plato's understanding. So how is this possible? How can we resolve these paradoxes? So I'm going to make an argument, and I will slowly make this argument, but it is a controversial argument. My argument is that Aristotle was not a philosopher, he was not a thinker, he was not a writer. What he was ultimately is what I refer to as a censor. You can also use words like sympathizer, or editor, or systemizer. But basically nothing that he thought was original to him, but he decided what would be politically convenient for the moment. That's what we mean by censor. And it's my argument that if we understand Aristotle as a censor, then these three paradoxes go away.

We can explain away these paradoxes.

All right, so let me make my argument. My first piece of evidence: we need to compare and contrast the life of Philip of Macedon and Aristotle. When you do that, when you put their lives side by side, parallels emerge. So let's look at their lives, very simple. Aristotle was born in the year 384, Philip II was born in the year 383. That's about the same age. Now Philip II, he's a prince of Macedon, his father is the king. Aristotle, his father was the court physician to the king, he was the king's doctor. So from these two pieces of information, what can we guess about Philip and Aristotle? They grew up together. Does that make sense? Aristotle's father was the personal doctor of the king, Philip was the son of the king. It would make sense they grew up together, it would make sense they would be educated together.

All right, second thing that's interesting is from 367 to 348, Aristotle went to Athens to study with Plato. Now around the same time, in the year 369 to 365, Philip went to Thebes to study military innovation under the best generals in Greece. All right, and here I would extrapolate and say the teenagers, they're going to further their learning and learn the best scientific and military innovation in order to bring back to Macedon.

And this happens all the time. In the 1980s China sent its best and brightest to America to study. So we can also surmise that even while they were away they were still in contact with each other.

All right, now in 359 Philip became regent, or basically king, and from then on he started this massive military campaign to conquer all of Greece. Now one thing that was interesting about Philip's conquest of Greece was the Athenians didn't really oppose him, and this is one of the great mysteries historians struggle with. Why is it that Philip II is going around conquering all these places that are in conflict with Athens and Athens doesn't really resist? All right, and one possible theory is, well, Philip II just bribed all these Athenian aristocrats. In fact the man who most opposed Philip, this Athenian statesman named Demosthenes, he actually said this in speeches. He said, listen, I'm telling you right now, Philip tried to bribe me, and I know Philip is bribing all my opponents, but I'm telling you, Athenians, Philip is a menace to democracy, and that's why we must oppose him.

All right, so we can surmise that Philip was bribing these Athenians to support him, and that's why there's so little Athenian resistance to Philip. If that's the case, then who's the middleman? Who's the person who's in contact with these aristocrats? Aristotle. Why? Because remember, Aristotle was at the Academy for 20 years. The Academy in Athens at that time is like Harvard or Oxford today. It's where all the rich and powerful go to study. So for 20 years Aristotle was in contact and became friends with the most powerful individuals in Athens, and that's why when Philip needed to negotiate with Athenians it would make the most sense to send Aristotle. Does that make sense?

And then we know that Philip united Greece in 338, and then in 335, three years later, Aristotle started a new school in Athens in competition with the Academy, called the Lyceum. So what is the purpose of the Lyceum? That's what I will discuss next. But does that make sense? There are direct parallels between the lives of Aristotle and Philip, and we can guess or deduce that Aristotle and Philip were very close throughout their lives, and they were helping each other.

Does that make sense?

Okay, so now the question then is, why was Philip going around conquering all of Greece? Well, Philip had a vision for the world, and it's called the Pan-Hellenic project. So at this time, and throughout most of its history, Greece was divided into city-states all around the world, mainly in Greece but also across the Aegean, in Asia Minor, Anatolia, across all these different islands, and into North Africa, across the Adriatic, also into Italy as well. So you have this sprawling Greek world, and there were many who believed that this Greek world should unite together because there's a common ancestry. So it's a dream of many philosophers that a great man of history would arise and unite all of Greece by basically defeating Persia, and Philip II said, hey, that's a great idea, and it should be me.

But the problem is the Pan-Hellenic project assumes a common Greek identity, and it didn't really exist at that time. In fact Greeks probably had more in common with their local cultures than with each other. So if you were a Greek living in Asia Minor you were probably more Persian than you were Greek.

So in other words Philip needed someone, a censor basically, to create a Greek identity, and the way you do that is by taking all this vast universe of knowledge that the Greeks created and you create an encyclopedia or a series of textbooks that define what it means to be Greek. You standardize and you systemize Greek knowledge. Does that make sense? And so that's probably what Aristotle was doing when he started the Lyceum. He had lots of... Okay, yeah.

So throughout history all conquerors did this, because by standardizing and systemizing knowledge was the best way for you to coopt the elite and to showcase your legitimacy. Otherwise the intellectual elite would think of you as a barbarian conqueror. All right, and the best way that you coopt the intellectual elite is by showcasing a new systematic knowledge. Does that make sense?

All right, so the problem is that in 336 Philip was assassinated and his son Alexander came to the throne, and as we discussed last time, Alexander had a very different vision from his father. His father wanted to unite the Greek world, Alexander wanted to conquer the entire world to show he was superior to his father.

And unbelievably, incredibly, he was able to do so, conquer most of the world in about 10 years' time. So now suddenly you have this sprawling empire all around the world.

So let's just sketch out how vast this new empire was. So you have Greece and Macedonia, okay, so that's the Greek homeland. Thank you. That's the Greek homeland. But hey, over here you have Anatolia, this is Mesopotamia, over here is Afghanistan, oh sorry, it should be Iran, sorry, Iran, Afghanistan, and you also reach as far as Pakistan. And down here you have the Levant and you have Egypt. All right, this was not supposed to happen. Philip and the Pan-Hellenic project imagined their conquest would extend up to around here, your united Greek world. Alexander went too far, and now you've conquered most of the known world.

Then Alexander died, and then the empire was divided into three major fragments. Over here you have something called the Antigonid Empire, the Antigonid dynasty, so that's one piece of the empire. Down here you have Ptolemy. Ptolemy was one of Alexander's generals and he took over Egypt.

And over here you have something called the Seleucid Empire, founded of course by the general Seleucus. And over here you have other smaller kingdoms as well. So you have this vast empire, and this is something that was unplanned and unexpected. Now that you've conquered these places, your concern or your problem is how do we govern? So you need a new culture, and so these different generals adopted different strategies.

So for example here, the Persian culture is extremely well established, and the Seleucid king and his heirs decided on a policy of localization, or another word you can use is syncretization, syncretization, meaning two different religions or two different cultures come together and coalesce together. So throughout the Seleucid Empire it was really a process of syncretization. The Greeks adapted themselves to local customs and to local culture. At the same time, the Greek conquerors still need to maintain a coherent identity, so it made sense for them to adopt a lot of Aristotle's work, because remember, Aristotle was creating a Pan-Hellenic identity, and so he basically created a lot of textbooks, he basically created an encyclopedia, so it made sense for them to import Aristotle's works. Also it's important to remember Aristotle was Macedonian, and for the longest time Greeks did not consider Macedonians to be Greek.

This is why it's called the Pan-Hellenic project, not the pan-Greek project. Also Greeks were very condescending towards Macedonians because they saw Macedonians as barbarians, so it was in the best interest of these new Macedonian conquerors to exaggerate or to highlight the intellectual contributions of Aristotle. Does that make sense?

Ptolemaic Egypt was very different. Egyptian culture has been around for thousands of years and Egyptians are very proud of their culture, and this is a problem because if you're very proud of your local culture, you don't like foreign rulers. And this is something that the Persian Empire struggled with throughout the centuries that it dominated Egypt. The Persians were famous for their openness and tolerance. Basically you were allowed to practice your own religion and they're very supportive of that. The most famous example are the Jews, who the Persians supported in rebuilding the Second Temple. We'll get to the Jews later on. But because the Persians were so supportive of local culture, in Egypt the Egyptians rebelled against Persia many, many times. So Ptolemy and his heirs didn't want to make the same mistake. They wanted to impose a new culture on the Egyptians in order to show that they were superior and therefore more divine than Egyptians.

So Ptolemy did many things that started this process. The first thing that he did was he stole Alexander's body from Babylon, where he died, and brought it back to Egypt, because Egyptians saw Alexander as a god, as a son of a god. So to establish legitimacy in Egypt, Ptolemy went on a military expedition and stole the body of Alexander, which started something called the war of the Diadochi, basically the Successor Wars. That's the first thing he did.

The second thing that he did was he established a new capital in Alexandria, called Alexandria. So this was mainly a Greek city, it was a new Greek city founded by Alexander, and this is where they housed Alexander's body.

The third thing that he did was he started to sponsor something we call today the Mouseion. The Mouseion is the root of the English word museum, but the Mouseion was really the world's first research university. So Ptolemy and his heirs brought together the greatest Greek scholars in the world to basically continue the work of Aristotle, to standardize and systemize Greek culture so that they can impose it on the local Egyptian culture.

Does that make sense?

And the most famous aspect of the Mouseion is the Library of Alexandria, and Ptolemy spent a lot of money on the Library of Alexandria, mainly by going around and collecting original manuscripts. So a representative went to Athens and said, we at the Library of Alexandria would like the original copies, the original manuscripts, for Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, the three great playwrights. And the Athenians are like, we can't do that, because they're like gods here, we're not going to give you original manuscripts. And the Egyptians said, what we're going to do is we're going to take these manuscripts back to the Library of Alexandria where our scribes will copy them out. That's all we're going to do, and then we'll give them back to you, and as a guarantee we're going to give you like 15 talents of silver. And that's like a billion dollars back then, the Athenians have never seen so much money. So the Athenians will say, well, okay, if it's just to spread great culture we can actually deal with that. So we'll take the deposit, 15 talents, we'll give you the manuscripts. The Egyptians took the manuscripts, placed them in the Library of Alexandria, and said, hey Athenians, keep the money, because the Egyptians under Ptolemy were focused on turning the Library of Alexandria and Alexandria into the intellectual capital of the Greek world.

All right, and so what happened was that after Alexander died and his generals took over, the Pan-Hellenic project really became what we call the panh project. It went from uniting the Greek world into spreading Greek culture all around the world, and that's why we have Greek culture still with us today, because of this process.

So let's go back to the original paradox. There are three paradoxes. The first paradox is: why do we have nothing original from Aristotle? The answer is because Aristotle didn't write anything original. He stole everything from other thinkers, and students copied it out in manuscript form. Does that make sense? Second is: why are his works so diverse, why is the range so great? The answer is because he was trying to capture the essence of Greek knowledge. You're trying to unify Greek knowledge into an encyclopedia for dissemination around the world. The third thing, the most interesting thing, is: why is Aristotle's philosophy so different from Plato's worldview? That's a really interesting question.

Why are they so different? So let's switch our perspective and ask ourselves, if you were a king of Macedon, if you're Philip, Alexander, what's your problem with philosophy? You have a problem. What is it? Guesses? You're Alexander, you're Philip, you really hate Plato. Why? Well, the problem with Plato is you go to Plato, you go to Plato and say, I want to conquer the world. Plato would say, what's the point? It's all not real. Alexander, you're just wasting your time. You can conquer the world but all you're doing is conquering a shadow. What is the form of the good? Alexander, study mathematics, man. Do more math, stop going around and killing people, do more math. And we know what Alexander would do here. Alexander would probably cut off Plato's head. So Philip hates this thing. This thing is idiotic. I want to conquer the world but this philosophy is telling me it's pointless, what matters is mathematics, what matters is philosophy.

All right, now let's compare this with Aristotle's prime mover theory. What he is saying is everything is motion and what is good is if you fulfill your purpose. Now if you're Alexander, Philip, this makes more sense.

I'm Philip, my purpose is to unite the Greek world, and the more I unite, the more good I'm doing for this world. Also if you're a king you want your citizens, your soldiers, your workers to work hard. Well, for Plato working hard is just useless. You're imitating an imitation when you create art. But here, working hard is what gives you purpose, what gives you happiness. So Aristotle also promoted two major concepts. The first is... second is eudaimonia. Arete is just excellence. Alexander is an excellent general. When you have arete and you are achieving your purpose, then you achieve eudaimonia, which is just flourishing, and that's the purpose of life, to have arete and to achieve eudaimonia. So work hard. Fight for Alexander, support him as he conquers the world, because he's making the world better. Does that make sense?

I'm a soldier, purp... to... am I not? Okay, that's a great question. Yeah, thanks, Doug. Okay, all right, so the question then is, if I'm a soldier and I'm working hard and winning battles, am I not approaching the form of the good? And the answer is, for Plato, it's not. The reason why is, what do you do in this material world is pointless, because this material world is not real, so whatever you do is not real.

Does that make sense? So what you need to do is return to the form of the good, but your body can't do that, your soul can do that. So your use of the body is pointless, you have to use your soul, you have to use your mind. All right, therefore you have to be a good person, therefore you have to engage in philosophy and mathematics, and that's how you return to the form of the good. You're attached to the body, you're just deluding yourself. And if you engage in art then you are deluding others, and that's more evil. If you're Alexander, you're conquering others and forcing them to believe your fake philosophy, then you're committing the most evil in the world. Does that make sense?

All right, so this is my theory of how to best resolve the three paradoxes of Aristotle. Does that make sense? He was basically a censor who was working for Philip and Alexander, and he was trying to develop a Pan-Hellenic identity in order to unite the world they conquered.

So that's my argument. Any questions about this overall argument? Does it make sense to you guys?

Okay, got a few questions. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Right, go ahead. That's a great question. Yeah. Okay, all right, so how do we know he didn't write any of his works? The answer is this: when you write something, you're actually manifesting your thought. Your thought comes from your personality. So if you look at any work of genius, it's original and unique. Does that make sense? In other words, if you read Shakespeare, guess what, there's no other Shakespeare in the world. If you're trying to imitate Shakespeare you look like an idiot. Homer is unique, Plato is unique, there's no point in trying to imitate them, you can't do it because you are not them. Now when you look at Aristotle, there's nothing unique about Aristotle. So you know, when you read Plato's Republic there are certain ideas that stand out, like the allegory of the cave. There's certain phrases that capture your imagination. That doesn't exist with Aristotle's texts. They're really like textbooks. So the argument for the longest time was Aristotle did write his own books but they were lost to us, and his students had to reassemble his thinking from their own memory.

So yeah, that's how we know, but this is generally agreed upon: we have nothing that Aristotle wrote originally. That's right, yeah. Okay, so thank you, Doug.

Okay, yeah, so there are many different possibilities of how Aristotle can become so influential. The first possibility is, as I argue, he was actually a partner of Philip's, that they were both trying to promote the Pan-Hellenic project. That's the first possibility. But another possibility is, as Doug says, he was just a philosopher, he was a student of Plato, he was very smart and he was a very good teacher, and after Alexander and his generals conquered the world they needed a symbol of Macedonian cultural superiority, and they just decided upon Aristotle because it was most convenient. So that's another. Okay, that's right. Yep, exactly. So yeah, it is entirely possible Aristotle was a materialist because that was just his personality, the influence from his father, who was a physician. But that creates another problem, which is if you are so opposed to Plato's understanding of the world, because you're a materialist and he's a dualist, why were you studying under Plato for 20 years?

Does that make sense? So that creates another problem.

All right, so another thing I want to point out is how we have Aristotle's works today. There are three different possibilities. The first possibility is that Aristotle in his lifetime organized his students and created this encyclopedia. It's no different from professors at university today. Professors who are scientists actually do very little of the original research, they have the students do it, but they're the ones who supervise the entire process. So it's possible, that's the first possibility, Aristotle was supervising the work of creating a Greek identity. The second possibility is after Aristotle died his students started to remember, recall his lectures, and that's why so much of his work is fragmentary. We don't have complete manuscripts. And the third possibility, and it's entirely possible, is Aristotle is a fiction created by scholars at the Library of Alexandria. So it's really the scholars at the Library of Alexandria who created Aristotle, and they did so by synthesizing all this work and then they gave it to, they accredited it to, attributed it to Aristotle in order to create the legend of this philosopher.

Does that make sense?

Okay, so let's have an argument about Confucius, let's have a discussion about Confucius. But I want to very quickly talk about the Greek legacy, because even though we can argue back and forth about Aristotle and his provenance, what is not debatable is the profound influence that Aristotle had on the world. We can argue if Aristotle was the original writer or the original thinker, but what is not debatable is the tremendous influence he had on the entire world. So there are three aspects of the Greek legacy I want to discuss.

The first aspect is the Greeks created a new way of being human. All right, so let's look at the major thinkers. You have Homer, you have the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and you have the philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. So the Greeks created a new way of being human. What do I mean by that? Homer was an oral bard. He would get up in front of audiences and he would for hours recite this beautiful poetry about the Trojan War, the Iliad, and in the process, listen, Homer created empathy and imagination because the point of listening to Homer was to enter Homer's world and become Achilles or Odysseus, and through this process you became a different person and therefore you learned empathy, but you also expanded imagination.

So that's what Homer did for the Greeks. Then you have Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and what they did was, rather than sing directly at the audience, they had the characters face each other in a dialogue, in a debate. And by doing this, what happens is you create the capacity for perspective and inner debate, because before you were part of the story, now you have to step back and judge the story. There's a debate going on, you have to switch perspectives in order to understand the characters, and this creates the capacity for an inner monologue, an inner debate in you.

And then you have Plato and Aristotle. What Plato did that was unique was he took all the dialogue in the play and he transported it onto the page, but now you read it by yourself and you have the benefit of time, and so this creates a capacity for reason and reflection. You can sort of reason out if the words make sense to you, you're no longer influenced by the crowd or the emotions of the actor, you can just look at the words themselves and judge them on their own merit.

You also have the capacity now to reflect, meaning you can go back to the words over and over the course of your lifetime to constantly reflect on their meaning and logic. You understand?

So when you add these three things together, Homer creates the capacity for empathy and imagination, the playwrights create the capacity for inner debate and perspective, the philosophers create the capacity for reason and reflection, you now have a new human mind. And when you study all of them, this is what we call ultimately a liberal arts education. All right, and guess what, our thinkers came to us through the liberal arts. So in the future we'll study people like Kant, Hume, Hegel, just the greatest thinkers of the past 20 years. They all, what was common about them is they all read the Greeks, and now it's just their education. All right, so this is the first legacy of the Greeks, a new way of being and seeing. Does that make sense?

Second is, now that you have this Greek world, the Greeks need to establish a cohesive cultural identity, and they did that by promoting a Greek education.

But not only that, they had to bring local people into this education. So one major function of the Library of Alexandria was to standardize and systemize Greek knowledge, and they did this by standardizing the text. So there are different texts of Homer, and the text of Homer that we have today was developed by the people at the Library of Alexandria. Standardization. They also did something called commentaries. Commentaries are basically like teacher handbooks, they teach you how to teach this stuff, and they created, like, footnotes and chapters and page numbers, Cotes, indexes. So the point was to make Greek education available and accessible to anyone. All right, and what this means is we in China now can actually read Homer, Aeschylus and Plato for ourselves even though we are not culturally Greek, and that's the benefit of the panh project.

And the third major benefit is Greek knowledge meant a global revolution in innovation. What I mean by that is, remember Greek knowledge is being spread all around the, and then they're interacting with powerful local cultures, and through the process of syncretization new forms of knowledge are being created.

So the Greeks spread the knowledge to India and now it's interacting with local Indian philosophy and religion, including new ideas. The most famous syncretization is the Levant. Greek knowledge was being spread to the Jews, and so when you put the Greeks and the Jews together you have a new idea that would forever revolutionize human history, and it's called Christianity. So Christianity would not have been possible if it were not for the work of Aristotle. Right, so those are the three major legacies of the Greeks, and so I think it's perfectly fair to say the Greeks were the most influential and consequential civilization of all time. They're certainly the most creative. No other civilization even comes close to them. So that's it. Any questions? Okay, so we are finished with the Greeks. Next class we start a new unit on Rome, Roman history. All right, so great.