Characteristics of Ancient Greek Scientific Thought

(I) The way of thinking of ancient Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophers looked dispassionately at the objective world, what is the world? How do objects in the world move? Thales said that everything originates from water, is a deformation of water, but back to water, water surrounds the earth, the earth floats on water, constantly absorbing nutrients from the water． Heraclitus said, all things are neither created by God nor man, but by fire. Fire is concentrated and become gas, gas is concentrated and become water, water is concentrated and become earth, earth melting to produce water, water evaporation to produce gas, gas and return to the fire. Democritus believes that the origin of all things are "atoms" and "emptiness", with a variety of shapes and sizes of "atoms" constitute all things, "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness", "emptiness". The "void" is the place where the atoms move.

Heraclitus in the observation of the world that everything is flowing, everything changes. He used the image of a rushing river to illustrate that everything in the world is in constant motion, change, and constantly arising and disappearing. He said: "We cannot step into the same river twice". He believed that things are the unity of opposites, he said: "Mutually exclusive things combined together, different tones create the most beautiful harmony".

Aristotle in the face of the objective world of phenomena in the search for reasons. For example, why are objects falling faster or slower? He believed that the speed of falling objects is determined by their weight, the heavier the object, the faster the fall. Why does a car move? He thought that a horse had to pull it or some other force had to push it in order for it to move forward. For these two judgments of Aristotle, we may think that they are problems in two different fields because we read about it in different chapters of high school physics, the former is a problem of kinematics and the latter is a problem of dynamics. Are the two really isolated and unrelated? According to Aristotle, objects are not always at rest after they are caused, and he found that there are two distinct types of motion． One is the spontaneous movement, objects have to tend to its "natural place" of the properties of the stone such as heavy objects to the fall, the flame such as light objects upward flurry, the heavier the stone should be the faster the landing. The other type of motion is forced motion. A car parked on the road has no "natural place", so a horse-drawn force or some other force must be applied to it in order for it to move. Leaving aside the question of whether specific conclusions are right or wrong, we can indeed see that in Aristotle's thought, he is making a unified description of the objective world.

We read ancient Greek scholars as interested in what they thought, but even more interested in how they thought. If we summarize the way of thinking of the ancient Greek philosophers in one sentence, it is "the separation of heaven and man". That is to say: Ancient Greek philosophy is concerned about nature, nature as the object of study, man and nature are separate.

Our Chinese philosophy is characterized by the "unity of heaven and man", man and nature are one. And the ancient Greek philosophers think about the world, is standing in the world opposite and measure it, as if the globe will be held in the hands to observe the world, although people can not transcend the world, and even more can not leave the world and measure the world, but in terms of the way of thinking, they are doing exactly that. The ancient Greek scholar Archimedes famously said: "Give me a fulcrum, I can pry up the earth", which is really a vivid portrayal of the philosophical view of this "celestial phase".

(2) The spirit of rationalism in ancient Greek philosophy

The spirit of rationalism consists of two aspects, first of all, pure rationality, which refers to the human beyond their sensory desires and interests, without merit, regardless of gain or loss to explore a variety of abstract discursive issues. This kind of thinking is metaphysical metaphysics, the motive may be to pursue perfection and absolute, may be out of the creative impulse, may be in order to satisfy the desire for knowledge and curiosity.

It is said that people complained about the uselessness of philosophy because Thales was poor. It is said that he knew through astrological observation that there will be a bumper olive harvest, so early in the winter, he gathered a small amount of money leased to Miletus, Kairos island of all the olive press, because no one competed with him, so the rent is very cheap. The next year, the olive harvest was so abundant that the oil mills were strained, and the people demanded the use of the mills urgently. At that time, he rented out the workshops on his own terms, and gained a great profit. He thus showed that it is easy for philosophers to get rich if they want to, but this is not their interest.

The spirit of pure reason is best typified by the geometry of Euclid. His rigorous axiomatic system, from axioms to theorems are rigorously proved. In Euclid's geometry, you can only use a ruler and a ruler to draw, and the ruler can not have a scale, because the ruler, gauge is the simplest. When we think of our teenage years, thirteen or fourteen years old, the second or third grade of junior high school, swimming in the sea of Euclidean geometry, meditation, the use of rigorous logical reasoning, clever graphic design, we think of utilitarianism? The tradition of ancient Greek scholars was that they discussed problems and never cared about what was useful． When one of Euclid's students asked the question "What is the use of studying geometry?" Euclid said, "Give him a nickel and tell him to get lost!" And he threw him out of the door. It should be said that the spirit of ancient Greece is the spirit of non-utilitarianism.

Democritus even thought that "to find the cause of a thing in the world, the joy of it is more than when the king of Persia", this is a kind of how noble spirit!

Associated with our current education, such as the teaching of exercises, although there is a detachment from the actual place, which should be improved, but the criticism should also be degrees, can not require every physical exercises to be linked to the actual, can not be blamed for all the smooth slopes, balls, wooden blocks and other abstract topics is the education to the test, in fact, it is also a quality of education, because it is also to cultivate the spirit of pure rationality.

Secondly, practical reason, which refers to a person's astute and rational attitude to deal with their own relationship with the world around them, all motives and purposes are intended to result in a favorable outcome, that is to say, people engaged in the spirit of rational activity.

Thales was the first to determine the movement of the sun from the winter solstice to the summer solstice, discovered the connection between the winter solstice, the summer solstice and the equinoxes, proposed four seasons of the year, and divided the year into 365 days. He also measured the height of the pyramids according to their shadows, i.e., according to the moment when a man's shadow equaled his own length. He used his knowledge of geometry to calculate the distance between ships at sea and the coast. All these are necessary for the practical activity of human production and labor.

Democritus was the first encyclopedic scholar among the Greeks. In a summer wheat harvesting season, he knew that the weather will rain, and advised everyone to stop cutting wheat, first to harvest the wheat already cut, and indeed a moment later the rain poured down． Democritus made the fruits of other people's labor less loss.

The ancient Greek "father of medicine" Hippocrates, medical skills, writings are very rich. He also attached great importance to the morality of doctors, passed down to future generations with the "Hippocratic Oath", reflecting the moral obligation of doctors to the patient and the responsibility of rescue. Our news media in this country to fight "SARS" in the process of the majority of doctors and nurses in the noble medical ethics and the "Hippocratic Oath" and compared to see its far-reaching impact.

When people talk about the evolution of many European countries, it is inevitable that their religion, and when we talk about the spirit of Ancient Greece, but it is linked to their myths.

The myth of Prometheus goes like this: Zeus refused to provide mankind with the one thing necessary for civilized life - fire. Prometheus thought of an ingenious way, with a thick and long fennel rod, when the solar car drove through the sky, he put the fennel rod into the flame of the solar car to ignite, and then returned to the earth with flickering embers, the earth rose up in flames. Prometheus was punished by Zeus for this, he was hanged on the cliffs of Caucasus Mountain, and his liver was pecked by eagles every day, he endured the painful torture for the sake of mankind, and he never gave in． Prometheus brought mankind not only the fire, but also justice, courage and the great spirit of giving up one's life for righteousness. It can be seen that the spirit of practical rationality of ancient Greek philosophy and their myths are also the same lineage.