Lesson video

Hello there, my friends and welcome to the sixth lesson in this unit on ancient Greece.

My name is Mr. Pedroza, and in this lesson, we're going to have a look at the following question.

So the question is who were the Ancient Greek philosophers? Now let's look at the lesson structure.

We'll begin with the star words, and then we're going to have look at what is philosophy? And we're going to have a look at who was Socrates? Who was Plato? Followed by who was Aristotle? And all of those philosophers are connected to each other.

And then, at the very end is your end of lesson quiz.

Things that you're going to need in this lesson.

You'll need your exercise book or paper.

You're going to need your pencil or your pen, and you're going to need a ruler.

If you haven't got those things, go and get them now.

Okay, let's take a look at the key star words for today.

So we've got six of them.

We've got philosophy, philosopher, debate, dialogue, academy and geometry.

Let's begin with philosophy.

So philosophy is the study of the nature of life, truth, knowledge, and other important human matters.

A philosopher is somebody who studies philosophy, and the word philosopher comes from an Ancient Greek word that means a lover of wisdom.

Next one, we got debate, and a debate is a discussion between two people or groups who disagree on an important subject.

And a debate usually takes place in a formal meeting or gathering.

Next one, we got dialogue, and a dialogue is a conversation that is written for a book, a play, or a film.

Next one, we got academy.

An academy is a school that offers special training.

Last, we got geometry, and geometry is an area of mathematics concerned with the study of shapes and objects.

So let's begin with what is philosophy? Now the Ancient Greeks thought deeply about the world and about people, and they asked big questions like, what is a good life? And how can we know anything for sure? Their ideas shaped the way that we think and learn today.

Asking big questions about the world like this is known as philosophy, and we can define philosophy as the study of nature of life, truth, knowledge and other important matters.

Now let's complete the sentence.

So the study of nature, life, truth, knowledge and other important matters is known as? What is that known as? What is that word that encompasses the study of all of those things? So at this point, what I want you to do is pause the video and complete that task.

Okay, let's have a look.

Easy peasy to start one with.

The study of nature, life, truth, knowledge and other important matters is known as philosophy.

Awesome job, my friends.

Well done.

Let's move on.

So who was Socrates? Now, known as the father of Western philosophy, Socrates was one of Ancient Greece's greatest philosophers.

He studied politics and morality by asking lots and lots of questions, and his style became known as the Socratic Method.

Socrates believed that questions should lead to more questions rather than answers.

And using this approach, he thought would result in deep thinking.

Socrates believed that discussion, debate, and argument could help people to understand really difficult issues, and he believed that knowledge came from asking questions such as who, what, where, when, why and how? But let's answer this question.

What is Socrates known as? In your answer, you can say Socrates is known as.

What is Socrates known as? Have a think, pause the video, and complete that sentence there.

Repeat that question there.

Okay, let's have a look.

Let's see if you answered my question.

So what is Socrates known as? You could say Socrates is known as the father of Western philosophy.

Awesome job, my friends.

Now let's learn a little bit more about Socrates.

So Socrates, he had a belief in the importance of discussion, debate, and argument, and those ideas were really radical ideas when he was alive.

Greek city-states tended to be ruled by kings, oligarchs and tyrants, and you were not supposed to question these people, and certainly not the gods.

Now Socrates was also a critic of democracy, because he believed that citizens had to be well-educated in order to make rational voting decisions.

Some of the powerful people in Ancient Greece did not like Socrates' ideas.

They thought he was corrupting the minds of young Athenians, people from Athens.

And as a result, he was arrested, he was put on trial, and when found guilty, he was sentenced to death by his enemies.

And there, in this picture, Socrates is drinking poison because that was his punishment.

He was sentenced to death, and he had to kill himself by drinking poison.

Now let's answer this question.

So what was Socrates accused of? So Socrates was accused of.

Have a think, pause the video, and complete that task.

Okay, let's have a look.

What was Socrates accused of? Socrates was accused of corrupting the minds of young Athenians, and as a result, he was tried, he was sentenced, and he was sentenced to poison himself by hemlock, which is a special plant, a poisonous plant.

Now let's move on.

So we had Socrates.

Let's move on to Plato, who's another philosopher.

So who was Plato? Now another very important classical Greek philosopher was Plato, and Plato was actually a student of Socrates.

Now Plato was interested in justice and happiness, and many of his ideas are still used today.

Plato wrote books in the form of a dialogue.

Remember, it's a conversation about an idea, and these dialogues were often between himself and Socrates.

And much of what we know about Socrates' work comes from Plato's writings, and that's because Socrates didn't actually write anything.

So much of what we know about Socrates comes from Plato himself.

Now true or false, Plato was Socrates' teacher.

Is that true? Or is that false? Have a think.

Was Plato Socrates' teacher? True or false? Have a think, have a go.

Pause the video and complete that task.

Okay, let's see if I managed to trick you.

I'm going to be honest, I tried to trick you there.

Okay, Plato was Socrates' teacher, is that true or is that false? It's false.

Plato was a student of the philosopher Socrates, not the other way around.

Now, let's keep learning about Plato.

Now Plato, he established an academy, which is sometimes referred to as the world's first university.

And Plato's academy was not a school or college like we have today.

They didn't have classes on specific subjects taught by teachers.

What they did have was they challenged each other with questions and debate.

And above the door of Plato's academy, he placed a sign that said, "Let no one untrained in geometry enter." Now geometry is the branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape and size, and Plato was convinced that both mathematically and philosophically, understanding geometry was the key to learning more about the universe.

Now let's look at this question.

So what type of mathematics did Plato consider as being key to learning about the universe? So in your answer you can say, Plato considered that.

So which type of mathematics did Plato consider as being key to learning about the universe? Have a think, pause the video, and complete that task.

Okay, which type of mathematics did Plato consider as being key to learning about the universe? The answer is, of course, geometry.

So Plato considered that geometry, a branch of mathematics was key to learning about the universe.

Now let's move on to another one.

So we had Socrates, we had Plato, and now we have Aristotle.

Hmm.

So Aristotle was another great philosopher and writer, and Aristotle was famously the student of Plato, and he lived with Plato and he worked by his side for more than 20 years.

So we had Socrates, who's the father of Western philosophy.

Then we had Plato, who was the student of Socrates, and now we have Aristotle, who was the student of Plato.

That's the connection between all three of them.

And now when Plato died, Aristotle actually travelled for many years in the east, and in 343 BC, Philip II of Macedonia, he asked Aristotle to tutor his son, Alexander, and Aristotle spent the next several years teaching Alexander a wide range of subjects including philosophy, logic, and mathematics.

Alexander, who's on the screen now, went on to conquer much of the civilised world, and he became known as Alexander the Great.

Let's have a look at this question.

So who was Aristotle a student of? So Aristotle was a student of whom? Hmm.

Now pause the video and complete that task.

Okay, let's have a look at the answer to this question.

So we had Socrates at the beginning.

He is the father of Western philosophy.

Plato was a student of Socrates.

But who was Aristotle a student of? Aristotle was a student of Plato, good job.

And he lived and worked by his side for over 20 years.

Awesome job, my friends.

Well done.

Let's continue.

Now after tutoring Alexander, who became Alexander the Great, Aristotle, he returned to Athens and he opened his own school, and it was called the peripatetic school.

And in this school, he taught his students subjects such as logic, physics, public speaking, politics, and philosophy.

Now Aristotle had new ideas on how the world should be studied, and he liked to make really detailed observations of the world around him.

He took notes and he took records of what he saw.

And he went so far as to dissect animals to learn more about their anatomy.

And Aristotle's style of thinking and teaching was very different from the other Greek philosophers and educators of the day.

They did all of their work in their mind, thinking about the world, but not really observing it.

Now, not all of Aristotle's observations were accurate.

He actually thought that the heart was the centre of intelligence rather than the brain.

He also thought that goats could be male or female depending on which way the wind was blowing.

We of course know those observations are not true.

Despite this, Aristotle's more hands-on approach laid the foundations for modern science today.

Now let's have a look at these two quotes that are often attributed to Aristotle.

I'm going to read them to you, and then I'm going to introduce a related activity.

So we got Aristotle there in the middle, and this quote is often attributed to Aristotle.

It says "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet." Hmm.

Let's have a look at this other quote.

"We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Now, what I want you to do is I want you to choose either of these quotes, and I want you to write what you think they mean.

What do you think Aristotle meant when he said these two quotes? So to recap, what I want you to do is you got to choose a quote.

So you can either choose the one on the left, "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet." You can choose the one on the right, "We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." And then what I want you to do is I want you to write what you think Aristotle meant.

You can start your explanation by writing, "I think what this quote means.

." Or you could say, "I think what Aristotle meant was.

." You're going to tell me what you think he meant.

So that's what you got to do, that's the task.

At this point I want you to pause the video and then complete this task.

If you want to challenge yourself, and you want to tell me what both quotes mean, then go for it.

I'll be really impressed if you do.

Okay, let's review.

So I'm going to tell you what I think each of these quotes mean.

So let's start with this one.

So "The roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet." Hmm.

So I think that Aristotle meant that when we begin learning something new, we must likely find it very difficult, and we sometimes feel like giving it up, giving up.

However, once you get past the initial struggle, then we learn new things, and that allows us to be successful.

This is what he means when he says the fruits are sweet.

So at the beginning, when we start a brand new subject, we tend to find that a little bit difficult, because we don't have enough knowledge.

However, once we get past that initial part of learning, we begin to enjoy it more, we begin to learn more, and the more things that we learn, the more successful we can become.

So I think that's what that quote meant.

But what do you guys think? And do you agree with him? So at this point, what I'm going to do, I'm going to pause the video and then I'm going to give you a chance to compare your own answer against my own.

Okay, let's take a look at the next quote.

So the next quote is as follows.

So, "We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." So in my opinion, I think that Aristotle meant that the more we practise a particular skill, the better we become at it.

We cannot become excellent at something without practising.

Therefore, I think what he said there is that excellence, therefore, cannot be achieved by chance.

You have to make a conscious effort to practise to become excellent at something.

I also think that he meant that people should devise routines and stick to these so that they can become as productive as possible.

So a routine that would help you to become excellent at something could be, maybe you go to the park and you practise shooting, you practise your football for an hour and you do that every single day for an hour.

You'll become really great at it.

But you've got to put in the effort.

So what I think Aristotle meant with this quote is that if you want to become really good at something, you have to put the practise in.

You can't just become excellent at something without practising.

But again, what do you guys think? Do you think that's true? Do you think you can become excellent at something with no practise? Maybe you can.

Again, at this point, what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave my answer up and now we need to compare it against your own.

Now let's have a look and see how they marry up.

So to summarise, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, were three of the most influential Ancient Greek philosophers.

Socrates, who is known as the father of Western philosophy, he taught Plato, who in turn taught Aristotle.

And Socrates' ideas were so radical for that time that he was perceived as a threat by the elite, by the ruling powerful elite, who sentenced him to death.

Now Plato documented much of Socrates' teachings, as well as developing his own line of inquiry based around geometry, and Aristotle built on both of them, establishing a school of thought around debate and dialogue, as well as furthering the study of science through careful observation.

So why are all these men so important? Well, the influence of these philosophers was amplified by the conquest of Alexander the Great, a student of Aristotle, who conquered much of the known world from his home in Macedonia.

And Alexander's conquest helped to expand Greek culture, ideas, and influence, including the teachings of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle.

And as a result, the ideas of these Greek philosophers have remained relevant to the present day.

And there on the left, you can see Alexander the Great, and on the right, you can see the massive empire that he managed to build from his home in Macedonia.

So this is the Greek mainland here, and this is the region of Macedonia, and look at what a huge empire he managed to carve out.

And one of the reasons why he was so successful was due to the teachings of Aristotle himself.

Guys, that is the end of our lesson.

So great work today.

Awesome job.

It's now time to complete your end of lesson quiz.

And again, if you'd like to, you can ask your parents or carers to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

They're going to tag @OakNational and they're going to use the hashtag #LearnwithOak.

One of the things that I would love to see would be what you thought about the quotes from Socrates.

So what did the Socrates, sorry, what did Aristotle mean with those quotes? I would love to see your explanations, but if you want to share them, you could ask your parent or carer to do that for you.

Guys, thanks so much for all of your help.

I hope you had a lovely lesson, and I shall see you in our next lesson.

Goodbye, my friends.