The history of Greek science

The birth of Greek science and philosophy did not occur in what is now Greek itself but in the city of Miletus and their Hellenic colonies on the Aegean coasts of Asia Minor.

It is certain that Greek science in its origin was dependent on traditions that came from more ancient civilizations, notably from Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Herodotus was the first to suggest that the Greeks obtained their knowledge of astronomy from Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Greek sciences period can be divided into four main chronological divisions:
*Pre-Socratic period (600 BC – 400 BC)
*The century of Plato and Aristotle later the creation of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophies.
*Hellenistic period (300-100 BC)
*Greco-Roman period, from about 100 BC to 600 AD

One of the major features of Greek science is that most of its practitioners were autodidacts. Even those who studied under a philosophical giant seem, with very few exceptions, not to have been content to follow a path laid down by a predecessor.

They wished to carve out their own path, citing predecessors’ view when it suited them, and ignoring them likewise.

In medicine, to early Greeks, it had seemed as if there were differing forces or powers within their bodies, to which they gave a variety of names, Plato describes three competing ‘souls’ one located in the liver, one located in the heart and one located in the head.

Most other early Greek thinkers located most or all of the human soul in the heart, as did Aristotle and Zenon, and it remain part of the collection of ideas.

The Greek since was bound to decline because of the lack of balance between reason and experience, because of its organicist setting, or because of its functioning in a slave society, or it happened to decline with the advent of the Romans and of Christianity.
The history of Greek science