Western Heritage Western Heritage - From the Book of Genesis to John Locke

Overview:

The Western heritage has two essential elements, represented by Athens and Jerusalem. Philosophy has its roots in ancient Greece and seeks to answer such questions as, “What is the good?” and “What is the best way for man to live?” The idea of monotheism first arose with the ancient Hebrews. These two elements together gave rise to Western Civilization and later to the American Founding.

The Hebrew Legacy

The Hebrew people are the source of a unique but vital contribution to our Western heritage. Rather than bequeathing to their cultural heirs magnificent innovations in art, architecture, political theory, and public administration as have the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, it is the treasure of sacred literature which constitutes the Hebrew legacy. The tradition of a monotheistic religion upon which Christianity would build, and out of which the modern world would emerge, has arguably served as the wellspring of Western civilization.

The Hebrews

Overview

The Western heritage begins with the Hebrew tradition. This tradition has had a great impact on the Western understanding of man, God, and the relationship between them. The Hebraic ideas of creation, covenant, and kingship are essential elements of this understanding.

The Greek Miracle

Overview
The emergence of the polis as a political form distinguished Greece from its neighbors in the ancient Near East. The polis was a small community—originally grouped around a citadel—governed by a council and a public assembly, and defended by a hoplite phalanx. Oikonomia (household management) was structured in such a way as to enable full political participation of the household in the city, through words and deeds worthy of note. The individual man who engaged in reasoned speech (logos) thus had an importance in the Greek community that was unusual compared to the other civilizations of the Near East, which were generally organized as hydraulic societies based on irrigation and public works, governed by a sacral monarchy, and administered by a bureaucratic class using the technology of syllabic script.

The Golden Age of Greece

Overview

Around the year 1200 B.C., Mycenaean civilization collapsed, which led to the creation of a new political order in Greece. The subsequent rise of the Greek city-state produced a civilization that culminated in the Golden Age of Greece. During this time, the Greeks produced great achievements in many fields, including politics, language, science, art, mathematics, war, architecture, and economics.

The Greek Legacy

Overview

The philosophic pursuit of knowledge and the good life as exemplified by Socrates and his pupil Plato remains at the core of the Greek legacy to Western civilization. The moral and political issues that emerged from Athenian democracy and empire, and loss of freedom over the course of the Peloponnesian War, provided the context for Socrates’ questioning of the meaning of justice in relation to regimes and the individual soul. The moral and political uncertainty of the contemporary world highlights the continued relevance of Socrates’ philosophic endeavor—to establish standards of goodness, truth, justice, and beauty for politicians no less than for individual citizens.

Why Study the Classics?

Overview

The histories of Athens and Sparta—the most dominant cities of classical Greece—are of vital importance to understanding the story of Western Civilization. In Athens, great thinkers such as Plato examined universal philosophical questions. In Sparta, the martial virtues, including the virtue of courage, were mastered. A careful study of these two cities reveals timeless lessons about human nature and human conflict.

Life and Government in Sparta

Overview

Geographically isolated by mountain ranges and the sea, Sparta was able to become one of the two most dominant ancient Greek cities, along with Athens. Spartan government was stable, which was made possible by a system of checks and balances. Sparta fostered a way of life that demanded total dedication to the political community. These factors were essential to Sparta’s extraordinary military success.

Life and Government in Athens

Overview

In the fifth century B.C., Athens, the leading city of ancient Greece, experienced a golden age in the areas of literature, philosophy, politics, and art, among others. To a large degree, these accomplishments were made possible by a government that was based on the principle of demokratia, or rule by the people. Athenian direct democracy produced great achievements, but also often led to great injustices, as in the case of the philosopher Socrates.

Sparta and the Persian War

Overview

The first major challenge to the Spartan way of life occurred in approximately 546 B.C., when Persia, the largest empire at the time, set its sights on Greece. In a long war that led to the eventual defeat of Persia, Sparta was a decisive contributor in two major areas: leadership of the Greek resistance and military prowess, particularly at the decisive Battle of Plataea.

Athens and the Persian War

Overview

The Persian War was a conflict between two radically different civilizations. The Athenian democracy, in conjunction with several other neighboring Greek cities, was able to repel the invading Persians for two main reasons. The first was its superior naval prowess. Second and more fundamental was the statesmanship of Themistocles, who rallied the Greeks in defense of the Western ideal of freedom and against the tyrannical Persian Empire.

Sparta and the Peloponnesian War

Overview

The Greek victories against the Persians at Salamis and Plataea changed the geopolitical outlook for the small but powerful cities of Sparta and Athens. Preoccupied with ruling over a large section of the Peloponnese, Sparta stood aside reluctantly while the Athenians founded the Delian League and continued the war at sea against the Persians. As the Persian threat gradually dissipated, Athens and Sparta became enemies and fought one another in the Peloponnesian War.

Athens and the Peloponnesian War

Overview

The Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.) between Athens and Sparta was a war unparalleled in Greek history for its length and intensity. Wars in ancient Greece were typically short and fought to settle border disputes. Even the battles of the Persian War, while grand in scale, were only episodic. By the end of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta and its allies were victorious, and the Athenian Golden Age came to an end.

Sparta and Athens—Conclusions

Overview

The Spartan regime was distinguished by its extreme discipline, which was fostered by a culture of shame and by the society’s extreme regimentation. However, Spartan rule abroad—in the absence of these restraints—typically resulted in corruption and tyranny. Following its victory in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta’s attempt to establish and rule an empire led to its eventual demise.

Athens and Sparta—Conclusions

Overview

Following the defeat of the Athenian Empire by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War, Athens was ruled by tyrants. Although democracy was eventually restored, the war had weakened the Athenians’ attachment to freedom. This made them vulnerable to the kind of autocratic government that was eventually imposed on them by Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great.

The Roman Legacy

Overview

Rome achieved its singular dominance over most of the known world in the course of a century. Polybius, a Greek historian conquered by the Romans, attributes this remarkable achievement to three principal elements of the Roman regime or way of life in his noted work, The Histories. He argues that the greatness of the Romans is due to their unique constitution or system of government, to their moral culture or mos maiorum, and to their practice of religion. Defined most distinctly by the concept of pietas—(the duty and devotion due to the gods, ancestors, and the fatherland, a composite of love and reverence)—the Roman character lies at the heart of the Roman legacy to Western Civilization.

Early Christianity

Overview

The history of early Christianity is bound intrinsically to that of the great civilizations of the Mediterranean. The Pax Romana, in addition to the infrastructure of the Roman Empire under Augustus and his immediate successors, aided the spread of Christianity, the tenets of which appealed to people of all social classes and ethnicities in the Roman Empire. These same core beliefs put Christians at odds with the religious practices, and so also the political customs, of Rome. Centuries of persecutions came to an end with the Edict of Milan in 312 A.D., when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be a legally recognized religion. His imperial interactions with the Christian Church established many precedents and controversies for relations between church and state, which lasted even into the twentieth century.

Church and State

Overview

In the wake of the disintegration of the Roman Empire and the corresponding collapse of political cohesion throughout Western Europe in the fifth century, there arose numerous small kingdoms whose rulers came to rely on bishops and other leaders of the Church to help provide regional administrative order. The growth of royal power and the close interactions of Church and state officials gave rise to two fundamental political issues of the Middle Ages, which remain relevant even today: what constitutes the appropriate relationship between secular and spiritual authority, and what is the proper relationship between government and the governed.

Readings

The Investiture Controversy - Excerpts from Western Heritage: A Reader https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=382
Magna Carta https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=383

Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation

Overview

The Renaissance represents a discovery and rebirth of the glories of antiquity, as well as the dawn of the modern world. The great universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford were products of the Middle Ages, and had initiated the study of Aristotle and other ancient thinkers in relation to the tenets of Christianity. The rise of humanism during the Renaissance represented a challenge to the scholastic thought of the Middle Ages: it was a strain of humanism which resulted in the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church responded by convening the Council of Trent, which initiated the Counter-Reformation.

Readings

Petrarch, selections from "On His Own Ignorance" https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=386
Machiavelli, selections from The Prince and The Discourses https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=387
John Calvin, selections from The Institutes https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=388

The Scientific Revolution

Overview

From 1543 to 1687 A.D., Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, and Isaac Newton, among others, began to weave a tapestry of modern science from the threads of the Greco-Roman intellectual tradition and the Judeo-Christian theological tradition. This period of time is referred to as the Scientific Revolution, which culminated in the publication of Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Newtonianism—the new culture of science, math, and confidence in human reason that arose subsequent to the Scientific Revolution—fueled the scientific efforts of the eighteenth century, and was a key component of the Enlightenment.

Readings

Nicholas Copernicus - "The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=390
Galileo Galilei - "The Starry Messenger" https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=391
Isaac Newton - "Principia" https://online.hillsdale.edu/document.doc?id=392

From Elizabeth I to the Glorious Revolution

Overview

The 16th and 17th centuries witnessed a growing crisis in the English monarchy, which was not resolved until the Glorious Revolution. The appeal to natural law, especially as formulated by John Locke, as the standard by which to govern political society, along with the idea of the necessity of the separation of powers to guard against tyranny, influenced not only English politics, but later, American revolutionaries.

Monday, May 31, 2021

HUM 111 Western Heritage - From the Book of Genesis to John Locke Summer 2018

Western Heritage Western Heritage - From the Book of Genesis to John Locke

Overview:

The Hebrew Legacy

Recommended Readings

The Hebrews

Overview

Recommended Readings

The Greek Miracle

The Golden Age of Greece

Overview

Recommended Readings

The Greek Legacy

Overview

Recommended Readings

Why Study the Classics?

Overview

Life and Government in Sparta

Overview

Recommended Readings

Life and Government in Athens

Overview

Recommended Readings

Sparta and the Persian War

Overview

Recommended Readings

Athens and the Persian War

Overview

Recommended Readings

Sparta and the Peloponnesian War

Overview

Recommended Readings

Athens and the Peloponnesian War

Overview

Recommended Readings

Sparta and Athens—Conclusions

Overview

Recommended Readings

Athens and Sparta—Conclusions

Overview

Recommended Readings

The Roman Legacy

Overview

Recommended Readings

Early Christianity

Overview

Recommended Readings

Church and State

Overview

Readings

Renaissance, Reformation, and Counter-Reformation

Overview

Readings

The Scientific Revolution

Overview

Readings

From Elizabeth I to the Glorious Revolution

Overview

Recommended Readings