Ancient Greek thinkers made big discoveries. Pythagoras found ways to measure and describe shapes that we still use in math today.

Aristotle studied plants, animals and rocks. He devised experiments to find out about the world we live in. Modern scientists do the same kind of thing.

Herodotus wrote a history of the Greeks. He based this on eyewitness reports, something today’s historians also try to do. Socrates and Plato were philosophers. They asked, “What is a good life?” and “How do we think?” Philosophers in our time also try to answer these questions.

Ancient Greek stories are still told today. We love films about superheroes and monsters. Our TV soaps are full of stories about long-lost children returning to find their parents - just as ancient Greek plays were.

Watch the nine minute Khan Academy video featuring Monte Johnson below.  In this video, Monte explores an approach to the question “What is the purpose of life?” developed by the Greek Philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC). Aristotle reasoned that just as artificial things (such as tools and workers) have characteristic capabilities with respect to which they are judged to be good or do well, so each kind of natural thing (including plants and humans) has characteristic capabilities with respect to which can be judged, objectively, to be good or do well. For plants and animals these mostly have to do with nutrition and reproduction, and in the case of animals, pleasure and pain. For humans, these vegetative and animal capabilities are necessary but not sufficient for our flourishing. Since reason and the use of language are the unique and highest capabilities of humans, the cultivation and exercise of intellectual friendships and partnerships, moral and political virtue, scientific knowledge and (above all) theoretical philosophy, was argued by Aristotle to be the ultimate purpose of human life. Speaker: Dr. Monte Ransome Johnson,  Associate Professor, University of California San Diego.