3 - Classical Greece Flashcards
acropolis
“High city,” the upper fortified part (and often religious center) of an ancient Greek city.
allegory
The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
arete
The term originally meant “Ares-like” (excellent in war), but came to mean personal excellence of any type, or all-embracing excellence. Later, spec. among Greek philosophers, came to be equated with virtue.
The quality or state of being self-governing; self-directing freedom and independence.
autonomy
According to Aristotle, the cleansing of the emotions experienced by the audience of an ancient Greek tragedy (Greek, “purgation”).
catharsis
Government by the people (demos), exercised either directly (as with ancient Athens) or through elected representatives (as with the United States).
democracy
Relating to the logical discussion of ideas and opinions; method of intellectual investigation through philosophic discussion and reasoning by dialogue; specif. the Socratic techniques of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth; also Plato’s method.
dialectical
Epicurean
Member of a philosophy advanced by Epicurus that held the universe to be composed of atoms and void, and that the highest good lies in pleasure, or imperturbable emotional calm, and the avoidance of pain and emotional disturbance.
moral principles that govern a person‘s or group’s behavior; the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.
ethics
Hellenistic
Of or relating to postclassical Greek history and culture from the death of Alexander the Great to the accession of Augustus.
Exaggerated pride or self-confidence; According to Aristotle, it is intentionally dishonoring behavior, “doing and saying things at which the victim incurs shame, not in order that one may achieve anything other than what is done, but simply to get pleasure from it,” since “by harming people, they think themselves superior” (Aristotle, Rhetoric).
hubris
Humanism
A devotion to the humanities (literature, art, philosophy, and so forth); The philosophical belief in the nobility of human character and achievement; in the Renaissance, a humanist was a scholar who studied ancient Greek and Latin authors.
In art, the portrayal of subjects in ideal or perfect form, as of a standard of perfection, beauty or excellence; the act or practice of envisioning things in an ideal form.
idealism
in art, the style and theory of representation based on the accurate depiction of detail, i.e., as something appears in nature.
naturalism
philosophy
Literally meaning “love of wisdom,” it originally referred to the love pursuit of wisdom; the search for a general understanding of values and reality; an analysis of the grounds of reality or of aspects of reality.
