Omar,Phew. For a minute, I thought you were saying that the Greeks "stole" all of their great philosophic accomplishments from the Egyptians. That would not only divert us from our topic, but necessitate another 50 messages...

I don't know what "stole" means here, but the two cultures had extensive contacts. I'm not a historian, but I would be surprised if someone told me that no Greek had already brought home the information that the Egyptians believed in an immortal soul that survives the body, and all the moral ramifications of that.

Copleston has some extensive comments on that in Volume1 which I could quote I suppose. Although Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did some very different things with that seemingly straightforward notion....

I didn't say that they were anything less than great men. All I said was that these ideas were floating around the middle east long before Socrates. I didn't even mention Jewish traditions which must be from around the same period as the Egyptian.

Understood. But would the history of the immortal soul be a better topic or go philosopher by philosopher through 2,000 years and explore all their notions? We need someplace to start and soul wouldn't be a bad place.

Although religion and the immortality of the soul are important aspects of the ancient philosophy (Greek and non Greek), I believe that Socrates' most important contributions are not related to these fields nor to morality. The two most important achievements that do not have predecessors in any culture (at least to my knowledge) can be summarised as follows: a) Socrates introduced the notion of "definition". He realised the need of definitions and clear, generally accepted descriptions for things and concepts and tried to define concepts for which there was no consensus or illustration before. He started by defining "definition" itself in the first place, by saying that it is a description such that nothing can be added to it, nothing can be subtracted from it and nothing can be altered, without changing the meaning of the definition. b)He introduced the method of induction in thought. In this sense, many consider him as the father of science, for induction is and has been through the centuries, one of the main and most important scientific methods. Of course no one can disregard his contributions to other fields of thought and civilization, which are numerous. I believe however that those two are most impressive and, moreover, have no par. Whereas, if we're talking about morality for example, there's other figures in ancient Greece (eg Aristeides) whose contributions and life principles have offered more to the field of morality than Socrates.

I would have thought someone would have said the Socratic method and the relentless use of that method in trying to divine truth. When not found, willing to suffer execution by the State rather than admit an untruth.

>Omitted Indian and Chinese....

Good grief yes.....sorry to be so "non-inclusive"....we should start another thread,but just covering Western thought will be tough enough I assure you.

>Abandoned it...just waiting for someone to ask....what did you wish to ask?