Question

How did Greek scientists change the way people viewed and understood the natural world around them? How did common Greeks explain natural events prior to scientific explanations?

Answer 1

The relationship between the early beginnings of the sciences and the development of rational thinking seems obvious. However, in making this movement we are disregarding so many other societies that, in their form and measure, also used and developed rationality. Even the nomadic people already lived that way. To master fire, create tools and utensils, make weapons, invent the wheel, master agriculture, and work metals through metallurgy, rationality was sorely needed. Therefore, we cannot place the peoples before the invention of writing in the place of irrationality, as they are commonly portrayed.

It was in ancient Greece that scientific thought emerged, especially from philosophy as a way of reflecting and placing oneself in the world. It was also during this period that the system of scientific evidence was developed, basing the practice and thus establishing the beginning of science in the western world. This means that rational thinking, explanations about life, have also been guided by reason. It did not mean the abandonment of beliefs in myths and the system of religiosity, but the coexistence of the world of belief in myths and gods and the world of reason.