AncientGreekphilosophyAncient Greek philosophy： origin of Western philosophy -Aristotle： a man with encyclopedical knowledgeName:Liu Qiucen(刘秋岑） Major: English Student number:1141051014 College of Foreign Languages and Cultures Sichuan University【Abstract】Considering its role in western philosophy history, ancient Greek philosophy can be said， without exaggeration, to be the origin of the all western philosophy. A variety of wise philosophers have sprung up in ancient Greece， especially in Athens and Aristotle is one of the three great ones， who was renowned for his thoughts about logic, metaphysics, zoology, rhetoric， etc。 In Aristotle， the great humanist and the great man of science meet。【Key words】Philosophy and science ；Ancient Greek philosophy; western philosophy；AristotleIntroductionTo learn about western culture, its important to learn about western philosophy; to learn about western philosophy, its a must to learn about ancient Greek philosophy and more importantly to get to know philosophy.Philosophy, a Greek word for “love of wisdom”, however, is never an easy work to perceive and define。 If someone asks the question what is mathematics， we can easily give him a dictionary definition： the science of number. A definition can be given in this way of any field where a body of knowledge exists。 But philosophy as well as philosopher cannot be so defined。 Perhaps， the only way to find out what philosophy is， is to do philosophy； to find out what philosopher does is to think as a philosopher. To be simple， we may regard philosophy as a way not to solve our troubles nor to save our souls, but as a kind of sightseeing adventure undertaken for its own sake, as the Greeks put it。Its never overrated to consider that in some serious sense， all western philosophy is Greek philosophy because of the significance of the ancient Greek philosophy as origins。 The thinkers of Greece， or we may say , the Greek philosophers were not ivory-tower intellectuals of the kind that our modern world has inherited from the scholastic tradition of the Middle Ages。 Actually, its hard to tell apart philosophy and science in early Greek philosophy as they are always together with which Greek civilization laid a basic and solid foundation for Western civilization. Science deals with known facts but all starts from philosophic exploration, while philosophy relates to speculation， such a speculative activity means a kind of exploration somewhat scientifically.Ancient Greek philosophers ask general questions centered on What questions like what is universe？ What is man？ What is knowledge？ Also there are ethical questions about good and evil. Is there something we call wisdom？ Surely all these questions cannot be settled by carrying out experiments in a laboratory, but they are all thought over by the ancient Greek philosophers。 Ancient Greek philosophy has been roughly divided into three periods： Period-Before Socrates， Period-Socrates ，Period After Socrates。 Its no easy work to understand the ancient Greek philosophy history, but to roughly know some about that is helpful when we finally come to the great thinker Aristotle. Among the civilizations of the world the Greek is a later one whereas those of Egypt and Mesopotamia are older by several millennia, both of which are agricultural societies but neither developed science or philosophy。 From this fact ,we can see how influential the Greek philosophy is to the whole western philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy originated from pure mythology and gradually resulted in many complicated and smart theories。 Ancient Greek thinkers are quite rational on general questions so that Greek Rationalism is wellknown。 The first major Greek philosopher was Thales of Miletus, who claimed that Nature is rational, and so human beings could use their own reasoning to understand Nature, and was famous for his statement that the world is made of water. And then came Anaximander who viewed the world in terms of opposites: hot and cold， dry and moist； Pythagoras who explained the whole world with numbers， was famous for his Pythagorean Theory and later the Pythagoreans and its Pythagorean Schools; Heraclitus who had the famous saying that All things are in flux； Parmenides whose denial of change lies at the origin of all subsequent theories of materialism; Democritus who argued that everything in the universe obeys the laws of necessity with his atomic theory。 As the time went by, there came the three great ancient Greek philosophers in Athens。 First for Socrates, who disagreed with the Sophists of the Skeptics ,who believed that reasoning couldnt solve the riddle of Nature and took money for a literary education。 Unlike the Sophists， Socrates taught not for money and developed the questionandanswer method of argument： the dialectics， trying to clarify ethical