[lit-ideas] Re: The 'Near-Eastern' influences on the Greek philosophy, sc...

  • From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 9 Apr 2004 14:32:50 EDT

http://www.mmdtkw.org/VPolybius.html
The framers of the U.S. constitution knew all about Polybius, and they 
consciously built his theories into the U.S. Constitution of 1789. The theories 
of 
Polybius were a serious topic of discussion at the Constitutional Convention. 
Benjamin Franklin, the first U.S. diplomat and the U.S. Ambassador to France, 
shipped back many copies of translations of Polybius to Convention 
participants. The theories of the 18th-century French philosopher and political 
historian 
Montesquieu were also heavily debated and were eventually adopted, but 
Montesquieu, in his writings, acknowledged his own debt to Polybius. 

*Mathematics, architecture, astronomy, medicine etc.
would hardly qualify as 'sunstroke religion.' 

The first medical center was in Greek Ptolemaic Alexandria. Archimedes built 
the first planetarium. The (rationalist) steps the Greeks made in organizing 
knowledge allowed the qualitative advances cited. This does not detract from 
the worth of the original contributions, but underlines the difference in 
approaches.


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