西方文化入门论文

西方文化入门论文

文学院对外汉语8班 1100100243 梁丑娃

1.Explain the philosophy of Plato

2.Explain the relationship between church and state in the middle ages

3.How Roman culture influences Christianity

4.What is the relationship between renaissance and enlightenment?(how does it

continue?)

●Explain the philosophy of Plato

Plato was a great Classical Greek philosopher who helped to lay the foundations of Western philosophy and science with his student, Aristotle.

Plato set up with the theory of idea as the core objective idealism system. He hold the idea that material things are simply approximations of Ideas. Material life is always in flux, always changing, always in a state of "becoming" based upon the perfect Forms (Ideals), which exist previous to and independent of material life. Plato thought that idea has grades. T he highest principle is "good idea”. His ethics and aesthetic built on the basis of the theory of idea, the idea of the good morality is the only source, beautiful things is relative, the irregular change, the idea is absolute, constant.

I have learned the famous cave metaphor in the class. It’s a story in < the Republic> which tells that "form" in fact is that the sunshine of the physical and our sensory world can feel nothing but the white wall shadow. What’s more, only the philosophers in truth sunshine see things outside. Such is our ignorance of the spiritual world in which our own ideas have their being.

In the political vision, he designed a set of "dream land" scheme that "philosophy king" to govern the country. In today's opinion, the “dream land” described by Plato is a terrible totalitarian state. In other words, his political thought has the nature of the dream.

●What is the relationship between renaissance and enlightenment? (How does it continue?)

The Renaissance is from 1400 to the beginning of the 1600. It marked the rebirth of humanism and the word "Renaissance” is defined as a "rebirth" or a "reconstruction". The Enlightenment took place in Europe in a very large scale in 18th century. By the time of 18th century, the human beings had a better understanding of the nature, and the technology had made a great advancement.

Here is a summary of the main content of these two campaigns. Renaissance’s core is to affirm the human values and dignity; demand “person” as the center instead of “God” as the center; pursue freedom, happiness and material comfort; object to the

Christian concept of afterlife; e mphasis on taking advantage of human’s creation and scientific experiments. Enlightenment called for the rational sunshine; pursuit of political democracy, equal rights and personal freedom.

Enlightenment is the continuation and development of the Renaissance. The same points between Renaissance and Enlightenment are quite obvious. First, both of them are focus on the human values, and both of them are the anti-feudal bourgeois ideology(反封建的资产阶级思想). Secondly, they are mentally prepared for the bourgeoisie（中产阶级） to obtain political and economic dominance. Thirdly, both of them have promoted the development of modern science.

In a word, the essence of these two campaigns is to reflect the political and economic interests of the bourgeois and they both had a big positive influence on the world.