Research On The Society Generation Of Ancient Greek Scientific Thought

Engels once pointed out:"If the theoretical natural science wants to trace itscurrent general principles of the history about occurrence and development, it has toback to ancient Greece." Academia generally believes that the ancient Greece is theorigin of modern science. The famous science historian Joseph Needham once askedto the world, why modern science only appears in Western Europe, which is shortlyafter the Renaissance, instead of China, which is used to have brilliant achievementsof science and technology. This is the famous Needham’s puzzle. Once the problemis asked, it has aroused the high attention and successive research of the academia.However, it still didn’t get a common answer. At this moment, lots of scholars turnedto think from another Angle. They asked why modern science appeared in the west.This question can be seen as the two sides of Joseph Needham puzzle. In the bookthe origin of the modern science, scientific American historian Herbert Butterfieldmentioned:“we must consider the scientific revolution as creative products of thewest, which depends on the complicated conditions in the west.” The author thinksthat we have to trace the origin to find those "complex conditions", and the origin isthe western scientific thought, the ancient Greek. After that, it makes furtherexploration and research about a series of factors about the formation of the ancientGreek scientific thought.The author believes that the ancient Greek scientific thought is comprehensivelyformed by multiple factors. Any single factor is not enough to play a decisive role inits formation. Every single factor can’t be called the unique conditions of the west.However, only in ancient Greece, under the comprehensive effect of various factors,the modern science could be born. This paper starts from the origin of the scientificthought of the ancient Greek, and develops gradually. It argues a series of conditions,including politics, economy, religion, which the ancient Greek generated from. Basedon that, the paper has six chapters, including the eastern origin of the ancient Greek scientific thought, the influence of Greek mythology, the ancient Greek politicalenvironment, helotism economy, geographical elements, the development status ofphilosophy and its influence to the descendants.