Study Questions

Chapter 1: The Ancient Near East: The First Civilizations

1. What is meant by the term civilization? Under what conditions did it emerge?

2. In what ways did mythopoeic thought characterize Near Eastern civilization?

How does this type of thinking differ from that of science?

3. What elements of Near Eastern civilization were passed on to Western civilization?

Chapter 2: The Hebrews: A New View of God and the Individual

1- What does the story of Adam and Eve reveal about Hebrew conception of good and evil?

2-In what ways did the Hebrew view of God mark a revolutionary break with

Near Eastern thought?

3. How did Hebrew religious thought promote the ideas of moral autonomy?

4. What were the unique achievements of the Hebrew prophets?

5. Why are the Hebrews regarded as a principal source of the Western tradition?

Chapter 3: The Greeks: From Myth to Reason

1. What were the basic features and limitations of Greek democracy?

2. How did the Pre-Socratic thinkers make the transition from myth to reason?

3. How did the Sophists and Socrates advance the tradition of reason

and humanism?

4. What do Plato and Aristotle have in common? How do they differ?

5. How did Greek drama, art, and historiography contribute to the tradition of

reason and humanism?

6. What are the basic differences between the Hellenic and Hellenistic Ages?

Chapter 4: Rome: From City-State to World Empire

1. How did Roman law evolve? How did it incorporate Stoic principles?

2.What are the reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire?

3. What is Rome’s legacy to Western civilization?

Chapter 5: Early Christianity: A World Religion

1. How was early Christianity influenced by Judaism, Greek philosophy, and

Hellenistic mystery religions?

2.What do the world-views of Christianity and Greco-Roman humanism have in

common? Why are they essentially different?

Chapter 6: The Rise of Europe: Fusion of Classical, Christian, and Germanic Traditions

1. How did Latin Christendom blend Christian, Greco-Roman, and Germanic

traditions?

2. What does Islam have in common with Christianity? How do they differ?

3. What was the significance of medieval Muslim intellectual life?

4. What conditions led to the rise of feudalism and manorialism?

Chapter 7: The Flowering and Dissolution of Medieval Civilization

1. What conditions contributed to the revival of learning during the High Middle

Ages?

2. What were scholastic philosophers trying to accomplish?

3. How does the medieval view of the universe differ from the modern view?

4. How did religion pervade much of the medieval philosophy, science, literature,

art, and architecture?

5. What is the legacy of the Middle Ages to the modern world?

6. How does the characteristic outlook of the Middle Ages differ from that of the

Modern Age?

Chapter 8: Transition to the Modern Age: Renaissance and Reformation

1. What conditions gave rise to the Italian Renaissance?

2. What is the historical significance of Renaissance humanism?

3. How did Machiavelli’s political thought mark a break with the medieval

outlook?

4. What are the general features of Renaissance art?

5. Why is the Renaissance considered a departure from the Middle Ages and the

beginning of modernity?

6. How did Luther’s theology mark a break with the church? Why did many

Germans become followers of Luther?

7. How did the Reformation contribute to the shaping of the modern world?

Chapter 9: Political and Economic Transformation: National States, Overseas Expansion, Commercial Revolution

1. Why did England move in the direction of parliamentary government, while

most countries on the Continent embraced absolutism? Describe the main

factors.

Chapter 10: Intellectual Transformation: The Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment

1. How did the Scientific Revolution transform the medieval view of the universe?

2. How did the Scientific Revolution contribute to the shaping of the modern mentality?

3. What was the role of geometry and mathematics in deductive method of Descartes?

4. Why British thought developed in the direction of inductive method? Discuss by considering historical experiences of this country?

5. Compare the political philosophy of  Hobbes and Locke.

6. What were the essential concerns of the philosophes of the Enlightenment?

7. How did the Enlightenment contribute to the shaping of the modern mentality?

8. According to Kant; what is enlightenment? Discuss briefly.  (see the answer by clicking this link)

9- Define the followings briefly: (who did say; in which book and in which context)

Tabula rasa:

Homo homini lupus:

Cogito ergo sum: