I think this helps to sum up a little more of what we are trying to say here:

The "Greek Miracle" refers to the fertile period of cultural and political genesis in Athens that lasted from the 6th through the 4th centuries BC. During these three centuries, the flourishing Greek culture gave birth to philosophy, history, and dramatic tragedy, and Greek artists made incredible advances in art, architecture, and music. There is no escaping the influence and importance of ancient Greece as the birthplace of Western civilization, but what made the inhabitants of tiny city-states stretching from modern-day Italy to Turkey emerge as "the Greeks" of the Golden Age is one of history's great mysteries.

The Greek miracle was, in one sense, no miracle at all. The Greeks themselves emerged from a fusion of an ancient Minoan civilization with migrants from the north. From 1100 BC to the dawn of the classical age, the Greeks learned writing from the Phoenecians, studied art with the Minoans, and learned astronomy from the Egyptians. Without these diverse influences, the emergence of Greek thought is hardly conceivable.

As rooted as the Greeks were in their time and place, something happened in Greece around the turn of the 6th century BC that changed the course of the next 2500 years. How to characterize the change is difficult and controversial, but it is hard to deny that the flourishing of Greek culture was rooted in the extraordinary Greek manner of abstract and reflective thought.

In Greek Thought, A Guide to Classical Knowledge, the classical scholars Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey Lloyd argue that the overwhelming innovation of the Greeks is thinking, characterized by a reflexive self awareness. The philosopher Socrates demanded, "Know thyself," and questioned others to show them that they didn't yet know what they thought they knew. Sophocles, the great tragedian, expressed in Oedipus the pain and passion of human life striving unsuccessfully for immortal greatness. While earlier cultures had developed practical sciences, Greek philosophy and art are marked by a new kind of thinking, one based on the unyielding search for truth.

~SFBC Great Minds Newsletter