Be honest. Regardless of how clever or wise you consider yourself

Well it's fairly common knowledge that even "stupid" people in today's time period are smarter than say Aristotle, or Galileo. In the sense that they'd score a higher score on a standardized test.

But that's only because of our exposure to stuff like that. So the answer to your question is an obvious no.

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>>3083434
>you must suffer for your art, I mean philosophy

idk I try to be humble

I´ll be dragging myself through a thornbush witn no clothes on

>>3083439
>even "stupid" people in today's time period are smarter than say Aristotle, or Galileo. But that's only because of our exposure to stuff like that. So the answer to your question is an obvious no.

Could it really be said that we are "smarter" if we were merely able to think about ourselves and the world around us in such a way because someone else questioned us about it?

Wouldn't the fact that we weren't able to come up with such questions ourselves be indicative of the fact that we are not in fact very smart?

Let's make two quick considerations:

>1)Everyone is today who they are and as intelligent and learned as they are due to the pioneers and advancers of the subjects they have been exposed to - math, reading, philosophy, wisdom, psychology, natural phenomenon, weather, astronomy, nature, etc

and

>2) the average person had neither the means nor the *time* to achieve any sort of serious education for the vast majority of the ancient word. literacy was 1 in 10 and often less, a man worked 11 hours a day, had next to no disposable income, and was /incredibly/ superstitious. religion and mythology had the effect of thought-termination was used to create meanings and explanations for things we have no ability to study and nearly everyone took it very seriously.

unless you were born aristocratic, rich, literate and entirely *NOT* conditioned to be dogmatic(probably the rarest thing in ancient times), with little to do but read and ponder, your likelihood of not being another statistically intellectually insignificant is very, very low

>>3083439
Based on what exactly?
Assuming that we're talking about purely intellectual things and not just 'aristotle doesn't know what H2O is and a stupid person does', therefore he would score lower.

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>>3083453
>>3083471
idk i stupid

>>3083469
>unless you were born aristocratic, rich, literate and entirely *NOT* conditioned to be dogmatic(probably the rarest thing in ancient times), with little to do but read and ponder, your likelihood of not being another statistically intellectually insignificant is very, very low

There wasn't that much to read about back then other than fables and myths, tho. A lot of people had to get out there and learn for themselves. And the further back you go the worst it gets, and yet these people managed to come up with all sorts of theories, concepts and ideas that are still relevant even to this day.