7. why did columbus call the people he met during his first voyage “indians”?

from thales, who is often considered the first western philosopher, to the stoics and skeptics, ancient greek philosophy opened the doors to a particular way of thinking that provided the roots for the western intellectual tradition. here, there is often an explicit preference for the life of reason and rational thought. we find proto-scientific explanations of the natural world in the milesian thinkers, and we hear democritus posit atoms—indivisible and invisible units—as the basic stuff of all matter. with socrates comes a sustained inquiry into ethical matters—an orientation towards human living and the best life for human beings. with plato comes one of the most creative and flexible ways of doing philosophy, which some have since attempted to imitate by writing philosophical dialogues covering topics still of interest today in ethics, political thought, metaphysics, and epistemology. plato’s student, aristotle, was one of the most prolific of ancient authors. he wrote treatises on each of these topics, as well as on the investigation of the natural world, including the composition of animals. the hellenists—epicurus, the cynics, the stoics, and the skeptics—developed schools or movements devoted to distinct philosophical lifestyles, each with reason at its foundation.

with this preference for reason came a critique of traditional ways of living, believing, and thinking, which sometimes caused political trouble for the philosophers themselves. xenophanes directly challenged the traditional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, and socrates was put to death for allegedly inventing new gods and not believing in the gods mandated by the city of athens. after the fall of alexander the great, and because of aristotle’s ties with alexander and his court, aristotle escaped the same fate as socrates by fleeing athens. epicurus, like xenophanes, claimed that the mass of people is impious, since the people conceive of the gods as little more than superhumans, even though human characteristics cannot appropriately be ascribed to the gods. in short, not only did ancient greek philosophy pave the way for the western intellectual tradition, including modern science, but it also shook cultural foundations in its own time.

paul willis (born 1950) is a british social scientist known for his work in sociology and cultural studies. paul willis' work is widely read in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and education, his work emphasizing consumer culture, socialization, music, and popular culture. he was born in wolverhampton[1] and received his education at the university of cambridge and at the university of birmingham. he worked at centre for contemporary cultural studies and subsequently at the university of wolverhampton. he was a professor of social/cultural ethnography at keele university. in the autumn of 2010, he left keele university and is now a professor at princeton university.

paul willis’s work has focused mainly, but not exclusively, on the ethnographic study of lived cultural forms in a wide variety of contexts. from highly structured to weakly structured ones, willis examines how practices of `informal cultural production` to produce and construct cultural worlds `from below`.[2]

trained in literary criticism at cambridge,[2] paul willis received his phd in 1972 from the centre for contemporary cultural studies at birmingham university where he remained as senior research fellow until 1981. he gave a paper at the 9th symposium of the natiohnal deviancy conference in january 1972 entitled 'a motor-bike subculture

during the 1980`s willis served as youth policy adviser to wolverhampton borough council in the english midlands. there he produced the youth review (published by the council and ashgate) which formed the basis for youth policy and for the formation of the democratically elected youth council, both still functioning. during the 1990s he served first as head of the division of media, communications and cultural studies, and then as a member of the professoriate at the university of wolverhampton. in 2000 willis co-founded the sage journal, ethnography. in 2003 willis was hired as a head professor of social and cultural ethnography at keele university.