Pederasty in ancient Greece

During my historical studies of the 4000 years of past history I stumbled on this regarding homosexuality as an accepted and culturally normal part of Greek life.  It is an interesting point of view that is very challenged by todays standards and the way in which homosexuality is seen in the 21st Century.  I understand how this would challenge people.  There is no hint of pedophilia in this culture, instead fathers were consulted regarding suitors etc.  Boys had to be of a proper age.

The Greek word paiderastia (παιδεραστία) is an abstract noun of feminine gender. It is formed from paiderastês, which in turn is a compound of pais ("child", plural paides) and erastês (see below).

Although the word pais can refer to a child of either sex, paiderastia is defined by Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon as "the love of boys," and the verb paiderasteuein as "to be a lover of boys."

Erastes (lover) and eromenos (beloved) kissing. Detail from the tondo of a red-figure Attic cup, ca. 480 BC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged erotic relationship between an adult male (the erastes) and a younger male (the eromenos) usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods.

Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus.

The social custom called paiderastia by the Greeks was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy; it has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and seems to have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women.

Bearded archer greeting a young hunter bearing a chamois, an offering for Hermes Kedritēs. Bronze sheet cut, embossed and chased, Cretan artwork, ca. 670–650 BC. From the Temple of Hermes at Syme Viannou, Crete. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The influence of pederasty was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens."

Scholars have debated the role or extent of pederasty, which is likely to have varied according to local custom and individual inclination.

The English word "pederasty" in present-day usage might imply the abuse of minors in certain jurisdictions, but Athenian law, for instance, recognized consent but not age as a factor in regulating sexual behavior. 

Youth conversing with suitors from the Haft Awrang of Jami, in the story A Father Advises his Son About Love. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As classical historian Robin Osborne has pointed out, historical discussion of paiderastia is complicated by 21st-century moral standards:

It is the historian's job to draw attention to the personal, social, political and indeed moral issues behind the literary and artistic representations of the Greek world.

The historian's job is to present pederasty and all, to make sure that … we come face to face with the way the glory that was Greece was part of a world in which many of our own core values find themselves challenged rather than reinforced. 

Continue Reading at Wikipedia
 

Map of "The archaic period in Greece (750 BC – 480 BC)" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What is Philosophy?

Aristotle: Physica, first page in Immanuel Bekker's edition, 1837. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lets break down the word first..
The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of wisdom".

The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras.

Thales of Miletus, regarded by Aristotle as the first philosopher, held that all things arise from water.  He has been called the "first man of science," because he gave a naturalistic explanation of the cosmos and supported it with reasons. He gave a cosmogony. According to tradition, Thales was able to predict an eclipse and taught the Egyptians how to measure the height of the pyramids.

PHILOSOPHY IS THE SCIENCE OF ESTIMATING VALUES!

The superiority of any state or substance over another is determined by philosophy.

By assigning a position of primary importance to what remains when all that is secondary has been removed, philosophy thus becomes the true index of priority or emphasis in the realm of speculative thought.

The mission of philosophy a priory is to establish the relation of manifested things to their invisible ultimate cause or nature.

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"Philosophy," writes Sir William Hamilton, has been defined as:

The science of things divine and human, and of the causes in which they are contained [Cicero];
The science of effects by their causes [Hobbes];
The science of sufficient reasons [Leibnitz];
The science of things possible, inasmuch as they are possible [Wolf];
The science of things evidently deduced from first principles [Descartes];
The science of truths, sensible and abstract [de Condillac];
The application of reason to its legitimate objects [Tennemann];
The science of the relations of all knowledge to the necessary ends of human reason [Kant];
The science of the original form of the ego or mental self [Krug];
The science of sciences [Fichte];
The science of the absolute [von Schelling];
The science of the absolute indifference of the ideal and real [von Schelling]--or, The identity of identity and non-identity[Hegel]."
 (See Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic.)

Philosophy is commonly classified under six main headings.

Metaphysics : which deals with such abstract subjects as cosmology, theology, and the nature of being.
Logic : which deals with the laws governing rational thinking, or, as it has been called, "the doctrine of fallacies".
Ethics :which is the science of morality, individual responsibility, and character--concerned chiefly with an effort to determine the nature of good;
Psychology: which is devoted to investigation and classification of those forms of phenomena referable to a mental origin;
Epistemology:  which is the science concerned primarily with the nature of knowledge itself and the question of whether it may exist in an absolute form; and
AEsthetics: which is the science of the nature of and the reactions awakened by the beautiful, the harmonious, the elegant, and the noble.