Were the Greeks that original in some definite way that later stuff is derivative but they aren't? Is the divergence of the vector field of knowledge positive at the Greeks? Do they pump out more than they ingested from their prior generations? Indeed a lot of the heavy lifting is done by later generations in picking out the good stuff from everything, and we know "90% of everything is crap".
Aristotle was right and influential because we the later generations pick him of all his contemporaries because we evaluate his ideas to be good. And we discard a lot of bullshit where he was wrong and made up things without any basis.
Is my analysis here original? Surely not. We all stand on the shoulders of giants etc. But the point is precisely this, that we propagate the best ideas forward, in a discourse, and this is an active process and requires our judgment. Sure this idea itself is also not my radically novel insight. But I wouldn't count on seeing absolutely novel insight in all HN comments.
I do sometimes wonder to what extent Socrates'/Plato's/Aristotle's legacy benefited from Aristotle's connection to Alexander the Great. Had Alexander not been so famous, would those three have vanished into obscurity? The dual question of course is whether Alexander would've been so great without Aristotle's mentorship!
> Were the Greeks that original in some definite way that later stuff is derivative but they aren't?
I believe some folks are interested in if Indian thought and philosophy, or other Asian philosophies / schools of thought had any influence on Ancient Greek thought, as there was communication, trade, Alexander the Great conquering stuff, etc. But I believe it's an open question and probably one difficult to answer.
Schopenhaur, Nietzsche, and others, were aware of and admirers of Buddhism.
Aristotle was right and influential because we the later generations pick him of all his contemporaries because we evaluate his ideas to be good. And we discard a lot of bullshit where he was wrong and made up things without any basis.
Is my analysis here original? Surely not. We all stand on the shoulders of giants etc. But the point is precisely this, that we propagate the best ideas forward, in a discourse, and this is an active process and requires our judgment. Sure this idea itself is also not my radically novel insight. But I wouldn't count on seeing absolutely novel insight in all HN comments.