For a philosopher to understand the surrounding present, he/she must first understand how did things got to where they are, hence the importance of history. And the part of history we need right now, is the cultural aspect and main characteristics of the past.

I could give a really long explanation of things, but considering your and my attention span I will make it short and you will just have to wikipedia whatever you don't understand. So, the Greek, they were great and all, but what we care know is that they were driven (culturaly) by rules, logic and reason.

But then the world evolved into a more passionate place, we can see in the (OLD) English classics, as well as the fusion of East and West that the culture retook a more emotional turn. Also came the medieval dark times when the only stories were eiher epic or religious. Again, just about emotions and stories.

Then came the Renaissance, which was breaking the dogma out of the dark and building again a culture of science and reason. This time period was again of taking back the logic and rules into the art to make well planned works. This continued for the Neoclassical period, which was too a rebuild of the Classic age, embracing whatever there was to learn from the Greeks and Romans and mixing it with their present events.

Then came another strike of emotion, the Romanticism. This was a time where rules were left aside to show something deeper than high art made by fine technique, to show the dark emotions inside the artist. It was a celebration of the pain and angst caused by love and such. It was also a rebellion against the unexpressive forms of art which only showed superficial and though out beauty.

I think that would be enough to show my point. History shows us that general currents of thought go like that, in a constant change going from reason to emotion, from order to chaos, making a zig zag out of history. And if we looked deeper into it, we would observe that with time the period of staying in one side of the spectrum is less and less, and also the distance between each peak is less, meaning that the differences between "reason" and "emotion" decrease.

What must be taken from all this is that even if the changes seem drastic, the more we do them, the more we start to find the inbetween point, the balance between the two (or three or four, whatever number of variables you have). And studying the different doctrines to achieve happiness, you will find that each, in its own particular way leads you to that, balance.

by I'm the penguin