Early period of ancient Greek philosophy. Philosophy of ancient Greece

Ancient Greek philosophy is considered the ancestor of all European philosophy. From the time of its appearance (7th century BC), it immediately differed from the eastern one. First of all, because the latter relied on the idea of ​​despotic rule, supported the cult of ancestors, honored their customs and did not at all contribute to the development of free thinking. What factors shaped ancient Greek philosophy? By what schools, philosophers and ideas was it represented? Let's take a closer look in the article.

Peculiarities

First of all, let's talk about what was the impetus for the active development of philosophy in ancient Greece. The main factors were:

• the transition from a tribal system to a special type of political system - a policy where democracy reigned;
• increase in contacts with other peoples and civilizations, acceptance of their experience and its transformation;
• development of scientific knowledge, trade and crafts;
• the transformation of mental labor into a special kind of activity.

All these prerequisites contributed to the formation of a free personality, which had its own opinion. Actively developed such qualities as: craving for knowledge, the ability to reflect and draw conclusions, sharpness of mind. The desire for philosophizing was also supported by the principle of competitiveness, which was applied not only in sports competitions, but also in intellectual disputes and discussions of various kinds.

At the beginning of the development of ancient Greek philosophy, its connection with mythology is very clearly visible. They asked the same questions:

• where did the world come from;
• how it exists;
• who governs nature.

However, mythology and philosophy have a very significant difference - the latter tries to find a rational explanation for everything, to comprehend the world around us through the mind. Therefore, it is thanks to its development that new questions arise:

• why it happens this way;
• what is the cause of a certain phenomenon;
• what is truth.

The answer required a different way of thinking - critical. A thinker relying on such a form of cognition of the world must question absolutely everything. It should be noted that, at the same time, the veneration of the gods is preserved until the very last period of the development of ancient Greek thought, when pantheism begins to be actively replaced by the Christian religion.

periodization

Researchers believe that ancient Greek philosophy went through several periods in its development:

1. Dosocratic - it lasted until the 5th century. BC. The most famous schools of that time were the Milesian and the Elean.
2. Classical - lasted one century until the 4th century. BC. It is considered the heyday of ancient Greek thought. It was then that Socrates lived, and.
3. Hellenistic - ended in 529, when Emperor Justinian closed the last Greek philosophical school - the Platonic Academy.

Not much information about the activities of the first ancient Greek philosophers has come down to our days. So, we get a lot of information from the works of other, later thinkers, primarily Plato and Aristotle.

Unites all periods, perhaps, the type of philosophizing, which is called cosmocentric. This means that the thinking of the sages of ancient Greece was directed to the world around and nature, their origin and relationship. In addition, for cognition, the abstraction method was used, by which concepts were formed. They were used to be able to describe objects, listing their properties and qualities. Also, the ancient Greeks were able to generalize all the scientific theories already known to them, observations of nature and the achievements of science and culture.

Let us consider in more detail the most important ancient Greek schools (or directions) of philosophy.

natural philosophers

For the most part, representatives of the Milesian school belong to this direction. The world was considered by them as a living and indivisible whole. In it, all the things around people were animated: some - to a greater extent, others - to a lesser extent.

Their main goal was to search for the origin of being (“What everything comes from and everything consists of”). At the same time, natural philosophers could not agree on which of the elements to consider the main one. For example, Thales considered water to be the beginning of everything. At the same time, a representative of the same direction named Anaximenes gave primacy to air, and to fire.

Eleatics

This direction is also called Eleatic. Among his famous followers: Zeno and Parmenides. Their teaching became the impetus for the development of idealism in the future. They denied the possibility of movement and change, believing that only being really exists. It is eternal, unique and frozen in place, it cannot be destroyed either.

It was the Eleatics who were the first to discover that there are things that exist in reality and are comprehended by thinking, and there are those that can only be known by feelings.

Atomistic school

It was its founder. He believed that there is not only being, but also non-being, and our whole world consists of the smallest particles - atoms. They differ from each other in shape, size, position and form bodies. The world, objects and phenomena a person sees with his eyes. And atoms cannot be considered by “feelings”, this can be done only by the mind.

classic direction

Within the framework of this school, attention should be paid to prominent figures of that time: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

1. Socrates is a philosopher who first raised the question of a person as a person who has a conscience and a certain set of values:

• he insists on the importance of self-knowledge, since it is this that forms the path to the achievement of the highest true good;
• each person has a mind, with the help of which all concepts are comprehended. That is, for example, kindness or courage cannot be taught to another. He must do it on his own, reflecting, identifying, remembering.

1. Plato was the one who actually founded objective idealism:

• his main idea is that ideas are prototypes of all existing things. He calls them models. Thus, for example, we can say that all chairs have some common ideal pattern of what we call a "chair";
• the philosopher believed that the state is unfair and imperfect, since it is based on the subjective opinions of its rulers;
• the thinker divides the being into the world of things (untrue) and the world of ideas (true). Objects arise, change, collapse and disappear. Ideas, on the other hand, are eternal.

1. Aristotle was the most talented student of Plato, which did not prevent him from criticizing the ideas of his teacher. An inquisitive mind and a broad outlook allowed the thinker to engage in logic, psychology, politics, economics, rhetoric and many other then known teachings. By the way, it was Aristotle who first classified the sciences into theoretical and practical. Here are his main ideas:

• being is a unity of form and matter, the latter is what things consist of, it can take on any form;
• the constituents of matter are the standard elements (fire, air, water, earth and ether), they form objects known to us in various combinations;
• It was Aristotle who first formulated some of the laws of logic.

Hellenistic direction

Hellenism is often divided into early and late. It is considered the longest period in the history of ancient Greek philosophy, capturing even the beginning of the Roman stage. At this time, a person’s search for consolation and reconciliation with the new reality comes to the fore. Ethical issues become important. So, what schools appeared in the specified period.

1. Epicureanism - representatives of this direction considered pleasure the goal of all life. However, it was not about sensual pleasure, but about something sublime and spiritual, inherent only to sages who are able to overcome the fear of death.
2. Skepticism - its followers showed distrust of all "truths" and theories, believing that they need to be tested scientifically and empirically.
3. Neoplatonism is, in a sense, a mixture of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle with Eastern traditions. The thinkers of this school sought to achieve unity with God through the practical methods they created.

Results

Thus, ancient Greek philosophy existed and developed for about 1200 years. It still has a strong influence of mythology, although it is considered the first conceptual system in which thinkers tried to find a rational explanation for all the surrounding phenomena and things. In addition, the “free” thinking of the inhabitants of the ancient city-states, or policies, contributed to its rise. Their inquisitive mind, interest in nature and the world allowed the ancient philosophy of Greece to lay the foundations for the development of all European philosophy as a whole.

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- this is another topic for an article from a series of publications on the basics of philosophy. we learned the definition of philosophy, the subject of philosophy, its main sections, the functions of philosophy, fundamental problems and questions.

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When did philosophy appear?

It is generally accepted that philosophy originated approximately − in the 7th-6th centuries BC in ancient Greece and simultaneously in ancient China and India. Some scientists believe that philosophy appeared in ancient Egypt. One thing is certain, the Egyptian civilization had a huge impact on the civilization of Greece.

Philosophy of the Ancient World (Ancient Greece)

So, the philosophy of ancient Greece. This period in the history of philosophy is perhaps one of the most mysterious and fascinating. He's called golden age of civilization. The question often arises, how and why did the philosophers of that time generate so many brilliant ideas, thoughts and hypotheses? For example, the hypothesis that the world consists of elementary particles.

Ancient philosophy is a philosophical direction that has developed over more than a thousand years. from the end of the 7th century BC until the 6th century AD.

Philosophy periods of ancient Greece

It is customary to divide it into several periods.

• The first period is early (until the 5th century BC). He shares naturalistic(in it the most important place was given to the cosmic principle and nature, when man was not the main idea of ​​philosophy) and humanistic(in it, the main place was already occupied by a person and his problems, mainly of an ethical nature).
• Second period -classical (5-6 centuries BC). During this period, the systems of Plato and Aristotle developed. After them came the period of the Hellenistic systems. In them, the main attention was paid to the moral character of a person and problems related to the morality of society and one person.
• The last period is the Philosophy of Hellenism. Divided by early Hellenistic period (4th-1st century BC) and late Hellenistic period 1st century BC. e. - 4th century)

Features of the philosophy of the ancient world

Ancient philosophy had a number of characteristic features that distinguished it from other philosophical currents.

• For this philosophy characterized by syncretism that is, the confluence of the most important problems, and this is its difference from later philosophical schools.
• For such a philosophy characteristic and cosmocentric- the cosmos, according to her, is connected with a person by many inextricable ties.
• In ancient philosophy, there were practically no philosophical laws, a lot of it was developed at the level of concepts.
• Huge logic mattered., and the leading philosophers of the time, among them Socrates and Aristotle, were engaged in its development.

Philosophical schools of the ancient world

Milesian school

One of the most ancient philosophical schools is considered to be the Miletus school. Among its founders was Thales, astronomer. He believed that the basis of everything is a certain substance. She is the only beginning.

Anaximenes believed that the beginning of everything should be considered air, it is in it that infinity is reflected and all objects change.

Anaximander is the founder of the idea that the worlds are endless and the basis of everything, in his opinion, is the so-called apeiron. It is an inexpressible substance, the basis of which remains unchanged, while its parts are constantly in change.

School of Pythagoras.

Pythagoras created a school in which students studied the laws of nature and human society, and also developed a system of mathematical proofs. Pythagoras believed that the human soul is immortal.

Eleian school.

Xenophanes expressed his philosophical views in the form of poetry and engaged in ridicule of the gods, criticized religion. Parmenides one of the main representatives of this school, developed the idea of ​​being and thinking in it. Zeno of Elea engaged in the development of logic and fought for the truth.

School of Socrates.

Socrates did not write philosophical works, like his predecessors. He talked to people on the street and in philosophical disputes proved his point of view. He was engaged in the development of dialectics, was engaged in the development of the principles of rationalism in ethical refraction, and believed that one who has knowledge of what virtue is will not behave badly and harm others.

Thus, ancient philosophy served as the basis for the further development of philosophical thought and had a huge impact on the minds of many thinkers of that time.

Books on Philosophy of Ancient Greece

• Essay on the history of Greek philosophy. Eduard Gottlob Zeller. This is a famous essay, repeatedly reprinted in many countries. This is a popular and concise summary of ancient Greek philosophy.
• Philosophers of Ancient Greece. Robert S. Brambo. From the book of Robert Brambo (PhD of the University of Chicago) you will learn a description of the life of philosophers, a description of their scientific concepts, ideas and theories.
• History of ancient philosophy. G. Arnim. The book is devoted exclusively to the content of ideas, concepts, ancient philosophical teachings.

Philosophy of Ancient Greece - briefly, the most important thing. VIDEO

Summary

Ancient philosophy of the ancient world (Ancient Greece) created the term “philosophy” itself, has had and is having a huge impact on European and world philosophy to this day.

Real science for the ancient Greeks is always practice, so they did not distinguish craft and art from science, including all types of material and spiritual activities in culture. Another feature of ancient Greek philosophy is the impersonal nature of its inherent cosmology. The absolute is nature itself, beautiful and beautifully organized in the cosmic body.

Hence the two approaches to the interpretation of the emergence and development of material culture, which are characteristic of the philosophers of the ancient Greek worldview. According to the first (Protagoras), people owe the orderly development of social life to the gods. Among the Greeks, the gods are humanoid not only in appearance, but also in their behavior.

The second approach (Democritus) considers the creator of culture to be a person who creates it, imitating nature. This was the initial understanding of culture as a purposeful impact of man on nature, as well as the upbringing and education of man himself. Therefore, the ancient Greeks distinguished in culture two opposing principles: natural and moral.

With the advent of the slave system, there was a transition from figurative thinking to conceptual thinking. Cosmogony (the science that studies the origin of cosmic objects and systems), which was then the beginning of scientific research, increasingly came into conflict with the mythological interpretation of nature.

Milesian school

The first representatives of the progressive dissociation from mythology were the supporters of the early philosophical school of Ancient Greece, and at the same time Europe, the Milesian school founded by Thales in the city of Miletus. A spontaneously materialistic and dialectical view of nature developed by the Milesian thinkers - Thales (624-547 BC), Anaximander (610-548 BC) and Anaximenes (second half of the 4th century BC). e.), lies in the fact that they were looking for the primary of everything that exists in reality.

Thales saw this fundamental principle or “arche” of all natural things in water, from which everything comes and into which everything eventually turns. Anaximander declared as "arche", from which everything arises and into which everything is resolved, "apeiron", that is, "infinite" - something between air and water. The third representative of the Milesian school (Anaximenes) considered air to be the basis of all phenomena, which, when discharged, turns into fire, and as it thickens, into water and earth. Here, for the first time, the problem of the beginning arises, which they are looking for not outside the material reality, but in it itself.

The role of representatives of the Milesian school in the formation and development of ancient Greek culture is not limited to the field of pure philosophy, but simultaneously extends to natural science knowledge. So, Thales determined the length of the year at 365 days, predicted a solar eclipse. Anaximander made a sundial, a map of land and sea. Anaximenes studied astronomy. Thus, their philosophical knowledge accumulated, to a certain extent, the natural sciences.

Mathematical school of Pythagoras

The materialism of the Milesians was opposed by the mathematical school of Pythagoras (580-500 BC). The Pythagoreans correctly observed that all things have a quantitative characteristic. Having made this position absolute, they came to the wrong conclusion that things and numbers are one and the same, and even declared that things imitate numbers. In the end, the Pythagoreans fell into the mysticism of numbers, giving them (numbers) a supernatural religious-mystical character.

The great dialectician of antiquity, Heraclitus (544-484 BC), was the successor of the Milesian school. The teaching of Heraclitus is the first conscious transition from a sensual view of the world to a conceptual-categorical perception of it. The concept of "logos" introduced by him as a world regularity is the leading category of his philosophy. The essence of his writings is the assertion of the struggle that reigns in nature and social life in the form of constant movement, change and transformation into each other of opposites. Heraclitus is rightfully considered one of the founders of dialectics.

Sophists

A special place in the culture and philosophy of ancient Greece belongs to the sophists, the most famous among whom were Protagoras (490-420 BC) and Gorgias (about 480 - about 380 BC). The Sophists, not without reason, are considered representatives of the Greek Enlightenment for the dissemination and popularization of knowledge among a wide range of students. The philosophical views of this school were based on the idea of ​​the absence of absolute truths and objective values. Hence the conclusion: good is what gives a person pleasure, and evil is what causes suffering. With this approach, the main attention was paid to the psychological aspects of personality. This is evidenced by the original principle of the sophists formulated by Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things: those that exist, that they exist, and those that do not exist, that they do not exist."

Atomism of Democritus and Epicurus

An important role in the development of the philosophy of Ancient Greece was played by the atomistic theory of Democritus and Epicurus (the most developed form of ancient atomism), which consistently gave a materialistic picture of the world, boldly asserting that the whole world consists of a set of atoms (atom - indivisible) - the smallest indivisible particles and emptiness, in which these atoms move. Atoms are eternal, indestructible and unchanging. Different combinations of atoms form different things. Hence the creation and destruction of things. The world is an infinite set of atoms forever moving in an infinite void.

The world, according to Democritus, is not a chaos of random phenomena, everything in it is causally conditioned. For the first time introducing the concept of cause into ancient Greek philosophy and developing the system of materialistic determinism, Democritus denied chance, identifying it with causelessness.

Socrates and Plato

The materialistic line of the atomists, especially in the person of its chief representative Democritus, met with a pronounced negative reaction from the idealists, primarily Plato and his school.

In the formation of Plato's philosophical views, his teacher Socrates (circa 470-399 BC) played a huge role. In his appearance, Socrates was rather a folk sage, whose goal was to combat the absolute skepticism of the sophists (Protagora and Gorgias). The turning point in philosophy here was that the Socratic doctrine contained the rationale for the need for conceptual knowledge.

Socrates made a turn in ancient Greek philosophy from Cosmos to Man, considering the main problems of human life and death, the meaning of existence, the purpose of man.

What was new in the teachings of Socrates was that he understood dialectics as the art of conducting this kind of conversation, a dialogue in which the interlocutors reach the truth, discovering contradictions in each other's reasoning, colliding opposing opinions and overcoming the corresponding contradictions. This moment of dialectics was certainly a step forward.

The main philosophical provisions of Socrates found a logical continuation in the works of Plato (427-347 BC), whose teaching is the first form of objective idealism in the history of philosophy.

For Plato, true being belongs to the eternal world of spiritual beings - the world of ideas. Material reality is a reflection of the world of ideas, and not vice versa. A part of this eternal is the human soul, which, according to Plato, is the main essence of the human being.

The theory of the state of Plato is closely connected with the doctrine of man and the soul. His ethics was focused on the improvement of the human race, on the creation of a perfect society, and hence the ideal state. Plato divided people into three types depending on the predominant part of the soul in them: rational, affective (emotional) or lustful (sensual). The predominance of the rational part of the soul is characteristic of sages or philosophers. They are committed to truth, justice, moderation in everything, and Plato assigned them the role of rulers in an ideal state. The predominance of the affective part of the soul endows a person with noble passions: courage, courage, obedience to duty. These are the qualities of warriors or "guardians" of the security of the state. People of the lusty type should be engaged in physical labor, providing the material side of the life of society and the state. These are peasants and artisans. Plato considered “measure” as a common virtue for all, and the highest of all that can exist on Earth is a just and perfect state. Therefore, in Plato, a person lives for the sake of the state, and not the state for the sake of a person, that is, the dominance of the universal over the individual is clearly expressed.

Aristotle

Plato's objective idealism was criticized by his disciple Aristotle (384-322 BC). He considered the eternal ideas of Plato to be empty abstractions that cannot reflect the essence of objects, cannot be the cause of their emergence and destruction, as well as knowledge in general. Aristotle criticizes Plato's position on the existence of ideas independently of sensible things. According to Aristotle, there can hardly be anything other than single things. He correctly pointed out the weakness of Plato's idealist argument. However, in the doctrine of matter and form, he himself comes to an idealistic conclusion, believing that God is contained in every object as the thought of this object.

In the field of socio-philosophical issues, Aristotle, like Plato, recognized the legitimacy and necessity of slavery, the initial natural inequality of people, as well as the desire for a just state with observance of good laws that improve man; for a person, according to Aristotle, by his very nature is destined to live together, being a social being, capable of being formed and educated only in a community as a moral person, possessing such virtues as prudence, benevolence, generosity, self-restraint, courage, generosity, truthfulness. The crown of all virtues, according to Aristotle, is justice. Hence his desire for a just state.

With the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great, whose teacher was Aristotle, the heyday of slave-owning ancient Greece ends and a new era begins - the era of Hellenism, led by the Roman Empire, the so-called Roman Hellenism, covering the period from the 1st century BC to the 1st century BC. e. to the 5th century AD e. The main philosophical trends in the culture of this period were: Stoicism, Skepticism, Epicureanism and Neoplatonism.

The philosophy of Ancient Greece is a bright period in the history of this science and is the most fascinating and mysterious. That is why this period was called the golden age of civilization. Ancient philosophy played the role of a special philosophical trend that existed and developed from the end of the 7th century BC to the 6th century AD.

It is worth noting that we owe the birth of ancient Greek philosophy to the great thinkers of Greece. In their time, they were not so famous, but in the modern world, we have heard about each of them since the days of school. It was the ancient Greek philosophers who brought their new knowledge into the world, forcing them to take a fresh look at human existence.

Famous and world philosophers of Ancient Greece

When talking about ancient Greek philosophy, Socrates comes to mind, one of the first thinkers who used philosophy as a way of knowing the truth. His main principle was that in order to know the world, a person needs to truly know himself true. In other words, he was sure that with the help of self-knowledge, anyone can achieve real bliss in life. The doctrine said that the human mind pushes people to good deeds, because the thinker will never do bad deeds. Socrates presented his own teaching orally, and his students wrote down his knowledge in their compositions. And because of this, we will be able to read his words in our time.

The “Socratic” way of conducting disputes made it clear that the truth is known only in a dispute. After all, it is with the help of leading questions that one can force both opponents to admit their defeat, and then notice the justice of the words of their opponent. Socrates also believed that a person who does not deal with political affairs has no right to condemn the active work of politics.

The philosopher Plato introduced the first classical form of objective idealism into his teaching. Such ideas, among which was the highest (the idea of ​​the good), were eternal and unchanging models of things, everything. Things, in turn, played the role of reflecting ideas. These thoughts can be found in the writings of Plato, such as "Feast", "State", "Phaedrus" and others. Conducting dialogues with his students, Plato often spoke about beauty. Answering the question “What is beautiful”, the philosopher gave a description of the very essence of beauty. As a result, Plato came to the conclusion that a peculiar idea plays the role of everything beautiful. A person can know this only at the time of inspiration.

The first philosophers of ancient Greece

Aristotle, who was a student of Plato and a pupil of Alexander the Great, also belongs to the philosophers of Ancient Greece. It was he who became the founder of scientific philosophy, teaching about the possibilities and implementation of human abilities, matter and the form of thoughts and ideas. He was mainly interested in people, politics, art, ethnic views. Unlike his teacher, Aristotle saw beauty not in the general idea, but in the objective quality of things. For him, true beauty was magnitude, symmetry, proportions, order, in other words, mathematical quantities. Therefore, Aristotle believed that in order to achieve the beautiful, a person must study mathematics.

Speaking of mathematics, one cannot but recall Pythagoras, who created the multiplication table and his own theorem with his name. This philosopher was sure that the truth lies in the study of whole numbers and proportions. Even the doctrine of the “harmony of the spheres” was developed, in which it was indicated that the whole world is a separate cosmos. Pythagoras and his students asked questions of musical acoustics, which were solved by the ratio of tones. As a result, it was concluded that beauty is a harmonious figure.

Another philosopher who looked for beauty in science was Democritus. He discovered the existence of atoms and devoted his life to finding the answer to the question "What is beauty?". The thinker argued that the true purpose of human existence is his desire for bliss and complacency. He believed that you should not strive for any pleasure, and you need to know only that which keeps beauty in itself. Defining beauty, Democritus pointed out that beauty has its own measure. If you cross it, then even the most real pleasure will turn into torment.

Heraclitus saw beauty impregnated with dialectics. The thinker saw harmony not as a static balance, like Pythagoras, but as a constantly moving state. Heraclitus argued that beauty is possible only with contradiction, which is the creator of harmony and the condition for the existence of all that is beautiful. It was in the struggle between agreement and dispute that Heraclitus saw examples of the true harmony of beauty.

Hippocrates is a philosopher whose writings have become famous in the fields of medicine and ethics. It was he who became the founder of scientific medicine, wrote essays on the integrity of the human body. He taught his students an individual approach to a sick person, to keep a history of diseases, and medical ethics. The students learned from the thinker to pay attention to the high moral character of doctors. It was Hippocrates who became the author of the famous oath that everyone who becomes a doctor takes: do no harm to the patient.

Periodization of ancient Greek philosophy

As ancient Greek philosophers succeeded each other and became representatives of new teachings, in each century scientists find striking differences in the study of science. That is why the periodization of the development of the philosophy of ancient Greece is usually divided into four main stages:

• pre-Socratic philosophy (4-5 centuries BC);
• classical stage (5-6 centuries BC);
• Hellenic stage (6th century BC-2nd century AD);
• Roman philosophy (6th century BC-6th century AD).

The pre-Socratic period is the time that was designated in the 20th century. During this period, there were philosophical schools that were led by philosophers before Socrates. One of them was the thinker Heraclitus.

The classical period is a conventional concept that denoted the flowering of philosophy in Ancient Greece. It was at this time that the teachings of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle appeared.

The Hellenic period is the time when Alexander the Great formed states in Asia and Africa. It is characterized by the birth of the Stoic philosophical direction, the working activity of the schools of the students of Socrates, the philosophy of the thinker Epicurus.

The Roman period is the time when such famous philosophers as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Tut Lucretius Carus appeared.

Philosophy in ancient Greece appeared and improved during the period of the emergence of a slave-owning society. Then such people were divided into groups of slaves who were engaged in physical labor, and into a society of people who were engaged in mental labor. Philosophy would not have appeared if the development of natural science, mathematics and astronomy had not taken place in a timely manner. In ancient times, no one singled out natural science as a separate area for human knowledge. Every knowledge about the world or about people was included in philosophy. Therefore, ancient Greek philosophy was called the science of sciences.

ancient philosophy

Ancient philosophy is the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (VII century BC - III century AD), cultural achievements, which are rightfully considered the basis of European civilization.

Ancient Greek is the philosophy developed by Greek philosophers who lived on the territory of modern Greece, as well as in Greek policies, in the Hellenistic states of Asia and Africa, in the Roman Empire. The founder of Greek (European) philosophy is one of the seven wise men - Thales, originally from Miletus.

Philosophical schools of ancient Greece

Milesian school

Thales (640-560 BC) - the origin of the universe thought water, but this water is deified, animated. He represented the Earth in the form of a disk on water, believed that inanimate nature, all things have a soul, admitted the existence of many gods, considered the Earth to be the center of the universe.

Anaximander (610-540 BC), student of Thales.

He considered the origin of all things "apeiron"- eternal, immeasurable, infinite substance, from which all

arose, everything consists and into which everything will turn when destroyed. Apeiron

combines opposites: hot - cold, dry - wet. As a result of various combinations of opposites, things are formed.

Anaximenes (585-525 BC) - disciple of Anaximander. He considered the beginning of all things air. Put forward the idea of the fact that all substances on Earth are the result of different concentrations of air (compressing, it turns into water, then into silt, then into soil, stone. All the diversity of the elements explains the degree of air condensation (when when rarefied, fire is born; when condensed, wind is born, then fog, water, etc.).

eleian school

Parmenides (540-480 BC) - the most striking figure among the Eleatics. He argued: "there is no movement, there is no non-existence, only being exists." Destruction, movement, change - not in truth, but only in opinion. Being is one, not many. Parmenides imagined it as a ball in which everything is the same essence. He drew a clear line between thinking and sensory experience, cognition and evaluation (the famous opposition of "in truth" and "in opinion").

Zeno . (480 -430 BC), an Elean, known for his aporias (translated as aporia - difficulty, difficulty) “Achilles and the tortoise”, “Arrow”, “Stages”. If Parmenides proved the existence of the one, then Zeno tried to refute the existence of the many. He argued against the movement, pointing out that it was contradictory and therefore non-existent. The Eleatics are the authors of the first logical problems and thought experiments. In many ways they anticipated the Aristotelian exercises in logic.

Pythagoras (about 580-500 BC) and Pythagoreans - creators of the quantitative concept of being. “Everything is a number,” Pythagoras (circa 580-500 BC) claimed. Everything is quantitatively determined, that is, any object is not only qualitatively, but also quantitatively determined (or otherwise: each quality has its own quantity). This was the greatest discovery. All experimental and observing science rests on this proposition. It is impossible not to note the negative side of the Pythagorean teaching, expressed in the absolutization of quantity, number. On the basis of this absolutization grew Pythagorean mathematical symbolism and mysticism of numbers, full of superstitions, which was combined with the belief in the transmigration of souls.

Pythagoras is considered the inventor of the term "philosophy". We can only be lovers of wisdom, not sages (only gods can be). With such an attitude towards wisdom, philosophers, as it were, left an “open door” for the creation of the new (for knowledge and invention).

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 520-460 BC) - philosopher - materialist, dialectician, believed that "everything flows, everything changes"; “one and the same river cannot be entered twice”; "Nothing is immovable in the world." All world processes, he taught, arise from the struggle of opposites, which he called the eternal "universal logos" (one law, World Mind). He taught that the world was not created by either gods or people, but was, is and will be eternally living fire. Cosmos is a product of fire.

Some consider Heraclitus the founder of the doctrine of knowledge - epistemology. He became the first making a difference sensory and rational cognition: cognition begins with feelings, giving a superficial characterization, then knowledge must be processed with the help of the mind. It is known that Heraclitus respected the law and encouraged everyone to do so. He was a supporter of the circulation of substances in nature and the cyclical nature of history. He recognized the relativity of the surrounding world: what is bad for some is good for others; in different situations, the same act of a person can be bad and good.

Democritus (460-371 BC) - the greatest materialist, the first encyclopedic mind of Ancient Greece. He believed that everything is made up of atoms (indivisible particles). He even represented thought as a collection of especially thin invisible atoms. Thought, according to Democritus, cannot exist without a material carrier, the spirit cannot exist independently of matter.

Sophists (teachers of wisdom) The most famous among them were Protagoras (c. 485 - c. 410 BC) and Gorgias (c. 480 - c. 380 BC).

The Sophists were the first among philosophers to receive tuition fees. The Sophists offered their services to those who sought to participate in the political life of their city: they taught grammar, style, rhetoric, the ability to debate, and also gave a general education. The basic principle formulated by Protagoras is as follows: "Man is the measure of all things: those that exist, that they exist, and those that do not exist, that they do not exist." The sophists focused on man and his psychology: the art of persuasion required knowledge of the mechanisms that govern the life of consciousness. At the same time, the problems of cognition came to the fore among the sophists.

In the theory of knowledge, the sophists are guided by the individual, declaring him, with all his features, the subject of knowledge. Everything we know about objects, they argue, we receive through the senses; yet sensory perceptions are subjective: what seems sweet to a healthy person will seem bitter to a sick person. Hence, all human knowledge is only relative. Objective, true knowledge, from the point of view of the sophists, is unattainable.

Relativism in the theory of knowledge served as a justification for moral relativism: the sophists showed the relativity, conventionality of legal norms, state laws and moral assessments.

Socrates (c. 470 - 399 BC), a student of the sophists, and then their critic. The main philosophical interest of Socrates focuses on the question of what is a person, what is human consciousness. "Know thyself" is Socrates' favorite saying. Hence the desire of Socrates to seek the truth together, in the course of conversations (dialogues), when the interlocutors, critically analyzing those opinions that are considered generally accepted, discard them one by one until they come to such knowledge that everyone recognizes as true. Socrates possessed a special art - the famous irony, with the help of which he gradually aroused among his interlocutors doubts about the truth of traditional ideas, trying to lead them to such knowledge, the reliability of which they themselves would be convinced. Philosophy was understood by Socrates as the knowledge of what is good and evil. The search for knowledge about the good and the just together, in a dialogue with one or more interlocutors, in itself created, as it were, special ethical relations between people who gathered together not for the sake of entertainment and not for the sake of practical deeds, but for the sake of gaining the truth. Socrates considers an immoral act to be the fruit of ignorance of the truth: if a person knows what is good, then he will never act badly. A bad deed is identified here with delusion, with a mistake, and no one makes mistakes voluntarily, Socrates believes. And since moral evil comes from ignorance, it means that knowledge is the source of moral perfection. Socrates put forward a peculiar principle of cognitive modesty: "I know that I know nothing."

Plato (427-347 BC) - one of the most famous philosophers of antiquity. In this, only Aristotle, his own student, competed with him. The latter owed much to Plato, although he criticized him. From Aristotle came the expression: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer." AT doctrine of ideas Plato proceeded from the fact that a person in his creative activity goes from ideas to things (first ideas as samples, then things that embody them), that many ideas arise in a person’s head that do not have a material embodiment, and it is not known whether they will receive it ever incarnation. These facts were interpreted by him as follows: ideas as such exist independently of matter in some special world and are models for things. Things arise on the basis of these ideas. The true, real is the world of ideas, and the world of things is a shadow, something less existing (i.e., ideas have the maximum being, and the world of things is something that does not exist, that is, changing, disappearing).

According to ideal state theory human society represented by the state dominates the individual. The individual is considered something insignificant in relation to the society-state. A thread stretches from Plato to totalitarian ideologies, Nazi and communist, in which a person is considered only as a particle of the whole, as something that must be entirely subordinate to the whole. Wise men (philosophers) should govern the state. Warriors or "guards" must take care of the security of the state. Finally, peasants and artisans must ensure the material side of the life of the state.

There is, however, a virtue common to all classes, which Plato values ​​​​very highly: this is the measure. “Nothing beyond measure” is the principle that Plato shares with most Greek philosophers. According to Plato, a just and perfect state is the highest of all that can exist on Earth. Therefore, a person lives for the sake of the state, and not the state - for the sake of the person. The danger of absolutization of such an approach was already seen by Aristotle. Being a greater realist than his teacher, he was well aware that an ideal state in earthly conditions could hardly be created due to the weakness and imperfection of the human race. And therefore, in real life, the principle of strict subordination of the individual to the general often results in the most terrible tyranny, which, by the way, the Greeks themselves could see in numerous examples from their own history.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) - a student of Plato, later founded his own school, which was called Likey(in Latin transcription - Lyceum). Aristotle was systematic. Almost every of his works laid the foundation for new sciences (op. "On Animals" - zoology, op. "On the Soul" - psychology, etc.).

Aristotle is the father of logic (and now it is sometimes called Aristotelian). He identified the basic rules of logical thinking, formulating them in the form of laws of logic, explored the forms of logical thinking (reasoning): concept, judgment, conclusion, proof, refutation.

If we recall the division of all philosophers into materialists and idealists, then we can say that Aristotle actually expressed the main idea of ​​materialism, that is, that spirit cannot exist outside of matter, in contrast to Plato, who argued the opposite. ("Plato is my friend but the truth is dearer!")

Aristotle criticized the Platonic theory of the ideal state, advocated private property against the Platonic idea of ​​the community of property. In fact, he was the first anti-communist. In his opinion, common ownership would cause a negligent attitude towards work and great difficulties in distributing its fruits; each would strive to get a better and larger share of the products, but to apply a smaller share of labor, which would lead to quarrels and deceit in exchange for friendship and cooperation.

Aristotle defined man as a social animal endowed with reason. Man, by his very nature, is destined to live together; only in a hostel can people be formed, brought up as moral beings. Justice crowns all the virtues, to which Aristotle also included prudence, generosity, self-restraint, courage, generosity, truthfulness, benevolence.

People are by nature unequal, Aristotle believes: those who are not able to answer for their own actions, are not able to become the master of themselves, cannot cultivate moderation, self-restraint, justice and other virtues, that slave by nature and can only exercise will another.

Aristotle ends the classical period in the development of Greek philosophy. The ideological orientation of philosophy is changing: its interest is increasingly focused on the life of an individual. Ethical teachings are especially characteristic in this respect. stoics and epicureans. Great popularity stoic school received in Ancient Rome, where its most prominent representatives were Seneca (c. 4 BC - 65 AD), his student Epictetus (c. 50 - c. 140) and Emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180) .

Philosophy for the Stoics is not just a science, but above all a life path, life wisdom. Only philosophy is able to teach a person to maintain self-control and dignity in a difficult situation. The Stoics consider freedom from the power of the outside world over a person to be the dignity of a sage; his strength lies in the fact that he is not a slave to his own passions. A sage cannot aspire to sense gratification. Dispassion is the ethical ideal of the Stoics.

A complete rejection of social activism in ethics we meet with a materialist Epicurus (341-270 BC), whose teachings gained wide popularity in the Roman Empire. Epicurus revises Aristotle's definition of man. The individual is primary; all social ties, all human relations depend on individuals, on their subjective desires and rational considerations of utility and pleasure. Social union, according to Epicurus, is not the highest goal, but only a means for the personal well-being of individuals.

In contrast to the Stoic, Epicurean ethics is hedonistic (from the Greek hedone - pleasure): Epicurus considers pleasure to be the goal of human life. Epicurus, like the Stoics, considered equanimity of spirit (ataraxia), peace of mind and serenity to be the highest pleasure, and such a state can be achieved only if a person learns to moderate his passions and carnal desires, to subordinate them to reason.

Despite the well-known similarity between Stoic and Epicurean ethics, the difference between them is very significant: the ideal of the Stoics is more severe, they adhere to the altruistic principle of duty and fearlessness before the blows of fate; the ideal of the epicurean sage is not so much moral as aesthetic, it is based on the enjoyment of oneself. Epicureanism is enlightened, refined and enlightened, but still selfish.

Questions for self-control:

1. Try to formulate the basic theories about the origins of the world.

2. What are the similarities and differences between the teachings of the Sophists and Socrates?

3. What is the main thing in the teachings of Plato?

4. Explain Aristotle's expression: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer" ...

5. What is the difference between the positions of the Stoics and the Epicureans?

6. Find out what the terms mean:

Altruism -

Relativism -

Antique -

Hellenistic -

Concept -

Rational -

materialism -

Idealism -

Subjective -

Objective -