The main features of ancient philosophy are brief. General characteristics of ancient philosophy. Characteristic features of ancient philosophy

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists using the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Introduction

1. The main features of ancient philosophy

2. Three oldest schools. Ancient Ionians

2.2 Anaxismander

2.3 Anaximenes

2.4 Pythagoreans

3.1 Xenophanes

3.2 Parmenides

4. Physicists of the fifth century

4.1 Heraclitus

4.2 School of atomists

4.3 Sophists

4.4 Socrates

4.5 Plato

4.6 Aristotle

4.7 Stoicism

4.8 Skepticism

4.9 Epicurean

4.10 Neoplatonism

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Ancient philosophy went through almost a thousand-year period in its development - from the VI century. BC e. until the VI century. n. e., when the emperor Justinian closed in 529 the last Greek philosophical school. Platonic Academy.

Before the appearance of philosophy in ancient Greece, the so-called mythological worldview prevailed. It is obvious that philosophy used all the achievements of the previous culture. In particular, it can be pointed out that philosophy took from the myth the following: the idea of \u200b\u200bthe primary, formless state of the Universe, the idea of \u200b\u200bevolution towards greater orderliness and a better order of the world, ending with the accession of the light principle. The motive of the periodic death and new birth of the universe.

The economic basis of ancient philosophy was a significantly higher level of productive forces (in comparison with the primitive communal, tribal system), the differentiation of labor and crafts, the flourishing of trade, the development of various forms of slavery, including the granting of partial rights to certain categories of slaves; the role of free people increased. Cities are becoming more widespread and city-states are maturing, in which various political regimes, from dictatorial-authoritarian to democratic, are undergoing their first historical test. At the third stage in the development of ancient philosophy, sovereign city-states began to give way to extensive monarchies with their few centers. The ever increasing centralization of power had as one of its consequences a tendency towards the unification of ideology and at the same time undermined the spiritual basis of the Roman Empire created by that time. A number of factors of an economic and political nature led in the end to the death of the slaveholding system itself and to its replacement by feudalism.

1. The main features of ancient philosophy

Philosophy was born as an attempt to determine the fundamental foundations of human existence.

The first and main feature of ancient philosophy is cosmocentrism. This means that in everything, from the world as a whole to any individual phenomenon, ancient philosophers were looking for a reasonable, ordered structure as a basis for understanding themselves and the world.

The second main feature of ancient philosophy is its aestheticism. It also follows that in ancient philosophy, idea and matter were thought in an indissoluble unity. For example, in Democritus, the atom is not at all a "piece of matter"; the atom also carries an ideal beginning. Or, say, the idea in Plato's understanding is not at all separated by an impassable chasm from ordinary things; it is not an incorporeal essence, but the form of a thing, inseparable from the thing itself.

The third main feature of ancient philosophy is its rationalism. From the very beginning, Greek philosophy seeks rational explanations for the origin and essence of the world. In ancient philosophy, this was expressed in the requirement to evaluate all opinions and sensory sensations of a person from the standpoint of the Logos - a universal law, a rational principle underlying the universe.

Ancient philosophy is also ontological. It was in antiquity that objective truth and subjective opinion were distinguished. Philosophers (for example, the same Plato) reproached the sophists not for denying human subjectivity, but rather for giving it a universal meaning.

2 . Tri the most ancient schools.Ancient Ionians

2.1 Thales (late 7th - first half of the 6th century BC)

Thales was the first in the line of Milesian philosophers. As a merchant, he used trade travel to expand his scientific knowledge. He was a hydroengineer, famous for his works, a versatile scientist and thinker, the inventor of astronomical instruments. As a scientist, he became widely famous in Greece, having made a successful prediction of the solar eclipse observed in Greece in 585 BC. e. For this prediction, Thales used the astronomical information he had gleaned in Egypt or Phenicia, going back to the observations and generalizations of Babylonian science. Thales linked his geographical, astronomical and physical knowledge into a harmonious philosophical view of the world, materialistic at its core, despite clear traces of mythological ideas. Thales believed that what exists arose from some moist primordial substance, or "water". The Earth itself is kept on water and is surrounded on all sides by the ocean. It stays on the water like a disc or a board floating on the surface of a body of water. At the same time, the material principle of "water" and all the nature that has arisen from it is not dead, not devoid of animation. Everything in the universe is full of gods, everything is animated. Thales saw an example and proof of universal animation in the properties of a magnet and amber; since a magnet and amber are capable of setting bodies in motion, therefore, they have a soul.

Thus, he imagined matter as living and animate. But no matter how meager this first beginning of physical theory seemed to us, it was still important that this theory in general laid the foundation for the scientific explanation of the world. We already see a significant step forward in Anaximander.

2.2 Anaximander

He was born in 610 BC. and died after 547, he continued in independent research, begun by Thales, cosmological research; he set out his conclusions in an independent, already lost early work, and is the oldest Greek prose writer and the first philosophical writer.

He recognized the beginning of everything as "infinite" (Lreispn), that is, an infinite mass of matter, from which all things arose and into which they return after their death. Under this primordial substance, however, he did not conceive of any of the later four elements. As a primary substance, the infinite did not arise and is not destroyed, and its movement is just as eternal. The consequence of this movement is the "release" of certain substances. First the warm and the cold separated, from both came the moist; from the latter, the Earth, air and a fiery sphere emerged, which surrounded the Earth like a spherical shell. This shell broke, and in it were formed wheel-shaped tubes with holes and filled with fire. These tubes, driven by air currents, rotate around the Earth in an inclined-horizontal direction. The fire that they pour out from their holes as they rotate, and which is constantly restored from the earth's vapors, also explains the phenomenon of lightning sweeping across the sky. - This performance is the first attempt to mechanically explain the correct movement of the stars. The earth is cylindrical; due to the fact that it is on all sides at the same distance from the borders of the world, it remains at rest. At first, it was in a liquid state, and with its gradual drying out, living beings appeared on it; humans were originally born in water and were covered with fish-like scales; they left the water when they were old enough to exist on land

2.3 Anaximen

Anaximenes, also a native of Miletus, lived between 585 and 525 BC. From his work, written in Ionian prose, only a small fragment has survived.

In his physical theory, Anaximenes deviates from Anaximander in the sense that he recognizes as the first principle not unlimited matter without any definition, like Anaximander. And, together with Thales, it is a qualitatively defined substance; but, on the other hand, he adheres to Anaximander in the sense that he chooses such a substance, which, apparently, has the essential properties of the Anaximander principle, namely, infinity and continuous movement. Both are inherent in air. “As the air, as our soul, holds us, so the blowing breath and air embraces the whole world” Due to its beginningless and endless movement, the air undergoes a change, which is two-fold: rarefaction or softening and thickening or compaction. The former is at the same time heating, the latter is cooling. Through rarefaction the air becomes fire, through thickening it becomes wind, then clouds, water, earth, stones; Anaximenes probably drew this idea from the observation of atmospheric processes and precipitation. At the origin of the world, the Earth first formed, which Anaximenes imagined to be flat, like a disk, and therefore hanging in the air. Vapors rising from it, thinning, become fire; the parts of this fire compressed by air are stars; having a shape similar to the Earth, stars (unless here we mean planets), twisting in the air, rotate around the Earth in a lateral motion, like a hat that you twirl around your head. Together with Anaximander and Anaximenes, according to a reliable legend, he accepted the change of world creation and world destruction.

2.4 Pythagoras (580-500 BC) and the Pythagoreans

The main thesis of Pythagoras and his followers: "Everything is number." According to Pythagoras, number is a certain, albeit formal, principle of the existence of a thing, but the very concept of number does not break away from the source of its origin - specific things of the world around us.

From the point of view of Pythagoras, each number has its own special figured structure - so, for example, the same number can correspond to a different structural arrangement of elements within this number. There are "triangular", "rectangular", "pentagonal", etc. "Numbers".

Pythagoreanism provides us with a wonderful example of the law according to which "extremes converge." On the one hand, the idea of \u200b\u200b"number" expresses the ultimate rationalization of sensory impressions. On the other hand, the teaching itself is the heir of the Dionysian mysteries, which are a magical and religious way of "purifying" a person, freeing him from the cultural principle and returning to the bosom of the natural elements. Pythagoreanism was not only a philosophical movement, but also a religious sect with strict rules regarding behavior, food, etc. Both the rejection of sensual pleasures and the intellectual exercises of the Pythagoreans served one purpose - the improvement of the soul. At the same time, the soul was understood as a contradictory unity of feelings and reason, and music - as the best way to restore spiritual harmony, since a harmonious melody is a reflection of the harmony of the heavenly spheres, to which the entire universe is subject. Thus, the rationalism of "number" among the Pythagoreans did not mean the exclusion of the sensual principle, but precisely the transfer of the latter to a qualitatively higher level of spiritual states.

3 . Eleaty

3.1 Xenophanes

The founder of the Eleatic school, he was an Ionian who moved to Lower Italy. Born around 580-576, he wandered for many years as a poet and rhapsode through Greek cities and finally settled in Elea, where he died at the age of over 92.

His poems were varied in content; we owe the knowledge of his philosophical views to the remnants of his didactic poem ResYa tseuesht ("about nature"). The starting point of the teachings of Xenophanes was a bold criticism of the Greek belief in gods. He finds their plurality incompatible with a purer concept of God. The best, he says, can only be one; none of the gods can be ruled by another. So, there is only one God, "incomparable with mortals either in image or in thoughts"; "He is all an eye, all is an ear, all is thinking" and "without effort he rules over all his thought." But the world coincides with this deity for our philosopher: "Looking around the firmament, he called the one deity."

According to his teachings, the Earth arose from the sea, as he proved from the fossils he observed, and at times plunges into the sea again; he considered the sun and stars to be burning vapors, which are re-formed every day. Together with the Earth, the human race must also perish and emerge from it again (cf. the teachings of Anaximander, pp. 45-46) during its rebirth. - If later skeptics ranked our philosopher among their like-minded people, then at the same time they, however, could refer to his sayings, which speak of the unreliability and limitations of human knowledge; however, the dogmatic form of his teaching testifies to how far he nevertheless stood from principled skepticism.

3.2 Parmenides(540-470 BC)

The basic concept from which Parmenides proceeds is the concept of being in its opposite to the concept of non-being. Moreover, by being, he does not mean an abstract concept of pure being, but "complete", a mass that fills space and is alien to any further definitions. “Only the existing is, the non-existent is not, and it is inconceivable” - from this basic idea he deduces all his definitions of the existing. It is indivisible, for it is everywhere the same is what it is, and there is nothing with which it could be divided. It is motionless and unchanging, equal to itself everywhere, can be likened to a well-rounded ball, and evenly extends from the center in all directions. And thinking is also not different from being, for it is only the thinking of beings. Therefore, only that knowledge owns the truth, which in everything shows us this one unchanging being, that is, only the mind (lgpt) owns the truth; on the contrary, the feelings that give us visions of a plurality of things, emergence, destruction and change, that is, generally represent the existence of non-existent, are the source of all delusions.

Nevertheless, Parmenides tried in the second part of his poem to show how the world should be explained in terms of the usual way of representation. The world is made up of light and fiery, on the one hand (tslpgt byAiEsipn rkhs), and "night", dark, heavy and cold, on the other, which Parmenides also called earth. He represents the universe as composed of the earth globe and various spheres that encompass it and are enclosed by a solid firmament; some of these spheres are light, others are dark, and still others are of a mixed nature. He apparently held the opinion that people came from earthly mud. Their ideas are determined by the material composition of their body: each of the two elements in the body cognizes what is related to itself; the nature of the representations depends on which of both elements prevails; therefore, ideas are more true if warm (existing) prevails in the body.

3.3 Zeno(b. 510-c. 460 BC)

Zeno was a pupil of Parmenides. If Parmenides argued that being is one, comprehended only by our thought, then Zeno argued that it is not reproducible and that sensually perceived, for example, spatial and temporal characteristics, are not applicable to it.

At the same time, Zeno did not at all assert that there is no real, directly observable motion of bodies. There is a story according to which, after Zeno presented his arguments against the movement, his student Antisthenes stood up and began to walk in front of him. Zeno, in response to this objection, beat the disciple with a stick. After all, he did not at all claim that movement is an illusion. It was about the fact that when trying to think about movement, we are faced with certain difficulties and contradictions, the source of which is the imperfection and limitations of the methods and means of cognition we use.

Thus, Zeno made a certain step in the development of Parmenides' thought about the One as the basis for the existence of any thing. Parmenides singled out only the most general characteristics of the being of being, without taking into account the specifics of this being. Zeno pointed out that if this specificity is not taken into account, then we will not be able to think. Human thought, being a non-extended object, cannot be represented in terms of ordinary space and time.

So, according to Zeno, it is impossible to divide the concept of motion, because this leads to logical contradictions. But he did not at all assert that motion cannot be thought at all. We cannot postpone "until later" the solution of the problem, whether we are human or not.

4 . Fisiki of the fifth century

4.1 Heraclitus(535 -470 BC)

Like Xenophanes and Parmenides, Heraclitus also proceeds from reflections on nature, and he also understands nature as a single whole, which, as such, never arose and will not perish. But he imagines the world only as something that eternally takes on new forms. Everything flows and nothing has stability, "we cannot enter the same stream twice"; "God is day and night, summer and winter, war and peace, satiety and hunger."

The essence of all things is, according to Heraclitus, fire: "This world, one for all, was not created by any of the gods and people, but there has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire." The basis for this assumption lies in the fact that, according to the philosopher, fire has the least stability and does not tolerate the stability of other substances; and because of this, under fire, he meant not only flame, but also warm in general, therefore he designated it in the same way as "evaporation" and "breath". From fire, through its transformation into other substances, things arise, and in the same way they return to fire again: "Everything is exchanged for fire, and fire for everything, just as goods are exchanged for gold and gold for goods" ... But since this process of transformation never stops, stable creations are never created, and everything is constantly in a state of transition to the opposite, and therefore at the same time has opposite features, between which it oscillates: “The struggle is the truth of the world, the father and king of all things "; "Opposing strengthens each other, divergent goes together"; "The harmony of the world is based on the opposite tension, like the lyre and the bow."

In its transformation, the primary substance passes through three main forms: water arises from fire, earth - from water; in the opposite direction from earth - water, from water - fire. The first is the way down, the last is the way up, and that both go through the same stages, is expressed in the judgment: "the way down and up is the same way." Part of the divine fire is the soul of man; the purer this fire, the more perfect the soul: "a dry soul is the wisest and best." When the soul leaves the body, the fire does not go out, but continues to exist individually; Heraclitus taught (along with the Orphic and Pythagoreans) that souls from this life pass into a higher life, although this teaching does not agree with his physics. On the contrary, quite consistently, our philosopher, who recognizes only the universal law in the replacement of single things as constant, recognized value only for rational knowledge aimed at the general, and declared the eyes and ears of the unreasonable "bad witnesses." In the same way, for practical behavior, he establishes the principle: "all human laws are fed by one, divine"; therefore it is necessary to follow this divine law and, on the contrary, "extinguish willfulness more than fire." From trust in the divine world order flows that contentment (ebsEufzuyt), which Heraclitus, apparently, recognized as the highest good; in his opinion, the happiness of a person depends on himself: Yipt nisurpp dbyamshn - "a person's temper is his deity." The good of society is based on legality: "the people must fight for their law as for their own wall." But according to the thought of an aristocratic philosopher, following the advice of an individual is also a law; and against the democracy that drove out his friend Hermodorus, he directs the most severe reproaches. With the same sharp independence, he treated the religious opinions and rituals of the people, severely condemning not only Dionysian orgies, but also the veneration of images and bloody sacrifices.

The Heraclitus school not only held out in its homeland until the beginning of the fourth century, but also found a response in Athens; Plato's teacher Cratilus belonged to it. But these later Heraclitans, and in particular also Cratylus, were distinguished by their frenzy, and fell into such exaggerations that both Plato and Aristotle speak of them extremely dismissively.

4.2 School of atomists

The founder of the school of atomists was Leucippus. The atomic theory should be recognized in its essential features as the creation of Leucippus, while its application to all areas of natural science was primarily the work of his student Democritus. Leucippus was convinced of the impossibility of absolute emergence and destruction, but he did not want to deny the plurality of being, movement, the emergence and destruction of complex things; and since all this, as Parmenides showed, is inconceivable without non-existent, he argued that non-existent exists in the same way as existent. Being (according to Parmenides) is filling space, complete, and non-being is empty. According to this, Leucippus and Democritus designated, as the main constituent parts of all things, filled and empty; but in order to be able to explain the phenomena from this, they thought filled with divided into innumerable bodies, which cannot be perceived separately due to their smallness and which are separated from each other by emptiness; these little bodies themselves are indivisible, because they completely fill the part of the space that they occupy, and have no emptiness in them; therefore, they are called atoms (bffmb - indivisible) or "dense bodies" (nbufb).

These atoms have exactly the same properties as the existence of Parmenides, if you imagine the latter being split into countless pieces and placed in empty space. They did not arise and are imperishable, completely homogeneous in their substance, differing only in their shape and size, and are capable only of spatial movement, and not of a qualitative change. Therefore, only from here we must explain all the properties and changes of things.

The soul (according to Democritus) consists of thin, smooth and round atoms, that is, of fire. After death, the soul atoms scatter. Nevertheless, the soul is the most noble and divine in man, and in all other things there is also as much soul and mind as they contain a thermal substance. In all likelihood, the imperfection of sensory knowledge is also the main motive of Democritus's complaints about the infidelity and limitations of our knowledge; he cannot be considered a skeptic because of this judgment: he strongly objected to the skepticism of Protagoras. And just like the value of our knowledge, the value of our life is due to the rise above sensuality. It is best to be as happy as possible and as sad as possible; but "eudemonia and cacodemonia (blissful and woeful state) do not dwell either in gold or in herds, only the soul is the dwelling place of the demon." Bliss consists in serenity and mental clarity (eeihmYaz), eeuphu (well-being), bsmkYaz (harmony), bibmwyaz (fearlessness), and the latter is most certainly achievable through moderation of desires and evenness of life (mephsyfzfi feschwyapt khsmphzphi feschwyapt. In this spirit, the life instructions of Democritus are compiled: they testify to great experience, subtle observation, pure principles. According to all we know, he did not attempt to scientifically relate these prescriptions to his physical theory; and if the main idea of \u200b\u200bhis ethics lies in the position that a person's happiness depends entirely on his state of mind, then there is no evidence that he tried to substantiate this judgment by any general considerations, just as, for example, as Socrates argued that virtue is knowledge. Therefore, Aristotle ranks Democritus, despite his moral sayings, which, however, he does not mention anywhere, still entirely to physicists, and believes that scientific ethics arose only with Socrates.

Democritus also tried, with the help of his doctrine of images and outflows, to give a natural explanation of prophetic dreams and the influence of the evil eye; likewise, he believed that natural signs of known events could be discerned in the insides of sacrificial animals.

4.3 Sophists

From the middle of the fifth century, views began to emerge among the Greeks, the spread of which, after a few decades, made a radical change in the way of thinking of educated circles and in the direction of scientific activity.

There were people whom their contemporaries called sages or sophists. The main subject of educational activity of the sophists was preparation for practical life, they promised to make their students skillful in actions and speeches and capable of leading private and public affairs.

At the center of sophistic morality is the opposition of nmpt ("law") and tseuit ("nature"). The so-called sophists are thus the eminent heralds and mediators of the 5th century Greek enlightenment, and they share all the advantages and weaknesses of this position.

The actual behavior of the sophists shows how deeply the rejection of objective knowledge was embedded in the whole character of this way of thinking. We do not know that at least any of the sophists gave independent research in the physical field of philosophy; on the contrary, eristics are more common among them - that art of arguing, the goal and triumph of which is not to acquire scientific conviction, but only to refute and embarrass interlocutor.

As AF Losev points out, "Greek sophistry is undoubtedly the Greek Enlightenment." The Greek sophists pointed to the strength and weakness of the human word - which can both lead a person to the truth and make him believe a deliberate lie; it can both be the most accurate expression of thought, and it can turn out to be completely empty speech.

4.4 Socrates(470-399 BC)

Socrates was born in Athens in 470/469. and died in 399. BC, executed on charges of blasphemy, disbelief and disrespect for local gods, as well as corruption of young people. The real cause of his death was different: Socrates valued Truth above all, and spoke out very sharply against the slightest deviations from it. He raised the moral bar to a level that no one could rise to. And who wants to clearly realize their imperfection? That is why so many people hated him - both aristocrats and democrats. The Democrats, in fact, executed him.

Socrates is one of the most mysterious phenomena of the ancient spirit. This was a man who had gained complete power over himself, completely subordinated his feelings to reason. When the Delphic oracle was asked which of the people is the wisest, he replied: "Sophocles is a sage, but Euripides is wiser than him. But the wisdom of Socrates is above all men." Socrates himself said: "I only know that I know nothing," sometimes adding that other people do not even know this. He spoke so because he believed that wisdom, i.e. complete and perfect knowledge - only the gods own. Other people are very often mistaken without knowing it.

Socrates' statement "I know that I know nothing" means that my knowledge is infinitely small compared to the knowledge that I have to learn in order to act absolutely without any risk.

When they say that Socrates discovered concepts - such as, for example, "beauty", "good", "truth", "justice", etc., and began to define them - then they do not always take into account the special character these definitions. Namely, he did not speak at all about “what” is truth or good, since such human states, in principle, cannot be given a meaningful definition due to their inevitable attribution to the personal spiritual experience of a person who understands these concepts. Socrates says that morality, for example, cannot have content, i.e. empirical or rational basis - since in that case it would be relative, relational - and then there would be no morality itself as a person's ability to be independent of circumstances (think about it - can you call a moral act of a person that has a random character?). "This is where the idea of \u200b\u200bform as something that really exists, although invisible by our senses and which is different from the material of our states, does not coincide with them, but represents some kind of invisible order, being at the same time the subject of conceptual definitions" ...

This is precisely the famous idea of \u200b\u200bthe Socratic "maieutics". Literally this word means "help with childbirth". Socrates was himself the son of a midwife. By analogy, he also called his art maieutics. Socrates believed that he could not communicate any knowledge to anyone, only a person himself could generate it, as it were, from within himself. It turns out, according to Socrates, that knowledge is in principle inexpressible. Socrates simply wants to say that any thought and truth, until they are understood and lived by us, cannot become the property of our consciousness. From the point of view of Socrates, “the one who knows will not commit a sin. That is, Socrates puts forward a more strict concept of knowledge: knowledge is only that which is deeply understood by us and has become our conviction. in the given knowledge.

Socrates says that a person must apply a great work of the soul to get rid of his subjective attachments - and only then can Truth itself shine in front of him in all its glory. The subjectivity of a person is manifested only in the fact that everyone has their own path to this truth, and no one else can go this path instead of the person himself.

4.5 Plateaun(427 - 347 BC)

Plato was born in 427 BC. e. on about. Aegina near Athens; came from a poor aristocratic family. His real name is Aristocles. According to legend, he received the name Plato from Socrates. His name is associated with an athletic physique (Greek platys means "wide") and with the breadth of his interests .. Plato founded a philosophical school - the Academy. This Academy has existed for over 900 years. Plato died in 347 BC. e. Almost all of Plato's philosophical writings have survived to this day. Many of them are written in the form of an artistic dialogue, and Socrates was their main character. Unlike the personal meetings of the philosopher Socrates with his interlocutors, Plato translated the dialogues into an "internal" plane and they were meant for everyone.

Central to Plato's philosophy is the problem of the ideal (the problem of ideas). According to Plato, being is delimited into several spheres, kinds of being, between which there are rather complex relations. It is a world of ideas, eternal and genuine; the world of matter, as eternal and independent as the first world; the world of material, sensuously perceptible objects is the world of arising and mortal perishing things, the world of temporary phenomena (and therefore it is “not real” in comparison with ideas); finally, there is God, the cosmic Mind (Mind-Demiurge). All many ideas represent unity. The central idea is the idea of \u200b\u200bthe good, or the highest good. Good is the unity of virtue and happiness, beautiful and useful, morally good and pleasant. The idea of \u200b\u200bthe good pulls together the whole multitude of ideas into a certain unity; it is unity of purpose; everything is directed towards a good purpose.

In the philosophical doctrine of Plato, ontology, theory of knowledge, ethics, aesthetics and socio-political problems are closely related. We have already seen this connection from the previous exposition of his views. Let us touch on one more side of the Platonic concept.

A man, from his point of view, is directly related to all spheres of being: his physical body is from matter, while his soul is capable of absorbing ideas and aspiring to the Mind-Demiurge. Different people have different layers of the soul, as a result of which there are types of people. In society, these types of souls correspond to the estates: 1) producers: artisans, peasants, merchants; 2) protecting the law and the state: guards (police) and soldiers; 3) governing the state. One of the foundations of the state is the division of labor, and in an ideal state - consistency, harmony of interests of all classes.

Plato entered the history of philosophy as a thinker who first developed the ideal of the state. Social justice, he believed, will be in society when it is inside the soul of every person, every class. For this, everyone needs to realize their natural and legislative destiny; "do your own thing and not interfere with others," noted Plato, "this is justice." In a perfect state (and as such Plato could not recognize any of the then existing) representatives of all estates should serve the Absolute Good. In an ideal state, philosophers should govern. The general interest, according to Plato, is always the ideal interest. No self-interest should take place if it goes beyond the general interest; the individual interest as a particular one must completely submit to the interest of the "whole". In the project of Plato's ideal state, warriors and rulers cannot even have a family, since the family distracts from the general state interest. In such a state there should be a community of wives, a community of children (they are "socialized", transferred to the state for upbringing), representatives of the same estates do not have private property, only common property is approved. In the interests of the Absolute Good of the ideal state, strict censorship will be introduced on all literary works, on works of art ..

4.6 Aristotle(384- 322 BC)

Aristotle became a student of Plato at the age of 17, and continued to be Plato for 20 years. During this time, he studied quite deeply the teachings of Plato about ideas. He said: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer." It is wrong to oppose Aristotle and Plato regarding the understanding of the idea, or "eidos", since Aristotle only developed and continued the teachings of his teacher.

The dialectician Plato recognizes the existence of ideas of things as outside of things themselves, in the same way in things themselves. From the point of view of Aristotle, this is impossible, because there are violations of the law of contradiction. The essence of a thing, or, in other words, its idea is immaterial and immaterial. And Aristotle gives many arguments against the idea that in this case ideas have real being.

First, following Plato, Aristotle forbids the receipt of paradoxes, which, in his opinion, testify to the erroneousness of reasoning. Second, the correctness of the reasoning is evidenced by its result. Third, reasoning must follow certain rules. The rules of thinking are determined based on the categories of thought.

Aristotle distinguishes between two types of "essences" - primary and secondary: "Any essence, apparently, means some thing. In relation to primary essences, it is indisputable and true that such a thing is meant here. What is indicated by this way is indivisible. and one in number. "

The secondary entity is the designation of real objects. Primary and secondary entities, however, do not exist one without the other. In a sentence or judgment, this is fixed as the connection between the subject (subject) and the complement (object), and in the being of the thing itself - as the identity of the material (primary essence) and formal (secondary essence) causes.

The material cause represents the primary essence in the spectrum of states possible for a given essence. The material cause in this case acts as a "pure possibility". The formal cause is one of the possible states of the primary essence, which turned out to be actualized, passed from a possibility into reality. Thus, in the concept of a formal cause, we have an expression of activity by choosing from many possibilities "the only true" and excluding other possibilities.

Therefore, to explain the formal cause, Aristotle introduces two more types of reasons - target and active: "a) target, with the help of which the choice is removed and the possible state that is to be realized is established, and since the primary essence is single and in the process of changes retains identity in number, the target reason in the act of withdrawing the choice stops at one of the possible states, removes ambiguity in favor of unambiguity; b) conjugated with the target acting, with the help of which the entity is successively transferred to the selected possible state, receives this, and not another formal certainty. "

In the system of "four reasons", we see, therefore, the main elements of expedient practical activity focused on independent decisions of a free person. Activity is successful when it "fits" into the structure of being, determined by our mind. The mind is focused on the grammatical structure of the inflectional Greek language. This is where Aristotle's famous expression appears: "In so many ways it manifests itself, in so many ways, and means being itself." That is, Aristotle thus points out that all the ways of European thought initially depend on the speech structures used.

4.7 FROMtoicism

The founder of the Stoic school was Zeno of Kition in Cyprus, a Greek city with an alien Phoenician population. His disciples were first called Zenonists, and later they were called Stoics, after the place of their meeting, "stoa poikile" (ornamented portico). Among the Roman Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, Antoninus, Arrian, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and others should be noted.

For the Stoics, the last goal of philosophy is to influence the moral state of man; but true morality is impossible without true knowledge; "Virtue" and "wisdom" are considered as equivalent concepts, and if philosophy should coincide with the exercise in virtue, then at the same time it is defined as "knowledge of the divine and the human."

The three parts of philosophy that the Stoics numbered were presented in teaching not always in the same order, and judgments about their comparative value were also different: the highest place was given either to physics, as the knowledge of "divine things", then to ethics, as the most important science for man.

The physics of the Stoics is composed mainly of the teachings of their philosophical predecessors (Heraclitus and others) and therefore does not differ in particular originality. It is based on the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Logos as everything determining, all-generating, in all widespread substance - an intelligent world soul or God. In the bodily world, the Stoics distinguished two principles - an active mind and a passive mind. Under the influence of the ideas of Heraclitus, the Stoics assign the role of an active, all-producing principle to fire, which gradually passes into all the other elements - air, water, earth.

In the logic of the Stoics, it was mainly about the problems of the theory of knowledge - reason, truth, its sources, as well as about logical questions themselves. Speaking about the unity of perceiving thinking and being, they assigned the decisive role in cognition not to the sensory representation, but to the "representation of the comprehended," that is, "gone back into thought and become inherent in consciousness."

The main part of their teaching was their ethics, the central concept of which was the concept of virtue. Virtue in harmony with nature becomes the only human good, and since it is entirely in will, everything really good or bad in human life depends exclusively on the person himself, who can be virtuous under any conditions: in poverty, in prison, being sentenced to death, etc. Moreover, every person is also completely free, if only he could free himself from worldly desires. The ethical ideal of the Stoics becomes the sage as the true master of his fate, who has achieved complete virtue and dispassion, for no external force is capable of depriving him of virtue by virtue of his independence from any external circumstances. In the ethics of the Stoics, we find elements of formalism reminiscent of Kant's ethical formalism. Since all possible good deeds are not, in fact, nothing has true meaning other than our own virtue. One should be virtuous not at all in order to do good, but, on the contrary, one must do good in order to be virtuous. Stoicism, especially in its Roman version, had a great influence with its religious tendencies on the then emerging Neoplatonism and Christian philosophy, and its ethics turned out to be surprisingly relevant in modern times, attracting attention with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe inner freedom of the human person and natural law.

4.8 FROMkepticism

The Skeptical Academy originates from Arkesilaus and continues up to the time of Philo of Larissa (1st century BC).

Skeptics have posed three basic philosophical questions: What is the nature of things? How should we treat them? How do we benefit from this attitude? And they answered them: the nature of things cannot be known by us; therefore, one should refrain from judgments from questions of truth; the consequence of such an attitude should be equanimity of spirit ("ataraxia"). The conclusion about the unknowability of the nature of things is made on the basis of the equiprobability of opposite judgments about this world and the impossibility of recognizing one judgment as more reliable than another. Abstinence from judgment ("era") is a special state of mind, which is not affirmed, but nothing is denied. The state of “epoch” is opposite to the state of doubt and the experience of confusion and uncertainty associated with it - the consequence of the epoch as a paradise is tranquility and inner satisfaction. Thus, the consequence of theoretical skepticism about the issues of the structure of the world and its cognition is a meaningful ethical conclusion about the ideal of practical behavior. Thus, although the skeptics did not directly link the achievement of happiness from the depth of theoretical knowledge, they nevertheless remained within the framework of traditional ancient rationalism: the achievement of the ethical ideal is directly correlated with the understanding of the boundaries of theoretical knowledge. The most influential skeptic philosophers were the representatives of the New Academy of Arkesilaus and Carneades, who spent a lot of effort on criticizing Stoic philosophy and epistemology. On the whole, post-Pyrrhic skepticism is distinguished by a greater interest in logical and epistemological problems, in contrast to the moral and ethical coloring of Pyrrho's teachings.

4.9 Epicuregm

This is a philosophical teaching based on the ideas of Epicurus and his followers .. Epicurus founded his school in 307 BC. in Athens. The school was located in the garden of a philosopher, for this reason it received the name "Garden", and the followers of Epicurus began to be called "philosophers from the gardens."

Epicurean philosophy does not have the ultimate goal of finding theoretical truth, it does not set itself the task of obtaining some kind of pure knowledge, it serves quite specific needs: it seeks a way to get rid of a person from suffering. The Epicureans believed that for a happy life a person needs the absence of bodily suffering; equanimity of the soul; friendship.

The main interest for the Epicureans is the sensory world, therefore their main ethical principle is pleasure. But Epicurus did not represent pleasure in a vulgar and simplistic way, but as a noble calm, balanced pleasure. He believed that human desires are unlimited, and the means to satisfy them are limited. Therefore, it is necessary to limit oneself only to needs, the dissatisfaction of which leads to suffering. The rest of the desires should be abandoned, this requires wisdom and prudence.

Unlike the Stoics, who believed that fate was inevitable, the Epicureans endow a person with free will. A person can indulge in pleasures in accordance with his desires. The Epicurean is not afraid of death: “As long as we exist, there is no death; when death is, we are no more. " Life is the main pleasure. Dying, Epicurus took a warm bath and asked to bring him wine.

4.10 Neoplatonism

The beginning of Neoplatonic philosophy is considered to be the teachings of Plotinus (204-269). The characteristic features of neo-Platonism are the doctrine of a hierarchically arranged world, generated from the origin beyond it, special attention to the theme of the "ascent" of the soul to its source, the development of practical ways of unity with the deity (theurgy) on the basis of pagan cults, in this regard, a steady interest in mysticism , Pythagorean symbolism of numbers.

Already in this early period, the basic concepts of the Neoplatonic system were developed: Single beyond being and thinking, it can be cognized in a superintelligent going beyond discourse (ecstasy); in an overabundance of its power, the One generates by emanation, i.e. as if radiating, the rest of reality, which is a successive series of steps of the descent of the one. The one is followed by three hypostases: being-mind, containing all ideas, living in time and facing the mind, the world soul, and the visible cosmos generated and organized by it. At the bottom of the world hierarchy is formless and qualityless matter, provoking every higher step to the generation of its less perfect likeness. The Plotinus system was expounded by him in a number of treatises published after Plotinus' death by Porfiry under the title Enneads... Beginning with Porphyry, a systematic interpretation of the writings of Plato and Aristotle began in Neoplatonism.

The two main schools of late Neoplatonism were Athenian and Alexandrian. The Athenian school was founded under Plutarch of Athens as a continuation of the Platonic Academy, its most prominent figures were Sirian, Proclus, the last head of the Damascus Academy. The Athenian school continued to develop the systematic description of the non-material levels of the world (the classification of gods, spirits, ideal entities) conducted by Iamblichus, resorting to detailed and sophisticated logical constructions. From 437 the Academy was headed by Proclus, who summed up the development of Platonism within the framework of pagan polytheism, compiled many commentaries on Plato's dialogues and wrote a number of fundamental works, some of which have survived (for example, Plato's theology). The Alexandrian school became a continuation of the Athenian school. It included Hierokles, Hermias, Ammonius, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, John Philopon. This school is primarily known for its commentary activities, and the main focus of attention in it was the writings of Aristotle. The Alexandrians showed great interest in mathematics and natural science, many of them converted to Christianity (Philopon). The last representatives of the school (Aelius, David) are known as compilers of educational commentaries on the logic of Aristotle.

Neoplatonism had a huge impact on the development of medieval philosophy and theology. The conceptual apparatus developed at the school, the doctrine of striving for the imperishable and eternal were rethought and entered the context of Christian theology, both in the East (Cappadocians) and in the West (Augustine).

Athenian Neoplatonism was the completion of all ancient Neoplatonism, and at the same time a worthy end to the entire ancient philosophy.

Conclusion

Ancient philosophy began with myth and ended with myth. And when the myth was exhausted, the ancient philosophy itself was exhausted. However, she did not die immediately. At the very end of antiquity, a number of theories of decline appeared, which already ceased to correspond to the ancient spirit and began to depend to one degree or another on Christian ideology, which was progressive and ascending at that time.

Assessing the whole history of ancient philosophy, A.S. Bogomolov wrote: "The teachings of the ancient philosophers - the Milesians and the Pythagoreans, Heraclitus and the Eleats, the atomists and Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, skeptics and neo-Platonists - entered the golden fund of European and world culture as monuments of their time and as anticipation of the future ... Developing and changing according to time, the teachings of ancient philosophers are perceived in the subsequent philosophical movement, "switching to the solution of new, still unknown to the ancients themselves. At every step of mastering philosophy in its historical development, we find ancient influences ... "

Literature

1 Zeller E. - Essay on the history of Greek philosophy M, 1912

2 Asmus V.F. - Ancient philosophy

3 Losev A.F. - The history of ancient philosophy in a synopsis M .: "Mysl", 1989

4 Cassidy F.H. - From myth to logos M .: "Thought", 1972

5 Alekseev P.V., Panin A.V. - Philosophy textbook M .: "Prospect", 2003

6 Fragments of the early Greek philosophers. Part 1. - M .: "Science", 1989

Similar documents

Stages of development of ancient philosophy. Milesian school of philosophy and school of Pythagoras. Features of the philosophy of Heraclitus, the Eleatics and the atomists. Philosophical worldview of the school of Socrates, the Sophists, Plato and Aristotle. Philosophy of early Hellenism and Neoplatonism.

abstract, added 07/07/2010


Periods and characteristics of ancient philosophy. Thinkers of the Milesian school, the school of Pythagoras. Features of the Eleatic school of ancient Greek philosophy. Socratic schools as ancient Greek philosophical schools created by the students and followers of Socrates.

term paper, added 11/23/2012


Features of the period of ancient philosophy, the relativism of the sophists and the idealism of Socrates, the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle. The origin and originality of ancient philosophy. Philosophy of early Hellenism and Neoplatonism. Analysis of the main Socratic schools.

abstract added on 11/03/2014


Ancient philosophy as a consistently developing philosophical thought. The main schools of ancient philosophy: Ionian, Milesian, Ephesian, Eleian, classical, Pythagorean school. Development of skepticism and stoicism. Philosophy of Thales, Pythagoras, Epicurus.

test, added 01/17/2011


Characteristics of the periods of ancient philosophy, the main thinkers and trends of this period. Characteristic features of the history of the development of stoicism. Basic Socratic Schools. Description of the stages of the classical and Hellenistic periods of ancient philosophy.

presentation added on 10/28/2012


Characterization of the Miletus school as the primary source of ancient philosophy. Explanation of the movement and formation of the world in the concepts of Heraclitus. Definition of philosophy in the theories of ancient Greek atomists. The ideological foundations of the enlightenment of the sophists. Dialectics of being Plato.

abstract, added 10/10/2010


Characteristics and vivid representatives of the classical stage in the development of ancient philosophy. Creativity of Plato and the essence of his utopia, the doctrine of ideas. Criticism of the theory of ideas and metaphysics of Aristotle. Philosophical schools of the Hellenic-Roman period of ancient philosophy.

test, added 10/20/2009


Stages of development of ancient philosophy. Features of Homeric, Hesiodic and Orphic mythology. The main representatives of ancient philosophy. Ethical teaching of antiquity. Teachings of the Milesian and Eleatic schools. Contribution of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to philosophy.

abstract, added 11/26/2009


Development stages and main features of ancient philosophy, trends and schools. The most famous philosophical teachings of the period of antiquity. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle are representatives of ancient philosophy. Characteristics of the Hellenistic era, its significance and revival.

abstract, added 04.24.2009


Antiquity as a Cultural Era. Characteristic features of the main schools of pre-Socratic ancient philosophy: Milesian and Elean schools, the atomism of Leucippus and Democritus. The emergence and features of sophistry, Socrates and the Socratic schools, their approaches to understanding the world.

The Latin word "andguus" means "ancient", but when they talk about ancient philosophy, they do not mean ancient philosophy in general (Chinese, Indian), but only the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Ancient philosophy originated in the late 7th - early 6th centuries. BC. and lasted until the 5th century. AD (when the Emperor Justinian closed in 529 the last Greek philosophical school - the Platonic Academy). Thus, ancient philosophy existed for about 1200 years. However, it cannot be defined only by territorial and chronological definitions. The most important question is the question of the essence of ancient philosophy. This is a special historical type of philosophizing, generated by the specific conditions of a slave society. The direction of its content, the method of philosophizing, it differed from the ancient oriental philosophical systems and from the mythological explanation of the world, characteristic of the works of Homer and the works of Hesiod. At the same time, mythological elements have been contained in Greek philosophy for a long time.

In the development of ancient philosophy, three main stages can be distinguished with a certain degree of convention. The first stage covers the period from the 7th to the 5th centuries. BC e. This period is usually called the pre-Socratic period, and the philosophers working at this time were characterized as pre-Socratics. This stage includes the Milesian school, Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Eleian school, Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, the ancient Greek atomists (Leucippus and Democritus).

The second stage covers the period from about half of the 5th century. and until the end of the IV century. BC e. It is usually characterized as classic. This period is associated with the activities of the outstanding Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and especially Aristotle, whose views were the pinnacle of ancient philosophy. The philosophy of the sophists also belongs to this stage. In the classical period of ancient Greek philosophy, this period, there was a reorientation of philosophical interest from the problems of the structure of the universe to the problems of cognition of society and man.

The third stage in the development of ancient philosophy - the decline and then its decline (III century BC - V century AD) is usually designated as Hellenistic. In contrast to the classical stage, associated with the emergence of significant, deep in content philosophical systems, at this time a number of philosophical schools appeared: Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism.

Ancient philosophy in general can be briefly described as follows.

1. Most of the philosophers of this period considered the Cosmos to be the basis of all existence, created according to the type of an intelligent, living human body. Cosmos is eternal, absolute, except for it there is nothing. He is one, spiritualized. It can be seen, heard and touched. He is perfect (divine).

2. Many ancient philosophers tried to find a single and indivisible fundamental principle of the world. (Thales has water, Heraclitus has fire, Democritus has atoms, etc.)

3. Ancient philosophy did not draw a clear distinction between the fact of being and the meaning of being (Parmenides and others)

4. In this philosophy, the foundations of dialectics were laid, the position was substantiated that the life of nature is a constant development, the source of which is the unity and "struggle" of opposites (Heraclitus, Zeno, etc.)

5. In the philosophy of this period, the features of the forms of knowledge were revealed: true knowledge is accessible only to the mind, which obeys the laws of logic; feelings are not a source of knowledge, their area is only the opinions of people (Democritus, Plato, Aristotle).

6. In ancient philosophy, the concept of not suffering, but an acting person was developed, whose sociality follows from his nature. He is the center of culture, its creator (the sophists); his calling is to know and do good (Socrates).

7. Considerable attention in the philosophy of this time was paid to the problems of morality. It has been proven that the source of morality is nature, reason, knowledge. The ideal of a moral person was considered a sage - a moderate, prudent, fearless, harmonious person.

8. In ancient philosophy, the doctrine of an ideal state based on the labor of slaves was developed. So, Plato, for example, believed that the most perfect state is an aristocratic republic, ruled by philosophers, guarded by warriors, and artisans who produce material goods. Only the latter can own property, since they need incentives to work. Plato's utopian ideal state affirms like-mindedness, social education of children, and a rigid division of labor. Wealth and poverty are equally despised because they lead to damage to people and social outrage. Thus, ancient philosophy became a completely independent form of social consciousness. In it, the main philosophical trends begin to take shape, a picture of the world is formed, based on the belief in appearance, "seeming".

Undoubtedly, the most important figures in ancient thought are Plato and Aristotle.

Introduction

1. General characteristics of ancient philosophy.

Ancient philosophy is a consistently developing philosophical thought and covers a period of over a thousand years - from the end of the 7th century. BC e. up to the 6th century. n. e. Despite all the diversity of views of the thinkers of this period, ancient philosophy at the same time is something unified, uniquely original and extremely instructive. It did not develop in isolation - it drew on the wisdom of the Ancient East, whose culture goes back to deeper antiquity, where the formation of civilization took place even before the Greeks: writing was formed, the rudiments of the science of nature and philosophical views proper developed. This applies to countries such as Libya, Babylon, Egypt and Persia. It also influenced more distant countries of the East - Ancient China and India. But various instructive borrowings in no way detract from the amazing originality and magnitude of ancient thinkers.

Ancient philosophy is a philosophy of a special type. Let us list the characteristic features of ancient philosophy.

1.Antique philosophy syncretic, this means that it is characterized by a greater cohesion, indivisibility of the most important problems than for subsequent types of philosophizing. In modern philosophy, a detailed division of the world is carried out, for example, into the human world and the natural world, each of these two worlds has its own characteristics. A modern philosopher is unlikely to call nature good, for him only man can be good. The ancient philosopher, as a rule, extended ethical categories to the entire Cosmos.

2. Ancient philosophy cosmocentric: its horizons always cover the entire Cosmos, including the human world. This means that it was the ancient philosophers who developed the most universal categories. The modern philosopher, as a rule, deals with the development of narrow problems, for example, the problem of time, avoiding reasoning about the Cosmos as a whole.

3. Antique philosophy proceeds from the Cosmos, sensible and intelligible. In this sense, unlike medieval philosophy, it is not theocentric, i.e. does not prioritize the concept of God. However, the Cosmos in ancient philosophy is often considered an absolute deity (not a person): this means that ancient philosophy pantheistic.

4. Antique philosophy achieved a lot at the conceptual level - the concept of Plato's ideas, the concept of form (eidos) of Aristotle, the concept of the meaning of the lekton among the Stoics. However, she hardly knows the laws. The logic of antiquity is mainly the logic of common names and concepts. However, in the logic of Aristotle, the logic of sentences is also very meaningfully considered, but again at the level characteristic of the era of antiquity.

5. The era of antiquity is mainly an ethics of virtues, and not an ethics of duty and values. Ancient philosophers characterized a person mainly as endowed with virtues and vices. They have reached extraordinary heights in the development of the ethics of virtues.

The emergence of various philosophical theories in ancient Greece was historically associated with the formation and development of the slave system, with the development of trade and cultural relations between city-states and with the peoples of the ancient East.

The history of philosophy of ancient Greece is the history of the emergence and development of the first form of pre-Marxist materialism and spontaneous dialectics, the history of the struggle of materialism against idealism, science against religion. The philosophical views of the ancient Greeks, together with their natural science and political views, were part of one undivided science.

In the struggle of the philosophical schools of ancient Greece, the struggle of two directions of ancient Greek philosophy was expressed - materialism (the Milesian school and Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus) against idealism and mysticism (Pythagoreans and Eleates, Socrates and Plato)

Let us consider in more detail antique materialism and antique idealism and the philosophy of their main representatives.

Ancient materialism: Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus.

Materialism (from Lat.Materials - material) is a monistic philosophical trend that recognizes the existence of the world outside and independently of the consciousness of the cognizing subject and explains this world from itself, without resorting to the hypothesis of the world spirit that precedes it and generates it (God, the absolute idea and etc.). In this case, human consciousness is understood as a natural product of the evolution of the material world. (5., p. 507). Materialism is a philosophical view that recognizes matter as the essential basis of being. According to materialism, the world is moving matter. The spiritual principle, consciousness, is a property of highly organized matter - the brain. The term “materialists” was coined by Leibniz to denote his opponents.

The mythology of the ancient Greeks, which explained the phenomena of nature by the actions of divine forces and appeared in the form of the ancient Greek religion of polytheism, met opponents already in the person of the first philosophers, representatives of ancient Greek scientific thought, and a naive materialistic worldview. The struggle for science against religion is a characteristic feature of the ancient Greek materialistic teachings. But at the same time, the mythology of the ancient Greeks refracted in a fantastic form the primitive observations of the life of nature and society, was folk wisdom, generalized the rich experience gained by people over the centuries in the process of labor impact on nature. These are, in particular, the most ancient mythological ideas about the role of fire, water, air and earth in the life of nature. With the emergence of ancient Greek philosophy, these primitive views were partly accepted and reworked by the first materialist philosophers, who rejected the theological, religious content of ancient myths.

The ideological sources of ancient Greek philosophy include scientific knowledge accumulated by eastern peoples and influenced the emergence and formation of ancient Greek materialism.

The Greek materialist philosophers were the politicians and ideologies of the slave state in its democratic form.

Formation of the slave system, the development of crafts and trade in the 7-6 centuries. BC e. achieved the greatest success not in mainland Greece, but on the coast of Asia Minor - in Ionia, which lay on the routes of trade exchange between the peoples of the East and West.

In Asia Minor, the main Greek trade and cultural centers were the cities of Mileet, Ephesus and Phokea. It was Mileet and the hilt that were the centers of the emergence of the first philosophical schools of ancient Greece: Miletus - the so-called Milesian school, Ephesus - the Heraclitus school. These were the first schools of ancient Greek materialism.

The history of ancient Greek materialism was at the same time the history of spontaneous dialectics. Some of its rudiments are found among the materialists of the Milesian school; it is most vividly represented in the teachings of Heraclitus of Ephesus.

Thales from Miletus (c. 625 - 547 BC) - the founder of European science and philosophy; in addition, he is a mathematician, astronomer and politician, highly respected by his fellow citizens. Thales came from a noble Phoenician family. He traveled a lot, and tried to apply his knowledge in practice. He is the author of many technical improvements, carried out measurements of monuments, pyramids and temples in Egypt.

Materialism asserts that the qualitative diversity of the world is based on absolutely homogeneous primary matter. The search for the latter has been one of the main tasks of materialism since its inception.

It was Thales who literally made a revolution in the worldview, putting forward the idea of \u200b\u200bsubstance, generalizing all diversity into consubstantial and seeing the beginning of everything in moisture: after all, it permeates everything. Aristotle said that Thales was the first to try to find the physical principle without the mediation of myths. Thales taught that matter (water) is what all things are made of, from which they originate and what they eventually turn into. Matter, in his opinion, lies at the basis of all natural phenomena, and, while the properties, states of matter change, it itself does not disappear, but exists forever. Water as a natural principle turns out to be the bearer of all changes and transformations. This is a really brilliant idea of \u200b\u200bconservation. Although Thales's idea of \u200b\u200bthe primordial essence seems naive, but from a historical point of view it is extremely important, since in his position Thales departed from mythological thinking and continued on the path to a natural explanation of nature. Thales also first came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bthe unity of the universe. He stood on the point of view that life is an immanent property of matter, that being is in itself moving, and at the same time animate. Thales believed that the soul is poured in all that exists. According to Plutarch, Thales called God a universal intellect: God is the mind of the world.

Thales' successors, also representatives of the Milesian school, adopted his main ideas. Among them can be called Anaximander (the fundamental principle of existence - apeiron - an indefinite and limitless substance) and Anaximenes (the beginning of everything - water)

Thales and his successors made a breakthrough with their views, in which the question was unambiguously posed: "What is everything from?" Their answers are different, but it was they who laid the foundation for a proper philosophical approach to the question of the origin of existence: to the idea of \u200b\u200bsubstance, that is, to the fundamental principle, to the essence of all things and phenomena of the universe.

Materialist philosophy received further development in the teaching Heraclitus of Ephesus. Materialism of Heraclitus belonged to the main and essential directions of ancient philosophy

Heraclitus (c. 530-470 BC) was from Ephesus, located in the heart of a vibrant socio-political life. Heraclitus, who came from an aristocratic family of Codrids (royal family), was not, however, a supporter of the reactionary aristocracy and recognized the need for changes in nature and social life. Proud, gloomy, he refused the highest dignity offered to him in the state in favor of his brother, but wore purple with signs of royal power.

The term "ancient philosophy" refers to the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Rome, starting from the 7th century BC. and ending in 529 A.D. Ancient philosophy is divided into time frames for the following periods:

• Naturalistic period, which includes representatives such as the Pythagoreans, Eleats, Ionians.
• The humanist period is the sophists.
• Classical - Aristotle, Plato, Socrates.
• Early Hellenism.
• Early Christian period - Neoplatonists.
• The emergence of monotheistic religion and Christian thought.

The naturalistic period of ancient philosophy was concerned with the question of the primary source of everything in the world. For this period and for its representatives, the study of ethics or aesthetics, especially political moments, the role of man and his inner world was not characteristic. Thanks to this period, a good impetus was given to the study and creation of the exact sciences.

The classical period, which in particular includes such representatives as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, is aimed at studying the concepts of good, good and evil, the first thoughts about aesthetic knowledge, correlation appear, the first ethical principles also find their place in consideration. Also during this period, two large schools developed and branched off - Platonists and Cynics (cynics).

The philosophy of Hellenism is already replete with a wide variety of schools, among which skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics continue to develop the cynicism, and peripatetics also appear. Each group had its own views on the structure of society, the role of a person in it, on a person's goals in life, on the motives of his behavior and purpose in life.

The late period of ancient philosophy moves the sphere of influence to Ancient Rome, which gained its power in the 1st century BC - 5th century AD. many oratory schools appeared, the Late Stoic school developed, as well as eclecticism and Roman Epicureanism.

In the future, the society begins to rule the ideas of Neoplatonism, which were built on the teachings of Plato, however, with some changes. The founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus, tried to find the beginning of the creation of the world, to develop a system of divine essences and to find the role of man in this all-embracing galaxy. The division of being into spheres began, which included internal being, life, a person, external, that is, everything that surrounded him, as well as the concept of substance.

Man began to understand himself as a separate being, but with divine filling. The world began to be perceived as an orderly and harmonious concentration, which is directed by something from above. In this way, we can trace the rudiments of influence on the creation of Christian thought, which, by extracts from the previous vast experience of the entire ancient philosophy, singled out for itself some centers and built around them, collected material for the creation of a monotheistic religion. What is also interesting to know is the difference between the views of Plato and Aristotle, which is already known, but the interest lies in the fact that Platonism influenced the creation of the Orthodox branch in the Christian Church, and the teachings of Aristotle on the offshoot of Catholicism.

Download this material:

(1 rated, rating: 5,00 out of 5)

Ancient philosophy is a set of teachings that developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome from the 6th century. BC e. to VI century. n. e. Usually in ancient philosophy, three periods are distinguished:

First, the period of natural philosophy (6th century BC) - the problems of the philosophy of nature come to the fore. The first period ends with the appearance of the philosophy of Socrates, which radically changed the nature of ancient philosophy, therefore it is also called the pre-Socratic period.

The second period - the period of classical ancient philosophy (4th - 5th centuries BC), is associated with the names of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

The third period - Hellenistic-Roman philosophy (3rd century BC - 6th century AD), which developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, is represented by such trends as Epicureanism, skepticism, Stoicism, and Neoplatonism.

The main feature of ancient philosophy in the first period is cosmocentrism, based on traditional Greek ideas about the world as a harmonious unity, reflected in the very concept of "space". All efforts of representatives of early ancient philosophy were focused on comprehending the causes of the origin of the material world, identifying the source of its harmonious structure, some guiding principle, which received the name of the origin (arche).

The answers to the question about the beginning of the world were different. So, representatives of the Milesian school of ancient philosophy Thales and his students asserted one of the natural elements as the beginning. This position in the history of philosophy is called naive naturalism.

Thales argued that everything comes from water, Anaximenes - from air, Anaximander offers a variant of the ether "apeiron".

The representative of the city of Ephesus, the great philosopher Heraclitus, who is considered the creator of dialectics - the theory of development, also proposed his own version of the principle - Logos - a fiery principle and at the same time the world order.

The basis of the teachings of Heraclitus was the problem of opposites. He discovers that the world consists of struggling opposites and these opposites are correlative (there is no top without bottom, right without left, etc.). Heraclitus uses the image of war to describe the struggle of opposites: "War is universal," he writes. However, Heraclitus not only notices the struggle, but also the unity of opposites. In his opinion, opposites are the cause of movement, development, change in the world. He describes the universe as a stream - something eternally becoming, moving, fluid and changing. Heraclitus believed that the struggle of opposites appears as harmony and unity if you look at the world as a whole.

A departure from the ideas of naive naturalism is the philosophy of the famous mathematician and geometer Pythagoras. From his point of view, the primacy of the world is number, as a certain principle of order. The evidence of progress here is that something immaterial, abstract is proposed as the beginning.

The crown of the reflections of the philosophers of the pre-Socratic period should be recognized the teaching of Parmenides, a representative of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides is known as the creator of one of the basic concepts of philosophy, the term "Being". Being is a term that focuses on the fact of the existence of objects and phenomena of the world around us. Parmenides reveals the basic properties of being as the beginning of the world. It is one, indivisible, endless and motionless. In this respect, the existence of Parmenides is a set of connections between the phenomena of the world, a certain principle that determines the unity of the world as a whole. Parmenides expresses his understanding of being in the well-known thesis: "Being is, but there is no non-being," meaning by this the expression of the unity of the world. After all, a world without voids (non-being) is a world where everything is interconnected. It is noteworthy that Parmenides does not distinguish between Being and thinking. For him, "being and thought about being" are one and the same.

However, the image of Being without voids does not imply movement. Zeno was busy solving this problem. He declared that the movement did not exist and put forward striking arguments (aporias) in defense of this position.

Separately, we should consider the philosophy of representatives of ancient materialism: Leucippus and Democritus. Very little is known about the life and teachings of Leucippus. His works have not survived, and the glory of the creator of the complete system of atomism is borne by his student Democritus, who completely overshadowed the figure of the teacher.

Democritus was a representative of ancient materialism. He argued that in the world there are only atoms and the void between them. Atoms (from the Greek "indivisible") are the smallest particles that make up all bodies. Atoms vary in size and shape (spherical, cubic, hook-shaped, etc.).

The beginning of the classical period of ancient philosophy is associated with a fundamental change in the subject of philosophical reflections - the so-called anthropological turn. If the thinkers of early antiquity were interested in questions of the origin and structure of the universe, then in the classical period there was a turn of interest in the study of the problems of man and society. First of all, this applies to the philosophy of the sophists.

The Sophists are an ancient philosophical school that existed in the 5th and 4th centuries. BC. Its most famous representatives, the so-called senior sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias. The sophists were known as consummate masters of eloquence. With the help of clever reasoning, often using errors of logic, they confused the interlocutor and "proved" obviously absurd theses. This kind of reasoning is called sophistry.

The Sophists also taught the art of public speaking. At the same time, they did not hesitate to take payment for their lessons, which caused discontent and reproaches from other thinkers.

The philosophy of the sophists is based on the principle of relativity. They believed that there are no absolute truths, truths "in and of themselves." There are only relative truths. The sophists declared man to be the criterion of these truths. As Protagoras, one of the founders of sophistry, argued: "Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and that do not exist, that they do not exist." This means that it is the person who determines what will be considered true at the moment. Moreover, what is true today may not be true tomorrow, and what is true for me is not necessarily true for another person.

One of the most famous thinkers of antiquity is the Athenian sage Socrates (469 - 399 BC). Socrates left behind no writings and everything that is known about him, we know only in the exposition of his students. Socrates was close to the school of the sophists, often used elements of sophistry in his reasoning, although he did not share their philosophical views. In particular, he stated that absolute truths exist, moreover, he believed that they can be found in the mind (soul) of any person.

According to Socrates, you cannot teach knowledge or transmit it, you can only awaken it in the soul of a person. Socrates called the method of birth of truth from the depths of a person's soul Maieutics (obstetrics). Maieutics was the art of consistent, methodical questioning of a person in such a way that from simple and obvious truths to him, an understanding of more complex ones occurred.

The basis of Socrates' method of reasoning in the framework of such dialogues was irony. Socrates "prompted" the interlocutor to the right direction of reasoning, reducing his point of view to absurdity, subjecting it to ridicule, which often led to offense.

Socrates' doctrine of truth also had an ethical component. The main problem of ethics, from the point of view of Socrates, is the achievement of a unified point of view regarding universal human truths. Any evil comes from ignorance. In other words, a person does not commit an evil act because wishes do evil, but from a misunderstanding of good. A logical continuation is the thesis of Socrates that any knowledge, by definition, is good.

Socrates' life ended in tragedy: he was accused of blasphemy by his compatriots and was executed. Socrates left behind many students who later founded their own schools of thought. The so-called Socratic schools include: the Academy of Plato, the Cynics, Cyrenaics, Megarics.

Plato (427 - 347 BC) became one of the most famous students of Socrates, the successor of the classical ancient tradition. Plato is the creator of a large-scale system of objective idealism. His doctrine of the world of ideas became one of the most influential in the history of Western European philosophy. Plato's ideas are expressed in works in the form of genre scenes, dialogues, the main character of which was his teacher Socrates.

After the death of Socrates, Plato founded his own school of philosophy in the suburbs of Athens (named after the local hero Academ). The basis of his philosophical views is the doctrine of ideas. Ideas (Greek "eidos") are objectively existing formations, unchanging and eternal, constituting an ideal or model for everything in our world. Ideas are immaterial, they are cognizable only with the help of reason and exist independently of a person. They are in a special world - the world of ideas, where they form a special kind of hierarchy, at the top of which is the idea of \u200b\u200bgood. The world of things, that is, the world in which a person lives, was created, according to Plato, through the imposition of ideas on formless matter. This explains the fact that the groups of things in our world correspond to ideas from the world of ideas. For example, many people have a person's idea.

Conceptions about the world of ideas underlie the epistemology and social philosophy of Plato. So the process of cognition, according to Plato, is nothing more than recalling ideas from the world of ideas.

Plato believed that the human soul is immortal and, during its rebirth, contemplates the world of ideas. Therefore, each person, if applied to him the method of questioning, can remember the ideas that he saw.

The structure of the world of ideas determines the structure of the state. Plato creates a project of an ideal state structure in the work "State". It, according to Plato, should contain three estates: philosophers, guards and artisans. Philosophers must govern the state, guards must ensure public order and protection from external threats, and artisans must produce material goods. In Plato's ideal state, the destruction of the institutions of marriage, family and private property (for representatives of the guard and philosopher estates) was supposed.

Another great philosopher of antiquity was Plato's disciple Aristotle (384 - 322 BC). After the death of Plato, Aristotle left the academy and founded his own school of philosophy - Lyceum. Aristotle was the systematizer of all ancient knowledge. He was more of a scientist than a philosopher. Aristotle's main task was to get rid of mythologization and ambiguity of concepts. He divided all knowledge into the First philosophy (philosophy itself) and the Second philosophy (specific sciences). The subject of the first philosophy is pure, unalloyed being, which is Plato's ideas. However, unlike Plato, Aristotle believed that ideas exist in single things, constitute their essence, and not in a separate world of ideas. And you can know them only by knowing single things, and not by means of remembering.

Aristotle identifies four types of reasons on the basis of which the movement and development of the world occurs:

- material reason (the presence of matter itself)

- the formal reason is what the thing turns into

- the driving cause - the source of movement or transformations

- the target reason - the ultimate goal of all transformations

Aristotle considers every thing from the point of view of matter and form. Moreover, each thing can act as both matter and form (a lump of copper is matter for a copper ball and the shape of copper particles). A kind of staircase is formed, at the top of which is the last form, and below - the first matter. The form of forms is God or the prime mover of the world.

The period of Hellenism is a period of crisis in Greek society, the collapse of the polis, the capture of Greece by Alexander the Great. However, since the Macedonians did not have a highly developed culture, they completely borrowed Greek, that is, they became Hellenized. Moreover, they spread samples of Greek culture throughout the Empire of Alexander the Great, which stretched from the Balkans to the Indus and Ganges. At the same time, the development of Roman culture began, which also borrowed a lot from the Greeks.

At this time, a search is made for ways of spiritual renewal. Not a single fundamentally new concept has been created. A powerful trend was Neoplatonism, which developed the ideas of Plato. An influential trend of that time was Epicureanism, named after its founder Epicurus. Epicurus that the rule of public life should be the expression "Live imperceptibly" (in contrast to the social activism of classical antiquity). Epicurus declared pleasure as the goal of human life. He divided pleasures into three groups: 1. Useful and not harmful 2. Useless and not harmful 3. Useless and harmful. Accordingly, he taught to limit the second and avoid the third.

Cynism is an influential philosophical doctrine, founded by Antisthenes, but the spiritual leader - Diogenes of Sinop. The meaning of Diogenes' formulations was to reject and expose the great illusions that drove the behavior of people:

1) the pursuit of pleasure; 2) fascination with wealth; 3) a passionate desire for power; 4) thirst for glory, brilliance and success - all that leads to misfortune. Refraining from these illusions, apathy and self-sufficiency are the conditions for maturity and wisdom, and ultimately happiness.

Another influential trend was Skepticism, founded in the 4th century. BC e. Pyrrone. Skeptics believed that no human judgment could be true. Therefore, it is necessary to refrain from judgment and achieve complete equanimity (ataraxia).

The Stoics offer a different position. This is a philosophy of duty, a philosophy of fate. He founded this philosophical school in the 6th century. BC e. Zeno. Its prominent representatives are Seneca, Nero's teacher, Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The positions of this philosophy are opposite to Epicurus: trust in fate, fate leads the obedient, but drags the disobedient.

The result of the reflections of the philosophy of the Hellenistic period is the realization of the collapse of Greek culture based on rational thinking.