Antique (from lat. Antiquitas - antiquity, antiquity) philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans originated at the end of the 7th century. BC. and lasted until the beginning of the VI century. AD, when Emperor Justian in 529 closed the last Greek philosophical school - the Platonic Academy. Traditionally, Thales is considered the first ancient philosopher, and Boethius is the last. Ancient philosophy was formed under the influence and influence of the pre-philosophical Greek tradition, which can be conditionally considered an early stage of the most ancient philosophy, as well as the views of the sages of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and ancient Eastern countries. Ancient Greek philosophy (teachings, schools), was created by Greek philosophers who lived in the territory of modern Greece, as well as in the Greek city-states (trade and craft city-states) of Asia Minor, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea region and Crimea, in the Hellenistic states of Asia and Africa, in the Roman Empire ... Ancient philosophy arose in the first half of the VI BC. NS. in the Asia Minor part of the then Hellas - in Ionia, in the city of Miletus. Ancient philosophy is a single and unique, but not an isolated phenomenon in the development of the philosophical consciousness of mankind. It was formed on the basis of the rudiments of astronomical, mathematical and other knowledge transferred from the East to the Greek cities, as a result of processing ancient mythology in art and poetry, as well as the liberation of philosophical thought from the captivity of mythological ideas about the world and man. (Often philosophy Ancient rome either directly identified with the ancient Greek, or united with it under the general name "ancient philosophy").

Ancient philosophy lived for about 1200 years and has four main stages or periods in its development:

I. VII-V centuries BC. - pre-Socratic period (Heraclitus, Democritus, etc.),

II. 2nd floor V - end of IV centuries BC. - the classical period (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, etc.);

III. End of IV-II centuries. BC. - the Hellenistic period (Epicurus and others),

IV. 1st century BC. - VI century. AD - Roman philosophy.

I. The activities of the so-called “pre-Socratic” philosophers belong to the pre-Socratic period:
1. Milesian school - "physicists" (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes);
2. Heraclitus of Ephesus;
3. the Eleatic school;
4. atomists (Democritus, Leucippus).

Pre-Socratics is a conditional concept introduced in the twentieth century. It covers the philosophers and schools of thought that preceded Socrates. These include the philosophers of the Ionian school, the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the atomists and the sophists.
The Ionian (or Milesian, according to the place of origin) school is the oldest natural-philosophical school. It was founded by Thales and included Anaximander, Anaximenes and Heraclitus.
The main issue of the school was the definition of the origin, from which the world arose. Each of the philosophers defined one of the elements as this beginning. Heraclitus said that everything is born from fire by rarefaction and condensation, and after certain periods it burns out. Fire symbolizes the struggle of opposites in space and its constant movement. Heraclitus also introduced the concept of Logos (Word) - the principle of rational unity, which orders the world from opposite principles. The Logos governs the world, and the world can be cognized only through it. Anaxagoras, a student of Anaximenes, introduced the concept of Nus (Mind), organizing the cosmos from a mixture of disordered elements. The main problems that the "pre-Socratics" were engaged in: the explanation of natural phenomena, the essence of the Cosmos, the surrounding world, the search for the beginning of all that exists. The method of philosophizing is the declaration of one's own views, turning them into a dogma.

II. The classical (Socratic) period - the heyday ancient greek philosophy(coinciding with the heyday of the ancient Greek polis.
This stage includes:
1. the philosophical and educational activities of the sophists;
2. philosophy of Socrates;
3. the emergence of "Socratic" schools;
4. philosophy of Plato;
5. philosophy of Aristotle.

The philosophers of the Socratic (classical) period also tried to explain the essence of nature and the Cosmos, but they did it deeper than the "pre-Socratics":

1. Plato is the author of the doctrine of "pure ideas" that precede the real world and the embodiment of which was the real world;
2. have shown interest in the problem of a person, society, states;
3. carried out practical philosophical and educational activities (the sophists and Socrates).

The historical significance of Aristotle's philosophy is that he:
1. made significant adjustments to a number of provisions of Plato's philosophy, criticizing the doctrine of "pure ideas";
2. gave a materialistic interpretation of the origin of the world and man;
3. identified 10 philosophical categories;
4. gave a definition of being through categories;
5. determined the essence of matter;
6. identified six types of state and gave the concept of an ideal type - polity;
7. made a significant contribution to the development of logic (gave the concept of deductive
method - from the particular to the general, substantiated the system of syllogisms - the conclusion from two or more premises of the conclusion).

III. For the Hellenistic period (the period of the crisis of the polis and the formation of large states in Asia and Africa under the rule of the Greeks and headed by the associates of Alexander the Great and their descendants) it is characteristic:
1.distribution of the antisocial philosophy of the Cynics;
2. the emergence of the stoic direction of philosophy;
3. the activities of the "Socratic" schools of thought: the Academy of Plato, Lyceus Aristotle, the Cyrene school (Cyrenaics), etc .;
4.the philosophy of Epicurus, etc.

Distinctive features of Hellenistic philosophy:
1. the crisis of ancient moral and philosophical values;
2. reduction of fear of gods and other supernatural powers of respect for them;
3. denial of previous authorities, disregard for the state and its institutions;
4. search for physical and spiritual support in oneself; striving for detachment from reality; the predominance of a materialistic view of the world (Epicurus); recognition of the highest good - the happiness and pleasure of an individual person (physical - Cyrenaics, moral - Epicurus).

Thus, Stoicism, Cynism, Epicureanism - the philosophical schools of the Hellenistic period (IV century BC - early 1st century) - arose during the crisis of ancient democracy and polis values. The predominance of moral and ethical issues in the work of the Cynics, Epicurus, the Roman Stoics Seneca and Marcus Aurelius testifies to the search for new goals and regulators of human life in this historical period.

IV. The most famous philosophers of the Roman period were:
1. Seneca;
2. Marcus Aurelius (emperor of Rome in 161 - 180);
3. Titus Lucretius Carus;
4. late Stoics;
5. early Christians.

The philosophy of the Roman period was characterized by:
1. the mutual influence of ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophies (ancient Greek philosophy developed within the framework of Roman statehood and experienced its influence, while ancient Roman philosophy grew up on the ideas and traditions of ancient Greek);
2. the actual fusion of ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophies into one - ancient philosophy;
3. increased attention to the problems of a person, society and state;
4. the flowering of aesthetics (philosophy, the subject of which was the thoughts and behavior of a person);
5.the flowering of Stoic philosophy, whose adherents saw the highest good and the meaning of life in the maximum spiritual development personality, scholarship, withdrawal into oneself, serenity (ataraxia, that is, equanimity);
6. the predominance of idealism over materialism;
7. more and more frequent explanation of the phenomena of the surrounding world by the will of the gods;
8. increased attention to the problem of death and the afterlife;
9. growing influence on philosophy of the ideas of Christianity and early Christian heresies;
10. gradual fusion of ancient and Christian philosophies, their transformation into medieval theological philosophy.

It should be noted that the Stoic school, founded by Zeno at the end of the 4th century. BC, existed during the Roman Empire. The main idea of ​​stoicism is obedience to fate and the fatality of all that exists. Zeno said this about the Stoic: "To live consistently, that is, in accordance with a single and harmonious life rule, for those who live inconsistently are unhappy." The philosophy of skepticism also received its continuation - this is the philosophy of peace, serenity of the soul, refraining from any judgments. A skeptic, speaking about things and events, does not evaluate them, he simply reproduces the facts.

CONCLUSIONS: temporary problems and peculiarities in general.

In fact, the concept of "philosophy" in the periods under consideration was synonymous with emerging science and theoretical thought in general, aggregate, not divided for the time being into special sections of knowledge, both concrete and generalized. According to the change in the main problems, the following periods can be distinguished:

1. Nature-philosophical (the main problem is the problem of the structure of the world, the problem of the beginning). Neighborhood rivalry of several schools;
2. Humanistic (change of perspective from nature to man and society). School of the Sophists, Socrates;
3. Classical (period of great synthesis). Creation of the first philosophical systems - the whole circle philosophical problems... Plato, Aristotle;
4. Hellenistic (the center moves from Greece to Rome). Various schools of thought compete. The problem of happiness. Schools of Epicurus, skeptics, stoics;
5. Religious (development of Neoplatonism). The problem of religion is added to the sphere of philosophical problems;
6. The origin of Christian thought, monotheistic religion.

In general, ancient Greek (antique) philosophy has the following features:
1. the pivotal idea of ​​ancient Greek philosophy was cosmocentrism (fear and admiration for the Cosmos, the manifestation of interest primarily in the problems of the origin of the material world, the explanation of the phenomena of the surrounding world);
2. in the later stages - a mixture of cosmocentrism and anthropocentrism (based on human problems);
3. two directions in philosophy were laid - idealistic ("Plato's line") and materialistic ("Democritus's line"), and these directions alternately dominated: in the pre-Socratic period - materialistic, in the classical - had the same influence, in the Hellenistic - materialistic, in Roman is idealistic.

Thus, Ancient philosophy arose and developed during the birth and formation of a slave-owning society, when it was divided into classes and isolated social group people engaged only in mental work. This philosophy owes its appearance to the development of natural science, primarily mathematics and astronomy. True, at that distant time, natural science had not yet emerged as an independent area of ​​human knowledge. All knowledge about the world and man was united in philosophy. It is no coincidence that the most ancient philosophy is also called the science of sciences.

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You can find out about the seven most famous Greek sages on my page "Enlightenment" http://www.stihi.ru/avtor/grislis2

- 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.

Other articles:

It is generally accepted that philosophy originated approximately - in the 7-6 centuries BC in Ancient Greece and simultaneously in ancient China and India... Some scholars believe that philosophy dates back to 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 bewitching. He's called The golden age of civilization. The question often arises, how and why did the philosophers of that time generate so many ingenious ideas, thoughts and hypotheses? For example, the hypothesis that the world consists of elementary particles.

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

Periods of philosophy of ancient Greece

It is customary to divide it into several periods.

• The first period is early (up to the 5th century BC). He shares naturalistic(in it the most important place was assigned to the cosmic principle and nature, when man was not the main idea of ​​philosophy) and humanistic(in it the main place was occupied by the person and his problems, mainly of an ethical nature).
• Second period -classic (5-6 centuries BC)... During this period, the systems of Plato and Aristotle developed. After them came the period of the Hellenistic systems. They focused on 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 NS. - 4th century)

Features of the philosophy of the ancient world

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

• For a given philosophy syncretic, that is, the unity of the most important problems, and this is its difference from the later schools of thought.
• For such a philosophy cosmocentricity is also characteristic- space, according to her, is connected with man by many inextricable ties.
• In ancient philosophy, there were practically no philosophical laws, there was a lot in it developed at the level of concepts.
• Huge logic mattered in her, and its development was carried out by the leading philosophers of that time, among them Socrates and Aristotle.

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 at the heart of everything is a certain substance. It is she who is the single beginning.

Anaximen 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 ineffable substance, the basis of which remains unchanged, while its parts are constantly changing.

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.

Eleyskaya school.

Xenophanes expressed his philosophical views in the form of poetry and was 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.

Socrates school.

Socrates did not write philosophical works like his predecessors. He talked to people on the street and argued his point of view in philosophical disputes. He was engaged in the development of dialectics, was engaged in the development of the principles of rationalism in an ethical interpretation and believed that someone who has the knowledge that such a virtue 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 the Philosophy of Ancient Greece

• Essay on the history of Greek philosophy. Edward Gottlob Zeller. This is a famous essay that has been reprinted several times in many countries. It is popular and summary ancient Greek philosophy.
• Philosophers of Ancient Greece. Robert S. Brambo. From the book by Robert Brambo (Ph.D. from 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 very term "philosophy", exerted and continues to exert a tremendous influence on European and world philosophy up to the present time.

The third major center of philosophy of the Ancient World was Ancient Greece, which became the cradle of the most developed and later most widespread culture. Ancient Greek philosophy, like many other manifestations of culture, and the very first historical period of the formation of European civilization is also called antique(lat. antiquus - ancient, old).

The philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (ancient philosophy) in its development went through four main stage:

• democratic (or pre-socratic) - VII - V centuries BC NS.;
• classic (Socratic) - mid-5th - late 4th centuries BC NS.;
• Hellenistic - late 4th - 2nd centuries BC NS.;
• Roman - 1st century BC NS. - V century. n. NS.

The division into periods in the history of philosophy is rather arbitrary (sometimes it does not coincide with the general historical periods of the development of society), but it is quite justified, since each of them has its own distinctive features.

Ancient Greek mythology was an important source of Greek philosophy. Its other basis was the dynamism and constructiveness of the development of Greek culture, which absorbed many features and achievements of culture, scientific knowledge neighboring peoples. The ancient Greek city-states gradually spread almost along the entire coast of the Mediterranean basin, including the Black Sea. The Greeks were excellent navigators, traders, warriors; they installed the most various connections with their neighbors.

The growth of the total volume and variety of information and experience, the need for constant comprehension of the newly seen, meaningful and the requirement to streamline the developing system of knowledge required analytical activities and generalizations, the formation of rationally grounded views on nature.

The first systems of this kind known today began to appear in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. This time is considered the starting point of the history of European philosophy.

Milesian school

The oldest philosophical school is Miletus(VII-V centuries BC). Her ancestors:

• Thales - astronomer, politician, he made a revolution in the worldview, proposing the idea of ​​substance - the fundamental principle of everything, generalizing all diversity into consubstantial and seeing the beginning of everything in water;
• Anaximenes - first suggested air, seeing in him the infinity and ease of changeability of things;
• Anaximander - was the first to suggest original idea infinity of worlds, he took apeiron(indefinite and limitless substance), the parts of which change, the whole remains unchanged.

With their views, the Miletans laid the foundation for a philosophical approach to the question of the origin of existence: to the idea of ​​substance, i.e. That is, to the fundamental principle, to the essence of all things and phenomena of the universe.

School of Pythagoras

Pythagoras(VI century BC) was also preoccupied with the problem: "What is all of it?", But solved it differently than the Milesians. “Everything is number,” is his answer. He organized a school that included women.

In numbers, the Pythagoreans saw:

• properties and relationships inherent in various harmonious combinations of things;
• explanations of the hidden meaning of phenomena, laws of nature.

Pythagoras was successfully engaged in the development of various kinds of mathematical proofs, and this contributed to the development of the principles of an exact rational type of thinking.

It is important to note that the Pythagoreans achieved considerable success in their search for harmony, a surprisingly beautiful quantitative consistency that permeates all that exists, primarily the phenomena of the Cosmos.

Pythagoras belongs to the idea of ​​reincarnation of souls, he believed that the soul is immortal.

Elea school

Representatives of the Eleatic school: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno Xenophanes from Colophon (c. 565-473 BC) - philosopher and poet, he expounded his teaching in verses:

• opposed anthropomorphic elements in religion;
• ridiculed the gods in human form;
• severely castigated poets who ascribe to the celestials the desires and sins of man;
• believed that God is not like mortals in body or spirit;
• stood at the head of the monotheists and at the head of the skeptics;
• carried out the separation of the types of knowledge.

Parmenides(late VII-VI centuries BC) - philosopher, politician, central representative of the Eleatic school:

• differentiated between truth and opinion;
• the central idea is being, the relationship between thinking and being;
• in his opinion, there is not and cannot be empty space and time outside the changing being;
• he considered existence to be devoid of variability and diversity;
• there is being, there is no non-being.

Zeno of Elea(c. 490-430 BC) - philosopher, politician, favorite student and follower of Parmenides:

• his whole life is a struggle for truth and justice;
• he developed logic as a dialectic.

Socrates school

Socrates(469-399 BC) did not write anything, was a sage close to the people, philosophized on the streets and squares, entered into philosophical disputes everywhere: we are known as one of the founders of dialectics in the sense of finding truth through conversations and disputes; developed the principles of rationalism in matters of ethics, arguing that virtue comes from knowledge and a person who knows what good is, will not act badly.

Representatives of Natural Philosophy

Philosophy (Natural Philosophy) in Ancient Greece appears at the turn of the 7th - 6th centuries. BC NS. It is known that the first Greek philosophers were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, whose life and work falls on the VI century. BC NS.

When analyzing Greek philosophy, three periods are distinguished:

• the first - from Thales to Aristotle;
• the second - Greek philosophy in the Roman world and, finally,
• the third is neo-Platonic philosophy.

Chronologically, these periods cover over a thousand years, from the end of the 7th century. BC NS. until the VI century. current chronology. Only the first period will be the object of our attention. In turn, it is expedient to divide the first period also into three stages. This is necessary in order to more clearly define the development of ancient Greek philosophy, both in terms of the nature of the problems under study and their solution. The first stage of the first period is mainly the activity of the philosophers of the Miletus school of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes (the name was given by the name of the Ionian city of Miletus); the second stage is the activity of the Sophists, Socrates and Socrates, and, finally, the third includes the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle. It should be noted that practically, with a few exceptions, no reliable information has been preserved about the activities of the first ancient Greek philosophers. So, for example, about the philosophical views of the philosophers of the Miletus school, and to a large extent about the philosophers of the second stage, is known mainly from the works of subsequent Greek and Roman thinkers, and primarily thanks to the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Thales

The first ancient greek philosopher Thales is considered to be(c. 625 - 547 BC), the founder of the Miletus school. According to Thales, all the diversity of nature, things and phenomena can be reduced to one basis (primary element or initial), as which he considered "wet nature", or water. Thales believed that everything arises from water and returns to it. He endows the first principle, and in a broader sense, the whole world with animation and divinity, which is confirmed in his dictum: "the world is animated and full of gods." At the same time, the divine Thales, in essence, identifies with the origin - water, that is, material. Thales, according to Aristotle, explained the stability of the earth by the fact that it is above water and possesses, like a piece of wood, calmness and buoyancy. This thinker owns numerous sayings in which interesting thoughts were expressed. Among them is the well-known: "Know thyself."

Anaximander

After the death of Thales, at the head of the Miletus school, he became Anaximander(c. 610 - 546 BC). Almost no information has been preserved about his life. It is believed that he owns the work "On Nature", the content of which is known from the works of subsequent ancient Greek thinkers, among them - Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch. Anaximander's views can be qualified as spontaneously materialistic. Anaximander considers the apeiron (infinite) to be the beginning of all that is. In his interpretation, apeiron is neither water, nor air, nor fire. “Apeiron is nothing but matter”, which is in perpetual motion and gives rise to an infinite variety and variety of all that exists. It is possible, apparently, to consider that Anaximander to a certain extent departs from the natural-philosophical substantiation of the initial principle and gives a deeper interpretation of it, assuming as an initial not any specific element (for example, water), but recognizing as such an apeiron - matter, considered as generalized abstract principle, approaching in its essence to the concept and including the essential properties of natural elements. Anaximander's naive materialistic ideas about the origin of life on Earth and the origin of man are of interest. In his opinion, the first living things arose in a humid place. They were covered in scales and thorns. Coming to the ground, they changed their way of life and acquired a different appearance. Man descended from animals, in particular from fish. Man has survived because from the very beginning he was not the same as now.

Anaximen

The last known representative of the Miletus school was Anaximen(c. 588 - c. 525 BC). His life and work also became known thanks to the testimonies of later thinkers. Like his predecessors, Anaximenes gave great importance elucidation of the nature of the beginning. Such, in his opinion, is the air from which everything arises and into which everything returns. Anaximenes chooses air as the first principle due to the fact that it possesses such properties that water does not have (and if there is, then it is not enough). First of all, unlike water, air has unlimited distribution. The second argument boils down to the fact that the world, as a living being that is born and dies, requires air for its existence. These ideas are confirmed in the following statement of the Greek thinker: “Our soul, being air, is for each of us the principle of unification. Likewise, breath and air encompass the entire universe. " The originality of Anaximenes is not in a more convincing substantiation of the unity of matter, but in the fact that the emergence of new things and phenomena, their diversity is explained by him by various degrees of thickening of the air, due to which water, earth, stones, etc. are formed, but because of its rarefaction fire is formed, for example.

Like his predecessors, Anaximenes recognized the infinity of worlds, believing that they all originated from the air. Anaximenes can be seen as the founder of ancient astronomy, or the doctrine of the sky and stars. He believed that all celestial bodies - the sun, moon, stars, other bodies - originate from the Earth. So, he explains the formation of stars by the increasing rarefaction of the air and the degree of its distance from the Earth. Nearby stars generate heat that falls to the ground. Distant stars do not produce heat and are stationary. Anaximenes owns a hypothesis explaining the eclipse of the Sun and Moon. Summing up, it should be said that the philosophers of the Miletus school laid good foundation for the further development of ancient philosophy... This is evidenced by both their ideas and the fact that all or almost all subsequent ancient Greek thinkers, to a greater or lesser extent, turned to their work. It will also be significant that, despite the presence of mythological elements in their thinking, it should be qualified as philosophical. They took confident steps to overcome mythologism and laid serious prerequisites for new thinking. As a result, the development of philosophy proceeded along an ascending line, which created the necessary conditions to expand philosophical issues and deepen philosophical thinking.

Heraclitus

An outstanding representative of ancient Greek philosophy, who made a significant contribution to its formation and development, was Heraclitus Ephesian (c. 54 - 540 BC - unknown year of death). The main, and perhaps the only work of Heraclitus, which has come down to us in fragments, according to some researchers, was called "On Nature", while others called him "Muses". Analyzing the philosophical views of Heraclitus, one cannot fail to see that, like his predecessors, he generally remained in the position of natural philosophy, although some problems, for example dialectics, contradictions, and development are analyzed by him at the philosophical level, that is, the level of concepts and logical inferences. The historical place and significance of Heraclitus in the history of not only ancient Greek philosophy, but also worldwide lies in the fact that he was the first, as Hegel said, in whom “we see the completion of the previous consciousness, the completion of an idea, its development into integrity, which is the beginning of philosophy, since it expresses the essence of the idea, the concept of the infinite, existing in itself and for itself, as what it is, namely as the unity of opposites - Heraclitus was the first to express the idea that has forever preserved its value, which until our days remains the same in all systems of philosophy ”. Heraclitus considered the primal fire - a subtle, mobile and light element - at the heart of all that is, its initial, primary substance. The world, the Universe was not created by any of the gods or people, but it has always been, is and will be an eternally living fire, according to its law, flashing and dying out. Fire is considered by Heraclitus not only as the essence of all that exists, as the first essence, as the beginning, but also as a real process, as a result of which, thanks to the flare-up or extinction of fire, all things and bodies appear. Dialectics, according to Heraclitus, is primarily a change in all that exists and the unity of absolute opposites. At the same time, change is considered not as a movement, but as a process of the formation of the Universe, the Cosmos. Here one can see a deep thought, expressed, however, not clearly and clearly enough, about the transition from being to the process of becoming, from static being to dynamic being. The dialectic judgments of Heraclitus are confirmed by numerous statements that have forever entered the history of philosophical thought. This and the famous “you cannot enter the same river twice”, or “everything flows, nothing remains and never remains the same”. And the statement is absolutely philosophical in nature: “being and non-being are one and the same, everything is and is not”. From the above it follows that the dialectic of Heraclitus is to a certain extent inherent in the idea of ​​the formation and unity of opposites... In addition, in his next statement that the part is different from the whole, but it is also the same as the whole; substance is a whole and a part: the whole is in the universe, the part is in this living being, the idea of ​​the coincidence of the absolute and the relative, the whole and the part, is seen. It is impossible to speak unequivocally about the principles of knowledge of Heraclitus. By the way, even during his lifetime, Heraclitus was called "dark", and this happened not least because of the difficult presentation of his ideas and the difficulty of understanding them. Apparently, it can be assumed that he is trying to extend his doctrine of the unity of opposites to cognition. We can say that he tries to combine the natural, sensual nature of knowledge with the divine mind, which is the true bearer of knowledge, considering both the first and the second as the fundamental principle of knowledge. So, on the one hand, above all he values ​​what sight and hearing teach us. Moreover, the eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears. Here the primacy of objective sensory knowledge is evident. On the other hand, the common and divine reason, through participation in which people become rational, is considered the criterion of truth, and therefore, trustworthy is what seems to everyone to be universal, has convincingness due to its participation in the universal and divine reason.

At the end of the VI century. BC NS. the center of the nascent European philosophy moved to “Great Greece”, that is, on the coast of southern Italy and Sicily. Aristotle called the philosophy that spread here Italian.

Pythagoras

One of the most important branches of Italian philosophy was Pythagorean. The founder of Pythagoreanism was a native of the island of Samos Pythagoras(c. 584/582 - 500 BC), which is presumably in 531/532 BC. NS. left his homeland and moved to Croton, located in southern Italy. Here he founded a community whose main task was to govern the state.... However, members of the community, like Pythagoras himself, despite their political activity, highly appreciated the contemplative way of life. Organizing their lives, the Pythagoreans proceeded from the idea of ​​the cosmos as an ordered and symmetrical whole. The Pythagorean concept of harmony served as the basis for such social organization, which was based on the domination of the aristocrats. The Pythagoreans opposed "order" to the "willfulness of the rabble." Order is maintained by aristocrats. This role is played by those people who discover the beauty of space. Comprehending it requires relentless pursuit and a healthy lifestyle.

The establishment of order on Earth, according to Pythagoras, can be carried out on three bases of morality, religion and knowledge. With all the significance of the first two dreams, Pythagoras himself and his numerous followers attached particular importance to knowledge. Moreover, the knowledge of calculus was given special importance in view of the fact that only with their help the Pythagoreans admitted the possibility of establishing harmony with the world around them. They made a significant contribution to the development of mathematics, geometry, astronomy. With the help of these sciences, proportion is protected from chaos. Proportionality in human affairs is the result of a harmonious combination of physical, aesthetic and moral. It is the result of resolving the opposition between the limitless and the limit, expressed in number. In this case, the number is considered as the beginning and element of understanding of existence.

For Pythagorean philosophy, as well as for Ionian philosophy, the striving to find the “beginning” of all that exists and with its help not only explain, but also organize life is characteristic. However, in Pythagoreanism, with all its respect for knowledge, and especially for mathematical knowledge, world connections, as well as dependencies between people, are mystified. The religious and mystical ideas of the Pythagoreans are intertwined with sound, reasonable judgments.

Xenophanes

Another branch of Italian philosophy is the Eleatic school. She formed and developed in Elea. The main representatives of the school Xenophanes (565 - 470 BC), Parmenides, Zeno, Melissa. The teaching of the Eleatics was a new step towards the development of philosophical knowledge.

The Eleatics advanced being as the substance of all that exists. They also raised the question of the relationship between being and thinking, that is, the main question of philosophy. Scientists believe that the Eleatics have completed the process of forming philosophy. The founder of the Eleatic school was Xenophanes (565 - 470 BC) from the Ionian city of Colophon. He expressed the bold idea that the gods are the creations of man.

He considered the earth to be the basis of all that exists. His God symbolizes the infinity and infinity of the material world. Xenophanes' existence is motionless.

his theory of knowledge, Xenophanes opposed the excessive claims of reason. According to Xenophanes "opinion reigns over everything", this meant that sensory data are not able to give us comprehensive information about the world and, relying on them, we can be mistaken.

Parmenides

The central representative of the school in question is Parmenides (c. 540 - 470 BC), a student of Xenophanes.

Parmenides outlined his views in the work "On Nature", where he is presented in an allegorical form. philosophical doctrine... His work, which has come down to us incompletely, tells of a visit to a young man by a goddess who tells him the truth about the world.

Parmenides sharply distinguishes between genuine truth comprehended by reason and opinion based on sensory knowledge. According to him, the being is motionless, however, it is mistakenly considered as mobile. Parmenides' doctrine of being goes back to the line of materialism in ancient Greek philosophy. However, his material being is motionless and does not develop, it is spherical.

Zeno

Zeno was a pupil of Parmenides. His akme (flowering of creativity - 40 years) falls on the period around 460 BC. NS. In his writings, he improved the argumentation of the teachings of Parmenides about being and knowledge. He became famous for clarifying the contradictions between reason and feelings. He expressed his views in the form of dialogues. First, he proposes the opposite statement to what he wants to prove, and then argued that the opposite of the opposite statement is true.

Being, according to Zeno, has a material character, it is in unity and immobility. He gained fame thanks to attempts to prove the absence of multiplicity and movement in beings. These methods of proof are called epicherms and aporias. Of particular interest are the aporias against the movement: "Dichotomy", "Achilles and the Turtle", "Arrow" and "Stadium".

In these aporias Zeno strove to prove not that there is no movement in the sensible world, but that it is conceivable and inexpressible. Zeno raised the question of the complexities of the conceptual expression of movement and the need to apply new methods, which later began to be associated with dialectics.

Meliss

The follower of the Eleatic school Meliss (akme 444 BC) from the island of Samos supplemented the ideas of his predecessors. At the same time, he, firstly, formulated the law of the preservation of being, according to which “something can never arise from nothing”. Secondly, he, accepting such characteristics of being as unity and homogeneity, interpreted the eternity of being as eternity in time, and not as timelessness. Melissa's being is eternal in the sense that it was, is and will be, while Parmenides insisted that being exists only in the present.

Thirdly, Melisse changed the teachings of Xenophanes and Parmenides about the finiteness of being in space and argued that it is unlimited and therefore unlimited.

Fourthly, the unity of the world, unlike Parmenides, he saw not in the possibility of its comprehension, but in materiality, as a unifying principle.

An important role in the further development of philosophical knowledge was played by the last major representative of "Great Greek" philosophy, who synthesized the ideas of Empedocles' predecessors, from Akragas (Akragant - lat.). Its akme falls on (c. 495 - 435 BC).
BC NS.). He traced the roots of things out of the struggle between love (filia) and hate (neikos). The first (philia) is the cause of unity, harmony. The second (neikos) is the cause of evil.

Their struggle goes through four phases. In the first phase, love wins. On the second and fourth, there is a balance between love and hate, and on the third, hatred wins.

The merit of Empedocles' ideas is that they focused attention on the dialectic nature of the development of all that exists, on the fact that development is based on the struggle of opposites.

Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras (c. 500 - 428 BC), who lived a significant part of his life in Athens during the period of their greatest economic and political power, made a significant contribution to the possibility of a pluralistic vision of the world. In his philosophy, he stood on the position of spontaneous materialism.

As the basis and driving force of all that exists, he put forward the mind, which for him is not so much a spiritual as a material principle, a driving force. Anaxagoras believed that the heavenly bodies are not deities, but blocks and rocks that were torn off from the Earth and heated up as a result of fast movement in the air. For this teaching, Anaxagoras was brought to trial by the leaders of the Athenian aristocracy and expelled from Athens.

One of the central questions that worried Anaxagoras was the question of how the emergence of beings is possible. He gives the answer to this question as follows: everything arises from something similar to itself, that is, from qualitatively determined particles, which he calls “seeds” - homeomerism. They are inert, but they are driven by the mind.

The thinker, highlighting homeomerism as the seeds of things, recognizes the plurality of entities, and the diversity of their understanding, which objectively leads to pluralism of opinions about them.

Anaxagoras pointed out the need to verify the data of sensory cognition, in view of the fact that the knowledge obtained in its process is not exhaustive. Sensual cognition is enhanced by connecting with rational cognition.

The Thinker explained the nature of the moon eclipse.

Democritus

The result of the development of materialistic ideas about the world was the atomistic teaching of Democritus (c. 460 - 370 BC). Continuing the line of his predecessors - Leucippus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus created the doctrine of the atomistic structure of matter. He believed that atoms and emptiness objectively exist. An infinite number of atoms fills infinite space - emptiness. Atoms are immutable, permanent, eternal. They move in emptiness, connect with each other and form an infinite number of worlds. Atoms differ from each other in shape, size, order, and position. The development of the world, according to Democritus, occurs naturally and is causally conditioned. However, defending the idea of ​​natural causality and necessity, Democritus denied contingency. He called something accidental, the reason for which we do not know.

Democritus laid the foundations of the materialist theory of knowledge. He believed that knowledge is possible only thanks to the senses. The data of the senses, according to Democritus, are processed by the mind.

In his views on society, Democritus was a supporter of slave-owning democracy. He believed that it is better to be in poverty under the rule of the people than in wealth under the rulers. He did not condemn the pursuit of wealth, but condemned the acquisition of it dishonestly.

The ideas of Democritus had an extremely great influence on the further development of materialist philosophy. He is even considered as one of the founders of the materialistic line in philosophy.

A significant role in the development of philosophy was played by the ancient Greek teachers of philosophy - the sophists, among whom were the original thinkers: Protagoras of Abder, Gorgias of Leontius, Hippias of Elis. The Sophists intensively introduced new problems into philosophy. They attached particular importance to understanding the relationship between man and society.

STATE COMMITTEE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

FISHING

FAR EASTERN STATE TECHNICAL FISHERIES UNIVERSITY

TEST

Theme: Philosophy of Ancient Greece

Vladivostok

Introduction. 3

1. Formation of philosophy of Ancient Greece. 4

2. The heyday of ancient Greek philosophy. 7

Conclusion. fourteen

References .. 15

Introduction

The philosophy of ancient Greece occupies special place in the history of philosophical thought on the diversity of trends, schools and teachings, ideas and creative personalities, the richness of styles and language, the impact on the subsequent development of the philosophical culture of mankind. Its origin was made possible by the presence of urban democracy and intellectual freedom, the separation of mental from physical labor. In ancient Greek philosophy, two main types philosophical thinking and world structure ( idealism and materialism), the subject field of philosophy was realized, critical areas philosophical knowledge. That was flourishing ancient philosophical thought, a violent surge of intellectual energy of its time.

Greek philosophy began to take shape in the 6th-5th centuries BC. In its development, it is customary to distinguish several most important periods. First- This is the formation, or birth, of ancient Greek philosophy. Nature was in the foreground at this time, therefore this period is sometimes called nuturphilosophical, contemplative. This was an early philosophy, where a person did not yet stand out as a separate object of research. Second period - the heyday of ancient Greek philosophy (V - IV centuries BC). At this time, philosophy began to turn from the theme of nature to the theme of man and society. That was classical philosophy, within the framework of which the original samples of the ancient philosophical culture were formed. Third period(III century BC-IV century AD) - this is the decline and even decline of ancient Greek philosophy, which was caused by the conquest of Greece by Ancient Rome. Gnoseological and ethnic, and eventually religious issues in the form of early Christianity came to the fore.

1. Formation of philosophy of Ancient Greece

Formation period. The first elements of philosophical thinking appeared already in the works of ancient Greek historians - Homer, Herodotus, Hesioid and Thucydides. They posed and subjected to understanding questions about the origin of the world and its development, about man and his fate, the development of society in time.

The very first philosophical school of Ancient Greece is considered to be Mileskut. In which the name of the sage sounded most often Thales, who is generally recognized as the first ancient Greek philosopher. In the first place was the question of finding harmony in this world. It was nuturphilosophy or philosophy of nature.

Thales proceeded from the assumption that everything that exists in the world arose from water. "Everything from water and everything into water", this was the basis of the philosopher's thesis. Water in the philosophical concept of Thales is, as it were, fundamental principle... Thales was also known as a geographer, astronomer, mathematician.

Among the gracious philosophers was also Anaximander, student and follower of Thales, author of philosophical prose. He posed and decided questions about the foundation of the world. Apeiron appeared as something infinite and eternal. He does not know old age, is immortal and indestructible, always active and in motion. Apeiron exudes opposites from itself - wet and dry, cold and warm. Their combinations result in earth (dry and cold), water (wet and cold), air (wet and hot) and fire (dry and hot). He believed that life originated on the border of sea and land from silt under the influence of heavenly fire ...

The follower of Anaximander was the third famous representative of the Miletus school - Anaximenes, philosopher, astronomer and metrologist. He considered the beginning of all things air... When discharged, the air first becomes fire and then ether, and when it thickens, it becomes wind, clouds and water, earth and stone. According to Anaximenes, the human soul also consists of air.

Within the framework of early Greek philosophy, the school associated with the name Heraclitus from Ephesus. He connected everything that exists with fire, which was considered the most changeable of all the elements of the world - water, earth and others. The world was, is and always will be a living fire. For the Greek philosopher, fire is not only a source, but also a symbol dynamism and the incompleteness of all that exists. Fire is a reasonable moral force.

The human soul is also a fiery soul, a dry (fiery) soul - the wisest and best. Heraclitus also put forward the idea Logos... In his understanding, logos is a kind of objective and indestructible law of the universe. To be wise means to live according to the Logos.

Heraclitus in simplest form laid out the basics dialectics as a teaching about the development of all things. He believed that everything in this world is interconnected, and this makes the world harmonious. Secondly, everything in the universe is contradictory. The clash and struggle of these principles is the main law of the universe. Thirdly, everything is changeable, even the sun shines in a new way every day. The world it is a river that cannot be entered twice. The Logos reveals its secrets only to those who know how to think about it.

Pythagoras founded his own philosophical school. He raised the question of the numerical structure of the universe. Pythagoras taught that the basis of the world is number: "Number owns things." A special role Pythagoreans assigned one, two, three and four. The sum of these numbers gives the number `ten`, which philosophers considered ideal.

At school eleates (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno), attention was drawn to the problem of being and its movement. Parmenides argued that being `lies motionless within the bounds of the greatest`. For Parmenides, being is not a vice, but is frozen ice, something complete.

Xenophanes also expressed the idea of ​​the immobility of the world. In his opinion, God dwells in the Cosmos that surrounds man. The God-cosmos is one, eternal and unchanging.

Zeno of Elea defended the thesis of the unity and immutability of all things. In their aporia he tried to justify the lack of movement.

Early Greek philosophy was also represented by creativity Empledocla and Anaxagoras. The first of them put forward the provision of four styles of all things - fire, air, earth and water. He considered the driving forces of the world Love and Enmity that connect or separate these elements. The world cannot be created or destroyed, all things are constantly changing places. Anaxagoras considered certain homerism that determine the unity and diversity of the world. The world is driven by a certain nous- mind as a source of harmony of unity.

Creativity took a significant place in early Greek philosophy atomists (Leucippus, Democritus).

Democritus believed that single things are perishable and decay. Man himself, as Democritus argued, occurred naturally, without the participation of the Creator.

Democritus was, according to K. Marx, the first encyclopedic mind among the Greeks. It is not without reason that it is considered to be the ancestor of materialism in the history of philosophy. Philosophy more and more acquired the characteristics of a system rational knowledge supplemented wisdom as a comprehension of the life experience of people.

2. The heyday of ancient Greek philosophy

The heyday. The heyday of ancient Greek philosophy was associated with its turn from the natural world to the world to the topic of man and society. This reorientation could only take place in a democracy, where free citizens perceived themselves as a sovereign individual. The transition from nuturphilosophy to anthropology and social philosophy became possible due to socio-economic and spiritual prerequisites in society. This period is usually associated with the school sophists, the first ancient Greek teachers of wisdom ( Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon and etc.). They made a great contribution to the development of rhetoric, eristics and logic. Protagoras was a teacher of rhetoric and eristics. He taught that matter is the basis of the world, which is in a changeable state. Protagoras believed that there is nothing stable, including in human knowledge. Consequently, about any thing two opposite opinions are possible, both claiming to be true. Doesn't it happen that the same wind blows, and someone freezes at the same time, someone does not? And someone is not too much, but someone is strong ?. Pythagoras formulated his famous thesis: Man is the measure of all things `.

Protagoras was also known for his atheistic views. For these judgments, Protagoras was accused of atheism and fled from Athens.

Unlike Protagoras, Gorgias believed that everything is false in knowledge. He taught that nothing exists, and if it does, it is incomprehensible. According to this philosopher, it is impossible to prove that being and non-being exist at the same time. Gorgias touched upon complex logical problems associated with the knowledge of the world by man. According to Gorgias, speech is able to drive away fear and ward off grief, to cause positive mental states in people.

Antiphon in the knowledge of man went further than other sophists. He believed that a person should take care of himself first of all, although not forgetting the laws of the external world. “... The prescriptions of laws are arbitrary, the directives of nature are necessary,” the philosopher emphasized. Antiphon set free his slaves, and he himself entered into marriage with his former slave, for which he was declared insane and disenfranchised.

The Sophists studied logic and mathematics, astronomy, music and poetry. However, they were criticized for their relativism and verbal contrivances.

Socrates considered the main task of his philosophy to help a person in his knowing yourself... The method of human research by Socrates can be called subjective dialectics... The art of logic was useful to him in his life, because for his independent and atheistic views, he was accused of molesting young people and was brought to trial, where he needed eloquence for his own defense. Socrates believed that with all the diversity of opinions, the truth is still the only one and it is comprehended through reflection.

The first philosopher in history - Thales (625-545 BC), who lived on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, in Miletus. His main idea is “everything is water”. This idea is purely philosophical. He did not rely on any mythological ideas, but proceeded exclusively from what the mind told him. (Recall that a philosopher is a person for whom the arguments of reason are the main instrument of explanation and understanding). In other words, Thales tried to explain the world from natural causes, that is, from itself.

Taking water as the single beginning of all things, he was the first to try (within the framework of philosophical, non-mythological thinking) to solve the problem of the one and the many, reducing all the diversity of things to water. With a sense of dialectic, he understood that the unity of nature is hidden behind the visible diversity.

Thales did not accidentally choose water as the beginning. It can be taken as the center of all opposites. Water can be cold and hot, turn into a solid and gaseous state; it does not have a definite standing form (that is, it is something indefinite) and at the same time it is sensually determined (it can be seen, touched, smell and even heard). In addition, water, or rather one of its two elements - hydrogen - is the most widespread substance in the Universe.

Two legends are known about Thales, showing his strength and weakness as a philosopher. The first is about how he, foreseeing good harvest olives, rented all the oil mills, began to dictate the prices for the products of the oil mills, and thus became rich. The second legend is about how he, having looked at the starry sky, fell into a hole (they say, he is in the clouds, but he does not see what is under his feet).

Thales's disciple was Anaximander. He put forward the idea of ​​arche, the principle, and as such he considered apeiron (infinite). Apeiron Anaximander is something like abstract matter, substance.

Anaximen, developing the ideas of Thales and Anaximander, considered air as the origin, which, thickening and thinning, generates water, earth, fire, that is, all the variety of things and phenomena.

The sages of their Miletus kindled the fire of philosophical thought in Ancient Greece. The philosophers who followed them put forward doctrines in which principles were developed that were implicitly present among the Milesian philosophers. Thus, the search for a single origin by the Milesians led Xenophanes and Parmenides to the doctrine of the all-unified being, and their attempts to find a rational explanation for the apparent variety of things led Pythagoras to the doctrine of the numerical law underlying all things. Without the Milesians, there would be no Heraclitus.

Heraclitus(544-483 BC) lived on the Ionian coast in Ephesus. 126 scattered fragments have come down to us from his composition "On Nature". They amaze with their philosophical depth and depth. Heraclitus is the author of the famous thesis: "You cannot enter the same river twice." Subsequently, this thesis was reduced to the formula “Everything flows, everything changes” (panta rei). Hence it is clear why Heraclitus believed that the beginning of everything that exists Fire something extremely changeable and causing change. This is how he explained the world on the basis of his doctrine of fire-arche: "The world was not created by any of the gods or any of the people, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, flammable and extinguishing measures."

Heraclitus was the first conscious dialectician in history. (Initially, "dialectics" meant the art of arguing; ultimately, this word began to mean the doctrine of real contradictions, development, formation). According to Heraclitus, everything is fraught with opposites or consists of opposites. And these opposites are one thing, that is, they are a really existing contradiction. He also argued that universal harmony is expressed in the form of a bow and a lyre. Lyre is a dialectic of preservation and harmony proper. The bow is a dialectic of change, struggle, destruction and creation. Which of them prevails? Until now, the best minds of mankind are fighting over this issue.

Eleaty -with Creators of a high-quality concept of being... They lived in Elea (Southern Italy). Their predecessor was Xenophanes . He was one of the first to demythologize the picture of the world, giving natural phenomena a natural explanation. He believed that the gods were invented by people in their own image. (Traveling, Xenophanes encountered astonishing fact: people have different ideas about their gods: “Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black; the Thracians imagine their gods as blue-eyed and reddish ”). He was probably the first critic of religion.

Parmenides(540-480 BC) - the most prominent figure among the Eleatics. He argued: “there is no movement, there is no nonexistence, there is only being” (compare with Heraclitus: “everything flows, everything changes”). Destruction, movement, change - not in truth, but only in opinion. Being is one, not plural. Parmenides imagined him as a ball in which everything is one essence. He drew a clear line between thinking and sensory experience, cognition and evaluation (the famous opposition "in truth" and "in opinion").

Zeno, eleian, is known for his aporias (translated aporia - difficulty, difficulty) "Achilles and the tortoise", "Dichotomy", "Arrow", "Stages". If Parmenides proved the existence of one, Zeno tried to refute the existence of many. He argued against the movement, indicating that it was contradictory and therefore non-existent.

Pythagoras and pythagoreans - creators of the quantitative concept of being... "Everything is a number" - asserted Pythagoras (about 580-500 BC). 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 observational science rests on this proposition. It is no coincidence that it was the experiment with musical strings (one of the first in the history of science) that led to the discovery that strengthened Pythagoras' belief in the omnipotence of numbers, and confirmed the principle of the dependence of quality on quantity.

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, Pythagorean mathematical symbolism and a mysticism of numbers full of superstitions, which was combined with a belief in the transmigration of souls, arose.

Pythagoras was the founder of the first community of philosophers-mathematicians-scientists - the Pythagorean Union. This Union became the prototype of the Platonic Academy.

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

Empedocles from Agrigent (about. Sicily, c. 490-430 BC) put forward the doctrine of the four elements, the elements of the world (earth, water, air, fire) and two forces connecting and separating them (friendship and enmity) ...

Anaxagoras(c. 500-428 BC) - the first Athenian philosopher. He is known for his doctrine of homeomerism, similar to the partial ones - the seeds of the world, which, mixing in different proportions, form the whole variety of things and phenomena. Anaxagoras put forward the thesis: everything from everything (“Everything in everything and everything stands out from everything”).

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

Many clever thoughts have come down to us from Democritus. Here are some: "Wisdom bears the following three fruits: the gift of thinking well, speaking well, and doing well." "Fools seek the benefits of fortune, while those who know the value of such benefits seek the benefits of wisdom." "Courage makes the blows of fate insignificant." "Those who have an orderly character, those who have a well-ordered life." " To a wise man the whole earth is open. For a good-hearted fatherland is the whole world. "

The life of Democritus is instructive in his devotion to the spirit of knowledge. The philosopher stated that he preferred one causal explanation to the possession of the Persian throne.

Sophists. The word “sophist” did not initially have a negative meaning. A sophist was a man, a philosopher who earned a livelihood by passing on certain knowledge to young people, which, as they then thought, could be useful to them in practical life.

The most famous sophist - Protagoras ... He taught for the reward of “everyone who longed for practical success and a higher spiritual culture” (E. Zeller). Protagoras is known for his thesis: "Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and that do not exist, that they do not exist." For all its controversy, and perhaps because of it, this thesis played a huge role in the further understanding of fundamental philosophical problems. Probably Protagoras himself did not suspect what a wealth of ideas contained in his thesis.

Socrates

Socrates (469-399 BC) is one of the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy. Many consider him to be the personification of a philosopher. He did not write down his thoughts, but spoke and talked in the streets and squares of Athens. He had many students. The most famous is Plato.

The doctrine of Socrates marks a turn from thinking about the world, space, nature (the objectivism of natural philosophers) to thinking exclusively about man and the society in which man lives (to the subjectivism of anthropology), from materialism to idealism.

From the point of view of Socrates, the structure of the world, the nature of things are unknowable; we can only know ourselves. “Know thyself” is Socrates' favorite motto. The highest task of philosophy is not theoretical, but practical: the art of living. Knowledge, according to Socrates, is thought, the concept of the general. Concepts are revealed through definitions, and generalized through induction. Socrates himself gave examples of the definition and generalization of ethical concepts (for example, valor, justice). The definition of the concept was preceded by a conversation, during which the interlocutor by a series of consecutive questions is exposed in contradictions. By the disclosure of contradictions, imaginary knowledge is eliminated, and the anxiety into which the mind is plunged into, prompts the thought to search for the true truth. Socrates compared his methods of research with the art of a midwife ("maieutics"), and his method of questioning, which presupposes a critical attitude to dogmatic statements, was called Socratic "irony." Maieutics, literally midwife art, is the Socrates' proposed art of extracting knowledge hidden in a person with the help of leading questions.

Socrates put forward a peculiar principle of cognitive modesty: “ I know that I know nothing”(Compare: Alcott: "To remain in the dark about one's own ignorance is the disease of the ignorant." J. Bruno: “He is doubly blind who does not see his own blindness; this is the difference between perspicacious and diligent people from ignorant sloths ").

The following statement by Socrates is also known: you need to eat in order to live, not live in order to eat... My objection is that there is nothing wrong with eating in order to eat and living partly in order to eat. This statement of Socrates is the beginning of idealism and holism. It turns out that the whole is more important than the part; the part must unambiguously obey the whole. (The whole is life, the part is food). With such an understanding of life, you can go far. Closer to the truth is another formula: "a man is what he eats."

Plato

Plato (427-347 BC) is one of the most famous philosophers of antiquity. In this, only Aristotle, his student, competed with him. The latter owed a lot to Plato, although he criticized him. From Aristotle came the expression: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer." Most of Plato's works are written in the form of a dialogue. Their fate was happy; almost all of them have come down to us.

Plato's real name is Aristocles. The name "Plato" (Platos in Greek means broad) was given to him for his athletic build (tall, broad shoulders). He was a great gymnast and excelled in sports such as wrestling and horse riding. There is information that he received the first prize at the Isthmian and Pythian Games for his successes in the struggle. Plato respected physical education besides, he was an idealist to the bone.

He is best known for his doctrine of ideas and the doctrine of the ideal state.

V teaching about ideas Plato proceeded from the fact that in his creative activity a person 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 material embodiment, and it is not known whether they will receive this incarnation someday. 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 from these ideas. The world of ideas is true, real, and the world of things is a shadow, something less existing (that is, ideas have maximum being, and the world of things is something that does not exist, that is, it changes, disappears). An idea in a person's head is like an act of remembering the world of ideas.

The followers of Plato, the so-called neoplatonists, invented a whole hierarchy of concepts (from the most abstract-general, possessing the greatest being, to the most concrete-particular-individual, denoting a concrete thing, insignificant, vanishing small in the sense of existence).

V ideal state theory Plato displayed this mental hierarchy. According to this theory, human society, represented by the state, dominates the individual. The individual is considered to be something insignificant in relation to the society-state. A thread stretches from Plato to totalitarian ideologies, Nazi and communist, in which a person is viewed only as a part of the whole, as something that must completely obey the whole.

To explain his views, Plato cited the following image: we, people, are in a cave and do not see daylight, just as we do not see what is happening outside the cave. But light comes from somewhere, reflected on the wall and shadows walk along this wall. The world of things is the shadows that we directly see, and the world of ideas is what is outside the cave. This is how Plato explained his theory of ideas. He was right when he separated ideas from things, spiritual from material, and even opposed them. True, he too absolutized this opposition. To some extent, it can be understood: at an early stage in the development of philosophical and human thought, it was not easy for people to express these contradictions in life - roughly chopping off one thing, they absolutize the other. For Plato, the general is more important, truer, more real than the particular, the individual. He almost literally understood the commonality of property, believing that even wives should be common. He also believed that people should live in large communal groups. All socialists and communists of subsequent centuries drew their basic ideas from Plato.

The negative side of Plato's idealism: belittling the corporeal, physical in comparison with the spiritual, representing the body as the prison of the soul and, ultimately, belittling life in comparison with death.

Criticizing Plato, one cannot but note that he expressed many precious thoughts and ideas about human behavior, love, creativity, immortality, in particular, put forward a very promising theory of creativity, comparing it with the birth and education of a person, with love ( see the "Feast" dialogue). According to Plato, love and creativity are the beginning of life; it all comes down to them. They make a person immortal: love - through procreation; creativity - through discoveries, inventions, art, architecture.

Plato founded the first philosophical school called the Academy. It has existed for almost a thousand years.