ancient philosophy materialism idealism
Introduction
general characteristics ancient philosophy
Ancient materialism: Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus
Conclusion
Bibliography
Introduction
Philosophy is the knowledge of the universal, the essential meaning of the world, the knowledge of true being.
Ancient philosophy existed for more than a thousand years (from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD). It was historically the first form of European philosophy and initially included knowledge about the world, from which the tree of modern philosophy and science subsequently grew.
Ancient philosophy is characterized by the presence of many different schools and directions. In antiquity, two main directions were formed: the materialistic (the line of Democritus) and the idealistic (the line of Plato), the struggle between which became one of the internal sources of the development of philosophy.
In ancient philosophy, the doctrine of development was born - dialectics in its first spontaneous form. Already in it, objective dialectics (Heraclitus) and subjective (Socrates) stand out.
Of course, in antiquity the concepts of philosophy and science coincided. Philosophical consciousness extended to knowledge in its entirety, at the same time laying claim to the definition of values and rules of conduct.
1. General characteristics of ancient philosophy
European and a significant part of modern world civilization is directly or indirectly a product of ancient Greek culture, the most important part of which is philosophy. Many prominent philosophers write about the periodization of ancient philosophy, including Chanyshev A.N. (A course of lectures on ancient philosophy. M., 1981), Smirnov I.N., Titov V.F. ("Philosophy", M., 1996), Asmus V.F. (History of ancient philosophy M., 1965), Bogomolov A.S. ("Ancient Philosophy", Moscow State University, 1985).
For the convenience of analysis, we will use a more concise periodization presented by Smirnov I.N. So he notes that when analyzing Greek philosophy, three periods are distinguished in it: the first ¾ from Thales to Aristotle; the second - the classical ancient Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the third - Hellenistic philosophy. The object of our attention will be only the first and second periods.
Absolutely all scientists-philosophers note that the first period of development of ancient philosophy was the period of natural philosophy. A peculiar feature of ancient philosophy was the connection of its teachings with the teachings about nature, from which independent sciences subsequently developed: astronomy, physics, biology. In the VI and V centuries. BC. philosophy did not yet exist separately from the knowledge of nature, and knowledge about nature did not exist separately from philosophy. The cosmological speculation of the 7th and 6th centuries BC raises the question of the ultimate foundation of things. Thus, the concept of world unity appears, which opposes a multitude of phenomena and through which they try to explain the connection between this multitude and diversity, as well as the regularity that manifests itself primarily in the most general cosmic processes, in the change of day and night, in the movement of stars.
The second period of Greek philosophy (V - VI centuries BC), in contrast to the one-sided cosmocentric direction of the previous philosophy, also begins one-sidedly, namely, the formulation of anthropological problems. Naturphilosophical thinking reached limits beyond which it could not go at that time. This period is represented by the Sophists and Socrates and the Socrates. The difference between Socrates and the sophists is that the criterion for evaluating actions for him is the consideration of what motives determine the decision, what is useful and what is harmful.
In his philosophical activity, Socrates was guided by two principles formulated by the oracles: "the need for everyone to know himself and the fact that no person knows anything for sure and only a true sage knows that he knows nothing."
Socrates ends the natural philosophical period in the history of ancient Greek philosophy and begins a new stage associated with the activities of Plato and Aristotle.
Plato goes far beyond the boundaries of the Socratic spirit. Plato is a conscious and consistent objective idealist. Plato was the first among philosophers to pose the fundamental question of philosophy, the question of the relationship between spirit and matter. Strictly speaking, it is possible to speak about philosophy in ancient Greece with a significant degree of certainty only starting from Plato. Plato is the first ancient Greek philosopher whose activities can be judged from his own works.
Our understanding of ancient Greek philosophy would not be complete without an analysis of the philosophical heritage of Aristotle (384 - 322 BC), one of the greatest thinkers in the history of human civilization.
Aristotle is distinguished by encyclopedic knowledge, he summed up the development of philosophical thought from the beginning of Ancient Greece to Plato.
The third period of ancient philosophy: the age of Hellenism (from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century after Christ). These include the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics. Neoplatonism ends the development of Greek philosophy.
2. Ancient materialism: Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus
Philosophy of Thales
The history of ancient Greek philosophy opens with the name of Thales of Miletus (about 625 - 547 BC). Thales claimed that everything in the world consists of water. Water is the beginning and end of everything.
The following sayings are attributed to him: "The most ancient of all things is God, for he is not born." "The most beautiful of all is the world, for it is the creation of God." "The wisest thing is time, for it reveals everything." He was asked: "What is difficult in the world?" - "Know thyself". "What's easy?" - "Advise others."
The first ancient Greek philosophers were busy searching for the fundamental principle that makes up the universe.
Philosophy of Heraclitus.
A significant contribution to the formation and development of ancient Greek philosophy was made by Heraclitus of Ephesus. The date of life of different philosophers is dated differently. So Taranov P.S. indicates that Heraclitus was born about 535 BC and died about 475 BC, having lived 60 years. Bogomolov names the date of birth (544, and considers the date of death unknown). Everyone admits that the personality of Heraclitus was very controversial. Coming from a royal family, he ceded the crown to his brother, and he himself retired to the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, devoting his time to philosophy. At the end of his life, Heraclitus retired to the mountains and lived as a hermit.
Analyzing the philosophical views of Heraclitus, one cannot fail to see that, like his predecessors, he generally remained on the position of natural philosophy, although some problems, for example, dialectics of contradiction, development are analyzed by him at the philosophical level, that is, the level of concepts and logical conclusions.
The prominent researcher of Heraclitus M. Markovich recreates the train of thought of the Ephesian in this way: he (Heraclitus) also says that the judgment on the world and everything that is in it is carried out through fire. For all... the coming fire will judge and condemn. Heraclitus considers fire as the substantial-genetic beginning of the Universe.
Heraclitus believes that none of the gods and none of the people created the cosmos, but "it has always been, is and will be forever living fire."
So, the fundamental principle of all things Heraclitus considered the primary fire - a subtle and mobile light element. Fire was considered by Heraclitus not only as an essence, as the beginning, but also as a real process, as a result of which, due to the flaring up or extinction of fire, all things and bodies appear.
Heraclitus speaks of kinship logosand fire as different aspects of the same being. Fire expresses the qualitative and changeable side of the existing - logos - structural, stable. "Fire is exchange or exchange, logos is the proportion of this exchange."
So, the Heraclitean logos is the rational necessity of the existent, merged with the very concept of the existent - fire. The logos of Heraclitus has several interpretations: logos - a word, a story, an argument, a supreme mind, a universal law, etc. According to Bogomolov, the value is closer logosby the way lawas a universal semantic connection of being.
The main position of the philosophy of Heraclitus is conveyed by Plato in the dialogue "Cratylus". Plato reports that according to Heraclitus "everything moves and nothing rests ... it is impossible to enter the same river."
Dialectics according to Heraclitus is first of all changeof all things and the unity of unconditional opposites. At the same time, change is considered not as a simple movement, but as a process of the formation of the universe, the cosmos.
And it is no exaggeration to say that of all philosophers of the period of formation of ancient philosophy,Heraclitus most of all deserves "the title of the founder of objective dialectics as the doctrine of opposites, their struggle, their unity and world process. This is his enduring significance."
The teaching of Heraclitus about the flow is closely connected with his teaching about the transition of one opposite to another, about "me", "exchange" of opposites. "The cold gets warmer, the warm gets colder, the wet dries up, the dry gets wet." By exchanging with each other, opposites become identical. Heraclitus' statement that everything is an exchange of opposites is supplemented by the statement that everything happens through struggle: "one should know that war is universal and true struggle and everything that happens through struggle and by necessity." On the basis of struggle, the harmony of the world is established.
Democritus and his atomistic theory
According to most philosophers, Democritus was born in 460 BC, died in 360/370 BC. Lived for almost 100 years. Originally from Abder, he came from a noble family and was rich, but he abandoned his wealth, spent his whole life in the poor, indulging exclusively in wisdom.
Democritus taught that there is something extremely simple, further indivisible and impenetrable, of which everything that exists is an atom. Atoms are innumerable, Democritus characterizes atoms, just as Parmenides characterizes being. Atoms are eternal, unchanging, inseparable, impenetrable, neither arising nor regenerating. They have absolute density and hardness and differ from each other in their volume and shape. All bodies are composed of atoms, the real true properties of things are those that are inherent in atoms. Atoms are separated from each other by emptiness. If an atom is being, then emptiness is non-being. On the one hand, if there were no emptiness, then there would be no real multitude and no movement. On the other hand, if everything were divisible to infinity, then there would be emptiness in everything, that is, there would be nothing in the world, there would be no world itself. Democritus interpreted movement as a natural state of the Cosmos, while movement was interpreted strictly unambiguously as the endless movement of atoms in the void.
Democritus was the first in ancient Greek philosophy to introduce the concept of cause into scientific circulation. He denies chance in the sense of causelessness.
In inorganic nature, everything happens not according to goals and in this sense by chance, but the student can have both goals and means. Thus, Democritus' view of nature is strictly causal, deterministic.
He preached a consistent materialistic position in the doctrine of the nature of the soul and knowledge. "The soul, according to Democritus, consists of spherical atoms, i.e. it is like fire."
The views of Democritus on man, society, morality and religion are interesting. He intuitively believed that the first of the people led a disorderly life. When they learned how to make fire, they gradually began to develop various arts. He expressed the version that art was born by imitation (We learned from a spider - weaving, from a swallow - to build houses, etc.), that laws are created by people. He wrote about bad and good people. " bad people they take oaths to the gods when they find themselves in a hopeless situation. When they got rid of him, they still do not keep their oaths."
Democritus rejected divine providence, the afterlife, posthumous retribution for earthly deeds. The ethics of Democritus is permeated with the ideas of humanism. "The hedonism of Democritus is not only in pleasure, because highest good blissful state of mind and measure in pleasures.
Ancient idealism: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
Pythagoras(IV century BC) and his followers the Pythagoreans proceeded from the idea that the universe is infinite in both space and time and that it is ruled by a god who is as eternal and boundless as the world itself. The whole world is dominated by order, which is based on number and measure - they produce a harmony of being, similar to the one we find in music. The number governs both the course of the heavenly saints and all human relationships. The number governs both the course of the heavenly saints and all human relationships. Number is the source of rewards and punishments. The human soul is immortal and harmonious, but during its earthly existence it passes through a series of bodies: sometimes higher, sometimes lower, depending on how virtuous it is.
Socrates(469 - 399 BC) He believed: the main thing is to know the general, general principles of virtue. Good cannot be taught - it is contained in the nature of the spirit. Everything is in the spirit of man; he learns something only by appearances. Everything that exists is contained in man himself. According to Socrates, man as a thinker is the measure of all things. Socrates' requirement: Know thyself. Socrates was characterized by ethical intellectualism; his moral and scientific knowledge are identical. Genuine knowledge, according to Socrates, includes right action.
He who knows what good is must always act in the spirit of good. An important means achieving philosophical leadership, he considered the dialogue. According to Socrates, God is, in essence, Mind, Soul. The human mind and soul is an inner voice (conscience) of divine origin that prompts a person to live virtuously.
Plato is an outstanding objective idealist.
Plato (427-347 BC) is the founder of objective idealism, a student of Cratylus and Socrates. Almost all works written in the form of dialogues or dramatic works have come down to us: "Apology of Socrates, 23 dialogues overheard, 11 dialogues of varying degrees of doubt, 8 works that were not included in the list of Plato's works even in antiquity, 13 letters, many of which unquestionably authentic and definitions."
Plato got acquainted early with the philosophy of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, Pythagoreans. Plato is the founder of a school called the Academy. In the dialogue "Timaeus" was the first to comprehensively discuss the origin of the first principles and the structure of the cosmos. "We need to consider what the very nature of fire, water, air and earth was before the birth of the sky and what was their then state. For until now no one has explained their birth, but we call them and take the letters of the Universe for the elements." For the first time he raised the question of the essence of things and their essences. He laid the foundation for the doctrine of reference prototypes or paradigms. The existence of an idea is more important than non-existence. The realm of Plato's ideas is reminiscent of Parmenides' doctrine of being. Plato's world of sensible things is reminiscent of the doctrine of Heraclitus's being - a stream of eternal becoming, birth and death.
Plato transferred Heraclitus' characterization of being to the world of sensible things.
In the dialogue "Timaeus" he reveals cosmogony and cosmology. He considered the demiurge (god) to be the organizer of the cosmos. So, the origins of the cosmos are as follows: "ideas are the prototypes of things, matter and the demiurge is a god who arranges the world according to ideas. There is being (ideas), there is production, and there are three births of the world."
The origin of the cosmos is described by Plato as follows. From a mixture of ideas and matter, the demiurge creates a world soul and spreads this mixture throughout the space that is intended for the visible universe, dividing it into elements - fire, air, water and earth. Rotating the cosmos, he rounded it, giving it the most perfect form - spheres. The result is the cosmos, like a living being endowed with a mind. “So, we have before us the structure of the world: the divine mind (demiurge), the world soul and the world body (cosmos).
At the center of the teachings of Plato, as well as his teacher Socrates, are the problems of morality. Morality, he considered the dignity of the soul, the soul - truly gives the cause of things, the soul is immortal.
In the dialogue "Timaeus" he revealed the picture of the afterlife and judgment. He thought that it was necessary to cleanse the soul from earthly filth (from evil, vices and passions).
In the dialogues "Politician", "State", "Laws" Plato revealed the doctrine of state administration. He stood up for the complete subordination of the individual to the state, his ideals were the power of an enlightened king.
He noted that three main forms of government could exist in the state: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.
According to Plato, each form of state perishes due to internal contradictions. "Plato characterizes government as a royal art, the main thing for which is the presence of true royal knowledge and the ability to manage people. If the rulers have such data, then it will no longer matter whether they rule according to laws or without them, voluntarily or against their will, poor or rich: to take this into account is never and by no means correct.
Plato was the founder of not only ancient, but also world idealism.
Aristotle is an outstanding philosopher of antiquity.
Plato's decisive opponent is his student Aristotle, the greatest ancient Greek philosopher. F. Engels called him "the most universal head" among the ancient Greek philosophers, the Thinker who explored the most essential forms of dialectical thinking.
Aristotle was born in 384 BC. in the city of Stagira, in 367 BC. left for Athens, where he entered the Academy - Plato's school, spent 20 years there until Plato's death. Later he would criticize Platonism. He owns the words: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer."
Later, Aristotle founded his own school in Athens, calling it "Lykeum". He owns 146 works, among them "Organon", "Metaphysics", "Physics" and others.
The main content of the philosophical teachings of Aristotle is set forth in his work "Metaphysics". Aristotle retains the understanding of being, characteristic of the Eleatics and Plato, as something stable, unchanging, motionless. However, Aristotle does not identify being with ideas. He criticizes Plato for ascribing independent existence to ideas, isolating and separating them from the sensible world. As a result, Aristotle gives the concept of being a different interpretation than Plato. Essence is that single existence possessing independence. It answers the question: "What is a thing?" in being is what makes objects exactly that, did not allow it to merge with others.
In metaphysics, he defines matter. Unlike Socrates, Plato, who did not attribute the science of nature to true wisdom, Aristotle explores nature in depth. Matter turns out to be the first cause of both the emergence and the changeable presence of natural things "for all nature, one might say, is material." Matter according to Aristotle is the primary material, the potency of things. It gives matter an actual state, that is, transforms it from a possibility into a reality of form. Form, according to Aristotle, is an active principle, the beginning of life and activity. He called the higher essences pure forms, in fact, pure forms are nothing but ideal essences. Aristotle considers the highest essence to be pure, formless matter - the Prime Mover, which serves as the source of life and movement of the entire Cosmos.
It is from the understanding of matter that Aristotle builds the doctrine of 4 Xelements (earth, fire, water, air). If in the philosophy of the pre-Socratics there was no special term for the designation of matter, then Aristotle developed this as a philosophical category for the first time. IN 3 to herbook "Physics" he talked about 4 Xtypes of movement. In "metaphysics" and "physics" he convincingly convinced of the dominance of form over content. His thoughts on society, ethics and politics are curious. The goal of human activity for all ancient Greek philosophy is the achievement of bliss. Bliss according to Aristotle is unattainable. In Aristotle's Politics, society and the state are not distinguished. Man, in his opinion, is a political animal. He justified slavery, because he believed that slavery exists by nature. A slave has no rights.
Aristotle summed up the development of philosophical thought from its beginnings in ancient Greece to Plato. It is Aristotle who belongs to the systematization of knowledge, based on two principles - subject and target. He divides the sciences into 3 large groups: theoretical (1 Iphysics, physics, mathematics), practical (ethics, economics, politics) and creative (poetics, rhetoric, art).
Thus, Aristotle completed the classical philosophy of history.
The historical significance of ancient philosophy
The pinnacle of ancient Greek philosophical thought is rightly considered to be the philosophical achievements of Plato and Aristotle. The influence on the subsequent philosophical and cultural development of the ideas put forward by Plato and Aristotle is many times greater than the influence created by their predecessors. Without Platonic and Aristotelian approaches and concepts, it is impossible to understand any philosophical system throughout the long path of subsequent evolution, including modernity.
Ancient Greece set a certain model of civilization in general, civilization as such. The model turned out, however, complex and contradictory. But it remains and will forever remain attractive, especially in cases where civilization is threatened somewhere or is looking for new impulses to find fresh breath. The Greek model is static. The most important thing is that, due to the same quality, it can be built into the composition of another civilization. True, in this case one has to solve the most complicated problem of the ways and means of such embedding. The subsequent development of a civilization based on the values of Christianity demonstrated various options for solving this problem. However, with all options, the value of the intellectual and technical side of ancient Greek thought was recognized. Antiquity owes the achievements of the highest technology of thinking mainly to the work of Plato and Aristotle, who relied on the previous achievements of Greek thought. These achievements in their totality constituted a phenomenon called ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy is what develops and consolidates universal methods of thinking, not limited by anything external, primarily by faith and sensory experience.
Conclusion
So, summing up the results of the control work on the topic "Ancient Philosophy", I draw the following conclusions:
.Philosophy is one of the most ancient areas of human knowledge.
.The essence of philosophy and its role in society lies in the fact that it is knowledge of the universal, essential knowledge about the world, knowledge of true being. Philosophy is the decisive sphere of the formation of the spirit.
.Philosophy general connections and relationships, general laws that operate in nature, society and human thinking.
.European philosophy was formed on the basis of antiquity and Christianity.
.Ancient philosophy played a huge historical significance in the spiritual development of mankind, laying the foundations for the subsequent movement of all European and world philosophy.
Bibliography
- Asmus V.F. History of ancient philosophy. M., 1965.
- Bogomolov A.S. ancient philosophy. Moscow State University, 1985.
- Garanov P.S. 500 steps to wisdom. Book. 1., 1996.
- Losev A.F. Ancient philosophy of history. M., 1977.
- Losev A.F. Dictionary of ancient philosophy. M., 1995.
- Losev A.F. Plato, Aristotle. M., 1993.
- Sergeev K.A., Slinin Ya.A. Nature and reason. ancient paradigm. L., 1991.
- Smirnov I.N., Titov V.F. Philosophy. IN 2 X kn., kn. 1., M., 1996.
- Chanyshev A.N. Course of lectures on ancient philosophy. M., 1981.
- Radugin A.A. Philosophy. Lecture course. Publishing house Center. Moscow. 1997.
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1.Features and periods of the philosophy of Antiquity
2. Views of representatives of pre-Socratic schools
3. Ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
4. Hellenistic philosophy.
The very term "antiquity" in translation from Latin means ancient. Ancient philosophy is a set of teachings that developed in ancient Greece and ancient Rome from the 7th century BC. e. to 5th century AD e. This historical era, covering the period from the formation of policies (city-state) on the Ionian and Italian coasts to the heyday of democratic Athens and the subsequent crisis and collapse of the policy. In Ancient Rome, Antiquity includes a transitional period from a republic to a monarchy.
Philosophy replaces the pre-philosophical descriptions of the world, which are contained in Homer's poems "Iliad", "Odyssey" and Hesiod's "Theogony", "Works and Days". The prerequisites for scientific knowledge, abstract thinking are developing, the search for the impersonal foundation of all things, the primary substance, which is identified at first with one or another nature element, begins. So Thales considered water to be the foundation. Anaximander considered the basis of a special natural, impersonal beginning - apeiron. Anaximenes considered air to be the basis. These philosophers were representatives of the Milesian school in the 6th century. BC e.
Periods of ancient philosophy:
1. Hellenic (Greek) period - the formation of ancient philosophy. This period is also called naturalistic or pre-Socratic (Miletian, Elean, Pythagorean, schools) 2. Classical period: middle classics (sophists - teachers of wisdom, Socrates) high classics (Plato, Aristotle). 3. Hellenistic (Stoics, Cynics, Skeptics, Epicureans).
Features of the philosophy of Antiquity:
1. Ontologism (the central problem is the problem of being)
2. Cosmologism (the desire to understand the essence of the nature of the cosmos, the world as a whole.)
Consider the views of the representatives of the Eleatic school: Parmenides, Zeno.
In the center of attention of Parmenides is the problem of the relationship between being and thinking (there is being, there is no non-being, he believed).
Zeno of Elea (c. 490 BC - c. 430 BC) formulated aporias (difficulties): “Dichotomy; Achilles and the tortoise; Arrow; Stadium". Here are his arguments, which are still interesting to philosophers: "Dichotomy": a moving body must reach the middle before reaching the end. "Achilles and the Tortoise": A creature that is slower in running will not be overtaken by the fastest, for the pursuer must come to the place from which the fleeing has already moved, so that the slower one has the advantage. For Zeno, this meant that Achilles would not be able to catch up with the tortoise, which would leave earlier and from a distance closer to the final goal. "Arrow": The flying arrow is stationary, because. time is made up of separate “nows”. At any given point in space, the arrow is stationary. "Stadium": Two equal masses move around the stadium from 2 sides, with equal speed, one from the end, the other from the middle. In this case, half the time is equal to twice its amount. The philosophical meaning of Zeno's aporias is still the subject of study today. Zeno, recognizing the reality of the beginning of the movement, does not give him a complete explanation. The aporias show the relative imperfection of abstract reasoning and the moment of transition from rest to movement and vice versa, as in the best classical examples of ancient plastic art. Zeno, having analyzed the very concept of "movement", came to the conclusion that it is impossible. Movement is internally contradictory, for to move means to be in some place in space and at the same time not to be in it. Zeno believed that movement "is only a name given to a whole series of identical positions, of which each separately taken is rest."
Early Greek philosophy is characterized by the search for the primary source, the fundamental principle of the world. For Heraclitus (544-483 BC), the basis and constituent element of everything is fire. Everything is a type of fire, and the soul is also a fiery body. Everything proceeds from fire by rarefaction and condensation. Fire is the source of life, its burning and therefore extinction.
The famous expression of Heraclitus: “None of the people, none of the gods created this cosmos. He was, is and will be an ever-living fire, steadily flaring up and steadily fading away. Heraclitus saw the gradual course of development and compared it with the course of a river. The Latin expression panta rei means everything flows, everything changes. Another famous expression of Heraclitus is that one cannot enter the same river twice. He wrote: “He who comes twice in character is identical in essence. We enter and do not enter the same river, we exist and we do not exist. We are just entering the river, and the water has already flown. We are the same and we are no longer the same, we are, and we are not.”
Heraclitus spoke about the soul: The soul is an asterisk or side of the divine fire, a part of the world soul. The heart of the world is the Sun, and for man the center is the soul. It gives life to every part of the body, it is she, and not the body that experiences pain. The soul through the sense organs is connected with the outside world (sight, touch, smell). Inhaling, a person draws in the divine logos and becomes rational. Man light in the night, flashes in the morning, fades in the evening.
The teachings of Plato (428 or 427 BC - 348 or 347 BC) and Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) belong to the classics of ancient philosophical thought. The transition to a new understanding of the philosophical problems of man and society was prepared by the activities of the Sophists and Socrates (c. 469 BC - 399 BC). Representatives of the Sophists: Protagoras (c. 490 BC - c. 420 BC), Gorgias (483 BC - 380 BC), Hippias (c. 400 BC BC), Prodicus (c. 465 - c. 395). The Greek word "sophist" means expert, master, sage. The Sophists were the first teachers of wisdom to charge a fee for this. The Sophists criticized the traditional ideas, Protagoras believed that about any thing there can be two opinions that are opposite to each other. In the teachings of the sophists, a person becomes a system for measuring value and truth. The famous expression of Protagoras is known: "Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and that do not exist, that they do not exist." In the controversy with the sophists, the teachings of Socrates, and then his student Plato, arise. He becomes Aristotle's teacher. It was a bright flowering of the philosophical thought of Antiquity, united by the name of the Athenian school.
Socrates did not write down his thoughts in principle, considering written speech inanimate. His ideas were written down by the students. They were stated by Xenophon (not later than 444 BC - not earlier than 356 BC) and Plato. Their lives were affected by the death of their beloved teacher. Socrates was accused by the Athenian court (helia) that he placed his gods above the gods of the community, but this was not so. Socrates talked to his students about the need for improvement, but he was accused of corrupting youth. Socrates led the search for truth, goodness, beauty. Socrates' motto: "Know thyself!" The main thing is not to live, but to live with dignity. For Socrates, dialogue is a way of finding the truth, his method is irony (translated from Greek - pretense, revealing the meaning of moral concepts through the search for a discrepancy between objective cash and internal beliefs of the interlocutor), and the search for truth with the help of maieutics - the help of the birth of thought. The main thing for Socrates is taking care of the soul. Socrates was sentenced to death by helia and drank the poison - hemlock. Before his death, he told the student: "We owe Asclepius (the god of healing) a rooster." The rooster was sacrificed if a person recovered, got rid of illnesses.
After the death of his beloved teacher, Plato asked himself the question: “Can there be a true world that condemned to death the most worthy of people?” Plato's answer is no, it cannot. The ordinary world exists, but it is not the true existence of people chained in a cave. The real world is the world of pure entities - eidos. There is an area beyond the heavens where the eidos are located - this area is without color, without outlines, it is intangible, we can comprehend this area only with the mind.
Another image of Plato's philosophy is the image of the chariot of the soul. Reason rules over two horses, one black horse, personifying the sensual principle, the second white horse - the volitional principle.
In the hierarchy of ideas created by Plato, the highest idea is the idea of the good, it is the source of truth, the harmony of beauty. The idea of goodness is like the sun. The world of ideas is the world of true being. Matter cannot exist by itself; it actualizes into reality when an idea prompts it to do so. The idea of the good is also close in Plato's understanding to God. He is the creator of the world (demiurge) and he created the world soul, which is the driving force that penetrates the whole world. Plato's famous formulation: "The cosmos is the most beautiful of things, and its demiurge is the best of causes."
Aristotle is the greatest of Plato's students. He criticized Plato for the fact that the teacher attributed independent existence to the world of ideas, which, according to Aristotle, cannot exist independently. His expression is known: "Although Plato and the truth are dear to me, duty commands me to give preference to the truth."
Aristotle developed the doctrine of the four principles, the root causes of all things:
1. Formal reason (for its designation, Aristotle uses the same term as Plato - eidos, without this reason it is impossible to understand what a thing is). But Aristotle puts a different meaning into the concept of eidos. According to Aristotle, the eidos of a thing - its form is not a heavenly entity, but is in itself, without eidos it is impossible to understand what a given thing is.
2. Material reason. If eidos is the essence of a thing, then matter is the cause, the substratum in which this form is imprinted.
3. The driving cause determines the systemic nature of the form, its ability to be embodied in matter.
4. The target cause determines the direction of movement towards the goal. All processes have an internal orientation and conditionality through the goal, which in turn strives for the good.
Aristotle's concept of four causes completes philosophy about the “eternal, motionless, isolated from sensually perceived things” essence, about the absolute mind as about the highest being. Since this mind is the highest being, it acts as the form of all forms, as well as the moving and final cause. Also, as a moving cause, the mind is the prime mover, but it itself is motionless. As the end cause, the mind is the universal end, which at the same time is the highest good.
Aristotle is rightfully considered the founder of logic. He formulated and defined the concepts used in modern logic. He was the first to formulate the logical law of contradiction, which he gave the following form: “it is impossible that the same thing at the same time be and not be inherent in the same thing in the same respect.”
4th century BC was in the history of ancient philosophy the end of the era of Hellenism and the beginning of Hellenism. The philosophical schools of the Hellenistic period of ancient philosophy include: epicureanism, stoicism, skepticism. They were preceded by the philosophy of cynicism, the founders of which were Antisthenes (444/435 BC - 370/360 BC) and Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 BC -323 BC), who lived in a pithos - a barrel of a special shape. He is known for his renunciation of possessions, pleasures, the desire to develop equanimity and peace. It is said that when Alexander the Great decided to visit Diogenes, he found him in Crania (in a gymnasium not far from Corinth) when he was basking in the sun. Alexander approached him and said: "I am the great Tsar Alexander." “And I,” replied Diogenes, “the dog Diogenes.” Alexander said: "Ask me for whatever you want." “Step back, you are blocking the sun for me,” Diogenes replied and continued to warm himself. On the way back, in response to the jokes of his friends who made fun of the philosopher, Alexander allegedly even remarked: “If I were not Alexander, I would like to become Diogenes.” The ethics of the Cynics had an individualistic character, based on the ability to independent existence.
The character of individualism is also inherent in the school of Epicureanism. Fascinated by the ideas of Democritus, Epicurus (342/341 BC - 271/270 BC) created a school in his home with a garden in Athens. Epicurus believed that matter exists forever, does not arise and does not disappear, "Nothing comes from the non-existent." In Democritus, atoms differ in shape, order, position, and Epicurus describes their shape, size and severity. The atoms of Epicurus are small and imperceptible, the atoms of Democritus can be as large as "the whole world." All things are made of atoms. Space is a necessary condition for the movement of bodies. Above the gate of his garden there was an inscription: “Wanderer, come in here, you will feel good here, here pleasure is the highest good!” According to Epicurus, a person can become free only by overcoming the main obstacles to happiness: fear of the intervention of the gods in human life, fear of the afterlife, fear of death. The goal of a happy life is in peace of mind, in "serenity of the soul" - ataraxia. The highest philosophy of bliss is a state of peace of mind, equanimity. When it is, the sage becomes happy. The goal of "live unnoticed" limits sensual pleasures for the sake of spiritual ones.
Hedonism is a philosophy that proclaims that man is created for happiness. His expression is known that death has nothing to do with us, since “when we exist, then there is no death yet, and when death comes, then we are no longer there.” For Epicurus, feelings are the criteria of morality. Pleasure is the highest good, pleasure is good.
Life is the desire to avoid suffering. The task of man is to distinguish between true and imaginary, natural and vain pleasures. Do right choice philosophy helps. Philosophy must be studied: “...Let no one in his youth put off studying philosophy, and in old age do not get tired of doing it: after all, no one is either immature or overripe for the health of the soul,” Epicurus believed.
So, the Epicureans believed that pleasure is the highest goal. Spiritual pleasures - friendship and knowledge - they are strong and lasting.
The doctrine of Epicureanism passed to Roman soil in the 1st century BC. e. In the poem of Titus Lucretius Cara: "On the Nature of Things" philosophical ideas are betrayed in the form of poetic images.
Philosophical ideas elemental materialism transmitted by Epicurus and Lucretius. They talked about the material fundamental principle of the world and saw it in indivisible, but tangible weighty atoms.
The doctrine of Stoicism, founded by Zeno of Kytheon, existed from the 3rd century BC. BC. according to the 2nd century AD The name of the school "Stoya" in ancient Greek means a portico, Zenon expounded his teachings in the "Porchic Portico" in Athens. The philosophical school of Stoicism included:
early stoicism. Representatives: Zeno (346/336/333–264/262 BC), Cleanthes (mid-3rd century BC), Chrysippus (281/278 BC - 208/205 BC .).
Medium Stoicism: Panetius (c. 180 BC - 110 BC), Posidonius (139/135 BC - 51/50 BC).
Late Stoicism: Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC), Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180 BC).
All Stoics are united by contempt for external benefits, lack of desire for wealth. Early Stoicism was formed in polemic with Epicureanism. The highest goal of the Stoics, like the Epicureans, is to achieve a happy life, but the way to happiness was interpreted by the Stoics in a different way. The highest happiness of a person is life, consistent with the nature of a person as a rational and spiritual being, making his choice. The Stoics searched for moral perfection and liberation from passions, affects, in which they saw the sources of human vices and disasters. The Stoics introduce the concept of fate or fate and the cosmic fate of man. The circumstances of his life depend on the necessary course of things, and not on the will of a person: poverty or wealth, pleasure or suffering, health or illness.
Compared with the early and middle Stoics, who emphasized the great strength of the inner morality of man, the late Stoics affirm the weakness of the human personality, its resignation to fate.
Seneca's philosophical fame was brought to him by the Moral Letters to Lucilius. Human life is considered by him as an area of victories and defeats. A true philosopher must be steadfast under all circumstances of life and always strive for virtue. And “Philosophy itself is twofold: it is both knowledge and spiritual properties. Whoever has acquired knowledge and understood what to do and what to avoid is not yet a wise man if his soul has not been transformed in accordance with what he has learned. And the third part of philosophy - instructions - comes from the first two: from the foundations and properties of the soul; and as long as both are sufficient for perfect virtue, the third is superfluous. But consolation will turn out to be superfluous, because it also comes from the same parts, and encouragement, and persuasion, and the proof itself, because the source of all their properties is a soul strong and preserving its structure, ”wrote Seneca.
Marcus Aurelius sought to find a way out of the state of chaos and confusion. Marcus Aurelius left a philosophical record - 12 "books" written in Greek, which are usually credited with the common title "Discourses about oneself." Maximus Claudius was Mark's philosophy teacher. By immersing himself in his soul, in his spiritual life, Marcus Aurelius comprehended and outlined the intense personal work on mastering the achievements of the centuries-old Stoic tradition. He wrote: "Time human life- moment; its essence is an eternal flow; sensation is vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; the soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything pertaining to the body is like a stream, pertaining to the soul - dream and smoke. Life is a struggle, a journey through a foreign land; posthumous glory - oblivion. … But what can lead to the true path? – nothing but philosophy.
The term " antique"(lat. - "ancient") is used to refer to the history, culture, philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Ancient philosophy arose in Ancient Greece in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. (VII - VI centuries BC).
There are several stages in the development of ancient philosophy:
1)the formation of ancient Greek philosophy (natural-philosophical, or pre-Socratic stage) The philosophy of this period focuses on the problems of nature, the cosmos as a whole;
2)classical Greek philosophy (the teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) - The main attention here is paid to the problem of man, his cognitive abilities;
3)Hellenistic philosophy – Ethical and socio-political problems are in the center of thinkers' attention.
Early ancient philosophy.
The first philosophical school in European civilization was the Miletus school (VI century BC, Miletus). In the center of their attention is the question of the fundamental principle of being, which they saw in various types substances.
The brightest representative of the Milesian school - Thales. He believed that the origin of life is water : everything that exists comes from water by solidification or evaporation and returns to water. According to the reasoning of Thales, all living things come from the seed, and the seed is wet; besides, the living without water perishes. Man, according to Thales, also consists of water. According to Thales, everything in the world, even inanimate objects, has a soul. The soul is the source of movement. Divine power sets the water in motion, i.e. brings soul into the world. God in his view is the “mind of the cosmos”, this is something that has neither beginning nor end.
Anaximander, a follower of Thales. He believed that the basis of the world is a special substance - a single, infinite, eternal, unchanging - apeiron . Apeiron is the source from which everything arises, and everything returns to it after death. Apeiron is not amenable to sensory perception, therefore, unlike Thales, who believed that knowledge about the world should be reduced only to sensory knowledge, Anaximander argued that knowledge should go beyond direct observation, needs a rational explanation of the world. All changes in the world, according to Anaximander, come from the struggle between warm and cold, an example of which is the change of seasons (the first naive-dialectical ideas).
Anaximenes. He considered the foundation of life air . When rarefied, air becomes fire; thickening, it turns first into water, then into earth, stones. He explains all the diversity of the elements by the degree of air condensation. Air, according to Anaximenes, is the source of both the body and the soul, and the entire Cosmos, and even the gods are created from the air (and not, conversely, the air is the gods).
The main merit of the philosophers of the Milesian school lies in the attempt to give a complete picture of the world. The world is explained on the basis of material principles, without the participation of supernatural forces in its creation.
Following the Miletus school, a number of other philosophical centers arose in Dr. Greece. One of the most significant - school of pythagoras(VI century BC). It was Pythagoras who first used the term "philosophy". The philosophical views of Pythagoras are largely due to mathematical concepts. He attached great importance number , said that the number is the essence of any thing (a number without the world can exist, but the world without a number cannot. That is, in understanding the world, he singled out only one side - its measurability numerical expression. According to Pythagoras, the objects of thought are more real than the objects of sensory knowledge, because they are eternal. Thus, Pythagoras can be called the first representative of the philosophical idealism.
Heraclitus(ser. VI - early V centuries BC). He considered the fundamental principle of the world Fire . According to Heraclitus, the world is in constant change, and of all natural substances, fire is the most changeable. As it changes, it becomes various substances, which through successive transformations again become fire. Consequently, everything in the world is interconnected, nature is one, but at the same time it consists of opposites. The struggle of opposites as the cause of all changes is the main law of the universe. Thus, in the teachings of Heraclitus, dialectical views. His statements are widely known: “everything flows, everything changes”; "You can't step into the same river twice."
eleian(Elei) - VI - V centuries. BC. Its main representatives: Xenophanes,Parmenides, Zeno. The Eleatics are considered the founders of rationalism. They first began to analyze the world of human thinking. They represented the process of cognition as a transition from feelings to reason, but considered these stages of cognition separately from each other, believed that feelings cannot give true knowledge, the truth is revealed only to the mind.
4. Atomistic materialism of Democritus.
In the 5th century BC. arises new form materialism - atomistic materialism, the most prominent representative of which is Democritus.
According to the ideas of Democritus, the fundamental principle of the world is the atom - the smallest indivisible particle of matter. Every atom is surrounded by emptiness. Atoms float in the void like dust particles in a beam of light. Colliding with each other, they change direction. Diverse compounds of atoms form things, bodies. The soul, according to Democritus, also consists of atoms. Those. he does not separate the material and the ideal as completely opposite entities.
Democritus made the first attempt rational explanation causality in the world. He argued that everything in the world has a reason, random events can not be. He associated causality with the movement of atoms, with changes in their movement, and he considered the identification of the causes of what was happening to be the main goal of knowledge.
The meaning of the teachings of Democritus:
Firstly, as the fundamental principle of the world, he puts forward not a specific substance, but an elementary particle - an atom, which is a step forward in creating a material picture of the world;
Secondly, by pointing out that atoms are in perpetual motion, Democritus for the first time considered motion as a way of existence of matter.
5. The classical period of ancient philosophy. Socrates.
At this time, paid teachers of rhetoric appeared - the art of eloquence. They taught not only knowledge in the field of politics and law, but also general worldview issues. They were called sophists, i.e. sages. The most famous of them - Protagoras(“Man is the measure of all things”). The focus of the sophists was man and his cognitive abilities. Thus, the sophists directed philosophical thought from the problems of the cosmos, the surrounding world to the problem of man.
Socrates(469 - 399 BC) He believed that the best form of philosophizing is a live conversation in the form of a dialogue (he called writing dead knowledge, he said that he did not like books because they should not be asked questions).
Socrates focuses on man and his cognitive abilities. Knowledge of the world, the philosopher believes, is impossible without knowledge of oneself. To know oneself for Socrates means to comprehend oneself as a social and moral being, as a person. The primary for Socrates is the spirit, the consciousness of man, and the secondary is nature. He considers the main task of philosophy to be the knowledge of the human soul, and in relation to the material world he acts as an agnostic. Socrates considers dialogue to be the main means of comprehending the truth. He sees the essence of dialogue in the fact that, by consistently asking questions, to reveal contradictions in the answers of the interlocutor, thereby forcing one to think about the nature of the dispute. He understood truth as objective knowledge, independent of people's opinions. The concept of " dialectics as the art of dialogue, conversation.
6. Philosophy of Plato.
Plato(427 - 347 BC). The main significance of Plato's philosophy is that he is the creator of the system objective idealism, the essence of which is that the world of ideas is recognized by him as primary in relation to the world of things.
Plato speaks of existence two worlds :
1) peace of things - changeable, transient - perceived by the senses;
2) world of ideas - eternal, infinite and unchanging - is comprehended only by the mind.
Ideas are the ideal prototype of things, their perfect model. Things are just imperfect copies of ideas. The material world is created by the Creator (Demiurge) according to ideal patterns (ideas). This Demiurge is the mind, the creative mind, and the source material for creating the world of things is matter. (The demiurge does not create either matter or ideas, he only shapes matter according to ideal images). The world of ideas, according to Plato, is a hierarchically organized system. At the top = - the most general idea - Good which manifests itself in the beautiful and true. Plato's theory of knowledge is based on the fact that a person has innate ideas that he "remembers" in the process of his development. At the same time, sensory experience is only an impetus to recollection, and the main means of recollection is dialogue, conversation.
An important place in Plato's philosophy is occupied by the problem of man. Man, according to Plato, is the unity of soul and body, which are at the same time opposite. The basis of man is his soul, which is immortal and returns to the world many times. The mortal body is only a prison for the soul, it is the source of suffering, the cause of all evils; the soul perishes if it grows too close to the body in the process of satisfying its passions.
Plato divides the souls of people into three varieties, depending on which principle prevails in them: the rational soul (reason), militant (will), suffering (lust). The owners of a rational soul are sages, philosophers. Their function is the knowledge of the truth, the writing of laws and the administration of the state. The warlike soul belongs to warriors, guards. Their function is to protect the state and enforce the laws. The third type of soul - suffering - strives for material, sensual benefits. This soul is possessed by peasants, merchants, artisans, whose function is to provide for the material needs of people. Thus, Plato proposed the structure ideal state , where three estates, depending on the type of soul, perform functions inherent only to them.
7. Teaching of Aristotle.
Aristotle(384 - 322 BC). He refuses the notion of a separate existence of the world of ideas. In his opinion, the primary reality, which is not defined by anything, is the natural, material world. but matter passive, formless and is only the possibility of a thing, the material for it. Possibility (matter ) turns into reality (specific thing ) under the influence of an internal active cause, which Aristotle calls form. The shape is perfect, i.e. the idea of a thing is in itself. (Aristotle gives an example with a copper ball, which is the unity of matter - copper - and form - sphericity. Copper is only the possibility of a thing, without a form there cannot be a really existing thing). The form does not exist by itself, it forms the matter and then becomes the essence of the real thing. Aristotle considers Mind to be the formative principle - an active, active prime mover, which contains the plan of the world. “The form of forms”, according to Aristotle, is God - this is an abstract concept, understood as the cause of the world, a model of perfection and harmony.
According to Aristotle, any living organism consists of a body (matter) and a soul (form). The soul is the principle of the unity of the organism, the energy of its movement. Aristotle identifies three types of soul:
1) vegetative (vegetative), its main functions are birth, nutrition, growth;
2) sensual - sensations and movement;
3) reasonable - thinking, knowledge, choice.
8. Philosophy of the Hellenistic era, its main directions.
Stoicism. The Stoics believed that the whole world was animated. Matter is passive and created by God. The true is incorporeal and exists only in the form of concepts (time, infinity, etc.). The Stoics developed the idea of universal predestination. Life is a chain of necessary causes, nothing can be changed. A person's happiness is in freedom from passions, in peace of mind. The main virtues are moderation, prudence, courage and justice.
Skepticism– Skeptics talked about the relativity of human knowledge, about its dependence on various conditions(* states of the senses, the influence of traditions, etc.). Because to know the truth is impossible, one should refrain from any judgments. Principle " refraining from judgment"- the basic position of skepticism. This will help to achieve equanimity (apathy) and serenity (ataraxia) - the two highest values.
Epicureanism. The founder of this trend is Epicurus (341 - 271 BC) - developed the atomistic doctrine of Democritus. According to Epicurus, the cosmos consists of indivisible particles - atoms that move in empty space. Their movement is continuous. Epicurus does not have the idea of a creator God. He believes that, apart from the matter of which everything consists, there is nothing. He acknowledges the existence of the gods, but claims that they do not interfere in the affairs of the world. In order to feel confident, one must study the laws of nature, and not turn to the gods. The soul is “a body consisting of fine particles, scattered throughout the body.” The soul cannot be incorporeal and dissipates after the death of a person. The function of the soul is to provide a person with feelings.
The ethical doctrine of Epicurus, which is based on the concept of "pleasure", has become widely known. The happiness of a person is in getting pleasure, but not all pleasure is good. “It is impossible to live pleasantly without living reasonably, morally and justly,” said Epicurus. The meaning of pleasure is not bodily satisfaction, but the pleasure of the spirit. The highest form of bliss is a state of peace of mind. Epicurus became the founder of social psychology.
Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism became widespread during the period when the ancient way of philosophizing was giving way to a philosophy based on Christian dogma. This is the last attempt to solve the problem of creating a holistic philosophical doctrine within the framework of pre-Christian philosophy. This direction is based on the ideas of Plato. Its most famous representative is Plotinus. At the heart of the teachings of Neoplatonism - 4 categories: -One (God), -Mind; -World Soul, Space. The One is the top of the hierarchy of ideas, it is the creative force, the potential of all things. By acquiring form, the One turns into the Mind. Mind becomes Soul, which brings motion into matter. The soul creates the Cosmos as a unity of the material and the spiritual. The main difference from Plato's philosophy is that the world of Plato's ideas is a motionless, impersonal model of the world, and in Neoplatonism an active thinking principle appears - the Mind.
ancient philosophy- Philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome of the VI century. BC. – V c. AD This is the first form of philosophy that made an exceptional contribution to the development of Western European culture and determined the main themes of philosophizing for the next millennia. Philosophers of various eras drew inspiration from the ideas of antiquity, from Thomas Aquinas to Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. The term "philosophy" also appeared in antiquity.
Early or archaic stage of ancient philosophy (VI century - beginning of V century BC). Milesians(Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes); Pythagoras and Pythagoreans, Eleatics(Parmenides, Zeno); atomists(Leucippus and Democritus); Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, standing outside certain schools. main theme early stage Greek philosophy is the cosmos or "physis", which is why the first Greek philosophers are called physicists, and philosophy is natural philosophy. Arguing about the cosmos, the first philosophers formulate the problem of the origin or origins of the world.
Founder of the Milesian school (VI century BC) Thales I thought that the beginning of everything is water. His student A n aximander claimed that origin and foundation of the world – apeiron; all elements, including water, arise from aneuron, and he himself has no beginning. Anaximenes- another Milesian and student of Anaximander, he considered air to be the beginning of everything; air is infinite, eternal and absolutely mobile, everything arises from air and returns to it.
Heraclitus who was nicknamed Dark because of the complexity and incomprehensibility of his teachings, believed that the beginning of everything – it's fire. Heraclitus called fire equal to itself and unchanged in all transformations. Heraclitus said that the world is an ordered cosmos, it is eternal and endless, not created by either gods or people. The world is a fire, sometimes flaring up, sometimes dying out, the world process is cyclical, after one cycle everything turns into fire, and then from fire it is born again. Heraclitus formulated principle of universal change in the world: the same river cannot be entered twice. But there is a law in the world - the Logos, and the greatest wisdom lies in knowing it.
School of Pythagoras (VI century BC)- one of the most mysterious, the Pythagoreans formed a closed alliance, which not everyone could join. Some Pythagoreans took a vow of silence, and the founder of the school - Pythagoras - was revered by the followers almost like a god. Pythagoras was the first to use the term "philosophy", he believed that the highest way of life is contemplative, and not practical. Pythagoras believed that the basis of everything is number, and the universe is harmony and number. The number is formed from the One, and from the numbers - the whole cosmos. Things are made of numbers and imitate numbers. The Pythagoreans sought to comprehend the harmony of the cosmos and express it in numbers, and the result of these searches was ancient arithmetic and geometry. Strong influence Pythagorean school had on the Eleatics and Plato.
Eleatics (VI-V centuries BC) claimed that the beginning of the world is one, and this beginning is being. Parmenides said that Being is the same everywhere, homogeneous, unchanging and identical to itself. Being can be thought, but non-being cannot be thought, therefore being exists, but non-being does not exist. In other words, the thought and the subject of this thought are one and the same, that which is impossible to think does not exist. So Parmenides for the first time in the history of philosophy formulated the principle of the identity of being and thinking. The fact that people see change and multitude in the world is just a mistake of their feelings, the philosopher considered and directed his criticism against Heraclitus the Dark. True knowledge leads to knowledge of the intelligible world, to the affirmation of eternity, immutability and immobility of being. The philosophy of the Eleatics is the first consistently monistic doctrine in the history of philosophy.
A little later, in ancient philosophy, the opposite doctrine appears - pluralism, which is represented by the atomism of Democritus (5th century BC). Democritus I thought that there are atoms and the void in which they move. Atoms are immutable, eternal, differ from each other in size, position and shape. Atoms are innumerable, all bodies and things are composed of atoms and differ only in their number, shape, order and position. The human soul is also an accumulation of the most mobile atoms. Atoms are separated from each other by emptiness, emptiness is non-existence, if there were no emptiness, then atoms would not be able to move. Democritus argued that the movement of atoms is subject to the laws of necessity, and chance is just a cause unknown to man.
Classical stage of ancient philosophy (V-IV centuries BC). The main schools of this period are sophists(Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus, Protagoras, etc.); at first adjoining the sophists, and then criticizing them Socrates, Plato and its school the Academy; Aristotle and his school Lyceum. The main themes of the classical period are the essence of man, features of cognition, unification philosophical knowledge and the construction of a universal philosophy. Philosophers of the classical period formulate the idea of pure theoretical philosophy, which gives true knowledge. After the philosophical reasoning of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece, they began to believe that a way of life built on the principles of philosophy is most in line with human nature and should be strived for with all our might.
Sophists (5th century BC) are professional teachers of wisdom and eloquence. The word "sophist" comes from the Greek word "sophia", which means "wisdom". At first, philosophers were called sophists, but gradually this word acquired a negative connotation. Sophists began to be called a special type of philosophers who denied religion and morality, emphasized the conventionality of state laws and moral norms. Aristotle called the sophists teachers of imaginary wisdom. Sophists identified wisdom with the ability to justify anything, and not necessarily what is true and right. Truth for them turned into provability, and to prove meant to convince the interlocutor. Protagoras said that about Every thing can have two opposing opinions. For the sophists, the only measure of being, value and truth is the interests of a person, so you can have two opposite opinions about every thing. The same Protagoras stated:
"Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and that do not exist, that they do not exist." Sophists emphasized the relativity of all truths, knowledge and human judgments. This position is called relativism.
Socrates(V century BC) was first a student of the sophists, and then their fierce opponent and critic. Socrates regarded his studies in philosophy as a service to the god Apollo, so the inscription carved over the entrance to the temple of Apollo in Delphi: "Know thyself" became the guiding thread of Socratic philosophy. Socrates reflects on life and death, good and evil, freedom and responsibility, virtue and vice. The philosopher claimed that the root cause of all things must be sought in the Logos, the natural world is only its application. Thus, the beautiful exists on its own, independently of a beautiful book, a vessel or a horse, and its knowledge cannot in any way be considered a generalization of all knowledge about beautiful objects. Socrates said that knowledge of beauty precedes knowledge of beautiful things. The measure of all things is not just a person, but a reasonable person, since it is the mind that is the source of true knowledge. The method of obtaining this knowledge is maieutics – midwifery art. Cognition takes place in the form of a conversation, questions and answers help the birth of thought, and the starting point of reflection is irony, which gives rise to doubt in generally accepted opinions. Exposing contradictions eliminates imaginary knowledge and encourages the search for truth. Knowledge is the only regulator and guideline of human actions. Socrates assured that the knowledge of good means following it, the reason for bad deeds is ignorance, of good will no one is evil. Philosophy, according to him, is the study of right life, art of Living. Most people are content with random feelings and impressions, true knowledge is available only to a few sages, but not the whole truth is revealed to them either. "I know that I know nothing," Socrates himself said. Fellow citizens accused him of corrupting youth, not recognizing gods and customs, the main purpose of these accusations was to force the philosopher to flee Athens. But Socrates refused and voluntarily took the poison of hemlock.
The life story of Socrates is known in the retelling of his student Plato(V-IV centuries BC). Plato wrote many philosophical dialogues in which he outlined his philosophical system. Plato thinks that being – it is a world of ideas that exists forever, it is unchanging and identical to itself. Being opposed to non-being - the world of matter. An intermediate position between being and non-being is occupied by the world of sensible things, which are the product of ideas and matter. The main idea is the idea of goodness, the cause of everything right and beautiful, truth, goodness and beauty depend on goodness. True knowledge is possible only about ideas, and the source of this knowledge is the human soul, or rather its memories of the world of ideas, in which the immortal soul resides before it enters the body. In other words, true knowledge is always with a person, it remains only to remember it. Man himself, being a unity of soul and body, is akin to sensible things. The soul is being in it, and the body is matter and non-being. Cleansing from the material and bodily is necessary so that the soul can again soar into the world of ideas and contemplate them.
In line with his philosophy, Plato proposed concept of the ideal state. According to the philosopher, the state appears when each person individually cannot satisfy his needs. A state can be wise and just if it is ruled by wise and just rulers - philosophers. Guards are engaged in protecting the state from enemies, and artisans and farmers provide everyone with the necessary material benefits. Each of the three castes - philosophers, guards, artisans and farmers - has its own upbringing, so the transition from one class to another brings only harm.
Aristotle(IV century BC) criticized the Platonic theory of ideas. "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer," Aristotle said and offered his philosophy of being - doctrine of the four causes. Aristotle claims that formal, material, efficient and final causes exhaust all possible causes. Matter creates a passive possibility for the emergence of things, it is the substratum of things. Form - the prototype of a thing, turns into reality what is given in matter as a possibility. The operating cause ensures movement in the world, and the target one determines what everything in the world exists for. The effective and final causes can be reduced to the concept of form, then two causes remain: matter and form. Form is primary, it is the essence of being, and matter is only material for design.
Aristotle's contribution to the creation formal logic. The philosopher believed that logic is connected with the doctrine of being. Being and thinking are identical, therefore logical forms are at the same time forms of being. Aristotle distinguished between reliable knowledge - apodeictics, and opinion - dialectics. Apodeictic - this is strictly necessary, deductive knowledge that can be logically deduced from true premises, and the tool for such a conclusion is a syllogism, i.e. conclusion from two true judgments of the third according to certain rules. In philosophy, all the premises from which the conclusion comes are seen by the mind. However, they are not given from birth. In order to receive true premises, one must collect facts. The general, according to Aristotle, exists in single things that are perceived by the senses. Thus, the general can be comprehended through the singular, and the way of cognition is inductive generalization. Plato believed that the general is known to the individual.
Hellenistic stage of ancient philosophy (IV century BC - V century AD). The main schools of this period are: Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics, Cynics, Neoplatonists. The main topics discussed by the philosophers of the Hellenistic era are the problems of will and freedom, morality and pleasure, happiness and the meaning of life, the structure of the cosmos and the mystical relationship of man with it. All schools deny the existence of universal and stable principles of morality, the state, and the cosmos too. Philosophers teach not so much how to achieve happiness as how to avoid suffering. Perhaps only in Neoplatonism the doctrine of a single principle is preserved, but this doctrine also takes on a mystical form. The influence of Neoplatonism can be found in some systems of medieval Islamic philosophy, but it was foreign to European Christian philosophy. The formation of Christianity was influenced by another teaching of the Greeks - stoicism .
Regardless of the stages of development, ancient philosophy is one, and its main feature is cosmo- and logo-centrism. Logos is the central concept of ancient philosophy. The Greeks think of the cosmos as orderly and harmonious, and ancient man appears in the same orderly and harmonious way. Evil and imperfection, according to the Greek philosophers, comes from a lack of genuine knowledge, and it can be filled with the help of philosophy. It can be said that the ancient thinkers tried to "talk" the world, remove chaos, imperfection, evil and non-existence from it, and philosophy was a universal means for this.
- See paragraph 7.4.
- See paragraph 7.4.
- See paragraph 2.3.
- See more: paragraph 6.5.
Socrates made a revolution in philosophy. Realizing that natural philosophy is largely indifferent to man, Socrates alters the basic philosophical question: what is the nature and main content of man? Not physics, but ethics puts Socrates in the first place. It is the philosophy of man that should become the key to the philosophy of nature, and not vice versa. In this regard, Socrates attaches paramount importance to the fact that man is a knowing, rational being.
A person is distinguished from other creatures by the soul, Socrates believes. The soul is the ability of a person to realize, to show mental activity, to be conscientious and moral, virtuous. The potential of the soul is realized in knowledge, the lack of the latter is ignorance. The body of a person does not dominate his soul, on the contrary, it is an instrument of the soul. Socrates is engaged in bodily exercises, but even more mentally. Without the latter, one cannot cultivate virtues in oneself, among which the main ones are wisdom, justice, and moderation. By developing his virtues, a person achieves the harmony of the soul, even physical violence cannot destroy it. And this means that a person becomes free. Therein lies his happiness.
Plato- an outstanding thinker of antiquity, a student of Socrates, he develops his ideas. The strategy is the same: in the foreground is ethics, not natural philosophy. The core of Plato's philosophy is the concept of ideas.
Things are not considered by Plato only in their seemingly so familiar empirical-sensual existence. For each thing, its meaning is fixed, the idea, which, as it turns out, for any thing this class things are the same and denoted by the same name. There are a variety of horses, dwarf and normal, piebald and black, but they all have the same sense of equineness. Accordingly, we can talk about the good in general, the beautiful in general, the green in general, the house in general.
The idea is the one that is the essence of diversity. So, Plato resolves the problem of the one and the many in the following way: the one is the idea, and its manifestations are the many. The idea correlates with both material and spiritual phenomena. Plato himself connects the essence of the idea with the concept of beauty. There are many wonderful things. But each thing is beautiful in its own way, therefore it is impossible to associate the beautiful with one thing, because in this case the other thing would no longer be beautiful. But all beautiful things have something in common - beautiful as such, this is their common Idea, or Eidos, or Essence. All three terms - idea, eidos, essence - mean the same thing, one. The beautiful as an idea is inherent in things to varying degrees, so there are more and less beautiful things. Plato did not consider all ideas equal. Following Socrates, he placed above all the idea of the good. For him, the good was the cause of everything beautiful both in the world and in people's lives. Thus, the world is known thanks to the good. Fortunately, according to Plato, this is a world principle. Modern philosophers attach a more earthly content to the good, they usually consider it a value, a way of action consciously chosen by a person to achieve good, successful cohabitation of people.
Aristotle- a great student of Plato, who studied with him for 20 years. Having accumulated a huge potential, Aristotle developed his own philosophical doctrine. Aristotle shifted the focus of philosophical thought from idea to form.
Aristotle considers separate things: a stone, a plant, an animal, a person. Each time he separates matter (substrate) and form into things. In a bronze statue, the matter is the bronze and the form is the outline of the statue. The situation is more complicated with an individual person, his matter is bones and meat, and the form is the soul. For an animal, the form is the animal soul; for a plant, the plant soul. What is more important - matter or form? At first glance it seems that matter is more important than form, but Aristotle does not agree with this. For it is only through form that the individual becomes what he is. So the form is main reason being. There are four reasons in total: formal - the essence of a thing; material - the substratum of the thing; active - that which sets in motion and causes changes; target - in the name of what the action is performed.
So, according to Aristotle, individual being is a synthesis of matter and form. Matter is the possibility of being, and form is the realization of this possibility, an act. From copper you can make a ball, a statue, i.e. as the matter of copper there is the possibility of a ball and a statue. In relation to a separate object, the essence is the form. The form is expressed by the concept. The concept is valid even without matter. So, the concept of a ball is also valid when a ball has not yet been made of copper. The concept belongs to the human mind. It turns out that form is the essence of both a separate individual object and the concept of this object.
Aristotle was justly proud of the fact that he had developed, and in the most meaningful way, the problem of purpose. The goal is teleos in Greek. On this basis, the doctrine of purpose is called teleology. The goal is, according to Aristotle, the best in all nature. The dominant science is that "which recognizes the goal for which it is necessary to act in each individual case ...". The final instance of people's actions is their goals, target priorities. Teleology, developed by Aristotle, turns out to be a powerful tool in understanding a person, his actions and society.
The final reality is God. For Aristotle, the form in its dynamics expresses the hierarchy of being. Many things can be made from copper, but copper is still copper. The form behaves much more hierarchically. Compare: the form of inanimate objects - the plant form - the animal form - the form (soul) of a person. This comparison takes us up the ladder of forms, with the significance of matter weakening, and forms increasing. And if you take one more step and declare that there is a pure form, freed from matter? Aristotle is firmly convinced that this step, the transition to the limit, is quite consistent and necessary. Why? Because in this way we have discovered the prime mover of everything, and therefore, we have fundamentally explained all the diversity of the facts of movement. God, like everything good and beautiful, attracts, attracts to himself, this is not a physical, but a target, final reason.
Aristotle's God is the prime mover. It is also the mind, more developed than the human. God is immovable. As a source of movement, it does not have a cause of movement, because we would have to discover another cause of movement after one cause, and so on, without end. God is the ultimate cause of motion; this statement itself makes sense if one considers God to be motionless. So, God is mentally perfect, he is the source of all movement, motionless, has no history, which means that he is eternal. God of Aristotle is impassive, he does not take part in the affairs of people.
Aristotle is the founder of logic. In the writings of Aristotle, logic reached a high degree of perfection. In fact, it was Aristotle who first expounded logic systematically, as an independent discipline. Logic is usually understood as the science of the laws of thought. Aristotle was able to distinguish three laws of logic.
For Aristotle, ethics, unlike physics and mathematics, is a practical science. The last goal and the last boon is happiness. But what is happiness? Happiness for Aristotle is not a life wasted on pleasures, pleasures and entertainments, it is not honors and success and not wealth, but the coincidence of a person's virtue with the external situation. Good is associated with the abundance of virtues, evil with their scarcity. Aristotle especially highly valued the following virtues: reasonable wisdom, practical wisdom, prudence, courage, moderation, generosity, truthfulness, friendliness, courtesy. Above all, Aristotle put rational wisdom, for this is the virtue with which any reality is comprehended, thanks to which God is also comprehended. The harmonious combination of all virtues is justice.
The philosophical teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle were of tremendous importance for the formation of the world philosophical tradition. Socrates put an end to the moral relativism of the sophists, affirming the ethical model of the philosopher with his own life. Plato created a consistent and thoughtful idealistic doctrine, which influenced the formation of many subsequent philosophical schools especially the philosophy of the Middle Ages. Aristotle is the pinnacle of ancient philosophy, his doctrine of the root causes of being and the development of the laws of logic have become an example of the depth of philosophical thought.
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