When did ancient philosophy begin? ancient philosophers

ancient philosophy - the philosophy of antiquity, subdivided into ancient Greek and ancient Roman (late 7th century BC - 6th century AD), from early classical philosophy to 529, when the last philosophical school in Athens was closed by decree of Emperor Justinian. 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 as an early stage of ancient philosophy itself, as well as the views of the sages of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and ancient Eastern countries.

Ancient philosophy (first Greek and then Roman) covers the period of its immediate existence from the 12th-11th centuries. BC e. 5th-6th centuries n. e. It originated in the ancient Greek policies (city-states) of democratic orientation and the orientation of its content, the method of philosophizing differed from the ancient Eastern methods of philosophizing. Early Greek philosophy is still closely connected with mythology, with sensual images and metaphorical language. However, she immediately rushed to consider the question of the relationship between the sensual images of the world and itself as an infinite cosmos. Before the gaze of the ancient Greeks, who lived during the childhood of civilization, the world appeared as a huge accumulation of various natural and social processes.

In general, ancient philosophy has the following features:

Ancient philosophy was divorced from the process of material production, and the philosophers turned into an independent stratum, not burdened by physical labor and claiming to spiritual and political control of society;

The core idea of ​​ancient Greek philosophy was cosmocentrism (horror and worship of the Cosmos, the manifestation of enthusiasm, first of all, for the problems of the origin of the material world, the explanation of the phenomena of the surrounding world);

At the later stages - a mixture of cosmocentrism and anthropocentrism (based on the difficulties of man);

The existence of gods was allowed;

The ancient Greek gods were part of nature and close to people;

Man did not stand out from the surrounding world, was part of nature;

Two directions in philosophy were laid - idealistic ("Plato's line") and materialistic ("Democritus' line"), and these directions alternately dominated: in the pre-Socratic period - materialistic, in the classical - had a monotonous influence, in the Hellenistic - materialistic, in the Roman - idealistic.

In the development of ancient philosophy, with some degree of conventionality, several stages can be distinguished:

Ancient philosophy, unlike mythology, is based on the explanation of causes, seeks to explain, to argue.

ancient philosophy, its main teachings and representatives (Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)

Ancient Greek (ancient) philosophy in its development went through four main stages:

Democratic - VII - V centuries. BC.;

Classical (Socratic) - the middle of the 5th - the end of the 4th centuries. BC.;

Hellenistic - end of IV - II centuries. BC.;

Roman - I century. BC. - V c. AD

The pre-Socratic period includes the activities of the so-called philosophers - “pre-Socratics”:

Classical (Socratic) period- the heyday of ancient Greek philosophy (coinciding with the heyday of the ancient Greek policy).

This stage includes:

Philosophical and educational activities of the sophists;

Philosophy of Socrates;

The birth of "Socratic" schools;

Philosophy of Plato;

Philosophy of Aristotle.

For the Hellenistic period(the period of the crisis of the policy and the formation of large states in Asia and Africa under the rule of the Greeks and led by the associates of Alexander the Great and their descendants) is characterized by:

The spread of the anti-social philosophy of the Cynics;

The origin of the Stoic direction of philosophy;

The activities of "Socratic" philosophical schools: Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, the Cyrenian school (Cyrenaicists), etc.;

The philosophy of the Roman period was characterized by:

The mutual influence of ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophy (ancient Greek philosophy developed within the framework of Roman statehood and was influenced by it, while ancient Roman philosophy grew on the ideas and traditions of ancient Greek);

The actual merging of ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophy into one - ancient philosophy;

Influence on ancient philosophy of the traditions and ideas of the philosophy of the conquered peoples (East, North Africa, etc.);

The proximity of philosophy, philosophers and state institutions (Seneca raised the Roman emperor Nero, Marcus Aurelius himself was an emperor);

Little attention to environmental problems;

Increased attention to the problems of man, society and the state;

The flowering of aesthetics (philosophy, the subject of which was the thoughts and behavior of a person);

The flourishing of stoic philosophy, whose supporters saw the highest good and the meaning of life in the maximum spiritual development of the individual, learning, withdrawal into oneself, serenity (ataraxia, that is, equanimity);

The predominance of idealism over materialism;

Increasingly frequent explanation of the phenomena of the surrounding world by the will of the gods;

Increased attention to the problem of death and the afterlife;

The growth of influence on the philosophy of the ideas of Christianity and early Christian heresies;

The gradual merging of ancient and Christian philosophy, their transformation into medieval theological philosophy.

It is characteristic of ancient philosophy that there is no opposition between the object and the subject. The subject is not the subject of transformative activity, cannot influence the activity and change it. Personality is not interpreted as the Absolute, the passive-contemplative nature of existence. Contemplation is possible only through the mind. Human activity fits into the cosmic whole. There is an intrinsic connection between ethics and cosmology. The ideal is knowledge for the sake of knowledge (the goal of philosophy). Ancient philosophy, unlike mythology, is based on the explanation of causes, seeks to explain, to argue. A rational argument is important. Antique pre-philosophy, which covers the period from the 8th to the 7th centuries. BC.

Pre-Socratic period- covers the period from 7 to 5 c. BC e. Initially, ancient philosophy developed in Asia Minor (Miletian school, Heraclitus), then in Italy (Pythagoreans, Eleatic school, Empedocles) and on mainland Greece (Anaxagoras, atomists). The main theme of early Greek philosophy is the origin of the universe, its origin and structure. Philosophers of this period - mainly researchers of nature, astronomers, mathematicians. Believing that the birth and death of natural things does not happen by chance and not from nothing, they were looking for a beginning, or a principle that explains the natural variability of the world.

The first philosophers believed that a single primary substance was such a beginning: water (Thales) or air (Anaximenes), the infinite (Anaximander), the Pythagoreans considered the beginnings of the limit and the infinite, generating an ordered cosmos, cognizable through numbers. Subsequent authors (Empedocles, Democritus) named not one, but several principles (four elements, an infinite number of atoms). Like Xenophanes, many of the early thinkers criticized traditional mythology and religion. Philosophers have thought about the causes of order in the world. Heraclitus, Anaxagoras taught about the rational principle ruling the world (Logos, Mind). Parmenides formulated the doctrine of true being, accessible only to thought. All the subsequent development of philosophy in Greece (from the pluralistic systems of Empedocles and Democritus to Platonism) to one degree or another demonstrates a response to the problems posed by Parmenides.

classical period covers the period from about half of the 5th c. and until the end of the 4th c. BC e. The pre-Socratic period is replaced by sophistry. Sophists - itinerant paid teachers of virtue, in the center of their attention - the life of man and society. In knowledge, the sophists saw, first of all, a means to achieve success in life, they recognized rhetoric as the most valuable - the possession of a word, the art of persuasion. Sophists considered traditional customs and moral norms to be relative. Their criticism and skepticism in their own way contributed to the reorientation of ancient philosophy from the knowledge of nature to the understanding of the inner world of man.

A striking expression of this "turn" was the philosophy of Socrates. He considered the knowledge of goodness to be the main thing, because. evil, according to Socrates, comes from people's ignorance of their true good. Socrates saw the way to this knowledge in self-knowledge, in caring for his immortal soul, and not about his body, in comprehending the essence of the main moral values, the conceptual definition of which was the main subject of Socrates' conversations. The philosophy of Socrates caused the emergence of the so-called. Socratic schools (cynics, megarics, cyrenaics), which differed in their understanding of Socratic philosophy. The most outstanding student of Socrates was Plato, the founder of the Academy, the teacher of another major thinker of antiquity - Aristotle, who founded the peripatetic school (Lyceum).

They created holistic philosophical doctrines, in which they considered almost the entire range of traditional philosophical topics, developed philosophical terminology and a set of concepts, the basis for subsequent ancient and European philosophy.

What they had in common was:

The distinction between a temporary, sensually perceived thing and its eternal, indestructible, comprehended by the mind essence;

The doctrine of matter as an analogue of non-existence, the cause of the variability of things;

The idea of ​​​​a reasonable structure of the universe, where everything has its purpose;

Understanding philosophy as a science of higher principles and the goal of all being;

Recognition that the first truths are not proved, but are directly comprehended by the mind.

Both he and the other recognized the state as the most important form of human existence, designed to serve his moral improvement. At the same time, Platonism and Aristotelianism had their own characteristic features, as well as differences.

Both the teachings of Plato and the teachings of Aristotle, who created the second system of views of objective idealism after Plato, are full of contradictions. These teachings are not only two phases in the history of the struggle between idealism and materialism, but also two phases in the development of ancient Greek science. Important mathematical research is being carried out in Plato's school. Aristotle creates a grandiose encyclopedia of all contemporary science. But in the field of philosophy, Plato and Aristotle are not only the creators of the reactionary doctrines of idealism. Plato develops questions of dialectics, theory of knowledge, aesthetics, and pedagogy. Aristotle creates the foundations of logic, develops the problems of the theory of art, ethics, political economy, and psychology.

Hellenistic period in the development of ancient philosophy - the end of the 4th century. - 1 in. BC e.). In the era of Hellenism, along with the Platonists and Peripatetics, the schools of the Stoics, Epicureans and Skeptics became the most significant. During this period, the main purpose of philosophy is seen in practical wisdom of life. Ethics, oriented not to social life, but to the inner world of an individual person, acquires a dominant importance. Theories of the universe and logic serve ethical purposes: to develop the right attitude towards reality in order to achieve happiness.

The Stoics represented the world as a divine organism, permeated and completely controlled by the fiery rational principle, the Epicureans - as various formations of atoms, skeptics called for refraining from any statement about the world. Differently understanding the paths to happiness, they all similarly saw the bliss of a person in a serene state of mind, achieved by getting rid of false opinions, fears, inner passions that lead to suffering. Accordingly, three directions can be distinguished in Roman philosophy: stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius), epicureanism (Titus Lucretius Car), skepticism.

The next stage of ancient philosophy (1st century BC - 5th - 6th centuries AD) falls on the period when Rome began to play a decisive role in the ancient world, under the influence of which Greece also falls. In the last centuries of its existence, the dominant school of antiquity was the Platonic school, which adopted the influences of Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism, and partly Stoicism. The period as a whole is characterized by an interest in mysticism, astrology, magic (neopythagoreanism), various syncretic religious and philosophical texts and teachings (Chaldean oracles, gnosticism, hermeticism). A feature of the Neoplatonic system was the doctrine of the origin of all things - the One, which is beyond being and thought and is comprehensible only in unity with it (ecstasy).

As a philosophical trend, Neoplatonism was distinguished by a high level of school organization, a developed commentary and pedagogical tradition. Its centers were Rome (Plotinus, Porphyry), Apamea (Syria), where the school of Iamblichus was, Pergamum, where the school was founded by the student of Iamblichus Edesius, Alexandria (the main representatives are Olympiodorus, John Philopon, Simplicius, Aelius, David), Athens (Plutarch of Athens , Sirian, Proclus, Damascus). A detailed logical development of a philosophical system describing the hierarchy of the world born from the beginning was combined in Neoplatonism with the magical practice of "communication with the gods" (theurgy), an appeal to pagan mythology and religion.

In ancient philosophical systems, philosophical materialism and idealism were already expressed, which largely influenced subsequent philosophical concepts. The history of philosophy has always been an arena of struggle between two main trends - materialism and idealism. The immediacy and, in a certain sense, the straightforwardness of the philosophical thinking of the ancient Greeks and Romans make it possible to realize and more easily understand the essence of the most important problems that accompany the development of philosophy from its inception to the present day.

In the philosophical thinking of antiquity, in a much clearer form than it happens later, ideological clashes and struggle are projected. The initial unity of philosophy and the expanding special scientific knowledge, their systemic separation very clearly explain the relationship between philosophy and special (private) sciences. Philosophy permeates the entire spiritual life of ancient society; it was an integral factor in ancient culture. The richness of ancient philosophical thinking, the formulation of problems and their solution were the source from which the philosophical thought of subsequent millennia drew.

In the future, the ideas of ancient philosophy formed the basis of medieval philosophy and are considered the main sources of development of European social thought.

In ancient philosophy, there are 4 main periods: the Naturphilosophical (pre-classical) stage (7-5 ​​centuries BC, the Classical stage (5-4 centuries BC), the Hellenistic-Roman stage (4 century BC .e. - 3rd century AD), the final stage (3-6 centuries AD).

Pre-classical ancient philosophy arose in the ancient Greek city-states (polises): Miletus, Ephesus, Elea, etc. It is a collection of philosophical schools named after the respective policies. Natural philosophers (translated as philosophers of nature) considered the problems of the universe in the unity of nature, gods and man; moreover, the nature of the cosmos determined the nature of man. The main question of preclassical philosophy was the question of the fundamental principle of the world.

Early natural philosophers brought to the fore the problem of cosmic harmony, which should correspond to the harmony of human life (cosmological approach).

At late natural philosophers the contemplative approach is combined with the use of logical reasoning, and a system of categories emerges.

Natural philosophers include:

Classical stage (5th-4th centuries BC)

The heyday of ancient philosophy. At this stage, the center of philosophical thought was Athens, which is why it is also called Athenian. The main features of the classic stage:

• systematized teachings appear (original philosophical systems);
• shifting the attention of philosophers from the "nature of things" to questions of ethics, morality, problems of society and human thinking;

The most famous philosophers of the classical period are the ancient Greek thinkers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, as well as the sophist philosophers.

Sophists (translated from Greek - “wise men, experts”) - a group of ancient Greek enlighteners of the middle of the 5th first floor. 4th century BC. They can be called professional philosophers, since the sophists taught logic, oratory and other disciplines for a fee. They attached particular importance to the ability to convince and prove any position (even incorrect ones).

Features of the philosophy of the sophists:

• a turn from natural-philosophical problems to a person, society and problems of everyday life;
• denial of old norms and experience of the past, critical attitude to religion;
• recognition of man as "the measure of all things": free and independent of nature;

The Sophists did not create a single philosophical doctrine, but they aroused an interest in critical thinking and the human person.

Among the senior sophists are (2nd half of the 5th century BC): Gorgias, Protagoras, Hippias, Prodicus, Antiphon, Critias.

The younger sophists include: Lycophron, Alkidamont, Trasimachus.

Socrates (469-399 BC) - is considered the founder of classical philosophy. Like the sophists, he made man and his inner world the center of his teaching, but he considered their teaching barren and superficial. He questioned the existence of the gods, put reason, truth and knowledge at the forefront.

The main ideas of Socrates:

• Self-knowledge is at the same time the search for knowledge and virtue.
• Recognition of one's ignorance encourages the expansion of knowledge.
• There is a higher Mind spread throughout the Universe, and the human mind is only an insignificant fraction of it.

The essence of Socrates' life was his conversations with his students and discussions with his opponents. By comprehending the truth, he considered maieutics (the method he invented, in Greek means midwifery) - the search for truth through dialogue, irony and collective reflection. Socrates is also credited with inventing the inductive method leading from the particular to the general.

Since the philosopher preferred to express his teaching orally, his main provisions have come down to us in the retellings of Aristophanes, Xenophon and Plato.

Plato (Athenian) real name - Aristocles (427-347 BC). A student and follower of Socrates, he preached the moral meaning of his ideas all his life. He founded his own school in the suburbs of Athens, called the Academy, and laid the foundation for the idealistic trend in philosophy.

The basis of Plato's teachings are three concepts: "one" (the basis of all being and reality), mind and soul. The main question of his philosophy is the correlation of being and thinking, material and ideal.

According to the idealistic theory of Plato, the world is divided into 2 categories:

• world of becoming- the real, material world in which everything is changeable and imperfect. Material objects are secondary and are only a semblance of their ideal images;
• world of ideas or "eidos" - sensual images that are primary and comprehended by the mind. Each object, thing or phenomenon carries its own idea. The highest idea is the idea of ​​God, the creator of the world order (demiurge).

As part of his philosophy, Plato also developed the doctrine of virtue and created the theory of the ideal state.

Plato expounded his ideas mainly in the genre of letters and dialogues (the main character of which is Socrates). In total, his works include 34 dialogues. The most famous of them: "State", "Sophist", "Parmenides", "Theaetetus".

Plato's ideas had a huge impact both on subsequent philosophical schools of antiquity and on the thinkers of the Middle Ages and the New Age.

Aristotle (384 - 322 BC). Aristotle was a student of Plato and spent twenty years at his Academy. After the death of Plato, he served as the tutor of Alexander the Great for eight years, and in 335-334. BC. founded his own educational institution in the vicinity of Athens - the Lyceum, where he taught along with his followers. He created his own philosophical system based on logic and metaphysics.

Aristotle developed the main provisions of Plato's philosophy, but at the same time he criticized many of its aspects. Suppose he believed that the highest truth is not the contemplation of abstract "ideas", but the observation and study of the real world.

The main provisions of the philosophy of Aristotle:

• any thing is based on: matter and form (material essence and idea of ​​a thing);
• philosophy is the universal science of being, it provides a rationale for all sciences;
• the basis of science is sensory perception (opinion), but true knowledge can only be achieved with the help of reason;
• the search for the first or ultimate cause is crucial;
• the main reason for life is soul- the essence of being of any thing. There are: a lower (vegetative), middle (animal) and higher (reasonable, human) soul, which gives meaning and purpose to human life.

Aristotle rethought and generalized the philosophical knowledge of all previous ancient thinkers. For the first time, he systematized the available sciences, dividing them into three groups: theoretical (physics, mathematics, philosophy), practical (among which one of the main ones was politics) and poetic, regulating the production of various subjects). He also developed the theoretical foundations of ethics, aesthetics, social philosophy and the basic structure of philosophical knowledge. Aristotle is the author of the geocentric system in cosmology, which existed until the heliocentric system of Copernicus.

The teaching of Aristotle was the highest achievement of ancient philosophy and completed its classical stage.

Hellenistic-Roman stage (4th century BC - 3rd century AD)

This period takes its name from the Greek state - Hellas, but also includes the philosophy of Roman society. At this time, in ancient philosophy, there was a refusal to create fundamental philosophical systems and a transition to the problems of ethics, the meaning and values ​​of human life.

The final stage (3-6 centuries AD)

The period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD includes the philosophy of not only the Greek, but also the Roman world. At this stage, there was a crisis in Roman society, which was reflected in social thought. Interest in rational thinking faded, the popularity of various mystical teachings and the influence of Christianity grew.

The most influential teaching of this period was Neoplatonism, the most famous representative of which was Plotinus (205-270 AD).

Representatives of Neoplatonism were engaged in the interpretation of the teachings of Plato and criticized all subsequent movements. The main ideas of Neoplatonism were:

• Everything lower flows from the Higher. The highest is God, or some kind of philosophical principle. The higher cannot be comprehended by the mind, only through mystical ecstasy.
• The essence of knowledge is the knowledge of the divine principle that embodies the authenticity of being.
• The good is spirituality, liberation from the bodily, asceticism.

Useful sources

1. "Philosophy. Course of lectures” / B.N. Bessonov. - M.-LLC "Publishing House AST", 2002
2. "Philosophy. Short course "/ Moiseeva N.A., Sorokovikova V.I - St. Petersburg-Peter, 2004
3. "Philosophy: a textbook for universities" / V.F. Titov, I.N. Smirnov - M. Higher School, 2003
4. "Philosophy: a textbook for students of higher educational institutions" / Yu.M. Khrustalev - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 2008
5. "Philosophy: a textbook for higher educational institutions" / executive editor, Ph.D. V.P. Kokhanovsky - Rostov n / a: "Phoenix", 1998

Ancient philosophy: stages of development, representatives and features updated: October 30, 2017 by: Scientific Articles.Ru

Is ancient philosophy. Its ancestors are the ancient Greeks and Romans. In the arsenal of thinkers of that time, the “tools” of knowledge were subtle speculation, contemplation and observation. Ancient philosophers were the first to set themselves the eternal questions that concern a person: what is the origin of everything around, the existence and non-existence of the world, the unity of contradictions, freedom and necessity, birth and death, the purpose of a person, moral duty, beauty and sublimity, wisdom, friendship, love, happiness, human dignity. These issues are still relevant today. It was ancient philosophy that served as the basis for the formation and development of philosophical thought in Europe.

Periods of development of the philosophy of antiquity

Let us consider what main problems were solved by ancient philosophy, the stages of its development as a science.

In the development of ancient Greek and ancient Roman philosophical thought, four important stages can be conditionally distinguished.

The first, pre-Socratic, period falls on VII - V Art. BC. It is represented by the activities of the Elean and Miletus schools, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Pythagoras and his students, Democritus and Leukipus. They dealt with the laws of nature, the construction of the world and the Cosmos. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the pre-Socratic period, because it was the early ancient philosophy that largely influenced the development of culture, social life and Ancient Greece.

A characteristic feature of the second, classical, period (V-IV centuries) is the appearance of the sophists. They shifted their attention from the problems of nature and the cosmos to the problems of man, laid the foundations of logic and contributed to the development. In addition to the sophists, early ancient philosophy in this period is represented by the names of Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Protogoras.At the same time, Roman philosophy begins to take shape, in which three main directions are defined - epicureanism, stoicism and skepticism.

During the period from IV to II century BC. e. ancient philosophy goes through the third, Hellenistic, stage of development. At this time, the first philosophical systems, deep in content, appear, new philosophical schools appear - Epicurean, academic, perepatetics and others. Representatives of the Hellenistic period are moving to the solution of ethical problems and moralizing precisely at a time when Hellenic culture is in decline. The names of Epicurus, Theophrastus and Carneades represent this stage in the development of philosophy.

With the beginning of our era (I - VI centuries), ancient philosophy enters its last period of development. At this time, the leading role in belongs to Rome, under the influence of which Greece is also. The formation of Roman philosophy is greatly influenced by the Greek, in particular, its Hellenistic stage. In the philosophy of Rome, three main directions are formed - epicureanism, stoicism and skepticism. This period is characterized by the activities of such philosophers as Aristotle, Socrates, Protogoras, Plato.

The third-fourth centuries - the time of the emergence and development of a new direction in ancient philosophy - Neoplatonism, the founder of which was Plato. His ideas and views largely influenced the philosophy of early Christianity and the philosophy of the Middle Ages.

This is how ancient philosophy arose, the stages of development of which gave rise to interesting ideas: the idea of ​​a universal connection of all phenomena and things that exist in the world, and the idea of ​​infinite development.

It was at that time that epistemological trends were formed - Democritus, being, in essence, a materialist, suggested that the atom is the smallest particle of any substance. This idea of ​​his was ahead of the centuries and millennia. Plato, adhering to idealistic views, created a dialectical doctrine of separate things and general concepts.

The philosophy of ancient times became one of the independent ones. With its help, an integral picture of the world was formed. Ancient philosophy allows us to trace the entire path of the formation of theoretical thought, full of non-standard and bold ideas. Many of the questions that the ancient Greek and Roman philosophical minds tried to solve have not lost their topicality in our time.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS

ancient philosophy – a set of philosophical teachings created in the period of antiquity, that is, Greek and Greco-Roman antiquity.

The emergence and development of ancient philosophy was facilitated by the favorable socio-economic and political conditions prevailing in ancient Greece: political freedom, the development of crafts and trade, active political and civil life in city-states, etc. Ancient philosophy is closely connected with all aspects of ancient culture. The introduction of the term "philosophy" is attributed to Pythagoras.

During the period of existence of ancient philosophy, the foundations of all philosophical trends were laid, all the main styles and methods of philosophizing were formed. Ancient philosophy became the source of development for all subsequent Western European culture.

In its development, ancient philosophy went through three periods:

Pre-Socratic (Early Greek natural philosophy), 7th–5th century BC

Classical (Socratic), middle of the 5th - the end of the 4th century BC

Roman-Hellenistic, 3rd century BC - VI century AD

PRESOCRATIC PERIOD (EARLY GREEK NATURAL PHILOSOPHY)

The main representatives of this stage of ancient philosophy:

a) philosophers of the Miletus school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes)

b) Heraclitus of Ephesus;

c) philosophers of the Elea school (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea);

d) the school of the Pythagoreans (Pythagoras);

e) mechanistic materialists (Anaxagoras, Empedocles);

f) atomists (Democritus, Leucippus);

The most characteristic feature of early Greek philosophy is the pronounced cosmocentrism, that is, the focus of the first Greek philosophers were the problems of the universe - nature, the Cosmos, the world as a whole. The main merit of the philosophers of the early stage is that they formulated the fundamental philosophical question: what is the beginning of all things? This question is based on the following philosophical discovery: there are many things, they are born and perish, that is, they are transient; but nevertheless there is a single, indestructible, eternal basis of all things, from which they arise and into which they return. This fundamental principle of all things, the universal foundation of being, was called substance. All early Greek philosophers are trying to find this ontological foundation of all that exists. Moreover, it should be noted that the fundamental principle of the world is not given to us in sensory experience, but can be perceived only by the mind. This is how it is formed natural philosophical the method of cognition is a speculative, abstract interpretation of nature.

The most prominent pre-Socratic philosopher is Democritus- ancestor materialistic line in philosophy. According to the philosopher, all things consist of the smallest, unchanging, ever-existing physical particles - atoms. They are unlimited in number and indivisible. The atoms are separated by the void in which they move. The movement of atoms in the world void, their collision and adhesion is the simplest model of causal interaction, to which everything in the world is subject.

CLASSICAL (SOCRATIC PERIOD)

Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle belong to this stage.

The main difference of this stage: pronounced anthropocentrism and it is at this time that complex philosophical systems which cover all sections of philosophy (ontology, epistemology, anthropology, social philosophy).

Socrates(469 - 399 BC) - a bright representative of the classical period of ancient philosophy. Socrates did not leave significant philosophical works, but went down in history as an outstanding sage, philosopher-teacher, polemicist. Socrates conducted his philosophy and educational work in the midst of the people, in squares, markets in the form of an open conversation (dialogue, dispute), the topics of which were ethical problems affecting all people: good, evil, love, happiness, honesty, etc. That is why Socrates is considered the author of the concept anthropological ethics. Socrates was not understood by the official authorities and was perceived as a person who undermines the foundations of society, confuses the youth and does not honor the gods. For this he was in 399 BC. sentenced to death and took a bowl of poison.

Socrates' teaching is called ethical rationalism. Socrates believed that the essence of man is the soul (it is its presence that distinguishes man from all other creatures). Under the soul, Socrates understood our mind and morally oriented behavior. Hence the goal of life according to Socrates is to become morally perfect. The source of moral, spiritual perfection is knowledge. A person who knows what good is will never commit evil. Socrates believed that any evil, vice is committed from ignorance.

The great significance of the work of Socrates is that he discovered maieutics method. With the help of irony, leading questions, in the dialogue Socrates led the interlocutor first to freeing himself from an erroneous opinion, and then to the discovery, the birth of truth in the human soul.

Plato- another major philosopher of ancient Greece, a student of Socrates, the founder of his own philosophical school - the Academy, the founder of idealistic direction in philosophy. Plato is the first ancient Greek philosopher who left behind a number of fundamental philosophical works.

Plato is a representative objective idealism. He divides the whole world into: a) the sensible world ( "world of things") - it is temporary, changeable and does not really exist, and b) an ideal world ( "world of ideas") is the real world, eternal and permanent.

The central concept of Plato is idea(sample, model of a thing). According to Plato, every thing has its prototype (or idea). Moreover, Plato's ideas are not subjective representations of a person, they exist "by themselves", that is, objectively. Together they form an ideal world, which is also called metaphysical, supersensible, because it is "above the heavens, above the physical cosmos".

IN man Plato distinguishes between the immortal soul and the mortal, perishable body. Plato is a supporter of the theory of transmigration of the soul. The soul passes from one body to another until it is purified, that is, it is freed from everything sensual and material.

In problem solving knowledge Plato relies on the theory of the transmigration of the soul and the Socratic idea of ​​the existence of truth in the depths of the soul. Hence the main thesis of Plato's epistemology: "knowledge is recollection." True knowledge is the knowledge of ideas. The soul, with the help of reason, must “remember” what it saw in the world of ideas before birth.

In his social philosophy Plato creates the first model in the history of philosophy ideal state.

Aristotle- the last great philosopher of the classical period, a student of Plato, educator of Alexander the Great.

Aristotle divided philosophy into three types:

theoretical, studying the problems of being, various spheres of being, the origin of everything that exists, the causes of various phenomena; practical- about human activity, the structure of the state; poetic, where aesthetic issues are addressed .

Comprehending being, Aristotle speaks with criticism of philosophyPlato, according to which the surrounding world was divided into the “world of things” and the “world of pure ideas”, and the “world of things” was only a material reflection of the corresponding “pure idea”, and considered “pure ideas” without any connection with the surrounding reality. Aristotle refutes this and proves the existence of only a single and specifically defined thing (individual), which is the primary entity, and the species and genera of individuals are secondary.

Aristotle gave concept of being is the entity ( substance), which has the properties of quantity, quality, place, time, relationship, position, state, action, suffering, and the concept matter is a limited potency form.

Historical Significance of Aristotle in the fact that he made significant adjustments to a number of provisions of Plato's philosophy, criticizing the doctrine of "pure ideas"; gave a materialistic interpretation of the origin of the world and man; systematized and categorized philosophical knowledge; identified six types of state and gave the concept of an ideal type - polity (a combination of moderate oligarchy and moderate democracy); made a significant contribution to the development of logic.

ROMAN-HELLENISTIC PERIOD

The philosophy of ancient philosophy of this period was characterized by: the proximity of philosophy, philosophers and state institutions, the influence on ancient philosophy of the traditions and ideas of the philosophy of the conquered peoples of the East, North Africa, etc.

The philosophy of this period develops within the framework of schools, the main of which are: Epicurean, Stoics, Skeptics, Neoplatonists.

The main features characteristic of representatives of all schools: anthropocentrism, Problems personal ethics, the main of which is the problem of happiness and freedom from the outside world ( ataraxia): For Epicurus it is pleasure, by overcoming fears; For stoics- following fate and gaining power over one's own passions, for skeptics- refrain from judgment Neoplatonists- ascent to the One, merging with the divine essence.

KEY CONCEPTS OF THE THEME: cosmocentrism, anthropocentrism, natural philosophy; materialism, idealism, objective idealism; ethical rationalism, anthropological ethics; maieutics; substance.

SCHOOLS AND PERSONALIES FOR COMPULSORY STUDIES: Milesian school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes), Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.

The content of the article

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY- a set of philosophical teachings that arose in ancient Greece and Rome in the period from the 6th century BC. by 6th c. AD The conditional time limits of this period are considered to be 585 BC. (when the Greek scientist Thales predicted a solar eclipse) and 529 AD. (when the Neoplatonic school in Athens was closed by Emperor Justinian). The main language of ancient philosophy was ancient Greek, from the 2nd-1st centuries. began the development of philosophical literature also in Latin.

Sources of study.

Most of the texts of Greek philosophers are presented in medieval manuscripts in Greek. In addition, valuable material is medieval translations from Greek into Latin, Syriac and Arabic (especially if the Greek originals are irretrievably lost), as well as a number of manuscripts on papyri, partly preserved in the city of Herculaneum, covered with the ashes of Vesuvius - this last the source of information about ancient philosophy represents the only opportunity to study texts written directly in the ancient period.

Periodization.

In the history of ancient philosophy, several periods of its development can be distinguished: (1) pre-Socratics, or early natural philosophy; (2) classical period (sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle); (3) Hellenistic philosophy; (4) eclecticism at the turn of the millennium; (5) Neoplatonism. The late period is characterized by the coexistence of the school philosophy of Greece with Christian theology, which was formed under the significant influence of the ancient philosophical heritage.

Presocratics

(6 - mid-5th centuries BC). Initially, ancient philosophy developed in Asia Minor (Miletian school, Heraclitus), then in Italy (Pythagoreans, Eleatic school, Empedocles) and on mainland Greece (Anaxagoras, atomists). The main theme of early Greek philosophy is the origin of the universe, its origin and structure. Philosophers of this period were mainly researchers of nature, astronomers, and mathematicians. Believing that the birth and death of natural things does not happen by chance and not from nothing, they were looking for a beginning, or a principle that explains the natural variability of the world. The first philosophers believed that a single primary substance was such a beginning: water (Thales) or air (Anaksimen), infinite (Anaximander), the Pythagoreans considered the beginnings of the limit and the infinite, generating an ordered cosmos, cognizable by means of a number. Subsequent authors (Empedocles, Democritus) named not one, but several principles (four elements, an infinite number of atoms). Like Xenophanes, many of the early thinkers criticized traditional mythology and religion. Philosophers have thought about the causes of order in the world. Heraclitus, Anaxagoras taught about the rational principle ruling the world (Logos, Mind). Parmenides formulated the doctrine of true being, accessible only to thought. All the subsequent development of philosophy in Greece (from the pluralistic systems of Empedocles and Democritus to Platonism) to one degree or another demonstrates a response to the problems posed by Parmenides.

Classics of ancient Greek thought

(late 5th–4th century). The pre-Socratic period is replaced by sophistry. Sophists are itinerant paid teachers of virtue, in the center of their attention is the life of man and society. In knowledge, the sophists saw, first of all, a means to achieve success in life, they recognized rhetoric as the most valuable - the possession of a word, the art of persuasion. Sophists considered traditional customs and moral norms to be relative. Their criticism and skepticism in their own way contributed to the reorientation of ancient philosophy from the knowledge of nature to the understanding of the inner world of man. A striking expression of this "turn" was the philosophy of Socrates. He considered the knowledge of goodness to be the main thing, because. evil, according to Socrates, comes from people's ignorance of their true good. Socrates saw the way to this knowledge in self-knowledge, in caring for his immortal soul, and not about his body, in comprehending the essence of the main moral values, the conceptual definition of which was the main subject of Socrates' conversations. The philosophy of Socrates caused the emergence of the so-called. Socratic schools (cynics, megarics, cyrenaics), which differed in their understanding of Socratic philosophy. The most outstanding student of Socrates was Plato, the founder of the Academy, the teacher of another major thinker of antiquity - Aristotle, who founded the peripatetic school (Lyceum). They created holistic philosophical doctrines, in which they considered almost the entire range of traditional philosophical topics, developed philosophical terminology and a set of concepts, the basis for subsequent ancient and European philosophy. What was common in their teachings was: the distinction between a temporary, sensually perceived thing and its eternal, indestructible, comprehended by the mind essence; the doctrine of matter as an analogue of non-existence, the cause of the variability of things; idea of ​​a rational structure of the universe, where everything has its purpose; understanding of philosophy as a science of higher principles and the goal of all being; the recognition that the first truths are not proved, but directly comprehended by the mind. Both he and the other recognized the state as the most important form of human existence, designed to serve his moral improvement. At the same time, Platonism and Aristotelianism had their own characteristic features, as well as differences. The originality of Platonism was the so-called. theory of ideas. According to it, visible objects are only likenesses of eternal entities (ideas) that form a special world of true being, perfection and beauty. Continuing the Orphic-Pythagorean tradition, Plato recognized the soul as immortal, called to contemplate the world of ideas and life in it, for which a person should turn away from everything material and bodily, in which the Platonists saw the source of evil. Plato put forward a doctrine atypical for Greek philosophy about the creator of the visible cosmos - the god-demiurge. Aristotle criticized the Platonic theory of ideas for its "doubling" of the world. He himself proposed a metaphysical doctrine of the divine Mind, the primary source of the movement of the ever-existing visible cosmos. Aristotle laid the foundation for logic as a special doctrine of the forms of thinking and the principles of scientific knowledge, developed the style of a philosophical treatise that has become exemplary, which first considers the history of the issue, then the argument for and against the main thesis by putting forward aporias, and finally the solution of the problem is given.

Hellenistic philosophy

(late 4th century BC - 1st century BC). In the era of Hellenism, along with the Platonists and Peripatetics, the schools of the Stoics, Epicureans and Skeptics became the most significant. During this period, the main purpose of philosophy is seen in practical wisdom of life. Ethics, oriented not to social life, but to the inner world of an individual person, acquires a dominant importance. Theories of the universe and logic serve ethical purposes: to develop the right attitude towards reality in order to achieve happiness. The Stoics represented the world as a divine organism, permeated and completely controlled by the fiery rational principle, the Epicureans - as various formations of atoms, skeptics called for refraining from any statement about the world. Differently understanding the paths to happiness, they all similarly saw the bliss of a person in a serene state of mind, achieved by getting rid of false opinions, fears, inner passions that lead to suffering.

turn of the millennium

(1st century BC - 3rd century AD). In the period of late antiquity, the controversy between schools is replaced by a search for common grounds, borrowings and mutual influence. A tendency is developing to “follow the ancients”, to systematize, to study the heritage of the thinkers of the past. Biographical, doxographic, educational philosophical literature is gaining popularity. The genre of commentary on authoritative texts (primarily the “divine” Plato and Aristotle) ​​is developing especially. This was largely due to new editions of the works of Aristotle in the 1st century. BC. Andronikos of Rhodes and Plato in the 1st c. AD Thrasillus. In the Roman Empire, starting from the end of the 2nd century, philosophy became the subject of official teaching funded by the state. Stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius) was very popular among Roman society, but Aristotelianism (the most prominent representative is the commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias) and Platonism (Plutarch of Chaeronea, Apuleius, Albinus, Atticus, Numenius) gained more and more weight.

Neoplatonism

(3rd century BC - 6th century AD). In the last centuries of its existence, the dominant school of antiquity was the Platonic school, which adopted the influences of Pythagoreanism, Aristotelianism, and partly Stoicism. The period as a whole is characterized by an interest in mysticism, astrology, magic (neopythagoreanism), various syncretic religious and philosophical texts and teachings (Chaldean oracles, gnosticism, hermeticism). A feature of the Neoplatonic system was the doctrine of the origin of all things - the One, which is beyond being and thought and is comprehensible only in unity with it (ecstasy). As a philosophical trend, Neoplatonism was distinguished by a high level of school organization, a developed commentary and pedagogical tradition. Its centers were Rome (Plotinus, Porphyry), Apamea (Syria), where the school of Iamblichus was, Pergamum, where the school was founded by Iamblichus’ student Edesius, Alexandria (the main representatives are Olympiodorus, John Philopon, Simplicius, Aelius, David), Athens (Plutarch of Athens , Sirian, Proclus, Damascus). A detailed logical development of a philosophical system describing the hierarchy of the world born from the beginning was combined in Neoplatonism with the magical practice of "communication with the gods" (theurgy), an appeal to pagan mythology and religion.

In general, ancient philosophy is characterized by considering a person primarily within the framework of the system of the universe as one of its subordinate elements, highlighting the rational principle in a person as the main and most valuable, recognizing the contemplative activity of the mind as the most perfect form of true activity. The wide variety and richness of ancient philosophical thought determined its consistently high significance and enormous influence not only on medieval (Christian, Muslim), but also on all subsequent European philosophy and science.

Maria Solopova