ancient philosophy Ancient Greece.
Mythology was the origin of Greek philosophy. At the same time, cosmological myths, telling about the origin of the world and man, played the leading role. The works of Hesiod, Homer, Orpheus became a kind of basis for the scientific and philosophical understanding of the problems of the world.
On the first stage(pre-Socratics) (VI-V centuries BC) early Greek philosophers were undoubtedly influenced by mythological images. However, they have already tried to explain the phenomena of nature and society on the basis of natural causes, which a person is able to know with the help of reason, by carefully studying them through observation. In the center of ancient research lies the cosmos - the ideal creation. He is nothing but the huge body of a living human being. The origin and structure of the world, the properties of nature - this is the main object of interest to the early ancient Greek philosophers. Therefore, they were called "physicists", i.e. nature explorers. Today, early ancient Greek philosophy is called the philosophy of "physis" or natural philosophy. Natural philosophy is a science that studies the philosophy of nature, "the wisdom of nature."
Second phase(classical) (V-IV centuries BC) is associated with the names of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
On the third stage(Hellenism) (IV-III centuries BC), 3 main currents of Hellenistic philosophy arose: skepticism, epicureanism and stoicism.
The first ancient philosophical schools arose at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. The center of philosophy at that time was the city of Miletus. Therefore, the term is often used "Milesian school". The founder of the Milesian school is considered Thales of Miletus(K.VII -n.VI centuries BC). He was a philosopher, geometer, mathematician, astronomer. Thales is credited with determining the length of the year at 365 days and dividing the year into 12 months of thirty days each. Thales was the richest philosopher in Ancient Greece. In addition, he discovered some mathematical and geometric patterns (Thales' theorem). And not without reason Thales of Miletus became one of the semi-legendary ancient Greek "seven wise men." The significance of Thales for philosophical thought, first of all, was that he first posed the question in which he expressed the main task of philosophical knowledge: "What is everything?" Answering his question, Thales was guided by the cosmological concept. There are three main components of this concept:
1) The beginning of everything is water.
2) The earth floats on water, like a piece of wood.
3) Everything in the world is animated.
Water for Thales is the primary matter, which has material characteristics, the properties of a natural material object.
At the same time, Thales recognizes the existence of gods. But he believes that the gods exist in nature itself.
Another Milesian philosopher was Anaximander(VI century BC). Finding out the signs of the beginning, he considered them apeiron. "Apeiros" means immortal, boundless and endless. This is abstract, i.e. mental representation of the beginning of the world. Apeiron, being the beginning of the world, produces from itself all other natural phenomena. Due to the rotation of apeiron, opposite qualities are distinguished - wet and dry, cold and warm. Then these qualities mix with each other and natural objects arise: Earth (dry and cold), water (wet and cold), air (wet and warm), fire (dry and warm). Apeiron is not only the substantive, but also the genetic beginning of the cosmos. The universe looks like 3 hollow rings filled with fire. Each ring has holes through which fire can be seen. In the 1st ring, many holes are stars; in the 2nd - 1 hole - the Moon; in the 3rd - also 1 hole - the Sun. At the center of the universe is the motionlessly hanging Earth, which has the shape of a cylinder. Anaximander invented the elementary "sundial" - "gnomon", built a globe, drew a geographical map. All living things originated in the wet silt that once covered the earth. With its gradual drying, all living beings came to land. Among them were some fish-like creatures, in the womb of which people were born. When people grew up, this scale fell apart. The dialectic of Anaximander was expressed in the doctrine of the eternity of the movement of the apeiron, the separation of opposites from it. Anaximander's student was Anaximenes(VI century BC). Continuing the search for the beginning, in his work "On Nature" he argued that all things come from the air by rarefaction or condensation. When discharged, the air first becomes fire, then ether, and when it condenses, it becomes wind, clouds, water, earth and stone. Understanding the Universe. The earth has a flat shape and hangs motionless in the center of the universe, supported from below by air. The firmament moves around the Earth, like a cap turning around a person's head.
Thus, the thinkers of the Milesian school are characterized by the following common features:
1) the search for the beginning;
2) it is conceived monistically;
3) it is presented as a primary substance;
4) it is presented as living (hylozoism), i.e. in perpetual motion and transformation.
Close in his search for the beginning to the Milesians was Heraclitus Ephesus (late 6th - early 5th centuries BC). He belonged to a noble royal-priestly family, however, he renounced his rights and privileges in favor of his brother, and he himself led a hermitic life, spending the last years in a mountain cave. Heraclitus, the fundamental principle of the world, defined fire as a symbol of perpetual motion. Fire, according to Heraclitus, is eternal, but not absolute. He is constantly changing. The extinction of fire leads to the emergence of the universe. The ignition of fire leads to the destruction of the universe. The most important concept in the philosophy of Heraclitus is Logos. Logos is a kind of abstract universal law that governs the world and people, reigns in the Universe. The essence of the Logos itself is revealed in the principles:
1) the principle of struggle and unity of opposites;
2) the principle of constant variability (only development itself is constant): Everything flows, everything changes; The same river cannot be entered twice; Even the sun is new every day;
3) the principle of relativity (some people live at the expense of the death of others, they die at the expense of the life of others).
In the Logos, Heraclitus metaphorically formulated the idea of the dialectical nature of the whole world. For such complexity and inconsistency in the philosophy of Heraclitus was called "dark". He was also called the "weeping philosopher", because. every time he left the house and saw around him a lot of badly living people, he wept, pitying everyone.
Eleian school. Xenophanes. Lived at least 92 years. He expressed his work exclusively in poetic form. For the first time in the history of philosophy, he expressed the idea that all gods are the fruit of human fantasy, that people invented gods in their own image, attributing to them their physical traits and moral shortcomings: “The Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black; the Thracians / represent their gods / as blue-eyed and reddish ... But if bulls, horses and lions had hands and could draw and create works / art / like people with them, then horses would portray the gods as similar to horses, bulls as similar to bulls and would give /them/ bodies of the kind that they themselves have a bodily image, /each in his own way/”. Xenophanes opposed the gods of antiquity with one god who is one with nature: “Everything, i.e. the whole universe is one. One is God. The deity is spherical and not like a man. The deity sees and hears everything, but does not breathe; it is mind, thinking and eternity. Humans were not created by gods, but were born from earth and water.” Such a worldview of Xenophanes can be attributed to pantheism ( pantheism- a philosophical doctrine that identifies God with nature and considers nature as the embodiment of a deity), since for him "everything or the Universe is God." The anti-anthropomorphism and anti-polytheism of Xenophanes were associated with this. Xenophanes was a skeptic because he argued that one cannot know for sure!
Parmenides. His philosophical doctrine is set out in hexameters. Parmenides first poses two major philosophical problems: the question of the relationship between being and non-being and the question of the relationship between being and thinking. The whole philosophy of Parmenides is based on the dilemma: IS - NOT IS. IS - this is what cannot not be, this is being. Being is that which exists. NOT IS - it is, on the contrary, something that cannot be, i.e. non-existence. Non-existence is that which does not exist. The main proof of non-existence is that it cannot be known, cannot be expressed in words. Moreover, the thought of non-existence presupposes the existence of this non-existence, otherwise there would be nothing to think about. So non-existence exists. But if non-being exists, then in that case it is being. Therefore, the very idea of the existence of non-existence proves just the opposite - that non-existence does not exist. There is only that which is conceivable and expressible in words, i.e. being. And then it turns out that “thinking is the same as being”. It is in this phrase that the identity of thinking and being is formulated. Moreover, the most important existence of being lies in the fact that it can be comprehended.
Parmenides highlights the main features or properties of being:
1) being did not arise;
2) being is not subject to death;
3) being is integral, i.e. does not consist of many parts;
4) being is homogeneous, i.e. only;
5) being is motionless;
6) being is complete or complete.
All these properties of being necessarily follow from the non-existence of non-being. The teaching of Parmenides contradicts and objects to the teaching of Heraclitus, in whom everything is changeable: To think in contradictions, one must have two heads, otherwise contradictory thoughts cannot be understood. What happened after Parmenides? Obviously, it was necessary to further prove the unity and immobility of being. This was done Zeno from Elea (favorite student of Parmenides). Aristotle calls Zeno the inventor of dialectics. But this is subjective dialectics - the art of dialectical reasoning and dispute, the art of "refuting / the opponent / and by means of objections putting him in a difficult position." Zeno owns 4 judgments about the absence of movement, called aporias ( aporia–logical unsolvability of the problem): 1. A flying arrow. 2. Achilles and the tortoise. 3. Dichotomy. 4. Stadium. In these aporias, Zeno proves that there is no movement.
Pythagorean Union.Pythagoras born ca. 570 BC The Pythagoreans were engaged in the study of mathematics, geometry, astronomy, music, medicine and anatomy, and held many southern Italian cities under political control. The core of Pythagorean philosophy was the "doctrine of number". The philosophy of the Pythagoreans was often called "the magic of numbers." Number and harmony rule the world, because the world itself is ruled by certain patterns that can be calculated using numbers. Numbers, he taught, contain the mystery of things, and universal harmony is the perfect expression of God. The number of Pythagoras is not an abstract quantity, but an essential and active quality of the supreme Unit, i.e. God, the source of world harmony. Pythagoras was also the author of the philosophy of soul transmigration (transmigration), which was expressed sparingly.
Empedocles- philosopher, poet, orator, natural scientist, orator, religious preacher . (480-420s BC). He was a student of Parmenides, and also studied with the Pythagoreans.
He considered four elements to be the beginning of the world, which he called "the roots of all things." Fire, air, water and earth are eternal and unchanging, they have the qualities of being Parmenides. All other things come from mixing. However, the primary elements of Empedocles are passive, therefore all processes of the universe are determined by the struggle of two forces that do not have a material embodiment - Love (Harmony, Joy, Aphrodite) and Hatred (Strife, Enmity). Love unites dissimilar elements, Hatred separates them. All this goes through an endlessly repeating four-phase cycle: 1) love wins; 2) balance; 3) hate prevails over love; 4) balance. Thus, the world is characterized by an unchanging and constantly repeating "circle of time". Empedocles recognizes the ideas of metempsychosis (transmigration of souls). Empedocles was the last outstanding representative of Italian philosophy, who tried to reconcile the natural philosophical and actually philosophical teachings of his predecessors.
The last who tried to answer the question about the birth and structure of the universe from the position of the philosophy of "physics" were Leucippus and Democritus from Abder. Their names are associated with the birth of materialism.
The atomism of ancient philosophy is represented mainly by Democritus(c. 460 - c. 370 BC), who was a student of Leucippus. Democritus was nicknamed the "laughing philosopher", because he considered all human deeds worthy of laughter. Atomists, starting from the ideas of the Eleatics, recognized that the main philosophical categories are the concepts of being and non-being. But, unlike the Eleatics, the atomists believed that non-existence exists as well as being. Non-existence is emptiness, motionless, boundless, formless, having no density and a single space. Being is multiple and consists of their indivisible particles - atoms. Atom in translation from ancient Greek means "indivisible". Atoms are the smallest particles of being, and due to their smallness they cannot be perceived by human feelings. The atom has absolute density, does not contain emptiness. Atoms are in constant motion. The movement of atoms is possible because they are in the void. There is always some empty space between atoms, so atoms cannot collide with each other, much less turn into each other. Atoms differ in shape, size, movement, weight. The atoms themselves can be spherical, angular, concave, convex, and so on. Atoms themselves do not have the qualities of any substance. The quality of a thing arises only when certain atoms are combined. Atoms are eternal and unchanging, while things are transient and finite. Why? Atoms, being in constant motion, constantly create their new combinations, eliminating the old ones. The main law of the universe is necessity: "Nothing happens in vain, but everything is due to causality and necessity." Everything has its reason.
In the 5th century BC. economic, political and cultural upsurge experienced antique policies. The most important concept of ancient Greek life is the concept citizen. In the public mind, the problem of civic virtues becomes one of the main ones. With the flourishing of the democratic polis system, an urgent need arose for educated people capable of governing the state. Therefore, scientists appeared who, for a fee, began to teach citizens rhetoric (the art of eloquence), eristics (the art of arguing), and philosophy. The professors of philosophy were called sophists, i.e. connoisseurs, sages, masters of the word. However, in those days the word "sophist" acquired a somewhat offensive sound, because. the sophists were not interested in truth. They taught the art of deftly defeating the enemy in disputes. At the same time, the sophists played a positive role in the spiritual development of Hellas. The Sophists were practically not interested in natural philosophy. Their main merit was that they put the problem of man as a citizen of the polis at the center of worldview research.
Basic provision Protagora became a famous axiom: "Man is the measure of all things." The man-measure independently determines what is good and evil, what is true and what is untrue. Another important position of Protagoras - everything is true. Any conclusion is true. Everything is true in its own way, for there is neither absolute truth nor absolute moral values.
Another sophist philosopher Gorgias, speaking about the fact that nothing exists, just like Protagoras, he put forward the thesis that there is no absolute truth. But since there is no absolute truth, then everything is false.
Socrates(470/469 - 399 BC) - the first born Athenian philosopher. He left no work behind. Information about Socrates, his speeches and conversations have come down to us in the records of his students Plato and Xenophon. The problem of the meaning of life; What is the essence of the human personality? What is good and evil? - these questions are basic for Socrates. Therefore, Socrates is rightly considered the creator of the first moral philosophy in European history. The philosophy of Socrates is his life. By his own life and death, he showed that the real values of life do not lie in the external circumstances that people so strive for (wealth, high position, etc.). Even in his last words at the trial after the death sentence, Socrates regrets the too elementary understanding of the meaning of life by the inhabitants of Athens: “But it’s time to go from here, for me to die, for you to live, and which of us goes to the best, no one knows other than God." Socrates recognized the existence of objective truth, unlike the sophists. All fundamental concepts (good, evil, wisdom, beauty, ugliness, beauty, hatred, etc.) are given by God from above. From here we find an explanation for the famous aphorism of Socrates: "I know that I know nothing." The meaning of this aphorism is that absolute true knowledge exists, but it is available only to God, and people reveal the abilities of their souls in the pursuit of this knowledge. A person with the help of his mind must comprehend the fundamental concepts. For example, one cannot teach goodness to a person. He must identify it himself, remember. If a person does not do good, then he simply does not know what good is. Knowledge is a virtue. For the process of cognition, Socrates used the method of meieutics - "Socratic conversation". This method consisted in identifying definitions for general concepts and was a completely scientific method of revealing knowledge, which Aristotle later called induction. So Socrates taught logic. Socrates did not seem to have created a complete philosophical doctrine, but among his students he lit the fire of striving for truth. The activities of Socrates served as the basis for the ethical schools of ancient Greece: hedonic and cynical (cynic).
Hedonic school (“pleasure”, “pleasure”) or cyrenaiki (Cyrene), founded by Aristippus, a student of Socrates, who considered pleasure the only meaning of life. Subsequently, the Hedonic school merged with the Epicurean school founded by Epicurus in Athens in 306 BC. Its representatives taught that spiritual pleasures are preferable to bodily ones, and among the spiritual ones there are the most preferable ones (friendship, successful family life, correct political system). The ethics of hedonism led to immorality, when the criterion of good and evil was pleasure. So, after the lectures of Hegesias of Alexandria (“death preacher”), some listeners committed suicide. However, this can be understood: if the only purpose of life is pleasure, then it turns out to be meaningless, and therefore not worth living.
Cynics(dogs). The school was founded by a student of Socrates, Antisthenes (444-368 BC). Human needs are animal in nature. The ideal of cynic life: the boundless spiritual freedom of the individual; demonstrative disregard for any customs and generally accepted norms of life; renunciation of pleasure, wealth, power; contempt for fame, success, nobility. The motto of Diogenes of Sinop: “I am looking for a man!”, The meaning of which was to demonstrate to people their incorrect understanding of the essence of man. Plato called Diogenes "the mad Socrates". True happiness is freedom. The means to achieve freedom is asceticism - effort, hard work, which helps to dominate one's own desires. The ideal, the goal of life is autarchy - self-sufficiency. When a person comprehends the vanity of life, indifference to everything becomes the meaning of his existence (the meeting of Diogenes with Alexander the Great). The teaching of the Cynics is called the shortest road to virtue.
The most consistent student of Socrates was Plato(427-347 BC), born into a noble aristocratic family. At birth, he was given the name Aristocles. Plato is a nickname (wide, broad-browed). Almost all of Plato's works are written in the form of dialogues, the main character of which is Socrates. This is the so-called "Plato question" - it is not always clear which ideas expressed in the dialogues belong to Plato himself. But in his writings, Plato appears as the first thinker in European history, striving to create an integral philosophical system. From the position of his philosophical views, he developed a doctrine of almost all aspects of human life: about being, about the cosmos, about knowledge, about the soul, about God, about society, about morality. Plato's doctrine is called the theory of ideas. Each concept, according to Plato, corresponds to real being. There are not only separate things (for example, a round table, a spotted horse, Socrates, etc.), but also a special being corresponding to the concept of a round table, a spotted horse, Socrates, etc. This being of concepts Plato called ideas. Ideas reflect the general properties of objects, designated by Plato as nouns: “stolnost”, “horseness”, “humanity”, etc. The world of ideas is true being. He is eternal, permanent. An idea is a general concept of concrete objects. Separate objects arise and are destroyed (for example, a round table, a spotted horse, Socrates, etc.), but general ideas (a table in general, a horse in general, a person, etc.) remain. Properties of an idea: 1. An idea is the meaning of a thing, i.e. idea - the essence and cause of sensually perceived objects. 2. The idea of a thing is the integrity of all separate parts and manifestations of a thing. 3. The idea of a thing is the law of the emergence of individual manifestations of things. 4. The idea of a thing is in itself insubstantial, i.e. it is not perceived by the senses, but only thought. 5. The idea of a thing has its own existence. The world of eidos, the world of ideas is outside the physical space. Plato called this world Hyperurania. Along with the world of ideas, the material world opposite to it also exists primordially. It is fluid, constantly changing. The basis of the material world is the “chorus”, later Plato called it “matter” - an inert, motionless, rough phenomenon that spoils beautiful ideas. Consequently, the material world is only a stupid, distorted copy of the ideal world. Because of all this, Plato called the real world seeming being. Initially independent of each other existing world of ideas and choir - matter came into motion and created the universe thanks to the third principle - demiurge - the Platonic god. God-demiurge is not just a prime mover, with his energy he generates a certain phenomenon - the Soul of the World, which surrounds the entire physical world and spreads the divine energy inherent in it.
Aristotle(384-322 BC) built a whole system of proofs of the fallacy of the Platonic doctrine of ideas. Saying: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer", Aristotle agreed with Plato in one thing - in fact, every thing is the result of a combination of ideas and matter. The idea in this case is the meaning of the thing (according to Aristotle, the “essence of being” of the thing), matter is the means of the embodiment of the thing. The idea of a thing and the thing itself do not exist separately from each other. There is no world of "eidos" - the idea of a thing is in the thing itself. In his philosophy, Aristotle replaces the term "eidos" with the term "form", and "chore" with "matter". Every thing is a unity of form and matter. The cause of the union of form and matter is movement, or a moving cause for a purpose. The purpose of the emergence of any thing (for example, a table) is the real thing itself (table). Therefore, every thing is a materialized form with a causal purpose.
The form, movement, and purpose of every thing is generated by the eternal essence - Mind through his "will" and the power of his "thought". In fact, the Aristotelian Mind is God, but not a religious, but a philosophical God.
Main currents Hellenistic philosophy: Stoicism and Epicureanism.
Stoics(K. IV century) - followers of the philosophical school of Stoya (Athens), their ideal of life is equanimity and calmness, the ability not to respond to internal and external irritating factors. The Stoic school was founded by the philosopher Zeno from Kition ca. 300 BC In ancient Rome, the popular Stoics were the philosopher Seneca(c. 5 BC - 65 AD), his student Epictetus and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius(121 - 180 AD).
Epicureanism- a philosophical direction founded by the ancient Greek materialist Epicurus(341 - 270 BC), and in the Roman Empire represented Lucretius Karom(c. 99 - 55 BC).
The ethics of the Epicureans is hedonic (from the Greek. hedon- pleasure); pleasure was given importance to the purpose of life. But this is not sensual pleasure, not gross animal pleasure, but a state of spiritual stability ( ataraxia- Greek. equanimity, complete peace of mind), which only a sage can develop in himself, able to overcome the fear of death. “When we exist, death is not yet present; when death is present, then we do not exist” (Epicurus).
The doctrine of Epicurus was the last great materialistic school of ancient Greek philosophy.
The philosophy of ancient Greece is the greatest flowering of human genius. The ancient Greeks had the priority of creating philosophy as a science of the universal laws of the development of nature, society and thinking; as a system of ideas that explores the cognitive, value, ethical and aesthetic attitude of man to the world. Philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato are the founders of philosophy as such. Originating in ancient Greece, philosophy formed a method that could be used in almost all areas of life.
Greek philosophy cannot be understood without aesthetics - the theory of beauty and harmony. Ancient Greek aesthetics was part of undifferentiated knowledge. The beginnings of many sciences have not yet budded into independent branches from a single tree of human knowledge. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, who developed science in a practical aspect, the ancient Greeks preferred theory. Philosophy and philosophical approaches to solving any scientific problem underlie ancient Greek science. Therefore, it is impossible to single out scientists who dealt with "pure" scientific problems. In ancient Greece, all scientists were philosophers, thinkers and possessed knowledge of the main philosophical categories.
The idea of the beauty of the world runs through all ancient aesthetics. In the worldview of ancient Greek natural philosophers there is not a shadow of doubt about the objective existence of the world and the reality of its beauty. For the first natural philosophers, beauty is the universal harmony and beauty of the Universe. In their teaching, the aesthetic and cosmological are united. The universe for the ancient Greek natural philosophers is the cosmos (the universe, peace, harmony, decoration, beauty, dress, order). The idea of its harmony and beauty is included in the general picture of the world. Therefore, at first all sciences in ancient Greece were combined into one - cosmology.
Socrates
Socrates is one of the founders of dialectics as a method of searching and knowing the truth. The main principle is “Know yourself and you will know the whole world”, that is, the conviction that self-knowledge is the way to comprehend the true good. In ethics, virtue is equal to knowledge, therefore, reason pushes a person to good deeds. A man who knows will not do wrong. Socrates expounded his teaching orally, passing on knowledge in the form of dialogues to his students, from whose writings we learned about Socrates.
Having created the “Socratic” method of arguing, Socrates argued that truth is born only in a dispute in which the sage, with the help of a series of leading questions, makes his opponents first recognize the incorrectness of their own positions, and then the justice of their opponent’s views. The sage, according to Socrates, comes to the truth by self-knowledge, and then the knowledge of an objectively existing spirit, an objectively existing truth. The most important in the general political views of Socrates was the idea of professional knowledge, from which it was concluded that a person who is not professionally engaged in political activity has no right to judge it. This was a challenge to the basic principles of Athenian democracy.
Plato
Plato's doctrine is the first classical form of objective idealism. Ideas (among them the highest is the idea of the good) are the eternal and unchanging prototypes of things, of all transient and changeable being. Things are likeness and reflection of ideas. These provisions are set forth in Plato's writings "Feast", "Phaedrus", "State", etc. In Plato's dialogues we find a multifaceted description of beauty. When answering the question: “What is beautiful?” he tried to characterize the very essence of beauty. Ultimately, beauty for Plato is an aesthetically unique idea. A person can know it only when he is in a state of special inspiration. Plato's concept of beauty is idealistic. Rational in his teaching is the idea of the specificity of aesthetic experience.
Aristotle
A student of Plato - Aristotle, was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He is the founder of scientific philosophy, trays, the doctrine of the basic principles of being (possibility and implementation, form and matter, reason and purpose). His main areas of interest are man, ethics, politics, and art. Aristotle is the author of the books "Metaphysics", "Physics", "On the Soul", "Poetics". Unlike Plato, for Aristotle, the beautiful is not an objective idea, but the objective quality of things. Size, proportions, order, symmetry are the properties of beauty.
Beauty, according to Aristotle, lies in the mathematical proportions of things “therefore, to comprehend it, one should study mathematics. Aristotle put forward the principle of proportionality between a person and a beautiful object. Beauty in Aristotle acts as a measure, and the measure of everything is the person himself. In comparison with it, a beautiful object should not be "excessive". In these arguments of Aristotle about the truly beautiful, there is the same humanistic principle that is expressed in ancient art itself. Philosophy responded to the needs of the human orientation of a person who broke with traditional values and turned to reason as a way of understanding problems.
Pythagoras
In mathematics, the figure of Pythagoras stands out, who created the multiplication table and the theorem that bears his name, who studied the properties of integers and proportions. The Pythagoreans developed the doctrine of the "harmony of the spheres". For them, the world is a harmonious cosmos. They connect the concept of beauty not only with the general picture of the world, but also, in accordance with the moral and religious orientation of their philosophy, with the concept of good. Developing the issues of musical acoustics, the Pythagoreans posed the problem of the ratio of tones and tried to give its mathematical expression: the ratio of the octave to the fundamental tone is 1:2, fifths - 2:3, fourths - 3:4, etc. From this follows the conclusion that beauty is harmonious.
Where the main opposites are in a "proportionate mixture", there is a blessing, human health. Equal and consistent in harmony does not need. Harmony appears where there is inequality, unity and complementarity of the diverse. Musical harmony is a special case of world harmony, its sound expression. "The whole sky is harmony and number", the planets are surrounded by air and attached to transparent spheres. The intervals between the spheres strictly harmonically correlate with each other as the intervals of tones of a musical octave. From these ideas of the Pythagoreans came the expression "Music of the Spheres". The planets move by making sounds, and the pitch of the sound depends on the speed of their movement. However, our ear is not able to catch the world harmony of the spheres. These ideas of the Pythagoreans are important as evidence of their belief that the universe is harmonious.
Democritus
Democritus, who discovered the existence of atoms, also paid attention to the search for an answer to the question: “What is beauty?” He combined the aesthetics of beauty with his ethical views and with the principle of utilitarianism. He believed that a person should strive for bliss and complacency. In his opinion, "one should not strive for any pleasure, but only for that which is associated with the beautiful." In the definition of beauty, Democritus emphasizes such a property as measure, proportionality. To the one who transgresses them, "the most pleasant can become unpleasant."
Heraclitus
In Heraclitus, the understanding of beauty is permeated with dialectics. For him, harmony is not a static balance, as for the Pythagoreans, but a moving, dynamic state. Contradiction is the creator of harmony and the condition for the existence of the beautiful: what divergent converges, and the most beautiful harmony comes from opposition, and everything happens due to discord. In this unity of struggling opposites, Heraclitus sees an example of harmony and the essence of beauty. For the first time, Heraclitus raised the question of the nature of the perception of beauty: it is incomprehensible with the help of calculation or abstract thinking, it is known intuitively, through contemplation.
Hippocrates
Known works of Hippocrates in the field of medicine and ethics. He is the founder of scientific medicine, the author of the doctrine of the integrity of the human body, the theory of an individual approach to the patient, the tradition of keeping a medical history, works on medical ethics, in which he paid special attention to the high moral character of the doctor, the author of the famous professional oath that everyone who receives medical diploma. His immortal rule for doctors has survived to this day: do no harm to the patient.
With the medicine of Hippocrates, the transition from religious and mystical ideas about all the processes associated with human health and disease to the rational explanation begun by the Ionian natural philosophers was completed. The medicine of the priests was replaced by the medicine of doctors, based on accurate observations. The doctors of the Hippocratic school were also philosophers.
“Know thyself and thou shalt know the whole world,” said Socrates. Isn't that what books and psychologists teach us today? Philosophers of Greece came to such conclusions as early as the 7th-6th centuries BC. “Truth is born in a dispute”, mathematics, harmony, medicine - the foundation of modern sciences was laid by the teachers of many great people of Ancient Greece. Which philosopher did the great Alexander the Great learn from?
Socrates deeply despised luxury. Walking around the bazaar and marveling at the abundance of goods, he would say: “How many things in the world can you do without!”
In public life, this stage is characterized as the highest rise of Athenian democracy in the 3rd-4th-2nd centuries BC. - Hellenistic stage. (The decline of the Greek cities and the establishment of the rule of Macedonia) IV I century BC. - V, VI centuries AD - Roman philosophy. Greek culture VII - V centuries. BC. - this is the culture of a society in which the leading role belongs to slave labor, although free labor was widely used in certain industries that required high qualifications of producers, such as arts and crafts.
Socrates is one of the founders of dialectics as a method of searching and knowing the truth. The main principle is “Know yourself and you will know the whole world”, that is, the conviction that self-knowledge is the way to comprehend the true good. In ethics, virtue is equal to knowledge, therefore, reason pushes a person to good deeds. A man who knows will not do wrong. Socrates expounded his teaching orally, passing on knowledge in the form of dialogues to his students, from whose writings we learned about Socrates.
Plato was not only a philosopher, but also an Olympic champion. Twice he won competitions in pankration - a mixture of boxing and wrestling without rules.
Having created the “Socratic” method of arguing, Socrates argued that truth is born only in a dispute in which the sage, with the help of a series of leading questions, forces his opponents to recognize first the incorrectness of their own positions, and then the justice of their opponent’s views. The sage, according to Socrates, comes to the truth by self-knowledge, and then the knowledge of an objectively existing spirit, an objectively existing truth. The most important in the general political views of Socrates was the idea of professional knowledge, from which it was concluded that a person who is not professionally engaged in political activity has no right to judge it. This was a challenge to the basic principles of Athenian democracy.
Plato's doctrine is the first classical form of objective idealism. Ideas (among them the highest - the idea of good) - the eternal and unchanging prototypes of things, all transient and changeable being. Things are likeness and reflection of ideas. These provisions are set forth in Plato's writings "Feast", "Phaedrus", "State", etc. In Plato's dialogues we find a multifaceted description of beauty. When answering the question: “What is beautiful?” he tried to characterize the very essence of beauty. Ultimately, beauty for Plato is an aesthetically unique idea. A person can know it only when he is in a state of special inspiration. Plato's concept of beauty is idealistic. Rational in his teaching is the idea of the specificity of aesthetic experience.
Alexander the Great later said of his teacher: "I honor Aristotle on a par with my father, because if I owe my life to my father, then Aristotle is what gives her a price."
A student of Plato - Aristotle, was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He is the founder of scientific philosophy, trays, the doctrine of the basic principles of being (possibility and implementation, form and matter, reason and purpose). His main areas of interest are man, ethics, politics, and art. Aristotle is the author of the books "Metaphysics", "Physics", "On the Soul", "Poetics". Unlike Plato, for Aristotle, the beautiful is not an objective idea, but the objective quality of things. Size, proportions, order, symmetry are the properties of beauty.
Beauty, according to Aristotle, lies in the mathematical proportions of things “therefore, to comprehend it, one should study mathematics. Aristotle put forward the principle of proportionality between a person and a beautiful object. Beauty in Aristotle acts as a measure, and the measure of everything is the person himself. In comparison with it, a beautiful object should not be "excessive". In these arguments of Aristotle about the truly beautiful, there is the same humanistic principle that is expressed in ancient art itself. Philosophy responded to the needs of the human orientation of a person who broke with traditional values and turned to reason as a way of understanding problems.
The name Pythagoras means "the one announced by the Pythia". The soothsayer from Delphi not only told her father about the birth of her son, but also said that he would bring so much benefit and good to people that no one else had and would not bring in the future.
In mathematics, the figure of Pythagoras stands out, who created the multiplication table and the theorem that bears his name, who studied the properties of integers and proportions. The Pythagoreans developed the doctrine of the "harmony of the spheres". For them, the world is a slender cosmos. They connect the concept of beauty not only with the general picture of the world, but also, in accordance with the moral and religious orientation of their philosophy, with the concept of good. Developing the issues of musical acoustics, the Pythagoreans posed the problem of the ratio of tones and tried to give its mathematical expression: the ratio of the octave to the fundamental tone is 1:2, fifths - 2:3, fourths - 3:4, etc. From this follows the conclusion that beauty is harmonious.
Where the main opposites are in a "proportionate mixture", there is a blessing, human health. Equal and consistent in harmony does not need. Harmony appears where there is inequality, unity and complementarity of the diverse. Musical harmony is a special case of world harmony, its sound expression. "The whole sky is harmony and number", the planets are surrounded by air and attached to transparent spheres.
The intervals between the spheres strictly harmonically correlate with each other as the intervals of tones of a musical octave. From these ideas of the Pythagoreans came the expression "Music of the Spheres". The planets move by making sounds, and the pitch of the sound depends on the speed of their movement. However, our ear is not able to catch the world harmony of the spheres. These ideas of the Pythagoreans are important as evidence of their belief that the universe is harmonious.
As a remedy for baldness, Hippocrates prescribed pigeon droppings to his patients.
Democritus, who discovered the existence of atoms, also paid attention to the search for an answer to the question: “What is beauty?” He combined the aesthetics of beauty with his ethical views and with the principle of utilitarianism. He believed that a person should strive for bliss and complacency. In his opinion, "one should not strive for any pleasure, but only for that which is associated with the beautiful." In the definition of beauty, Democritus emphasizes such a property as measure, proportionality. To the one who transgresses them, "the most pleasant can become unpleasant."
In Heraclitus, the understanding of beauty is permeated with dialectics. For him, harmony is not a static balance, as for the Pythagoreans, but a moving, dynamic state. Contradiction is the creator of harmony and the condition for the existence of beauty: what is divergent converges, and the most beautiful harmony comes from opposition, and everything happens due to discord. In this unity of struggling opposites, Heraclitus sees an example of harmony and the essence of beauty. For the first time, Heraclitus raised the question of the nature of the perception of beauty: it is incomprehensible with the help of calculation or abstract thinking, it is known intuitively, through contemplation.
Parmenides was born into a noble and wealthy family. His youth was spent in fun and luxury. When the future philosopher and politician was fed up with pleasures, he began to contemplate "the clear face of truth in the silence of sweet teaching."
Known works of Hippocrates in the field of medicine and ethics. He is the founder of scientific medicine, the author of the doctrine of the integrity of the human body, the theory of an individual approach to the patient, the tradition of keeping a medical history, works on medical ethics, in which he paid special attention to the high moral character of the doctor, the author of the famous professional oath that everyone who receives medical diploma. His immortal rule for doctors has survived to this day: do no harm to the patient.
With the medicine of Hippocrates, the transition from religious and mystical ideas about all the processes associated with human health and disease to the rational explanation begun by the Ionian natural philosophers was completed. The medicine of the priests was replaced by the medicine of doctors, based on accurate observations. The doctors of the Hippocratic school were also philosophers.
The central representative of the school under consideration is Parmenides (c. 540 - 470 BC), a student of Xenophanes. Parmenides expounded his views in the work “On Nature”, where his philosophical doctrine is expounded in allegorical form. In his work, which has come down to us incompletely, it tells about the visit of a young man by a goddess who tells him the truth about the world.
Parmenides sharply distinguishes the true truth comprehended by the mind and opinion, based on sensory knowledge. According to him, the existent is motionless, but it is mistakenly considered as mobile. Parmenides' doctrine of being goes back to the line of materialism in ancient Greek philosophy. However, his material existence is motionless and does not develop, it is spherical.
Zeno of Elea participated in a conspiracy against the tyrant Niarchus. During the interrogation, in response to the demand to extradite accomplices, according to some sources, he bit off the ear of the tyrant, according to others, he bit off his own tongue and spat it in the face of Niarhu.
Zeno was a student of Parmenides. His akme (heyday of creativity - 40 years) falls on the period around 460 BC. e. In his writings, he improved the argumentation of the teachings of Parmenides on being and knowledge. He became famous for clarifying the contradictions between reason and feelings. He expressed his views in the form of dialogues. He first proposes the opposite of what he wants to prove, and then proves that the opposite of the opposite is true.
Existing, according to Zeno, has a material character, it is in unity and immobility. He gained fame thanks to attempts to prove the absence of multiplicity and movement in beings. These methods of proof are called epiherm and aporia. Of particular interest are the aporias against movement: "Dichotomy", "Achilles and the Tortoise", "Arrow" and "Stadium".
In these aporias, Zeno sought to prove not that there is no movement in the sensory world, but that it is conceivable and inexpressible. Zeno raised the question of the complexity of the conceptual expression of movement and the need to apply new methods, which later became associated with dialectics.
The totality of philosophical teachings that developed in ancient Greek society at the end of the 7th century. BC. - The beginning of the VI century. AD as an integral and original phenomenon, a kind of example not only of the spiritual culture of ancient Greece, but also of the philosophical thought of mankind as a whole. Features of the emergence and formation of G.f. to a certain extent due to the influence of the philosophical ideas of the peoples of Africa and Western Asia, to a greater extent - Babylon and Egypt, to a lesser extent
Lydia, Persia, etc. The entire period of the existence of G.f. can be roughly divided into three stages. On the first (pre-Socratic) - the end of the 7th century.
Middle of the 5th century BC. - Dominated by natural philosophical issues; in the second (middle of the 5th century - 4th century BC), starting with the sophists as a transitional link to the second stage, and Socrates, the focus shifts to the person. In addition, G.f. gradually transforms from monocentric to field centric. So, in Plato and Aristotle, philosophy is no longer only human-centric, but also sociocentric and (already on a new level compared with the pre-Socratics and in a different sense) cosmocentric. Finally, at the third stage, which began after Aristotle, in G.f. priority becomes philosophical-historical, anthropological, moral-ethical and religious-spiritual issues. Philosophy does not begin suddenly in different regions of ancient Greece and develops unevenly. It arises in Miletus as a key Ionian city
Asia Minor, and not in the autochthonous Greek agricultural communities of the south of the Balkan Peninsula. The combination of favorable material (at that time the city of Miletus was a rich industrial and commercial center) and spiritual (proximity to Eastern philosophy and culture in general), the intensity, tension and clarity of the manifestation of social processes also determined the content richness, speed of development, diversity and classical perfection of the forms of G. F. . on the periphery - the Milesian school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes), people from Ephesus (Heraclitus), Colophon (Xenophanes), Samos (Pythagoras, lemon balm), Elea (Parmenides, Zeno), Klazomen (Anaxagoras). Only from the middle of the 5th c. BC. (as Attica turns from a backward agricultural country into an economically powerful and politically advanced country, headed by such a powerful economic, socio-political and spiritual center as Athens), the focus of the development of philosophical thought is shifting to its own Greek land, however, and now outside the Balkans several G.f. cells are saved. - Abdera (Leucippus, Democritus, Protagoras), Sicily (Empedocles, sophistic school), etc.
At this stage, the semantic orientation of the representatives of G.f. Cosmological problems dominate in the pre-Socratics, the thinkers of this period appear in the role of peculiar prophets initiated into the sacred, and philosophy has not yet separated from the syncretic complex of then human knowledge about oneself and the world around. The first representatives of G. ph., starting with Thales, who was another of the semi-legendary seven wise men and at the same time the first of the philosophers, concentrated their efforts on the search for that substratum, the persore, from which everything happens and into which everything returns, that is, the origin of origin , existence and change of all things. At the same time, substance was interpreted not only and not so much as motionless, dead matter, but as substance, alive as a whole and in its parts, a kind of organic integrity, endowed with soul and movement, is also divided into the same integrity. Among the representatives of the Milesian school, Thales considered water to be such a first principle, Anaximander - aleuron (indefinite, limitless, inexhaustible), Anaximenes - air; Heraclitus from Ephesus - fire, Anaxagoras - mind (nus), Empedocles - all four elements: fire, air, water and earth, acquire from him the status of primary elements ("roots of all things"). From the combination of these "roots" in different proportions, thanks to love and enmity, all manifestations of beings arise, including living organisms as the highest level of the latter. And, finally, Xenophanes considered the "earth" or the cosmos as a whole, interpreted as a deity, to be the primary source.
Metaphysical monism, outlined in general terms in the monotheistic theology of the pantheistic persuasion of Xenophanes, found a specific development in the schools of the Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Melissus), where it was no longer about these or those sensually given dimensions of being (Archytas
Tarentsky), but about their own intelligible being, and the Pythagoreans (Pythagoras, Philolaus, Alcmaeon), who laid the foundations of monadology, made one of the first attempts at a systematic analysis of the problems of harmony, measure, number. The atomistics of Leucippus and Democritus, already several years younger than Socrates, can be considered a kind of completion of the boards of the WSC cosmology. At the same time, at the final stage of the first stage, G.f. in the philosophy of the sophists (Protagoras, Hippias, Gorgias, Prodicus, etc.) an anthropological turn took place, put in the center of philosophical attention is no longer the first principle, the cosmos and being as such, but man. Programmatic in this sense is the thesis of Protagoras that it is "man is the measure of all things - existing, that they exist, non-existent - that they do not exist." However, creating opportunities for a radical rethinking of the place and role of man in the universe, the nature of the relationship between subject and object in the process of cognition, the sophists have not yet realized these opportunities. Emphasizing the meaning of a person, the sophists focus their attention not on the subjective, but on the subjective characteristics of its sensory-objective and cognitive activity, on the relativity of all ideas and concepts of people about the world of nature and society. The natural consequence of this was the degeneration of the Sophian philosophers into sophistry, into individualism, subjectivism and relativism in all branches of human knowledge and culture in general.
Considering (like the sophists) in the meaning of the fundamental problem of philosophy not cosmological, but anthropological, Socrates, unlike the sophists, avoided relativism and individualism, showing exactly what, with all the diversity of people, their statuses, lifestyles, abilities and destinies, unites them can be expressed by the corresponding single and general concept and reflects the objective meaning of this concept. The main efforts of Socrates are focused primarily on finding out "what is pious and what is wicked, beautiful and ugly, fair and unfair" (Xenophon. Memoirs., 11.16). He saw the way to solving these problems in overcoming arbitrary interpretation concepts in the process of comprehending the truth, since it is true knowledge, in his opinion, that is the prerequisite for moral behavior and an authentic understanding of the beautiful, that is, the kalokagatiya way of life, to which everyone should strive.
The ethics of Socrates is rationalistic, based on knowledge, and yet, according to Socrates, the title must include a moral component as a constitutive principle, without which they become just a thought. Among the Socratic schools, the Megarian (founded by Euclid) and, to a certain extent, the Elido-Eretrian schools received significant influence from the Eleatics and Sophists, but sought to overcome relativism. Many supporters also had the Socratic schools of the Cyrenaics (Aristipus, Euhemerus, etc.), which professed hedonism and atheism, and the Cynics (Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinopsky, Dion Chrysostom), which recognized autarky, internal independence and self-sufficiency of the individual, neglected the achievements of civilization and often led a miserable existence. Plato, preserving and developing the human-centeredness of philosophizing characteristic of Socrates, for the first time in G. Ph., made on this basis a universal generalizing synthesis of philosophical knowledge, creating their integral system, differentiated by time according to a wide set of teachings. All of them are distinguished by a clear anthropo-social determinism, which sometimes borders on anthropomorphism. So, even Plato's cosmogony, based to a large extent on his teaching about the cosmic soul, interprets the latter by analogy with the human soul, although Plato himself, on the contrary, interpreted individual human souls as the personification of the cosmic soul, that is, derivatives of it. The unconditional anthroposociocultural conditioning and direction of Plato's philosophy is also manifested in his teaching about the intelligible world of ideas, the comprehension of which makes it possible to cognize and achieve truth, virtue and beauty, as well as in the first place that the doctrine of society, politics and the state occupies in his system.
Plato's teachings were directly developed by his students and supporters, whom Plato united into a school called the Academy. In addition, the ancient Academy (348-270 BC) is also distinguished as the middle (315-215 BC, the most important representatives are Arkesy-lai and Karnead) and the new one (160 BC - 529 AD). .e., Cicero, Mark Terence Varro) Academy. As a relatively autonomous formation, they also single out "middle" (in contrast to Neoplatonism) Platonism (representatives - Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-120) and Thrasillus). Sociocultural flavor also determines the originality of philosophy (first a student, and later the ideological opponent of Plato - Aristotle), one of the main subjects of which is the mental and spiritual, primarily diverse cognitive activity of a person, focused on the development of problems of logic as a general methodology of scientific knowledge.
However, the ontological teaching of Aristotle, primarily his "First Philosophy", "Metaphysics", with substantiation, systematic development and application of the principle of the relationship between form and matter, is permeated and largely determined by the very anthropo-social intentions. After all, the bearer of the active, leading principle, and, consequently, the creator of all things, arises the subject, which, however, appears in Aristotle not only and not so much in an authentic, but in a transformed form, for example, in the form of the prime mover, the demiurge. In addition, the doctrine of man, where the soul is interpreted as the form of the body, and the mind - as the form of the soul, is not the main area for using the principle of the relationship of matter and form. This approach, in turn, forms the foundation of the moral and socio-political theory of Aristotle. After all, his ethics are based on the interpretation of man as a being, rational in nature; the improvement of the latter is considered by him as the only way to achieve happiness - the highest good, the main goal of human life. At the same time, ethical virtues are based on an understanding of action, dianoetic virtues are based on rational thinking, while the realization of both varieties of virtues involves the education of the will. With ethics, according to Aristotle, the doctrine of society, politics and the state is inextricably linked, since a person, being a "political animal", can achieve moral perfection only in a society of his own kind, and organized into a state.
In 455 BC Aristotle organized his followers into a school called the Peripatetic, or Lyceum. Among the first peripatetics are Theophrastus, Dicaearchus, Aristoxenus; among the later ones - Strato, Aristarchus of Samos, Claudius Ptolemy, Galen, Andronicus of Rhodes.
Finally, at the third, final stage, G.f. one of the main subjects of philosophical thinking is already the culture of ancient Greece as a certain integrity with an original spiritual world. Therefore, at this stage, the problems of the philosophy of history, spirituality, freedom and morality come to the fore in the general system of philosophical knowledge, after all the external conditions of the late history of ancient Greek society become unfavorable, the attention of people, including philosophers, gradually focuses on their inner, spiritual world. It is this shift that is characteristic, in particular, for the three main directions of Hellenistic philosophy - Epicureanism, Stoicism and skepticism - which are characterized not only by the emergence (with the loss of political independence by Greek, in particular Athenian, policies) of a new, cosmopolitan thinking, but also more and more noticeable predominance of ethical issues. In the context of the latter, social ethics is gradually being forced out of the center to the periphery, and its place is occupied by individual ethics, addressed directly to the individual. The issue of natural philosophy and logic does not go unnoticed here either, but they, firstly, fade into the background, and secondly, they are also filled with sociocultural content to one degree or another. So, Epicurus, who founded his own school (“The Garden of Epicurus”) and became the founder of the corresponding direction of late G. ph., being a follower of Democritus atomism, at the same time not only recognizes free deviation behind the movement of atoms, thus briefly justifying the freedom of human will, but also fills atomistics, as the young Marx well showed, with social meaning. A similar trend is also observed in another course of the late G.f. - Stoicism. If early Stoicism (Zeno Kitionsky, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, III-II centuries BC) still pays a lot of attention to theoretical philosophy (logic and physics), although even in Chrysippus ethics is the central part of the philosophical system, then at the stage of the middle Stop (Panetius, Posidonius, II-I centuries BC) Panetius emphasizes the practical nature of all philosophy. Representatives of late Stoicism (Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, monsoons Rufus, Hierocles-Stoic - 1-2 centuries AD) the problems of logic and physics in themselves generally bypass quite a bit, since they are increasingly gravitating towards sacralization, religious moralizing, or at least seek to console people by means of worldly wisdom.
The third main direction of writing by Aristotle and G.f. - Skepticism (Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, Carneades, Aenesidemus, Agrippa, Sextus Empiricus - IV centuries BC - II century AD) generally proved the impossibility of true knowledge and on this basis - the need for content (epoch) from any -What judgment, the desire for apathy and ataraxia (equanimity). If a person is forced to act, then they should be based on such "non-strict" grounds as probability, habit and tradition.
Finally, for the final, transitional from the ancient G.f. medieval philosophy is characterized by the dominance of not purely philosophical, but religious-philosophical and, in fact, religious searches.
The origin of philosophy in Ancient Greece takes place between the 8th and 6th centuries. In that era, Greece was going through a period of colonization, or apoitization (apoitia is an overseas territory of the Greek polis, practically independent of the metropolis). Huge spaces, such as Graecia Magna (Italy) surpassed their Greek cradle in territory and gave birth to the first philosophers, because Athenian philosophy became the second, subsequent step in the development of Greek thought. The worldview was strongly influenced by the structure of life in the policies and the classic type of slavery. It was the existence of the latter in ancient Greece that played a huge role in the division of labor, and allowed, as Engels noted, a certain stratum of people to engage exclusively in science and culture.
Therefore, the philosophy of Ancient Greece has a certain specificity in relation to the modern philosophy of the Ancient East. First of all, since the time of Pythagoras it has emerged as a separate discipline, and since Aristotle it has gone hand in hand with science, distinguished by rationalism and separated itself from religion. During the Hellenistic period, it becomes the basis of such sciences as history, medicine and mathematics. The main "slogan" and the embodiment of the ideal of education of ancient Greek philosophy (however, as well as culture) is "kalios kai agatos" - the combination of physical beauty and health with spiritual perfection.
Philosophy in Ancient Greece raised two main themes - ontology and epistemology, as a rule, opposing the concepts of mind and activity (the latter was considered an occupation of the second, "lower" grade, in contrast to pure contemplation). Ancient Greek philosophy is also the birthplace of such methodological systems as metaphysical and dialectical. She also adopted many categories of the philosophy of the Ancient East, especially Egypt, and introduced them into the general European philosophical discourse. The early philosophy of ancient Greece is conditionally divided into two periods - archaic and pre-Socratic.
The philosophy of ancient Greece is characterized by the cosmocentrism of mythopoetic works, in which epic poets described the emergence of the world and its driving forces in mythological images. Homer systematized myths and sang heroic morality, and Hesiod embodied the history of the origin of the world in the figures of Chaos, Gaia, Eros and other gods. He was one of the first to present in literary form the myth of the "golden age", when justice and labor were valued, and began to mourn the fate of the contemporary "Iron Age", the rule of the fist, a time where force gives birth to law. It is traditionally believed that the so-called “seven wise men” played a huge role in shaping the philosophical thought of that time, who left behind wise sayings or “gnomes” dedicated to such moral principles as moderation and harmony.
In the pre-Socratic period, the philosophy of ancient Greece is characterized by the presence of several philosophical natural philosophies, distinguished by pragmatism, the desire to search for a single beginning and the first scientific discoveries, such as astronomical instruments, maps, sundial. Almost all of its representatives came from the merchant class. So, he studied solar eclipses and considered water to be the origin of everything, Anaximander is the creator of the map of the Earth and the model of the celestial sphere, and he called the origin "apeiron" - the primary matter devoid of qualities, the contradictions of which gave rise to the emergence of the world, and his student Anaximenes believed that the only cause of everything is air . The most famous representative of the Ephesian school is Heraclitus, nicknamed the Weeping One. He put forward the idea that the world was not created by anyone, but in its essence is a fire, now flaring up, then going out, and also argued that if we know through perception, then the basis of our knowledge is the logos.
The philosophy of ancient Greece, represented by the Eleatic and Italic schools, is based on slightly different categories. Unlike the Milesians, the Eleatics are aristocrats by origin. In theory, they prefer a system to a process, and a measure to infinity.
Xenophanes of Colophon criticized the mythological ideas about the gods and proposed to separate the existing and the apparent. Parmenides from Elea developed his ideas and declared that we perceive the apparent by feelings, and the existing by logic. Therefore, for a reasonable person, non-existence does not exist, because any of our thoughts is a thought about being. His follower Zeno explained the positions of his teacher with the help of the famous aporia paradoxes.
The Italian school is known for such a mysterious thinker as Pythagoras, who proposed the doctrine of numbers and their mystical connection with the world and left behind a secret teaching. Empedocles from the Sicilian city of Agregenta was no less interesting philosopher. He considered the cause of everything that exists to be four passive elements - water, fire, air and earth, and two active principles - love and hatred, and in his philosophical system he tried to unite Parmenides and Heraclitus. Later classical Greek philosophy largely based its conclusions precisely on the ideas of Italian thinkers.
