Ancient philosophy covers the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and the time period from the VI century. BC. according to the VI century. AD The beginning of ancient philosophy is usually associated with the name of Thales of Miletus, and the end - with the decree of the Byzantine emperor Justinian on the closure of philosophical schools in Athens (529 AD).
Periodization of ancient philosophy (stages):
1) the period of the formation of philosophy - the philosophy of nature or natural philosophy. This stage is characterized by cosmological problems (VI-V centuries BC);
2) the period of ancient enlightenment - a philosophy of a humanistic nature (5th century BC);
3) classical period (4th century BC);
4) the period of ancient philosophical systems, in which the problems of ethics occupied an important position (III - I centuries BC);
5) the period of influence on Greek philosophy of other systems - Judaism, Christianity - a philosophy of a religious nature (I century BC - V century AD).
The main ideas of ancient philosophy:
1) nature is the only absolute. The gods are an integral part of nature, they personify its elements;
2) hylozoism and panpsychism - the animation of nature;
3) pantheism - deification;
4) a person lives not only by nature, but also by establishment, on the basis of reasonable justification;
5) nomos - a law that rises above private interests; a rational establishment accepted by all the inhabitants of the city, obligatory for all;
6) the main subjects of consideration: fusis (nature), which is the subject of physics; the beginning is the subject of metaphysics; the civic nature of public life, the role of the personal principle in it, the justification of human virtues - the subject of ethics;
7) rejection of the mythological image of the universe, which leads to the requirement to search for the impersonal foundation of all things, the primary substance, which at first was identified with the elements;
8) cosmology and cosmogony are replaced by ontology, while ethical issues are not separated from the problems of the world order;
9) the goal of ancient philosophy is the rationale for a rational world order, including the rational order of things and human life.
Natural philosophy
All philosophical schools of this period can be divided into the following groups:
■ the Milesian school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes);
■ the school of Ephesus (Heraclitus);
■ school of Pythagoras;
■ the Elean school (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno);
■ Empedocles;
■ Atomism (Leucippus, Democritus);
■ Athenian school (Anaksagoras).
Milesian school. The Milesian school is represented by the names of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. Nature was the subject of thought of these philosophers, so Aristotle called them physiologists, or theorists of nature (natural philosophy). The initial question that they posed to themselves was the following: what was the beginning of nature? That is, these most ancient philosophers wanted to find out what is the original form of the bodies from which nature develops? In philosophy, this question is known as the question of primary matter.
According to Thales, all nature develops from water, it is the primary matter. Everything is water, everything comes from water and turns into water. Thales first posed the philosophical problem of the origin of the world. In mythology, there was an idea that there was water at the beginning of the world, and the predecessors of Thales also believed. But unlike the mythological way of knowing reality, the philosopher does not ask himself the question of who created the world and what was before the world. These are questions, first of all, of mythological knowledge, one of the features of which is geneticism, that is, when the essence of a phenomenon is known through its origin, occurrence. Thales for the first time asks precisely the philosophical question of what was the beginning of the world, what is its essence.
The development of the ideas of Thales took place in the work of another ancient philosopher Anaximander. If Thales was thinking about the beginning of the world, then Anaximander began to use the term "beginning" ("arche"). He understood "arche" not only as the beginning and primary nature of things, but also as the principle of things, as their own nature.
Anaximander transformed the concept of "nature". Etymologically, this Greek term ("fusis") meant that which becomes, develops and is generated. In Anaximander, this term begins to mean that which is unchanging, that which was, is and will be. The term, which usually denoted becoming, undergoing change in things, in philosophy began to mean that which is not subject to change. That is, the statement appeared that changing phenomena have a stable nature. Phenomena are accessible to the senses, but nature, in the sense in which Anaximander used this concept, is hidden, and it is necessary to find it; phenomena are heterogeneous, but nature is one; phenomena are accidental, but nature is necessary.
Therefore, in Anaximander, primary matter is not accessible to the senses. The beginning of everything that exists, from his point of view, is apeiron ("infinite"). The characteristics of apeiron are infinity and qualitative unlimitedness. Apeiron is the origin from which matter and everything that exists arises.
Anaximenes, another representative of the Milesian school, preserved Anaximander's views that the world is boundless. But infinity is not something indefinite, as in Anaximander. The primary matter is one of the types of matter - air.
Ephesus school represented by the name of Heraclitus. One of the themes of Heraclitus' creativity is connected with the search for the first principle - "arche". This beginning for him is fire. Fire is the beginning of the world. The fire became sea, air, earth, and again returned to itself. Fire from its upper containers turned into air - air into water - water, falling to the ground, was absorbed into it - the earth soared, creating moisture, which turned into clouds - returned to its original peaks in the form of fire. The transformation of fire into another speaks of its variability.
Revealing fire as the beginning, Heraclitus notices another characteristic of nature, namely, its variability, the image of which is the river. “Everything flows, everything changes”, “you cannot enter the same water twice”. There is nothing stable in nature, everything in it dies and is born. It is impossible to say that something is, because everything exists and does not exist at the same time. The only truth is that everything changes. Things seem stable to us, but this stability is a delusion. There are no things that have stable characteristics, there is only becoming. The identification of variability as a fundamental characteristic of nature and the entire universe leads Heraclitus to relativism.
The only stable characteristic of things, according to Heraclitus, is their variability. But the changes themselves are subject to a certain order, a law that governs both the world and man. This law is the Logos, the world mind, which is the ability not only of the human, but also of the world.
SchoolPythagoras was an ethical-religious union. The moral and practical goal, namely, the purification of the human soul in order to save it from the cycle of rebirth, was achieved through certain practices of the members of the order. “The Pythagoreans considered scientific studies, especially mathematics and music, to be one of the most important means of purification.” That is, the school of Pythagoras is not only a mystical association, but such a religious order, which, one might say, was engaged in scientific research.
The scientific searches that were undertaken in Pythagoreanism concerned, first of all, mathematics. "The Pythagoreans were the first to raise mathematics to a rank previously unknown to it - they began to consider numbers and numerical relations as the key to understanding the universe and its structure." The philosophical concept of Pythagoreanism is connected with numbers. The beginning of the world is a number. And the number is not a certain substratum, that is, what things consist of, but what defines things, shapes them. Therefore, the Pythagoreans for the first time as a fundamental characteristic of the world, of all reality, established not a material essence, but a formal one, that is, an ideal one.
According to Pythagoras, everything in the world is a number, research in the school of Pythagoras was more connected with the study of number, numerical ratios, including in relation to the movement of celestial bodies, to music (a connection was established between numerical proportions and musical harmony). Many researchers directly connect the doctrine of the number of the Pythagoreans with the doctrine of harmony, just like Aristotle, who wrote that the Pythagoreans “saw that the properties and relationships inherent in harmony are expressible in numbers; since, consequently, it seemed to them that everything else in its nature is clearly comparable to numbers and that numbers are the first in all nature, they assumed that the elements of numbers are the elements of everything that exists and that the whole sky is harmony and number.
eleian school in ancient Greek philosophy is associated with the names of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Zeno. Parmenides is famous for his doctrine of being. The initial feature of being was its stability, and the variability of the world, in contrast to Heraclitus, was denied.
Being exists, non-being does not exist - one of the main provisions of the doctrine of being Parmenides. At the same time, life has no beginning. Otherwise, if it had a beginning, then it would have to begin from non-existence. But there is no nonexistence. Therefore, being has no beginning. That is why it has no end. Being is extended, since any breakthrough of extension means non-being; still; invariably; indivisible; stable and united. Being has no difference in itself. The being of Parmenides has a certain form: it is like a ball or sphere.
Another important provision of Parmenides' doctrine of being is that the thought of being and being are one and the same. Parmenides was the first to proclaim the identity of thinking and being. Being exists because we have a thought about being, we can think it; non-existence does not exist, because we cannot conceive of it. Non-being can neither be known nor said anything about it. If a thing exists, then it is conceivable. If we conceive of non-existence, then in this way we will make it an object of thought, and, consequently, being. Therefore, there is no nonexistence, argued Parmenides.
Nothingness is emptiness, empty space. But there is no nonexistence, therefore there is no emptiness anywhere in the world, there is no empty space. From this follows the conclusion that the world is one, and there can be no multitude of separate things in it. Truly there is only unity, there is no plurality. In nature there are no empty gaps between things, no gaps or voids separating one thing from another, and therefore there are no separate things.
The gnoseological conclusion follows from the denial of emptiness: the world is one, there is no multitude and no separate parts, therefore the multitude of things, as if certified by our senses, is in fact only a delusion of the senses. The picture of the world inspired by our senses is not true, it is illusory.
The famous German philosopher of the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, noted the great merit of Parmenides in developing the doctrine of being. He argued that the question of being and its solution by Parmenides predetermined the fate of the Western world. This means, firstly, that, starting from antiquity, the notion of the existence of an invisible world beyond the limits of visible things, perfect, unchanging, true, was introduced into culture and worldview. Secondly, Parmenides showed that knowledge is possible that is different from the knowledge of the visible world, namely: rational knowledge, knowledge of thought, reason. Thirdly, the solution to the problem of being Parmenides opened up opportunities for metaphysics, that is, a doctrine in which people try to talk not only about material, but also about non-material being, which does not depend on either man or humanity, to look for the last ideal causes of natural entities and , in the end, - all that exists.
One of the most important questions raised by the Eleatic school was the question of how true knowledge could be obtained. The philosophers of this school argued that true knowledge can only be obtained with the help of the mind, and sensory knowledge was understood by them as unreliable knowledge. Zeno continued to develop this idea, putting forward his aporias. In total, Zeno developed 45 aporias, of which 9 have come down to us. The most famous aporias are the following: Dichotomy, Achilles and the Tortoise, Arrow, Stages. These aporias prove the impossibility of movement. It turns out that the process of movement, certified by our senses, is actually impossible. For example, in the aporia "Dichotomy" it is indicated that any moving body, in order to overcome a certain distance, must first of all cover half of this distance; to pass this half, that is, to reach the middle of the set initial distance, the body must reach the middle of half of this distance, and so on. That is, the movement is reduced to the infinite overcoming of the set of middle points, and, consequently, the body does not move anywhere.
Gaidenko P.P. states that Zeno and the Eleatic school of ancient Greek philosophy “posed to science a question that is one of the most important methodological questions to this day: how should one think of the continuum - discrete or continuous: consisting of indivisibles (units, “unities”, monads) or divisible to infinity? Denying movement, Zeno thus revealed the most important concepts of natural science - the concept of continuum and the concept of movement.
The next important step in the development of ancient Greek philosophy is the teaching of Empedocles. Its significance lies in the fact that he proposed a pluralistic concept of the beginning, in contrast to previous attempts by philosophers to explain the fundamental principle of the world with the help of monistic ideas. Empedocles recognized that all things are made up of simple elements. The beginning is not one element, for example, water, air or apeiron, but four qualitatively different elements - four types of matter: water, air, fire and earth. These elements he called "the roots of everything." The primary elements of Empedocles are eternal, like the being of Parmenides, but they are the basis of all things that are becoming and dying, like in Heraclitus.
The combination of elements into things that come and change is facilitated by two forces: love and hatred. Thus, Empedocles shares the concepts of matter (water, air, fire, earth) and force (love, hate). Love unites the elements, brings things into a state of harmony; hatred destroys harmony, brings the elements into a state of chaos. The periods of dominance of this or that force in the world alternate.
From pluralism as a principle for explaining the essence of the world came such a direction of ancient Greek philosophy as atomism. Its main representative was Democritus. As a first principle, atomists single out atoms - indivisible particles. These particles have such a characteristic as movement, they move in space, which is understood as emptiness. Atoms are immutable, like being in Parmenides. They do not have qualitative characteristics, but differ only in quantitative characteristics - form, order and position.
It is important to note that the atomists assumed the existence of emptiness, in contrast to Parmenides, who identified emptiness with non-existence, and according to Parmenides' doctrine of being, non-existence does not exist, therefore, there is no emptiness either. Recognition of the existence of emptiness by atomists means the existence of gaps between things, which means that they understood matter not as continuous, but as discrete, discontinuous.
Anaxagoras is a representative of the Athenian school in ancient Greek philosophy. Anaxagoras, as the beginning of everything, shared pluralistic ideas, like Empedocles and the atomists. He called the unchanging elements of the world "germs" or "things". These elements of Anaxagoras, Aristotle later called "homeomeria", or bodies consisting of homogeneous parts. "Embryos" cannot be some limited number, as, for example, Empedocles has only four of them - water, air, fire, earth. There are as many primary elements as there are qualities of things, therefore “homeomerisms” have an incalculable number.
Like Empedocles, Anaxagoras separated matter from spirit. All primary elements are set in motion due to the action of the spirit (nous). The spirit of Anaxagoras is outside and above nature. Such an idea of a spirit existing outside of nature did not exist before Anaxagoras. Even the gods of the Greeks were inhabitants of the Earth and part of nature.
Thus, the natural-philosophical period of ancient philosophy is characterized by the focus of research on nature, in a broad sense - on the Cosmos, which was understood as arranged on reasonable grounds, eternal, unified, spiritualized, perfect. The main problem is cosmological. Firstly, this is the problem of the beginning, which was water, air, fire, earth - four elements, germs, atoms. Secondly, the problem of how everything arises from the primary elements (connection, displacement, separation of elements). Thirdly, the problem of what contributes to the formation of reality: the forces of love and hatred or the out-of-world spirit. Fourthly, the problem of the stability and variability of the world, on which there were opposite views from Heraclitus and Parmenides.
Scheme 2.1.Ancient Philosophy: Early Classics
period of ancient enlightenment
The center of spiritual life moved to Athens. Athens became the capital of Greek culture. It was a golden age of culture, a time of peace and wealth, the flourishing of civilizations, art and science. This period is characterized by the heyday of Athens, the birth and death of Athenian democracy.
In philosophy, this period is marked by a transition from the study of nature to humanistic studies.
Sophists were teachers and educators preparing for public life. They undertook to teach their students to think and speak, so they had many listeners. “The students, under their guidance, practiced in disputes and in coherent oratorical speeches. The theme was partly fictitious isolated cases that could be presented in court or at political meetings, partly more general questions of private and public life. One of the most prominent representatives of this period was Protagoras.
The theory of knowledge played a special role in the teachings of the sophists. If at the first stage of ancient philosophy, that is, natural philosophy, philosophers sought from the knowledge of universality, objectivity, truth and believed that human knowledge meets these requirements, then the sophists expressed distrust of knowledge. Sense perception underlies any knowledge, according to Protagoras. All material things are in constant change, as Heraclitus showed. Therefore, both the perceiving organ and the perceived object are constantly changing. Consequently, "every sensation is true, but true only for the perceiving subject itself, and at the very moment of its occurrence" 2 . So every feeling is true. Truth is relative, for each individual person at each individual moment there is his own truth. Protagoras is famous for saying: “Man is the measure of all things, the measure of the existing, that it exists, and the non-existent, that it does not exist.” Here, a person is understood as a single person. It turns out that everything is relative: illness is relative, since it is both good and evil; bad for the patient and good for the doctor.
The epistemological conclusions of the teachings of the sophists can be reduced to the following main ones:
1. We know the truth only with the help of feelings (sensualism).
2. There is no universal truth, since truth is different for everyone (relativism).
3. The truth of one person is higher than the truth of another, only because it has great practical value (practicism);
4. Truth is the result of a contract; individual truths are therefore necessarily accepted as universal (conventionalism).
Thus, firstly, the sophists were the first who for the first time placed a person, his activity and the results of this activity at the center of philosophical research, which indicates the anthropological coloring of the philosophy of this trend. Secondly, the sophists did not deal with the philosophy of nature and theology. But they strove for the practical realization of philosophical knowledge. Thirdly, Protagoras was the first to come up with the theory of cognitive minimalism and laid the foundations of sensationalism. Fourthly, the philosophy of this trend was characterized by anti-dogmatism: the sophists shook traditions, undermined authorities, demanded proof of any statement.
Socrates' activities was that he, like the sophists, was a teacher. Socrates taught people reason in order to lead them to virtue. He was always where he could find interlocutors: in the market, at feasts. He talked to people, prompting his interlocutors to reflect on desires and virtue. Socrates left no work. We learn about the content of his teachings from the works of his students (Plato's dialogues, Xenophon's Memories of Socrates).
At the center of Socrates' philosophical research is man. Socrates dealt, first of all, with ethics, and then with logic. At the same time, he put forward a demand to leave natural philosophy. Ethical views of Socrates:
1. virtue is an absolute good. By virtue Socrates understood the following virtues - justice, courage, self-control. These are moral virtues according to Socrates. The laws concerning moral virtues are unwritten, but they are more stable than any laws of men. They come from the very nature of things, hence they are universal. In this sense, virtue was the highest good. Everything else that people are accustomed to consider good: health, wealth, fame - is quite often evil. A person should strive for the highest good, not even considering danger, death. Socrates was the first to single out moral values as a subject of ethics.
2. Virtue is associated with utility and happiness. The benefit depends on the good. Only that which is virtuous is useful. Happiness is always associated with virtue because it always comes from virtue. Happy is he who attains the highest good, and virtue is the highest good.
3. Virtue is knowledge. Evil comes from ignorance. Knowledge is a sufficient condition for the attainment of virtue, or knowledge is the same as virtue. It is the same thing to know what justice is and to be fair. Therefore, virtue can be learned. So the good is not innate. It can be acquired if it depends on us whether we comprehend this good.
Socrates sought to establish the truth in knowledge. To obtain true knowledge, it is necessary to use a certain methodology. Socrates used the dialectical method to solve ethical issues. This method was intended not only to refute the interlocutor. The Socratic method consisted in destroying false knowledge and acquiring true, universally valid knowledge. The philosopher always takes the opinions of his interlocutors as his starting point. He checks whether these opinions are consistent with other judgments of the interlocutor, which the interlocutor himself has already recognized as true. If the opinions of the interlocutor contradict the latter, then Socrates forces the interlocutor to reject them as false. In doing so, Socrates uses induction. “The introduction of induction into science is the merit of Socrates. From many individual recognized cases, he draws a conclusion to a general judgment, and from this general judgment he deduces by deductive way (syllogistically) that individual judgment, the truth of which was not recognized. Socrates tried to find commonalities, such as courage and justice, based on particular cases. Then, having revealed the general principle, he deductively deduces a judgment about the disputable single case.
The goal of the dialectical method of Socrates is to reach the concepts of moral values. “The knowledge of the latter should have led to the knowledge of the duties and tasks of man. In order to direct a person to right activity, this knowledge alone is enough.
Another method of Socrates was called maieutics. Mayevtika in translation from Greek is the art of midwifery. This is a way of reasoning that would help others find the truth. Socrates began to ask simple questions, into which he first broke down complex ones. Asking questions in this way, Socrates forced the student to answer questions on his own, reducing his answer to statements like “yes” or “no”. With the help of his questions and answers of the interlocutor, Socrates led the interlocutor to the fact that the latter began to doubt the truth of his statement. And thus, was aware of "knowledge of ignorance." This method also consisted in critically discussing all points of view, without preliminarily joining any of them. At this point, the anti-dogmatism of the Socratic teaching manifested itself. A striking example of the application of the maieutic method by Socrates is Plato's dialogue Laches.
classical period.
Plato born in Athens (428/427 - 348/347 BC). Plato considers the problems of human life to be the most important problems. By founding scientific ethics and the doctrine of the state, he wants to provide an unshakable foundation of morality for the individual and the entire people. But Plato is not limited to ethical issues, but tries to establish a philosophy that embraces all of reality.
It is possible to understand a person and the task of the state by examining the nature of a person and his position in the Universe, therefore Plato was engaged in research in the field of psychology, ontology and the theory of knowledge.
Plato's works were made in the form of dialogues in which his contemporaries acted - people of science, politicians, representatives of other professions.
The doctrine of ideas occupies a central place in Plato's philosophical system. According to Plato, the things we encounter are transient and changeable. Concepts are stable, therefore the objects about which we have a given concept must also be stable. This means that things cannot be objects of concepts. What is the object of the concept "beautiful"? There are many beautiful things: "beautiful girl" or "beautiful jug." Therefore, beautiful things, which are heterogeneous and unstable, cannot be the object of the concept of "beautiful". This object is the "properly beautiful", or the "idea of the beautiful", which can only be comprehended by the mind.
Therefore, there is something that can be known only by the mind (this is the idea of "beautiful", "perfect", etc.) and there are separate things that are given to us in our sensations. Proceeding from this, Plato divides all being into two worlds: the world of ideas and the world of things. The intelligible reality was defined by Plato in terms: idea, eidos, form. But Platonic ideas are not just thoughts, but the essence of things, that is, what makes each of them what it is. Ideas are what is not involved in the process of becoming, in the sensual world in which a person lives, they are the essence and cause of things. The habitat of ideas Plato called in the dialogue "Phaedrus" - Hyperurania.
There are many ideas, they form a certain structure - a hierarchy: from the simplest and lowest to more and more general and higher, and up to the highest idea - the idea of good.
The structure of the ideal world is the following hierarchical system (from lowest to highest):
1) ideas of all things;
2) ideas of aesthetic and ethical values;
3) ideas of mathematical and geometric formulas;
4) the idea of the Good or the One.
True being is precisely the world of ideas. The world of things is known by feelings, and the world of ideas - by reason, therefore they can be expressed in a concept. The world of ideas is an intelligible being.
The world of ideas is opposed by the world of non-existence, which, according to Plato, is the same as matter. The concept of "matter" Plato introduces to explain the diversity of things, he calls it "Hora", it is a formless, chaotic movement. The sensual world, according to Plato, is something between the realm of ideas and the realm of matter, and is a product, a combination of these worlds. The world of sensible things is the area of formation, genesis, being. By virtue of its position between the sphere of being and non-being, the sensory world combines the opposites of being and non-being, unchanging and changing, motionless and moving.
The universe is arranged harmoniously, it is controlled by reason and order. The world has a goal - perfection. The whole world is created from the combination of matter and ideas by the highest principle - the Demiurge.
Knowledge as memory. The world that surrounds us, which we know with the help of the senses, is only a "shadow" and is derived from the world of ideas. Ideas are immutable, immovable eternal. The human soul is immaterial, it does not arise and is not destroyed. The human soul is eternal. Until the moment when the soul unites with the body and enters the sensual world, the world of things, it remains in the world of ideas. Therefore, the knowledge of ideas is possible, since the human soul recalls the ideas with which it was together in the world of ideas, not yet being connected with the body.
The concept of knowledge is reflected in the myth of the cave. Human knowledge, says this myth, is similar to what prisoners see in a cave with their backs to a beautiful life. The shadows that pass before them are only projections of things, but they imagine they see the things themselves. The fate of most people who adhere to the established way of life is the cave knowledge of the shadows. Only thinking gives true knowledge. Thinking is the highest way of knowing in comparison with sensory perception. True knowledge can only be possessed by those who can overcome the influence of sensible things on them and soar into the world of eternal ideas. This is only for philosophers. Wisdom lies in understanding the world of ideas.
Philosophy in Plato is a science that gives us knowledge of true being, it is a science of ideas. A person who studies philosophy brings his soul closer to true being. The occupation of philosophy is defined by Plato as the highest kind of activity, as the highest form of life, which is understood as "the knowledge of life, through the correlation of all its elements with its beginning, this is the knowledge of the Beginning of being." Philosophy cognizes ideas exclusively with the help of reason, without relying on sensory experience. It generalizes in itself the various individual cases that exist in the sensible world, and subordinates them to the principle (measures, or harmony). The philosopher cognizes what is: “a form or kind that is neither generated nor destroyed, comprehended only by the intellect”; "constantly flowing and changing objects, generated and perishing" and "matter". In philosophy, cosmic principles are confirmed, and the philosopher himself, thanks to this, becomes closer to the beginning of everything that exists. The philosopher sees the foundation of being and the whole Cosmos, comprehending the various parts of the whole being in their entirety. Therefore, a person who practices philosophy has the highest knowledge. Only such a person can and should govern the state.
Plato's theory of state and psychology are the development of his ontological ideas and ideas about the role of philosophy in the life of man and society.
Philosophy plays an important role not only in the life of an individual, but also in social life. In his essay “The State”, Plato builds such a model of the state structure, at the head of which are philosophers as representatives of higher knowledge.
Plato's man is not separated from the whole Universe. Therefore, the principles of the organization of the Cosmos, the soul of man and the state coincide.
The human soul, according to Plato, has the following structure. The highest position is occupied by the rational soul, which is located in the head. Then follows the affective or impulse soul, located in the chest. The lowest position is occupied by the low-greedy part of the soul, called the lustful part, located in the liver. The most important part of the soul is rational, it is she who is endowed with cognitive abilities. The human soul is close to ideas, therefore it is incorporeal. The soul is immortal, but exists in a mortal body, which is characterized by illness and various bodily needs. The soul controls the body, but the body itself has many shortcomings. After death, the soul is released from the body and this becomes the beginning of the full existence of the soul. Outside the body, the soul reaches full knowledge, which, however, does not reach the knowledge of the gods.
Plato has the idea of the transmigration of souls, that is, the idea of metempsychosis. The posthumous existence of the soul depends on the level of its intellectuality. The soul can transmigrate into other bodies, and this is what most souls expect. A completely different fate awaits the soul of the philosopher. "The soul, having been three times in the body of a philosopher, is freed from further metempsychosis and, reaching the heavenly world, enjoys the contemplation of the idea."
Based on the structure of the soul, Plato identifies the following virtues. Wisdom corresponds to a reasonable soul, courage to an affective soul, self-control to a lustful soul. The main virtue is justice, which is the harmony of wisdom, courage and self-control. In real life, such harmony is very rare.
The dialogue "State" indicates the similarity of the human soul and the state system. In his philosophy, Plato emphasizes the dependence of human nature on a higher order. Therefore, both the structure of the human soul and the state structure must comply with the general principles of the organization of the Cosmos, subject to the main "beginning" - the mind. Both a person and a state must arrange their internal (mental and social) organization, following the principle of harmony of all "principles". “This harmony itself is realized if the “reasonable principle” leads in the soul, and “philosophers” in the state.” At the same time, the dominance of some “beginning” in a person’s soul determines what kind of activity he will be engaged in in an ideal state (philosopher, warrior, artisan).
Also in his essay "The State" Plato builds an ideal model of government. At the top of the social structure are philosophers, whose position corresponds to the rational soul and such a virtue as wisdom. Next come the guardians, or warriors, associated with the affective soul and courage. Then come the classes of artisans and farmers, comparable to a lustful soul and self-control and moderation. The harmony of the three virtues and the three estates ensures the existence of the highest virtue in society - justice. The achievement of justice in a society guarantees the stability of this society, the consequence of which is its well-being and happiness.
Philosophers as carriers of higher knowledge should rule such a state, warriors should protect them, and farmers and artisans should provide all the necessary material resources. The activity of the lower class consists in physical productive labor, providing for their own needs and the needs of the higher classes. Representatives of this class are endowed with private property. Only representatives of the lower class can own property in such a state, since property does not burden a person engaged in material labor activity. Philosophers are free both from physical labor and from property, which prevents them from engaging in spiritual activity, reflections. In such a state, according to Plato, some institutions are missing. For example, the institution of marriage and family.
Marriage as such does not exist, people live freely, and children are brought up together, at the expense of the state.
The fact of being born in one or another estate does not provide a person with an automatic belonging to this estate, since "the Platonic concept of the division of labor is completely built on the intellectual abilities of people." Depending on his abilities, a person, while still a child, can be sent for training either to the upper class, or, conversely, to the lower.
The estates of philosophers and guardians do not have private property, since they receive everything they need from the third estate. If warriors have certain inclinations, then appropriate education and training (physical education, teaching sciences and arts) can lead them from the second estate to the first, thus forming philosophers out of them. Having passed difficult exams, such a warrior from the age of 35 has the right to engage in state activities, and then, having achieved success in this matter, from the age of 50 he can be included in the upper class, in the class of philosophers. Philosophers' striving for science and truth must be complemented by high moral qualities - renunciation of sensual pleasures, honesty, justice, generosity, etc.
It is the philosophers who can combine the "beginnings" in a perfect way: under the guidance of a reasonable "beginning". It is philosophers who are able to comprehend that which is eternally identical with itself. “This kind of knowledge, according to Plato, requires enormous efforts from a person, since it is the knowledge of ideal nature, the beginning of everything that exists. Knowing about it allows a person to become like him, to discover this nature in himself and to live in accordance with it. Only a philosopher can comprehend true being and build life in accordance with the rules of this being. The role of the philosopher as head of state is also to rule on the basis of reason alone, relying neither on his own will nor on feelings. Only a philosopher understands that the human will as such does not exist. Man and his actions are controlled by the highest divine power. Rulers, guided solely by wisdom, should create just laws. This will strengthen the state and keep its citizens in subjection.
Since the philosopher is at the head of an ideal state, then, in addition to directing other people to the knowledge of the truth, he can also correctly, “reasonably” arrange the state. It is "such knowledge is the most important in the administration of the state." Philosophy is the highest form of knowledge, which combines knowledge about a person, his soul, society and state.
In the dialogue "State" Plato shows that the state can have a different political structure. Plato identifies the following types of government: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny. Timocracy is a type of social organization in which the rulers are still honored, but their desire for material prosperity and wealth is already beginning to grow. Oligarchy is characterized by the power of a few of the rich and the oppression of the poor. In a democracy, equality and the rule of all free citizens of the policy are proclaimed, but at the same time hostility and struggle between the rich and the poor is growing. Tyranny is the rule of one over many. This form of government is characterized by Plato as the most harmful and contrary to everything moral and ethical in man and society. In the model of an ideal state organization, one can see the features of Plato's mythologization of reality.
Thus, the ideal state of Plato is a strictly hierarchical society, controlled by a limited minority, which imposes laws, rules of conduct and actions on society. So, according to Plato, an organized social structure belongs to the not-too-distant future.
Aristotle was born in the city of Stagira, therefore Aristotle is often called Stagirite in literature. He was a student of Plato. In 335 BC he founded the Lyceum School. Aristotle read his lectures while walking along the paths of the garden, hence another name for the school - peripatos (from Greek - a walk), and his students are peripatetics. Aristotle is also known for being the teacher of Alexander the Great.
Aristotle left work in the field of both natural sciences (biology, physics) and work on logic, ethics and politics. He is called the "father" of logic because he was the first to present the concept of formal logic in a systematic way. But the name of Aristotle is also associated with the concept of metaphysics, or the first philosophy, which deals with the study of first principles and first causes. The very term "metaphysics" owes its appearance not to Aristotle, but to its publisher Andronicus of Rhodes, who, systematizing the works of Aristotle, placed the actual philosophical works of Stagirite after works on physics. Andronicus of Rhodes did not know what to call the philosophical works of Aristotle, so he gave them the name “that which is after physics” (in ancient Greek it sounds like “that meta that fusica”), from where the word “metaphysics” came out by dropping the article and merging.
Aristotle is the founder of logic - the science of thinking and its laws. Logic must teach how to use concepts, judgments and inferences. Aristotle's logic is an "organon" for all sciences, that is, an instrument, a tool that all sciences use. The definition of concepts and proofs, the rules of thought, the theory of syllogism were the main problems of Aristotle's logic.
In the doctrine of judgment, Aristotle proves that in judgment two concepts are put in relation to each other: the concept of the subject and the predicate. The judgment can be affirmative or negative. For a judgment to be true, it is necessary that the relation of concepts in the judgment correspond to the same relation of things in reality. If two judgments are in relation to a contradiction, then one of them is true, the other is false. Aristotle formulates the principle of non-contradiction (the law of contradiction) as the most important law of thinking: “It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be inherent in the same thing and in the same sense.”
Aristotle developed the theory of the syllogism. A syllogism, according to Aristotle, “is such an order of thoughts in which from given judgments, due to the fact that they are given, a judgment different from them necessarily arises.” One of the concepts for both premises must be common.
Syllogism example:
First premise: "Socrates is a man";
Second premise: "Man is mortal";
Consequence deduced from two premises: "Socrates is mortal."
The subject of metaphysics, or first philosophy, is being as such, as well as that which exists beyond nature, that is, supersensible being, immaterial causes, immutable and eternal essences.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle recognized that real things exist by themselves, and not because their idea exists outside the sensible world. Real things are reality. There is no independent existence outside of real things. Therefore, the first philosophy must consider being in itself, that is, real things, to establish their universal characteristics and attributes.
The subject of metaphysics is also that which exists beyond nature, that is, that which exists outside the empirical world. Therefore, metaphysics, according to Aristotle, is a science divine in two senses:
1) God is more capable of mastering it than man;
2) its subject matter is divine objects. Therefore, Aristotle calls his philosophy also theology, the doctrine of God. It was Aristotle who first coined the word.
Philosophy for Aristotle is the most speculative of all sciences, which explores what is most worthy of knowledge: the origin and causes. “But the science that investigates the causes is more capable of teaching, for those who teach are those who indicate the reasons for each thing. And knowledge and understanding for the sake of knowledge and understanding itself are most of all inherent in the science of what is most worthy of knowledge ... And the most worthy of knowing the origin and cause, because through them and on their basis everything else is known, and not they through what is subordinate to them. And the science that is the most dominant and more important than the auxiliary is that which recognizes the goal for which it is necessary to act in each individual case; this goal is in each individual case one or another good, and in all nature in general - the best, because through them and on their basis everything else is known. Only this type of cognitive activity brings a person closer to happiness and bliss. Therefore, it is philosophy that is the highest kind of cognitive activity, the main one of all sciences.
Philosophy, as the most important among the sciences, “knows the goal for which it is necessary to act in each individual case,” 2 therefore philosophy determines the place of man in the world and the direction of his activity. Despite the fact that philosophy is a theoretical, contemplative activity, it does not contradict practical activity (morality, political activity, etc.), but directs and orients it.
In his metaphysics, Aristotle considers, for example, questions of being and non-being, essence, the relationship between form and matter, the root causes, etc. The relationship between form and matter is revealed as follows. If we take a single thing, for example, a person, then we can see that each person has the same characteristics as all people who are included in the concept of "person". Any person has other characteristics that are not included in the concept of "human" (for example, that he is short). Thus, Aristotle singled out in a thing what belongs to the definition of this thing and what does not belong to its definition.
Aristotle called the conceptually generalized, general specific qualities of a thing “form”, the rest - “matter”. The combination of matter and form gives us real things. Matter does not exist independently, just as Plato's idea does not exist independently - all these are abstractions. In reality, only concrete combinations of matter and form are real.
But the form of Aristotle is more important, since it corresponds to the concept. What is essential in a thing, its essence, is that there is a form.
The concept of form is associated with the idea of the root cause. The universe is arranged rationally and expediently. Every thing has its reason. What is the cause of all causes, the very first cause? The first cause must have other qualities than the things we know. Things are the result of the action of causes, and the root cause does not have its own cause and exists by itself. Things are dependent being, and the root cause is independent. Therefore, Aristotle identifies the following characteristics of the root cause:
■ immobility and immutability;
■ the root cause is non-material, because matter is the source of all changes, it is a pure form;
■ spiritual essence;
■ is the mind;
■ is single;
■ is perfect;
■ being motionless, sets the world in motion. These characteristics correspond to the Absolute, God.
Thus, through the concepts of the form of forms, the root causes, Aristotle comes to the justification of the existence of God and to the definition of his nature.
In his psychology, Aristotle builds a “ladder of living beings”, in which a hierarchy of soul types is presented, starting from the lowest and ending with the highest:
1) the plant soul, which is associated with reproduction and nutrition. Plants have only a plant soul;
2) the animal soul, which is possessed, first of all, by animals. Animals also have a vegetable soul;
3) a rational soul, a feature of which is the ability of reasoning and reflection. Only man possesses this kind of soul, while man has both plant and animal souls.
Ethics and politics (the doctrine of the essence and tasks of the state) occupy an important place in the teachings of Aristotle. Man is a socio-political being: "man is a social being by nature." Ethics is understood by the ancient philosopher as “the doctrine of morality, of instilling in a person the active-volitional, spiritual qualities that he needs first of all in public life, and then in his personal life; it teaches (and accustoms) the practical rules of behavior and the way of life of an individual. The goal of human moral activity is the achievement by a person of the highest good, the realization of the meaning of his life by him, which means that a person must contribute to the development of his inner abilities, mental inclinations and qualities.
Man is a unity of soul and body. Reason and feelings are properties of the human soul. Reason should prevail over feelings in the event that a person strives for self-improvement. A person must subordinate sensual inclinations to the dominance of reason for an expedient way of life and right actions. It is cognitive activity, that is, the activity of the rational part of the soul, according to Aristotle, that is capable of developing in a person the correct direction of life and moral deeds.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle points out that there is no good in itself, with the exception of pure thought and God. Goods are called different categories (qualities, quantities, relationships, etc.). In the category of quality, good is virtue; in the category of quantity, it is measure; in the category of relation, it is useful; in the category of time, it is an opportunity; There is no science of the good as such, but there are separate sciences that study the good in relation to a particular area of activity: if we are talking about war, then strategy is the study of the good, if it is about the disease, then the good is studied by healing, etc. The idea of Plato's good is understood by Aristotle as useless for an individual, since knowledge of it cannot make people's actions more moral: "to have knowledge of good and evil and use it is not the same thing." Aristotle contrasted the idea of the good as an abstraction with the real good - “this is the good achievable by man, i.e. realized in his actions and deeds.
To live virtuously, it is not enough just to know what the good is. The activity of the mind must be supplemented by such qualities of the soul as desire and will, which are associated with the mind. Both the virtues of reason (diagnostic or intellectual) and ethical (moral or volitional) virtues are not given to a person initially, but can be acquired. An important role in this is played by the upbringing and teaching of this or that virtue. It is impossible to become virtuous, for example, courageous, without having the habit of this virtue, that is, without having the habit, the practice of courage. At the same time, diagnostic virtues (reasonableness or wisdom, and prudence or practical wisdom) are developed in the process of learning, and ethical virtues, that is, virtues of character (courage, moderation, generosity, truthfulness, etc.) - in the process of cultivating a habit. A person should strive to develop and develop various virtues, but Aristotle considers diagnostic virtues to be the highest. It is this kind of virtue that can lead a person to the beautiful and divine. Hence, Stagirite considers philosophy as the most valuable and useful kind of occupation and science. Philosophy brings true pleasure and true bliss. It is contemplative activity that Aristotle recognizes as the most pleasant and more independent than socio-political activity.
In a person, as in any thing, there is an inner desire for a good goal and the highest good as the ultimate goal. The goal of man is happiness, which is why it is declared by Aristotle to be the highest good. Man himself is the creator of his destiny and it depends only on him (and not on God, Fate or Fate) how close he can come to this ultimate goal, that is, to the highest good. Human life is always a rational activity, that is, an activity consistent with virtue, aimed at the good. "Human good is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue ...".
According to Aristotle, the acquisition of moral character is a long process that requires experience, training, education, and time.
Although Aristotle speaks of the unity of human nature for all mankind, people are different: in character, in temperament, in abilities, in needs, in physique, and so on. This diversity of people's features is supplemented by the dependence of human manifestations in their integrity on society and the social moral norms adopted in it. “The state belongs to that which exists by nature, and that a person by nature is a political being, and one who, by virtue of his nature, and not due to accidental circumstances, lives outside the state, is either an underdeveloped creature in the moral sense, or a superman” .
The philosophical system of Aristotle covers almost all kinds of knowledge. Ideas devoted to the state and society are considered by him in the work "Politics". The main purpose of this work is the theoretical development of ideas about the perfect policy. To do this, Aristotle has to explore the policy in the form in which it existed in his time, because, according to Aristotle, any theoretical constructions must be correlated with reality: “... you can make assumptions as you wish, but there should be nothing obviously unrealizable ". It is impossible to talk about an ideal state structure without regard to a particular state. Theoretical views in the sphere of the state should not be divorced from the diverse social and political reality.
The policy is the highest form of social organization of people, therefore it should contribute to the happy life of people, by which Aristotle understands life in accordance with virtue. “Since, as we see, every state is a kind of communication, and every communication is organized for the sake of some good (after all, every activity has in mind the supposed good), then, obviously, all communication strives for this or that good, and more others, and that communion which is the most important of all and embraces all other communions strives for the highest of all blessings. This communication is called the state or political communication.
Aristotle emphasizes the natural nature of the origin of the state. The state as a form of social organization is historically preceded by the family and the “village”. But teleologically, the state “in relation to them acts as their ultimate goal, that is, the possibility of the state was inherent in man from the very beginning, because man “by nature is a political being.” The state turns out to be more important than the individual and the family, since it corresponds to the whole, while the individual and the family are parts, and the part cannot precede the whole.
Aristotle presents a typology, or classification, a fort of government, which includes six types: royal power (monarchy), aristocracy, polity, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Aristotle sees the relationship between the virtue of the ruler and the type of government.
The first three are rated by the Greek philosopher as correct, since they show proper virtue, the rest as incorrect, because they lack virtue. Monarchy is defined as the rule of one, with the common good in mind; aristocracy - the rule of the few best, carried out in the interests of all citizens; polity - the rule of the majority, selected on the basis of a certain qualification and caring for the common good; tyranny - the rule of one, guided by his own benefit; oligarchy - the rule of a few wealthy citizens who think only about their own benefit; democracy is the rule of the majority of the have-nots, proceeding only from the interests of these have-nots. Due to a number of conditions, the degeneration of the monarchy leads to the establishment of tyranny. The aristocracy turns into an oligarchy when the richest, concerned about their own well-being, become rulers. In the same way, polity is related to democracy. “The general driving principle of aristocracy is virtue, oligarchies are wealth, and democracies are freedom. Its negativity is expressed in the instability of the system of orders and laws of the state. But democracy and oligarchy are the most common forms of polis organization (although there are quite a few transitional ones).
Aristotle does not separate these types of government from reality. But they are, in a certain sense, abstractions, since in the real historical process Aristotle sees a mixture of various types of state structure within one state, as well as the existence of intermediate forms between royal and tyrannical power - an aristocracy with a bias towards oligarchy, a polity close to democracy, etc. .
The last two books of the "Politics" contain the doctrine of an ideal state, which, according to Aristotle, should not be divorced from real political reality and which would have the possibility of a real embodiment in reality. The perfect state system is close to the type that Aristotle called the aristocracy. This type of state should provide the state with a happy life, which means it should correspond to virtue, and therefore it should be inhabited by such categories of citizens whose lifestyle contributes to the development of virtue. Such citizens include those who were warriors in their youth, and in their more mature years became rulers, judges and priests. Craftsmen, farmers and merchants are excluded from the number of such citizens. On the one hand, slaves who do not belong to the same tribe and are not distinguished by a hot temperament can become farmers, on the other hand, barbarians, that is, people living outside Europe. In addition, the state, with the help of laws, must perform a moral and educational function (this is also the main goal of politics): to attract citizens to virtue and to encourage beauty. Good public education requires laws.
A perfect state should have a certain population, a certain size and a convenient position relative to the sea. Citizens must be provided with food. All land should be divided into public and private land. A normally and properly functioning state can only be created through knowledge and conscious planning.
The state, according to Aristotle, consists of many parts. First of all, this is the population of the state, that is, people who are different in their abilities, internal qualities, social position occupied in society, level of prosperity, private property and occupation. Aristotle defines a citizen as a person who participates in court and administration, as well as a person who performs military service and serves the gods. But depending on the type of government in different states, different segments of the population can be considered citizens. Farmers, artisans, merchants, and even more so slaves, are not full citizens of the state. This idea is due to the important role of intellectual activity in ancient society, as well as the provisions of Aristotle on diagnostic virtue as the highest in the moral development of a person. Thus, productive activity is opposed to mental activity, as the highest kind of human activity.
An important function of the state is economic. The form of the state structure is the educational and moral functions performed by it, while the matter is economic relations. Aristotle not only does not deny private property, but considers that a person has it as an expression of his inherent selfishness, given by nature. Also, for the acquisition of consumer goods, Aristotle advocates the use of money that “is used economically for housekeeping (this is the closest meaning of this Greek term)”. The distribution of various benefits in society is focused on the quality of merit, dignity, position of an individual.
Scheme 2.2.Ancient philosophy: the period of high classics
Hellenistic period of ancient philosophy
This period begins in the 3rd century. BC. This is the time of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, which led to the influence of foreign cultures on Greek philosophy. The main ideas of this period were developed in Athens at the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC. But from the 2nd c. BC, the Athenian philosophical society began to lose its influence, and new centers appeared in Rome and Alexandria.
Philosophy ceased to be the only science, it was divided into three parts: logic (the theory of knowledge), physics (the theory of being) and ethics (the theory of the good). And the priority in this period was given to ethics. This stage of ancient philosophy is represented by the teachings of the Stoics, Epicureans and skeptics.
The main representatives of this trend in ancient philosophy are Zeno from Kition and Marcus Aurelius (Rome). The ontological ideas of the Stoics are that the world has an integral structure and is material, but at the same time divine and alive. Ontological ideas are based on materialistic monism, imbued with the ideas of hylozoism and pantheism.
Stoicism- this is, first of all, an ethical doctrine in which the concept of a sage is developed. Only a wise man can be happy. The Stoics adhered to eudemonism in their ethics. What does happiness mean to the Stoics? The starting position of Stoicism in justifying its ethical positions is that it is impossible to be sure of happiness while there is dependence on external circumstances. In order to become happy, one can follow one of two paths: either to master external circumstances, or to be independent of them. A person is not able to master external circumstances, therefore the second way remains - to become independent. If it is not possible to rule over the world, you must learn to rule over yourself.
A sage must take care of his inner world in order to learn to rule over himself. He must strive for the inner good, which is understood as a virtue. Valuing virtue and only virtue, the sage is independent of any circumstances that may arise; in this way he secures his own happiness. Virtue was identified with happiness, and the only true good was seen in virtue.
The virtuous life of a sage is also a harmonious life in accordance with nature, because nature is harmonious, reasonable, divine. Life in accordance with nature provides a person with freedom, independence from external circumstances, despite the fact that necessity prevails in the world.
A virtuous, harmonious with nature and free life is understood by the Stoics in the same way as a reasonable life. At the heart of the nature of the whole world and the nature of man lies a reasonable principle, therefore, not emotions and passions should control a person, but the mind, which also controls the Universe. Emotions, feelings do not allow you to achieve good, you need to get rid of them. A sage is characterized by apathy, impartiality.
Based on these ideas, the Stoic sage is a reasonable, virtuous, free, happy, rich person, because he possesses what is most valuable. The opposite of a sage is a madman - an evil and unhappy person, a slave and a poor man.
Epicureanism. This current of ancient philosophy was named after its founder, Epicurus. Epicureanism, like Stoicism, is to a greater extent an ethical doctrine that deals with the problems of happiness, goodness, pleasure, etc.
The initial thesis of Epicureanism is that happiness is the highest good (eudemonism). Happiness is based on pleasure, and unhappiness is based on suffering. This position is called hedonism - a moral principle according to which good is defined as that which brings pleasure and deliverance from suffering, and evil - as that which entails suffering. For happiness, the absence of suffering is needed, this is enough to feel pleasure. The natural state of a person is that he does not encounter anything good and nothing bad on his life path, and this is already a pleasant state, since the process of life itself, life itself, is joy. Life is a blessing, the only one that is given to us as a property. This is an innate joy that we do not need to take care of, we carry it in ourselves. Let only the body be healthy and the soul calm, then life will be beautiful.
But human life is limited by time. Therefore, in our present life, we should receive as much good and pleasure as possible, according to Epicurus. In order to receive pleasures (physical and spiritual), two conditions must be met: you must have needs and it is necessary that they be satisfied. Therefore, the one who has the least needs gets the most pleasure. A person should develop the art of moderation in pleasures and choose those that do not entail suffering.
Epicurus did not deny the importance of both physical and spiritual pleasures. Physical pleasures are more significant because spiritual pleasures cannot exist without them. But spiritual pleasures are comparable to the highest good, because they bring more pleasure.
Virtue and reason are two conditions for a person to be happy. Reason is necessary for happiness, for choosing well between pleasures, and also for controlling thoughts. Thoughts are often erroneous and cause delusions and fears that disturb a person's peace and make his happiness impossible. There is no worse fear than the thought of almighty gods and inevitable death. You can get rid of this fear by exploring nature.
Nature among the Epicureans appears as a set of material bodies, consisting of atoms. Nothing but bodies and empty space exists. The movement of bodies is carried out due to the influence of material bodies on each other, therefore in the material world there are no gods who would ensure the movement of bodies, the first impulse, the existence of all nature. The gods of Epicurus live in the other world - in good and indestructible peace, they do not interfere in the fate of the world. Since the gods do not take part in the fate of the world, this frees a person from the need to be afraid of them. Man has no reason to fear the gods.
But a person has no reason to be afraid of death. The human soul, like the body, is a material structure. A person experiences fears and emotions only where there are sensory sensations, good and evil are only where there are sensory sensations. Death brings an end to sensory experiences. Therefore, the fear of death is absent in those who are convinced that after death there is no suffering. Only earthly life matters, therefore, while living it, you should get as much pleasure and happiness as possible. As long as we exist, there is no death, and when there is death, we are not.
Skepticism. The main representatives of skepticism: Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus. The time of development of this direction in ancient philosophy of the 4th-3rd centuries. BC.
The skeptics called themselves "refraining from judgment." Only such a skeptical position will ensure happiness, give peace of mind, and happiness lies in peace.
Pyrrho posed three fundamental questions:
1) What are the qualities of things?
2) How should we behave towards things?
3) What are the consequences of our behavior towards them?
And gave these answers:
1) We do not know what the qualities of things are.
2) Because of this, we must refrain from judging them.
3) This abstinence gives peace and happiness.
We cannot know the things themselves. We can only experience the effects of these things on our senses, so we can only know our sensations. We cannot know the causes of phenomena, so all judgments about them are not true. We also cannot know anything about the deity, our knowledge about the gods is contradictory: someone considers the deity corporeal, someone incorporeal, someone immanent, someone transcendent. If the deity is perfect, then it is unlimited, if unlimited, then it is motionless, if motionless, then it is soulless, and if it is soulless, then it is imperfect. If the deity is perfect, then it must have all the virtues. And some virtues (for example, patience in suffering) are a manifestation of imperfection, since only imperfection can be questioned.
In ethics, there are also no unambiguous opinions about what is good. Ultimately, good, like evil, like God, like nature, is unknowable: everyone has their own idea of them. Based on all this, the only acceptable and reasonable position is to refrain from judgment.
The last period of ancient philosophy (I-IV centuries AD)
The philosophy of this period of Antiquity is defined as a philosophy based on religion. The most important direction of this period is Neoplatonism; its main representative Plotinus. Neoplatonism is often called the last great philosophical system of antiquity.
People began to look for the meaning and purpose of life in another world. The thirst for eternal life and liberation from slavery and earthly frailty took possession of their thoughts. Satisfaction with one's own strength disappeared, and the expectation of help from supernatural beings, deities, became widespread. This was influenced by both social factors and the influence of a different religious culture from the East.
According to the ideas of the Neoplatonists, the earthly world comes from the ideal divine world. Being is a process of constant becoming. There is a single stable being that develops and acquires various forms in the process of its development. The types of being that stand out are outflows of being, or emanation. The world is the outflow of more and more new states of being. Each new kind of being has a lesser perfection and comes only from a different, more perfect state.
By perfect being is understood the Absolute, the pure One, which is neither spirit, nor thought, nor freedom, since spirit, thought, freedom have contradictions. The Absolute stands above all perfection; he is an expression of the beautiful, the good, the truth, the one. It is the Absolute that is the source of such types of existence as spirit, soul and matter.
Scheme 2.3.Ancient Philosophy: Late Classic
The human soul has two parts: the lower part (performs plant and animal functions, all imperfections and sins belong to this part) and the higher part. The higher part must be completely free from bodily fetters and any imperfections. There are two paths of the soul: down and up. Down as an ordinary emanation, that is, lowering it to the bodily part of the soul. This is the usual way of diminishing the perfection of being. The way up the soul can go in different ways - knowledge, art or virtue.
Knowledge as an approximation to the Absolute is not knowledge with the help of the senses or the mind. Plotinus refers to a special ability of the mind - to intuition. Intuition here is not a cognitive act, but a moral action. Intuition is understood as ecstasy, "rapture", only in this way is a connection with the Absolute possible. The path of the soul through art is possible in the work of the artist, which is a divine reflection and a way of becoming like the Divine. In Neoplatonism, the theory of art and beauty becomes an essential element of the philosophical system.
Questions and tasks:
1. Which of the philosophers of the Milesian school was referred to as the "seven wise men" and for what knowledge? What could you tell about it?
2. What is monism? What philosophical teachings of antiquity would you attribute to monism and why?
3. What is pantheism? Name the philosophers whose teachings were pantheistic and why?
4. Which of the ancient thinkers was the first dialectician and why?
5. Which philosopher founded atomism? What was the essence of his teaching? Was it materialism?
6. "Everything flows and nothing stays." "You can't step into the same river twice." Who is the author of these judgments? What is the name of the philosophical doctrine founded by this thinker?
7. Which of the ancient thinkers called his method of teaching maieutics? What is the essence of this method?
8. Explain the concept of metaphysics according to Aristotle.
9. Why in antiquity there was not yet (and could not be) a clear separation between philosophy and other sciences, while philosophers were at the same time mathematicians, astronomers, mechanics, etc.?
10. The process of development of scientific knowledge led to separation from the philosophy of particular sciences. Does this mean that the scope of the subject matter of philosophy has narrowed?
11. Heraclitus argued that this cosmos, the same for everyone, was not created by any of the gods, none of the people, but it always was, is and will be an ever-living fire, flaring up in measures and extinguishing in measures. What branch of philosophy did he belong to?
12. The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 490-430 BC) owns the words that the world alternately arises and is destroyed and, having arisen again, is destroyed again ... which in turn wins either Love or Enmity, and the first brings everything into unity , destroys the world of Enmity, Enmity separates the elements again. What germs of dialectical ideas can be found in these words?
13. According to Aristotle, Democritus and Leucippus said that everything else consists of indivisible bodies, the latter being infinite in number and infinitely varied in form; things are distinguished from each other by the indivisible bodies of which they are composed, their position and order. What concept was founded by Democritus and Leucippus?
The philosophy of antiquity is divided into two forms: ancient Greek And ancient Roman(end of $7$ century BC - $6$ century AD).
ancient greek philosophy
There is no place for anonymity in ancient philosophy. There will always be an appeal to one or another philosophical figure.
It includes $12$ centuries of outstanding names and unsurpassed personalities - the founders of many natural sciences and humanities disciplines and philosophers.
Remark 1
Thales opens the ancient philosophy, Boethius completes it.
The understanding of ancient philosophy is based on the interaction of two approaches: the formation of an awareness of the emergence model and the construction of ancient philosophy, and the development of concepts and concepts by philosophers, on the basis of which one can capture their worldview with one glance.
In the absence of barriers between one's own and another's, Greek thought borrows "philosophy" from the barbarians: Persians, Babylonians, Indians. Thus, ancient philosophy absorbs oriental wisdom.
Ancient Greek philosophy is divided into three periods:
- Origin:$7-5$ cc. BC e. (Early Classics, Naturphilosophy)
- Heyday:$5-6$ cc. BC e. (Classic, Socrates, Socrates, Platonists)
- Sunset:$4-1$ cc. BC e. (Hellenistic philosophy)
The philosophy of Antiquity is born in the form of worldly wisdom. This is the doctrine of Being. Philosophy, as a rule, did not go beyond these limits. The function of philosophy was aimed at wisdom and the search for knowledge of being.
One of the central concepts of ancient philosophy is the concept of "nature", which over the course of this period succumbed to various interpretations.
The Greek concept of nature includes the concept of nature and the world as a whole. She is inseparable from the person.
Cosmocentrism - as a fundamental concept of ancient Greek philosophy, is associated with the comprehension of reality, space, harmony, being, for this current the world as a whole is important. Also at this time, various versions of the origin of being, and the essence of the world of things, are considered. For example, Democritus believed that the world consists of indivisible particles - atoms.
The early philosophers were collected in one general work, Fragments of the Pre-Socratics, by Hermann Diels.
Asia Minor was the center of Greek civilization. The colony of Miletus, the birthplace of Thales, becomes the key to all ancient philosophy, where the first school of philosophy arises.
Pythagoras is called the ancestor of the concept of philosophy, which we now use to describe this thought and spiritual process. Philosophy is the love of wisdom.
Main names and philosophical schools
The following schools belong to the early classical, natural-philosophical ancient Greek tradition:
- Milesian school (Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander)
- Pythagorean school (Pythagoras, Archytas, Timaeus, Philollai)
- Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno)
- Heraclitus school (Heraclitus, Cratylus)
- School of Anaxagoras (Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Metrodorus)
- Atomists (Democritus, Leucippus)
The first stage of ancient philosophy ends with Plato. Hellenistic philosophy is moving forward.
There are four leading philosophical schools of antiquity - the Academy, Peripate, Portico and Garden, which to a certain extent have a representative position in the Hellenistic era.
The concept of Hellenistic philosophy appeared in the $XX$ century. It was formulated by Droysen, who wrote a work on the history of Hellenism. Traditionally, Hellenism concerns only Greek culture and characterizes the spread of Greek culture and language over a wider area. The word itself is translated as "to live in Greek." However, Rome, having adopted Greek culture, retained Latin. It was through the translation of Greek philosophy that the Latin philosophical language was formed.
From $III$ c. Platonism becomes the leading direction, which settles in Aristotelianism and Stoicism.
For contemporaries and subsequent representatives of European culture, the philosophical knowledge and teachings of Plato became an important event. The conventional wisdom is being questioned. Plato changes the essence of wisdom and philosophy itself, while he himself was a student of Socrates. Socrates had a rather strong influence on Plato, however, his ideas went even further, including they are the basis of idealism. Plato overestimates questions about the nature of philosophical knowledge, man, puts forward his ideas about the essence of the world, truth, and good. In part, his ideas are continued by Aristotle, who is a student of Plato, but in many aspects Aristotle does not support Plato's ideas, but puts forward completely opposite ones. The teachings of Aristotle later had a huge impact on Alexander the Great.
A common feature of Hellenistic philosophy is the emphasis on ethics, which is associated with a correct and happy way of life. Each school of the Hellenistic era develops its own idea of perfection and its own image of a sage. This image of the sage remains the same. The philosopher begins to be associated with the "strange" figure. Genuine philosophizing in everyday life acquires a specific character.
There are three periods in the history of Stoicism:
- ancient standing($III-II$ centuries BC). Founder Zenon Kititsky ($336-264$).
- Average standing($II-I$ centuries BC) The founders of Roman stoicism: Panetius of Rhodes ($180-110$), Posidonius ($135-51$).
- Late standing or Roman stoicism. This is purely ethical. In $I-II$ centuries. AD it existed simultaneously with the Judeo-Christian tradition, which influenced the formation of Christian doctrine.
Remark 2
The most prominent among the philosophers of Stoicism were Seneca Lucius Anneus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.
Stoicism can be described as the "religion" of the Roman aristocracy. He considers questions about happiness, about its attainability and its relationship with virtue.
From $1$ century BC to $5$ century AD Greek philosophy is influenced by ancient Rome and early Christianity.
School of Neoplatonists
Neoplatonism is a very influential concept.
The first school of Neoplatonism took shape in Rome in the $III$ century. Its founder was Plotinus, he used many of the ideas put forward by Plato. In the $4th century Neoplatonism flared up in Syria and Pergamon. In the $V$ century the center of Neoplatonism moved to Athens and Alexandria of Egypt.
The Roman, Syrian and Pergamon schools are known.
Plotinus, speaking about the One, was based on Plato's Parmenides. Parmenides was the first to understand in the most general terms what it means to be. The One Plotinus transcends both being and existence. It emanates: the first step is Mind. The nature of Mind is to think, for without thinking there is no being.
Ancient philosophy gave rise to many hypotheses and concepts that formed the basis of all further philosophical tradition.
Thanks to these specific ideas of philosophizing, interest in thought, being and the essence of the universe arose in European culture.
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.
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
The conditional date of the beginning of ancient philosophy is 585 BC. e., when the Greek and sage Thales of Miletus predicted a solar eclipse, the conditional final date is 529 AD. e., when the Platonic Academy in Athens, the last philosophical school of antiquity, was closed by the edict of the Christian emperor Justinian. The conditionality of these dates lies in the fact that in the first case, Thales turns out to be the “ancestor of philosophy” (for the first time Aristotle called him so in Metaphysics, 983b20) long before the appearance of the word “philosophy”, and in the second case, the history of ancient philosophy is considered completed, although somewhat its outstanding representatives (Damascus, Simplicius, Olympiodorus) continued their scientific work. Nevertheless, these dates make it possible to determine that within which a schematic presentation of a diverse and heterogeneous heritage, united in the concept of “ancient philosophy”, is possible.
Sources of study. 1. Corpus of philosophical texts of antiquity, preserved in medieval manuscripts in Greek. The texts of Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonist philosophers, who represented the greatest for Christian culture, are best preserved. 2. Texts that became known to scholars only in modern times thanks to archaeological excavations; the most important finds are the Epicurean library of papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum (see Philodemus of Godara), a stone stele with an Epicurean text carved on it (see Diogenes of Enoanda), papyri with Aristotle's "Athenian polity" found in Egypt, anonymous 2nd century BC. n. e. to Plato's Theaetetus, a papyrus from Derveni, 5th c. with the interpretation of Homer. 3. Ancient texts preserved only in translation into another language: Latin, Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew. Separately, one can mention ancient historical and philosophical texts, which are both primary and secondary sources on ancient philosophy. The most common genres of ancient historical and philosophical literature were philosophical biographies, compendiums of opinions, in which the teachings of philosophers were grouped thematically, and school “successions”, combining the first two methods within the framework of a strict scheme “from teacher to student” (see Doxographs). In general, a relatively small part of the texts has come down to us from antiquity, and the selection that has been preserved due to historical circumstances can be recognized as representative with reservations. Researchers often have to turn to the methods of reconstruction of sources to restore a more complete picture of the philosophical thought of antiquity.
Socrates, a contemporary of the Sophists, is close to them in his interest in “social philosophy” and pedagogy, but he was distinguished by a different understanding of his teaching. He said that he “knows nothing” and therefore cannot teach anyone, he liked not to answer questions, but to ask them (see maieutics), urged not to achieve success and not seek benefits, but to take care of his soul first of all, he he did not judge questions of religion (cf. the beginning of the book of Protagoras “On the Gods”, which says that the existence of the gods is Too obscure), but said that (“demoiy”) is in everyone and that he sometimes hears his voice. Socrates believed that it was possible to check whether we had found the truth or not if we looked at ourselves after all the reasoning: if we reasoned about what it was, but we ourselves did not become kinder, then we did not know the main thing; if we have become better and kinder (cf. Kalokagatiya), then we have reliably learned the truth. In Athens, Socrates gathered around him a circle of regular listeners who did not constitute a school; however, some of them (Antisthenes, Euclid, Aristsht, Fedop) founded their own schools after his tragic death (see Socratic schools, Cynics, Megarian school, Cyrene school, Elido-Eretrian school). For all subsequent history, Socrates became a philosopher as such, standing alone against the "sophists" in his pursuit of true wisdom.
The nature of philosophical teaching has changed significantly: instead of a school as a community of like-minded people, with a single way of life and constant closeness of the teacher and student, leading oral, the school becomes a professional institute, and professional teachers begin to teach philosophy, receiving a salary from the state (emperor). In 176 n. e. Emperor Marcus Aurelius establishes (allocates state subsidies) in Athens four philosophical departments: Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic and Epicurean, which clearly limits the main philosophical currents of the period. The main attention in different schools was given to one thing - the restoration of an authoritative corpus of texts for one or another tradition (cf. Andronicus' edition of Aristotle's texts, Chrasilyom's texts of Plato). The beginning of the era of systematic commentary: if the previous period can be designated as the era of dialogue, then this and the next stage in the history of ancient philosophy is the period of commentary, i.e., the text created in connection with and in relation to another, authoritative text. The Platonists comment on Plato, the peripatetics on Aristotle, the Stoics on Chrysippus (cf. Epictetus, “Manual” § 49; “Conversations” 110, 8 - on Stoic school exegesis, in contrast to the Platonic and Peripatetic, represented by surviving texts, we can only judge by hints). According to the remark of the peripatetic Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd century AD), the discussion of “theses” was the custom of the ancient philosophers, “they gave their lessons in precisely this way, without commenting on books, as they do now (then there were no books of this kind ), but by presenting a thesis and arguing for and against, they thereby exercised their own to find evidence based on premises accepted by everyone” (Alex. Aphrod. In Top., 27, 13 Wallies).
Of course, oral exercises could not be discarded - but now they are exercises for explaining written texts. The difference is clearly visible in the new school formulation of the question of research (not about the subject, but about how Plato or Aristotle understood the subject): for example, not “is the world eternal?”, but “can we assume that, according to Plato, the world is eternal if in “Timaeus” does he recognize the demiurge of the world?” (cf. "Platonic Questions" by Plutarch of Chaeronea).
The desire to systematize and streamline the legacy of the past was also manifested in a huge number of doxographic compendia and biographical histories created just in this period from the 1st century BC. BC e. (the most famous compendium of Aria Didyma) to the beginning. 3 in. (the most famous are Diogenes Laertius and Sextus Empiricus), and in the wide distribution of school textbooks, designed to correctly and intelligibly devote both students and the general public to the teachings of the great philosophers (cf. especially the Platonic textbooks of Apuleius and AlciNOJ).
Plotinus is considered the founder of Neoplatonism, because the corpus of his writings (“Enneads”) contains all of Neoplatonic philosophy, which he built into a coherent ontological hierarchy: the superexistential principle is the One-blizgo, the second hypostasis is Um-nus, the third is the World Soul and the sensual Cosmos . The One is inaccessible to thought and is comprehended only in superintelligent ecstatic unity with it, expressed not by ordinary linguistic means, but negatively, through (cf.). The transition from one to other levels of being is described in terms of “radiation”, “opening”, later the main term is “exodus” (proodos), see Emanation. itself (thus acting as the beginning for the soul, the soul for the cosmos). In the future, this scheme will be subjected to refinement and careful development. In general, systematism, scholasticism, and magic (theurgy) are extremely characteristic of late (post-Iamblichian) Neoplatonism. Noteworthy is the absence of socio-political issues, so important for Plato himself; Neoplatonism is entirely and theology.
Among the texts authoritative for Neoplatonists, in addition to the texts of Plato (commentaries on the Platonic dialogues form the main part of the heritage of this tradition), were the works of Aristotle, Homer and the Chaldean oracles. Commentaries on Aristotle are the second largest part of the surviving heritage of Neoplatonism; the key for Neoplatonic commentators was the harmonization of the teachings of Plato and Aristotle (see Aristotle's commentators for more details). On the whole, the course of Aristotle's philosophy was seen as the ("small mysteries") to the study of Plato ("great mysteries").
In 529, the Academy of Athens was closed by an edict of Emperor Justinian, and philosophers were forced to stop teaching. This date is accepted as a symbolic end to the history of angina philosophy, although the philosophers expelled from Athens continued to work on the outskirts of the empire (for example, the comments of Simplicius, which became for us one of the main sources on the history of ancient philosophy, were written by him already in exile). PHILOSOPHY-?ΙΛΙΑ ΣΟΦΙΑΣ. About what philosophy is, the ancient philosophers themselves spoke as often as they often had to embark on an initial philosophical course. A similar course in the Neoplatonic schools was opened by reading Aristotle.
Aristotle began with logic, logic with "Categories". Several “Introductions to Philosophy” and “Introductions to Aristotle” have survived, anticipating school commentaries on the “Categories”. Porfiry, who first proposed to consider the writings of Aristotle as a propaedeutic to Platonic ones, at one time wrote a special “Introduction to the Categories” (“Isagoge”), which became the basic textbook for Neoplatonists. Commenting on Porphyry, the Neoplatonist Ammonius lists several traditional definitions in which Platonic, Aristotelian and Stoic themes can be distinguished: 1) “knowledge of beings because beings”; 2) “knowledge of divine and human affairs”; 3) “likeness to God, as far as it is possible for a person”; 4) “preparation for death”; 5) “the art of arts and sciences”; 6) "love of wisdom" (Airtmonius. In Porph. Isagogen, 2, 22-9, 24). The best way to clarify these late school definitions, which also demonstrate the spaciousness of the tradition that has consolidated the various teachings of more than a thousand years into one “history of ancient philosophy”, could be all the ancient philosophical texts at our disposal.
Encyclopedias and dictionaries: Pauly A., Wssowa G; Kroll W. (hrsg.). Realencyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 83 Bande. Stuttg., 1894-1980; Der Neue Pauly. Enzyklopaedie der Antike. Das klassische Altertum und seine Rezeptionsgeschichte in 15 Banden, hrsg. v. H. Cancik and H. Schneider. Stuttg., 1996-99; Goulet S. (ed.). Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, v. 1-2. P., 1989-94; 2e.”/ D. J. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy. Westport, 1997.
Detailed expositions of the history of ancient philosophy: Losev A.F., History of ancient aesthetics in 8 vols. M., 1963-93; Guthlie W. K. C. A History of Greek Philosophy in b vols. Cambr., 1962-81; Algra K., Bames J; Mansfeld f.. Schoßeid M. (eus.). The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy. Cambr., 1999; Armstrong A. B. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy. Cambr., 1967; Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, begr. v. fr. Ueberweg: Die Philosophie des Altertunis, hrsg. v. K. Prächter, völlig neubearbeitete Ausgabe: Die Philosophie der Antike, hrsg. v. H. Raschar, Bd. 3-4. Basel-Stuttg., 1983-94 (volumes l-2 forthcoming); Reale G. Storia delia filosofia antica, v. 1-5. Mil., 1975-87 (English translation: A History of Ancient Philosophy. Albany, 1985); Zeller £. Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung, 3 Teile in 6 Banden. Lpz., 1879-1922 (3-6 Aufl.; Neudruck Hildesheim, 1963).
Textbooks: Zeller E. Essay on the history of Greek philosophy. St. Petersburg, 1912 (reissued 1996); Chanyshev A. N. Course of lectures of ancient philosophy. M., 1981; He is. Course of lectures on ancient and medieval philosophy. M., 1991; Bogomolov A.S. Antique Philosophy. M., 1985; Reale J., Antiseri D. Western philosophy from its origins to the present day. I. Antiquity (translated from Italian). SPb., 1994; Losev A.F. Dictionary of ancient philosophy. M., 1995; History of Philosophy: West-Russia-East, book. 1: Philosophy of Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. N. V. Motroshilova. M., 1995; Ado Pierre. What is ancient philosophy? (translated from .). M., 1999; Canto-Sperber M., Barnes J; ßrisson L., £runschwig J., Viaslos G. (eds.). Philosophie Grecque. P., 1997.
Readers: Pereverzentsev S. V. Workshop on the history of Western European philosophy (Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance). M., 1997; tbgel C. de (ed.). Greek philosophy. A collection f texts selected and supplied with some notes and explanations, vol. 1-3. Leiden, 1963-67; Long A. A., Sedley D. X (eds. and trs.). The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 v. Cambr., 1987.
Manuals on the history of Greek culture and education: Zelinsky F.F. From the life of ideas, 3rd ed. Pg., 1916; He is. Hellenistic religion. Pg., 1922; Marru A.-I. History of education in antiquity (Greece), trans. from French. M., 1998; Yeager W. Paydeia. The Education of the Ancient Greek, trans. with him. M., 1997.
Lit .: Losev A.F. Antique space and modern science. M., 1927 (reissued 1993); He is. Essays on ancient symbolism and mythology. M., 1930 (reissued 1993); He is. Hellenistic-Roman 1-11 centuries. n. e. M., 1979; Rozhachshy ID The development of natural science in the era of antiquity. M., 1979; Bogomolov A.S. Dialectical Logos. Becoming antique. M., 1982; Gaidenko P. P. Evolution of the concept of science. M., 1980; Zaitsev A.I. Cultural upheaval in ancient Greece VIII-VI centuries. BC e .. L., 1985; Dobrokhotov A. L. The category of being in classical Western European philosophy. M., 1986; Anton J. P., Kustos G. L. (eds.). Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Albany, 1971; Haase W., lèmporini J. (eds.), Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt. Geschichte und Kultur Roms ün Spiegel der neueren Forschung, Teil II, Bd. 36:1-7. B. - N. Y., 1987-98; Mansfeid]. Questions to be settled before the study of anauthororatext.Leiden-N.Y.-Koln, 1994; Irwin T. (ed.). Classical Philosophy: Collected Papers, vol. 1-8. N.Y., 1995; The Cambridge Companoin to early Greek philosophy, ed. by A. A. Long. N. Y, 1999. Continuing editions: Entretiens sur l "Antiquité classique, t. 1-43. Vandoevres-Gen., 1952-97; Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. J. Annas et al., v. 1- 17. Oxf., 1983-99.
Bibliographies: Marouwau J. (ed.), L "Année philologique. Bibliographie critique et analytique de l" antiquité gréco-latine. P., 1924-99; Bell A. A. Resources in Ancient Philosophy: An An An Annotated Bibliography of Scholarship in English. 1965-1989. Metuchen-N. J., 1991.
Internet facilities: http://callimac.yjf.cnrs.fr (various in classical antiquity, including recent editions of Maruso); http://www.perseus.tufts.edu (classical texts in original and English translation); http;//www.gnomon.kueichsiaett. de/Gnomon (bibliographies of works on ancient culture and philosophy); http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr (Bryn Mawr Classical Review of literature on antiquity).
M. A. Solopova
New Philosophical Encyclopedia: In 4 vols. M.: Thought. Edited by V. S. Stepin. 2001 .
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Topic 2 Ancient philosophy
1. Main characteristics.
2. Pre-Socratic philosophy.
3. Classical ancient philosophy.
Main characteristics
Antiquity (antiquity - antiquity) covers approximately the 7th century BC and the 5th century AD.
Features of ancient philosophy:
a) cosmocentrism - understanding of the world as a cosmos, an ordered and expedient whole (as opposed to chaos);
b) dialectics - the idea of the continuous variability of the Cosmos, which, however, does not generate anything new. (idea of circulation);
c) ahistoricism - not an understanding of historical development;
d) helozoism - the animation of the entire Cosmos.
Pre-Socratic philosophy
Ancient philosophy goes through 3 stages of its development: pre-Socratic (birth), classical (dawn), Hellenic-Roman (sunset).
Pre-Socratic schools: Pythagorean, Miletus, Elean.
The Pythagorean School is a closed paramilitary organization. Founder Pythogor. His students: Metrodar, Philolaus. They took the number as the fundamental principle of the world. "Everything is a number." Number is an independent entity, Substance. Numerical ratios underlie all properties of things.
Miletus school (6th century BC, Miletus). Founder - Thales. Other representatives: Anaximenes, Anaximander. These philosophers understood substance as the primary material from which everything arose. That is, substance is understood as substance. According to Thales, the substance is water, according to Anaximenes it is air. According to Anaximander, apeiron is a special, unobservable, indefinite substance.
For the first time, the ideas that the phenomenon and essence are not the same thing were expressed by the Elets (6-5 centuries BC, city of Elea). Representatives: Xenophanes (founder), Parmenides, Zeno of Elea. Therefore, they are considered the first philosophers whose teaching has a deeply philosophical character. The Eleatics believed that the basis of the sensually perceived world (directly given in experience) is only intelligible (comprehensible by reason). What appears to us and what is in reality are different. They introduced into philosophy the categories of being and non-being. By being they understood that which exists (everything that exists), and by non-being, everything that does not exist. They believed that being is one and motionless. Being is Thought (being=thinking). To prove that being is motionless, Zeno developed aporias (irresolvable contradictions) - reasoning, with the help of which the inconsistency of the mind is revealed in the proof of movement in the world. These are such aporias as “Arrow”, “Dichtomia”, “Achilles and the tortoise”. They are called upon to prove that the attempt to think of motion leads to contradiction. Therefore, movement is only an appearance. The substance is immovable. That is why the Eleatics were called "non-ascetics." They laid the foundation for a cognitive approach based on the principle of the immutability of the world. This approach is called metaphysical. In ancient Greece, everyone wanted to refute the ideas of the Eleatics, but no one could.
The opposite method of cognition is dialectics. Its founder is Heraclitus. “Space and planets are pieces of solidified lava, life arose on them. This cosmos arose after another catastrophe. Someday the fire will return to itself. “This cosmos, the same for all, was not created by any of the gods and by any of the people, but was, is and will be a living fire, kindling by measures and extinguishing by measures.” Thus, the essence of substance (fire) is perpetual motion. "You can't step into the same river twice." His disciple Cratylus argued that once you cannot enter the same water.
The mobile substance model was developed within the framework of ancient atomism. Representatives: Leucippus, Democritus. They took atoms as the fundamental principle of the world - indivisible, smallest material particles, the main properties of which are size and shape. Democritus: "Atoms are eternal, unchanging, there is no emptiness inside them, but emptiness separates them." Between the atoms of the human body are the "balls" of the soul. Atoms differ in order and position (rotation). The number of atoms and their diversity is infinite. The eternal property of atoms is motion. Movement is an internal source. Atoms float in the void. When they collide, they change direction. When combined, they form bodies. The properties of bodies depend on the type and combination of atoms. Because the movement of atoms occurs according to strict laws, everything in the world is predetermined by necessity. There are no accidents in the world (determinism).
During the Hellenistic period, atomism was developed in the teachings of Epicurus, who founded the school "Garden of Epicurus" in Athens. Epicurus defined atoms as the limit of division of any existing. The number of atoms is infinite, but the number of their forms is not infinite, although it is great. At the beginning of time, there was a free fall of atoms in the void. When they deviate from a vertical fall, they collide, resulting in a world. Epicurus introduces the concept of "clinamen" - the spontaneous deviation of atoms from the original trajectory in an indefinite place and at an indefinite time. He thereby allowed the existence of accidents, which for a person means freedom and the possibility of choice. The gods reside in interstellar space and do not interfere in the affairs of people. Ancient atomism underlies the formation of classical science.
Classical ancient philosophy
Classical ancient philosophy covers the 5th-4th centuries BC. During this period, great philosophical doctrines arose, which determined the further course of the philosophical thought of the West. Representatives: Socrates - the founder, Plato, Aristotle.
The philosophical school of Plato in Athens was called the "Academy", because. was located near the Akadema temple. His concept: there are two worlds - the sensually perceived world of things and the intelligible world of ideas - eidos. In earthly reality, we see eidos only embodied in things. In an ideal world, they exist in their pure form. The highest idea is the idea of the Good. The existence of things is secondary to the eidos. A thing is formed by the combination of eidos with a certain amount of matter. Plato called the material principle "hora" - matter. It is a passive dead substance that has no internal organization. This was the beginning of idealism.
Aristotle is a philosopher of the encyclopedic mind. He was the first to systematize all the scientific knowledge of that time. At that time, all scientific knowledge was called philosophy. Aristotle divides science into theoretical, practical and creative. Theoretical sciences - philosophy, physics, mathematics. It is they and, above all, philosophy, that reveal the unchanging beginnings of being. He assigns a special role to philosophy. It deals with the knowledge of the first principles, the first principles of the world, the problem of human knowledge and knowledge itself (the problem of distinguishing between true and false knowledge).
Aristotle did not doubt the reality of the world. "The world is one and there are no grounds for doubts about its reality." Aristotle: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer."
A fundamental place in the philosophy of Aristotle is occupied by the doctrine of matter and form. “I call matter that from which some thing arises, i.e. matter is the material of a thing. Matter is indestructible and does not disappear, but it is only material. Before taking a certain form, it is in a state of non-existence; without a form, it is devoid of life, integrity, energy. Without form, matter is a possibility; with form, it becomes reality. Aristotle taught that the reverse transition of form into matter is also possible. Aristotle came to the conclusion that there is also the first form - the form of forms, which is God.
