Classical ancient philosophy. Periodization of ancient philosophy
The philosophy of antiquity is divided into two forms: ancient Greek And ancient Roman(late $7$ 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.
Note 1
Thales opens ancient philosophy and Boethius completes it.
Understanding of ancient philosophy is built on the interaction of two approaches: the formation of an awareness of the model of the emergence and construction of ancient philosophy, and the development of concepts and concepts by philosophers, on the basis of which their worldview can be captured at a glance.
In the absence of barriers between oneself and the other, Greek thought borrows the “practice of philosophy” from the barbarians: Persians, Babylonians, Indians. Thus, ancient philosophy absorbs Eastern wisdom.
Ancient Greek philosophy is divided into three periods:
- Origin:$7-5$ per cent. BC e. (Early Classics, Natural Philosophy)
- Bloom:$5-6$ per cent. BC e. (Classics, Socrates, Socratics, Platonists)
- Sunset:$4-1$ in. BC e. (Hellenistic philosophy)
The philosophy of Antiquity originates in the form of worldly wisdom. This is the doctrine of Being. Philosophy, as a rule, did not go beyond this framework. The function of philosophy was aimed at wisdom and the search for knowledge of existence.
One of the central concepts of ancient philosophy is the concept of “nature,” which throughout this period was subject to various interpretations.
The Greek concept of nature includes the concept of nature and the world as a whole. It is inseparable from man.
Cosmocentrism - as a fundamental concept of ancient Greek philosophy, is associated with the comprehension of reality, space, harmony, being; the world as a whole is important for this movement. 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 Presocratics, authored by Hermann Diels.
Asia Minor was the center of Greek civilization. The colony of Miletus, the birthplace of Thales, became key for all ancient philosophy, where the first school of philosophy arose.
Pythagoras is called the founder of the concept of philosophy, which we now use to describe this mental 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, Philolaus)
- 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 advances.
There are four leading philosophical schools of antiquity - the Academy, the Peripatus, the Portico and the Garden, which to a certain extent have a representative position in the Hellenistic era.
The concept of Hellenistic philosophy appeared in the 20th 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 to wider areas. The word itself is translated as “living 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 Aristotelism and Stoicism.
For contemporaries and subsequent representatives of European culture, the philosophical knowledge and teachings of Plato became an important event. The usual worldview is called into question. Plato changes the essence of wisdom and philosophy itself, and he himself was a student of Socrates. Socrates had a fairly strong influence on Plato, however, his ideas went even further, including 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. His ideas are partly 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. Aristotle's teachings later had a huge influence on Alexander the Great.
A common feature of Hellenistic philosophy is the emphasis on ethics, which is associated with a correct and happy lifestyle. Each school of the Hellenistic era develops its own idea of perfection and its own image of the sage. This image of the sage remains the same. The philosopher begins to be associated with a “strange” figure. Genuine philosophizing in everyday life takes on a specific character.
There are three periods in the history of Stoicism:
- Ancient standing($III-II $ centuries BC). Founder Zenon of Kitia ($336-$264).
- Average standing($II-I $ centuries BC) Founders of Roman Stoicism: Panetius of Rhodes ($180-110 $), Posidonius ($135-51 $).
- Late standing or Roman stoicism. This is a purely ethical phenomenon. In $I-II$ centuries. AD it existed simultaneously with the Judeo-Christian tradition, which influenced the formation of Christian doctrine.
Note 2
The most prominent among the philosophers of Stoicism were Seneca Lucius Annaeus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.
Stoicism can be described as the “religion” of the Roman aristocracy. He considers questions about happiness, its achievability and relationship with virtue.
From $1$ century B.C. for $5$ century AD Greek philosophy is influenced by ancient Rome and early Christianity.
Neoplatonist school
Neoplatonism is a very influential concept.
The first school of Neoplatonism took shape in Rome in the $3rd century. Its founder was Plotinus, he used many of the ideas put forward by Plato. In the $4th century, Neoplatonism broke out 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 Dam transcends both being and existence. It emanates: the first step is Mind. The nature of the Mind is to think, for without thinking there is no existence.
Ancient philosophy gave rise to many hypotheses and concepts that formed the basis of all subsequent philosophical traditions.
Thanks to these specific ideas of philosophizing, interest in thought, being and the essence of the universe arose in European culture.
Ancient philosophy covers philosophy Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome and the period from the 6th century. BC. to the 6th 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 formation of philosophy - philosophy of nature or natural philosophy. This stage is characterized by cosmological issues (VI-V centuries BC);
2) the period of ancient enlightenment - philosophy of a humanistic nature (5th century BC);
3) classical period (IV century BC);
4) the period of ancient philosophical systems, in which problems of ethics occupied an important position (III - I centuries BC);
5) the period of influence of other systems on Greek philosophy - Judaism, Christianity - philosophy of a religious nature (1st century BC - 5th century AD).
Basic ideas of ancient philosophy:
1) nature is the only absolute. 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 institution, on the basis of reasonable justification;
5) nomos - law that rises above private interests; a rational establishment accepted by all residents of the city, obligatory for everyone;
6) the main subjects of consideration: physics (nature), which is the subject of physics; origins - the subject of metaphysics; the civil character of public life, the role of the personal principle in it, the justification of human virtues is the subject of ethics;
7) rejection of the mythological image of the universe, which determines the demand for searching for the impersonal basis 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 to substantiate the rational world order, including the reasonable order of things and human life.
Natural philosophy
All philosophical schools of this period can be divided into the following groups:
■ Milesian school (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes);
■ Ephesian school (Heraclitus);
■ school of Pythagoras;
■ Eleatic school (Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno);
■ Empedocles;
■ Atomism (Leucippus, Democritus);
■ Athenian school (Anaxagoras).
Milesian school. The Milesian school is represented by the names of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. The subject of thought of these philosophers was nature, so Aristotle called them physiologists, or theorists of nature (natural philosophy). The initial question they asked themselves was: what was the beginning of nature? That is, these most ancient philosophers wanted to find out what was the original type of 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 primary matter. Everything is water, everything comes from water and turns into water. Thales was the first to pose precisely the philosophical problem of the beginning of the world. In mythology, there was an idea that at the beginning of the world there was water, and Thales’ predecessors also believed so. But unlike the mythological way of understanding reality, the philosopher does not ask the question of who created the world and what happened 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 Thales's ideas took place in the works of another ancient philosopher Anaximander. If Thales reflected on 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 ("physis") meant that which becomes, develops and is generated. In Anaximander, this term begins to mean that which is unchangeable, that which was, is and will be. The term, which usually denoted that which becomes, undergoes 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 must be found; phenomena are heterogeneous, but nature is one; phenomena are random, but nature is necessary.
Therefore, for Anaximander, primary matter is not accessible to the senses. The beginning of everything that exists, from his point of view, is apeiron (“limitless”). The characteristics of apeiron are boundlessness and qualitative unlimitedness. Apeiron is the origin from which matter and everything that exists arises.
Another representative of the Milesian school, Anaximenes, retained Anaximander’s views that the world is unlimited. But infinity is not something indefinite, as in Anaximander. Primary matter is one of the types of matter - air.
Ephesus school represented by the name of Heraclitus. One of the themes of Heraclitus’s work is related to 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 returned to itself again. Fire from its upper reservoirs 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 something else speaks of its variability.
Identifying fire as the primary principle, Heraclitus notices another characteristic of nature, namely, its changeability, 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 dies and is born in it. It is impossible to say that something exists 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 rules both the world and man. This law is the Logos, the world mind, which is not only a human, but also a world ability.
SchoolPythagoras was an ethical-religious union. The moral and practical goal, namely, the purification of the human soul to save it from the cycle of rebirth, was achieved through certain practices of 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 a religious order that, one might say, was engaged in scientific research.
The scientific searches undertaken in Pythagoreanism concerned, first of all, mathematics. “The Pythagoreans were the first to raise mathematics to a previously unknown rank - they began to consider numbers and numerical relationships as the key to understanding the Universe and its structure.” The philosophical concept of Pythagoreanism is associated with numbers. The beginning of the world is a number. And number is not some kind of substrate, that is, what things are made of, but what determines and shapes things. Therefore, the Pythagoreans for the first time established not a material essence, but a formal, that is, ideal, as a fundamental characteristic of the world, of all reality.
According to Pythagoras, everything in the world is a number; research in the school of Pythagoras was largely associated with the study of number, numerical relationships, including in relation to the movement of celestial bodies, and music (a connection was established between numerical proportions and musical harmony). Many researchers directly connect the doctrine of 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, therefore, it seemed to them that everything else by its nature is clearly likened 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.”
Eleatic school in ancient Greek philosophy it is associated with the names of Xenophanes, Parmenides and Zeno. Parmenides is famous for his doctrine of being. The initial feature of existence 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 Parmenides’ doctrine of being. At the same time, existence has no beginning. Otherwise, if it had a beginning, then it would have to begin from nothingness. But there is no non-existence. Therefore, existence has no beginning. That is why it has no end. Being is extended, since any breakthrough in extension means non-existence; still; invariably; indivisible; stable and united. Existence has no differences in itself. Parmenides' being has a definite form: it is like a ball or sphere.
Another important point of Parmenides’s 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 the thought of being, we can think of it; non-existence does not exist, because we cannot conceive it. Non-existence can neither be known nor anything can be said about it. If a thing exists, then it is conceivable. If we think of non-existence, then we will thereby make it an object of thought, and therefore, being. Therefore, there is no non-existence, asserted Parmenides.
Nothingness is emptiness, empty space. But there is no non-existence, therefore there is no emptiness anywhere in the world, no space filled with nothing. From this follows the conclusion that the world is one, and there cannot be any multitude of separate things in it. Truly only unity exists, there is no plurality. In nature there are no empty spaces between things, no cracks or voids separating one thing from another, and therefore there are no separate things.
From the denial of emptiness follows an epistemological conclusion: the world is one, there is no plurality and no separate parts, therefore the multitude of things, as if certified by our senses, is in fact only a deception of the senses. The picture of the world instilled in us 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 determined the fate of the Western world. This means, firstly, that, starting from antiquity, the idea of the existence of an invisible world, perfect, unchangeable, true, was introduced into culture and worldview beyond the boundaries of visible things. Secondly, Parmenides showed that knowledge other than knowledge of the visible world is possible, namely: rational knowledge, knowledge by thought, by reason. Thirdly, the solution to the problem of being by Parmenides opened up opportunities for metaphysics, that is, a doctrine in which people try to talk not only about material, but also about immaterial being, independent of either man or humanity, to look for the last ideal causes of natural entities and , in the end, - everything that exists.
One of critical issues posed by the Eleatic school, the question was how to obtain true knowledge. Philosophers of this school argued that true knowledge can only be obtained with the help of reason, and they understood sensory knowledge as unreliable knowledge. Zeno continued to develop this idea, putting forward his own aporia. In total, Zeno developed 45 aporia, of which 9 have come down to us. The most famous aporia 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, verified by our senses, is in fact impossible. For example, in the aporia “Dichotomy” it is indicated that any moving body, in order to cover a certain distance, must first travel half of that distance; to travel this half, that is, to reach the middle of the established initial distance, the body must reach the middle of half of this distance, etc. That is, movement is reduced to endlessly overcoming many 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 a question to science that is one of the most important methodological questions to this day: how should we think of the continuum - discrete or continuous: consisting of indivisibles (units, “unities”, monads) or divisible to infinity? Denying motion, Zeno thus revealed the most important concepts of natural science - the concept of continuum and the concept of motion.
The next important step in the development of ancient Greek philosophy is the teaching of Empedocles. Its significance lies in the fact that it proposed a pluralistic concept of origin, in contrast to previous attempts by philosophers to explain the origin of the world using monistic concepts. Empedocles recognized that all things are composed of simple elements. The origin is not one element, for example, water, air or apeiron, but four qualitatively different elements - four types of matter: water, air, fire and earth. He called these elements “the roots of everything.” The primary elements of Empedocles are eternal, like the being of Parmenides, but they act as the basis of all things that are becoming and perishing, like Heraclitus.
The combination of elements into coming and changing things is facilitated by two forces: love and hatred. Thus, Empedocles separates the concepts of matter (water, air, fire, earth) and force (love, hate). Love unites elements, brings things into a state of harmony; Hatred destroys harmony and brings elements into chaos. Periods of dominance of one or another 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 starting point, atomists identify atoms - indivisible particles. These particles have such a characteristic as movement and move in space, which is understood as emptiness. Atoms are unchangeable, just like being according to Parmenides. They do not have qualitative characteristics, but differ only in quantitative characteristics - shape, 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. The 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. As the first principle of everything, Anaxagoras shared pluralistic ideas, like Empedocles and the atomists. He called the unchanging elements of the world “germs” or “things.” Aristotle later called these elements of Anaxagoras “homeomeries,” or bodies consisting of homogeneous parts. There cannot be a limited number of “embryos”, 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 quantity.
Like Empedocles, Anaxagoras separated matter from spirit. All primary elements come into 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 in a broad sense- to the Cosmos, which was understood as organized on reasonable principles, eternal, united, spiritualized, perfect. The main issue is cosmological. Firstly, this is the problem of the origin, which was water, air, fire, earth - the four elements, embryos, atoms. Secondly, the problem is 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 extra-worldly spirit. Fourthly, the problem of stability and variability of the world, on which Heraclitus and Parmenides had opposing views.
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 was marked by a transition from the study of nature to humanistic research.
Sophists were teachers and educators preparing for public life. They undertook to teach their students to think and speak, so they had many listeners. “Under their guidance, the students practiced debates and coherent oratory. The theme was partly fictitious isolated cases that could be presented in court or at political meetings, partly more general issues 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 universality, objectivity, and truth from knowledge and believed that human knowledge meets these requirements, then the sophists expressed distrust of knowledge. Sensory perception is the basis of all 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 himself, and at the very moment of its occurrence” 2. This means that every sensation is true. Truth is relative; for each individual person at each individual moment there is his own truth. Protagoras famously said: “Man is the measure of all things, the measure of what exists, that it exists, and of what does not exist, 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; evil 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 through feelings (sensualism).
2. There is no universal truth, since the truth is different for everyone (relativism).
3. The truth of one person is higher than the truth of another, only because it has greater practical value (practicalism);
4. Truth is the result of a contract; individual truths are therefore accepted as necessarily universal (conventionalism).
Thus, firstly, the Sophists were the first to put man, his activities and the results of these activities at the center of philosophical research, which speaks of the anthropological flavor of the philosophy of this direction. Secondly, the Sophists did not engage in natural philosophy or theology. But they strived for the practical implementation of philosophical knowledge. Thirdly, Protagoras first came up with the theory of cognitive minimalism and laid the foundations of sensationalism. Fourthly, the philosophy of this direction was characterized by anti-dogmatism: the sophists undermined traditions, undermined authorities, and demanded proof of any statement.
Activities of Socrates was that he, like the sophists, was a teacher. Socrates taught people reason to lead them to virtue. He was always where he could find people to talk to: at the market, at feasts. He talked to people, encouraging his interlocutors to reflect on desires and virtue. Socrates did not leave his work. We learn about the content of his teaching from the works of his students (Plato’s dialogues, Xenophon’s “Memoirs of Socrates”).
The center of Socrates' philosophical research is man. Socrates dealt primarily with ethics, and then with logic. At the same time, he put forward a demand to abandon 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 the moral virtues according to Socrates. The laws concerning moral virtue are unwritten, but they are more stable than any laws of people. They come from the very nature of things, therefore they are universal. In this sense, virtue was the highest good. Everything else that people are accustomed to consider good: health, wealth, fame - quite often is evil. A person must strive for the highest good, not even taking into account danger, death. Socrates was the first to highlight moral values as a subject of ethics.
2. Virtue is associated with usefulness 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 the one who realizes the highest good, and the highest good is virtue.
3. Virtue is knowledge. Evil comes from ignorance. Knowledge is a sufficient condition for the achievement of virtue, or knowledge is the same as virtue. It is one and the same thing to know what justice is and to be fair. Therefore, virtue can be learned. This means that goodness is not innate. It can be acquired if it depends on ourselves 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 resolve ethical issues. This method was intended not just to refute the interlocutor. The Socratic method was to destroy false knowledge and acquire 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 interlocutor’s opinions contradict the latter, then Socrates forces the interlocutor to reject them as false. In this case, 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 means (syllogistically) that individual judgment, the truth of which was not recognized.” Socrates tried to find common features, for example, courage and justice, based on individual cases. Then, having identified a general principle, he deductively derives a judgment about a controversial individual case.
The goal of Socrates' dialectical method is to reach the concepts of moral values. “Knowledge of the latter should have led to knowledge of the duties and tasks of man. In order to direct a person to the right activity, this knowledge alone is enough.”
Another method of Socrates was called maieutics. Maieutics translated 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 the complex ones. By asking questions in this way, Socrates forced the student to answer the questions independently, reducing his answer to statements like “yes” or “no.” With the help of his interlocutor's questions and answers, Socrates led the interlocutor to the point that the latter began to doubt the truth of his statement. And thus, he realized the “knowledge of ignorance.” This method also consisted of critically discussing all points of view without joining any of them in advance. At this point, the anti-dogmatism of Socratic teaching was manifested. A striking example of the use of the maieutic method by Socrates is Plato’s dialogue “Laches”.
Classic period.
Plato born in Athens (428/427 - 348/347 BC). Plato considers the most important problems of human life. Founding scientific ethics and the doctrine of the state, he wants to provide unshakable foundations of morality for the individual and the entire people. But Plato does not limit himself only to ethical issues, but tries to found a philosophy that embraces all of reality.
It is possible to understand man and the task of the state by examining the nature of man and his position in the Universe, which is why Plato conducted research in the fields of psychology, ontology and the theory of knowledge.
Plato's works were carried out in the form of dialogues in which his contemporaries - people of science, politics, and representatives of other professions - acted.
The central place in Plato's philosophical system is occupied by the doctrine of ideas. According to Plato, the things we encounter are transitory and changeable. Concepts are stable, therefore the objects about which we have this concept must also be stable. This means that things cannot be the object of concepts. What is the object of the concept “beautiful”? There are many beautiful things: “beautiful girl” or “beautiful jug”. Therefore, beautiful things that are heterogeneous and unstable cannot be the object of the concept “beautiful”. This object is “the beautiful itself,” or the “idea of the beautiful,” which can only be comprehended by reason.
Consequently, there is something that can only be known by reason (this is the idea of “beautiful”, “perfect”, etc.) and there are separate things that are given to us in our sensations. Based on this, Plato divides all existence into two worlds: the world of ideas and the world of things. Intelligible reality was defined by Plato in the terms: idea, eidos, form. But Plato's ideas are not just thoughts, but the essence of things, that is, what makes each of them what it is. Ideas are what are not involved in the process of becoming, in the sensory world in which a person lives; they are the essence and cause of things. Plato called the habitat of ideas in the dialogue “Phaedrus” - Hyperurania.
There are many ideas, they form a certain structure - a hierarchy: from the simplest and lowest to the 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 existence is precisely the world of ideas. The world of things is known through the senses, and the world of ideas through the mind, so they can be expressed in concepts. The world of ideas is intelligible existence.
The world of ideas is opposed to the world of non-existence, which, according to Plato, is the same as matter. Plato introduces the concept of “matter” to explain the diversity of things; he calls it “Chora”; it represents a formless, chaotic movement. The sensory world, according to Plato, is something between the realm of ideas and the realm of matter and is a generation, a combination of these worlds. The world of sensory things is the area of formation, genesis, being. Due to its position between the sphere of being and non-being, the sensory world combines the opposites of being and non-being, unchanging and changeable, motionless and moving.
The universe is harmonious, governed by reason and order. The world has a goal - perfection. The whole world is created from the combination of matter and idea by the highest principle - the Demiurge.
Cognition as remembering. The world that surrounds us, which we perceive with the help of our senses, is only a “shadow” and is produced from the world of ideas. Ideas are unchanging, immovable, eternal. The human soul is immaterial; it neither arises nor is destroyed. The human soul is eternal. Until the moment the soul connects with the body and enters the sensory 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 to the body.
The idea of knowledge is reflected in the myth of the cave. Human knowledge, this myth says, is similar to what prisoners see in a cave with their backs to a wonderful life. The shadows that pass before them are only projections of things, but they imagine that they see the things themselves. The fate of most people who adhere to the established way of life is cave knowledge of shadows. True knowledge comes only from thinking. Thinking - the highest way cognition versus sensory perception. Only those who can overcome the influence of sensory things on them and soar into the world of eternal ideas can possess true knowledge. Only philosophers can do this. Wisdom lies in understanding the world of ideas.
Plato's philosophy is a science that gives us knowledge about true being, it is a science about ideas. A person who engages in philosophy brings his soul closer to true existence. The practice 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 various individual cases existing in the sensory world and subordinates them to the principle (measure, or harmony). The philosopher knows that which is: “a form or species 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 all that exists. The philosopher sees the basis of being and the entire Cosmos, comprehending the various parts of all being in their integrity. Therefore, a person who studies philosophy has the highest knowledge. Only such a person can and should rule the state.
Plato's theory of state and psychology are the development of his ontological ideas and ideas about the role of philosophy in human life and society.
Philosophy plays an important role not only in the life of an individual, but also in social and public life. In his essay “The State,” Plato builds such a model of government, headed by philosophers as representatives of higher knowledge.
Plato's man is not separated from the entire Universe. Therefore, the principles of organization of the Cosmos, the human soul and the state coincide.
The human soul, according to Plato, has the following structure. The highest position is occupied by the rational soul, located in the head. Then comes the affective or impulsive soul, localized in the chest. The lowest position is occupied by the basely greedy part of the soul, called the lustful part, located in the liver. The most important part of the soul is the rational one; it is the part that 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 illnesses and various bodily needs. The soul controls the body, but the body itself has many shortcomings. After death, the soul is freed 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 intelligence. 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 in the body of a philosopher three times, 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. The rational soul corresponds to wisdom, the affective soul corresponds to courage, and the lustful soul corresponds to self-control. 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” points out the similarities between the human soul and the state structure. 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 while subordinate to the main “beginning” - reason. Both the individual and the state must organize their internal (mental and social) organization, following the principle of harmony of all “principles”. “This harmony itself is realized if the “reasonable principle” guides the soul, and “philosophers” guide the state.” At the same time, the dominance of any “beginning” in a person’s soul determines what type of activity he will engage 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 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 the lustful soul and self-control and moderation. The harmony of three virtues and three classes ensures the existence in society of the highest virtue - justice. Achieving justice in a society guarantees the sustainability of this society, which results in its well-being and happiness.
Such a state should be ruled by philosophers as bearers of higher knowledge, warriors should protect them, and farmers and artisans should provide them with all the necessary material resources. The activity of the lower class consists of physical productive labor, providing for their own needs and the needs of the upper 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 interferes with spiritual activity and reflection. In such a state, according to Plato, some institutions are absent. For example, the institution of marriage and family.
Marriage as such does not exist, people live freely, and children are raised together, at the expense of the state.
The fact of being born in one class or another does not automatically provide a person with membership in that class, since “Plato’s concept of the division of labor is entirely 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 guards 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, training in science and art) can lead them from the second class to the first, thus forming them into philosophers. Having passed difficult exams, such a warrior has the right to study at the age of 35 government activities, and then, having achieved success in this matter, from the age of 50 he can be included in the upper class, the class of philosophers. The desire for science and truth among philosophers must be complemented by high moral qualities - renunciation of sensual pleasures, honesty, justice, generosity, etc.
It is philosophers who can combine “beginnings” in a perfect way: under the guidance of an intelligent “beginning”. It is philosophers who are able to comprehend that which is eternally identical to itself. “This kind of knowledge, according to Plato, requires enormous effort from a person, since it is the knowledge of ideal nature, the beginning of everything that exists. Knowledge about him allows a person to become like him, discover this nature in himself and live in accordance with it.” Only a philosopher can comprehend true existence and build life in accordance with the rules of this existence. The role of the philosopher as head of state is also to rule on the basis of reason alone, relying neither on his will nor on his feelings. Only a philosopher understands that human will as such does not exist. Man and his actions are controlled by a higher divine power. Rulers, guided solely by wisdom, must create fair laws. This will strengthen the state and keep its citizens subordinate.
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” organize the state. It is “such knowledge that is most important in government.” Philosophy is the highest form of knowledge, which combines knowledge about a person, his soul, society and the state.
In the dialogue "State" Plato shows that a state can have a different political structure. Plato identifies the following types of government: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny. Timocracy is a type of organization of social order in which rulers are still respected, but their desire for material prosperity and wealth is already beginning to grow. Oligarchy is characterized by the power of the rich few and the oppression of the poor. In democracy, equality and rule of all free citizens of the polis are proclaimed, but at the same time, hostility and struggle between rich and poor increases. Tyranny is the power of one over many. This form of government is characterized by Plato as the most harmful and contrary to everything moral and moral in man and society. In the model of an ideal state organization one can discern features of Plato’s mythologization of reality.
Thus, Plato's ideal state is a strictly hierarchical society governed by a limited minority, which imposes laws, rules of conduct and actions on society. Thus, an organized social order belongs, according to Plato, to the near future.
Aristotle was born in the city of Stagira, which is why Aristotle is often called Stagirite in literature. He was a student of Plato. In 335 BC. he founded a school - the Lyceum. Aristotle read his lectures while walking along the paths of the garden, hence another name for the school - peripatos (from the Greek - walk), and his students - peripatetics. Aristotle is also known for being the teacher of Alexander the Great.
Aristotle left work in the field of both the 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 first philosophy, which studies the first principles and first causes. The term “metaphysics” itself owes its appearance not to Aristotle, but to his publisher Andronikos of Rhodes, who, systematizing the works of Aristotle, placed the actual philosophical works of Stagirites after the works on physics. Andronicus of Rhodes did not know what to call Aristotle’s philosophical works, so he gave them the name “that which is after physics” (in ancient Greek it sounds like “that meta that physics”), from where, by dropping the article and merging, the word “metaphysics” was obtained.
Aristotle is the founder of logic - the science of thinking and its laws. Logic should teach how to use concepts, judgments and inferences. Aristotle's logic is an “organon” for all sciences, that is, an instrument, a tool used by all sciences. The definition of concepts and evidence, rules of thinking, and the theory of syllogism were the main problems of Aristotle's logic.
In his doctrine of judgment, Aristotle proves that in judgment two concepts are put in relation to each other: the concept of subject and predicate. Judgments can be affirmative or negative. “For the truth of a judgment it is necessary that the relation of concepts in the judgment correspond to the same relation of things in reality.” If two propositions are in a contradictory relationship, 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 syllogism. A syllogism, as defined by Aristotle, is “an order of thoughts in which from given judgments, precisely because they are given, a judgment different from them necessarily arises.” One of the concepts for both premises must be common.
Example of a syllogism:
First premise: “Socrates is a man”;
Second premise: “Man is mortal”;
A corollary derived 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, unchanging and eternal essences.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle recognized that real things exist in themselves, and not because their idea exists outside the sensory world. Real things are reality. There is no independent existence outside of real things. Therefore, first philosophy must consider being in itself, that is, real things, and 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 that is divine in two senses:
1) God rather than man is capable of owning it;
2) its subject is divine objects. Therefore, Aristotle also calls his philosophy theology, the doctrine of God. It was Aristotle who first introduced this word into circulation.
Philosophy for Aristotle is the most speculative of all sciences, which explores what is most worthy of knowledge: principles and causes. “But the science that explores causes is also more capable of teaching, for those who teach are the ones who indicate the causes for every thing. And knowledge and understanding for the sake of knowledge and understanding itself are most inherent in the science of what is most worthy of knowledge... And what is most worthy of knowledge is the first principle and the cause, for through them and on their basis everything else is known, and not through what is subordinate to them. And the science that is most dominant and more important than 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 of nature in general it is the best, for 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 of all sciences.
Philosophy, as the most important among the sciences, “cognizes the goal for which one should act in each individual case,” 2 therefore philosophy determines a person’s place 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 first cause, 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 distinguished 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 Aristotle’s form turns out to be more important, since it corresponds to the concept. The essential thing in a thing, its essence, is that there is a form.
Associated with the concept of form is the idea of the root cause. The universe is arranged intelligently and expediently. Every thing has its own reason. What is the cause of all causes, the very first cause? The root cause must have qualities other than those of the things we know. Things are the result of the action of causes, and the first cause does not have its own cause and exists on its own. Things are dependent being, and the first cause is independent. Therefore, Aristotle identifies the following characteristics of the first cause:
■ immobility and immutability;
■ the root cause is immaterial, for matter is the source of all changes, it is pure form;
■ spiritual essence;
■ is the mind;
■ is uniform;
■ is perfect;
■ being motionless, it sets the world in motion. The Absolute, God, corresponds to these characteristics.
Thus, through the concepts of form of forms, the first cause, Aristotle comes to justify the existence of God and to determine his nature.
In his psychology, Aristotle builds a “ladder of living beings,” which presents a hierarchy of types of soul, starting with 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 primarily by animals. Animals also have a plant soul;
3) a rational soul, the peculiarity of which is the ability of reasoning and reflection. Only man has this type of soul, while man has both plant and animal souls.
Ethics and politics (the doctrine of the essence and objectives of the state) occupy an important place in the teachings of Aristotle. Man is a socio-political being: “man is by nature a social being.” Ethics is understood by the ancient philosopher as “the doctrine of morality, of instilling in a person the active-volitional, spiritual qualities necessary for him, first of all, in public life, and then in personal life; it teaches (and accustoms) the practical rules of behavior and lifestyle of an individual.” Purpose moral activity human achievement is the achievement by a person of the highest good, his realization of the meaning of his life, and this means that a person must contribute to the development of his internal abilities, mental inclinations and qualities.
Man is a unity of soul and body. Reason and feelings are properties of the human soul. Reason must prevail over feelings if a person strives for self-improvement. A person must subordinate sensual attractions to the dominance of reason for an expedient lifestyle 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 actions.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle points out that there is no good in itself, with the exception of pure thinking and God. They are called good different categories(quality, quantity, relationship, etc.). In the category of quality, good is a virtue, in the category of quantity it is a measure, in the category of relationship it is useful, in the category of time it is a convenient opportunity, in the category of space (place) it is a pleasant location, etc. There is no science about the good as such, but there are separate sciences that study the good in relation to one or another field of activity: if we are talking about war, then strategy studies the good, if about illness, then the good is studied through healing, etc. Plato's idea of good is understood by Aristotle as useless for an individual, since knowledge of it cannot make people's actions more moral: “having knowledge of good and evil and using it are not the same thing.” Aristotle contrasted the idea of good as an abstraction with real good - “this is good achievable by man, i.e. carried out in his actions and deeds."
To live virtuously, it is not enough just to know what 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 education and teaching of one or another virtue. It is impossible to become virtuous, for example, courageous, without having the skill 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 habits. A person should strive to develop and develop various virtues, but Aristotle considers diagnostic virtues to be the highest. It is this type of virtue that can lead a person to the beautiful and divine. Hence the Stagirite considers philosophy as the most valuable and useful kind occupations and sciences. Philosophy studies bring true pleasure and true bliss. It is contemplative activity that Aristotle recognizes as the most pleasant and more independent than socio-political activity.
In man, as in every thing, there is an internal striving 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 own 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 good. “Human good is the activity of the soul in accordance with virtue...”
According to Aristotle, acquiring moral character is a long process requiring experience, training, education and time.
Although Aristotle speaks of the unity of human nature for all humanity, people are different: in character, in temperament, in abilities, in needs, in physique, etc. This variety of characteristics of people is complemented by the dependence of human manifestations in their integrity on society and the social moral norms accepted in it. “The state belongs to what exists by nature, and that man by nature is a political being, and the one who, by virtue of his nature, and not due to random circumstances, lives outside the state is either a being underdeveloped in a moral sense or a superman.” .
Aristotle's philosophical system covers almost all types of knowledge. Ideas dedicated to the state and society are discussed by him in his work “Politics”. The main goal of this work is the theoretical development of ideas about the perfect polis. To do this, Aristotle has to study the polis in the form in which it existed in his time, because any theoretical constructions, according to Aristotle, must be correlated with reality: “... you can make assumptions at will, but there should not be anything that is obviously unfulfillable " It's impossible to talk about ideal state this device, regardless of a particular state. Theoretical views in the sphere of the state should not be divorced from the diverse social and political reality.
The polis is the highest form of social organization of people, so it should contribute to a happy life for people, by which Aristotle means living 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 an intended good in mind), then, obviously, all communication strives for one or another good, and more others and the highest of all goods strives for that communication that is the most important of all and embraces all other communication. This communication is called state or political communication.”
Aristotle emphasizes natural character origin of the state. The state as a form of social structure 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 is “by nature a political being.” The state turns out to be more important than the individual and the family, since it corresponds to the whole, and the individual and the family are parts, and the part cannot precede the whole.
Aristotle presents a typology, or classification, of the fort of government, which includes six types: royal power (monarchy), aristocracy, polity, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Aristotle sees a relationship between the ruler’s virtue and the type of government.
The first three are judged by the Greek philosopher to be right because they exhibit proper virtue, the others as wrong because they lack virtue. Monarchy is defined as the rule of one with the common good in view; aristocracy - the rule of the best few, 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, based only on the interests of those have-nots. Due to a number of conditions, the degeneration of the monarchy leads to the establishment of tyranny. An 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 this system of orders and laws of the state. But democracy and oligarchy are the most common forms of polis structure (although there are many of all kinds of 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 confusion various types state structure within one state, as well as the existence of intermediate forms between royal and tyrannical power - an aristocracy with a bias toward oligarchy, a polity close to democracy, etc.
The last two books of “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 real embodiment in reality. A perfect state structure is close to the type that Aristotle called aristocracy. This type of state must ensure a happy life for the state, and therefore must 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 later life became rulers, judges and priests. Artisans, farmers and traders are excluded from the number of such citizens. Farmers can become, on the one hand, slaves who do not belong to the same tribe and are not distinguished by a hot temperament, on the other hand, barbarians, that is, people living outside of Europe. In addition, the state, with the help of laws, must perform a moral and educational function (this is the main goal of politics): to attract citizens to virtue and encourage the beautiful. Laws are necessary for good public education.
A perfect state must have a certain number of 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 different in abilities, internal qualities, social position occupied in society, level of income, private property and type of activity. Aristotle defines a citizen as a person who participates in court and government, 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, traders, and especially 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 Aristotle’s provisions on diagnostic virtue as the highest in the moral development of a person. Thus, productive activity is contrasted with mental activity, as the highest type of human activity.
An important function of the state is economic. The form of government is the educational and moral functions it performs, while the substance is economic relations. Aristotle not only does not deny private property, but considers the presence of it in a person to be an expression of self-love inherent in him initially, given by nature. Also, for the acquisition of consumer goods, Aristotle advocates the use of money, which “is used economically, for running the household (this is the immediate meaning of this Greek-language term).” The distribution of various benefits in society is focused on the quality of merit, dignity, and position of a particular 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 entailed the influence of foreign cultures on Greek philosophy. The main ideas of this period were developed back in Athens at the turn of the 4th and 3rd centuries. BC. But starting from the 2nd century. 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 (theory of knowledge), physics (theory of being) and ethics (theory of the good). Moreover, priority during 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 of Kition and Marcus Aurelius (Rome). The ontological ideas of the Stoics are that the world has a holistic structure and is material, but at the same time divine and living. The basis of ontological ideas is materialistic monism, imbued with the ideas of hylozoism and pantheism.
Stoicism- This is, first of all, an ethical teaching in which the concept of a sage is developed. Only a wise man can be happy. The Stoics adhered to eudaimonism in their ethics. What does happiness mean to the Stoics? The starting point 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, you can follow one of two paths: either master external circumstances, or be independent of them. A person is unable to master external circumstances, so the second way remains is to become independent. If it is not possible to rule over the world, you need to learn to rule over yourself.
A sage must take care of his inner world in order to learn to dominate himself. He must strive for internal good, which is understood as virtue. Valuing virtue and only virtue, the sage is independent of any circumstances that may arise; thereby he ensures his 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. Living in accordance with nature provides a person with freedom and independence from external circumstances, despite the fact that necessity dominates the world.
A virtuous, harmonious with nature and free life is understood by the Stoics in the same way as a rational life. The nature of the whole world and the nature of man is based on a rational principle, therefore it is not emotions and passions that should control a person, but reason, which also controls the Universe. Emotions and feelings do not allow you to achieve good, you need to get rid of them. The sage is characterized by apathy and impartiality.
Based on these ideas, a Stoic sage is a reasonable, virtuous, free, happy, rich person, because he has what is most valuable. The opposite of a sage is a madman - an angry and unhappy person, a slave and a poor man.
Epicureanism. This movement of ancient philosophy received its name from the name of its founder, Epicurus. Epicureanism, like Stoicism, is largely an ethical teaching that deals with problems of happiness, goodness, pleasure, etc.
The original thesis of Epicureanism is that happiness is the highest good (eudaimonism). 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 relief from suffering, and evil as that which entails suffering. For happiness you need the absence of suffering; this is enough to feel pleasure. The natural state of a person is that he does not encounter anything good or bad on his life path, and this is already a pleasant state, since the very process of life, life itself is joy. Life is a good, the only one that is given to us as our property. This is an innate joy that we don’t need to worry about, we carry it within ourselves. Let only the body be healthy and the soul calm, then life will be wonderful.
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. To receive pleasure (physical and spiritual), two conditions must be met: you must have needs and you must have them satisfied. Therefore, the one who has the least needs receives 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, since they give more pleasure.
Virtue and intelligence are two conditions for a person to be happy. Reason is necessary for happiness, in order to successfully choose between pleasures, and also in order to control 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 that caused by the thought of omnipotent gods and inevitable death. You can get rid of this fear by exploring nature.
For the Epicureans, nature appears as a collection of material bodies consisting of atoms. Nothing exists except bodies and empty space. 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 push, the existence of all nature. The gods of Epicurus live in the other world - in good and inviolable 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 man from the need to fear them. Man has no reason to fear the gods.
But a person has no reason to fear 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 exist only where there are sensory sensations. Death brings an end to sensory experiences. Therefore, the fear of death is absent among those who are convinced that there is no suffering after death. Only earthly life matters, therefore, while living it, you should get as much pleasure and happiness as possible. While we exist, there is no death, and when there is death, we do not exist.
Skepticism. The main representatives of skepticism: Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus. The time of development of this trend in ancient philosophy was the 4th-3rd centuries. BC.
Skeptics called themselves "suspenseers." Only such a skeptical position will ensure happiness, give peace, 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 he 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, therefore all judgments about them are not true. We also cannot know anything about the deity; our knowledge about the gods is contradictory: some consider the deity to be corporeal, some to be incorporeal, some to be immanent, some to be transcendental. 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 a 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 clear opinions regarding what is good. Ultimately, good, like evil, like God, like nature, is unknowable: everyone has their own knowledge about them own performance. 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 philosophy based on religion. The most important direction of this period is Neoplatonism; its main representative is 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 mortality took possession of their thoughts. Satisfaction has disappeared on our own, the expectation of help from supernatural beings and deities has become widespread. This was influenced by both social factors and the influence of a different religious culture from the East.
According to the ideas of 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 in the process of its development acquires various forms. The distinguished types of being are outflows of being, or emanations. The world is the outflow of more and more new states of being. Every the new kind of being has less perfection and comes only from another, more perfect state.
By perfect being we mean the Absolute, the pure One, which is neither spirit, nor thought, nor freedom, since spirit, thought, freedom have contradictions. The Absolute stands above any 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 being as spirit, soul and matter.
Scheme 2.3.Ancient philosophy: late classics
The human soul has two parts: a lower part (performs plant and animal functions, this part includes all imperfections and sins) and a 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 reducing the perfection of being. The way up the soul can go different ways- knowledge, art or virtue.
Cognition as an approach to the Absolute is not cognition with the help of feelings or reason. Plotinus refers to a special ability of the mind - intuition. Intuition here is not a cognitive act, but a moral action. Intuition is understood as ecstasy, “delight”; 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 considered one of the “seven wise men” and for what knowledge? What could you tell us about him?
2. What is monism? What philosophical teachings of antiquity would you classify as monism and why?
3. What is pantheism? Name the philosophers whose teachings were pantheistic and why?
4. Which ancient thinker 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 remains.” “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 ancient thinker called his teaching method maieutics? What is the essence of this method?
8. Explain the concept of metaphysics according to Aristotle.
9. Why in ancient times was there not (and could not have been) a clear division between philosophy and other sciences, and why were philosophers at the same time mathematicians, astronomers, mechanics, etc.?
10. The process of development of scientific knowledge led to the separation of private sciences from philosophy. Does this mean that the scope of the subject 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 eternally living fire, flaring up in measures and extinguishing in measures. What direction in philosophy did he belong to?
12. The ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (c. 490-430 BC) said that the world alternately arises and is destroyed and, having arisen again, is destroyed again... that Love and Enmity alternately prevail, and the first brings everything into unity , destroys the world of Enmity, and Enmity again divides the elements. The beginnings of what 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 shape; things differ from each other by the indivisible bodies of which they consist, their position and order. The foundations of what concept were laid by Democritus and Leucippus?
1. Features and periods of philosophy of Antiquity
2. Views of representatives of pre-Socratic schools
3. Ideas of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
4. Hellenistic philosophy.
The term “antiquity” itself translated from Latin language means ancient. Ancient philosophy is a set of teachings that developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome from the 7th century BC e. to 5th century AD e. This historical era spans the period from the formation of polis (city-state) on the Ionian and Italian coasts to the heyday of democratic Athens and the subsequent crisis and collapse of the polis. In Ancient Rome, Antiquity included a transition period from a republic to a monarchy.
Philosophy replaces the pre-philosophical descriptions of the world, which are contained in the poems of Homer “Iliad”, “Odyssey” and Hesiod “Theogony”, “Works and Days”. The prerequisites of scientific knowledge and abstract thinking develop, the search begins for the impersonal basis of all things, the primary substance, which is initially identified with one or another element of nature. So Thales considered water to be the foundation. Anaximander considered the foundation to be a special natural, impersonal principle - apeiron. Anaximenes considered air to be the base. These philosophers were representatives of the Milesian school in the 6th century. BC e.
Periods of Ancient philosophy:
1. Hellenic (Greek) period – the formation of ancient philosophy. This period is also called naturalistic or pre-Socratic (Miletus, Eleatic, Pythagorean, schools) 2. Classical period: middle classics (sophists - teachers of wisdom, Socrates) high classics (Plato, Aristotle). 3. Hellenistic (Stoics, Cynics, Skeptics, Epicureans).
Features of the philosophy of Antiquity:
1. Ontology (the central problem is the problem of being)
2. Cosmologism (the desire to understand the essence of the nature of the cosmos, the world as a whole.)
Let's consider the views of representatives of the Eleatic school: Parmenides, Zeno.
Parmenides focuses on the problem of the relationship between being and thinking (there is being, there is no non-being, he believed).
Zeno of Elea (c. 490 BC – c. 430 BC) formulated the aporia (difficulty): “Dichotomy; Achilles and the tortoise; Arrow; Stadium". Here are his arguments, which are still of interest to philosophers: “Dichotomy”: a moving body must reach the middle before reaching the end. “Achilles and the Tortoise”: A creature that is slower in running will not be overtaken by the fastest one, for the pursuer must come to the place from which the fleeing one has already moved, so that the slower one has the advantage. For Zeno, this meant that Achilles would not be able to catch up with the tortoise, which would come out earlier and from a distance closer to the final goal. "Arrow": A flying arrow is motionless, because time is made up of individual “nows”. At any given point in space the arrow is motionless. “Stadium”: Two equal masses move across the stadium from 2 sides, with equal speed, one from the end, the other from the middle. In this case, half the time is equal to its double amount. The philosophical meaning of Zeno's aporias is still a subject of study today. Zeno, while recognizing the reality of the beginning of the movement, does not give it a complete explanation. The aporia shows the relative imperfection of abstract reasoning and the moment of transition from rest to movement and vice versa, as in the best classical examples of ancient plastic art. Zeno, having analyzed the very concept of “movement”, came to the conclusion that it is impossible. Movement is internally contradictory, because to move means to be in some place in space and at the same time not to be in it. Zeno believed that motion “is only a name given to a whole series of identical positions, each of which taken separately is rest.”
Early Greek philosophy was characterized by the search for the primary source, the fundamental basis of the world. For Heraclitus (544-483 BC), the basis and constituent element of everything is fire. Everything is a type of fire and the soul is also a fiery body. Everything comes from fire through rarefaction and condensation. Fire is the source of life, its combustion and therefore extinction.
The famous expression of Heraclitus: “This cosmos was not created by any of the people, none of the gods. He was, is and will be an eternally living fire, gradually flaring up and gradually dying out.” Heraclitus saw the gradual course of development and compared it to the flow of a river. The Latin expression panta rei means everything flows, everything changes. Another famous expression of Heraclitus is that you cannot step into the same river twice. He wrote: “He who comes twice is essentially identical in character. We enter and do not enter the same river, we exist and do not exist. We are just entering the river, and the water has already flowed away. We are the same and we are no longer the same, we are and we are not.”
Heraclitus spoke about the soul: The soul is an asterisk or side of the divine fire, part of the world soul. The heart of the world is the Sun, and for man the center is the soul. She gives life to every part of the body; it is she, and not the body, that experiences pain. The soul is connected through the senses with the surrounding world (vision, touch, smell). By inhaling, a person draws into himself the divine logos and becomes intelligent. Man is a light in the night, flares up in the morning, fades away in the evening.
The teachings of Plato (428 or 427 BC, - 348 or 347 BC) and Aristotle (384 BC, - 322 BC) belong to the classics of ancient philosophical thought. The transition to a new understanding of the philosophical problems of man and society was prepared by the activities of the Sophists and Socrates (c. 469 BC, - 399 BC). Representatives of the Sophists: Protagoras (ca. 490 BC - ca. 420 BC), Gorgias (483 BC - 380 BC), Hippias (ca. 400 BC . BC), Prodicus (ca. 465 – ca. 395). The Greek word "sophist" means expert, master, sage. The Sophists were the first teachers of wisdom to charge a fee. The sophists criticized the traditional view; Protagoras believed that there could be two opinions about any thing, opposite to each other. In the teachings of the Sophists, man becomes the system for measuring value and truth. The famous expression of Protagoras is known: “Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and non-existent, that they do not exist.” In polemics with the sophists, the teachings of Socrates and then his student Plato arose. He becomes Aristotle's teacher. It was a bright flowering of the philosophical thought of Antiquity, united under the name The School of Athens.
Socrates did not write down his thoughts on principle, considering written speech to be inanimate. His ideas were written down by his students. They were set forth by Xenophon (no later than 444 BC - no earlier than 356 BC) and Plato. Their life passed under the impression of the death of their beloved teacher. Socrates was accused by the Athenian court (Helieia) of placing his own gods above the gods of the community, but this was not so. Socrates had conversations with his students about the need for improvement, but he was accused of corrupting youth. Socrates searched for truth, goodness, and beauty. Socrates' motto: “Know yourself!” The main thing is not to live, but to live with dignity. For Socrates, dialogue is a way of finding truth; his method is irony (translated from Greek - pretense, revealing the meaning of moral concepts through the search for discrepancies between objective reality and the internal beliefs of the interlocutor), and the search for truth using maieutics - the help of the birth of thought. The main thing for Socrates is caring for the soul. Socrates was sentenced to death by helium and drank poison - hemlock. Before his death, he told his disciple: “We owe Asclepius (the god of healing) a rooster.” A rooster was sacrificed if a person recovered and got rid of illnesses.
After the death of his beloved teacher, Plato asked the question: “Can there be a genuine world that condemned the most worthy of people to death?” Plato's answer is no, it cannot. The ordinary world exists, but this is not the true existence of people chained in a cave. Real world– the world of pure essences – eidos. There is a region beyond the sky where the eidos are located - this region is without color, without outlines, it is intangible, we can only comprehend this region with our minds.
Another image of Plato’s philosophy is the image of the chariot of the soul. The mind rules two horses, one black horse, personifying the sensual principle, the second white horse - the volitional principle.
In the hierarchy of ideas created by Plato, the highest idea is the idea of good, it is the source of truth, harmony of beauty. The idea of good is like the Sun. The world of ideas is the world of true existence. Matter by itself cannot exist; it is actualized into reality when an idea prompts it to do so. The idea of good is also close in Plato’s understanding to God. He is the creator of the world (demiurge) and he created the world soul, which is driving force, penetrating the whole world. Plato’s famous formulation: “The cosmos is the most beautiful of things, and its demiurge the best of causes.”
Aristotle is the greatest of Plato's students. He criticized Plato for the fact that the teacher attributed independent existence to the world of ideas, which, according to Aristotle, cannot exist independently. His expression is known: “Although Plato and the truth are dear to me, duty commands me to give preference to the truth.”
Aristotle developed the doctrine of four principles, the primary causes of all things:
1. Formal reason (to denote it, Aristotle uses the same term as Plato - eidos, without this reason it is impossible to understand what a thing is). But Aristotle gives a different meaning to the concept of eidos. According to Aristotle, the eidos of a thing - its form is not a heavenly entity, but is located in it itself; without eidos it is impossible to understand what a given thing is.
2. Material reason. If eidos is the essence of a thing, then matter is the cause, the substrate in which this form is imprinted.
3. The driving cause determines the systematic nature of the form, its ability to be embodied in matter.
4. The target reason determines the direction of movement towards the goal. All processes have an internal direction and conditionality through a goal, which in turn strives for good.
The Aristotelian concept of four causes is completed by the philosophical doctrine of the “eternal, motionless, separate from perceptible things” essence, of the absolute mind as the highest being. Since this mind is the highest being, it acts as the form of all forms, as well as the moving and final cause. Also, as a moving cause, the mind is the prime mover, but it itself is motionless. As the final cause, mind is the universal goal, which at the same time is the highest good.
Aristotle is rightfully considered the founder of logic. He formulated and defined concepts used in modern logic. He was the first to formulate the logical law of contradiction, to which he gave next view: “It is impossible for one and the same thing at the same time to be and not to be inherent in the same thing in the same respect.”
4th century BC was in the history of ancient philosophy the end of the era of Hellenism and the beginning of Hellenism. The philosophical schools of the Hellenistic period of Ancient philosophy include: Epicureanism, Stoicism, and skepticism. They were preceded by the philosophy of Cynicism, the founders of which were Antisthenes (444/435 BC - 370/360 BC) and Diogenes of Sinope (c. 412 BC -323 BC), who lived in pithos - a specially shaped barrel. He is known for his renunciation of property, pleasures, and his desire to develop equanimity and peace. They say that when Alexander the Great decided to visit Diogenes, he found him in Crania (in a gymnasium near Corinth) while he was basking in the sun. Alexander approached him and said: “I am the great King Alexander.” “And I,” answered Diogenes, “the dog Diogenes.” Alexander said: “Ask me whatever you want.” “Move away, you are blocking the sun for me,” Diogenes replied and continued to bask. On the way back, in response to the jokes of his friends who were making fun of the philosopher, Alexander allegedly even remarked: “If I were not Alexander, I would like to become Diogenes.” The ethics of the Cynics had an individualistic character and was based on the ability to exist independently.
The character of individualism is also inherent in the school of Epicureanism. Fascinated by the ideas of Democritus, Epicurus (342/341 BC - 271/270 BC) created a school in his house with a garden in Athens. Epicurus believed that matter exists forever, does not arise and does not disappear, “Nothing comes from what does not exist.” In Democritus, atoms differ in shape, order, and position, while Epicurus describes their shape, size, and heaviness. The atoms of Epicurus are small and inconspicuous, the atoms of Democritus can be as large as “the whole world.” All things are made of atoms. Space - necessary condition body movements Above the gate of his garden there was an inscription: “wanderer, come here, you will feel good here, here pleasure is the highest good!” According to Epicurus, a person can become free only by overcoming the main obstacles to happiness: fear of the intervention of the gods in human life, fear of the afterlife, fear of death. The goal of a happy life is peace of mind, in “the serenity of the soul” - ataraxia. The highest philosophy of bliss is a state of mental peace and equanimity. When it is there, the sage becomes happy. The goal of “live unnoticed” limits sensual pleasures for the sake of spiritual ones.
Hedonism is a philosophy that proclaims that man was created for happiness. His expression is known that death has nothing to do with us, since “when we exist, then death is not yet there, and when death comes, then we are no longer there.” For Epicurus, feelings are the criteria of morality. Pleasure is the highest good, pleasure is good.
Life is a desire to avoid suffering. A person’s task is to distinguish between true and imaginary, natural and vain pleasures. Do right choice Philosophy helps. Philosophy needs to be studied: “...Let no one put off studying philosophy in his youth, and let no one get tired of studying it in old age: after all, no one is either immature or overripe for the health of the soul,” Epicurus believed.
So, the Epicureans believed that pleasure is the highest goal. Spiritual pleasures - friendship and knowledge - are strong and lasting.
The teaching of Epicureanism moved to Roman soil in the 1st century BC. e. In the poem by Titus Lucretius Cara: “On the Nature of Things,” philosophical ideas are presented in the form of poetic images.
Philosophical ideas elemental materialism conveyed by Epicurus and Lucretius. They talked about the material fundamental principle of the world and saw it in indivisible, but tangible, weighty atoms.
The doctrine of Stoicism, the founder of which was Zeno of Kytheon, existed from the 3rd century. BC. to 2nd century AD The name of the school “Stoa” translated from ancient Greek means portico; Zeno expounded his teachings in the “Motley Portico” in Athens. The philosophical school of Stoicism included:
Early Stoicism. Representatives: Zeno (346/336/333–264/262 BC), Cleanthes (mid-3rd century BC), Chrysippus (281/278 BC – 208/205 BC .).
Middle Stoicism: Panetius (c. 180 BC - 110 BC), Posidonius (139/135 BC - 51/50 BC).
Late Stoicism: Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC), Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180 BC).
All Stoics are united by contempt for external goods and a lack of desire for wealth. Early Stoicism was formed in polemics with Epicureanism. The highest goal of the Stoics, like the Epicureans, was to achieve a happy life, but the path to happiness was interpreted by the Stoics differently. The highest happiness of a person is a life that is consistent with the nature of man as a rational and spiritual being who makes his own choice. The Stoics searched moral improvement and liberation from passions and affects, in which they saw the sources of human vices and disasters. The Stoics introduce the concept of fate or fate and the cosmic destiny of man. The circumstances of his life depend on the necessary course of things, and not on the will of a person: poverty or wealth, pleasure or suffering, health or illness.
Compared to the early and middle Stoics, who emphasized the great strength of a person's inner morality, the later Stoics affirm the weakness human personality, her submission to fate.
Seneca's philosophical fame was brought to him by his Moral Letters to Lucilius. He views a person's life as an area of victories and defeats. A true philosopher must be persistent in all circumstances of life and always strive for virtue. And “Philosophy itself is twofold: it is both knowledge and spiritual properties. He who has acquired knowledge and understood what to do and what to avoid is not yet a sage if his soul has not been transformed in accordance with what he has learned. And the third part of philosophy - instructions - comes from the first two: from the principles and properties of the soul; and since both of them are sufficient for perfect virtue, the third turns out to be unnecessary. But consolation will turn out to be unnecessary, because it comes from the same parts, encouragement, conviction, and proof itself, because the source of all of them is the properties of a soul that is strong and maintains its order,” wrote Seneca.
Marcus Aurelius sought to find a way out of the state of chaos and confusion. Marcus Aurelius left philosophical records - 12 "books" written in Greek, which are usually given the general title "Discourses on Self." Mark's philosophy teacher was Maximus Claudius. By immersing himself in his soul, in his spiritual life, Marcus Aurelius comprehended and outlined the intense personal work to master the achievements of the centuries-old Stoic tradition. He wrote: “The time of human life is a moment; its essence is eternal flow; feeling is vague; the structure of the whole body is perishable; soul is unstable; fate is mysterious; fame is unreliable. In a word, everything related to the body is like a stream, everything related to the soul is like a dream and smoke. Life is a struggle, a journey through a foreign land; posthumous fame- oblivion." ... But what can lead to the true path? – nothing but philosophy.
Ancient philosophy - the philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome (VI century BC - V century). She made an exceptional contribution to the development of Western European culture and set the main themes of philosophizing for subsequent millennia. Philosophers of various eras drew inspiration from the ideas of Antiquity. It was Antiquity that not only proposed the term “philosophy” itself, but also determined the characteristics of this type of human spiritual activity.
In ancient philosophy, the following stages are distinguished.
Early or archaic (VI century - beginning of the 5th century BC). The main schools of this period are the Milesians (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes); Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans; Eleates (Parmenides, Zeno); atomists (Leucippus and Democritus); Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, standing outside certain schools. Main theme early stage Greek philosophizing is space, physics, which is why the first Greek philosophers are called physicists, and philosophy is called natural philosophy. During this period, the problem of the origin or beginnings of the world is formulated. In the philosophy of the Eleatics, there is a gradual liberation from natural philosophical motives, but being and its structure still remain the main topics of reflection. The central problematic of the early stage of ancient philosophy is ontological.
Classical (V century BC). The main schools of this period are the sophists (Gorgias, Hippias, Protagoras, etc.); Socrates, who at first joined the Sophists and then criticized them; Plato and his school Academy; Aristotle and his school Lyceum. The main themes of the classical period were the essence of man, the peculiarities of his knowledge, the synthesis of philosophical knowledge, and the construction of a universal philosophy. It was at this time that the idea of pure theoretical philosophy and its primacy in relation to other forms of knowledge was formulated. A way of life built on the principles of theoretical philosophy began to be considered as the most consistent with human nature. The main problems of the classical period are ontological, anthropological and epistemological.
Hellenistic (IV century BC - V century). The main schools of this period are Epicurus and the Epicureans (Lucretius Carus); Stoics (Zeno, Chrysippus, Panetius, Posidonius, etc.); neo-Stoics (Seneca, Epictetus, etc.); skeptics (Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus, etc.); Cynics (Diogenes and others); Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Iamblichus, etc.). The main themes of this period of ancient philosophy are the problems of will and freedom, morality and pleasure, happiness and the meaning of life, the structure of the cosmos, the mystical interaction of man and the world. The main problematic of Hellenism is axiological.
The main characteristic of ancient philosophy, regardless of the stage of its development, is cosmo- and logocentrism. Logos - central concept ancient philosophy. The Greeks think of the cosmos as orderly and harmonious, and ancient man appears to be just as orderly and harmonious. The problem of evil and the incompleteness of human nature is interpreted as a problem of a lack of genuine knowledge, which can be filled with the help of philosophy. In the Hellenistic period, the idea of harmony, the conformity of the universe and the rationality of man was reinterpreted in a relativistic spirit, but did not lose significance, defining the worldview of late Antiquity. We can say that the ancient thinkers “spoke” to the world, removing chaos and non-existence from it, and philosophy became a universal means for this.
8. Pre-Socratics: Milesians, Pythagoreans, Heraclitus, Eleatics.
1) Milesians.
Thales of Miletus (625–547 BC). A unique personality, a merchant, traveled a lot (familiar with mathematics and the principles of astronomical observations, built the first stone water supply system, built the first observatory; sundial for public use). According to Thales, water is the root cause of all things (no water - no life). Water is the substance from which everything flows and everything returns to it. This cycle is subject to Logos (law). There was no place for gods in Thales' system. Thales proposed using the concept of water in a philosophical (abstract) sense. Even the Earth, in his opinion, floats on water, like a piece of wood. Founder of European science and philosophy; in addition, he is a mathematician, astronomer and political figure, enjoyed great respect from his fellow citizens. Thales came from a noble Phoenician family. He is the author of many technical improvements and carried out measurements of monuments, pyramids and temples in Egypt.
Anaximander - successor of Thales (c. 610–540 BC) was the first to rise to the original idea of the infinity of worlds. He took apeiron as the fundamental principle of existence - an indefinite and limitless substance: its parts change, but the whole remains unchanged. This infinite beginning is characterized as a divine, creative-motive principle: it is inaccessible to sensory perception, but understandable by the mind. Since this beginning is infinite, it is inexhaustible in its possibilities for the formation of concrete realities. This is an ever-living source of new formations: everything in it is in an uncertain state, like a real possibility. Everything that exists seems to be scattered in the form of tiny pieces.
Anaximenes (c. 585–525 BC) believed that the origin of everything is air, thinking of it as infinite and seeing in it the ease of change and transformation of things. According to Anaximenes, all things arose from air and represent its modifications, formed by its condensation and rarefaction. The primary substance is air. All substances are obtained through the condensation and rarefaction of air. Air is the breath that embraces the whole world (air vapors, rising upward and discharging, turn into fiery celestial bodies, and, conversely, solid substances - earth, stones - are nothing more than condensed and frozen air). Naive, banal philosophy.
2) Pythagoreans.
Pythagoras (580-500 BC) rejected the materialism of the Milesians. The basis of the world is not the material origin, but the numbers that form the cosmic order - the prototype of the common. order. To know the world means to know the numbers that control it. The movement of celestial bodies is subject to mathematical relationships. The Pythagoreans separated numbers from things, turned them into independent beings, absolutized and deified them. The sacred monad (unit) is the mother of the gods, the universal origin and basis of all natural phenomena. The idea that everything in nature is subject to certain numerical relationships, thanks to the absolutization of numbers, led Pythagoras to the idealistic assertion that it is number, and not matter, that is the fundamental principle of everything.
3) Heraclitus.
Heraclitus (c.530–470 BC) was a great dialectician, tried to understand the essence of the world and its unity, based not on what it is made of, but on how this unity manifests itself. The main characteristic he singled out was variability (his phrase: “You cannot step into the same river twice”). An epistemological problem of knowledge has arisen: If the world is changeable, then how to know it? (The basis of everything is fire, this is also the image of perpetual motion). It turns out that there is nothing, everything just becomes. According to the views of Heraclitus, the transition of a phenomenon from one state to another occurs through the struggle of opposites, which he called the eternal universal Logos, i.e. a single law common to all existence: not to me, but to the Logos, listening, it is wise to recognize that everything is one. According to Heraclitus, fire and Logos are “equivalent”: “fire is rational and is the cause of the control of everything,” and he considers the fact that “everything is controlled through everything” to be reason. Heraclitus teaches that the world, one of all, was not created by any of the gods or by any of the people, but was, is and will be an eternally living fire, naturally igniting and naturally extinguishing.
4) Eleatics.
Xenophanes (c. 565–473 BC). His philosophical views are especially significant for us because he stood at the head of monotheists (monotheism) and at the head of skeptics (the possibility of knowing the knowledge of the world is criticized). It was from his lips that a cry of despair burst forth: nothing can be known for certain! For the first time, it was Xenophanes who carried out the separation of types of knowledge, formulating the problem of the relationship between “knowledge by opinion” and “knowledge by truth.” The evidence of the senses does not provide true knowledge, but only opinion, appearance: “opinion reigns over everything,” “not truth is available to people, but only opinion,” the thinker asserts.
Parmenides (late 7th–6th centuries BC)- philosopher and politician, central figure of the Eleatic School. At the center of his teaching is an unchanging, imperishable substance, an indivisible ball of fire. There is no movement in the world; it only seems to us. All systems of worldview are based on 3 premises: 1. There is only being, there is no non-existence. 2. There is both. 3. Being = non-being.
For him, Being truly exists, because invariably. Variability and fluidity are the lot of the imaginary. There is no empty space, everything is filled with being. Being is infinite in time (it neither arose nor was destroyed), limited in space (spherical). The diversity of the world comes down to two principles: the first (active) – Etheric fire, pure light, warmth; the second (inert) – thick darkness, night, earth, cold. From the mixture of these two principles comes the diversity of the visible world.
Zeno of Elea (c. 490–430 BC)- Favorite student and follower of Parmenides. He developed logic as dialectics. The most famous refutations of the possibility of movement are the famous aporia of Zeno, whom Aristotle called the inventor of dialectics. He denied the possibility of thinking about movement, of analyzing it, and that what cannot be thought does not exist. The internal contradictions of the concept of movement are clearly revealed in the famous aporia “Achilles”: fleet-footed Achilles can never catch up with the turtle. Why? Every time, with all the speed of his running and with all the smallness of the space separating them, as soon as he steps on the place that the turtle had previously occupied, she will move forward a little. No matter how much the space between them decreases, it is infinite in its divisibility into intervals and it is necessary to go through them all, and this requires infinite time. Both Zeno and we know perfectly well that not only Achilles is fleet-footed, but any lame-footed person will immediately catch up with the tortoise. But for the philosopher, the question was posed not in terms of the empirical existence of movement, but in terms of the conceivability of its inconsistency in the system of concepts, in the dialectics of its relationship with space and time. Aporia “Dichotomy”: an object moving towards a goal must first go halfway to it, and in order to go through this half, it must go through half of it, etc., ad infinitum. Therefore, the body will not reach the goal, because his path is endless.
Thus, the main property of the surrounding world for the Eleatics is not substance, but quality (unchanging eternity, one can think) - this is the conclusion of the Eleatics.
Ancient philosophy is a set of teachings that developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome from the 6th century. BC e. to the 6th century n. e. Typically, ancient philosophy is divided into three periods:
First, the period of natural philosophy (6th century BC) - the problems of the philosophy of nature come to the fore. The first period ends with the emergence of the philosophy of Socrates, which radically changed the nature of ancient philosophy, therefore it is also called the period of the Pre-Socratics.
The second period is the period of classical ancient philosophy (4th – 5th centuries BC), associated with the names of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
The third period is Hellenistic-Roman philosophy (3rd century BC - 6th century AD), which developed in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, represented by such movements as Epicureanism, skepticism, Stoicism and Neoplatonism.
The main feature of ancient philosophy in the first period was cosmocentrism, based on the traditional Greek ideas about the world as a harmonious unity, reflected in the very concept of “cosmos”. All the efforts of representatives of early ancient philosophy were focused on understanding the causes of the origin of the material world, identifying the source of its harmonious structure, some guiding principle, which was called the first principle (arche).
Answers to the question about the beginning of the world were different. Thus, representatives of the Milesian school of ancient philosophy Thales and his students claimed one of the natural elements as the origin. This position in the history of philosophy is called naive naturalism.
Thales argued that everything comes from water, Anaximenes - from air, Anaximander proposes a version of the ether “apeiron”.
The representative of the city of Ephesus, the great philosopher Heraclitus, who is considered the creator of dialectics - the theory of development, also proposed his own version of the origin - Logos - the fiery origin and at the same time the world order.
The basis of Heraclitus' teaching was the problem of opposites. He discovers that the world consists of struggling opposites and these opposites are correlative (there is no top without bottom, right without left, etc.). Heraclitus uses the image of war to describe the struggle of opposites: “War is universal,” he writes. However, Heraclitus notices not only the struggle, but also the unity of opposites. In his opinion, opposites are the cause of movement, development, and change in the world. He describes the universe as a stream - something eternally becoming, moving, flowing and changing. Heraclitus believed that the struggle of opposites appears as harmony and unity when looking at the world as a whole.
A departure from the ideas of naive naturalism is the philosophy of the famous mathematician and geometer Pythagoras. From his point of view, the first principle of the world is number, as a certain principle of order. Evidence of progress here is that something intangible, abstract is offered as a starting point.
The culmination of the thoughts of the philosophers of the pre-Socratic period should be recognized as the teaching of Parmenides, a representative of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides is known as the creator of one of the basic concepts of philosophy, the term “Being”. Being is a term that focuses attention on the fact of the existence of objects and phenomena of the world around us. Parmenides reveals the basic properties of being as the origin of the world. It is one, indivisible, infinite and motionless. In this regard, the existence of Parmenides is a set of connections between the phenomena of the world, a certain principle that determines the unity of the world as a whole. Parmenides expresses his understanding of being in the well-known thesis: “Being is, but non-being is not,” meaning by this an expression of the unity of the world. After all, a world without voids (non-existence) is a world where everything is interconnected. It is noteworthy that Parmenides does not distinguish between Being and thinking. For him, “being and the thought of being” are one and the same.
However, the image of Being without voids does not imply movement. Zeno was busy solving this problem. He declared that the movement does not exist and put forward arguments (aporia) in defense of this position that are now striking.
Separately, we should consider the philosophy of the representatives of ancient materialism: Leucippus and Democritus. Very little is known about the life and teachings of Leucippus. His works have not survived, and the glory of the creator of the completed system of atomism is borne by his student Democritus, who completely obscured the figure of the teacher.
Democritus was a representative of ancient materialism. He argued that in the world there are only atoms and the void between them. Atoms (from the Greek “indivisible”) are the smallest particles that make up all bodies. Atoms vary in size and shape (spherical, cubic, hook-shaped, etc.).
The beginning of the classical period of ancient philosophy is associated with radical change subject of philosophical reflection - the so-called anthropological turn. If thinkers of early antiquity were interested in questions of the origin and structure of the universe, then in the classical period there was a turn of interest in the study of problems of man and society. First of all, this applies to the philosophy of the Sophists.
The Sophists are an ancient philosophical school that existed in the 5th–4th centuries. BC. Its most famous representatives, the so-called senior sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias. The sophists were known as unsurpassed masters of eloquence. Using clever reasoning, often using errors of logic, they confused their interlocutor and “proved” obviously absurd theses. This kind of reasoning is called sophism.
The sophists also taught those interested in the art of public speaking. At the same time, they did not hesitate to charge for their lessons, which caused discontent and reproaches from other thinkers.
The philosophy of the Sophists is based on the principle of relativity. They believed that there are no absolute truths, truths “in themselves.” There are only relative truths. The sophists declared man to be the criterion of these truths. As Protagoras, one of the founders of sophistry, argued: “Man is the measure of all things, those that exist that they exist, and those that do not exist that they do not exist.” This means that it is the individual who determines what will be considered truth at a given moment. Moreover, what is true today may not be true tomorrow, and what is true for me is not necessarily true for another person.
One of the most famous thinkers of antiquity is the Athenian sage Socrates (469 - 399 BC). Socrates did not leave behind any writings and everything that is known about him, we know only in the presentation of his students. Socrates was close to the school of sophists, often using elements of sophistry in his reasoning, although he did not share their philosophical views. In particular, he stated that absolute truths exist, moreover, he believed that they can be found in the mind (soul) of any person.
According to Socrates, knowledge cannot be taught or transmitted, it can only be awakened in the human soul. Socrates called the method of birth of truth from the depths of a person’s soul Maieutics (acoustics). Maieutics was the art of consistent, methodical questioning of a person in such a way that from simple and obvious truths came an understanding of more complex ones.
The basis of Socrates' method of reasoning within the framework of this kind of dialogue was irony. Socrates “suggested” to his interlocutor the correct direction of reasoning, reducing his point of view to absurdity, subjecting it to ridicule, which often led to offense.
Socrates' teaching about truth also had an ethical component. The main problem of ethics, from the point of view of Socrates, is achieving a common point of view regarding universal human truths. Any evil comes from ignorance. In other words, a person does not commit an evil act because wishes to commit evil, but from an incorrect understanding of good. A logical continuation is Socrates’ thesis that any knowledge by definition is good.
Socrates' life ended in tragedy: he was accused of blasphemy by his compatriots and was executed. Socrates left behind many students who later founded their own philosophical schools. The so-called Socratic schools include: the Academy of Plato, the Cynics, the Cyrenaics, and the Megarics.
One of the most famous students of Socrates, the successor of the classical ancient tradition, was Plato (427 - 347 BC). Plato is the creator of a large-scale system of objective idealism. His teaching about the world of ideas became one of the most influential in the history of Western European philosophy. Plato's ideas are expressed in works that take the form of genre scenes and dialogues, the main character of which was his teacher Socrates.
After the death of Socrates, Plato founded his own school of philosophy in the suburbs of Athens (named after the local hero Academus). The basis of his philosophical views is the doctrine of ideas. Ideas (Greek “eidos”) are objectively existing formations, unchanging and eternal, constituting an ideal or model for everything in our world. Ideas are immaterial, they are knowable only with the help of reason and exist independently of man. They are in a special world - the world of ideas, where they form a special kind of hierarchy, at the top of which is the idea of good. The world of things, that is, the world in which man lives, was created, according to Plato, by imposing ideas on formless matter. This explains the fact that groups of things in our world correspond to ideas from the world of ideas. For example, to many people - the idea of a person.
Ideas about the world of ideas underlie epistemology and social philosophy Plato. Thus, the process of cognition, according to Plato, is nothing more than the recollection of ideas from the world of ideas.
Plato believed that the human soul is immortal and, during its rebirths, contemplates the world of ideas. Therefore, every person, if the method of questioning is applied to him, can remember the ideas that he saw.
The structure of the world of ideas determines the structure of the state. Plato creates a project for an ideal government structure in his work “The State”. It, according to Plato, should contain three classes: philosophers, guards and artisans. Philosophers must govern the state, guards must ensure public order and protection from external threats, and artisans must produce material goods. In Plato's ideal state, the institutions of marriage, family and private property (for representatives of the guardian and philosopher classes) were supposed to be destroyed.
One more greatest philosopher Aristotle (384 - 322, BC) became Plato's student in antiquity. After Plato's death, Aristotle left the academy and founded his own school of philosophy, the Lyceum. Aristotle acted as a systematizer of all ancient knowledge. He was more of a scientist than a philosopher. the main task Aristotle's goal was to get rid of mythologizing and unclear concepts. He divided all knowledge into First Philosophy (philosophy proper) and Second Philosophy (specific sciences). The subject of first philosophy is pure, unalloyed being, which is Plato’s ideas. However, unlike Plato, Aristotle believed that ideas exist in individual things, constitute their essence, and not in a separate world of ideas. And they can be known only by knowing individual things, and not by remembering.
Aristotle identifies four types of causes on the basis of which the movement and development of the world occurs:
- material cause (the presence of matter itself)
- a formal cause is what a thing turns into
- driving cause - source of movement or transformation
- target cause - the final goal of all transformations
Aristotle considers every thing from the point of view of matter and form. Moreover, each thing can act as both matter and form (a block of copper is the matter for a copper ball and the form of copper particles). A kind of ladder is formed, at the top of which is the last form, and at the bottom is the first matter. The form of forms is god or the prime mover of the world.
The Hellenistic period was a period of crisis in Greek society, the collapse of the polis, and the capture of Greece by Alexander the Great. However, since the Macedonians did not have a highly developed culture, they completely borrowed the Greek one, that is, they became Hellenized. Moreover, they spread examples of Greek culture throughout the Empire of Alexander the Great, which stretched from the Balkans all the way to the Indus and Ganges. At the same time, the development of Roman culture began, which also borrowed a lot from the Greeks.
At this time, a search is being made for ways of spiritual renewal. Not a single fundamentally new concept has been created. Neoplatonism, which developed the ideas of Plato, was a powerful trend. An influential movement of the time was Epicureanism, named after its founder Epicurus. Epicurus that the rule of social life should be the expression “Live unnoticed” (in contrast to the social activism of classical antiquity). Epicurus declared pleasure to be the goal of human life. He divided pleasures into three groups: 1. Useful and not harmful 2. Useless and not harmful 3. Useless and harmful. Accordingly, he taught to limit the second and avoid the third.
Cynicism is an influential philosophical doctrine, the founder of which was Antisthenes, but whose spiritual leader was Diogenes of Sinope. The meaning of Diogenes' formulations was to reject and expose the great illusions that motivated human behavior:
1) pursuit of pleasure; 2) fascination with wealth; 3) passionate desire for power; 4) thirst for fame, brilliance and success - all that leads to misfortune. Abstinence from these illusions, apathy and self-sufficiency are the conditions for maturity and wisdom, and ultimately happiness.
Another influential movement was Skepticism, founded in the 4th century. BC e. Pyrrho. Skeptics believed that no human judgment could be true. Therefore, it is necessary to refrain from judgment and achieve complete equanimity (ataraxia).
The Stoics offer a different position. This is the philosophy of duty, the philosophy of fate. He founded this philosophical school in the 6th century. BC e. Zeno. Its prominent representatives are Seneca, Nero’s teacher, and Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The positions of this philosophy are opposite to Epicurus: trust fate, fate leads the obedient, but drags the rebellious.
The result of the reflections of the philosophy of the Hellenistic period is the awareness of the collapse of Greek culture, based on rational thinking.