Essential characteristics of ancient philosophy. Ancient philosophy: stages of development and characteristic features

Philosophy of the ancient world ( a brief description of the most important philosophical doctrines)

Ancient philosophy includes Greek and Roman philosophy. It existed from the 12th-11th century BC to the 5th-6th century AD. it arose in states with democratic foundations, which differed from the ancient Eastern ones in the way of philosophizing. Even at the very beginning of Greek philosophy, there was a close interweaving with mythology, with figurative language and love images. Almost immediately, this philosophy began to consider the relationship of these love images and the world in principle.

The ancient Greeks represented the world as one large accumulation of different processes, both natural and social. The most important questions that worried the first philosophers of antiquity were: how to live in this world? Who controls it? How to connect your own capabilities with the supreme forces?

In development ancient philosophy there are several stages:

• 1. Ancient pre-philosophy. Period from 8th to 7th century BC. The main philosophers of this period were: Homer Hesiod, Orpheus, Pherecydes and an organization called "seven wise men".
• 2. Pre-Socratic stage. Period from 7th to 5th century BC. The very first philosophy began to emerge in Asia Minor, where Heraclitus was the founder, then in Italy - Pythagoras, the Elean school and Empedocles; and later in Greece - Anaxagoras. The main theme of the philosophers of this period was to find out how the world works, how it originated and happened. They were mostly explorers, mathematicians and astronomers. All of them were looking for how the world began and why the death of various natural things occurs. Different philosophers found the primary sources of everything on earth in different ways.
• 3. Classic stage. Period from 5th to 4th century BC. In this period, the pre-Socrates are replaced by the sophists. These are teachers of virtue, their main goal is close attention to the life of a person and the whole society. They believed that success in life could be acquired by knowledgeable, intelligent people. The most important knowledge, in their opinion, was rhetoric, because every person should be fluent in the word and the art of persuasion. They began the transition from the study of natural events to the study and understanding of the inner world of man. The most important famous philosopher of that time was Socrates, and his teachings. He believed that the most important thing is good, and devoted a lot of time to studying it, because evil comes from people who do not know how to use the benefits and good. Socrates saw the solution to all problems in self-consciousness and the improvement of the inner world, in the need to take care of the soul. The body remained in second place. After Socrates, his place was taken by his student - Plato, who was the teacher of Aristotle. All these philosophies of various philosophers came down to one thing: you need to study the soul.
• 4. Hellenistic stage. The period from the end of the 4th century to the 1st century BC. The main teaching of this period was the practical life wisdom. The main concept begins to be ethics, which is focused on the inner world of an individual, and not the whole world. It was necessary to develop the concept of achieving permanent happiness.

stage of ancient philosophy. The period from the 1st century BC to the 5th-6th century AD. Rome took the decisive role in the world, and Greece fell under its influence. The most important school in this period of time was the Platonic school. For this period, there was a dependence in the study of mysticism, astrology, magic, various religious teachings. The main teaching was the Neoplatonic system. In the details of this system was communication with God, mythology and religion. In ancient philosophy, materialism and idealism are clearly expressed. Thanks to them, there was further influence on philosophical concept. Generally speaking, philosophy is a struggle between materialism and idealism. Thinking in Greek and Roman philosophy, more help to understand the essence of philosophy.

philosophical Eleatic antique

The term "ancient philosophy" refers to the philosophy Ancient Greece and Rome, starting from the 7th century BC. and ending in 529 AD. Ancient philosophy is divided by time frame into such periods:

• Naturalistic period, which includes such representatives as the Pythagoreans, Eleatics, Ionians.
• Humanistic period - sophists.
• Classical - Aristotle, Plato, Socrates.
• Early Hellenism.
• Early Christian period - Neoplatonists.
• Origin monotheistic religion and Christian thought.

The naturalistic period of ancient philosophy dealt with the question of the primary source of everything that exists in the world. For this period and for its representatives, it was not typical to study ethics or aesthetics, especially political issues, the role of a person and his inner world. Thanks to this period, a good impetus was given to the study and creation of the exact sciences.

The classical period, which in particular includes such representatives as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, is aimed at studying the concept of good, good and evil, the first thoughts about aesthetic knowledge, ratio, first ethical principles also find their place in consideration. Also during this period, two large schools develop and branch off - Platonists and Cynics (cynics).

The philosophy of Hellenism is already replete with a wide variety of schools, among which the skeptics, Epicureans and Stoics continue the development of Cynics, and the Peripatetics also appear. Each group had its own views on the structure of society, the role of a person in it, on the goals of a person in life, on the motives of his behavior and purpose in life.

The late period of ancient philosophy moves the sphere of influence to Ancient Rome, which gained its power in the 1st century BC - 5th century AD. many oratory schools appear, the Late Stoic school develops, as well as eclecticism and Roman epicureanism.

In the future, the society begins to be ruled by the ideas of Neoplatonism, which were built on the teachings of Plato, however, with some changes. The founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus, tried to find the origin of the creation of the world, develop a system of divine beings and find the role of man in this all-encompassing galaxy. The division of being into spheres began, which included inner being, life, man, external, that is, everything that surrounded him, as well as the concept of matter.

Man began to understand himself as a separate being, but with a divine content. The world began to be perceived as an ordered and harmonious concentration, which is directed by something from above. In this way, we can trace the beginnings of influence on the creation of Christian thought, which, drawing on the vast previous experience of all ancient philosophy, singled out for itself some centers and built around them, collected material for the creation of a monotheistic religion. What is also interesting to know is the difference between the views of Plato and Aristotle, which are already known, but the interest lies in the fact that Platonism influenced the creation of the Orthodox branch in christian church, and the teachings of Aristotle are an offshoot of Catholicism.

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ancient philosophy materialism idealism

Introduction

general characteristics ancient philosophy

Ancient materialism: Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Philosophy is the knowledge of the universal, the essential meaning of the world, the knowledge of true being.

Ancient philosophy existed for more than a thousand years (from the 6th century BC to the 6th century AD). It was historically the first form of European philosophy and initially included knowledge about the world, from which the tree subsequently grew. modern philosophy and science.

Ancient philosophy is characterized by the presence of many different schools and trends. In antiquity, two main directions were formed: the materialistic (Democritus line) and the idealistic (Plato line), the struggle between which became one of the internal sources of the development of philosophy.

In ancient philosophy, the doctrine of development was born - dialectics in its first spontaneous form. Already in it, objective dialectics (Heraclitus) and subjective (Socrates) stand out.

Of course, in antiquity the concepts of philosophy and science coincided. Philosophical consciousness extended to knowledge in its entirety, at the same time laying claim to the definition of values ​​and rules of conduct.

1. General characteristics of ancient philosophy

European and a significant part of modern world civilization is directly or indirectly a product of ancient Greek culture, the most important part of which is philosophy. Many prominent philosophers write about the periodization of ancient philosophy, including Chanyshev A.N. (A course of lectures on ancient philosophy. M., 1981), Smirnov I.N., Titov V.F. ("Philosophy", M., 1996), Asmus V.F. (History of ancient philosophy M., 1965), Bogomolov A.S. ("Ancient Philosophy", Moscow State University, 1985).

For the convenience of analysis, we will use a more concise periodization presented by Smirnov I.N. So he notes that when analyzing Greek philosophy, three periods are distinguished in it: the first ¾ from Thales to Aristotle; the second - the classical ancient Greek philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the third - Hellenistic philosophy. The object of our attention will be only the first and second periods.

Absolutely all scientists-philosophers note that the first period of development of ancient philosophy was the period of natural philosophy. A peculiar feature of ancient philosophy was the connection of its teachings with the teachings about nature, from which independent sciences subsequently developed: astronomy, physics, biology. In the VI and V centuries. BC. philosophy did not yet exist separately from the knowledge of nature, and knowledge about nature did not exist separately from philosophy. The cosmological speculation of the 7th and 6th centuries BC raises the question of the ultimate foundation of things. Thus, the concept of world unity appears, which opposes a multitude of phenomena and through which they try to explain the connection between this multitude and diversity, as well as the regularity that manifests itself primarily in the most general cosmic processes, in the change of day and night, in the movement of stars.

The second period of Greek philosophy (V - VI centuries BC), in contrast to the one-sided cosmocentric direction of the previous philosophy, also begins one-sidedly, namely, the formulation of anthropological problems. Naturphilosophical thinking reached limits beyond which it could not go at that time. This period is represented by the Sophists and Socrates and the Socrates. The difference between Socrates and the sophists is that the criterion for evaluating actions for him is the consideration of what motives determine the decision, what is useful and what is harmful.

In his philosophical activity, Socrates was guided by two principles formulated by the oracles: "the need for everyone to know himself and the fact that no person knows anything for sure and only a true sage knows that he knows nothing."

Socrates ends the natural philosophical period in the history of ancient Greek philosophy and begins a new stage associated with the activities of Plato and Aristotle.

Plato goes far beyond the boundaries of the Socratic spirit. Plato is a conscious and consistent objective idealist. Plato was the first among philosophers to pose the fundamental question of philosophy, the question of the relationship between spirit and matter. Strictly speaking, it is possible to speak about philosophy in ancient Greece with a significant degree of certainty only starting from Plato. Plato is the first ancient Greek philosopher whose activities can be judged from his own works.

Our understanding of ancient Greek philosophy will not be complete without an analysis of the philosophical heritage of Aristotle (384 - 322 BC), one of the greatest thinkers in the history of human civilization.

Aristotle is distinguished by encyclopedic knowledge, he summed up the development philosophical thought from the beginning of Ancient Greece to Plato.

The third period of ancient philosophy: the age of Hellenism (from the 3rd century BC to the 3rd century after Christ). These include the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Skeptics. Neoplatonism ends the development of Greek philosophy.

2. Ancient materialism: Thales, Heraclitus, Democritus

Philosophy of Thales

The history of ancient Greek philosophy opens with the name of Thales of Miletus (about 625 - 547 BC). Thales claimed that everything in the world consists of water. Water is the beginning and end of everything.

The following sayings are attributed to him: "The most ancient of all things is God, for he is not born." "The most beautiful of all is the world, for it is the creation of God." "The wisest thing is time, for it reveals everything." He was asked: "What is difficult in the world?" - "Know thyself". "What's easy?" - "Advise others."

The first ancient Greek philosophers were busy searching for the fundamental principle that makes up the universe.

Philosophy of Heraclitus.

A significant contribution to the formation and development of ancient Greek philosophy was made by Heraclitus of Ephesus. The date of life of different philosophers is dated differently. So Taranov P.S. indicates that Heraclitus was born about 535 BC and died about 475 BC, having lived 60 years. Bogomolov names the date of birth (544, and considers the date of death unknown). Everyone admits that the personality of Heraclitus was very controversial. Coming from a royal family, he ceded the crown to his brother, and he himself retired to the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, devoting his time to philosophy. At the end of his life, Heraclitus retired to the mountains and lived as a hermit.

Analyzing the philosophical views of Heraclitus, one cannot fail to see that, like his predecessors, he generally remained on the position of natural philosophy, although some problems, for example, dialectics of contradiction, development are analyzed by him at the philosophical level, that is, the level of concepts and logical conclusions.

The prominent researcher of Heraclitus M. Markovich recreates the train of thought of the Ephesian in this way: he (Heraclitus) also says that the judgment on the world and everything that is in it is carried out through fire. For all... the coming fire will judge and condemn. Heraclitus considers fire as the substantial-genetic beginning of the Universe.

Heraclitus believes that none of the gods and none of the people created the cosmos, but "it has always been, is and will be forever living fire."

So, the fundamental principle of all things Heraclitus considered the primary fire - a subtle and mobile light element. Fire was considered by Heraclitus not only as an essence, as an origin, but also as a real process, as a result of which all things and bodies appear due to the flaring up or extinction of fire.

Heraclitus speaks of kinship logosand fire as different aspects of the same being. Fire expresses the qualitative and changeable side of the existing - logos - structural, stable. "Fire is exchange or exchange, logos is the proportion of this exchange."

So, the Heraclitean logos is the rational necessity of the existent, merged with the very concept of the existent - fire. The logos of Heraclitus has several interpretations: logos - a word, a story, an argument, a supreme mind, a universal law, etc. According to Bogomolov, the value is closer logosby the way lawas a universal semantic connection of being.

The main position of the philosophy of Heraclitus is conveyed by Plato in the dialogue "Cratylus". Plato reports that according to Heraclitus "everything moves and nothing rests ... it is impossible to enter the same river."

Dialectics according to Heraclitus is first of all changeof all things and the unity of unconditional opposites. At the same time, change is considered not as a simple movement, but as a process of the formation of the universe, the cosmos.

And it is no exaggeration to say that of all philosophers of the period of formation of ancient philosophy,Heraclitus most of all deserves "the title of the founder of objective dialectics as the doctrine of opposites, their struggle, their unity and world process. This is his enduring significance."

The teaching of Heraclitus about the flow is closely connected with his teaching about the transition from one opposite to another, about "me", "exchange" of opposites. "The cold gets warmer, the warm gets colder, the wet dries up, the dry gets wet." By exchanging with each other, opposites become identical. Heraclitus' statement that everything is an exchange of opposites is supplemented by the statement that everything happens through struggle: "one should know that war is universal and true struggle and everything that happens through struggle and by necessity." On the basis of struggle, the harmony of the world is established.

Democritus and his atomistic theory

According to most philosophers, Democritus was born in 460 BC, died in 360/370 BC. Lived for almost 100 years. Originally from Abder, he came from a noble family and was rich, but he abandoned his wealth, spent his whole life in the poor, indulging exclusively in wisdom.

Democritus taught that there is something extremely simple, further indivisible and impenetrable, of which everything that exists is an atom. Atoms are innumerable, Democritus characterizes atoms, just as Parmenides characterizes being. Atoms are eternal, unchanging, inseparable, impenetrable, neither arising nor regenerating. They have absolute density and hardness and differ from each other in their volume and shape. All bodies are composed of atoms, the real true properties of things are those that are inherent in atoms. Atoms are separated from each other by emptiness. If an atom is being, then emptiness is non-being. On the one hand, if there were no emptiness, then there would be no real multitude and no movement. On the other hand, if everything were divisible to infinity, then there would be emptiness in everything, that is, there would be nothing in the world, there would be no world itself. Democritus interpreted movement as a natural state of the Cosmos, while movement was interpreted strictly unambiguously as the endless movement of atoms in the void.

Democritus was the first in ancient Greek philosophy to introduce the concept of cause into scientific circulation. He denies chance in the sense of causelessness.

In inorganic nature, everything happens not according to goals and in this sense by chance, but the student can have both goals and means. Thus, Democritus' view of nature is strictly causal, deterministic.

He preached a consistent materialistic position in the doctrine of the nature of the soul and knowledge. "The soul, according to Democritus, consists of spherical atoms, i.e. it is like fire."

The views of Democritus on man, society, morality and religion are interesting. He intuitively believed that the first of the people led a disorderly life. When they learned how to make fire, they gradually began to develop various arts. He expressed the version that art was born by imitation (We learned from a spider - weaving, from a swallow - to build houses, etc.), that laws are created by people. Wrote about the bad and good people. "Bad people take oaths to the gods when they find themselves in a hopeless situation. When they got rid of him, they still do not keep their oaths."

Democritus rejected divine providence, the afterlife, posthumous retribution for earthly deeds. The ethics of Democritus is permeated with the ideas of humanism. "The hedonism of Democritus is not only in pleasures, because the highest blessed state of mind and measure in pleasures."

Ancient idealism: Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Pythagoras(IV century BC) and his followers the Pythagoreans proceeded from the idea that the universe is infinite in both space and time and that it is ruled by a god who is as eternal and boundless as the world itself. The whole world is dominated by order, which is based on number and measure - they produce a harmony of being, similar to the one we find in music. The number governs both the course of the heavenly saints and all human relationships. The number governs both the course of the heavenly saints and all human relationships. Number is the source of rewards and punishments. The human soul is immortal and harmonious, but during its earthly existence it passes through a series of bodies: sometimes higher, sometimes lower, depending on how virtuous it is.

Socrates(469 - 399 BC) He believed: the main thing is to know the general, general principles of virtue. Good cannot be taught - it is contained in the nature of the spirit. Everything is in the spirit of man; he learns something only by appearances. Everything that exists is contained in man himself. According to Socrates, man as a thinker is the measure of all things. Socrates' requirement: Know thyself. Socrates was characterized by ethical intellectualism; moral and scientific knowledge his are identical. Genuine knowledge, according to Socrates, includes right action.

He who knows what good is must always act in the spirit of good. He considered dialogue to be an important means of achieving philosophical leadership. According to Socrates, God is, in essence, Mind, Soul. human mind and the soul is the inner voice (conscience) of divine origin that urges man to live virtuously.

Plato is an outstanding objective idealist.

Plato (427-347 BC) - founder objective idealism, student of Cratylus and Socrates. Almost all works written in the form of dialogues or dramatic works have come down to us: "The Apology of Socrates, 23 dialogues overheard, 11 dialogues of varying degrees of doubt, 8 works that were not included in the list of Plato's works even in antiquity, 13 letters, many of which unquestionably authentic and definitions."

Plato got acquainted early with the philosophy of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, Pythagoreans. Plato is the founder of a school called the Academy. In the dialogue "Timaeus" was the first to comprehensively discuss the origin of the first principles and the structure of the cosmos. "We need to consider what the very nature of fire, water, air and earth was before the birth of the sky and what was their then state. For until now no one has explained their birth, but we call them and take the letters of the Universe for the elements." For the first time he raised the question of the essence of things and their essences. He laid the foundation for the doctrine of reference prototypes or paradigms. The existence of an idea is more important than non-existence. The realm of Plato's ideas is reminiscent of Parmenides' doctrine of being. Plato's world of sensible things is reminiscent of the doctrine of Heraclitus's being - a stream of eternal becoming, birth and death.

Plato transferred Heraclitus' characterization of being to the world of sensible things.

In the dialogue "Timaeus" he reveals cosmogony and cosmology. He considered the demiurge (god) to be the organizer of the cosmos. So, the first principles of the cosmos are as follows: "ideas are the prototypes of things, matter and the demiurge is a god who arranges the world according to ideas. There is being (ideas), there is production, and there are three births of the world."

The origin of the cosmos is described by Plato as follows. From a mixture of ideas and matter, the demiurge creates a world soul and spreads this mixture throughout the space that is intended for the visible universe, dividing it into elements - fire, air, water and earth. Rotating the cosmos, he rounded it, giving it the most perfect shape- spheres. The result is space creature endowed with intelligence. “So, we have before us the structure of the world: the divine mind (demiurge), the world soul and the world body (cosmos).

At the center of the teachings of Plato, as well as his teacher Socrates, are the problems of morality. Morality, he considered the dignity of the soul, the soul - truly gives the cause of things, the soul is immortal.

In the dialogue "Timaeus" he revealed the picture afterlife and court. He thought that it was necessary to cleanse the soul from earthly filth (from evil, vices and passions).

In the dialogues "Politician", "State", "Laws" Plato revealed the doctrine of state administration. He stood up for the complete subordination of the individual to the state, his ideals were the power of an enlightened king.

He noted that three main forms of government could exist in the state: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

According to Plato, each form of state perishes due to internal contradictions. "Plato characterizes government as a royal art, the main thing for which is the presence of true royal knowledge and the ability to manage people. If the rulers have such data, then it will no longer matter whether they rule according to laws or without them, voluntarily or against their will, poor or rich: to take this into account is never and by no means correct.

Plato was the founder of not only ancient, but also world idealism.

Aristotle is an outstanding philosopher of antiquity.

Plato's decisive opponent is his student Aristotle, the greatest ancient Greek philosopher. F. Engels called him "the most versatile head" among ancient Greek philosophers, A thinker who investigated the most essential forms of dialectical thinking.

Aristotle was born in 384 BC. in the city of Stagira, in 367 BC. left for Athens, where he entered the Academy - Plato's school, spent 20 years there until Plato's death. Later he would criticize Platonism. He owns the words: "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer."

Later, Aristotle founded his own school in Athens, calling it "Lykeum". He owns 146 works, among them "Organon", "Metaphysics", "Physics" and others.

The main content of the philosophical teachings of Aristotle is set forth in his work "Metaphysics". Aristotle retains the understanding of being, characteristic of the Eleatics and Plato, as something stable, unchanging, motionless. However, Aristotle does not identify being with ideas. He criticizes Plato for attributing independent existence to ideas, isolating and separating them from sensory world. As a result, Aristotle gives the concept of being a different interpretation than Plato. Essence is that single existence possessing independence. It answers the question: "What is a thing?" in being is what makes objects exactly that, did not allow it to merge with others.

In metaphysics, he defines matter. Unlike Socrates, Plato, who did not attribute the science of nature to true wisdom, Aristotle explores nature in depth. Matter turns out to be the first cause of both the emergence and the changeable presence of natural things "for all nature, one might say, is material." Matter according to Aristotle is the primary material, the potency of things. It gives the matter an actual state, that is, it transforms it from a possibility into an actual form. Form, according to Aristotle, is an active principle, the beginning of life and activity. He called the higher essences pure forms, in fact, pure forms are nothing but ideal essences. Aristotle considers the highest essence to be pure, formless matter - the Prime Mover, which serves as the source of life and movement of the entire Cosmos.

It is from the understanding of matter that Aristotle builds the doctrine of 4 Xelements (earth, fire, water, air). If in the philosophy of the pre-Socratics there was no special term for matter, then as philosophical category Aristotle developed this for the first time. AT 3 herbook "Physics" he talked about 4 Xtypes of movement. In "metaphysics" and "physics" he convincingly convinced of the dominance of form over content. His thoughts on society, ethics and politics are curious. aim human activity for all ancient Greek philosophy is the attainment of bliss. Bliss according to Aristotle is unattainable. In Aristotle's Politics, society and the state are not distinguished. Man, in his opinion, is a political animal. He justified slavery, because he believed that slavery exists by nature. A slave has no rights.

Aristotle summed up the development of philosophical thought from its beginnings in ancient Greece to Plato. It is Aristotle who belongs to the systematization of knowledge, based on two principles - subject and target. He divides the sciences into 3 large groups: theoretical (1 Iphysics, physics, mathematics), practical (ethics, economics, politics) and creative (poetics, rhetoric, art).

Thus, Aristotle completed the classical philosophy of history.

The historical significance of ancient philosophy

The pinnacle of ancient Greek philosophical thought is rightly considered to be the philosophical achievements of Plato and Aristotle. Influence on subsequent philosophical and cultural development ideas put forward by Plato and Aristotle, greatly exceeds the influence created by their predecessors. Without Platonic and Aristotelian approaches and concepts, it is impossible to understand a single philosophical system along the entire long path of subsequent evolution, including modernity.

Ancient Greece set a certain model of civilization in general, civilization as such. The model turned out, however, complex and contradictory. But it remains and will forever remain attractive, especially in cases where civilization is threatened somewhere or is looking for new impulses to find fresh breath. The Greek model is static. The most important thing is that, due to the same quality, it can be built into the composition of another civilization. True, in this case one has to solve the most complicated problem of the ways and means of such embedding. The subsequent development of a civilization based on the values ​​of Christianity demonstrated various options solutions to this problem. However, with all options, the value of the intellectual and technical side of ancient Greek thought was recognized. Antiquity owes the achievements of the highest technology of thinking mainly to the work of Plato and Aristotle, who relied on the previous achievements of Greek thought. These achievements in their totality constituted a phenomenon called ancient Greek philosophy. ancient greek philosophy is what develops and consolidates universal methods of thinking, not limited by anything external, primarily by faith and sensory experience.

Conclusion

So, summing up control work on the topic "Ancient Philosophy", I draw the following conclusions:

.Philosophy is one of the most ancient areas of human knowledge.

.The essence of philosophy and its role in society lies in the fact that it is knowledge of the universal, essential knowledge about the world, knowledge of true being. Philosophy is the decisive sphere of the formation of the spirit.

.Philosophy general connections and relationships, general laws that operate in nature, society and human thinking.

.European philosophy was formed on the basis of antiquity and Christianity.

.Ancient philosophy played a huge role historical meaning in spiritual development humanity, laying the foundations for the subsequent movement of all European and world philosophy.

Bibliography

1. Asmus V.F. History of ancient philosophy. M., 1965.
2. Bogomolov A.S. ancient philosophy. Moscow State University, 1985.
3. Garanov P.S. 500 steps to wisdom. Book. 1., 1996.
4. Losev A.F. Ancient philosophy of history. M., 1977.
5. Losev A.F. Dictionary of ancient philosophy. M., 1995.
6. Losev A.F. Plato, Aristotle. M., 1993.
7. Sergeev K.A., Slinin Ya.A. Nature and reason. ancient paradigm. L., 1991.
8. Smirnov I.N., Titov V.F. Philosophy. IN 2 X kn., kn. 1., M., 1996.
9. Chanyshev A.N. Course of lectures on ancient philosophy. M., 1981.
10. Radugin A.A. Philosophy. Lecture course. Publishing house Center. Moscow. 1997.

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Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine

Department of Philosophy

TEST

Course: "Philosophy"

1. Ancient philosophy

2. Cosmocentrism

3. Philosophy of Heraclitus

4. Philosophy of Zeno of Elea

5. Pythagorean Union

6. Atomistic philosophy

7. Sophists

9. The teachings of Plato

10. Philosophy of Aristotle

11. Skepticism of Pyrrho

12. Philosophy of Epicurus

13. Philosophy of Stoicism

14. Neoplatonism

Conclusion

5th century BC e. in the life of ancient Greece is full of many philosophical discoveries. In addition to the teachings of the sages - the Milesians, Heraclitus and the Eleatics, Pythagoreanism is gaining sufficient fame. About Pythagoras himself - the founder of the Pythagorean Union - we know from later sources. Plato calls his name only once, Aristotle twice. Most Greek authors call the island of Samos the birthplace of Pythagoras (580-500 BC), which he was forced to leave due to the tyranny of Polycrates. On the advice of supposedly Thales, Pythagoras went to Egypt, where he studied with the priests, then as a prisoner (in 525 BC Egypt was captured by the Persians) ended up in Babylonia, where he also studied with the Indian sages. After 34 years of study, Pythagoras returned to Great Hellas, to the city of Croton, where he founded the Pythagorean Union - a scientific-philosophical and ethical-political community of like-minded people. The Pythagorean Union is a closed organization, and its teachings are secret. The way of life of the Pythagoreans fully corresponded to the hierarchy of values: in the first place - beautiful and decent (which science was referred to), in the second - profitable and useful, in the third - pleasant. The Pythagoreans got up before sunrise, did mnemonic (related to the development and strengthening of memory) exercises, then went to the seashore to meet the sunrise. We thought about the upcoming business, worked. At the end of the day, after the bath, they all dined together and made libations to the gods, followed by a general reading. Before going to bed, each Pythagorean gave a report on what had been done during the day.

Ancient philosophy is a set of teachings that developed in ancient Greece and in Ancient Rome from the 6th century BC e. according to the VI century. n. e. Usually in ancient philosophy there are three periods:

The 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 appearance of the philosophy of Socrates, which radically changed the nature of ancient philosophy, therefore it is also called the pre-Socratic period.

The second period - the period of classical ancient philosophy (4 - 5 centuries BC), is associated with the names of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

The third period is the Hellenistic-Roman philosophy (3rd century BC - 6th century AD), which developed in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome, is represented by such currents as epicureanism, skepticism, stoicism and neoplatonism.

The main feature of ancient philosophy in the first period is 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 comprehending the causes of the origin of the material world, identifying the source of its harmonious structure, some guiding principle, which was called the beginning (arche).

Answers to the question about the beginning of the world were different. Yes, representatives Milesian school In ancient philosophy, Thales and his students asserted one of the natural elements as the beginning. Such a position in the history of philosophy is called naive naturalism.

Thales argued that everything comes from water, Anaximenes - from the air, Anaximander offers a variant 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 beginning - Logos - the fiery beginning and at the same time the world order.

The basis of the teachings of Heraclitus 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. According to him, opposites are the cause of movement, development, change of the world. He describes the universe as a flux—something ever becoming, moving, flowing, and changing. Heraclitus believed that the struggle of opposites appears as harmony and unity if you look 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 beginning of the world is the number, as a certain principle of order. Evidence of progress here is that something non-material, abstract is offered as a starting point.

The crowning thought of the philosophers of the pre-Socratic period should be recognized as the teachings of Parmenides, a representative of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides is known as the creator of one of the basic concepts of the philosophy of the term "Being". Being is a term that focuses on the fact of the existence of objects and phenomena of the world around us. Parmenides reveals the basic properties of being as the beginning of the world. It is one, indivisible, infinite and immovable. In this regard, the being 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 exists, but there is no non-being”, 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 in defense of this position and now striking arguments (aporia).

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 writings have not been preserved, and the glory of the creator of the complete system of atomism is carried 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 a fundamental change in the subject of philosophical reflection - the so-called anthropological turn. If the thinkers of early antiquity were interested in the questions of the origin and structure of the universe, then in the classical period there is a turn of interest in the study of the problems of man and society. First of all, this refers to the philosophy of the sophists.

Sophists - an ancient philosophical school that existed in the 5th-4th centuries. BC. Its most famous representatives are the so-called senior sophists: Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias. The Sophists were known as unsurpassed masters of eloquence. With the help of ingenious reasoning, often using errors of logic, they confused the interlocutor and "proved" obviously absurd theses. This kind of reasoning is called sophism.

Sophists also taught those who wished the skill public speaking. At the same time, they did not hesitate to take payment 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, stated: "Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and non-existent, that they do not exist." This means that it is the person who determines what will be considered true 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 left no writings behind him, 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 used elements of sophistry in his reasoning, although he did not share them. 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 passed on, it can only be awakened in the human soul. Socrates called the method of birth of truth from the depths of the human soul Mayevtika (obscurity). Maieutics was the art of consistent, methodical questioning of a person in such a way that an understanding of more complex truths would come from simple and obvious truths for him.

The basis of Socrates' method of reasoning in the framework of this kind of dialogue was irony. Socrates "prompted" the interlocutor the right direction of reasoning, reducing his point of view to absurdity, exposing it to ridicule, which often led to resentment.

Socrates' doctrine of truth also had an ethical component. The main problem of ethics, from the point of view of Socrates, is the achievement of a single point of view regarding universal truths. All evil comes from ignorance. In other words, a person commits an evil deed not because wishes to do evil, but from a misunderstanding of good. The logical continuation is the thesis of Socrates 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, Cynics, Cyrenaics, 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 doctrine of the world of ideas has become 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, dialogues, the main character of which was his teacher Socrates.

After the death of Socrates, Plato founded his own philosophical school in the suburbs of Athens (named after the local hero Akadema). 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 non-material, they are cognizable only with the help of the mind and exist independently of a person. 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 ​​the 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 why 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. So the process of cognition, according to Plato, is nothing but the recollection of ideas from the world of ideas.

Plato believed that the human soul is immortal and during its rebirth contemplates the world of ideas. Therefore, each person, if the method of questioning is applied to him, can recall the ideas that he saw.

The structure of the world of ideas determines the structure of the state. Plato creates a blueprint for the ideal state structure in "The State". It, according to Plato, should contain three estates: philosophers, guards and artisans. Philosophers have to govern the state, guards have to ensure public order and protection from external threats, and artisans have to produce material goods. AT ideal state Plato, the destruction of the institutions of marriage, family and private property (for representatives of the estates of guards and philosophers) was supposed.

Another the greatest philosopher Antiquity became a student of Plato Aristotle (384 - 322, BC). After the death of Plato, 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 of Aristotle was to get rid of mythologization and ambiguity of concepts. He divided all knowledge into First Philosophy (philosophy proper) and Second Philosophy (concrete sciences). The subject of the first philosophy is pure, unadulterated being, which is the ideas of Plato. However, unlike Plato, Aristotle believed that ideas exist in single things, constitute their essence, and not in a separate world of ideas. And they can be known only by knowing single things, and not by means of recollection.

Aristotle identifies four types of reasons 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 - the source of movement or transformation

- target cause - the ultimate 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 lump of copper is 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 - the first matter. The form of forms is the god or prime mover of the world.

The period of Hellenism is the period of the crisis of Greek society, the collapse of the policy, the capture of Greece by Alexander the Great. However, since the Macedonians did not have a highly developed culture, they completely borrowed the Greek, that is, they became Hellenized. Moreover, they spread samples of Greek culture throughout the territory of the Empire of Alexander the Great, which stretched from the Balkans to the Indus and the 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 made for ways of spiritual renewal. Not a single fundamentally new concept has been created. A powerful trend was Neoplatonism, which developed the ideas of Plato. An influential trend of that 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). aim human life Epicurus declared pleasure. 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 - Influential philosophy, whose founder was Antisthenes, but the spiritual leader is Diogenes of Sinop. The meaning of Diogenes's formulations was to reject and expose the great illusions that drove people's behavior:

1) pursuit of pleasure; 2) fascination with wealth; 3) a passionate desire for power; 4) thirst for fame, brilliance and success - all that leads to misfortune. Refraining from these illusions, apathy and self-sufficiency are the conditions for maturity and wisdom, and ultimately happiness.

Another influential trend 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. This philosophical school was founded in the 6th century. BC e. Zeno. Its prominent representatives are Seneca, Nero's teacher, Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The positions of this philosophy are opposite to Epicurus: trust fate, fate leads the humble, and drags the rebellious.

The result of the reflections of the philosophy of the Hellenistic period is the realization of the collapse of Greek culture based on rational thinking.