Greek philosophy of the 5th century BC. Ancient Greek philosophy. periodization and traits. Philosophical schools of the ancient world

Greek philosophy in the 7th - 6th centuries BC and was, in essence, the first attempt at rational comprehension of the surrounding world.

In the development of the philosophy of ancient Greece, there are four main stages:

VII-V centuries BC - pre-Socratic philosophy;

V-IV centuries BC - classical stage (Outstanding philosophers of the classical stage: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. In public life this stage is characterized as the highest rise of Athenian democracy);

IV-II centuries BC - Hellenistic stage. (The decline of the Greek cities and the establishment of the dominance of Macedonia);

1st century BC - V, VI centuries AD - Roman philosophy.

Natural philosophy. Thales (c. 625-547 BC) is considered the founder of ancient Greek philosophy, and Anaximander (c. 610-546 BC) and Anaximenes (c. 585-525 BC) were his successors. AD). The Milesian philosophers were spontaneous materialists.

Thales considered water to be the beginning of everything, which is in constant motion, the transformations of which create all things, ultimately turning back into water. There was no place for gods in this cycle of states of eternal water. He represented the earth as a flat disk floating on the original water. Thales was also considered the founder of ancient Greek mathematics, astronomy and a number of other natural sciences. He is also credited with a number of specific scientific calculations. He knew how to predict solar eclipses and could give a physical explanation of this process. During his stay in Egypt, Thales first measured the height of the pyramids by measuring their shadow at the time of day when the length of the shadow is equal to the height of the objects casting it.

Anaximander, following the path of further generalization of experience, came to the conclusion that the primary matter is apeiron: indefinite, eternal and boundless matter, which is in constant motion. From it, in the process of movement, its inherent opposites stand out - warm and cold, wet and dry. Their interaction leads to the birth and death of all things and phenomena that, of necessity, arise from the apeiron and return to it. Anaximander is considered the compiler of the first geographical map and the first scheme of the firmament for orientation by the stars, he represented the earth in the form of a rotating cylinder floating in the air.

Anaximenes believed that the beginning of everything is air, which, discharging or condensing, gives rise to the whole variety of things. Everything arises and returns to the ever-moving air, including the gods, who, like all other things, are certain states of the air.

Pythagoras (c.580-500 BC) from the island of Samos. After the establishment of tyranny on the island of Samos, Pythagoras emigrated to southern Italy to the city of Croton, where in the second half of the 6th century. BC. founded from representatives of the local aristocracy a reactionary religious and political union, known as the "Pythagorean". According to the philosophy of the Pythagoreans, not quality, but quantity, not substance, but form determines the essence of things. Everything can be counted and thus the quantitative features and laws of nature can be established. The world consists of quantitative, always unchanging opposites: finite and infinite, even and odd. Their combination is carried out in harmony, which is characteristic of the world.

In the fight against idealistic philosophy Pythagoras perfected materialistic philosophy Milesian school. At the end of the VI-beginning of the V century. BC. Heraclitus of Ephesus (ca. 530-470 BC) acted as a spontaneous dialectical materialist. In his writings, they found the completion of the search for Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes.

By origin and political convictions, Heraclitus was a supporter of the aristocracy. He sharply collapsed on the "mob". With the victory of slave-owning democracy in his homeland, Heraclitus's pessimistic attitude towards the reality surrounding him is connected. Speaking against the victorious democracy, he wanted to show its transient character. However, in his philosophical constructions, he went far beyond this goal. According to Heraclitus, the highest law of nature is the eternal process of movement and change. the element from which everything arises is fire, representing either a regularly ignited, or a regularly extinguished process of combustion.

Everything in nature consists of opposites in the struggle born from fire, passing into each other and returning to fire. Heraclitus was the first to come to the idea of ​​the dialectical development of the material world as a necessary regularity inherent in matter. Heraclitus expressed the natural necessity with the Greek word "logos", in the philosophical sense denoting "law". We know the saying attributed to Heraclitus: "Panta rey" - everything flows, everything changes, which briefly formulates the essence of his philosophy.

The dialectical unity of opposites is formulated as a constantly emerging harmony of mutually complementary and struggling opposites. The process of self-development of fire was not created by any of the gods or people, it was, is and always will be. Heraclitus ridiculed the religious and mythological worldview of his compatriots.

Against materialist dialectic Heraclitus began to fight the philosopher Xenophanes (c.580-490 BC) and his students. Expelled from his native Asia Minor city of Colophon (near Ephesus), Xenophanes settled in Italy, where he led the life of a wandering raspod singer. In his songs, he spoke out against the anthropomorphic polytheism of Hellenic religion. Xenophanes argued that there was no reason to attribute human appearance to the gods and that if bulls and horses could create images of the gods, they would present them in their own image.

Empedocles (c. 483-423 BC from the Sicilian city of Akraganta put forward the position that everything consists of qualitatively different and quantitatively divisible elements or, as he calls them, "roots". These "roots" are: fire, air, water and earth.

His contemporary Anaxogoras(500-428 BC) from Klazomen, who lived in Athens for a long time and was a friend of Pericles, believed that all existing bodies consist of the smallest particles similar to them. Thus Empedocles, and Anaxagoras in particular, tried to study the structure of matter.

Highest Development mechanistic materialism in classical period reached in the teachings of Leucippus (c. 500-440 BC) from Miletus and Democritus (460-370 BC) from Adbera. Both philosophers were of their time. Leucippus laid the foundations of the atomistic theory, which was later successfully developed by Democritus. According to this theory, everything consists of emptiness and moving atoms, infinitely small, indivisible material particles, different in shape and size. The earth was presented to Democritus as a flat disk, rushing in the air, around which the luminaries revolve. All organic and psychic life is explained by him as purely material processes.

The atomistic materialism of Leucippus and Democritus had an enormous and fruitful influence on the scientific and philosophical thought of subsequent times.

Anthroposophy.

Complication public relations in connection with the rapid development of slavery and the social stratification of the free, it forced a significant part of the philosophers, starting from the middle of the 5th century. BC, pay attention to the study of human activities. The accumulation of diverse knowledge, on the other hand, required their systematization. Sophist philosophers took up these issues closely (the so-called wandering teachers who taught eloquence and other sciences for a fee).

Their appearance was largely associated with the political development of democratic policies, so that citizens had to own oratory. The most famous among the sophists was Protagoras (c. 480-411 BC) from Abdera. He put forward a position about the relativity of all phenomena and perceptions and their inevitable subjectivity. The doubt expressed by him in the existence of the gods was the reason for the condemnation of Protagoras in Athens for godlessness and led the sophist to death. Fleeing from Athens, he drowned in a shipwreck.

The Sophists did not represent any single trend in Greek philosophical thought. Their philosophical constructions were characterized by the denial of the obligatory in knowledge. If the sophists came to the conclusion that it was impossible to give a positive answer to the question they posed about the criterion of truth, then their contemporary, the ideologist of the Athenian oligarchic and aristocratic circles, the idealist philosopher Socrates (471-399 BC) considered this possible and even believed that he had found the criterion of truth. He taught that the truth is known in the dispute. The "Socratic" method of conducting a dispute is known, in which the sage, with the help of leading questions, imperceptibly inspires the arguing with his idea. To establish general concepts, Socrates proceeded from the study of a number of special cases. The goal of a person, according to Socrates, should be virtue, which must be realized.

Socrates taught orally. His philosophy has come down to us in the presentation of his students, mainly Xenophon and Plato.

Philosophy in the period of Hellenism partially changed the content and its main goals. These changes were due to socio-economic and political processes in the developing Hellenistic society. They were also caused by the very fact of separation from philosophy of a number of special sciences. Philosophers of the Hellenistic period turned their main attention to solving the problems of ethics and morality, the problems of the behavior of an individual in the world.

The two old authoritative schools of Plato and Aristotle were gradually losing their face and authority. In parallel with the decline of the old philosophical schools of classical Greece during the Hellenistic period, two new philosophical systems arose and developed - the Stoics and the Epicureans. The founder of Stoic philosophy was a native of the island of Capra, Zeno (c. 336-264 BC). Stoicism was to a certain extent a synthesis of Greek and Eastern views. Creating his philosophy, Zeno in particular used the teachings of Heraclitus, Aristotle, the teachings of the Cynics and Babylonian religious and philosophical ideas. Stoicism was not only the most widespread, but also the most enduring Hellenistic school of thought.

It was an idealistic teaching. The Stoics called everything the body, including thought, word, fire. The soul, according to the Stoics, was a special kind of light body - warm breath. Philosophical schools that arose and developed during the Hellenistic period are characterized by the recognition of their human dignity and even the possibility of them having the highest moral qualities and wisdom. 5th century BC. was a time of further development of Greek science and philosophy, which still remained closely connected. During this period of the further development of ancient society and the state, which took place in the conditions of a fierce class and political struggle, political theories and journalism also arose.

In the 5th century BC. materialistic philosophy in Ancient Greece developed very fruitfully. Most eminent philosopher The classical stage of the philosophy of ancient Greece was Plato (427-347 BC). Plato was a representative of the Athenian slave-owning aristocracy. At the age of 20, chance crosses the paths of the lives of Plato and Socrates. So Socrates becomes Aristotle's teacher. After Socrates was convicted, Plato leaves Athens and moves to Megara for a short time, after which he returns to his native city and takes an active part in its political life. Plato creates the academy for the first time.

We have received information about 35 philosophical writings Plato, most of which were presented in the form of a dialogue. He considered ideas to be the pinnacle and foundation of everything. The material world is only a derivative, a shadow of the world of ideas. Only ideas can be eternal. Ideas are true being, and real things are apparent being. Above all other ideas, Plato put the idea of ​​beauty and goodness. Plato recognizes movement, dialectics, which is the result of the conflict of being and non-being, i.e. ideas and matter. Sensual knowledge, the subject of which is the material world, appears in Plato as secondary, insignificant. True knowledge is knowledge penetrating into the world of ideas - rational knowledge. The soul remembers the ideas with which it has met and which it has known at a time when it has not yet united with the body, the soul is immortal.

Another prominent scientist of this period - Aristotle (384-322 BC). He left behind 150 works, which were later systematized and divided into 4 main groups:

1) Ontology (the science of being) "Metaphysics"

2) Proceedings on general philosophy, problems of nature and natural sciences. "Physics", "About the sky", "Meteorology"

3) Political, aesthetic treatises. "Politics", "Rhetoric", "Poetics"

4) Works on logic and methodology. "Organon"

Aristotle considers the first matter to be the basis of all being. It forms a potential prerequisite for existence. And although it is the basis of being, it cannot be identified with being or considered its main part. This is followed by earth, air and fire, which are an intermediate step between the first matter and the world that we perceive by the senses. All real things are a combination of matter and images or forms, therefore: real being is the unity of matter and form. According to Aristotle, movement is a transition from the possible to reality, i.e. movement is universal. The basis of every phenomenon is a certain cause. Aristotle also touched upon the topics of logic, contradiction, cosmology, issues of society and the state, morality, etc., and also highly valued art.

The two old authoritative schools of Plato and Aristotle were gradually losing their face and authority. In parallel with the decline of the old old philosophical schools of classical Greece during the Hellenistic period, two new philosophical systems arose and developed - the Stoics and the Epicureans. The founder of Stoic philosophy was a native of the island of Capra, Zeno (c. 336-264 BC). Stoicism was to a certain extent a synthesis of Greek and Eastern views. Creating his philosophy, Zeno in particular used the teachings of Heraclitus, Aristotle, the teachings of the Cynics and Babylonian religious and philosophical ideas. Stoicism was not only the most widespread, but also the most enduring Hellenistic school of thought.

It was an idealistic teaching. The Stoics called everything the body, including thought, word, fire. The soul, according to the Stoics, was a special kind of light body - warm breath. Philosophical schools that arose and developed during the Hellenistic period are characterized by the recognition of their human dignity and even the possibility of them having the highest moral qualities and wisdom. 5th century BC. was a time of further development of Greek science and philosophy, which still remained closely connected. During this period of the further development of ancient society and the state, which took place in the conditions of a fierce class and political struggle, political theories and journalism also arose.

For most ancient Greek philosophers, a dualistic opposition of two principles is characteristic: being and non-being by Parmenides, atoms and emptiness by Democritus, ideas and concepts by Plato, form and matter by Aristotle. Ultimately, this is a dualism of the one, indivisible, unchanging on the one hand and infinitely divisible, multiple, changeable - on the other. It was with the help of these two principles that the Greek philosophers tried to explain the existence of the world and man.

In the absence of methods for experimental testing of hypotheses, the number of hypotheses that arose was large. These hypotheses were spontaneously materialistic and naive-dialectical.

And second important point: the ancient Greek thinkers, both materialists and idealists, with all their differences among themselves, were, so to speak, cosmists. Their gaze was directed primarily to unraveling the mysteries of nature, the cosmos as a whole, which they for the most part - with the exception of the atomists - thought as living. Cosmocentrism for a long time set the main line of consideration of human problems in philosophy - from the angle of its inextricable connection with nature.

It was in connection with the discovery of incommensurable quantities that the concept of infinity entered Greek mathematics. In their search for a common unit of measurement for all quantities, the Greek geometers might have considered infinitely divisible quantities, but the idea of ​​infinity led them into deep confusion. Even if the reasoning about the infinite was successful, the Greeks in their mathematical theories always tried to bypass and exclude it. Their difficulty in explicitly expressing the abstract concepts of the infinite and the continuous, as opposed to the concepts of the finite and the discrete, was clearly manifested in the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea.

Zeno's arguments were "aporia" (dead ends); they were supposed to demonstrate that both assumptions lead to a dead end. These paradoxes are known as Achilles, the Arrow, the Dichotomy (halving) and the Stadium. They are formulated in such a way as to emphasize contradictions in the concepts of motion and time, but this is not at all an attempt to resolve such contradictions.

The aporia "Achilles and the tortoise" opposes the idea of ​​the infinite divisibility of space and time. Swift-footed Achilles competes in running with a tortoise and nobly gives her a head start. As long as he runs the distance separating him from the point of departure of the turtle, the latter will crawl further; the distance between Achilles and the tortoise has shortened, but the tortoise retains the advantage. While Achilles has run the distance separating him from the tortoise, the tortoise will again crawl a little further, and so on. If space is infinitely divisible, Achilles will never be able to catch up with the tortoise. This paradox is built on the difficulty of summing up an infinite number of increasingly small quantities and the impossibility of intuitively imagining that this sum equals a finite value.

This moment becomes even more obvious in the aporia "Dichotomy": before going through a certain segment, a moving body must first go through half of this segment, then half of the half, and so on ad infinitum. Zeno mentally builds a series 1/2 + (1/2)2 + (1/2)3 + ..., the sum of which is equal to 1, but he fails to intuitively comprehend the content of this concept. Modern ideas about the limit and convergence of the series allow us to assert that, starting from a certain moment, the distance between Achilles and the tortoise will become less than any given number, chosen arbitrarily small.

The Arrow paradox is based on the assumption that space and time are made up of indivisible elements, say "points" and "moments". At a certain "moment" of its flight, the arrow is at a certain "point" in space in a stationary state. Since this is true at every moment of its flight, the arrow cannot be in motion at all.

Here the question of instantaneous speed is raised. What value should be given to the ratio x / t of the distance traveled x to the time interval t when the value of t becomes very small? Unable to conceive of a minimum other than zero, the ancients gave it the value of zero. Now, with the help of the concept of a limit, the correct answer is immediately found: the instantaneous speed is the limit of the ratio x / t as t tends to zero

Thus, all these paradoxes are connected with the concept of the limit; it became the central concept of infinitesimal calculus.

Zeno's paradoxes are known to us thanks to Aristotle, who brought them in his "Physics" to criticize. He distinguishes between infinity with respect to addition and infinity with respect to division, and establishes that the continuum is infinitely divisible. Time is also infinitely divisible, and an infinitely divisible distance can be covered in a finite interval of time. The Arrow paradox, which "is a consequence of the assumption that time is made up of moments," becomes absurd if one accepts that time is infinitely divisible.

Philosophical reflections appeared already in the first works of the ancient Greek historians Thucydides, Herodotus and Homer. In the VI century BC. the philosophy of ancient Greece was born. Around the same time, philosophical currents appeared in India and Egypt.

The formation of ancient Greek philosophy in the VI-V century BC. e.

The first philosophical school in ancient Greece is considered to be the school of the thinker Thales in the city of Miletskut. Hence the name of this school, Milesian. The first school of philosophers was distinguished by the fact that they understood the world as a whole, without separating living substances from non-living ones.

• Thales . This philosopher was the first to discover the Constellation Ursa Major and determined that the light of the moon falling on the earth is its reflection. According to the teachings of Thales, everything that surrounds us consists of water. His thesis is “everything from water and everything into water”. Water is an animated substance, which, like the cosmos, is endowed with animated forces. Thales laid the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe unity of command of nature, that is, born from a single whole. Contemporaries call it natural philosophy.
• Anaximander . The earth, according to his teaching, is a weightless body that floats in the air. The modern world has developed from marine sediments on the border between water and shore. According to Anaximander, the universe dies in order to be reborn again.
• Another representative of the Milesian school Anaximenes introduced the concept of appeiron - an indefinite beginning. He understands air as filling everything living and non-living. The human soul also consists of air. If you discharge the air, it will disintegrate into flame and ether, according to the philosopher, while condensing, the air turns first into clouds, then into wind and stones.
• Of the philosophers of Ancient Greece of the early period of formation, he stood out from Ephos. He came from an aristocratic family, but left his home and went with his students to the mountains. Heraclitus considered fire to be the foundation of all things. The human soul, eternally burning, also consists of fire. The fate of the sage is to be eternally filled with the fire of the search for truth, the philosopher argued. One of the most famous theses of Heraclitus: “everything flows, everything changes.” Like the philosophers of the Milesian school, Heraclitus believed that the universe dies in order to be reborn again. The main difference of his philosophy is that all living material is born in fire and goes into fire.

Rice. 1. Heraclitus.

Heraclitus created a new concept in philosophy - "Logos" is a kind of code of laws created by divine forces. The Logos, in other words, is the voice of the cosmos, but even having heard it, people do not understand and do not accept it. All living things can change, but the essence of the Logos always remains the same.

• Pythagoras . This ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician founded his school in Croton. The Pythagoreans believed that a person with a noble heart should rule the state. At the heart of all things, the thinker believed, are numbers. The scientist is also known for proving his geometric and mathematical theorems. The Pythagorean table has been used since ancient times to this day.

Elat School

The Elatian school focused on explaining the nature of the world and the existence of man in this world. The main philosophers of this school are Zeno, Xenophanes and Parmenides.

• Xenophanes , philosopher and poet, one of the first to talk about the mobility of the universe. He also criticized the religion of the ancient Greeks. He also ridiculed soothsayers with soothsayers, calling them swindlers.
• Adopted son of Parmenides Zeno developed the theory of the “world of opinion”, in which the main role belongs to movement and number. This thinker tries to cut off everything incomprehensible by the method of elimination.
• Parmenides argued that there is nothing in the world but being. The criterion of everything, the philosopher believed, is the mind, and everything sensual has blurred boundaries and is not subject to deep understanding.

Democritus

One of the most prominent ideologists of natural philosophy was the thinker Democritus.

• Democritus it was argued that at the foot of the universe lies many worlds. Each such world consists of atoms and emptiness, emptiness fills the space between atoms and the world. Atoms themselves are indivisible, they do not change and are immortal, their number is infinite. The philosopher argued that everything that happens in the world has its own reason, and knowledge of the reasons is the basis of action.

At the first stage of the formation of ancient Greek philosophy, a generalization of knowledge appears. The first philosophers are trying to understand the structure of the world, there are concepts of space and atoms filling space.

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The Rise of Ancient Greek Philosophy

In the period of the V-IV centuries BC. Exact sciences and natural sciences developed in ancient Greece. It is noteworthy that this development takes place against the background of mythology and religion.

sophist school

The school of sophists was known for its critical attitude to the polytheistic religion of Ancient Hellas; Protagoras became the founder of this school.

• Protagoras was a philosopher-traveler who traveled all over Greece and was abroad. He met with prominent political figures of Hellas: Pericles and Euripides, who sought his advice. The basis of the ideology of Protagoras was his thesis: “man is the measure of everything” and “man understands everything as he understands”. His words should be understood as what a person sees and feels, and is in fact. The teachings of the philosopher led to the fact that he was accused of atheism and expelled from Athens.
• Antiphon - one of the younger generation of the sophist school. The thinker believed that man himself must take care of himself, while the essence of nature is inseparable from man. Antiphon, as well as Protagoras, was persecuted by the authorities for marrying a slave and setting all his slaves free.

Socrates

This philosopher, born in 469 BC, loved to walk the streets of the city and have conversations with people. Being a sculptor by profession, Socrates managed to take part in the Peloponnesian War.

• Philosophy Socrates completely different from the ideology of his predecessors. Unlike them, Socrates does not offer to reflect and contemplate, he offers to act in the name of noble goals. To live in the name of good is the main thesis of Socrates. The thinker considers knowledge as a common foundation for self-development of the individual. “Know thyself” is the main thesis of the philosopher. In 399 BC. e. Socrates was accused of blasphemy and corruption of youth. He was sentenced to death. As a free citizen of Hellas, Socrates had to take poison, which he did.

Rice. 2. Socrates. The work of Lysippos.

Plato

After the death of Socrates, Plato became one of the most prominent figures among the philosophers of ancient Greece. In 387 B.C. e. this philosopher formed his own circle of students, which later became his school called the Academy. So it was named after the area in which it was located.

• In general, philosophy Plato incorporated the main theses of Socrates and Pythagoras. The thinker became the founder of the theory of idealism. The highest something, according to his theory, is the Good. Human desires are fickle and resemble a chariot drawn by two horses. Knowledge of the world, according to Plato, is the desire to see the beauty of the soul in every person. And only Love can bring a person closer to the Good.

Aristotle

The culmination of ancient Greek philosophy, its most remarkable milestone, is considered to be the works of the philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle studied at Plato's Academy and created a single complex of science, logic, politics and natural science.

• Matter, according to Aristotle , what our world is made of, by itself it can neither disappear nor be reborn, since it is inert. Aristotle created the concepts of time and space. He substantiated philosophy as a system of knowledge of science. Like Socrates, this thinker was accused of godlessness and forced to leave Athens. The great philosopher died in a foreign land, in the city of Khalkis.

Rice. 3. Bust of Aristotle. The work of Lysippos.

Decline of Ancient Greek Philosophy

The classical period of philosophical thought in ancient Greece ended with the death of Aristotle. TO 3rd century BC e. the decline of philosophy came, since Hellas fell under the blows of Rome. During this period, the spiritual and moral life of the ancient Greeks declined.

The main ideologies during this period are considered to be Epicureanism, skepticism and stoicism.

• Epicurus - a prominent philosopher, was born in 372 BC. e. He argued that the world cannot be changed. According to the thinker's teaching, atoms move in empty space. Epicurus considered pleasure to be the highest principle of man. At the same time, the thinker argued that an immoral person cannot be happy.
• Cleanf - one of the founders of Stoicism argued that the world is a living substance controlled by the law of the divine forces of the Logos. Man must hear the will of the gods and obey their every command.
• Philosopher Pyrrho introduced the concept of skepticism. Skeptics rejected the accumulated knowledge of people, arguing that a person cannot know a little about the world around him. Therefore, a person cannot judge the nature of things and even more so give it any assessment.

Despite the decline of the philosophical thought of ancient Greece, it laid the fundamental foundation of the human personality, the formation of moral and ethical principles.

What have we learned?

The gradual transition of ancient Greek philosophers from a simple contemplation of natural phenomena to the very essence of man created the foundation for modern moral qualities with the synthesis of science. Briefly, the most important philosophers of Ancient Greece are Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and Democritus: they and some other philosophers and philosophical movements are described in this article.

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The philosophy of Ancient Greece is a bright period in the history of this science and is the most fascinating and mysterious. That is why this period was called the golden age of civilization. ancient philosophy played the role of a special philosophical trend that existed and developed from the end of the 7th century BC to the 6th century AD.

It is worth noting that we owe the birth of ancient Greek philosophy to the great thinkers of Greece. In their time they were not so famous, but in modern world we have heard about each of them since school. It was the ancient Greek philosophers who brought their new knowledge into the world, forcing them to take a fresh look at human existence.

Famous and world philosophers of Ancient Greece

When talking about ancient Greek philosophy, Socrates comes to mind, one of the first thinkers who used philosophy as a way of knowing the truth. His main principle was that in order to know the world, a person needs to truly know himself true. In other words, he was sure that with the help of self-knowledge, anyone can achieve real bliss in life. The teaching said that human mind pushes people to good deeds, because a thinker will never do bad deeds. Socrates presented his own teaching orally, and his students wrote down his knowledge in their compositions. And because of this, we will be able to read his words in our time.

The “Socratic” way of conducting disputes made it clear that the truth is known only in a dispute. After all, it is with the help of leading questions that one can force both opponents to admit their defeat, and then notice the justice of the words of their opponent. Socrates also believed that a person who does not deal with political affairs has no right to condemn the active work of politics.

The philosopher Plato introduced the first classical form of objective idealism into his teaching. Such ideas, among which was the highest (the idea of ​​the good), were eternal and unchanging models of things, everything. Things, in turn, played the role of reflecting ideas. These thoughts can be found in the writings of Plato, such as "Feast", "State", "Phaedrus" and others. Conducting dialogues with his students, Plato often spoke about beauty. Answering the question “What is beautiful”, the philosopher gave a description of the very essence of beauty. As a result, Plato came to the conclusion that a peculiar idea plays the role of everything beautiful. A person can know this only at the time of inspiration.

The first philosophers of ancient Greece

Aristotle, who was a student of Plato and a pupil of Alexander the Great, also belongs to the philosophers of Ancient Greece. It was he who became the founder scientific philosophy, leading the teachings of the possibilities and implementation of human abilities, matter and the form of thoughts and ideas. He was mainly interested in people, politics, art, ethnic views. Unlike his teacher, Aristotle saw beauty not in the general idea, but in the objective quality of things. For him, true beauty was magnitude, symmetry, proportions, order, in other words, mathematical quantities. Therefore, Aristotle believed that in order to achieve the beautiful, a person must study mathematics.

Speaking of mathematics, one cannot but recall Pythagoras, who created the multiplication table and his own theorem with his name. This philosopher was sure that the truth lies in the study of whole numbers and proportions. Even the doctrine of the “harmony of the spheres” was developed, in which it was indicated that the whole world is a separate cosmos. Pythagoras and his students asked questions of musical acoustics, which were solved by the ratio of tones. As a result, it was concluded that beauty is a harmonious figure.

Another philosopher who looked for beauty in science was Democritus. He discovered the existence of atoms and devoted his life to finding the answer to the question "What is beauty?". The thinker argued that the true purpose of human existence is his desire for bliss and complacency. He believed that you should not strive for any pleasure, and you need to know only that which keeps beauty in itself. Defining beauty, Democritus pointed out that beauty has its own measure. If you cross it, then even the most real pleasure will turn into torment.

Heraclitus saw beauty impregnated with dialectics. The thinker saw harmony not as a static balance, like Pythagoras, but as a constantly moving state. Heraclitus argued that beauty is possible only with contradiction, which is the creator of harmony and the condition for the existence of all that is beautiful. It was in the struggle between agreement and dispute that Heraclitus saw examples of the true harmony of beauty.

Hippocrates is a philosopher whose writings have become famous in the fields of medicine and ethics. It was he who became the founder of scientific medicine, wrote essays on the integrity of the human body. He taught his students an individual approach to a sick person, to keep a history of diseases, and medical ethics. The students learned from the thinker to pay attention to the high moral character of doctors. It was Hippocrates who became the author of the famous oath that everyone who becomes a doctor takes: do no harm to the patient.

Periodization of ancient Greek philosophy

As ancient Greek philosophers succeeded each other and became representatives of new teachings, in each century scientists find striking differences in the study of science. That is why the periodization of the development of the philosophy of ancient Greece is usually divided into four main stages:

• pre-Socratic philosophy (4-5 centuries BC);
• classical stage (5-6 centuries BC);
• Hellenic stage (6th century BC-2nd century AD);
• Roman philosophy (6th century BC-6th century AD).

The pre-Socratic period is the time that was designated in the 20th century. During this period, there were philosophical schools that were led by philosophers before Socrates. One of them was the thinker Heraclitus.

The classical period is conditional concept, which denoted the flowering of philosophy in ancient Greece. It was at this time that the teachings of Socrates, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle appeared.

The Hellenic period is the time when Alexander the Great formed states in Asia and Africa. It is characterized by the birth of the Stoic philosophical direction, the working activity of the schools of the students of Socrates, the philosophy of the thinker Epicurus.

The Roman period is the time when such famous philosophers, like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Tut Lucretius Car.

Philosophy in ancient Greece appeared and improved during the period of the emergence of a slave-owning society. Then such people were divided into groups of slaves who were engaged in physical labor, and into a society of people who were engaged in mental labor. Philosophy would not have appeared if the development of natural science, mathematics and astronomy had not taken place in a timely manner. In ancient times, no one singled out natural science as a separate area for human knowledge. Every knowledge about the world or about people was included in philosophy. Therefore, ancient Greek philosophy was called the science of sciences.

The philosophy of ancient Greece is the greatest flowering of human genius. The ancient Greeks had the priority of creating philosophy as a science of the universal laws of the development of nature, society and thinking; as a system of ideas that explores the cognitive, value, ethical and aesthetic attitude of man to the world. Philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle and Plato are the founders of philosophy as such. Originating in ancient Greece, philosophy formed a method that could be used in almost all areas of life.

Greek philosophy cannot be understood without aesthetics - the theory of beauty and harmony. Ancient Greek aesthetics was part of undifferentiated knowledge. The beginnings of many sciences have not yet budded into independent branches from a single tree of human knowledge. Unlike the ancient Egyptians, who developed science in a practical aspect, the ancient Greeks preferred theory. Philosophy and philosophical approaches to the solution of any scientific problem are the basis of ancient Greek science. Therefore, it is impossible to single out scientists who dealt with "pure" scientific problems. In ancient Greece, all scientists were philosophers, thinkers and possessed knowledge of the main philosophical categories.

The idea of ​​the beauty of the world runs through all ancient aesthetics. In the worldview of ancient Greek natural philosophers there is not a shadow of doubt about the objective existence of the world and the reality of its beauty. For the first natural philosophers, beauty is the universal harmony and beauty of the Universe. In their teaching, the aesthetic and cosmological are united. The universe for the ancient Greek natural philosophers is the cosmos (the universe, peace, harmony, decoration, beauty, dress, order). The idea of ​​its harmony and beauty is included in the general picture of the world. Therefore, at first all sciences in ancient Greece were combined into one - cosmology.

Socrates

Socrates is one of the founders of dialectics as a method of searching and knowing the truth. The main principle is “Know yourself and you will know the whole world”, that is, the conviction that self-knowledge is the way to comprehend the true good. In ethics, virtue is equal to knowledge, therefore, reason pushes a person to good deeds. A man who knows will not do wrong. Socrates expounded his teaching orally, passing on knowledge in the form of dialogues to his students, from whose writings we learned about Socrates.

Having created the “Socratic” method of arguing, Socrates argued that truth is born only in a dispute in which the sage, with the help of a series of leading questions, makes his opponents first recognize the incorrectness of their own positions, and then the justice of their opponent’s views. The sage, according to Socrates, comes to the truth by self-knowledge, and then knowledge objectively existing spirit, objectively existing truth. The most important in the general political views of Socrates was the idea of ​​professional knowledge, from which it was concluded that a person who is not professionally engaged in political activity has no right to judge it. This was a challenge to the basic principles of Athenian democracy.

Plato

Plato's doctrine is the first classical form of objective idealism. Ideas (among them the highest is the idea of ​​the good) are the eternal and unchanging prototypes of things, of all transient and changeable being. Things are likeness and reflection of ideas. These provisions are set forth in Plato's writings "Feast", "Phaedrus", "State", etc. In Plato's dialogues we find a multifaceted description of beauty. When answering the question: “What is beautiful?” he tried to characterize the very essence of beauty. Ultimately, beauty for Plato is an aesthetically unique idea. A person can know it only when he is in a state of special inspiration. Plato's concept of beauty is idealistic. Rational in his teaching is the idea of ​​the specificity of aesthetic experience.

Aristotle

A student of Plato - Aristotle, was the tutor of Alexander the Great. He is the founder of scientific philosophy, trays, the doctrine of the basic principles of being (possibility and implementation, form and matter, reason and purpose). His main areas of interest are man, ethics, politics, and art. Aristotle is the author of the books "Metaphysics", "Physics", "On the Soul", "Poetics". Unlike Plato, for Aristotle, the beautiful is not an objective idea, but the objective quality of things. Size, proportions, order, symmetry are the properties of beauty.

Beauty, according to Aristotle, lies in the mathematical proportions of things “therefore, to comprehend it, one should study mathematics. Aristotle put forward the principle of proportionality between a person and a beautiful object. Beauty in Aristotle acts as a measure, and the measure of everything is the person himself. In comparison with it, a beautiful object should not be "excessive". In these arguments of Aristotle about the truly beautiful, there is the same humanistic principle that is expressed in ancient art itself. Philosophy responded to the needs of the human orientation of a person who broke with traditional values ​​and turned to reason as a way of understanding problems.

Pythagoras

In mathematics, the figure of Pythagoras stands out, who created the multiplication table and the theorem that bears his name, who studied the properties of integers and proportions. The Pythagoreans developed the doctrine of the "harmony of the spheres". For them, the world is a harmonious cosmos. They connect the concept of beauty not only with the general picture of the world, but also, in accordance with the moral and religious orientation of their philosophy, with the concept of good. Developing the issues of musical acoustics, the Pythagoreans posed the problem of the ratio of tones and tried to give its mathematical expression: the ratio of the octave to the fundamental tone is 1:2, fifths - 2:3, fourths - 3:4, etc. From this follows the conclusion that beauty is harmonious.

Where the main opposites are in a "proportionate mixture", there is a blessing, human health. Equal and consistent in harmony does not need. Harmony appears where there is inequality, unity and complementarity of the diverse. Musical harmony is a special case of world harmony, its sound expression. "The whole sky is harmony and number", the planets are surrounded by air and attached to transparent spheres. The intervals between the spheres strictly harmonically correlate with each other as the intervals of tones of a musical octave. From these ideas of the Pythagoreans came the expression "Music of the Spheres". The planets move by making sounds, and the pitch of the sound depends on the speed of their movement. However, our ear is not able to catch the world harmony of the spheres. These ideas of the Pythagoreans are important as evidence of their belief that the universe is harmonious.

Democritus

Democritus, who discovered the existence of atoms, also paid attention to the search for an answer to the question: “What is beauty?” He combined the aesthetics of beauty with his ethical views and with the principle of utilitarianism. He believed that a person should strive for bliss and complacency. In his opinion, "one should not strive for any pleasure, but only for that which is associated with the beautiful." In the definition of beauty, Democritus emphasizes such a property as measure, proportionality. To the one who transgresses them, "the most pleasant can become unpleasant."

Heraclitus

In Heraclitus, the understanding of beauty is permeated with dialectics. For him, harmony is not a static balance, as for the Pythagoreans, but a moving, dynamic state. Contradiction is the creator of harmony and the condition for the existence of the beautiful: what divergent converges, and the most beautiful harmony comes from opposition, and everything happens due to discord. In this unity of struggling opposites, Heraclitus sees an example of harmony and the essence of beauty. For the first time, Heraclitus raised the question of the nature of the perception of beauty: it is incomprehensible with the help of calculation or abstract thinking, it is known intuitively, through contemplation.

Hippocrates

Known works of Hippocrates in the field of medicine and ethics. He is the founder of scientific medicine, the author of the doctrine of the integrity of the human body, the theory of an individual approach to the patient, the tradition of keeping a medical history, works on medical ethics, in which he paid special attention to the high moral character of the doctor, the author of the famous professional oath that everyone who receives medical diploma. His immortal rule for doctors has survived to this day: do no harm to the patient.

With the medicine of Hippocrates, the transition from religious and mystical ideas about all the processes associated with human health and disease to the rational explanation begun by the Ionian natural philosophers was completed. The medicine of the priests was replaced by the medicine of doctors, based on accurate observations. The doctors of the Hippocratic school were also philosophers.

Real science for the ancient Greeks is always practice, so they did not distinguish craft and art from science, including all types of material and spiritual activities in culture. Another feature of ancient Greek philosophy is the impersonal nature of its inherent cosmology. The absolute is nature itself, beautiful and beautifully organized in the cosmic body.

Hence the characteristic for the philosophers of the ancient Greek worldview two approaches to the interpretation of the emergence and development material culture. According to the first (Protagoras), people owe the orderly development of social life to the gods. Among the Greeks, the gods are humanoid not only in appearance but also in their behavior.

The second approach (Democritus) considers the creator of culture to be a person who creates it, imitating nature. This was the initial understanding of culture as a purposeful impact of man on nature, as well as the upbringing and education of man himself. Therefore, the ancient Greeks distinguished in culture two opposing principles: natural and moral.

With the advent of the slave system, there was a transition from figurative thinking to conceptual thinking. Cosmogony (the science that studies the origin of cosmic objects and systems), which was then the beginning of scientific research, increasingly came into conflict with the mythological interpretation of nature.

Milesian school

The first representatives of the progressive dissociation from mythology were the supporters of the early philosophical school of Ancient Greece, and at the same time Europe, the Milesian school founded by Thales in the city of Miletus. A spontaneously materialistic and dialectical view of nature developed by the Milesian thinkers - Thales (624-547 BC), Anaximander (610-548 BC) and Anaximenes (second half of the 4th century BC). e.), lies in the fact that they were looking for the primary of everything that exists in reality.

Thales saw this fundamental principle or “arche” of all natural things in water, from which everything comes and into which everything eventually turns. Anaximander declared as "arche", from which everything arises and into which everything is resolved, "apeiron", that is, "infinite" - something between air and water. The third representative of the Milesian school (Anaximenes) considered air to be the basis of all phenomena, which, when discharged, turns into fire, and as it thickens, into water and earth. Here, for the first time, the problem of the beginning arises, which they are looking for not outside the material reality, but in it itself.

The role of representatives of the Milesian school in the formation and development of ancient Greek culture is not limited to the field of pure philosophy, but simultaneously extends to natural science knowledge. So, Thales determined the length of the year at 365 days, predicted solar eclipse. Anaximander made a sundial, a map of land and sea. Anaximenes studied astronomy. Thus, their philosophical knowledge accumulated, to a certain extent, the natural sciences.

Mathematical school of Pythagoras

The materialism of the Milesians was opposed by the mathematical school of Pythagoras (580-500 BC). The Pythagoreans correctly observed that all things have a quantitative characteristic. Having made this position absolute, they came to the wrong conclusion that things and numbers are one and the same, and even declared that things imitate numbers. In the end, the Pythagoreans fell into the mysticism of numbers, giving them (numbers) a supernatural religious-mystical character.

The great dialectician of antiquity, Heraclitus (544-484 BC), was the successor of the Milesian school. The teaching of Heraclitus is the first conscious transition from a sensual view of the world to a conceptual and categorical perception of it. The concept of "logos" introduced by him as a world regularity is the leading category of his philosophy. The essence of his writings is the assertion of the struggle that prevails in nature and social life in the form of constant movement, change and transformation into each other of opposites. Heraclitus is rightfully considered one of the founders of dialectics.

Sophists

A special place in the culture and philosophy of Ancient Greece belongs to the sophists, the most famous among whom were Protagoras (490-420 BC) and Gorgias (about 480 - about 380 BC). The Sophists, not without reason, are considered representatives of the Greek Enlightenment for the dissemination and popularization of knowledge among a wide range of students. At the core philosophical views This school lay ideas about the absence of absolute truths and objective values. Hence the conclusion: good is what gives a person pleasure, and evil is what causes suffering. With this approach, the main attention was paid to the psychological aspects of personality. This is also evidenced by the original principle of the sophists formulated by Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things: those that exist, that they exist, and those that do not exist, that they do not exist."

Atomism of Democritus and Epicurus

An important role in the development of the philosophy of Ancient Greece was played by the atomistic theory of Democritus and Epicurus (the most developed form of ancient atomism), which consistently gave a materialistic picture of the world, boldly asserting that the whole world consists of a set of atoms (atom - indivisible) - the smallest indivisible particles and emptiness, in which these atoms move. Atoms are eternal, indestructible and unchanging. Different combinations of atoms form different things. Hence the creation and destruction of things. The world is an infinite set of atoms forever moving in an infinite void.

The world, according to Democritus, is not a chaos of random phenomena, everything in it is causally conditioned. For the first time introducing the concept of cause into ancient Greek philosophy and developing a system of materialistic determinism, Democritus denied chance, identifying it with causelessness.

Socrates and Plato

The materialistic line of the atomists, especially in the person of its main representative Democritus, met with a pronounced negative reaction from the idealists, primarily Plato and his school.

In the formation of Plato's philosophical views huge role played by his teacher Socrates (circa 470-399 BC). In his appearance, Socrates was rather a folk sage, whose goal was to combat the absolute skepticism of the sophists (Protagora and Gorgias). The turning point in philosophy here was that the Socratic doctrine contained the rationale for the need for conceptual knowledge.

Socrates made a turn in ancient Greek philosophy from Cosmos to Man, considering the main problems to be questions human life and death, the meaning of existence, the purpose of man.

What was new in the teachings of Socrates was that he understood dialectics as the art of conducting this kind of conversation, a dialogue in which the interlocutors reach the truth, discovering contradictions in each other's reasoning, confronting opposing opinions and overcoming the corresponding contradictions. This moment of dialectics was certainly a step forward.

The main philosophical provisions of Socrates found a logical continuation in the works of Plato (427-347 BC), whose teaching is the first form of objective idealism in the history of philosophy.

For Plato, true being belongs to the eternal world of spiritual beings - the world of ideas. Material reality is a reflection of the world of ideas, and not vice versa. A part of this eternal is the human soul, which, according to Plato, is the main essence of the human being.

The theory of the state of Plato is closely connected with the doctrine of man and the soul. His ethics was focused on the improvement of the human race, on the creation of a perfect society, and hence the ideal state. Plato divided people into three types depending on the predominant part of the soul in them: rational, affective (emotional) or lustful (sensual). The predominance of the rational part of the soul is characteristic of sages or philosophers. They are committed to truth, justice, moderation in everything, and Plato assigned them the role of rulers in an ideal state. The predominance of the affective part of the soul endows a person with noble passions: courage, courage, obedience to duty. These are the qualities of warriors or "guardians" of the security of the state. People of the lusty type should be engaged in physical labor, providing the material side of the life of society and the state. These are peasants and artisans. Plato considered “measure” as a common virtue for all, and the highest of all that can exist on Earth is a just and perfect state. Therefore, in Plato, a person lives for the sake of the state, and not the state for the sake of a person, that is, the dominance of the universal over the individual is clearly expressed.

Aristotle

Plato's objective idealism was criticized by his disciple Aristotle (384-322 BC). He considered the eternal ideas of Plato to be empty abstractions that cannot reflect the essence of objects, cannot be the cause of their emergence and destruction, as well as knowledge in general. Aristotle criticizes Plato's position on the existence of ideas independently of sensible things. According to Aristotle, there can hardly be anything other than single things. He correctly pointed out the weakness of Plato's idealist argument. However, in the doctrine of matter and form, he himself comes to an idealistic conclusion, believing that God is contained in every object as the thought of this object.

In the field of socio-philosophical issues, Aristotle, like Plato, recognized the legitimacy and necessity of slavery, the initial natural inequality of people, as well as the desire for a just state with the observance of good, human-improving laws; for a person, according to Aristotle, by his very nature is destined to live together, being a social being, capable of being formed and educated only in a community as a moral person, possessing such virtues as prudence, benevolence, generosity, self-restraint, courage, generosity, truthfulness. The crown of all virtues, according to Aristotle, is justice. Hence his desire for a just state.

With the collapse of the empire of Alexander the Great, whose teacher was Aristotle, the heyday of the slave-owning era ends. ancient Greece and comes new era- the era of Hellenism, led by the Roman Empire, the so-called Roman Hellenism, covering the period from the 1st century BC. e. to the 5th century AD e. Main philosophical directions in the culture of this period were: stoicism, skepticism, epicureanism and neoplatonism.