Philosophy originated in ancient Greece. ancient philosophy. Books on Philosophy of Ancient Greece

"Spiritual Europe has a birthplace," said E. Husserl, a German philosopher who lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This place is Greece of the 7th-6th centuries BC. The same idea, in one form or another, is expressed by most philosophers of various directions. "The Greeks will forever remain our teachers," wrote K. Marx. According to F. Engels, "in the diverse forms of Greek philosophy, almost all the later types of worldviews are already in embryo, in the process of emergence." Ancient Greek Philosophy - A Common Spiritual Origin modern philosophy, all European culture. Therefore, the origins of Greek philosophy itself are also the subject of close attention. The emergence of philosophy is a complex interaction of changed social and individual needs and the possibilities for their implementation. The interaction of mythological representations and emerging scientific knowledge, on the one hand, a special social atmosphere, on the other, and led to the emergence of philosophy - a qualitatively new phenomenon, different from the ancient myth, pre-philosophical ideas, worldly wisdom and empirical observations.

Some scholars of antiquity pay closer attention to myth as the source and inner content of philosophical knowledge. Others consider philosophy par excellence as an "initial science", knowledge of a general nature, the emergence of which became possible only as a result of the development of empirical knowledge and which, in turn, stimulates the further development of scientific thought (philosophers of a positivist orientation). Still others turn to the socio-economic, political prerequisites for the emergence of philosophy.

Specific reasons for the unprecedented rise of the spiritual life of Greece in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. are still the subject of scholarly debate. Here is what E. Zeller, a prominent German researcher, wrote: "The real reasons for the emergence of Greek philosophy lie in the happy giftedness of the Greek people, in the exciting effect on them of their geographical location and history ...". The special geographical position of Greece: the proximity of the sea, mountainous terrain, indented coasts, moderately fertile soil - opened up great opportunities for the development of maritime affairs, agriculture, and trade. But these possibilities could not be realized by themselves, they required energetic activity, planning, calculation. Small areas stimulated shipbuilding and the art of navigation; a Greek ship (trireme) requires skillful management. Communications stimulate the development of trade, intensive exchange. Trade, in turn, broadens one's horizons, contributes to the accumulation of observations, opens up opportunities for comparing language, customs, laws, knowledge, and reveals the similarity of dissimilar things. In addition, trade uses the universal commodity equivalent - money. Money is a "material proof" of the fact that many dissimilar things can be equated to one, many things are fundamentally one. Money is one of the powerful factors of development abstract thinking. In turn, the appearance of money stimulates the development of the "science of computing" - mathematical knowledge.

Forced rationalization of fundamentals Everyday life touched on both urban architecture and the organization of labor of the artisan - the "demiurge". The Greek people - the polis - is also a civil community, a city-state. The internal unity of the policy gave rise to new relations between people: they were no longer bound by blood ties, but by civic obligations and rights. Agora - the square where the people's assembly gathered - became a visible symbol of the unity of the citizens of the city-state.

The city is, as it were, a single organism, the various organs of which perform various functions. Common in the sphere of trade, crafts, politics comes to the fore. Citizens of the city-state jointly decide on budget issues, military issues, financing of the fleet, and the development of mines. The spirit of free political discussion is combined with respect for order and law. Kinship, personal relationships are replaced by economic, political, legal, based on law, norms, rules - on a faceless general. Reason, the ability to generalize, to find a social model in individual actions, events becomes integral part life of a citizen of the policy. All the most important manifestations public life acquire a public character, are brought to the square, agora, for general discussion. Any law must prove its correctness. Due to this huge role in the life of the Greek polis acquires the word. The word as an element of dispute, discussion, discussion loses its ritual, secret meaning. The word is a means of bringing thought to the "square", to the universal court.

Individual self-consciousness awakens, which is reflected in lyric poetry (for example, Sappho's lyrics). The Greeks adopted the mathematical knowledge of Egypt and Babylon, but this knowledge was no longer the preserve of the priests. The Olympian polytheistic religion as a whole did not prevent the development of knowledge, the spread of critical thinking, moreover, it itself became the object of criticism. The sophist Protagoras doubted the existence of the gods. Xenophanes from Colophon believed that the religion of polytheism, belief in gods similar to people, is superstition: if you follow not reason, but faith, it should be assumed that bulls would have a god as a god. Anaxagoras believed that the heavenly bodies should not be objects of religious worship, they are simple stones. The gods, similar to people, possessing their weaknesses, bowing before fate, were a poor support for a person in his activity to arrange his own world according to the laws of reason.

The whole life of Greek society, therefore, was built on a rational basis. However, the traditional ideological attitudes, fixed in culture, proceeded from the scheme of the myth: everything that happened was considered as the result of the struggle of opposing anthropomorphic (similar to humans) principles; causal relationships were clothed in the form of consanguineous ties, relations of generation. For a person who has already subordinated his whole life to the laws of reason, the solution of the main questions for him of fate, happiness, freedom on the basis of mythological images seemed unconvincing. The myth no longer meets the needs of a person who really lives in the world of the general; it does not console, does not give hope, does not stimulate social activity. There is an urgent need to discover the universal, natural, reasonable in the very foundation of the world. Philosophy is a completely new form of response to the fundamental "existential" need of man. The philosopher turns out to be the figure that stands between the mythological past and the future of a person who builds life on a rational basis.

At this stage, the emerging philosophical thinking openly recognizes its origins: the Greeks had no other material than the old myths, their own powers of observation and common sense. Thus, Heraclitus openly admits that his observations of social life are directly related to the concept of fire as the beginning: "Everything is exchanged for fire, and fire for everything, just as gold for goods, and goods for gold." Sources philosophical thought for the first philosophers act as arguments.

The immediacy of the interweaving of strictly philosophical statements with special ones is especially clearly manifested in the nature of the substantiation of their ideas by the ancients. Democritus introduces his atoms on the basis of a simple analogy with visible objects, Aristotle proves the sphericity of the Earth in two completely different order ways: he refers to the presence of a shadow during an eclipse (that is, he uses empirical data for proof) and indicates the need for a "natural place" for all earthly elements, or appeals to common sense, proving the anisotropy of space and time - otherwise there would be no concepts of "top" and "bottom", so, in his opinion, unshakable.

Within the framework of the primary complex of knowledge of the ancients, several levels can be distinguished:

empirical disparate statements that are easily comparable with everyday experience (prediction solar eclipse Thales or earthquake Anaximander);

special theoretical statements explaining some observed phenomena, but not directly related to the philosophical system and at the same time inaccessible to empirical verification; along with sound assumptions, fantastic assumptions arise, elements of mythology easily penetrate (speculative hypotheses about the origin of hail from frozen water, about the nature of snow, eclipses, lightning, rainbows, about the appearance of man);

the direct introduction of philosophical justifications for specific phenomena, the general in the form of a particular (the introduction of the "four elements" into physics, the theory of the "natural place" of elements as the final cause, the justification of Aristotle's geocentrism, the basis of the class division of society in Plato);

attraction of specific knowledge, analogies with everyday experience as evidence of philosophical positions, private in the form of a general one.

The commonly used abstraction of the "single science" of the ancients reflects not so much the real state of knowledge in antiquity as the way it was realized in that period. Such representations made "legitimate" the operation of expanding the concepts of common sense, speculative physics, biology, meteorology to the ultimate philosophical scale. The very certainty, attachment to a specific sphere of a physically tangible source - air, water, fire and all four "elements" at the same time - made it natural to use this concept, philosophical in its meaning, as one of the main categories of particular branches of knowledge - physics and cosmology, biology and sociology. In other words, the procedure by which traditional philosophy replaced the real connections of phenomena that were still unknown to it with ideal and fantastic ones and replaced the missing facts with fictions, in this case occurred quite naturally. Fictional connections were not considered as the result of divine emanations or as a consequence of the self-development of the absolute subject, infinitely far from real practice and life experience, but were clothed in a specific sensual shell. In this sense, theoretical natural science, whose main achievements relate to later periods of human history, asserts its right to exist even in antiquity as a result of the "sanctification" of its fundamental principles at the level of philosophical thinking. This may explain the astonishing insight of the ancient philosophers. Raising and rationally purifying the historically limited experience of man to the height of absolute philosophical principles was, apparently, the only possible beginning of theoretical thinking. It made it possible to raise theory above the pragmatism of everyday life, thereby extracting from experience all the richness of connections and potentialities that remained hidden for the observer, immersed in the singularity of experience and concerned only with the direct practical result of his cognitive activity.

In the history of Greek philosophical thought, beginning with Hegel, it is customary to distinguish three main periods. The first period - the formation of Greek philosophy (VI century BC), the philosophy of the so-called "pre-Socratics". The second period is the heyday of Greek philosophical thought (V-IV centuries BC), in the center of it is the philosophy of Socrates and his followers, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. The third period - decline and then decline (III century BC - V century AD), Greco-Roman philosophy.

The formation of Greek philosophy is associated with the names of Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, with the philosophers of the Elea school. "Greek philosophy begins, apparently, with an awkward thought - from the position that water is the origin and mother's womb of all things," wrote F. Nietzsche. In the center of attention of the first Greek philosophers is the problem of the beginning. The water of Thales, the air of Anaximenes, the fire of Heraclitus are not just the source of all the existing diversity of the world. Not only does everything come from water, but everything is also water in its essence. The beginning is substance - the source of everything that exists and its essence; the world is one, despite the apparent diversity. "Water", "air", "fire" are devoid of sensual concreteness, they are a kind of "mental images", metaphors for the idea of ​​unity. The One is not impenetrable to the mind because it is "self-intelligent" or super-intelligent. "Elements" - primary substances - are not similarities of dead physical bodies, they are ideas of the unity of the world, clothed in a sensual shell, they are life forms of the cosmic mind. Therefore, the assessment of the first philosophers as "spontaneous materialists" is not entirely correct. Ideas that have not yet separated from the material world in the mind of the philosopher live in a material shell. The connection of man - the bearer of reason - with the reasonable as universal, natural in nature replaces the primitive anthropomorphism of the relationship between man and nature as a masquerade of human-like gods. The idea of ​​"dissimilarity" of the beginning ("arche") to all earthly forms is most vividly expressed by Anaximander (6th century BC), a younger contemporary of Thales. Not the world in its foundations is similar to man, but man, with all his earthly, bodily limitations, is related to the world due to the presence of a special ability that elevates him, but also frightens him - the mind. Following reason, a person loses many human, "too human" qualities. "The beginning and basis of all things is apeiron." Apeiron - something boundless, limitless, endless, indefinite. In the process of the rotational movement of apeiron, the opposites of wet and dry, cold and warm are distinguished. As a result, earth, water, air and fire are formed. Life is born under the influence of heavenly fire, on the border of the sea and land from silt. The first living creatures living in the sea are gradually moving to land. Man is born inside huge fish, and was born already an adult, and then got out on land. However, in addition to these conjectures, where, along with fantastic images, very sensible assumptions can be found, a tragic note begins to sound in the surviving fragment of Anaximander's work "On Nature". "From what comes the birth of all things, into the same everything disappears of necessity", bearing the punishment for guilt. What is the "fault" of everything existing world variety of things? "Guilt" is one's own isolation, uniqueness, separateness as a denial of the infinite. An attempt to oppose oneself to the eternal, to throw off the shackles of necessity, is criminal. The "pride" of the individual must be broken. As a result, any individual existence acquires true peace, the aggressiveness of a thing, the desire to violate its own measure is balanced by the "retribution" of the immeasurable. Apeiron is an expression of the foreignness of the world, a single person, immersed in the world of many. The connection of a person with the world is far from the forms of consanguinity familiar to the myth. No one will save a person in the face of indifferent eternity. Responsibility for his own separate existence is borne by the man himself, on whom lies the curse of becoming. But punishment is also deliverance, it is like a reward. For Anaximander, non-existence is a necessary intermediary between the world of one and the world of many.

Heraclitus (c.530-470 BC) lived in the city of Ephesus, not far from Miletus - the place of residence of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes. Heraclitus denied the existence of an unchanging single being, lying behind the world of many. Becoming, non-existence is not only a form of transition from one world to another. Becoming is inherent in the very fundamental principle of things. So, Heraclitus considered fire to be the fundamental principle - a mobile principle that obeys an internal law - the logos: "this cosmos, the same for everything that exists, was not created by any god and no man, but it always was, is and will be an eternally living fire, igniting measures and extinguishing by measures." Fire is both the primary substance, and the mind, and the law, since they are based on the "lawful restlessness" of fire. The world is constantly moving, changing, but it is not chaos. It seems to Heraclitus that it is not enough to explain the unity of the world by referring to the primary substance, he introduces something more abstract - order, law as an integral property of the primary substance. The world of the one and the world of the many are no longer in tragic confrontation. The basis of the world is "the possibility of everything", it is the indefinite multiplicity of being. War is the father of all that exists, says Heraclitus. A struggle, even a struggle according to the rules, subject to the law, carries an element of freedom in itself, its outcome is not predetermined. The possibility of freedom, which lies at the very foundation of the world, gives confidence to man - the "microcosm". Even the "global conflagration" with which each cycle of world movement must end is not absolute annihilation. Every struggle, every competition, ending, suggests the possibility of repetition. Fire, the logos, is comprehended only with the help of the mind, bad witnesses are the eyes and ears. Reason is a testament to the strength of man, it directly brings him closer to the beginning of the world.

If the mind of Heraclitus is the pinnacle of human capabilities, using it is a way to approach the fire-logos without losing oneself, then the mind of another Greek philosopher - Parmenides (VI-V centuries BC) from Elea - cuts a person in two. A person relying on his mind "disappears" in his corporality, illusory nature, mobility, "non-existence" and is born again. A person must choose - either illusory being, essentially non-being, the world of many, the world of the sensually perceived, or - true being, motionless, existing outside of space and time, inseparable, beginningless, united. Something is either there or it isn't, says Parmenides. Our reason cannot live in contradiction, to which Heraclitus pushes, arguing that something is and something is not, that immortals are mortal, and mortals are immortal. Therefore, life can be represented as an absolutely dense, "solid" ball, in which there are no voids, no possibilities for change. You can think only what is, and the movement already implies the emergence and destruction, non-existence. Human thought is incompatible with non-existence - this is the main pathos of the teachings of Parmenides. Thinking and being are identical. Parmenides raises high the man endowed with reason. However, everything that is in a person besides the mind is the sphere of non-existence. The famous aporias (insurmountable logical contradictions) of his student Zeno are designed to demonstrate that the senses deceive us, because they perceive the being in its multiplicity, finiteness, movement. So, Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise, since he must first go half the distance traveled by the tortoise, then half of the half of this path, and so on. Movement from the position of the mind will never begin, although it is so naturally perceived with the help of our senses. Parmenides finds the absolute basis of the world, but sacrifices to it a man of flesh and blood.

For Democritus (5th-4th centuries BC), the basis of the world is not an absolutely dense, "continuous" being, as in Parmenides, but also a non-moving fluid principle in which being and non-being are merged. Democritus singles out the atom as a substance (Greek "indivisible"). This is a material indivisible particle, absolutely dense, impenetrable, not perceived by our senses, eternal, unchanging. No changes occur inside the atom; it corresponds to the characteristics of being given by Parmenides. Outwardly, atoms differ from each other in form, order and position: an infinite number of forms provides an infinite variety of the world. Atoms do not really touch, they are separated by emptiness - non-existence. Non-being, therefore, is the same principle of the emergence of the diversity of the world as being. But being and non-being do not merge into one, do not pass into each other. The world of sensuously perceived things carries both non-being and being. Hence the rather flexible approach of Democritus to knowledge. Since our world is both a product of existence and non-existence, we can have both a correct idea (knowledge) and a superficial one (opinion) about it. Already in sensation, we can obtain true knowledge about the subject, since sensation is a copy of the thing, which is separated from the thing itself and penetrates into our senses. The mind corrects our knowledge, helps to understand things that are inaccessible to the senses. First of all, this refers to atoms that a person cannot see, is not convinced of their existence with the help of the mind.

The search for the foundations of human existence brings Greek thought to a dangerous line, to the possibility of a gap between the fundamental principle of the world and human existence. The destruction of harmony, the integration of man into the universe, was especially actively begun by the sophists (V-IV centuries BC). Sophists seek the foundations of human existence not in the world, but in man himself. Sophists are teachers of rhetoric who appeared in Greek cities during the emergence of elective institutions - popular assemblies, judicial bodies. The art of arguing, acquaintance with political knowledge, with the law became necessary conditions for active participation in public life. Sophists ("teachers of wisdom") introduced their students to general philosophical questions. Philosophy becomes the rationale for active political activity. Whoever neglects philosophy, said one of the sophists, Gorgias, is like the suitors of Penelope, who, in order to achieve it, have fun with the maids.

Among the sophists, it is customary to single out "senior" and "junior". Among the sophists of the older group, one can name Protagoras, Hippias, Gorgias, Antiphon.

According to the Russian philosopher Solovyov, sophistry is "the unconditional self-confidence of the human person, which does not yet have any content in reality, but feels in itself the strength and ability to master any content." Sophists for the first time turn to human subjectivity, to man in his limitations. Sophists for the first time outline the contours of a special "life" philosophy that inspires man as an active, active, independent being. Sophists for the first time appeal not to the cosmic mind, but to the human mind, they begin to separate the mind from the original. The ideas of the sophists are permeated with optimism. Man is free, autonomous in relation to the cosmos. The predecessors of the sophists saw a support for a person in a harmonious, orderly being. Sophists justify human freedom, appealing to non-existence.

The Sophists shook the very foundations of the life of the ancient Greek, which were guarded and defended by the first Greek philosophers. At the same time, the sophists contributed to the development of logic, aroused interest in the inner life of a person, showed the need for a critically reflective attitude towards oneself and to another person, to the phenomena of social life. Sophists are subverters of authorities and traditions. Protagoras wrote a treatise "On the Gods", in which he expressed doubts about the possibility of answering in the affirmative to the question of whether there are gods. For this he was expelled from Athens. If a person runs the risk of rejecting the gods, if he does not take into account nature, then he can be critical of social norms and laws. The requirements of the law are conditional, humanity is one, barbarians and Hellenes are equal, a person is a citizen of the world, and not just of the state in which he lives.

Sophists do not yet realize that they are risking destroying the stronghold of being. The concepts of being and nothing in their ideas are constantly flowing into each other. There is no personality yet, no clear awareness of one's "I". Man separates himself from his surroundings so far only in the form of will - indomitable energy of action.

Socrates (469-399 BC), who himself belonged to the "teachers of wisdom" and at the same time denied sophistic wisdom in something essential, saw the danger of dissolving a person in pure subjectivity, not yet formed, unstructured, "random". Following the sophists, Socrates denied the absorption of man by being as something external to him, denied the dependence of man on external political authorities, denied an uncritical attitude towards the gods of traditional religion (for which he was convicted). But Socrates also denied that chaotic subjectivity of the sophists, which turned a person into something accidental, single, optional even for himself. The significance of Socrates for the future of all European culture J. Ortega y Gasset expressed it this way: "Once upon a square in Athens, Socrates discovered the mind ...". Socrates saw that man is not "empty" internally. Hence the famous "Know thyself". The internal law to which a person obeys differs from the laws of nature, it elevates a person above his own limitations, makes him think: "God himself obliged a person to live, doing philosophy." Philosophy is the true path to God. Philosophy is a kind of dying, but dying for earthly life is a preparation for the liberation of the immortal soul from its bodily shell. The spirit and concept of Socrates acquires an independent existence. Socrates was not afraid of death, because man is not a simple element of nature. Human existence is not given to man from the beginning, he can only say "I only know that I know nothing." A person can independently come to an understanding of his involvement in a common ideal principle, which is common to all people. At the center of Socrates' teaching is man, therefore his philosophy is called the beginning of the first anthropological turn in the history of philosophical thought.

Socrates himself did not leave writings, he did not take money from his students, he did not care about his family. He considered the main task of his life to teach a person to think, the ability to find a deep spiritual beginning in himself. In his own words, he was assigned to the Athenian people as a gadfly to a horse, so that he would not forget to think about his soul. The method that Socrates chose to solve this difficult task is irony, freeing a person from self-confidence, from uncritical acceptance of someone else's opinion. The purpose of irony is not the destruction of common moral principles, on the contrary, as a result of an ironic attitude to everything external, to preconceived opinions, a person develops a general idea of ​​the spiritual principle that lies in every person. Reason and morality are basically identical, says Socrates. Happiness is a conscious virtue. Philosophy should become the doctrine of how a person should live, philosophy develops a general concept of things, reveals a single basis for the existing, which for human mind turns out to be a blessing - the highest goal. Single Foundation human life does not exist apart from the spiritual efforts of the person himself, it is not an indifferent natural principle. Only when the one becomes the goal of a person, is presented in the form of a concept, will it constitute his happiness. Such a convergence of knowledge and morality began to cause bewilderment among the thinkers of subsequent eras. However, the "ethical rationalism" of Socrates, incomprehensible to modern man, was very appropriate in the era of the destruction of patriarchal communal ties, traditional religion. Man, not without the help of the sophists, was left alone, he became a prisoner of his passions, his fragile sociality, he began to fear himself. The Greeks both loved wine and were afraid of its effect, so they diluted the wine with water. Reason, constantly pointing a person to the unshakable foundation of his life, stopping a person, warning, reminding him of his duty, became the only representative of society in the life world of the ancient Greek, became his "superego".

Separate aspects of the teachings of Socrates were developed by his students and followers in the so-called Socratic schools.

Representatives of the Megarian school (Euclid, Eubulides) believed that only the general, reason, goodness, God are one.

For Cyrenaics, representatives of the Cyrene school, only single sensations have true reality - the only source of knowledge and happiness (Aristipus, Antipater, Hegesius). Cyrenaics are eudemonists (eudemonism is a doctrine that sees the meaning of life in happiness). In turn, happiness is understood by them as pleasure, that is, the Cyrenaics are supporters of a variety of eudemonism - hedonism, which sees happiness in pleasure. The main thing for Cyrenaics is to affirm oneself in the world through pleasure; they denied the moral basis of human individuality. The desire to justify human existence without the help of reason leads to immorality. The Cyrenaic philosophy also had a direct destructive effect on a person: since it is impossible to achieve the fullness of pleasures in this world, it is better to commit suicide (Hegesius).

Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinop (Cynical school) also denied the reality of the general, spoke only about the individual. Perception, they taught, is available only to individual things, theoretical knowledge is impossible. Like the nominalist philosophers of the 14th century AD, the Cynics spoke of the impossibility of the existence of the general, for example, "horseness." There are only individual real horses, and the word "horse" is only common name for various individual things. I see the table and the cup, said Diogenes, but I cannot see the "stolnost" and "chalice".

Cynics focus on ethical issues. Happiness cannot consist either in enjoyment or in preoccupation with state problems. The main thing is personal virtue, which can be awakened by freeing yourself from conventions, public opinion. Many stories have come down to us about Diogenes - the "mad Socrates", who begged for alms from statues, lived in a barrel, searched for a man with a lantern, considered himself a citizen of the world. The Cynics revealed a new side of morality. If Socrates associated morality with reason, then the Cynics associated it with the ability of an individual to defend his principles, with the ability to oppose himself to the general as uniformity, to the crowd. In this case, there is also a process of mastering the common - through repulsion. Socrates and the Cynics speak of different things in common. Cynics - about the abstract-general, leveling people; Socrates - about the concrete-general, connecting different people with a single moral connection. Socrates also believed that each person had to find a moral principle in himself, and not learn it as a finished one. Socrates called on a person to independence of thought, the Cynics - to independence of behavior, to the uniqueness of an act. The statements of Diogenes are extravagant, but he deliberately dresses his thought in such forms, because Diogenes uses his own behavioral uniqueness as an argument: only an excessive act can bring up faith. According to legend, Diogenes even died of his own free will at the age of 90, holding his breath.

The philosophical system of Plato (427-347 BC), the great disciple of Socrates, the founder of his own school - the Academy, which has existed for almost a thousand years, unfolds an image of the world worthy of a born human personality; sets before man goals worthy of the harmony of the Cosmos. Existence and non-existence in his system are not two equal explanatory principles of the world order, indifferent to man, his goals and hopes. The world is "centered" around a person, formless matter swirls at his feet - non-existence, his gaze is turned to the sky - beautiful, good, eternal - being.

The philosophical views of Plato are reflected in the dialogues, among which are such as "Feast", "Theaetetus", "Phaedo". Social philosophical ideas most fully expressed in the treatise "State". In his ontology, the doctrine of being, Plato argues that the sensually perceived world in which we are immersed is not the only world. Plato is not original in expressing the idea of ​​the existence of two worlds. Anaximander saw behind many a single and indefinite beginning, Parmenides, with the help of reason, caught the world of true being behind the illusory world, Democritus reduced the visible wealth of sensually perceived forms to combinations of atoms. However, Plato's predecessors left this second, "authentic" world within the boundaries of the material. Plato, for the first time, speaks openly about the immateriality of this true world, its ideality. Incorporeal extra-sensory entities, comprehended only by the mind, Plato called "eidos" - "species", or ideas. Accordingly, Plato's teaching was later called objective idealism. Each idea leads an absolutely independent existence, it is eternal and unchanging, it knows neither birth, nor growth, nor death: “there is an identical idea, unborn and indestructible, not perceiving anything into itself from anywhere and itself entering into nothing, invisible and in no other way felt, but given over to the care of thought. The number of ideas is not infinite, they are in a relationship of subordination. Plato does not give a single principle underlying the hierarchy of ideas. Of course, at the top of the pyramid of ideas are the ideas of truth, beauty, and justice. The Platonic pyramid is crowned by the idea of ​​the good, which combines all the virtues of truth, beauty, and justice. The good is both the most general idea and at the same time the “best” one, morally superior to others. One can find in the works of Plato an appeal to the ideas of physical phenomena ("fire", "color", "sound", "peace"). You can also name the ideas of beings ("man", "animal"), the ideas of objects artificially made by human hands, the ideas of relations ("equality").

The moral coloring of the world of ideas calls into question the very possibility of the existence of the idea of ​​evil, ugliness, ignorance, illness, although it is difficult for Plato to find an unambiguous opinion on this matter. Platonic ideas are ideals, models for the creation of the world of things; ideas are also the aim of the strivings of sensible things; ideas are the essence of things; ideas are the source of the being of things. Ideas are accessible to human knowledge. A person comprehends an idea in the form of a concept. However, the concept of an idea already brings us closer to the idea itself as an ontological (existential) essence: by cognizing an idea, a person moves to a new level of being.

In addition to the eternal essences of things - ideas, Plato singles out what was later called "matter" as the second source of the existence of the world. Plato calls it "space": "it is eternal, does not accept destruction, gives a home to everything that is born, but it is itself perceived outside of sensation, through some kind of illegal conclusion, and it is almost impossible to believe in it. We see it as if in dreams and argue that this being must certainly be somewhere, in some place and occupy some space, and what is not located either on earth or in heaven, as if it does not exist. Characteristics of this "space" - matter - formlessness, plasticity, inaccessibility to human perception, passivity. At the same time, without this matter, the existence of the world of things would be impossible, matter is a pure possibility, this unknowable non-existence, God has not yet touched it. The potencies that overflow this primary matter - "nurse" are formed with the help of the world of ideas into the forms of materiality - the elements. Matter spreads with moisture, and blazes with fire, and takes on the forms of earth and air.

Thus, along with the world of ideas and the world of matter, the world of things arises - an intermediate world where everything arises and dies, is in the process of becoming. The world of things is accessible not only to the mind, but also to the senses. How are things and ideas related? Their connection is inexplicable, says Plato. Things can be imagined as prints made according to sample ideas. Each thing can be the imprint of several general ideas. The sensory world, the world of becoming, is the unity of being (ideas) and non-being (matter). Things are generated by ideas, but ideas are not present in things, they are not divided into many things. Things are involved in ideas, they are their likenesses. But things are also involved in matter, therefore things are only imperfect similarities of ideas. Finally, things tend to imitate ideas, to approach them.

Plato also introduces such a concept as the "world soul", which is an intermediary between the world of ideas and the world of things. The world soul was also created by God and bears in itself participation in the identical (ideas) and other (matter). The world soul is a self-moving, creative force, with its help the world becomes a single, ordered, living whole - the cosmos. The expression of the world soul, its inconsistency is the demon Eros (dialogue "Feast"). Eros is a mediator between matter and the world of ideas, he seeks to give and take, to dissolve into infinity and absorb the whole world into himself. The demon is an expression of the striving of the middle, intermediate world towards the ideal world - ideal ideas. But Eros is an embodied contradiction, he carries within himself the desire to unite the incompatible, and not to abandon the earthly, he is the son of wealth (Poros) and poverty (Singing), "he is neither immortal nor mortal, on the same day he lives and flourishes, if his deeds are good, then he dies, but, having inherited the nature of his father, he comes to life again. Everything that he does not acquire goes to dust, which is why Eros is never rich or poor. The appeal to the images of myth in explaining the central point of his theory - the connection between being and non-being - is not accidental. The image of the world order given by Plato is the world turned towards man. The hopes, goals of a person, his strength and impotence, his creative potential are, as it were, cosmic, inscribed in the structure of the world. Plato goes further, he directly compares the creative principle of the world - Eros - with thinking person, loving wisdom, standing between knowledge and ignorance - with a philosopher. Plato seems to look at the world from two positions. Either he acts as a dispassionate herald of the motionless world of being, looks at the middle world "from above", seeing its inauthenticity and insignificance, then in his appearance an earthly person peeps through, who does not want to part for the sake of love for the idea with any beautiful woman, neither with a beloved horse, nor with a beautiful young man. The more "human" a philosophy is, the more mythological it is.

The idea of ​​God is present in Plato's teachings, but his understanding of God makes various interpretations possible. God sometimes acts as a creator of ideas, sometimes he turns out to be a demiurge (craftsman), creating the world according to predetermined patterns-ideas. God either turns out to be a living being, a perfect personality, or only a mind, which is opposed by matter not created by him. Sometimes Plato considers the idea of ​​the good and calls it God. The lowest kind of gods Plato calls celestial bodies, Earth, created from fire by the Demiurge.

Plato's doctrine of the soul occupies an important place in his views on man and society. The human body is made up of the elements of the four elements; collapsing, it returns to the cosmos, the body is only a temporary refuge for the soul. Because of the fault of the body, says Socrates in one of Plato's dialogues, we have little time for philosophy. The human soul consists of three parts. Its rational part is created by the Demiurge himself, it is independent of the body and immortal. The unintelligent part of the soul is created lower gods, it includes an affective ("angry") part and a lusty one. The lustful beginning pushes a person to love, makes him feel hungry and thirsty. The rational part of the soul is located in the head, the angry part is in the chest, and the lusty part is in the stomach. The middle (affective) part of the soul can become an ally of its rational part, if a person directs the force of his anger at himself, at his desires, of which he sometimes feels himself a slave. Souls, once created, lived on the stars, they saw the world of ideas, but the pure being of ideas can only be contemplated by the gods. Although human souls are immortal, they are imperfect: caught by some accident, they become heavy and fall to the ground. The souls that have been contemplating pure ideas for the longest time inhabit the Earth in a sage, a king, a statesman. Souls, touching pure being only for a moment, inhabit a sophist, a demagogue, a tyrant. For a long time, souls cannot return to heaven again; at least ten thousand years must pass. Only the soul of a philosopher can "gain wings" and soar to the sky faster, in three thousand years, provided that each of its "owners" will sincerely love wisdom ("Phaedrus"). The number of souls is limited, they constantly wander from one body shell to another.

The doctrine of the soul helps to understand Plato's ideas about knowledge. On earth, the soul forgets about its stay in the realm of ideas. However righteous life, the desire for knowledge, and sometimes contact with earthly beauty can awaken memories in the soul, opens the way to a conscious striving for the Good. In Plato, the idea of ​​blind, dark fate that governs human destinies, inaccessible to knowledge, gives way to the idea of ​​a person's responsibility for his own destiny. True knowledge opens the way to the liberation of the immortal part of the human soul, it is an instrument of freedom. Plato distinguishes two main qualitative different kind knowledge: knowledge "intelligent" and sensual. Those who hope for sensory knowledge, says Plato in The Republic, are like people who, from their very birth, live in a cave and do not see real things, but only their shadows on the walls in weak light. It seems to them that this is the real world, the real knowledge. And only a philosopher who contemplates the truth speaks of things that he sees in clear sunlight - the light of reason.

Sensory cognition presupposes "belief" in the existence of separate things, as well as the presence of sensual images of things - "likenesses". Sense knowledge is expressed in the form of opinion. Opinion cannot see the essence of a thing, its "idea"; with the help of opinion one can judge beautiful bodies, but not about beauty; opinion is not knowledge, but it is not ignorance either. An opinion cannot be true or false. The very concept of a lie appears when we find its criteria, its difference from the truth, that is, we already have knowledge. "Right opinions" may exist, they say nothing about the cause and essence of a thing, but help in the matter of political government, virtuous behavior is also based on right opinion.

Intellectual cognition includes thinking (pure activity of the mind, thinking about thinking) and reason. Reason uses knowledge of ideas as hypotheses. This type of knowledge includes mathematical knowledge, clothing ideas in sensual images. Actually, thinking is based on a special intellectual intuition, direct contemplation. Intuition (remembering) is stimulated by the art of dialectics - arguing, identifying contradictions in definitions, clashing opposing judgments.

The doctrine of the soul is intertwined in Plato with the doctrine of the state. He understands the state in a broad sense, as a joint settlement. The state is a necessary condition for personal perfection. Based on the division of labor, it contributes to the identification of human inclinations and their development. Treatises "State", "Laws", dialogue "Politician" are devoted to the problems of the state. The perfect form of joint human existence is in the past. In those distant times, people were connected by bonds of friendship, they did not need anything and devoted all their free time to philosophical reflections. The gods themselves then ruled the earth. It is impossible to return to the golden age, this is prevented by constant wars, poverty, natural disasters. Gradually, the pursuit of wealth, violence, discord, and lack of concern for the common good come to the fore in the state. In each state now "two states hostile to each other are concluded: one - the poor, the other - the rich ...".

Plato distinguishes four forms of the state: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny.

Timocracy - the power of ambitious people - is the first negative form of the state. Under timocracy, common meals and physical exercises are still preserved, rulers are still honored, warriors do not pursue material wealth. However, wealth is already accumulating, the family distracts from the concerns of the state, there is a craving for luxury.

Oligarchy is the rule of a few. Only the rich rule, the poor do not take part in the government. In an oligarchic society there are people who, as a result of impoverishment and the sale of property, either do nothing at all or turn into criminals; others do not improve their abilities given from birth, but are engaged in various kinds of activity at once.

Democracy - the rule of the majority - reinforces and perpetuates the division and violence in society. The envy and malice of the poor - the former rich - leads to an uprising and a "sharing" of power between the winning majority.

Tyranny is the worst form of government, the degeneration of democracy. Too much freedom leads to slavery. The tyrant, having ascended on the wave of popular representation, begins to destroy his enemies until there is no one left around him.

Another state structure is also possible, which will be based on the idea of ​​justice. A state based on justice is a single harmonious whole. Such a state guards the peace of its citizens, protects them from attack from outside; organizes the material support of the life of citizens; directs their spiritual development.

The activity of the state must be subordinated to the highest idea of ​​the good. Since each of the members of society needs many, society must be based on the division of labor among citizens (free). The division of citizens into special categories is based on Plato's doctrine of the three parts of the soul. Those in whom the predominance of the rational part of the soul is found from childhood are destined for the business of government; those who have a more developed affective part of the soul should become warriors; in whom the lustful beginning dominates, they become merchants, builders, artisans, cattle breeders, mercenaries. Everyone in such a state is busy with the work intended for him, the artisan does not strive for management, the ruler is far from selfish acts, the warrior thinks more about the welfare and security of the state than about his own security. If Plato does not pay attention to the education of citizens of the lower, "productive" class, then the education of warriors and rulers - philosophers - is the subject of the closest attention. The elimination of personal property, the absence of stable marriages, and the public education of children are necessary. Education should be both physical and spiritual. Not all art is useful: it is necessary to expel from art the image of vice, pampering melodies, disharmony, acting "hypocrisy". The rulers-philosophers are selected from among the future warriors, these are the most perfect guards, standing on the protection of the interests of the whole. Rulers-philosophers are not so much "professional managers" as sages striving for the pure good, able to understand the spiritual foundations of society, not clouded by political compromises, every second usefulness. These are contemplatives of the realm of ideas and, because of this, they are, as it were, representatives of the heavenly world in the earthly world. They uphold virtue in society.

Plato's doctrine of virtues, or "virtues", differs from modern ideas about morality. Plato is not talking about an autonomous bearer of moral consciousness, whose conscience helps him in each specific case to separate good from evil. For Plato, the true good is the good of the whole. The doing of each in the society of his business is his virtue. In a good state, there are four virtues: wisdom, courage, prudence (or restraint), justice. Contrary to modern ideas about moral standards which are universal, addressed to everyone without exception, "virtues" are not universal. There is no need for everyone in society to be wise, to contemplate ideas. This is the lot of philosophers. Courage - a legal opinion about what is worth fearing and what is not worth fearing - is inherent in warriors. The morality (virtue) of workers is lower than that of rulers and warriors, but they, like all other categories, are characterized by prudence, expressed in obedience to existing laws. The final virtue of the state is justice, the desire for everyone to "do their own thing." Warriors help rulers like dogs help shepherds, so that they can herd their flock without interference. The "Charm of Plato" turned out to be so strong, wrote the modern researcher K. Popper, that the echoes of his teaching about society can still be found in modern concepts, social utopias, and political programs.

The great student of Plato - Aristotle (384-322 BC) developed and modified his teaching. The well-known saying "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer", as the legend says, belongs to Aristotle. Aristotle opened a philosophical school in Athens - the Lyceum (the school was located next to the temple of Apollo of Lyceum). Since there were covered galleries on the territory of the Lyceum, along which Aristotle walked with his students, the members of the Aristotelian school were called peripatetics ("walkers"). Aristotle's legacy is great. In addition to general philosophical questions, he develops logic, addresses issues of psychology, zoology, cosmology, pedagogy, ethics and aesthetics, physics, political economy, and rhetoric.

Aristotle develops his philosophy in polemic with the Platonic theory of ideas. First of all, Aristotle believes, Plato's ideas are no different from sensible things, this is an unnecessary doubling of the world. In addition, ideas are not the essence of a separate thing, while the relation of "participation" of things to ideas explains little. The introduction of the principle of hierarchical relationship of ideas by Plato, Aristotle believes, leads to a contradiction: if a fixed idea is subordinate to another, more general one, then what is its essence: its own content or the content of a more general idea? Another contradiction in the Platonic theory of ideas is this: the similarity between a thing and an idea must also have its own idea. The real person and the idea of ​​a person are similar, but the idea of ​​their similarity - the so-called "third person" - must also have an even more general idea that unites this idea and those that it unites, and so on ad infinitum. Finally, the most essential things in our world - birth, death, change - cannot be explained in any way with the help of fixed ideas.

As a result, Aristotle comes to the conclusion that the existence of individual, finite things cannot be explained with the help of a kingdom of ideas isolated from them. The individual being of a thing is an original being, having a basis in itself, it is a substance. A single being is a combination of "form" and "matter". Form and matter are correlative characteristics of a thing, they are not absolute. "Matter" is the possibility of form, "form" is the reality of matter. If we take a copper ball, says Aristotle, then copper is just a possibility of sphericity. But in relation to the physical elements of which copper is composed, copper will be "form", and these elements - "matter". Each form can be considered as matter for another, more complex form. However, the flow of matter and form into each other has an end. When we get to the four primary elements - the "elements", then the "matter" from which they arise is no longer a form for some other "matter", it is the primary matter, a pure possibility, in no way being a reality. To explain the changing world of individual being, only matter and form are not enough. Aristotle identifies four reasons for the changes taking place in the world. With the help of "material" and "formal" causes, one can understand the transition from the possible existence of a thing to its actual existence. There are also operating and target causes. The operating reason indicates the source of the change (the father is the cause of the child, Aristotle himself gives an example), the target one - for the sake of which the change was made (the purpose of the walk is health). Ultimately, says Aristotle, the final and efficient cause can be reduced to a formal one.

When Aristotle considers the movement not of a separate thing, but of the world as a whole, he, along with the primary matter, recognizes the existence of a certain form of the world that is outside of it. The world is eternal, says Aristotle, and it is constantly in motion. The movement cannot stop, because then it must be assumed that it is stopped by another movement, which leads to a contradiction, for there can be no other movement after the movement stops. The eternally moving world also has an eternal cause of movement - the prime mover. The prime mover itself is motionless, incorporeal, for corporeality is the possibility of transition into something else, that is, the possibility of movement. The incorporeal prime mover is pure form. The pure incorporeal form is the mind (Nus). This mind is contemplative, not active, it is not directed outward. The active mind is the “enduring” mind, it is driven by something else, and nothing moves the prime mover. Contemplative cognition is thinking about thinking, "with the incorporeal, the thinking and the conceivable are one and the same, for speculative cognition and speculative cognized are one and the same." Such an incorporeal, motionless, eternal, self-thinking prime mover is God. In order to be the first cause, it is quite enough for God to think, since matter, as the possibility of form, will experience a desire to pass into reality simply by virtue of the very existence of form as an end.

Aristotle, referring to the problems of knowledge, builds a whole theory of science. Knowledge differs from opinion in the following features: evidence - universality and necessity, the ability to explain, the unity of its subject. The sciences are not reducible to one another, they cannot be deduced from a single primary form, although contemplative, theoretical sciences are superior to others. The contemplative sciences, which realize knowledge for the sake of knowledge, provide a method for the "practical" sciences. Theoretical sciences - the contemplation of "beginnings and causes" - agree with philosophy. Practical sciences proceed from the effect to the cause. Aristotle developed the foundations of logical theory, deductive and inductive logic ("Analysts", "Topeka"), methods of proof. Aristotle, proceeding from his doctrine of the inseparability of matter and form, pays more attention, in comparison with Plato, to sensory knowledge.

The soul, according to Aristotle (treatise "On the Soul"), belongs only to living beings. The soul is an entelechy. Entelechy is the implementation of a goal-directed process, conditionality through a goal. The soul is closely connected with the body, it contributes to the deployment of all the possibilities hidden in a living being. There are three kinds of soul. The vegetative soul (the ability to feed), the animal soul (the ability to feel). These two kinds of soul are inseparable from the body and are also inherent in man. The rational soul is inherent only in man, it is not an entelechy, it is separable from the body, not innate to him, immortal.

The ethics of Aristotle ("Nicomachean ethics") is connected with the doctrine of the soul. The main goal of man is the pursuit of good. The highest good is happiness, bliss. Since man is endowed with an intelligent soul, his benefit is the perfect performance of intelligent activity. The condition for achieving goodness is the possession of virtues. Virtue is the achievement of perfection in every kind of activity, it is skill, the ability to find the only the right decision. Some analogies are surprising modern man: Aristotle speaks of good eyesight, for example, as the "virtue of the eye". He argues that virtue always chooses between excess and deficiency, striving for the middle. So, generosity is in the middle between avarice and extravagance. "Average" in this case means the most perfect. Behind such a "technical" understanding of virtue, far from the modern understanding of goodness, lies a deep thought. What nature "finds" in a natural way, a person must seek consciously, he must constantly control his behavior, seek his own, human measure in everything, remember that he is not an animal, but not God either. "Middle" - this is actually human. Man, says Aristotle, is the parent not only of his children, but also of his actions. Both vice and temperance depend on us. Aristotle singled out ethical virtues (virtues of character) and dianoetic (intellectual: wisdom, reasonableness, prudence). Ethical virtues are associated with habits, dianoetic ones require special development.

The good of man coincides with the public good ("Politics"). The state is a kind of communication between people. It is impossible to reduce the role of the state only to the organization of economic exchange. The state arises as a fellowship for the sake of a good life. A person cannot exist outside the state, he is a political, social being. However, unlike Plato, Aristotle is not as dismissive of private property. It is human nature to love oneself. So that this feeling does not degenerate into egoism, it is necessary to love the reasonable principle in yourself. Such "self-lovers", loving the great and beautiful for themselves, are able to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the fatherland.

The state consists of farmers, artisans, merchants, hired workers, and the military. The rights of citizenship, according to Aristotle, should not have not only slaves, but also all the lower classes, except for warriors and those who are members of legislative bodies. Only these last groups think not only about their own benefit, but also about the public good. They have the right to leisure - the main social value.

The middle element, the "middle class" is, according to Aristotle, the basis for the best communication of people in the state. Citizens with an average income do not strive for someone else's, like the poor, they are not envied by the rich.

Forms of government Aristotle divides into correct and incorrect: in the right, power is guided by public benefit, in the wrong - by personal gain. Among the correct forms, Aristotle singles out the monarchy, the aristocracy and the politician). Monarchy (royal power) - the power of one, the first and most "divine". Aristocracy is the rule of the "best" few. Politia - rule by the majority or those who represent the interests of the majority and own weapons. The middle class is the basis of the polity. These correct forms of government may degenerate into incorrect ones. Monarchy degenerates into tyranny. The tyrant does not care about the welfare of his subjects, he is the enemy of virtue, depriving people of energy, the desire to defend the common good. The aristocracy can be replaced by an oligarchy - the rule of the rich. Politia may degenerate into democracy - the rule of the majority, consisting of the poor. Both of them use the state for their own selfish interests.

From the 4th century BC the so-called Hellenistic philosophy begins to take shape. In a narrow sense, the 4th century BC belongs to the Hellenistic period. and the beginning of the 1st century AD. The conquests of Alexander the Great lead to the loss of political independence by the Greek states, but the spiritual leadership of Greek culture is preserved. In a broad sense, the Greco-Roman philosophy of the first centuries of our era can also be attributed to the period of Hellenism. First of all, Stoicism, Epicureanism, skepticism are attributed to Hellenistic philosophy. Later Neoplatonism and Gnosticism appear. Epicureanism originates in IV-III centuries BC. and exists until the 4th century AD. The ancestor is Epicurus (341-270 BC), the founder of the "Garden of Epicurus", a closed community. Above the entrance to the "garden" was an inscription, according to which pleasure was called the highest good. Happiness for Epicurus is service to oneself, it is the self-sufficiency of the individual. The pinnacle of happiness is serene peace, the complete absence of suffering. "Live imperceptibly", said Epicurus, only in this case it is possible to achieve happiness. The absence of suffering of the body and soul as the limit of pleasure is achievable with the help of the mind. Philosophy as an expression of reason becomes "practical" philosophy. The main question becomes the question "how to live?" How to find the vital basis that will help to avoid fear - a universal form of human suffering. The ineradicable duality of Epicureanism - the promotion of human subjectivity in it and at the same time the "belittling" of man - was also reflected in the understanding of philosophy. Without philosophy, it is impossible to achieve happiness, but philosophy always goes beyond this "practical" task - it doubts, awakens unrealizable desires in a person. In this case, it is necessary to abandon philosophy, because prudence and peace are more expensive.

Man seeks pleasures of various kinds. There are unnatural and unnecessary pleasures (thirst for fame, desire for power). There are natural pleasures, but not necessary (exquisite dishes, beautiful clothes). These pleasures are to be avoided, for they arouse in the soul a pernicious agitation for man. It is necessary to strive only for natural and necessary pleasures (satisfying hunger, thirst, salvation from cold and bad weather). Such limited "pleasures" save a person from many unnecessary worries, make him independent, nothing disturbs his peace. It is also necessary to distinguish between passive and active pleasures. The process of eating is an active pleasure, passive pleasure, calm after eating, is much more valuable. Likewise, love, as an active enjoyment, must be preferred to friendship, a passive pleasure.

But even if fame, power, love, politics, exquisite clothes and a plentiful table have ceased to attract a person, there remains a person’s fear of the inevitability of death, of natural necessity, of punishment for an unrighteous life. This deprives him of equanimity, leads to suffering. But even in this case, philosophy helps a person to cope with his fears. Death, says philosophy, is nothing but nothing. While you are alive, it does not exist; when you are dead, it also does not exist for you. Nor should one be afraid of the punishment of the gods. The gods do not rule the world, they are the ideal for man, and the ideal is absolute bliss, peace. Nothing can disturb this state, therefore contact with the human world is excluded for them. There is no need to be afraid of the vicissitudes of fate, natural necessity.

Epicurus and his followers, substantiating the possibility of delivering a person from these "three fears", referred to the atomistic doctrine. Everything is made of atoms, the soul is also material, therefore mortal. Therefore, the pursuit of immortality is meaningless. The gods, who also have the likeness of a body, occupy a special world space isolated from man. Epicurus connects man's ability to "evade" the shackles of necessity with the ability of the atoms themselves to deviate from rectilinear motion. Freedom is inherent in the very foundations of the world, but it is the freedom of "withdrawal", deviation, chance. At this point, the duality of Epicureanism, the duality of Hellenistic philosophy as a whole, is especially clearly visible. The desire to defend their independence in the face of necessity, nature, a person expresses with the help of the same arguments "from nature". With the help of freedom-randomness, a person is ready to "beat" nature-randomness. Although the threads connecting man with nature and society have weakened, he still does not dare to break them completely.

Skepticism (from the Greek explorer) was founded by Pyrrho (4th century BC). Skepticism lasted until the 3rd century AD. Skeptics at one time stood at the head of the Platonic Academy. prominent representative late skepticism- Sextus Empiricus. Equanimity, peace, serenity, the limiting case of which is death (absolute peace), is also an ideal for skeptics. The main enemy of a person seeking peace is not so much his own desires, excessively developed needs, as the Epicureans believed, but his craving for knowledge. Knowledge is a destructive force. All affirmations and denials are harmful. Anyone who wants to achieve happiness seeks to answer the following questions: what things are made of, how to treat them, what benefits we will get from this. The first question cannot be answered. The answer to the second question is to abstain from all judgments about things. As a result, we will achieve the main "benefit" - peace, this is the answer to the third question. One must simply surrender to life, "follow life without opinion", one must renounce philosophy. The image of such a serene, unthinking person, going with the flow, only remotely resembles a person. However, skeptics themselves have made a certain contribution to the study of cognitive activity. In line with skepticism, ideas of the probabilistic nature of our knowledge were developed, a number of logical procedures were analyzed.

Stoicism (the name is associated with the Athenian portico) arose at the end of the 4th century BC. and lasted until the 3rd century AD. During Stoicism, it is customary to distinguish three periods: Ancient Stoa (Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus), Middle Stoya (Posidonius), Late Stoya (Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius).

The duality and inconsistency of Hellenism is clearly manifested in Stoicism. Ethics directly coexists with "physics", the doctrine of nature. Human subjectivity becomes a correlate of the Cosmos, voluntarism (from Latin voluntas - will) is adjacent to fatalism (from Latin fatalis - fatal). According to the Stoics, God is not separated from the world, he fills the world like honey in a honeycomb. But this is not a personal God, it is both fire, and soul, and logos. God is pneuma, fiery breath that pervades the world. The world is a single organism, its parts - "organs" - do not know a single plan for the structure of this organism, it acts for them as fate, blind and inevitable fate. The world is one, harmonious, whole, it is endowed with the meaning and likeness of self-consciousness, it is, as it were, constantly immersed in itself, focused on itself, engaged in self-deepening.

A person, in order to be worthy of a beautiful and harmonious whole, must follow nature in everything - renounce worldly unrest, the chaos of life, withdraw into himself. The ideal state of a sage is apathy (from Greek - absence of suffering, dispassion). As a result of long-term self-education, the sage becomes able to control himself, to follow only reason. He should not rejoice in what everyone rejoices, and should not grieve over the loss of property, illness, even his own death. The ideal of the sage for the Stoics is Socrates, who calmly accepted own death. If the sage cannot bring order to the chaos of life, he must voluntarily die. Not only a feeling of love, but also friendship should not disturb his peace. Sympathy should not break stoic apathy. The wise man voluntarily obeys fate, but fate drags the unreasonable. No external force can deprive a person of the right to make a free decision. It is not in the power of a man to cancel the death sentence, but he can listen to it with dignity. Everything that a person does, he must do consciously and of his own free will; in this lies the highest virtue, in this he becomes like God the logos. First of all, a person must realize that he is involved in the world logos, he is part of the whole. His natural desire for self-preservation must be transformed into the idea of ​​the good of the social whole, the idea of ​​a world state - a cosmopolis. The soul of a person, participating in the God-logos, after death leaves the person and merges with the whole world, to which the sage must consciously strive throughout his life.

The philosophy of Neoplatonism (III-VI centuries AD) arises as a development and systematization of Plato's ideas. However, the interaction with the philosophical schools of this period, the complex relationship with Christianity, give Neoplatonism a special philosophical significance. The activity of this philosophical school was terminated in 529, when Emperor Justinian issued a decree on the closure of pagan philosophical schools. Neoplatonism is represented by such names as Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Hypatia and others.

The beginning of neoplatonism, the original first unity, God is inaccessible to reason, he is "super-existential". One can comprehend this One only by embarking on the path of apophaticism - absolute negativity, the realization of the impossibility to attribute any specific properties to the One. To comprehend this first unity is possible only through mystical ecstasy, out of the body. One can be represented as a source of light, radiation, the outflow of which ("emanation") is the way of creation of various spheres of being, which are in strict subordination. Decreasing light - increasing darkness and chaos. The creation of the world is not a goal-directed process, the One is not like God the creator of Christianity. The second lower step is the intelligible being, it is Mind. It is divided into subject and object. One side is turned towards the One, the other is directed downward, towards the many. The mind contains, as it were, the pure structure of the world of many. The next step of emanation is the World Soul. It also has two sides, one is turned to the Mind, the other - to the sensual world, to Nature. The soul refers to ideas as external to it, it exists in time, but is immaterial, it is a source of change. Nature, with its higher side, acts as the shadowed side of the soul, while its lower side gives rise to matter. Matter is the extinction of the light emanating from the One, it is the lack of goodness, warmth. Matter does not lead an absolutely independent existence, it can only be spoken of as an absolute lack of light. The human soul also has two sides, it also strives for light and can fall into darkness.

The ancient Greeks objectified the main philosophical categories, the main types of philosophical thinking. Almost everything was in Greece. But the "virtues" of ancient ethics could not become "good", "freedom" could not be separated from "necessity". In Greek philosophy there was also the category of "other", "other being", which has become one of the central ones in modern philosophy. However, this "other" was inherent in the beginning, was not a human characteristic. In Greek philosophy, in contrast to later periods, man did not seem to himself the "king of nature", which is not so bad. But in ancient philosophy there was no Absolute Personality - God. Only Cosmos is absolute - sensually tangible, alive, animated. The Greeks could not approach man as an unnatural, "unnatural" being, as a person. Although they endowed nature itself with human characteristics, anthropomorphized it, but man perceived these alienated characteristics naturalistically, as natural. That is why we can agree with H. Ortega y Gasset, who said that although Europe is still bewitched by Greece, but "our apprenticeship with the Greeks is over: the Greeks are not classics, they are just archaic - archaic and, of course ... always beautiful ... They cease to be our teachers and become our friends. Let's begin to talk with them, let's begin to disagree with them in the most basic. "

Philosophy Ancient Greece, which gave rise to European philosophy, also arises in the 7th - 5th centuries. BC, but under the influence of other circumstances. If the eastern societies, basically agricultural, were distinguished by a rigid socio-economic division, despotic rule, reliance on the customs of their ancestors, which led to dogmatic thinking, fettered the freedom of the individual, then in Ancient Greece there were special civilizational prerequisites that required serious changes in worldview. The main ones are:

• - transformation of archaic tribal structures into the political structure of society, the development of city-states with elements of democratic governance;
• - expanding contacts with other civilizations, borrowing and processing someone else's experience by an independent "Greek spirit";
• - the rapid development of scientific knowledge, stimulated by the growth of production, the development of trade, crafts;
• - separation of mental labor from physical labor and its transformation into special kind activities.

These and other factors shaped the personality of an educated and free citizen, contributed to the emancipation of the spirit of the Greek, the formation of such qualities as: activity, passion, subtlety of mind, craving for reflection.

The relatively peaceful period of the development of Greece at the dawn of civilization, favorable geographical and climatic conditions allowed to create a fairly high standard of living.

And the abilities of the ancient Greek made him "raise his head from the earth and look at the world, marvel at its orderliness." Surprise, according to Aristotle, became one of the starting positions in philosophizing.

The philosophical thinking of the Greek was also stimulated by the principle of competitiveness that had developed in ancient culture - the desire for creation, creativity, which distinguished not only the skill of a potter, artist, sports competitions, but also intellectual rivalry: disputes of scientists, discussions of politicians, philosophers.

Thus, in ancient Greece, not only a favorable socio-economic, political, but also a cultural and psychological environment for a critical understanding of what has been achieved and the movement of thought towards philosophy develops.

The emergence of philosophy is due to two more phenomena: mythology and emerging science. At first, the connection of philosophy with mythology, rich in general thoughts about the world, was very noticeable. And philosophy learns from it to ask philosophical questions: where does the world come from? how does it exist? and others. At the same time, the historical changes taking place first in the Ionian colonies, and then in Greece itself, and strengthening contacts, primarily with Egypt, strengthen the significance of knowledge as a means of dominating the world. Increasingly, questions arise: why is it happening this way and not otherwise? what is the cause of phenomena and their changes? why order and harmony reign in the world? and so on.

Answering these questions required a new way of understanding the world. In contrast to the myth, built on unconditional faith, it was the questioning mind, and the driving forces were bewilderment, doubt, and a critical attitude. The form of cognition is abstraction - a mental operation, which was based on the abstraction and isolation of certain properties and qualities of an object from itself and the development of concepts. Operating with concepts - reflection - fundamentally distinguished philosophical knowledge from sensually concrete mythological images. Greek philosophy developed as a rational-theoretical, conceptual way of explaining the world.

Researchers of ancient philosophy distinguish several stages in its development: pre-Socratic (VII-V centuries BC) - the time of origin and formation; classical (V-IV centuries BC) - the period of maturity and prosperity, the time of the original samples of ancient Greek philosophical thought; Hellenistic (late 4th century - 3rd century BC) and Roman (2nd century BC - 3rd century) - the periods of decline of ancient philosophy.

What did the wise men of antiquity think about? What interested them most? First of all, the world, nature, problems of their origin, essence, causes of the universal order. This type of philosophizing is called cosmocentric.

pre-Socratic period. The very first philosophical school appeared in a large trading and cultural center VIII-V centuries BC. - the city of Miletus, which was located in the east of the Aegean Sea. Representatives of the Milesian school were the natural scientists Thales (640-546), Anaximander (610-547), Anaximenes (575-528), who were also interested in deeply ideological issues. They were puzzled by the search for a single foundation and the beginning of existence: "What is everything from?" Thales saw him in the water, Anaximander in the apeiron, Anaximenes in the air.

What is philosophical in these arguments, which, in fact, have not yet spun off from mythological views? The fact is that the named natural elements were considered not so much in their own physical sense, but as something that united the world and acted as its fundamental principle.

Anaximander "breaks through" to the greatest generalizations. Apeiron is neither water nor air. Trying to move away from sensual-concrete images, he considered apeiron (Greek - unlimited) as a common foundation, a single unlimited receptacle, from where the Cosmos, the Sun, the Earth, things that have their boundaries are isolated.

So the Milesian sages, still burdened with mythological views, tried to go beyond immediate visibility and give a natural explanation of the world. And since, according to Aristotle, they considered “only material principles” to be the beginning of everything, they turned out to be at the origins of the philosophical and materialistic worldview.

This line of Greek philosophy is continued by Heraclitus of Ephesus (540-480 BC). He also tries to isolate the basis of existence behind a multitude of phenomena that are constantly changing and disappearing, and considers fire as such - a material and most changing of the natural elements.

Heraclitus is also interested in another problem - the state of the world: how does it exist? “Everything that exists,” the philosopher answers, “flows (moves), and nothing remains in place.” To describe the eternal variability and dynamism of the world, Heraclitus uses the images of "fire", which gives an idea of ​​the rhythmic nature of the world process, and the river - an indomitable stream into which "one cannot enter twice." Going further in his reasoning, he raises the question of the cause of the change and calls it the struggle of opposite forces: cold and hot, wet and dry, etc.

However, "fire", "river", as the ideas of the Milesians about the fundamental principle of existence, are sensual images, ideas. Behind the multitude of forms in motion, Heraclitus seeks to find something stable, repetitive, and to designate it, he introduces the concept of logos - the world mind, ordering the world, harmonizing it. This was the first intuition of natural regularity.

Heraclitus is moving forward in the philosophical and theoretical explanation of the world. And the valuable ideas formulated by him of the formation and development of the world process allow us to speak of him as the "father of dialectics."

Pythagoras (570-497 BC) creates his own school and substantiates the mathematical approach to the knowledge of reality, in the explanation of which he proceeds not from nature, but from number - the mathematical principle. He considers the cosmos as an ordered harmonious whole, expressed in numbers. “Number owns things”, “number is the basis of being”, “the best numerical ratio is harmony and order” - these are the main judgments of Pythagoras and his students, who expounded the doctrine of the numerical structure of the universe.

If we compare these views with those of the Milesians, we will immediately find that they all speak of the same world, but from different angles. The Milesians see its sensual-material nature, while the Pythagoreans fix a quantitative definiteness. However, carried away by the study of mathematical dependencies, they fall under the power of numbers, considering things and numbers as one and the same. The exaggeration of the role of the quantitative measurement of reality (abstract in nature) marked the path to idealism.

But, and this is the greatest merit of the school, since the Pythagoreans, philosophy, by the power of reason, transforms myth into theoretical constructions, and turns images into concepts. There is a trend of liberation of philosophy from mythology and the formation of a rational-conceptual worldview.

Even more in the process of transition from the figurative-mythological worldview to the philosophical-theoretical, the Eleatic school succeeded, whose representatives were Xenophanes (570-548 BC), Parmenides (520-440 BC), Zeno (490-430 BC). Like their predecessors, the subject of discussion was the problem of the essence of the world and the ways of its existence. Being mathematicians, the Eleans tried to extend its methods to the field of philosophical research. As opposed to following habit and relying on sensory-concrete images, they turned to reason as the main means of finding the truth.

The power of reason, according to Parmenides, consisted in the fact that with its help one can move from an infinite set of facts to some kind of their internal basis, from variability to stability, obeying certain rules, for example, the law prohibiting contradictions. This law did not allow the simultaneous existence of two opposites, as Heraclitus believed, for example.

Only on this path can one reveal the basis of the world, abstracting from its diversity, single out the common that is inherent in it and all things, and see the unchanging behind the changing world. Parmenides believes that such is being. Following the law of contradiction, he concludes: "Being exists, non-being does not exist at all." Being is endowed with such qualities as: indivisibility, immobility, perfection, timelessness, eternity.

But then what about the world that surrounds us? Divided into an infinite number of finite things in motion, arising and changing? Its obviousness cannot be denied. And Parmenides separates them, and even places them in different worlds, considering being a true reality, and knowledge about it - true, revealing to the mind, he calls the sensually perceived world non-existent, inauthentic, and our knowledge about it - opinion.

The merit of Parmenides and the Eleatic school is enormous. Firstly, the concept of being as a fundamental philosophical category was singled out and thus the beginning of the most important branch of philosophy - ontology was laid. Secondly, the problem of the permanent and changing in the world was identified and preference was given to stable relations in which the essence that is revealed to the thinking consciousness is “captured”. Thirdly, a contradiction was found between what the mind gives and feelings. In Greek philosophy, there were two opposing teachings: Heraclitus - that the essence of things must be sought in the natural process of emergence and change, and the Eleatics, who knew only a single and motionless being as truly existing, thereby denying the authenticity of the multitude.

The pinnacle of philosophical thought in the pre-Socratic period was the idea of ​​ancient atomism, which was elaborated in the philosophy of Democritus (460-370 BC). In his reasoning, he tries to resolve the contradiction that the Eleatic school came to - the contradiction between the sensually perceived picture of the world and its speculative comprehension.

Unlike Parmenides, Democritus admits non-existence, which "exists no less than being." By it he means emptiness. At the same time, being is conceived as a collection of the smallest particles that interact with each other, enter into various relationships moving in the void. Thus, the doctrine of the two states of the world: atoms and emptiness, being and non-being, is opposed to the single immovable being of the Eleatics, and being is divisible. Atoms are the smallest, indivisible, immutable and impenetrable, absolutely dense, infinite in number of the first body, which, differing from each other in size, shape and position, colliding and intertwining, form bodies.

Worlds, things, phenomena, according to the philosopher, are perceived by the physical eye, while atoms are “seen” by the eyes of the mind. Separately, neither atoms nor emptiness exist, but only the reality consisting of them. Democritus, thus, builds a universal philosophical system, the fundamental principle of which is the principle of the primacy of matter - atoms. Connected with it is another principle that makes the materialistic view more consistent - the principle of the inseparability of matter and motion. With this approach, the question of an external force that “revives” nature is removed, it is in nature itself: the collision and interconnection of atoms. Movement exists in various forms: chaos, whirlwind, evaporation.

In the foundation of the philosophical and materialistic views of Democritus, we find another important principle that follows from the first two and cements his materialistic view - the principle of determinism, or the causation of phenomena. Not a single thing, the thinker emphasizes, arises without a cause, but everything arises on some basis and in the power of necessity. The interaction of atoms is the cause, the “generating force”. However, Democritus judges the cause one-sidedly, only as necessary, thereby removing chance from nature and demonstrating the position of a rigid predestination of events, which is called fatalism.

The philosophical-materialistic concept of Democritus was a major step in the development of ancient Greek philosophical thought and testified to its maturity. Democritus, by right, is considered to be at the origins of philosophical materialism - one of the main trends in philosophy.

The classical period is the heyday of the ancient Greek society and its culture with polis democracy, which opened up great opportunities for the improvement of the individual, giving the free Greek the right to participate in the management of public affairs, which means making independent decisions and at the same time demanding responsibility and wisdom. The person was aware of himself as a sovereign personality. The problem of man, his cognitive and activity possibilities and his place in society was acute.

Philosophy recognizes the need to understand these problems. And the first are the sophists - ancient enlighteners and teachers of wisdom. The most striking personality among them was Protagoras (481-411 BC). A contemporary and listener of Democritus, he shared his materialistic views, but following Heraclitus, he paid close attention to the problem of variability as a state of things. Having absolutized this idea, he came to the conclusion that there is nothing stable not only in the world, but also in human knowledge. Therefore, one can express different opinions about any thing, up to the opposite. It all depends on the person, his views, habits, mood, benefits. His statement is known: "Man is ... the measure of all affairs, ... the measure of being."

And although such a judgment could lead to arbitrariness in assessments and actions, the appeal of the sophists to human subjectivity, the presence of one's own opinion, one's "I" remains valuable.

From among the sophists came the greatest philosopher of antiquity and one of the great people in the history of mankind - Socrates (369-399 BC). Taking from them an interest in a person and his inner world, the thinker believed that philosophy should not deal with nature and the search for principles, its goal is a person, but neither his anatomy, physiology, or even the legal side of things, but self-consciousness. The philosopher seeks to discover the inner motives of human behavior rather than its external impulses: wealth, fame, honors. Socrates refers to them the moral virtues, and above all - dignity, justice, goodness, they become the subject of endless discussions.

The highest virtue is knowledge, because it helps to clarify everything else. Singling out three types of knowledge: theoretical, technical and moral, the philosopher notes that the moral law is knowledge of oneself. A person acts in a certain way, not because it is prescribed, but according to the conviction that is formed when he finds out the truth. The controller turns out to be a daimonion - a kind of inner voice (conscience, we would say today), which prohibits or encourages certain actions.

To be moral means to have knowledge of what goodness, justice, goodness, etc. are. If a person has such knowledge, he acts accordingly. The position that identifies a moral act with a moral prescription is called ethical rationalism. In contrast to the sophists, Socrates believed that indestructible principles of behavior must exist in society, because if everything is changeable, relatively and there are no absolute reference points, society is in danger of collapse.

“How can one acquire the knowledge of virtue?” - asks the great Greek. And he answers: only by discussing problems, doubting, confronting different opinions, conducting a dialogue with others and with himself. And Socrates shows the high mastery of the dialogic dispute, during which the phenomenon was studied from various angles, and the thought moved from ignorance to knowledge, from the superficial to the deeper and was fixed in concepts - definitions that fix the most general, stable in things. This is subjective dialectics, a method when a person in active self-contemplation and reflection deepens his knowledge and moves towards its completeness. And the philosopher, like a midwife who assists in childbirth, helps a person to "hatch" out of ignorance, rise above the known, acquire new knowledge and, as it were, be born again.

The significance of Socrates' work is truly historical. He actively contributed to the transfer of attention from cosmocentric to anthropological themes, placing man at the center of its reflections. In the man himself, he singled out a special aspect - reason, knowledge and, above all, about human virtues, thus laying the foundation for European humanism. The ancient Greek philosopher developed a new dialogue-dialectical method of finding the truth, which entered the history of culture as Socratic.

"Teacher of mankind" is called another representative of the ancient classics - Plato (427-347 BC). A student and admirer of the talent of Socrates, he made him the hero of his works. When the teacher was unjustly condemned and sentenced to death because "he did not honor the gods that the city honored, but introduced new deities ... and thereby corrupted youth," Plato acutely felt the problem of injustice. How could a state in which democracy has won, condemn such a worthy citizen? And Plato comes to the conclusion that the state, where private interests prevail and subjective opinions where there is no common and unified understanding and, in fact, there is not enough knowledge about what justice is - imperfectly, unfairly.

And he sets the task - to clarify the situation, believing that only philosophy is able to give a scientific understanding of justice. The philosopher began to search for an objective foundation of justice, and immediately the boundaries of the search expanded: it was not only about finding absolute values ​​in the field of morality and politics, but also in all areas. The meaning of the question was deepened to clarify the essence of things in general, to determine the "truth" of each thing.

Thus Plato comes to the doctrine of ideas. Based on Socrates' reflections on the one and the many, on the fact that the first is "grasped" in the mind and "settles" in thinking, in concepts, while the second - the multitude - exists in reality and is perceived by our senses, Plato completely transfers the problem to the plane of ontology. He believes that there really exist not only, for example, beautiful things, courageous people, but also the beautiful in itself, courage, as such. At the same time, he calls the first eidos (idea), which means appearance, image, and considers it more important than the second. "Idea" becomes the main category Platonic analysis. It is conceived as a model, a sample of a thing, its essence, and therefore precedes it, as the master's plan precedes his creation. Things, the philosopher concludes, exist insofar as they imitate this or that idea, insofar as it is present in them.

Plato's being is divided into the world of things, he calls it untrue being, and the world of ideas is true being, the world of being. The first arise, change and disappear, the second are immortal, eternal, unchanging, and Plato places them in a special, beyond the heavenly world. It is easy to see that ideas, as the essence of things, are torn off from themselves (from existence) and they are given the status of primacy.

To explain the world order, the philosopher draws on two more reasons: matter, which he characterizes as something lifeless, inert, and the world soul as a dynamic, creative force. The world soul (God), having matter at its disposal, animates it and creates the world according to the given patterns-ideas. So Plato systematizes a new, objectively idealistic way of philosophizing.

Teaching about the soul. The existence of man, like the existence of the world, is dual: soul and body. The body is imperfect, mortal, it is the temporary shelter of the soul, its "dungeon". With the death of a person, the body is destroyed, and the soul, freed from its shackles, rushes to the heavenly world, where it joins the world of ideas, “feeds” on them, and after a certain time returns to earth, inhabiting other people. Faced with things, she recognizes in them copies of ideas: knowledge is formed in a person. It appears as the ability of the soul from itself (thanks to recollection) to find the truth and the rational meaning of a thing. So Plato answers the question: where does knowledge come from?

Further, he structures the soul according to the two layers of being. One part of it is rational, with the help of it a person joins the higher ideas of goodness, goodness, justice. The other part is sensual, an affective soul stands out in it, associated with such lofty ideas as duty, courage, striving for glory, and lustful, close to the bodily existence of a person, satisfying base needs. The whole fate of a person, his life depends on which part of the soul wins: base, unreasonable or sublime.

Plato's socio-political views were directly based on his reflections on ideas and the soul. Among them, the problem of justice and a just state was in the spotlight. The works “State”, “Politician”, “Laws” are devoted to her.

Considering the hierarchy of ideas, the supreme Plato calls the idea of ​​good. To understand what good is, he writes, one can only go beyond individual private interests, highlighting the main, common - the good for all. Such a concept requires the knowledge of justice - justice - as a form of consent, coordination of the wills of many people. The task of justice is to harmonize the various virtues in such a way that not only citizens, but also the state are just. The state is an interindividual community, a form of people living together according to the laws of justice.

Does any state meet these requirements? No. And Plato gives a critical analysis of all the types of states known to him: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and opposes to them the project of a perfect state, built on the highest virtues and excluding injustice. In such a state, all actions of citizens are coordinated and harmony, order, and the strictest division of labor reign. Everyone is busy with their own business. The division of labor is based not on random grounds or social preferences, but on the natural inclinations of people, and it is they that determine the justice of the social hierarchy. According to the virtues prevailing in people, Plato distinguishes three layers of society: rulers, whose virtue is wisdom, warriors - carriers of courage, and artisans and peasants, in whom a lustful soul prevails. For the state to be just, it is necessary to reasonably coordinate the functions social groups, and philosophers, or rulers, can do this best of all, since they are distinguished by a sense of proportion, balance of actions, harmony, justice. The purpose of the soldiers is to protect the state, artisans and peasants - to provide them with all the benefits.

The state, according to Plato, is the embodiment of justice, it cannot be realized by individuals, but it can exist in the connection that leads to the universal. And although his socio-political concept was utopian, it contained many positive aspects, and the main one was the rationale for the need for social regulation of people's behavior, which gives stability to society, protects it from chaos and disorder. Plato's work is vast and versatile. He is the author of a detailed system of objective-idealistic understanding of the world. Philosophy owes him the introduction of such concepts as "idea", "ideal", "ideal". Plato discovered the world where spiritual values ​​live - an ideal being, found a prototype of scientific thinking, operating with concepts, and thereby anticipated a powerful trend of rationalism in European culture. His concept of the state was the first, albeit flawed, attempt to solve important socio-political problems. In Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel, appreciating the work of the great Greek, wrote: "If anyone deserves the title of teacher of mankind, it was Plato and Aristotle."

Aristotle (384-327 BC) is the most prominent student of Plato, who comprised "the entire mental movement of Greek philosophy" (W. Windelband). Metaphysics (philosophical reflections), physics, logical treatises, works on psychology, politics, economics, rhetoric, ethics - not a complete list of problems, indicating the encyclopedic mind of Aristotle. He not only covered all the then known areas of knowledge, but also carried out its first classification, highlighting special sciences from natural philosophy and thereby determining the field and specifics of philosophical problems. If the first thinkers were known as "physiologists" who studied nature, the cosmos, and Socrates and Plato paid attention to man's knowledge of himself, then Aristotle produced a kind of synthesis of these extremes, showing that human thinking and the world in their essence coincide, and those forms in which this happens is the subject of philosophy.

Consideration of the subject of philosophy Aristotle prefaces the division of sciences into theoretical and practical. To the first he refers metaphysics, physics and mathematics, to the second - the sciences relating to human activity - ethics, aesthetics, politics. A special place in the classification of sciences is assigned to logic, which studies categories as forms of language and thinking, the nature of judgments, which forms the basic logical laws.

Having set the task - to find out the place of philosophy in the series of scientific knowledge, Aristotle introduces the concepts of "first philosophy" and "second philosophy", meaning the latter philosophy of nature - physics. According to the philosopher, it studies specific objects, the necessary conditions for their existence and answers the question: “Why does this or that phenomenon occur?”, That is, it finds out the reasons for the existence of things. The “first” philosophy, which was later called metaphysics, has something else as the subject of its reflections - “first principles and principles”, that is, the problems of being, being, movement, expediency. Aristotle calls philosophy the science of “the intelligible in general”, of what lies beyond the limits of our experience, “of the first causes”, “of the existent”, “of the goal and the good”.

The doctrine of being. Independent philosophical research of Aristotle is connected with the criticism of the doctrine of the ideas of Plato, who argued about them not only as concepts, but also as being and, moreover, truly existing. Plato, and we have already emphasized this, separates the essence of things from themselves and conceives it as outside things. The gap between essence and existence becomes the subject of analysis and criticism.

Aristotle's natural-philosophical thinking leads the scientist to a different conclusion: the essence of things cannot lie outside them. It belongs to things and is inseparable from them. Rejecting Plato's doctrine of ideas as incorporeal entities, Aristotle puts forward his idea of ​​being as a unity of form and matter. At the same time, he understands matter as that of which things are composed, and that it has two more properties: passivity and at the same time the ability to take any form, like clay under the hands of a potter. In order to somehow determine the components of matter, the philosopher resorts to the already known four elements: fire, water, earth, air, and adds one more - ether, believing that their various combinations determine the qualitative diversity of the world.

Aristotle assigns a decisive role to form. It is active, thanks to it, from the "first matter" as the possibility of being and the five elements, real being is formed. At the same time, the form is interpreted as general, stable in things, as the essence and principle of their existence. It is thus inseparable from things.

The concepts of matter and form clarify the problem of the emergence of the world as a process of endless transition of possibility into reality, form into content. Movement, eternally inherent in matter, appears as "the realization of what is in the possibilities." There is also a corresponding idea of ​​causality: if something arises, then "not out of nothing", but as the realization of a possibility. Arguing about causality, Aristotle singles out the material, formal, driving and target reasons, considering the first two to be the main ones, and the others to be reducible to them. The driving cause is associated with the adoption of a form by matter, and the target cause is nothing more than a realized, completed form.

Aristotle does not bypass the question of the first and last condition of being. Since, he argues, matter is passive and harbors the cause of its change in a form that eventually turns out to be beyond its limits, then movement itself becomes impossible. And Aristotle suggests that, "besides these reasons, there is also something that, as the first for everything, moves everything." God is such a prime mover - "an eternal, immovable and isolated essence from the sensually perceived world." God, therefore, becomes that last condition without which nothing exists and on which everything depends. God is an impersonal universal principle and goal, where everything aspires to realize its being.

Thus, the materialistic teaching, proceeding from the recognition of the eternity of matter, is intertwined in a peculiar way with the idea of ​​the spiritual mind as the essence of being. This revealed the inconsistency and dualism of Aristotelian philosophy, which made it possible to use its achievements in different ways in the future. Some drew ideas from the materialism of Aristotle, others took advantage of his idealistic digressions.

In his writings, the great Greek philosopher touched on many problems of natural science, psychology, society and the state, man and his knowledge, expressed his ethical and aesthetic views, developed logic, and was the first historian of philosophy. His philosophical work is all-encompassing. He generalized and systematized the scientific and philosophical achievements of his time, gave a differentiation of sciences, developed a paradigm of logical research, which for a long time determined the main directions in the development of European philosophical and scientific thought. Aristotle reached the heights of Greek thinking and completed the classical period of ancient philosophy.

Philosophy of the Hellenistic era

"Hellenism" is a term denoting the Greek world after Alexander the Great before the conquest by the Romans (beginning of the 4th-2nd centuries BC). Late Hellenism is associated with the dominance of the Roman Empire (I century BC - V century) - a period of economic and political decline, the collapse of the Greek policy and, accordingly, a change in the position of a person in society. Previously, it was an integral part of polis relations, was protected by society, took an active part in social life, and now found himself alienated from a society that had become hostile to him. The man closed himself in his private life. Not finding support in reality, he seeks to withdraw into himself and find peace, satisfying his own ambitions in the circle of friends, like-minded people.

In philosophy, interest in theoretical constructions is falling, it is increasingly engaged in the search for recipes for comforting a person in a new reality, reconciliation with it. Philosophical and ethical problems come to the fore, and epicureanism, cynicism, stoicism, skepticism become saving values.

The most remarkable figure of the time was Epicurus (342-271 BC), who was interested not so much in the natural world as in the fate of man, not so much in the secrets of the cosmos, but in the desire to indicate how one can find peace and serenity of the spirit in this contradictory, world full of storms and upheavals. The ethics of Epicurus is a kind of answer to the questions put forward by reality about a person's place in the world, about the meaning of life, about happiness and ways to achieve it.

Happiness is always pleasure and the absence of suffering, Epicurus taught. main reason suffering is fear: before ignorance, before the gods and before death. The way to happiness is the way to overcome them. And Epicurus gives advice on how to be happy. Unalloyed pleasure cannot be obtained without knowledge, he argues. Happiness is always a state of wisdom. Epicurus understands philosophy as an activity that, through reflection (knowledge), gives a person happiness and a life free from suffering. Therefore, he recommends never to stop studying philosophy, neither in youth nor in old age.

There is no need to be afraid of the gods and death. There are no gods. As for death, it should not frighten a person: "As long as I am alive, there is no death yet, and when death comes, I will no longer be."

Man, therefore, must be free and independent of external circumstances. However, the pleasure that he achieves must not exceed the measure, otherwise it will bring evil and suffering. In contrast to utilitarian hedonism, where the good was limited to sensual pleasure, Epicurus insists that spiritual quests and human improvement bring the highest pleasure, they also act as more stable prerequisites for gaining freedom and happiness.

At the time of the collapse of traditional social ties and the self-closing of the personality, the philosophy of Epicurus gave certain guidelines, leading a person away from insoluble social contradictions into the world of intimate being. It is sometimes called the "philosophy of happiness".

Cynicism was another school in the conditions of the crisis of the ancient polis and the formation of individualism. He represented an attempt to substantiate the spiritual freedom of the individual on the basis of a critically nihilistic attitude towards socio-political and moral values traditions, customs, institutions.

The founder of the Cynic school was Antisthenes (450-360 BC), the second prominent representative of Diogenes of Sinop (412-323 BC). They are known for the fact that they sought not so much to build a theory of being as to experiment on themselves a certain way of life. Antisthenes taught self-limitation in everything, and his followers already opposed themselves to society, cruelly mocking its orders. They recognized the laws of nature as the only laws, declared themselves "citizens of the world." Diogenes rejected marriages and idealized the life of a primitive man, readily accepted the status of a beggar and a holy fool, reduced his needs to a minimum, lived in a barrel and on alms, believing that in this way he achieved independence from external circumstances and freedom.

Everyday simplification was supplemented by an intellectual - nihilistic attitude towards spiritual values. Happiness was understood as a virtue, but not in the sense of outward decency, but as "a deep inner dignity, when courage is opposed to fate, nature is opposed to law, and reason is opposed to passions" (Diogenes).

The philosophical and ethical position of the Cynics served as a direct source of stoicism, which softened the paradoxes of the Cynics and introduced a constructive attitude towards life, politics, and culture. Their way of life had a noticeable influence on the ideological formation of Christian asceticism, especially in its forms such as foolishness and wandering.

Stoicism is a philosophical school founded in the 3rd century BC. BC. Zeno of Kition. Her ideas were in demand during the decline of the Roman Empire, when consumerism, selfishness, rampant passions became the norm. If Epicureanism, which preached individualism and withdrawal from public life, was mainly spread among the propertied classes, Stoicism embraced all segments of the population. Suffice it to say that Seneca was a major dignitary and educator of the emperor Nero, Marcus Aurelius was the emperor, and Epictetus was first a slave, and later a freedman. The crisis that engulfed the entire society demonstrated the mood of general hopelessness, sharply denoting the problem of finding ways to "save". Christianity that emerged turned its gaze to the supernatural world, while Stoicism tried to find a solution in this life.

The early (Greek) Stoics, for the most part, were still talking about nature. And, following Heraclitus, they believed that a universal all-penetrating principle operates in the world - the Logos - a kind of rational soul. Nature is the embodiment of the universal law; it also determines the fate of man. This was the position of cosmic determination, according to which everything is strictly predetermined (fatalism); human life is only a particle of cosmic existence, containing a grain of divine fire.

The late (Roman) Stoics Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius shift the focus from the problems of the world order to logic and ethics. The main motive of their ethics is this: a person cannot change anything in the order of things and events. But he can understand with his mind and convince himself that everything that happens to him is as it should be. Therefore, the first requirement of Stoic morality is "to live in accordance with nature and the Logos," the second is to be steadfast and courageous under the blows of fate.

If a person is not able to prevent the course of things, it remains in his will to develop a proper attitude towards them and, thus, gain freedom and happiness. A person becomes free even when he strives to overcome worldly desires with the power of the mind, the main of which are lust, pleasure, sadness, fear. According to Epictetus, "a slave who steadfastly endures adversity, is indifferent and indifferent to them, is much freer than his master, who is in the power of passions."

True freedom, therefore, lies in inner, spiritual independence, and in order to find it, an incredible effort of the spirit is needed. “It is not necessary,” the Stoics advise, “to wish for what is not in your power, to demand a change in the established order of things. Well, if you have suffered setbacks and you cannot cope with them, you must meekly obey them, be imperturbable and impassive ", to achieve the state of ataraxia - calmness and serenity of the spirit.

Stoicism was called the philosophy of "tired spirit" and consolation for its preaching of patience and humility before fate. The ideal of a stoic sage is the ideal of a person who has comprehended the inviolability of the world order and calmly prepares for death as inevitable.

The loss of oneself and self-doubt gave rise to such a direction, which flourished on the ruins of the Roman Empire, as skepticism. Its founder was Pyrrho (365-275 BC), the successors of Carneades, Aenesidem and Sextus Empiricus (200-250) - the only skeptic philosopher whose works have survived to this day. "Skepsis" in Greek means doubt. It was more related to cognitive values. Skeptics argued that the senses give us false knowledge because of their limitations; Reason is - due to inconsistency is not able to judge things unambiguously. And if so, then neither feelings nor reason are able to guarantee the truth. Later, when clarity and distinctness were put forward as a criterion of truth, skeptics again saw the difficulty hidden in the subjective nature of these criteria. What is clear and distinct to one, they said, may seem obscure and blurry to another. And they conclude that it is impossible to obtain true knowledge and advise to refrain from certain judgments and not to call things either beautiful or ugly, and the actions of people - just or unjust.

The ground for skepticism was also strengthened by the presence of many philosophical schools expressing different opinions on the same problems. How many philosophers, the skeptics said, so many philosophies, therefore, there is no true philosophy and cannot be. True wisdom is the refraining from judging things in order to achieve peace of mind and bliss, the realization of which is the goal of philosophy.

The philosophy of late Hellenism was Neoplatonism, which, in its essence, represented an updated philosophy of Plato and an attempt to create on its basis an ideology capable of uniting, rallying people and resisting Christianity as a growing spiritual force.

The founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (205-270), creates a fairly complete system of views on the world, which was more of a theological than a philosophical nature.

The central theme is reflections on the universe, the world order, man, his soul and the achievement of true knowledge. It was necessary to restore the lost sense of the unity of man and the world, and Plotinus directs all his attention to the search for a single foundation of being in order to explain from it the world process and the place of man in it.

He contrasts the Christian God-father with the Deity as an impersonal One, building the following hierarchical ladder of the world system: One - World Mind - World Soul - Cosmos (nature). At the same time, the One is not taken out of the world, as God is in Plato and in Christianity, he is thought to be immanent (intrinsic) to him, does not create things, but is found in them. Therefore, the world turns out to be the same deity, only remaining in its various states.

The One is supernatural, supersensible and superintelligent. Plotinus also calls it the Good and compares it with the light that sheds in its overflowing on the world, never exhausting itself. The first thing that is generated by the One is the World Mind, which at the same time resembles the Aristotelian mind - the prime mover, and Platonic ideas. It is divine, as it is turned to the Divine, and contains the archetypes of everything. On the other hand, the World Mind comes into contact with the World Soul, whose purpose is to be an intermediary between the divine (One, World Mind) and the sensually perceived worlds. It contributes to the emanation (outflow) of ideas into nature in many forms and types. If archetypes are primordial essences, then the objects of the natural world are only their weak likeness, shadows of true being.

As for matter, Plotinus characterizes it in the spirit of ancient philosophy. As a formless passive principle, and therefore - non-existent, non-being, and therefore it is darkness, an abyss, where evil is hidden and from where it comes. And all because the matter is too far from the One, and the divine light does not illuminate it.

The human soul, according to Plotinus, is a reflection of the World Soul, and like it it is ideal. But unlike it, it resides in a bodily shell, which acts as the shackles of the soul. Therefore, the goal of human life is to break these fetters, to give the soul the opportunity to soar to the Light, to the Truth, and to the One.

Plotinus identifies three ways of understanding the world, one of them is sensory perception, the other is an intellectual "vision", they give certain knowledge necessary for a person in life, but have nothing in common with the knowledge of the divine. The ascent to the Truth is not given to everyone, but only to those who are able to overcome sensual desires, to renounce the mortal world. Plotinus discovers the highest stage of human knowledge and existence - life in ecstasy, when the soul breaks its bodily bonds and radiates from the body - then divine truth is revealed to it. This is a state of supersensible, superintelligent, deep experience of God in the soul - revelation.

Plotinus, which is easy to see, goes beyond the rational-philosophical explanation of the world and rushes into mysticism. According to the figurative expression of E. Zeller, in Neoplatonism, ancient philosophy committed suicide: philosophical reflections were buried under the weight of religious and mystical views.

In general, speaking of ancient Greek philosophy, it should be emphasized that it is one of the brightest pages of world philosophical thought. It outlines the origins of all important philosophical trends, presents a rich palette of worldview attitudes and ideals. It formed a proper philosophical conceptual apparatus and fundamentally new methods of research, overcoming the mythological picture of the world and freeing a person who was able to separate himself from the Cosmos for the first time and feel his self-worth.

Philosophy of ancient Greece

Several hearths ignited almost simultaneously and, apparently, independently of each other, but only in one of them the flame of reason and creative burning reached what deserved the name of philosophy. In addition to the general reasons that took place in all regions - developed mythology and culture in general and a favorable political situation - in ancient Greece there were also specific reasons that other peoples did not have. Philosophy not only owes its name to the ancient Greeks, it is close to the Greek spirit.

Education in ancient Greece was aimed at bringing up a holistic, harmoniously developed person, which is still much talked about today. A harmoniously developed person must be intelligent. Can the mind be taught? In ancient Greece, during its heyday, people appeared who called themselves Mophists. They undertook to teach the mind for money, and there were those who wanted to. However, learning wisdom is different from learning a craft. You can check the results there. It is easy for the teacher himself to show that he owns the craft he teaches. There is neither when it comes to teaching wisdom. How to prove that the teacher himself is wise and really taught something? And they took a lot of money for education. As usual in such cases, deceivers appeared. They will expel such a person from one city, he will come to another and there he is looking for those who want to grow wiser. As a result, itinerant sophists increasingly became the butt of jokes. The self-esteem inherent in the Greeks did not turn into self-conceit and consciousness of their own infallibility, and they remained quite critical in the field of thinking.

Truly wise people shunned sophists and refused to teach for money. They called themselves, unlike the sophists, philosophers, that is, not sages, but only those who love wisdom. Whether they had attained wisdom or not, they said, they did not know. Philosophy has no answer to all questions, it is only the love of wisdom. Socrates mocked those who claimed to be wise. Diogenes Laertes spoke of the seven wise men who lived in the past. Thus philosophy begins with a measure of doubt in one's own wisdom and with a loving longing for it. Where is love, if we are talking about knowledge? In fact, it is love that makes a person work with desire, without which he will not succeed in the chosen activity.

Philosophy begins with a critical analysis of the achievements of culture, primarily myths, with attempts to ascertain their truth by reasoning. The emergence of philosophy in ancient Greece was also facilitated by such specific circumstances. In ancient Greece, there was a tradition of free discussions, the ability to argue, which developed in the era of democracy, when all free citizens gathered in the main square of the city and jointly discussed common affairs, listening to everyone and making decisions by majority vote. The ancient Greeks mastered the art of expressing their thoughts, which is necessary to convince others that they are right. Whoever they wanted to listen to could move to another independent city-state and preach their views there. It should be specially emphasized that in Ancient Greece there were free people who devoted themselves completely to philosophy, and were not priests, as in ancient india, which would tie them to the traditional religion, and were not required to be in the service, as in Ancient China that would connect them with existing social attitudes. Greek philosophers were not subject to anyone but their own conscience, and this is exactly what is necessary for the development of philosophy.

Of course, people have been thinking since their appearance on Earth. We find wise sayings in the works created in the Middle East, in Ancient India, Ancient China. But philosophy as a discipline begins where a person theoretically separates himself from the surrounding world and begins to talk about abstract concepts that form in the human brain and act as an object of thought. “The Greeks were the first of all peoples to philosophize. They were the first to try to cultivate rational knowledge, guided not by images, but in abstracto, while other peoples always tried to explain concepts only through images, in concrete. (Kant I. Treatises. Letters. M., 1980. S. 335).

Another reason for the emergence of philosophy in ancient Greece, closely related to others, is the high prestige of “those who love wisdom.” When, having conquered another city, Alexander the Great approached the philosopher sitting on the ground to do him good, and stooping down asked: “What can I do for you?”, Diogenes of Sinop proudly replied: “Go away, do not block the sun for me!” And Alexander the Great did not punish the one who dared in a rather rude form to refuse the help of the "ruler of the Universe", but said, turning to those close to him: "If I were not Alexander, I would like to be Diogenes." Why, Alexander's teacher was Aristotle!

The following story is connected with the name of Aristotle. When Aristotle lived with the ruler of Atarney and Assos Hermias, he often talked with him. After Aristotle left for Macedonia, the residence of Hermias was besieged by Mentor, the commander of the Persian king, who tricked him out of the city, took him to Susa, and after torture, Hermias was crucified. When asked what last favor he asks for himself, Hermias replied: “Tell my friends and comrades that I have not done anything unworthy of philosophy and have not betrayed it.” (Losev A.F., Takho-Godi A.A. Aristotle. M., 1982. S. 94).

Ancient Greek philosophers were able to critically rethink the myths and formulate an idea of ​​the entities from which, in their opinion, everything that exists arose. Such Thales recognized water, Heraclitus - fire, Anaximenes - air, others - earth, number, atom, idea, etc. Of course, this is not at all the water and not the atom that we know now. The “water” of Thales is an invisible essence from which everything was formed, as from a seed, and the prototype of which is visible water. The same can be said about other entities discovered by ancient Greek philosophers.

Anaximander, moving away from the analogy with visible substances, proposed the infinite (apeiron) as the essence. Another idea of ​​the smallest particles that make up all bodies belongs to Anaxagoras, who called them similar particles (homeomeria), since all things similar to these particles come from them. He believed that any particles are contained in each of the bodies, but it has an appearance in accordance with which particles prevail in it. These bodily principles, of which there are infinitely many, contain all the diversity of the world, as it were, in miniature.

Pythagoras owns the concept, according to which the basis of natural phenomena is the numbers that form the "order". Hegel wrote that the teaching of the Pythagoreans is one of the intermediate stages on the way from recognizing the first principles as physical to recognizing them as ideal, on the way from the Milesian school to Plato. Milesian philosophy is a pre-philosophy, since concepts have just begun to form from real objects. The “water” of Thales is still a pre-category, like the “number” of Pythagoras, but the “atom” of Democritus and the “infinite” of Anaximander are concepts in the full sense of the word. No wonder it was from them that the philosophical trends of materialism and idealism originated.

Thus, the conceptual base of philosophy was gradually enriched, since the “number” of Pythagoras is no longer a mathematical concept, just as the “water” of Thales is not physical, but philosophical. Accordingly, the base of philosophical research expanded. The more concepts exist in the philosophical language, the more fruitful is the process of philosophizing.

Particular attention should be paid to the teachings of those who lived in the 5th century. BC e. Democritus, and not so much because he was the founder of materialism, but because he introduced the concept, which then became the main one in the first great philosophical system - the concept of "ideas". This is how Democritus called the smallest indivisible and impenetrable particles that make up all bodies (another common name for these particles is the atom). Atoms (“eidos”) are infinite in number and differ in size, position, order and external forms, which are also infinitely diverse - spherical, pyramidal, hooked, etc.

From the point of view of the Eleatics, only the immovable single Being is true. The existence of the Eleatics, in contrast to the ancient Indian One and the ancient Chinese Tao, is rational, and its presence is justified by thinking. It opposes the world of fluid things as something motionless precisely because rational thinking can only operate with motionless entities. Approaching the irrational One of the ancient Indians, the thought stopped. The rational Being of the Eleatics was included in the framework of philosophical discussion as one of the important concepts.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, who is considered the founder of ancient dialectics, who also lived in the 5th century, adhered to the opposite point of view on the movement of the Eleatics. BC e. His main position is: “everything moves and nothing rests” and therefore “you cannot enter the same river twice”. The relation between the dialectic of Heraclitus and the immovable being of Parmenides is similar to the relation between the Chinese Yang-Yin dialectic and the Indian One. This connection allows us to draw the conclusion that Plato came to: in the empirical world, dialectics dominates, and in the intelligible world, motionless ideas. In the empirical world, everything flows - but where? Into the still ocean. Steiner claims that Heraclitus declared enmity to be the "father" of things, but not of the eternal. There (in the "world of spiritual culture") love and harmony reign. “It is precisely because there is enmity in all things that the spirit of the sage must, like a flame, rise above them and transform them into harmony” (Steiner R. Christianity ... S. 36). This is what Plato did.

4th century BC e., which began in Athens with the execution of Socrates, became the period of the highest flowering of ancient Greek and world philosophy. The teachings of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Parmenides, Socrates created the basis for the great synthesis carried out by Plato, a student of Socrates. Plato was born into a noble family of royal origin and was brought up in accordance with ancient ideas about the ideal person (the so-called kalokagatii, from “calos” - beautiful and “agathos” - good), combining external physical beauty and internal moral nobility. Nicknamed Plato - "broad" - for his strong build, he traveled a lot in his youth, including to Italy and Egypt, and at the end of his life he founded a school in the Athenian suburb, named after the hero Academ. She glorified not only Plato himself, but also the word "academy". The Platonic Academy, which was a union of like-minded people, existed for 1000 years and was liquidated by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 529.

The main achievement of Plato is the concept, according to which, in addition to the sensible world, there is a supersensible world of ideas. Concepts are only imprints of the invisible world, not given to us in sensations. Each idea is an ideal to be achieved on Earth. The greatness of Plato lies in the fact that he built his teaching on all the material of previous philosophy. In addition to Heraclitus and Socrates, he used the idea of ​​Democritus that all things consist of the smallest indivisible particles - atoms; the teaching of Pythagoras that the basis of things are numbers; the doctrine of Anaxagoras about homeomerism (ideas are like things, although they are insensible and ideal in the sense that they are “examples” of things).

Plato's synthesis showed that previous philosophers not only argued, but contributed to the creation of a certain integrity in the future, justifying the proverb that truth is born in disputes. Not in all, of course, but in those who are inspired by the search for truth as the highest good, and not by the desire to defeat the enemy. The “Land of Ideas” was also needed because Plato justified Socrates’ belief that all people come to the same thoughts - after all, ideas are by nature the same for everyone and are contained in one place, from where people receive them. Platonic teaching characterizes a passionate attraction to the ideal world ("Platonic love") and the desire to make reality as complete as possible a reflection of the ideal. Having generalized the concept of Platonic love to the world of culture as a whole, we can talk about spiritual love, which makes it possible to know the world of culture. The love that Plato speaks of is the law of the world of spiritual culture, and Plato distinguishes such love from the love inherent in the world of human material life.

Virtue is based by Plato on the initial properties of the soul, the latter arise from the attitude of the soul to the world of ideas, especially to the highest of them - the idea of ​​good. The soul, according to Plato, consists of rational, passionate and desirable parts. It is like a chariot driven by a charioteer - the mind - and harnessed by two winged horses - passion and lust. The state should also consist of three parts: a class of rulers, warriors and artisans and farmers. This corresponds to the division into castes in ancient India, but without the untouchables. The three parts of the soul and the three classes of society have their own of the three virtues, namely, wisdom, courage, and moderation. The harmony of all three is established by the fourth virtue - justice. The greatest good in the soul of a person and in the state is unity and harmony, and the greatest evil is discord.

The line of succession that began with Socrates was continued by Aristotle. He was born in northern Greece in the city of Stagira. At the age of seventeen, Aristotle came to Athens and entered into Platonic Academy. Aristotle not only adopted the views of Plato, but gradually began to create his own teaching, subjecting the views of his predecessors to serious criticism. Aristotle's words "Plato is my friend, but the truth is dearer" have become a common aphorism. If Plato created his works in the form of dialogues, then Aristotle wrote treatises.

Moving away from Plato in many ways, Aristotle did not deny the existence of ideas, but believed that they are inside individual things as a principle and method, law and their formation, energy, figure, purpose. The "idea" understood in this way was later called by the Latin word "form". In contrast to Democritus, Plato spoke of the formlessness of matter, and Aristotle, having synthesized both of these ideas, considered the idea as shaping passive matter. Matter is that from which everything is born, and has the same root as the word "mother". The concept of “matter” in the Russian language also has an everyday meaning: matter is like tissue. Another cognate word used in the same meaning is material. If, according to Plato, matter without an idea is "non-existent", then, according to Aristotle, a form cannot exist without the matter belonging to it. The relationship between matter and form Aristotle likens to the relationship of marble and statues, and this comparison is not accidental, since Aristotle considered the whole world as a work of art.

The idea of ​​any thing, let's say a house, is found in the thing itself as a common thing that is inherent in all individual houses. Knowledge of the most general in things, the first causes of their existence is the task of philosophy. This definition secured for metaphysics, in contrast to dialectics, the significance of the study of being as the identification of eternal and unchanging forms.

Having substantiated the importance of causes and defined wisdom as "the science of first causes", Aristotle can rightfully be considered the forerunner of science as such. Science becomes possible when idea and matter are considered joined together and the idea is known through the study of matter as its truth. Arguing that "knowledge about anything is knowledge of the general", Aristotle thus gives a definition of scientific knowledge.

Limiting the Heraclitean dialectic and grounding the Platonic "ideas", Aristotle calls for the study of the sensory world, and this is the task of science. In order to scientific knowledge became possible, Aristotle formulates two premises: 1) there is an unchanging essence of things; 2) the beginning of knowledge are unprovable definitions. The existence of eternal causes suggested by Aristotle substantiates the proposition that there are eternal laws of nature.

Rightly considered the founder of logic and its three basic laws, Aristotle also formulated the basic principles of ethics as a doctrine of virtues. After analyzing Plato's failure to organize an ideal state and his own pedagogical experience, Aristotle came to the conclusion that it is necessary to educate morality from an early age by accumulating the necessary habits. Knowledge is acquired in the process of learning, but in order to become an active principle, they must enter the flesh and blood of a person, contribute to the creation of a certain disposition of the soul. Aristotle explains his point of view as follows: grain - knowledge, soil - the inner inclination of a person, his desires. Both are necessary for the harvest. Giving a general picture of the formation of virtue, Aristotle emphasized that there are no immutable rules, the application of which guarantees meritorious behavior. The presence of virtues in a person replaces the rules. The internal mechanisms that testify to the virtue of actions are shame and conscience.

The differences between Plato and Aristotle are reminiscent of the differences between Indian and Chinese approaches. The truth of Indian culture, like the "world of ideas" of Plato, is on the other side of the sensual world, Chinese - in this world, as in the things of Aristotle, idea and reality are inextricably merged. Plato's philosophy is oriented towards the world of ideals, Aristotle's philosophy is towards real world. Plato, one might say, deified concepts, and Aristotle introduced deified concepts into nature (a kind of pantheism).

Philosophy appeared in Ancient Greece precisely at that time, and it could live a full life just then. Ancient Greek philosophy became a model of philosophy as such, determined its possible development options, and in this sense was completed in itself, completing the most fruitful circle in the history of philosophy. Of course, even after a certain turn of mind people philosophized, but their efforts were like sparks in the night, while in ancient Greece it was a torch of reason. The same can be said for Greek tragedy and sculpture. The fruit of culture, unlike the physical, retains its meaning of continuity. Knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy is the key to medieval and modern European philosophy, to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Kant and Hegel.

This text is an introductory piece.

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Representatives of the pre-Socratic schools, in particular, the Milesians, are rightfully considered the pioneers of ancient Greek philosophy, their teaching went down in history and is best known as an integral part of the Ionian philosophical science. For the first time, such a term was introduced by Diogenes Laertes, a historian of the late period of antiquity, and he included the most prominent representative of the direction, Thales, as well as all his students and followers among the Ionians.

The first philosophical school of ancient Greece

The philosophical school itself began to be called Milesian after the name of the city of the same name - Miletus. In ancient times it was the largest Greek settlement on the western coast of Asia Minor. The Milesian school had an extensive focus of activity, the significance of which can hardly be overestimated. The accumulated knowledge gave a significant impetus to the development of most types of European sciences, including had a tremendous impact on the development of mathematics, biology, physics, astronomy and other natural science disciplines. It was the Milesians who created and put into use the first special scientific terminology.

Previously, abstract symbolic concepts and ideas, for example, about cosmogony and theology, were superficially present in a distorted form in mythology and had the status of a transmitted tradition. Thanks to the activities of the representatives of the Milesian school, many areas of physics and astronomy began to be studied and were no longer of cultural and mythological, but of scientific and practical interest.

The fundamental principle of their philosophical outlook There was a theory that nothing in the world around us can arise from nothing. Based on this, the Milesians believed that the surrounding world and most things and phenomena have a single divine principle infinite in space and time, which is also the dominant source of life in the cosmos and its very existence.

Another feature of the Milesian school is the consideration of the whole world as a single whole. Living and non-living, as well as physical and mental, had an extremely insignificant separation for its representatives. All objects surrounding people were considered animate, the only difference was that some of them were more inherent in this, and others less so.

The decline of the Milesian school came at the end of the 5th century BC, when Miletus lost its political significance and ceased to be an independent city. This happened thanks to the Achaemenid Persians, who put an end to the development of philosophical thought in these parts. Despite this, in other places the Milesians still had followers of their ideas, the most famous were Hippo and Diogenes of Apollonia. The Milesian school not only created a geocentric model, but also had a huge impact on the formation and development of the materialistic one, although the Milesians themselves are not usually considered materialists.

Features of the philosophy of ancient Greece

The philosophy of ancient Greece not only had a significant impact on European thought, but also set the direction for the development of world philosophy. Despite the fact that a huge amount of time has passed since then, it still arouses deep interest among most philosophers and historians.

Ancient Greek philosophy is characterized primarily by the generalization of the initial theories of various scientific knowledge, observations of nature and many achievements in culture and science that were achieved by colleagues from the East. Another feature is cosmocentrism, therefore, the concepts of microcosm and macrocosm appear. The macrocosm includes all nature and its phenomena, as well as the known elements, while the microcosm is a kind of reflection and repetition of this natural world, that is, man. Also, the ancient Greek philosophers have the concept of fate, which is subject to all manifestations of human activity and its final result.

During the heyday there is an active development of mathematical and natural science disciplines, and this causes a unique and very interesting synthesis of scientific knowledge and theories with mythology.

The reason why ancient Greek philosophy was so developed and had so many individual characteristics is the absence of a priestly caste, unlike, for example, the eastern states. This led to a significant spread of freedom of thought, which favorably affected the formation of the scientific-rational movement. In the East, conservative beliefs kept everything under control. social phenomena, which was an alien phenomenon for Ancient Greece. For this reason, we can assume that the democratic structure of ancient policies had the most significant impact on all the features of ancient Greek philosophical thought.

Philosophy periods of ancient Greece

For the convenience of studying ancient Greek philosophy, historians introduced the generally accepted system of its periodization.

Thus, early Greek philosophy began to develop as early as VI-V centuries BC. This is the so-called pre-Socratic period, during which Thales of Miletus appeared, recognized as the very first. He belonged to the Milesian school, one of the first to arise at that time, after which the Eleatic school appeared, whose representatives were busy with questions of being. In parallel with it, Pythagoras founded his own school, in which for the most part questions of measure, harmony and numbers were subject to study. There is also a large number of lone philosophers who did not join any of the existing schools, among them were Anaxagoras, Democritus and Heraclitus. In addition to the listed philosophers, the first sophists appeared in the same period, such as Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias and others.

In the 5th century BC, one can observe a smooth transition of ancient Greek philosophy to classical period. Largely thanks to the three giants of thought - Socrates, Aristotle and Plato, it became a real philosophical center of all Greece. For the first time, the concept of personality and the decisions it makes, which are based on conscience and the accepted system of values, is introduced, philosophical science begins to be considered as a political, ethical and logical system, and science receives further advancement through research and theoretical methods for studying the world and its phenomena.

The last period is Hellenism, which historians sometimes divide into early and late stages. In general, this is the longest period in the history of ancient Greek philosophy, which began at the very end of the 4th century BC and ended only in the 6th century AD. Hellenistic philosophy also captured a part, at this time many philosophical directions received many opportunities for their development, this happened for the most part under the influence of Indian thought. The main directions that have emerged at this time are:

1. School of Epicureanism , whose representatives developed the already existing provisions of ethics, recognized the eternity of the world around them, denied the existence of fate and preached the receipt of pleasures on which all their teaching was based.
2. Direction skepticism , whose followers showed distrust of most generally accepted knowledge and theories, believing that they should be verified scientifically and cognitively for truth.
3. Zeno's teachings , called Stoicism, the most famous representatives of which were Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. They preached fortitude and courage in the face of life's difficulties, which laid the foundation for early Christian moral doctrines.
4. Neoplatonism , which is the most idealistic philosophical direction antiquity. It is a synthesis of the teachings that Aristotle and Plato created, as well as Eastern traditions. Neoplatonist thinkers studied the hierarchy and structure of the surrounding world, the beginning, and also created the first practical methods that contributed to achieving unity with God.

The third major center of the philosophy of the Ancient World was Ancient Greece, which became the cradle of the most developed and most widespread culture subsequently. ancient Greek philosophy, like many other manifestations of culture, and the first historical period the formation of European civilization is also called antique(lat. antiquus ancient, old).

Philosophy of Ancient Greece and ancient rome(ancient philosophy) in its development went through four main stage:

• democratic (or pre-Socratic) - VII - V centuries. BC e.;
• classical (Socratic) - the middle of the 5th - the end of the 4th centuries. BC e.;
• Hellenistic - the end of the 4th - 2nd centuries. BC e.;
• Roman - I century. BC e. - 5th century n. e.

The division into periods in the history of philosophy is rather arbitrary (sometimes it does not coincide with the general historical periods of the development of society), but it is fully justified, since each of them has its own distinctive features.

An important source of Greek philosophy was ancient Greek mythology. Its other basis was the dynamism and constructiveness of the development of Greek culture, which absorbed many features and achievements of culture, scientific knowledge of neighboring peoples. The ancient Greek city-states gradually spread along almost the entire coast of the Mediterranean basin, including the Black Sea. The Greeks were excellent seafarers, merchants, warriors; they have established all sorts of connections with their neighbors.

The growth in the total volume and diversity of information and experience, the need for constant comprehension of the newly seen, meaningful and the requirement to streamline the developing knowledge system required analytical activity and generalizations, the formation of rationally justified views on nature.

The first systems of this kind known today began to appear in the 7th-6th centuries. BC. This time is considered the starting point of the history of European philosophy.

Milesian school

the most ancient philosophical school is Milesian(VII-V centuries BC). Her ancestors:

• Thales- an astronomer, a political figure, he made a revolution in the worldview, proposing the idea of ​​substance - the fundamental principle of everything, generalizing all diversity into a coexistent and seeing the beginning of everything in water;
• Anaximenes- first suggested air, seeing in it the infinity and ease of change of things;
• Anaximander- was the first to propose the original idea of ​​the infinity of the worlds, he took for the fundamental principle of existence apeiron(indefinite and limitless substance), the parts of which change, while the whole remains unchanged.

The Milesians, with their views, laid the foundation philosophical approach to the question of the origin of beings: to the idea of ​​substance, i. e. to the fundamental principle, to the essence of all things and phenomena of the universe.

School of Pythagoras

Pythagoras(VI century BC) was also preoccupied with the problem: “What is everything from?”, But he solved it differently than the Milesians. “Everything is a number,” is his answer. He organized a school that included women.

In numbers, the Pythagoreans saw:

• properties and relationships inherent in various harmonic combinations of existence;
• explanations hidden meaning phenomena, the laws of nature.

Pythagoras was successfully engaged in the development of various kinds of mathematical proofs, and this contributed to the development of the principles of an exact rational type of thinking.

It is important to note that the Pythagoreans achieved considerable success in their search for harmony, an amazingly beautiful quantitative consistency that permeates everything that exists, primarily the phenomena of the Cosmos.

Pythagoras owns the idea of ​​the reincarnation of souls, he believed that the soul is immortal.

eleian school

Representatives of the Eleatic school: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno Xenophanes from Colophon (c. 565-473 BC) - philosopher and poet, he expounded his teaching in verse:

• opposed anthropomorphic elements in religion;
• ridiculed the gods in human form;
• severely scourged poets who ascribe to the celestials the desires and sins of man;
• believed that God neither in body nor spirit resembles mortals;
• stood at the head of the monotheists and at the head of the skeptics;
• made a distinction between the types of knowledge.

Parmenides(late 7th-6th centuries BC) - philosopher, politician, central representative of the Eleatic school:

• distinguished between truth and opinion;
• the central idea is being, the ratio of thinking and being;
• in his opinion, there is not and cannot be empty space and time outside the changing being;
• he considered the existence to be devoid of variability and diversity;
• existence is, non-existence is not.

Zeno of Elea(c. 490-430 BC) - philosopher, politician, favorite student and follower of Parmenides:

• his whole life is a struggle for truth and justice;
• he developed logic as dialectics.

School of Socrates

Socrates(469-399 BC) did not write anything, was a sage close to the people, philosophized in the streets and squares, everywhere entered into philosophical disputes: he is known to us as one of the founders of dialectics in the sense of finding the truth through conversations and disputes; developed the principles of rationalism in matters of ethics, arguing that virtue comes from knowledge and a person who knows what good is will not act badly.

Representatives of Naturphilosophy

Philosophy (Naturphilosophy) in Ancient Greece arises at the turn of the 7th - 6th centuries. BC e. It is known that The first Greek philosophers were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, whose life and work falls on the VI century. BC e.

In the analysis of Greek philosophy, three periods are distinguished:

• the first is from Thales to Aristotle;
• the second, Greek philosophy in the Roman world, and, finally,
• the third is neoplatonic philosophy.

Chronologically, these periods cover over a thousand years, from the end of the 7th century. BC e. until the VI century. current reckoning. The object of our attention will be only the first period. In turn, the first period is also expediently divided into three stages. This is necessary in order to more clearly outline the development of ancient Greek philosophy both in terms of the nature of the problems under study and their solution. The first stage of the first period is mainly the activity of philosophers Milesian school Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes (named after the Ionian city of Miletus); the second stage is the activity of the sophists, Socrates and Socrates, and, finally, the third includes the philosophical ideas of Plato and Aristotle. It should be noted that practically, with a few exceptions, reliable information has not been preserved about the activities of the first ancient Greek philosophers. So, for example, about philosophical views philosophers of the Milesian school, and to a large extent also about the philosophers of the second stage, is known mainly from the works of subsequent Greek and Roman thinkers, and primarily thanks to the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Thales

Thales is considered to be the first ancient Greek philosopher.(c. 625 - 547 BC), founder of the Miletus school. According to Thales, all the diversity of nature, things and phenomena can be reduced to one basis (the first element or the beginning), as which he considered “wet nature”, or water. Thales believed that everything arises from water and returns to it. He endows the beginning, and in a broader sense the whole world with animation and divinity, which is confirmed in his saying: "the world is animated and full of gods." At the same time, the divine Thales, in essence, identifies with the first principle - water, i.e. material. Thales, according to Aristotle, explained the stability of the earth by the fact that it is above the water and, like a piece of wood, has calmness and buoyancy. This thinker owns numerous sayings in which interesting thoughts were expressed. Among them is the well-known: “know thyself”.

Anaximander

After the death of Thales, he became the head of the Miletus school Anaximander(c. 610 - 546 BC). Almost no information has been preserved about his life. It is believed that he owns the work “On Nature”, the content of which is known from the writings of subsequent ancient Greek thinkers, among them Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch. The views of Anaximander can be qualified as spontaneously materialistic. Anaximander considers apeiron (infinite) as the beginning of all things. In his interpretation, apeiron is neither water, nor air, nor fire. “Apeiron is nothing but matter”, which is in perpetual motion and generates an infinite multitude and diversity of everything that exists. One can, apparently, consider that Anaximander to a certain extent departs from the natural-philosophical justification of the first principle and gives a deeper interpretation of it, assuming not any specific element (for example, water) as the initial principle, but recognizing as such apeiron - matter, considered as a generalized abstract principle, approaching in its essence to the concept and including the essential properties of natural elements. Anaximander's naive-materialistic ideas about the origin of life on Earth and the origin of man are of interest. In his opinion, the first living beings arose in a humid place. They were covered in scales and spikes. When they came to earth, they changed their way of life and took on a different look. Man is descended from animals, in particular from fish. Man has survived because from the very beginning he was not the same as he is now.

Anaximenes

The last known representative of the Milesian school was Anaximenes(c. 588 - c. 525 BC). His life and work also became known thanks to the testimonies of later thinkers. Like his predecessors, Anaximenes gave great importance elucidation of the nature of the beginning. Such, in his opinion, is the air from which everything arises and into which everything returns. Anaximenes chooses air as the first principle due to the fact that it has such properties that water does not have (and if it does, it is not enough). First of all, unlike water, air has an unlimited distribution. The second argument boils down to the fact that the world, as a living being that is born and dies, requires air for its existence. These ideas are confirmed in the following statement of the Greek thinker: “Our soul, being air, is for each of us the principle of unification. In the same way, breath and air embrace the entire universe.” The originality of Anaximenes is not in a more convincing justification of the unity of matter, but in the fact that the emergence of new things and phenomena, their diversity is explained by him by various degrees of air condensation, due to which water, earth, stones, etc. are formed, but because of its rarefaction formed, for example, fire.

Like his predecessors, Anaximenes recognized the innumerability of worlds, believing that they all originated from the air. Anaximenes can be regarded as the founder of ancient astronomy, or the doctrine of the sky and stars. He believed that all heavenly bodies - the Sun, the Moon, the stars, other bodies - originate from the Earth. Thus, he explains the formation of stars by the increasing rarefaction of air and the degree of its removal from the Earth. Nearby stars produce heat that falls to the earth. Distant stars do not produce heat and are stationary. Anaximenes owns a hypothesis explaining the eclipse of the Sun and the Moon. Summing up, it should be said that philosophers of the Milesian school laid a good foundation for the further development of ancient philosophy. Evidence of this is both their ideas and the fact that all or almost all subsequent ancient Greek thinkers, to a greater or lesser extent, turned to their work. It will also be significant that, despite the presence of mythological elements in their thinking, it should be qualified as philosophical. They took confident steps to overcome mythologism and laid the foundations for a new way of thinking. As a result, the development of philosophy proceeded along an ascending line, which created the necessary conditions for the expansion of philosophical problems and the deepening of philosophical thinking.

Heraclitus

An outstanding representative of ancient Greek philosophy, who made a significant contribution to its formation and development, was Heraclitus Ephesus (c. 54 - 540 BC - the year of death is unknown). The main, and perhaps the only work of Heraclitus, which has come down to us in fragments, according to some researchers, was called “On Nature”, while others called it “Muses”. Analyzing the philosophical views of Heraclitus, it is impossible not to see that, like his predecessors, he generally remained on the positions of natural philosophy, although some problems, such as dialectics, contradictions, and developments, are analyzed by him at the philosophical level, i.e., the level of concepts and logical conclusions. The historical place and significance of Heraclitus in the history of not only ancient Greek philosophy, but also worldwide lies in the fact that he was the first, as Hegel said, in whom “we see the completion of the previous consciousness, the completion of the idea, its development into integrity, which is the beginning of philosophy, since it expresses the essence of the idea, the concept of the infinite, existing in and for itself, as what it is, namely, as the unity of opposites - Heraclitus was the first to express the idea that forever retained value, which until our days remains the same in all systems of philosophy." At the basis of all things, Heraclitus considered the primary fire to be its primary principle, the primary substance - a subtle, mobile and light element. The world, the Universe was not created by any of the gods or of people, but it has always been, is and will be an ever-living fire, according to its law, flashing and fading. Fire is considered by Heraclitus not only as the essence of everything that exists, as the first essence, as the beginning, but also as a real process, as a result of which, due to the inflaming or extinction of fire, all things and bodies appear. Dialectics, according to Heraclitus, is primarily a change in everything that exists and the unity of unconditional opposites. At the same time, change is considered not as a movement, but as a process of formation of the Universe, the Cosmos. Here one can see a deep thought, expressed, however, not clearly and clearly enough, about the transition from being to the process of becoming, from static being to dynamic being. The dialectical nature of Heraclitus's judgments is confirmed by numerous statements that have forever gone down in the history of philosophical thought. This and the famous “you cannot step into the same river twice”, or “everything flows, nothing remains and never remains the same”. And a completely philosophical statement in nature: “being and non-being are one and the same, everything is and is not”. From the above it follows that the dialectic of Heraclitus is to a certain extent inherent in the idea of ​​the formation and unity of opposites. Moreover, in his next statement, that the part is different from the whole, but it is also the same as the whole; substance is the whole and the part: the whole is in the universe, the part is in this living being, the idea of ​​the coincidence of the absolute and the relative, the whole and the part is visible. It is unequivocally impossible to speak about the principles of knowledge of Heraclitus. By the way, even during his lifetime, Heraclitus was called “dark”, and this happened not least because of the complex presentation of his ideas and the difficulty of understanding them. Apparently, it can be assumed that he is trying to extend his doctrine of the unity of opposites to knowledge. We can say that he tries to combine the natural, sensual nature of knowledge with the divine mind, which is the true bearer of knowledge, considering both the first and the second as the fundamental basis of knowledge. So, on the one hand, above all, he appreciates what we are taught by sight and hearing. The eyes are more accurate witnesses than the ears. Here the primacy of objective sensory knowledge is evident. On the other hand, the general and divine reason, through participation in which people become rational, is considered the criterion of truth, and therefore what is universal and universal deserves trust, has persuasiveness due to its participation in the universal and divine reason.

At the end of the VI century. BC e. the center of the emerging European philosophy moves to "Great Greece", that is, on the coast of southern Italy and Sicily. Aristotle called the philosophy spread here Italian.

Pythagoras

One of the most important branches of Italian philosophy was Pythagorean. The founder of Pythagoreanism was a native of the island of Samos Pythagoras(c. 584/582 - 500 BC), which is presumably in 531/532 BC. e. left his homeland and moved to Croton, located in southern Italy. Here he founded a community whose main task was to govern the state.. However, members of the community, like Pythagoras himself, despite their political activity, highly valued the contemplative lifestyle. Organizing their lives, the Pythagoreans proceeded from the concept of the cosmos as an ordered and symmetrical whole. The Pythagorean idea of ​​harmony served as the basis for such a social organization, which was based on the domination of aristocrats. The Pythagoreans contrasted "order" with "the self-will of the mob." Order is provided by aristocrats. This role is played by those people who discover the beauty of the cosmos. Its comprehension requires tireless study and the maintenance of the right way of life.

The establishment of order on Earth, according to Pythagoras, can be carried out on the three foundations of morality, religion and knowledge. With all the significance of the first two dreams, Pythagoras himself and his numerous followers attached special importance to knowledge. Moreover, the knowledge of calculus was given special importance in view of the fact that only with their help the Pythagoreans allowed the possibility of establishing harmony with the outside world. They made a significant contribution to the development of mathematics, geometry, and astronomy. With the help of these sciences, proportionality is protected from chaos. Proportionality in the affairs of people is the result of a harmonious combination of the physical, aesthetic and moral. It is the result of the resolution of the opposition between the infinite and the limit, expressed in number. At the same time, the number is considered as the beginning and element of understanding of being.

For Pythagorean philosophy, as well as for Ionian one, the desire to find the “beginning” of everything that exists is characteristic and with its help not only explain, but also organize life. However, in Pythagoreanism, with all its respect for knowledge, and especially for mathematical knowledge, world connections, as well as dependencies between people, are mystified. The religious and mystical ideas of the Pythagoreans are intertwined with sound, reasonable judgments.

Xenophanes

Another branch of Italian philosophy is the Eleatic school. It was formed and developed in Elea. The main representatives of the school are Xenophanes (565 - 470 BC), Parmenides, Zeno, Melissus. The teaching of the Eleatics was a new step towards the development of philosophical knowledge.

The Eleatics put forth being as the substance of all things. They also raised the question of the relationship between being and thinking, i.e., the fundamental question of philosophy. Scholars believe that the Eleatics completed the process of forming philosophy. The founder of the Eleatic school was Xenophanes (565 - 470 BC) from the Ionian city of Colophon. He expressed the bold idea that the gods are the creations of man.

He considered the earth to be the foundation of all things. His God symbolizes the unlimitedness and infinity of the material world. Existing in Xenophanes is motionless.

In his theory of knowledge, Xenophanes spoke out against the excessive claims of reason. According to Xenophanes, “opinion reigns over everything,” which meant that sensory data is not able to give us comprehensive information about the world and, relying on them, we can make mistakes.

Parmenides

The central representative of the school under consideration is Parmenides (c. 540 - 470 BC), a student of Xenophanes.

Parmenides expounded his views in the work “On Nature”, where his philosophical doctrine is expounded in allegorical form. His work, which has come down to us incompletely, tells of a visit young man a goddess who tells him the truth about the world.

Parmenides sharply distinguishes the true truth comprehended by the mind and opinion, based on sensory knowledge. According to him, the existent is motionless, but it is mistakenly considered as mobile. Parmenides' doctrine of being goes back to the line of materialism in ancient Greek philosophy. However, his material existence is motionless and does not develop, it is spherical.

Zeno

Zeno was a student of Parmenides. His akme (heyday of creativity - 40 years) falls on the period around 460 BC. e. In his writings, he improved the argumentation of the teachings of Parmenides on being and knowledge. He became famous for clarifying the contradictions between reason and feelings. He expressed his views in the form of dialogues. He first proposes the opposite of what he wants to prove, and then proves that the opposite of the opposite is true.

Existing, according to Zeno, has a material character, it is in unity and immobility. He gained fame thanks to attempts to prove the absence of multiplicity and movement in beings. These methods of proof are called epiherm and aporia. Of particular interest are the aporias against movement: "Dichotomy", "Achilles and the Tortoise", "Arrow" and "Stadium".

In these aporias, Zeno sought to prove not that there is no movement in the sensory world, but that it is conceivable and inexpressible. Zeno raised the question of the complexity of the conceptual expression of movement and the need to apply new methods, which later became associated with dialectics.

Meliss

A follower of the Eleatic school Melissus (acme 444 BC) from the island of Samos supplemented the ideas of his predecessors. At the same time, he, firstly, formulated the law of the conservation of being, according to which “something can never arise from nothing”. Secondly, he, accepting such characteristics of being as unity and homogeneity, interpreted the eternity of being as eternity in time, and not as timelessness. Melissa's being is eternal in the sense that it was, is and will be, while Parmenides insisted that being exists only in the present.

Thirdly, Melissus changed the teachings of Xenophanes and Parmenides about the finiteness of being in space and proved that it is unlimited and therefore infinite.

Fourthly, unlike Parmenides, he saw the unity of the world not in the possibility of its intellect, but in materiality, as a unifying principle.

An important role in the further development of philosophical knowledge was played by the last major representative of the "Great Greek" philosophy, who synthesized the ideas of the predecessors of Empedocles, from Akragas (Akragant - lat.). His akme falls on (c. 495 - 435 years.
BC e.). He deduced the roots of things from the struggle of love (philia) and hatred (neikos). The first (philia) is the cause of unity, harmony. The second (neikos) is the cause of evil.

Their struggle goes through four phases. In the first phase, love wins. On the second and fourth, there is a balance between love and hate, and on the third, hate wins.

The advantage of Empedocles' ideas is that they drew attention to the dialectical development of all things, to the fact that development is based on the struggle of opposites.

Anaxagoras

A significant contribution to the possibility of a pluralistic vision of the world was made by Anaxagoras (c. 500 - 428 BC), who lived a significant part of his life in Athens during its highest economic and political power. In his philosophy, he stood on the positions of spontaneous materialism.

As the basis and driving force of all things, he put forward the mind, which for him is not so much a spiritual as a material principle, a driving force. Anaxagoras believed that the celestial bodies were not deities, but blocks and rocks torn off the Earth and heated up due to rapid movement in the air. For this teaching, Anaxagoras was brought to trial by the figures of the Athenian aristocracy and expelled from Athens.

One of the central questions that worried Anaxagoras was the question of how the emergence of beings is possible. He gives the following answer to this question: everything arises from what is similar to itself, i.e., from qualitatively defined particles, which he calls “seeds” - homeomers. They are inert, but driven by the mind.

The thinker, singling out homeomers as the seeds of things, recognizes the plurality of entities and the diversity of their understanding, which objectively leads to a pluralism of opinions about them.

Anaxagoras pointed out the need to verify the data of sensory cognition, in view of the fact that the knowledge obtained in its process is not exhaustive. Sensual cognition is enhanced by connecting with rational cognition.

The thinker explained the nature of the lunar eclipse.

Democritus

The result of the development of materialistic ideas about the world was the atomistic teaching of Democritus (c. 460-370 BC). Continuing the line of his predecessors - Leucippus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Democritus created the doctrine of the atomistic structure of matter. He believed that atoms and the void exist objectively. An infinite number of atoms fills an infinite space - emptiness. Atoms are immutable, permanent, eternal. They move in the void, connect with each other and form an infinite number of worlds. Atoms differ from each other in shape, size, order and position. The development of the world, according to Democritus, takes place naturally and causally conditioned. However, while defending the idea of ​​natural causality and necessity, Democritus denied chance. Random he called that, the cause of which we do not know.

Democritus laid the foundations of the materialistic theory of knowledge. He believed that knowledge is possible only through the senses. The data of the sense organs, according to Democritus, are processed by the mind.

In his views on society, Democritus was a supporter of slave-owning democracy. He believed that it is better to live in poverty under the government of the people than in wealth under the rulers. He did not condemn the desire for wealth, but condemned its dishonorable acquisition.

The ideas of Democritus had an extremely great influence on the further development of materialistic philosophy. He is even considered as one of the founders of the materialistic line in philosophy.

A significant role in the development of philosophy was played by the ancient Greek teachers of philosophy - the sophists, among whom were original thinkers: Protagoras from Abdera, Gorgias of Leontius, Hippias from Elis. The Sophists intensively introduced new problems into philosophy. They attached particular importance to understanding the relationship between man and society.