ANAXIMANDER (Αναξ?μανδρος) from Miletus (about 610 - after 546 BC), ancient Greek philosopher, representative of the Milesian school. Student of Thales. Around 546, he published the first scientific and philosophical work of the Greeks, the treatise “On Nature” (only fragments and paraphrases have survived), which marked the beginning of Ionian natural history or “physiology” and stood at the origins of European physics, geography, astronomy, geology, meteorology and biology. In this treatise, Anaximander gave a general history of the cosmos from the moment of its emergence from prime matter to the origin of living beings and humans, and also for the first time proposed a geometrized geocentric model of the world, which dominated astronomy throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages until N. Copernicus. If in folk and poetic ideas the Earth “grows” with roots from the underworld, and in the cosmology of Thales “floats” on the world ocean, then in the cosmology of Anaximander it “hangs” in the boundless abyss and occupies only a small part Universe. The Book of Anaximander is the first text in the history of mankind in which the origin and structure of the world are considered not mythologically and not in context religious ritual, and strictly rationally and evolutionarily - by the method of natural analogies and reconstruction of past (“invisible”) states based on relict facts accessible to empirical observation.

According to Anaximander, the Universe is infinite in all directions and filled with gaseous matter, devoid of visible qualitative differences and in constant motion, inherent in it immanently. Later authors describe this primordial matter either as “limitless” (apeiron), or as an “intermediate substance” (for example, average between fire and air), or as a “mixture” of countless simple substances. In Anaximander’s cosmogony, a spontaneously arising “vortex” causes the division of an ideal mixture into the physical opposites of hot and cold, wet and dry, etc. Solid and cold particles, having gathered in the center of the vortex, formed the Earth, light and hot particles were pushed to the periphery (sky and stars). The neutral state was replaced by the polarization of hostile cosmic elements, the confrontation of which created a dismembered visible cosmos. Cold impenetrable air (aer) enveloped the fire and locked it into three giant rotating “wheels”, leaving the fire with an exhaust “vent”; people call these vents the Sun, the Moon and the stars. The fire of the Sun, “feeding” on moisture, evaporated most of the primordial ocean (as evidenced by the shells and fossils of fish found in the depths of the continent); in the future, left without “food”, it will go out, the heavenly wheels will stop and the remains of our world, like a corpse, will decompose in “limitless nature”. Such worlds located in various stages birth and death, infinitely many. With this process in mind, Anaximander gave the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter: “From whatever principles things arise, they are destined to perish at the same ones, for they give fair compensation for damage in due time” (fragment B 1). All individual things (including worlds) exist “on loan” and die at a predetermined time, returning the borrowed elements to “limitless nature,” which alone remains “ageless” and “eternal.”

The first theory proposed by Anaximander natural origin life contained evolutionary guesses that were ahead of their time: the first living creatures arose at the bottom of the sea and were covered with spiny skin (probably a hypothesis based on the observation of fossils of extinct echinoderms). Since the human baby is helpless and cannot survive without its parents, the first people must have been born in animals of a different species - some fish-like creatures that fed them. The geographical map accompanying the treatise “On Nature” marked the beginning of ancient cartography. Anaximander is also credited with the invention of astronomical instruments - the gnomon, the celestial globe, and the sundial.

Source: Fragments of early Greek philosophers / Ed. A. V. Lebedev. M., 1989. Part 1 Lit.: Kahn Ch. Anaximander and the origins of Greek cosmology. N.Y., 1960.

OK. 610540 BC) - ancient Greek naturalist, geographer and natural philosopher, the second representative of the Milesian school, according to doxographers, “student”, “comrade” and “relative” of Thales. In 547/546 he published the first early scientific prose treatise “On Nature” (the title may be later), the main content of which was cosmogony, cosmography, and the etiology of meteorological phenomena. The idea of ​​Anaximander as an abstract metaphysician, reasoning about the principle of being, is certainly erroneous (the term arche-beginning itself was most likely unknown to Anaximander, as well as to all Milesians) and is based on an uncritical adherence to peripatetic doxography. Anaximander's method is characterized by the fundamental role of binary oppositions and analogies. In cosmology, he proceeds from the universal idea of ​​an “infinite encompassing” - a spatially limitless bodily continuum that “encompasses” the cosmos from the outside after its birth and absorbs it after its death. The nature of the “embracing” Anaximander was already unclear to the ancient readers of his book, perhaps due to the archaic style. The term apeiron (infinite), which in doxography denotes the “beginning” of Anaximander, is not authentic: Anaximander used the adjective “infinite” as one of the attributes of “eternal and ageless nature”, “embracing all the firmaments (= worlds) and cosmos (= spaces) in them " According to the reliable testimony of Aristotle (Met. 1069b22; Phys. 187a21) and Theophrastus (Ar. Simpi. Phys. 27, 11-23), Anaximander thought of “eternal nature” as a “mixture” of all qualitatively various substances, thus anticipating Anaxagoras's concept of matter. Cosmogony of Anaximander: 1st phase - “separation” from the “embracing” world “embryo” (analogue of the “world egg”); 2nd phase - “separation” and polarization of opposites (moist cold core and hot fiery “crust”), 3rd phase - interaction and struggle of “hot and cold” gives rise to a formed cosmos. In the only surviving fragment (B l DK), Anaximander gave the first formulation of the law of conservation of matter: “Things are destroyed into the same elements from which they arose, according to their purpose: they pay (the elements) legal compensation for damage within a prescribed period of time.” In cosmology (cosmography), Anaximander created the first geometric model of the Universe (visually illustrated by a celestial globe), from him originate the geocentric hypothesis and the “theory of spheres” in astronomy, associated with the discovery of the Southern celestial hemisphere, he created the first geographical map(possibly on the Babylonian model). Anaximander’s teaching about the origin of the “first people” “from animals of another species” (such as fish), with all the significant differences, makes him the ancient predecessor of Darwin.

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ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Thales

Thales is considered to be the first ancient Greek philosopher(c. 625 - 547 BC), founder of the Milesian school. According to Thales, all the diversity of nature, things and phenomena can be reduced to one basis (primary element or first principle), 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, Thales essentially identifies the divine 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 wrote numerous sayings in which interesting thoughts were expressed. Among them is the well-known: “know yourself.”

Anaximander

After the death of Thales, the head of the Milesian school became Anaximander(c. 610 - 546 BC). Almost no information has been preserved about his life. It is believed that he owned the work “On Nature,” the content of which is known from the works of subsequent ancient Greek thinkers, among them Aristotle, Cicero, and Plutarch. Anaximander's views can be classified as spontaneously materialistic. Anaximander considers apeiron (the infinite) to be the origin of all things. In his interpretation, apeiron is neither water, nor air, nor fire. “Apeiron is nothing more than matter,” which is in eternal motion and gives rise to an infinite multitude and diversity of everything that exists. It can apparently be considered that Anaximander, to a certain extent, departs from the natural philosophical justification of the first principle and gives a deeper interpretation of it, considering as the first principle not any specific element (for example, water), but recognizing as such apeiron - matter considered as a generalized abstract principle, approaching in its essence 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 damp place. They were covered with scales and thorns. Having come to earth, they changed their way of life and acquired a different appearance. Man evolved 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 attached great value clarifying the nature of the beginning. This, 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 properties that water does not have (and if it does, it is not enough). First of all, unlike water, air has unlimited distribution. The second argument comes down to the fact that the world is like living creature which 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 for the unity of matter, but in the fact that the emergence of new things and phenomena, their diversity, is explained by him as different degrees of condensation of air, due to which water, earth, stones, etc. are formed, and because of its rarefaction For example, fire is formed.

Like his predecessors, Anaximenes recognized the innumerability of worlds, believing that they all originated from the air. Anaximenes can be considered the founder of ancient astronomy, or the study of the sky and stars. He believed that all heavenly bodies - the Sun, Moon, stars, and other bodies originate from the Earth. Thus, he explains the formation of stars by the increasing rarefaction of the air and the degree of its distance from the Earth. Nearby stars produce heat that falls to the earth. Distant stars do not produce heat and are stationary. Anaximenes has a hypothesis explaining the eclipse of the Sun and Moon. To summarize, it should be said that the philosophers of the Milesian school laid a good foundation for further development ancient philosophy . This is evidenced by both their ideas and the fact that all or almost all subsequent ancient Greek thinkers turned to their work to a greater or lesser extent. 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 serious preconditions for new thinking. The development of philosophy ultimately followed an ascending line, which created the necessary conditions for expanding philosophical problems and deepening philosophical thinking.

The subject of philosophy is existence.

Being is an extremely abstractly empty and meaningful concept; there are no specifications or differences in it.

Ontology is the doctrine of being. Being is the basis of what exists. Being = existing. Ontological - existential. Man is an existent; he is different from objects. Why does thinking occur in humans? The existence of man cannot be reduced to existence. Being is nothing. Nothing allows humanity to be realized. the subject of science is positive and positive. spirituality is not a subject of research for scientists.

Metaphysics is what goes beyond physics and surpasses naturalness. the doctrine of the supernatural, the thought of super-being, if being is interpreted in the material plane. The term was introduced by a commentator on Aristotle.

Philosophy claims to have a holistic understanding of life.

human dignity is humanity.

Philosophy-science, affirmation in European rationality, the emergence of reason, logosity, the awakening of humanity from sleep, which was within the framework of mythological perception, in which it manifests itself: the problem of truth

Philosophy is a field of knowledge aimed at truth, the question of truth.

Opodicticity is an immutability, a necessity of true knowledge. knowledge - which does not require specialization. the philosopher is not interested in truth, philosophy is not utilitarian. the focus on truth brings philosophy and science closer together. thought starts from a certain chaos, chaos is space. space is the primary order. chaos is not disorder, infinity with a certain speed, the speed of a reaction, changes in properties. chaos is disorganization; they are trying to bring order into our thoughts. Science operates with the category function. The function sets a limit. science slows down and stops chaos. philosophy is aimed at comprehending infinite speeds; philosophy, instead of function, is affirmed through concept. philosophy is a complete being, science is a piece of being. philosophy is interested in what is above the objectively organized. philosophy - events and accidents.

the crisis is associated with positivism and naturalism, metaphysics was persecuted.

What is philosophy for philosophy, for philosophers?

philosophizing - > philosophy. philosophizing itself is philosophy, we focus our attention on something in between. philosophizing = philosophy. we touch the external and determine the subject. “one must have a philosophical attitude towards life” - an ethical attitude. Being as a subject of philosophy is not objective. man is richer than any certainty. she herself remains behind the scenes. philosophy realizes the limit of understanding. the subject of philosophy is meaning.

Philosophy: (section)

Ontology (the main question about being)

Epistemology (knowledge, the doctrine of knowledge)

Aesthetics

Social philosophy

Philosophical directions:

The main philosophical question for Leninists and Stalinists: what comes first - spirit or matter? this is the field of ontology.

Idealism is a philosophical movement that affirms being as an idea. Being is ideal. idealism is theosophical, God.

Idealism:

Subjective - the idea is subjective, the idea depends on the subject. Berkeley, Fichter

Objective - the idea is objective. Plato, Hegel.

Solepsism - everything exists based on the fact of perception. I alone exist.

Materialism:

The twin of idealistic philosophy, which strives to unite everything into one. Materialism speaks of the multiplicity and difference of everything, in this it is close to naturalism. religious beliefs are prejudices. one order is the order of the differences and multiplicities of everything. a flow of thought that affirms matter as being.

Epicurus, Lucretius, Feuerbach, Marx.

Epistemology:

Rationalism (a way of understanding the world - reason)

Empiricism (a way of understanding the world - experience)

how can we know? The basis of knowledge is reason.

Any phil. the system can be classified either as rationalism or irrationalism. If being is rational and comprehensible, then it is rational. if the direction is not knowable, then it is irrational.

Rationalism – Hegel, B.B. Spinoza

Irrationalism – Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (will to power).

An irrationalist is one who claims that existence is incomprehensible, because he has a non-logos theory. World will. The will cannot be comprehended and reasoned with, it is impossible to understand (this is the beauty of human life). The world will wills, but a person does not have his own aspirations, he is an object.

Moments of a sentence by Gigue Deleuze

1. Designation – world (indication of something existing in the world) truth/falsity. By pointing out we can protect our thoughts from falling into lies.

2. Manifestation - proposal - I.

3. Signification is a conceptual system. “I” as such is not possible without signification, i.e. "I" must be one. The principle of unity is the philosophical God, who gathers our consciousnesses into unity. Signification implies the conditional. In order to be able to guarantee truth through signification we must guarantee the truth of the condition. The condition justifies. We can justify the condition. The circle is closed.

4. Meaning. Meaning in this context turns out to be something neutral. Indicates superficial metaphysics.

According to the order accepted in the history of philosophical thought, they talk about Anaximander after Thales, and only then they talk about Anaximenes. But if we keep in mind the logic of ideas, then we rather have to “place” Anaximenes on the same “step” with Thales (for “air” in the theoretical and logical sense is just a double of “water”), while the thought of Anaximander will rise one step higher , to a more abstract appearance of the origin. This Philosopher declares the principle of all principles, the beginning of all beginnings, to be “apeiron,” which in Greek means “limitless.”

Before considering this most important and very promising idea of ​​Greek philosophy, it is worth saying a few words about Anaximander himself. With his life, as with the life of Thales, at least one more or less exact date-- the second year of the 58th Olympiad, that is, 547-546 BC. e. It is believed (testimony of Diogenes Laertius) that at that time Anaximander was 64 years old and that he soon died. And this date is singled out because, according to historical legend, it was the year when the philosophical prose work written by Anaximander appeared. It is unknown exactly how Thales presented his ideas. It is difficult to say whether he wrote down his thoughts at all, whether he expressed them in poetic or prosaic language. Anaximander is precisely credited with this honor and courage: he, as some doxographers claim [6; p.117], “the first of the Hellenes known to us dared to write and publish a speech on nature.” It was probably outstanding for Ancient Greece intellectual event. Expressing thoughts about nature in written, and prosaic, form was unusual.

Surprising as it may be for modern man, the first written works created by the Greeks were poetic. And only later, first Greek historians, and then representatives of other occupations, began to write prose works. As for philosophy, here, too, it probably all began with philosophical poems - they were written both before and after Anaximander. Thus, from the Elean Parmenides the poem “On Nature” has been preserved (in fragments). Anaximander laid down a new tradition - philosophical prose works. But although in his work on nature preference was first given to prosaic language, it, as the ancients testify, was written in pretentious, pompous and solemn prose, rather close to epic poetry. This suggests that the genre of scientific and philosophical, more or less strict, detailed writing was born in difficult searches.

The image of the philosopher Anaximander, which emerges from historical evidence, in general, fits into the previously described type of ancient sage. He, like Faleeu, is credited with a number of important practical achievements. For example, evidence has been preserved according to which Anaximander led a colonial expedition (apoykia) - the eviction of citizens from Miletus to one of the colonies on the Black Sea; it was called Apollonia [ 3; p.116]. By the way, deportation to a colony was a purely practical matter, albeit already commonplace in that era; it was necessary to select people for eviction, equip them with everything they needed, and do it intelligently, quickly, efficiently. Anaximander probably seemed to the Milesians a man suitable for such a task.

Anaximander, like Faleeu, is credited with a number of practical engineering inventions. For example, they believe that he built universal sundial, called "gnomon". The Greeks used them to determine the equinox, solstice, seasons, and time of day.

Anaximander, as doxographers believe, also became famous for some geographical works. Testimony of Agathemer: “Anaximander of Miletus, a student of Thales, was the first to dare to draw the ecumene on a map; after him, Hecataeus of Miletus, a man who traveled a lot, introduced clarifications into it, so that it became an object of admiration.” The testimony of Strabo is similar (ibid.). Anaximander is also credited with a very interesting innovation for those times: it is believed that he was one of the first, if not the first, to try to depict the Earth on a copper board. How exactly he drew our planet is unknown, but the fact is important: the idea arose in a drawing-scheme to “represent” something that cannot be seen directly - the Earth as a whole. It was an image and a scheme very close to the universal ideological “coverage” of the world by philosophical thought.

Anaximander, like Thales, worked in astronomy: he made guesses about the shape of the Earth and other luminaries. It is characteristic of Anaximander’s astronomical views as an ancient philosopher and scientist that he dares to name a whole series of figures relating to the luminaries, the comparative sizes of the Earth, stars, and other planets. According to the testimony of Simplicius, who presented the opinions of philosophers, Anaximander argued, for example, that “the Sun is equal to the Earth, and the circle from which it has an outlet and which is carried around the circle is twenty-seven times larger than the Earth.” It was completely impossible to verify or thoroughly prove Anaximander’s assertion in those days. Why he named the number “27” is unknown, although Anaximander probably cited some observations of the luminaries or mathematical calculations to support his opinion. The numbers, as we know today, he named are absolutely inaccurate - even the order of the numbers does not correspond to reality. But nevertheless, historians of science and philosophy associate the first steps of quantitative astronomy with this attempt by Anaximander. For the attempt itself is valuable - to establish quantitative relationships for the cosmos that is still inaccessible to man. Anaximander also dared to quantitatively correlate the lunar ring with the ring of the Earth: The Moon is “a circle nineteen times larger than the Earth...”. From the point of view of today's astronomy, this is again nothing more than a fantasy. Regarding the Earth itself, Anaximander makes similar guesses. According to some evidence (Pseudo-Plutarch), Anaximander likened the shape of the Earth to the drum of a stone column.

In mathematics, Anaximander is credited with creating a general outline of geometry, that is, summarizing geometric knowledge ancient. However, the content of Anaximander’s geometric ideas remained unknown.

If subsequent centuries rather debunked than confirmed the glory of Anaximander as an astronomer, then the step he took towards transforming the idea of ​​origin has retained the significance of the greatest and most promising intellectual invention to this day. Here is the testimony of Simplicius: “Of those who posit one moving and infinite [beginning], Anaximander, son of Praxiades, Milesian, successor and disciple of Thales, considered the infinite (apeiron) the beginning and element of existing [things], being the first to introduce this name of beginning. He considers this [beginning] not water or any other of the so-called elements, but some other infinite nature from which the firmaments [worlds] and the cosmos located in them are born.”

The statement about the beginning as qualitatively indefinite apparently seemed unusual at that time. It is no coincidence that even a fairly late doxographer, who is called Pseudo-Aristotle, remarks about Anaximander: “But he is mistaken in not saying that there is an infinite: whether it is air, or water, or earth, or what other bodies.” Indeed, in the immediate historical environment of Anaximander, philosophers necessarily chose some specific material principle: Thales - water, Anaximenes - air. And between these two philosophers, who give a qualitatively definite character to the first principle, Anaximander wedges in, who follows a different logic and claims that the first principle is without quality: in principle it cannot be either water, or air, or any other definite element. Here is how Aristotle conveys the thought of Anaximander: “There are some who posit the infinite (apeiron) with this [paraelemental body], and not with air or water, so that one of the elements, being infinite (unlimited), does not destroy the rest...".

That is why in the literature about ancient philosophy heated debates arose: it seemed either incredible or the consequence of an error that the philosopher, a follower of Thales and predecessor of Anaximenes, had deprived the apeiron quality characteristics. The following consideration was also expressed: apeiron is such an abstract concept that it could hardly have arisen so early. Rather, it appeared later, and Plato and Aristotle discussed the “infinite” on the basis of later disputes or evidence.

In fact, it is very difficult to imagine that the ancient philosopher, predecessor or contemporary of Anaximenes, was ahead of his thoughts not only, but to some extent even Heraclitus, for whom the primary principle also becomes a certain material element - fire. And yet, it seems likely that with very concentrated mental efforts aimed at consistently thinking through the idea of ​​the first principle, it was possible to arrive at the concept of “apeiron”, that a brilliant mind could give birth to such a concept before the followers of Thales were “lost” in something. These are original, but essentially Thalesian options. There are also some considerations that make it possible to understand why Anaximenes takes, as it were, a step back after Anaximander, choosing air instead of apeiron. For Thales’s logic has not yet come to completion, has not outlived its usefulness. And the logic posited by the concept of “apeiron” was the logic of the future of philosophy talentedly anticipated by Anaximander. However, the future is not far away.

But what is apeiron, this concept attributed to Anaximander, which he is believed to have introduced in the first prose work on nature? Apeiron in the understanding of Anaximander is a material principle, but at the same time indefinite. This idea is the result of the development of the internal logic of the thought about the origin: since there are different elements and since someone consistently elevates each of the main ones to the rank of origin, then, on the one hand, the elements seem to be equalized, and on the other hand, one of them is unjustifiably preferred. Why, for example, is water taken and not air? This is how Anaximenes reasoned - contrary to Thales. Why air and not fire? So - despite both of them - thought Heraclitus. Why fire and not earth? And shouldn’t we give the role of origin not to just one element, but to all of them together? This is how Empedocles will argue later. But it is not necessary to go through logically sequentially possible stages. If we compare all the options (in favor of water, air, fire), each of which is based on some sufficient strong arguments, yet it turns out that none of them is absolutely convincing over the other. Doesn't this suggest the conclusion that neither a single element nor all of them together can be put forward for the role of origin? However, even after a truly heroic “breakthrough” of thought to apeiron, the original logic, appealing to a definite, qualitative, although “in-itself” already abstract, principle, will still retain power over the minds of ancient philosophers for centuries.

Anaximander took a daring step towards the concept of an indefinitely qualityless material. In its substantive philosophical meaning, apeiron is just that. That is why uncertainty as a characteristic of the original principle was a major step forward in philosophical thought compared to the foregrounding of any one, specific material principle. Apeiron is not yet the concept of matter, but the closest stop to philosophizing before it. Therefore, Aristotle, assessing the mental attempts of Anaximander and Empedocles, seems to bring them closer to his time and says: “... they, perhaps, were talking about matter.”

Anaximander appeals to lack of quality, and therefore to greater abstraction of the material origin. More precisely, to the absence of any specific quality in the beginning. And of course, the logic of the development of thought about the origin should have confronted philosophers with the question contained in Aristotle’s reasoning regarding Anaximander’s apeiron: an apeiron cannot have a beginning, because the beginning would be the limit for it. The beginningless apeiron is itself presented as the beginning of everything else.

The logic of reasoning about the beginning, as it had already begun to emerge after Thales, included the search for the first cause or origin of everything that exists. And everything that exists - any body, any collection of bodies, or even any element - has some kind of limit, some kind of boundaries, primarily in space. The limited cannot be the beginning. This means that it is logical to conclude: the role of the first principle - the first principle, the first cause - can be something that itself has neither beginning nor end, primarily in space. Apeiron stands out from the entire set of concepts for the reason that it means “limitless”, “boundless”. This word itself is made up of two parts - “peyron”, or limit, “border”, and the particle “a”, which means negation (here - negation of the border).

So, Greek word“apeiron” is formed in the same way as the new concept of origin: through the negation of qualitative and all other boundaries. Hardly realizing the origins and consequences of his outstanding intellectual invention, Anaximander essentially showed: the origin is not some special material reality, but a specific thought about the material world; and therefore, each subsequent logically necessary stage in thinking about the origin is formed by philosophical thought from philosophical thought. The initial step is the abstraction of the material as general, but its residual binding to a specific, qualitative one gives way to denial. The word "apeiron" - was it borrowed by Anaximander from everyday dictionary the ancient Greeks or created by him himself - perfectly conveys the genesis of the philosophical concept of the infinite.

This concept seems to contain an attempt to answer another question, which should also have arisen since the time of Thales. After all, the first principle was supposed to explain the birth and death of everything that is, was and will be in the world. This means there must be something from which everything arises and into which everything is resolved. In other words, the root cause, the fundamental principle of both birth and death, and life, and death, and emergence, and destruction itself must be constant, indestructible, that is, infinite in time. Ancient philosophy clearly presents the difference between the two states. One is marked by birth and death. What is, once arose and someday will perish - it is transitory. Every person, every thing is transient. The states we observe are transitory. The transitory is diverse. This means that there is a plurality, and it is also transitory. The first principle, according to the logic of this reasoning, cannot be something that is itself transitory - for then it would not be the first principle for another transitory thing.

Unlike bodies, states, people, individual worlds, the origin does not perish, just as certain things and worlds perish. This is how the idea of ​​infinity is born and becomes one of the most important for philosophy, as if composed both from the idea of ​​infinity (the absence of spatial boundaries) and from the idea of ​​the eternal, imperishable (the absence of time boundaries). The fact that this idea is born “in the bosom” of the philosophical logic of the material origin had for philosophy serious consequences; this became clearer later. But even the newborn philosophy encountered one of the significant difficulties. What happened to the gods? According to Hesiod, there was an original Chaos. The idea of ​​the birth of the world “from” the material origin and thanks to it could coexist without competition with the “theogonic” system of thought. However, the shift in thinking and culture that arose thanks to the idea of ​​origin turned out to be - at least in tendency - quite dangerous for religion. After all, it turned out that the first principle, which does not arise, is not transitory, becomes more important than the deities (of course, the deities in the Greek image). Here a conflict between religion and philosophy is outlined (but only outlined). And if the logic of the beginning had been carried to its end by every philosopher, they might have become atheists. And quite often in our popular or even in special works That’s what they say: the first ancient Greek materialists were atheists. In reality, the situation was not so simple.

True, the path to non-religious philosophy was open. The peculiar philosophical logic of the material origin could compete with the logic of religion. And sometimes, relying on the power and logic of theoretical reasoning, philosophers debunked superstitions and primitive reasoning about the gods. The most reasonable compatriots, including priests, seeing what a danger to religion lies in the internal logic of philosophy, its thoughts about the beginning, sometimes accused philosophers of atheism. This was understood not only by the Greeks, but also by thinkers of later eras. For example, Augustine, one of the pillars of medieval Christian philosophy, speaks about Anaximander’s understanding of the worlds: “... those worlds, as he believed, are either decomposed, then born again - each in accordance with its own age of life...”. And here Augustine hastens to reproach Anaximander for the fact that he “did not assign any role to the divine mind in this creation of things.”

In ancient philosophy, in fact, at times atheistic tendencies arose. But it is hardly correct to take them for atheism. For there is also the opposite - say, from Aristotle - evidence: since apeiron has no beginning, but itself is the beginning of everything, then such a first principle “is a deity, for it is “immortal and not subject to destruction,” as Anaximander and most physiologists say ". And this, in fact, is not simple evidence. Here is a kind of paradigm, that is, a characteristic, widespread and logical pattern of reasoning for antiquity. He, in which Aristotle is right, is found not only in Anaximander, but also in other “physiologists,” that is, those who talk about physis, nature. To some extent, the same pattern of thought is found in the Eleatic Xenophanes, the God-fighter Heraclitus.

The essence of such a paradigm, the logic of reasoning implied by it, is as follows: the gods, as the Greeks portray them (as some other peoples may portray them), are false gods, because they are simply invented by people. And, for example, apeiron can be called a deity with greater right than the gods of the mythology and religion of the ancient Greeks or other peoples. The Greeks depict the gods as being born, emerging. Apeiron is imperishable, eternal, which means it truly has the right to be called divine. Here, we note, the way is being paved for a new type of religious consciousness. Several centuries will pass and the Christian religion will be born. Her image of God is different from that of the Greeks. According to Christianity, God is not born from something, but, on the contrary, he himself gives rise to the world. Thus, ancient philosophy, which fights against God in relation to the established Greek religious ideas, but still does not break with the very idea of ​​deity, leads to a new religion.

Concepts that attribute direct and complete atheism to ancient philosophy are quite often based on a mixture of theomachism and atheism. Augustine rightly notes that at some stage of thinking about the origin, ancient philosophers did not need the idea of ​​​​a deity. But, overthrowing the gods in some of their images, the atheist must completely abandon the idea of ​​​​any deity (remember, the particle “a” means a decisive denial). Meanwhile, among many ancient Greek thinkers, the idea of ​​deity is preserved and even updated. At the same time, a contradiction between philosophical and religious modes of reasoning is already emerging. Moreover, the ancient philosophers themselves sometimes encountered this contradiction. And yet they still believe that the reason is in primitive ideas about divinity, which must be replaced by more perfect ones. But even this is not said in any direct and clear manner. For in the ancient Greek world, in essence, such a phenomenon as atheism and atheism had not yet matured, although critics of the Greek religion had already appeared, critics of those specific images of the deity that then existed. Philosophers have already engaged in this kind of criticism. But to portray them as convinced atheists is to commit a serious historical stretch.

Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes - the main thinkers of the Ionian school - can be considered the founders of all ancient Greek philosophy in general. Their theories developed in Asia Minor (and not European and not island) Ionia. The main center of the school of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes - Miletus - was located on the coast of Anatolia. The Greeks who lived in these places were more closely connected with the Asian East, had more opportunity to borrow cultural elements and teachings of the Semitic and Egyptian civilizations, more ancient than the Hellenic, and already in decline. It is possible that the beginnings of the ideas of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes came precisely from the eastern peoples. Some sources attribute to Thales not even Greek, but Phoenician origin.

Milesian school... Was there such a thing? Isn't this simply a sequence of scientists, the first among whom, according to legend, was Thales, and his student and successor was Anaximander, and his student Anaximenes? Apparently, the matter does not come down to this, since in Ancient Greece there were already schools or corporations that united doctors (the Asclepiads, then the Kos and Knidos schools, competing with each other), schools of singers, schools of artists, etc., united on the principle of kinship or places where school representatives work. A similar tradition is apparently represented by the Milesian school of philosophers, the Pythagorean League, the Eleatic school... True, this was not yet what appeared in the 4th century. BC e., when the Academy, the school of Plato, and the Lyceum, the school of Aristotle, emerged. And yet there is some commonality of views, traditions, and methods. In the Milesian school, this community is represented by the unity of the attitude developed - the study of “nature”, “physiology” occupies the interests of these thinkers.

Thales - briefly

Thales of Miletus (624–546 BC) was not only an astronomer and philosopher, but also a statesman who enjoyed great respect. He was considered one of the Seven Sages. He was considered the founder of Ionian philosophy. The most essential thought of Thales' system was that the world was gradually formed from a primitive substance, which was water, that is, from a substance that was in a drop-liquid state. Taking water as the main substance, Thales followed folk belief, who believed that Ocean and Tethys produced everything on earth. This belief was reinforced in Thales by the impression that the nature of his fatherland makes on an attentive observer. At the mouth of the Meander, whose waters carry a lot of silt, land is formed from moisture, land from water; this happened in front of the inhabitants of Miletus. Thales also learned a lot from the Egyptian priests, having lived for quite a long time in Egypt. Having become familiar with the astronomy of the Babylonians and Egyptians, he was the first of the Greeks to predict a solar eclipse; it was either an eclipse that occurred on September 30, 610 BC, or an eclipse on May 28, 585. This prediction indicates that Thales knew that the moon receives light from the sun and that when solar eclipse it passes between the sun and the earth. He determined the length of the solar year to be 365 days. The heavenly and earthly deities, about whom poets and people spoke so much, were recognized by Thales as fabulous creatures. He found that the universe is permeated with divine power, that this divine power is movement; He called it soul, in contrast to matter, but considered it impersonal. Thales had only a divine being life principle universe, which has no existence separate from it.

Thales of Miletus

Anaximander - briefly

Anaximander, a student of Thales and teacher of Anaximenes, modified his system. According to Anaximander (c. 611–546 BC), the primitive substance is not any of those substances that we can observe in the present universe, it is something that does not have any specific qualities; and in its extent in space it is limitless (in Greek - apeiron). Thales had not yet raised the question of whether the primeval matter is limitless or not, or whether the universe that emerged from it has boundaries or not. Like Thales, Anaximander was engaged not only in philosophy, but also worked actively to expand astronomical and geographical knowledge. Using the gnomon invented by the Babylonians, he determined the times of the equinoxes and calculated geographic latitudes different countries. Anaximander believed that the earth was cylindrical and located at the center of the universe. He was the first to map the Earth; it was carved by him on a copper board. Anaximander calculated the size of the sun and moon and their distance from the earth. He found that the heavenly bodies were moving own strength, and therefore called them gods.

Anaximenes - briefly

A Milesian fellow-countryman and student of Anaximander, Anaximenes (c. 585–525 BC) focused his attention on the activity of the principle of motion inherent in the universe. Unlike Thales and Anaximander, Anaximenes found that this principle is air and that the primitive state of matter should be considered air-like. Thus, both the primeval substance and the main force of matter was air, which is the fundamental force of movement in the blowing of the wind, and the cause of life in breathing. Like the primeval substance, the air of Anaximenes is limitless and has no definite qualities; objects endowed with certain qualities arise when air particles combine with each other. This transformation of indeterminate substances into objects with indefinite qualities is accomplished through condensation and liquefaction; according to the laws of gravity, the condensed parts move towards the center of the universe, and the liquefied parts rise towards its circumference; The heavenly bodies, which Anaximenes calls gods, are ignited parts of the air, and the earth is condensed air.

Followers of the Milesian School

The Milesian school of Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes had followers in other parts of Greece. Of these Diogenes of Apollonia(c. 499-428) agrees with Anaximenes in the main features of his teaching. The primeval substance that animates the universe, although Diogenes also calls it air, has a different character: it is not just life force nature, but the omnipotent, wise, conscious spirit ruling nature.

Pherecydes of Syros(c. 583-498) found two main principles: the active principle - ether, and the passive principle, which he called earth. These two principles are connected to each other by time; all existing objects arose in time.