Ancient world- the era of Greco-Roman classical antiquity.

is a consistently developing philosophical thought that covers a period of over a thousand years - from the end of the 7th century. BC up to the 6th century. AD

Ancient philosophy did not develop in isolation - it drew wisdom from such countries as: Libya; Babylon; Egypt; Persia; ; .

From the historical side, ancient philosophy is divided into:

• naturalistic period(the main attention is paid to Space and nature - Milesians, Eleatics, Pythagoreans);
• humanistic period(the focus is on human problems, primarily ethical problems; this includes Socrates and the Sophists);
• classical period(these are the grandiose philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle);
• period of Hellenistic schools(the main attention is paid to the moral order of people - Epicureans, Stoics, Skeptics);
• Neoplatonism(universal synthesis brought to the idea of ​​the One Good).

See also: Characteristic features of ancient philosophy:

• ancient philosophy syncretic- it is characterized by greater unity and indivisibility of the most important problems than for later types of philosophy;
• ancient philosophy cosmocentric- it covers the entire Cosmos along with the human world;
• ancient philosophy pantheistic- it comes from the Cosmos, intelligible and sensual;
• ancient philosophy knows almost no laws- she achieved a lot at the conceptual level, the logic of Antiquity is called the logic of common names and concepts;
• ancient philosophy has its own ethics - the ethics of Antiquity, virtue ethics in contrast to the subsequent ethics of duty and values, the philosophers of the era of Antiquity characterized man as endowed with virtues and vices, in the development of their ethics they reached extraordinary heights;
• ancient philosophy functional- she strives to help people in their lives; philosophers of that era tried to find answers to the cardinal questions of existence.

Features of ancient philosophy:

• the material basis for the flourishing of this philosophy was the economic flourishing of the policies;
• ancient Greek philosophy was divorced from the process of material production, and philosophers became an independent stratum, not burdened with physical labor;
• the core idea of ​​ancient Greek philosophy was cosmocentrism;
• in the later stages there was a mixture of cosmocentrism and anthropocentrism;
• the existence of gods who were part of nature and close to people was allowed;
• man did not stand out from the surrounding world, he was part of nature;
• two directions in philosophy were established - idealistic And materialistic.

The main representatives of ancient philosophy: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Xenophanes, Parmenides, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Gorgias, Prodicus, Epicurus.

Problems of ancient philosophy: briefly about the most important things

Ancient philosophy is multi-problematic, she explores various problems: natural philosophy; ontological; epistemological; methodological; aesthetic; logical; ethical; political; legal.

In ancient philosophy, knowledge is considered as: empirical; sensual; rational; logical.

In ancient philosophy, the problem of logic was developed; great contributions to its study were made by, and.

Social issues in ancient philosophy contain a wide range of topics: state and law; work; control; war and peace; desires and interests of the authorities; property division of society.

According to ancient philosophers, an ideal ruler should have such qualities as knowledge of truth, beauty, goodness; wisdom, courage, justice, wit; he must have a wise balance of all human faculties.

Ancient philosophy had a great influence on subsequent philosophical thought, culture, and the development of human civilization.

The first philosophical schools of Ancient Greece and their ideas

The first pre-Socratic philosophical schools of Ancient Greece arose in the 7th - 5th centuries. BC e. in the early ancient Greek city-states, which were in the process of formation. To the most famous early philosophical schools The following five schools include:

Milesian school

The first philosophers were residents of the city of Miletus on the border of East and Asia (the territory of modern Turkey). The Milesian philosophers (Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander) substantiated the first hypotheses about the origin of the world.

Thales(approximately 640 - 560 BC) - founder of the Milesian school, one of the very first prominent Greek scientists and philosophers believed that the world consists of water, by which he meant not the substance that we are used to seeing, but a certain material element.

Great progress in the development of abstract thinking has been achieved in philosophy Anaximander(610 - 540 BC), a student of Thales, who saw the origin of the world in “ayperon” - a boundless and indefinite substance, an eternal, immeasurable, infinite substance from which everything arose, everything consists and into which everything will turn. In addition, he was the first to deduce the law of conservation of matter (in fact, he discovered the atomic structure of matter): all living things, all things consist of microscopic elements; after the death of living organisms, the destruction of substances, the elements remain and, as a result of new combinations, form new things and living organisms, and he was also the first to put forward the idea of ​​the origin of man as a result of evolution from other animals (anticipated the teachings of Charles Darwin).

Anaximenes(546 - 526 BC) - student of Anaximander, saw the origin of all things in the air. He put forward the idea that all substances on Earth are the result of different concentrations of air (air, compressed, turns first into water, then into silt, then into soil, stone, etc.).

School of Heraclitus of Ephesus

During this period, the city of Ephesus was located on the border between Europe and Asia. The life of a philosopher is connected with this city Heraclitus(2nd half of the 6th - 1st half of the 5th centuries BC). He was a man of an aristocratic family who gave up power for the sake of a contemplative lifestyle. He hypothesized that the beginning of the world was fire. It is important to note that in this case we are not talking about the material, the substrate from which everything is created, but about substance. The only work of Heraclitus known to us is called "About Nature"(however, like other philosophers before Socrates).

Heraclitus not only poses the problem of the unity of the world. His teaching is also intended to explain the fact of the very diversity of things. What is the system of boundaries due to which a thing has qualitative certainty? Is a thing what it is? Why? Today we can, based on natural science knowledge, easily answer this question (about the boundaries of the qualitative certainty of a thing). And 2500 years ago, just to even pose such a problem, a person had to have a remarkable mind.

Heraclitus said that war is the father of everything and the mother of everything. We are talking about the interaction of opposite principles. He spoke metaphorically, and his contemporaries thought he was calling for war. Another famous metaphor is the famous saying that you cannot step into the same river twice. “Everything flows, everything changes!” - said Heraclitus. Therefore, the source of formation is the struggle of opposite principles. Subsequently, this will become a whole teaching, the basis of dialectics. Heraclitus was the founder of dialectics.

Heraclitus had many critics. His theory did not meet with support from his contemporaries. Heraclitus was not understood not only by the crowd, but also by the philosophers themselves. His most authoritative opponents were the philosophers from Elea (if, of course, we can even talk about the “authority” of ancient philosophers).

Eleatic school

Eleatics- representatives of the Eleatic school of philosophy, which existed in the 6th - 5th centuries. BC e. in the ancient Greek polis of Elea on the territory of modern Italy.

The most famous philosophers of this school were the philosopher Xenophanes(c. 565 - 473 BC) and his followers Parmenides(late 7th - 6th centuries BC) and Zeno(ca. 490 - 430 BC). From the point of view of Parmenides, those people who supported the ideas of Heraclitus were “empty-headed with two heads.” We see different ways of thinking here. Heraclitus admitted the possibility of contradiction, and Parmenides and Aristotle insisted on a type of thinking that excludes contradiction (the law of the excluded middle). A contradiction is an error in logic. Parmenides proceeds from the fact that the existence of a contradiction based on the law of the excluded middle is unacceptable in thinking. The simultaneous existence of opposite principles is impossible.

Pythagorean school

Pythagoreans - supporters and followers of the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras(2nd half of the 6th - beginning of the 5th centuries BC) number was considered the root cause of all things (the entire surrounding reality, everything that happens can be reduced to a number and measured using a number). They advocated knowledge of the world through number (they considered knowledge through number intermediate between sensory and idealistic consciousness), considered the unit to be the smallest particle of everything and tried to identify “proto-categories” that showed the dialectical unity of the world (even - odd, light - dark, straight - crooked, right - left, male - female, etc.).

The merit of the Pythagoreans is that they laid the foundations of number theory, developed the principles of arithmetic, and found mathematical solutions for many geometric problems. They noticed that if the length of the strings in a musical instrument in relation to each other is 1:2, 2:3 and 3:4, then musical intervals such as octave, fifth and fourth can be obtained. According to the story of the ancient Roman philosopher Boethius, Pythagoras came to the idea of ​​the primacy of number by noticing that the simultaneous blows of hammers of different sizes produced harmonious harmonies. Since the weight of hammers can be measured, quantity (number) rules the world. They looked for such relationships in geometry and astronomy. Based on these “research” they came to the conclusion that the heavenly bodies are also in musical harmony.

The Pythagoreans believed that the development of the world is cyclical and all events are repeated with a certain periodicity (“return”). In other words, the Pythagoreans believed that nothing new was happening in the world, that after a certain period of time all events were repeated exactly. They attributed mystical properties to numbers and believed that numbers could even determine a person’s spiritual qualities.

School of Atomists

Atomists are a materialist philosophical school, whose philosophers (Democritus, Leucippus) considered microscopic particles - “atoms” - to be the “building material”, the “first brick” of all things. Leucippus (5th century BC) is considered the founder of atomism. Little is known about Leucippus: he came from Miletus and was the continuer of the natural philosophical tradition associated with this city. He was influenced by Parmenides and Zeno. It has been suggested that Leucippus is a fictitious person who never existed. Perhaps the basis for such a judgment was the fact that practically nothing is known about Leucippus. Although such an opinion exists, it seems more reliable that Leucippus is still a real person. The student and colleague of Leucippus (c. 470 or 370 BC) was considered the founder of the materialist trend in philosophy (“line of Democritus”).

In the teachings of Democritus the following can be distinguished: main provisions:

• the entire material world consists of atoms;
• an atom is the smallest particle, the “first brick” of all things;
• the atom is indivisible (this position was refuted by science only in our days);
• atoms have different sizes (from smallest to large), different shapes (round, oblong, curved, “with hooks,” etc.);
• between atoms there is space filled with emptiness;
• atoms are in perpetual motion;
• there is a cycle of atoms: things, living organisms exist, decay, after which new living organisms and objects of the material world arise from these same atoms;
• atoms cannot be “seen” by sensory knowledge.

Thus, characteristic features were: pronounced cosmocentrism, increased attention to the problem of explaining natural phenomena, the search for the origin that gave birth to all things and the doctrinaire (non-discussive) nature of philosophical teachings. The situation will change dramatically at the next, classical stage of the development of ancient philosophy.

1. The main question is the question of the essence of space, nature as an integral, unified world, universe. The cosmos was presented as a finite living being, harmoniously calculated, hierarchically arranged, and spiritualized. The cosmos is arranged according to the principle of unity and forms a structure where everything is in everything, where each element serves as a representation and reflection of the whole and restores this whole in itself in its entirety, where each part is also everything, not mixed and inseparable from the whole. Every person, thing, event has its own meaning. The harmony of the cosmos manifests itself at all levels of the hierarchy, so that man is a microcosm.

2. The problem of being and becoming is based on the empirically observed difference between the stable and the changeable. That which is always unchangeable is being, existing, and that which is changeable is becoming. Being absolutely exists, i.e. exists before all its possible divisions; it is whole, simple and united. It is complete, unchangeable, has no other existence as its beginning, is necessary, i.e. cannot but be, already become and identical.

3. Understanding of space and existence is based on expediency. If something happens, then there must be a reason that gives rise to it - a goal. “The beginning of a thing,” says Aristotle, “is the reason for which it exists. And becoming is for the sake of a goal.” If there is a goal, there is also a meaning - “for what”. For many ancient thinkers, what everything strives for is the Good as the first and last target cause of existence.

4. Putting unity above plurality, ancient philosophers identified unity and integrity. The whole was understood primarily as the indivisible. For representatives of the Milesian school these are various types of the first principle (water, air, apeiron), for Heraclitus - fire, for atomists - an atom. For Plato and Aristotle these are eidos, forms, ideal existential essences.

5. Ancient philosophers were mainly epistemological optimists, considering knowledge of the world possible. They considered reason to be the main means of knowledge. They are characterized by recognition in accordance with the principle of hierarchy and hierarchically divided structure of cognitive abilities, which depend on the parts of the human soul.

6. The problem of man is to clarify the essence of man, his connection with the cosmos, his moral predetermination, rationality and self-worth.

7. The problem of soul and body as a type of problem of the relationship between the material and the ideal. The soul is understood either as independent of the material and predetermined by supernatural forces, immortal (Plato), or as a type of material (the fiery atoms of Democritus). Universal animation (hylozoism) is recognized by Democritus and Aristotle.

8. Ethical problems in which a person appears as a being who has base passions and desires and at the same time is virtuous, endowed with higher virtues. Within the framework of antiquity, he identifies several ethical directions:

- eudaimonism– harmony between virtue and the pursuit of happiness (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle),

- hedonism– virtue is intertwined with pleasure, vice with suffering (Democritus, Epicurus),

- asceticism– self-restraint as a means of achieving higher moral qualities (cynics, stoics).

9. Ethical problems are closely intertwined with political problems. The individual and the citizen are considered identical, therefore the problems of the state are ethical problems and vice versa.

10. The problem of the genesis, nature and systematization of scientific knowledge, an attempt to identify sections of philosophical knowledge (Aristotle).

11. A certain classification of sciences, based on human cognitive abilities or determined by the degree of significance of the object of study.

12. Developing ways to achieve truth in a dispute, i.e. dialectics as a method of thinking (Socrates, Zeno of Elea).

13. The discovery and subsequent development of a kind of objective dialectics, stating the fluidity, variability, and inconsistency of the material world (Milesian school, Heraclitus).

14. The problem of beauty, reflected in art, is recognized as either illusory (a copy of a copy, according to Plato, cannot be beautiful), or capable of freeing a person from the power of feelings and giving space to the rational principle in a person (catharsis in Aristotle).

One of the central problems of ancient philosophy was the problem of existence: what is everything that exists for? what did it come from? What is the reason for being? Why is there being and not nothing? etc. In everyday language, the words “to be”, “to exist”, “is present” are perceived as synonyms. But in philosophy they have special meanings that have nothing in common with everyday use. The term “being” turns into the main problem of ontology, that section of philosophy where we are talking about the truly existing, unchangeable and unified, guaranteeing the world and man a sustainable existence. Being as a philosophical category means a reality that extends beyond human experience, and therefore does not depend on man with his consciousness, or on humanity.

Addressing questions of existence begins with the question of the meaning of life. But for the ancient Greek, his life was still inextricably linked with nature, with the cosmos, so philosophy begins precisely with the questions where did the world come from and what does it consist of? The thoughts of the Milesian philosophers: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes are devoted to these questions. In addition, Thales already had the idea of ​​the existence of laws common to all things and the world as a whole. This idea was first expressed and it was Greek. As Heraclitus of Ephesus said later, wisdom consists in grasping the basic formula common to all objects. We must follow this as a city follows its laws, and even more strictly, since the general formula is universal, even if the laws of different cities are different.

The Milesians for the first time have the idea that everything is subject to continuous change. Heraclitus in every possible way emphasizes being in change, constancy in change, identity in change, eternity in the transitory. The source of movement and change is struggle. Everything is made up of opposites. They can transform into each other (cold heats up, hot cools down); one opposite reveals the value of the other (for example, illness makes health sweet). The harmony of the world consists of opposites, between which there is a struggle.

The Greeks have the idea why things remain the same despite such totality of change. This is the principle of order and measure. By maintaining the correct proportions, constant change keeps things as they are, both for humans and for the world as a whole. The basic idea about measures came from Pythagoras. The idea of ​​measure, so characteristic of the ancient worldview, was generalized by Heraclitus in the concept of logos. Literally “logos” is the word. But this is not any word, but only a reasonable one.

In the 5th-4th century BC. Parmenides introduced the problem of being into philosophy to solve one very real life problem - the loss of faith in the former gods and at the same time the loss of support in life. Despair arose in the depths of human consciousness; it was necessary to search for new guarantors of human existence.

Parmenides proposed replacing the power of the gods with the power of thought. In philosophy, such a thought is called pure, i.e. one whose content does not depend on the empirical, sensory experience of people. Parmenides argued that behind objective-sensory things there is something that can play the role of a guarantor of the existence of this world: God, Logos, Absolute Idea. Parmenides discovered the power of Absolute thought, which will provide stability and order to the world: everything necessarily obeys this thought. The course of things established in the universe cannot change suddenly, by chance: day will always come to replace night, people will not die out suddenly, no one knows why. Those. To describe this situation, Parmenides used the term “being”, taking it from the language of the Greeks and giving it a different context. Being in his understanding is what exists behind the world of sensory things, what is unified and unchangeable, which contains the fullness of perfections, among which the main ones are truth, goodness, goodness.

Later, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, a student of Socrates, will demonstrate that reality and being are not homogeneous, that in addition to the sensory cosmos there is an intelligible reality, superior to the sensory, physical. Pythagoras was the first to insist that only the mental is real. Parmenides agreed with him, denying the movement. Plato developed and deepened this idea of ​​the ancient Greek genius.

Plato believed that there are eternal values ​​of existence - there is justice, goodness and virtue, not subject to human disagreement. These first principles are completely comprehensible to the human mind.

How does Plato prove his points? There is a moving, changeable world in which we live. We know it through sensations, ideas, perceptions that do not give us true knowledge. But there is another world - eternal, uncreated and indestructible - the world of pure forms of things, ideas of things, the essence of things, their causes. This world is designated by the concept of being, i.e. has for Plato the meaning of true being. You can understand the world of ideas not through sensations, but through concepts. Those. the mind should not rely on deceptive appearances, but on concepts that are verified by logic. From these concepts, according to the rules of logic, other concepts are derived, and as a result we can arrive at the truth.

The truth is that the intelligible world of ideas, the world of essences, determines our changeable world - the world of sensory things. For example, there is a beautiful horse, a beautiful woman, a beautiful cup, and then there is beauty in itself. Beauty as a reason, a model, an idea of ​​beautiful things. It is this beauty in itself, as well as virtue in itself, justice in itself, that we cognize with our minds using the inductive-deductive way of constructing concepts. This means we can understand the essence of existence, justify the rules of government, understand what the meaning of our life is and what its main values ​​are.

Plato and Aristotle fixed the problems of the genesis and nature of knowledge, logical and methodological, from the point of view of rational search. Which road should you follow to reach the truth? What is the true contribution of the senses, and what comes from the mind? What are the logical forms with the help of which a person judges, thinks, reasons?

The method of knowledge chosen by Aristotle can be characterized as follows: from the obvious and obvious to what becomes obvious through something else. The way to do this is logical reasoning. In the sphere of logic, the subjectivity of human thinking is overcome and a person is able to operate with generally valid, universal concepts. Dependence on sensory perception disappears. In the sphere of logic, an object seems to think of itself through human thinking. Based on this, it becomes possible to comprehend things as they are.

Thus, we see the idea, characteristic of ancient Greek thought, of the existence of a transcendental world, the most perfect and beautiful, harmoniously combining Good, Good, and Truth. This world is identified with true existence, which is only comprehensible in thought.

The problem of existence posed in antiquity predetermined the fate of the Western world in the following senses.

Firstly, if being is thought and is understandable only in thought, then European culture was faced with the task of developing the ability of thinking to work in a space where there are no sensory images and ideas.

Secondly, if there is genuine being, then the earthly, being inauthentic, needs to be reorganized and improved. The task of defeating the untruth of earthly existence has become part of the flesh and blood of the European worldview.

Ancient philosophy, that is, the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans, originated in the 6th century BC. in Greece and existed until the 6th century AD. (when Emperor Justinian closed the last Greek philosophical school, Plato's Academy, in 529). Thus, ancient philosophy existed for 1200 years. However, it cannot be defined only using territorial and chronological definitions. Philosophy seeks to explain the totality of reality. Her interests are far from the later interests of science, the branches of which explain only individual fragments of reality.

Philosophy seeks to explain the totality of reality. Her interests are far from the later interests of science, the branches of which explain only individual fragments of reality. In essence, philosophy is created by a question addressed to reality as a whole: what is the beginning of all things? The subject of philosophy is being, reality as a whole. Being, in turn, can be revealed only through understanding the origin of all things.

The first ancient Greek philosophers were also natural scientists. They tried to scientifically explain the origin of the Earth, the Sun, stars, animals, plants and humans. They expressed interesting ideas about the movement, size and shape of celestial bodies, the cause of solar eclipses, etc. The main question of ancient Greek philosophy is about the beginning of the world. Here philosophy intersects with mythology and inherits its ideological problems.

1. The problem of origins among representatives of materialism in antiquity

Materialism (Latin materialis - material) is a scientific philosophical direction opposite to idealism. Materialism is distinguished as the spontaneous confidence of all people in the objective existence of the external world and as a philosophical worldview, which represents a scientific deepening and development of the theory of the maturity of materialism. Philosophical materialism asserts the primacy of the material and the secondary nature of the spiritual, ideal, which means eternity, the uncreated nature of the world, its infinity in time and space. Considering knowledge to be a product of matter, materialism views it as a reflection of the external world, asserting the knowability of nature. In the history of philosophy, materialism, as a rule, was the worldview of advanced classes and strata of society interested in correct knowledge of the world and in strengthening human power over nature. Summarizing the achievements of science, materialism contributed to the growth of scientific knowledge and the improvement of scientific methods, which in turn had a beneficial effect on the success of human practice and on the development of productive forces. In the process of interaction between materialism and special sciences, the type and forms of materialism itself changed. The first teachings of materialists appeared along with the emergence of philosophy in the slave societies of ancient India, China and Greece - several centuries BC. - in connection with progress in the field of astronomy, mathematics and other natural sciences, and its achievements were always associated with specific philosophers. This period is called pre-Socratic, and the philosophers are called pre-Socratics. The starting point for the development of ancient philosophy was philosophical materialism, which includes Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, with differences between them, they believed that all things originated from some one, and moreover, material, beginning. Materialism in ancient philosophy was developed by Anaxagoras and Empedocles. Materialism consists in recognizing the materiality of the world, its existence independent of the consciousness of people. Its representatives sought to find in the diversity of nature the common origin of everything that exists and happens (Element). The merit of the ancient materialists was the creation of a hypothesis about the atomic structure of matter (Leucippus, Democritus). However, within this naive materialistic foundation, certain views emerged early on, which later led to the emergence of idealism. The split into materialistic and idealistic directions appeared already among the earliest Greek thinkers. These contradictions turned into the second half of the 5th century BC. and in the first half of the 4th century. BC in contrast to materialism and idealism.

Thales (c. 625 - c. 547 BC) combined versatile practical activities with a deep interest in the study of nature and the universe. A student of the Babylonian priests who studied astronomy, he himself made a number of discoveries. He owned a year of 365 days, determined the duration to be 30 days, and compiled a calendar. There is evidence of Thales' practical achievements: he was a bridge builder, an inventor of military technical improvements, a hydraulic engineer, and the creator of a hydraulic clock.

Thales's teaching about water as an eternal, endless, moving, material fundamental principle from which all things come and into which they turn again already contained a dialectical worldview. But Thales’s materialism was still naive, and there were still many mythological ideas left in it.

Anaximander (c. 10 – after 547 BC). he initially believed the primary substance, which he called “apeiron”, i.e. indefinite (limitless, infinite). “...it (the infinite) has no beginning, but it itself seems to be the beginning of other things. It embraces everything and rules itself.” Thus, the first substance acted as the initial principle not in its sensually perceived form, but as not differentiated in its qualities, like matter in general, and nature is characterized by the elemental dialectic of the infinite (apeiron).

Anaximenes (c. 588 - c. 525 BC), who considered air to be the material origin of all things. The idea of ​​the influence of the quantitative degree of density on the qualities of things became of great importance to Anaximenes: different degrees of rarefaction and compaction of air lead to the emergence of all different substances. So, thinning out, the air becomes fire, thickening with the wind, then with clouds, water, earth, and stones. The souls of people are also akin to air. Anaximenes rejected the control of the world by any supernatural force.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 520 – 460 BC). At the basis of everything that exists, Heraclitus’s material origin is fire, which also represents the origin and social image of the universal process. Heraclitus’s choice of fire as the first principle was not accidental: the world or nature, according to Heraclitus, is in the process of continuous change, and of all that is in nature, nominal fire is the most capable of change, the most mobile.

Empedocles considered the four primary substances - earth, water, air and fire - to be the elements of matter (“the roots of all things”), and the driving forces to be love (the force of attraction) and enmity (the force of repulsion). When love prevails over enmity, all disparate elements unite and eventually merge to form one, forming a single qualityless ball. When hostility prevails, the elements become increasingly disunited, and eventually the world disintegrates. The world of Empidocles represents either complete unity or incoherent multiplicity, and this alternation occurs ad infinitum.

Anaxagoras was a supporter of atomism and adhered to the doctrine of indestructible elements (atoms). However, he considered their number to be infinite and infinitely divisible (and infinite sets can be not only finite, but also infinitely small).

Anaxagoras was the first scientist to give a correct explanation of solar and lunar eclipses.

Leucippus and Democritus from Abdera (c. 460 – 370 BC) the atomistic materialism of Leucippus and Democritus was formed. The basic principle of the philosophy of Democritus is the hypothesis of the existence of indivisible particles of matter (the Greek word “atomos” means “indivisible”), which acts as the origin of all things. The atomistic system of Democritus is based on the principle of universal determinism. Everything in nature is interconnected; the law of causality permeates the entire structure of the world from beginning to end. Everything is subject to an unconditional, absolute connection of causes and effects. There are no random objects and phenomena in the world.

2. The problem of origins among representatives of idealism in antiquity And

Idealism is a philosophical direction opposite to materialism. Idealism considers creation in isolation from nature, which inevitably mystifies it and the process of cognition and often leads to skepticism and agnosticism. Consistent indeterminism opposes teleological theory to materialistic determinism. The development of theoretical thinking leads to the fact that the possibility of indeterminism - the separation of concepts from their objects - is already given in the most elementary abstraction. This possibility becomes a reality only in the conditions of a class society, where indeterminism arises as a scientific continuation of mythological, religious and fantastic ideas. According to its social roots, indeterminism acts as a worldview of conservative and reactionary layers and classes that are not interested in the correct reflection of existence, in a radical restructuring of social relations. All types of indeterminism are divided into two groups:

Objective indeterminism, which takes as the basis of reality a personal or impersonal spirit, a kind of super-individual knowledge.

Subjective indeterminism, reducing knowledge about the world to the content of individual consciousness.

However, the differences between subjective and objective indeterminism are not absolute. Many objective-idealistic systems contain elements of subjective indeterminism; on the other hand, subjective idealists often move to the position of objective indeterminism. In the person of Socrates, Pythagoras and especially Plato, the doctrine of philosophical idealism developed, which contrasted itself primarily with the materialism of the atomists. Aristotle, who wavered between materialism and idealism, also presented his ideas in polemics with previous and contemporary teachings.

Socrates turned to the analysis of human consciousness and mental activity. Socrates is an objective idealist. The meaning of his philosophical teaching is to recognize the action of generic entities in the surrounding reality, the reality of the universal mind, reason in general.

The main thing for Socrates was the desire for direct contemplation of the laws of nature and life, the liberation of philosophy from mysticism. He recognized the role of general reason for practical purposes - to explain clearly visible expediency, inexplicable reference to chance.

Socrates' moral positions were far from ancient piety. He believed that virtue is knowledge or wisdom, that he who knows good will necessarily act kindly, and he who acts evil either does not know what good is or does evil for the purpose of the ultimate triumph of good.

In the field of politics, he criticized all forms of government - monarchy, tyranny, aristocracy, plutocracy, both democracy and democracy. The ideas of Socrates were further developed in the philosophy of Plato.

Plato (428/427 - 348/347 BC) his teaching follows that only the world of ideas represents true existence. Plato believed that the world of sensitive things is not a world of truly existing things: sensory things constantly arise and die, move and change, there is nothing stable in them, and therefore true.

According to Plato, the mere existence of “ideas” is not enough to explain the existence of things in the sensible world. Since things are transitory and changeable, they must be conditioned not only by “being”, but also by “non-being”. Plato identified this “non-existence” with matter, which, in his opinion, has a certain imperfect, flawed existence. Under the influence of “ideas,” matter is, as it were, transformed into a multitude of sensory things. Plato’s teaching is objective idealism, since it affirms the primacy of spiritual “ideas” and the secondary nature of the things of the world around us: after all, everything that real things have from being and qualities is given to them by “ideas” as their causes and samples.

According to Plato, the area of ​​“ideas” forms a complex system, similar to a pyramid, at the top of which is the “idea” of good. Plato's theory of knowledge was directed against the theory of ancient materialists. The main thing in it is the denial of the role of sensations as a source of knowledge, the opposition of theoretical thinking and intuition to the sensory perception of reality. Plato pays great attention to analysis, social life, theoretical and practical issues of social structure, state and perception. Plato contrasts the existing imperfect forms of state coexistence with his concept of an ideal state.

Pythagoras (580 - 500 BC), known not only as a philosopher, but also as a mathematician. He believed that everything is a “number”. Even human happiness is achieved by knowing numbers. He taught the beginning of everything, one. From one come other numbers; from numbers - dots; from points - lines; of these are flat figures; from flat ones - three-dimensional figures, and from them the sensory perception of the body. In the philosophical teachings of Pythagoras, it is important to highlight three points:

1. The answer to the question about the origin of all things was associated not with material, but with ideal substance, with the idea of ​​number: “everything is a number.”

2. the idealistic philosophy of Pythagoras was combined with clearly expressed religious ideas.

3. Pythagoras combined idealistic and religious ideas with anti-democratic, aristocratic attitudes.

Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) as a thinker united and systematized the entire philosophical experience of Greece. In his philosophical views, Aristotle sought to generalize the development of materialistic and idealistic thought, and with him materialism often prevailed over idealism. general experience of the previous development of sciences, Aristotle tried to build a unified system of sciences, developing for this purpose their classification. According to Aristotle, all sciences are engaged in the study of existence and are divided into theoretical, practical and creative.

The objective existence of the world is undeniable for Aristotle. The material world does not need Plato’s fictional world of “ideas” for its unification. To explain how and why this world exists, Aristotle identifies four reasons:

1. formal reason - the essence of being, by virtue of which things of each specific kind are what they are. These generic essences are “forms”;

2. material cause – substrate, i.e. that which something is made of as a material;

3. driving active cause, source, beginning of movement;

4. the target reason is for the sake of which something is done.

Although Aristotle called matter one of the causes of being, he saw only a passive principle in matter (he considered matter only as a substrate; it is qualityless and indefinite, devoid of all properties). Aristotle attributed all activity to the other three reasons.

3. Explain the doctrine of origin in the philosophy of ancient atomists? What significance did this teaching have in the history of the development of philosophy and science?

Atoms were considered as the last indivisible, extremely small particles, uncreated and indestructible. The difference in number, weight, speed of movement and relative arrangement of atoms in bodies was considered the cause of all the diversity of qualities in the world. Representatives of the ancient philosophy of atomists are Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretia.

One of the influential teachings of this time was atomistic materialism. Its most prominent representative was Democritus. Up to 70 of his works are known, covering almost all areas of knowledge of that time - philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, politics and ethics. Continuing the tradition of searching for the origin of all things, Democritus introduced the idea that the world consists of being and non-being. Non-existence is emptiness, and being is atoms. Atoms are indivisible tiny particles that cannot be cut into pieces; they cannot be perceived by our senses, but can be imagined speculatively. Atoms vary in shape and position. Their most important property is constant movement. Thanks to the movement of atoms in the void, their separation and connection, all things and even worlds arise, develop and perish, and everything complex is born: water, fire, air, earth. The human soul is made up of atoms. Their specificity is that atoms of a special kind are very small and mobile. The atoms that form the soul are born along with the human body and die along with it, dispersing into emptiness. Man differs from animals only in the special ratio of the atoms of the soul and body.

Even the gods, according to Democritus, are no exception: they also consist of atoms, but especially strong ones, but not so strong as to make the gods immortal.

The peculiar teaching of Democritus about intelligible atoms as the basis of the world led him to the idea of ​​existence, forms of human knowledge - sensual and rational. Moreover, he gave preference to true, rational knowledge.

Thus, Democritus, for the first time in the history of ancient philosophy, developed the doctrine of knowledge, its two main forms.

At the same time, in the philosophy of Democritus, some weaknesses of the materialist direction he represented also appeared. The most serious shortcoming was the simplified, purely quantitative, mechanical approach to understanding the structure of the world.

Many considered Democritus the best of the philosophers who lived before Socrates. There really were reasons for this.

1. It was Democritus who, more successfully than other ancient philosophers, resolved the question of the fundamental principle of the world in his works.

2. he learned what the most important universal property of the world is, such as movement, change, development, connecting this property with atoms.

3. He discovered a desire for atheism, justifying the idea of ​​​​the mortality of gods, who, like people, consist of atoms.

The philosophical teachings of Democritus played a positive role in the history of ancient philosophy, and a qualitatively new direction became stronger - philosophical idealism.

The philosophical doctrine of the atom-like structure of the world and the atom as the ultimate, further indivisible elementary particle lasted until the end of the 19th century. The atom was considered a discrete and unchangeable essence of matter, the “primary building blocks” of the universe. It was only the discovery of the electron in 1897 by Joseph Thomson that revealed the complex structure of the atom itself. Therefore, modern philosophy recognizes the diversity of molecules, atoms, elementary particles, and other micro-objects in the structure of matter (the basis of all living things), their inexhaustible complexity, and the ability to transform from one form to another. In the existence of various discrete micro-objects with a decrease in spatial scales, which qualitatively changes the forms of structural organization of matter, its properties, connections between elements in microsystems, and the laws of motion. And matter is now considered not only discrete, but also continuous

List of used literature

1. Philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. prof. V.N. Lavrinenko, prof. V.P. Ratnikova. 3rd ed. – M.: Culture and Sports, Unity-DANA, 2004. – 584 p.

2. Philosophical Dictionary / Ed. I.T. Frolova. – 7th ed. – M.: Politizdat, 1999. – 690 p.

3. Philosophy: Textbook. manual: 3rd ed., rev. And additional – Mn.: IP “Ecoperspective”, 1998 – 343 p.

Tutoring

Need help studying a topic?

Our specialists will advise or provide tutoring services on topics that interest you.
Submit your application indicating the topic right now to find out about the possibility of obtaining a consultation.

The main problems of ancient philosophy were:

The problem of being and non-being, matter and its forms. Ideas were put forward about the fundamental opposition between form and “matter”, about the main elements, the elements of the cosmos; identity and opposition of being and non-being; the structure of being; the fluidity of existence and its inconsistency. The main problem here is how did space come into being? What is its structure? (Thales, Anaximenes, Zeno, Anaximander, Democritus);

The problem of man, his knowledge, his relationships with other people. What is the essence of human morality? Are there moral norms independent of circumstances? What is politics and the state in relation to man? How do rational and irrational relate in human consciousness? Is there absolute truth and is it achievable by the human mind? These questions were given different, often contradictory, answers. (Socrates, Epicurus...);

The problem of human will and freedom. Ideas were put forward about the insignificance of man before the forces of nature and social cataclysms and, at the same time, his power and the strength of his spirit in the pursuit of freedom, noble thought, and knowledge, in which they saw the happiness of man (Aurelius, Epicurus...);

The problem of the relationship between man and God, the divine will. The ideas of a constructive cosmos and being, the structure of the matter of the soul, and society were put forward as mutually conditioning each other.

The problem of synthesis of the sensual and supersensible; the problem of finding a rational method of understanding the world of ideas and the world of things.(Plato, Aristotle and their followers...).

Characteristic features of ancient philosophy.

Ancient philosophy arises and develops to a large extent as a result of direct sensory contemplation peace. It was on the basis of direct sensory data that the argumentation of the world was built. Connected with this is a certain naivety of the ancient Greek idea of ​​the world.

The syncretism of ancient philosophy is the original indivisibility of knowledge. It included all the diversity of elements of emerging knowledge (geometric, aesthetic, music, crafts). This is largely explained by the fact that ancient Greek thinkers were diversified and engaged in various cognitive activities.

Ancient philosophy arose as a doctrine of nature and space (naturalistic philosophy). Later, from the middle of the 5th century (Socrates), the doctrine of man arose from this moment on two closely related lines: 1. Comprehension of nature, 2. Comprehension of man.

In ancient philosophy, a special approach to understanding nature and man was formed (worldview). Cosmocentrism, the essence is that the initial starting point in the development of philosophical problems was the definition of an understanding of the cosmos of nature as a single commensurate whole with some spiritual principle (soul, world mind). The law of space development as a source of development. Understanding the cosmos is at the center of understanding the world.

In accordance with the understanding of the cosmos, human nature is also understood. Man is a microcosm; in accordance with this, the relationship between man and the surrounding world is understood (harmony of man, the world, human mind, thinking).

Mental, cognitive activity associated with the comprehension of both the cosmos and man, aimed at achieving the internal harmony of man, social harmony, harmony between man and the cosmos, was recognized as an important type of human activity.

Connected with this is such a characteristic feature of philosophy and ancient culture as cognitive and ethical rationalism: Good is the result of knowledge, Evil is the result of non-knowledge.

That is why the ideal of a person in ancient philosophy is a sage who contemplates the world around him, reflects on the world around him.