Philosophy Ancient Greece is a bright period in the history of this science and is the most fascinating and mysterious. That is why this period was called the golden age of civilization. Ancient philosophy played a special role philosophical direction, which existed and developed from the end of the 7th century BC until the 6th century AD.

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

Famous and world philosophers of Ancient Greece

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

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

The philosopher Plato introduced the first classical form of objective idealism into his teaching. Such ideas, among which was the highest (the idea of ​​good), were eternal and unchangeable examples of things, of everything. Things, in turn, played the role of reflecting ideas. These thoughts can be found in Plato’s works, such as “The Symposium”, “The Republic”, “Phaedrus”, etc. Conducting dialogues with his students, Plato often spoke about beauty. Answering the question “What is beautiful,” the philosopher characterized the very essence of beauty. As a result, Plato came to the conclusion that a unique idea plays the role of everything beautiful. A person can know this only during inspiration.

The first philosophers of Ancient Greece

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

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

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

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

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

Periodization of ancient Greek philosophy

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

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

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

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

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

The Roman period is the time when such famous philosophers as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Tut Lucretius Carus appeared.

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

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

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

• democratic (or pre-Socratic) - 7th - 5th centuries. BC e.;
• classical (Socratic) - mid-5th - late 4th centuries. BC e.;
• Hellenistic - late IV - II centuries. BC e.;
• Roman - 1st century BC e. - V century n. e.

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

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

The growth of the total volume and variety of information and experience, the need to constantly comprehend what is newly seen, meaningful, and the requirement to streamline the developing system of knowledge required analytical activity and generalizations, the formation of rationally based views on nature.

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

Milesian school

The oldest philosophical school is Miletus(VII-V centuries BC). Its ancestors:

• Thales - an astronomer, a politician, he revolutionized the worldview by proposing the idea of ​​substance - the fundamental principle of everything, generalizing all diversity into a consubstantial one and seeing the beginning of everything in water;
• Anaximenes - suggested in the first place air, seeing in it the infinity and ease of changeability of things;
• Anaximander - was the first to propose the original idea of ​​​​the infinity of worlds; he took it as the fundamental principle of existence apeiron(an indefinite and limitless substance), the parts of which change, but the whole remains unchanged.

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

School of Pythagoras

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

In numbers the Pythagoreans saw:

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

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

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

Pythagoras came up with the idea of ​​reincarnation of souls; he believed that the soul is immortal.

Eleatic school

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

• opposed anthropomorphic elements in religion;
• ridiculed the gods in human form;
• cruelly castigated the poets who attribute to the celestials the desires and sins of man;
• believed that God was neither in body nor in spirit like mortals;
• stood at the head of monotheists and at the head of skeptics;
• carried out the division of types of knowledge.

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

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

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

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

School of Socrates

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

Representatives of Natural Philosophy

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

When analyzing Greek philosophy, three periods are distinguished:

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

Chronologically, these periods span over a thousand years, from the end of the 7th century. BC e. until the 6th century current calendar. The object of our attention will be only the first period. In turn, it is advisable to divide the first period into three stages. This is necessary in order to more clearly outline the development of ancient Greek philosophy both in terms of the nature of the problems being studied and their solution. The first stage of the first period is mainly the activity of philosophers Milesian school Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes (named after the Ionian city of Miletus); the second stage is the activity of the Sophists, Socrates and the Socratics, and finally, the third includes philosophical ideas Plato and Aristotle. It should be noted that the activities of the first ancient Greek philosophers are practically, with a few exceptions, reliable information not preserved. So, for example, the philosophical views of the philosophers of the Milesian school, and to a large extent also about the philosophers of the second stage, are known mainly from the works of subsequent Greek and Roman thinkers and primarily thanks to the works of Plato and Aristotle.

Thales

First ancient Greek philosopher Thales is considered to be(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 has, like a piece of wood, calm 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 owns 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 not any specific element (for example, water) as the first principle, 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 importance 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 being 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 celestial 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 philosophers of the Milesian school laid down good foundation for the further development of 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 mythology 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.

Heraclitus

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

At the end of the 6th century. BC e. the center of emerging European philosophy moves to “Magna Graecia,” that is, to the coast of Southern Italy and Sicily. Aristotle called the philosophy that spread here Italic.

Pythagoras

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

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

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

Xenophanes

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

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

He considered the earth to be the basis of all things. For him, God symbolizes the unlimitedness and infinity of the material world. For Xenophanes, existence is motionless.

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

Parmenides

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

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

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

Zeno

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

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

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

Melissa

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

Thirdly, Melissus changed the teaching of Xenophanes and Parmenides about the finitude of being in space and argued that it is unlimited and therefore limitless.

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

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

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

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

Anaxagoras

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

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

One of the central questions that worried Anaxagoras was the question of how the emergence of existing things is possible. He gives the following answer to this question: everything arises from something similar to itself, that is, from qualitatively defined particles, which he calls “seeds” - homeomeries. They are inert, but are set in motion by the mind.

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

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

The thinker explained the nature of the lunar eclipse.

Democritus

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

Democritus laid the foundations of the materialist theory of knowledge. He believed that knowledge is possible only through the senses. Data from the senses, according to Democritus, are processed by the mind.

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

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

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

The birth of philosophy in Ancient Greece occurred between the 8th and 6th centuries. During that era, Greece was going through a period of colonization, or apoitization (apoitia is an overseas territory of the Greek polis, practically independent of the metropolis). Huge spaces, such as Graecia Magna (Italy), surpassed their Greek cradle in territory and gave birth to the first philosophers, because Athenian philosophy became the second, subsequent stage in the development of Greek thought. The worldview was greatly influenced by the structure of life in the policies and classic type slavery. It was the existence of the latter in ancient Greece that played a huge role in the division of labor, and allowed, as Engels noted, a certain layer of people to engage exclusively in science and culture.

Therefore, the philosophy of Ancient Greece has a certain specificity in relation to modern philosophy Ancient East. First of all, since the time of Pythagoras it has emerged as a separate discipline, and since Aristotle it has gone hand in hand with science, is distinguished by rationalism and separates itself from religion. During the Hellenistic period, it became the basis of such sciences as history, medicine and mathematics. The main “slogan” and embodiment of the ideal of education of ancient Greek philosophy (as well as culture) is “kalios kai agathos” - the combination of physical beauty and health with spiritual perfection.

Philosophy in Ancient Greece raised two main topics - ontology and epistemology, as a rule, contrasting the concepts of reason and activity (the latter was considered an activity of the second, “lower” grade, in contrast to pure contemplation). Ancient Greek philosophy is also the birthplace of such methodological systems as metaphysical and dialectical. She also assimilated many categories of philosophy from the Ancient East, especially Egypt, and introduced them into pan-European philosophical discourse. The early philosophy of ancient Greece is conventionally divided into two periods - archaic and pre-Socratic.

The philosophy of Ancient Greece is characterized by the cosmocentrism of mythopoetic works, in which epic poets described the emergence of the world and its driving forces in mythological images. Homer systematized myths and sang heroic morality, and Hesiod embodied the history of the origin of the world in the figures of Chaos, Gaia, Eros and other gods. He was one of the first to present in literary form the myth of the “Golden Age”, when justice and labor were valued, and began to lament the fate of the contemporary “Iron Age”, the rule of the fist, a time where might gives rise to right. It is traditionally believed that the so-called “seven sages” played a huge role in the formation of the philosophical thought of that time, who left behind wise sayings or “gnomes” dedicated to such moral principles as moderation and harmony.

In the pre-Socratic period, the philosophy of Ancient Greece is characterized by the presence of several philosophical natural philosophies, distinguished by pragmatism, the desire to search for a single principle and the first scientific discoveries, such as astronomical instruments, maps, sundial. Almost all of its representatives came from the merchant class. Yes, I studied solar eclipses and considered water to be the first principle of everything, Anaximander is the creator of the map of the Earth and the model of the celestial sphere, and called the first principle “apeiron” - the primordial matter devoid of qualities, the contradictions of which gave rise to the emergence of the world, and his student Anaximenes believed that the single cause of everything is air. The most famous representative of the Ephesian school is Heraclitus, nicknamed the Weeping One. He put forward the idea that the world was not created by anyone, but in its essence is a fire that flares up and goes out, and also argued that if we know through perception, then the basis of our knowledge is logos.

The philosophy of Ancient Greece, represented by the Eleatic and Italic schools, is based on slightly different categories. Unlike the Milesians, the Eleatics are aristocrats by birth. In theory, they prefer system to process, and measure to infinity.

Xenophanes of Colophon criticized mythological ideas about the gods and proposed to separate the real and the apparent. Parmenides of Elea developed his ideas and stated that we know what seems apparent through the senses, and what exists through logic. Therefore, for a reasonable person, non-existence does not exist, because any of our thoughts is a thought about being. His follower Zeno explained the positions of his teacher with the help of the famous paradoxes and aporias.

The Italian school is known for such a mysterious thinker as Pythagoras, who proposed the doctrine of numbers and their mystical connection with the world and left behind a secret teaching. Empedocles from the Sicilian city of Aggregent was no less interesting philosopher. He considered the cause of everything that exists to be four passive elements - water, fire, air and earth, and two active principles - love and hatred, and in his philosophical system he tried to unite Parmenides and Heraclitus. Later classical Greek philosophy based many of its conclusions on the ideas of Italic thinkers.

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

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

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

Socrates

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

Having created the “Socratic” method of arguing, Socrates argued that truth is born only in a dispute in which the sage, with the help of a series of leading questions, forces his opponents to first admit that they are wrong own positions, and then the justice of their opponent’s views. The sage, according to Socrates, comes to the truth through self-knowledge, and then knowledge of the objectively existing spirit, the objectively existing truth. Of utmost importance in Socrates’ general political views was the idea of ​​professional knowledge, from which conclusions were drawn that a person who is not engaged political activity professionally, has no right to judge her. This was a challenge to the basic principles of Athenian democracy.

Plato

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

Aristotle

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

Beauty, according to Aristotle, lies in the mathematical proportions of things, “therefore, to comprehend it one should practice mathematics. Aristotle put forward the principle of proportionality between man and a beautiful object. For Aristotle, beauty acts as a measure, and the measure of everything is man himself. A beautiful object should not be “excessive” in comparison. These discussions of Aristotle about the truly beautiful contain the same humanistic and principle that is expressed in ancient art itself. Philosophy met the needs of the human orientation of a person who broke with traditional values ​​and turned to reason as a way to understand problems.

Pythagoras

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

Where the main opposites are in a “proportionate mixture”, there is a good, human health. What is equal and consistent does not need harmony. Harmony appears where there is inequality, unity and complementarity of diversity. Musical harmony - special case world harmony, its sound expression. “The whole sky is harmony and number,” the planets are surrounded by air and attached to transparent spheres. The intervals between the spheres are strictly harmoniously correlated with each other like the intervals of the tones of a musical octave. From these ideas of the Pythagoreans the expression “Music of the Spheres” came. The planets move by making sounds, and the pitch of the sound depends on the speed of their movement. However, our ear is not able to perceive the world harmony of the spheres. These ideas of the Pythagoreans are important as evidence of their confidence that the Universe is harmonious.

Democritus

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

Heraclitus

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

Hippocrates

The works of Hippocrates in the field of medicine and ethics are well known. He is the founder of scientific medicine, the author of the doctrine of the integrity of the human body, the theory of an individual approach to the patient, the tradition of keeping a medical history, works on medical ethics, in which Special attention drew attention to the high moral character of the doctor, the author of the famous professional oath, which is taken by everyone who receives a medical diploma. His immortal rule for doctors has survived to this day: do not harm the patient.

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

Great thinkers of ancient Greece.

Plato of Afia

The great thinker, founder of the Academy - a philosophical school, Plato of Athens was born in 427 BC. e. and lived until 347. BC e. The philosophical school he founded lasted for almost 1000 years - until 529. n. e. Plato dealt with the creation of the World. When asked how it could appear harmoniously arranged world, Plato replied that he was created according to a certain plan. According to Plato, the world, conceived and created by the Eternal God, is animated and divine.

Plato in one of his dialogues wrote: “This whole plan of the Eternal God regarding the God who was yet to be, demanded that the body of the cosmos be created smooth... equally distributed in all directions from the center... In its center, the builder gave a place to the soul, from where he spread it along its entire length and, in addition, enveloped the body with it from the outside.”

In the writings of Plato, for the first time in European culture, the idea of ​​a single God – the Creator – is encountered. Plato calls him Demiurge, which means Master. According to Plato, the Demiurge for the structure of the Universe created a special substance in the form of a mixture of two essences - “indivisible ideal” and “divisible material”. Then the Demiurge “cut the composition lengthwise into two parts,” rolled them up and from one he made the sky of fixed stars, and the second - the blank of the remaining celestial bodies - “divided into seven unequal circles, maintaining the number of double and triple intervals.”

This division, which determines the distance between the Earth and the orbits of the stars, is called the Platonic harmony of the spheres.

The relative distances from the Earth to the luminaries were as follows:

Moon - 1, Sun - 2, Venus - 3, Mercury - 4, Mars - 8, Jupiter -9, Saturn - 27.

In fact, the intervals proposed by Plato have nothing to do with reality; they have only historical significance. But in the development of astronomy, the principle of searching for patterns in the size of orbits played a fairly important role.

In one of his later dialogues, the Timaeus, Plato mentioned the mobility of the Earth: “He (the Demiurge (ed.)) determined the Earth to rotate around an axis passing through the Universe, and made it the guardian of day and night.”

This movement of the Earth contradicted the rotation that the philosopher attributed to the sky and stars.

Perhaps Plato doubted his conclusions on the movement of celestial bodies and did not decide which rotation to prefer.

At the Academy founded by Plato, the Philosopher lectured on the creation of the world and morality. As for morality, one example of his beliefs is that he did not approve of expensive clothes on young people and even condemned this, as he claimed, female passion for clothes and jewelry. He understood that young people wanted to be liked, that they felt much better in expensive and beautiful clothes than in a monochrome robe, but Plato’s long-term habits did not agree with the arguments of his reason. He was broad-shouldered, handsome, stately - he was noble. And the simple outfit, the philosopher believed, only emphasized his nobility.

Many students came out of Plato’s school of philosophy who later became thinkers, scientists, and logicians. Some of them followed the views of their teacher, others did not agree with the great philosopher on everything and created their own theories, opposite to Plato’s ideas. This is how science was born - in contradictions and disputes, it must be said, and not only in ancient centuries. This is how it continues to develop today.

Speaking about the correct and erroneous points of view on the numerous problems that Plato had to face, I would like to note that there are “eternal” questions, the answers to which are still ambiguous. The question about the creation of the world, i.e. about the emergence of the Universe - can anyone ever answer accurately or with a high degree of probability - how it happened.

Or, for example, where to look for Atlantis? What happened on the planet at the time when Atlantis disappeared? Amazingly, at one time Plato also wrote about the catastrophe that led to the death of the Atlanteans and their habitat. Plato in his works indicated that Atlantis was located across the Strait of Gibraltar in the Atlantic. The ancient Greek scientist gave two very approximate dates for the death of Atlantis: eleven and twelve thousand years ago, if you count from our time.

Unfortunately, only he, the great philosopher of Ancient Greece, Plato, told the world about the beautiful island and the mighty state of the Atlanteans. But Plato, according to him, relied on the story of Atlantis by his maternal ancestor, “the wisest of the seven wise,” Solon. (The year of Solon’s birth has not been established, but it is known that in 594 BC he was an archon in Athens. The date of his death is also unknown. Solon lived to a ripe old age).

The semi-legendary – semi-historical genealogy of Solon and Plato is extremely interesting. Their ancestor was none other than the god Poseidon himself. The same Poseidon who “founded Atlantis and populated it with his children.”

The great-grandson of Poseidon's son Neleus was the Athenian king Codrus. Solon was a descendant of Codrus, and Plato was the great-great-grandson of Codrus. Traveling around Egypt, greek sage Solon learned from the priests, and perhaps read in the temple of the goddess Neith in Sais, the history of Atlantis.

Plutarch's writings report that Solon began a "vast work" on Atlantis, but did not finish it. Unfortunately, nothing from this work has survived to this day. 200 years later, Solon’s descendant Plato told the world in his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias” Solon’s legend about Atlantis, which he heard from Solon’s grandson, Critias. This legend amazes the imagination of our contemporaries with the accuracy of the coincidence of many processes occurring on the planet, which led to the death of the mysterious island, with the data of modern scientists. Plato talks about the great and powerful Atlantean people, about their beautiful island and high civilization. Plato wrote: “The power of the league of kings extended to the entire island, to many other islands and to part of the mainland. And on this side of the strait, the Atlanteans took possession of Libya as far as Egypt and Europe up to Tyrrhenia (Etruria), since the Atlantean fleet reigned supreme on the seas.” Plato talks about the government of the Atlanteans. He describes temples, a palace, ring canals, bridges, harbors. Plato also talks about the tragic death of a beautiful island - as a result of a grandiose catastrophe, the island was swallowed up by the sea. Not a single written source of the ancients, except for the dialogues of Plato, reports anything about Atlantis.

Aristotle Stagirsky

Plato's student Aristotle said, “Plato is my friend, but truth is dearer.” These words have become a proverb, but few people know that one of the reasons that prompted Aristotle to prefer “truth” to his teacher was the same story with Atlantis. The sentence passed on Atlantis by Aristotle found support among Christian dogmatists: after all, in the Middle Ages the year of the creation of the world was well known - 5508 BC. e. It was not allowed to dispute this fact: heretics were dealt with harshly.

But not only Atlantis was the reason for the different “truths” of the student and the teacher.

These were the first creators of philosophical teachings, theoretical schemes and models. They lived several centuries BC. e.

One of the greatest philosophers and scientists was born in 384 BC. e. in Stagira, a Greek colony in Thrace, near Mount Athos.

His father Nicomachus and mother Thestis were of noble birth.

The father was the court physician of the Macedonian physician Amyntas III, and he promised the same position to his boy.

Nicomachus himself initially taught his son the art of medicine and philosophy, which at that time was inseparable from medicine. But he died early and before his death he was very sad that he did not have time to fully teach his son the art of healing, and thereby did not provide him with a place with the king, in his words - the best place with the best king.

Before the hour of death, the father advised his son, upon reaching 17 years of age, to go to Athens, at that time the capital of all Hellenic wisdom, and find real teachers of life there.

The father strongly recommended that his son remember the name of Plato, who, according to him, descends from Solon, who was the son of Apollo. Since our family is noble, for we are the descendants of Asclepius, the father said to his son, and in whom the wisdom of Asclepius and the wisdom of Apollo are united, he will become the wisest of people and will come closer to the gods.

Aristotle swore that he would do so, and when he reached the age of 17, the very next day he went to Athens, to see Plato.

In 367 BC. e. he entered the school founded by Plato, a student of Socrates (469 -399 BC) in the town of Academy, near Athens.

After 20 years of study, Aristotle founded his own philosophical school in Athens, in some ways contradictory to Plato's Academy.

After Plato's death, Aristotle, together with the latter's favorite student Xenophon, moved to the Atarnaean tyrant Hermine. Having married his niece Pythnada, Aristotle settled with her in Mistilene, from where he was called by the Macedonian king Philip to raise his son. The noble spirit of the pupil, the greatness of his exploits speak of the life-giving and beneficial influence of the great philosopher on the boy, who later became the famous commander Alexander.

Having moved in 334 BC. e. again to Athens, Aristotle founded his school there, called the Peripatetic.

During his lifetime, Aristotle was not loved and not always recognized; the vicissitudes of fate affected the fact that some of his works turned out to be incomplete and fragmentary. However, many scientists who lived much later suffered the same fate.

The scientist's appearance was not attractive. He was short, lean, shortsighted, and had a burr. With a sarcastic smile on his lips, he was cold and mocking. Opponents were afraid of his speech, which was always logical and dexterous, witty and sarcastic, which, of course, contributed to the emergence of large quantity enemies.

The negative disposition of the Greeks towards Aristotle continued even after death. During his lifetime he was accused of atheism, as a result of which, 62 years old, he left Athens and moved to Halpis on Evbe, where he died a few months later from a stomach illness.