Modern world civilization is an indirect product of ancient Greek culture. Ancient Greek philosophy is its most important part. Based on the most common concept, we single out several stages through which the philosophy and culture of antiquity as a whole passed.
Stage One. The origin of philosophy, its formation. The first half of the VI century BC e., Asia Minor of Hellas - Ionia, Miletus. The ancient Greek first school, called Milesian, is taking shape. To her belong Anaximander, Thales, Anaximenes, their students.
Stage Two. The maturity of philosophy, its heyday (from V to IV century BC), is the formation of schools: atomists, Pythagorean and sophists. This stage is associated with the names of the greatest thinkers - Socrates, Aristotle, Plato.
Stage Three. Ancient Greek philosophy is experiencing its sunset. The era of Latin philosophy and Greek. The most pronounced currents of Hellenistic philosophy are skepticism, stoicism, and epicureism.
If we single out the content of philosophical thoughts, then we get the following:
- early classics (pre-Socratics, naturalists): Physis, Cosmos and its structure;
- middle classics (Socrates with his school, naturalists);
- high classics (Aristotle and Plato, their schools).
What are the features of ancient Greek philosophy? Ancient Greek philosophy is characterized by the generalized beginnings of scientific knowledge, observations of natural phenomena, as well as the achievements of the culture and scientific thought of the peoples of the East. This historical type of worldview is characterized by cosmocentrism. Nature and the elements - the macrocosm, a kind of repetition of the world, man - the microcosm. This is the highest principle, which subjugates human manifestations, called fate. In this period, mathematical and natural-scientific knowledge fruitfully develops, which leads, in turn, to a unique combination of the rudiments of scientific knowledge with aesthetic and mythological consciousness. Question: why does philosophy in this manifestation originate in ancient Greece?
The conditions that contributed to the formation include, first of all, the freethinking of the ancient Greeks, explained by the specific religiosity of ancient Greece: religious views here were not associated with the most severe regulation of social and individual life. The Greeks lack a caste of priests, having such an influence in other, eastern states. Ancient Greek beliefs did not set the same conservative, lifestyle, as in the same East. On the contrary, there was enough room for an intellectual, independent search. To search for the beginning of being. No less interesting is the fact that this period is characterized by activity, expressed, inter alia, in intensive colonization (beginning from the 7th century BC). In comparison with the surrounding settled peoples, it is striking that the Greeks are distinguished by activity, migratory mobility, and enterprise. They rely only on themselves, their abilities, while showing a genuine, lively interest in the world around them.
Ancient Greek philosophy, cosmocentrism
As we already know, in the VI-IV centuries BC there is a rapid flowering of both philosophy and culture as a whole. During this time, new worldviews, a new vision of the world and its structure, the doctrine of the cosmos, which is the beginning of today's knowledge and discoveries, are being created. The earth (like everything on it), the luminaries and the heavens are covered by a closed space of a spherical shape, with a constant cycle: everything arises, everything flows, everything changes. But no one knows where it comes from and where it returns. Some philosophers argue that the basis of everything is sensory elements (fire, water, oxygen, earth and apeiron), others explain everything by mathematical atoms (Pythagoreans), others see the basis in invisible, single being (Eleatics), fourth consider the basis as indivisible atoms (Democritus), the fifth claim that the globe is only a shadow, the result of the embodiment of thought. Of course, all directions now seem naive and contradictory, then the realization has not yet come that philosophy may well have different meanings. However, already V century BC (Plato and Democritus) gives two warring lines, clearly marked. And the struggle between these lines goes through the whole philosophy ...