The statements of the philosophers of antiquity are as relevant today as they were two and a half millennia ago. Does this mean that the world has changed little since then, or are the truths they were thinking about truly eternal? If an ordinary layman asks himself a question, but as I understand philosophy, then most likely he will associate this word with the ancient sages, as it is so ancient.
In fact, philosophers have lived in all ages, they exist in the 21st century, since answers to the basic questions, for example, about the essence of being and the meaning of life, have not yet been found.
The meaning of the thought process
If we look at the very sources, then the Greek term is based on two Greek words: phileo, which means to love, and sophia - wisdom. Thus, philosophy was originally understood as a love of wisdom, but not of one single person, but of a whole community:
- The basis of this science is thinking, not the study of anything, not belief and not feeling.
- Philosophy is not the result of one person realizing the truth, it is a collective reflection on it. In antiquity, the thinker put forward his theory, the reality of which he had to justify with facts, and then others began to think it over, sometimes truth was born in disputes.
One should go deeper into history to understand how philosophy was originally understood. She was perceived as a tool to achieve the truth about the essence of things. In ancient times, it was difficult for people to grasp with the mind all the phenomena and relationships in the world around them. Observing a particular fragment of it, for example, the tides of the sea, they expanded their consciousness, filling it with the experience of studying nature.
It was the thought process that made man rational, since unconditionally reflex behavior was inherent in him initially. For example, in order not to burn yourself hot, people do not reason, but instinctively pull their hand away from the fire.
When there is a delay in reaction between action and sensation, filled with thought about how it is safer or more profitable to act, then this is a manifestation of a philosophical approach.
Philosophers of antiquity
The first, pre-philosophical period was a special section of culture, as it was associated with practical everyday life. For example, Confucius taught how to behave in society according to the rule: do not act with others the way you would not want to be treated with you. Such sages lived not only in ancient China, but also in India.
These people cannot yet be called philosophers; they were thinkers. By studying their statements, you can get an idea of how philosophy was originally understood by people of that time.
The first real philosopher is Thales, who lived in 625 - 545 BC. e. His statement that everything is the essence of water is the work of the mind exclusively, since at the same time he did not rely on other sources, for example, mythology.
Reflecting on this topic, he based solely on his observations of the nature of things and tried to explain the properties by studying them. The fact that the root cause of all animate and inanimate nature is water, he came to the conclusion by examining its various states: solid, gaseous, and liquid.
Pupils and followers of Thales continued to develop the ideas of their teacher, thereby laying the foundation of the first philosophical school, without which there would be neither Heraclitus, who believed that it was impossible to enter the same river twice, nor Pythagoras, who found a numerical pattern among a huge number of things and phenomena.
The most prominent representatives of the philosophical schools of antiquity are Socrates and Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, Seneca. They lived before our era, but were looking for answers to the same questions that concern modern people.
Philosophers of the middle ages
The main teachings of the Middle Ages were the dogmas of the church, so the main work of philosophers of this period was to search for evidence of the Creator's existence.
Since philosophy was originally understood as the love of wisdom and the search for truth through the processes of reflection and observation of nature, during the time of the complete decline of scientific thought, it almost degraded.
During the long and gloomy period of the Middle Ages, all the most famous thinkers were either associated with the church or obeyed its will, which is unacceptable, since philosophy is a special form of cognition of the world with the help of thought free from any attachments to any dogmas.
The most famous thinkers of that time:
- Augustine Aurelius, who wrote the treatise On the City of God, whose ideas were embodied in the creation of the Catholic Church.
- Thomas Aquinas adhered to the ideas of Aristotle, which he managed to adapt to the dogma of dogma.
The main areas of philosophical debate of that time were the primacy of matter or idea, and theocentrism was the focus.
Renaissance
The main achievement of this period is the gradual liberation of people's minds from the influence of religion, which, in turn, led to the flourishing of sciences, arts, literature and invention.
What was originally understood by the word philosophy in the Renaissance began to be called the return of the ancient ideas of humanism, which were based on anthropocentrism. Man becomes the center of the universe, and his study comes to the fore. For instance:
- Pico della Mirandola claimed that the Creator created man to be free to choose what he should be: to fall to a low level of existence or to be elevated at the request of his soul.
- Erasmus of Rotterdam believed that everything around him is God, and denied the external control of all creatures of some kind.
- Giordano Bruno was executed at the stake for the concept of the plurality of worlds.
Thanks to the thinkers of this time, one can notice how philosophy was originally understood in antiquity and how its features changed when the teachings of the ancient sages were revised and revised.
New time
The seventeenth century gave the world a galaxy of great philosophers who greatly influenced the development of human thinking in the future.
If philosophy was originally understood as a love of wisdom, now knowledge and their practical application come first. The thinkers of this time were divided into 2 camps: empiricists and rationalists. The first ones included:
- Francis Bacon, who claimed that knowledge is power, enabled people to free themselves from prejudice and religious dogma by studying the world from the particular to the general.
- Thomas Hobbes believed that knowledge should be based on experience, namely contact with nature and its perception through the senses.
- John Locke was of the opinion that there was nothing in the human mind that was not originally in his feelings. It is through sensations that a person cognizes the world, reflects on its nature and makes scientific conclusions.
Empiricists tended to rely on feelings in the knowledge of the world and the influence of circumstances on human life.
Rationalists
Unlike empiricists, rationalists held a different opinion, for example:
- Rene Descartes expressed the fundamental thesis: I think, so I exist. This meant that only from the fact that man is a thinking creature is the fact of his existence determined. A significant role in the development of human consciousness was played by his statement about how we think this is our life. He was the first to speak of the duality of the world, which is based not only on the material, but also on the spiritual principle, which is a single whole.
- Benedict Spinoza believed that at the heart of everything is a certain substance, from which all visible and invisible worlds appeared. He put forward the theory of the picture of reality, in which the Creator was identified with nature.
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz created the doctrine of monads, according to which each person has a unique monad - the soul.
The example of the theories of scientists of the 17th century shows how philosophy was originally understood (love of wisdom among the ancients) and what level of human thinking it reached.
18th century philosophers
The Age of Enlightenment gave rise to a new kind of philosophical schools, where the main intellectual battle was fought between concepts such as materialism and idealism. Among the great thinkers of that time are especially known:
- Voltaire, who was an opponent of absolute monarchical power and the influence of the church on the minds of people. He was a freethinker who claimed that there was no God.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a critic of the progress and civilization that led to the emergence of states, which led to the separation of people by social status.
- Denis Didro represented the materialists. He believed that the whole world is a moving matter, inside of which atoms move.
- Immanuel Kant, by contrast, was an idealist. So he put forward and proved the theory that the world has a beginning, and the opposite, that the world has no beginning. He is famous precisely for his antinomies - philosophical contradictions.
If philosophy was originally understood as a love of wisdom and freedom of thought, then the enlighteners of the 18th century took it beyond the limits of the human mind to understanding matter.
Philosophical Directions of the 19th Century
The most striking philosophical trend that influenced the subsequent development of this science was positivism, the founder of which was Auguste Comte. He believed that everything should be based on only positive knowledge based on experimentally gained experience.
If philosophy is usually described as a theory based on a person’s knowledge of the world through reflection on it, then Comte stated that it is no longer needed, since everything must be based on knowledge, supported by facts. His theories became the impetus for the development of new directions in philosophy in the 20th century.
Philosophy in the 20th Century
Karl Popper was the first to share the concepts of science and philosophy. If in previous centuries disputes arose between thinkers on this subject, Popper finally proved that philosophy is not a science, but a special kind of culture, which has its own way of knowing the world.
Today, this culture has penetrated into all spheres. There is a philosophy of art, religion, history, politics, economics, etc.
Genesis and the picture of the world
In the 20th century, the concept of a picture of the world appeared and became popular. To know how to understand philosophy, you should be aware that it is:
- Initially, it was the cognition of being through reflection on various phenomena occurring in the world, and on everything that fills it.
- The next stage is the study of man and his place in reality.
- The next stage is the development of scientific knowledge, the separation of philosophy into a separate discipline.
No science, by virtue of the fact that it studies only part of the world around it, can imagine it as a whole. This is accessible only to philosophy, since it is not a science, but it can take the best knowledge from it and draw up a picture of the world from it.
Essence of man
At all times, philosophers were interested in the meaning of human life and its purpose. Today, more is known about these categories than the sages of antiquity, but so far no one has received final answers. Therefore, philosophy continues to study man as a microcosm in the whole universal organism.