Topic 1. Philosophy and its place in human and social life. The Ancient philosophy.

1. Philosophy what is it?

2. The range of philosophy problems. Correlation between philosophy and science.
3. The philosophy knowledge structure.
4. The world-outlook (worldview) and its historical varieties. Philosophy in the
structure of world-outlook.
5. Functions of philosophy.
6. The first Greek philosophers
7. Sophists and Socrates. Socrates as a turning point in the development of the Antique
philosophy
8. The philosophy of Plato
9. Aristotle's philosophy
10. The Hellenistic and Roman philosophy

1. Philosophy appeared one thousand years B.C. in the countries of Ancient world. But
as the independent sphere of knowledge classical philosophy was formed in the 7 th 6th
centuries B.C. in Ancient Greece.
The exact translation of the term philosophy is love to wisdom, later
searching for truth. For the first time the term philosopher was used by Pythagoras;
the term philosophy was introduced into science by Plato.
From the beginning the generalisation of all mans knowledge about the world into
the united system became the main task of philosophy. Also, the general notion about
the world includes the idea of the human being who has the possibility of active and
conscious influence on the world. So philosophy becomes the system of general
knowledge about nature, society and man.
One of the most topical questions among students is what for we are studying
philosophy? The answers are different to each person.
The famous English philosopher B. Russell insisted that for people to change the
world is to perfect morally and to self-perfect. Any science isnt interested in the
questions of the good and the evil; it doesnt explain those aims we are reaching for,
and it cant ground those ethical principles we are following. Philosophy can and must
do it. So philosophy becomes the spiritual, rational and theoretical discovery of reality.
At the same time philosophy is practical and humane. Its aim is to teach a person to
think independently and creatively, to understand the sense of life, to estimate correctly
his or her abilities and the role in the world, to define the activity direction, to
understand their participation in all things happening in the Universe.
So, philosophy is the general knowledge about the world and the mans place
in it.
Besides, every philosophy is added and continued with the personal existential
philosophic activity which begins with the questions: What is the man? Who am I?

2. Science begins from the daily life experience and the specific experiments but they
are limited. If science deals with the unknown it means the mental sphere that is
philosophy. So philosophy investigates the most general forms of humans activities,
and it strives to generalise regularities discovered by other sciences most completely.
The subject of philosophy is the general regularities of nature, society and man
as well as the relations between the objective reality and the subjective world.
It is important to define the borderline between philosophy and scientific
knowledge.
1) the man builds the scientific world picture excludes himself and formulates the
question: What are the objective world laws?;
the philosopher answers the question: Who am I in this world?.
2) the scientist receives exact knowledge to create the objective world picture;
the philosopher realises the self-consciousness function, he understands the
contemporary consciousness and its sources.
3) it is important for science to create the theory which could be proved with the
experiment;
philosophy discusses the world and what place the man occupies in it.
4) science works out concepts (mathematical, physical, chemical, etc.);
philosophy works out general concepts categories.
5) the object in science is the things which are important for reception of the
knowledge about the world;
 philosophy presupposes free choice of the object of investigation.
In spite of these differences philosophy and science have very close connections.
Besides, philosophy is occupied with the so called eternal questions:
What is the world and what is the mans place in it?
What is the basis of all being: material or spiritual?
Can the man get to know the surrounding world?
What is the sense of human life, its aim and its value?
Each philosophy system has its own main question. For Antiquity it was the
question about the beginnings of all the being. For Socrates it was the idea about the
self-cognition of man. The New Time brought to the foreground the question about the
possibilities of cognition. Marxism asked what was first: spirit or material that was the
question about the relation between the thought and the being, the spirit and the nature,
the man and the world.
There were many other questions but the first and the last ones constitute the
gnoseological opposition between the materialism and the idealism. These directions
appeared from the choice of different philosophical beginnings (substance) of the
world.
So materialism presupposes that the material is the primary element, it exists
independently of consciousness. The consciousness here is secondary and derivative
from the material.
Idealism insists on the primacy of consciousness which creates the material.
Also in philosophy there are dualism systems in which material and spiritual
substances are equal.
However in philosophy there isnt only the substantial question. There are many
directions which dont deal with this problem. Philosophy is based on the universal
connection principle, on the unity of development.
So philosophy is also the knowledge about the universal principles and laws of
development.
Therefore studying of philosophy educates in people the culture of intelligent
thinking, gives the opportunity to choose the true decision, helps to separate the
important things from the minor ones, opens the connections between the different
phenomena of reality and reveals the oppositions in the surrounding reality.

3. There is the most general structure of the philosophy knowledge: the main parts
ontology, gnoseology and logic; the auxiliary parts ethics, aesthetics and the history
of philosophy. However in modern philosophy there are no exact boundaries and the
problems usually intersect.
Ontology is the philosophy doctrine of the being.
So it is the doctrine about everything which exists.
Ontology is studying the most general being forms. The main categories used in
ontology are: being and no-being, the material and the ideal, material, consciousness,
space and time, move, change, etc.
The structure of ontology includes three parts which study different being forms:
1) nature philosophy is studying the philosophy problems of nature;
2) philosophical anthropology is occupied with the philosophical problems of the
human being;
3) social philosophy gives the philosophical analysis of the society phenomenon.
Gnoseology is the philosophy doctrine of cognition.
It studies the essence and the contents of cognition process. It discovers the
relations between the subject and the object of cognition. Also, gnoseology considers
the boundaries, the sources, the forms and the methods of cognition.
Logic is the doctrine of the thought laws.
There is formal and mathematical logics.
The auxiliary parts are ethics, aesthetics and the history of philosophy.
Ethics is the moral doctrine. It is divided into ethology (the science about the
moral norms of definite societies) and axiology (the doctrine of the of human being
values).
Aesthetics is the doctrine about the laws of beauty.
History of philosophy is not an independent part of philosophy; it considers the
development of philosophical thought from the beginning to our days. The history of
philosophy is made up of its different periods, stages, directions and schools.
4. Every philosophy is the kind of world-outlook but not every world-outlook can be
called philosophy.
World-outlook (worldview) is the complex of the most general looks on the
world, the persuasions and the ideals based on those looks as well as the mans
attitude to life, the behaviour principles and the value orientation.
There are some components which form the world-outlook:
1) knowledge;
2) world picture;
3) society image (the relation between immediate micro- and the general macro-
surrounding);
4) ideal of the man (the complex of the perfect man notion which is permanently
changing);
5) notion about oneself (includes the understanding of a persons uniqueness);
6) life strategy (includes education, choice of the sample to follow, self-education,
etc.).
World-outlook (worldview) is the result of the world reflection but the degree of
that reflection can be different.
The first degree is formed on the sensation level. It is the so called world-sensation
or world-contemplation when only separate external manifestations of being are fixed.
The second degree is called world-perception or world-presentation because on this
level the united world picture is constituted but mostly on the basis of senses.
The third degree is the world-understanding degree when the world is reflected with
the help of concepts. This level is connected with the abstract thinking and theoretical
cognition.
Philosophy represents namely this level. Philosophy could be defined as the highest
world-outlook level or as theoretically designed, systematic and rational world-outlook.
In early societies there was no philosophy and its tasks were solved by the myth and
religion. So we can outline the main historical kinds of world-outlook:
mythological
religious
philosophical
 scientific
Mythological world-outlook is the mans first attempt to understand his being, to
explain the origin and the structure of the world, the appearance of man and animals, to
define his place in the world.
Mythology was the universal, figurative and symbolic form of world cognition and
explaining. Human characteristics were projected on the nature phenomena.
Mythological creatures were acting like people, they also had destiny. The world in the
peoples mind at that time was united, man and nature were indissoluble.
Religious world-outlook is based on the faith in the supernatural forces and their
major role in the world and mans life.
Like philosophy, religion satisfies peoples needs in understanding of the
surrounding world and their life. So both philosophy and religion have a similar task
but also they have important differences:
1) philosophy is based on the rational and theoretical knowledge;
religion is based on the faith in something super natural.
2) philosophy must be free of dogmas, it must not be limited by any authorities and
it must have a possibility to doubt about everything;
religion needs authorities and accepts the truth by faith.
3) philosophy tries to make the notion about the world united;
religion divides the world into earthly, natural, cognitive, and heavenly,
supernatural, transcendental.
Philosophical world-outlook heads for the rational explanation of the world. This
type of world-outlook has succeeded from mythological and religious ones, summing
up their character and questions.
Scientific world-outlook is formed on the cognition basis of the nature and society
development laws that make science and philosophy close to each other.
Each man has as a rule eclectic world-outlook which includes characteristics of
different world-outlooks. It is so called ordinary world-outlook but there are some
people who can take pride in the pure type of world-outlook for example,
philosophical though is not frequent.
So our world-outlook is a prism and through it we perceive the surrounding world.
5. There are some philosophy functions which define the philosophy place in culture
and society in general.
1) The world-outlooking (worldview) function means that philosophy creates the
system of looks on the world and the humans place in it from the rational and the
conceptual position. No science can perform this function because special sciences
have as their subject only a fragment of reality. Only philosophy, generalizing
knowledge though each science can change the world picture, produce new ideas and
methods of cognition.
2) The gnoseological function includes the cognition theory which is always the
relation between the man and the world, the subject and the object. Only in such a way
we can reach the truth the aim of all cognition and it is the eternal question of
philosophy.
3) The methodological function deals with cultivating of general and particular
cognition methods, with working out of basic cognitive principles.
4) The integrative function means that philosophy unites the knowledge of different
disciplines in the united system. It helps scientists to make the right choice when
defining their place in the scientific society.
5) The critical function plays anti-dogma role in the philosophy and science
development. It deals with constructive philosophical critics.
6) The axiological function presupposes orientation at certain values. Each
philosophical system contains the estimation moment of the object under investigation.
The particular role of this function reveals itself during transitive periods of history
when the former value system is being ruined and it becomes necessary to reconsider
the latter one.
7) The sociological function helps to explain the social being and to change it
spiritually and materially. Namely, philosophy is occupied with cultivating of general
conception of integration and consolidation of society. So philosophy helps people
when they are on the edge and when they must make a choice.
8) The prognostic function means forming of general tendencies of human and
world development hypotheses and basing of new world-understanding, as it has
already been in the history of philosophy.
All philosophy functions correlate with each other. Besides there are other
philosophy functions: theoretical, ontological, hermeneutical, etc.
So philosophy has a great meaning in human and social life. It teaches us to think,
helps to come to the high problems, it also holds on the science of aimless
accumulation of knowledge.

6. The first Greek philosophers (7th-5th cen. B.C.)

The philosophy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome is called antique philosophy. The
ancient Greek-philosophy is usually classified into the following stages:
Pre-Socratics (the Greek philosophers before Socrates);
Classic Greek philosophy (Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle),
Hellenistic and Roman philosophy
The works of the pre-Socratic philosophers have come to our time in fragments contained
in the works of later philosophers (Aristotle, Diogenes of Laertes, Sextons, Empirics, and
Plutarch) and, therefore, it's difficult sometimes to reconstruct their teachings. The pre-
Socratic philosophers were interested in the study of the being; they saw the being in the
world around, that is in nature. In nature, they tried to find out a primal source, a cause of
all, and the so-called Arche (beginning). Many of them connected it with one of the four
prime elements: water fire, earth and air.
Thus, Thales of Miletus, one of the seven wises, pondered the Arche is water. All the
things are born out of water; the water is the beginning and the finish of any things. Our
earth is a disk swimming by the surface of water, asserted he. All living creatures and even
inanimate things have souls; one's soul is one's god. All the nature is full of gods, said
Thales. Thales was also the founder of the Miletus philosophical school, the first known
scientific school in the world history.
His disciple Anaximander reconsidered the teaching of his teacher and came to the opinion
that arche is no element of the mentioned four but an especial beginning called apeiron
(the word means an indefinite, formless, endless, limitless, chaotic). Apeiron is eternal arid
omnipresent in any possible worlds (our one is only one of them). From apeiron four
elements (water, fire, earth, air) emerged, every one of them aspires to widen its own
sphere, that engender a struggle (a war) between them that gives' origin to all existing
things and worlds. The third representative of the Miletus school was Anaximenes, the
disciple of Anaximander. He asserted that the prime substance is air, for the spiritual
precedes the material and our soul (the spiritual) is air. The fire is the rarefied air; the
water arises by way of the air's condensing, the further condensing gives the earth and still
the further a stone
Another of the ancient Greek philosophy schools was the Pythagorean one founded by
Pythagoras, the legendary sage, mystic, philosopher and mathematician. This school was
some kind of a religious order whose teaching was secret and spread only among the
initiated. This teaching and its particular constituents were regarded as not individual but a
collective property of the school (what and who invented or discovered was of no matter)
The first who opened the Pythagorean teaching for the wide publics was considered Plato.
It's known also that the Pythagoreans shared the faith in the soul reincarnations,
Pythagoras himself, as it's told, remembered many of his past lives. There exist different
types of people, taught Pythagoras, regarding himself, for instance, a semi-god. Other
people may be divided by analogy with onlookers at the Olympic Games. The main
significance of the Pythagorean school for the further development of philosophy and
science consists of its input in the development of mathematics and its philosophic ground.
The well-known is the famous Pythagoras' theorem (the sum of the squared legs of a
triangle equals to the squared hypotenuse of the triangle). Pythagoras taught also that all
consists of numbers, which he comprehended as geometrical figures: one as a point, two as
a segment, three as a triangle and etc. That is the Pythagoreans saw the world as the being
compounded of regular geometrical elements. The whole Universe is built in accordance
with the mathematical harmony's principles. The task of philosopher is to see them The
Pythagoreans called this harmony the music of Heaven, which is given to see only to the
true wises. The Pythagorean philosophy made a great impact on the philosophy of Plato as
well as on the European Renaissance philosophy and science.
Other considerable philosophers of that time were Heraclitus and Parmenides.
Heraclitus of Ephesus is most famous with his sacramental dictum 'Panta rei' 'Everithing
flows and changes', or in other words, all the existing goes constantly from one state into
another. Nothing fixed exists in the world, emergence and disappearance, life and death,
birth and decline, being and non-being are interconnected and mutually condition and pass
into each other Heraclitus is known also with his another aphoristic phrase 'nobody can
step twice into the same river'. He taught also that the Universe descends from fire, i.e. the
fire (the cosmic fire) is Arche the primary element of existence. In the end, the Universe
will come back into fire, burning in it and from that final fire-a new Universe will appear.
On the Earth, the gold corresponds to the fire. As well as in the nature all things are
exchanged for fire, so in the human world they are exchanged for gold, said Heraclitus.
In the connection with the philosophy of Heraclitus the philosophy of another Greek
philosopher, of Empedocles is notable. According to Empedocles, the reality is
compounded by different combinations of the above elements, every of which tries
simultaneously to expand its sphere of spreading and repulse other elements and, on the
other hand, to attract and get mixed with them together. This is the manifestation of two
main principles of being Love and Enmity.
Parmenides is famous with his teaching of being. According to him, two worlds exist. The
first one is the world of the true, eternal, unchangeable, perfect immovable, indivisible and
wonderful being. This being is the only one to be true and it coincides with mind, thought.
The second world is that of opinions all people used to perceive and to know taken by
senses belongs to it and is not true. All that is no more than people's opinion. In spite of its
vagueness and unclearness the Parmenides' idea of the true, unchangeable, immovable etc.
having made a great impact on all the later European philosophy's development. In
particular, it exerted a decisive influence on the philosophy of Plato and through it on
other European philosophers.
The disciple of Parmenides was Zeno. In order to develop further the teaching of his
teacher, he tried to prove that movement does not exist for it he elaborated the so-called
aporias (paradoxes) of movement. They are as follows.
a flying arrow moves neither where it's flying nor where it isn't flying.
a movement cannot finish, because to pass some distance it is necessary to pass the
half of it, to pass the half it is necessary to pass the half of the half and so forth. The
movement, therefore, can neither finish nor even begin
Zeno was famous as well as with a lot of other paradoxes. For example, the throwing
down a grain does not make a crash, the throwing two, three, grains doesn't either. But if
we throw down a sack of grain, we shall get a great crash. The generally accepted opinion
is that the paradoxes of Zeno demonstrate insufficiency of that time terminology
concerning the problem of continuity and incontinuity.
The problem of, what the true being is, together with the above continuity and
discontinuity problem give birth to the Antique atomism. Its founders were the ancient
Greek philosophers Leucippus and Democritus. Their way of reasoning, according to a
legend, was approximately the following. If an apple were cut in half and then every half
again and again in half, in the end we would get only nothingness (zeros). It means that
something (the apple) consists of nothing (sum of zeros) and it is an absurd. Hence, a limit
to dividing (something indivisible) must be. Leucippus called it with the word atom
(literally indivisible). This atom is an absolute, self-sufficient, unchangeable being. Any
other being (any existing thing) consists of atoms, i.e. the indivisible elements.

7. Sophists and Socrates. Socrates as a turning point in the development of the Antique
philosophy
In 5th century B.C., many men, educated enough and ready to use their knowledge for
earning their living, appeared in Greece. They earned their living, compounding and
keeping speeches in courts or before audience, by teaching and so forth. For a certain
payment they took up to prove anything, they were asked. These men were called sophists
(the word meant primarily 'the wises' but later, because of this, opinion, acquired another
meaning, some as 'a dodger' or 'a wiseacre'). From the sophists originates also the word
sophism (dodge or a dishonest trick in reasoning).
Many of them were the real philosophers looking sincerely for truth, but the better
education, they got, made them less naive in comparison with other philosophers.
Protagoras the most famous philosopher-sophist expressed this common for all sophists
view in the next dictum The Man is a measure for any things as the existing ones in their
existence, so the non-existing in their non-existence, or in other words, any knowledge is
relative and subjective and depends on human opinions.
Approximately, at the same time there lived such famous Greek philosopher as Socrates
who preached views similar in many points to those of sophists. Socrates did not write
books and taught exclusively in oral form. We know about him and his teaching from the
books of two of his disciples Plato and Xenophanes.
Plato, being a great philosopher himself, ascribed (as it's recognized by all modem
scholars) his own thoughts to his teacher (some sort of a topsy-turvy plagiarism).It's
known of Socrates for sure that he was the first who had turned the ancient Greek
philosophy attention from the study of nature onto the study of human.
According to Socrates
All the existing teachings of the outer world are not reliable, because of that human
doesn't see the reality by itself but does it through a prism of its own ideas, notions, desires
etc. ;
We cognize not a reality but our own ideas' and passions' projections;
Therefore, before cognizing the nature we need to cognize our projections' modes,
i.e. to cognize ourselves and only after it we can "cognize something else.
Socrates was not occupied in any handicraft, kept no business and wanted to do nothing
except going by Athens' streets and importuning his compatriots with his sayings. A well-
known dictum of Socrates is: know that I know nothing (others don't know even that).
This latter characterizes in fact all Socrates' philosophy. It may be interpreted as that being
wise means discerning the boundaries of one's own knowledge and that the more one
knows so more he doesn't know (for the boundary of one's knowledge widens with the
growing of his knowledge) Any knowledge is nothing in comparison with the ocean of
unknown.
According to Plato, Socrates tried also to realize what the good is and how to teach people
to be good. The conclusion, Socrates came to, was that the good is something absolute for
anyone and men do bad because they do not know this absolute good. If they knew it, they
would not do bad but only good. The next result of the Socrates' philosophy is his dialectic
method. It consisted in leading an interlocutor to his own answer at the question Socrates
put a question, the interlocutor answered it, Socrates put new ones and so until the
interlocutor got confused in his own answers (having come to a contradiction), He looked
perplexedly at Socrates and asked 'What is the correct answer?', Socrates said 'I myself
don't know. With help of these conversations) he tried to demonstrate the conventional
character of a problem to make his interlocutor to come to his own answer. Thus, the
dialectic method (going from Socrates) is the method of touching or reasoning by leading
a conversation, that allows taking into consideration different points of view and making
therewith a result, overall and thorough Socrates was an antagonist to sophists in spite of
his own relativism and proximity of their views.

8. The philosophy of Plato

The disciple of Socrates was Plato. According to Plato, the importance of his philosophy
can be reduced to the three moments. They are: dialectics, theory of ideas and theory of
ideal state. As for Socrates his dialectic method consists in the leading of teaching or
reasoning by means of conversation then Plato turns it into a special approach merely
using the form of conversation. The Plato's theory of ideas can be regarded as a straight
continuation of the Parmenides's conception of true, eternal, unchangeable, unmovable
being. Plato like Parmenides asserts that two realms exist: the one of ideas and the other of
material things.
The ideas according to Plato are wonderful, perfect; eternal images abiding in their own
world. The material things are ugly and imperfect incarnations of the ideas, which are
primal to them. The things are like the reflection of ideas in rough amorphous matter. Soul
of a man is the idea of him. Before its incarnation in body, it lived in the ideas world
communicating with all other ideas and therefore has knowledge of them. Having
incarnated it loses this knowledge and any cognition being of ideas is the process of the
soul's recollection, anamnesis of that it knew abiding the world's ideas. As a proof for it
Plato put a case of a slave-boy who with help of certain questions Plato with his friend
Menno had put had been able to infer some basic laws of geometry about which he had
had no notion before. According to Plato the slave-boy's soul could recall these laws
because it had known them abiding in the world's ideas.
The philosophy on Plato's view being cognition of ideas begins from a wonder of
discovery of eternal and wonderful ideas. The theory of the ideal state follows from the
ideas theory The ideas are eternal, perfect, unchangeable and the same ought to be the
ideal state. Here ought to be noticed, that the real states the ancient Greeks lived were very
unstable: plots, wars, rebellions were quite usual affairs for them. According to Plato, there
exist three kinds of a soul: reasoning, strong-willed and desiring, passional souls which
correspond with three estates - governors-philosophers, warriors or watchers and
handicraftsmen with peasants - are supposed in the ideal state. The certain characteristic
prevailing sort of soul was actual to every state. Accordingly in order to remove them it's
necessary to do so that the governors and watchers have no properties. Even more they
ought to have no families, wives and children should be common for them. For people
with prevailing reasoning or strong-willed parts of souls such disposition is quite natural,
especially if they are brought up in proper way. Therefore, the system of education,
upbringing and ideology is very important in the ideal state. All children are brought in
compliance with their future occupation (and estate position accordingly). It does not
mean however that the estate position is ensured by birth. No, on the contrary, all children
are distributed to their classes according to their capacities and inclinations. All system of
education is thought through. Mothers may tell children only canonic tales checked by
censure. The poems by Homer and Hesiod, e. g. must be forbidden because they can evoke
a disrespect to gods. Theater also ought to be forbidden because in the ideal state all
people would be good and a good man would not want to play a bad hero in a play. But if
all heroes are good nobody will want to see the play. The Handicraftsmen, artisans and
peasants are allowed to have property and family.

9. Aristotle's philosophy
Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and the first scientist and scholar in the modern viewpoint.
He was the first who had collected and generalized the existing in his time knowledge
dividing it into separate spheres and gave them names used till now. They are logic,
physics, metaphysics, zoology, politics, poetic, psychology and so on.
He is also a founder of logic as a science. His logic is deductive (i. e. its reasoning goes
from the general to a particular). It is the logic of syllogisms, for instance.
Concerning the philosophy as itself, Aristotle's main input into it is his metaphysics. The
term was also introduced by him and meant - beyond physics (the teaching about
something beyond physics' boundaries, beyond perceptible) This is a definition of
metaphysics the most accepted in the philosophical spheres That is metaphysics is a
science about something thats beyond physics, beyond observable and perceptible i.e.
about the most general properties and laws
In his metaphysics Aristotle did not go after his teacher Plato but revised Plato conception.
Instead of Platos theory of ideas and things, he introduced a conception of matter and
form. In order to come into existence everything ought to have a cause (or even a whole
set of causes). Aristotle discerned 4 kinds of causes: - formal; - material; - acting and - of
aim. For instance if we take the above-mentioned pot its formal cause will be its space
form, its material cause - the clay, its doing one - the potter who made it, its aim cause will
be what it's made and used for. Everything ought to have some or other cause of its
emergence, that cause needs its own cause and so far until we shall come to that it ought to
be the primal cause, the cause of all causes. This cause is God According to Aristotle God
is a pure actuality i.e. the pure reality by itself. This is Aristotle's metaphysics that means
the proper philosophy by itself. In his treatise "Physics" Aristotle described his nature
ideas such as the nature avoids emptiness and consists of matter, which in connection with
forms gives material things. Matter is a combination of 4 elements: air, fire, earth, water.
There are absolute up and down all things aspire to the earth center (the absolute down)
but with different speeds that creates various combinations of elements. The space is
limited with the sky vault; the Earth is in the center, around which all other heaven bodies
move. Space is a place of the world. Time is a number of motions relating to past and
future Numbers do not exist in absence of somebody who accounts whence there must be
a sort of a world mind who is God in another way. This is another Aristotle's argument in
proof of God.
In the treatise Of soul, Aristotle reasoned about the nature of psyche or soul and pointed
out three kinds of it: 1) vegetable, 2) animal and 3) intellectual souls. The vegetable soul is
responsible for nourishment and reproduction. All living creatures (plants, animals, men)
have it. Aristotle's ethics is based on the robust sense, which prescribes the man to avoid
extremities, because they are defaults and vices carrying harm. The virtue consists of
evading them and finding a way through between them. Every existing virtue is a golden
mean between two vices.
The political theory of Aristotle is also founded on the robust sense. He did not ponder on
the ideal state problem but simply pointed out three good and three bad forms of the state
power. The good forms are monarchy, aristocracy and the so-called politic. The bad ones
are tyranny, oligarchy and democracy.
10. The Hellenistic and Roman philosophy (4th cen. B.C. 3d cen. A.D.)
After the classical epoch and developing of antique philosophy, the so-called Hellenistic
period (after the name of the state) ensued. The peculiarity of this period of philosophy
was the refuse from creating the universal philosophical concepts but switching over to the
mans values and the sense of the mans life.
The philosophy of the Hellenistic and Roman periods was characterized by the great
variety of schools and trends. There appeared such schools as academics, Peripatetic,
Epicuruss, Stoicisms, Eclectics, Cynics, Neo-Platonists.
The schools of Plato's and Aristotle's followers were called academics and Peripatetic
correspondently from Aristotle took their outsets other schools. One of them is cynics' one.
The name of cynics (as well as words 'cynical, cynicism') went from the word 'canine' (of
dog). Cynics rejected welfares of civilization and said that a sage should keep autarchy
(autonomy or independence on society) they turned down social norms concerning
decency, social life, welfare etc. Many cynics became tramps and paupers. The most
famous of cynics was Diogenes of Sinoppes who lived in a barrel and flabbergasted his
compatriots with shocking (sometimes-indecent) pranks. When Alexander the Great came
to visit him had come to and asked him what he (Alexander) could do for him Diogenes
replied 'Go away, don't hide the sun'.
Skeptics were another school leading its outset from Aristotle's analytical philosophy,
they denied cognition by its purposeless and claimed the striving to the human happiness.
Between the Hellenistic and Roman schools Epicuruss, Stoicisms and Neo-Platonists
ought to be pointed out especially Epicuruss represented that time atomism. As well as
Leucippus and Democritus, they asserted that all consists of atoms. There exist merely
atoms and emptiness in the world. But unlike Democritus they deemed that atoms could
spontaneously oblique (move aside) from their straightforward motion trajectories. Thanks
to this obliquity, capacity they create eddies giving beginning to all things. The founder of
the Epicurean school the ancient Greek philosopher Epicure said that the human soul also
consists of atoms. These atoms are subtler than others and therefore can move through
their accumulations. After death' the soul decomposes into atoms it is compounded as well
as the body. There is nothing left after death. There is no post mortal existence and all
talking about post mortal rewards or punishments are simply lie. The human is free to do
what he wants without fear before post mortal renderings. All that's worth to think of is the
present life existing and obtaining happiness. The latter doesn't consist however at all in
pursue of pleasures but in calmness and light-heartedness. Its a rest and sufferings
absence. Epicurus didn't deny gods existence. Gods exist but their being more perfect than
men, they are in the full calmness condition and do not intrude in human affairs. That is
why all prayers and sacrifices are useless.
Stoics are famous with their teaching of the non-ability to avoid destiny and of the
necessity to surrender to it. The founder of stoicism is Zeno (ought not to be confused with
another Zeno, the author of the motion paradoxes). He taught that the Universe originated
from fire and in a future would come back into it (burn in it), in the Universe the strict
order in face of the implacable fate reigns. A man cannot change his destiny but ought to
accept and to follow it with the light heart. A sage follows his fate voluntarily; the fool is
dragged by it at the rope. There is no sense to obstinate but it is better to go on of the own
will with the high-lifted head. It was long lasted philosophy during almost 6 centuries. The
most famous are the Roman stoics such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The
first was a Roman senator, the second - a libertine slave, the latter - the Roman emperor.
They are famous not only by their ethics but also in most, thanks to their lives, which
corresponded to their teachings. Seneca being a senator accumulated a great fortune and
was sentenced to death by Nero. He without hesitation, opened his veins having ordered
his slaves to read him a piece of poetry. He taught that a man was always free and always
had the ability of choice. Take, for example, slaves. They are themselves guilty of their
slavery because they had no courage to die. Look into an abyss, there is a freedom hidden
beneath. Look, at the tree, a freedom is hanging, down from its branches as Seneca wrote.
The emperor Marcus Aurelius always followed his duty during his reign. After his death a
roll in which he wrote up his thoughts was found. Later it was entitled "Self-cognition" or
"With Self Sub-rosa". "The time of human life is instant. Its essence is the eternal flow.
The perception is dim, the body structure's frail, the souls unstable, the destinies
enigmatic, and the glories unreliable. In short all concerning the body is similar to a flux,
concerning the soul is similar to dream and haze Life is a struggle and wandering by a
strange land, the postmortem fame is oblivion But what can lead out onto the way?
Nothing but philosophy" - wrote Marcus Aurelius there He represented the world as some
city likeness. All in this city has its place and intend. The duty of everybody is to follow
his intend personally he did it during his life.
Neo-Platonism is the last trend in the antique philosophy history. The founder of Neo-
Platonism is Ammonius Saccas but the doctrine became known thank to his disciple
Plotinus lived in 3d c. A.D. In compliance with his biographers, he visited India "namely
whence he had brought his wisdom. He practiced contemplation often falling into ecstasy
(the word of the Greek origin, its meaning is being out of body). From these mystic
experiences he did work out his philosophic ideas. His philosophy and in particular his
conception of trinity made a great imprint on the Christian theology and philosophy. His
trinity consists of the One, the Nous (Cosmic Mind or Spirit) and the World Soul. The One
is something indivisible, indefinite; about that it can't even be said whether it exists, it's
higher than being, it isn't all and it's higher than all. Further, the Nous follows; it is a
cosmic rational outset. The Nous is overflowed with its own bliss and thereby emanates
the World Soul. The latter has two sides: inner and outer. The inner is turned to the Nous
and the One, the outer bore the matter and material things, i.e. the material world which
being only its image does not exist without it. The human soul is immortal and passes over
into another body after death (reincarnates). It does its thanks to desires. Having cleaned of
them it comes back to the World Soul, the Nous and the One because it's also but a
manifestation of them.
The later Neo-Platonists added a teaching about mediators between the human soul and
the trinity.