Ticket representation of a man in the ancient world. Ideas about the world and man in ancient culture Understanding the position of man in the world developed by ancient
Man, according to ancient philosophers, is a part of the Cosmos. She is an imitation of the Cosmos, she is a microcosm, which in all its features repeats the macrocosm. The difference between macrocosm and microcosm is not qualitative, but only quantitative. But since man only repeats the Cosmos, it is in everything subject to the actions of those forces that govern the Cosmos. And such forces are the Logos, destiny. And fate is even higher than the Logos. If the Logos personifies the reasonable, natural beginning of the Cosmos and its "personified carriers" are the gods, then fate personifies the unity of the rational and the irrational, the regular and the random. She is higher than the Logos, higher than the gods, and the goddesses of fate Moira are not subject even to Zeus, the king of the gods. From this follows an important conclusion in the understanding of the Greeks of man, of human life. A person in his life is completely subject to fate, which he cannot change. Man is only an appendage of the Cosmos, and not a self-sufficient, original personality. Greek philosophy does not know the concept of "personality" in the modern sense. The Greek individual is not characterized by psychological experiences, torments and doubts. Of course, the Greek myths speak of the exploits of heroes, the Greeks glorify their kings, philosophers and Olympians, but their activity is perceived not as a personal merit, a manifestation of physical and intellectual identity, freedom and aspirations, but as the personification of fate, a manifestation of higher actions, cosmic in their own way. the nature of forces. And if we take into account that in ancient culture, both in the Greek and Roman periods, the widespread Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, it becomes even more clear that great deeds are not the merit of people, but only a manifestation of the destiny. But the Greek does not experience psychological restraint and depression on this occasion. The Greek worldview is not characterized by a pessimistic view of the world and one's own life. The ancient worldview, in the words of the Russian researcher of ancient culture A.F. Losev, is "heroically fatalistic." According to the Greek, as well as the Roman, since such a fate is determined for me (however, no one can fully know fate, because it is the unity of necessity and chance), then I must bring it to life. This should be seen as a manifestation of a more general ancient principle that is cosmic in nature - the share is subject to the general, the single. Only the latter has true existence and has perfection.
But the faith of the ancient world in fate does not mean that the philosophy of Antiquity is not interested in meaningful, ethical problems. Although a person's life is subject to fate, he is not given to know. Therefore, a person has a choice in their actions. True, pre-Socratic philosophy has little interest in the problems of ethics. But, starting with Socrates, in ancient Greek philosophy there is a turn to ethical problems that come to the fore in the Hellenistic period. ancient philosophy.
The main goal of philosophy, according to Socrates, is the knowledge of man himself. But the knowledge of oneself for him means the knowledge of the general, unchanging principles of goodness, virtue, justice. Only knowing what virtue is, what is good and beautiful, a person can be virtuous. And only action in accordance with virtue contributes to bliss, life happiness. Socrates considered moderation (knowing how to curb one's passions), courage (knowing how to overcome dangers) and justice (knowing how to keep the laws of divine and human) as the three main virtues. "He said that there is only one good - knowledge and only one evil - ignorance."
The ethical problems posed by Socrates continue to be developed by the philosophers of the Socratic schools, primarily of the Cynic and Kerenian schools. The founder of the cinematic school was the Athenian Antisthenes, and one of its most famous representatives -
Diogenes Sinodsky. The very name of the school came from the fact that Antisthenes conducted his talks in the gymnasium of Kіnosarzі (literally - "Sharp Dog", from the word "Pythagoreans" the Latin "cynics" was later formed). Like Socrates, the Pythagoreans believed that human happiness coincides with virtue. But, unlike him, they saw the meaning of happiness in autarky - complete moral autonomy of the individual, independence from society with its norms, the world around them in general. "The sage does not need anything or anyone, because everything that belongs to others belongs to him." We must live according to nature and in unity with it. Honor, wealth, pleasure are not good things. Science, art, morality, family, homeland - empty words. A person needs only what she urgently needs, without which she cannot do. The ideal for the Cynics is Hercules. Culture and civilization do not bring a person closer to true happiness, but lead away from it. At the same time, the Pythagoreans are convinced that virtue can be learned. Diogenes speaks of two types of exercise: one for the soul, the other for the body, and he is sure that no success in life is possible without exercise. Therefore, for the Cynics, philosophy is not so much the science of comprehending the truth, although virtue is impossible without knowledge, but rather a way of life, and Antisthenes, and especially Diogenes, and their followers affirmed their philosophy, first of all, by their way of life, although they were distinguished by their extraordinary strength of verbal persuasion. Diogenes, as we know, lived for some time in a clay barrel, used only the bare necessities, and taught that the very contempt for pleasure, through habit, becomes the highest pleasure.
The founder of the Cyrene school was Aristip from Cyrene, hence the name of the school. Aristipus and his followers - the Cyrenaics proceeded from the fact that there are two states of the soul - pleasure and pain. Slow movement is pleasure, sharp movement is pain. People, like all living things, strive for pleasure and avoid pain, because pain is disgusting. The Cyrenaics understand pleasure as sensual pleasure, and therefore their teaching laid the foundation for hedonism - the position according to which sensual pleasure is the highest good and all the variety of moral requirements is reduced to it. "Pleasure is a blessing, even if it is generated by the most disgusting things: even if the deed is unworthy, nevertheless, pleasure remains a blessing, and one should strive for it for its own sake." Happiness is only the totality of private pleasures, which is the highest good. Therefore, it is worth striving for pleasure for its own sake, and fortunately not for its own sake, but for the sake of private pleasures. Wealth has no independent value, but it makes it possible to enjoy, although, in the end, wealth has nothing to do with enjoyment, because there is no difference between the enjoyment of the rich and the poor.
Pleasure is perceived as a feeling, which, however, does not mean that Aristipom underestimates knowledge and philosophy. Aristipus declares that it is better to be a beggar than an ignoramus, because if the first is deprived only of money, then the second is deprived of the image of a man. Proclaiming enjoyment as the goal of life, the Cyrenaics spoke of reasonable enjoyment, that a person should not be a slave to enjoyment. "The best share is not to abstain from pleasures, - said Aristipus, - but to rule over them, not obeying them."
In the Elinistic-Roman period of ancient philosophy, the problems of morality were considered in the most detail by Epicurus and his followers and the Stoics.
Epicurus in his concept of ethics proceeds from the fact that man is a sensual being. And so he considers bliss, pleasure, to be the highest good. Virtue is important not in itself, but because it contributes to the achievement of pleasure. "Pleasure is both the beginning and the end of a blissful life, we recognize it as the first good ...". The views of Epicurus on the subjects of ethics are close to those of the Cyrenaists, but differ from them in two points. Firstly, the Cyrenaics do not recognize pleasure at rest, only in motion, while Epicurus recognizes both one and the other pleasure, both the pleasure of the soul and the pleasure of the body. Secondly, Cyrenaics believe that mental pain is worse than mental pain. "Epicurus considers the worst heartache, because the body is tormented only by the storms of the present, and the soul is tormented by the past, the present, and the future. Likewise, the pleasures of the soul are greater than those of the body.
But Epicurus is far from the idea that one should strive for any pleasure. Some pleasures are true, others are imaginary, depending on the result of the satisfaction of the desires of which they are. After Epikur, there are natural desires, and there are empty ones, and among natural ones, some are necessary, while others are simply natural. Therefore, Epicurus believes that although pleasure is the goal of life, it is not always worth avoiding pain. If for greater pleasure it is worth enduring pain, then a person should go for it. “Therefore, when we say that pleasure is the ultimate goal,” Epicurus writes in a letter to Menekey, “we do not mean at all the pleasures of debauchery or sensuality, as those who do not know, do not share or poorly understand our teaching believe, no we mean freedom from pain of the body and from the turmoil of the soul, For it is not the endless drinking and feasting, the enjoyment of boys or women, or the fish-table, and other pleasures of a sumptuous feast, that make our life sweet, but only sober reflection, which examines the causes of our every preference and avoidance and that they expel thoughts that place great anxiety in the soul. Therefore, to live sweetly means, first of all, to live wisely, avoiding unnecessary desires, and striving for equanimity of spirit - ataraxia. Epicurus assigns a large role to knowledge in achieving pleasure, because pure pleasure cannot be achieved without studying nature.
The ethics of Epicurus, in contrast to the main ancient tradition, is purely individualistic. natural law, in his opinion, there is a contract of benefit, the purpose of which is not to cause or tolerate harm. Moreover, according to Epicurus, justice is connected not only with the contract, but also with circumstances. "Where, with a change in circumstances, the previously established justice turns out to be useless, there it was fair while it was useful in the communication of fellow citizens, and then it ceased to be fair, ceasing to be useful."
The founder of Stoicism at the end of the 4th century. BC e. was Zeno from Kri-tia - a city in Cyprus. Stoicism goes through three stages in its development:
Ancient Stoa, whose outstanding representatives were the heir of Zeno-na cleanthes, Chrysip, Ariston, Sfer, and others; The Middle Stoa, from which the Roman period of Stoicism begins, represented by the teachings of Panetius and Posidonia, and the Late Stoa, the most prominent representatives of which were Seneca, Epictetus and Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Until the fall of the Roman Empire, Stoicism was an influential philosophical movement.
In his ethical doctrine The Stoics proceed from the fact that the ultimate goal is defined as life, meets its own nature and the nature of the whole, and the first impulse of the living is self-preservation. But the impulse to self-preservation is common to all animals. "But rational beings, as perfect leaders, have been given reason, and for them to live according to nature means to live according to reason, because reason is the corrector of motivation." "What is the best thing about man?" Seneca writes. Therefore, the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of virtue, through which life becomes in harmony with nature, and not just in accordance with nature. And this is possible only if life is built in accordance with reason, not only according to human, but cosmic reason, since the first is only a particle, a spark of the last, Divine reason.
Among the virtues of the Stoics, first of all, understanding, courage, justice, and sanity are distinguished. Among the vices - misunderstanding, fearfulness. injustice, unruliness. Everything in between is irrelevant. This includes life and death, wealth and dishonor, sickness and health. They don't depend on us human life subject to fate. We can only choose between virtue and vice, good and evil. Good and virtue, evil and vice are close in meaning. Good is everything that benefits, and virtue itself and good deeds, as well as evil - and vices and vicious deeds.
The Stoics are strongly opposed to considering pleasure as the highest good. “Virtue is something majestic, sublime, invincible, indefatigable, while pleasure is something low, servile, weak, transient, such that lives and nests in unnecessary places and taverns.” The main difference between a wise man and unreasonable people lies in his impartiality, although we often call impassive people, in particular callous, cruel ones, impassive. There are four main passions: sorrow, fear, desire and pleasure. "... Life is happy if it is consistent with its nature. Such a life is possible only if, firstly, a person constantly has common sense; then, if his spirit is courageous and energetic, noble, enduring and prepared for all circumstances, if he, without falling into anxious suspiciousness, takes care of satisfying physical needs, if he is generally interested in the material aspects of life, without being tempted by any of them; finally, if he knows how to use the gifts of fate without becoming their slave, Seneca writes in a letter to his brother Gallion. - ... The result of such a state of mind is constant calm and freedom due to the elimination of all reasons for irritation and fear. Instead of pleasures, instead of insignificant transitory and not only vile, but also harmful pleasures, there comes a strong unfading and constant joy, peace and harmony of the spirit, greatness, combined with meekness. For all cruelty comes from weakness."
The sage, according to the Stoics, will also deal with public affairs, if nothing interferes with him. After all, a person's life is not dependent on communication with other people. Society and the state are an integral part of human nature. Therefore, to live in harmony with nature, to strive for self-preservation means for the Stoics concern for the welfare of the state, which for a sage is higher than a separate human life.
Worldview and its main types.
Each person has a certain worldview. Worldview has 2 levels:
1) ordinary worldview is a primitive view of the world, based on worldly wisdom.
2) scientific philosophical outlook- is based on knowledge, beliefs, includes the synthesis of sciences and philosophy itself.
Philosophy needs the sciences, since it must be based on the latest achievement or invention, both in the natural sciences and in the humanities of science.
Science also cannot exist without philosophy.
First, science must rethink its achievements.
Secondly, she uses the methods proposed by philosophy. outlook is a system of views the world, human, society and nature based on knowledge, feelings and emotions, value orientations. As a result, a person acquires the conviction that he adequately perceives the world.
There are 3 types of worldview: scientific - philosophical,
mythological, religious
Philosophy, its subject and role in society.
Philosophy is free thinking and the search for truth. Philosophy is the science of the most general laws of development of nature, society and human thinking. This is the doctrine of the world as a whole and of man's place in it. Philosophy is continuously connected with worldview. With the help of philosophy, the worldview reaches a high degree of orderliness, generality. The development of a worldview helps to understand the complexity of philosophical questions. Without a worldview, a person cannot become a person, his activity will proceed by trial and error.
1.
The study of philosophy allows you to broaden your horizons and develop a thoughtful attitude to everything that happens in the world around you.
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Philosophy teaches wisdom, deep penetration into the world of nature, human feelings.
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Philosophy teaches mastery of concepts, analyze contradictions, highlight the main thing.
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Its study allows you to go beyond the narrow framework of ordinary ideas, makes the spiritual world of a person richer, and the personality more interesting. Philosophy should be considered as socio-historical knowledge, closely connected with life, constantly developing along with it.
4. The problem of man in the philosophy of ancient India.
The ancient Indian philosophy of man is presented in the monument of ancient Indian literature - the Vedas, which simultaneously express the mythological, religious and philosophical worldview. Increased interest in man and in the texts adjacent to the Vedas - the Upanishads. They reveal the problems of human morality, as well as ways and means of liberating him from the world of objects and passions. A person is considered the more perfect and moral, the more he succeeds in the cause of such liberation. The latter, in turn, is realized through the dissolution of the individual soul in the world soul, in the universal principle of the world. Man in the philosophy of ancient India is conceived as part of the world soul. In the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, the boundary between living beings and the gods turns out to be passable and mobile. Only a person is inherent in the desire for freedom, for getting rid of passions and the path of empirical being with its law of samsara-karma. The Upanishads had an enormous influence on the development of the whole philosophy of man in India. In particular, their influence on the teachings of Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Samkhya, yoga is great.
Ancient Greek natural philosophy.
Naturphilosophy Ancient Greek, historically the first form of philosophy; 1st stage in the development of ancient philosophy (6th-5th centuries BC). Representatives of the Ionian school of natural philosophy: Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, and others. Pythagoras, the founder of the Italian school, transferred philosophy to the western part of the Greek world. Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno of Elea, Empedocles and others also belong to it. The Ionian school gravitated towards spontaneous materialism, the Italian school towards idealism. The main subject at this stage is nature, the external physical world (cosmos), its origin and structure; basic philosophical question- the question of the fundamental principle of all things. Thales considered water to be such a fundamental principle, Anaximander - apeiron (indefinite and limitless matter), Anaximenes - air, Heraclitus - fire, Pythagoras - numbers. In the 5th century. BC e. most philosophers have abandoned a single beginning and have come to the idea of a plurality of elements that make up the world. For Empedocles, these are fire, water, air and earth; for Anaxagoras - the smallest, infinitely divisible particles ("seeds" of all things); for Democritus - atoms and emptiness. Philosophers were interested in questions about the possibility of movement (Heraclitus imagined the world to be eternally mobile and changeable, Parmenides - completely motionless), true comprehension of the world with the help of feelings, etc.
To the 2nd floor. 5th c. BC e. natural philosophy has exhausted itself in connection with the emergence of many mutually exclusive theories, equally unprovable. With the Sophists and Socrates, the philosophical search begins to switch from outside world on the problems of man and society.
Ancient philosophy about man, society and the state.
The main representatives of the directions and schools of ancient philosophy are:
1) Pythagoreans (Pythagoras) - considered numerical relations as the fundamental principle (substance) of the world;
2) the dialectic of Heraclitus (Heraclitus) - the doctrine of the unity of opposites (dialectics);
3) Eleatics (Parmenides, Zeno) - introduced the concept of "being" and believed that there is no non-being (emptiness), therefore no movement is possible;
4) atomists and naive materialists (Democritus, Epicurus; Thales, Anaxemen) - the first taught that the world consists of atoms and emptiness, and the second reduced it to a single material fundamental principle (substance) - water, air, apeiron;
5) Sophists and Socrates - for the first time turned to the philosophical understanding of human existence;
6) Platonists (Socrates, Plato, Plotinus) - viewed things as the embodiment of ideas;
7) the school of Aristotle (peripatetics) - they argued that no self-movement is possible, therefore the source of the movement of the world must be outside it (metaphysics). Aristotle created the doctrine of matter and form.
Ancient philosophy as a whole can be briefly characterized:
1. Most of the philosophers of this period considered the Cosmos as the basis of everything that exists, created according to the type of a rational, living human body. Cosmos is eternal, absolute, there is nothing but it. He is one, spiritualized. It can be seen, heard and touched. He is perfect (divine).
2. Philosophers tried to find a single and indivisible fundamental principle of the world (for Thales it is water, for Heraclitus it is fire, for Democritus it is atoms, etc.).
3. the foundations of dialectics were laid, the position was substantiated that the life of nature is a constant development, the source of which is the unity and struggle of opposites (Heraclitus, Zeno and others).
4. period, the features of the forms of knowledge were revealed: true knowledge is available only to the mind, which obeys the laws of logic; feelings are not a source of knowledge, their area is only the opinions of people (Democritus, Plato, Aristotle).
5. The concept of not suffering, but acting person, whose sociality follows from its nature. He is the center of culture, its creator (sophists); his vocation is to know and do good (Socrates).
6. Considerable attention was paid to the problems of morality. The source of morality is nature, reason, knowledge. Ideal moral person a wise man was considered - a moderate, prudent, fearless, harmonious person.
7. The doctrine of an ideal state based on the labor of slaves was developed. So, Plato believed that the most perfect state is an aristocratic republic, in which philosophers rule, and the state is guarded by warriors, artisans produce material goods. Only the latter can own property, because they need incentives to work.
7. Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
The period of historical development is called medieval Western Europe and the Middle East from the time of the fall of the Roman Empire to the XIV-XV centuries.. Philosophy of this time
Main 2 sources:
1. ancient Greek philosophy
2. sacred writings, which turned philosophy into the mainstream of Christianity.
A distinctive feature of the philosophy of the Middle Ages was its pronounced religious character. The religious worldview is theocentric. Theocentrism- this is such an understanding of the world in which historicism and the cause of all things were God, he is the center of the universe, an asset. and creative Start. At the heart of epistemology is the idea of deities. revelations.
The worldview in accordance with which God personally created living and inanimate nature, which is in constant change, is called creationism. The system of views in accordance with which all world events are controlled. God is called providentialism.
From the 4th century religion extends its influence to everything, the formation public life and above all spiritual.
The philosophy of this time entered history under the name of scholasticism (the symbol is divorced from real life). The representatives of medieval scholasticism are Thomas Aquinas.
Before the philosophy of that time, the struggle between materialism and idealism was characteristic, it was expressed in a dispute between realists and nominalists about what constitutes a social concept, i.e. universal. In the fight of these 2
Conclusion: the main feature of medieval philosophy is creationism, i.e. pronounced religious character.
1. Antique culture. The man of antiquity.
Antiquity
The ancient culture of the Mediterranean is considered one of the most important creations of mankind. Limited by space (mainly the coast and islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas) and time (from the 2nd millennium BC to the first centuries of Christianity), ancient culture expanded the boundaries of historical existence, rightfully declaring itself to be the universal significance of architecture and sculpture, epic poetry and dramaturgy, natural science and philosophical knowledge.
The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations occupied territories located geographically close to each other, existed almost at the same time, so it is not surprising that they are closely related. Both civilizations had different cultures that evolved by interacting with each other.
Antiquity revealed to the world various forms of organization of the human community - political and social. Democracy was born in Ancient Greece, opening up enormous humanistic opportunities for the free expression of the will of full-fledged citizens, the combination of freedom and organized political action. Rome gave examples of a well-established republican system of life and government, and then an empire - not only as a state, but as a special form of coexistence of many peoples with a special role of central power, as a state "pacification" of many tribes, languages, religions and lands. Rome revealed to the world the most important role of law and the regulation of all types of human relations and showed that without perfect law there can be no normal existing society that the law should guarantee the rights of a citizen and a person, and the state's job is to monitor compliance with the law.
Antiquity bequeathed to subsequent eras the maxim "man is the measure of all things" and showed what heights a free person can reach in art, knowledge, politics, state building, and finally, in the most important thing - in self-knowledge and self-improvement. Beautiful Greek statues have become the standard of beauty of the human body, Greek philosophy has become a model of the beauty of human thinking, and the best deeds of Roman heroes have become examples of the beauty of civic service and state building.
In the ancient world, a grandiose attempt was made to unite the West and the East with a single civilization, to overcome the disunity of peoples and traditions in a great cultural synthesis, which revealed how fruitful the interaction and interpenetration of cultures was. One of the results of this synthesis was the emergence of Christianity, which was born as the religion of a small community on the fringes of the Roman world and gradually became world religion.
Art
The feeling of a person as a free citizen ("political being"), unprecedented earlier in history, was reflected in artistic culture, art, led to their extraordinary rise and flourishing. The achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans are so grandiose that the entire history of world art is inconceivable without ancient plots, Greek and Roman mythology, ancient canons and samples.
Ancient art (5th-4th centuries BC) is rightly called a classic, as it was a role model in the embodiment of perfect beauty, where the virtue of the soul, the strength of the mind is completely merged with the beauty of the body. This could be most fully conveyed in sculpture. Plutarch drew attention to the importance of sculpture in the life of the Greeks, noting that there were more statues in Athens than living people.
Greek plastic reached its perfection in the work of the great Phidias, who created many beautiful creations, among which the famous statue of Olympian Zeus, made of ivory and gold, stood out. The majestic 14-meter statue of a formidable god sitting on a throne was the embodiment of wisdom and philanthropy. She was ranked among the seven "wonders of the world" and is known only from descriptions and images on ancient coins.
Among other sculptors who glorified ancient art, one should name: Praxiteles, who was the first in history to depict Aphrodite as a naked beautiful woman (Aphrodite of Cnidus); Lysippus, who left to posterity a beautiful portrait of Alexander the Great (also preserved in a Roman copy); Leochar, author of the legendary Apollo Belvedere.
Architecture
Along with sculpture, ancient architecture reached its peak, many of whose monuments, fortunately, have survived to this day. The Great Parthenon, the ruins of the Colosseum impress with their beauty and grandeur even today.
The dominant principle of expediency, the clarity and courage of engineering thinking made it possible to satisfy both the everyday needs of a large population and the sophisticated aesthetic taste of aristocrats (their villas with parks and palaces were fabulously expensive). Etruscan traditions in architecture and the invention of concrete allowed the Romans to move from simple beam ceilings to arches, vaults and domes.
The Romans went down in history as outstanding builders. They erected monumental structures, even the ruins of which are still amazing. These include amphitheatres, circuses, stadiums, baths (public baths), palaces of emperors and nobility. In Rome, they built apartment buildings - insulas - 3-6, and sometimes 8 floors.
Roman temples with a rectangular shape and porticos resembled Greek ones, but unlike the latter, they were erected on high platforms with stairs (podiums). In Roman temple architecture, the type of rotunda was used, that is, a round temple. This was one of ancient temples- Temple of Vesta The most significant achievement of Roman building technology was the temple of all the gods - the Pantheon in Rome. The dome of the Pantheon with a diameter of 43 m was considered the largest in the world.
Undoubtedly, the most grandiose Roman building is the building of the amphitheater - the Colosseum, which was an ellipse with a circumference of 524 m. The wall of the Colosseum had a height of 50 m and consisted of three tiers.
Even in the II century. BC e. Roman builders invented concrete, which contributed to the spread of arched-vaulted structures, which became characteristic element Roman architecture, such as triumphal arches - monuments of military and imperial glory. A number of arches - arcades were used in the construction of multi-tiered stone bridges, inside of which there were pipes supplying water to the city. Concrete was used to build the foundation of the Colosseum (1st century) with a depth of 5 m. Forts, bridges, aqueducts, port piers, and roads were built from concrete.
Among the various entertainments so loved in antiquity, the theater occupied a particularly important place in the life of the ancient Greeks and Romans - it performed various functions, including moral and ethical, educational, humanistic. Athens in the 5th century BC e., which became the center of literary, poetic creativity, tragedy and comedy flourished. Tragedy - a direct translation of "the song of the goats" - arises from a choral song sung by satyrs dressed in goat skins and depicting the constant companions of the god of wine Dionysus. It became the official form of creativity when the national holiday of the Great Dionysius was approved in Athens.
The most popular were the tragedies of the three greatest Athenian playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Each of them in his own way solved the problems of good and evil, fate and retribution, joy and compassion. Aristotle in "Poetics", defining tragedy, says that it "purifies such passions through compassion and fear", causes catharsis (purification).
The heyday of another genre - comedy is associated with the name of Aristotle. Plots for comedies were taken from the then political life of Athens, in contrast to tragedies, the plots of which were based on the mythological past. Artistic images created by famous playwrights are distinguished by the depth of psychological characteristics and excite many generations of viewers for centuries. Prometheus, Oedipus, Medea, Phaedra personify the legendary past of the ancient ages.
Literature
The development of ancient literature, which grew out of folklore, from heroic legends about the past, is closely connected with the ancient theater. The written period of ancient Greek literature begins with the poems of Homer and continues in the didactic epic of Hesiod ("Theogony", "Works and Days"). One of the best Roman lyricists was Catullus, who dedicated many love poems to the famous beauty Clodia. However, the "golden age" for Roman poetry was the reign of Octavian Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD). In the "age of Augustus" lived and worked three of the most famous Roman poets: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. The unfinished "Aeneid" of Virgil glorified the greatness of Rome, the Roman spirit. Horace highly appreciated the appointment of the poet, which found expression in his famous "Monument", which was imitated by many poets, including A. S. Pushkin. The undoubted pinnacle of Roman love lyrics is the work of Ovid, which was embodied in such famous works as the poems "Metamorphoses", "The Science of Love", etc.
Nero's teacher famous philosopher Seneca, made a significant contribution to the development of the tragic genre. It was this ancient tragedy that the playwrights of the New Age chose as a role model. The tragedies of Seneca are written in the spirit of the "new style": drawn out pathetic monologues, cumbersome metaphors and comparisons are intended more for the reader than for the viewer.
Olympic Games
The most striking expression of the ancient agon was the famous Olympic Games, which Greece presented to the world. The origins of the first Olympiads are lost in antiquity, but in 776 BC. e. It was the first time that the name of the winner in running was written on a marble plaque, and this year is considered the beginning of the historical period of the Olympic Games. The site of the Olympic festivities was the sacred grove of Altis. The place was chosen very well. All buildings, both early and later - temples, treasuries, a stadium, a hippodrome, were erected in a flat valley framed by soft hills covered with dense greenery. Nature in Olympia is, as it were, imbued with the spirit of peace and prosperity, which was established at the time of the Olympic Games. In the sacred grove, thousands of spectators pitched their camp. But they came here not only for the sake of competitions, trade deals were concluded here, poets, orators and scientists spoke to the audience with their new speeches and works, artists and sculptors presented their paintings and sculptures to those present. The state had the right to announce here new laws, treaties, other important documents. Once every four years, a holiday was held, the equal of which antiquity did not know - a holiday of spiritual communication between the best minds and the most brilliant talents of Greece.
It is the unity of two cultures of ancient Greek and ancient Roman. It distinguishes three main periods of archaic (7th - 6th centuries BC), classics (5th - 4th centuries BC) and Hellenism (3rd century BC - 4th century AD). e.). If in the era of archaism, ancient culture is going through a period of its formation, not yet having completed forms, then the era of early and mature classics is rightfully considered the "golden age" ancient art, ...
Creative self-realization was of great importance for the formation of ideas about culture. The method used by Hegel to create his philosophical system became the basis for the subsequent professionalization of knowledge about culture. Hegel, like I. Newton once, perceived the universe as a harmonious order. But for him, the Universe was not a mechanism, but a complex organism that arose thanks to ...
1. Antique culture. The man of antiquity.Antiquity
The ancient culture of the Mediterranean is considered one of the most important creations of mankind. Limited by space (mainly the coast and islands of the Aegean and Ionian Seas) and time (from the 2nd millennium BC to the first centuries of Christianity), ancient culture expanded the boundaries of historical existence, rightfully declaring itself to be the universal significance of architecture and sculpture, epic poetry and dramaturgy, natural science and philosophy.
The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations occupied territories located geographically close to each other, existed almost at the same time, so it is not surprising that they are closely related. Both civilizations had different cultures that developed by interacting with each other.
Antiquity revealed to the world various forms of organization of the human community - political and social. Democracy was born in ancient Greece, opening up enormous humanistic possibilities for the free expression of will of full-fledged citizens, the combination of freedom and organized political action. Rome gave examples of a well-established republican system of life and government, and then an empire - not only as a state, but as a special form of coexistence of many peoples with a special role of central power, as a state "pacification" of many tribes, languages, religions and lands. Rome revealed to the world the most important role of law and the regulation of all types of human relations and showed that without a perfect law there can be no normally existing society, that the law must guarantee the rights of a citizen and a person, and it is the business of the state to monitor compliance with the law.
Antiquity bequeathed to subsequent eras the maxim "man is the measure of all things" and showed what heights a free person can reach in art, knowledge, politics, state building, and finally, in the most important thing - in self-knowledge and self-improvement. Beautiful Greek statues have become the standard of beauty of the human body, Greek philosophy has become a model of the beauty of human thinking, and the best deeds of Roman heroes have become examples of the beauty of civic service and state building.
In the ancient world, a grandiose attempt was made to unite the West and the East with a single civilization, to overcome the disunity of peoples and traditions in a great cultural synthesis, which revealed how fruitful the interaction and interpenetration of cultures was. One result of this synthesis was the emergence of Christianity, which was born as the religion of a small community on the fringes of the Roman world and gradually developed into a world religion.
Art
The sensation of a person as a free citizen ("political being"), unprecedented earlier in history, was reflected in artistic culture, art, and led to their extraordinary rise and flourishing. The achievements of the ancient Greeks and Romans are so grandiose that the entire history of world art is inconceivable without ancient plots, Greek and Roman mythology, ancient canons and samples.
Ancient art (5th-4th centuries BC) is rightly called a classic, as it was a role model in the embodiment of perfect beauty, where the virtue of the soul, the strength of the mind is completely merged with the beauty of the body. This could be most fully conveyed in sculpture. Plutarch drew attention to the importance of sculpture in the life of the Greeks, noting that there were more statues in Athens than living people.
Greek plastic reached its perfection in the work of the great Phidias, who created many beautiful creations, among which the famous statue of Olympian Zeus, made of ivory and gold, stood out. The majestic 14-meter statue of a formidable god sitting on a throne was the embodiment of wisdom and philanthropy. She was ranked among the seven "wonders of the world" and is known only from descriptions and images on ancient coins.
Among other sculptors who glorified ancient art, one should name: Praxiteles, who was the first in history to depict Aphrodite as a naked beautiful woman (Aphrodite of Cnidus); Lysippus, who left to posterity a beautiful portrait of Alexander the Great (also preserved in a Roman copy); Leochar, author of the legendary Apollo Belvedere.
Architecture
Along with sculpture, ancient architecture reached its peak, many of whose monuments, fortunately, have survived to this day. The Great Parthenon, the ruins of the Colosseum impress with their beauty and grandeur even today.
The dominant principle of expediency, the clarity and courage of engineering thinking made it possible to satisfy both the everyday needs of a large population and the sophisticated aesthetic taste of aristocrats (their villas with parks and palaces were fabulously expensive). Etruscan traditions in architecture and the invention of concrete allowed the Romans to move from simple beam ceilings to arches, vaults and domes.
The Romans went down in history as outstanding builders. They erected monumental structures, even the ruins of which are still amazing. These include amphitheatres, circuses, stadiums, baths (public baths), palaces of emperors and nobility. In Rome, they built apartment buildings - insulas - 3-6, and sometimes 8 floors.
Roman temples with a rectangular shape and porticos resembled Greek ones, but unlike the latter, they were erected on high platforms with stairs (podiums). In Roman temple architecture, the type of rotunda was used, that is, a round temple. This was one of the oldest temples - the Temple of Vesta. The most significant achievement of Roman building technology was the temple of all the gods - the Pantheon in Rome. The dome of the Pantheon with a diameter of 43 m was considered the largest in the world.
Undoubtedly, the most grandiose Roman building is the building of the amphitheater - the Colosseum, which was an ellipse with a circumference of 524 m. The wall of the Colosseum had a height of 50 m and consisted of three tiers.
Even in the II century. BC e. Roman builders invented concrete, which contributed to the spread of arched-vaulted structures, which became a characteristic element of Roman architecture, such as triumphal arches - monuments of military and imperial glory. A number of arches - arcades were used in the construction of multi-tiered stone bridges, inside of which there were pipes supplying water to the city. Concrete was used to build the foundation of the Colosseum (1st century) with a depth of 5 m. Forts, bridges, aqueducts, port piers, and roads were built from concrete.
Theatre
Among the various entertainments so loved in antiquity, the theater occupied a particularly important place in the life of the ancient Greeks and Romans - it performed various functions, including moral and ethical, educational, humanistic. Athens in the 5th century BC e., which became the center of literary, poetic creativity, flourished tragedy and comedy . Tragedy - a direct translation of "the song of the goats" - arises from a choral song sung by satyrs dressed in goat skins and depicting the constant companions of the god of wine Dionysus. It became the official form of creativity when the national holiday of the Great Dionysius was approved in Athens.
The most popular were the tragedies of the three greatest Athenian playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Each of them in his own way solved the problems of good and evil, fate and retribution, joy and compassion. Aristotle in "Poetics", defining tragedy, says that it "purifies such passions through compassion and fear", causes catharsis (purification).
The heyday of another genre - comedy is associated with the name of Aristotle. Plots for comedies were taken from the then political life of Athens, in contrast to tragedies, the plots of which were based on the mythological past. Artistic images created by famous playwrights are distinguished by the depth of psychological characteristics and excite many generations of viewers for centuries. Prometheus, Oedipus, Medea, Phaedra personify the legendary past of the ancient ages.
Literature
The development of ancient literature, which grew out of folklore, from heroic legends about the past, is closely connected with the ancient theater. The written period of ancient Greek literature begins with the poems of Homer and continues in the didactic epic of Hesiod ("Theogony", "Works and Days"). One of the best Roman lyricists was Catullus, who dedicated many love poems to the famous beauty Clodia. However, the "golden age" for Roman poetry was the reign of Octavian Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD). In the "age of Augustus" lived and worked three of the most famous Roman poets: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. The unfinished "Aeneid" of Virgil glorified the greatness of Rome, the Roman spirit. Horace highly appreciated the appointment of the poet, which found expression in his famous "Monument", which was imitated by many poets, including A. S. Pushkin. The undoubted pinnacle of Roman love lyrics is the work of Ovid, which was embodied in such famous works as the poems "Metamorphoses", "The Science of Love", etc.
The teacher of Nero, the famous philosopher Seneca, made a significant contribution to the development of the tragic genre. It was this ancient tragedy that the playwrights of the New Age chose as a role model. The tragedies of Seneca are written in the spirit of the "new style": drawn out pathetic monologues, cumbersome metaphors and comparisons are intended more for the reader than for the viewer.
Olympic Games
The most striking expression of the ancient agon was the famous Olympic Games , that Greece gave to the world. The origins of the first Olympiads are lost in antiquity, but in 776 BC. e. It was the first time that the name of the winner in running was written on a marble plaque, and this year is considered the beginning of the historical period of the Olympic Games. The site of the Olympic festivities was the sacred grove of Altis. The place was chosen very well. All buildings, both early and later - temples, treasuries, a stadium, a hippodrome, were erected in a flat valley framed by soft hills covered with dense greenery. Nature in Olympia is, as it were, imbued with the spirit of peace and prosperity, which was established at the time of the Olympic Games. In the sacred grove, thousands of spectators pitched their camp. But they came here not only for the sake of competitions, trade deals were concluded here, poets, orators and scientists spoke to the audience with their new speeches and works, artists and sculptors presented their paintings and sculptures to those present. The state had the right to announce here new laws, treaties, and other important documents. Once every four years, a holiday was held, the equal of which antiquity did not know - a holiday of spiritual communication between the best minds and the most brilliant talents of Greece.
2. Formation of Ukrainian culture.
Influence of neighboring cultures on the culture of Ukraine
The cultural space of Ukraine since ancient times felt the influence of neighboring pre-state and state integrations. Slavic lands were subjected to constant attacks by nomadic tribes: Avars, Pechenegs, Khazars, Polovtsians. In the XII century, various tribes fell into dependence on Kievan Rus. Communicating with the Slavs, they were subjected to mutual cultural influences, often assimilated with the local population.
In the IX-X centuries. significant was the influence of Byzantium and the countries of the "Byzantine circle". Already ancient chronicles, chronicles, and other sources testify to the dynastic and spiritual contacts of Kievan Rus and with its neighboring European states. The fusion of Byzantine and Western traditions with the Kyiv cultural heritage became the basis for the formation of a kind of Ukrainian cultural identity.
In the 13th century, the Kyiv state was threatened by the Mongol-Tatar conquerors (since 1239), German crusader knights, who in 1237 formed a powerful state by uniting the Livonian and Teutonic orders, Hungary, which since 1205 temporarily subjugated Ukrainian lands to its power, in particular, Transcarpathia; in the period from the 14th to the beginning of the 17th centuries, the colonization of the Lithuanian state began, which seized Volhynia, from 1362 the Kyiv, Pereyaslav, Podolsk, Chernihiv-Seversk lands, Poland, which extended its influence to Galicia and Western Volhynia, Moldova, which turned its gaze to Northern Bukovina and the Danube region, the Crimean Khanate (zone of influence - the Northern Black Sea and Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov), the Turkish Empire.
In the 16th century, the process of mutual enrichment of Ukrainian culture with its dominant Cyrillic and Methodian tradition with cultural achievements continued. Catholic world Central and Western Europe. It was on the Ukrainian lands that the synthesis of two cultural traditions took place, the consequence of which was the formation of a new common type of culture for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
Since the second half of the 17th century, the Russian state has been the main influence on the development of the culture of Ukraine. In 1653, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich convened a Zemsky Sobor, which decided that, in the name of the Orthodox faith and the holy church of God, the tsar should take the Ukrainians "under his high hand."
Great Russian and Ukrainian, the two largest varieties among the Slavic tribes. historical fate more than once brought them together, and in the first centuries of their historical life the role of an architect, leading in cultural and political life, more important in Eastern Europe the element was played by the Ukrainian nationality, but their belonging to a single ethnic consortium is undeniable
Influence of pre-Christian and Christian culture in Kievan Rus
Historical science testifies that in Kievan Rus, long before the adoption of Christianity, a high, original culture developed. There is no doubt that a century before the general official baptism of Russia, in 988, there were Christians of Russian and Varangian origin in Kyiv, there was a cathedral church on Podil, "above the Ruchay", there were militia mounds in which dead soldiers were buried without obligatory pagan burning . And there were smart people. The naive idea of the complete savagery of the Slavs at the time of the baptism of Russia corresponds to the church thesis "Paganism is darkness, Christianity is light", but does not at all correspond to historical reality. For about a century and a half, Kievan Rus existed as a pagan power. The cities that emerged - the courts of princes of various ranks, from the tribal "any prince" to the "bright princes" of tribal unions (Drevlyans, Krivichi, etc.) to the Kyiv Grand Duke, have long overcome primitiveness and have grown significantly stronger. The Russian military nobility paved the main routes to the south - to Byzantium, and to the west - to the German lands along the Upper Danube, and to the fabulous countries of the East. Long-distance trading expeditions enriched the Russians not only with silk, brocade, weapons, but also with knowledge, broadened their horizons, introduced them, to the best of their ability, to world culture. Russ were already known throughout the Old World, from France, in the West, to Afghanistan, in the East.
Byzantium brought Christianity and highly developed literature and art to Kievan Rus. The eradication of paganism and the planting of overseas Christianity will subsequently make it possible to create a powerful ideology, which gradually entered the everyday consciousness of people. Moreover, protected by the Slavic writing of Cyril and Methodius, the powerful sovereign ideology of Christianity formed in the image of the commandments of Christ the enduring ideals of goodness, spiritual purity, sincerity, faith in miracles and apocalyptic torments of apostates in the other world. Byzantium also had a significant influence on the formation of the ideology and worldview of the Slavic medieval elite. The powerful introduction into the everyday consciousness of the Slavs of an original culture based on the ideals of Orthodox Christianity directly influenced the formation of their mentality, and to such an extent that, if taken for comparison, they were ready to submit to the Mongol tribes loyal to the Orthodox faith faster than to Western European ones. powers whose culture was based on the values of the Catholic faith. In the future, this influenced the formation of a worldview different from the Western Slavic, but already as a causal factor. During the formation of the Ukrainian nationality, the traditions of spiritual interaction between peoples continued to deepen and enrich. They were kept and developed primarily by such centers of spiritual culture as Orthodox monasteries, by the beginning of the XVIII century in Russia there were about 50 monasteries, including 17 in Kyiv alone.
Ukrainian way
If you ask the question of who we are - as a nation, as a people, as a state, we first need to formulate a problem. In short, it can be defined as follows: THE UKRAINIAN WAY.
If we look back at the process of formation of the modern Ukrainian nation, remember when and how it happened, and above all, who were the spiritual motivators and initiators of this work, then we inevitably return to the 30-40s of the 19th century. Moreover, it was a period not only of Ukrainian, but also of a pan-European national revival. As a climax in 1848-49, a number of national and democratic revolutions take place. That is why this era in the history of Europe is called the "spring of peoples." And Ukraine is no exception. Being then part of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, it wakes up, and at the same time on all lands - both in the western and in the east. In Kyiv, the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood was formed, which operated until 1847 and was defeated by the tsarist autocratic machine. It did not even have time to fully mature as a political and organizational structure. But it gave Ukraine such outstanding figures as Taras Shevchenko, Nikolai Kostomarov, Panteleimon Kulish.
The brothers considered the national liberation as a component of the pan-Slavic movement, political - as the need to build a federation of equal peoples, outside imperial influences, and social - primarily as the abolition of serfdom, the introduction of general education, etc.
At the same time, in the views and work of Shevchenko, these ideas acquired the features of a new socio-political ideal. Its essence was expressed by calls for complete national and social liberation, for the construction of their own state - "in your own house, your own truth, strength, and will."
In Western Ukraine, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the harbingers of the "spring of peoples" were socio-political, spiritual and cultural figures from the group of pupils of the Lviv Theological Seminary "Russian Trinity" (Markian Shashkevich, Ivan Vagilevich, Yakov Golovatsky), who in 1837 year the almanac "Mermaid Dnistrovaya" was released.
In 1848, the first Ukrainian organization, the Main Russian Rada, was created in Lviv, and the first Ukrainian newspaper, Zorya Galytska, began to be published.
The main feature and difference of the new national democratic movement was the expansion of national demands from ethno-cultural and linguistic to social and political, which included
a republican structure, a constitution, the abolition of serfdom, civil rights, freedom of conscience, one's own press, etc.
Narodniks and Narodovtsy
The successors of the Cyril-Methodians in the east were populists and hromadas, and in the west - narodovtsy. The greatest merits of immigrants from the eastern, central and southern lands were the establishment of a Ukrainian printing house in St. Petersburg, the publication of the Osnova magazine there, the creation of mass communities in Kyiv (more than 300 people), Poltava, Odessa, etc. centers of the national liberation struggle after the repressions of tsarism abroad.
The greatest figure of this period was Mikhail Dragomanov, who in his book "Historical Poland and Great Russian Democracy" (published in 1882) and a number of other works formulated a new platform for the Ukrainian liberation movement - taking as a basis democratic freedoms and the right of every people to an independent political life.
The Galician intellectuals-narodovtsy called themselves that, because they considered the main thing in their activity to be the connection with the people, defending their interests and rights. When the times of reaction came to the Dnieper region, they received Ukrainian public and political figures and writers.
New periodicals were opened in Galicia, the society "Prosvita" and the "Scientific Society named after Shevchenko" arose, favorable conditions were created for the emergence of Ukrainian political parties.
So, just as a large river is obtained from many streams and tributaries, so the Ukrainian national liberation movement of the second half of the 19th century absorbed the ideas and experience of many Ukrainian communities, organizations and movements of the populist and democratic direction.
The main task of this movement by that time was the liberation of Ukraine from the yoke of empires and the creation of its own state. At the same time, many Ukrainian democrats, including their leader Mikhail Drahomanov and Ivan Franko, did not escape the influence of the ideological and political "epidemic" of the second half of the 19th century - socialism.
The first Ukrainian parties
At the turn of the 90s of the nineteenth century, political parties took over the baton of struggle for popular and democratic ideals. The idea of Ukraine's political independence was first put forward by the Russian-Ukrainian Radical Party, founded in 1890 in Galicia. It was headed by Ivan Franko, Mikhail Pavlik, Ostap Terletsky.
Having overcome the tangible socialist influence of Mikhail Dragomanov, this party, instead of the main goal - "collective organization of work and collective property", in 1895 announced the idea of state independence of Ukraine. In 1899, two more "spun off" from this party - the National Democratic and the Social Democratic.
Two years before that, a congress of communities had been held in Kyiv, which united into an all-Ukrainian non-partisan organization. In 1900, a group of Kharkov students led by Dmitry Antonovich announced the creation of the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party (RUP). Two years later, a group headed by Mykola Mikhnovsky separated from it, which created the Ukrainian People's Party, and in 1905 the RUP itself was renamed the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party.
Thus, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, with the emergence of a number of political parties, the Ukrainian national movement is divided into three currents - people's democratic, national democratic and social democratic.
Despite some differences in social programs and the search for support in different segments of the population, they all remain true national idea, which the governing body of the Ukrainian National Democratic Party - the People's Committee - on the day of the Nativity of Christ in 1900 announced in its address as follows: "Our ideal should be an independent Rus-Ukraine, in which all parts of our nation would be united into one new cultural state" .
(Under the "cultural state" was meant a state with a high level of culture in general and the culture of democracy in particular).
So, all the national parties prepared the ideological and political basis for an independent Ukrainian state. At the same time, their split over time led to a tragic political and military confrontation during the years of revolutionary liberation competitions and civil war.
Lessons from Liberation Competitions and the Soviet Experiment Both upsurges of the Ukrainian national liberation movement in the 1920s and 1940s failed, and their greatest achievement, the Ukrainian People's Republic, did not last long.
According to the author, the main reasons for the defeat of the two Ukrainian revolutions (or, more precisely, the two stages of the Ukrainian revolution) are:
- the national liberation movement of Ukraine was not the only one, it failed to gather the majority of the Ukrainian people under its flag, did not unite its forces in the struggle for an independent state that would protect the interests of the people;
- the left wing of the national liberation movement (social democrats, socialist revolutionaries, Ukrainian socialists and communists) often put their class-social and party-international tasks above the interests of the Ukrainian people;
- the struggle for the realization of the primordial dreams of the Ukrainian people - about their own state and its democratic structure - was greatly complicated by two world military conflicts. And since Ukraine was a battlefield and was divided by military fronts, the national liberation forces had practically no opportunity to get at least
minimal assistance from European (mostly Western) democracies;
State educational institution
higher professional education
"Siberian State Industrial University"
Department of Philosophy
The problem of man in ancient philosophy
Completed: student gr. ESR - 08
Katasheva Irina Vasilievna
Checked: K. and. D., Associate Professor Prostak S. L.
Novokuznetsk 2009
1. Introduction………………………………………………………… 3
2. Man as a microcosm in ancient philosophy……………. four
3. The moral code of the ancient world………………………… 5
4. Fate as a problem of the ancient worldview……………….9
5. Conclusion……………………………………………………… 16
6. References……………………………………………… 18
Introduction
Ancient philosophy is a consistently developed philosophical thought and covers a period of more than a thousand years - from the end of the 7th century. BC. up to the 6th c. AD and contains theories created in Greece and Rome by thinkers of the past. Despite all the diversity of views of the thinkers of this period, ancient philosophy, at the same time, is something unified, uniquely original and extremely instructive. The problem of man in ancient philosophy is a multifaceted problem that does not have a common uniform formulation. Philosophers of antiquity, especially natural philosophers, considered man as an image of the cosmos, as a "small world", a microcosm. Beginning with Socrates, philosophers of antiquity considered man to be a dual being, consisting of a body and a soul. Plato correlated the soul with the idea, Aristotle considered the soul a form.
The purpose of this work is to consider the problem of man in ancient philosophy.
Tasks - to consider a person as a microcosm
- the moral code of the ancient world
– fate as a problem of the ancient worldview
Man as a microcosm in ancient philosophy
The problem of man was indicated, albeit in an undeveloped form, already in philosophy ancient world. It is known that in that era cosmocentrism dominated as a type of philosophical thinking. Everything that exists was considered as a single and vast Cosmos, and man was thought of as its organic part, as a "small Universe". He is, as it were, immersed in this Cosmos and lives according to its laws. It was assumed that man is not free, since the world around him is huge and mysterious, and often even hostile to man. The ideal existence of a person is to live nevertheless in harmony with this world, which is what true wisdom consists of.
Turn philosophical thought to the theme of a separate (separated) person from the Cosmos, it is customary to associate with the name of the Greek philosopher Socrates. Socrates, like some sophists, focuses on man. But man was considered by Socrates only as a moral being. Therefore, the philosophy of Socrates is an ethical anthropologism. Both mythology and physics were alien to the interests of Socrates. He believed that the interpreters of mythology work inefficiently. At the same time, Socrates was not interested in nature either. He used to say: "The terrain and the trees don't want to teach me anything, let alone the people in the city." Socrates urged a person to engage in in-depth knowledge of himself, revealing his moral position. The call "Know thyself!" became for Socrates the next motto after the statement: "I know that I know nothing." Both of them determined the essence of his philosophy. Eternal self-knowledge, the search for oneself in the world - this is the true meaning of human life. Later, Epicurus drew attention to the problem of human freedom and happiness. He believed that each person is able to choose his own trajectory of being, i.e. life path. The philosopher Diogenes proposed the topic of asceticism for reflection, by which he understood a very modest lifestyle, an attitude towards moderation in everything.
In ancient philosophy, mainly separate sides (aspects) of the problem of man were considered. Thus, Democritus resolved the issue of isolating a person from an animal-like state. Aristotle paid special attention to the social qualities of a person, describing him as a "political animal" with a rational soul. Plato is a conscious and consistent objective idealist. Plato outlined the theme of the relationship between the citizen and the state, revealed the social types of personality, defined a person as the embodiment of immortal soul. The same topic was actively comprehended in ancient Chinese philosophy (Confucianism). In the philosophy of Indian Buddhism, the theme of human suffering and the search for ways to overcome them became the focus of attention. In almost all ancient philosophical thought, wisdom was discussed as the ability of a person to live in harmony with nature, the Cosmos. At this time (in the philosophy of Ancient Greece) the foundations of humanism were laid - an ideological trend that considers a person as a unique being, the highest value and goal of society. On the whole ancient philosophy did not focus so much on the internal spiritual world man, how much on his relationship with the outside world, with the Cosmos.
The moral code of the ancient state
Antiquity (ancient Greek and Roman class society of the 7th century BC - 5th century AD) is the spring of modern civilization, the main political and ethical ideas. Antique thought is addressed mainly to the problems of ethics, politics and economics. Ancient society evolved from patriarchal relations to a republican system and to a monarchy. Politically, this society was unstable. The political regimes presented a mixed picture. The institution of slavery served as the basis of ancient civilization, its material production, as well as the moral and intellectual development of free citizens. Aristotle identified a man with a statesman. The highest principle, according to Plato and Aristotle, is the good of the state. The value of the state also lies in the fact that it sets a goal for which it is generally worth living and engaging in specific activities.
Plato was the ideologist of the restoration of obsolete state forms on the basis of slaveholding relations, although in his utopia the social and political forms that actually existed underwent a peculiar and complex transformation.
The formation of ancient Greek slave-owning morality and polis consciousness is connected in the Constitutions of Lycurgus and Solon. Homer does not yet have the concept of law (nomos). The law of Nemesis (revenge, retribution), the old law of religious and political morality, is giving way to a civilized concept of justice (Dicke). Dike defeats Nemesis. She now sits next to Zeus, the supreme deity of the Greek pantheon, as his assistant and wise adviser. Slave-owning class morality (civil morality) is based on the ideas of law. The general ideas of morality and law are the ideas of justice and the public good. The unity of legal consciousness and the desire for moral perfection is noted.
Each ancient Greek city-polis had its own legislator or legendary founder who created certain public institutions. In Athens there were even two such legislators - Drakon and Solon, and in Sparta - Lycurgus.
Solon's laws are laws against poverty. They respond to the ost of social and property inequality. Poverty was very often proud (for example, Socrates and Diogenes), wealth was customary to despise. A prudent and virtuous husband should not seek wealth. According to polis morality, virtues are knowledge, health, beauty, prudence, courage, justice, shame, valor, pride, patriotism. According to Aristotle, wealth is not an end in itself. Moderate prosperity was considered the norm of material security in Athens, while in Sparta they imitated poverty and were proud of the low quality of life, which was compensated by moral values.
The laws of Draconta date back to the 7th century. BC. In Athens in 621 BC. for the first time, a record was made of the laws in force - the norms of customary law, as it looked in the 9th - 7th centuries. BC. despotism and the discipline of the law are opposed to the exclusive rights of the aristocracy. The excessive cruelty of these laws made them purely nominal, unenforceable in practice. They were supposed to inspire fear of punishment.
The Draconian laws against murder were never revised and after many years were incorporated unchanged into the Athenian law of 409-498. BC. They restrict the right of blood feud (talion) - the ideology and custom of an earlier time and introduce a trial of such circumstances.
An outstanding Athenian politician and legislator of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. was Solon (640/635 - 559 BC). He is considered one of the Seven Wise Men.
594 BC Solon carried out important economic and political reforms in Athens, created the ideology of polis life and morality, laid the foundation for an unprecedented and authoritative tradition that established a system of universal social justice. The laws of Solon contributed to the formation of patriotism and civic consciousness. Solon threatened with deprivation of civil rights those who do not participate in political life, public affairs, are indifferent to the troubles of the fatherland. He made an attempt to connect various social groups general state interests.
Solon's sayings contain the standards of behavior of a polis individual: “Believe the beautiful and kind more than those who swore. Do not lie. Take care of the important. Don't rush to make friends, but once you do, don't quit. Before you command, learn to obey. Do not advise anything, advise the best. The mind is your leader. Don't associate with fools. Honor to the gods, honor to parents. The hallmark of an Athenian citizen is moderation (nothing too much).
A balanced, economic, reasonable and free owner, alien to sentimental prejudices (not vilifying the dead, but not donating to the dead, not allowing unnecessary expenses and unnecessary tears at the funeral), valuing property, not approving deceit and violence, defending his interests according to the law, openly - such is the portrait of an Athenian citizen, as Solon wanted to see him.
Lycurgus, the legendary creator of all the institutions of Spartan society, belonged, as they say, to the royal family. He lived presumably in the IX-VIII centuries. BC (perhaps in the XI - early X century BC) and starved himself to death so that his fellow citizens would not have a chance to break the promise given to him - never to repeal the laws he introduced.
The legislation of Lycurgus was required in connection with the danger of civil war. The threat to the state came from the mass of the poor and the poor, the arrogant crowd. It was a moral and legal reaction to social polarization (wealth was in the hands of a few) and political conflict (kings, aristocracy, on the one hand, and the people, on the other). The legislation of Lycurgus is directed against luxury. Lycurgus championed the ideal of poverty.
Sparta had a system of state slavery. Slaves were forcibly attached to the land. The Spartans were brought up in contempt for work. The ratio between free citizens and dependent population was 1:3 or more. Slavery was therefore supported by cruelty and violence. This required enhanced military training of the entire free male population. Courage, endurance, self-sacrifice, patriotism were highly valued. The Spartan society was a military organization.
The legendary Spartan morals and civic ethos belong to the civil community, or slave-owning union, which has retained the remnants of the tribal organization of society. Religion played no role in the way of life of the Spartans. They were not fond of speculative moral ideals and sophisms, they were alien to philosophical activity.
Normative behavior, which ancient philosophy traditionally associated with the mind of an educated person, in the light of ancient legislation is an objectively necessary behavior of an individual in a particular state. Even Aristotle realized the social aspect of morality. Under the influence of social antagonisms, the relationship "individual - society" begins to be regulated by law, social ethics is located within the boundaries of law. Outside these boundaries and in peculiar niches, a more subtle and melancholy subjective-personal morality develops, a special ethical sensitivity that eschews the public sphere, public duties.
Fate as a problem of the ancient worldview
Fate has always been in antiquity one of the first and most necessary subjects for reflection. The ancient people, contemplating their sensual-material cosmos, perfectly saw in it both the ideal and eternal order in the movement of the heavenly vault, as well as disorder and extraordinary chance, which could not be explained by any mind and which was called fate.
In the pre-philosophical period, that is, during the reign of absolute and pre-reflective mythology, fate either merged with the general idea of the cosmos, or was also interpreted as one of the mythological details. But the logical and structural meaning of fate was inexorably simple and inexorably imperative.
In the period of Greek philosophical classics, when the objective side of reality was fixed first of all, fate was, of course, recognized, but it was also given a corresponding objective place. Plato in his "Tim" speaks not of fate, but of "necessity", which is interpreted as an objectively meaningful cosmological category that enters into a dialectical connection with the Mind, that is, with the world of ideas for building the cosmos as a whole.
For the first time - and already as a philosophically thought-out category - fate appears only in stoicism. Since subjective well-being was brought to the fore here and its subjective well-being was emphasized in the cosmos itself, fate appeared in a particularly sharp form, because the primacy of rational subjective well-being could in no other way explain the entire area of random and unreasonable that is present in the cosmos in spite of any subjective sensible intelligence. The primacy of subjective rationality was so strong that the original fiery pneuma was already interpreted by the Stoics as a kind of providence. But, as we saw above, everything unreasonable and random that happened in space was just attributed to fate, so that stoicism turned out to be both providentialism and fatalism.
But even this state of affairs could not remain in antiquity for long. As we saw above, Posidonius, a representative of middle Hellenism, began to interpret the fiery pneuma of the former Stoics as the world of Platonic ideas, which is why he is called the founder of Stoic Platonism. Fate was deprived not only of the rational dispensation of the cosmos, but also of its substance. And yet fate has an advantage, namely, to determine by itself the unity of both the rational and the unreasonable in the cosmos. It remained to interpret this unity in a purely human way, in order to part forever with the principle of fate as the inexplicable principle of all explanations. This happened in connection with the Neoplatonic doctrine of the First Unity.
First, the Neoplatonic First Unity was above reason, since it was declared the principle of both everything rational and everything unreasonable. For this reason alone, it was no longer necessary to give fate a primary place.
Secondly, this Neo-Platonic First Unity was itself a requirement of nothing else but, first of all, the mind itself. Just as any thing is irreducible to its individual properties, and the mind demands to recognize, in addition to these properties of a thing, the presence of its carrier, which predetermines individual properties. things, in exactly the same way, on the cosmic plane, everything that had been formed had to be headed by something that was already higher than any rational form and higher than everything unreasonable. In other words, the neoplatonic supramental First Unity turned out to be a requirement of the very mind itself.
And finally, thirdly, the Neoplatonists also arose a special way of human ascent to this First One, based on an intensely experienced subjective delight in the sensations of this higher principle, that is, on such a concentration of the rational sphere, when a person began to represent all being in general in the form of only one indivisible and therefore supramental point.
I would like to cite one reasoning of Proclus, which is a true and final picture of the ancient understanding of fate. In Proclus, as in all ancient Neoplatonists, the supramental First Unity, of course, contains everything that was called fate in antiquity. But that's not all. Since the supramental First Unity permeates everything that exists among the Neoplatonists, it is thereby not only an abstract principle, but also a really perceptible structure, that is, that routine, without which neither the rational region itself, nor the entire cosmic region subordinate to it, is inconceivable. According to Proclus (Tim. III 272, 5-25), fate (heimarmene) is neither a particular feature of things, nor the general following of cosmic periods, nor simply the soul in its relation to the environment, nor simply nature, nor simply the mind of everything. Fate is above all these definitions. On the other hand, however, it is also impossible to say that it is simply something supra-substantial, supra-existential or over-rational. Fate is the order and structure of things themselves; but it is not just reason, but also something above reason, something divine. Proclus very clearly distinguishes between adrastia (inevitability), ananku (necessity) and heimarmenu (destiny) (274, 15-17). All these three categories treat, according to Proclus, only one thing, namely, the structure (taxis) of everything that exists.
The first category characterizes the eternal order of the entire noumenal area and is characterized by Proclus as an "intellectual" moment. The second category already takes us beyond the limits of the mind and forces us to characterize it as "supracosmic", that is, as one that represents a generalization of all cosmic life. And finally, Proclus refers to his third category of fate as "intracosmic". Thus, according to Proclus, what is characteristic of all types of fate in general is the order of things, the structure of being. This structure has its own hierarchy. Its highest stage speaks of the necessary sequence in the sphere of pure thought, the other stage is the structure of the cosmos in general, and the third is the structure of everything that actually takes place within the cosmos.
Thus, fate is neither the mind, nor the soul, nor the cosmos, nor nature. This is the inseparable identity of the rational and extra-rational principles, but given not only in the form of a general principle, but also in the form of the structure of all being, that is, in the form of an artistic concept.
Thus, the concept of fate, in fact, never disappeared in ancient philosophy. Since ancient philosophy was always based on the intuitions of the thing, and not of the person, then, no matter how this thing was exalted, it still left the reason and structure of its formation for an extramaterial and supramental fate. The slave owner, as we said above, is also not yet a person, but only the formation of impersonal and non-initiative people-things. And this means that the unity of slave owners and slaves is also a condition of their existence, understood impersonally. It turned out that the ultimate design of the unity of slave owners and slaves in the form of a sensual-material cosmos also required a transcendent fate for itself, and since nothing transcendent for the sensual-material cosmos existed and since it itself was based on itself and was itself its own its own absolute (a thing always claims to be the only and universal absolute), insofar as it turned out to be the fate of itself. His structure, rational or accidental, was for him his own destiny.
Therefore, fate is a purely slave-owning idea. However, when both the entire objective and the entire subjective fate of the sensuous-material cosmos had been experienced, the need arose to understand this entire object and this entire subject as something definitively unified and indecomposable. Fate remained, but the Neoplatonists found a way to understand and feel it not as an external compulsion, but as an internal necessity to think out the philosopher's subjective state to its logical conclusion. And just as at the end of antiquity, all the same ancient and primordial mythology triumphed sharply, but already in a reflected form, already in the form of a systematic dialectic of myth, in the same way, in Neoplatonism, the general antique idea of fate also triumphed, but already in the form of a dialectically thought out and carefully constructed system. .
a) There is, however, a circumstance which for many is a denial of universal fatalism for antiquity. The fact is that ancient art, and especially in the period of its classics, is usually characterized as the dominance of the sculptural primacy. Classical art has really become famous throughout history for its sculpture, and even sculpture that is not specifically psychological. All these doryphoros and discus throwers depict only the way the human body holds itself. Architectural historians prove that the columns Greek temples were also built on the principle of the structure of the human body. What does fate have to do with it, and what does the extra-rational principle have to do with it, if in art it is precisely something reasonably constructed that comes to the fore, and, moreover, as something purely human, namely, no more and no less than the most ordinary human body? This question, however, is a profound misunderstanding which must necessarily be dispelled if we are to understand ancient fatalism in its essence.
b) The fact is that from the very beginning we put forward the intuition of a material-material body as the starting point for the entire ancient worldview. But this kind of body can be understood both in itself, that is, as such, and in its formation, when it enters into one or another connection with other bodies. If the body is considered as such, that is, compared with itself, then it is clear that with such an approach to the body and to the thing, the construction of such a thing is necessarily fixed; and since antiquity meant a living body capable of doing expedient work, it is clear that the human body, both in its construction and in its expedient functions, has always become the subject of close attention. And if a certain socio-historical formation was to arise from these intuitions of a purposefully built and purposefully functioning human body, then, obviously, slavery could only be such a formation, since it was based on an understanding of a person not as a person, but precisely as a thing. Consequently, the necessity of the human-sculptural principle becomes clear both for all ancient art and for the whole ancient worldview. There were many historical shades and complications, inevitable for the thousand-year existence of ancient culture; but in this place, of course, there is neither the possibility nor the need to go into all these historical details.
c) But every thing exists not only in itself. It is still moving, changing and, generally speaking, becoming. And this makes us consider every given thing not only as existing independently, but also as connected with all other things. But even if we take all things that exist in general and get a sensual-material cosmos, then in this case the question “why?” will require an answer as necessary. And since nothing but the sensuous-material cosmos exists, then everything reasonable that exists in it, and everything unreasonable, of which there is no less than a reasonable order in it, all this is explained only by itself, finds a reason in it himself. And this means that the intuition of a thing, devoid of elements of personality, necessarily leads to the recognition of fate in space along with its rational construction.
d) To all this it must be added that the principle of a rational structure opposed to fate had an even broader meaning in antiquity, when it applied not to a thing, but to the human realm. Here this principle of structure became the principle of heroism, and this heroism also coincided in antiquity with fatalism, as we have discussed elsewhere. A real, genuine ancient hero not only did not deny fate, but, on the contrary, considered himself an instrument of fate. Fluctuations in this respect became possible only during the period of the decomposition of the classics and in the post-classical period.
e) But from this the conclusion follows by itself that absolute sculpturality and absolute fatalism necessarily presuppose one another. Both are the result of the absence of a personal worldview. And therefore, all our previous discussions about ancient fatalism not only do not exclude the sculptural nature of the ancient worldview and the ancient worldview of art, but also necessarily presuppose it. One primacy of fatalism without sculpture is typical, perhaps, for some peoples, countries and periods of the East. As for the principle of sculpture without any fatalism, then such a principle is characteristic, perhaps, only for the new and latest Europe, and even then rather only in the styles of consistent naturalism. In this regard, antiquity has its own independent and indestructible specificity, which cannot be ignored in any way. modern development historical science.
Conclusion
If we consider the philosophy of the ancient world as a whole, we should appreciate the great importance of ancient philosophy. The spiritual civilization of the West turned out to be more open to changes, the search for truth in various directions, including atheistic, intellectual, and practical ones. In general, the philosophy of the ancient world had a huge impact on subsequent philosophical thought, culture, and the development of human civilization.
An appeal to the history of philosophical thought shows that the theme of man is, firstly, enduring. Secondly, it is comprehended from various worldview positions, due to concrete historical and other reasons. Thirdly, in the history of philosophy, questions about the essence and nature of man, the meaning of his existence, remain unchanged.
The main ancient problematics has as its content the sensual-material cosmos as an absolute, that is, as expediently controlled by the soul and mind, and if you include everything cosmically inappropriate, then controlled by the primordial one, that is, by fate. In all this antique philosophical issues the original slave-owning material-bodily intuition manifests itself both in everything large and in all the little things. It is very important to note that ancient philosophers are not very fond of talking about fate, since the popular idea of destiny fixes it as something too external and superhuman. ancient philosophers they wanted everything inexpedient and everything inhuman to function on the same plane with everything expedient and with everything human, which is why fate was interpreted not as an object of unaccountable human faith, but also as a purely human concept, as a purely cosmic force. And then it became necessary to interpret such an impersonal and extrahuman force on the same plane with all human and cosmic expediency, with all human and cosmic orderliness. And this meant interpreting such a principle, interpreting fate as a philosophical category, that is, interpreting it as the highest primordial unity, or as a rational and non-rational principle at the same time.
Thus, taken in the most general form, ancient problems were reduced to the dialectic of idea and matter, developed in the form of a sensual-material cosmos, driven by the cosmic soul, controlled by the same cosmic mind and created by the over-soul and over-mental primordial unity.
Such is the purely philosophical, that is, theoretical, basis of ancient philosophy.
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