The history of ancient philosophy in a summary presentation. History of ancient philosophy in a summary presentation Losev and ancient philosophy of history

USSR ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Series “From the history of world culture”

A. F. LOSEV

ANTIQUE

PHILOSOPHY

PUBLISHING HOUSE "SCIENCE"

Moscow 1977

A scientific historical and philological analysis of a large number of sources, often used for the first time for this purpose, shows how ancient thinkers developed the concepts of time and space, culture and the historical process. Each chapter of the work is accompanied by a critical analysis of the latest historical and philosophical literature on this topic.

Executive editor Doctor of Philosophy A. V. GULYGA

It is impossible to study the history of an object about which it is unknown what it is. Undoubtedly, this kind of preliminary knowledge of the subject will inevitably be abstract, because it will become concrete only in its historical development and as a result of related research. However, this abstract knowledge must still be significant enough for us to historical research never lost sight of what exactly we are studying historically.

There seems to be no doubt that history is usually thought of primarily as some kind of change or development. Here, however, several different categories are mixed up, without a clear definition of which it is impossible to understand either what history is, or even more so, what the philosophy of history is.

Let's start with the most general and abstract aspects of any change and any process.

1. Becoming is such a change from one moment to another, when each individual moment, upon its emergence, is immediately destroyed and removed. Genuine becoming is the area for which this continuous fluidity and variability of things and phenomena is essential. Here it is impossible to separate one moment from another, because at the slightest fixation it is removed and makes room for another moment.

With all this, however, it must be remembered that the reduction of becoming to only one continuity is only the very first and most necessary moment in the definition of this category. A more detailed understanding of it suggests that its quantitative increase always leads to a transition from one qualitative type of formation to another qualitative type of formation.

updates. As a result of a certain development of the number

various kinds of fixed nodes, which by no means delay the formation itself, but mean the transformation of one type of it into another.

The grain or seed of a plant is not yet the plant itself,

in seed or grain in unexpanded form. Therefore, the category of becoming, i.e., becoming, thought out to the end, is, in essence, not only continuous evolution, but also intermittent revolutionary leaps.

Any line of formation, which is primarily thought of as evolutionary, is necessarily equipped with one or another number of leaps, which in no way interfere with continuous formation, but only demonstrate different types that arise revolutionary as a result of the formation itself. Therefore, Darwin’s doctrine of the origin of species is a theory of nothing more than a formation, however, one that, as a result of quantitative changes, causes certain revolutionary leaps, each time forming a new quality, i.e. this or that, but already a specific and stable biological type. And Mendeleev’s periodic system of elements is also a doctrine of formation, but one that, as a result of the quantitative formation of specific gravity, passes through a number of its types, which are different in qualitatively and called chemical elements. The entire periodic system of elements remains a continuous and continuous formation. This is the necessary dialectic of the category of becoming.

2. Movement as a way of existence of matter is also becoming, but this becoming is now qualitatively filled. An example of how human thought operates with pure becoming, that is, with such becoming that is devoid of any quality, is mathematical analysis with his doctrine of variable quantities, with such categories as, for example, the smallest increment, barely distinguishable from zero,

as a differential, integral or derivative of one order or another. When some function is differentiated or some differential equation is integrated, then human thought does not operate with any qualitative features of things and with any of their real movement. As soon as we introduce such concepts as space, time, force, mass, density, volume, energy, we get not just mathematics, but theoretical mechanics, in which becoming is interpreted precisely as filled qualitatively, i.e. .as movement.

3. Development. Moving on to even more rich categories, we, however, must leave aside not only the unqualified formation or the qualitative filled movement, but we will also have to consider the movement itself in its specific differences. Here we are faced, first of all, with the category of development, which is no longer simple mere becoming, nor simple mere movement. In order for something to develop, it is necessary that at the very beginning it contains within itself in a closed and undeveloped form all its further formation and movement.

A plant can develop only because in its seeds and grains it is already contained entirely, but still in an undivided and unexpanded form. Each subsequent moment of formation or movement of this seed will gradually unfold what was hiddenly given at the very beginning. And therefore it is necessary to say that development differs from the simple formation and movement of its specific direction, namely, the orientation to gradually unfold what is initially given in an undeveloped form.

Let's try to take a closer look at this feature of the development category. We immediately come across the opposition of object and subject, or the opposition of the natural and personal principles. Here the difference between development in nature and development in the individual, in the subject, immediately strikes the eye. While natural development does not at all require such categories as consciousness or thinking for its characterization, the entire area of ​​personality is primarily determined by precisely this presence of a conscious, thinking and, in particular, rational principle.

4. Community development. But, having encountered this opposition between the objective and the subjective, we are immediately convinced that these two categories are not only unconditionally different from each other, but also necessarily merge into something single, that is, into the unity of a certain kind of opposites. This unity represents a completely new quality in comparison with the two opposites from which it arose.

This new quality is not at all only an object, even if it is organic, and it is not at all only a subject, even if it is a feeling and thinking one. Here everything subjective and personal is subject to an objective and impersonal law, and everything natural ceases to be only something outside consciousness and outside man. This new level of the category of development is nothing more than the category of society or public.

In fact, is a society possible without human individuals? Completely impossible. It presupposes them, is based on them, and emerges for the first time from their relationship. But is it possible to reduce public sphere only to subjective existence or to the purely personal realm? No way. Society is a qualitative level that is higher than individual human subjects, is not reducible to them, is not their simple and mechanical sum. It already has an independent existence, which determines by itself both every personality and everything natural that is drawn into its domain.

Social laws are supra-personal and supra-natural. They are quite specific. And in relation to both areas, from the dialectical merger of which society was formed, it is completely determinative and endows them with new laws, which are something unconditional and completely imperative for each of the subordinate areas.

If we now wanted to go further towards deepening the original categories of formation, movement and development, then, obviously, we would have to talk about social development, that is, about the development of human society. But we won't be wrong if we say

that social development is nothing more than what we usually call historical process.

Of course, nothing prevents us from talking about social specifics purely theoretically, without delving into the specific history of society. Such consideration of society is even necessary, despite its theoretical nature. Indeed, without such a preliminary and completely theoretical analysis, we would not know either what nature, an object is, or what a subject, a personal principle is, or, finally, what results from the merging of objective and subjective being, i.e. That is, they would not understand how society differs from nature, how it differs from personality, how and why social laws go far beyond the boundaries of nature and personality, and what is the specificity of the social sphere in general. However, it also seems clear that this preliminary and theoretical consideration of the concept of society, while necessary, is still abstract and only auxiliary. It is necessary for us only because from it we will receive the opportunity to move on and must immediately move on to social development, and not remain in the field of theoretical research.

5. Historical process and culture. The historical process is precisely social development, that is, the development of society. And, therefore, to all these categories of formation, movement and development, we must now add an even more rich category, namely the category of the historical process.

It makes sense to clarify the concept of this process. After all, every historical process consists of a long series of layers that have the most varied degrees of generalization. We can take that basic and necessary layer of the historical process, which represents its material side.

Since by matter we generally understand the principle of the reality of the world, external in relation to consciousness and independent of it, it is clear that historical knowledge is, first of all, material process development of life, which includes both all the productive forces of society, that is, man himself with his tools of production, and production with all the production relations included in it.

This material side of society, which, obviously, is the basis for it, also presupposes the most diverse forms of social consciousness (science, art, religion, etc.). It is clear that the material side of social development and the associated forms of social consciousness are one way or another connected with each other and should be considered both in their immanent development and in their necessary connection (sometimes very complex and difficult to formulate) with development material side of society.

All this makes us talk not just about historical development, but rather about historical and cultural development, which, however, can only be understood under the condition of a clear understanding of what the historical process is in general.

6. Three types of historicism. But even here we are still at the very threshold of the study of those categories that are necessary for constructing a philosophy of history. The fact is that even the category of social development still continues to be a too abstract category for us. It is also necessary to agree on the form in which social development can and does appear and what methods exist to actually identify the pattern of this social development.

Here we must firmly stand on the position of understanding society as the area where the unity and struggle of the opposites of object and subject occurs and develops. This new quality and unity of both main areas is such a whole, which, as we know from the general dialectics of the whole, determines both the opposite moments from the merger of which it arose, and represents each of them in a new light. Thus, in every living organism there are organs that function, on the one hand, as such, that is, on their own; on the other hand, they are possible only thanks to the organism taken as a whole, and each of them bears the stamp of this whole organism.

The whole always exists only in a certain relationship with its parts, and its parts reflect their whole. Therefore, the entire historical and entire historical-cultural process, which we have now talked about as the sphere of social development, on the one hand, can be understood in its relationship with the formation

its common elements, that is, it can be understood both as nature and as the inner life of the individual; and on the other hand, this historical process can be considered in its pure historicism, precisely in its new quality, which is new both in relation to the natural or organic development involved in this process, and in relation to the subject and personality.

Thus, already here at least three main varieties appear in the understanding of socio-historical development.

It can differ in the type of natural development, in the type of subjective self-deepening and, finally, can be considered in its specific quality, like that other irreducible historicism, consisting, as we said earlier, of two main opposites, of which it arose dialectically.

Based on our goals, we can stop here. All other types of understanding of the historical process will be either only shades of these three basic understandings, or their most diverse combination, or a search for certain intermediate links between them.

7. It is also necessary to note this. In addition to formation, movement and social and personal development itself the category of historical process receives its specific meaning only as a result of one or another specific understanding of it. Having received the category of historical process, we must still choose one or another point of view on this process, one or another of its criteria, one or another of its interpretations, which will only allow us to formulate the very structure of the historical process, one or another of its directions , without which it still remains too abstract a category. Formation, movement and social-personal development are this kind of interpretation, which presupposes the application to the historical process of points of view that, taken in themselves, have no relation to history.

So, formation, movement, development, social development and a specifically interpreted structure of social development are the five necessary categories, without which it is impossible to construct any philosophy of history, not to mention the philosophy of culture included in this framework.

DIFFERENTIAL CONSIDERATION OF SEPARATE CATEGORIES OF PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY IN ANTIQUE

Let us now try to consider which of these five categories of any philosophy of history are most clearly represented in antiquity, whether they are represented at all, and how ancient thought interprets the approaches we have indicated to understanding the historical process. Let's start with that first thing, without which, theoretically speaking, there can be no historicism at all, namely, let's start with the category of becoming. In theory, all such approaches to the historical process, as we have seen, are completely unnecessary. However, not in all eras of historical development scientists operate with these basic categories in a clear form; and by no means always the last and most concrete approach to history, namely the interpretation of the very structure of formation, is given in an obvious and completely indisputable form.

1. Becoming and its dialectics

It is impossible to argue that antiquity not only perfectly imagined the nature of becoming, but also gave an exhaustive and, moreover, dialectical characteristic of this category. In ancient philosophy there are whole philosophical systems, which are only based on a clear understanding of the categories of formation. It is hardly necessary to mention here such philosophers as Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato and Aristotle, the Stoics or the Neoplatonists.

44-49] *. Heraclitus understood the element of formation very deeply and knew how to express it very masterfully.

Empedocles also quite accurately and clearly, in his half-mythological, half-philosophical language, formulates the elements of world and human formation. As you know, the two main cosmological principles, Love and Enmity, are in constant interaction in such a way that at first everything merges into one inseparable

into separate elements, so that a completely well-ordered and unified cosmos arises; then this cosmos gradually begins to disintegrate and die, in re

chaos to space and from space to chaos occurs in Empedocles eternally and immutably.

On the existence of the principle of eternal becoming in Empedocles

It arises from a certain kind of elements and dies, dissolving in these elements, but this very emergence and destruction is eternal.

Finally, continuous and continuous becoming was brilliantly formulated by the Neoplatonists and, above all, Plotinus in their Enneads, namely in the treatise on matter (treatise II 4). Based on Plato’s Timaeus, Plotinus develops a very subtle doctrine of sensory matter, which is the eternal substratum for all sensory things, eternally realizing pure eidos, or

* The serial number under which the publication appears in the bibliography (see at the end of the book) and the page of the publication are indicated in square brackets.

** Traditional scientific notations for Greek originals are given in parentheses, which makes it possible to find quoted passages in various publications.

ideas, and, being devoid of any division and opposition, there is a continuous continuum in the form of a background or factual basis for the appearance of all sensory things 112, p. 291-292, 320, 364-367, 399, 415-416).

Thus, we can say that the principle of becoming as pure, continuous and continuous fluidity with the revolutionary leaps necessary for it was quite clearly understood in ancient philosophy; and in this regard, it must be used primarily in the construction of ancient philosophy of history.

Therefore, at least from the point of view of the categories of formation, there is no reason to deny ancient thought its virtuoso ability to understand and formulate the deep essence of the historical process.

2. Movement and, in particular, the “movement of the sky”

Another category of those that we consider fundamental for the philosophy of history is also strongly represented in ancient philosophy - this is the category of movement, i.e., already one way or another materially filled formation.

General movement. Hardly anyone will doubt that this principle “everything moves” is characteristic not only of Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Plato, etc. We can say with complete confidence that the ancients in no way imagined any kind of no existence outside of this or that movement.

The understanding of such philosophers as Parmenides or Plato as preachers of absolute immobility has long been outdated, and it is now in no way possible to return to it.

Indeed, Parmenides thought of two worlds, as it were. One is the world of pure thought, motionless, formless, indivisible and, as it were, divorced from the fluidity of the material world. And the other is the real flowing material world, which is formed qualitatively, is specific and is sensually felt (Parmenides even points out the basic material elements, of which

everything also flows and everything is subject to endless changes, no worse than in Heraclitus.

Parmenides, along with his doctrine of the continuous One, explains the origin of the world from the mixture of fire and earth, when fire is the efficient cause, and earth is the formed matter. Even the most ordinary Greek natural philosophical doctrine of the elements belongs to him - with fire, air, earth and a certain construction of the entire cosmos from them. And since man in general and, in particular, his soul, according to Parmenides, also consist of earth and fire, and since his knowledge depends on the predominance of warm or cold, it is not surprising that the statement about. that “not only the soul and the mind are one and the same,” but also “the mouse

confused by this kind of statement of Parmenides and will ask: how can this be, after all, this being for Parmenides is pure thinking, devoid of any separateness and multiplicity, sensation is declared false, and then suddenly both turned out to be identical? But we know that both ancient materialism and ancient idealism are very clear examples of the finest dialectics. Therefore, let someone else be surprised at Parmenides’ monism, but we will not be surprised. The famous myth of Parmenides about the ascent in a chariot to the highest goddess directly presupposes two ways of knowledge, each of which, taken by itself, is false, and only their mutual fusion is true. From this synthesis of mental light and sensory darkness, Parmenides decisively constructed the entire cosmos (B 1-13) under the general leadership of the primordial goddess of all existence, Aphrodite.

As for his first, purely mental and motionless world, it must be remembered that this was the first discovery of the difference between sensation and thinking in ancient philosophy. This difference, which is now understandable to everyone, in those days was experienced as some kind of miracle, to depict which Parmenides had to use the most real mythological techniques, since simple words and abstract words

It was impossible for any philosophy at that moment to express all the delight before the discovery of this opposition of thinking and feeling. Naturally, the conceivable world is

From a historical point of view, this was not at all some kind of fundamental idealism or dualism, although Parmenides’ doctrine of conceivable being could well have been used to build idealism, which in this sense was used more than once in ancient philosophy. From a genuine and unprejudiced historical point of view, this is only the result of unprecedented and very naive delight in front of the same unprecedented discovery and natural fascination with the possibility of maximally contrasting what is thought and felt, not taking into account any absurdity of such a opposition, which is right there, and not only among other philosophers, but also Parmenides himself, was completely removed by the doctrine of the merging of the sensory world and the mental world into one single and eternally living cosmos.

Even Plato, for whom, and partly on the basis of Parmenides, idealism matured into a real philosophical system, even Plato basically understands his motionless ideas only as principles of the ever-moving cosmos and everything that is in it. The author of this work has spent a lot of effort to prove that these “eternally existing” ideas of Plato are only the principles of the appearance of all kinds of cosmic, and therefore intracosmic bodies and souls, the principles of their movement, necessarily eternal and, like Plato, constantly proves beautiful. The most beautifully formed and universal body, according to Plato, is the cosmos, which we see, hear and touch, but which eternally moves with all possible ideal correctness of its movement.

Ideally correct movement, according to Plato, is circular movement. Therefore, space consists of spherical regions nested one into another, along which everything that is inside moves. All this in Plato moves without fail and without any exception; and the circular motion of the visible sky is most perfect, most beautiful and never interminable. Transcosmic Platonic ideas only provide the cosmos with

its eternal movement, being the principles of the perfect and final laws of movements occurring in space.

At the end of his Timaeus, dedicated to the theory of world formation, Plato enthusiastically writes: “Having taken into itself mortal and immortal living beings and being filled with them, our cosmos has become a visible living being, embracing everything visible, a sensual god, the image of an intelligible god, the greatest and the best, most beautiful and most perfect, united and homogeneous sky” (92 p.). This sky, which eternally rotates within itself while maintaining the most precise correctness of its movements, is for Plato immediately a sensually perceived cosmos, that is, a universal body, ideally organized, and a universal living being, and a visible deity. This ideal cosmic life for Plato is so universal that the philosopher did not even find room in it for the traditional Greek Hades.

The idealistic features of such a concept are self-evident. However, it must be said that with this spherical

Ancient philosophy, generally speaking, never parted with the essence of motionless eternity, at the same time eternally moving, but never going anywhere beyond precisely limited limits. This ancient concept seems to us so obvious that proving it at the present time would be completely unnecessary. At the same time, it is interesting to note that this kind of never-ending movement of the cosmos was accepted by all philosophers in antiquity, regardless of their idealism or materialism.

Everything moves not only in Heraclitus or Democritus, not only in all the Pre-Socratics, but everything moves in Plato, and in Aristotle, and, as one can easily observe, in the entire last and, moreover, four-century ancient philosophical school, which is usually called “ neo-platonism."

that in relation to the development of this category, the ancient philosophy of history and the entire ancient philosophy of culture were not only not inferior to any other post-ancient philosophy of history, but, perhaps, even surpassed any other, non-ancient philosophy of history.

Both simple becoming and filled becoming, namely movement, could serve in antiquity as a completely reliable basis for constructing a philosophy of history. However, the category of movement is already affected by the specificity of antiquity, which remained almost untouched.

tion of the movement, specifically its structure, which we have already set forth as necessary for the construction of any philosophy of history and culture.

It is only in connection with the specifics of antiquity that it is necessary to remember that the most understandable and most obvious for ancient thinkers was movement of the firmament, eternally correct in shape (circular or spherical), and something as thin and beautiful as possible. After all, according to the teachings of the ancients, the thickest and densest matter of the earth gradually became rarefied into water, into air and into fire; and that subtlest fire from which the sky consisted was often called ether, in which, by the way, the gods lived. But this fiery-ethereal sky was not so far from the earth. If Hephaestus (see “Or Hell” by Homer), thrown by Zeus from Olympus, flew to earth for one day (I 592), and the copper anvil in Hesiod’s “Theology” took nine days (720-725), then after calculating the length of this path, according to our formula for the fall of bodies, we will get only a very, very small distance. And regarding that Olympus, on which the gods lived, it is mostly impossible for different ancient authors and in different places for the same author to understand whether this mountain is the real mountain that was on the border of Thessaly and Macedonia, or its belief

that movement that most struck the eyes of ancient thinkers was infinite in time, completely finite in its space, completely mathematical.

rial and eternally revolving within the finite limits of one universal and cosmic globe.

We even read about such a cosmic ball from Anaximander, who wrote an essay on the corresponding topic, although even earlier than Anaximander, according to Pliny, the celestial sphere was discovered by a certain Atlas. The work “Sphere” was also attributed to Empedocles and Democritus. Even according to Anaximander, first the reproductive principle of warm and cold was formed, from where the “fiery sphere” that envelops our air arose. The most interesting thing, however, is that even the Eleatics, who denied any formability of everything that exists, most magnificently interpreted it as a ball. According to Xenophanes, "a creature

despite the denial of any form behind pure being, he considered the sky “the most accurate of the globes encountered” (B 8). For him, not only the earth has the shape of a ball, but also the entire Universe and even “God is motionless, finite and has the shape of a ball” (A 31). In Plato himself, in the Timaeus, the sky is spherical, due to the equal distance of the boundaries of the Universe from the center (62 d; 33 b). Finally, even for the most positive Aristotle, not only all celestial bodies are spheres (“Physics” II 2, 193 b 30; “Second Analytics” I, 13, 78 b), but also the entire sky and the entire cosmos.

These are idealists. But the materialists Leucippus and Democritus are not far behind them. According to Leucippus, “the world is spherical” (A 22). Leucippus attributed sphericity to the soul because the latter “gives motion to living beings” (A 28). Democritus thought: “Of all forms, the most mobile is spherical. Mind and fire are the same in form” (A 101). He says: “The soul is a fire-like complex combination of intelligible bodies that have spherical shapes and a fiery property; it is the body” (A 102, 106, 135). Contrary to the teaching of atomists about different and even infinitely various forms atoms, Democritus also taught about their universal spherical shape, deducing this latter from the eternal mobility of atoms. After all, according to Democritus, even “God is the mind in spherical fire” (A 74).

It was a logical necessity for ancient philosophers to think of any movement as circular. No need to do-

mother, what is universal and universal Roundabout Circulation and the understanding of everything that exists, starting from atoms and ending with the cosmos and God himself, was only some kind of curiosity among the Greeks and that we cannot find anything here except one stupidity. The fact is that from the point of view of modern geometry, a straight line reaching in one direction to a point at infinity returns to us from the opposite side,

Anyone who has studied at least elementary trigonometry or analytical geometry knows that some curves are presented to us in such a way that we find simultaneously both curvature, going with its branches in one direction, and curvature, as if coming with its branches from the opposite side. Concepts of this kind are based on the fact that everything reaching an infinitely distant point describes a kind of infinite circle, returning to us from the opposite side.

A circle with an infinitely large radius reduces its curvature so much that this latter reaches zero, in which case the circle turns into a straight line. In other words, an infinitely extended straight line is a circle, and a circle with an infinitely large radius is a straight line.

In an intuitive form, such a concept was undoubtedly characteristic of the ancient Greeks. Therefore, any rectilinear motion, being taken in its perfect, i.e., infinite, form, necessarily turned for them into a circular or spherical motion. At the same time, the Greeks, as spontaneous materialists, wanted to see everything with their own eyes and touch it with their own hands. Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that atoms, no matter how diverse they were in their shape, in conditions where they were thought of as perfect and infinitely mobile, for the ancient Greeks necessarily took on a spherical shape at their limit. And since the gods for ancient materialism were nothing more than the cosmos, or, at least, models of the cosmos, then both the cosmos and God himself, in the end, seemed spherical to the ancient Greeks. And as we have now shown, this idea was equally characteristic of both idealists and materialists.

Thus, in antiquity not only did everything move, but at its limit it necessarily moved in a vicious circle, and for the ancient authors this was only the result of their successive logical thinking, based on spontaneous materialism.

3. The cyclical basis of ancient historicism

Already such an idea of ​​​​movement did not really predispose the ancients to pure historicism, that is, to such an understanding of life when its individual moments are presented as something unprecedented and unique, when one or another goal and direction of historical development are conceived and in general when historicism is a narrative about something unique.

For the ancient philosophers, everything moves, but in the end everything rests within the limits of one cosmic sphericity. The same heavenly bodies rise and descend from the firmament with ideal regularity. The same picture of the world exists here absolutely everywhere and always, that everything individual, everything personal and in general everything formed, now being created, now destroyed, eternally returns to itself and from this eternal rotation it receives absolutely nothing new .

Here we have nothing more than an idea eternal return, which has been debated many times in modern and contemporary philosophy, but which is precisely in antiquity presented in the most obvious and irrefutable form. Therefore, already at the stage of the philosophical doctrine of eternal motion and eternal return, one can guess that the ancient understanding of historicism will take shape according to the type of eternal rotation of the celestial vault, i.e., it will gravitate toward the type of historicism that we above called natural historicism. Here it is nature that will be the model for history, and not history the model for nature. And this is obvious, as we say, already at the stage of the typical teachings of antiquity about movement in general.

As for the various kinds of subtle shades present here and, perhaps, even some kind of exceptions, we will not talk about this, so as not to

Anaximander’s famous passage reads: “And from what all things arise, from the same they are resolved according to necessity. For they are punished for their wickedness and receive retribution from each other at the appointed time” (B 1). Three ideas are important here: the fatal necessity of fragmenting the single and eternal flow of time; the illegitimacy of the isolated existence of things, since they must maintain connections with a single and eternal time; the need to free them from mutual injustice, which is interpreted as the beginning of destruction. In essence, this is a general ancient idea, from the point of view of which the absolute, indivisible and united, even if it is divided, then its divided parts must remain in indissoluble unity with the whole that gave birth to them. What is important for us here is that all these processes of indivisible unity and separate fragmentation are interpreted not only as a fatal necessity, but also as temporary processes.

Thus, pre-Socratic reflection translated chaotic unprincipledness into its own language, and at the same time established a clear unity in mythology, in the analysis of the fundamental essence of the temporal process.

We read many times in these early texts that time is not only the principle of unified and continuous fluidity, but also of ordered separateness. About the same Anaximander, a later source says the following: “He (Anaximander) recognized as the beginning of Existence a certain nature of the Infinite, from which the heavens and the worlds in them arise. This nature is eternal and unchanging (ageless) and embraces all worlds. Time, according to his teaching, belongs to the realm of ordered development.

The Pythagorean fragments speak even more clearly. “The sky (the universe) is one... it draws into itself from the infinite time, breath and emptiness, which constantly delimits the places occupied by individual things” (58 B 30). “Pythagoras: time is a ball of breath that embraces the world” (B 33). “They called the earth a luminary, since it is also an instrument of time” (B 37). In other words, time is not only the very principle of differentiation, but also introduces this differentiation into the entire Universe. Except

Moreover, time determines any diversity of existence, so that, according to Anaxagoras (A 1), the mountains in Lampsacus can become a sea, “if there is no lack of time.” We can recognize the death of anything if we know what the passage of time is and what cessation is.

Anaxagoras argued that the world arose only with time, that is, something existed before time. Belt

As a probable assumption, one Aristophanic scholiast, citing the words of Euripides, actually cites the text of the famous sophist Critias from his tragedy “Perithos” (Critius B 18): “Tireless time rotates in an eternal stream; Carrying the future within itself, it gives birth to itself; and the two Ursa bears guard the pole (sky) of Atlas with the rapid flapping of their wings.” Atlas means “an axis not subject to (movement) and a motionless sphere,” and perhaps it is better to “understand (it as) motionless eternity” (88 B 18). Here is an obvious identification of time and eternity.

This is stated most clearly in Democritus, to whom Diels attributes the following two texts. “But on the question of time, everyone is unanimous, except for one thing (probably Plato): everyone says that it never arose. Based on this, Democritus proves the impossibility of all objects coming into being, since time never came into being” (this fragment, which is missing in its entirety from Diels, is numbered by Lurie in his own way as 304). “Democritus was so convinced that time is eternal that, wanting to prove that not all (things) ever came into being, he used as an obvious (premise) the fact that time did not (could ever) come into being.”

him (moreover, if in the words “except one” there is an indication of Plato, then, as we will see later, Aristotle makes a huge inaccuracy). At the same time, the identity of time and eternity, in contrast to strict mythology, must be understood here, of course, with the primacy of time in this identity, since time is considered independently, but with the transfer of categories of eternal existence to it. As for Democritus, he deserves a special study, which we will carry out in the next section.

4. Self-generation of time and its design

From this identification of time and eternity in this early period of ancient philosophy, of course, follows the self-generation of time, as we just saw in Critias. We already found this “creator” in Anax

as the creator of the entire cosmos. Therefore, in the text that we will now cite from Critias, one can see a return from sophistic subjectivism to the previous, completely objective natural philosophy with the use of all that reflection that marks the entire Greek classics, which names the principles of being not by the names of gods, but by abstract terms.

Critias conceives of not some separate god and not a deity in general, but a kind of completely soulless and impersonal elemental principle - a “creator”, quite similar to the previous natural philosophical elements like earth, water, air, fire and ether. Critias wrote: “The star-studded radiance of the sky is the artistic creation of Time, the wise architect” (B 25).

The fact that the atheist Critias used this phrase to speak precisely against the gods is clearly evidenced by Sextus Empiricus, from whom this fragment is quoted. This is not simple-minded faith in mythology, but maximum reflection on it, which, as we have already seen in the section on the Sophists, was the end of the progressive early and middle period of the Greek classics. Critias hardly went particularly far beyond

sophistic subjectivism, according to which, as Antiphon wrote, “time is our thought or measure, and not an essence

where we find precisely the sophistic element.

This sophistic time as a subjective idea, undoubtedly, must be distinguished from the teaching of Heraclitus, according to which “the world order has its beginning not in time, but in thought” (A 10), since the Logos of Heraclitus, as is known, has an objectively cosmic meaning.

5. Objective dialectics of time during the heyday of the early classics

ristics of concepts than the relationship of ontology categories. As for ontological dialectics, it is to a certain extent characteristic of almost all classical natural philosophy, because water for Thales is the primary element of all things and is reincarnated into all other elements, remaining, obviously, the same in each of them . The same is the air with Anaximenes or Diogenes of Apollo, and the same is the fire with Parmenides, Hippasus, Empedocles, Ion, and especially with Heraclitus. As regards time specifically, then, apparently, the dialectic of Heraclitus surpasses all philosophical systems of the classical period.

let it be in motion” (frg. 1). But the dialectic of time appears most clearly as we do. Since, however, the dialectic of Heraclitus has been expounded an infinite number of times, we will not present here

There are numerous texts from it, but we will only point out the following two.

The later imitator of Heraclitus wrote: “... of all things, time is the very last and the very first; it has everything in itself, and it alone exists and does not exist. It always leaves from existence and comes on its own along a path opposite to itself. For tomorrow for us will in fact be yesterday, but yesterday was tomorrow” (C 3). “He accepts a certain order and a certain time for changing the world according to fatal necessity” (A 5).

This is the transformation of times from one to another throughout eternity, which Heraclitus also gives in the form of a constant cycle of elements, in the form of the dominance of fire, logos, which is the support of the entire world development, and, finally, the theory of endless world fires (we will not do this analyze in view of the well-known philosophy of Heraclitus) - all such statements of Heraclitus represent, first of all, a dialectic both within time itself and between time and eternity.

The reflection of man during the early and middle classics turned out to be the most vivid and understandable in Heraclitus. There are no longer gods here in the form in which anthropomorphism represented them. Reflection has long since made them natural and material elements, but man has not yet moved away from his classical polis, and therefore he is so far parting not so much with the gods themselves, but with their anthropomorphism, turning them into abstract principles of the universe. However, this universe, periodically achieving its divine beauty, also periodically and due to the same logos immanent in matter, turns into complete chaos. There are no restoration attempts here to construct an ancient myth, as we find in the period of mature and late classics, that is, in Plato and Aristotle. Heraclitus seems to want to say: you don’t want gods and mythology, so look what a world without gods and myth is; this is nothing more and nothing less than the eternal chaos of things, which in itself is both beautiful and logical, especially when it disappears in the general and universal conflagration.

Heraclitus writes: “War is the father of everything, the king of everything. She made some gods, others people, some slaves, others free” (B 53). But the gods, who for Heraclitus become only reflective principles and are themselves subject to universal chaos, can sometimes become

spin chaos into space, although this space consists entirely of contradictions and is ready to perish in universal fire every minute.

In this form, a picture of the dialectical cycle of times appears before us. This is the dialectic of time and eternity of the period of the Greek strict classics. This is its true historicism. The rest of the philosophers of that era did not reason so consistently, but in principle they all gravitated towards this Heraclitean dialectic of time and eternity, since what in mythological time was continuous and timeless chaos, in the period of polis philosophy turned out to be dismembered and reflective, and the beautiful the cosmos, which sometimes appeared here, turned out to be only a rather rare manifestation of the irrational and fire element rock and destiny.

Thus, the dialectic of historical time during the period of the Greek early and middle classics was thought out quite clearly. The philosophers of this period dialectically combined the sculptural regularity of the world with the unknown, dull, randomly acting fate and

this chaos, which has passed into space as the highest beauty (Thales A 1; Empedocles B 134; Heraclitus B 124). Heraclitus writes: “Eternity is a playing child who arranges checkers. The kingdom (over the world) belongs to the child” (B 52). He thinks of the chaotic cosmos, if not directly beautiful, then at least as naive and innocent, although at the same time infinitely smart. The slender and beautiful cosmos, emerging and dying over time, periodically turned into a global fire (Heraclitus A 1.5; B 30, 63). The savagery of primitive man gave rise to a law, which at first served the freedom of people and protected them from each other, and then became violence and, over time, began to demand its destruction. The fiery basis of the world, according to Heraclitus, is logos, that is, the world pattern (B 31), and this latter ended in a world fire. The human soul is moist vapor (B 12). But, on the other hand, the same Heraclitus says: “no matter what road you go, you will not find

Melissa B 7; Philolaus B 21; Okkel 3; Anaxagoras A 30), others - about its annihilation and finitude in time (73 B 6; 59 A 65), so that the world is both eternal and non-eternal (Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Metrodorus 59 A 64; Empe dokl A 52). Most of all, there is a combination of time and eternity, as well as war in the concept of world fires in Heraclitus and the alternating cosmic power of Love and Enmity in Empedocles.

To conclude this classical polis conviction in the dialectic of the eternal emergence and destruction of worlds, we cite the following Pythagorean fragment: “One can doubt whether time itself arose, as some claim, or not. If you believe the Pythagoreans, then all the same things will be repeated again numerically [literally, identically], and again, with a stick in my hand, I will tell you, sitting like this in front of me, and everything else will again come to the same state; Thus, reason demands that we admit that time can be identical. For with the same movement, in the same way, with the same many things, the earlier and the later will be the same; so, their number will be the same. Consequently, everything will be the same, and therefore time too” (58 B 34).

6. The general result of the functioning of the concept of historical time during the period of early classical philosophy

The materials we have already given are sufficient to judge the concept of time in the early classical period. We can say that almost all the features of mythological historicism turn out to be more or less conscious here, although we do not yet find the system that is mythological time here.

Selected features of mythological historicism. Mythology itself, as we suggested earlier, is almost absent here. In view of the individual's liberation from communal-tribal authorities, he receives enormous freedom from mythology. Since, however, the classical slave-holding polis takes the place of the former clan community, it also needs for its absolute justification some kind of mythology, although now quite reflective, in view of the liberation of the individual from the previous communal-tribal authorities. Such a concept, for example, as the concept of becoming, without which mythological time could not exist, has already been sufficiently reflected.

This principle of formation is characteristic of almost all Pre-Socratics, but it seems to be expressed most and most clearly in Heraclitus. Those features of historical time that, according to our classification, turned out to be logically first and necessary, are also given here in a clear form. The material principle is clearly expressed in Ionian philosophy, the formal principle is expressed among the Dorians in the form of the Pythagorean doctrine of number.

Material elements are considered alive everywhere, that is, mobile and purposeful. From the very beginning, the concept of an element (earth, water, air, etc.) and its transformation into any bodies and things, into beings, including the flora and fauna, including also man and the gods, and world principles, such as Mind, appeared (Anaxagoras), Logos (Heraclitus), Thinking (Diogenes of Apollonian), Love and Enmity (Empedocles) and, finally, the One, which Heraclitus (B 50, 67, 102,108), not to mention the Eleatics, even above all camps leniya.

Time and eternity are also deeply different in all this philosophy, although this distinction is conditional and far from final. Xenophanes said that “those who claim that the gods were born act equally unhonorably, as do those who say that the gods are dead.” At the same time, Aristotle, citing these words of Xenophanes, adds: “For in both cases it turns out that there is a time when there are no gods” (Xenophanes A 12).

The same must be said about the distinction between individual things from time and eternity. The principle of “dog in everything”, borrowed from the previous mythological use

Toryism is also present here absolutely everywhere, since all things appear from certain elements and return to them.

Time as a system. The extent to which time reached its specificity in this early era of ancient thought can be seen from the fact that it captures, for example, that unconditional continuity that cannot be expressed by any number of finite elements. It further fixes infinity and, moreover, without specially deducing this infinity from eternity.

This continuous infinite time, at the same time, is very early split into separate elements, and philosophers are not at all embarrassed by the fact that in this case there must be a special method of thinking that would be able to unite the individual elements of infinitely continuous time into one integral and genuine infinite continuity. The idea of ​​undivided time arises, although combining it with infinitely continuous time has not yet been very successful for philosophers, since natural philosophical methods, devoid of special conceptual studies, have so far proven insufficient for this dialectic. The latter will become possible only after Democritus, who acted already at the very end of the 5th century. BC e., what else will we talk about.

Thus, if we collect all the individual concepts of time scattered throughout pre-Socratic philosophy, then we can say that a certain system of individual moments of the general and integral concept of time was already undoubtedly fixed here, although for the time being it is still not very conscious and almost always only intuitively .

Historicism as such. As a result of all this hidden presence of mythological historicism in absolutely all things and in all beings, it is very difficult to talk about such a specificity of historicism that would fundamentally distinguish it from all other processes of world history. In a completely bright and impeccable form, this historicism manifests itself only in the transitions of material elements from one to another and in the transitions of one

th state of the cosmos into its other state. If you like, you can, of course, call history the transformation of earth into water, water into air, air into fire, fire into ether and the return path from this lightest ether to the heaviest earth. It is clear, however, that the model of such historicism is exclusively heavenly and meteorological phenomena that in front of us, in essence, everything stands in the same place and if it moves, it eternally returns to the same state.

The astronomical-meteorological model comes to the fore. When, for example, Heraclitus speaks of the identity of the path up and down (B 60), then, of course, everyone understands by this the evaporation of water and its return back in the form of rain. When Heraclitus speaks of state laws, they are conceived for him only as embodiments of divine astronomical laws (B 114). It is clear from everything that history in the proper sense is not yet implied here, but is only the completion of astronomical and meteorological phenomena.

Of course, with sufficient progress in anti-mythological thinking, individual things or people may well appear independently. But such a relationship of things or such a relationship of people already loses all its semantic orientation and becomes largely unidealized. It is in this form that the historian Thucydides appears before us, a representative of the middle classics, who, however, studies the causality of the occurrence of events, but does not formulate any general and ideological orientation of these events.

Speculations about the origins of people and society in this early era are amazingly astronomical, meteorological, or, at the very least, fantastically biological. As examples, one can cite the teaching of Anaximander (frg. 10, 11, 30) (in the context of astronomical processes about the origin of people from fish), his (also in the context of the doctrine of the infinite) theory of punishment for individual beings separated from this infinite (frg . 9); the teaching of Xenophanes about the constant emergence and death of man in the mud of the sea (A 33), the teaching of Parmenides about the origin of people from the sun

(A 1) or “from a mixture of fire and moisture” (A 51); the teaching of Empedocles about the origin of man from separate bodily parts that arose as a result of a mixture of fire and moisture (A 72, 75, 85; B 57-69). In these texts it is difficult to find history in the proper sense of the word, since here it is in no way separated from this or that

one that brings this astronomy, meteorology and biology closer to history in the specific sense of the word. It is time that is thought of as a process, and moreover, as a process of transition from new to old, like a process going through

no matter how close it is to nature and no matter what generative models of nature determine it. In any case, we must add this natural historicism to that previous section of our presentation, which we called “time as a system.” Time, therefore, appears here not only as a single entity, but it is also a specific formation and development, although this specificity is still very poorly revealed.

An individual appeared on the stage, free from the communities of tribal authorities, but still unconditionally shackled by the unity of the slave-owning polis, of which he became a member. This polis, even if it was now a civil community and not a tribal community, freed the individual for his own initiative in the acquisition of tools and means of production.

But this early policy was still very far from

and well-being, freedom of personal and intimate experiences. Such a citizen, of course, remained an individual in some still abstract sense of the word. The socio-economic soil already created for him a certain freedom of thinking, but this thinking, for the reason indicated, did not go beyond the limits of abstract-universal categories and did not concern anything

internal or intimate, and if it touched, it forced him to understand this inner world as a direct result of the objective-material world in an abstract-universal pattern. Therefore, time, as well as historical time, was understood here so far only in the form of an abstract-universal category and did not in any way concern the intimate feelings of a person. However, on this basis, specific features of the understanding of time arose, which previously, if they were present, were in too direct and intuitive form.

Of these abstract features of the early polis time, attention is drawn to dialectic of freedom

and the need that will later be interpreted

he amazes with these harsh contours of the dialectic of freedom and necessity, realized for now only on the paths of only abstract-universal methods of thought. All this philosophy of the 5th century. literally sprinkled with references to “necessity”, “fate”, “fate”, “immutable predestination”, etc. Nothing happens without the orders of fate, although no one knows these orders in advance and not even she herself knows. And this is quite natural for this time, because life and being are realized only in an abstract universal way, and this abstract universality creates patterns that are too inhuman, like the transition of one element to another or like this or that movement of the vault of heaven.

In the conditions of such an abstractly universal pattern, which is also understood purely sensually and too intuitively, the question of the ultimate causes of what is happening always remains open. The sky moves according to certain laws. But why? It is unknown why. Man came from mud or mud. Why? Again we don't know why. One event followed another. Why? If, with direct examination, it is possible to say why, then the final reason for this transition again remains unknown. The entire cosmos is gradually aging or getting younger. Why? All this is unknown, unknown and unknown. And such uncertainty is completely natural, because human thinking in that era is too abstract and universal and at the same time too sensual and intuitive.

While we are peering at a beautiful statue, we are studying its structure, the relationship of its parts and getting pleasure from it. But as soon as we ask how this statue came into being and by what methods it was created, we throw up our hands and frankly say: we don’t know. In the same way, the ancient city man, no matter how detailed and skillfully he depicted the cosmos he saw and no matter how deeply he felt the passing of time both in nature and in history, still knew perfectly well that the final reason for everything that was happening was completely unknown to anyone and absolutely no one not clear. But here the ancient man acted honestly and openly. Establishing the laws of nature and history that he directly observed, he spoke of the final reason for all these laws: I know nothing. At the same time, he called the last reason for everything that happens, whether he knew its pattern or not, “fate”, “necessity”, “fate”.

Fatalism here was only the reverse side of the intuitively and sculpturally perceived cosmos. Fatalism was a necessary logical conclusion from what was immediately happening in time. Fatalism was an honestly stated result of too intuitive, spontaneous materialism. It must be said that in modern times not all materialism is characterized by such honest realism.

But perhaps what is even more interesting here is something completely different. This too abstractly universal pattern of everything that happens and at the same time the too direct perception of everything that happens led this abstractly thinking citizen of the early polis to interpret everything subjective in man as a direct result of objective necessity. What an objectively thinking ancient man understood as an objective necessity was for him an act of his inner freedom. After all, he did not yet know all the whims of human subjectivity and all the subjective contradiction to much that was required or at least accomplished objectively. If ever in ancient times and the concept of freedom arose as a conscious necessity, it was precisely in antiquity, and above all in the early slave-owning polis times.

The same will happen in Hellenistic philosophy, and above all in Stoicism. But the Stoics demanded that this objective meaningfulness of subjective experience be cultivated in every possible way. They made unprecedented efforts to ensure that a person abandoned his subjective whims and became direct, simple,

subjective whims, they themselves were interpreted as a direct result of the dictates of fate and at the same time as a direct result of the purely human and deepest experiences and needs of the person himself. There was nothing and no one to educate, and everything subjective was accomplished by itself, by its nature, exactly as it was outside the subject.

Not only a person of early polis time, but also a person of epic culture and a person of mythological historicism could not imagine this dualism of subject and object. The subject here quite sincerely and directly strived only for objective necessity. He did not even understand the difference between objective necessity and subjective freedom.

And that is why, characterizing the philosophical perception of historicism as it was in the early polis era, we must say that it was often a completely unconscious, and sometimes even quite conscious picture of the unconditional unity of freedom and necessity. And this was the result of constructing too abstractly general laws and the result of too much

Le from the very structure of the classical slave-holding polis of the early period, we have already talked about this enough, and there is absolutely no need to repeat it. You just need to be able to apply this ancient dialectic of freedom and necessity to the understanding of ancient polis time and ancient polis historicism. Only in this case will historical time as a system within the ancient polis period become completely clear and obvious. Belief in fate and necessity was only a direct and honest logical conclusion from the sculptural-materialistic worldview.

7. Personification of time as a philosophical and artistic result of corresponding ideas

ideas about time, which is usually valued too low, but which for us receives great importance. This is usually called the personification of time, i.e. Time, which must be written with a capital letter. In a purely artistic sense, such personification really does not have a very deep meaning, like any personification in general in comparison with full-fledged metaphors and poetic symbols.

However, we want to formulate not just an artistic, but precisely a philosophical and artistic result of ancient ideas about time. And in this regard, the personification of time says a lot. Indeed, in any personification, the abstract concept is in the foreground, and this is precisely what is important for philosophical generalization. The same artistic elements of personification that accompany the well-known concept of time, without playing a large artistic role, significantly revive the original general concept and concretize it in a noticeable way. We have already encountered the technique of personifying time among Greek tragedians. Here it is advisable to present these techniques in an exhaustive and systematic form. This will be a very expressive final conclusion from the previously cited artistic and philosophical texts.

The fact that Time, according to Aeschylus, “sleeps together” with Clytemus, suffering at Night (“Agamemnon”, 894), still says relatively little about the active functions of Time

this already implies a whole picture of the events that took place among the Greeks before their departure to Troy (ibid., 985). Time appears even more active in that place in Aeschylus (“Choephoros”, 965), where “All-healing Time” should heal all the horrors in the house of Agamemnon. When

Orestes utters protective words, he claims that “Time purifies everything at the same time as we grow old” (“Eumenides”, 286). It is not surprising, therefore, that justice is interpreted by Euripides as a “child of Time” (frg. 223), that is, it triumphs only with time. Furthermore, “Time taught Oedipus to endure his suffering” (Sophocles. “Oedipus at Colonus”, 7).

The result is such a high idea of ​​time that it is directly stated about it:

Only the gods know neither old age nor death.

Everything else is in the power of time

Thebes is favorable to you today, But endless time without counting Nights and days will give birth in its flow,

And, sooner or later, an old pleasure will be struck down by a spear because of an empty word

(ibid., art. 614 - 620)

According to Euripides, Time is older than everything, even the gods themselves.

Oh, if only the father of times, the Progenitor, would preserve me, an old woman, as a celibate virgin!

(“Petitioners”, art. 786-788, trans. S. Shervinsky)

In Greek it is more precise: “Time is the ancient father of days.” Time, in the end, is the same eternity, and in any case it does not depend on Moira the Judge

would, but on the contrary: Moira is a child of Time.

How much Yarn Moira has in her hands, and how much Time the son of the Age of Threads winds with her. . .

(“Heraclides”, art. 898-900, trans. I. Annensky)

Fortunately, however, Democritus, being a materialist, is not a mechanist at all; on the contrary, he is one of the first preachers of very deep dialectical observations. The author of this work once already made an attempt to find out the dialectical features of Democritus and found them both numerous and very deep. This eliminates the need to reproduce our argument here in order to limit ourselves to only such materials as are necessary for understanding the Democritus' concept of time and history.

In the philosophy of the early and middle polis in Greece that we are analyzing, Democritus plays a very specific role that deserves special study. This Democritus is usually highly praised among us, which he deserves.

However, delving into the ideology of traditional praise in detail, we are surprised to see that he is praised for nothing more than mechanism. And of all the types of vulgar materialism, mechanism is the most disgusting simply because it is not materialism at all, but real bourgeois idealism. Indeed, from the point of view of correct materialism, it is matter that determines the idea, and not the idea - matter. But mechanism is the purest idealistic theory, according to which the mechanical structure controls matter, while matter is a powerless, inert and completely passive material.

Chapter IX DEMOCRITUS

Specifics of Democritus' materialism

Subsequently, the tragedy showed that time can be overcome in the struggle with its countless and capricious manifestations, including various horrors and crimes, and through this struggle, almost always fruitless, return to the peace of eternity. But for now there is still a person

fights until he commits various kinds of misdeeds and crimes, until he realizes and fully appreciates the criminal things he has done in life, that is, until he finds refuge with the eternal gods, until then he is an unchanging toy of time, until then he still knows nothing definitively and cannot appreciate this Time, a monster capable of both making a person happy and casting him into the abyss of crimes and suffering.

Losev A.F.
History of ancient philosophy in summary

M.: CheRo, 1998. - 192 p. (2nd ed.)
ISBN 5-88711-074-0
PDF 3.7 MB

Quality: good, scanned pages + text layer + table of contents

Language: Russian

A panorama of ancient philosophy throughout its more than thousand-year history from its origins to its decline and death in a summary presentation by an outstanding thinker of our time. Various periods of the development of ancient philosophy, its movements and schools, precise historical and philosophical formulas and principles of various directions are presented with the brilliance inherent in the author. Deep knowledge of the subject, a special, purely Losevsky gift of generalization, the ability to see the main thing behind particular manifestations allow the author, despite the lapidary nature of the presentation, to draw the reader’s attention to the most important ideas and concepts of ancient philosophy, to indicate the main characters and clarify existing terminology.
Ancient philosophy appears before the reader not as a list of fragmentary fragments, but as a single picture of the development of thought, drawn by the hand of a master.
For a wide range of readers interested in the history of philosophy.

CONTENT

INTRODUCTION Principle and structure of the history of ancient philosophy 3

I. Pre-philosophical, that is, socio-historical, basis 5
§ 1. Community-tribal formation
§ 2. Slave-owning formation 8

II. General philosophical, that is, theoretically problematic, basis 14
§ 1. The main philosophical problems of antiquity. Myth and logos
§ 2. Matter and idea 16
§ 3. Soul, mind and space 21
§ 4. First Unity 23
§ 5. Summary 26

III. Historical-problematic basis 30
§ 1. Prerequisite historicism
§ 2. Main periods 32

CLASSIC. SENSUAL-MATERIAL SPACE AS AN OBJECT 38
§ 1. Introduction
§ 2. Early classics 42
§ 3. Middle classics 52
§ 4. Mature classics 56
§ 5. Late classics 61

EARLY AND MIDDLE HELLENISM. SENSUAL-MATERIAL SPACE AS A SUBJECT 71
§ 1. Early Hellenism
§ 2. Middle Hellenism 100

LATE HELLENISM. SENSUAL MATERIAL SPACE AS A MYTH 117
§ 1. Early Roman Neoplatonism 118
§ 2. Syrian Neoplatonism 122
§ 3. Athenian Neoplatonism 128
§ 4. Neoplatonism and ancient mythology fate 138

FALL AND DEATH 148
§ 1. Further evolution of Neoplatonism 149
§ 2. General philosophical trends in connection with the age of syncretism 161
§ 3. Gnosticism 168

SHORT SUMMARY 178
INDEX OF NAMES 188

Losev Alexey

Ancient philosophy of history

A.F.LOSEV

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

It is impossible to study the history of an object about which it is unknown what it is. Undoubtedly, this kind of preliminary knowledge of the subject will inevitably be abstract, because it will become concrete only in its historical development and as a result of appropriate research. Nevertheless, this abstract knowledge must still be sufficiently significant so that in the process of historical research we never lose sight of what exactly we are studying historically.

There seems to be no doubt that history is usually presented primarily as some kind of change or development. Here, however, several different categories are mixed up, without a clear definition of which it is impossible to understand either what history is, much less what the philosophy of history is.

Let's start with the most general and abstract aspects of any change and any process.

1. Becoming is such a replacement of one moment by another, when each individual moment, upon its emergence, is immediately destroyed and removed. Genuine becoming is the area for which this continuous fluidity and variability of things and phenomena is essential. Here it is impossible to separate one moment from another, because at the slightest fixation it is removed and makes room for another moment.

With all this, however, it must be remembered that the reduction of becoming to only one continuity is only the very first and most necessary moment in the definition of this category. A more detailed understanding of it suggests that its quantitative increase always leads to a transition from one qualitative type of formation to another qualitative type of formation. As a result of a certain development of quantity, a transition occurs from one quality to another, so that the entire continuous line of becoming contains various kinds of fixed nodes, which do not at all delay from becoming itself, but mean the transformation of one type of it into another.

The grain or seed of a plant is not yet the plant itself, although it contains it in an unexpanded form. And the plant itself is not yet its blossoming, nor its death, nor its trunk, leaves and flowers, although all this is already contained in the seed or grain in an unexpanded form. Therefore, the category of becoming, i.e. formation, thought out to the end, is, in essence, not only continuous evolution, but also discontinuous revolutionary leaps.

Any line of formation, which is primarily thought of as evolutionary, is necessarily equipped with one or another number of leaps, which do not at all interfere with continuous formation, but only demonstrate its different types, which arise revolutionary as a result of the formation itself. Therefore, Darwin’s doctrine of the origin of species is a theory of nothing more than a formation, however, one that as a result quantitative changes causes certain revolutionary leaps, each time forming a new quality, i.e. one or another, but already defined and stable biological type. And Mendeleev’s periodic system of elements is also a doctrine of formation, but one that, as a result of the quantitative formation of specific gravity, passes through a number of its types, which are different in qualitative terms and are called chemical elements. The entire periodic system of elements remains a continuous and continuous becoming. This is the necessary dialectic of the category of becoming.

2. Movement as a way of existence of matter is also becoming, but this becoming is now qualitatively filled. An example of how human thought operates with pure becoming, i.e. With such a formation, which is devoid of any quality, serves mathematical analysis with its doctrine of variable quantities, with such categories, for example, as the smallest increment, barely distinguishable from zero, as a differential, integral or derivative of one order or another. When any function is differentiated or some differential equation, then here human thought does not operate with any qualitative features of things and with any of their real movement. As soon as we introduce such concepts as space, time, force, mass, density, volume, energy, we get not just mathematics, but theoretical mechanics, in which becoming is interpreted precisely as filled qualitatively, i.e. like movement.

3. Development. Moving on to even more rich categories, we, however, must leave aside not only the non-qualitative formation or the qualitative filled movement, but we will also have to consider the movement itself in its specific differences. Here we are faced, first of all, with the category of development, which is no longer simple mere becoming, nor simple mere movement. In order for something to develop, it is necessary that at the very beginning it contains within itself in a closed and undeveloped form all its further formation and movement.

A plant can develop only because in its seeds and grains it is already contained entirely, but still in an undivided and unexpanded form. Each subsequent moment of formation or movement of this seed will gradually unfold what was hiddenly given at the very beginning. And therefore it is necessary to say that development differs from simple formation and movement in its specific direction, namely the direction to gradually unfold what is given in an undeveloped form at the very beginning.

Let's try to take a closer look at this feature of the development category. We immediately come across the opposition between object and subject, or the opposition between natural and personal principles. Here the difference between development in nature and development in the individual, in the subject, immediately strikes the eye. While natural development does not at all require such categories as consciousness or thinking for its characterization, the entire area of ​​personality is primarily determined by precisely this presence of a conscious, thinking and, in particular, rational principle.

Thus, development can be understood, on the one hand, as inorganic and organic, and on the other, as conscious and thinking, as thinking.

4. Social development. But, having encountered this opposition between the objective and the subjective, we are immediately convinced that these two categories are not only unconditionally different from each other, but also necessarily merge into something single, i.e. into the unity of a certain kind of opposites. This unity represents a completely new quality compared to the two opposites from which it arose.