Sophists (from Greek “sage, creator”) are ancient Greek paid teachers of eloquence, representatives of the philosophical school.

Teachers of those who wanted to think, speak and do correctly. They were looking for wealthy young men who wanted to go far politically or have another stunning civilian career.

Two groups of sophists:

- “seniors”: They were more of a set of techniques, rather than some single school or trend. Heirs of naturalists, as they try to explain everything that exists rational reasons, point out the relativity of all things, concepts and phenomena, and also question the foundations of contemporary morality.

The philosophy of the older generation of sophists was developed by Protagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, Prodicus, Antiphon and Xeniades.

- “younger”:“Teachers of imaginary wisdom,” Aristotle called them. They professed extreme relativism and came to the conclusion that the concepts of good and evil are practically no different from each other. What may be good for one person is bad for another. In addition, human institutions are very different from natural laws.

Representatives:

1. Protagoras(481 – 411 BC):

Student of the famous Democritus. He developed the doctrine of atoms and emptiness, as well as the multiplicity of worlds, constantly dying and arising again, into the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe relativity of things. The philosophy of the Sophists has since become a symbol of relativism. Matter is transitory and constantly changing, and if something dies, then something else comes to take its place. This is our world, Protagoras argued. So it is with knowledge. Every concept can be given an opposite interpretation. It is also known that Protagoras was the author of the atheistic work “On the Gods.” It was burned, and the philosopher himself was doomed to exile.

Protagoras declared that people are the measure of everything. Everything we say about the truth is just someone's opinion.

Representative "seniors".

2. Gorgias(480 – 380 BC):

Heading the Leonian embassy in Athens. Gorgias was one of the first orators of a new type - not only a practitioner, but also a theorist of eloquence.

Gorgias claimed that he did not teach virtue and wisdom, but only oratory. Gorgias's speech was distinguished by its special poetic expressiveness. He developed and used special rhetorical techniques, nicknamed Gorgian figures: phrases similar in form and corresponding in volume, the use of parallel members of a sentence and members of a sentence that are in antithesis.

According to Gorgias, true knowledge does not exist, because even what we personally experienced we remember and recognize with difficulty; we must be content with the plausible opinion.

Excerpts from an essay entitled On Non-Existence, or On Nature (Peri tu me ontos e peri physeos) have also been preserved. Gorgias tried to substantiate three paradoxical theses in it: a) nothing exists; b) even if something existed, a person could not know it; c) even if he could know, he would not be able to express it in words and prove it to other people.

Representative "seniors".

3. Hippias(460 – 400 BC):

Ancient Greek sophist philosopher and mathematician, contemporary of Socrates. He became famous for his ability to deliver a speech on any topic without prior preparation. In his writings on politics, he distinguished between legal relations according to nature and according to human law.

Representative "seniors".

4.Thrasymachus(459 – 400 BC):

The name "Thrasymachus" means "aggressive warrior", which may have influenced his role in the dialogue. Thrasymachus owes his importance mainly to Plato, who made him a character in his dialogue “The Republic.” As a thinking man, Thrasymachus has enough in common with philosophers to be able to defend philosophy in the city.

Representative "younger"

Sophists

Sophists- philosophical school in Ancient Greece, which existed in the 5th - first half of the 4th centuries. BC e. Representatives of this philosophical school acted not so much as philosophical theorists, but as philosopher-educators who taught citizens philosophy, oratory and other types of knowledge (translated from Greek “sophists” - sages, teachers of wisdom).

In the 5th century BC. in many cities of Greece, the political power of the ancient aristocracy and tyranny was replaced by the power of slave-owning democracy. The development of new elective institutions created by its rule - the people's assembly and the court, which played a large role in the struggle of classes and parties of the free population - gave rise to the need to train people who mastered the art of judicial and political eloquence, who knew how to convince with the power of words and prove, who were able to freely navigate various issues and tasks of law, political life and diplomatic practice. Some of the most advanced people in this area - masters of eloquence, lawyers, diplomats - became teachers of political knowledge and rhetoric. However, the lack of division of knowledge of that time into philosophical and specifically scientific fields, as well as the meaning that in the eyes of educated people of the Greek West achieved in the 5th century. BC. to receive philosophy with its questions about the beginnings of things, about the world and its emergence, led to the fact that these new teachers usually not only taught the technique of political and legal activity, but also connected this technique with general questions of philosophy and worldview.

How philosophical movement the sophists do not represent a completely homogeneous phenomenon. Most characteristic feature, common to all sophistry, is the assertion of the relativity of all human concepts, ethical standards and ratings; it is expressed by Protagoras and his famous statement: “Man is the measure of all things: existing - in the fact that they exist - and non-existent - in that they do not exist.” Sophists are objective idealists.

Senior group of sophists. The development of sophistry differs between older and junior group sophists. The older group includes Protagoras (481-413), Gorgias, Grippias and Prodicus. The teachings of Protagoras were formed on the basis of the teachings of Democritus, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Empedocles, revised in the spirit of relativism. According to the characterization of Sextus Empiricus, Protagoras was a materialist and taught about the fluidity of matter and the relativity of all perceptions. Developing the position of the atomists about the equal reality of being and non-being, Protagoras argued that every statement can be countered with equal grounds by a statement that contradicts it.

The younger group of sophists. In the teachings of the younger sophists (IV century BC), about which extremely scanty data has been preserved, their aesthetic and social ideas. Thus, Lycophron and Alcidamant opposed the barriers between social classes: Lycophron argued that nobility is a fiction, and Alcidamant argued that nature did not create anyone as slaves and that people are born free. Antiphon not only developed a materialistic explanation of the principles of nature and the origin of its bodies and elements, but also tried to criticize cultural phenomena, defending the advantages of nature over the institutions of culture and over art.

Protagoras (Protagoras, 480–411 BC)

Protagoras came from Abdera (the coast of Thrace), like Democritus, and was his listener. Protagoras gained fame through his teaching activities in several Greek cities, particularly in Sicily and Italy.

Protagoras was the first to openly call himself a sophist.

Protagoras expressed his philosophical credo in the statement: “Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and non-existent, that they do not exist.” This means that as a criterion for assessing the surrounding reality, good and bad, the sophists put forward Subjective opinion person:

1) nothing exists outside human consciousness;

2) nothing is given once and for all;

3) what is good for a person today is good in reality;

4) if tomorrow what is good today becomes bad, then it means that it is harmful and bad in reality;

5) the entire surrounding reality depends on a person’s sensory perception (“What seems sweet to a healthy person will seem bitter to a sick person”);

6) the world around us is relative;

7) objective (true) knowledge is unattainable;

8) there is only a world of opinion.

One of Protagoras’ contemporaries is credited with creating the work “Double Speeches,” which also leads to the idea of ​​the relativity of being and knowledge (“Disease is evil for the sick, but good for doctors”; “Death is evil for the dying, but good for gravediggers and undertakers.” ) and teaches young man achieve victory in a dispute in any situation.

Protagoras’ attitude towards the forests was also original and revolutionary for that time: “I cannot know about the gods whether they exist or not, because too many things hinder such knowledge - the question is dark, and human life is short.”

Another famous representative of the Sophist school is Gorgias.

Gorgias (c. 483-373 BC)

Gorgias was most likely a student of Empedocles, and was also familiar with the teachings of the Eleatics and the views of Democritus. And although he visited Athens several times, he lived most of his life in Larissa and Thessaly.

Tradition has preserved little of Gorgias's creative heritage. For example, the following advice to the speaker has been preserved: “Refute the enemy’s serious arguments with a joke, jokes with seriousness.” Only two speeches attributed to Gorgias have been preserved in their entirety - “Praise of Helen” and “Justification of Palamedes,” written based on myths about the Trojan War.

He is the most prominent proponent of relativism among the Sophists. His relativism borders on skepticism. As Sextus Empiricus testifies, in his essay “On non-existent things, or on nature,” Gorgias consistently presents three theses.

First: nothing exists; second: even if something exists, it cannot be known; third: even if it can be known, it cannot be conveyed and explained to another. In proving these theses, he uses argumentation reminiscent of the Eleatic argumentation. The entire structure of the proof of each of these theses consists, in fact, in the acceptance of a certain premise, from which consequences are then derived leading to a dispute.

According to Gorgias, true knowledge does not exist, because even what we personally experienced we remember and know with difficulty; we must be content with the plausible opinion. Gorgias owns the treatise “On Nature, or on the Non-Existent,” which is considered one of the most striking manifestos of agnosticism. The main idea of ​​the treatise is “Nothing exists; but even if something exists, it is not knowable; but even if it is knowable, it is inexplicable for another.”

Gorgias substantiates these three provisions with the following arguments:

1. If a being is eternal, then it is limitless, and if it is limitless, then it is nowhere, and if nowhere, then it does not exist. If a being is not eternal, then it came either from being, which is impossible, since then being would be before itself, or from the non-being, which is also impossible, since nothing comes from the non-being. Therefore, being is neither eternal nor non-eternal. Therefore, it does not exist at all. (Gorgias also argues that there is no existence, since it is neither one nor multiple).

2. Even if a being exists, then it is not thought, since the thinkable is not identical to the existent, otherwise Scylla and the Chimera would exist in reality.

3. If a being is thought, then it is inexplicable to another, since we explain through words, and the word is not identical to the object it denotes and cannot explain it, since, on the contrary, we explain the word by pointing to the object.

Gorgias was also one of the teachers of Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic school.

Sophists are characterized by:

critical attitude to the surrounding reality;

the desire to test everything in practice, to logically prove the correctness or incorrectness of a particular thought;

rejection of the foundations of the old, traditional civilization;

denial of old traditions, habits, rules based on unproven knowledge;

the desire to prove the conditionality of the state and law, their imperfection;

perception of moral norms not as an absolute given, but as a subject of criticism;

subjectivity in assessments and judgments, denial of objective existence and attempts to prove that reality exists only in human thoughts.

3. Sophistry as the main logical device of the sophists.

Representatives of this philosophical school proved their rightness with the help of sophisms - logical techniques, tricks, thanks to which a conclusion that was correct at first glance ultimately turned out to be false, and the interlocutor became confused in his own thoughts.

An example of this conclusion is “horned” sophism:

"What you haven't lost, you have,

you haven't lost your horns;

that means you have them.”

This result is achieved not as a result of paradox, the logical difficulty of sophism, but as a result of incorrect use of logical semantic operations. In this sophism, the first premise is false, but is presented as correct, hence the result.

4. The significance of the activities of the sophists.

Despite the fact that the activities of the sophists caused disapproval of both the authorities and representatives of other philosophical schools, the sophists made a great contribution to Greek philosophy and culture. Their main merits include the fact that they:

took a critical look at the surrounding reality;

disseminated a large amount of philosophical and other knowledge among the citizens of Greek city-states (for which they were later called the ancient Greek enlighteners).

5. Philosophy of Protagoras.

A prominent representative of the senior sophists was Protagoras (5th century BC). Protagoras expressed his philosophical credo in the statement: “Man is the measure of all things that exist, that they exist, and non-existent, that they do not exist.” This means that as a criterion for assessing the surrounding reality, good and bad, the sophists put forward the subjective opinion of a person:

nothing exists outside human consciousness;

nothing is given once and for all;

what is good for a person today is good in reality;

if tomorrow what is good today becomes bad, then it means that it is harmful and bad in reality;

the entire surrounding reality depends on a person’s sensory perception (“What seems sweet to a healthy person will seem bitter to a sick person”);

the world around us is relative;

objective (true) knowledge is unattainable;

there is only a world of opinion.

One of Protagoras’ contemporaries is credited with creating the work “Double Speeches,” which also leads to the idea of ​​the relativity of being and knowledge (“Disease is evil for the sick, but good for doctors”; “Death is evil for the dying, but good for gravediggers and undertakers.” ) and teaches the young man to achieve victory in an argument in any situation.

Protagoras’ attitude towards the forests was also original and revolutionary for that time: “I cannot know about the gods whether they exist or not, because too many things hinder such knowledge - the question is dark, and human life is short.”

6. Philosophy of Socrates.

The most respected of the philosophers related to sophistry was Socrates (469 - 399 BC). Socrates did not leave significant philosophical works, but went down in history as an outstanding polemicist, sage, and philosopher-teacher. The main method developed and applied by Socrates was called “maieutics”. The essence of maieutics is not to teach the truth, but to use logical techniques and leading questions to lead the interlocutor to independently find the truth.

Socrates conducted his philosophy and educational work in the midst of the people, in squares, markets in the form of an open conversation (dialogue, dispute), the topics of which were topical problems of that time, relevant today: good; evil; Love; happiness; honesty, etc. The philosopher was a supporter of ethical realism, according to which:

any knowledge is good;

any evil or vice is committed out of ignorance.

Socrates was not understood by the official authorities and was perceived by them as an ordinary sophist, undermining the foundations of society, confusing young people and not honoring the gods. For this he was in 399 BC. sentenced to death and took a cup of poison - hemlock.

The historical significance of Socrates' activities is that he:

contributed to the dissemination of knowledge and education of citizens;

looked for answers to the eternal problems of humanity - good and evil, love, honor, etc.;

discovered the maieutics method, widely used in modern education;

introduced a dialogical method of finding truth - by proving it in a free debate, and not declared, as a number of previous philosophers did;

He educated many students who continued his work (for example, Plato), and stood at the origins of a number of so-called “Socratic schools.”

Not a single scientific debate is complete without clear evidence of the chosen position. But is everything said based on facts? Sophistry in philosophy provides an opportunity for thinkers to convince opponents that they are right. Philosophers have to think out, invent, assume. Does this mean science is a lie? No, this fact confirms the quote: “truth is born in dispute.”

Where does the concept of “sophistry” originate?

Sophistry has Ancient Greek origins, literally translated as “wisdom.” It was originally thought to be applied to musicians. The origin of the concept dates back to the 5th century BC in Athens, and later it spread throughout the country.

When in Greece the governance of an aristocratic country was replaced by a slave-owning democracy, there was an urgent need for wise men and orators. They had a difficult task - to influence the mood of the public with the help of words: to inspire soldiers going to war; make a friendly meeting with delegates of other states interesting; educate the people; organize holidays. Rhetors had to be able to convince, prove, explain, have diplomacy, knowledge of political subtleties, and a general worldview.

That period was marked by the flourishing of eloquence. The speaker had to attract attention with the help of the ability to beautifully express his thoughts and beliefs in order to win a trial or solve a political dilemma.

Sophistry, or sophistry, is a method of drawing conclusions that go against the laws of logic, do not have scientific justification, provability, but are presented as true. Sophistry uses deliberate violation of logical chains, substitution, polysemy of concepts, and verbal tricks to mislead the enemy and gain superiority over him.

Sophistry - a direction of philosophical thought

Sophistry, as a multifaceted way of thinking, acquired a complete form at the end of the 5th century BC, becoming subjective-idealistic philosophical direction- sophistry. Now sophistry has a completely different concept - intellectual fraud. In antiquity, it was associated with special wisdom and the ability to convey scientific knowledge for money. Representatives of the movement were excellent teachers, early scientists, and professors. Philosophers called themselves sophists. Their appearance led to the birth of the Sophia school.

Type of activity of the Sofia school

Schools of oratory were first mentioned in the 5th century in Sicily. But it was Athens that became the public arena for the educational activities of the Sophists. The doctrine touched upon the epistemological problem of philosophy. Adepts ancient school they tried to teach followers to refute the conclusions of political opponents with the help of evidence and reasoning. In this endeavor, they encountered socio-political problems, for the sake of solving which they dealt with general questions of truth and falsity. It follows from this that philosophy, represented by the teachings of the Sophists, is an important direction in the science of thought in general.

Leading a traveling lifestyle, the sophists performed in front of everyone who wanted to learn eloquence. They “toured” cities, using pedagogical rhetoric to unite groups of people differing in age, gender, and social status. The sages made a huge contribution to the development of society - they cultivated an understanding of the importance of not only physical and spiritual education, but also mental education. Education has acquired highest value, received subsequent distribution. “An educated person is confident in himself, able to withstand the crowd, strong in thought, his weapon is the word,” thinkers were guided by this motto.

Due to their “wandering” lifestyle, the Sophists did not have a developed system of knowledge. The manuscripts have not survived to our time; we can study sophiology only on the basis of the works of philosophers of the late period.

Features of the thinking of the “senior sophists”

The older group of sophists studied languages, dealt with ethical, political, legal, and state issues, and absolutized the relativity of knowledge, as they questioned all previously existing truths.

The idea of ​​studying the problem of being with the “elders” opened up from a new perspective - not in oneself, but for oneself.

They doubted the existence of gods, believing that the latter were an object of human imagination, and criticized religious belief. The sophists did not deny the inhabitants of Olympus, they only looked for arguments for and against.

The "Senior Sophists" are divided into three categories:

• the first speakers who respect the rules of morality and ethics;
• debaters (“erists”) who defend the formal aspect of the method. They exaggerated the content of concepts, erased the moral context, which aroused the anger of the public;
• politicians in sophistry, reducing the ideology of the doctrine to the theorization of immorality.

A prominent representative of the senior sophists was ancient philosopher Protagoras. Among like-minded people, the sage had bright philosophical thinking. Being a materialist, he talked about matter, the equivalence of existence and non-existence. Protagoras believed:

• a person is a person because he has character, positions his own “I”;
• being has essence;
• truth is a phenomenon of consciousness;
• a person positions meaning as a measure of being.
• man is the measure of all things, as he sees the world as he is.

Protagoras denies absolute truths, emphasizing relativity. In the thinker's opinion, there is something more appropriate and useful. A sage is one who recognizes relative usefulness, acceptability; he is able to convince others of this, to bring the appropriateness to life.

The philosopher put forward the idea of ​​a democratic structure of society in which free people will be equal.

Protagoras argued that every opinion is opposed by a contradictory opinion. The contrast of statements opened the concept of “philosophical dialogue”.

The “Senior Sophist” taught how to defeat a strong argument with a weak argument, using noble methods, utilizing lawlessness and wrongness; showed how to methodically win a victory with a weak argument.

He was a student of Protagoras. The master's philosophy seemed erroneous, so Socrates and the other sophists became opponents in the knowledge of existence. The sophists insisted on the advantage of a person to evaluate the truth with his own feelings, rejected absolute truth. Socrates argued that the foundation of existence is the divine essence, since this is the only way to study the purpose of man in the world. The Socratic principle clearly argues for the unrealization of Sophia's denial of truth, its objective, significant qualities.

The next sophist of the senior group was Gorgias. He is considered the creator of rhetoric and situation ethics. In his opinion, one and the same action is both good and bad, depending on what moment it relates to. Gorgias identified three paradoxical rules:

• nothing exists;
• even if something existed, people could not know it;
• but even if they knew it, they could not describe it in words, explain it to others.

The most erudite, versatile sophist was Protagoras's contemporary, Hippias. The power of his words lay in naturalness; he knew how to captivate his listeners. The thinker disseminated information about history, politics, genealogy, mathematics, and poetry among the masses. He wrote poetry and prose, was fond of music, and was a versatile person. Hippias drew positive conclusions and became rich doing what he loved.

Another sophist philosopher, Prodicus, studied verbal semantics and delved into the correctness of speech. The sage contrasted virtue with vice, pushing people to choose good between them, as a real benefit, a true benefit.

The calling of the "minor sophists"

Little reliable information has survived about the “younger sophists.” They represent the teachings of Lycophron and Alcidamantus. Speaking briefly about the main ideas of philosophers, we can highlight ethical and social directions:

• breaking down the barrier between social classes;
• elite is an invention of an interested group of people;
• nature created everyone free, without slavery.

Thrasymachus discussed the usefulness for the powerful of this world. He believed that each government creates its own set of laws: democracy - free, tyranny - oppressive. The philosopher criticizes religion and justifies atheism. He says: “If the deities observed the actions of people, they would see the treasure - justice. And people notice that they hardly use it themselves.”

Methodological principle of the Sophists

The syllogism examines the principle of three methods. Sophia goes against this statement by practicing the methodological principle of sophistry “quadruplement,” that is, the use of four terms. If you evaluate it logically, this is a play on words. It is not the identity of similar concepts that is used: “Men are people. Many people are women. Then it is permissible to say that many men are women.” Is there any truth to this statement? Doubtful, but difficult to argue.

In the middle of the 5th century. BC. Sophists appear in ancient Greece – professional teachers who taught (for a fee) eloquence (rhetoric) and the ability to argue. The sophists taught this art without asking what the truth was. Therefore, the word “sophist” from the very beginning acquired a reprehensible connotation, because the sophists knew how and taught to prove a thesis today, and the antithesis tomorrow. The attention of the sophists in their worldview was transferred from the problems of the Cosmos and nature to the problems of man, society, and knowledge.

In epistemology, the sophists posed the question of how our thoughts about it relate to the world around us? Is our thinking capable of cognizing the real world? The Sophists believed that the world was unknowable, that is, they were agnostics.

The agnosticism of the sophists stemmed from their relativism - the doctrine that everything in the world is relative; V epistemology, relativism means that truth is relative that it completely depends on the conditions, on the time and place, on the circumstances, on the person;

The truth is “everyone has their own,” the Sophists taught. The sophists recognized only subjective truths, of which there are many, and denied objective truth.

There is no objective criterion of good and evil; what benefits someone is good and good. In the field of ethics, the agnosticism of the sophists developed into amoralism.

Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things”

Already in ancient times, there was a generally negative assessment of the activities of the sophists and their method. Aristotle wrote a special logical essay “On Sophistic Refutations,” in which he gave the following definition of sophistry:“Sophistry is imaginary wisdom, and not real, and a sophist is one who seeks gain from imaginary, and not real wisdom.” (Aristotle.-Works.-T.3-P.536.). But perhaps the most passionate critic of the sophists and sophistry was

Socrates (469 – 399 BC) from Athens. Socrates never sought to be active social activities, led the “life of a philosopher”: spent time in philosophical conversations and debates, taught philosophy without caring about his well-being and his family. Socrates never wrote down either his thoughts or his dialogues, believing that writing makes knowledge external, interferes with deep internal assimilation, thought dies in writing. - Therefore, everything we know about Socrates, we know “by hearsay”, from his students.

Socrates called “dialectics” the art of arguing, in which “truth is born.” Socrates explored the problem of man, considering man as a moral being. Therefore, Socrates' philosophy can be characterized as ethical anthropologism. Socrates once expressed the essence of his philosophical concerns as follows: “I still cannot, according to the Delphic inscription, know myself.”. Socrates believed that every person can have his own opinion, the truth should be the same for everyone. Socrates’ method is aimed at achieving such truth, which he called “maeutics” (literally “midwifery”) and is subjective dialectics - the ability to conduct a dialogue in such a way that as a result of the movement of thought through contradictory statements, true knowledge is obtained.

Socrates argued that the world external to man is unknowable, and one can only know the soul of a person and his affairs, which, according to Socrates, is the task of philosophy. Socrates identified happiness not with profit, but with virtue.

This is the brief description"Socratic philosophical revolution", which changed the understanding and tasks of philosophy and its subject.

Of the ancient, so-called “Socratic schools,” perhaps the most popular was the school of the Cynics (literally “kynike philosophy” - “dog philosophy”) - thanks to Diogenes of Sinope, (c. 404 – 323 BC) who, with his life, gave the example of a Cynic sage. Diogenes “moderated” his needs so much that he lived in a clay barrel, did not use utensils, and subjected his body to tests.. In his simplification Diogenes reached the point of complete shamelessness. The Cynics philosophized their way of life, which they considered the best, freeing a person from all the conventions of life, attachments, and even almost all needs.

Plato (427 – 347 BC) – founder of idealism. Existence is eternal and unchanging, cognizable only by reason, inaccessible sensory perception. Genesis is the world of eternal ideas ("eidos"). The material world is secondary. Plato explains, for example, the similarity of all existing in material world tables by the presence of the idea of ​​a table in the world of ideas. All existing tables are a shadow of the eternal idea of ​​a table.

Between the world of ideas (being) and non-being, i.e. matter, as such, there is apparent existence (the world of sensory objects).

The soul, according to Plato, is like an idea - one and indivisible.

but you can isolate parts of it

a) reasonable;

b) affective (emotional);

c) lustful (sensual).

If the rational part of a person predominates in the soul, the person strives for greater good, to justice and truth; These are the philosophers. If the affective part of the soul is more developed, then a person is characterized by courage, courage, and the ability to subordinate lust to duty; such are the guards and there are many more of them than philosophers. If the “lower”, lustful part of the soul prevails, then a person should engage in physical labor - be a craftsman or a peasant, and such people are the majority.

Souls can transmigrate and can exist in a supersensible ideal existence; Therefore, people have “innate ideas” - memories of being in the world of eidos.

The cosmos is one, finite and has a spherical shape. The center of the Cosmos is the Earth. It is surrounded by planets and stars. The creator of the world - the demiurge - endowed the world with a certain order.

Human society is ordered based on the theory of the ideal state. Ideal State emerges as a society of three social groups. These are rulers - philosophers, strategists - warriors, producers - farmers and artisans.

Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)

Born in Macedonia, in the family of a court doctor. Studied with Plato at the Academy c. 20 years. The time of Arestotle's life coincided with the weakening of democracy in Athens and other Greek cities, with the rise of Macedonia and the beginning of the aggressive policy of the Macedonian kings. It is known that Aristotle raised the son of Tsar Philip Alexander, the founder of the Great Empire. In 335 BC. Aristotle organized his own school in Athens - the famous Lyceum. For 12 years, Aristotle supervised the extensive work of the Lyceum on the systematization of philosophical and scientific knowledge, introducing new disciplines, primarily logic.

He studied problems of logic, psychology, ontology, epistemology, cosmology, etc. The teaching of Aristotle himself developed as a result of his criticism of Plato’s teaching about ideas.

1. Plato’s “Ideas” are simple copies (doubles) of sensory things and do not differ from them in their content. - A very materialistic thought!

2. The “type” (eidos) or “idea” of a person is essentially no different from the general characteristics belonging to an individual person.

3. Since Plato separated the world of ideas from the world of things, ideas cannot give anything to the existence of things.

According to Aristotle, every single thought is a unity of matter and form. Within the limits of the perceived world, a consistent transition is possible from “matter” to the “form” related to it, and from “form” to the “matter” related to it. There are only isolated things - individuals.

Aristotle's doctrine of being is based on his doctrine of categories. The most complete knowledge about a thing is achieved when the essence of the thing becomes known. Categories are the main categories of concepts about being, about the essence of things. Aristotle offers ten such categories: person, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, possession, action, suffering.

Aristotle’s God is an active mind, closed thinking, a kind of spiritual Absolute - “a mind that thinks of itself, and its thought is thinking about thinking.”

Animals