Ancient Philosophy

Emergence and General Characteristics of Ancient Philosophy

Ancient philosophy refers to the collective body of philosophical teachings that developed in ancient Greece and Rome over nearly a millennium, from the end of the 7th century BCE to the 6th century CE. Without a doubt, Greece is the cradle of European philosophy. In the area where ancient philosophy emerged, the leading role for a long time was played by the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations. These civilizations were primarily agrarian, surrounded by tribes engaged in pastoralism. As for Greece itself, in its earliest period, the island of Crete played a significant role in the development of the region. For eleven centuries (from the 25th to the 14th century BCE), it was home to what is known as the Minoan culture. Economically, this was a maritime, trade-oriented civilization with close ties to the countries of the Near East, particularly Egypt. Around the 14th century BCE, it was destroyed, likely by Greek invaders, exacerbated by a colossal earthquake in the mid-15th century. Nonetheless, the Minoan culture, which was familiar with Linear A (syllabic) writing, spread to mainland Greece, where it persisted, evolving, until the 9th century BCE. This mainland civilization is known in scholarly terms as Mycenaean, named after the city of Mycenae in eastern Peloponnesus. Shortly after the earthquake, Crete was seized by the Achaeans, the inhabitants of mainland Greece (referred to archaeologically as Mycenaeans). In the works of Homer, the Achaeans are the self-designation of the Greeks during the heroic period. By around 1100 BCE, Mycenae had been destroyed.

At the end of the 12th and beginning of the 11th centuries, the Dorians, one of the northern Greek tribes, arrived in Greece. The Dorians ultimately completed the destruction of Mycenaean civilization. Some of the conquerors became farmers, while others ventured further, founding cities that thrived on maritime trade. It was in these cities that the magnificent contributions to world civilization for which Greece is celebrated began to take shape.

The purification from mythology, which was pervasive in Greece at the time, progressed rapidly, and by the 5th century BCE, emerging philosophy had freed itself from these constraints. From the outset, a distinctive feature of ancient philosophy was its constant connection to teachings about nature, and for a time, philosophers' views on nature played a decisive role, leading them to be frequently referred to as physiologists. The abundance of proto-scientific hypotheses and types of philosophical teachings is characteristic of both ancient Greek science and philosophy. What accounts for this?

Some attribute it to the Greeks’ profound cognitive needs, which they could only satisfy through observation, analogy, and hypothesis grounded in observation. Since experimental methods were still lacking, the various hypotheses proposed to explain the causes of phenomena held equal weight. For philosophy, this multiplicity of hypotheses represented a diversity of types of philosophical interpretation of the world.

However, an alternative explanation can also be offered. The phenomenon of ancient Greek thought was characterized by an explosive nature, the repercussions of which are felt even today. Two interconnected events facilitated this global phenomenon: the emergence of the polis and the birth of rationalist thinking. The multiplicity of poleis gave rise to a diversity of philosophical types. The poleis were independent city-states that emerged in Greece during the period of philosophical development. Each individual and relatively isolated polis structure demanded its own distinct laws, and from the outset, ancient Greek thought was preoccupied with seeking the objective foundations of those laws. At the same time, under the conditions of the emergence of early forms of democracy, the word (logos) became an important instrument of political life. As a result, changes occurred in the very architecture of cities, and a new structure of social space centered around the city square (agora) emerged, where political debates took place. "Sophia," notes the French scholar Jean-Pierre Vernant, "concerns not the general world of nature but the world of men. What are the elements of this world, what are the opposing forces, how to establish harmony and order among them, how to unite them so that the state of conflict changes to a state of order in the city—these are the questions that interest her." Why, then, do the Greeks still turn to nature? Perhaps it is because they sought independent, objective grounds for establishing a just political order, believing that the laws governing the world of nature and the world of humans were one and the same.

The diversity of philosophical teachings that arose in Greece transformed ancient philosophy into a school, a veritable laboratory of philosophical thought for all subsequent ages. The development of teachings progressed through the struggle of viewpoints. The Greeks, in general, cherished competition and struggle (agon) not only in public athletic games (the Olympic Games began in Greece in 776 BCE), in rivalries among dramatists and musicians, but also in philosophy. Philosophical disputes captivated the public's interest as well.

Ancient philosophy first emerged on the fringes of the Greek world—in Asia Minor (the cities of Miletus and Ephesus), southern Italy (Sicily, Elea), and later in Attica (Athens). The development of ancient philosophy is typically divided into several periods: the pre-Socratic period, the classical period of ancient philosophy, the Hellenistic period, and the Neoplatonic period.