Early natural philosophers' understanding of the origin of the world in ancient Greece
The newly born philosophy in ancient Greece mainly takes nature as the research object and is called natural science. Since the natural science came into being, there have been Miletus School, Eiffel School and Pythagoras School with materialistic tendency in Ionian area along the coast of Asia Minor. Among them, the representative figures of Miletus School are Thales, Anaquel Simander and Anaximenes, the representative figure of Aesop School is Heraclitus, the representative figure of Pythagoras School is Pythagoras, and the representative figures of Elijah School are Kaisenofini and Bama Ningde.
In the development of natural philosophy, the atomism school appeared in Abdullah in northern Greece, which is also the highest achievement of the development of natural science in ancient Greece. The representatives are empedocles, Anaxagoras and democritus. Among them, democritus was the completer of atomism in the early natural philosophy period. Aristotle systematically criticized and summarized pre-Greek philosophy, and he was a master of the development of Athenian philosophy. Since Aristotle, the focus of ancient Greek philosophy has turned to the study of ethical issues, forming various schools of moral philosophy. Now, the author only analyzes the world origin of natural philosophers in early ancient Greece.
Thales (624-547 BC) was the first philosopher in ancient Greece. He believes that water is the origin of the world and the basis and reason for the unity of all things. Everything is produced by water and reduced to water. Everything in the world is changeable, and only water is immortal. The distinctive feature of this proposition lies in denying the explanation of nature with supernatural reasons, insisting on explaining nature from nature itself, and expressing the root of the unity of all things with the water of matter.
(p3 1 General History of European Philosophy, Nankai University Press), but this view is still primitive and simple. When looking for the origin of all things, Thales attributed the origin to something with a certain perceptual form. His "water is the origin of the world" is only a conscious and clear understanding of the relationship between thinking and existence.
2. anaximander (about 6 1 1-546) is a student of Thales. He believes that the origin of the world is "infinity". Aristotle introduced this proposition of Anaquel Simmond in Physics: "Infinity has no origin, because it has origin, that is to say, it is finite, and infinity has no origin, which is itself the origin of other things.
Selected Readings of the Original Works of Western Philosophy, Volume I, published by the Commercial Press (198 1 edition), Anaquel Simander's Infinite Man is neither a spiritual thing nor a concrete material form.
3. Anaximenes (585-525 BC) was a student in anaximander. He believed that "Qi" was the origin of the world. He believes that air is the beginning of the universe, and everything is produced by the deepening or thinning of air. three
(p11-12) The philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome (Commercial Press, 1962 edition) appeared four elements of water, fire, earth and air due to the thin and condensed air, which provided theoretical preparation for Spedore's "Four Roots Theory" in the future.
4. Heraclitus (about 540-480 BC) systematically developed the idea of spontaneous dialectics and was one of the founders of dialectics in the history of European philosophy.
(P390 "Complete Works of Lenin", Volume 38, People's Publishing House, 1959 edition) He believes that the origin of the world is fire, everything changes from fire to fire, and the whole world is an infinite changing process in which fire rises and falls according to certain laws. Therefore, Heraclitus' view was called "the original simple but essentially correct world view" by Engels. five
(P60 Anti-Turin Theory, Selected Works of Marx and Engels, Volume III, People's Publishing House, 1972 edition) was praised by Lenin as a wonderful explanation of the principle of dialectical materialism. "4(P35) But although his view has obvious materialism tendency, it is still very simple and naive.
5. Pythagoras (about 580-500 BC) was the founder of Pythagoras School. He believes that the origin of the world is "number". Try to explain the emergence of the world with "number". He believes that the origin of all things is one, from one to two, from counting to point, from point to line, from line to surface, from surface to body 2(P20).
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In addition, there are many spiritual attributes attached. For example, 1 is the birth mother of all things, 2 is opinion, 3 is the form and form of all things, 4 is justice, 5 is marriage, 6 is soul, 7 is wisdom, 8 is friendship and love, 9 is rationality, 10 is perfection, and so on. Pythagoras' view shows obvious idealism tendency. He only saw the attribute and relationship of the quantity shared by all things, and regarded it as an immaterial entity that created all things before all things.
6. Xeno Finney (565-473 BC) was a theoretical pioneer of Elijah School. He regards a certain material element as the origin of all things. He believes that everything is born from the soil, everything will eventually return to the soil, and everything born and grown is soil and water. At the same time, he thinks that God is the origin of all things, imagined in his own image, super-perceptual, unique, motionless and the highest wisdom. He denied the authenticity of the perceptual world, denied the mobility and diversity, and tried to establish his own origin theory outside the material world, showing a certain tendency of idealism and dialectics.
7. According to legend, Bama Ningde (6th century to 5th century) was a student of Kaisenofini or Anaquel Simander, and was the core figure of Elijah School. He believes that the origin of the world is existence, existence is eternal, it has not been produced or destroyed, and existence is unique and motionless. On the premise of denying the existence of perceptual material, the ontology of Yan De has not yet got rid of the components of perceptual representation safely, showing an idealistic tendency and being anti-dialectical in thinking methods.
8. empedocles (about 495-435 BC) was a representative of the atomism school in the development of natural philosophy in ancient Greece. He believes that water, air, fire and earth are the origin of all things, which is the so-called "Four Roots Theory". He believes in everything in the past, present and future, trees, men and women, and so on. Are produced by these elements. The four elements are eternal and independent, which do not produce or transform each other, but can be combined or separated, thus forming various things. His viewpoint of investigating the material structure and motion changes of things from the perspective of quantity has had a great influence on the formation of atomism, but his viewpoint of simply attributing quality and qualitative change to quantity is not comprehensive.
9. Anaxagoras (about 500-428 BC) was the first philosopher in Athens, and he was also the pioneer of future philosophical prosperity. He believes that seeds are the source of all things, "combination contains many things, that is, the seeds of all things." 2
(P38) Seeds also refer to tiny material particles, whose properties are the same as those of their constituent things. All seeds are eternal, have never been produced, and will not be destroyed. They are independent, can not be produced and transformed with each other, and the number and types are infinite. Anaxagoras corrected the previous philosophers' defect of attributing the origin of everything to some perceptual thing, and investigated the quantity of things, which is a progress in the history of cognitive development.
10, democritus (former 460-370) was the greatest materialist philosopher in ancient Greece, and his atomistic materialist philosophy system was the highest achievement of early natural philosophy. He believes that atoms are inseparable physical entities that make up everything. Every atom is an absolute entity, with no gap, inaccessible, eternal in time, infinite in quantity and in eternal motion. Democritus linked the existence of void with the movement of atoms, thus becoming the origin of the world together with atoms. Democritus's atomism pushed the material origin theory of ancient Greek materialism to a new stage, which was of positive significance for overcoming the naivety of early materialism. Before Aristotle stepped onto the stage of ideological history, democritus's atomism represented the highest level of materialism in ancient Greece. However, his view also has some limitations, separating the atom from the void and denying the existence of contingency.
1 1 and Plato (427-347 BC) are students of Socrates, and the theoretical basis of his whole huge idealism system is idealism. He believes that idea is the origin of all things, it exists independently outside and before perceptual individual things, it is the paradigm of perceptual individual things, and perceptual individual things are its replicas. Plato's idealism is a theory of objective idealism. He noticed that the generality and commonness in things were right, but he regarded the generality as absolute, objective and deified, and regarded it as an independent thing that could be separated from specific things.
Existing entities, even before individual things, created the origin of individual things, which fell into idealism and mysticism. The root of his understanding lies in absolutizing, objectifying and mystifying the commonness or commonness in things, but Plato's idealism represented the highest level of idealism in ancient Greece before Aristotle stepped onto the stage of ideological history.
12, Aristotle (384-322 BC) was a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He generalized and summarized Greek philosophy and established a new huge system. His philosophy is "metaphysics", which is a theory about the entity of the universe and the foundation of all the buildings of the knowledge system. Aristotle formed three theories on ontology, rationality and divinity of individual things on different occasions and in different periods. His ontology has the nature of reconciliation and compromise, including some distinct materialistic elements and profound dialectical thoughts, but the general tendency is idealism and full of mysticism. However, Aristotle's thought has exerted a great influence on the development of the history of western philosophy and thought, leaving a huge, complex and internally contradictory ideological system for later generations, so that all kinds of philosophers and ideological factions in history can find useful weapons from this ideological treasure house.
13, China also had a set of theories about material composition in ancient times. China's ancient philosophy holds that the natural qi is the basic substance of all things, which runs through China's philosophy and traditional Chinese medicine.
Although no theory can always be correct, as long as it is advanced and correct, we should give it the academic status it deserves. If materialism and idealism must be forcibly opposed and labeled as truth or hypocrisy, then this materialism or idealism will become a blind belief or a tool used by some people to incite and fool others.