Ancient Greek philosophy is the source and beginning of the history of western philosophy. The following is what I collected for you, talking about the development and evolution of rationality in western philosophy. Welcome to read the collection.
First, the birth of reason.
Ancient Greece is the birthplace of European civilization. Ancient Greek philosophy was liberated from primitive religions and myths and became the source and beginning of the history of western philosophy. "Ancient Greek philosophy has two main sources. First of all, the influence of the culture of ancient eastern countries on ancient Greece. ..... The second is the ancient Greek myth. "
[1] 14- 15 In primitive society, due to the low level of productivity and people's cognitive ability, people could not make scientific judgments and reasonable explanations in the face of unpredictable natural phenomena, and they knew little about the changing laws of nature, so they created myths and primitive religions. It can be said that western philosophy was bred and separated from Greek mythology and religion, and people's earliest understanding of nature and objects also began here. In Greek mythology, people use imagination to understand the world and everything in the universe, and use personality gods with supernatural power to explain nature and phenomena that they cannot understand. Although primitive religious thought is not philosophy, it has begun to consider the birth and death of all things in the universe. People use religious beliefs and myths to explore the origin of the world, and express their world view through perceptual and concrete forms.
Looking back at the time when ancient Greek philosophy came into being, we can find that the premise of unprecedented development of philosophy is the prosperity of social economy. At this time, Greece was in the prosperous period of the slave city-state. With the development of handicraft industry and commerce, the class of industrial and commercial slave owners gradually formed, resulting in the struggle between industrial and commercial slave owners and aristocratic slave owners. Therefore, it is required to oppose religious myths and replace them with new ideas. After a series of social reforms, slavery has been further improved, people's lives have been relatively stable, and social economy has also been improved. Miletus School first studied the problems in the field of philosophy. "The direct background of the origin of Greek philosophy is the poem" The Origin of the Universe ",which tells an objective prehistoric story in the cloak of myth, thus describing the formation of the creation of the universe with the ever-changing concept of popular things."
[2]42 People gradually began to realize that there is some supernatural power in the universe that manipulates the operation of the world. They want to find out the eternal relationship behind all unpredictable phenomena, so they sprouted philosophical thoughts to explain the origin of the world. As Aristotle thought, people's study of philosophy is out of ignorance of the world and confusion about the immediate problems, and they think of another problem from one problem, such as how the universe came into being, how various phenomena of the sun, the moon and the stars came into being alternately, and so on.
[3] 1 19 Ancient Greece was an era of openness and rationality. Aristotle put forward that "man is a rational animal", that is, rational thinking to awaken human self-consciousness, that is, people gradually got rid of the rule of primitive mythology through their own ability to understand and grasp rationality, and regarded rationality as the starting point for understanding everything in the universe and the development of human beings and society, rather than relying solely on the fantasy of primitive mythology.
The reason why ancient Greek philosophy is regarded as the beginning of the history of western philosophy is that ancient Greek philosophers began to attach importance to rational thought and put it at the height of God. Philosophers at that time did not completely separate the rational spirit from nature when they pursued the origin of the world and explained the changes of everything in the universe. For example, Pythagoras believes that number is the source of all things, and he regards it as sacred; Socrates put forward the belief in reason, Plato believed that the world of ideas was real, and they all advocated the concept of reason; Aristotle thinks that thought itself is the highest function of human soul. From the viewpoints of these philosophers, it can be seen that the rational concepts in ancient Greece all embodied naturalness and directness.
Second, the rationality of the original provisions.
As the beginning of ancient Greek philosophy, natural philosophy put forward different views on what is the "origin" of all things, reflecting that people at this time tried to get rid of the mythical cosmic thinking mode, eager to know the true colors of the world, and tried to seek the composition, essence and laws of the universe and nature. As a result, the mythical monopoly thinking has moved towards naturalistic rational judgment. The first school of philosophy is Miletus School, and its representatives are Thales, anaximander and Anaximenes. Thales put forward that water is the source of everything, and explained everything with water, thinking that everything originated from water and returned to water. Thales put forward this philosophical proposition through reflection on experience, and summarized a series of abstractions and generalizations of people's specific changes in nature in the past. Although Thales' initial foundation is still in the perceptual range, he regards this concrete and perceptual water as the origin of all things in the universe and promotes water to a universally applicable and rational level.
Anaximander used Thales' thought for reference, and put forward that the origin of all things is "uncertainty" and "infinity", while Anaximenes's "Qi" is the embodiment of his teacher's amorphous theory. Among all natural things, Qi is the most amorphous, and it also embodies a kind of power, which explains the generation and change of everything through condensation and diffusion. However, this explanation leaves the issue of the source of power, which leads Pythagoras and Heraclitus to take two different positions on the original issue and make different provisions on rationality.
Pythagoras school believes that number is the origin of everything, everything is shaped by number, and movement and change are illusory and perceptual. The abstract number behind all perceptual changes is primitive, unchangeable and eternal. This shows that Pythagoras attaches great importance to this rational thinking beyond the senses and transcends specific things to find the essence behind things. Later, Heraclitus believed that fire was the origin of all things, and put forward the concept of "logos" to express the foundation of all things. He believes that everything in the universe is produced according to this "logos". In his view, "logos" is a universal existence, rational and regular. It is the permanent or unchangeable law behind the movement and change of everything, and it is also the rationality in everything.
[4]22 However, although the "logos" mentioned by Heraclitus is a universal "one", how to unify the internal principle of "logos" with the fire of sensibility has become a difficult problem for Heraclitus.
Early philosophers in ancient Greece gradually began to realize that when people knew the world, their thinking could transcend existing ideas and perceive the difference and opposition between perceptual experience and rational thinking. In the process of people acquiring knowledge, the reasoning of thinking gradually begins to replace the intuition of experience. Finally, parmenides of Elijah School clearly expounded the relationship between perceptual experience and rational thinking.
Parmenides once again advocated rationality, which is the stipulation of the universe as a whole. He firmly grasped the supreme opposition between existence and non-existence and put forward two diametrically opposite understandings of "truth" and "opinion". Parmenides divided philosophy into two categories: "One is about opinions, and the other is about truth."
[3]29 points out the road to two different philosophies and two ways to understand the world. One is the way of truth, which uses reason and rational thinking to understand the existence of all existence, and the other is the way of opinion. "Non-existence" refers to finding the origin of all things from perceptual concrete things, and the knowledge obtained in this way is untrue and illusory. "parmenides believed in reason: anything that contradicts thinking can't be true."
[4]26 parmenides believes that to know the real existence, we can only grasp the truth by using rationality through thinking. On the contrary, opinions do not belong to the category of any truth, and the object of opinions is not the real existence; Only when thinking and existence are consistent, and the goal of thinking and thinking is consistent, can we clarify our own opinions, get the truth, and distinguish between existence and non-existence, essence and phenomenon; Therefore, thinking and understanding are not the higher stage of feeling and understanding, but two completely different ways of understanding. Truth is obtained through rational path, and perceptual knowledge can only be obtained through viewpoint. Parmenides advocates the pursuit of certainty of knowledge, and his "ontology" is to abandon all uncertain and perceptual things and finally reach an understanding of truth. Therefore, he also became the first typical rationalist in the history of ancient Greek philosophy.
Anaxagoras and democritus, the representatives of pluralistic philosophy in ancient Greece, inherited the ideas of Elias School, but they were different. Philosophy at this stage returns to the perceptual world to explain the formation of all things in nature, where reason and sensibility merge. The first is empedocles, who believes that every element in the "four roots" that make up the whole universe is eternal. This reflects a kind of pursuit of eternal origin, but it depends on perceptual knowledge in the way of understanding. Anaxagoras believes that everything is made up of seeds, which are invisible and intangible. They are infinitely small and need to be understood through reason.
The nature of a thing is determined by the nature of the dominant seed in this thing. In order to solve the problem of seed movement, Anaxagoras put forward "Nuss", which is both mind and reason, and detached from the whole universe. He also regards it as a god and has the initiative. Everything in the world is driven by Nuss. It is worth noting that the proposal of "Nuss" is very important. It distinguishes spiritual things from material things for the first time. Before that, the distinction was not strict. Philosophers in the past used a material thing to explain the origin of the world. Only Anaxagoras distinguished the spiritual "Nuss" from the origin of matter. Democritus tried to establish a new metaphysical system, re-examine several pairs of contradictory philosophical categories in predecessors' philosophy, such as motion and stillness, existence and non-existence, and tried to solve all these problems. He believes that "the origin of all things is atoms and emptiness, and other statements are just opinions." Countless people in the world are born, sick and dead, born out of nothing, and have nothing after destruction. "
[3]47 democritus believes that the understanding of specific things is through sensory cognition, and knowledge is obtained through rational understanding. Democritus combined ontology with epistemology, thus restoring parmenides's traditional rationalism.
The propositions of "logos" and "Nuss" constitute the original stipulation of rationality in ancient Greek philosophy. The former is the unchangeable order and law behind the movement and change of all things in the world, while the latter is the promoter and cause of all things in the universe. Both of them contain the dual meanings of rationality, namely logical norms and free transcendence. However, the rational view at this time still has the simplicity of natural philosophy, and there is no clear distinction between the origin of the world and the exploration of the motivation of all things in the universe.
Third, rational development.
Socrates put forward the belief in reason, from "logos" to the spirit of Nuss behind it. Unlike Anaxagoras, he didn't set up a Nuss as an external driving force outside the universe, but found another way to find the driving force in the whole process of the universe change. Socrates' "Nuss" is an internal force and the ultimate goal of all things in nature. He turned "logos" into a measure of human beings, and rose from sensibility to rationality by virtue of his own dynamic self-transcendence. His rationalism is embodied in such a process of pursuing truth. Socrates also thinks about rationality from the perspective of ethics, and thinks that everyone has a rational soul. Only when people know the universal moral concept of human beings' innate existence can they have true knowledge, truth, goodness and beauty, and knowledge and morality are integrated. He believes in the existence of universal knowledge and tries to seek universal truth in ethical issues, thinking that people can approach and even master the universal and universal principles of things by constantly asking questions. Socrates put forward "know yourself", trying to grasp people from the perspective of thinking, study objective existence by knowing yourself, attribute truth to the thinking consciousness of the subject, and constantly pursue and realize himself for his own purposes, so that people's consciousness gradually gets rid of subjectivity and finally obtains the most fundamental universality and objectivity. In this way, Socrates began to lead the concern of philosophy to reason.
Even so, in the history of western philosophy, Plato constructed the framework of idealism and established the important role of reason. He agreed with Heraclitus that everything that can be felt is constantly changing, inherited and developed the philosophical thoughts from parmenides to Socrates, especially extended Socrates' thoughts in the field of ethics to all things in the universe. Idea is the core concept of Plato's philosophy. He dualized the world into "visible world" and "conceptual world". In his view, the "visible world" is a copy of the "ideal world", which creates the former and individual things correspond to the ideal world.
There is an inherent impulse in the process of human cognition, which is rational impulse, and his rationality is "Nuss". He explains "Nuss" in this way: "Absolute automaticity", eternal automaticity, is an active initiative, constantly climbing up and pursuing a higher realm. Plato thus constructed an idea world outside the real world, which decided everything in the real world. Influenced by Socrates' ethics, Plato's theory of ideas has been permeated with ethical values. Fundamentally speaking, the pursuit of conceptual knowledge is the grasp of knowledge about goodness. Although Plato laid the basic paradigm of western rationalism philosophy, his philosophical system did not completely establish the rationalism of ancient Greek philosophy. The most fundamental difficulty was that he could not make up for the problems caused by the binary separation of ideas and concrete things.
Aristotle is a master of ancient Greek philosophy, and his philosophical system has also brought the development of rationalism in ancient Greece to its peak, forming a magnificent speculative philosophical system. Aristotle's philosophical system pays more attention to the concept of certainty, pursues the certainty of things in a speculative way, and rises it to the height of philosophical ontology. Aristotle inherited Plato's definition of "Nuss" itself, but further emphasized that this "automaticity" of "Nuss" means thinking for oneself, and it takes a system to gradually rise to the apex of "supreme goodness", which is a pure "Nuss" and a pure spirit. Aristotle made up for Plato's shortcomings in the highest form. He believes that God is a perfect "Nuss", the highest form and purpose of all things in the universe, and the reason for all things in the universe. God rationally, orderly and actively promotes all things in the universe according to a certain purpose, and God himself is motionless, perfect and omnipotent. However, Aristotle did not carry out the spirit of "Nuss" to the end. In his logic, he played down the spirit of Nuss, which contradicted his ontology and cosmology. Later philosophers put forward "self-consciousness philosophy" against Aristotle's "nothingness" and put all "nothingness" in the first place.
From the noumenon of nature and universe to a level of personality and philosophy of life. The development of ancient Greek philosophy from Thales to Aristotle is the result of the development of people's thinking from perceptual to rational, from individual to general, from research object to research subject.
Undeniably, Aristotle developed the concept of rationality in ancient Greek philosophy and realized that the highest rule of rationality was thought itself, but he regarded it as an objective and comfortable thing, limited rationality to the level of theoretical speculation, and lacked the initiative and spirituality with practical significance, which was also a shortcoming to be overcome in the rational development of western philosophy later.
Four. conclusion
Tracing back to the source, the rational gene of western philosophy is rooted in the fertile soil of ancient Greek philosophy. The emergence of rationality in this period and the formation and development of rational view later laid the foundation for the rationalism spirit of the whole western philosophy. Although the understanding of rationality in this period was still in a rough stage, and philosophers of different schools had different understandings and expressions of rationality, they all raised rationality to the highest stage of people's ability to know and think, and became the highest principle that people constantly pursued and explored. In ancient Greek philosophy, the key to grasping all other problems is to reveal and grasp rationality, which has become the rationalist tradition of the whole West. The early natural philosophers in ancient Greece used perceptual intuition to understand the world, but the discussion of human rational thinking and the ability of rational thinking to understand the world were still very fragile. However, ancient Greek philosophy has begun to reveal the inherent contradiction of rationality, that is, "Nuss" and "Logos" constitute two major missions and characteristics of rationality. The former represents the power of subjective initiative, is the original impulse, and has uncertainty; The latter represents the norm of objectivity and has certainty. Throughout the overall rational view of ancient Greek philosophy, we can clearly spy out the inconsistency between "Nuss" and "Logos" and try to reconcile them, but unfortunately, this reconciliation only stays in a universal and primitive stage of unity, and the opposition between subject and object has not been brought into rationality as the opposite of the contradiction of the same thing.
However, it is worth mentioning that the concept of rationality put forward by ancient Greek philosophy has become a fertile ground for the development of western philosophy, which has exerted a subtle influence on the development of rationality in later generations and maintained its long-term vitality. This is the charm of rationality in ancient Greek philosophy.
[References]
[1] Mao, Wang, Zhang. General history of European philosophy [M]. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 1985.
[2] Vendel class. A Course in the History of Philosophy: Volume I [M]. Lord Luo, translate. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1987.
[3] Department of Philosophy, Peking University. Selected readings of western philosophy: Volume I [M]. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1982.
[4] Tilly. History of western philosophy [M]. Ge Li, translated. Beijing: Commercial Press, 1995.
Extension: Paper: A preliminary understanding of China's philosophy and western philosophy.
Today, when the market of philosophy and culture is depressed, philosophers are increasingly pushed to the edge of the development of world culture. They have long lost their former self-confidence, broadness and grace, and have come down to the point where they have to compete with thousands of occupations for food. They are impetuous and have to be kitsch to please the world. Philosophers want to do the business of soul, but how can they make a living without soul? They despise irony as an inappropriate historical precipitation.
We often see people condescending to ask: What is philosophy? What is the use of philosophy? At this time, philosophers will lose their smiles and explain with trepidation, which can be described as "a long story, a long story"; I'm afraid that omission will make me laugh. In the end, it is always forced by others. The next simple conclusion is "in a word".
When Nietzsche shouted "God is dead", philosophers secretly rejoiced and thought they had heard the gospel. Since then, philosophers have taken over the territory of religion and re-established a "humanistic religion". Therefore, Chinese and western philosophy are different in regional culture, which is first manifested in their different transcendence spirit in seeking and establishing the value and significance of life. Philosophy is another kind of wisdom of life, that is, people's reflection on the universe and life, and their deep rational concern for people's living conditions. The wisdom of life in western philosophy embodies pious and profound religious feelings, while the wisdom of life in China's philosophy has a strong rational consciousness of humanistic care.
Western philosophy pays attention to understanding the world with a purely rational objective attitude, and views the religious worldview of life with a subjective attitude of believing in God. Christianity in the west is a typical religion, which dominates westerners' world outlook and outlook on life. According to Christianity, people were born guilty (original sin) and were driven out of paradise because they failed to live up to God's goodwill in creating human beings and were willing to fall. Only when sinners repent, restrain their desires, help the poor, do good deeds and accumulate virtue, and give their body and mind to God can they hope to get God's mercy and return to heaven at the end of the world. Westerners' belief in theistic God is closely related to westerners' understanding of heaven, the living state of life and a deep sense of nothingness. How to get out of nothingness and find the meaning of life is an eternal problem explored by western philosophy. Danish philosophers say that if people want to jump out of the abyss of nothingness, they must convert to God, and only God can save people's souls and give them eternal spiritual sustenance. As a result, westerners' deep consciousness of nothingness is doomed to have a strong religious consciousness in their hearts, so as to find a spiritual home beyond reality for themselves in real life.
Generally speaking, China's philosophy lacks the interest of epistemology and theistic religious belief, but emphasizes the intuitive wisdom of promoting human rational body's understanding of the universe and the essence of human life. The life wisdom of China's philosophy is not religious, but philosophical. The so-called philosophy is to reflect on the life of the universe in a rational spirit. China's philosophy mainly includes Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, all of which have profound humanistic philosophy consciousness rather than religious spirit. China's philosophy denies deep existence, but it does not mean that there is no consciousness beyond phenomena and reality. The transcendental consciousness of China's philosophy of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism is to attribute the object of transcendence to its internal source. Therefore, China's philosophy of life wisdom pursues internal transcendence rather than external begging, and does not need to be divorced from the realistic secular society. This transcendence of life is called "beyond the world" and "beyond being born and entering the WTO". If there is a kingdom of heaven on the other side, then the other side is this side, and the kingdom of heaven is in people's hearts.
How to express Chinese and western philosophy, one is suggestion and the other is definition.
China's philosophy can't be said, thinking that some philosophical objects can't be clearly expressed in daily language, but philosophy must be expressed. For the unspeakable. Philosophers can only say that this is nothing. Or use other methods to hint and contrast. This suggestive feature of China's philosophy is related to all China's artistic ideals, including China's poems, paintings and others. In other words, what China's philosophy expresses is similar to what China's poems and Chinese paintings express, and there are similarities in expression. For example, what the poet wants to convey is often not directly said in the poem, but not written in the poem. A good poem is full of words and endless meanings. Therefore, to read China literature and appreciate China art, we should read between the lines rather than just look at the surface. When reading China's Philosophy, we should carefully understand the meaning between the lines.
Laozi in China's literature said, "Tao can be extraordinary, and name can be extraordinary.". Think that Tao can't be said, but can only be understood, not in fixed language. Language should be forgotten as soon as it achieves its purpose, so it is unnecessary. Zhuangzi said, "You care about what you say, but you forget what you say. My husband forgot to talk to the person who said this. " Therefore, China's philosophy is lack of clarity, infinite implication and full of poetry.
Most schools of western philosophy firmly believe that philosophy can clearly express all objects in language. Ancient Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and others expressed their philosophical thoughts by defining methods. Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" defines "I am" by the nature of the word "I think". He also believes that only clear and definite ideas like mathematics are the most reliable knowledge, and the existence of God can be deduced through language. Descartes proved the existence of God in this way: God is perfect, existence is certainly more perfect than nonexistence, and nonexistence is certainly not as perfect as existence, so God exists. Westerners use the method of 1+ 1 = 2 to prove everything the world knows, and use the logical argument defined below to prove western philosophy.
Therefore, on the whole, China's philosophy is of high level and profound connotation, while western philosophy is good at logical analysis and clear expression of ideas, but the former lacks clear expression of ideas, while the latter cannot reach the highest and best philosophical realm.
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