The origin of philosophy in ancient Greece occurs between the VIII and VI centuries BC. At that era, Greece was undergoing a period of colonization, or apoitization (apoitia is the overseas territory of the Greek polis, which is practically independent of the metropolis). Huge spaces such as Asia Minor and Graecia Magna (Italy) surpassed their Greek cradle and spawned the first philosophers, because Athenian philosophy became the second, subsequent stage in the development of Greek thought. The worldview of the ancient Greeks was greatly influenced by the structure of life in the polis and the classical type of slavery. It was the existence of the latter in ancient Greece that played a huge role in the division of labor, and allowed, as Engels noted, a certain group of people to engage exclusively in science and culture.
Therefore, the philosophy of Ancient Greece has a certain specificity in relation to the modern philosophy of the Ancient East. First of all, since the time of Pythagoras, it has been identified as a separate discipline, and starting with Aristotle goes hand in hand with science, is distinguished by rationalism and separates itself from religion. During the Hellenistic period, it became the basis of such sciences as history, medicine and mathematics. The main "slogan" and the embodiment of the ideal of educating ancient Greek philosophy (as well as culture) is "kalos kai agatos" - a combination of physical beauty and health with spiritual perfection.
Philosophy in Ancient Greece raised two main topics - ontology and epistemology, as a rule, contrasting the concepts of reason and activity (the latter was considered an occupation of the second, "lower" grade, as opposed to pure contemplation). Ancient Greek philosophy is also home to such methodological systems as metaphysical and dialectical. She also mastered many categories of philosophy of the Ancient East, especially Egypt, and introduced them into pan-European philosophical discourse. The early philosophy of ancient Greece is conditionally divided into two periods - archaic and pre-Socratic.
The philosophy of ancient Greece in the archaic period is characterized by the cosmocentrism of mythopoetic works in which epic poets described the emergence of the world and its driving forces in mythological images. Homer systematized myths and sung heroic morality, and Hesiod embodied the history of the origin of the world in the figures of Chaos, Gaia, Eros and other gods. He was one of the first in literary form to introduce the myth of the “Golden Age”, when justice and work were valued, and began to mourn the fate of the modern “Iron Age”, the dominance of the kulak, the time where force gives rise to law. It is traditionally believed that the so-called “seven wise men”, who left behind wise sayings or “gnomes” devoted to such moral principles as moderation and harmony, played a huge role in the formation of philosophical thought of that time.
In the pre-Socratic period, the philosophy of Ancient Greece is characterized by the presence of several philosophical schools. The Miletus School of Natural Philosophy was distinguished by pragmatism, the desire to search for a unified beginning and the first scientific discoveries, such as astronomical instruments, maps, sundials. Almost all of its representatives came from the merchant estate. So, Thales of Miletus studied solar eclipses and considered the first to be water, Anaximander is the creator of the Earth’s map and the model of the celestial sphere, and the first called “apeiron” - the first material, devoid of qualities, the contradictions of which gave rise to the emergence of the world, and his student Anaximenes believed that the only reason for everything is the air. The most famous representative of the Ephesian school is Heraclitus, nicknamed the Weeping. He put forward the idea that the world was not created by anyone, but in its essence is fire, then flaring up, then dying out, and also argued that if we learn through perception, then the basis of our knowledge is the logo.
The philosophy of ancient Greece, represented by the Eleat and Italian schools, is based on slightly different categories. Unlike the Milesians, the Eleatics are aristocrats by origin. In theory, they prefer the system to the process, and infinity - the measure.
Xenophanes from Colophon criticized mythological ideas about the gods and proposed to separate the existing and the apparent. Parmenides from Elea developed his ideas and stated that we perceive the seeming through the senses, and the being through logic. Therefore, for a rational person nothingness does not exist, because any of our thoughts is a thought about being. His follower Zenon explained the position of his teacher with the help of famous aporic paradoxes.
The Italian school is known for such a mysterious thinker as Pythagoras, who proposed the doctrine of numbers and their mystical connection with the world and left behind a secret doctrine. Empedocles from the Sicilian city of the Aggregate was no less interesting philosopher. The reason for everything that existed, he considered four passive elements - water, fire, air and earth, and two active principles - love and hate, and in his philosophical system he tried to unite Parmenides and Heraclitus. Later classical Greek philosophy in many respects based its conclusions on the ideas of Italian thinkers.
