Origin of philosophy - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The origin of the Philosophie is still badly known in occident: many old civilizations comprised writings of the type Métaphysique, whose contributions remain little known or little diffused: Mésopotamie, Egypt, India, China…

It is generally considered that the first Greek Philosophe is Thalès de Milet. But this Philosophe of nature was perhaps of origin phenician, and its knowledge would thus let suppose a Tradition of older thought. It remains that Western philosophy finds many of its fundamental features of the Présocratiques to Aristote.

The Eastern and Far-Eastern thought

An overflight of the Eastern thoughts is necessary to decentre approaches which consider that there is philosophy only Western. Even if it is as a whole very difficult to make share of things (inter alia because that depends on the definitions that have it gives to the words Philosophie S, Pensée S, Spiritualité S, Religion S…), it should be modestly been appropriate that, in antiquity, of many hearths of thoughts of natural philosophical existed in the Far East, in other zones that the ancient Greece. very early the Far-Eastern thought was rather directed towards a reflection towards [[nothing] (the vacuum or vacuity), where the Western thought was rather directed towards a reflection towards the to be.]

In a very diagrammatic way, one can roughly speaking define three theoretical positions in the literature concerning the Far-Eastern one:

(A) it is not philosophy because there is philosophy only Western (restrictive definition of philosophy);
(b) there is an Eastern and Far-Eastern philosophy, but it does nothing but say the same thing as Western philosophy with other words (there is not a specificity suitable for the Eastern and Far-Eastern thought);
(c) and finally certain authors such as Kitarō Nishida, François Julien or Bernard Stevens defend true a Altérité Eastern and Far-Eastern thought (one thinks of it of the things who would not be thinkable within the framework of Western philosophy).

India

The references of the Présocratique S to the Gymnosophiste S give rise to think that those were influenced by the Indian thought.

In the religion of the Véda (term which means the knowledge or the science), which goes up around 1500 av JC, the fundamental idea philosophical is that of the a , single principle, escaping any birth and going up beyond the Being. Védas are the crowned books of the Hindouisme.

Védas evolved to the philosophical thought, through the philosophical sum of the Upanishads , of which the topic is the idea of atman (breath, oneself), universal heart present in any living being, substrate metaphysical of any individual.

The oral teaching of Siddhārtha Gautama, the historical Bouddha, which goes back to the Life century before the Christian era (and thus temporally before the Présocratiques), contains many elements of philosophical nature (the nature of the suffering, the origin of the suffering, etc). The thought of the historical Buddha is connected with a philosophical Anthropologie.

Roger-pol. Right, in the lapse of memory of India , wonders why in the history of philosophy one makes as if the Indienne thought did not exist. He speaks on this subject about philosophical amnesia , because it was not the case at the 19th century, during which the philosophical interest for India was important. One can see there a kind of occidentocentrism philosophical, generated partly by the importance of the reading of the history suggested by Hegel in his Phénoménologie of the Spirit. In this work, Hegel says to us indeed that if the Spirit did not appear a whole in Africa, the flame briefly ignited in the East, but it is then very quickly extinct…

China

Confucius

Confucius (551-479 av J. - C.) is contemporary Présocratiques. In the climate of decline of the central capacity of the China, the Entretiens propose an ethical ideal of the Homme where the Vertu is central, as well as an ideal Politique.

The ren or jen is the virtue of Humanité, of dignity of the man, Sens of human and wisdom. The Way CAD is, beside the ren , the way of old.

the Taoist S and Way (CAD or CAT)

Is the term CAD , “way” or “way”, employed by many philosophical currents, the subject of a special reflection on behalf of certain authors like Lao-Tseu (towards 570-490 av J. - C.?) and Zhuang Zi (370-300 av. J. - C.), giving rise to the concept taoist of CAD, also transcribed CAT.

Lao-Tseu would have known Confucius. He probably wrote to the CAT-you-king , Livre of the Way and the Virtue .

The CAT is the Way, the great communion, the road, the way, the original principle impossible to define. It is the paramount cause of any action, the empty origin.

Middle-East (Egypt, Mésopotamie, Israel)

Mésopotamie

Old Mésopotamiens never developed speculations of the philosophical type. It there forever have in their intellectual productions of spirit of search for any " vérité". Le Monde resulted from the will of the gods, and the Men had been created to serve those.

As of the first texts sumériens, this design is present. Same manner, the cosmogonic thought mésopotamienne is already traced in its broad outlines as of this moment. It there forever have to speculate on top. The reflection of the thinkers mésopotamiens thus was rather directed towards the ideal moral attitude which the Men were to adopt.

That brought them as of the first write times has to work out texts of wisdoms. Moral precepts were also exempted in works not having only one vocation moralisatrice, like accounts epic, or anthems, or the codes of laws uttering the ideal of the king right.

Egypt

In Egypt, the Philosophie is born under the influence from the Egyptian Science , in particular of the geometry.

Phénicie

The knowledge Phénicie N into arithmetic, generates also a philosophical reflection.

Israel and the Bible

Two hundred years after the assertion of the single character of God in the Anthem with Amon-Ra , the Old Testament gives unicity of God a transcendent character , revealed through the figures of Abraham, Moïse,… or of Prophète S.

The ideas are those of Liberté, of concern of the person, history of humanity, Nature dissociated from God, but provided to the man so that it domesticates it.

The présocratiques ones (Greece)

See also Présocratiques

The very first Greek philosophers live in Ionie (Turkey), in maritime Cité S. The trade, the economic exchanges and the sea caused the first reflections of the Greek Culture .

The first Greek philosophers by convention are named Présocratiques , because they lived before Socrate. (they are called sometimes Préplatoniciens , but the reference to Socrate is important). They live between the end of VIIe century and the medium of Ve front century J. - C.

The first philosophers reflect on an originating principle.

School of Millet:

Thalès (born towards 625 av J. - C.),
Anaximandre (born towards 611),
Anaximène (medium of the Life century),

Leucippe and Démocrite,
Pythagore (idea of number),
Héraclite,

School of Éléates:

Parménide, father of the ontology, discipline centered on the To be,
Zénon d' Élée.

Empédocle d' Agrigente.

Thalès and Pythagore left us primarily scientific concepts.

One can note that Parménide was the father of the ontology. Parménide knew Socrate, and lived with Athens. One of the dialogs of Plato is devoted to Parménide .

Beginnings of traditional philosophy

Sophists

To the economic exchanges is added the birth of the Cité, unit Politique where is defined a public space of exercise of the word, argumentation and persuasion.

unquestionable Sophistes, etc are contemporary of Socrate.

This last aspect (Michel Meyer, in its introduction to the Rhetoric of Aristote) returns to the Rhétorique: Corax, Minister for the tyrant of Syracuse, must be explained to the fall of this one, then sign the Rhétorique which was useful to him (460). Its disciples are Tisias, then Gorgias. However, this etiology of did not ensure anything and the existence of Corax and Tisias could be imagined a posteriori , because rhetoric was certainly formed at one quite former time, as one can see of it the proof at Homère.

Socrat

See also the article Socrate for more details

Socrate represents a turning in the Histoire of the thought.

Its behavior in the Quoted section with the attitude of its predecessors who lived in Sage S citizens or kept away. But Socrate questions all those which it meets in the street, practitioner the dialog and the irony which reveal the claims of the scientists and noble Athéniens imbus of their Connaissance S and their tradition. “I know that I do not know anything”, here is the machine of war of this skilful dialectician, that one could regard as a Sophiste (cf Aristophane, the Clouds ).

Socrate, forsaking physical research of the Présocratiques, is the inventor of the moral Philosophie.

The well-known episode of constrained Socrate of drinking the Conium (399 av J. - C.), watch which it was the target of its contemporaries, the Sophistes.

Socrate did not leave writings. It in spite of very marked the memories by its formula: “know to you yourself”. Currency of socrat coming from the pediment of the temple of delphes or it was registered. (This temple was related to the snake python or officiated the pythea; a soothsayer.)

Thus, Socrate is especially known by the interpellation which its tragic death near the later philosophers produced: Plato, Aristote, and the Greek philosophy become ripe. Socrate was thus at the origin of many currents of thought, and influenced many Greek philosophers of first order:

Plato initially, and beautiful the Alcibiade with which it was in love (see the Banquet). The Socrate of Plato does not resemble true Socrate: Plato the met sometimes in scene in polemics perhaps which he did not know (in the Philèbe inter alia examples).
But also indirectly Aristote, founder of the College, which was the disciple of Plato.

Plato

If Plato worked out his Pensée starting from the case of Socrate (from the point of view of moral Dialectique and ), it seems thereafter to be opposed openly to its Master who ends up disappearing in his works from old age, in particular in the Lois.

The importance of the type of the Philosophe at Plato seems indeed not very compatible with the socratic irony. Let us retain for this short Histoire origins, which one can regard Plato as the first large Philosophe of the Histoire, insofar as he endeavors to make Philosophe a superhuman Autorité which holds its legitimacy of its Connaissance of the Idée S . The Platonic Philosophe thus takes a considerable dimension, since he claims to rise above the contingencies of the Histoire and to thwart the illusions of the human experiment, of the too human . For this reason, the philosopher becomes a true Master and a legitimate king, legislator of the Cité, assigning with the Homme S their function social harmonizes some with the divine order of the cosmos. Plato thus invented a new type of Philosophe, which will influence all the Histoire of the Pensée until our days.

Indeed, in its broad outlines, the later Philosophie is often only one long development of this Idée that the Philosophe is a Législateur. This Idée is taken again with varied intentions and justifications, in Théologie or by some contemporary intellectuals for example.

Aristote

Philosophical origins

Such are schematically the historical origins of the Philosophie. It is seen that these origins reveal part of the nature of the philosophical activity.

It remains to include/understand the properly philosophical origins of the Philosophie, i.e the way in which the philosophers included/understood themselves their activity.

For that, it is necessary to remember the importance of the astonishment at Plato and Aristote.

The astonishment (which it is necessary to take in a strong direction: admiration, stupor, etc) cause the vocation of researcher of the Vérité, because the Pensée remains anxious as long as it did not find the Cause S and the principles of the things.

Thirst to know ( philosophy ) seeks appaisement one in the Science. The Science is of this fact a “psychic” provision, an habitus where the Esprit which knows can rest.

However, the ancient definition of the Philosophie is the Connaissance causes and divine Réalité S . This Connaissance of the Sage must lead to the Bonheur. The lived philosophical one thus takes its source in the concern of the Homme vis-a-vis the world, when it raises questions about his Existence.

In the Phédon , Plato makes say to Socrate that the origin of this concern is the Mort. Dead, because it seems to refuse that we give a too real significance to the Vie, causes all the phantasms and all the interrogations: can one know what awaits us? The Man does it have a particular destination in beyond? For example, for Plato, it is necessary to suppose the Existence divine Réalité S, because of such Réalité S are only likely to give a base to the Connaissance, the Morale and the human hope.

Thus the Vie would be it private direction and of Valeur if we could not have such reflections.

Oral traditions

To these origins quasi some, since based on philosophies written, naturally come to be added the oral transmissions not disernables. For example the Celtic and in particular druidic tradition consider that wisdom must remain oral not to be corrupted, but one can despite everything notice the effects of them, as for example the separation of the capacities carried out by the éduen S nearly 2000 years before the principle is not stated by Montesquieu.

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