Parmenides at the beginning of the 5th century BC founded the Eleatic School of Philosophy (named after Eleia, where he lived). He believed that basic matter (“existing”) is something single, unchangeable and indivisible. The Universe was created from this matter. This theory denied that there was any real movement or change in the universe. At the same time, Parmenides, apparently, believed that there is a fundamental difference between the world cognizable by the mind and the world, the idea of ​​which we receive through the senses.

Eleatic School (NFE, 2010)

ELEA SCHOOL - one of the main early Greek philosophical schools (late 6th - 1st half of the 5th century BC); a tradition of metaphysical monism that unites Parmenides, Zeno of Eleica and Melissa (Xenophanes's membership in the Eleatic school is questionable, although his monotheistic theology may have influenced Parmenides' monism). It developed in the West, in the Phocian colony of Elea on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy. The epistemology of the Eleatic school is marked by consistent rationalism and panlogism, ontology by strict monism, known in ancient times as the doctrine of ἓν καὶ πᾶν (lit. - “one and all” or “single whole”). The impenetrable gulf between the sensible and the intelligible is expressed in the rigid opposition of opinion (doxa), based on sensory “phenomena”, “truth”, or “knowledge”, based exclusively on reason-nous and verifiable by logical reasoning...

Eleatic School (Kirilenko, 2010)

ELEA SCHOOL Eleatics - a philosophical school in Ancient Greece (late 6th - mid 5th century BC), represented by Parmenides and Zeno from Elea, Melissus from Samos. The immediate predecessors of the Eleatics include Xenophanes of Colophon. The most prominent figure of E. Sh. is Parmenides. The central category of his teaching is being. When defining being, there cannot be ambiguity, ambiguity, or semantic fluidity: it cannot be said that something exists and at the same time does not exist. The mobile and irresponsible human thought must freeze when it touches the problem of existence. Being, existence does not arise and has no end, for otherwise it must be said that at some moment the existing does not exist. Consequently, existence is eternal - beginningless and indestructible. Being is one and indivisible, for otherwise it is necessary to recognize an additional reason for the fragmentation of being into parts as preceding the existing...

Eleates (Comte-Sponville, 2012)

ELEATS (ELEATES SCHOOL). Elea was the name of a Greek colony located in southern Italy. It was there that Parmenides and Zeno Eleates (not to be confused with the founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Kition) were born, who headed the so-called Eleatic school. If we believe what tradition has preserved, they denied the existence of movement, change and multiplicity, insisting on the unity and unchanging essence of being. The Eleatics tried to prove that what is visible and recognized by popular opinion as true is not so. Hence Zeno’s paradoxes (Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise; a flying arrow is motionless, etc.)

Eleatic School (Podoprigora, 2013)

ELEA SCHOOL - school of ancient Greek philosophy of the VI-V centuries. BC e. It got its name from the city of Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy, where its largest founders lived. Its founder was Xenophanes of Colophon, its main representatives were Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, Melissus of Samos. The Eleatic school was the first to contrast thinking with sensory perception, noting the instability, fluidity of human sensations and the sensuality of being, and assigning the main role in cognition to thinking. For the first time in the history of philosophy, the Eleatic school put forward the concept of a single being and made it the basis of philosophizing.

Philosophy in brief: PHILOSOPHY OF THE ELEATES. All the basic and most important things on the subject of philosophy: in a brief and understandable form: PHILOSOPHY OF THE ELEATES. Answers to basic questions, philosophical concepts, history of philosophy, trends, schools and philosophers.

PHILOSOPHY OF THE ELEATES

The dialectics of Heraclitus, which takes into account both sides of a phenomenon - both its variability and its unchangeable nature, was not adequately perceived by contemporaries and was already subject to a wide variety of criticism in antiquity. Eleatics (natives from the city of Elea) Xenophanes (c. 570-478 BC), Parmenides (late 6th-5th centuries BC), Zeno (mid-5th century BC) focused attention precisely on the moment of stability, reproaching Heraclitus for exaggerating the role of variability.

Xenophanes is the founder of the Eleatic school. He wrote his main work “On Nature” in the form of a poem. He considered the earth to be the origin of the world, believing that “everything is born from the earth and everything goes into the earth.”

He rejected anthropomorphism in relation to the gods, believing that people create gods in their own image and likeness - “as a person is, so is his god.” Xenophanes adhered to the position of pantheism and, in his opinion, God is an absolute, eternal and infinite cosmos. He is a spherical, motionless, unchanging being, not a concrete sensory image, but a conceptual construct.

In the theory of knowledge, Xenophanes can be considered a supporter of rationalism, since he essentially denied the significance of sensory knowledge, believing that sensory reality is the world of phenomena, which is appearance.

Parmenides, unlike Heraclitus, said that nothing changes. Characterizing the properties of being, he noted that being:

It did not arise and will never perish, since it has a timeless nature;

Uniquely and holistically, that is, it has no parts;

Complete (finished) and motionless.

Being is that which is embraced by thought. Non-existence (nothing) does not exist, since it cannot be thought or spoken about. In epistemology, Parmenides distinguishes between the concepts of “truth” and “opinion”. Opinion is an internally contradictory sensory appearance. Truth is a conceivable world, a world of unified and eternal existence.

Zeno, a prominent representative of subjective dialectics, believed that only what can be proven exists. He formulated 40 aporias (insoluble difficulties), many of which became widely known. Thus, his aporia “Arrow” indicates the imaginary nature of sensory impressions. It says that before an arrow fired from a bow travels any distance, it must travel half that distance. But in order to fly this half, she must fly half of the half. Thus, Zeno argued that the arrow will never begin to move and will always be identical to its place (space). “A moving body does not move either in the place where it is or in the place where it is not,” since the internal inconsistency of the logical consequences of this aporia makes the concept of movement an “opinion,” i.e., an appearance, and not a reality. Zeno's reasoning, based on proof, played a large role in the development of theoretical thinking, and the dialectical views of Heraclitus were subsequently used by Hegel, as well as by Marxists in the creation of dialectical materialism.
......................................................

Philosophy, the science of thinking, acquired its principles during the period of antiquity. Basic concepts about the possibilities and methods of human cognition were formed in the schools of ancient Greek philosophy. The development of thinking in its history follows the well-known triad: thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

A thesis is a specific statement characteristic of a given historical period.

Antithesis is the negation of the initial principle by finding contradictions in it.

Synthesis is the affirmation of a principle based on a new level of historical form of thinking.

It can be traced both in the history of the formation of thinking and in the system of formation of a concept characteristic of a certain historical form, be it a school or a direction in the rational development of the world. The historical period when the Eleatic school of philosophy was formed was characterized by a pro-materialistic approach to knowledge. The teaching of the Pythagoreans about the physical origin in nature became the thesis for the formation of the Eleans’ own teaching.

Eleatic school of philosophy: doctrine

In 570 BC The ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes refuted the polytheistic doctrine of God characteristic of this era and substantiated the principle of the unity of Being.

This principle was subsequently consistently developed by his students, and the direction entered the history of science as the Eleatic school of philosophy. Briefly, the teaching of the representatives can be reduced to the following theses:

• Being is one.
• Multiplicity is not reducible to one, it is illusory.
• Experience does not provide reliable knowledge of the world.

The teachings of the Elyan representatives cannot be put into specific theses. It's much richer. Any teaching is a living process of learning the truth or falsity of existing statements through the prism of experience. As soon as a philosophical approach to the knowledge of nature and society is formalized as a concept, it becomes the subject of further denial.

Exegesis

Therefore, there is a certain style of interpreting views called exegesis. It is also, as in ancient times, determined by history, culture, the type of thinking of the era, and the author’s approach of the researcher. That is why canonization is impossible in philosophy, since forms of thought clothed in words immediately lose their basic principle of negation. The same teaching within the framework of different paradigms changes its meaning.

The Eleatic school of philosophy, whose basic ideas have been interpreted differently throughout historical periods, is proof of this fact. What is important is the appropriateness of the relationship between the paradigm within the parameters of which the research takes place and the very purpose of studying the phenomenon.

Main representatives of the school

Representatives of a certain school of philosophy are thinkers of a historical era, united by a single principle, and extrapolating it to an objectively limited area of ​​human knowledge: religion, society, state.

Some historiographers include the philosopher Xenophanes among the representatives of the school, others limit it to three followers. All historical approaches have the right to exist. In any case, the basis of the doctrine of the unity of Being was formulated by Xenophanes of Colophon, declaring that the one is God, who controls the Universe with his thought.

Representatives of the Eleatic school Zeno and Melissus, developing the principle of unity, explicated it in the spheres of nature, thinking, and faith. They were the successors of the Pythagorean teaching, and on the basis of the critical development of the thesis about the material fundamental principle of the world, they formulated an antithesis about the Unified nature of Being and the metaphysical nature of things. This served as the starting point for subsequent schools and directions in the development of philosophy. What does "One Nature" mean? And what main content did each of the school representatives contribute?

Theses of the school's teachings

The Eleatic school, for which the category of Being became the central concept of teaching, formed a postulate about the static and immutable nature of existence. Truth is accessible to knowledge by reason; in experience, only an erroneous opinion about the properties of nature is formed - this is what the Eleatic school of philosophy teaches. Parmenides introduced the concept of “Being,” which became central to world philosophical understanding.

The provisions formed by Zeno in his “Aporia”, which have become household names, reveal the principle of contradiction in the case of recognition of the plurality and variability of the surrounding world. Melissus, in his treatise on nature, summarized all the views of his predecessors and brought them out as a dogmatic teaching, known as “Hellenic”.

Parmenides on Nature

Parmenides of Elea was of noble origin, his morality was recognized by the townspeople; suffice it to say that he was a legislator in his polis.

This first representative of the Eleatic school wrote his work “On Nature”. The thesis about the material beginning of the world, characteristic of the Pythagoreans, became the basis of the critical teaching of Parmenides, and he developed the idea of ​​unity in different fields of knowledge.

To the Pythagorean thesis about the search for a single principle in nature, Parmenides postulates an antithesis about the plurality of Being and the illusory nature of the idea of ​​​​the nature of things. The Eleatic school of philosophy is briefly presented in his treatise.

They actually discovered the postulate of peace. External perception of the surrounding reality, according to his teaching, is unreliable and limited only by a person’s individual experience. “Man is the measure of everything” is a famous saying of Parmenides. It indicates the limitations of personal experience and the impossibility of reliable knowledge based on personal perception.

Aporias of Zeno

The Eleatic school of philosophy in its teaching received confirmation from Parmenides about the impossibility of comprehending nature in change, movement and discreteness. He cites 40 aporias - insoluble contradictions in natural phenomena.

Nine of these aporias are still the subject of discussion and debate. The principle of dichotomy, which underlies the movement in the “Arrow” aporia, does not allow the arrow to catch up with the turtle... These aporia became the subject of analysis of Aristotle’s teachings.

Melissa

A contemporary of Zeno, a student of Parmenides, this ancient Greek philosopher expanded the concepts of Being to the level of the Universe and was the first to raise the question of its infinity in space and time.

There are opinions that he personally communicated with Heraclitus. But, in contrast to the famous materialist of Ancient Greece, he did not recognize the material fundamental basis of the world, he denied the categories of movement and change as the basis for the emergence and destruction of material things.

“Existence” in his interpretation is eternal, has always been, has not arisen from anything and does not disappear anywhere. In his treatise he united the views of his predecessors and left the teachings of the Eleatics to the world in a dogmatic form.

Followers of the Eleatic school

The Eleatic school of philosophy, the basic principles and concepts of which in the teachings of the Eleatics became the starting point, the thesis, for the further development of philosophical thought. Parmenides' doctrine of opinion is presented in the dialogues of Socrates and later became the basis for the teachings of the school of sophistry. The idea of ​​​​the separation of Being and Nothing served as the basis for Zeno’s Aporia, served as the subject of the great Aristotle’s research on the consistency of thought and the impetus for writing the multi-volume “Logic”.

Significance for the history of philosophy

The Eleatic school of ancient Greek philosophy is significant for the history of the formation of philosophical thought in that it was its representatives who first introduced the central category of philosophy “Being,” as well as methods of rational comprehension of this concept.

Known as the “father of logic,” the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle later called Zeno the first dialectician.

Dialectics, the science of the unity of opposites, received the status of a methodology of philosophical knowledge in the 18th century. It was thanks to the Eleatics that questions were first raised about the truth of rational knowledge and the unreliability of opinions based on personal judgments and experimental perception of reality.

In the later, classical period of the formation of science, the relationship between being and thinking as the main philosophical categories became a universal principle, on the basis of which the spheres of ontology and epistemology were differentiated.

In the history of philosophical thought, asking questions is a more important element of knowledge, from the point of view of development, than options for finding answers to questions. Because the question always indicates the limits of our capabilities, and therefore the prospect of rational search.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

Posted on http://www.allbest.ru/

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE, INDUSTRIAL POLICY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP OF MOSCOW

State educational institution

higher professional education

"Moscow Academy of Labor Market and Information Technologies"

(GOU "MARTIT")

ABSTRACT

by discipline " Philosophy »

on the topic of: « Eleatic school. Main ideas and representatives »

Completed by: Andronov A.V.

2nd year student

Teacher: Rozhkov V.V.

Moscow 2013

Introduction

1 Philosophy of the Eleatic school

1.1 Parmenides

1.2 Zeno

1.3 Melissa

Introduction

The term “being” was first proposed by ancient Greek thinkers of the early period - the Eleatics. Unlike most Pre-Socratics, the Eleans did not deal with issues of natural science; they developed a theoretical doctrine of being, laying the foundation of classical Greek ontology.

The Eleatic school was characterized by strict monism in the doctrine of being and rationalism in the doctrine of knowledge. The Eleatics were conscious defenders of the unity of all that exists; they also discovered deep contradictions rooted in the ordinary, perceptual view of the universe. The antinomies of space, time and movement as definitions of truly existing things were revealed by the Eleatics with great dialectical talent. Finally, the Eleatics were the first to quite clearly distinguish between what really exists, comprehended by thought, and the phenomenon with which a person becomes acquainted through the senses.

The relevance of studying this topic is great, since the teachings of the Eleatic School made a huge contribution to Greek philosophy and to the history of philosophy in general.

The object of this study is the “Eleatic School”.

The subject of the study is the main ideas and representatives.

The purpose of this work is to study the main ideas and representatives of the Eleatic school.

To achieve the goal in the work, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

1) analyze general teachings;

2) explore main ideas;

3) study the characteristics of philosophical teaching;

4) consider the main directions of teaching.

1. Philosophy of the Eleatic school

The Eleatics are an ancient Greek philosophical school (6-5 centuries BC), which arose in the city of Elea (Southern Italy). Its main representatives were Parmenides, Xenophanes, Zeno of Elea, and Melissus. The influence of their school on the formation of abstract scientific thought is enormous. The philosophy of the Eleatics stood on the path of rationalizing knowledge, operating with abstract concepts and freeing thinking from metaphorical images. The Eleatics were the first in the interpretation of substance to move from specific natural elements - water, air, fire, earth - to being as such.

1.1 Parmenides

Parmenides (late 7th-6th century BC) - philosopher, politician, central figure of the Eleatic school. He was born into a noble family and spent his youth in fun and luxury, when satiety with pleasures told him about the insignificance of pleasures, he began to contemplate “the clear face of truth in the silence of sweet teaching.” He took an active part in the political affairs of his native city. He was recognized as one of the wise political leaders.

Parmenides wrote the poem On Nature, where he figuratively presented the path of knowledge in the form of an allegorical description of the journey of a young man to the goddess who revealed the truth to him. In the very first verses of the poem, Parmenides proclaims the dominant role of reason in knowledge and the auxiliary role of the senses. He divided philosophy into the philosophy of truth and the philosophy of opinion, calling reason the criterion of truth, but in feelings, he said, there is no precision: do not trust sensory perceptions, do not roll your eyes aimlessly, do not listen with ears in which only noise is heard, and do not chatter idly with your tongue , but examine the evidence stated with your mind.

The central idea of ​​Parmenides is being, the relationship between thinking and being. Thinking always refers to something, for without the being about which it is expressed, we will not find thought. Try to think about nothing. And you will see that this is impossible. The brilliant idea of ​​Parmenides that there is not and cannot be empty space and time outside of changing existence. It is impossible to find thought without being: thought without being is nothing. Non-existence can neither be known nor expressed; only existence is conceivable. It is especially important to emphasize that Parmenides linked the spiritual world of man with such determinants as the position of man and the level of his bodily organization: the highest degree gives the highest degree of thinking. And physicality and spirituality coincide in the universe in God. [2]

The basic ideas of the Eleatic school were brought to full development by Parmenides. His disciples, Zeno (about 490-430) and Melissa (about 485-425), could only defend his theory from objections made by people who adhere to ordinary concepts of things, and look for new arguments. Working in this direction, they wrote in prose. Dialectical techniques, which Parmenides put into poetic form, received a more complete technical development in their treatises.

Zeno of Elea, a friend and student of Parmenides, defended the doctrine of the unity of everything that exists, of the illusory nature of everything individual, with dialectical techniques that showed what logical incongruities lie in the “opinion” that there really is a world of individual objects arising and moving. Proving that the concepts of movement and emergence contradict themselves, Zeno, in the spirit of the main tenet of the Eleatic school, eliminated these concepts as illusory and came to the conclusion that nothing changing can exist, that, consequently, there is only a single, unchanging being .

Only small fragments have survived from the writings of Zeno of Elea. Most of them are in Aristotle's Physics. Zeno's original method gave Aristotle a reason to call him the founder of “dialectics.” Among ancient authors, the term “dialectics” meant the knowledge of truth through the identification of internal contradictions in the thoughts of an opponent. Zeno exposes these contradictions in the thinking of the opponents of the Eleatic school in his famous “Aporia” (the literal translation of the word aporia is “hopelessness”).

Defending the teaching of the Eleatic school about the unity and immutability of Being, Zeno proves that the original mental foundations of those who reject it (the idea of ​​space as emptiness, separate from the substance that fills it; the belief in the plurality of things and the presence of movement in the world) are false. Zeno convinces us that the recognition of these seemingly self-evident postulates leads to irreconcilable contradictions. The truth is the main philosophical provisions of the Eleatic school: emptiness, multiplicity and movement do not exist in the world.

Regarding the empty space external to Being, the substance, Zeno says that since it is also Being, then it must be somewhere, in some special “second space”. This second space must reside in the third - and so on ad infinitum. According to the Eleatic school, such an assumption of a plurality of spaces is absurd. This means that space is inseparable from Being, is not a substance external to it, and things inseparable from it cannot be inside it.

The usual human idea of ​​​​the infinite multiplicity of things in the eyes of the Eleatic school and Zeno also suffers from irreconcilable contradictions. If there are an infinite number of things, then each of them has no magnitude (or, what is the same, has an infinitesimal one). Infinity destroys not only the concept of magnitude, but also the concept of number: the sum of the elements of an infinite set does not exist, because the sum must be a definite finite number, and conventional knowledge considers this sum to be infinite. Consequently, we must recognize as true the teaching of the Eleatic school about the unity of being.

The usual human idea of ​​the existence of movement, according to Zeno, also does not reflect the true metaphysical reality. The Aporias contains the famous “refutations of the movement”: “Dichotomy (division by two)”, “Achilles”, “Flying Arrow” and “Stadius”.

In “Dichotomy” Zeno points out that if we move from one point to another, we will first have to go half the way between them, then half the remaining half - and so on ad infinitum. But a movement that lasts an infinite amount of time will never reach its goal. To overcome a path, you must first overcome half the path, and to overcome half the path, you must first overcome half of the half, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, the movement will never begin.

In the aporia “The Flying Arrow,” Zeno proves that if we consider an arrow fired from a bow at each individual moment of flight, it will turn out that at every moment it is simultaneously flying and occupying a certain stationary position. At the same time, both movement and immobility exist - therefore, the usual human idea of ​​movement is false and meaningless, but the idea of ​​the Eleatic school about the complete immutability and immobility of Being is true. A flying arrow is motionless, since at every moment of time it is at rest, and since it is at rest at every moment of time, it is always at rest.

In the aporia “Achilles,” Zeno proves that Achilles, famous for the speed of his running, will never catch up with the turtle running away from him. Although Achilles runs faster than the tortoise, the distance between them will never become zero, because the tortoise, moving away from Achilles, in each new period of time will have time to cover a distance that, no matter how insignificant it may be, will never be equal to zero. Zeno therefore argues that at no point in the run will the distance between Achilles and the tortoise become zero, and the former will never catch up with the latter.

Let's say Achilles runs ten times faster than the tortoise and is a thousand steps behind it. During the time it takes Achilles to run this distance, the tortoise will crawl a hundred steps in the same direction. When Achilles runs a hundred steps, the tortoise crawls another ten steps, and so on. The process will continue ad infinitum, Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise.

1.3 Melissa

Melissus, a native of Samos, successfully commanded the Samian fleet during the War of Athens and Samos in 440 BC. e. Some authors say that in his youth Melissus studied with the famous philosopher Heraclitus, but then joined the Eleatic teaching, which was completely opposite in meaning. Eleatic Zeno Aporia Ancient Greek

Among the philosophers of the Eleatic school, Melissus stood out in important ways. Entirely following the teachings of Xenophanes and Parmenides about the unity, immutability and eternity of true being, he argued that the world can be like this only if it is infinite. Other representatives of the Eleatic school, on the contrary, believed that the world was finite and spherical.

In addition, Melissus, unlike other Eleatics, believed that the world should be incorporeal, for “if Being had thickness, it would thereby have parts and would no longer be one.” Apparently, Melissa came to the idea of ​​​​the infinity of Being by the same reasoning. Finite Being would have a certain size, which means it could be decomposed into parts, and this violates the Eleatic idea of ​​universal unity and the absence of multiplicity.

Conclusion

This work was devoted to the current topic of research into the main ideas and representatives of the Eleatic school.

The object of the study was the Eleatic school.

The purpose of the work was to study the main ideas and representatives of the Eleatic school.

To achieve the goal, the following tasks were solved:

1) general teachings are analyzed, it is established that, unlike most Pre-Socratics, the Eleans did not deal with issues of natural science, they developed a theoretical doctrine of being (proposing this term itself for the first time), laying the foundation of classical Greek ontology;

2) the main ideas and representatives were examined, it was revealed that the philosophers of the Eleatic school considered being to be, and this follows from the very concept of “to be,” but “that which is not,” non-existence, is not, which also follows from the content of the concept itself;

3) the characteristics of philosophical teaching have been studied, which reflects a strict, unified principle in the doctrine of being and rationalism in the doctrine of knowledge;

4) the main directions of the doctrine are considered, such as non-existence, space, existence, matter, time, measure.

List of sources and literature used

1. Bogomolov A. S. “Ancient Philosophy” 2nd ed. M.: Higher. school 2006. - 390 p.

2. Wundt V. Introduction to philosophy. - St. Petersburg, 1903 .- 352 p.

3. Losev A.F. “Ancient Philosophy of History” M.: Nauka,
1977.- 208 p.

4. Lavrinenko V.N. “Philosophy” 2nd ed., rev. and additional - M.: Lawyer. 2004. - 520 p.

5. Spirkin A.G. “Philosophy” 2nd ed. - M.: Gardariki, 2006. -

436 pp.

6. Zeller E. Essay on the history of Greek philosophy / Transl. S.L. Frank. M.: Kanon, 1996. - 342 p.

7. http://rushist.com/index.php/greece-rome/767-elejskaya-shkola

Posted on Allbest.ru

...

Similar documents

Philosophical worldviews of the Milesian school: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes. Pythagoras and his school. Eleatic School: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno. Atomism of Leucippus-Democritus. Sophists and sophistry: Protagoras, Gorgias and Prodicus. Philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

abstract, added 03/18/2011


The concept of one God and intelligible being in the philosophy of Xenophanes, Parmenides. Aporia as a concept meaning an intractable problem in ancient Greek philosophy. Method of proof. The phenomenon of popularity of Zeno's aporias. Denial of emptiness as non-existence.

course work, added 07/06/2011


The category of being in philosophy, periods in the interpretation of being, the existence of man and the existence of the world. The problem of the emergence of philosophy. Milesian school. Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. Pythagoras and his school. Heraclitus of Ephesus. Eleatic School: Xenophanes, Parmenides Zeno.

course work, added 11/01/2003


Pre-philosophical forms of consciousness, the problem of the sources of philosophy. Features of the development of philosophy of the West and East. Milesian school. Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. Pythagoras and his school. Heraclitus of Ephesus. Eleatic School: Xenophanes, Parmenides Zeno. Sophists and Sophies

course work, added 12/10/2004


The concept and main stages of development of ancient philosophy, its outstanding representatives and schools. Brief description of pre-Socratic philosophy. The Milesian and Eleatic school and its representatives, areas of research and significance in the history of this science.

presentation, added 11/27/2014


Philosophical views of the Milesian school: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras are the great dialecticians of antiquity. The orientation of the interests of the Eleatic school: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno. Sophists and sophistry: Protagoras, Gorgias and Prodicus.

abstract, added 11/12/2010


Natural philosophy of the Milesian school. The essence of the concepts "arche", "being". Anaximander, Apeiron, Anaximenes. Fire and Logos of Heraclitus, dialectics. Pythagorean philosophy and mathematics, numbers and geometric figures. Parmenides and Xenophanes, the birth of metaphysics.

presentation, added 07/17/2012


Ancient philosophy as a consistently developing philosophical thought. The main schools of ancient philosophy: Ionian, Milesian, Ephesian, Eleatic, classical, Pythagorean school. Development of skepticism and stoicism. Philosophy of Thales, Pythagoras, Epicurus.

test, added 01/17/2011


Plato and Aristotle are the two “peaks” of ancient Greek philosophy. Basic ideas of Plato's philosophy. Aristotle's formal logic. The birth of Philosophical thought in Russia, its main representatives and theories. The meaning of human life according to various concepts.

test, added 09/06/2009


Main features, directions, representatives of ancient philosophy. Pythagorean school. Classical age of ancient Greek philosophy. Philosophy of Plato. Philosophy of Aristotle. Philosophy of the Hellenistic era. Psychoanalytic concepts of man. Freud's theory.

The philosophical school of the Eleatics arose in “Great Hellas”, in Elea. The main representatives of the school are Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus. The teaching of the Eleatics is a new step in the formation of ancient Greek philosophy, in the development of its categories, including the category of substance. For the Eleatics, substance is philosophical, for this substance is being. Moreover, it was the Eleatics who raised the question of the relationship between being and thinking, i.e. fundamental question of philosophy. Therefore, we can say that the formation of ancient philosophy ends in the school of the Eleatics, it is there that proto-philosophy becomes philosophy.

The founder of the Eleatic school was Parmenides of Elea (c. 540-470 BC). The teaching of Parmenides became the basis of Eleatic philosophy. It was Parmenides who developed the concept of a single world god Xenophanes in the concept of a single being and raised the question of the relationship between being and thinking. At the same time, Parmenides was a metaphysician: he taught about the immutability of being. If Heraclitus thought that everything flows, then Parmenides argued that in essence everything is unchanged.

The main thing for Parmenides, as for the entire Eleatic school, is the science of being, of existence. Parmenides also denies the “creation” of existence and affirms its eternity. Existence is not only eternal in its existence, it is also unchangeable.

Parmenides completely excludes movement and development from the real world, from the realm of being. According to Parmenides, non-existent does not exist. Everything that exists is a being (being) that is everywhere, in all places, and therefore it cannot move. To want to move something, according to Parmenides, would mean either placing it in the place of another being, and this is impossible, since one being is already there, or placing it in the place where a non-existent was previously, but, as follows from what was said earlier, the non-existent does not exist, so this option also disappears. Hence, existence is filled and motionless. Existence has a material character, but change, movement and development are excluded from it.

It should be noted here that in epistemology Parmenides makes a very sharp distinction between genuine truth (ALETHEIA), which is a product of the rational development of reality, and opinion (DOXA), based on sensory knowledge. Sensory knowledge, according to Parmenides, gives us only an image of the apparent state of things, and with its help it is impossible to comprehend their true essence. Truth is comprehended only by reason. He views the sensory world only as an opinion. So, in the realm of opinion, Parmenides admits the existence of non-existents on the basis of “sensory perception.” This enables him then - in the form of an opinion - to acknowledge the existence of movement and change. Such awareness of the difference between sensory and rational cognition leads to a metaphysical break between these two stages of the single process of cognition.

One of the most prominent students of Parmenides was Zeno (born ca. 460 BC).

In his ontological views, Zeno clearly defends the positions of unity, integrity and immutability of existence. Existing things, according to Zeno, have a material character. According to Zeno's views, everything in nature comes from heat, cold, dry and wet, or their mutual changes; people originated from the earth, and their souls are a mixture of the above-mentioned principles, in which none of them predominates.

Apparently, the most famous presentation of the Eleatic denial of movement and the postulation of the immutability and immobility of existence is Zeno's aporia, which proves that if the existence of movement is allowed, then insurmountable contradictions arise. The first of the aporias is called DICHOTOMY (division in half). In it, Zeno seeks to prove that a body cannot move from its place, i.e. movement can neither begin nor end. Zeno's second (and perhaps most famous) aporia is ACHOLLES. This aporia shows that the fastest of men (Achilles) will never be able to catch up with the slowest creature (the tortoise) if it sets out before him. These logical constructions show the inconsistency of the movement and are in apparent contradiction with life experience. Therefore, Zeno allowed the possibility of movement only in the field of sensory knowledge. However, his aporias are not about the “reality” or “existence” of movement, but about “the possibility of its comprehension by reason.” Therefore, movement is not considered here as a sensory datum, but an attempt is made to clarify the logical, conceptual side of movement, i.e. the question of the truth of the movement is raised.

Zeno became famous mainly for clarifying the contradictions between reason and feelings. In accordance with the principles of the Eleatic school, Zeno also separates sensory and rational knowledge. He clearly recognizes rational knowledge as true, while sensual knowledge, in his opinion, leads to insoluble contradictions. Zeno showed that there is a limit to sensory knowledge.

Among the prominent thinkers of the Eleatic school is Melissus from the island of Samos (born around 440 BC). Melissa believed that the world “was not created” and has no end. Being, according to his ideas, is not only unified and unlimited in time and space, but also metaphysically unchangeable.

Thus, the philosophy of the Eleatics identified a number of problems that significantly influenced the further development of philosophy. Thus, in their teaching we encounter a relatively clear doctrine of being and certain fundamental approaches to the question of the knowability of the world. Their distinction between sensory and rational knowledge is closely related to the distinction between “essence” and “appearance”. In the field of the method of philosophizing, the great contribution of the Eleatics is the desire to comprehend reality with the help of a conceptual apparatus.