The formation of philosophy in Ancient Greece. The emergence of philosophical and scientific knowledge
The emergence of philosophical and scientific knowledge in Ancient Greece was preceded by “mythological” knowledge — rooted in the life of the clan community and expressed in numerous forms of ritual practice and in the sacred legends of the Greek people — myths. Myth (Greek μύθος — “legend”, “story”) is a multi-layered and polyfunctional formation. Its main purpose is to present the experience of the interconnection of things as immediately given and “obvious”. From this follow its two fundamental characteristics: 1) the inseparability in the mythological representation of the material and the social, man and thing, thing and word, object and sign, the inseparability of the “subjective” and the “objective” in general — for which reason in ancient societies the explanation of the essence of a thing and the world was traditionally reduced to a “story” (legend) about creation or “natural” origin; 2) the content of the myth always seemed to ancient man to be “authentic” and “undoubted” (due to the “reliability” of understanding the world in the experience of many generations) and for this reason was usually the subject of stable faith and never of abstract criticism.
Philosophy of Antiquity. Philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans
The term “ancient philosophy” consists of two elements – the words “ancient” and “philosophy”, each of which gives the whole expression its own specific semantic shade. The word “ancient” comes from the Latin antiquus, which means “ancient”. In this sense, “ancient philosophy” is “ancient” philosophy and represents a conditional set of theoretical, aesthetic and ethical ideas of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. At the same time, “ancient philosophy” is “philosophy”. This word goes back to the Greek φιλοσοφία, literally “loving attitude towards wisdom”. Wisdom was understood by the Greeks as perfect and sufficient knowledge, and the “loving attitude” towards it was interpreted differently – by each philosopher exclusively from within his unique philosophical experience. In this sense, “ancient philosophy” is the philosophy of the ancient Greeks and Romans – regardless of antiquity as such – in fact, for the ancients their philosophy did not seem “ancient”, but was quite “timely” and “modern”.