|
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Ancient Greece was part of the Roman Empire. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, ontology, logic, biology, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has influenced much of Western culture since its inception. Alfred North Whitehead once noted: "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."〔Alfred North Whitehead, ''Process and Reality'', Part II, Chap. I, Sect. I〕 Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers to Early Islamic philosophy, the European Renaissance and the Age of Enlightenment. Some claim that Greek philosophy, in turn, was influenced by the older wisdom literature and mythological cosmogonies of the ancient Near East. Martin Litchfield West gives qualified assent to this view, stating, "contact with oriental cosmology and theology helped to liberate the early Greek philosophers' imagination; it certainly gave them many suggestive ideas. But they taught themselves to reason. Philosophy as we understand it is a Greek creation." Subsequent philosophic tradition was so influenced by Socrates (as presented by Plato) that it is conventional to refer to philosophy developed prior to Socrates as pre-Socratic philosophy. The periods following this until the wars of Alexander the Great are those of "classical Greek" and "Hellenistic" philosophy. == Pre-Socratic philosophy == (詳細はphilosophers who were active prior to Socrates the ''pre-Socratics'' gained currency with the 1903 publication of Hermann Diels' ''Fragmente der Vorsokratiker'', although the term did not originate with him.〔Greg Whitlock, preface to ''The Pre-Platonic Philosophers'', by Friedrich Nietzsche (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), xiv–xvi.〕 The term is considered philosophically useful because what came to be known as the "Athenian school" (composed of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) signaled a profound shift in the subject matter and methods of philosophy; Friedrich Nietzsche's thesis that this shift began with Plato rather than with Socrates (hence his nomenclature of "pre-Platonic philosophy") has not prevented the predominance of the "pre-Socratic" distinction.〔Greg Whitlock, preface to ''The Pre-Platonic Philosophers'', by Friedrich Nietzsche (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001), xiii–xix.〕 The pre-Socratics were primarily concerned with cosmology, ontology and mathematics. They were distinguished from "non-philosophers" insofar as they rejected mythological explanations in favor of reasoned discourse.〔John Burnet, ''Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato'', 3rd ed. (London: A & C Black Ltd., 1920), 3–16. (Scanned version from Internet Archive )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Ancient Greek philosophy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|