The teachings of Heraclitus are brief. Ephesus school
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Polish: Kazimierz Malewicz; February 11, 1879, Kyiv - May 15, 1935, Leningrad) - Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist of Polish origin, teacher, art theorist, philosopher. The founder of Suprematism - one of the most early manifestations abstract art of modern times.
In accordance with the entry in the metric book of the Kyiv Church of St. Alexandra, Kazimir Malevich was born on February 11 (23), and baptized on March 1, 1879 in the city of Kyiv. Previously it was believed that the year of his birth was 1878.
His father, Severin Antonovich Malevich (1845-1902) (a nobleman of the Volyn province of Zhitomir district), originally from the town of Turbova, Podolsk province, served as a manager at the sugar factories of the famous industrialist Nikolai Tereshchenko. Mother, Ludviga Alexandrovna (1858-1942), nee Galinovskaya, was a housewife. They got married in Kyiv on February 26 (March 10), 1878.
Parents are Polish by origin. Casimir became their first-born. The family had four more sons (Anton, Boleslav, Bronislav, Mieczyslaw) and four daughters (Maria, Wanda, Severina, Victoria). In total, the Malevich couple had fourteen children, but only nine of them lived to adulthood.
The Malevich family was Polish, at home the family spoke Polish, and around them they spoke Ukrainian; Subsequently, Malevich wrote a number of articles about art in Ukrainian. Malevich's contemporaries considered him a Pole, and Kazimir Malevich himself considered himself a Pole, but in the 1920s, during the so-called period. indigenization, Malevich wrote about himself as “Ukrainian” in some questionnaires and even tried to persuade his relatives to do so. In “Chapters from the Artist’s Autobiography,” written shortly before his death, he recalled himself and his best friend Kursk period Lev Kvachevsky: “We were both Ukrainians.” Some sources also look for the Belarusian roots of the artist’s father.
Kazimir spent his childhood in a Ukrainian village. Up to 12 years in Moevka, Yampol district, Podolsk province, then in Parkhomovka, Volchka, Belopole; Then, until he was 17 years old, he mainly remained in Konotop. In 1895-1896 he attended the Kyiv drawing school of N. I. Murashko, studying with N. K. Pimonenko.
In 1894-1895, Malevich lived in Konotop. According to the artist’s own memoirs (initiated in 1933 by Nikolai Khardzhiev), he painted his first oil painting at the age of 16 (most likely in 1894). In the painting entitled " moonlit night", three-quarters arshin in size, depicted a river with a boat on the shore and the Moon reflecting its rays. Malevich's friends liked the work. One of the friends (apparently from Konotop) offered to sell the painting and, without asking the artist, took it to the store, where it was quickly bought for 5 rubles. The location of the painting remains unknown.
In 1896, the Malevich family moved to Kursk. Here Kazimir worked as a draftsman in the Office of the Moscow-Kursk Railway, while simultaneously practicing painting. Together with his comrades in spirit, Malevich managed to organize an art circle in Kursk. Malevich was forced to lead as if double life- on the one hand, the daily worries of a provincial, the unloved and dreary service of a draftsman railway and on the other hand, a thirst for creativity.
Malevich himself called 1898 in his “Autobiography” “the beginning of public exhibitions” (although no documentary information about this was found).
In 1899 he married Kazimiera Ivanovna Zglejc (Polish: Kazimiera Zglejc) (1881-1942). The wedding took place on January 27, 1902 in Kursk in Catholic Church Dormition of the Virgin Mary.
In Kursk, the Malevich family rented a house (five rooms) for 260 rubles a year, at the address: st. Pochtovaya, 13, owned by Anna Klein. The building has survived to this day.
In 1904, he decided to radically change his life and move to Moscow, even though his wife was against it, since Malevich left her with the children in Kursk. This marked a rift in his family life.
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1. Black Suprematist square, 1915
Canvas, Oil. 79.5×79.5 cm
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The most famous work of Kazimir Malevich, created in 1915 specifically for the final futurist exhibition “0.10”, which opened in St. Petersburg on December 19, 1915. “Black Square” is part of the cycle of suprematist (from Latin supremus - highest) works by Kazimir Malevich. Being a type of abstract art, Suprematism was expressed in combinations of multi-colored planes of the simplest geometric shapes devoid of pictorial meaning. Suprematist works occupied a separate exhibition hall. Among the thirty-nine Suprematist paintings, in the most prominent place, in the so-called “red corner”, where icons are usually hung in Russian houses, hung the “Black Square”.
“Black Square” is part of the cycle of Suprematist works by Kazimir Malevich, in which the artist explored the basic possibilities of color and composition; is, according to plan, part of a triptych, which also contains the “Black Circle” and “Black Cross”.
The “black square” has neither top nor bottom; approximately equal distances separate the edges of the square from the vertical and horizontal lines of the frame. Few deviations from pure geometry remind viewers that the picture was, after all, painted with a brush, that the artist did not resort to a compass and ruler, but drew an elementary geoform “by eye”, and became familiar with its inner meaning through intuition. We are used to thinking that the background of the “Black Square” is white. In fact, it is the color of baked milk. And in the abrupt strokes of the background, different layers of paint alternate - thin and dense. But on the black plane it is impossible to find a single brush mark - the square looks uniform.
Attempts by convinced fans of figurative art alone, who believe that the artist is misleading them, to examine the canvas in order to find another original version under the top layer of painting have been made more than once. However, technological examination did not confirm the presence of any other image on this canvas.
Subsequently, Malevich, for various purposes, performed several original repetitions of the “Black Square”. There are now four known versions of the “Black Square”, differing in design, texture and color. All the author's repetitions of the painting are kept in Russia, in state collections: two works in Tretyakov Gallery, one in the Russian Museum and one in the Hermitage.
Interestingly, in 1893, a painting by Alphonse Allais with a blank black field of canvas, entitled “Battle of Negroes in a Deep Cave on a Dark Night,” was exhibited.
2. Black circle, 1923
Oil on canvas. 106×105.5 cm
“Black Circle” is one of the most famous paintings by Kazimir Malevich, the founder of a new movement in painting - Suprematism.
The painting belongs to the direction of Russian non-objective painting, called Suprematism, or “new pictorial realism” by K. S. Malevich. For K. S. Malevich, the objectlessness of Suprematism was called by him a conclusion from the objective world, a new aspect that opened nature, space, and the Universe to the artist. Suprematist forms “fly” and are in a state of weightlessness. The “Black Circle” was one of them for the artist three main modules of the new plastic system, the style-forming potential of the new plastic idea - Suprematism.
The painting was painted in 1915, later the author made versions of it for various exhibitions - the author’s repetitions. The first “Black Circle” was painted in 1915 and was exhibited at the “Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings “0.10”. Now kept in a private collection. The second version of the painting was created by Malevich’s students (A. Leporskaya, K. Rozhdestvensky, N. Suetin) under his leadership in 1923. This painting is included in the triptych: “Black Square” - “Black Cross” - “Black Circle”. Currently kept in the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.
3. Red Square, 1915
Oil on canvas. 53×53 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
“Red Square” is a painting by Kazimir Malevich, painted in 1915. The title on the back is “A Woman in Two Dimensions.” It is a red quadrangle on a white background, slightly different in shape from a square. Exhibited at the 1915 exhibition. In the exhibition catalog of 1915, it received a second title - “Pictorial realism of a peasant woman in two dimensions.” Currently located in the Russian Museum.
In 1920, Malevich wrote about this painting that “in the hostel it acquired further significance” “as a signal of revolution.”
Ksana Blank compares Malevich's Suprematism with the work of Leo Tolstoy. In particular, Tolstoy’s story “Notes of a Madman” describes the room where Fyodor begins to experience mortal melancholy: “A clean whitewashed square room. I remember how painful it was for me that this room was exactly square. There was one window, with a red curtain.” That is, a red square on a white background is, in fact, a symbol of melancholy. Malevich himself explained the concept of his first “Black Square” that “the square is a feeling, the white space is the emptiness behind this feeling.” Ksana Blank comes to the conclusion that, as in Tolstoy’s story, the red square on a white background graphically depicts the fear of death and emptiness. However, this interpretation of Ksana Blank completely contradicts the title of the painting: “Woman in Two Dimensions,” which Malevich left on its back.
4. Red cavalry gallops, 1928-1932
Oil on canvas. 91×140 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Painted in 1928-1932, the exact date is unknown; Malevich put an earlier date on many of his later paintings. IN present moment kept in the Russian Museum.
The picture is divided into three parts: sky, earth and people (red cavalry). The ratio of the width of the earth and the sky in the proportion of 0.618 ( golden ratio). Cavalry of three groups of four riders, each rider blurred, possibly a cavalry of four ranks. The earth is drawn from 12 colors.
For a long time, the painting was the only abstract work of the artist recognized by the official history of Soviet art, which was facilitated by its name and depiction of the events of the October Revolution. Malevich put on back side date 18, although in fact it was written later.
5. Suprematist composition, 1916
Oil on canvas. 88.5 cm×71 cm cm
Private collection
The painting was painted by the artist in 1916. In 1919-20 she exhibited in Moscow. In 1927, Malevich exhibited the painting at exhibitions in Warsaw, and later in Berlin, where the painting remained after Casimir left for the USSR in June 1927. The painting was later given to the German architect Hugo Hering, who sold it to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where it was kept for about 50 years. years.
Throughout the 20th century, the painting was repeatedly exhibited at various exhibitions, mainly European. The Amsterdam collection of Malevich's works - the largest outside the former USSR - was acquired by the city authorities in 1958 for a substantial sum of 120 thousand guilders at that time from the heirs of the famous architect Hugo Haring. He took these paintings out of Nazi Germany, where they were subject to destruction as “degenerate art.” Malevich’s paintings fell into Haring’s hands by accident: the artist left more than a hundred canvases under his supervision in 1927, when they were exhibited in Berlin, and the author himself was urgently summoned to his homeland.
When in 2003-2004. The museum exhibited Malevich's paintings in the United States; the artist's heirs challenged the rights of Haring (and, accordingly, the museum) to dispose of them. After a 4-year trial, the parties reached a settlement agreement, under the terms of which the museum ceded five significant paintings from its collection to the heirs. After 17 years of legal disputes, the painting was returned to the artist's heirs.
On November 3, 2008, at Sotheby's auction in New York, the painting was sold to an unknown buyer for $60,002,500, becoming one of the most expensive paintings in history by a Russian artist.
6. Winter landscape, 1930
Oil on canvas. 54x48.5 cm
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Image winter day in this painting corresponds to the artist’s desire to change traditions and use different means of expression than before. The style of writing is primitivist, the picture seems to have been painted by an inept child’s hand, when there are no skills to draw complex objects yet, and an inexperienced artist draws what he sees with geometric figures. Malevich, an experienced artist, specifically used this method to convey the feeling of a winter day. His trees are made up of circles that are meant to represent caps of snow. The figure in the background shows how deep the snow is. The artist uses pure, saturated colors that are unconventional to depict winter.
7. Cow and violin, 1913
Oil on wood 48.8 x 25.8 cm.
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
In 1913, between visits to St. Petersburg, Malevich found himself in Kuntsevo, not far from Nemchinovka, where he and his family rented a dacha - it was much cheaper than renting an apartment in Moscow. The lack of money was chronic. Sometimes there was not enough money even for canvas - and then furniture was used. Three shelves of an ordinary bookcase were destined to gain immortality, becoming three paintings by Malevich. “Toilet Box”, “Non-Stop Station”, “Cow and Violin” have the same dimensions, and in the corners of their wooden rectangles, sealed round holes are visible, through which the racks that once connected them once passed.
According to Malevich, the fundamental law of creativity was the “law of contrasts,” which he also called “the moment of struggle.” The first picture that clearly embodied the paradox of the open law was the Cow and the Violin. It is noteworthy that the author considered it necessary to explain the shocking meaning of the plot with a detailed inscription on the back: “An illogical comparison of two forms - “a cow and a violin” - as a moment of struggle with logic, naturalness, petty-bourgeois meaning and prejudices. K. Malevich.” In “The Cow and the Violin” Malevich deliberately combined two forms, two “quotations” symbolizing various areas art.
8. Grinder, 1913
Oil on canvas 79.5x79.5 cm
Yale University Art Gallery
The painting "The Grinder" was painted by Kazemir Malevich in 1913. The painting is currently in the Yale University Art Gallery. Currently, "The Grinder" is a classic painting of Russian Cubo-Futurism. Another name for the painting is “The Flickering Principle.” It is this that perfectly indicates the artist’s thought. In the picture we see a repetition of countless fragmented contours and silhouettes, which are in a gray-blue color. When looking at the picture, you can feel the flickering process of sharpening a knife. The grinder finds himself at different points in space at the same time.
9. Reaper, 1912
Oil on canvas 68x60 cm
Astrakhan Regional Art Gallery named after. B.M. Kustodieva, Astrakhan
Malevich’s paintings are very famous, which are usually attributed to the first peasant series - these are such paintings as “The Reaper”, “The Carpenter”, “Harvesting Rye” and other paintings. These paintings clearly show the turning point in Malevich’s vision of creativity. The figures of peasants busy with daily concerns are spread over the entire field of the picture; they are primitivistically simplified, deliberately enlarged and deformed in the name of greater expressiveness, iconographic in the sound of color and strictly maintained flatness. Villagers, their work and life are exalted and glorified. Malevich’s peasants, as if composed of curved sheets of hard material with a metallic sheen, for all their sketchiness, initially had recognizable forms of real male and female figures. Roughly carved heads and powerful bodies were most often placed in profile; the characters depicted from the front impressed with their monumentality.
10. Self-portrait, 1933
Oil on canvas 73 x 66 cm
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
This unexpected realistic “Self-Portrait”, created in 1933, became the creative testament of the great Russian avant-garde artist. By that time, he had already developed a terrible illness; he had little time to live. By the way, some researchers claim that the development of prostate cancer was provoked by specific methods of influence used on Malevich during interrogations in 1930. Be that as it may, the master left unbroken. And this portrait, clearly focused on high Renaissance examples, irrefutably proves this. Malevich does not give up anything (the Suprematist background of the picture alone is worth it!), asserting the artist’s right to free creativity, which was prohibited in a totalitarian state that was preoccupied with the structure earthly paradise. The very granite statuesque pose, the solemn gesture itself - all this is evidence that even on the verge of death Malevich does not renounce his mission.
Heraclitus of Ephesus - ancient Greek philosopher, founder of dialectics. The teaching is based on the idea of the constant variability of all things, the unity of opposites, governed by the eternal law of Logos-fire.
Very little information has been preserved about the life of Heraclitus of Ephesus. Scientific debate is still ongoing about the reliability of most of them. It is believed that Heraclitus had no teachers. Apparently, he was familiar with the teachings of many of his contemporaries and predecessors, but he said of himself that he was “nobody’s listener” and “learned from himself.” Contemporaries nicknamed him “Gloomy”, “Dark”. The reason for this was his manner of formulating his thoughts in a mysterious, not always understandable form, as well as a clear tendency towards misanthropy and melancholy. In this regard, he was sometimes contrasted with the “laughing sage” Democritus.
Origin
It is known that Heraclitus was born and lived all his life in the city of Ephesus, located on the western coast of Asia Minor (the territory of modern Turkey). The time of birth of the philosopher is approximately 544-541. BC e. Such assumptions are made based on information that during the 69th Olympiad, held in 504-501. BC e., Heraclitus had already entered the age of “acme”. This is what the ancient Greeks called the period when a person reached physical and spiritual maturity - the age of about 40 years.
The family of Heraclitus was of royal origin; in his family the title of basileus (king-priest) was inherited. There is a version that his father’s name was Heracontus, other sources (more reliable) call him Bloson. One of the representatives of the family, Androcles, was the founder of Ephesus. Even in his youth, Heraclitus decided to devote his life to philosophy and resigned his inherited high powers, voluntarily ceding them to his younger brother. According to the tradition of those times, he settled at Ephesus Temple Artemis and daily indulged in reflection. By the way, it was this temple in 356 BC. e. It was burned by a certain Herostratus, who dreamed of leaving his name for centuries.
Heraclitean dialectic, logos-fire
The views of Heraclitus come closest to those of the representatives of the Ionian school ancient Greek philosophy. They were connected by the idea that everything that exists is one and has a certain origin, expressed in a specific type of matter. For Heraclitus, the cause and beginning of the world was fire, existing everywhere and in everything, constantly changing, “burning up and dying out according to measure.” From time to time, a “world fire” occurs, after which the cosmos is completely destroyed, but only to be reborn. It was Heraclitus who first used the word “cosmos” in the meaning of the universe, the universe, known today.
The connection of everything with everything, the struggle of opposites and the constant variability of the world - main idea philosophy of Heraclitus, the foundation of the future development of dialectics. There is nothing permanent and absolute, everything is relative. The world is eternal and at its core is the cycle of substances and elements: earth, fire, air, water. It is Heraclitus who is credited with the authorship of the phrases that everything flows and changes, and about the river that cannot be entered twice.
The opposites are identical, the discord between them is eternal and through it they pass into each other every second: day into night, life into death, evil into good. Also vice versa. Thus, according to Heraclitus, war is the meaning and source of any process, “the father and king of everything.” However, all this variability is not chaos; it has its own boundaries, rhythms and measure.
World processes are governed by an unchangeable fate, a special universal law, which Heraclitus recognizes as the value of all values. His name is Logos. Fire and logos are two elements of a single whole, eternally living soul nature with which man should be “conformed.” According to Heraclitus, everything that seems motionless and constant to people is just a deception of the senses. The philosopher says that meeting the logos every day, people are at enmity with it; the true seems alien to them.
The structure of the human soul
The philosopher’s misanthropy extended to people in general and to the citizens of Ephesus in particular: “they themselves are not aware of what they say and do.” This gave him another nickname: "The Crying One." He was so distressed by observing the stupidity around him that at times he shed tears of impotent rage. Heraclitus considered ignorance one of the most terrible vices, and called ignorant those who were lazy to think, easily succumbed to suggestion and preferred the pursuit of wealth to the improvement of the soul.
The philosopher believed that the path to wisdom lies through unity with nature, but very few are given the opportunity to achieve the goal: “For me, one is worthy of thousands, if he is the best.” At the same time, simply accumulating knowledge cannot teach a person to think: “much knowledge does not teach intelligence.” "Barbarism" human souls Heraclitus explains it very simply: they are vaporous and fueled by the warmth of the universal fire. According to the philosopher, souls bad people contain a lot of moisture, and souls the best people extremely dry and emit light, which indicates their fiery nature.
Political and religious views
Heraclitus was not a supporter of tyranny, just as he did not support democracy. He considered the crowd too unreasonable to be entrusted with governing a city or country. Despising human vices, the philosopher said that animals become tame when living with people, while people only run wild in each other’s company. When the Ephesians turned to him with a request to draw up a wise code of laws for them, Heraclitus refused: “You have a bad government and you yourself live badly.” However, when he was invited by the Athenians or the king of Persia, Darius, who had heard about his fame, he refused them too, choosing to stay in his hometown.
The philosopher resolutely rejected the polytheistic beliefs and rituals common to those times. The only deity he recognized was the eternal logos-fire. Heraclitus argued that the world was not created by any of the gods or people, but in other world people expect something they don't expect. The philosopher believed that he had achieved fiery enlightenment: he had discovered the truth and conquered all vices. He was confident that thanks to his wisdom, his name would live as long as the human race existed.
Reasoning about the nature of things
The only work of Heraclitus that scientists know about is “On Nature”. It was not preserved in its entirety, but was passed on to descendants in the form of about one and a half hundred fragments, which were included in the works of later authors (Plutarch, Plato, Diogenes, etc.). The essay contained three parts: about the universe, about the state and about God. Heraclitus tended to speak metaphorically; he often used poetic images and allegories, which often makes it difficult to understand the deeper meaning of his scattered quotes and paraphrases. The best research work in this direction is considered to be published at the beginning of the 20th century. the work of the German classical philologist Hermann Diels “Fragments of the Presocratics.”
Hermitage and death
One day the philosopher went to the mountains and became a hermit. Herbs and roots served as his food. Some evidence indicates that Heraclitus died of dropsy by covering himself with dung in the hope that its heat would evaporate excess fluid from the body. Some researchers are inclined to see this as a connection with Zoroastrian burial traditions, with which the philosopher was allegedly familiar. Other scientists are of the opinion that Heraclitus died later and under different circumstances. Exact date The death of the philosopher is unknown, but most assumptions agree on 484-481 BC. e. In 1935, one of the craters on visible side The moon was named after Heraclitus of Ephesus.
Heraclitus of Ephesus had practically no followers; “Heraclitians” in most cases refer to people who unilaterally accepted the philosopher’s ideas. The most famous is Cratylus, who became the hero of one of Plato’s dialogues. Bringing Heraclitus's thoughts to the point of absurdity, he argued that nothing definite can be said about reality. In antiquity, the ideas of Heraclitus had a noticeable influence on the teachings of the Stoics, Sophists and Plato, and later on philosophical thought new time.
HERACLITUS of Ephesus(lat. Heraclitus, Greek Iraklitos) (about 550 BC, Ephesus, Asia Minor - about 480 BC), ancient Greek philosopher, one of the largest representatives of the Ionian school of philosophy. He considered fire to be the origin of all things. The creator of the concept of continuous change, the doctrine of “logos”, which was interpreted as “god”, “destiny”, “necessity”, “eternity”. Heraclitus was credited with the famous saying “you cannot step into the same river twice.” Along with and Heraclitus determined the foundations of ancient and all European philosophy. Revealing the comprehensive mystery of the familiar world of myth, custom, and traditional wisdom, Heraclitus reveals existence itself as a mystery.
A native of Ephesus, son of Bloson, Heraclitus belonged to an ancient aristocratic family dating back to the founder of Ephesus, Androcles. Thanks to his origin, Heraclitus had a number of “royal” privileges and a hereditary priestly rank at the Temple of Artemis of Ephesus. However, during his years of life, power in Ephesus no longer belonged to the aristocrats. The philosopher did not participate in public life city, he renounced his titles, spoke sharply negatively about the city order and was contemptuous of the “crowd”. According to him, “the Ephesians deserve to be hanged en masse” because they expelled his friend Hermodorus, “saying: “Let no one among us be the best.” He considered the city's laws so hopelessly bad that he refused his fellow citizens' requests to give them new ones, noting that it was better to play with children than to participate in government affairs.
Heraclitus did not leave Ephesus and refused the invitations of the Athenians and the Persian king Darius. According to some testimonies, Heraclitus was a student of Xenophanes and Hippasus the Pythagorean, while according to others, he was not anyone’s student, but “learned everything from himself.” Numerous anecdotes about the death of Heraclitus are based on some of his sayings, misinterpreted and passed on by hearsay.
The main work of Heraclitus, the book “On Nature,” has been preserved in fragments, but is extensively cited in later works. ancient philosophers(, etc.). This book consists of three parts: about nature, about the state and about God, and is distinguished by the originality of its content, imagery and aphoristic language. At the same time, the book is difficult to understand, for which already in ancient times Heraclitus received the nickname Skoutinos (Dark).
Heraclitus's main idea is that nothing is permanent in nature. Everything in nature is like the movement of a river, which cannot be entered twice. One constantly passes into another, changing its state. The symbolic expression of universal change for Heraclitus is fire. Fire is continuous self-destruction; it lives by its own death. Heraclitus introduced something new philosophical concept- logos (word), meaning by this the principle of the rational unity of the world, which orders the world through a mixture of opposite principles. Opposites are in an eternal struggle, giving rise to new phenomena (“discord is the father of everything”). Human reason and logos have a common nature, but logos exists in eternity and governs the cosmos, of which man is a particle.
Tradition has preserved the image of Heraclitus the sage, a highly intelligent loner who despised people (and those who were famous as sages) for not understanding what they themselves said and did. Having interpreted the teachings of Heraclitus in the spirit of the common world sorrow about the transience of life and everything in the world, popular philosophy saw in him the prototype of the “crying sage,” just as in Democritus it found the type of the “laughing sage.” The wisdom of Heraclitus, detached from the knowledgeable ignorance of people and living in the vicinity of the simple wisdom of being, is captured in a characteristic scene: some wanderers, who wanted to look at the famous sage, stop at the threshold of a wretched home, embarrassed by the sight of a nondescript man warming himself by the fireplace. “Come in, they hear, and the gods live here too” (Aristotle, “On the Parts of Animals”).
Heraclitus expressed himself so concisely and ambiguously. His sayings are often similar to folklore riddles or the sayings of an oracle, which, according to Heraclitus, “... neither speaks nor conceals, but gives signs.” Some believe that by writing his work (“Muses” or “On Nature”) deliberately dark and giving it for safekeeping in the temple of Artemis of Ephesus, Heraclitus supposedly wanted to protect it from the ignorant crowd. Others see here precisely the clearly expressed darkness and mystery of the very thing that is being said. Aristotle explains the darkness of Heraclitus's sayings by their syntactic uncertainty, as a result of which the statement can be read in different ways. The sayings of Heraclitus indeed reveal a thoughtful structure, a special poetics. They are full of alliteration, word play, internally connected by chiasmus, inversions, non-union syntax or parataxis, characteristic of the structure of internal speech, speech addressed not so much to others as to oneself, listening to oneself, ready for rethinking, for a return to the element of thinking silence. When the tragedian Euripides asked Socrates about the work of Heraclitus, he replied: “What I understood perfectly, what I didn’t understand, I think, too, but by the way, we need a real Delian diver.”
The question that Heraclitus answers is how everything is one, or what is the (one) being of (multiple) beings? The most famous answer to this question is the thesis “everything flows, nothing is at rest.” In the existence of many, a single being flows (flows, occurs). To be means to constantly become, to flow from form to form, to be renewed, just as the same river carries new and new waters. Another metaphor for existence as something constantly happening in Heraclitus is combustion, fire. The structure of a self-sufficient world (“cosmos”) is “an ever-living fire, gradually flaring up, gradually extinguishing.” One being as if it flares up with the multitude of beings, but also extinguishes in it, just as beings, flaring up with being, go out in its unity. Another metaphor for the same thing is a game: each time a new game of the same game. Becoming and permanence, the multiplicity of existing and the unity of being are combined when the flow is thought of as falling into itself, combustion and extinction, beginning and end coincide. The unified existence of the multitude, conceived as a stream flowing into itself, or a combustion extinguishing as it flares up, is more accurately (and more mysteriously) conveyed by understanding the whole as an internal interconnection of the opposite: the existence (flow) of night and day is mutual flow and internal co-presence, life lives in confrontation death, but death also “lives” by this; the immortality of immortals and the mortality of mortals are mutual; by this same confrontation, the opposing is firmly linked into a single harmony of existence, which is similar to the “harmony of the bow and the lyre.” Heraclitus conveys the world as a confrontation of the opposite with the image of a world-battle, a world-battle (“polemos”). “You need to know that the battle is universal, and litigation is true, and everything becomes litigation and mutual responsibility.” “War is the father of all, the king of all: it declares some gods, others people, some it creates slaves, others free.”
The image of a general battle, which embraces all things as a whole and in which each thing is captured in what it actually is, also turns out to be an image of understanding everything and everyone. This is the universal mind, in contrast to particular misunderstandings, the one and only wisdom, corresponding to the structure of existence itself, to the way the multitude of existence is folded into the unity of being. This warehouse, “syllable” is similar to how a single word of a poem is composed of many words, a cosmos of speech that carries within itself “the image of the world revealed in the word” (). Hence the theme of "logos", which, judging by some fragments, special meaning for Heraclitus. The work (“logos”) of Heraclitus opened with the words: “Concerning this logos of existence, people are always incomprehensible...”. Aristotle explains with this example the “darkness” of Heraclitus: if “always” is referred to as “being,” it seems that we are talking about the “logos” of existence itself, but if it is “unintelligible,” then we simply mean the work of Heraclitus. But it is precisely this ambiguity that is important for Heraclitus. The Greek word “logos” means “word”, “speech”, “writing”, “report”, but also the accountable itself, “state of affairs”, “balance of forces”. “Logos” - the word about the whole is intended to convey how everything is folded into the integrity of “logos” - being. “Not to me, but to the “logos,” it is wise to agree: everything is one.” “Logos” is a form, something general that allows one to convey the structure of things with the corresponding type of speech. Hence the “darkness” of Heraclitus’s sayings: being, which occurs in the confrontation of things, is grasped by thought, living in the contradiction of speeches.
With a name Heraclitus from Ephesus(540-480 BC) is associated with the emergence of another strong philosophical school of Ancient Greece. About 130 fragments have survived from the work of Heraclitus, which, according to some sources, was called “On Nature”, according to others - “Muses”.
Heraclitus explained in a natural way such natural phenomena as wind, lightning, thunder, lightning and others. Heraclitus considered fire to be the basis of everything. In his understanding, fire, on the one hand, is similar to the primordial matter of the representatives of the Milesian school and is both the fundamental principle of the world (“arche”) and the basic element (“stocheiron”). On the other hand, fire is for him the most adequate symbol of the dynamics of development, the gradualness of constant changes.
In the intuitive understanding of development as the unity and struggle of opposites, of all the pre-Socratic thinkers, Heraclitus advanced the farthest.
The central motive of Heraclitus' teaching was the principle of everything flowing (PANTA REI). He compared the constant course of development to the flow of a river, which cannot be entered twice. Variety of manifestations existing world Heraclitus explains the changes occurring in the original “primordial matter”. One matter, according to his views, “lives by the death” of another. Thus, Heraclitus comes very close to understanding “creative negation.”
Very important importance is attached in the views of Heraclitus, to use a modern term, determinism, those. universal conditionality of all events and phenomena. Everything, according to him, is governed by fate or necessity (NIKE). The concept of necessity is very closely related to the understanding of regularity - law (LOGOS). Logos, according to Heraclitus, is as eternal as the uncreated and indestructible world. Both the world and primordial matter and logos exist objectively, i.e. regardless of human consciousness.
Heraclitus was one of the first to draw attention to the nature of human consciousness. Knowledge, according to his views, strives to comprehend the essence, i.e. logos He pays considerable attention to the difference between “many knowledge” and true wisdom. “Much knowledge,” unlike true wisdom, does not contribute to real knowledge of the principles of the world. Human consciousness - soul (PSYCHE) - is subordinate to logos.
Thus, Heraclitean philosophy does not represent an integral theoretical system of a dialectical approach to the world, but at least here we can talk about an intuitive explanation of the essential features of dialectics.
Dialectics is the art of argumentation, the science of logic.
Eleatic school.
Xenophanes of Colophon(565-470 BC) can be considered the ideological predecessor of the Eleatic school.
Like the Milesians, Xenophanes recognizes the materiality of the world, which, unlike them, he considers constantly the same, unchanging. Xenophanes also strove for a naturalistic explanation of natural phenomena.
Xenophanes considered the world in its entirety to be God. He understands God as a being different from people. For him, God thus becomes a concept symbolizing the unlimitedness and infinity (both spatially and temporally) of the material world. At the same time, he understands universal existence as eternal and unchanging, which imparts to his philosophy the features of immobility. Along with abstract unity, manifestations of the diversity of the world are also allowed.
Xenophanes characterizes the mythical gods as products of human imagination and formulates the idea that it was not the gods who created people, but people created gods in their own image and likeness.
Xenophanes' ontological views are closely related to his understanding of knowledge. Feelings cannot provide the basis for true knowledge, but lead only to opinions. It is feelings that lead to the conviction that the world has many faces and is changeable. It is precisely this skeptical approach to sensory knowledge became characteristic of the entire Eleatic school.
Actually, the founder of the Eleatic school was Parmenides of Elea(540-470 BC).
Fundamental to Parmenides, as well as to the entire Eleatic school, is the science of being, of existence. It was Parmenides who first developed the philosophical concept of “being.” Existence is not only eternal in its existence, it is also unchangeable.
Parmenides completely excludes movement from the real world, from the realm of being. According to Parmenides, what does not exist does not exist. Everything that exists is a being (being) that is everywhere, in all places, and therefore it cannot move. 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.
One of the most prominent students of Parmenides was Zeno(born c. 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, in his aporia we're talking about 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 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.
Pythagorean school
Life Pythagoras falls on the period approximately between 584-500. BC According to Diogenes Laertius, he wrote three books: “On Education,” “On Community Affairs,” and “On Nature.” A number of other works that were created by the Pythagorean school are also attributed to him.
Pythagoras was engaged in solving geometric problems, but also went further. He also explores the relationships between numbers. The study of the relationship between numbers required a very developed level of abstract thinking, and this fact was reflected in the philosophical views of Pythagoras. The interest with which he studied the nature of numbers and the relationships between them led to a certain absolutization of numbers, to their mysticism. Numbers were raised to the level of the real essence of all things.
The entire Pythagorean doctrine of the essence of being is historically the first attempt to comprehend the quantitative side of the world. The mathematical approach to the world is to explain certain quantitative relationships between really existing things. The ability to mentally manipulate numbers (as abstract objects) leads to the fact that these numbers can be understood as independently existing objects. From here it is only a step to ensure that these numbers are proclaimed to be the actual essence of things. This is exactly what is done in the philosophy of Pythagoras. At the same time, existing opposites are subject to the general universal harmony of the cosmos; they do not collide, but fight, but are subordinated to the harmony of the spheres.
Pythagoras considered religion and morality to be the main attributes of ordering society. His teaching about the immortality of the soul (and its reincarnation) is based on the principles of the complete subordination of man to the gods.
Morality for Pythagoras was the justification for a certain “social harmony”, based on the absolute subordination of the demos and aristocracy. Therefore, its most important part was unconditional submission.
Pythagoreanism is thus the first idealistic philosophical direction V ancient Greece. For them, mathematical problems result in mysticism and the deification of numbers, which they consider to be the only truly existing thing.
