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Бугай Д.В. - Ранняя греческая философия и Платон - 1. Введение — Transcript

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0:17So, the topic of our lecture today is
0:20an introduction, right? There is this
0:25specific genre of introduction that was
0:27once especially popular in German
0:29scholarship. Yeah. People even joked
0:33about the Germans 'love for writing all
0:35sorts of introductions to elephants.
0:38Yeah. And so, today we have an
0:40introduction to elephant-ology. Meaning
0:45, we need to figure out today exactly
0:47what we are going to be doing. And also
0:54how we are going to be doing it, how we
0:56will approach this. Again, not in a
1:00technical or academic sense, but in a
1:02conceptual one. Yeah. Accordingly,
1:11let's start with the fact that in this
1:13semester, within the framework of this
1:15course on the history of philosophy,
1:17you will actually enter, for the first
1:19time, the world that constitutes
1:21philosophy itself. I think you already
1:31know perfectly well that the word "
1:33philosophy" has Greek origins. And to
1:39use slightly archaic language, the
1:41Greeks discovered the very idea of
1:43philosophy, because of course, last
1:45semester you became acquainted with
1:47what is called mythopoetic thought—of
1:56the peoples of the East, right, and
1:58this is a very important prerequisite
2:00for what would eventually appear in
2:02Greece. But it was the Greeks who
2:09actually took the step that hadn't been
2:11taken before them. And, accordingly,
2:19when you were, for example,
2:20interpreting some Akkadian or Egyptian
2:23text, you would read the text and then
2:25try to extract its meaning from it. But
2:32the creators of that text themselves
2:34would not have understood you, because
2:36for them, that text—or rather, its
2:38ritual performance during calendar
2:40holidays—was its meaning. And the
2:45meaning you spoke of when you were
2:47discussing, for example, the cosmogonic
2:50ideas of the Enuma Elish, those ideas
2:52are not in the Enuma Elish itself. It
2:57just says that when on high the heavens
2:59had not been named, and below the earth
3:01had no name. Yes, and only a European
3:10interpretation, which is based on the
3:12Greek perspective—on the fact that
3:14the Greeks distinguished a logical
3:16domain within the world of human
3:18perceptions, a domain that does not
3:20coincide with the world of myth and
3:22imagery—is what gave rise to what
3:24historians of civilization and
3:26philosophy call the Greek miracle.
3:36Because the Greek miracle essentially
3:38consisted of the fact that a special
3:40domain was carved out of human
3:42experience. A domain for which, once
3:46again, we have no other word but the
3:48Greek word. The realm of the logical,
3:52the realm of abstract ideas, the realm
3:54of general concepts. Actually, this
4:01semester we will be looking at how this
4:03realm of logical meaning was discovered
4:05in Greece, because for the Greeks
4:07themselves, this discovery did not
4:09happen immediately. And we will begin
4:20by discussing the moments that preceded
4:22this discovery of a completely unique
4:24sphere of human experience, one linked
4:26to rationality, which is what allowed
4:29the Greeks to create not only rational
4:31philosophy, but also what can be called
4:33, in the Greek sense, scientific
4:35knowledge. And in the Greek sense,
4:42scientific knowledge is, above all, the
4:44mathematical sciences. Because the
4:50seeds of mathematics certainly existed
4:52in Northern Europe, in Egypt, and in
4:54Mesopotamia, but they never had what
4:56was born among the Greeks. They lacked
5:03the actual procedure of rational proof
5:05for any given mathematical proposition.
5:11So. Thanks to the Greeks, this domain
5:13of rational proof appears and becomes
5:15the very foundation of ancient culture,
5:18manifesting itself in many different
5:20ways across various fields. It
5:27manifests directly in the scientific
5:29field, and it appears in the sphere of
5:31public life, where a special, rational
5:33rhetorical technique emerges for the
5:36Greeks. Speech appears in the field of
5:41political thought. In fact, it
5:46permeates this world of rationality, a
5:48world of general concepts and ideas
5:50that became something independent and
5:52autonomous. And this is precisely what
5:59happens among the Greeks. And
6:04philosophy, the history of Greek
6:06philosophy, shows exactly how this
6:08process unfolds. This semester, we will
6:20essentially observe how, starting from
6:23the very beginnings of the Greek
6:25worldview in the poems of Homer and
6:27Hesiod, this process gradually reaches
6:29a decisive phase, a central moment in
6:31the development of Greek thought—
6:33namely, Platonic philosophy—where the
6:35discovery, or rather the full
6:37revelation and manifestation of this
6:39rational, this logical moment, takes
6:42place. In the next semester, we will
6:54look at the more formal and technical
6:56side of this process, in the form of
6:58Aristotle’s fully complete
6:59philosophical system. So, our progress
7:07in the field of ancient philosophy will
7:10move in this direction. Old historians
7:16of philosophy were very fond of
7:18denoting this with the formula "from
7:20myth to logos," yes. Uh, but I would
7:23say: it’s not simply a move from myth
7:26to logos here. I would say: from this
7:31world of immediate human experience,
7:33yes, to a very distinct world of
7:35logical, rational reflection. Yes, this
7:43path, in Greek, this path, in fact,
7:45this is the way Greek thought moves, uh
7:48, Greek thought moves. This is, as it
7:54were, the very first designation, so
7:56that it’s clear to you how, uh, I am
7:59placing the accents here, yes, because,
8:01again, these processes are very complex
8:04; the accents could be placed quite
8:06differently. One could, and there were,
8:13especially in the 20th century, uh,
8:16thinkers, philosophers, historians of
8:18philosophy who believed that Greek
8:20philosophy is not a movement from myth
8:23to Logos, but, for example, that it is
8:25a movement of myth itself, and that
8:27Logos is only a specific, peculiar form
8:30of the unfolding of myth and religious
8:32thought. In reality, there are a mass
8:39of concepts, as it were, connected with
8:41this circle of problems. These
8:47questions are, in fact, not, uh, closed
8:49, and they cannot be closed because, uh
8:52, whenever we discuss these questions,
8:54resolve these questions, so much
8:56depends, in fact, on the premises from
8:58which we ourselves proceed when we
9:00resolve these questions and examine
9:03these problems. In order for you to
9:11have a clear general picture of the
9:13development of ancient philosophy,
9:15let’s, uh, have me give you the most
9:17general chronology of the development
9:19of, in fact, ancient philosophy. From
9:25beginning to end. Uh, look, there is a
9:29symbolic date. It is not a real date;
9:33it is precisely a symbolic date for the
9:35birth, uh, of Greek philosophy. It is
9:41May 28, 585. May 28, 585. The year 585.
9:51Uh, it is considered that on this day a
9:53solar eclipse occurred, which was
9:55predicted by Thales. And this day and
10:01this year are, as it were, the symbolic
10:04birth of Greek, Greek thought. Uh, and
10:13it also is, naturally, the beginning of
10:15the first great period of the
10:17development of this thought, which, uh,
10:19can be called, very approximately,
10:22archaic Greek thought. Archaic Greek
10:29thought, which we will be dealing with
10:31a lot this semester. And let’s go
10:34chronologically. This is, accordingly,
10:36the beginning of the 6th century BC.
10:39Get used to it; we count the year 585
10:42as the beginning of the 6th century BC.
10:45Yes, we count, since we are still, uh,
10:48BC, our counting goes in reverse, yes?
10:53And so, the beginning of the 6th
10:55century BC and approximately the middle
10:58of the 5th century BC. The middle of
11:01the 5th century BC. Archaic Greek
11:05thought, which, uh, I would formulate
11:19the main, the fundamental significance
11:21of archaic Greek thought as the initial
11:23groping, the initial exploration of
11:25certain foundational lines of reasoning
11:27, so that it's clear what we are
11:29talking about. For example, in
11:42Parmenides' poem On Nature, right? A
11:47poem that is quite complex to interpret
11:49, yet in it, a fundamental
11:51philosophical concept is being felt out
11:54, namely, being, right? And, for
11:59example, in the works of Parmenides '
12:01student Zeno, the range of problems
12:03connected with the logical
12:05interpretation of the concept of motion
12:07is discussed for the first time. Yes,
12:11if we look at other representatives of
12:14archaic Greek thought, for instance,
12:16those who lived in Miletus, then here
12:24arises for the first time something
12:26like a non-religious and non-ritual
12:28cosmogony, that is, a cosmogony not
12:30tied to a ritual. When you studied
12:38cosmogonic texts last semester—be
12:40they Egyptian, Akkadian, Sanskrit, or
12:42Chinese—all these texts, in one way
12:45or another, where there are elements of
12:48cosmogony and theogony, are tied to a
12:50specific ritual, that is, to a specific
12:53religious act. Well, accordingly, in
13:00Miletus and Ionia, cosmogonies appear
13:02that are not tied to ritual and which,
13:05again, depict the development of the
13:07cosmos outside of a ritual-religious
13:09context. Yes, a concept appears of a
13:15certain natural, original life of the
13:18cosmos that does not depend on the
13:20actions which the person—well, the
13:22community, not the individual—
13:24performs. We do not yet have an
13:28individual person; he is only just
13:30gradually beginning to emerge. The
13:32community, uh, was, as it were,
13:36performing the ritual. And so in Ionia,
13:39texts appear where cosmogony is not
13:42tied to this ritual, the ritual of the
13:44community, yes. This period is very
13:48complex. It is complex in terms of
13:51sources, which I will speak about later
13:53, because almost nothing remains from
13:55this period. Only pathetic, so to speak
13:57, pathetic remnants remain, which in
13:59solemn philological language are called
14:02fragments. And fragments is simply a
14:04Latin word that means a splinter or
14:06shard. We have a very small number of
14:12thought-shards from this period, but it
14:14is precisely in this period that
14:15thought finds those starting points
14:17without which it would not have been
14:19able to move forward. This is,
14:25accordingly, the beginning of the 6th
14:27to the middle of the 5th century BC.
14:32The second period we will highlight is
14:34the period that can be called the Greek
14:36Enlightenment. And the Greek
14:40Enlightenment is a most important
14:41period, and we will also be talking
14:43about it in this semester. The Greek
14:46Enlightenment is a most important
14:47phenomenon in the life of all Greek
14:49culture in general. It has relevance
14:51not only to the history of philosophy.
14:54This is when an event occurs for the
14:56first time that will happen much more
14:58frequently later on. When abstract
15:03thought, yes, general reasoning about
15:05the nature of the cosmos, the nature of
15:08the polis, the nature of man, they
15:10become common property. Actually, what
15:14is the character of the Enlightenment?
15:17The Enlightenment consists in the fact
15:20that certain concepts find, eh, obtain,
15:23let's say, ah, broad, broad social
15:29recognition. And the Greek
15:33Enlightenment is this crucial moment
15:35when abstract thought ceases to be, as
15:37they say, the property of a few. It
15:42becomes a problem for society. And here
15:47arise very interesting contradictions
15:49and problems, which, again, eh,
15:51continue to be discussed to this day.
15:57Actually, is it even good to acquaint
15:59society with the results of theoretical
16:01research? Because when the Greek
16:08Enlightenment, so to speak, unfolded,
16:11when it gained its strength, then for
16:13some reason, precisely at this time, a
16:15severe crisis began in the Greek polis.
16:24And in the end, this spread of the
16:26Greek Enlightenment became the
16:28beginning of the end for the Greek
16:30polis, which, actually, after some, eh,
16:32100 years from the start of these
16:34processes, it effectively ceases to be
16:36that autonomous political unit it had
16:39been before. And this problem, actually
16:45, of how the Enlightenment affects, how
16:47it relates to and interacts with public
16:49life. Is later discussed by both Hegel
16:52and Nietzsche using the example of
16:54these processes in Greece. And this
16:59becomes a classic theme of
17:00philosophical reflection, because,
17:02actually, is philosophical reflection a
17:05good or an evil for society? What, as
17:11it were, to do with thought that
17:13depends on nothing and which has its
17:15own judgments regarding things on which
17:17society has its own, traditional,
17:19conventional judgments. This period is
17:25very interesting, because there,
17:27precisely with this contradictoriness
17:29of its own and the posing of, ah, the
17:32posing of these kinds of problems, yes.
17:36But this is also a very important time,
17:38we will talk about it later, because it
17:40is precisely at this time, as a result
17:42of the Greek Enlightenment, that what
17:44we can call the humanities is born.
17:46Right. Ah, well, we will talk about
17:49this later. The third period is,
17:53actually, perhaps the most fruitful,
17:56the most significant period. And this
17:59is, so to speak, the answer to the
18:01Greek Enlightenment. An answer that was
18:05given in the classical Greek philosophy
18:07of Plato and Aristotle. That is, the
18:10third period is, eh, I won't even be
18:13afraid of the word "classical" here. It
18:16is the classical Greek philosophy of
18:18Plato and Aristotle. Well, eh,
18:22accordingly, Plato was born in 428 BC,
18:25but his main activity falls not on the
18:285th century, because 428 is the 5th
18:31century, yes, his main activity falls
18:34on the 4th century. And Aristotle, he
18:39died, well, he was born in 384, but
18:42died in 322, right? So this is, roughly
18:47speaking, well, those 60 or 70 years of
18:53the 4th century, that is the classical
18:56period of Greek philosophy. It is
18:58classical for us. Firstly, because all
19:01the texts have survived. Plato's texts
19:03have been preserved completely,
19:05Aristotle's texts have been preserved.
19:09About 80 percent of Aristotle's work
19:11survived. But the point is not even the
19:18texts, but the fact that, thanks to
19:20Plato and Aristotle, that which is
19:22actually called philosophy arises and
19:24acquires a finished and definite form,
19:27right? And the fact is that before
19:37Plato and Aristotle, philosophy as a
19:39field of activity that knows itself and
19:42separates itself from other fields of
19:44activity did not really exist. Only
19:54with Plato and Aristotle does
19:55philosophy become philosophy in the
19:57sense that we still understand it today
19:59, right? Because if we look at this
20:08first period, the archaic period of
20:09early Greek thought, then those who
20:11were engaged in it either simply did
20:13not think about what they were doing,
20:15or they called their activity by the
20:17word "historia." The word that became
20:23our "history," yes, in Greek "historia"
20:26means observation. And they were
20:30engaged in observation. But it is only
20:36starting with Plato and Aristotle that
20:38the emergence of philosophy as a
20:40special sphere of human activity occurs
20:42. Moreover, again, to make it clear to
20:50you, for the Greeks, philosophy is not
20:52what is taught in universities and not
20:54what youth are taught. For Plato and
21:01Aristotle and for the entire subsequent
21:04Greek tradition, philosophy is a way of
21:06life that is consciously chosen by an
21:08adult, free, full-fledged citizen when
21:15he does not want to live, when he does
21:17not want to live a political life. When
21:20he...And for the Greeks, philosophy is
21:25a way of life and a form of leisure.
21:29But not leisure in our sense, because
21:31when we speak of leisure, for us it is
21:34like "work time, fun time." For us,
21:37leisure is entertainment, but for the
21:39Greeks, "work" is for slaves. And
21:44leisure is the only thing worthy of a
21:46free person. There is nothing good in
21:50work; slaves work. And a free person is
21:55either engaged in political activity,
21:57or, if he is above political activity,
22:00he is engaged in philosophy. So,
22:07accordingly, this is again a thing that
22:09is connected with the whole of human
22:12life and which, as it were, we will
22:14also talk about later, yes. That is as
22:21far as Plato and Aristotle are
22:23concerned. Again, we will discuss this
22:26in more detail when we reach that point
22:28in the course. The next major period,
22:32so that you have a complete picture, is
22:34the philosophy of the Hellenistic era.
22:38The philosophy of the Hellenistic era
22:41is roughly from 322 BC, that is, from
22:43the year of Aristotle's death to—well
22:45, again, all dates here are
22:47conventional, just as all dates upon
22:49which any chronology is based are
22:51actually a conventional thing. And 30
22:56BC. In 30 BC, Rome, in fact, absorbed
23:03the last remaining independent province
23:06of the Hellenistic world, Hellenistic
23:08Egypt, and so a new era begins from 30
23:11BC. There. And the Hellenistic period,
23:20from 322 BC to 30 BC, is a very
23:22fruitful time for the development of
23:25philosophy, because at this time
23:27philosophy becomes—well, again, there
23:30is that scary academic word that
23:32historians of philosophy of this period
23:34love: institutionalization. Philosophy
23:44becomes a generally recognized social
23:47institution, a universally acknowledged
23:49and well-known form of life, right? And
23:58it exists as a collection of
24:00philosophical schools, various
24:02philosophical schools. It is precisely
24:10in the Hellenistic era that philosophy
24:12is no longer just a single worldview;
24:15it is a multitude of schools where
24:17there is a teacher or a successor to a
24:19teacher, where there are students,
24:21where classes are held, where disputes
24:23take place, and so on. Furthermore, it
24:31is during this time, by the way, that
24:33the social image of the philosopher is
24:35formed. The philosopher acquires
24:39socially recognized attributes, so to
24:41speak. That is, if you see a person
24:45dressed in a rough cloak with a beard,
24:47necessarily with a beard, with a staff
24:53in his hand and a small bag over his
24:55shoulder, then you are looking at a
24:57philosopher. Right. Because the beard
25:02distinguishes him from the secular
25:04courtiers of the Hellenistic monarchies
25:06. He needs the staff because he does a
25:11lot of what you might call traveling.
25:15His cloak is rough because he does not
25:17concern himself with nice, expensive
25:19clothing. Right. Accordingly, the bag
25:25is necessary because inside are writing
25:28implements, that is, wax tablets and a
25:30metal stylus for recording his thoughts
25:32. So, accordingly, this is the
25:38Hellenistic era. In general terms,
25:43during the Hellenistic era, philosophy
25:45is mainly occupied with problems that
25:48are not of a general theoretical nature
25:50; it deals primarily with problems of
25:52individual ethics, because the polis no
25:54longer exists in the sense that it did
25:57before. I hope you remember from your
26:08ancient history course all those things
26:11related to the Greek cities losing
26:13their independence and, accordingly,
26:15their subordination to more extensive
26:17monarchical organisms. So. Finally, the
26:27last major period in the history of
26:30ancient philosophy is the period
26:32associated with philosophy in Rome.
26:37This is philosophy within the framework
26:39of the Roman Empire, respectively. And
26:42this is 30 BC. Well, this is our date
26:46for the end of the Hellenistic period.
26:49And a very representative date, 529 AD.
27:04The year 529 AD, when the great
27:06Byzantine emperor Justinian, the same
27:08one who carried out the famous legal
27:10reform, under whose reign an
27:12outstanding monument of legal thought
27:14was created, the Justinian Code itself,
27:17closed the last philosophical schools
27:19in Athens with his edict. He closed the
27:31Neoplatonic school in Athens and thus
27:33brought an end to the entire history of
27:35ancient philosophy. This late
27:42philosophy of the first five centuries
27:44AD is very specific because it is a
27:46religious philosophy. Very often, when
27:57people make such primitive comparisons,
27:59pitting Greek philosophy against
28:01Christianity, for example, or Greek
28:03philosophy against something else
28:05religious, they never remember this
28:08last, very long, very significant
28:10period of the development of Greek
28:12thought, when this thought becomes a
28:14religious-philosophical interpretation
28:16of sacred texts, and the texts of Plato
28:18and Aristotle become those sacred texts
28:21. This is a very specific form of
28:31religious philosophy that appears and
28:33exists around the texts of Plato and
28:35Aristotle. And by the way, the fact
28:42that the texts of Plato and Aristotle
28:44have reached us at all is something we
28:46largely owe to this period. And to its
28:51Byzantine successors. Because if these
28:57religious-philosophical schools had not
28:59existed, then these texts would not
29:01have reached us, just as the texts of
29:03the pre-Socratics and other earlier
29:05philosophers did not reach us. So, you
29:13see, for more than a thousand years
29:15philosophy developed and lived in the
29:17ancient world. I repeat, that the
29:26ancient world saw philosophy, it saw
29:28something different in philosophy than
29:30what the Christian world of the Middle
29:32Ages, or the world of the modern era or
29:34our own time, would later see in it.
29:41Because for the ancient world,
29:43philosophy was a special form, a
29:45special form of life for a free person
29:47with leisure. Yes, and many features of
29:55Greek philosophy are also connected
29:57with this. Let us now take a look. We
30:04have looked at what Greek philosophy is
30:06in a diachronic, so to speak,
30:08cross-section, in its chronological
30:10progression. Let us look at some
30:15general features of Greek philosophical
30:17thought. Well, I’ll start, perhaps,
30:22with another scary word, but maybe you
30:24already know it. It is the word that,
30:29since the second half of the 20th
30:31century, following Heidegger and
30:33Derrida, they love to use to describe
30:35Greek thought and its fundamental mode
30:37of existence. That word is logocentrism
30:43. This word, logocentrism—that is,
30:52the idea that this thought revolves
30:54around the logos, or that the logical
30:56element plays the leading role, it
30:59plays a prominent, outstanding role.
31:08What are we talking about here? Why?
31:11What is Greek logocentrism? For the
31:19Greeks—and this, again, is from very
31:21early on in the development of Greek
31:23culture and civilization—the realm of
31:26the word, the public word, was the most
31:28important area of human life. You might
31:40have a deeply ingrained sense in our
31:42culture—in a much later culture that
31:44has passed through many stages and
31:46phases—where a thinker is often
31:47someone who sits and thinks. Think of
31:54any sculpture by Rodin. A thinker is
31:58necessarily a person frozen in
32:00motionless reflection. Yes, for the
32:07Greeks, a philosopher or sage is
32:09primarily someone who speaks and
32:12reasons; this emphasis on solitary
32:14reflection, on navel-gazing, is absent.
32:22The Greeks didn't place the emphasis on
32:24those kinds of things. Greek philosophy
32:30, right up to the very late stages of
32:32its development, is tied to this realm
32:34of public speech. And therefore, it is
32:42very close to, and borders on, another
32:44discipline beloved by the Greeks:
32:46rhetoric. In Greek philosophical texts,
32:58especially starting from the time of
33:00Plato and Aristotle, the element of
33:02reasoning is practically the most
33:04important thing, which, for a 20th or
33:0621 st-century person, sometimes even
33:08triggers a sense of rejection. A real
33:17rejection. Because when you open a
33:24philosophical text by Camus or Sartre,
33:26for instance, you can immerse yourself,
33:28you can experience it, you can engage
33:30with it, you can enter it and be moved
33:32by the emotions and feelings that fill
33:34you. I am joking a bit, of course,
33:41speaking about this playfully, but
33:43there is no mockery in it. But when you
33:48read Plato or Aristotle, with rare
33:51exceptions—which do exist, mind you
33:53—you feel...Emotionally, this
34:01emotional, worldview-related plane of
34:04your perception is, as a rule, not
34:06engaged. You need to follow how the
34:10reasoning proceeds. Moreover, this
34:15reasoning—this reasoning—where
34:17philosophy and rhetoric, even in
34:19Aristotle, even in Aristotle, the
34:22father of logic, they are very closely
34:24linked. Therefore, this Greek centering
34:33on speech is a hallmark of all Greek
34:35culture, including philosophy. Yes. And
34:46so, for example, the emotional element,
34:48the element of imagination, is present
34:50in Greek thought, but it functions
34:53differently than in later philosophical
34:55texts, right? Uh. Again, I will give
35:05you a characteristic example from
35:07Plato's "Theaetetus," where he says: "
35:09Philology and philosophy are the same
35:12thing," but he doesn't mean what we
35:14understand by philology or philosophy,
35:16but rather that there can be no love of
35:18wisdom, no love of knowledge, if you do
35:21not love speech. Yes, knowledge exists
35:27only if speech exists. Yes, things like
35:34Christian, medieval knowledge—well,
35:36or not just Christian, but knowledge
35:38characteristic of the Middle Ages in
35:40general, obtained through revelation—
35:43is not considered knowledge by the
35:45Greeks because it is related to the
35:47sphere of the logos in a different way.
35:51The sphere of scientific experiment,
35:54that is, what happens in the modern era
35:56—science as empirical research and
35:58scientific experiment—when...Yes, a
36:00scientist, in general, might not say
36:02anything at all. It is enough for him
36:05to write formulas that define and
36:07describe what is happening in the
36:09experiment. And for the Greeks, this is
36:12also not a form of knowledge. It is
36:17only a form of knowledge if knowledge
36:19can be translated into the format of
36:20public speech. That is, if it can
36:26become logos. And this Greek obsession,
36:31that everything must be translated into
36:33the format of Logos. That is, in fact,
36:37why the Greeks became the founders of
36:39what is called scientific knowledge.
36:43Because scientific knowledge is, first
36:46and foremost, this public justification
36:48, one way or another, of what seems to
36:50be true to you. Yes, the Greeks also
36:55had forms of knowledge that were not
36:57directly connected to logic. For
37:03example, there were prophets who...or
37:05all those famous Greek oracles, such as
37:08the oracle at Dodona, where, based on
37:10the rustling of the Dodonian oak leaves
37:12, the prophets would read what would
37:14happen in this or that Greek polis. or
37:22the famous Delphic oracle, yes, where,
37:24from the Pythia’s incoherent
37:26muttering, interpreters would
37:28understand what the Pythia wanted to
37:30say, yes. But for Greek culture, these
37:35remain marginal, so to speak, marginal
37:38forms of knowledge, while genuine
37:40knowledge is linked to this logical
37:42foundation. That is why the Greeks were
37:47the discoverers of mathematics in the
37:49same sense as they were of logic, yes,
37:51in the sense that is later understood
37:53by all of European culture and all of
37:55European science, which is based on the
37:57Greeks. Yes, mathematics is not just
38:03the ability, I don’t know, to
38:04empirically determine the area of a
38:07field, right? And for the Greeks, this
38:11is not mathematics. Mathematics begins
38:14when you can prove it. And in order to
38:19prove it, one must have certain
38:20principles of proof. This immediately
38:24gives rise to the structure of
38:26scientific knowledge, logical knowledge
38:28, and mathematical knowledge. This is,
38:32in fact, why the Greeks became the
38:35founders of mathematics. And here is
38:39one more point that also needs to be
38:41kept in mind throughout all of this
38:43year, as we will be studying Greek
38:44philosophy together. Throughout this
38:50year, you should keep in mind that in
38:52Greece, philosophy and mathematics are,
38:55so to speak, very close to each other.
39:05A Greek philosopher, starting with
39:07Plato and Aristotle, is a person who
39:10knows mathematics, teaches mathematics,
39:12and for whom mathematical sciences,
39:15such as music, astronomy, geometry, and
39:17arithmetic, are necessary preliminary
39:20sciences for philosophy, for what Plato
39:23calls dialectics. And for Aristotle,
39:32this is called, for instance,
39:34theoretical knowledge, right? And so,
39:39Greek philosophy and Greek mathematics,
39:42through this deductiveness and
39:44provability, are very closely linked,
39:46very closely connected to each other.
39:54Therefore, in Greek philosophical texts
39:57, and in the texts of Plato, in the
39:59texts of Aristotle, and in the texts of
40:01the later period I mentioned, there are
40:03many examples from the field of
40:05mathematics and references to
40:07mathematics. Moreover, by mathematics,
40:15again, if one compares it to what
40:17mathematics became in the modern era,
40:19the Greek understanding of mathematics
40:22is completely different. In the modern
40:26era, mathematics becomes a powerful
40:28tool for mastering nature. That is,
40:32mathematics primarily has an
40:34instrumental character, while
40:35theoretical mathematics as such is
40:37pushed into the background. In this
40:42Greek world, in the world of antiquity,
40:45mathematics had a completely different
40:47task, again, because practice was a
40:49despised thing. Again, practice is the
40:53business of slaves. And for those who
40:59engaged in theoretical sciences, the
41:01most important thing was not practice,
41:03but the comprehension of essence. Of
41:13numbers, for example, or geometric
41:15objects, the deductive construction of
41:17this, and likewise the comprehension of
41:19the essence of reasoning and the
41:21comprehension of the logical essence of
41:24physical things. There. And so
41:29philosophy, in a word, philosophy and
41:31mathematics—and by mathematics, I
41:34repeat, I mean the aggregate of
41:36mathematical disciplines. That is, it
41:40refers to this set of arithmetic,
41:42geometry, astronomy, and music, which
41:45were the mathematical disciplines. So,
41:51philosophy is in a very close proximity
41:53to them. The third point, also very
41:59characteristic of Greek thought, again,
42:01both for early Greek thought and for
42:03Plato and Aristotle, in fact, for all
42:06Greek thought. This is due to this
42:10public nature of philosophical speech.
42:18Greek philosophy is closely linked to
42:20the political life of man, with, I
42:22would say, the political existence of
42:24man. And this is an attempt to
42:35comprehend this essence of man, his
42:37life together with others. These
42:44attempts form the most important point
42:46of reflection for Greek thought. Since
42:57it was precisely through this kind of
42:59reasoning that the regulation of,
43:01let’s say, the moral problems that
43:03arose before the elite of Greek society
43:05, who were the ones actually engaging
43:07in philosophy, took place. The fact is
43:16that the Greeks naturally did not have
43:18such an institution as existed in the
43:20Middle Ages, there was no institution
43:22of the church to define norms of
43:24behavior, right? And the norms of
43:31behavior, beyond what was included in
43:34the laws of the polis, more complex
43:36norms of behavior, they somehow emerged
43:38thanks to this philosophical
43:40comprehension of political existence.
43:52Therefore, even when the Greeks discuss
43:54things that at first glance have no
43:56relation to the political—when
43:58Aristotle discusses the forms of the
44:00syllogism, for example—these
44:02discussions always have a certain
44:04political subtext. For example,
44:14Aristotle, by first distinguishing
44:16precise scientific reasoning, which
44:18describes, and, accordingly,
44:20probabilistic dialectical reasoning,
44:22thereby defined the nature of the
44:24reasoning that a person engages in when
44:26, for instance, they are involved in
44:29political activity. That here, in this
44:33area, precise knowledge cannot exist.
44:36In this, in this area, in the political
44:38realm, there can only be probabilistic
44:41knowledge. This is Aristotle's response
44:44to other theoretical concepts that
44:46emerged in earlier, uh, in earlier
44:48Greek thought. In any case, Greek
44:52philosophy possesses this very powerful
44:54political dimension. And, uh,
44:58conversely, it contains much less of an
45:00individual dimension, especially before
45:03the Hellenistic era. A dimension
45:07connected to the individual person.
45:09Because, again, until the Hellenistic
45:11era, in a sense—I am exaggerating a
45:13little now, but nevertheless—in a
45:16sense, until the Hellenistic era, the
45:18individual person does not yet exist. A
45:22person belongs to the city community,
45:24and within the city community, they
45:26belong to the clan community from which
45:28the city community is built. And within
45:32that community, they belong, as it were
45:35, to the family community, right? That
45:39is, a person is, accordingly, a
45:41belonging of the whole. And philosophy
45:47—the way it develops: from the very
45:49beginning, then through Plato and
45:51Aristotle to the Hellenistic era—is
45:53also a kind of history of the
45:55liberation of individual consciousness.
46:02When individual consciousness itself
46:04emerges, when a person, for example,
46:06resolves moral and ethical issues, they
46:09decide based on what reason tells them.
46:14And not based on what the custom and
46:16traditions of the city tell them. Yes,
46:21in this sense, as it were, in Greek
46:23philosophy—I spoke a bit about this
46:26when I mentioned the Greek
46:27Enlightenment—in Greek philosophy,
46:30there was always this, well, in any
46:32philosophy there is, this critical
46:34pathos of liberation from the pressure
46:36of immediate customs and, uh, what has
46:39become established in society. It’s
46:43just that for the Greeks, this was
46:45happening for the first time. That is,
46:48it didn't happen the way it did later,
46:50when one could always learn something
46:52there, uh, from the Greek experience.
46:59So, there is also this aspect, besides
47:02the political aspect, that Greek
47:04philosophy, the history of Greek
47:06philosophy, is in a sense the history
47:08of the liberation of consciousness, yes
47:10, the history, well, of how
47:12consciousness begins more and more,
47:14thanks to the Logos, thanks to reason,
47:17to rely on itself, and not, for example
47:19, on sacred traditions, on the sacred
47:22traditions of the city or, as the
47:24Greeks said, on the unwritten laws of
47:26the city, on*agraphoi nomoi*. There.
47:32And Now, well, it seems to me that some
47:41kind of initial picture that
47:43characterizes Greek thought has
47:44gradually emerged before you, before
47:47you. Naturally, it will acquire its own
47:57contours and its own, so to speak,
47:59substance; these contours will grow as
48:01we move, as we move further along. Now,
48:09another thing that we must discuss
48:11today, a more technical thing, although
48:13this technical thing is also connected
48:15with substantive matters, but
48:22nevertheless, let me discuss it first
48:24simply as a technical matter. Uh since
48:28we have a course on the history of
48:30ancient philosophy, the history of
48:33Greek philosophy, any history
48:34presupposes a subordinate science of
48:36source studies, right? Because any
48:43historical judgment, any historical
48:45assertion, any historical concept
48:47depends on the sources, right, from
48:49where we can obtain this information.
48:57In the case of early Greek philosophy,
48:59especially that before Plato, which we
49:02will be dealing with this semester,
49:04until we reach Plato in April, source
49:06study of early Greek philosophy is a
49:08very complex matter. In simple terms,
49:16not a single philosophical work from
49:18that time has survived to us in its
49:20entirety. That is, we do not have the
49:26opportunity to deal with primary
49:28sources for thinkers of the 6th-5th
49:30centuries. Yes, not to mention the
49:36charm that medievalists can sometimes
49:38afford, when they can deal with
49:40autographs, that is, when they can deal
49:42with manuscripts written by the
49:44philosopher himself. Such things
49:50already begin to happen in the history
49:52of the medieval, in the history of
49:53medieval culture. In the case of the
49:58Greeks, frankly speaking, our situation
50:01is deplorable. With the early Greeks
50:06before Plato and Aristotle, roughly
50:08speaking, you might see on a bookstore
50:11shelf, for example, a book of
50:12Heraclitus's logos. a big book that
50:17will have 500 pages of text, right? But
50:23only 140 tiny fragments of Heraclitus
50:26have survived, which can fit on
50:28probably five pages of Greek text,
50:30right? And I'm not even talking about
50:35those philosophers. Well, again,
50:38perhaps some of you have gone through
50:40some kind of social studies olympiad,
50:42right? Are there those who took social
50:45studies olympiads for admission? Yes,
50:47everyone, well, everyone probably went
50:49through it, right? And naturally, when
50:52you were preparing, you learned there
50:54that the first philosopher was Thales,
50:56right? Well, Thales, firstly, was not a
50:59philosopher at all. And secondly, it is
51:01almost impossible to judge who Thales
51:03was, because absolutely nothing from
51:06Thales has survived. There. Actually,
51:10it didn't survive for very simple
51:11reasons, because after Plato and
51:13Aristotle, and after the development of
51:15mathematical astronomy in the 5th
51:17century, the Greeks weren't interested;
51:19they were a people who weren't
51:21interested in history at all. That is,
51:26history as a serious science to which
51:28one could dedicate one's life. The
51:33Greeks had no love for it, so to speak.
51:40That is why, when interest in it, when
51:42this period was, so to speak,
51:44overshadowed by Plato, Aristotle, and
51:47the mathematical astronomy of the late
51:49Pythagorean schools, these texts were
51:51copied less and less, and eventually,
51:54they disappeared. So, when we talk
52:01about this period, the early period of
52:03early Greek philosophy, we will be
52:05dealing with second-hand information
52:07about these thinkers, right? There is a
52:15special scientific term for this
52:17second-hand information: the term "
52:19doxography." Literally, in Greek, it
52:24means "recording of opinions." Yes. And
52:32doxography is, as it were, the study
52:34and investigation of what later authors
52:36said about the early, the very first
52:39Greek thinkers. Yes. And when you are
52:47in seminars, you will all be assigned
52:49to work with the book "Fragments of the
52:51Early Greek Philosophers." These
52:58fragments of early Greek philosophers
53:00are fragments and testimonies extracted
53:02from later writers. And so, the study
53:08of the complex of problems associated
53:10with this type of interpretation is
53:12called doxography. Yes, I won't go into
53:17all the details now, talking about, um
53:19...Hermann Diels; I'm just giving you
53:24the most general information right now.
53:30These testimonies and fragments were
53:32written by Greeks after Plato and
53:34Aristotle. And, consequently, they were
53:40written under the heavy influence of
53:42Plato and especially Aristotle. Roughly
53:46speaking, when you read in a standard
53:49history of philosophy textbook that
53:51early Greek philosophers were engaged
53:53in physics and were physicists—and
53:55this is written in 95%of textbooks—
53:57that is not the case. It is simply that
54:02our information about them is extracted
54:04from the writings of the Aristotelian
54:06school. And Aristotle had already
54:11qualified, classified, and divided
54:13philosophy into theology, physics, and
54:16mathematics—theoretical philosophy.
54:19Therefore, the early Greek philosophers
54:22ended up being "physicists," even
54:23though they didn't know it themselves.
54:26Yes. And here is another cliché, which
54:32I hope some of you have already heard
54:34about: that early Greek philosophy’s
54:36main concept is the concept of "physis,
54:38" or nature. They deal with nature, yes
54:46, in the entire collection of
54:48pre-Socratic fragments—I'll tell you
54:50later who they are. And the word physis
54:55is almost never encountered. And if it
54:58is, then, for example, in a fragment of
55:00Empedocles, when he says: "There is no
55:03physis in things." Yes, if such things
55:07are considered the main subject of
55:09study, then, well, we will actually
55:11find ourselves in such a specific
55:13epistemological trap. And many other
55:21interpretations provided by modern
55:23interpreters of early Greek thought
55:25simply repeat what Aristotle and his
55:27school said about this thought, right?
55:34Therefore, you will have quite a
55:36complex task, by the way. And the task,
55:45when you read these fragments of early
55:47Greek philosophers, is to separate, to
55:49learn how to separate what can be
55:51attributed to early thought from what
55:53belongs to post-Aristotelian thought—
55:55that is, in many respects, what those
55:57who professionally study the history of
55:59early Greek philosophy have to do.
56:07Besides this, besides the Aristotelian
56:10influence, in later sources there are
56:12other influences as well. There is, for
56:15example, the influence of this
56:17religious philosophy of the later
56:18period. Since writings from the later
56:23period have reached us, many of them
56:25have, we know how people thought about
56:27early thinkers in that era, which I
56:29called for you the era of the religious
56:31philosophy of the late Roman Empire.
56:37Yes, once again, when you read a
56:39discussion about God in some fragment
56:41of Thales, it has absolutely nothing to
56:43do with Thales. This is a judgment
56:49about Thales, which was made by a
56:51person who had no idea about the
56:53genuine thoughts of Thales, 600–700
56:56years after him, in a completely
56:58different cultural and historical
57:00atmosphere. Yes. And therefore, a huge
57:08number of myths, especially here,
57:11circulate around Greek philosophy
57:13precisely because of such an uncritical
57:15, naive, and sometimes, well, even
57:18conscious distortion of...the
57:26historical, well, the historical
57:28picture. So. That is, once again,
57:33working with these fragments of early
57:35Greek thinkers is quite complex
57:37precisely because one has to be like
57:39archaeologists when they are excavating
57:42some Troy, right? You remove layer by
57:47layer, you have to go deep to get to
57:49Troy. A historian of early Greek
57:52philosophy very often works like this
57:54archaeologist. That is, he must remove
57:56the layers. In other words, speaking
57:58conditionally, you first remove the
58:00very first, well, strictly speaking,
58:02you don't have to—a specific modern
58:04scholar doesn't have to do this,
58:06because much has already been done,
58:08right—but, nevertheless, some
58:10medieval layer is removed, then a late
58:12antique Christian layer is removed,
58:14then a late antique non-Christian layer
58:16is removed, then a layer related to the
58:18influence of Stoic philosophy is
58:20removed, then a layer related to the
58:22influence of Aristotle is removed. Yes.
58:27Then, perhaps, you have to remove
58:29layers related to, well, another couple
58:32of layers need to be removed to get to
58:34some understanding, to an approximate
58:36understanding, for example, of what
58:39Anaximander's cosmogony was. Because if
58:45you just take and open, for example,
58:48some collection of testimonies and
58:49fragments of early Greek philosophers,
58:52a complete picture will either not form
58:54for you, or a complete picture will
58:56form, but the wrong one. That is, it
59:02will form when you, well, a picture
59:04will form that was shaped in the third
59:07or fourth century AD, that is, 600-700
59:09years after Anaximander lived. These
59:15are the kinds of difficulties that will
59:17arise for us with this early Greek
59:18thought. But, nevertheless, we will
59:23have good moments in our life, for
59:25example, the Greeks. preserved a
59:31certain number of fragments of
59:33Parmenides' poem, a large number of
59:35fragments of Empedocles 'poem, and a
59:37number of others, where we are certain
59:39that it is a verbatim fragment. Since
59:43when it came, for example, to a poetic
59:46text, it was quoted literally, without
59:48paraphrasing. But when the Greeks
59:51quoted prose writers, for example, they
59:53never distinguished a quote from a
59:55paraphrase. They did not have the
59:56concept of a quote. A quote is what I
59:59recount regarding a text I have read.
1:00:02This is a normal Greek manner. They,
1:00:05again, had no reverence for history,
1:00:07and if they wished, they could simply
1:00:09make things up. The Greeks are also, in
1:00:12this sense, one of the most significant
1:00:15symbols of the Greeks is Odysseus,
1:00:17right? Who is a trickster, a deceiver,
1:00:21and who thinks nothing of deceiving.
1:00:26They did not have a reverent attitude
1:00:27toward history. They had a reverent
1:00:30attitude toward mathematics and a
1:00:32reverent attitude toward astronomy.
1:00:34Here is where they, well, became, by
1:00:36the way, here is where they were in awe
1:00:38. Here they were struck by that world
1:00:41of forms, of motionless, constant,
1:00:43eternal forms, which, as it were, take
1:00:46place in the cosmos. But they treated
1:00:50human affairs in a much more, much
1:00:52freer way. Again, at the seminars, we
1:00:56will talk in more detail about these
1:00:58sources, so it will be possible to name
1:01:00all the necessary names there. The only
1:01:05thing I will say is that I will
1:01:07periodically call these thinkers, these
1:01:09archaic thinkers or early Greek
1:01:11thinkers, Pre-Socratics. Well, I think
1:01:14you have already heard the word "
1:01:16presocratic" many times. Uh, this word
1:01:19was used to denote early Greek thinkers
1:01:22by the famous German philologist
1:01:23Hermann Diels. He, in 1876 or 1879—
1:01:331879, I think—in 1879, published a
1:01:36famous, fundamental work that lies at
1:01:38the heart of all our studies of the
1:01:41doxographic tradition. He wrote a
1:01:46massive work in Latin, which was called
1:01:49*Doxographi Graeci*, well, *Doxographi
1:01:51Graecia*, as they pronounced it then.
1:01:58And then, based on this work, *
1:02:00Doxographi Graeci*, he created a
1:02:02three-volume edition of the fragments
1:02:04of early thinkers. He called it*Die
1:02:10Fragmente der Vorsokratiker*, yes, the
1:02:12fragments of the Presocratics. So,
1:02:16accordingly, these very fragments of
1:02:18the Presocratics—he called these
1:02:21early thinkers Presocratics. That is,
1:02:23he took Socrates as a kind of reference
1:02:26point, right? Meaning that Socrates is
1:02:28this, uh, this*terminus ante quem*,
1:02:35that is, before Socrates, essentially,
1:02:38Presocratics. Nowadays, this term is
1:02:43used less often. Now, they prefer to
1:02:47speak about archaic thinkers, early
1:02:49thinkers. This is to avoid tying these
1:02:56autonomous figures to Socrates and to
1:02:58prevent the image of a simple linear
1:03:01movement toward Socrates, where,
1:03:02roughly speaking, all early thinkers
1:03:05were leading to Socrates. They knew
1:03:09nothing about the fact that they were
1:03:11leading to someone. That is, Heraclitus
1:03:13or Parmenides, they didn't think about
1:03:15the fact that there would later be a
1:03:17Socrates, to whom all this is heading.
1:03:19Right. I hope that you have gained some
1:03:26idea of the fact that source studies
1:03:28for this first, earliest period of
1:03:30Greek philosophy is a rather
1:03:32complicated matter, and that one has to
1:03:34act like an archaeologist, removing
1:03:36layers and strata of text. Only it is
1:03:44even more difficult, because these
1:03:46layers and strata are invisible, they
1:03:48are layers of meaning, not soil, and
1:03:50therefore. Actually, a great deal here
1:03:54depends on, let's say, the personality
1:03:58of the interpreter. Therefore, there is
1:04:03a very small number of people, for
1:04:05example in the 20th century, who have
1:04:07gained genuine respect and recognition
1:04:09in this field, right? It is a very
1:04:19small number of people who possessed
1:04:21this talent for removing layers, like
1:04:23Bruno Snell, or Francis Cornford, or, I
1:04:26don't know, Jean-Pierre Vernant, if we
1:04:28take the French tradition. Right. And a
1:04:36number of others. This pursuit, truth
1:04:41be told, is far from simple, but very
1:04:43interesting, because it is precisely
1:04:45there that those fundamental
1:04:47philosophical moves emerge. Or, as
1:04:52Heidegger used to say—who was teased
1:04:54by his enemies in the sixties, in the
1:04:56sixties and seventies, for instance by
1:04:58Theodor Adorno—he was teased for
1:05:00being a pre-Socratic. But Heidegger, he
1:05:04believed that this was the most
1:05:06important period in the history of
1:05:08European thought, because the most
1:05:10basic foundations were laid there, or
1:05:12as he said in an interview with Der
1:05:14Spiegel: "The atomic bomb first went
1:05:16off in the poem of Parmenides." Yes,
1:05:24referring to that discovery of the
1:05:26logical, which happens in this poem and
1:05:28which, accordingly, leads to the
1:05:30subsequent development of
1:05:31scientific-theoretical knowledge among
1:05:34the Greeks. These are some source-based
1:05:43considerations. So. Well, strictly
1:05:47speaking, with this very introductory
1:05:50part we can finish, if you don’t have
1:05:59any questions specifically on this
1:06:01introductory part, because next—we
1:06:03have about 20 minutes left—we will
1:06:05start talking about, um, the worldview
1:06:07that, for the Greeks, preceded
1:06:09philosophy. That is, we will begin our
1:06:17conversation today about the history of
1:06:19Greek philosophy. We will start with
1:06:24the Homeric poems, because for Greece,
1:06:26the Homeric poems remain, until the
1:06:29very end of antiquity, the ideological
1:06:31context in which the Greeks exist. In
1:06:36what sense, and how can one manage
1:06:38without knowledge of Homer? Access to
1:06:42the Greeks, access to understanding the
1:06:45Greeks, not only their poets, but their
1:06:47philosophers, orators, and politicians.
1:06:52Access to the Greeks is closed without
1:06:54Homer because, well, as the Greeks
1:06:56themselves put it, he is the educator
1:06:58of all Hellas. I, naturally, will not
1:07:02attempt to discourse now on Homer in
1:07:05general. I will not touch upon the
1:07:09Homeric question, nor any of those
1:07:11endless problems that one could debate.
1:07:16Instead, we will be interested in,
1:07:18let’s say, that conceptual framework
1:07:27which is present in the Homeric poems
1:07:29and which is important for
1:07:30understanding the history of the
1:07:32development of subsequent Greek thought
1:07:34. And let's—well, you can make a note
1:07:43for yourselves that there is no
1:07:45specific chronology of the Homeric
1:07:47poems, that is, the Iliad and the
1:07:49Odyssey, that is accepted by everyone,
1:07:51but the range of dates is, in fact,
1:07:54small. The range of dates is the eighth
1:08:00to the sixth centuries BC; I personally
1:08:03lean toward an earlier dating, that is,
1:08:05I lean toward somewhere around the
1:08:07eighth or seventh centuries. But again,
1:08:11we will not discuss this; it is not
1:08:13important to us, actually. The
1:08:17chronological aspect is not important,
1:08:19primarily because the time when Homeric
1:08:21poems were written will never be
1:08:23established with precision. No. There
1:08:27is no way to establish it. It has been
1:08:30attempted for the last 300 years with
1:08:32zero results. Therefore, there is not
1:08:35the slightest point in delving into it.
1:08:40So. But in terms of concepts and
1:08:42worldview, let us look at what, um, is
1:08:50essentially happening in the Homeric.
1:08:53What is this very Homeric worldview?
1:09:02Let's start with the most, uh, most
1:09:04understandable and visible moments;
1:09:06let's start with, uh, the ideas about
1:09:08the cosmos that are present in Homer's
1:09:11poems. And this is important because,
1:09:22again, Greek notions of the cosmos,
1:09:24even up to highly developed
1:09:26physical-mathematical models, somehow
1:09:28keep in mind the Homeric picture of the
1:09:30cosmos. So, what does the cosmos
1:09:35represent? First of all, it represents
1:09:39a closed, as it were, a closed body,
1:09:41right? The first key point you
1:09:46encounter, which will be characteristic
1:09:49of the entire Greek perception of the
1:09:51cosmos, is the corporeality,
1:09:52completeness, and finished nature of
1:09:55the cosmos. In Homer, this is
1:10:00manifested in the fact that the cosmos
1:10:02is limited by a bronze lid in the Iliad
1:10:04, and an iron one in the Odyssey. That
1:10:11is, roughly speaking, it is a kind of
1:10:13—excuse me, this might be a bit of an
1:10:15exaggeration—but it is like a pot
1:10:18with a lid, and the sky is a
1:10:19hemispherical lid. You know, like a lid
1:10:23used to cover pilaf, right? This is
1:10:26that very bronze, that bronze lid. This
1:10:31is the upper limit, the upper limit of
1:10:33the cosmos, the bronze or iron sky.
1:10:39This is a physical boundary that
1:10:41separates the cosmos from—subsequent
1:10:43Greek philosophy will often try to
1:10:45determine exactly what this physical
1:10:47boundary separates the cosmos from,
1:10:49right? What is beyond the boundary of
1:10:54the cosmos? And this idea that the
1:10:57cosmos is some kind of whole, closed,
1:10:59self-contained body is very
1:11:01characteristic of Homer. Beyond this
1:11:06sky follows the first layer. This first
1:11:11layer is a layer of some radiant, fiery
1:11:14, transparent substance, which in Homer
1:11:16is called by a word you know perfectly
1:11:18well, the word "aether." The Greek "
1:11:23aither." When we move to B1, I will
1:11:28write Greek words on the board. Here, I
1:11:32do not want to deal with that right now
1:11:34. I will write the word "aither" for
1:11:38you later, which comes from the Greek
1:11:40verb "aitho," to blaze or burn.
1:11:43Actually, when you just imagine,
1:11:45unfortunately, in Moscow now it is hard
1:11:48to imagine. Imagine a clear blue sky,
1:11:52illuminated by a blazing sun. This is
1:11:57the most transparent layer, where there
1:11:59are no clouds, no mists; this is what
1:12:02the Greeks called the ether, right?
1:12:08Aristotle later adopted this Homeric
1:12:10term to describe the composition of
1:12:12matter in the celestial realm. Below
1:12:19the ether lies the next substance,
1:12:21which is called "aer.""Aer" is the root
1:12:27found in words like "Aeroflot" or the
1:12:30English "airline," yes, that "air" part
1:12:33. Accordingly, "aer" is the region of
1:12:40murky, moist air, which consists of
1:12:43mists and clouds. Yes, the Greeks, as
1:12:51you know, and I assume you all know
1:12:53this perfectly well, Greece is a
1:12:55mountainous country. Therefore, for
1:13:03those living in the mountains, this
1:13:05distinction between regions where there
1:13:07are clouds and mists, and the level
1:13:09where you rise above them, is a
1:13:10practical, everyday observation. So,
1:13:21after the sky comes the ether, and then
1:13:24the "aer," this dark, moist substance
1:13:26associated with all these processes.
1:13:36Like the formation of clouds, rainfall,
1:13:39and so on and so forth; then, naturally
1:13:42, we reach the Earth. Uh. It is
1:13:53difficult to say exactly how Homer
1:13:55envisions the Earth, but without
1:13:57getting into debates or various
1:13:59hypotheses, let's say the Earth is,
1:14:01first of all, flat—but not flat like
1:14:03a sheet of paper. It is flat. It is
1:14:13flat, more like the tabletop of a table
1:14:15, right? A tabletop. A tabletop or a
1:14:19seat is the standard description of the
1:14:21Earth in archaic Greek thought. That is
1:14:25a normal, proper description of the
1:14:27Earth. The Earth has two sides: an
1:14:32upper side and a lower side. The lower
1:14:39side is Hades, the realm of the dead,
1:14:41which is the underside of this very
1:14:43tabletop. The Earth is encircled by a
1:14:49river. A river that the Greeks called
1:14:54Ocean, which for them was not a vast
1:14:56body of global water. It is
1:15:00specifically a river. It is a stream
1:15:04that essentially flows into itself. It
1:15:08is "apsirrhoos," as it is said in Homer
1:15:12. But we aren't finished with the world
1:15:15yet, because underneath this Earth-lid
1:15:17lies...A global basement. A global
1:15:23basement that the Greeks called
1:15:25Tartarus. There. And, accordingly,
1:15:28Tartarus is a prison for the gods. of,
1:15:31as it were, former generations.
1:15:35Tartarus is the place where, in Hesiod,
1:15:37a slightly later poet, it is said that
1:15:40...It is the place where the roots of
1:15:42the earth descend. So, Tartarus, again,
1:15:51is the lowest layer of the cosmos,
1:15:53which most likely—although Homer says
1:15:56nothing about this—could have been
1:15:58imagined as having some kind of
1:16:00spherical curvature beneath it. But
1:16:07then again...we do not see this
1:16:12directly in the Homeric texts. And...
1:16:17accordingly, this is a picture of the
1:16:19world in...a top-down projection, right
1:16:24? And this distinction of these layers
1:16:28—by the way, again, the distinction
1:16:30of these layers is connected with the
1:16:32beings that live in these layers. For
1:16:36example, gods dwell in the aether. Yes,
1:16:39gods dwell in the aether. Gods. Well,
1:16:43Homer says they live in the aether, or
1:16:45it is said they live on Olympus,
1:16:47because the peak of Olympus actually
1:16:49resides in this aetheric substance. Or
1:16:54the gods live...or Homer simply calls
1:16:56them "ouraniones," meaning those who
1:16:58live in the heavens, right? And,
1:17:05accordingly, the region of "aer" is the
1:17:08area where birds live, right, where
1:17:10birds fly, accordingly. Well, except
1:17:15for the eagle, which also reaches the
1:17:17aether—the eagle, the bird of Zeus.
1:17:22So, accordingly, humans and animals
1:17:25live on Earth, and in Hades reside the
1:17:27"psyche" and the "eidola," the ghosts
1:17:30of departed souls, right? These ghosts,
1:17:37whom we will talk about later, they
1:17:39inhabit this place and lead an
1:17:41unconscious existence, but I will speak
1:17:43about that later. And in this very
1:17:48Hades, but in Tartarus, as in a prison,
1:17:51in this basement, there the gods of
1:17:53earlier generations are imprisoned. And
1:17:59, in fact, it is a very simple, very
1:18:02simple, and very visually
1:18:04well-constructed picture. The next
1:18:12point that needs to be mentioned when
1:18:14we describe the Homeric worldview, the
1:18:16most important aspect of this worldview
1:18:18, is the opposition between gods and
1:18:20humans. Actually...the gods, their main
1:18:30quality, which they are constantly
1:18:32defined by, is that they are immortal
1:18:34beings who stand in contrast to humans,
1:18:37and for humans, the normal name is "
1:18:39brotoi," mortals. That is, gods and
1:18:44humans form these two poles of world
1:18:46life, right? Both humans and gods are
1:18:53rational beings, but the gods are
1:18:54immortal and blessed. And humans,
1:19:00although they are rational, are unhappy
1:19:02and wretched. And, uh, as stated in the
1:19:09famous passage of the Iliad, they are
1:19:11like leaves on a tree, which the autumn
1:19:13wind tears off and carries away, yes.
1:19:18And why am I talking about this?
1:19:24Because, again, for the Greek worldview
1:19:27, for Greek ethics, and for Greek
1:19:29religion, for Greek religiosity, it was
1:19:32very important that gods and humans
1:19:34represent, uh, um sort of two realms
1:19:42between which there is, uh, no inner
1:19:45connection. Look, here is a subtle
1:19:47point. You all know that the Greek gods
1:19:50are anthropomorphic, yes, that they
1:19:52resemble humans, yes, that they possess
1:19:55human form, that is true, they are
1:19:57indeed anthropomorphic. But what is it
1:19:59that the Greeks lack? The Greeks lack
1:20:04what would later, for example, become
1:20:06the fundamental thought of the
1:20:08Christian worldview: that a person
1:20:10should strive, should, uh, strive for
1:20:12divine existence. Or, more precisely,
1:20:18that, uh, God loves man and wants man
1:20:21to partake in divine life. Greek gods
1:20:26do not love man. Uh, and why would they
1:20:29love man? Well, apart from rare cases,
1:20:34say, uh, erotic relationships, uh, in
1:20:37all other cases, the gods treat man, uh
1:20:40, the way aristocrats treat a commoner,
1:20:42that is, they treat man with disdain.
1:20:47And, uh again, the Gospel says that God
1:20:54so loved the world that He gave His son
1:20:56for the world, and this thought would
1:20:58not fit into any, uh, head of his
1:21:00contemporaries. And this thought could
1:21:06not fit into any Greek head because the
1:21:08gods, they live their own lives. This
1:21:12life is blissful and happy. They—what
1:21:15do they do? They feast because they are
1:21:20bored, they intrigue, and they watch
1:21:22how, accordingly, these miserable
1:21:24mortals suffer. That is, the gods treat
1:21:30mortals very, uh, condescendingly.
1:21:34There is no inner kinship between gods
1:21:36and humans. And one of the most famous
1:21:40Greek poets of the archaic era, Pindar,
1:21:43he addresses man. Man, do not try to
1:21:47become a god. Uh, do not try to become
1:21:52God. And this is a normal Greek feeling
1:21:55. There is a fundamental difference
1:21:57between gods and humans. I can admire
1:22:01the gods, I can worship them because
1:22:03they lead the very life that I, as a
1:22:06human, will never lead. Yes, but I will
1:22:12, uh, never attain, uh, attain divine
1:22:15existence. Divine existence, divine
1:22:20existence is a thing separate from
1:22:22human life. That is, I just want to
1:22:27emphasize for you this, this, this very
1:22:30rigid, strong distinction between human
1:22:32and divine existence. And this is very
1:22:38characteristic of the Greek, of the
1:22:40Greek worldview. Another thing related
1:22:45to the gods is that, first of all, as
1:22:47we’ve already said, they have a human
1:22:50form; they are corporeal, they have a
1:22:52body. The Greeks usually depicted a god
1:22:57as simply one and a half to two times
1:22:59taller than a mortal. When you see a
1:23:03depiction of, say, a human and a god
1:23:05together on Greek steles or reliefs,
1:23:07the god is noticeably larger than the
1:23:09human. That is, so to speak, but at the
1:23:16same time, the gods are corporeal; the
1:23:19gods do not represent spirit. Or rather
1:23:21, we will talk about this later,
1:23:23probably in the next lecture, so as not
1:23:25to rush now. Spirit itself in archaic
1:23:29thought is a corporeal thing, right?
1:23:33The opposition of spirit and body
1:23:35cannot exist in Homer at all, because,
1:23:38firstly, he doesn't even have a word
1:23:40for body, and the word that would later
1:23:42signify body is used rarely by Homer,
1:23:44and only in the sense of a corpse.
1:23:47There. And spirit is simply a perfectly
1:23:52corporeal breath that comes from the
1:23:54lungs. We will also talk about this
1:23:58later. And the last thing I will say
1:24:06about gods and men in Homer is that,
1:24:08again, according to Judeo-Christian
1:24:10thought, the Greeks were always
1:24:12characterized and accused of polytheism
1:24:14. You probably know this cliché:
1:24:21Greeks are polytheists, while, for
1:24:24example, Judeo-Christians are
1:24:26monotheists. Well, simply put, they
1:24:29have many gods, and there is one God.
1:24:35In reality, Greek polytheism is in some
1:24:38sense not polytheism at all, because
1:24:40starting with Homer, for the entire
1:24:42Greek ideology and worldview, the
1:24:45divine world is, one way or another,
1:24:47subject to the paternal authority of
1:24:49Zeus. And Zeus is a patriarchal monarch
1:24:59who effectively exercises power both on
1:25:01earth and in heaven. At the same time,
1:25:06he does not just exercise power as a
1:25:08capricious despot or a tyrant. He
1:25:14actually monitors—especially in the
1:25:17human world, of course—how justice is
1:25:19maintained and observed. That is, as
1:25:25English philologists write about this,
1:25:28he is the "champion of justice." He is
1:25:30the champion of justice. So,
1:25:33accordingly, he monitors justice, and
1:25:42specifically justice understood in a
1:25:45very particular way. I will start the
1:25:49next lecture with this, about the
1:25:50Homeric understanding of justice. And
1:25:54then it will become clear how this
1:25:59justice works, what justice means to
1:26:01the Homeric Greeks, and how Zeus
1:26:03monitors it. We will finish here for
1:26:06today. Thank you for your attention.

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