Biography of the Stoics

The Stoics of the philosophical opposite of epicureism was the teachings of the Stoic school, which developed on the basis of other theoretical principles and otherwise solving the main problems of practical philosophy. Like Epicurus, the Stoics sought to find a worldview that would give true criteria and solid support in life. The Stoics also searched for the theoretical base of the worldview in the ancient teachings of the classical period, and the principles of moral philosophy in post -industrial philosophy.

However, in contrast to the philosophy of Epicurus, based on the materialism of Democritus and the hedonism of the Cyrenaic, the philosophical worldview of the Stoics, adjacent in the field of ethics to the cinema, was built on the basis of the teachings of Heraclitus about the fire as a logos and the essence of the world; Being assimilated by the Stoics not only as cosmological, but also in theological teaching, it led them to religious idealism.

The Stoic School was founded in G., like Father Zenon, he was engaged in trade and in a year of life he fell into Athens due to shipwreck. The works of Socrates and Kinnika Razes had a strong influence on Zenon. The philosophy of Stoicism was widespread in Greece and in Rome and attracted representatives of various classes of society, ranging from the lower Cleanf - a fist fighter, Chrysipp - an athlete, epicett - a slave and ending with the Roman arista Arrian, Seneca, emperor Mark Aurelius.

Representatives of Stoicism were prolific writers who set out their worldview and research on individual issues of knowledge in theoretical treatises, lectures, partly remaining in the notes, in letters and in popular works, among which are distinguished as a special kind of philosophical literature created by filming, the so-called diarians, moral and plenipotentiaries or conversations.

The Stoics divided philosophy into physics, ethics and logic [1]. Already in this division of philosophy there is a difference between stoicism and the Epicurean school, since along with physics and ethics, the epicureans indicated the canon - the doctrine of the paths and criteria of cognition, and not the logic in which the Stoics united research on internal and external speech.

On the other hand, if Epicurus, the main principle of the philosophy of which was a happy life, at the head of the system put ethics, then many Stoics, preaching the life of nature, gave the primacy of physics. If the physicist was a worldview for Epicurus, releasing the soul from anxieties, then for the Stoics it was the meaning of science that reveals the laws, which is consistent with which a person’s life should proceed.

In a number of initial provisions, the teachings of the Stoics were materialistic. Only material bodies were recognized as real, since only they can act or suffer. The undergoing beginning is matter in the narrow sense of the word. All things arose from this fire and again turned into it. During the occurrence of things, part of the fiery respiration turns into the air, part of the air - into the water, in turn, part of the water into the ground.

Then a new world arises, after which a new world fire follows after a certain period. So follows one after another an infinite number of world cycles. Speaking about the structure of things, the Stoics distinguished the connecting principle - fire and air - and the binding beginning - water and earth. The soul, according to the teachings of the Stoics, also has a bodily nature and is part of the divine fire.

Everything in the world is connected by a strict pattern. Therefore, everything in the world is predetermined, and human freedom, obviously, boils down to getting it according to the predestination from his own motivation, and not by coercion. In this teaching about the fate of the Stoic school, the epicurean school is deeply opposite, according to which freedom was recognized both in human behavior and in the movements of atoms.

It was the teachings of the Stoics about fate that was subjected to the most fierce attacks from the Epicureans. The main ethical principle of the Stoic philosophy was a demand to live according to nature. Not for pleasure, as the epicureans taught, but the main attraction of man is aimed at self -preservation. Pleasure can only be a consequence of satisfaction of attraction corresponding to nature.

Of all the elements of the human being, the highest is the mind through which a person knows the world order. Human activity should be aimed at preserving the mind. Living according to the mind, a person thereby does not contradict the requirements of nature. If the criterion of behavior was a reasonable pleasure for Epicurus, then for the Stoics such a criterion becomes a duty determined by the mind.

Activities in accordance with the mind - virtue. Virtue is a genuine good, and it itself is sufficient for bliss. Evil is a vice and only vice. Everything else is the so-called external benefits: life, health, wealth-white. Like Socrates, the Stoics considered virtue knowledge, but they also associated it with willpower. A line of radicalism of the ethics of the Stoics was the denial of the degrees of virtue.

The Stoics believed that both vice and virtue have no degrees. A person can be either virtuous - a sage, or vicious - a fool.Although the ethics of the Stoics, like the ethics of Epicurus, was essentially individualistic, however, unlike the Epicureans, who considered communication not by itself, but only a means to achieve serenity of the soul, the Stoics considered society a product of nature, and not the agreement and communication of people attached the importance of moral value.

This followed from their physical doctrine about the unity of the Universe, controlled by a single law and connected by a single breathing of creative fire. Although the sage strives for self -sufficiency, independence from external benefits, by virtue of the action of a single law, he cannot reject relations with other people. These connections are formed in the form of concentric circles of communication.

The nearest circle of communication is the family, then the circles of civil and political ties follow: demo, Phil, state and the widest circle - all of humanity. In accordance with this, the Stoics appreciated a marriage based on a moral basis, friendship, did not reject the states, but came to the preaching of cosmopolitanism, to the teachings of universal world citizenship, to the teachings of the equality and brotherhood of all people as children of the One God.

A significant place in the teachings of the Stoics was allocated by logic, which they understood very widely - as a doctrine of thought and speech, introducing it into its composition, in addition to logic in our understanding, also grammar and rhetoric. Logic was divided into dialectics by the doctrine of reasoning in the form of questions and answers or the science of true and false and that the doctrine of reasoning in the form of continuous speech does not belong to either one or the other and rhetoric.

Dialectics, in turn, was divided into the doctrine of verbal expressions and what they mean and express. The writers of the new Station revive ancient stoicism, but at the same time strengthen the religious beginning in it, following in this respect the general trend of their era of the I and II centuries. During this period, stoicism spreads widely in Rome. Unlike the earlier periods of Stoicism, a significant number of literary monuments have reached us from this time.

Heraclitus, the author of the Homeric allegories, and the corn, who gave the physical allegorical interpretation of Greek myths. Cornet saw in the gods of the Greek religion world forces and elements for example, in Zeus - the mind. Such an interpretation of the myths served as a model for many subsequent writers, in particular for Filon and Origen in the interpretation of the Old Testament.

The main representatives of the Stoicism of the I and II centuries. Ghostonia Ruf I century. He considered the purpose of philosophy a virtue that is acquired not so much by training as an exercise. His lectures reached us in excerpts transmitted by John Stobe. The student of the trace was an epictetus of Giyrapol in Phrygia, born around 50 g. The lecture and conversations of the epictate were recorded by his student Flavius ​​Arrian [2].

Of these, four books of conversations or diatribs of all were eight books and extracting from conversations called "Guide". Epictete was not married, he spent his life in extreme poverty, content with only the most necessary, and enjoyed fame as a person of spiritual purity and iron will. They say that he ordered to make such an inscription on his grave: "I, Epictett, was a slave, a cripple, poor, like Ir, but the gods considered me their friend." The teachings of the epictate were based on ancient stoic ideas about the unity of nature, controlled and supported by a single divine beginning, which the ancient Stoics called fire, and about the dominance of iron necessity, called the ancient Stoics Rock, or fate.

Epicteet accepts these principles, does not reject either the logic or the physics of the ancient Station, but deepens the theological principle in these teachings. The teachings of the epictate acquires the character of a religious teaching preaching the One God and the humility of His will. And further: "What will your oath will be? In everything to obey God, not to murmur on Him, to remain satisfied with all his deed, eagerly to do and endure everything that fate will send." Ethics, full of aphorisms and prescriptions, on the one hand, bringing it closer to kinism, and on the other - with Christian teachings, from which, however, it differs in its intellectualism, is obtained.

He preaches: the Autarchy of the sage "possess the passions - or they will take possession of you", "The slave is one who does not know how to own yourself", "He who is not sad about what he does not have and is pleased with the present", "Remember what a person is, and be indifferent to everything that is happening"; The meekness, kindness to the neighbors, "do you intend to decorate your dear city with offering?

Bring primarily as a gift to yourself - your meekness, love and justice and a good heart, the most precious of the gifts." When the epictate was asked how to take revenge on his enemy, he replied: "Try to do as much good as possible." In the Byzantine era, the "leadership" of the epictate was processed and commented for the purpose of the Christian sermon. The Stoicism and Mark Aurelius Antonin, who was born in Mark became the Roman emperor, is receding from the materialistic foundations of Stoicism.

In his youth, Mark received a systematic education, having studied grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, jurisprudence and philosophy under the leadership of numerous teachers, to which he began to feel a tendency from summer age. He gratuates with gratitude to his teachers in the first book of his thoughts, entitled "to himself." Under the influence of Stoicism, Mark in his youth tried to temper himself and imitate the philosophical lifestyle, and in adulthood the stoic teaching should have maintained a balanced and the ability to own his own in conditions when his personal life was subjected to severe trials and when the Roman Empire experienced serious shocks from the outside and inside.

Marcus Aurelius died in the city of his work "to himself" is divided into 12 books. It is a record of thoughts about human life, about his connection with the world and God, about fate, about good and evil, about virtue, about the art of life, about stamina. In the composition of Mark, images of Heraclitite philosophy are often found.

Time is the river of the emerging, swift stream. Only something will appear, as it is already rushing by, but the other, and again the first. And just as the world-perfect body is composed of all bodies, and fate is composed of all reasons- the perfect reason "V, 8. And there is, apparently, nothing stable, and next to us the immense abyss of the past and future, in which everything disappears" V, 23 [3].

Hence the stoic preaching of humility to fate, fidelity to nature, serenity of the spirit, which should not be worried either to the future or the past. Therefore: “Live in communication with the gods” V, he will live - and this is the most important thing - without pursuing anything, and without avoiding “III, 7. After the death of the body, they change and decompose, and the souls“ spread out and burn, returning back to the seed -forming of the whole “IV, Marc Aurelius is not alien to the Stoic idea of ​​cosmopolitanism, but it is combined with the principle of statehood.

Useful to these two cities is the benefit for me "VI, IX of the real volume.