What is classical philosophy and what are its characteristics?

Philosophy is an academic discipline that is made up of a set of knowledge and reflections developed over time. over the centuries in order to study the essence or nature, the origins and the ends of things and ideas.

Due to the ambitious nature of this goal, over time different areas of philosophical activity and currents of philosophy, some so different from each other that they have even face.

For its part, Classical philosophy was developed mainly in ancient Greece during several seventh centuries BC. c. and Vd. c., being the essence of Western thought, the basis of triumph of logos over mythos, the rise of the study and development of various subjects (mathematics, ethics, epistemology, etc.) at the hands of various philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus, etc.

In this article we will see the characteristics of classical philosophy and its main schools and thinkers, taking into account that the intellectual activity that took place in it was so relevant in Ancient Greece that it has managed to transcend to the present day.

• Related article: "The 8 branches of Philosophy (and its main thinkers)"

Classical philosophy: its main schools and their representatives

Within the extensive period that includes the development of classical philosophy (approximately between the 7th century BC. C.- V d. C.) we can find different schools; each of them with their respective representatives. Next we will see a brief review of each of them.

1. Presocratic philosophy

The first stage of classical or ancient philosophy is the pre-Socratic in which we can find all that group of thinkers before the philosopher Socrates and after the Dark Ages (which ended in the VIII a. C.) that, although they did not share the same philosophical theory, they had in common the fact that they shared the path of search for the truth, the why of things, the essence of the universe and the origin of everything that exists, through the reason. all of it they did it trying to get rid of mythological and/or religious explanations; all this in a context of intellectual creation dominated by oral communication or lyrical writing (which is why some of them did not even write prose books).

1.1. Ionian school

One of the earliest schools of classical philosophy is the Ionian, which It is mainly represented by philosophers such as Thales of Miletus, Anaximander and Anaximedes., among others.

Thales of Miletus (c. 625 - c. 546 BC C.) was a Greek philosopher, considered the father of Greek philosophy and was also the one who introduced geometry to ancient Greece, it should be noted that for this philosopher water was the essential principle of all things, so that everything would come from it and, in turn, everything returns to it again.

Anaximander (c. 611 - c. 547 BC C.), disciple of Thales and also born in Miletus, He was a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who is credited with discovering the obliquity of the ecliptic. and, furthermore, he is known for being the one who introduced the sundial to Greece. Another invention that is attributed to Anaximadro is cartography.

Anaximenes (c. 570 - 500 BC C.), born in Miletus (Ionia), was a Greek philosopher who stated that the primary element that makes up the world is air and, in order to explain it, he resorted to the notions of rarefaction and condensation, these being the processes that They transform the air into other states, such as solid (by cooling), liquid and also fire (with the process of rarefaction).

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1.2. Pythagorean school

Another of the first and most relevant schools of classical philosophy is the Pythagorean, in which the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras (c. 582 - c. 500 BC C.), who considered that the origin of everything can be explained by a series of mathematical principles and, more specifically, thanks to the numbers. For Pythagoras, numbers were considered the essence of everything, and it is believed that he gave them divine properties.

It should be noted that the school of Pythagoras believed in the transmigration of the soul and, therefore, in the immortality, even claiming his teacher that he was able to remember all the lives he had lived in previous eras.

1.3. Elea School

The Elea school is another of the schools that should be mentioned in classical philosophy, where four philosophers stand out: Heraclitus, Parmenides of Elea, Empedocles and Anaxagoras.

Heraclitus (550-480 BC) C.), It was a philosopher known for being the one who used it for the first time in the 5th century BC. c. the word logo in his "Theory of Being" when saying: "Not to me, but having listened to the logos, it is wise to say together with him that everything is one", being for him the "being" that intelligence that is in charge of ordering, directing and also giving harmony to the evolution of that series of changes that take place throughout the same existence. The logos would end up establishing itself as the basis of all Western philosophy and thought.

Heraclitus is also credited with the concept "panta rei" (everything flows) to refer to the fact that everything in nature changes continuously, so there is nothing that remains.

Parmenides of Elea (c. 515 - c. 440 BC c) He was a philosopher who defended the existence of an "absolute Being". He also stated that natural things are nothing but appearance, and the true self can only be known through reason and not by the senses, further stating that change does not really exists.

Empedocles (c. 493 BC c. - 433 BC C.) was a poet, statesman and philosopher, a disciple of Pythagoras and Parmenides, known for affirming in his theories that all existing things in the world are composed of four main elements: water, fire, earth and air.

Anaxagoras (c. 500 - 428 BC C.) was a Greek philosopher known for propose the existence of infinite atoms that shape everything that exists in the universe, having been ordered by the "nous" or original principle.

1.4. atomists

In this school of classical philosophy we are only going to highlight its maximum representative, the Greek philosopher Democritus (c. 460 BC c.-370 BC C.), who is known for having developed the "atomistic theory of the universe", in which he defended that all existing things are composed of tiny, invisible and indestructible particles of totally pure matter; likewise, he stated that the universe was created as a result of the whirling motions of atoms colliding and forming all matter.

1.5. sophist school

The philosophers who belonged to the sophist school they were highly attacked by great philosophers such as Socrates, Plato or Aristotle due to their relativism and also for their skepticism; however, they were also highly regarded in their time, being a very heterogeneous and eclectic philosophical movement. Among them it is worth highlighting Protagoras, who is known for his famous phrase "man is the measure of all things", being a phrase that explains very well the thought of this philosophical school in which its members denied that there was a truth absolute.

• Related article: "The 9 characteristics of the sophists in Philosophy (explained)"

2. The schools of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle

Perhaps the schools of philosophy that have transcended the most to our times are those of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, some schools that were developed one after another because Plato was a disciple of Socrates and, in turn, Aristotle was a disciple of Plato; despite the fact that each one later developed their own theories and gradually disassociated themselves from many ideas that he learned from his teacher.

Socrates (c. 470 – c. 399 BC C.) was a philosopher who considered that the soul carries within it the truth and that it is only possible to know it through reason and reflection. It should be noted that no texts have been found that have been written by Socrates, but it was his disciple Plato who came to capture them with his own handwriting in the dialogues. After his death, he left the Socratic schools as a legacy.

Plato (c. 428 - c. 347 BC C.) was a philosophical scholar who extensively investigated various areas of knowledge such as metaphysics, theology, epistemology or politics, among others, laying down with his theories the bases of Western thought, including his "theory of ideas", in which he divided the world into two: the sensible and the intelligible.

Aristotle (384-322 BC) C.) came to propose philosophical theories very different from those of his teacher Plato, coming to deny the existence of the sensible world and also of the separate essences of existing things. For Aristotle there was only one world and this was the sensible one; that is to say, that only everything that can be known through experience and perceived through the senses exists.

• You may be interested: "Aristotle: biography of one of the referents of Greek philosophy"

3. Philosophical currents of the Hellenistic and Roman eras

In these last stages of classical philosophy, several currents should be highlighted:

• Epicureanismpleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance.
• Stoicism: mastery and control of the passions as the basis for having a good life.
• Cynicism: autarky, an economic system that serves for a state to be supplied with its own resources.
• Skepticism: for them everything is relative, thus doubting any claim to absolute truth.

Characteristics of classical philosophy

Next we are going to see the main characteristics that serve to unite the main theories and schools that were developed throughout the history of classical philosophy.

1. Classical philosophy is the essence of Western thought

Western thought, which has evolved throughout history, has its roots in classical philosophy at the hands of the Greek philosophers. This cultural and intellectual influence continued through the time of the Romans., another very influential era, and resurfaced with more force in the Renaissance, among others.

2. The universe surrounding the human being was questioned for the first time

Thanks to classical philosophy, for the first time in the West everything about the universe and everything that surrounds the human being began to be questioned, so that religious explanations about why what happens around us were losing prominence; and it is that the philosophers dedicated themselves to the search for understanding and knowing reality, things and the world from a rational perspective.

3. In classical philosophy the logos was above the mythos

The classical philosophers developed reasoning that moved away from religious explanations about the universe and everything that surrounds the human being, including its origins, having thus triumphed the logos, the rational thought, against the mythos, the uncritical and unfounded thought.

In addition, the classical philosophers never took things for granted, but questioned, analyzed and rethought everything based on solid arguments, so that philosophy would manage to establish itself as a discipline that was aimed at enriching the knowledge of human beings in the search for wisdom.

4. Anthropocentrism begins to develop

With classical philosophy, anthropocentrism begins to gain importance, so that the human being is taking a greater role as the center of all things compared to divinity, so an idea was developed that it is human beings who should take charge of charting their own destinies instead of waiting for a divinity to do it for them.

5. The human being possesses an innate knowledge

Classical philosophers generally They considered that the human being possesses innate aptitudes that allow him to develop knowledge throughout his life, thus acquiring wisdom, so that he could fight against the worst vice he could fall into, ignorance.

6. With classical philosophy, the study of various subjects was born.

A very important characteristic of the classical philosophers was their dedication at all stages to research, development, study and teaching of various areas of knowledge such as ethics, logic, physics, mathematics, aesthetics, political philosophy or rhetoric, among others.