Читать книгу A Brief History of Thought - Luc Ferry - Страница 14

Most historians agree that philosophy first saw the light of day in Greece, some time around the sixth century BC. So sudden and so astonishing was its manifestation, it has become known as ‘the Greek miracle’. But what was available, philosophically speaking, before the sixth century and in other civilisations? Why this sudden breakthrough?

I believe that two straightforward answers can be offered. The first is that, as far as we know, in all civilisations prior to and other than Greek antiquity, religion was a substitute for philosophy. An almost infinite variety of cults bears witness to this monopoly of meaning. It was in the protection of the gods, not in the free play of reason, that men traditionally sought their salvation. It also seems likely that the partially democratic nature of the political organisation of the city-state played some role in ‘rational’ investigation becoming emancipated from religious belief. Among the Greek elite, unprecedented freedom and autonomy of thought were favoured, and in their assemblies, the citizens acquired the habit of uninterrupted public debate, deliberation and argument.

Thus, in Athens, as early as the fourth century BC, a number of competing philosophical schools came to exist. Usually they were referred to by the name of the place where they first established themselves: Zeno of Citium (c. 334–262 BC), the founding father of the Stoic school, held forth beneath colonnades covered with frescoes (the word ‘stoicism’ derives from the Greek word stoa meaning ‘porch’).

The lessons dispensed by Zeno beneath his famous ‘painted porch’ were open and free to all-comers. They were so popular that, after his death, the teachings were continued and extended by his disciples. His first successor was Cleanthes of Assos (c. 331–230 BC) followed by Chrysippus of Soli (c. 280–208 BC). Zeno, Cleanthes and Chrysippus are the three great names of what is called ‘Early Greek Stoicism’. Aside from a short poem, the Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes, almost nothing survives of the numerous works written by the first Stoics. Our knowledge of their philosophy comes by indirect means, through later writers (notably Cicero). Stoicism experienced a second flourishing, in Greece, in the second century BC, and a third, much later, in Rome. The major works of this third Roman phase no longer come down by word of mouth from Athenian philosophers succeeding each other at the head of the school; rather they come from a member of the imperial Roman court, Seneca (c. 8 BC–AD 65), who was also a tutor and advisor to Nero; from Musonius Rufus (AD 25–80) who taught Stoicism at Rome and was persecuted by the same Nero; from Epictetus (c. AD 50–130), a freed slave whose oral teachings were faithfully transmitted to posterity by his disciples – notably by Arrian, author of two works which were to travel down the ages, the Discourses and the Enchiridion or Manual of Epictetus (the title was said to derive from the fact that the maxims of Epictetus should be at every moment ‘to hand’ for those wanting to learn how to live – ‘manual’ coming from the Latin manualis, ‘of or belonging to the hand’); and lastly, this body of Stoic teaching was disseminated by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself (AD 121–180).

I would now like to show you how a particular philosophy – in this case Stoicism – can address the challenge of human salvation quite differently to religions; how it can try to explain the need for us to conquer the fears born of our mortality, by employing the tools of reason alone. I shall pursue the three main lines of enquiry – theory, ethics and wisdom – outlined earlier. I shall also make plenty of room for quotations from the writers in question; while quotations can slow one down a little, they are essential to enable you to exercise your critical spirit. You need to get used to verifying for yourself whether what you are told is true or not, and for that, you need to read the original texts as early on as possible.