Comforting the Blankie of philosophy

Philosophy on horseback and in favor of the powers that be, and the ruler – philosopher! Needless to say, a unique case in the history of world culture we have encountered, mentally traveling through the halls of the Roman philosophy. The bronze copy of the Emperor-philosopher Marcus Aurelius decorated our ghostly Museum, and on Capitol hill remained the original. By the way, he survived by chance. The fact that the early Christians took over the equestrian Marcus Aurelius statue of Emperor Constantine the Great, who was kind to them and did not give to the lions. Christians do not have to break the statue and calm, friendly philosopher, Gentile, mark long standing in the square before the residence of the Pope.

Such is the irony of history. History generally likes to joke and her jokes are unpredictable. When the Golden age of the Roman Empire sunk into Oblivion, with the philosophy of the Imperial horse came...Yes, Yes, again behind bars, in the cold, wet dungeon. In prison Philosophy was the consolation of the last Roman, as he called his descendants, the last ancient philosopher søren the Boethius.

Boethius actually visited this world in its fateful minutes. The mighty Roman Empire, the Empire of warriors and peasants was exhausted and trachsel. I had to save ancient culture from chaos, good from brazen and imagines himself master of the world conqueror. It was necessary to protect the mind from militant stupidity.

By the time when the Eternal City was ruled by the barbarians, Severin Boethius became known as a very well-educated people who have mastered the Greek Sciences and philosophy. He, reluctantly, took a barbarous power, and served her until, until it resembled the Roman. Hearing about him as a wise politician and a great philosopher were scattered throughout the Empire. For many years it seemed that the light was not on these gifts that fortune has showered not my favorite of the Boethius. At the Zenith of fame, he held the post of first Minister, and his dearly beloved sons were consuls. However, soon after, as a philosopher reached the pinnacle of power and honor, fate fixed him with his icy gaze, and he experienced firsthand how bleak human happiness is as unreliable as friends and ruthless enemies.

Garden of Epicurus

Letter to a friend about the benefits of philosophy.

So we met with a strict but lovely Lady Philosophy. Its clear as the sun, the arguments sounded convincing even to the prison bars and them with doubt and joy, listened to the prisoner – the last Roman Severin Boethius. However, despite the support and the consolation of Philosophy, the wise prisoner was executed, and with his death ended the thousand-year era of ancient philosophy, the era that gave the world the greatest thinkers and imperishable treasures of wisdom.

Well, historical epochs come and go. Still, sad to leave loved we treasure our ghostly philosophical Museum, with the barrels of Diogenes, with branching antlers of the sophists, with Garden of Epicurus, and even with a terrible Plato's androgynes...

That was not so sad to part with the pearls of ancient philosophy from our ghostly collection, let us today with some degree of healthy skepticism to treat us as a respected ancient sages. Mankind because, often, laughing, parting with the past, and even philosophy.

And help us in this great ironist of all times and peoples, the Roman satirist Lucian. He laughed at all the antique philosophy, laughed subtly, ironic and with a deep knowledge of the subject. The fact that Lucian was himself a philosopher, and knew philosophical wisdom firsthand. So often in his satires as the actors present and the ancient sages, and the satirist.

In our Museum has several philosophical and satirical letters to a friend written by Lucian, and where we are talking about familiar ancient philosophers and their teachings.

Take a look in one of these letters...

He emerged from the daily life and looked at everything around

     "Imagine all the teacher I took it with a greedy and an open mind, though they could not be aware that is happening to me. I felt all kinds of feelings: I was upset, hearing the censure that I was the most expensive – wealth, money, fame, and nearly wept over their destruction. But they seemed low and funny, and I rejoiced, as if looking out from the darkness of my former life at a clear sky and great light. And, most amazing of all, my soul was becoming more and more acute eyes. But I didn't notice that she was blind!"

And now, after this philosophical insights, each satirist began to look to all kinds of worldly phenomena and very soon realized how they are funny, pathetic, and unstable. Despising all the usual benefits and considering pursuit of them an obstacle to the true practice, he emerged from the daily life and looked at everything around. However, doubts did not leave the young philosopher, on the contrary, they became even more...

     - "On this world, which the philosophers call the cosmos, I did not manage to learn anything – neither how it happened, or who it's Creator. I didn't know where it start and what is its ultimate goal. Then I began to see the world in parts, but it only increased my confusion: looking at the stars I burned with the desire to find out what they are. But the most incomprehensible and mysterious seemed to me everything about the moon. Finally, lightning, piercing the clouds, rushing thunder, rain, snow, hail – all of it was for me an unsolved mystery!"

In this restless mood of the newly made philosopher turned to his brothers on reason - the philosophers. He went to the Stoics and to the Epicureans, and the Platonists, and other sages, as they hoped that they would be able to answer the young soul tormenting questions...

witnesses of the dignity to assume

"I chose the best out of them – if the witnesses of the dignity to assume a sullen face, pale skin color and thick beard, and indeed, at first glance, they seemed eloquent and people familiar with celestial and terrestrial phenomena. Giving them and yourself a fair amount of money, I asked them to explain to me the structure of the universe. And with such eagerness they began to clean off my former ignorance, which led me to even more confusion, okatu a rain of causes, purposes, atoms, voids, materials, ideas and other things. But just sadder was the fact that my mentors in anything didn't agree with each other. On the contrary, each of them had disputed the opinion of another and strove to ensure that I said he was right".

Lucian calms his friend and tells him that he once was a lover of wisdom, was talking to the philosophy, with Plato and with the truth and listening to the sages who sat as a theatre filled with a crowd ten-thousandth, with a height of watching. Lucian, pretending to be a simpleton, puzzled – really great philosophers arguing about the same things and have the same opinion. He wants somehow to justify the sages. However, his frustrated friend relentless...

     "Oh how you would laugh if you heard their speech, full of boasting! No towering over us, crawling on the ground, philosophers do not see better than their neighbors, and still others by old age and infirmities, and even short-sighted. And yet, they claim to distinguish the border of heaven, indicate the size of the sun, pass through neglinny spaces and falling from the stars, determine their value and appearance.

     Often they are unable to answer such a simple question - what is the distance from Rome to Athens, but just know, what is the distance between the moon and the sun.

Understanding of happiness in philosophy

The question of what happiness is and what it means to be happy, have long been worried about the man. "Man is created for happiness like a bird for flight". This well-known saying of the winged folk wisdom "has recorded the fact that happiness refers to the deep sides of the human existence, by its very nature. And that is why the concept of happiness must Express a certain cut of the moral life of man." (L. A. Popov Ethics. A course of lectures. - M., 1998. - P. 77).

The understanding of the essence of the consciousness of happiness not only prevents the complexity of the phenomenon of human spiritual life, but also the fact that the word "happiness" is used in everyday life in various ways. The concept of happiness for each person individually. "One happiness seems to be virtue, to others prudence, the third - known wisdom, but otherwise it all together or something one in connection with pleasure or not without pleasure, there are those that include the concept of external happiness and welfare".(Aristotle. Vol. in 4 vols. Vol. 4. - M., 1984. - P. 66).

Listing various people's opinions about happiness, we can say that for most people happiness is something visual and obvious: the luck, the pleasure, honor, wealth, etc. "Happiness, we say, is the same thing that the well-being and the good life". (Aristotle. Vol. in 4 vols. Vol. 4. - M., 1984. - S. 302). Therefore, "the question of happiness is not just a question of how to be lucky, happy or even virtuous, but above all, what is a good happy life and what man ought to strive in the first place." (Guseinov A. A., Apresyan R. G. Ethics. - M., 1998. - S. 295).

There is a definition of happiness as "moral consciousness, which refers to the human condition, which corresponds to the greatest inner satisfaction with the conditions of its existence, completeness and meaningfulness of life, to implement its human destination. As the dream, happiness is sensual-emotional ideal form, but unlike it means not the striving of the individual, and execution of these aspirations. The concept of happiness is not just characterizes certain specific position or subjective state of the person but also expresses the idea of what should be all life that is bliss. Depending on how interpreted the purpose and meaning of human life, and is content with happiness. So this concept is still normative and value nature." (The dictionary on ethics. Ed. by I. S. Kon., 1975. - S. 303).