What are the main periods of western philosophy? What are the basic characteristics of each period?

Before the formation of Marxist philosophy, western philosophy experienced three periods: ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, medieval philosophy and modern philosophy.

First, ancient Greek and Roman philosophy

Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy can be roughly divided into three stages:

(1) From the 7th century BC to the 6th century BC, philosophers paid attention to the study of the universe, and the philosophy at this stage was called natural philosophy. Due to different answers to the origin of the world and different areas where philosophers live, Miletus School, Eiffel School, Pythagoras School and Elijah School have been formed. Miletus school takes water, infinity and qi as the origin of the world; Heraclitus of the Eiffel School believes that everything in the world is a fire that burns and goes out according to the law; Pythagoras school regards' number' as the prototype of things, and thinks that number constitutes the' order' of the universe, and' everything has numbers'; The Elijah School regards the ever-changing world as an illusory illusion and thinks that the only real thing is' existence', which is single, limited, unchangeable and inseparable.

Later natural philosophers put forward the concepts of "four elements" (water, fire, earth and gas), "seed" and "atom" to explore the origin of the world. Some people further explore the motive force of world movement and change, and think that there is the most subtle, dynamic and material thing' slave', which makes hot and cold, dry and wet correspond, separates' seeds' from the original mixture, starts to move, and constitutes countless universes and concrete things.

Research transformation

② In the 5th century BC, the focus of ancient Greek philosophy shifted from studying nature to studying people. At this time, the wise don't believe in real existence and objective truth. Protagoras believes that everything is equally true, right and wrong, good and evil are relative to people's feelings; Gorgias thinks everything is false. Socrates, who claimed to love the wise, believed that objective truth existed and could be known. True knowledge is to seek the universal definition of all kinds of morality from specific moral behavior; The way to seek a definition is to cross-examine.

(3) In the 4th century BC, ancient Greek philosophy entered a systematic stage, represented by Plato and Aristotle. Plato put forward the theory of idealism, thinking that the realistic and perceptible world is not real, and there is an eternal and real world of idealism outside it. Idea is the "paradigm" of individual things; Individual things are imperfect' shadows' or' replicas' of perfect ideas; The feeling of taking individual things as objects cannot be the source of true knowledge, which is the' memory' of ideas by immortal souls. Aristotle disagreed with Plato's idealism. He called this concept "form" and thought that "form" could not exist independently from individual things. Form is the essence of things and exists in things.

Concrete things are composed of material factors, formal factors, dynamic factors and purpose factors. The process of combining matter with form is the movement to turn potential into reality. But he also put forward the' first promoter', the ultimate goal of things and the ultimate reason of movement, which is considered to have no material form. After Aristotle's death, Greek culture gradually combined with Roman culture. In more than 800 years, there have been many schools of philosophy, including Epicurus, Stoicism and skepticism represented by Pyrrho. On the basis of the development of predecessors' thoughts, they conducted in-depth discussions, involving ethical and religious issues. In the systematic stage of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, Aristotle founded formal logic, which laid a solid foundation for traditional logic.

Second, medieval philosophy.

In medieval Europe, Catholicism occupied a dominant position in all aspects of secular life and spiritual life, and philosophy became the handmaid of theology, whose role was to make a rational explanation for faith. The 5th ~10th century is the early period of medieval philosophy, and the focus of philosophical research in this period is the relationship between universality and individuality.

The late Roman philosopher A.M.T.S Poiseuille attached great importance to the authenticity of individual things with diversity, and thought that * * * existed in individual things, and it was not material in itself. Irish philosopher J.S. Elliugenna believes that the universe as a whole is the most real, and God is the whole, which creates everything, embraces everything and transcends everything. God is different from everything. Everything is a part of God, but God is in everything. 1 1 From the beginning of the century to the beginning of the 4th century, two schools of nominalism and realism were formed on the basis of early medieval philosophy. Nominalism, represented by Luoselin, a French scholastic philosopher, holds that only a few things are true, the individual precedes the universal, and the universal is just a name, and the' * * * phase' is just a voice made by people, which does not actually exist. This kind of thought is reflected in religion, which denies the Trinity Supreme God and only recognizes the separate existence of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Realism, represented by Christian philosopher Anselmus, believes that what really exists is' * * * phase', not specific individual things, and there is a' truth without beginning and without end' that precedes everything. This thought is reflected in religion, which recognizes the universal church reality and thinks that individual churches are subordinate; Acknowledge the universal teachings of Christianity and believe that personal beliefs are subordinate; Admit the truth of original sin, and think that individual sin is subordinate; Admit the supreme reality of the trinity, think that the three separated gods are subordinate, and so on.

/kloc-from the beginning of the 4th century to the middle of the 5th century, due to the decline of the church and the development of natural science, orthodox scholasticism declined, philosophy became increasingly divorced from theology, the idea of individual freedom began to sprout, and medieval philosophy gradually transitioned to modern philosophy.

Third, modern philosophy.

Modern western philosophy is formed with the self-awakening of human beings. During this period, people's thoughts returned to the world from the other side of religion, thus discovering nature and people themselves, and began to pursue knowledge and yearn for personal freedom.

15 ~17th century is the first stage of modern western philosophy. The research center of this stage is man and nature, and humanism and natural philosophy are two interrelated but different ideas. Humanism advocates that people are the center and everything is for the benefit of people, and opposes the theory of immortality of the soul and asceticism. Representatives of natural philosophy generally advocate the scientific method of empirical observation, rather than the deduction of scholasticism. Italian B. Tlesi believes that matter is eternal, and the opposition between hot and cold is the reason for the movement of matter; G Bruno believes that the universe is infinite, the solar system is only a part of it, and nature is God, which is made up of lists.

List is the unity of matter and spirit, matter and form. Many representatives of natural philosophy are natural scientists, and their scientific research is often mixed with magic, alchemy and astrology, which brings a lot of imagination and fiction to their philosophical thoughts.

The second stage of modern western philosophy is1from the beginning of the 7th century to1the end of the 8th century. At this stage, philosophy focuses on the relationship between cognitive subject and cognitive object, forming two schools of empiricism and rationalism. Materialist empiricism, represented by Bacon and Locke, holds that the acquired external feeling is the source of knowledge and the feeling is reliable. Bacon admitted that nature is material, and material is dynamic and diverse. The purpose of mastering knowledge is to know and conquer nature, and knowledge is power. Locke believes that the mind is a' whiteboard' and thoughts are the product of external things leaving traces on the whiteboard. Materialist rationalism, represented by B. Spinoza, holds that the object of knowledge is objective nature, but only rationality can grasp it, and feels that experience is unreliable. Spinoza regards nature as the only entity, and thinks that thinking and extension are two attributes of a unified and unique entity, and individual things are the deformation of entities. Only by rationally grasping unique entities can we know individual things.

Idealist rationalism, represented by Descartes and G.W. Leibniz, holds that real knowledge can only be obtained through clear and accurate reasoning with rational cognitive ability on the basis of a completely clear and unquestionable axiom. Descartes put forward the theory of' natural concept', which holds that people's rational cognitive ability is natural, and the self-evident first axiom is also inherent and natural in life. But he recognized the independent existence of both spiritual and material entities, and unified these two relatively independent entities into an absolute entity' God'. Leibniz further developed Descartes' thought, thinking that all ideas are innate, but they originally exist in people's minds as tendencies, endowments, habits or natural potentials, and can only really appear after processing. The idealist empiricism represented by Barclays and Hume holds that "being is being perceived". Barclays concluded that there is nothing in the world except the perceived spiritual entity and the perceived perception; Hume further believes that there is only perception in reality, experience is composed of perception, and everything except perception is unknowable. /kloc-in the 0/8th century, in addition to the dispute between rationalism and empiricism, there were a number of French enlightenment thinkers and encyclopedic materialist philosophers who had a great influence on the development of western philosophy. The second stage of modern western philosophy is generally characterized by mechanical metaphysics.

From Kant's philosophy at the end of 18, modern western philosophy entered the third stage, which was called' German classical philosophy' in the history of philosophy. The main representatives are Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach.

Under the premise of overcoming the mechanical and metaphysical, the first four kinds of people strive to unify the world on the basis of thinking and think that the essence of the world is spiritual. Spirit, ego and subject occupy a central position in their philosophy. Kant admits that there is a' thing itself' outside human sensory experience, which is the source of sensory experience, but it can never be recognized. The stimulation of the object itself makes people have sensory experience, and then the perceptual and intellectual knowledge of the subject is combined with the innate forms of cognition such as time and space, 12 category, and the sensory experience materials are sorted out to achieve a systematic understanding of the phenomenon; Rationality is the highest comprehensive ability higher than intellectuality, which requires understanding the nature of the world, but it can never achieve its goal. If reason absolutes the relative phenomenon and thinks that it has mastered all the truth, it will inevitably fall into the false phase. Fichte further abolished Kant's "thing itself" and thought that everything in the world was created by "ego", and the subject "ego" created the object "non-ego", further realizing the unity of ego and non-ego. Schelling founded the same philosophy, thinking that object and subject, nature and spirit, existence and thinking are seemingly opposite, but in fact they are the same, and they are all different stages of "absolute identity" without distinction. Hegel regards the whole world as the evolution process of the "absolute concept" itself, and thinks that the absolute concept itself contains two aspects of unity of opposites.

Their unity of opposites makes the absolute concept evolve along the pattern of syllogism of unity of positive and negative, and makes the absolute concept externalized into nature. The evolution of nature has produced human beings and human society with self-knowledge ability. Human cognition gradually develops from understanding nature to understanding self and consciousness itself, and finally reaches the complete self-knowledge of absolute idea, and the whole world returns to absolute idea itself. Feuerbach was the last philosopher who had the greatest influence on German classical philosophy. He criticized Hegel's philosophy as "speculative theology". He thinks that nature is the only reality, and there is nothing but nature and people. God and God are both products of human self-alienation. Man created God and God, not God and God created man. People are born in nature, and people and their thinking organs are the products of nature. Without nature, thinking can't exist. It's not spirit that produces nature, but spirit that produces nature. However, Feuerbach abandoned both Hegel's idealism and Hegel's dialectics.

Philosophical systems that have a certain influence in the history of world philosophy development include Korean philosophy, Japanese philosophy, Pakistani philosophy, Sri Lankan philosophy, Vietnamese philosophy, Iranian philosophy, Islamic philosophy, Russian philosophy and other areas.

They are more or less influenced by the three philosophical traditions, but they have their own philosophical thinking characteristics. Among them, Islamic philosophy played a media role in the process of spreading Aristotle's philosophy to Western Europe in the Middle Ages, which also made great progress in Aristotle's philosophy and became an important link in the history of world philosophy development.