A Brief History of Philosophy in the Beginning

A Brief History of Philosophy in the Beginning

A Brief History of Philosophy in the Beginning
Philosophy has no special beginning but it would be naive to assume that philosophical thinking emerged spontaneously in various spots around the world. There were caravans across Asia and extensive trades around the Mediterranean up and down the Nile, and throughout what we now call the Middle East. The early Hebrew were Nomads, India was at the crossroads of many different cultures, and Egypt was at the source of ideas that later became the Basis for Greek Philosophy. There were great civilizations south of the Mediterranean as well not only in Egypt but in Nubia (now Ethiopa) and further up the Nile. These cultures had sophisticated systems of Astronomy, advanced mathematics, complex, and thoughtful views of the nature and soul, and an obsession with the question of life after death.
Greek Philosophy leading ideas including geometry and the concept of soul were imported more or less directly from elsewhere. The Greek miracle of ancient Greece may not be as remarkable beginning, but as a culmination, the climax of a story we no longer remember.
Hinduism dates back thousands of years, with a rich legacy of god and goddesses, speculation and deep insights of the way of the world. For several centuries, Indian philosophers defend the conception of absolute reality, which some insisted was independent of and unknown to ordinary human experience. Following the Hindu scriptures, Buddha developed a view, which our ordinary view of the universe and of ourselves is a kind of a wondrous universe. Buddha followers developed rich theories of knowledge, nature, the self and its passions, the human body and its ailments, the mind and its afflictions, and language and our ways of conceiving reality.
The Ancient Hebrews, of course were a potent philosophical force in the Ancient world. Their concepts of an Ancient God a single God and of a God-given-Law set the stage for "Western Civilization." A thousand years before the birth of Jesus who achieved the statue of Confucius, the Budda or Socrates, nevertheless, the Ancient Hebrew thinkers left us of the influential books in history, "The Old Testament," the book of Genesis in particular is on of the most important books in philosophy.
In China Confucius developed a philosophy that was concerned almost entirely with social and political issues. He talked about calm relationships, leadership and diplomacy, self-transformation and cultivating personal virtue. The central aim of Confucianism was to define and cultivate the way to a harmonious society.
The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu placed great importance in nature and less to human society. Confucius thought this was unnatural, for example, it should play no part in the proper life of a gentleman. Lao had more faith in nature and much more in tolerance for the passions of an uneducated man. For Confucius the way of the good life is to follow traditions of honor and respect set down by ones ancestors. For Lao the way is to be more mysterious, it cannot be spoken, it cannot be spell out, it cannot be explained in any book. According to Lao "The Tao that can be followed is not the true Tao, the name that can be named is not the true name." However, that does not mean that one cannot find and try to live according to it and Tao's teachings are intended to guide our way and us. Between, Confucius and Lao defined Chinese philosophy. They agreed on their overall emphasis on harmony as the ideal state of both society and the individual, and they insisted on the "holistic" conception of human life and emphasized a persons place in larger context.
The Greeks were a group of Nomadic Indo-Europeans who came down from the north and replaced the people already settled by the Aegean Sea. They were not innovators at first but as they traded around the Mediterranean, the Greeks borrowed freely from other cultures. From the Phoenicians they borrowed an Alphabet, some technology, and bold new religious ideas. From Egypt, they borrowed the models the came to be know as Greek Architecture, the basics of Geometry and ideas that are still more religious. Greek philosophy emerged from the mixture of mythology, mystery, and mathematics. Their culture was rich and creative, but jealous and competitive enemies surrounded them. By the sixth century, the traditional mythology of Greece was already becoming a little tired and increasingly problematic. Sophisticated Greeks no longer took the stories of god and goddesses, and various victims and escorts seriously much less literally.
I am Barb Haynes author/scribbler, I wrote this article because I have suffered with depression bought on by many different reasons. During depression I have been taken in by philosophy and love reading about all different kinds and history of philosophy.