The first of them, Thalès de Milet (towards 625-547 av. J. - C.), did not write anything. It is known only that, for him, the element first of nature was water, while, for Anaximandre, it was the infinite one, for Anaximène the air, and Héraclite fire. In fact, as of its birth, philosophy arised, against the cosmogonic myths of the origin of the world, like the science or the true knowledge of Nature. And it is this knowledge which was to make it possible to the man wisely to be held with its true place, between the gods and the animals, within the natural elements.

From this same point of view, philosophy will be conceived very early like a specific activity aiming at getting to its followers safety by wisdom. What is necessary to understand by this wisdom (sophia), which Latin will name sapientia? “According to the definition of the former philosophers, will say Cicéron, it is the science (or exact and thorough knowledge) of the divine and human things, as of the principles on which they rest.” However null another activity, in the city of the men, does not post such an ambitious project. Consequently, philosophers and not-philosophers agree implicitly on this idea that if philosophy is possible, if it, it is not a vain word must make of the philosopher a being which has some relationship with the divine intelligence.  

This is why, as of their appearance, the philosophers will be the subject of mocking remarks, lawsuit and judgments worthy of their project. A certain poetic hermetism wraps however the boldness of the first philosophical designs of the world. It characterizes in particular the language of presocratic end of the VI E front century J. - C.: for Héraclite d' Ephèse, known as the Obscure one (Skoteïnos), the eternal law of Nature is that of “the unit of the opposites”. For this philosopher of becoming, “very runs out” (panta rheï). For Parménide d' Elée, on the contrary, “only the Being is absolute, one, motionless, eternal”. For Empédocle d' Agrigente, finally, it is the discord which broke the primitive unit and generated the world, with its four elements: air, fire, then water and ground. Such epopees, of which there remain to us only fragments besides, are still halfway to poetry and of metaphysics, which makes it possible to these thinkers to express, without fear of reprisals, their imposing vision of Nature.  

On the other hand, with the lawsuit and the death of Socrate, in 399 av. J. - C., the relationship between philosophy, on the one hand, and the political power and religious, on the other hand, were established, as of the beginning, under the sign of an open competition or of an in-depth competition and, in any case, of a permanent tension.  

Philosophy and religion

Far from being unaware of itself, philosophy and the religion, these two great productions of the human thought and history, did not cease measuring one with the other, clashing with different weapons (reason and revelation), on the same battlefield, infinitely vast: that of the divine and human things, and the principles which found them or maintain them. So that at the various times of the history there always was, between philosophy and religion, open or latent conflict, or reciprocal attraction, even integral dissolution of the one of both in the other.  

Thus, the religion, well before arising, with Thomas d' Aquin (1225-1274), like only absolutely true philosophy, starts by pushing back and to condemn all “philosophy” due to impiety or of heresy, as it did it in ancient Greece as of the O C front century J. - C. Indeed, this century was marked by a series of single lawsuits in heresy in the Athenian history. The refusal to accept supernatural having been regarded as an offense, most Masters of the Greek thought of then, whose reflection related to Nature, were banished or obliged to flee.  

The impiety of Anaxagore de Clazomènes was shown of impiety and was condemned to died to have supported that the Sun was an incandescent mass. Learning its judgment, he answered that “for a long time already, Nature had condemned it to death, like his judges”. However, saved by Périclès, which was its disciple, it paid a fine and had to be exiled.  

The impiety of Protagoras d' Abdère
Protagoras d' Abdère, illustrates sophist against whom Plato wrote a dialog (Protagoras), was shown in his turn of impiety and was driven out of Athens to have said that “of the gods, I can know neither if they exist, neither if they do not exist, nor which could be their aspect well”, and to have written this memorable formula: “The man is the measurement of all things, among those which are, as them are, among those which are not, as them are not.”  

The impiety of Diagoras de Mélos
Diagoras de Mélos, another sophist, having made a perjury which remained unpunished, turned in derision the worship of the gods. Its head was put at price, and it had to seek refuge in Corinthe, where it finishes its days. As one showed him, in favor of Providence, the many offerings made to the gods by navigators escaped from shipwrecks, it retorted: “That this would be if all those which perished had brought their!”  

The lawsuit of Socrate
As for most famous of all, Socrate, its lawsuit revêt an exemplary philosophical significance. Certain Mélétos, man of straw of powerful Anytos, deposited against the philosopher, then old of sixty and eleven years, the following complaint: “Socrate is guilty not to recognize like gods the gods of the city and to introduce the new ones; it is guilty also to corrupt youth. The required sorrow is death.” Declared guilty by 281 votes against 220, but invited to fix itself its sorrow, Socrate - Master in irony - required that the city return the honors due to the heroes to him, or, failing this, a weak fine inflicted to him. It was then condemned to drink the conium.

Socratic wisdom

Philosophy was thus born, with the death of Socrate, under the sign of suspicion. She was condemned by the powers in place, supposed to judge in the name of the company. However, Socrate gained its appeal, but also that of philosophy. Indeed, the later success of this disconcerting figure, whose words do not cease holding us in awakening, attests that Socrate represented better than its judges the future of the thought.  

The lesson of Socrate was collected and restored by Plato - his pupil - in dialogs which keep today still all their strength. However, Socratic wisdom is philosophically paradoxical: it is that of a man who, recognized like the highest figure of the philosopher, however did not write anything and itself was never presented in the form of wise. It was satisfied to flush out, by its questions, the ignorance of its interlocutors, which is shown with naked behind a language without rigor and of the done everything thoughts.  

Socrat is - as known as oracle - wisest of the Greeks, because it knows that it does not know anything, while the others believe it. They are unaware of especially that they do not have to receive the truth of someone else. It is what illustrates, in a dialog of Plato, Ménon, celebrates it example of the small slave who, without to have ever studied, finds only the solution of a problem of geometry, only guided by the convenient questions of Socrate. In a time which absolutely separated the Greeks from the “Barbarians” and the free men of the slaves, Socratic wisdom teaches as well as the truth is offered to all, without belonging to anybody in particular, was Socrate. Because this one only claims to be confined the spirits, as his/her mother - the Phénarète midwife - was confined the bodies.

With Socrate, the philosophy “descended from the sky on the ground”, as Cicéron will say, is thus announced, initially, like the refusal of the opinion and the prejudices to which the greatest number subscribes blindly, without to have reflected there. Moreover, only human resources, such that they are of each one, must be enough to wisely guide us in our research and get safety to us. Such principles, characteristic of a humanism of the reason, will be essential from now on on any philosophical doctrines worthy of this name. But, with the death of Socrate, philosophy is far from to have said its last mot.  

The philosopher according to Plato

Plato will close the interrogations of his Master and will crown his research by political doctrines, founded on the contemplation of the Good. Philosophy becomes then, within the city, a separated activity, held for those which will have operated a radical conversion of their heart towards the celestial light. Delivered cave with the illusions, they must rise until the Idea of the Good, before going down again in the city, among their former companions of captivity, to light them in their turn.  

Philosophy is defined thus positively as an elitist vocation of political pedagogy, and negatively in opposition to the activities from which it is distinguished: those of the workers, slaves and craftsmen, of the merchants, the warriors, the magistrates. Specific activity of the spirit, it has to make of the philosopher the spiritual guide of the city. Philosophy then sees opening in front of it very vast prospects, in two directions: towards the Idea of the Good, which lights it like the sun, and towards the city (polishes), from which it inspires the laws and regulates the institutions.  

As for the Platonic figure of the philosopher, who is still inspired by Socrate, it takes shape in his turn in opposition to its negative: the “not-philosopher”, who likes his body (philosômatos), the pleasures (philèdonos), the money (philarguros), the richness (philochrèmatos), the power (philarchos) and the honors (philotimos). From now on, three main issues - subjectivity, objectivity and transcendence - will provide if not the explicit centers of interest of the philosophical reflection, entirely detached of human passions, at least of the required passages for all the systems to come.