The19^th century forms and by means of different philosophical methods develops the conception of man as a unique wight (Existentialism, Philosophy of life, Intuitionalism) or as a social-historic wight (Positivism, Marxism).

The 20^th century develops the conception of man as a biological wight (Freudism, Social-Darwinism) or as a socio-cultural wight (Neo-Kantianism, Cultural Anthropology, Philosophical Hermeneutic). The deficit of synthetic man’s essence conceptions is evident. It would not contradistinguish but combine the stated essence lines of integral man as their carrier.

The psychological paradigm: in the contemporary form it merges with philosophical paradigm, seeking fo r solving the essen tial basis of different states of soul-spiritual man ’s activity, because it is already philosophically-engaged in a considerable degree.  While exposing the depth of personality bases one can already speak about psychological philosophy or philosophical psychology. Problems of intuition, creation, act, conduct, activity, personality can not be solved without philosophical and methodological bases.

The Contemporary philosophy and psychology researches a significant unity of an object, problems and methodology of its learning, the base of such unity is  man in all inhexhaustible forms of his vital functions, and the purport of his being is the main form of their realization.

 We have already analyzed the problem of the purport of man’s being and we have made the conclussion that it is freedom-creativity.

     The methodological principle of the course as a whole and of the current topic in particular can be illustrated by G.W.F.Hegel’s words, that the world history is progress in realization of freedom: man is born free, he is free himself and the essence of reasonableness just in that to be free.

LECTURE 3.

THE EASTERN PHILOSOPHY.

1. The Indian tradition

2. The Chinese tradition

3. The Near East philosophical thought.

The most common way of treating the history of Indian thought is to begin with Vedic literature, mainly Rig Veda, the ancient hymns, may go back to 1000 BCE, often seen as very early deliverance of the Aryan culture which came into India in the period from about 1500 onwards. It is of course the Vedas that served as the beginning of the holy tradition of the Brahmis, who in becoming the dominant priesthood of a whole civilization have laid their stamp upon the Hindu world. Vedic literature included 4 parts: Vedas - ancient hymns in verse that were used in the course of rituals. Brahmans was the explanation of sacrificial acts and techniques. Aranjaks were special books for anchorites, who preferred life of a hermit avoiding activity and gaining knowledge. Upanishads was the last part of Vedas, which included philosophical ideas. There was a voyage inwards into the soul as well as outwards into the Universe. It coincided with the revelation of a new doctrine - that is of reincarnation, the possibility of death and redeath over long cycles.

The philosophical traditions of India had their beginnings in reflection on the Vedas and especially in attempts to interpret the Upanishads. A wide variety of schools emerged including some that specifically rejected the authority of the Vedas. Thus the Indian philosophy is commonly divided into two traditions: the orthodox schools of Hinduism that accepted Vedic authority, and the nonorthodox schools that did not accept that authority. Within the first category there were six major schools: Samkhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika, Nyaya, Mimamsa, and Vedanta. The second category consisted of Charvaka, Jainism, and Buddhism. Samkhya, one of the oldest and most influential of the schools, is traditionally held to have been founded by Kapila, who may have lived as early as the 7th century BC and to whom the Samkhya-sutra (Principles of Samkhya) is attributed. Samkhya metaphysics was based on the distinction between prakriti and purusha, which may be rendered as the objective, or nature, and the subjective, or self. All objects in the world were essentially constituted by the combination of atoms, which emerged from the eternal and uncaused prakriti.

Even the individual ego, or mind, was a result of the constant atomic flux of prakrili. Purusha, on the other hand, was not to be identified with the ego, or mind. It was uncaused, eternal, and unchanging and underlied the perceived ego. There was a plurality of such selves, which were the loci of consciousness and in combination with which prakriti evolved. The bondage to suffering that was the common starting point of all Indian philosophical thought arose from the involvement of purusha with prakriti. Release came when ignorance was overcome; that the attachment of purusha to the changing empirical world which was illusory became apparent.

The means by which this ignorance was overcome were elaborated by the Yoga school. While accepting much of the Samkhya position Yoga, as developed by Patanjali (2d century BC), believed in a supreme self or purusha, identified with the god of Isvara. The method of Yoga was to bring the self to understanding by meditation designed to curb the constant changes brought on by involvement in the perceived world. The knowledge acquired through meditation was an intuitive, irrational, and direct cognition of the nature of things. This intuition was the cessation of individuality and the identity of the self with the eternal purusha. Some forms of Yoga were recognized as practical methods of enlightenment by most of the other Indian schools.

The Vaisheshika system is thought to have been developed by Kanada in the 3d century BC. The essential aspect of Vaisheshika was a complex pluralistic metaphysics that recognized nine substances: earth, water, fire, air, ether, space, time, self, and mind. The first four material substances were atomic and gave rise to material composite objects. Mind was also atomic but did not give rise to composite objects. Vaisheshika tended to be theistic and saw God as guiding the world in accordance with the law of Karma. Human action perpetuated the workings of karma, and thus liberation was achieved through the cessation of actions, and achievement of a state beyond pleasure, pain, and experience in general.

Nyaya was closely associated with Vaisheshika, and they were often grouped together. The emphasis in Nyaya was stressed on methods of argument, and particularly on the elaboration of logical theory, which was used to justify Vaisheshika metaphysics. Nyaya distinguished various forms and origins of knowledge, as originally put forward by the founder of the school Gautama (the 2-nd century BC). In the course of time Nyaya developed a variety of arguments for the existence of God, as conceived by Vaisheshika, some of which parallel the classic arguments in the Western traditions.

The Mimamsa was often divided into two main branches, the Purva Mimamsa and the Uttara Mimamsa. The Mimamsa sutra of Jainini dated perhaps from the 4^th century BC and began a tradition in which later the two most important figures were Kumarila Bhatta and Prabhakara, both the 7^th century AD. The Mimamsa in general was concerned with development of nature and demanded of religious law or duty (Dharma) as it was found in the Vedas. As such it tended to emphasize the practical, although Mimamsa thinkers had made important contributions into logic and theory of knowledge. The Mimamsa, particularly the Uttara Mimamsa, was closely associated with Vedanta and sometimes treated simply as a school within the Vedantic tradition. Vedanta means “the end of the Vedas” and in general suggested analysis and contemplation of the theory and vision of the Vedic material. The point of departure for Vedanta was Badarayana’s Brahma sutras, also known as the Vedanta sutras. This represented the earliest attempt to organize and explicate the Upnishads and was itself an extremely difficult text, which had served as the object of commentaries by the major figures of later Vedanta schools. Central to these schools was the interpretation of Brahman and its relation to atman (self). The best known of the schools was the nondualist, or advaita, Vedanta of Shankara (AD 788-820), for whom Brahman was undifferentiated, eternal, and unchanging and the world was illusion, or maya. The modified nondualism, or vishishtadvaita, of Ramanuja (1017-1137) argued for the reality of individual self (atman) and the world but claimed that they were dependent on Brahman. The dualist, or dvaita, Vedanta of Madhva (1197-1276) insisted on a sharp distinction between Brahman and atman, as well as between Brahman and the world.

Of the three nonorthodox schools, the first two can be dealt with briefly. Charvaka was known only from fragments in the works of its opponents. It seemed to have been an extreme materialist reaction to the Vedic teachings and to have argued for the primacy of life in the world, the extinction of the individual at death, and perhaps an ethic of personal gratification. The common feature of all materialistic schools seemed to have rejected the future life, the laws of karma and samsara. To their opinion man was composed of matter, in particular, earth, air, fire and water, they inferenced spiritual appearing from this basic. As far as there is nothing in man what could live after his death they called to live a real life having pleasure and sufferings, realizing their particular equilibrium. These materialistic views were developed side by side with natural science development. They are known to have done a lot in natural science and have had a considerable effect.

Jainism, on the other hand, was an ethical religion that arose in the 6^th century BC.

From Juna (Jana)-victor-conqueror Jainism did without God or an Absolute. It insisted on the distinction between matter and soul and argued for a realistic atomism in the context of an atheistic universe. It conceived of many souls involved in the round of rebirth. Their souls were more material, as entities, which filled up the bodies to which they belonged. Jainism believed man to be of dual character that is material body and spiritual soul. They were linked in individual with the help of karma. There were 8 types of karma both positive and negative that influenced an innocent soul. Negative karmas corrupted it, positive hold the soul in the succession of rebirth, only by throwing off little by little bad and good karmas man liberated himself from the chains of samsara.

Salvation was achieved through three jewels that is faith, knowledge, and practice of the virtues, which were nonviolence, saying truth, not stealing, chastity, and not being attached to worldly goods and concerns. As for the outer world they believed the Universe to be eternal, non-created and undestroyable.

Buddhism originated as a sectarian movement in India in the 6^th-5^th century BC, spread over much of China, Southeast Asia, and Japan. According to the traditional accounts Buddha was born in a small place near the modern Nepalese border. Perhaps he was born in 563 and died in 483 BCE in a king’s family. His mother died after his birth and he was foretold to become a hermit if he happened to see a sick man, an old man or a deceased. His father did his best to keep him from the outer world. The boy got married, he had a son, but at the age of 29 he changed the clothes with his servant and late at night he left his house. He was deeply impressed by the life outside. He met an old man, a sick man and a monk, he was impressed with their sufferings and decided to devote his life to searching the ultimate truth. For six years he had been changing various teachers, made his body suffer and at last he had achieved enlightenment and so became the Enlightened One or Buddha.

In one way the doctrines of Buddha are deceptively simple. These were summed up in one way through Four Noble Truth which he presented at his first cermon:

1. Life is permeated by illfare or suffering;

2. The cause of sufferring is craving or thirst;

3. There is a cure to avoid this thirst;

  4.    The cure lies in the Noble Eightfold Path.

This latter culminated in three stages that signified different kinds of meditation or contemplative practice. As a consequence the individual successfully cured of suffering, would no longer be reborn. At the end of his life he would become a saint, or in the other words he would attain nirvana.

Buddha underlined practical side of his ethics and four divine virtues: benevolence compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity were the most characteristic of Buddhism, (especially compassion).

The Buddhist cosmology did not seem to have been very different from Upanishads. The idea of a supreme Creator was rejected. The Universe existed over huge periods and then relapsed into a kind of sleep, to be stimulated once again and to develop into ifs large and manifest form.

The Buddha’s rejection of things or substances went with his theory of causes and effects. He saw their relation eternal: one set of conditions simply gave rise to another set and so on. His resistance to the idea of substances transforming themselves was a part of critique of the sacrificial religion of Brahmin. Buddha did not seem to have denied many gods and spirits pervading the cosmos. They were not important for liberation but they had a certain limited power.

In the course of its history Buddhism had developed diverse philosophical traditions. The central teaching of Buddhism was the dharma. This term could mean a variety of things, including “the nature of things”,”the law” and “the true view of reality”. Dharmas, in plural, were usually held to be the genuine constituents of reality as opposed to the mere appearance. Common to almost all schools of Buddhist philosophy was the view that all things in the world had their origin in other things, a doctrine known as “dependent coorigination”. This doctrine led in most cases to metaphysics of flux, usually joined to a pluralistic atomism. Another doctrine common to almost all schools was that of anatta, that is the denial of a metaphysical self. The doctrine of anatta was often seen as a consequence of dependent coorigination, and the perceived self was analyzed as a bundle of skandhas, the five components of personality.

 The Chinese Tradition.

The Philosophical thought in China was concentrated on social and political problems. This assertion does not mean that cosmological and metaphysical speculations were not taken. The I Ching reflected a complicated vision of the universe. The oracles of the I Ching began to assume a modern written form perhaps in the 7^th century BC, and the book in general played an important role in the subsequent development of Chinese philosophy.

The famous relics and monuments of Chinese intelligence were five books, five classics which contained ancient poetry, history, laws and philosophy:

1. Classics of Poetry, (the 11^th - 6^th centuries BC) explained the origination of tribes and professions.

2. Classics of history, (the II-nd millennium BC).

3. Record of Rites, (the 4^th - 1st centuries BC) described rituals, ceremonies, norms of religious and political actions.

4. Spring and autumn annals (the 7^th - 5th centuries BC) were the chronicles and the patterns for solving ethical and cultural problems.

5. Classics of Changes (the12th - 6th centuries) was the most important as it contained the first Chinese regards of the world and man’s place in it. It reflected the base of the developing philosophical thought in China.

The basics for texts were 64 hexagrams, the symbols which                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             were formed with a combination of six lines. With the help of them Chinese sage men made prophecy, which seemed to have the ontological character. Little by little these hexagrams had been transformed into 64 categories of the world. Chinese philosophers gave much consideration to those two forces, which were so prominent in their account of the cosmos: the yin and the yang. The yang was female, dark and passive; the yin was male, active and light. Their interchange was a way that all things occur. In traditional Chinese philosophies this way was called Tao. The Classics of change just reflected Tao as the way of the world’s development. Man was insisted to consider his own place in the world, in nature by combining his own forces with those of the nature. During the period of dynasties of Hsia and Shang which followed the Chou one there was a flourishing of Chinese philosophy. It was defined as the rival of a hundred of schoolls. Historians called this period the epoch of “warring states” (from 453 BC)

The first recognized philosopher in China, however, was Confucius (541-497 BC). Confucius taught that the goal of a philosopher was to become learned, but this concept meant more than merely knowing a large number of facts. Rather, on the basis of a broad learning in the classic texts, the canon of which he essentially formulated. Confucius held that a person regardless of his social status could become aware of the moral order of the cosmos and of his proper place in it. He taught the primacy of the family, and the duties incumbent upon its various members, stressing harmony and unity and the self-evident goodness of the ethical life. Kong’s originality laid in his critical yet positive view of institutions. He took traditional concepts and social norms and transformed them, in the service of education, humane life and good political rule. He was not, however, terribly successful in worldly terms. There were three attempts on his life from apprehensive rulers; he had to leave his native Lu for a long period; he never gained the unquestioned status of political adviser to a prince - and though he later on became a minister in Lu and a magistrate, he never reached the heights that his unquestioned abilities might have suggested. His chief accomplishments were as an educationist, and his disciples carried on a tradition, which helped to shape Chinese civilization. He had a vision, which was realized, but long after his death.

This vision turned on various key ideas. One was that of li, or ceremonious behavior. He saw education as training the young in formal patterns of acting, and he laid great store by traditional rites and music.

Now in taking li as a central phenomenon, Kong was building on something traditional which could easily be meaningless and arid. He saw in religious and other rituals more than repetitious behaviors: he transformed them into acts which had a deep inner meaning, in expressing the fabric of the ceremonial in a virtuous society. As we shall see, there were plenty of critics who thought that Kong overemphasized formality. But he saw with clarity the vital role which formal and educated behavior plays in the ongoing patterns of civilized society. Kong does not stress rights: but the emphasis on li towards others is a counterpart to the notion. One person's rights arc how others should perform towards her or him.

The danger, though, with a stress on li is that behavior might become insincere and mechanical. So Kong also talked a lot about human-heartedness or ren. The person of ren masters himself and returns to propriety or li. He is earnest, loyal to friends, truthful and generous. In fact ren sums up all the virtues. It is on the basis of Kong's praise of it that many scholars see in him a humanist. In the general sense that his ethic is one of concern for human welfare this is true. But together with humaneness there goes respect or awe in the face of Heaven.

In one important respect the idea of Heaven had to do with politics, in so far as the ruler stood in a special relationship to God. But for Kong the concept of heaven was much broader and more existential. It stood for the divine, moral presence. It seems to have been something always there in his consciousness, and he hoped that his disciples would stand in respect of it and its ethical pressures. While it does not seem to have represented a vivid personal God, but has a rather impersonal air in Kong’s words, it is given a strong ethical meaning. This was no doubt a transformation in traditional ideas, which Kong had wrought. So it was that rituals directed towards Heaven were not mere rituals, but helped to cement intentions to perform the good. On the other hand, he was not much interested in the lower forms of religion. He did not wish to discuss ghosts and spirits and the like, though he was committed to veneration of ancestors. He believed that he derived his virtue from Heaven, and there is therefore little doubt that he thought of ethics as grounded in a Transcendent Being, even if he did not talk much about such matters as the afterlife.

Though the idea of ren is so important other concepts were brought in to fill out the moral picture, notably the idea of shu. Kong once said that a single thread ran through all his teachings, and this was understood to refer to reciprocity, together with loyalty to one's own moral nature. Unless one had personal integrity, one might, despise oneself and in that case reciprocity would not have the desired quality. But given sell-respect, then reciprocity (not treating others in ways in which you would not like them to treat you) becomes foundational of moral attitudes. Moreover, the humane person exhibiting ren would want to raise the moral insight and stature of others as he would wish to raise his own. In all this Kong’s teaching was often a critique of the behavior of rulers and of the nobility. This is no doubt why he was not a great success in merely worldly terms. He sought by ethical teachings to put trammels on power. Not only this; his very passion for education, to which in a sense he devoted the whole of his life, involved a new conception of aristocracy. He lived in a feudal and hierarchically organized society, and there are elements of hierarchy in his thought (he emphasized the higher status of the ruler and of the male and so can be considered to agree with a kind of patriarchy). But he did not think of aristocracy in a simply hereditary way. On the contrary, his ideal was of the superior man or junzi as one who exhibits gentlemanly behavior. The junzi stands in awe of Heaven; is wise, benevolent and courageous; knows what the basic issues of life are; understands the Mandate of Heaven; follows what is right and does not concentrate on a high standard of living; helps to elevate his friends; is careful in speech and deed; and is not a mere 'utensil', being good for one sort of specialism and nothing else (he is thus in the broadest sense truly educated). There arc echoes of Kant in the last: you should never treat another human being merely as a means so you should not yourself be merely an instrument to others or to the State. We can sec in all this that the gentleman or junzi is defined, as has happened too in English, in a moral and behavioral way. So Kong did not see the aristocrat as someone just born into a certain position. We can draw a parallel with the Buddha’s treatment of the true Brahmin not as someone born a Brahmin but as someone who practices sell-restraint.

We may note that in his own life Kong rose to eminence largely by his own efforts in educating himself. He was the son of the third wife of a poor official. He married at 19, by which time he had already given himself a wide range of knowledge, so that in his early twenties his reputation for education was such that he began to take pupils. He was, concerned with teaching in line with his own upward mobility: it was through learning that a person elevated himself in spirit and in expertise and so gained gentlemanly or aristocratic status in the true sense. Whether or not he edited the Classics as traditionally has been held (he probably, however, himself wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals), he nevertheless upheld the idea that immersion in the values of the tradition was at the heart of learning; and through this ideal he stamped China with the most important idea of recruiting its chief officials through a Confucian examination system. Meritocracy was to be the pattern of imperial administration. Education became the central mode of Chinese commitment over more than two thousand years.

Kong came to be the main inspirer of Chinese culture with the vital flame of education. And this was in part because he held to a critical view of tradition and society, which was summed up in his idea of the true gentleman or junzi.

To sum up: Kong had a vision of the gentleman who displays benevolence or humaneness and has at heart the welfare of others, and of a society which was harmonious because it was morally ordered. A key value at the center of all this was li or appropriate performative behavior, under the moral pressures, however, of Heaven seen as the presiding moral presence in the universe All this was a vision which, of course, had had a profound effect on Chinese society down the ages. This vision has in many ways remained a dominant one in Confucianism. The recorded sayings of Confucius do not present a systematic vision.

The first figure in the Confucian tradition to move toward a philosophical system was Mencius (the 4^th -3d century BC). Mencius argued for the essential goodness of persons - that divergence in moral responsibility was a result of a bad upbringing or environment. The results of a poor moral training could be overcome by education, and society was, thus, essentially perfectible. The duty of government was to foster the well-being of the people and bring society to perfection, a goal with which the genuine ruler was in accord due to his inborn goodness and moral sense.

A strain in Confucianism diametrically opposed to the idealism of Mencius arose a generation later in the thought of Hsun-tzu (330-225 BC). Hsun-tzu argued that, far from good, the inborn nature of persons was evil, or uncivil. Rather than eliciting innate moral virtues through education, Hsun-tzu insisted on the need to impose them from without. This doctrine had been variously interpreted; such a position led to the nonabsoluteness of ethical norms and hence led as much in the direction of liberalism as authoritarianism. Yet another facet of Hsun-tzu's thought was an acute logical sense, and he left a penetrating essay on names and meaning. Until the advent of Neoconfucianism in the medieval period, Hsun-tzu was usually considered a superior thinker to Mencius. The Neoconfucians emphasized an essentialist moral striving based on Confucius, Mencius, and two texts, the Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean. In its various forms, Neoconfucian thought dominated Chinese learning and social life until the beginning of the 20^th century      

The second important indigenous Chinese tradition was Taoism. The teaching of the Tao Te Ching, a work attributed to the semilegendary Lao-Tsu (6^th century BC), was elusive and complex and could perhaps best be characterized as teaching the eternal principle of reality and the way in which all things were governed by and found their true natures in it. It implied metaphysics of impermanence and change, and the philosopher who attained a clear vision of the eternal Tao and its relation to this flux acquired happiness and peace. The most important later Taoist philosopher was Chuang-tzu. In Chuang-Tzu the Taoist divergence from and rejection of, the Confucian ideals became pronounced. Whereas the Confucian tradition believed in the molding of the person through education, Chuang-tzu saw the classical teachings of the schools as tending to lead the person away from an understanding of the nature of things, the Tao, and thus away from a genuine awareness of his own nature and place in the world. This outlook sometimes led to Taoism could be seen as antisocial. Nevertheless, both Chuang-tzu and Mencius, who was perhaps his contemporary, saw the goal of philosophy as attaining awareness of the essential harmony of things, although they disagreed on the origin of this harmony and how awareness was to be attained.

Only the two main strands in Chinese thought have been mentioned. The Moists, who taught the existence of a Supreme Spirit that possessed equal and universal love for all people; the Legalists, who advocated a practical philosophy of political domination; and the Buddhists, who became important from the 4^th century AD on, also exercised wide influence in Chinese thought. Within the Neoconfucian tradition a variety of positions emerged.

The Near East philosophical thougth.

The origin of philosophical thought in Ancient Babylon and Egypt dates back to the end of the 4^th - the beginning of the 3 millennium BC, when the development of slave-owning relations in these countries achieved the top. This process was closely connected with the first steps of science. The economic development required practical knowledge of natural regularities and, of course, great experience.

Thus, Egyptians built channels, pools, water reservoirs and dams. Also they were occupied with shipbuilding, construction of roads, harbours and palaces.

Huge pyramids, temples, irrigation systems are the evidence of significant level of technical thought of that time.

Nyle’s banks were the earliest stage, where the basics of astronomy, geometry and algebra were founded. The land surveying, construction of pyramids, need to calculate the periods, when water rose and fell down, give evidence to this.

The Egyptians knew four arithmetic actions, fractions; they could put a number into degree, solved equations with two unknowns. Also they used number pi, which was known in European mathematics only in 14^th century.

But the solution of problems was found by the empirical method, because the Egyptians did not know logical reasoning and the deductive mathematics did not exist.

The significant successes in mathematics also were achieved in Ancient Babylon. The number system, which was applied throughout the world and preceded an Arab one, appeared there.

Both Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian natural science contributed to philosophical view about nature. The lists of more then 300 plants, birds, animals were made in Ancient Egypt. Also the veterinary book was written there. Medicine was of great importance for developing rational views on nature. For the first time a thought, that brain is a centre of mental activity, providing action of all organism was stated there.

The origin of philosophical thought in Ancient Babylon and Egypt was connected not only with the first steps of science. The worldview of Ancient Babylonians, Egyptians as well as other peoples of the Near East was unseparable from mythology - the first attempt to think over different natural phenomena. Myth was the only way to work out well regulated and meaningful for everybody world conceptions. It was just the mythology where the beginnings of philosophy were hidden. In Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt myth served as a universal explanation of the achieved knowledge. Myth integrated contradictory elements: things mastered and realized by man from one side and enemical natural world from the other one. To realize strange natural phenomena the cosmological myths were created, in which some stable order, which was used in social relations, was established. The theme of struggle of chaos and order was the characteristic feature of all Near East area at that time (Enuma Elish: Marduc God fought against Tiamat, who was solt fore fatherocean, and defeated him.)

In Ancient Egypt in a spontaneous form of myth man tried to solve a problem of material base of natural things.

In the epos about Gilgamesh, the most ancient one we know, one could see themes of worldview character, such as: the theme of life and death and the theme of tragedy of human being. Being shocked by his friend’s death Gilgamesh realized that deathlessness was possible only in man’s activity, good deals, which he could leave after his death.

In Mesopotamian literature we often could find the question "How can we leave?" which was answered by numerous proverbs, advice and instructions. In the "Dialogue of Master with his slave" the contradiction of being was reflected. In real life everything may be comprehended only with regard to something. There is no absolute good or truth.

In the "Harpist's song" the doubt of existence of afterdeath life was stated. So people should improve their earthly life. On the other side reality did not prove the possibility to get happiness during earthly life. The death was considered as liberation.

The short summary of the history of philosophical thought in Ancient Babylon and Egypt shows us the existence of beginnings of philosophical and social thought in Ancient East. In the monuments of this culture the material base of natural phenomena were stated in a spontaneous form. Also it was mentioned that cool water was a source of all leaving beings and air was the substance, which filled up entire space and existed in all things. But on these territories the philosophical thought did not aproach the level, which was achieved by more developed slave-owning countries. Nevertheless these views influenced the following development of science and material thought of Ancient World.

LECTURE 4.