Russian Thought on the Origination of Greek Philosophy

European Journal of Philosophical Research. 2017. P. 35–47.

Matveychev O. A.

The article is a historiographical and theoretical overview of the basic concepts of the genesis of ancient Greek philosophy in the Russian and Soviet philosophical literature in 19-20th centuries. While the first information about antiquity appeared in Russia in the 10th century, the author indicates that the scientific study of ancient Greek philosophy in Russia began only in the 19th century. One of the first original research in this area belonged to the O. Novitsky. He put forward the idea of the development of Greek philosophy from mythology and religion of more than half a century before F. Cornford and K. Joel. This concept was developed creatively by S. Trubetskoy. He argued that the philosophy of the Greeks is a special phase of their religious ideas. The author argues that the last sentence in this debate is unlikely to be ever written, because to find the solution to the problem of the genesis of philosophy is to solve the grand question of philosophy: what is philosophy?

Keywords: ancient Greek philosophy