Philosophical representations on the phenomenon of evil in antique culture

Abstract

The subject of this research is the existence of philosophical representations on the phenomenon of evil in antique culture and its perennial dialectical correlation with the good. This goal is achieved by interrelated solution of the following tasks: 1) determine the sources of antique philosophical perceptions of good and evil; 2) extract the essence of views of pre-Socratians, thinkers of the high classical period and certain representatives of Hellenistic philosophy upon the problems of good and evil; 3) assess the impact of antique ideas on good and evil upon the medieval philosophical views and modern philosophy. The scientific novelty consists in the first within the national historical-philosophical literature comprehensive assessment of the representations of antique philosophy upon the nature of evil. The author explores the genesis of these representations and their spiritual impact upon further development of world philosophy. Ancient Greece along with Ancient Rome, which absorbed its intellectual heritage, did not form the conceptually clear definition of evil; but the reviewed in this article philosophers, in diverse aphoristic forms of pre-philosophical knowledge and extant writings, left a number of paramount observations and reasoning that allow determining the establishment and advancement of the theory of evil in Middle Ages and Modern Age.