Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Posted on http://allbest.ru

Federal State Educational

state-financed organizationhigher professional education

"FINANCIAL UNIVERSITY

UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION"

Bryansk branch

Test

in the discipline "Culturology"

« Scientific knowledge and ancient writingth World»

Completed:

FULL NAME Romanov Yuri Valerievich

Bachelor of Faculty Economy, Management and marketing

Personal number 100.04/130193

Teacher Sharov

Bryansk - 2014

Work plan

Introduction

1. Development of scientific knowledge of the Ancient East

1.1 Egypt

1.2 Ancient India

1.3 Ancient China

1.4 Calendars, number systems and medicine

2. Writing and literature

2.1 Writing

2.2 Literature

3.Test

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Since time immemorial, the ancient Egyptian civilization has attracted the attention of mankind. Egypt, like no other ancient civilization, creates the impression of eternity and rare integrity. On the land of the country that is now called the Arab Republic of Egypt, in ancient times one of the most powerful and mysterious civilizations arose, which for centuries and millennia attracted the attention of contemporaries like a magnet.

At a time when the era of the Stone Age and primitive hunters still dominated in Europe and America, ancient Egyptian engineers built irrigation structures along the Great Nile, ancient Egyptian mathematicians calculated the square of the base and the angle of inclination of the Great Pyramids, ancient Egyptian architects erected grandiose temples, the grandeur of which was not can degrade time.

The history of Egypt goes back more than 6 thousand years. Unique monuments preserved on its territory ancient culture attract a huge number of tourists from all over the world every year. Grandiose pyramids and the Great Sphinx, majestic temples in Upper Egypt, many other architectural and historical masterpieces - all this still amazes the imagination of everyone who manages to get to know this amazing country. Today's Egypt is the largest Arab country located in northeast Africa. Let's take a closer look

1. Development of scientific knowledge of the Ancient East

Ancient Eastern history dates back to approximately 3000 BC. Geographically, the ancient East refers to countries located in South Asia and partly in North Africa. Characteristic feature The natural conditions of these countries are the alternation of fertile river valleys with vast desert areas and mountain ranges. The valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Ganges and Yellow Rivers are very favorable for agriculture. River floods provide irrigation for fields, and a warm climate provides fertile soil.

However, economic life and life in the northern Mesopotamia were structured differently than in the southern one. Southern Mesopotamia, as it was written before, was a fertile country, but the harvest was brought only by the hard work of the population. Construction of a complex network of water structures that regulate floods and provide a supply of water for the dry season. However, the tribes there led a sedentary life and gave rise to ancient historical cultures. The source of information about the origin and history of the states of Egypt and Mesopotamia was the excavations of hills and mounds formed over a number of centuries on the site of destroyed cities, temples and palaces, and for the history of Judah and Israel the only source was the Bible - a collection of mythological works

1.1 Egypt

Egypt was a narrow valley of the Nile River. Mountains rise from the west and east. The western mountains separate the Nile Valley from the Sahara Desert, and behind the eastern mountains stretches the shores of the Red Sea. In the south, the Nile Valley runs into the mountains. In the north, the valley widens and ends with the Nile Delta. The mountains were rich in building stone - granite, basalt, limestone.

Gold was mined in the eastern mountains. In the Nile Valley, valuable tree species grew - tamarisk, sycamore trunks of which were used in shipping. The Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea - the main artery of the countries of the ancient world. Thanks to the Nile floods, the soil of Egypt was fertilized and the flood provided abundant irrigation. The moss-covered land was fertile. The cult of the Nile is still religiously observed today.

Main occupation ancient population The valley had farming, hunting and fishing. The first grain cultivated in Egypt was barley, then wheat and flax began to be grown. In Egypt, irrigation structures were built in the form of pools with walls made of knocked down earth and coated with clay. During a spill, water flowed into the pools, and people disposed of it as needed. To maintain this complex system, regional control centers called “nomes” were created.

They were ruled by norms (they gave instructions on the preparation of fields for sowing, monitored the harvest and distributed the harvest to the population throughout the year. The Egyptians rarely prepared food at home, it was customary to take grain to the canteens, several villages were fed there. A special official made sure that the cooks did not steal and the stew was poured out equally. At the head of the Egyptian army was the pharaoh. In the conquered country, a man loyal to Egypt ascended to the throne. Main goal The war was spoils of war - slaves, livestock, rare wood, ivory, gold, precious stones.

1.2 Ancient India

A special feature is the sharp isolation of India from other countries. It is separated from the north by the Himalayas, from the west by the Arabian Sea, from the east by the Bay of Bengal, and from the south by the Indian Ocean.

Therefore, India's development was slow and very isolated. But despite this, the Dravidian culture is superior to the Egyptian, and in some respects, even to the Sumerian. Already in the 4th millennium they were familiar with the making of bronze, while the Summerians switched to it in the 3rd, and the Egyptians in the 2nd millennium. The level of construction among the Dravidians was also higher than that of the Sumerians. The Dravidians built houses from baked bricks, while the Sumerians built houses from raw bricks.

The ancient tribes of India knew how to make boats and oars and traded with Babylonia through Elam. Along with trade, crafts developed. They produced bronze weapons and jewelry. The dishes were made on a potter's wheel, covered with a thin glaze and painted with several colors of paint. The Dravidian religion has retained its primitive forms. They considered the bull to be a sacred animal. The dominant form of religion was the cult of the elements.

They counted, using decimal system calculus, just like the Egyptians. The division of society turned into castes. There were 4 castes: Brahmans - priests Kshatriya - military Vaishya - peasants Shudra - servants. Religion maintained caste divisions. The Indians knew an alphabetic letter of 51 letters.

In the field of mathematics, the decimal number system was developed - zero was invented. They had extensive knowledge of medicine: surgeons were especially skilled. They could cut out tumors, remove eyesores, and in linguistics the Indians surpassed all ancient Eastern peoples: dictionaries and other works on grammar were compiled. In the VI century. A new religion began to emerge in India - Buddhism.

Spiritual culture in India is flourishing, philosophy and temple literature are emerging. Buddhist temples carved into rocks amaze with their enormous size, rounded lines, geometric shapes and images on the vault. Thanks to Indian traders, Buddhism spread to Korea, Japan, Tibet, Mongolia and China.

1.3 Ancient China

China, with its colossal size, resembles India, and is equal in area to Europe. The culture of China developed in accordance with natural conditions, for example, the Great Plain of China became the birthplace of the Ancient Chinese civilization.

In 1893, bronze weapons and utensils were already found in China. Economy of this period: the development of hunting and cattle breeding. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Agriculture begins to play an important role in the economy. Wheat, barley and rice were cultivated. Since the mulberry tree was cultivated in China, it became the birthplace of sericulture and paper. Technical process Processing of silkworms was kept secret, for disclosure of which the death penalty was imposed. Pottery and trade gradually developed.

The function of money was performed by a precious shell - cowrie. In the 18th century A patterned writing arose, with about 30,000 characters. They wrote on bamboo sticks, split into pieces, thus forming a vertical line, characteristic of Chinese writing.

1.4 Calendars, number systemsand medicine

In conclusion, I would like to highlight the importance of Eastern culture for European countries.

So, the eastern peoples were the first in history to create powerful states and luxurious temples, books and irrigation canals. From the Sumerians we inherited knowledge about the creation of the world and the principles of constructing irrigation structures. From Babylon - the division of the year into 12 months, the hour into minutes and seconds, the circle into 360 degrees, the principles of arranging libraries. Egypt taught the world to mummify corpses and gave physiology and anatomy.

From the Hittite language came Slavic, Germanic, and Romance. The Phoenicians compiled the glass formula and were the first to stretch a thread of trade relations across the Mediterranean Sea. They determined the seasons. The Bible came to us from Judea. The military art of Assyria gave rise to the modern construction of pantons and hovercraft. The works of the great philosophers of China are still studied in all educational institutions peace.

Science is an organic part of any culture. Without a certain set of scientific knowledge, normal functioning of the economy, construction, military affairs, and government of the country is impossible. The dominance of the religious worldview, of course, restrained, but could not stop the accumulation of knowledge. In the Egyptian cultural system, scientific knowledge has reached quite high level, and primarily in three areas: mathematics, astronomy and medicine.

Determining the beginning, maximum and end of the rise of water in the Nile, the timing of sowing, grain ripening and harvest, the need to measure land plots, the boundaries of which had to be restored after each flood, required mathematical calculations and astronomical observations.

The great achievement of the ancient Egyptians was the compilation of quite accurate calendar, built on careful observations of the celestial bodies, on the one hand, and the Nile regime, on the other. The year was divided into three seasons of four months each. The month consisted of three decades of 10 days.

There were 36 decades in a year dedicated to constellations named after deities. 5 additional days were added to the last month, which made it possible to combine the calendar and astronomical year (365 days). The beginning of the year coincided with the rise of water in the Nile, that is, with July 19, the day of the rise of the brightest star - Sirius.

The day was divided into 24 hours, although the hour was not constant, as it is now, but fluctuated depending on the time of year (in summer, daytime hours were long, night hours were short, and in winter, vice versa).

The Egyptians thoroughly studied the starry sky visible to the naked eye; they distinguished between fixed stars and wandering planets. The stars were united into constellations and received the names of those animals whose contours, in the opinion of the priests, they resembled (“bull”, “scorpion”, “hippopotamus”, “crocodile”, etc.). Quite accurate star catalogs and star charts were compiled. ancient egyptian culture writing

One of the most accurate and detailed maps of the starry sky is placed on the ceiling of the tomb of Senmut, the favorite of Queen Hatshepsut. A scientific and technical achievement was the invention of water clocks and sundials. Interesting feature Ancient Egyptian astronomy was its rational nature, the absence of astrological speculation, so common, for example, the Babylonians.

Practical problems of measuring land plots after the Nile floods, recording and distributing the harvest, and complex calculations in the construction of temples, tombs and palaces contributed to the success of mathematics.

The Egyptians created a number system close to decimal, they developed special signs - numbers for 1 (vertical line), 10 (sign of a staple or horseshoe), 100 (sign of a twisted rope), 1000 (image of a lotus stem), 10,000 (raised human finger), 100,000 (image of a tadpole), 1,000,000 (figurine of a squatting deity with raised arms). They knew how to add and subtract, multiply and divide, and had an understanding of fractions, the numerator of which always included 1.

Most of the mathematical operations were carried out to solve practical needs - calculating the area of ​​the field, the capacity of the basket, barn, the size of the heap of grain, the division of property among the heirs. The Egyptians could solve such complex problems as calculating the area of ​​a circle, the surface of a hemisphere, and the volume of a truncated pyramid. They knew how to raise to powers and extract square roots.

Throughout Western Asia, Egyptian doctors were famous for their art. Their high skill was undoubtedly facilitated by the widespread custom of mummification of corpses, during which doctors could observe and study the anatomy of the human body and its various organs.

An indicator of the great successes of Egyptian medicine is the fact that 10 medical papyri have survived to this day, of which real encyclopedias are the large medical papyrus of Ebers (a scroll 20.5 m long) and the surgical papyrus of Edwin Smith (a scroll 5 m long).

One of the highest achievements of Egypt and all ancient medicine there was a doctrine about blood circulation and the heart as its main organ. “The beginning of the secrets of the doctor,” says the Ebers papyrus, “is knowledge of the course of the heart, from which vessels go to all members, for every doctor, every priest of the goddess Sokhmet, every spellcaster, touching the head, back of the head, arms, palms, legs, everywhere touches the heart: from it the vessels are directed to each member.” Various surgical instruments found during excavations of tombs are evidence of a high level of surgery.

The constraining influence of a religious worldview could not contribute to the development of scientific knowledge about society. However, we can talk about the interest of the Egyptians in their history, which led to the creation of a kind of historical writings.

The most common forms of such writings were chronicles containing a list of reigning dynasties and a record of the most significant events that happened during the reign of the pharaohs (the height of the rise of the Nile, the construction of temples, a military campaign, the measurement of areas, captured booty). Thus, a fragment of the chronicle about the reign of the first five dynasties has reached our time (Palermo Stone). The Turin Royal Papyrus contains a list of Egyptian pharaohs up to the 18th dynasty.

A kind of vault scientific achievements are the oldest encyclopedias - dictionaries. Collections of terms explained in the glossary are grouped by topic: sky, water, earth, plants, animals, people, professions, positions, foreign tribes and peoples, food products, drinks. The name of the compiler of the oldest Egyptian encyclopedia is known: it was the scribe Amenemope, the son of Amenemope, he compiled his work at the end of the New Kingdom.

2. Writing and literature

2.1 Writing

The spoken and literary language of the ancient Egyptians changed throughout the almost 4 thousand-year history of the people and went through five successive stages of its development.

In the scientific literature they distinguish: the language of the Ancient Kingdom - the ancient Egyptian language; Middle Egyptian is a classical language, so called because it is in it that the best literary works, who were later considered role models; New Egyptian language (XVI--VIII centuries BC); demotic language (8th century BC - 5th century AD); Coptic language (III-VII centuries AD). Despite the presence of continuity between these languages, each of them was special language with different grammatical and lexical structures. The relationship between them was approximately the same, for example, as between the Old Slavic, Old Russian and Russian languages.

In any case, the Egyptian of the New Kingdom could hardly understand the speech of his ancestor living during the Middle Kingdom, not to mention more ancient eras. The Egyptian language was the spoken living language of the indigenous population of the Nile Valley and practically did not go beyond its borders even during the creation of the great Egyptian Empire in the era of the New Kingdom! The Egyptian language became dead (that is, it was not spoken) already in the 3rd century. n. e., when it was replaced by the Coptic language. From the 7th century n. e. Coptic began to be replaced by the language of the conquerors - the Arabs and gradually began to be forgotten. Currently, about 4.5 million Copts (Christian Egyptians) live in the Arab Republic of Egypt, who speak Arabic, but services are conducted in Coptic, the last relic of the ancient Egyptian language.

To record various phenomena of diverse life and economic activity the ancient Egyptians created a unique and complex system writing, which could convey different shades of thought and complex movements of the human soul. Egyptian writing originated at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e., went through a long path of formation and as a developed system emerged by the time of the Middle Kingdom. Its original basis was pictorial writing, pictography, in which each word or concept (for example, “sun,” “house,” or “capture”) was depicted in the form of corresponding drawings (sun, house, or people with tied hands).

Over time, as control became more complex and the need for more frequent use of writing for various needs, picture signs began to be simplified. Individual drawings began to depict not only these specific concepts of the sun, house, bull, etc., but sound combinations, syllables, with the help of a set of which many other words and concepts could be expressed.

Egyptian writing was composed of a certain set of signs that convey the sounds of spoken words, symbols and stylized drawings that explain the meaning of these words and concepts. Such written signs are called hieroglyphs, and Egyptian writing is called hieroglyphs. By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The most commonly used hieroglyphs numbered about 700, and in the Greco-Roman era - several thousand. Thanks to the organic combination of signs denoting syllables, ideograms explaining the meaning of the word, and determinative drawings, as if finally clarifying the concept as a whole, the Egyptians were able to accurately and clearly convey not only simple facts of reality and economics, but also complex shades of abstract thought or artistic image .

The materials for writing hieroglyphs were: stone (walls of temples, tombs, sarcophagi, steles, obelisks, statues, etc.), clay shards (ostracons), wood (sarcophagi, boards, etc.), leather scrolls. Papyrus was widely used. Papyrus “paper” was made from specially prepared stems of the papyrus plant, which grew in abundance in the backwaters of the Nile. Individual sheets of papyrus were glued together into scrolls, the length of which usually reached several meters, but we know of scrolls 20 m and even 45 m long (the so-called Great Harris papyrus). Scribes usually wrote with a brush made from the stem of the marsh plant calamus, one end of which the scribe chewed. A brush soaked in water was dipped into a recess with red or black paint (ink).

If the text was written on solid material, the scribe carefully traced each hieroglyph, but if the recording was made on papyrus, then the hieroglyphic signs were deformed and modified beyond recognition compared to the original sample. This is how it turned out to be a kind of italic hieroglyphic writing, which is called hieratic writing or hieratic. The relationship between hieroglyphics and hieratics can be compared to the difference between printed font and handwritten writing.

From the 8th century BC e. A new type of writing has appeared, in which several characters, previously written separately, are now merged into one character, which speeds up the process of writing texts and thereby contributed to the spread of writing. This type of writing is called demotic, demotic (i.e., folk) writing.

The gradual improvement of writing led to the identification of 21 simple signs depicting individual consonant sounds. Essentially, these were the first alphabetic characters. On their basis, alphabetic writing developed in the southern kingdom of Meroe. However, in Egypt itself, alphabetic signs did not supplant the more cumbersome, but more familiar symbolic-conceptual hieroglyphic system. Alphabetic characters were used in this system as its organic part.

In the summer of 1799, the French decided to repair the dilapidated medieval fortress at Rashid (Rosetta), which covered the entrance to the western branch of the Nile. While dismantling the collapsed bastion of the fortress, engineer Bouchard discovered a slab of black basalt on which three texts were engraved. One of them is in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the other is in cursive writing similar to hieroglyphs, the third is in Greek. The last text was read without much difficulty. It turned out to be dedicated to Ptolemy V, who ruled Egypt at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd centuries. BC e. It also follows from the Greek text that the contents of all three texts are identical.

Bouchard's discovery - called the Rosetta Stone - has excited scientists. By that time, the meaning of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs had long been forgotten. Inscribed on the walls of temples and tombs, on thousands of sheets of papyrus, they were silent, and the knowledge of the majestic ancient egyptian civilization remained meager, drawn only from the works of ancient authors. Meanwhile, in Europe, interest in Ancient Egypt was already quite great. The Rosetta Stone gave hope for deciphering hieroglyphs. But things were moving slowly. Several prominent scholars carefully compared the texts, but were unable to find the key to the hieroglyphic writing. This was achieved only in 1822 by the Frenchman Francois Champollion.

Champollion is called the "father of Egyptology". The decipherment of hieroglyphs has enabled scientists to master extensive material, which is constantly being updated thanks to new finds. After reading the inscriptions on the walls of temples and tombs, and studying papyri, they learned a lot of details about the great ancient civilization that influenced many peoples of the world.

2.2 Literature

Literature of Ancient Egypt - literature written in the Egyptian language from the Pharaonic period of Ancient Egypt to the end of Roman rule. Together with Sumerian literature, it is considered the first literature of the world.

The Egyptians created a rich literature, full of interesting ideas and artistic images, which is the oldest in the world. Feature literary process in Egypt there was a continuous and successive improvement of the originally found literary genres and artistic techniques. The development of literature as one of the most important parts of culture was determined by the nature of the country's socio-economic development and the political power of the Egyptian state.

At the same time, the direction of the literary process depended on general religious worldview, the development of Egyptian mythology and the organization of the cult. The absolute power of the gods, including the reigning pharaoh, the complete dependence of man on them, the subordination of the earthly life of people to their posthumous existence, the complex relationships of numerous gods in Egyptian myths, the theatrical cult, rich in symbolism - all this dictated the main ideas, a system of artistic images and techniques many literary works.

The originality of hieroglyphic writing, in particular the abundance of various signs and symbols, expanded the creative possibilities of the authors and made it possible to create works with a deep and multifaceted context.

The nutritious soil of literature has become oral folk art, of which remnants have been preserved in the form of a few songs performed during labor processes (for example, the song of an ox driver), simple parables and sayings, fairy tales in which, as a rule, an innocent and hardworking hero seeks justice and happiness.

The roots of Egyptian literature go back to the 4th millennium BC. e., when the first literary records were created. During the era of the Old Kingdom, the beginnings of some genres appeared: processed fairy tales, didactic teachings, biographies of nobles, religious texts, poetic works. During the Middle Kingdom, genre diversity increased, the content and artistic perfection of works deepened. Prose literature reaches classical maturity, works of the highest artistic level are created (“The Tale of Sinukhet”), which are included in the treasury of world literature. Egyptian literature reached its ideological and artistic completion in the era of the New Kingdom, the era of the highest development of Egyptian civilization.

The didactic genre of teachings and prophecies closely related to them is most fully represented in Egyptian literature. One of the oldest examples of teachings is the “Teaching of Ptahhotep,” the vizier of one of the pharaohs of the V dynasty. Later, the genre of teachings is represented by many works, for example: “The teaching of the Herakleo-Polish king Akhtoy to his son Merik-ra” and “The teaching of Pharaoh Amenemhet I”, which set out the rules of government, “The teaching of Akhtoy, the son of Duau-fa” on the advantages of the position of scribe before all other professions.

Among the teachings of the New Kingdom, we can name the “Teaching of Ani” and the “Teaching of Amenema-pe” with a detailed presentation of the rules of everyday morality and traditional morality.

A special type of teaching were the prophecies of the sages, predicting the onset of disasters for the country, for the ruling class, if the Egyptians neglected to comply with the norms established by the gods. As a rule, such prophecies described real disasters that occurred during popular uprisings, invasions of foreign conquerors, social and political upheavals, such as at the end of the Middle or New Kingdom. Most famous works This genre was “The Speech of Ipu-ser” and “The Speech of Neferti”.

One of the favorite genres were fairy tales, in which the plots folk tales were subjected to author's processing. Some fairy tales became real masterpieces that influenced the creation of fairy tale cycles of other peoples of the Ancient East (for example, the “A Thousand and One Nights” cycle).

Most famous examples there was a collection of tales “Pharaoh Khufu and the Sorcerers”, “The Tale of the Shipwrecked”, “The Tale of Truth and Falsehood”, “The Tale of Two Brothers”, several tales about Pharaoh Petubastis, etc. In these tales, through the dominant motives of admiration for the omnipotence of the gods and Pharaoh, the ideas of goodness, wisdom and ingenuity of a simple worker break through, who ultimately triumphs over the cunning and cruel nobles, their greedy and treacherous servants.

The true masterpieces of Egyptian literature were the story “The Tale of Sinuhet” and the poetic “Song of the Harper.” The “Tale of Sinuhet” tells how a nobleman from the inner circle of the late king Sinuhet, fearing for his position under the new pharaoh, flees Egypt to the nomads of Syria. Here he lives for many years, accomplishes many feats, occupies a high position with the local king, but constantly yearns for his native Egypt. The story ends with the safe return of Sinuhet to Egypt. No matter how high a person occupies a position in a foreign land, his native country, its customs, and way of life will always be the highest value for him - this is the main idea of ​​this classic work of Egyptian fiction.

Among the various genres, religious literature itself occupied a special place, including artistic adaptations of numerous myths, religious hymns and chants performed at festivals of the gods. Of the processed myths, the cycles of tales about the suffering of Osiris and the wanderings through the underworld of the god Ra gained particular popularity.

The first cycle tells that the good god and king of Egypt Osiris was treacherously overthrown from the throne by his brother Set, chopped into 14 pieces, which were scattered throughout Egypt (according to another version, the body of Osiris was thrown into a boat, and the boat was lowered into sea). The sister and wife of Osiris, the goddess Isis, collected and buried his remains. The avenger for his father is their son, the god Horus, who performs a number of feats for the benefit of people. The evil Set is overthrown from the throne of Osiris, which was inherited by Horus. And Osiris becomes the king of the underworld and judge of the dead.

On the basis of these legends, theatrical mysteries were staged, which were a kind of rudiment of the ancient Egyptian theater.

The hymns and chants sung in honor of the gods at festivals were apparently mass poetry, but some of the hymns that have come down to us, in particular the hymn to the Nile and especially the hymn to the Aten, in which the beautiful and generous nature of Egypt is glorified in the images of the Nile and the Sun, are world-class poetic masterpieces.

A unique work is the philosophical dialogue “Conversation of a Disappointed Man with His Soul.” It tells the story of the bitter fate of a man who is fed up with earthly life, where evil, violence and greed reign, and he wants to commit suicide in order to quickly get to the afterlife fields of Ialu and find eternal bliss there. The soul of a person dissuades him from this crazy step, pointing out all the joys of earthly life. Ultimately, the hero's pessimism turns out to be stronger, and posthumous bliss becomes a more desirable goal of human existence.

In addition to the variety of genres, the wealth of ideas and motives, and the subtlety of their development, Egyptian literature is distinguished by unexpected comparisons, sonorous metaphors, deep symbolism, and figurative language. All this makes Egyptian literature one of the interesting phenomena of world literature.

3. Test

Indicate where they were first discovered and invented:

2. Water and sundials

4. Embalming

5. Pythagorean theorem

Possible answers:

A. Ancient Egypt

b. Ancient China

V. Ancient Greece

Answers:

1. Gunpowder - Ancient China

2. Water and sundials - Ancient Egypt

3. Paper - Ancient China

4. Embalming - Ancient Egypt

5. Pythagorean Theorem - Ancient China

Conclusion

Egyptian culture was the most vibrant compared to the cultures of other civilizations. During the prosperity of the Egyptian dynasty, the Egyptians invented many useful things, for example, how to determine the surface of a cube, solve an equation with one unknown, etc.

Egyptian culture has made enormous contributions to world culture. After the disappearance of Egyptian civilization, a lot of useful information and information remained that people still use today.

The world's oldest and most massive stone monuments - Egyptian pyramids- were created to inspire people with awe and amaze their imagination. It is amazing with what interest people have always accepted the most incredible theories that arose about them.

The culture of Ancient Egypt in many ways became a model for many other civilizations, which was not only imitated, but also repelled from and which they sought to overcome.

Posted on Allbest.ru

Similar documents

Features of the socio-ideological foundations of the culture of the Ancient East are determined by the method of collective survival. Main achievements and symbols of material and spiritual culture. Development Agriculture and crafts, scientific knowledge, mythology.

test, added 06/24/2016


The development of writing, religion, literature, scientific knowledge and art in Sumerian-Babylonian culture. Chronicle of how literary genre V Kievan Rus. Features of ancient Egyptian, Hittite, Phoenician, ancient Indian and ancient Chinese culture.

test, added 01/30/2012


Social and ideological foundations of the culture of the Ancient East. The place and role of man in the sociocultural space of the ancient states of the East. Achievements and symbols of material and spiritual culture.

abstract, added 04/06/2007


Stages and factors that influenced the formation of the culture of ancient Egypt, the history of the creation of writing, features of religion and mythology. Architecture and writing of China, stone-cutting crafts and language. Mural and painting ancient Rome, Greece and India.

presentation, added 03/10/2014


The heyday and decline of the culture of Ancient Egypt. Reflection of religious beliefs in literature and science. Construction of religious buildings, compliance with the canons of fine art, creation of reliefs and sculptures. The emergence of hieroglyphic writing.

abstract, added 05/09/2011


Development of writing in Ancient Egypt. The discovery of François Champollion, the difficulties of deciphering writing, the differences different types ancient Egyptian writing. Fairy tales and stories of Ancient Egypt, architecture and art Middle and New Kingdoms.

abstract, added 01/19/2011


Religion of Ancient Egypt, its basic concepts and foundations. Geographical and social structure of the state. Egyptian understanding of the role of art. The origin and development of writing in Ancient Egypt. The Rosetta Stone is a huge step for Egyptology.

abstract, added 01/14/2013


Culture, architecture and writing system of Ancient Egypt. Periods of history and features of Indian culture, the emergence of religious and philosophical teachings. Ancient China as a unique example of class hierarchy, achievements in the development of the state.

presentation, added 01/21/2013


The origin of the art of Ancient Egypt - one of the most advanced among the arts of various peoples of the Ancient East. Creation of the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx. The reign of the reformer pharaoh Akhenaten. Architecture, sculpture, literature of Ancient Egypt.

abstract, added 05/05/2012


The world of spiritual culture of the Sumerians. Economic life, religious beliefs, way of life, morals and worldview of the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. Religion, art and ideology of Ancient Babylon. Culture of Ancient China. Architectural monuments of Babylonian art.

3.1. Pre-science of the Ancient East. Scientific knowledge of Antiquity.

1. It is necessary to recognize that the eastern civilization (Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China), which was the most developed at that time (before the 6th century BC) in agrarian, craft, military, and trade terms, developed certain knowledge.

River floods and the need for quantitative estimates of flooded land areas stimulated the development of geometry, active trade, craft, and construction activities determined the development of calculation and counting techniques; maritime affairs, worship contributed to the formation of “star science,” etc. Thus, the eastern civilization had knowledge that was accumulated, stored, and passed on from generation to generation, which allowed them to optimally organize their activities. However, as noted, the fact of having some knowledge does not in itself constitute science. Science is defined by purposeful activity to develop and produce new knowledge. Did this kind of activity take place in the Ancient East?

Knowledge in the most precise sense was developed here through popular inductive generalizations of direct practical experience and circulated in society according to the principle of hereditary professionalism: a) transfer of knowledge within the family during the child’s assimilation of the activity skills of elders; b) the transfer of knowledge that is qualified as coming from God, the patron saint of a given profession, within the framework of a professional association of people (guild, caste), in the course of their self-expansion. The processes of change in knowledge occurred spontaneously in the Ancient East; there was no critical-reflective activity to assess the genesis of knowledge - the acceptance of knowledge was carried out on an unproven passive basis through the “forcible” inclusion of a person in social activities on a professional basis; there was no intention for falsification, critical updating of existing knowledge; knowledge functioned as a set of ready-made recipes for activity, which resulted from its narrowly utilitarian, practical-technological nature.

2. A feature of ancient Eastern science is the lack of fundamentality. Science, as indicated, does not represent the activity of developing recipe-technological schemes and recommendations, but a self-sufficient activity of analysis and development of theoretical issues - “knowledge for the sake of knowledge.” Ancient Eastern science is focused on solving applied problems. Even astronomy, seemingly not a practical activity, in Babylon functioned as an applied art, serving either cultic (times of sacrifices are tied to the periodicity of celestial phenomena - phases of the Moon, etc.) or astrological (identification of favorable and unfavorable conditions for the administration of current politics etc.) activities. While, say, in Ancient Greece astronomy was understood not as a computational technique, but as a theoretical science about the structure of the Universe as a whole.

3. Ancient Eastern science in the full sense of the word was not rational. The reasons for this were largely determined by the nature of the socio-political structure of the ancient Eastern countries. In China, for example, the strict stratification of society, the lack of democracy, the equality of all before a single civil law, etc. led to a “natural hierarchy” of people, where the governors of heaven (rulers), perfect men (“noble” - tribal aristocracy, state bureaucracy), tribal community members (common people). In the countries of the Middle East, the forms of statehood were either outright despotism or hierocracy, which meant the absence of democratic institutions.

Anti-democracy in public life could not but affect intellectual life, which was also anti-democratic. The palm of primacy, the right to a decisive vote, preference was given not to rational argumentation and intersubjective evidence (however, as such they could not have developed against such a social background), but to public authority, according to which it was not the free citizen who defended the truth from the standpoint of existence who was right grounds, but a hereditary aristocrat, a person in power. The absence of prerequisites for a generally valid justification, evidence of knowledge (the reason for this was the “professional-nominal” rules for connecting a person to social activities, the antidemocratic social structure), on the one hand, and the mechanisms of accumulation and transmission of knowledge accepted in ancient Eastern society, on the other, ultimately led to his fetishization. The subjects of knowledge, or people who, due to their social status, represented “learning,” were priests released from material production and who had sufficient educational qualifications for intellectual pursuits. Knowledge, although having an empirical-practical genesis, remaining rationally unfounded, being in the bosom of esoteric priestly science, sanctified by the divine name, turned into an object of worship, a sacrament. Thus, the absence of democracy and the resulting priestly monopoly on science determined its irrational, dogmatic character in the Ancient East, essentially turning science into a kind of semi-mystical, sacred activity, a sacred rite.

4. Solving problems “in relation to the case”, performing calculations that were of a particular non-theoretical nature, deprived ancient Eastern science of systematicity. The successes of ancient Eastern thought, as indicated, were significant. The ancient mathematicians of Egypt and Babylon knew how to solve problems on “equations of the first and second degree, on the equality and similarity of triangles, on arithmetic and geometric progression, on determining the areas of triangles and quadrilaterals, the volume of parallelepipeds,”1 they also knew the formulas for the volume of a cylinder, cone, pyramids, truncated pyramids, etc. The Babylonians used multiplication tables, reciprocals, squares, cubes, solutions to equations like x cubed + x squared = N, etc.

However, there is no evidence in the ancient Babylonian texts to justify the use of this or that technique, the need to calculate the required values ​​in exactly this way and not otherwise.

The attention of ancient Eastern scientists focused on private practical problem, from which no bridge was thrown to a theoretical consideration of the subject in a general form. Since the search, aimed at finding practical recipes, “how to act in a situation of this kind,” did not involve the identification of universal evidence, the basis for the corresponding decisions was a professional secret, bringing science closer to a magical act. For example, the origin of the rule about “the square of sixteen-ninths, which, according to one eighteenth dynasty papyrus, represents the ratio of circumference to diameter” is not clear.

In addition, the lack of a demonstrative consideration of the subject in a general form made it impossible to derive the necessary information about it, for example, about the properties of the same geometric figures. This is probably why eastern scientists and scribes are forced to rely on cumbersome tables (coefficients, etc.), which made it easier to resolve one or another specific task for an unanalyzed typical case.

Consequently, if we proceed from the fact that each of the features of the epistemological standard of science is necessary, and their totality is sufficient to specify science as an element of the superstructure, a special type of rationality, it can be argued that science in this understanding did not develop in the Ancient East. Because, although we know extremely little about ancient Eastern culture, there is no doubt about the fundamental incompatibility of the properties of the science discovered here with the standard ones. In other words, the ancient Eastern culture, the ancient Eastern consciousness has not yet developed such methods of cognition that rely on discursive reasoning, and not on recipes, dogmas or prophecies, presuppose democracy in the discussion of issues, carry out discussions from the position of the strength of rational foundations, and not from the position of the strength of social and theological prejudices, recognize justification, not revelation, as the guarantor of truth.

Taking this into account, our final value judgment is as follows: the historical type of cognitive activity (and knowledge) that developed in the Ancient East corresponds to the pre-scientific stage of development of intelligence and is not yet scientific.

Antiquity. The process of formalization of science in Greece can be reconstructed as follows. Regarding the emergence of mathematics, it should be said that at first it was no different from ancient Eastern mathematics. Arithmetic and geometry functioned as a set techniques in surveying practice, falling under technical. These techniques “were so simple that they could be transmitted orally”1. In other words, in Greece, as in the Ancient East, they did not have: 1) detailed textual design, 2) strict rational and logical justification. To become a science, they had to have both. When did it happen?

Historians of science have different assumptions on this matter. There is an assumption that he did this in the 6th century. BC e. Thales. Another point of view boils down to the assertion that Democritus and others did this a little later. However, the actual factual side of the matter is not so important for us. It is important for us to emphasize that this happened in Greece, and not, say, in Egypt, where there was a verbal transmission of knowledge from generation to generation, and geometers acted as practitioners, not theorists (in Greek they were called arpedonaptes, i.e. tying a rope). Consequently, in the matter of formalizing mathematics in texts in the form of a theoretical-logical system, it is necessary to emphasize the role of Thales and, possibly, Democritus. Speaking about this, of course, we cannot ignore the Pythagoreans, who developed mathematical concepts on a textual basis as purely abstract, as well as the Eleatics, who for the first time introduced into mathematics the previously not accepted demarcation of the sensible from the intelligible. Parmenides “established as a necessary condition of his existence conceivability. Zeno denied that points, and therefore lines and surfaces, are things that exist in reality, but these things are highly conceivable. So, from now on, a final distinction has been made between the geometric and physical points of view.”1 All this formed the foundation for the development of mathematics as a theoretical-rational science, and not an empirical-sensual art.

The next point, extremely important for reconstructing the emergence of mathematics, is the development of the theory of proof. Here we should emphasize the role of Zeno, who contributed to the formalization of the theory of evidence, in particular, through the development of the apparatus of proof “by contradiction,” as well as Aristotle, who carried out a global synthesis of well-known methods of logical proof and generalized them into a regulatory canon of research, to which all scientific, including mathematical cognition.

Thus, the initially unscientific, no different from the ancient Eastern, empirical mathematical knowledge of the ancient Greeks, being rationalized, subjected to theoretical processing, logical systematization, deductivization, turned into science.

Let us characterize the ancient Greek natural science - physics. The Greeks knew numerous experimental data, which formed the subject of study in subsequent natural sciences. The Greeks discovered the “attractive” features of rubbed amber, magnetic stones, the phenomenon of refraction in liquid media, etc. However, experimental natural science did not arise in Greece. Why? Due to the peculiarities of the superstructural and social relations that prevailed in antiquity. Starting from the above, we can say: the experienced, experimental type of knowledge was alien to the Greeks due to: 1) the undivided dominance of contemplation; 2) idiosyncrasy towards individual “insignificant” concrete actions, considered unworthy of intellectuals - free citizens of democratic cities and unsuitable for understanding the world’s whole, which is indivisible into parts.

It is not by chance that the Greek word “physics” is put in quotation marks in modern studies on the history of science, because the physics of the Greeks is something completely different from the modern natural science discipline. For the Greeks, physics is “the science of nature as a whole, but not in the sense of our natural science.” Physics was a science of nature that included knowledge not through “testing,” but through a speculative understanding of the origin and essence of the natural world as a whole. In essence it was a contemplative science, very similar to later natural philosophy, which used the method of speculation.

The efforts of ancient physicists were aimed at searching for the fundamental principle (substance) of existence - arche - and its elements, elements - stoichenon.

For such, Thales took water, Anaximenes - air, Anaximander - apeiron, Pythagoras - number, Parmenides - the “form” of being, Heraclitus - fire, Anaxagoras - homeomerism, Democritus - atoms, Empedocles - roots, etc. Physicists, therefore, there were all the pre-Socratics, as well as Plato, who developed the theory of ideas, and Aristotle, who approved the doctrine of hylomorphism. In all these, from a modern point of view, naive, unspecialized theories of the genesis and structure of nature, the latter appears as a holistic, syncretic, indivisible object, given in living contemplation. Therefore, it is not surprising that the only suitable form of theoretical development of this kind of object could be speculative speculation.

We have to answer two questions: what are the prerequisites for the emergence of a complex of natural scientific concepts in antiquity and what are the reasons that determined their particular epistemological character?

The prerequisites for the emergence of the complex of natural science concepts described above in antiquity include the following. Firstly, the idea of ​​nature, which was established during the fight against anthropomorphism (Xenophanes and others), as a certain naturally occurring (we do not dare to say “natural-historical”) formation, having a basis in itself, and not in the themis or nomos (i.e. i.e. in divine or human law). The significance of eliminating the elements of anthropomorphism from knowledge lies in the delimitation of the area of ​​objectively necessary and subjectively arbitrary. This, both epistemologically and organizationally, made it possible to appropriately normalize knowledge, orient it towards very specific values ​​and, in any case, not allow the possibility of a situation where a mirage and a reliable fact, a fantasy and the result of a strictly research were fused together.

Secondly, the rooting of the idea of ​​“ontological non-relativity” of being, which was a consequence of criticism of the naively empirical worldview of constant change. The philosophical and theoretical version of this worldview was developed by Heraclitus, who adopted the concept of becoming as the central concept of his system.

The opposition “knowledge - opinion”, which constitutes the essence of the Eleatic antithetics, projected onto the ontological complex of issues, leads to the substantiation of the duality of being, which is composed of an unchanging, non-becoming basis, representing the subject of knowledge, and a mobile empirical appearance, acting as the subject of sensory perception and / opinion (according to Parmenides, there is being, but there is no non-being, as with Heraclitus; there is actually no transition of being into non-being, for what is is and can be known). Therefore, the foundation of Parmenides’ ontology, unlike Heraclitus, is the law of identity, and not the law of struggle and mutual transitions, which he accepted for purely epistemological reasons.

Parmenides’ views were shared by Plato, who distinguished between the world of knowledge, correlated with the realm of invariant ideas, and the world of opinion, correlated with sensibility, which captures the “natural flow” of existence.

The results of a lengthy debate, in which almost all representatives of ancient philosophy took part, were summarized by Aristotle, who, developing the theory of science, summed up: the object of science must be stable and of a general nature, while sensory objects do not have these properties; Thus, the demand for a special object, separate from sensory things, is put forward.

The idea of ​​an intelligible object, not subject to momentary changes, was essential from an epistemological point of view, laying the foundations for the possibility of natural scientific knowledge.

Thirdly, the formation of a view of the world as an interconnected whole, penetrating everything that exists and accessible to supersensible contemplation. For the prospects for the formation of science, this circumstance had significant epistemological significance. First of all, it contributed to the establishment of such a fundamental principle for science as causation, on the fixation of which science is, in fact, based. In addition, by stipulating the abstract and systematic nature of potential conceptualizations of the world, it stimulated the emergence of such an integral attribute of science as theoreticality, or even theoreticality, that is, logically based thinking using a conceptual-categorical arsenal.

These, in the most concise form, are the prerequisites for the emergence in the era of antiquity of a complex of natural scientific concepts, which acted only as a prototype of the future natural science, but in themselves were not yet it. Listing the reasons for this, we point out the following.

1. An essential prerequisite for the emergence of natural science in Antiquity, as indicated, was the struggle against anthropomorphism, which culminated in the formulation of the arche program, i.e., the search for a natural monistic basis of nature. This program, of course, contributed to the establishment of the concept of natural law. However, it hindered him due to its factual vagueness and taking into account the equality of numerous contenders - the elements for the role arche. Here the principle of insufficient foundation was at work, which did not allow the unification of the known “fundamental” elements, not allowing us to develop the concept of a single principle of generation (from the perspective of law). Thus, although in comparison with the systems of theogony, in this respect rather disorderly and only outlining a tendency towards monism, the “physiological” doctrines of the Presocratics are monistic, monism from its, so to speak, factual side was not global. In other words, although the Greeks were monists within individual physical theories, they could not organize a picture of ontologically uniform (monistically) emerging and changing reality. At the level of culture as a whole, the Greeks were not physical monists, which, as indicated, prevented the formulation of concepts of universal natural laws, without which natural science as a science could not arise.

2. The absence of scientific natural science in the era of Antiquity was due to the impossibility of using the apparatus of mathematics within the framework of physics, since, according to Aristotle, physics and mathematics are different sciences, relating to different subjects, between which there is no common point of contact. Aristotle defined mathematics as the science of the motionless, and physics as the science of moving being. The first was quite strict, but the second, by definition, could not claim to be strict - this explained their incompatibility. As Aristotle wrote, “mathematical accuracy should not be required for all objects, but only for intangible ones. That is why this method is not suitable for one who talks about nature, for all nature, one might say, is material.”1 Not being merged with mathematics, devoid of quantitative research methods, physics functioned in antiquity as a contradictory alloy of actually two types of knowledge. One of them - theoretical natural science, natural philosophy - was the science of the necessary, universal, essential in being, using the method of abstract speculation. The other - a naively empirical system of qualitative knowledge about being - in the strict sense of the word was not even a science, since from the point of view of the epistemological principles of antiquity, a science about the random, given in the perception of being could not exist. Naturally, the impossibility of introducing precise quantitative formulations into the context of both deprived them of certainty and rigor, without which natural science as a science could not take shape.

3. Undoubtedly, in Antiquity, separate empirical studies were carried out, examples of which could be determining the size of the Earth (Eratosthenes), measuring the visible disk of the Sun (Archimedes), calculating the distance from the Earth to the Moon (Hipparchus, Posidonius, Ptolemy), etc. However, Antiquity I didn’t know experiment as “an artificial perception of natural phenomena, in which side and insignificant effects are eliminated and which aims to confirm or refute one or another theoretical assumption.”

This was explained by the lack of social sanctions on the material activities of free citizens. Respectable, socially significant knowledge could only be that which was “impractical”, removed from work activity. Genuine knowledge, being universal, apodictic, did not depend on any side, did not come into contact with the fact, either epistemologically or socially. Based on the above, it is obvious that scientific natural science as a factually (experimentally) substantiated set of theories could not be formed.

The natural science of the Greeks was abstract and explanatory, devoid of an active, creative component. There was no place here for experiment as a way of influencing an object by artificial means in order to clarify the content of accepted abstract models of objects.

To formulate natural science as a science, the skills of ideal modeling of reality alone are not enough. In addition, it is necessary to develop a technique for identifying idealization with the subject area. This means that “from the opposition of idealized constructions to sensory concreteness it was necessary to move on to their synthesis.”

And this could only happen in a different sociality, on the basis of socio-political, ideological, axiological and other guidelines for mental activity that were different from those existing in Ancient Greece.

At the same time, there is no doubt about the fact that science was formed precisely in the bosom of ancient culture. In other words, the ancient Eastern branch of science turned out to be unpromising during the development of civilization. Is this conclusion final? For us - yes. However, this does not mean that other opinions are impossible.

The ancient stage of syncretic coexistence of philosophy and science nevertheless outlines the prerequisites for their differentiation. The objective logic of collecting, systematizing, conceptualizing factual material, reflection on the eternal problems of existence (life, death, human nature, his purpose in the world, the individual in the face of the secrets of the Universe, the potential of cognitive thought, etc.) stimulate the isolation of disciplinary, genre, and linguistic systems philosophy and science.

In science, mathematics, natural science, and history are autonomous.

In philosophy, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, and logic are strengthened.

Starting, perhaps, with Aristotle, philosophical language moves away from everyday colloquial and scientific speech, is enriched with a wide range of technical terms, and becomes a professional dialect, a codified vocabulary. Then there are borrowings from Hellenistic culture, and Latin influence is felt. The expressive base of philosophy that developed in Antiquity will form the basis of various philosophical schools in the future.

Introduction

Since time immemorial, the ancient Egyptian civilization has attracted the attention of mankind. Egypt, like no other ancient civilization, creates the impression of eternity and rare integrity. On the land of the country that is now called the Arab Republic of Egypt, in ancient times one of the most powerful and mysterious civilizations arose, which for centuries and millennia attracted the attention of contemporaries like a magnet.

At a time when the era of the Stone Age and primitive hunters still dominated in Europe and America, ancient Egyptian engineers built irrigation structures along the Great Nile, ancient Egyptian mathematicians calculated the square of the base and the angle of inclination of the Great Pyramids, ancient Egyptian architects erected grandiose temples, the grandeur of which was not can degrade time.

The history of Egypt goes back more than 6 thousand years. The unique monuments of ancient culture preserved on its territory annually attract a huge number of tourists from all over the world. Grandiose pyramids and the Great Sphinx, majestic temples in Upper Egypt, many other architectural and historical masterpieces - all this still amazes the imagination of everyone who manages to get to know this amazing country. Today's Egypt is the largest Arab country located in northeast Africa. Let's take a closer look

Development of scientific knowledge of the Ancient East

Ancient Eastern history dates back to approximately 3000 BC. Geographically, the ancient East refers to countries located in South Asia and partly in North Africa. A characteristic feature of the natural conditions of these countries is the alternation of fertile river valleys with vast desert areas and mountain ranges. The valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, Ganges and Yellow Rivers are very favorable for agriculture. River floods provide irrigation for fields, and a warm climate provides fertile soil.

However, economic life and life in the northern Mesopotamia were structured differently than in the southern one. Southern Mesopotamia, as it was written before, was a fertile country, but the harvest was brought only by the hard work of the population. Construction of a complex network of water structures that regulate floods and provide a supply of water for the dry season. However, the tribes there led a sedentary life and gave rise to ancient historical cultures. The source of information about the origin and history of the states of Egypt and Mesopotamia was the excavations of hills and mounds formed over a number of centuries on the site of destroyed cities, temples and palaces, and for the history of Judah and Israel the only source was the Bible - a collection of mythological works

Report on the History of Philosophy

On the topic: Prerequisites for scientific knowledge in the culture of the ancient East

Scientific knowledge in the ancient East

If we consider science according to the first criterion, we will see that traditional civilizations (Egyptian, Sumerian), which had an established mechanism for storing information and transmitting it, did not have an equally good mechanism for obtaining new knowledge. These civilizations developed specific knowledge in the field of mathematics and astronomy on the basis of certain practical experience, which was passed on according to the principle of hereditary professionalism, from senior to junior within the priestly caste. At the same time, knowledge was qualified as coming from God, the patron of this caste, hence the spontaneity of this knowledge, the lack of a critical position towards it, its acceptance with virtually no evidence, and the impossibility of subjecting it to significant changes. Such knowledge functions as a set of ready-made recipes. The learning process was reduced to the passive assimilation of these recipes and rules, while the question of how these recipes were obtained and whether they could be replaced with more advanced ones did not even arise. This is a professional-personal way of transmitting knowledge, characterized by the transfer of knowledge to members of a single association of people grouped based on community social roles, where the place of the individual is taken by the collective custodian, accumulator and translator of group knowledge. This is how knowledge-problems are transmitted, strictly tied to specific cognitive tasks. This method of translation and this type of knowledge occupy an intermediate position between personal-nominal and universal-conceptual methods of transmitting information.

The personal type of knowledge transfer is associated with the early stages of human history, when information necessary for life is transmitted to each person through initiation rites and myths as descriptions of the deeds of ancestors. This is how personal knowledge, which is an individual skill, is transferred.

The universal conceptual type of knowledge translation does not regulate the subject of knowledge by generic, professional and other frameworks, and makes knowledge accessible to any person. This type of translation corresponds to knowledge-objects, which are the product of the subject’s cognitive mastery of a certain fragment of reality, which indicates the emergence of science.

The professional-nominal type of knowledge transmission is characteristic of the ancient Egyptian civilization, which existed for four thousand years almost without changes. If there was a slow accumulation of knowledge there, it was done spontaneously.

The Babylonian civilization was more dynamic in this regard. Thus, the Babylonian priests persistently explored the starry sky and achieved great success in this, but this was not a scientific, but a completely practical interest. It was they who created astrology, which they considered a completely practical activity.

The same can be said about the development of knowledge in India and China. These civilizations gave the world a lot of specific knowledge, but it was knowledge necessary for practical life, for religious rituals, which have always been an important part of everyday life there.

An analysis of the compliance of the knowledge of ancient Eastern civilizations with the second criterion of scientificity allows us to say that they were neither fundamental nor theoretical. All knowledge was of a purely applied nature. The same astrology did not arise out of pure interest in the structure of the world and movement celestial bodies, but because it was necessary to determine the time of river floods and draw up horoscopes. After all, the heavenly bodies, according to the Babylonian priests, were the faces of the gods, observing everything that happened on earth and significantly influencing all events of human life. The same can be said about other scientific knowledge not only in Babylon, but also in Egypt, India, and China. They were needed for purely practical purposes, among which the most important were considered to be correctly performed religious rituals, where this knowledge was primarily used.

Even in mathematics, neither the Babylonians nor the Egyptians distinguished between exact and approximate solutions mathematical problems, despite the fact that they could solve quite complex problems. Any solution that led to a practically acceptable result was considered good. For the Greeks, who approached mathematics purely theoretically, what mattered was a rigorous solution obtained through logical reasoning. This led to the development of mathematical deduction, which determined the nature of all subsequent mathematics. Eastern mathematics, even in its highest achievements, which were inaccessible to the Greeks, never reached the method of deduction.

The third criterion of science is rationality. Today this seems trivial to us, but faith in the capabilities of reason did not appear immediately and not everywhere. Eastern civilization never accepted this position, giving preference to intuition and supersensible perception. For example, Babylonian astronomy (more precisely, astrology), completely rationalistic in its methods, was based on the belief in the irrational connection between the heavenly bodies and human destinies. There knowledge was esoteric, an object of worship, a sacrament. Rationality appeared in Greece no earlier than the 6th century. BC. Science there was preceded by magic, mythology, and belief in the supernatural. And the transition from myth to logos was a step of enormous importance in the development of human thinking and human civilization in general.

The scientific knowledge of the Ancient East did not meet the criterion of systematicity. They were simply a set of algorithms and rules for solving individual problems. It doesn't matter that some of these problems were quite complex (for example, the Babylonians solved quadratic and cubic algebraic equations). Solving particular problems did not lead ancient scientists to general laws, there was no system of proofs (and Greek mathematics from the very beginning followed the path of rigorous proof of a mathematical theorem formulated in the most general form), which made the methods for solving them a professional secret, ultimately reducing knowledge to magic and tricks.

Thus, we can conclude that there was no genuine science in the Ancient East and we will only talk about the presence of scattered scientific ideas there, which significantly distinguishes these civilizations from the ancient Greek and modern European civilization that developed on its basis and makes science a phenomenon only of this civilization

Science as such is preceded by pre-science (pre-classical stage), where the elements (prerequisites) of science are born. This refers to the beginnings of knowledge in the Ancient East, Greece and Rome.

The formation of pre-science in the Ancient East. The formation of the phenomenon of science was preceded by a long, many-thousand-year stage of accumulation of the simplest, pre-scientific forms of knowledge. The emergence of the ancient civilizations of the East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China), expressed in the emergence of states, cities, writing, etc., contributed to the accumulation of significant reserves of medical, astronomical, mathematical, agricultural, hydraulic, and construction knowledge. The needs of navigation (sea navigation) stimulated the development of astronomical observations, the needs of treating people and animals - ancient medicine and veterinary medicine, the needs of trade, navigation, restoration of land after river floods - the development of mathematical knowledge, etc.

The features of ancient Eastern pre-science were:

1. direct interweaving and subordination to practical needs (the art of measurement and counting - mathematics, compiling calendars and serving religious cults - astronomy, technical improvements in tools of production and construction - mechanics)

2. prescription (instrumentality) of “scientific” knowledge;

3. inductive nature;

4. fragmentation of knowledge;

5. the empirical nature of its origin and justification;

6. caste and closedness of the scientific community, the authority of the subject - the bearer of knowledge

There is an opinion that pre-scientific knowledge has no relation to science, since it operates with abstract concepts.

The development of agriculture stimulated the development of agricultural machinery (mills, for example). Irrigation work required knowledge of practical hydraulics. Climatic conditions required the development of an accurate calendar. Construction required knowledge in the fields of geometry, mechanics, and materials science. The development of trade, navigation and military affairs contributed to the development of weapons, ship building techniques, astronomy, etc.

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, philosophical knowledge of the world mainly took place. Here the concepts of “philosophy”, “science”, “knowledge” actually coincided. All knowledge existed within the framework of philosophy.

Many scientists believe that science arose in Antiquity; within the framework of ancient natural philosophy, natural science was born and disciplinarity was formed as a special form of organizing knowledge. The first examples of theoretical science arose in natural philosophy: the geometry of Euclid, the teachings of Archimedes, the medicine of Hippocrates, the atomism of Democritus, the astronomy of Ptolemy, etc. the first natural philosophers were more scientists than philosophers studying diverse natural phenomena. The socio-political conditions in Ancient Greece contributed to the formation of independent city-states with democratic forms of government. The Greeks felt like free people, they loved to find out the reasons for everything, reason, prove. In addition, the Greeks move to a rational understanding of reality, in contrast to myth, and create theoretical knowledge.

The Greeks laid the foundation for future science; for the emergence of science, they created the following conditions:

1. Systematic proof

2. Rationale

3. Developed logical thinking, especially deductive reasoning

4. Used abstract objects

5. Refused to use science in material and objective actions

6. We made the transition to a contemplative, inferential comprehension of the essence, i.e. to idealization (the use of ideal objects that do not exist in the real world, for example, a point in mathematics)

7. A new type of knowledge – “theory”, which made it possible to obtain certain theoretical postulates from empirical dependencies.

But in the era of antiquity, science modern meaning this word didn't exist: 1. The experiment was not discovered as a method 2. Not used mathematical methods 3. There was no scientific natural history

Ancient world ensured the application of the method in mathematics and brought it to the theoretical level. In Antiquity, much attention was paid to the comprehension of truth, that is, logic and dialectics. There was a general rationalization of thinking, liberation from metaphor, a transition from sensory thinking to an intellect operating with abstractions.

The first systematization of what later came to be called science was undertaken by Aristotle, the greatest thinker and most universal scientist of antiquity. He divided all sciences into theoretical ones, with the goal of knowledge itself (philosophy, physics, mathematics); practical, guiding human behavior (ethics, economics, politics); creative, aimed at achieving beauty (ethics, rhetoric, art). The logic outlined by Aristotle prevailed for more than 2 thousand years. It classified statements (general, particular, negative, affirmative), identified their modality: possibility, chance, impossibility, necessity, and defined the laws of thinking: the law of identity, the law of exclusion of contradiction, the law of excluded middle. Of particular importance was his teaching about true and false judgments and conclusions. Aristotle developed logic as a universal methodology of scientific knowledge. Speaking about the Roman Empire, it should be noted that there were no philosophers and scientists in it who could compare with Plato, Aristotle or Archimedes. Science was subordinated to practice, and all the works of Roman writers were compilative and encyclopedic in nature.

Thus, ancient civilization was characterized by the presence of ancient logic and mathematics, astronomy and mechanics, physiology and medicine. Ancient science was of a mathematical-mechanistic nature; the initial program proclaimed a holistic understanding of nature, as well as the separation of science from philosophy, the calculation of special subject areas and methods.