Philosophy From Greek To Our Era

History Of Philosophy And Organism Hegel has powerfully called attention to the organic character of history - and therefore also of the history of philosophy. For it, it is possible to recognize a unitary meaning of historical development and, at the same time, a co-essentiality of the parts that make up this development. The difference between an organism and a simple aggregate of elements (for example a "heap") consists in fact in the co-essentiality of the parts of the organism and in the reciprocal inessentiality of the parts of the simple aggregate. If one is removed from a pile of stones, it, separated from the pile, remains what it was before - and the same goes for the stones that continue to form the pile. If, on the other hand, one part is separated from the other parts of an organism (for example, cutting a limb from a living organism), only in words the separated part is still what it was before, and this separation determines an alteration in all the other parts. (Aristotle observed precisely that an arm detached from the body is only a "painted" arm, that is, it no longer performs the functions for which it is an arm; and the separation of the arm causes a physiological alteration of the whole living organism, which can even succumb.) The Hegelian affirmation that the history of philosophy is an organism means that every historically realized philosophy is not something accidental or inessential with respect to the historical totality of philosophical thought, but is an indispensable moment, without which such totality would be inconceivable. Even if we do not agree with the determined way in which Hegel envisaged the organic character of historical development, the powerful reference remains to a way of considering the history of philosophy for which it is not the casual juxtaposition of opinions, but the development of a germ, which reaches its fulfillment through the explication of the essential forces that constitute it. Understanding The "Idea" And Understanding The "Spirit" Here the formula by which Hegel envelops the entire history of philosophical thought should be highlighted above all. Philosophy - he says - was at first an understanding of the "idea"; only in a second moment is it understanding the "spirit". Greek philosophy and, in general, premodern, is the understanding of the "idea"; modern philosophy is understanding or position of the "spirit". In this context, the "idea" is the same reality, which - precisely because it allows itself to be thought, understood - is intelligible, it has a meaning, that is, it is an idea. The original meaning of this Greek word is in fact "visible form". Reality is visible form with respect to the thought that looks at it. The term "idea" is therefore used by Hegel in a different way from common usage, where it is generally contrasted "idea" to "reality". The idea, for Hegel as for Plato, is reality itself inasmuch as it is intelligible, it is the unitary totality of being, inasmuch as it is transparent to thought.