From Rationality of Early Greek Philosophy to the Stoic Rationalism

Abstract

Rationality of the Early Greek philosophy is determined by its argumentation, which is shown by the example of analogy as a type of argumentation. It is necessary to distinguish between the analogy of attribution and the analogy of proportionality, since the function of the former is to persuade, and the function of the latter is to explain. Both these analogies are used in the process of the philosophical inquiry which determines the main content of epistemic problems in the ancient philosophy. Addressing those problems on the level of analogy whether to persuade or to explain is considered to be a rational procedure. The dependencies between of rationalism of the Stoics and their pantheism: the god is a reason. This is a world view rationalism. It is shown that the Stoics were unable to remain within the position of the world view rationalism when they evaluate the human lives on the basis of reasonableness, since they claimed the vast majority of the people act contrary to reason.