AUTUMN/winter '26-27
lectures
historico-philosophical module
Historico-philosophical module
(Историко-философский модуль)

First year — Philosophical Anthropology, Institute of Philosophy of Man, Herzen University

Typical structure for the first year focuses on the foundations of Western philosophy

(primarily Ancient philosophy, with the beginning of the transition to the Medieval period).
Оглавление (Table of Contents / List of Topics)

1. Introduction to the History of Philosophy
  • Subject, method, and periodization of the history of philosophy
  • Philosophy and myth, religion, science
  • Main stages of the development of philosophical thought
2. Pre-Socratic Philosophy (Early Greek Philosophy)
  • The Milesian school: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes
  • Pythagoras and the Pythagorean school
  • Heraclitus
  • The Eleatic school: Parmenides, Zeno of Elea
  • Empedocles and Anaxagoras
  • Atomists: Leucippus and Democritus
3. Classical Greek Philosophy
  • The Sophists and the problem of relativism
  • Socrates: life, method, and main ideas
  • Plato: theory of Forms (Ideas), epistemology, the ideal state, ethics, and the soul
  • Aristotle: metaphysics (form and matter, four causes), logic, ethics, politics, and psychology
4. Hellenistic Philosophy
  • Stoicism (Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Seneca, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius)
  • Epicureanism
  • Skepticism (Pyrrho, Sextus Empiricus)
  • Neoplatonism (Plotinus)
5. Transition to Medieval Philosophy (introductory topics)
  • Philosophy and Christianity
  • Early Christian thinkers (Patristics): Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen
  • Augustine of Hippo (main ideas)
  • The beginning of Scholasticism
6. General and Methodological Topics
  • The problem of the human being in ancient philosophy (anthropological aspects)
  • Continuity and breaks in the history of philosophy
  • Primary sources and methods of working with philosophical texts
Subject, method, and periodization of the history of philosophy (briefly)
Subject
The history of philosophy studies the origin, development, and transformation of philosophical ideas and systems across time. It examines how thinkers have answered fundamental questions about being, knowledge, the human being, values, and society, and how these answers are connected with their historical and cultural context.

Method

The main methods include:
  • Historical-genetic approach (tracing how ideas arise and change)
  • Comparative analysis of different philosophical systems
  • Hermeneutic method (interpretation of texts in their historical context)
  • Problem-oriented approach (following how key problems evolve)
  • Critical-reflexive method (examining the internal logic and limitations of philosophical doctrines)
The historian of philosophy works primarily with primary sources (texts of philosophers) and places them in dialogue with one another and with their epoch.
Periodization
The classical periodization of Western philosophy is usually divided into the following major stages:

  1. Ancient philosophy (6th century BC – 6th century AD) — from the Pre-Socratics to Neoplatonism
  2. Medieval philosophy (5th–15th centuries) — Patristics and Scholasticism
  3. Renaissance philosophy (14th–16th centuries)
  4. Modern philosophy (17th–19th centuries) — from Descartes to German Idealism and beyond
  5. Contemporary / 20th–21st century philosophy — analytic and continental traditions, and other currents

These periods are approximate and serve as a working framework rather than rigid boundaries. In the first-year Historico-philosophical module, the main focus is usually on the Ancient period and the beginning of the Medieval one.
Pre-Socratic Philosophy
(Early Greek Philosophy)
They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
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