Greek philosophy of history

Abstract

The research deals with an important problem related to the science of history and its development through the ages, which is the idea of the philosophy of history and its connection to the science of history through the study of the science of history and its philosophy among the most famous Greek philosophers.

The relationship between history and philosophy includes several dimensions: the approach, which is the philosophical and historical approach, and this difference about the nature of the approach through the positions of idealists and positivists after history is science or literature. Then the essence, which is the other disagreement about the subject of history and about the task of the historian and the nature of history, and raised several questions about who writes history? And who is writing about? Is it about the main personalities who played a role in the historical events, or about the civilizations, societies and masses of people that made history? Which writes for the individual or the group. The other issue is the historian and his role in judging historical events, and this is related to a number of rulings and philosophies that dealt with this point, especially the philosophy of ethics and politics.

Human history does not move in chaos and without a goal. Rather, it is governed by laws and laws, such as those that govern the universe, the world, life, and things equally, and that historical facts are not created by chance, but through special conditions that give them this or that characteristic, or direct them towards this or that destiny.

Interpretation of history, then, means knowing the links that link separate events and incidents, studying them to clarify their motives, their connection and their results, extracting the divine Sunnahs and laws from them, and considering the lessons and bites in them, and it is a stage that comes after the critical study of the news. And he learns about its significance and effects, with the aim of interpreting the laws and defining the norms according to which the data of history are formed with its crowded and intertwined facts, in order to get hold of typical groups of influences that control the historical movement, and drive it in this direction or that, in what is known as the philosophy of history.

The philosophy of history is based on the existence of laws that control the course of history, and these laws must be discovered and dealt with. From this perspective, the historical interpretation of accidents becomes a human effort that may be right or wrong, because it falls within the field of theoretical studies.

Perhaps the oldest Greek historians who preserved history for us are: Hectaeus, Herodotus, Thecodides, and the last of the great Greek historians was Polybius. Through this research, we have tried to shed light on the vision of the Greek historians of the science of history and the extent of this science's interrelationship with the philosophy of history and the idea of this philosophy among these historians, which clearly contributed to the development of the view of history and its transformation into a science that is parallel and sometimes superior to other mental and human sciences.