Развитие западного интеллектуализма - стр. 3
It targets a wider group of readers, those who don’t possess special knowledge on the subject, but who are interested in history and different cultures. It addresses the origin, formation and development of intellect and, without simplifying the subject, demonstrates its place and significance in history. Written in the form of lively short stories, it contains exciting descriptions of the lives of famous individuals and interesting facts from the history of civilization. The stories alternate with illustrations by the author and his poems on historic themes. From the very beginning, Western and Eastern civilizations developed in different ways. The same was true of the evolution of the Western and Eastern intellect. This book addresses intellectualism in the Western world.
The book opens with a story about the Egyptian, Imhotep, the first known intellectual in the world, who lived about five thousand years ago. He was a vizier to a Pharaoh, an architect, scholar and physician. His Pyramid of the Steps was the first large stone structure in the world and has been preserved to the present day. The opening story is followed by accounts of the role of intellectualism in the most ancient civilizations and religions in Egypt and Mesopotamia. These have had a strong impact on the course of development of the Western world.
The chapters dedicated to prehistoric times serve as the explanatoty for the development of cognitive abilities. It originated in the brain of African forest apes when they descended from the trees onto the ground in search of new sources of food. It was hunger that facilitated evolution and laid the groundwork for the development of intellect. Over three million years, the apes evolved into vertically-walking two-legged semi-apes. Genetic changes and mutations took place in their brain cells, which accelerated their development and formation of new nervous centers and ties. At the very early stages, rudimentary intellect was expressed through development of the simplest skills – the use of sticks and stones for defense and hunting. Gradually developing intellect led to the use of fire, to construction of shelters and creation of weapons made of stone and bone.
About one hundred fifty thousand years ago the development of the most perfect type of the two-legged creature – homo sapiens, a thinking human being – appeared. New human beings spread all over the world. During that phase, their highest intellectual achievements were the creation of spoken language as a means of communication of information, and the development of visual art. The concept of faith to explain the incomprehensible forces of Nature settled in their minds. That was the beginning of religious worship.lt was the manifestation of a new ability to abstract from the concrete, the particular to the general. Early forms of religion arose in that manner. Cave drawings in Western Europe, created thirty thousand years ago, were the oldest examples of religious worship. That skill could represent the beginning of the development of European civilization, a progression which was halted by sliding glaciers ten thousand years later.
The next chapters of the book cover the application of intellect to the development of the wheel, to the concept of counting and time measurement, and to creation of written languages and alphabets.