On the Ancient Polis and the Problems of the Origin of Science and Philosophy: Rereading Petrov

Abstract

The article continues the discussion of the basic ideas of M.K. Petrov about the origin of European philosophy and science. Following the authors (V.P. Rimsky and O.N. Rimskaya) of the recently published article, Petrov's position on the cultural model of the "pirate ship" is accepted as a discourse-forming one. However, the opening prospects of research make it inevitable, with such a theoretical disposition, to discuss mythology as an insurmountable obstacle and (or?) the supporting structure of European thinking. Does the pirate pentecontera or the sacred trier symbolize the Greek world? And to what extent did the deck of a pirate ship open up the horizons of the European world? What are the fates of the "Olympic" civilizations of Crete and Mycenae in the conditions of island statehood and, most importantly, how does the destruction of the former mythomentality and the emancipation of legal consciousness and thinking, the germination of the logos observed in Homer's poems occur? According to the author, these questions make it possible to reconstruct the space of the ancient polis as a creative laboratory of philosophy and science.