Splitting concepts: steps of reflection

The article analyzes a number of stages of the formation of a generic and non-specific vocabulary in the period from the 9-8th to the 5-4the centuries BCE in Ancient Greece. Cosmogonies of the period of ordering mythological representations in Egyptian, Phoenician and Greek cultures are taken as a source material. The article considers the interaction of basic metaphors that allow this ordering to be carried out-metaphors of genealogical (birth and change of generations) and metaphors of artisan-demiurge. The formation of the legislative space is investigated, yet namely this space allows to outline the first reflective steps in relation to mythological thinking. These steps are initially carried out within the limits of traditional mythological images. The most important stage of the movement towards general words in the process of the emergence of artificial concepts in the early philosophical systems - "apeiron", "on", "logos", "physis", which begin to be ordered through interaction with each other. In parallel with the personified mythological concepts the abstract concepts are gradually lining up and organizing systematically. From the beginning they allow to integrate mythological ideas and present them in the abstract form. In the next phase, a fundamental role is played by the activity of sophists, whose attention is focused on the game with the general concepts, yet the content of these concepts starts to lose the reference to the outside world. At the same time, the language is discovered as an independent system. This is the content of the third stage of reflective activity. The attempt of Socrates to escape from sophistic relativism and return the contents to the general concepts leads to the overturning of the relations of names and reality, when it turns out that the general concepts are enclosed in the soul, and they are preset the understanding of the world. Plato and Aristotle implement this setting and transform this work with concepts into a separate sphere of activity, creating dialectics and logic that underlie the methodology of reasoning and research in different spheres of intellectual activity.