The ontological basics of reflection in the materialistic tradition of ancient philosophy

The research is devoted to the identification of ontological basics of reflection on the ground of the analysis of philosophical ideas by Thales, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Aristotle. It is shown that the reflections of these antique philosophers concerning thinking and cognition belong to the materialistic conception of scientific knowledge whose basic principle is the principle of reflection. The problem of reflection begins with a known aphorism by Thales "learn yourself", and it is continued in Leucippus and Democritus's reflections, according to which the whirlwind of the atoms submitting to mechanical laws is the reason of any movement and physical processes. In Epicurus's philosophy the structure of the "external" world and the structure of soul are considered. From the point of view of Aristotle, we think of a subject of thought as about a form in images by means of imagination and then we draw up judgments. Thereby, the subject of thought sets the conceiving part of soul in motion, causing its high-quality changes. As a result of the analysis of works of the antique philosophers representing materialistic tradition, the author comes to the conclusion that originally the problem of reflection was connected with the self-cognition and it was solved within the materialistic conception.