The Socio-Economic Nature of Poverty as a Subject of Study in European Philosophy

The article provides an overview of the main ideas about the socio-economic nature of poverty that emerged in the course of the development of European philosophy. The transformation of views on the phenomenon of poverty, characteristic of philosophical thought from the antiquity up to the XIX century, demonstrates all the facets of the development of European society over such a long period of time. If for the ancient thinkers the main reasons for poverty were the structure of society and mans own imperfect nature, the philosophy of the Middle Ages gives moral justification of poverty, considering it as a manifestation of Christian asceticism. European humanism of the XV-XVI centuries forms the idea of poverty as a persons inability to realize his needs and develop his personal abilities. Further development of this problem demonstrates the desire of social philosophy to explain the phenomenon of poverty by deepening socio-economic contradictions associated with the formation of capitalist relations in Europe.