Vakarų filosofinės tradicijos religiniai aspektai komparatyvistinėje perspektyvoje

ENBy means of comparativistic analysis, the author inquires into the religious aspects of the Western philosophical tradition and the premises of the ideological claim that the latter alone represents the correct way of thinking. He underlines that Pythagoreans, Epicureans, Stoics, Peripatetics, Neoplatonists and other similar ancient communities were not so much philosophical schools as religious sects, for their members’ attitude towards thinking was as pious as that of religious believers towards prayer. The Renaissance excess of free thinking did not manage to destroy it. An element of religiosity is observable within Rationalism, Classical German Philosophy, Marxism, Positivism and other trends in modern philosophy. The Postmodernistic mentality, which took hold at the end of the last century, rejects the idea of the superiority of the Western philosophical tradition and way of thinking, criticizes its episteme as theocentrically oriented metaphysics, and proclaims relativism.