Abstract

Philosophy remains philosophy, as long as it is loyal to the ancient Greek model. The modern era produced a tendency to subordinate philosophy to science and created conditions for the science – in this context the history of philosophy – to become an effective extra-philosophical cognitive means of philosophy’s self-awareness of its essence. However, one should remember that the reconstruction of the essence of philosophy sets a special goal and singles out a special object domain, which means there must be a special historical and philosophical subdiscipline. Thus we suggested naming this philosophical science philosophics. The research hypothesis of what the essence of philosophy is, in the subject sphere of philosophics, must allow the formation of empirical basis from the texts that are identified as philosophical archetypes. First, it is in such texts where the meaning – the whole world of meaning – of the ancient Greek word-concept φιλοσοφία is uncovered. Secondly, it is Plato’s works, in which he sums up all the previous thought, acquiring it by means of the φιλοσοφία concept, and where he creates philosophical teaching for the first time.