Chapter 7. Universal laws

The text explores the ancient human need to understand the environment and natural phenomena. In primitive societies and antiquity, in the absence of means to explain reality, myths and the belief in superior beings who governed the world and human destiny arose. This mythological knowledge prevailed for millennia, until the Greeks began to question the veracity of their myths in the 7th century B.C., giving bird to philosophy, which would lay the foundations of Western civilization.

Contact with other civilizations and their different mythologies led the Greeks to consider the possibility that both their own and others' explanations could be wrong. This step toward reasoning marked a decline in imagination-based answers and an increase in the search for rational explanations. The absence of strong religious authority in their social and political structure allowed ideas to flourish and be debated among philosophers, whose pure thought was also driven by the leisure of some wealthy merchants.

From these reflections on knowledge, freedom and truth, philosophical doctrines emerged that tried to respond to the deep existential concerns of the human being: What are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is the meaning of life? Why do we suffer? Is there life elsewhere? What happens after death? The definitions of “doctrine” and “philosophy” of the Royal Spanish Academy are cited in the text, emphasizing that philosophy seeks to establish, in a rational manner, the most general principles that organize the knowledge of reality and guide human action, thus addressing the great questions that have accompanied humanity throughout history.