Abstract:
Since ancient times, the social coexistence of people has been regulated
by norms and rules, the Code of Laws of Hammurabi, the Egyptian Book
of the Dead or the Biblical Decalogue being eloquent examples in this
regard. This problem, of norms and rules of social coexistence, could not
escape the attention of philosophers, who devoted vast approaches to it,
the most famous examples being: Plato’s Republic or Rousseau’s Social
Contract. But it is not only within the great ethical conceptions constructed by various philosophers that this problem arises, but it is also present
in the concerns of some thinkers who have touched tangentially on this
issue within their philosophical concerns. This paper presents several approaches to social norms and rules within the philosophical conceptions
of Greek antiquity that did not treat the problem in the form of a unitary
ethical system: Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Democritus, and Socrates.