A case could be made that "Philosophical Operative Freemasonry" could not have existed until the European High Middle Ages. Before this time, the stone-stackers were deemed unworthy of intellectual consideration, and stone-stacking was just a lesser pursuit, like all other menial tasks. It may have had military or civil use, but it was one thing to be a proper architect who never dirtied his hands with the tools of a mason and quite another to be an actual grubby little mason. That was the attitude of the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Greeks, the Romans, and pretty much anyone else of that era.
It was the medieval period that saw the dignification of labor as an outlet or realization of higher spiritual or philosophical pursuits. In Aristotle's era, and for millenia before and after, labor was considered a detraction from spiritual and philosophical pursuits.
Of course, the Enlightenment had its own silly fairy tales, one of which was that the Middle Ages was a "dark age", where all learning was exterminated, no advancement occurred, and every single thought was rigidly dictated by the Pope. Then out of nowhere the ancient Greeks reappeared and in the space of ten minutes all the abilities of the early Renaissance appeared--POOF!
My own opinion, as should be obvious, is that even Operative Masonry as we understand it did not and could not have existed until the Middle Ages, when spiritual, scientific, philosophical, and practical approaches united like they never had before been permitted to do in human history.
The Medieval mason was a stoneworker, an architect, an engineer, a geometer, a civil planner, an inspector of public construction. At no time previous to that was the mason responsible for so much. Before then, the mason was just someone who was told what to do by someone much more important.
