Presocratic Philosophy: Origins and Key Thinkers

Posted on Nov 17, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

The Beginnings of Philosophy

Several factors contributed to the emergence of philosophy:

  1. The absence of sacred books.
  2. Developing businesses and Greek contact with other peoples broadened their understanding.
  3. The rise of new social classes, including economic, commercial, and artisan classes, led to rational principles and laws.
  4. New political forms emerged as Greek areas separated, diminishing the idea of an empire. The development of navigation fostered interest in knowledge and the contemplation of nature.

From Myth to Logos

This shift signifies a move away from viewing the world as arbitrary to seeing it as a necessary order.

Myth

Myths are characterized by:

  • Explaining the origins of human nature and civilization.
  • Emphasizing imagination and feelings.
  • Exalting certain values and behaviors.
  • Personifying and deifying natural forces.
  • Promoting obedience to authority.
  • Having unknown, collective authorship.
  • Developing slowly and popularly (e.g., Viking village lore).
  • Having a traditional, educational, and socially cohesive character.

Types of myths:

  • Theogonies: Narrate the origin and descent of gods (e.g., Zeus).
  • Cosmogonies: Describe the universe’s origin (e.g., the biblical Genesis).
  • Etiological myths: Explain the appearance of beings or aspects of reality (e.g., Prometheus and fire).

Logos

Logos represents the scientific effort to understand the world, emphasizing reason and necessity over arbitrariness.

The Presocratics

Philosophers before Socrates shared these characteristics:

  • Most originated from the periphery of the Hellenic world.
  • Focused on the theme of nature, defined by:
    • The set of beings inhabiting the universe.
    • A dynamic order.
    • Identification with essence.

The Milesians

Thales of Miletus

Considered the first Greek philosopher, Thales proposed water as the origin of all things because:

  • It sustains life.
  • It’s a key element in weather.
  • It’s geographically important.

He envisioned Earth as a flat disk resting on water.

Anaximander

Anaximander believed the origin of all things was the Apeiron (the indeterminate boundless). From this vast, moving mass, all things originated. He held a geocentric view of the universe.

Anaximenes

Anaximenes posited air as the origin of all things because it’s essential for life and observable, and it’s unlimited like the Apeiron.

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Heraclitus’s main thesis: The world is in constant flux; what we perceive through senses is multiple and changing; nothing remains the same. Fire is the origin of all things, and nature is a struggle of opposites.

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoras and his followers believed:

  • Humans are composed of body and soul.
  • The soul is immortal and celestial.
  • The body is mortal and terrestrial.

This concept influenced Plato and Christian philosophy. Pythagoreans believed numbers were the origin of all things, categorizing them in various ways (even, odd, triangular, square). Ten was considered the perfect number. They believed Earth was spherical and not the center of the universe.

Parmenides

Parmenides, the founder of metaphysics, studied “being,” the common, unchanging essence behind all things. He distinguished between the “path of truth” (knowledge of being) and the “way of opinion.”

The Pluralists

Pluralists aimed to explain change and the existence of a world with many things.

Empedocles

Empedocles believed the world was composed of four eternal elements: water, fire, air, and earth. Things arise and perish through the mixing and separation of these elements, driven by love and strife.

Anaxagoras

The first philosopher to establish a school in Athens, Anaxagoras argued that things don’t simply arise. He proposed infinite “seeds” as the elements of things.

The Atomists

Leucippus and Democritus argued:

  • The world consists of infinite, indivisible particles called atoms.
  • Atoms move themselves.
  • Atoms are neither created nor destroyed.
  • Atoms differ in shape, arrangement, and position.
  • Empty space is necessary for atomic movement.

They advocated a mechanistic view of the universe.