Pre-

Socratic
philosophy
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PhenomenaPythagorasAnaximander

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A number of early Greek philosophers active before and during the time
of Socrates are collectively known as the pre-Socratics. Their inquiries
spanned the workings of the natural world as well as human society,
ethics, and religion, seeking explanations based on natural principles
rather than the actions of supernatural gods. They introduced to the
West the notion of the world as a kosmos, an ordered arrangement that
could be understood via rational inquiry. [1]
In Classical antiquity, the pre-Socratic philosophers were called
physiologoi (Greek: φυσιολόγοι; in English, physical or natural
philosophers).[2] Aristotle was the first to make a clear distinction
between these physiologoi or physikoi ("physicists", after physis,
"nature") who sought natural explanations for phenomena, and the
earlier theologoi(theologians), or mythologoi (story tellers and bards)
who attributed these phenomena to various gods. [3][4] Diogenes Laërtius
divides the physiologoi into two groups: Ionian, led by Anaximander, and
the Italiote, led by Pythagoras.[5]

Overview
Hermann Diels popularized the term "pre-Socratic" in Die Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker(The Fragments of the Pre-Socratics) in 1903. However,
the term "pre-Sokratic" [sic] was in use as early as George Grote's Plato
and the Other Companions of Sokrates in 1865. Edouard Zeller was also
important in dividing thought before and after Socrates. [6] Major analyses
of pre-Socratic thought have been made by Gregory Vlastos, Jonathan
Barnes, and Friedrich Nietzsche in his Philosophy in the Tragic Age of
the Greeks.

It may sometimes be difficult to determine the actual line of argument

some pre-Socratics used in supporting their particular views. While most
of them produced significant texts, none of the texts have survived in
complete form. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers
(often biased) and historians, and the occasional textual fragment.

The pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional mythological

explanations of the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more
rational explanations. These philosophers asked questions about "the
essence of things":[7]
 ● From where does everything come?
● From what is everything created?
● How do we explain the plurality of things found in nature?
● How might we describe nature mathematically?

Others concentrated on defining problems and paradoxes that became

the basis for later mathematical, scientific and philosophic study.

Later philosophers rejected many of the answers the early Greek

philosophers provided, but continued to place importance on their
questions. Furthermore, the cosmologies proposed by them have been
updated by later developments in science.

History
See also: History of metaphysical
naturalism
 Graphical relationship among the various pre-socratic philosophers and thinkers;
red arrows indicate a relationship of opposition.

Coming from the eastern or western fringes of the Greek world, the pre-
Socratics were the forerunners of what became Western philosophy as
well as natural philosophy, which later developed into the natural
sciences (such as physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy). [1] Their
efforts were directed to the investigation of the ultimate basis and
essential nature of the external world.[8] They sought the material
principle (archê) of things, and the method of their origin and
disappearance.[8] As the first philosophers, they emphasized the rational
unity of things and rejected supernatural explanations, instead seeking
natural principles at work in the world and human society. The pre-
Socratics saw the world as a kosmos, an ordered arrangement that
could be understood via rational inquiry. [1] Pre-Socratic thinkers present a
discourse concerned with key areas of philosophical inquiry such as
being, the primary stuff of the universe, the structure and function of the
human soul, and the underlying principles governing perceptible
phenomena, human knowledge and morality.

Writings
Only fragments of the original writings of the pre-Socratics survive (many
entitled Peri Physeos, or On Nature, a title probably attributed later by
other authors).[9] The knowledge we have of them derives from accounts
- known as doxography - of later philosophical writers (especially
Aristotle, Plutarch, Diogenes Laërtius, Stobaeus and Simplicius), and
some early theologians (especially Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus
of Rome).

However, the translation of Peri Physeos as On Nature may be

misleading: the "on" normally gives the idea of an "erudite dissertation",
while "peri" may refer in fact to a "circular approach"; and the traditional
meanings of "nature" for us (as opposition to culture, to supernatural, or
as essence, substance, opposed to accident, etc.) may be in contrast
with the meaning of "physeos" or "physis" for the Greeks (referring to an
"originary source", or "process of emergence and development"). [10]

Milesian school

The first pre-Socratic philosophers were from Miletus on the western

coast of Anatolia. Thales (624-546 BC) is reputedly the father of Greek
philosophy; he declared water to be the basis of all things. [8] Next came
Anaximander (610-546 BC), the first writer on philosophy. He assumed
as the first principle an undefined, unlimited substance without qualities
(apeiron), out of which the primary opposites, hot and cold, moist and
dry, became differentiated.[8] His younger contemporary, Anaximenes
(585-525 BC), took for his principle air, conceiving it as modified, by
thickening and thinning, into fire, wind, clouds, water, and earth. [8]

Pythagoreanism

The practical side of philosophy was introduced by Pythagoras of Samos

(582-496 BC). Regarding the world as perfect harmony, dependent on
number, he aimed at inducing humankind likewise to lead a harmonious
life. His doctrine was adopted and extended by a large following of
Pythagoreans who gathered at his school in south Italy in the town of
Croton.[8] His followers included Philolaus(470-380 BC), Alcmaeon of
Croton, and Archytas (428-347 BC).

Ephesian school

The Ephesian philosophers were interested in the natural world and the
properties by which it is was ordered. Xenophanes and Heraclitus were
able to push philosophical inquiry further than the Milesian school by
examining the nature of philosophical inquiry itself. In addition, they were
also invested in furthering observations and explanations regarding
natural and physical process and also the functions and processes of
the human subjective experience.[11]

Hereclitus and Xenophenes both shared interests in analyzing

philosophical inquiry as they contemplated morality and religious belief.
This was because they wanted to figure out the proper methods of
understanding human knowledge and the ways humans fit into the
world. This was much different than natural philosophy that was being
done by other philosophers as it questioned how the operations of the
universe as well as the human positions within the universe. [12]

Heraclitus of Ephesus on the western coast of Anatolia in modern Turkey

(535-475 BC) posited that all things in nature are in a state of perpetual
flux, connected by logical structure or pattern, which he termed Logos.
To Heraclitus, fire, one of the four classical elements, motivates and
substantiates this eternal pattern. From fire all things originate, and
return to it again in a process of eternal cycles.

Eleatic school
The Eleatic School, called after the town of Elea (modern name Velia in
southern Italy), emphasized the doctrine of the One. Xenophanes of
Colophon (570-470 BC) declared God to be the eternal unity, permeating
the universe, and governing it by his thought. [8] Parmenides of Elea (510-
440 BC) affirmed the one unchanging existence to be alone true and
capable of being conceived, and multitude and change to be an
appearance without reality.[8] This doctrine was defended by his younger
countryman Zeno of Elea(490-430 BC) in a polemic against the common
opinion which sees in things multitude, becoming, and change. Zeno
propounded a number of celebrated paradoxes, much debated by later
philosophers, which try to show that supposing that there is any change
or multiplicity leads to contradictions.[8] Melissus of Samos (born c. 470
BC) was another eminent member of this school.

Pluralist school

Empedocles of Agrigentum (490-430 BC) was from the ancient Greek

city of Akragas (Ἀκράγας), Agrigentum in Latin, modern Agrigento, in
Sicily. He appears to have been partly in agreement with the Eleatic
School, partly in opposition to it. On the one hand, he maintained the
unchangeable nature of substance; on the other, he supposes a plurality
of such substances - i.e. four classical elements, earth, water, air, and
fire. Of these the world is built up, by the agency of two ideal motive
forces - love as the cause of union, strife as the cause of separation. [8]
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500-428 BC) in Asia Minor also maintained
the existence of an ordering principle as well as a material substance,
and while regarding the latter as an infinite multitude of imperishable
primary elements, he conceived divine reason or Mind (nous) as
ordering them. He referred all generation and disappearance to mixture
and resolution respectively. To him belongs the credit of first establishing
philosophy at Athens.[8]

Atomist school
The first explicitly materialistic system was formed by Leucippus (5th
century BC) and his pupil Democritus of Abdera (460-370 BC) from
Thrace. This was the doctrine of atoms - small primary bodies infinite in
number, indivisible and imperishable, qualitatively similar, but
distinguished by their shapes. Moving eternally through the infinite void,
they collide and unite, thus generating objects which differ in accordance
with the varieties, in number, size, shape, and arrangement, of the atoms
which compose them.[8]

Others

The last of the pre-Socratic natural philosophers was Diogenes of

Apollonia from Thrace (born c. 460 BC). He was an eclectic philosopher
who adopted many principles of the Milesian school, especially the
single material principle, which he identified as air. He explained natural
processes in reference to the rarefactions and condensations of this
primary substance. He also adopted Anaxagoras' cosmic thought.

Sophists

The Sophists held that all thought rests solely on the apprehensions of
the senses and on subjective impression, and that therefore we have no
other standards of action than convention for the individual. [8]
Specializing in rhetoric, the Sophists were more professional educators
than philosophers. The Sophists traveled extensively educating people
throughout Greece. Unlike other philosophical schools, the Sophists did
not have any common set of philosophical beliefs that connected them
to each other. They did however focus on teaching techniques of debate
and persuasion which centered around the study of language, semantics
and grammar use in order to convince people of certain viewpoints. They
also taught students their own interpretations of the social sciences,
mathematics, history, among others.[13] They flourished as a result of a
special need at that time for Greek education. Prominent Sophists
include Protagoras (490-420 BC) from Abdera in Thrace, Gorgias (487-
376 BC) from Leontini in Sicily, Hippias (485-415 BC) from Elis in the
Peloponnesos, Prodicus (465-390 BC) from the island of Ceos, and
Thrasymachus (459-400 BC) from Chalcedon on the Bosphorus.

Other early Greek

philosophers
This list includes several men, particularly the Seven Sages, who appear
to have been practical politicians and sources of epigrammatic wisdom,
rather than speculative thinkers or philosophers in the modern sense.

● Seven Sages of Greece

Solon (c. 594 BC)

Chilon of Sparta (c. 560 BC)

Thales (c. 585 BC)

Bias of Priene (c. 570 BC)

Cleobulus of Rhodes (c. 600 BC)

Pittacus of Mitylene (c. 600 BC)

Periander (625–585 BC)

● Aristeas of Proconnesus (7th century BC ?)

● Pherecydes of Syros (c. 540 BC)
● Anacharsis (c. 590 BC)

Legacy
● The Pre-Socratic method of critical reasoning deployed in the
examination of the natural world was applied by Socrates to an
examination of the human individual and his social institutions.
● Hegel deeply studied the Pre-Socratics, crediting the
philosopher Parmenides with introducing the concepts of Being
and Non-Being (or Nothing).[14]
● Karl Marx's doctoral thesis "The Difference Between the
Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature" evaluates
the thought of the Pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus, one of
the founders of Atomic theory.
● Within the Marxist philosophical tradition the Pre-Socratics are
recognized as the first Materialists.
● Nietzsche described the Pre-Socratics as "the tyrants of the
spirit",[15] and says of Socrates that "the hitherto so wonderfully
regular, although certainly too rapid, development of the
philosophical science was destroyed in one night".
● Oswald Spengler's doctoral thesis "The metaphysical idea of
Heraclitus' philosophy" evaluates the thought of the Pre-
 Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, dubbed "the obscure".
● Karl Popper, one of the 20th century's most influential
philosophers of science, placed great importance on the critical
tradition embodied in the development of Pre-Socratic thought,
the analysis of which contributed to his own epistemological
theories. His well-known essay on the subject, "Back to the Pre-
Socratics", can be found in the anthology of his essays
Conjectures and Refutations - The Growth of Scientific
Knowledge, 2nd Edition. Routledge Publishing. 2002.

Notes
References
Further reading
External links

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