Western History 28: How did philosophy develop in Ancient Greece?

The Milesian thinker and mathematician Thales is considered to be one of the fathers of the Western Philosophical tradition. While many of his contemporaries were running around blaming natural events on the ongoing strife of the gods Thales believed that such phenomena could be BEST understood by rationally unraveling the structure of matter that he believed was centred around water as the originating principle. In doing so Thales helped take explanation beyond the scope of the supernatural and so galvanized the earliest school of philosophy named after the Ionian City in which he resided (Miletus).

In addition Thales was well versed in deductive reasoning and goes down in history as the first person ever to be identified with a mathematical principle (Thales’ theorem of the diameter of a circle subtending a right angle triangle).

Now Thales was not the only philosopher to emerge from this school. Following closely in his wake, and continuing with the notion of the structure of matter were :

• Anaxgoras – Felt that material was ordered by the cosmic mind and that there was an infinite number of primary substances
• Anaximander – argued for an endless, unlimited mass not restricted by age
• Diogenes of Apollonia – Rationalized that air was the primary substance
• Empedocles – Favoured the four element makeup of matter – the four elements were water, earth, air and fire – Also spoke of forces within matter

·         Heraclitus – Believed that all of matter is made up of fire and that change is real – he also argued that everything is in a state of flux ("No man can cross the same river twice, because neither the man nor the river are the same.")

·         Hippo – extended basic matter concepts into the biological realm – thought to be one of the earliest atheists.

·         Parmenides – Philosopher from Italian Greek colony of Elea who argued that reality is one, existence is timeless and change is impossible. Antithesis of Heraclitus.