ON THE PRESOCRATICS

The Pre-Socratic period of the Ancient era of philosophy refers to Greek

philosophers active before Socrates, or contemporaries of Socrates who expounded on earlier
knowledge. Pre-Socratic is a branch of philosophy dominated by an interest in the natural
world, mathematics, form, etc., and a quest to understand origin, mechanics, and to formulate
hypothesis about the world. The ideas of Socrates developed by Plato where the importance to
social, political, and the moral questions existed. Most of what we know about pre-Socratic
comes from Plato and Aristotle. The following major pre-Socratic philosophers are: Thales ,
Anaximander, Anaximenes,  Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno , Empedocles ,
Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Leucippus. The Pre-Socratic philosophers rejected traditional
mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them in favor of more rational
explanations. They started to ask questions like “where did everything come from?”, and “why
is there such variety?”, and “how can nature be described mathematically?” The most
important thing about pre-Socratic is that, (a) the extent to which they anticipated both Greek
ideas, and (b) their ideas in many ways represent the very beginnings of what we now call
scientific inquiry. The Important movements of the period of pre-Socratic or the five main
strands include the Milesian School, the Pythagorean School, the Eleatic School, Pluralism,
and the Atomism.

The Milesian school of thought existed in Miletus, on the coast of Asia Minor, in the
period from 590-530 B.C. Miletus was a port and trading center between east and west. This
school was influenced by Babylonia (particularly Babylonian mathematics and astronomy),
Egypt, and father east. In this school, the Milesians philosophers (particularly Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes) consciously rejected the “Religious practice of heaven with
anthropomorphic gods”, “Magic and the capricious ways with these gods”, “explanation for
events through myths and legends”, and also they rejected “those not of ineffable divine
causes”. The Milesians turned to the natural world or Cosmos looking for causes entirely
inside the cosmos and made explanatory hypothesis and general framework to deal with the
phenomena. Their ideas were still influenced by the cosmogony, according to which the world
originated from an undifferentiated or amorphous unity. This idea was central to the texts in
Hebrew, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek. The most important contribution of the Milesians
was to introduce the idea of a ‘Fundamental Stuff’, which some process of differentiation gave
the natural world. In addition, the most interesting thing is that the Milesians were dealing

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with empirical propositions based to some extent on observations about the world. In other
words, we are taking about the act of hypothesizing about the world, in a pre-scientific way.

Thales of Miletus was active already in 585 B.C. He was an early Pre-

Socratic philosopher, from the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was a
mathematician, engineer and astronomer. He was the founder of the Milesian School.  He was
also the teacher of Anaximander. He measured the distances of ship out at sea. He predicted
solar eclipse. For Thales, “everything in the material world was form of water” or “all
the material objects in the world were made of water”. Thales concluded that water is an
underlying principle (substance) in all things. According to this hypothesis, water could take
on many forms, indeed, it was capable of transforming itself and differentiating into all that
we see in the material world. It was Aristotle’s opinion that Thales may have observed, that
the nature of all creature is moist.

Anaximander of Miletus was active already between 610-546 BC. He was an

early Pre-Socratic philosopher from the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey).
He was an astronomer and cartographer. He was the first Greek to make a world map.
Anaximander’s astronomical hypothesis went in hand with his cosmology. According to
Anaximander, the primeval or fundamental stuff, which he called ‘apeiron’ was everlasting
and infinite. Similarly, various things were ‘spun off’ from the apeiron. Thus, apeiron is the
generator of all transient and perishable things in the world. Anaximander also saw this
apeiron as governing the whole of the cosmos. For him, apeiron was ageless, immortal, divine,
mover, or creator of everything that exists.

Anaximenes of Miletus was active already between 528-526 BC. He was an early Pre-
Socratic philosopher from the Greek city of Miletus in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). He was a
student of Anaximander. Anaximenes' main concern was to identify the single source of all
things in the universe. Thus, a single element was indeed the source of all things, and that
was air. Air is the primitive stuff. According to Anaximenes, all things came from the
compression, rarefaction, or transformation of air.

We are now in the second strand, which is the Pythagorean School. This school is
focus about Form. The problem with exclusive concentration on the natural world is that it is
impermanent or in a state of constant flux if one is seeking an explanation in all things.

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Explanation for all things cannot be found in the world of everyday phenomena. In this school
let consider Pythagorean School and Heraclitus as a source of our explanation.

Pythagoras of Samos was born around 570 BC. He was an early Greek Pre-

Socratic philosopher and mathematician from the Greek island of Samos in Ionian Greece. It
is said that he was the student of Thales of Miletus. As a mathematician, he is known as
the "father of numbers" or as the first pure mathematician, and is best known for
his Pythagorean Theorem. He was very influential on Plato and Aristotle. According to
Pythagoras, the cosmos was whole without telos (end) and we are all part of it at least our
souls are. The cosmos represented for Pythagoras was a kind of inherent order or structure of
perfection. It is a divine pattern or form. This was the remarkable new idea which broke
completely from the Milesian school, which was essentially materialist and interested in the
constituents of matter. For Pythagoras, everything in the cosmos was an embodiment of
number. Numbers were viewed as divine, the key to the cosmos. Plato adopted the
Pythagorean ideas of the immortality of the soul, and the mathematical basis of the cosmos.
The most important philosophical idea from Pythagoras was that the most fundamental
explanations were not in terms of matter or stuff, but in terms of abstract form.

Heraclitus of Ephesus was born between 500-460 BC. He was a Pre-

Socratic Greek philosopher from Ephesus, on the Ionian coast of modern-day Turkey.
According to Heraclitus, everything in the perpetual world takes place according to the ‘logos.
This logos had a material aspect and this was fire. Heraclitus remarked that ‘fire steers all
things. For him, the fundamental logos was the unity of opposite. The examples of opposites
were beginning-end, day-night, young-old, living-dead, awake-asleep, hot-cold, wet-dry, etc.
… Thus, all change comes from the transformation between opposites. Thus, for him,
everything is in a perpetual state of flux and nothing is ever the same. Thus, for him, ‘even
souls were in flux, they were like fire’. Therefore, fire is the agent of change. Similarly, for
Heraclitus, ‘one never steps in the same river twice’. Also, ‘all things come out of the one, and
the one out of all things’ as Plato’s paraphrased, ‘nothing ever is, everything is becoming’. In
general, the constant is change.

Now comes the third strand, the Eleatic School. This school of thought is a
philosophical label ascribed to Pre-Socratics which argued that reality is in some sense a
unified and unchanging singular entity. This has often been understood to mean there is just

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one thing in all of existence. In order to better understand, let us consider Parmenides and
Zeno.

Parmenides was born between 515-445 BC. Parmenides denies the reality of change.
For him, change is impossible. In addition, Parmenides combated pluralism and had declared
change and motion to be illusion. Thus, the very notion of change is incoherent. According to
Parmenides, everything that exist is permanent, ingenerated, indestructible, and unchanging.
Parmenides goes even further, denying that there is such a thing as plurality. Meaning to say,
Parmenides denies that there are many things, maintaining instead that there is only one thing
exists. Thus, the idea that the universe is one. It is indivisible, and finite which is present
forever. The conclusion is that there can be no void anywhere and there can be no change.
Change must be illusory.

Zeno of Elea was born around 490 BC. He was a student of Parmenides. Zeno’s main
goal was to extend both the arguments of Parmenides and to attack the pluralists. He has this
also an oneness kind of argument. Zeno’s main goal is to extend the arguments of
Parmenides. He produced a number of notorious arguments both metaphysical and semi
mathematical. One of Zeno’s arguments is taking about the arguments against pluralism.
These arguments talk about ‘one’. Thus, it implies that reality cannot be divided and must be
one. Also, one of Zeno’s arguments is talking about the arguments of ‘motion’. These imply
that motion is impossible, that is, that existence must be unchanging.

The Fourth strand is the Pluralism. Pluralism is a Greek Pre-Socratic school of philosophy

consisting the major philosophers: Anaxagoras and Empedocles. They attempted to reconcile
the complete rejection of change by Parmenides and the Eleatic School, which generally
speaking they accepted, with the apparently changing world of sense experience, and thereby
find the basis for all change.

Empedocles was born between 444-443 BC. at Acragas (Agrigentum in Latin), a

Greek colony in Sicily. He was a leader of the democratic party of his native Island. Also, he
was known to be a magician or a wonder worker. His philosophical approach had the merit of
being the first to posit a number of different fundamental kinds of matter or ‘stuff’. This was
the first theory to involve what we now call ‘elements’. Philosophically, Empedocles believed
in the four elements: Fire, water, earth, and air. These four elements held to be eternal,
indestructible, and ingenerated, that is, without beginning and end in time. All changes in

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nature come from the mixing or separation of these four elements. Empedocles understand that
change cannot be denied, to dismiss change is illusory. On the other hand, the question is that,
what drives or motivates the various changes that are constantly occurring in the world?
Empedocles showed that there were two basic principles in operation, these being called
“love” and “strife”. Love was ultimately responsible for bringing elements together, whereas
Strife tended to force them apart. According to him, Love is good and strife is evil. The
universe is constantly moving from a stage where love is predominant, to one where strife
holds away.

Anaxagoras was born between 500-428 BC. at Clazomenae in Asia Minor. He was one
of the pluralists and was the first philosopher to settle in the city. He was the teacher of
Pericles. The philosophy of Anaxagoras was concerned about non-material ‘first cause’ of all
motion and change in the world, which is called “mind” or ‘Nous’ and a form of pluralism in
which all objects in the world contained elements of all others. Thus, mind is the initiating
cause of the world and its structure, and is still the cause of the actions of all living things, but
it is entirely absent now from the material world except for its presence in living things. So,
according to Anaxagoras, matter is indestructible; the mingling of material particles forms the
object. Everything has part qualitatively as a whole. This mind or ‘nous’ had power over the
whole revolution. It is infinite and self-ruled. It is mixed with nothing, but is alone, itself by
itself. It is present in all living things, men, animals, and plants, and is the same in all. Nous is
the finest of all things and the purest and the greatest power and the thinnest of all things. The
mind is pure. It contains no other elements. It is part of all living things, but not a part of non-
living.

The fifth strand is Atomism. Atomism was one of the theories of the ancient Greek
philosophy devised to explain the universe. The atoms, from the Greek for "not cut" were
indivisible. They had few innate properties (size, shape, order, and position) and could hit
each other in the void. By hitting one another and locking together, they become something
else. Atomists also developed ethics, epistemology, and political philosophy based on
atomism.

The Atomists Democritus and Leucippus concerned the idea of ‘Atoms’. Leucippus and
Democritus (460-370 B.C.) posited that the natural world is comprised of only two,
indivisible bodies, the void or an empty space, and atoms. Atoms continually bounce
around in the void, bouncing into each other, but eventually bouncing off. There were
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apparently an infinite number of them. Also, they were physically indivisible. And they were
indestructible and unchanging. In general, this philosophy argues that the world was made of
atoms, which moved in empty space.

Bibliography

Primary source

Lamprecht, P. Sterling “Our philosophical Traditions”: A brief history of Philosophy in

western Civilization. 1995

Guthrie, W.K.C. “A history of Greek Philosophy” 1965.

Internet Sources

file:///C:/Users/Johnmark/Downloads/Eleatic%20School%20of%20Thought%20_%20Plato
%20_%20Socrates.html date accessed 2:20 pm. September 16, 2019.

file:///C:/Users/GABRIEL/Desktop/JM/Presocratics/Atomism%20-%20Pre-Socratic
%20Philosophy.html date accessed 2:00am. September 28, 2019

file:///C:/Users/GABRIEL/Desktop/JM/Presocratics/Pluralism%20-%20By%20Movement
%20_%20School%20-%20The%20Basics%20of%20Philosophy.html date accessed 2:20 am.
September 28, 2019